The German Navy, the BAAINBw, Thales, and other F126 project partners, such as Damen Naval, the prime contractor for the F126 project, inaugurated the “extended Thales Testing Centre”, a system testing and integration facility dedicated to the project.

Thales opens new testing center for German Navy's F126 frigates - Naval Today

** The data encryption hardware co received order for its high-speed ethernet encryptors, through its distributor, Thales

Australia's Senetas climbs to over 11-year high after receiving order from Thales

Developments around Atos are happening all the time. Read all about them in Techzine&#x27;s liveblog about the French IT company.

Atos liveblog: Thales shows interest in parts of Atos - Techzine Europe

Struggling IT infrastructure firm looks to raise cash to service debts

Thales and French government could buy Atos assets - DCD

Thales Group (HO.PA) has reported a strong performance in the first quarter of 2024, with significant growth in order intake and sales. The company announced that it has achieved a record high for Q1 with new orders totaling €5 billion, marking a 46% increase on an organic basis.

Earnings call: Thales announces robust Q1 results, confirms 2024 goals By Investing.com

French defence group Thales opened the door on Tuesday to buying part of the strategic assets of troubled IT company Atos while Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky also prepares an offer, BFM Business reported.

Thales could be tempted by Atos defence assets, says CFO | Reuters

Thales S.A. (OTCPK:THLEF) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 30, 2024 2:30 AM ETCompany ParticipantsAlexandra Boucheron – Head-Investor RelationsPascal...

Thales S.A. (THLEF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

Thales reports its order intake and sales for the first quarter of 2024.

Thales reports its order intake and sales for the first quarter of 2024 | Thales Group

Expert panel wants the European Commission to give academics more computing power and data to lead AI innovations. But critics say the proposal is too narrow, spread out across Europe, and lacks a concrete budget · Science|Business sits down with two ministers from Poland’s Ministry of Science ...

Thales, Leonardo, Airbus lead rankings in European Defence Fund grants, 
Science|Business finds

Thales SA is interested in a defense business that’s a part of Atos SE’s Big Data and Security unit if they are put on sale, according to the French defense group’s Chief Financial Officer Pascal Bouchiat.

Thales Interested in Atos Defense Unit If Put on Sale, CFO Bouchiat Says - Bloomberg

THALES

thales

Since Thales Said All is Water, Philosophers Have Never Been The same

Willemstad, Curaçao, April 2nd, 2025/Chainwire/--Overtime, an onchain sportsbook platform, has formally integrated its parent protocol, Thales, under the Overtime brand. The consolidation introduces a unified identity for the protocol and coincides with the launch of a new native token, $OVER. As part of the transition, the project has also unveiled a new primary domain and implemented full Account Abstraction integration to enhance the platform's user experience. With over four years of development, Overtime has established itself as a fully onchain sportsbook offering functionality comparable to traditional offchain platforms. Built on the Ethereum network, the protocol emphasizes transparency, security, and immutability. Overtime’s operational history includes: Over $200 million in volumes
Support for over 100 sports and leagues
50,000 active users
More than 10,000 unique betting markets Over $200 million in volumes Support for over 100 sports and leagues 50,000 active users More than 10,000 unique betting markets Users can access the new Overtime domain here: https://www.overtime.io/ https://www.overtime.io/ https://www.overtime.io/ A Decentralized Alternative to Traditional Sports Betting Overtime distinguishes itself from traditional bookmakers by operating a fully decentralized, permissionless sportsbook platform. Anyone can seamlessly access Overtime with a simple connection without the barriers of traditional restrictive betting limits, arbitrary bans, or withheld payouts. Since its inception, Overtime has organically become the primary driver of Thales DAO growth. Recognizing this growth, the DAO’s community unanimously approved (via Thales Improvement Proposal 238) the full merger of Thales DAO to the branding of Overtime. Comprehensive Onchain User Experience Enabled by Full Account Abstraction With this launch, Overtime is also introducing a new concept: Overtime Accounts—an onchain smart account designed to abstract wallet and EVM network complexities. Overtime Accounts use Particle Network for the seamless creation of wallets via Social Logins, and Biconomy’s SDK to handle the smart-account functionalities, enabling frictionless transactions through its Paymaster, Bundler, and Session Keys infrastructure. After creating an Overtime Account, users can deposit supported collateral into their designated address to access Overtime’s onchain sportsbook interface. The platform supports features such as parlays, system bets, same-game parlays (SGPs), futures, and live betting. Transactions are executed through an account abstraction framework, removing the need for manual confirmations or the use of ETH to cover gas fees. Overtime’s user experience has been designed to minimize blockchain-related complexities, allowing users to engage with the platform's sportsbook features without requiring technical knowledge of underlying blockchain processes. The interface offers a streamlined experience comparable to traditional web applications while maintaining the transparency and self-custody benefits provided by the Ethereum network. https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpjD3fN9BEc https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpjD3fN9BEc https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpjD3fN9BEc A new Overtime UX is available here: https://www.overtimemarkets.xyz/ https://www.overtimemarkets.xyz/ https://www.overtimemarkets.xyz/ The new Overtime DAO token: $OVER The new $OVER token will have a new total supply of 69.42M, compared to the original 100M of the THALES token. This means that 30.58M THALES tokens will be burned in preparation for the migration to $OVER. All THALES token holders will be able to migrate their $THALES to $OVER token at a 1:1 ratio on the new overtime.io domain. This aligns with the new sustainable tokenomics designed to foster growth and focus it entirely on the $OVER token. The new $OVER token will serve multiple utilities: $OVER as Betting Collateral: By using $OVER token as collateral on Overtime, users will enjoy improved odds (2% better than baseline odds) compared to other collaterals. This boosts $OVER token usage and aligns token holders with platform users. $OVER as Betting Collateral: By using $OVER token as collateral on Overtime, users will enjoy improved odds (2% better than baseline odds) compared to other collaterals. This boosts $OVER token usage and aligns token holders with platform users. Buyback & Burn: All fees from Overtime will flow directly towards $OVER token buybacks, focusing the entire growth of the project towards the token. Burning the buybacks reinforces deflationary token dynamics. Buyback & Burn: All fees from Overtime will flow directly towards $OVER token buybacks, focusing the entire growth of the project towards the token. Burning the buybacks reinforces deflationary token dynamics. Governance Token: Holding $OVER grants voting power within Overtime’s decentralized governance structure. Governance Token: Holding $OVER grants voting power within Overtime’s decentralized governance structure. The $OVER token is built using Chainlink’s CCT token standard for easy and secure cross-network bridging using Chainlink’s CCIP. The token will be live and liquid on Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base across prominent decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Velodrome, and Aerodrome. How Overtime works Overtime innovations are a testament to its industry leadership: Onchain Parlays, System Bets, and SGPs: With its cutting-edge smart contract technology, Overtime brings advanced sportsbook features onchain. Onchain Parlays, System Bets, and SGPs: With its cutting-edge smart contract technology, Overtime brings advanced sportsbook features onchain. Live Betting: With the Merkle Tree-based core architecture paired with robust Chainlink oracle infrastructure, Overtime has managed to bring Live Betting onchain without the risks of frontrunning and toxic flow. Live Betting: With the Merkle Tree-based core architecture paired with robust Chainlink oracle infrastructure, Overtime has managed to bring Live Betting onchain without the risks of frontrunning and toxic flow. Permissionless Liquidity Providing: Overtime Liquidity Pools allow anyone to deposit USDC, ETH, and BTC collateral to gain exposure to platform performance and act as a counterparty pool against the traders. Permissionless Liquidity Providing: Overtime Liquidity Pools allow anyone to deposit USDC, ETH, and BTC collateral to gain exposure to platform performance and act as a counterparty pool against the traders. Onchain Free Bets infrastructure: Anyone can wrap their tokens and send them as Overtime Free Bets. Overtime’s open Free Bets solution is a cutting-edge tool for user rewards and onboarding. Onchain Free Bets infrastructure: Anyone can wrap their tokens and send them as Overtime Free Bets. Overtime’s open Free Bets solution is a cutting-edge tool for user rewards and onboarding. A Global Movement Overtime represents an onchain revolution, a real-life example of how a traditional industry is improved by going onchain. It is a fair, permissionless, and globally accessible powerhouse that is bound to organically dethrone all classic offchain platforms. Unlike traditional sportsbooks that may restrict users based on performance, Overtime operates on a fully transparent and onchain infrastructure. The platform’s design ensures that participation is governed by smart contracts, removing the ability to impose user-specific limitations. Engagement is determined solely by the interaction between users and the underlying liquidity smart contracts. To date, Overtime has distributed cryptocurrency-based incentives, rewards, and competition payouts amounting to several million dollars in value. Participation in Overtime’s promotional campaigns and airdrops is open to all users, subject to eligibility criteria and regional availability. About Overtime Overtime is a fully onchain sportsbook designed for accessibility, allowing users to connect via social accounts or EVM-compatible wallets. The platform supports multiple cryptocurrencies and provides fiat onramp options through credit card payments. Overtime Overtime Overtime replicates the core functionalities of traditional sportsbooks while operating through decentralized infrastructure. The protocol does not implement user bans or individualized restrictions, enabling open access to place bets and withdraw funds. Throughout each season, users may be eligible for various forms of incentives such as cryptocurrency airdrops, free bet credits, and other rewards. Additionally, participants have the option to contribute to the platform’s liquidity pool, effectively taking on the role of liquidity providers. Contact Overtime Info info@overtime.io This story was distributed as a release by Chainswire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here This story was distributed as a release by Chainswire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here here here

Overtime Launches $OVER Token And full Account Abstraction UX

Prekovremeni rad pokreće $OVER token i punu apstrakciju naloga UX

Overtime führt $OVER-Token und vollständige Account-Abstraktions-UX ein

Η υπερωρία εκκινεί το $OVER Token και την πλήρη αφαίρεση λογαριασμού UX

Overtime lanza $OVER Token y la abstracción completa de la cuenta UX

Overtime lanse $ OVER token ak kont plen abstraksyon UX

Ավելի երկար ժամանակը սկսում է $OVER Token- ը եւ ամբողջ հաշիվը abstraction UX- ը

Overtime が $OVER トークンと完全なアカウント抽象化 UX をリリース

Overtime დაწყება $OVER ტოკი და სრული ანგარიშის abstraction UX

Overtime Melancarkan $Over Token Dan Abstraksi Akaun Lengkap UX

Nako e eketsehileng e Thakgola $ OVER Token Le Akhaonto e feletseng Abstraction UX

Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta Xisaabinta

Overtime ra mắt $OVER Token và UX trừu tượng hóa toàn bộ tài khoản

Forget Bad Business—Meta’s Forgotten What Business They’re In

Забравете лошия бизнес – Meta са забравили в какъв бизнес се занимават

Zaboravite loš posao—Meta je zaboravila kojim poslom se bave

Ξεχάστε την κακή επιχείρηση—Η Meta έχει ξεχάσει σε ποια επιχείρηση ασχολείται

Olvídese de los malos negocios: Meta ha olvidado en qué negocio está

Ahaztu negozio txarra—Meta-k ahaztu egin du zer negoziotan ari diren

Bliye move biznis—Meta a bliye ki biznis yo ye

悪いビジネスは忘れろ。Meta は自分たちがどんなビジネスをしているのかを忘れている

បំភ្លេចអាជីវកម្មមិនល្អ - Meta's ភ្លេចអ្វីដែលពួកគេកំពុងធ្វើអាជីវកម្ម

Жаман бизнести унутуңуз - Мета алар кандай бизнесте экенин унутуп калды

Adinoy ny raharaham-barotra ratsy—Hadinon'i Meta hoe inona no orinasa iasany

Заборавете на лошиот бизнис - Мета заборави во кој бизнис се занимаваат

खराब व्यवसाय बिर्सनुहोस् - मेटाले बिर्सिएको छ कि तिनीहरू कुन व्यवसायमा छन्

AI technology is firmly carving out a niche in defense technology. News reports refer to partnership agreements between large defense technology corporations such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and startups in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Image Intelligence (IMINT) Recognition, Battlefield Awareness, Multi‐Domain Battle Management Team (MBMT) Mobility Platform, Tactical Augmented Reality (TAR), Radio Frequency and Wireless Surveillance (RFWS) Systems. At the same time, defense startups like Palantir and Anduril, which have relied on the use of AI since their inception, have now emerged as major game-changing market players. Undoubtedly, this trend will continue in the future and we will soon see significant changes in the direction of enhanced national security and deployed defense technologies. As proof, Project Maven, announced in 2017 according to various sources, is being tested in combat use in military conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. A wearable mobile platform with a high-performance computing module within the Soldier-as-Sensor concept is expected to complement the Battlefield Management System (BMS) and Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) ecosystems. At least a few defense agencies periodically publish innovation requests for these and related research and technology areas in the prototype stage. Today's highly mobile battlefield threats and higher demands on the cognitive capabilities of operators are driving the need to act simultaneously on multiple fronts. Everyone is required to have accurate Tactical Situational Awareness, Friend-or-Foe Identification, Synthetic Day/Night Vision, BLOS Communications, Sensors, Signal Intelligence, RF Wideband Digital Beamforming, and be an element for sharing this information in peer-to-peer networks. Until recently, some technological limitations have prevented the creation of a convenient mobile platform with dimensions that would allow a person to wear an electronic device for extended periods. For several years, Microsoft tried to adapt its HoloLense 2 device for the IVAS defense project. However, immersive technologies (AR/MR) designed for entertainment, education and training are not well-suited for the military. At Furtherium, my team and I initially created the concept of AI-powered Tactical Situational Awareness Mobility Platform primarily for the military, security forces, rescuers, and firefighters. The key advantages of this technology are its compact design, fast performance, integration of all important functions, and affordable price. And a special feature is the application of several AI technologies on a local device. I founded Furtherium in 2021 and started developing an integrated product ARHUDFM (Augmented Reality Head-Up Display Fullface Mask) - Hardware modules, SaaS and Healthcare modules. Several detection and recognition functions cover visual information in the visible and infrared spectrum, sound and radio frequency waves over a very wide range, passive radar signatures and an EOD scanner for explosive detection. The core of the technology is not only pre-trained Machine Learning models, but also neural network generative AI models that are trained together with each user. For this purpose, advanced CPU and NPU technologies are used in each device. You could say this is the next step in using generative AI in mobile platforms, focused not only on defense applications, with huge dual-use potential. Fine-tuning a local model on a user's device still looks unfamiliar right now, but that's the future. In addition to the key goals of detection and recognition, other basic functions are Omnichannel Messenger, Media Capture and Exchange, Ballistic Fire Assistant and Spotter, Multi-Domain Operations, RC Universal Controller for drones and robots. You don't have to look into the future to understand the trends, just open YouTube and see for yourself the training programs at the U.S. Marine Corps and Army. I'd like to share the new YouTube video we created that demonstrates the capabilities of my startup's mobile platform, controlled primarily by a voice assistant that adapts to each user. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIUt2jbYHMs&embedable=true It seems natural and logical now, but we didn't come to this immediately, it took several years of research into behavioral capabilities, cognitive constraints, tactical documentation and the capabilities of different electronic component architectures. The technical requirements of the military are very different from civilian applications. This applies not only to Hardware, but also to Software, including how generative AI models should be used, what criteria they are required to meet. Many features must be considered when designing for military applications: Night Vision and Augmented Reality without outward illumination, protection against ionizing radiation, main and backup power system, battery life, active cooling, shock wave and fragments exposure, encryption and hopping frequencies for data exchange, reduced traffic while maintaining data quality. It would be wrong to think about the protection of the device and not provide for the protection of the user. For this purpose, several options are created simultaneously for hearing protection and protection against concussion, eye and face protection, respiratory protection, built-in drinking system, automatic tourniquets to stop acute bleeding. Sensors in the user's arms, legs, back, and chest allow health monitoring during exercises, training, and tactical missions. SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market) for this technology estimates exceed $31B and include markets in over 32 NATO countries and its allies. Amid the Research, Development, Test & Evaluation budget of the U.S. DoD alone of $148B this looks promising. Military innovation budgets are on the rise, that's another trend today. My startup's project involves integrating products from companies such as Palantir, Anduril, Teledyne FLIR, Shield AI, Epirus, Elbit Systems, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Thales Group. Combining non-competing systems creates unique synergies. I am also pleased to announce that we are close to raising funds. Investors are expected to include companies with expertise in the Defense and Security area. More Details Furtherium, Inc. | Website | Wiki | Community | Pitch Deck AI technology is firmly carving out a niche in defense technology. News reports refer to partnership agreements between large defense technology corporations such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and startups in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Image Intelligence (IMINT) Recognition, Battlefield Awareness, Multi‐Domain Battle Management Team (MBMT) Mobility Platform, Tactical Augmented Reality (TAR), Radio Frequency and Wireless Surveillance (RFWS) Systems. At the same time, defense startups like Palantir and Anduril, which have relied on the use of AI since their inception, have now emerged as major game-changing market players. Undoubtedly, this trend will continue in the future and we will soon see significant changes in the direction of enhanced national security and deployed defense technologies. As proof, Project Maven, announced in 2017 according to various sources, is being tested in combat use in military conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. A wearable mobile platform with a high-performance computing module within the Soldier-as-Sensor concept is expected to complement the Battlefield Management System (BMS) and Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) ecosystems. At least a few defense agencies periodically publish innovation requests for these and related research and technology areas in the prototype stage. Today's highly mobile battlefield threats and higher demands on the cognitive capabilities of operators are driving the need to act simultaneously on multiple fronts. Everyone is required to have accurate Tactical Situational Awareness, Friend-or-Foe Identification, Synthetic Day/Night Vision, BLOS Communications, Sensors, Signal Intelligence, RF Wideband Digital Beamforming, and be an element for sharing this information in peer-to-peer networks. Until recently, some technological limitations have prevented the creation of a convenient mobile platform with dimensions that would allow a person to wear an electronic device for extended periods. For several years, Microsoft tried to adapt its HoloLense 2 device for the IVAS defense project. However, immersive technologies (AR/MR) designed for entertainment, education and training are not well-suited for the military. At Furtherium, my team and I initially created the concept of AI-powered Tactical Situational Awareness Mobility Platform primarily for the military, security forces, rescuers, and firefighters. The key advantages of this technology are its compact design, fast performance, integration of all important functions, and affordable price. And a special feature is the application of several AI technologies on a local device. I founded Furtherium in 2021 and started developing an integrated product ARHUDFM (Augmented Reality Head-Up Display Fullface Mask) - Hardware modules, SaaS and Healthcare modules. Several detection and recognition functions cover visual information in the visible and infrared spectrum, sound and radio frequency waves over a very wide range, passive radar signatures and an EOD scanner for explosive detection. The core of the technology is not only pre-trained Machine Learning models, but also neural network generative AI models that are trained together with each user. For this purpose, advanced CPU and NPU technologies are used in each device. You could say this is the next step in using generative AI in mobile platforms, focused not only on defense applications, with huge dual-use potential. Fine-tuning a local model on a user's device still looks unfamiliar right now, but that's the future. In addition to the key goals of detection and recognition, other basic functions are Omnichannel Messenger, Media Capture and Exchange, Ballistic Fire Assistant and Spotter, Multi-Domain Operations, RC Universal Controller for drones and robots. You don't have to look into the future to understand the trends, just open YouTube and see for yourself the training programs at the U.S. Marine Corps and Army. I'd like to share the new YouTube video we created that demonstrates the capabilities of my startup's mobile platform, controlled primarily by a voice assistant that adapts to each user. the new YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIUt2jbYHMs&embedable=true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIUt2jbYHMs&embedable=true It seems natural and logical now, but we didn't come to this immediately, it took several years of research into behavioral capabilities, cognitive constraints, tactical documentation and the capabilities of different electronic component architectures. The technical requirements of the military are very different from civilian applications. This applies not only to Hardware, but also to Software, including how generative AI models should be used, what criteria they are required to meet. Many features must be considered when designing for military applications: Night Vision and Augmented Reality without outward illumination, protection against ionizing radiation, main and backup power system, battery life, active cooling, shock wave and fragments exposure, encryption and hopping frequencies for data exchange, reduced traffic while maintaining data quality. It would be wrong to think about the protection of the device and not provide for the protection of the user. For this purpose, several options are created simultaneously for hearing protection and protection against concussion, eye and face protection, respiratory protection, built-in drinking system, automatic tourniquets to stop acute bleeding. Sensors in the user's arms, legs, back, and chest allow health monitoring during exercises, training, and tactical missions. SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market) for this technology estimates exceed $31B and include markets in over 32 NATO countries and its allies. Amid the Research, Development, Test & Evaluation budget of the U.S. DoD alone of $148B this looks promising. Military innovation budgets are on the rise, that's another trend today. My startup's project involves integrating products from companies such as Palantir, Anduril, Teledyne FLIR, Shield AI, Epirus, Elbit Systems, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Thales Group. Combining non-competing systems creates unique synergies. I am also pleased to announce that we are close to raising funds. Investors are expected to include companies with expertise in the Defense and Security area. More Details Furtherium, Inc. | Website | Wiki | Community | Pitch Deck Website Wiki Community Pitch Deck

AI's Influence is Going to Go Deeper Than Just the Corporate Sector

AI এর প্রভাব শুধু কর্পোরেট সেক্টরের চেয়ে গভীরে যেতে চলেছে৷

Der Einfluss der KI wird über den Unternehmenssektor hinausgehen

La influencia de la IA va a llegar más allá del sector corporativo

L’influence de l’IA va s’étendre au-delà du secteur privé

एआई का प्रभाव सिर्फ कॉर्पोरेट क्षेत्र तक ही सीमित नहीं रहेगा

AIの影響は企業部門だけにとどまらない

AI의 영향력은 기업 부문에만 국한되지 않고 더욱 깊어질 것입니다.

A influência da IA vai além do setor corporativo

Влияние ИИ выйдет за рамки корпоративного сектора

Yapay Zekanın Etkisi Sadece Kurumsal Sektörle Sınırlı Kalmayacak

Ảnh hưởng của AI sẽ không chỉ giới hạn trong lĩnh vực doanh nghiệp

人工智能的影响将不仅仅局限于企业领域

172 Stories To Learn About Philosophy

Of the two Contemporary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes

BOOK X

A SHORT CHRONICLE

A Short History of the World, by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA But now we must go back three centuries in our story to tell of a great teacher who came near to revolutionizing the religious thought and feeling of all Asia. This was Gautama Buddha, who taught his disciples at Benares in India about the same time that Isaiah was prophesying among the Jews in Babylon and Heraclitus was carrying on his speculative enquiries into the nature of things at Ephesus. All these men were in the world at the same time, in the sixth century B.C.—unaware of one another. This sixth century B.C. was indeed one of the most remarkable in all history. Everywhere—for as we shall tell it was also the case in China—men’s minds were displaying a new boldness. Everywhere they were waking up out of the traditions of kingships and priests and blood sacrifices and asking the most penetrating questions. It is as if the race had reached a stage of adolescence—after a childhood of twenty thousand years. The early history of India is still very obscure. Somewhen perhaps about 2000 B.C., an Aryan- speaking people came down from the north-west into India either in one invasion or in a series of invasions; and was able to spread its language and traditions over most of north India. Its peculiar variety of Aryan speech was the Sanskrit. They found a brunette people with a more elaborate civilization and less vigour of will, in possession of the country of the Indus and Ganges. But they do not seem to have mingled with their predecessors as freely as did the Greeks and Persians. They remained aloof. When the past of India becomes dimly visible to the historian, Indian society is already stratified into several layers, with a variable number of sub-divisions, which do not eat together nor intermarry nor associate freely. And throughout history this stratification into castes continues. This makes the Indian population something different from the simple, freely inter-breeding European or Mongolian communities. It is really a community of communities. Siddhattha Gautama was the son of an aristocratic family which ruled a small district on the Himalayan slopes. He was married at nineteen to a beautiful cousin. He hunted and played and went about in his sunny world of gardens and groves and irrigated rice-fields. And it was amidst this life that a great discontent fell upon him. It was the unhappiness of a fine brain that seeks employment. He felt that the existence he was leading was not the reality of life, but a holiday—a holiday that had gone on too long. The sense of disease and mortality, the insecurity and the un-satisfactoriness of all happiness, descended upon the mind of Gautama. While he was in this mood he met one of those wandering ascetics who already existed in great numbers in India. These men lived under severe rules, spending much time in meditation and in religious discussion. They were supposed to be seeking some deeper reality in life, and a passionate desire to do likewise took possession of Gautama. He was meditating upon this project, says the story, when the news was brought to him that his wife had been delivered of his first-born son. “This is another tie to break,” said Gautama. He returned to the village amidst the rejoicings of his fellow clansmen. There was a great feast and a Nautch dance to celebrate the birth of this new tie, and in the night Gautama awoke in a great agony of spirit, “like a man who is told that his house is on fire.” He resolved to leave his happy aimless life forthwith. He went softly to the threshold of his wife’s chamber, and saw her by the light of a little oil lamp, sleeping sweetly, surrounded by flowers, with his infant son in her arms. He felt a great craving to take up the child in one first and last embrace before he departed, but the fear of waking his wife prevented him, and at last he turned away and went out into the bright Indian moonshine and mounted his horse and rode off into the world. TIBETAN BUDDHA Gilt Brass Casting in India Museum, showing Gautama Buddha in the “earth witness” attitude India Mus. Very far he rode that night, and in the morning he stopped outside the lands of his clan, and dismounted beside a sandy river. There he cut off his flowing locks with his sword, removed all his ornaments and sent them and his horse and sword back to his house. Going on he presently met a ragged man and exchanged clothes with him, and so having divested himself of all worldly entanglements he was free to pursue his search after wisdom. He made his way southward to a resort of hermits and teachers in a hilly spur of the Vindhya Mountains. There lived a number of wise men in a warren of caves, going into the town for their simple supplies and imparting their knowledge by word of mouth to such as cared to come to them. Gautama became versed in all the metaphysics of his age. But his acute intelligence was dissatisfied with the solutions offered him. A BURMESE BUDDHA Marble Figure from Mandalay, eighteenth century work, now in the India Museum The Indian mind has always been disposed to believe that power and knowledge may be obtained by extreme asceticism, by fasting, sleeplessness, and self-torment, and these ideas Gautama now put to the test. He betook himself with five disciple companions to the jungle and there he gave himself up to fasting and terrible penances. His fame spread, “like the sound of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies.” But it brought him no sense of truth achieved. One day he was walking up and down, trying to think in spite of his enfeebled state. Suddenly he fell unconscious. When he recovered, the preposterousness of these semi-magical ways to wisdom was plain to him. THE DHAMÊKH TOWER In the Deer Park at Sarnath. Sixth Century A.D. (From a Painting in the India Museum) He horrified his companions by demanding ordinary food and refusing to continue his mortifications. He had realized that whatever truth a man may reach is reached best by a nourished brain in a healthy body. Such a conception was absolutely foreign to the ideas of the land and age. His disciples deserted him, and went off in a melancholy state to Benares. Gautama wandered alone. When the mind grapples with a great and intricate problem, it makes its advances step by step, with but little realization of the gains it has made, until suddenly, with an effect of abrupt illumination, it realizes its victory. So it happened to Gautama. He had seated himself under a great tree by the side of a river to eat, when this sense of clear vision came to him. It seemed to him that he saw life plain. He is said to have sat all day and all night in profound thought, and then he rose up to impart his vision to the world. He went on to Benares and there he sought out and won back his lost disciples to his new teaching. In the King’s Deer Park at Benares they built themselves huts and set up a sort of school to which came many who were seeking after wisdom. The starting point of his teaching was his own question as a fortunate young man, “Why am I not completely happy?” It was an introspective question. It was a question very different in quality from the frank and self-forgetful externalized curiosity with which Thales and Heraclitus were attacking the problems of the universe, or the equally self-forgetful burthen of moral obligation that the culminating prophets were imposing upon the Hebrew mind. The Indian teacher did not forget self, he concentrated upon self and sought to destroy it. All suffering, he taught, was due to the greedy desires of the individual. Until man has conquered his personal cravings his life is trouble and his end sorrow. There were three principal forms that the craving for life took and they were all evil. The first was the desire of the appetites, greed and all forms of sensuousness, the second was the desire for a personal and egotistic immortality, the third was the craving for personal success, worldliness, avarice and the like. All these forms of desire had to be overcome to escape from the distresses and chagrins of life. When they were overcome, when self had vanished altogether, then serenity of soul, Nirvana, the highest good was attained. This was the gist of his teaching, a very subtle and metaphysical teaching indeed, not nearly so easy to understand as the Greek injunction to see and know fearlessly and rightly and the Hebrew command to fear God and accomplish righteousness. It was a teaching much beyond the understanding of even Gautama’s immediate disciples, and it is no wonder that so soon as his personal influence was withdrawn it became corrupted and coarsened. There was a widespread belief in India at that time that at long intervals Wisdom came to earth and was incarnate in some chosen person who was known as the Buddha. Gautama’s disciples declared that he was a Buddha, the latest of the Buddhas, though there is no evidence that he himself ever accepted the title. Before he was well dead, a cycle of fantastic legends began to be woven about him. The human heart has always preferred a wonder story to a moral effort, and Gautama Buddha became very wonderful. Yet there remained a substantial gain in the world. If Nirvana was too high and subtle for most men’s imaginations, if the myth-making impulse in the race was too strong for the simple facts of Gautama’s life, they could at least grasp something of the intention of what Gautama called the Eight-fold way, the Aryan or Noble Path in life. In this there was an insistence upon mental uprightness, upon right aims and speech, right conduct and honest livelihood. There was a quickening of the conscience and an appeal to generous and self-forgetful ends. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2011). A Short History of the World. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11870/11870-h/11870-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA

A Short History of the World, by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE GREEKS THE GREEKS Now while after Solomon (whose reign was probably about 960 B.C.) the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah were suffering destruction and deportation, and while the Jewish people were developing their tradition in captivity in Babylon, another great power over the human mind, the Greek tradition, was also arising. While the Hebrew prophets were working out a new sense of direct moral responsibility between the people and an eternal and universal God of Right, the Greek philosophers were training the human mind in a new method and spirit of intellectual adventure. The Greek tribes as we have told were a branch of the Aryan- speaking stem. They had come down among the Ægean cities and islands some centuries before 1000 B.C. They were probably already in southward movement before the Pharaoh Thothmes hunted his first elephants beyond the conquered Euphrates. For in those days there were elephants in Mesopotamia and lions in Greece. It is possible that it was a Greek raid that burnt Cnossos, but there are no Greek legends of such a victory though there are stories of Minos and his palace (the Labyrinth) and of the skill of the Cretan artificers. STATUE OF MELEAGER Note the progress in plastic power from the earlier wooden statue on left Photo: Sebah & Foaillier Like most of the Aryans these Greeks had singers and reciters whose performances were an important social link, and these handed down from the barbaric beginnings of their people two great epics, the Iliad, telling how a league of Greek tribes besieged and took and sacked the town of Troy in Asia Minor, and the Odyssey, being a long adventure story of the return of the sage captain, Odysseus, from Troy to his own island. These epics were written down somewhen in the eighth or seventh century B.C., when the Greeks had acquired the use of an alphabet from their more civilized neighbours, but they are supposed to have been in existence very much earlier. Formerly they were ascribed to a particular blind bard, Homer, who was supposed to have sat down and composed them as Milton composed Paradise Lost. Whether there really was such a poet, whether he composed or only wrote down and polished these epics and so forth, is a favourite quarrelling ground for the erudite. We need not concern ourselves with such bickerings here. The thing that matters from our point of view is that the Greeks were in possession of their epics in the eighth century B.C., and that they were a common possession and a link between their various tribes, giving them a sense of fellowship as against the outer barbarians. They were a group of kindred peoples linked by the spoken and afterwards by the written word, and sharing common ideals of courage and behaviour. The epics showed the Greeks a barbaric people without iron, without writing, and still not living in cities. They seem to have lived at first in open villages of huts around the halls of their chiefs outside the ruins of the Ægean cities they had destroyed. Then they began to wall their cities and to adopt the idea of temples from the people they had conquered. It has been said that the cities of the primitive civilizations grew up about the altar of some tribal god, and that the wall was added; in the cities of the Greeks the wall preceded the temple. They began to trade and send out colonies. By the seventh century B.C. a new series of cities had grown up in the valleys and islands of Greece, forgetful of the Ægean cities and civilization that had preceded them; Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Samos, Miletus among the chief. There were already Greek settlements along the coast of the Black Sea and in Italy and Sicily. The heel and toe of Italy was called Magna Græcia. Marseilles was a Greek town established on the site of an earlier Phœnician colony. Now countries which are great plains or which have as a chief means of transport some great river like the Euphrates or Nile tend to become united under some common rule. The cities of Egypt and the cities of Sumeria, for example, ran together under one system of government. But the Greek peoples were cut up among islands and mountain valleys; both Greece and Magna Græcia are very mountainous; and the tendency was all the other way. When the Greeks come into history they are divided up into a number of little states which showed no signs of coalescence. They are different even in race. Some consist chiefly of citizens of this or that Greek tribe, Ionic, Æolian or Doric; some have a mingled population of Greeks and descendants of the pre-Greek “Mediterranean” folk; some have an unmixed free citizenship of Greeks lording it over an enslaved conquered population like the “Helots” in Sparta. In some the old leaderly Aryan families have become a close aristocracy; in some there is a democracy of all the Aryan citizens; in some there are elected or even hereditary kings, in some usurpers or tyrants. RUINS OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA Photo: Fred Boissonnas And the same geographical conditions that kept the Greek states divided and various, kept them small. The largest states were smaller than many English counties, and it is doubtful if the population of any of their cities ever exceeded a third of a million. Few came up even to 50,000. There were unions of interest and sympathy but no coalescences. Cities made leagues and alliances as trade increased, and small cities put themselves under the protection of great ones. Yet all Greece was held together in a certain community of feeling by two things, by the epics and by the custom of taking part every fourth year in the athletic contests at Olympia. This did not prevent wars and feuds, but it mitigated something of the savagery of war between them, and a truce protected all travellers to and from the games. As time went on the sentiment of a common heritage grew and the number of states participating in the Olympic games increased until at last not only Greeks but competitors from the closely kindred countries of Epirus and Macedonia to the north were admitted. The Greek cities grew in trade and importance, and the quality of their civilization rose steadily in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. Their social life differed in many interesting points from the social life of the Ægean and river valley civilizations. They had splendid temples but the priesthood was not the great traditional body it was in the cities of the older world, the-repository of all knowledge, the storehouse of ideas. They had leaders and noble families, but no quasi- divine monarch surrounded by an elaborately organized court. Rather their organization was aristocratic, with leading families which kept each other in order. Even their so- called “democracies” were aristocratic; every citizen had a share in public affairs and came to the assembly in a democracy, but everybody was not a citizen. The Greek democracies were not like our modern “democracies” in which everyone has a vote. Many of the Greek democracies had a few hundred or a few thousand citizens and then many thousands of slaves, freedmen and so forth, with no share in public affairs. Generally in Greece affairs were in the hands of a community of substantial men. Their kings and their tyrants alike were just men set in front of other men or usurping a leadership; they were not quasi-divine overmen like Pharaoh or Minos or the monarchs of Mesopotamia. Both thought and government therefore had a freedom under Greek conditions such as they had known in none of the older civilizations. The Greeks had brought down into cities the individualism, the personal initiative of the wandering life of the northern parklands. They were the first republicans of importance in history. THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE (POSEIDON), PÆSTUM, SICILY Photo: Alinari And we find that as they emerge from a condition of barbaric warfare a new thing becomes apparent in their intellectual life. We find men who are not priests seeking and recording knowledge and enquiring into the mysteries of life and being, in a way that has hitherto been the sublime privilege of priesthood or the presumptuous amusement of kings. We find already in the sixth century B.C.—perhaps while Isaiah was still prophesying in Babylon—such men as Thales and Anaximander of Miletus and Heraclitus of Ephesus, who were what we should now call independent gentlemen, giving their minds to shrewd questionings of the world in which we live, asking what its real nature was, whence it came and what its destiny might be, and refusing all ready-made or evasive answers. Of these questionings of the universe by the Greek mind, we shall have more to say a little later in this history. These Greek enquirers who begin to be remarkable in the sixth century B.C. are the first philosophers, the first “wisdom-lovers,” in the world. And it may be noted here how important a century this sixth century B.C. was in the history of humanity. For not only were these Greek philosophers beginning the research for clear ideas about this universe and man’s place in it and Isaiah carrying Jewish prophecy to its sublimest levels, but as we shall tell later Gautama Budd About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2011). A Short History of the World. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11870/11870-h/11870-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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