The Quest

                                                                                 

Far From A Very Far Away Land

I've Traveled  a Long Distance To Meet You

Heard a Lot About You But Never Saw

Do You Know me ? O My Desert Rose

I'm a Highlander of A Quite Mountain

In Day Time You Can See A Peak of  Snowy  Paramount

From My Tottering Wooden Frame Of Window

Peak is Always Glittering in Mornings Bright Sunshine

Oh How Can I Explain that Glory Of Divine 

And In the Night When the Valley Has Cover Herself

With the Tender Touch of Graceful Moonshine

You Can Feel a Gentle Cool Breeze is Passing Away

With a Melody of A Love-Sick Lonely Nightingale 

I have Descended  Myself  From that Highland  For You 

Because Some One Has Told me that You Are Very Beautiful

And You Can Make Oblivious Any Body With Your Swoon of Beauty

Whole World Has Loose It's Consciousness When You Spread Out

That Aromatic Breath from Your Warm Lovable Heart

You Know My Rose I Have Tried A Lot To feel

Your Gentle Touch Of  Softly Palm in My Feverish Pale Forehead

 In the Shivering Deadly Cold Hour Of Night After 

A long Laboring Day For A loaf Of  Dry Bread

I Have A Thirst For Water Daily In My Greenfield of Corn

As  Like as That Field Has Also Suffered A Lot of My Desire Of Plough

I have Desired You Also In The Burning Noon of  Mid Day Fire

I was Hunger With My Empty Stomach As Empty as My Unsatisfied Desire

When I was Coming Towards You 

I Came Across A River In The Plain

Which is Getting Narrow And Dry 

Day By Day By Stony Barrier of Humanly Slain   

In that Bank Of River I Mate A Boatman And Some Stranger 

They are All Get Prepare To Voyage 

But Nobody has Smile To Me or Speak Louder

I ask That Boatman Where You are All Going ?

The Boatman Replied Me 

Fate Has It's Own Way For Everybody

My Task Is Just To Rowing  and Rowing

He Asked Me Where You Have To Go?

I Answered Him in The Land of Desert 

Where My Beloved is Dwelling

How Lucky that Every Particle of Sand

Who is Engulfing that Body of Magnificent 

I Asked That Old Wise Boat Man

Will She Would Be Mine?

He Replied Me 'If She Is Your's

She Will Be Yours' Otherwise Please Don't Mind !

I have Sailed So Many Month 

I have Fought A Lot with the Tide of Fate

I Have Sailed that Silent River

With My Hopeful Heart Unrest 

Now I'm in Your Country

Reached Here with A New Discover

No one Greet Me Here in Cordial Tone

Or No Body Has Served Me A Chilled Beer

Now I am Crossing A Long Dune For You

With Scorched Sand Grain Under My Feet

A Cruel Sun of Torrid Heat Has Burning My Back

And Few Blister of My Foot in This Desert 

Makes to Move Me in Defeat

At the Moment I See a Bedouin 

I Ask Him In Thirsty Tiring Voice

Please Tell Me Where Is Desert Rose Reside?

And Whole Universe Spend Hour's With Her With Toxic Rejoice

He Kindly Told Me As You I'm Also Searching For Her

But I know She Lives in The Palace Of Shahanshah  

Not Only Us But Every Body is Trying To Find  But No one Get Her Never

I Did not Believe Him My Eye's Filled With Salty Shower

Please Give Me Your Address O my Mystic Flower

I'll Will Sure Find You if You Live in the World's Highly Tower

Now I am Getting Faint In the Arm of Sand and My Breathing Getting Slower

Will You Kiss Me with Your Rosy Lips When I Get You So Closer ?

I'll Take You With Me 

In My Highland O My Honey Bee

I'll Serve My Heart With Love

Will Marry You If You Agree

Rose Rose O Desert Rose 

Please For God Sake Come To Me Close 

In this Last Hour How Can I Explain 

The Sparkle of Highland's Dew Drop Dose

I Have Come Here With Honest Purpose

Will You Come Will You Come With Me In Heaven ?

Please Answer Me In Your Sweet Voice 

O My Mystic Unknown Desert Rose . 

         Never Ending Quest of Life :-)

 M-e-Z 

                                                                               






   


 

 

Great Gregory :)

                                                                                     
From All Movie Guide: One of the postwar era's most successful actors, Gregory Peck was long the moral conscience of the silver screen; almost without exception, his performances embodied the virtues of strength, conviction, and intelligence so highly valued by American audiences. As the studios' iron grip on Hollywood began to loosen, he also emerged among the very first stars to declare his creative independence, working almost solely in movies of his own choosing. Born April 5, 1916, in La Jolla, CA, Peck worked as a truck driver before attending Berkeley, where he first began acting. He later relocated to New York City and was a barker at the 1939 World's Fair. He soon won a two-year contract with the {~Neighborhood Playhouse}. His first professional work was in association with a 1942 Katherine Cornell/Guthrie McClintic ensemble Broadway production of {+The Morning Star}. There Peck was spotted by David O. Selznick, for whom he screen-tested, only to be turned down. Over the next year, he played a double role in {+The Willow and I}, fielding and rejecting the occasional film offer. Finally, in 1943, he accepted a role in Days of Glory, appearing opposite then-fiancée Tamara Toumanova. While the picture itself was largely dismissed, Peck found himself at the center of a studio bidding war. He finally signed with 20th Century Fox, who cast him in 1944's The Keys of the Kingdom - a turn for which he snagged his first of many Oscar nods. From the outset, he enjoyed unique leverage as a performer; he refused to sign a long-term contract with any one studio, and selected all of his scripts himself. For MGM, he starred in 1945's The Valley of Decision, a major hit. Even more impressive was the follow-up, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, which co-starred Ingrid Bergman. Peck scored a rousing success with 1946's The Yearling (which brought him his second Academy Award nomination) and followed this up with another smash, King Vidor's Duel in the Sun. His third Oscar nomination arrived via Elia Kazan's 1947 social drama Gentleman's Agreement, a meditation on anti-Semitism which won Best Picture honors. For the follow-up, Peck reunited with Hitchcock for The Paradine Case, one of the few flops on either's resumé. He returned in 1948 with a William Wellman Western, Yellow Sky, before signing for a pair of films with director Henry King, Twelve O'Clock High (earning Best Actor laurels from the New York critics and his fourth Oscar nod) and The Gunfighter.

After Captain Horatio Hornblower, Peck appeared in the Biblical epic David and Bathsheba, one of 1951's biggest box-office hits. Upon turning down High Noon, he starred in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. To earn a tax exemption, he spent the next 18 months in Europe, there shooting 1953's Roman Holiday for William Wyler. After filming 1954's Night People, Peck traveled to Britain, where he starred in a pair of features for Rank -- The Million Pound Note and The Purple Plain -- neither of which performed well at the box office; however, upon returning stateside he starred in the smash The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The 1958 Western The Big Country was his next major hit, and he quickly followed it with another, The Bravados. Few enjoyed Peck's portrayal of F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1959's Beloved Infidel, but the other two films he made that year, the Korean War drama Pork Chop Hill and Stanley Kramer's post-apocalyptic nightmare On the Beach, were both much more successful. Still, 1961's World War II adventure The Guns of Navarone topped them all -- indeed, it was among the highest-grossing pictures in film history. A vicious film noir, Cape Fear, followed in 1962, as did Robert Mulligan's classic adaptation of {-To Kill a Mockingbird}; as Atticus Finch, an idealistic Southern attorney defending a black man charged with rape, Peck finally won an Academy Award. Also that year he co-starred in the Cinerama epic How the West Was Won, yet another massive success. However, it was to be Peck's last for many years. For Fred Zinneman, he starred in 1964's Behold a Pale Horse, miscast as a Spanish loyalist, followed by Captain Newman, M.D., a comedy with Tony Curtis which performed only moderately well. When 1966's Mirage and Arabesque disappeared from theaters almost unnoticed, Peck spent the next three years absent from the screen. When he returned in 1969, however, it was with no less than four new films -- The Stalking Moon, MacKenna's Gold, The Chairman, and Marooned -- all of them poorly received. The early '70s proved no better: First up was I Walk the Line, with Tuesday Weld, followed the next year by Henry Hathaway's Shootout. After the failure of the 1973 Western Billy Two Hats, he again vanished from cinemas for three years, producing (but not appearing in) The Dove. However, in 1976, Peck starred in the horror film The Omen, an unexpected smash. Studio interest was rekindled, and in 1977 he portrayed MacArthur. The Boys From Brazil followed, with Peck essaying a villainous role for the first time in his screen career. After 1981's The Sea Wolves, he turned for the first time to television, headlining the telefilm The Scarlet and the Black. Remaining on the small screen, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the 1985 miniseries The Blue and the Grey, returning to theater for 1987's little-seen anti-nuclear fable Amazing Grace and Chuck. Old Gringo followed two years later, and in 1991 he co-starred in a pair of high-profile projects, the Norman Jewison comedy Other People's Money and Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear. Fairly active through the remainder of the decade, Peck appeared in The Portrait (1993) and the made-for-television Moby Dick (1998) while frequently narrating such documentaries as Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1995) and American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith (2000). On June 12, 2003, just days after the AFI named him as the screen's greatest hero for his role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Gregory Peck died peacefully in his Los Angeles home with his wife Veronique by his side. He was 87.  

                                                                              

A COURTESY OF www.movies.nytimes.com

                                                                               

Sinner becomes Saint :)

                                                                                                                                         
According to the sutta and commentarial texts, omens seen at the time of Angulimala's birth (the flashing of weapons in the city, and the appearance of the 'constellation of thieves' in the sky) indicated that Angulimala would become a robber. Angulimala's father, the Brahmin chaplain to the king of Kosala, named him Ahimsaka ("harmless" - derived from the Sanskrit and Pali word Ahimsa), as an attempt to deter the dark fate predicted at his birth (Pad indicates that he was initially named Himsaka ("harmful"), but that the name was later changed).

Angulimala was sent to Taxila to study under a well-known Brahmin guru. There he excelled in his studies and became the teacher's favourite student, enjoying special privileges in his teacher's house. However, the other students grew jealous of Ahimsaka's speedy progress and sought to turn his master against him. To that end, they made it seem as though Ahimsaka had seduced the master's wife and boasted that he was wiser than the guru. Unwilling or unable to attack Ahimsaka directly (Pad states that Ahimsaka was as "strong as seven elephants", while Ps states that the teacher worried that his business would suffer if he was found to have murdered a student), the teacher said that Ahimsaka's training was complete, but that he must provide the traditional final gift offered to a guru before the teacher would grant his approval. As his payment, the teacher demanded 1,000 fingers, each taken from a different victim, thinking that Angulimala would be killed in the course of seeking this grisly prize (Pad states that Angulimala was required to fetch 1,000 fingers from right hands, seemingly unaware that this could be achieved by killing 200 people. Ps states, even more strangely, that he was told to "kill a thousand legs", and gathered fingers only as an aid to keeping an accurate count).


Sources indicate that one of his motivations may have been the unquestioning obedience to the guru - an echo of the higher principles governing his earlier life. But tradition reports that it was probably his innate disposition to violence. In his previous life, he was a Yakkha - a man-eating spirit with superhuman strength. The guru's instructions may have also aroused a strange attraction for killing, or could be seen as a challenge to his manly prowess. It was reported that in all his past lives, two traits were prominent: his physical strength and his lack of compassion. It is also suggested that he was in fact cast out of his Guru's house, branding him an outcast among Brahmins. Being unable to find acceptance anywhere, he turned to brigandry, murdering pilgrims and traders passing through the wilderness, and collecting a finger each from their right hands.

As to the giving of goodbye gifts, this was customary in ancient India. We find an example in the Book of Pausya (Pausyaparvan, Mbh.1,3) of the Vedic epic Mahábháratha. Here the teacher sends his disciple Uttanka away after Uttanka has proven himself worthy of being trustworthy and in the possession of all the Vedic and Dharmashastric teachings. Uttanka says to his teacher: "What can I do for you that pleases you (kim te priyam karaváni), because thus it is said: Whoever answers without (being in agreement with) the Dharma, and whoever asks without (being in agreement with) the Dharma (the Law in the literal sense of the word), either occurs: one dies or one attracts animosity." Friedrich Wilhelm (Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Náropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 11) maintains that similar phraseology already occurs in the "Book of Manu" (II,111) and in the "Institutes of Vishnu". I.e., taking leave of one's teacher and promising to do whatever this teacher asks of you brings, according to the Vedic teachings, enlightenment or similar attainment. It is therefore not unusual that Angulimála did his teacher's horrible bidding, although being a good and kind person at heart, in the knowledge that in the end he would reap the highest attainment.


Life as a highway murderer

Ahimsaka became a highwayman, killing travelers who passed through the forest. When the people of the kingdom began to avoid the roads, he entered the villages and dragged people from their homes. He never took clothes or jewels from his victims, only fingers. To keep count of the number of victims that he had taken, he strung them on a thread and hung them on a tree. However because birds began to eat the flesh from the fingers, he started to wear them around his neck as a garland. Thus he came to be known as Angulimala ("garland (or necklace) of fingers").

Meeting the Buddha

Villagers petitioned the king of Kosala, who vowed to hunt down Angulimala. Fearing for her son's life, Angulimala's mother set out to find him and warn him of the king's intent. The Buddha perceived with his "divine eye" (faculty of clairvoyance) that Angulimala had slain 999 victims, and was desperately seeking a thousandth. If the Buddha encountered Angulimala that day, he would become a monk and subsequently attain Nirvana. If Angulimala encountered his mother instead, he would slay her as his thousandth victim and fall into hell for millennia as a matricide.

The Buddha set off to intercept Angulimala, despite being warned by the people of the village in which he was staying. On the road through the forest of Kosala, Angulimala first saw his mother who came to warn him of the impending arrival of the kings' army. Angulimala, after some deliberation, decided to make her his 1000th victim. But then when Buddha also arrived, he chose to kill him instead. He drew his sword, and started running towards the Buddha. But although Angulimala was running as fast as he could, he couldn't catch up with the Buddha who was walking calmly. "The Blessed One willed a feat of psychic power such that Angulimala, though running with all his might, could not catch up with the Blessed One walking at normal pace" (MN 86, translation from Thanissaro Bhikkhu). This bewildered Angulimala so much that he called to the Buddha to stop. The Buddha said that he himself had already stopped, and that it was Angulimala who should stop. Angulimala asked for further explanation, after which the Buddha said that he had stopped harming living beings, and that Angulimala was still harming and hurting living beings. After hearing this, Angulimala changed his ways, vowed to cease his life as a brigand and joined the Buddhist order.


Life as a monk

Later, King Pasenadi (the king of Kosala) set out to find and kill Angulimala. He stopped first to pay a visit to the Buddha and his followers at the monastery where they dwelled. He explained to the Buddha his purpose, and the Buddha asked how the king would respond if he were to discover that Angulimala had given up the life of a highwayman and become a monk. The king said that he would salute him and offer to provide for him in his monastic vocation. The Buddha then revealed that Angulimala sat only a few feet away, his hair and beard shaven off, a member of the Buddhist order. The king, astounded, offered to donate robe materials to Angulimala, and then returned to his palace.

Later, Angulimala came across a young woman undergoing a difficult labor. He went to the Buddha and asked him what he could do to ease her pain. The Buddha told Angulimala to go to the woman and say:

'Sister, since I was born I do not recall intentionally killing a living being. Through this truth may there be wellbeing for you, wellbeing for your fetus.'

Angulimala pointed out that it would be untrue for him to say this. The Buddha offered this revised stanza:

'Sister, since I was born with the noble birth (became a monk), I do not recall intentionally killing a living being. Through this truth may there be wellbeing for you, wellbeing for your fetus.' The Buddha was making a word-play here on the word "born" to support Angulimala, who was suffering from severe remorse which was badly obstructing his meditation, of his renewed commitment to harmlessness since becoming a monk.

After Angulimala delivered this benediction, the woman safely gave birth to her child. This verse, commonly called the Angulimala paritta, continues to be recited at the blessings of houses or pregnant women in Theravada countries.

This helped Angulimala focus his mind on his basic meditation subject. Before, there would always appear in his mind's eye, the place in the jungle where he had slain so many people. After performing the Act of Truth, he was seen to bring safety to people and people started to approach him and provide him with almsfood.

At last, his earlier name Ahimsaka fully befitted him. Most of the people had gained full confidence in his inner transformation and there was no lack of support for him.

However a resentful few could not forget that he was responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. Unable to win revenge through the law, they took matters into their own hands. With sticks and stones, they attacked him as he walked for alms.

With a bleeding head, torn outer robe and a broken alms bowl, Angulimala managed to return to the monastery. The Buddha encouraged Angulimala to bear his torment with equanimity; he indicated that Angulimala was experiencing the fruits of the karma that would otherwise have condemned him to hell. This illustrates the Buddhist belief that while the effects of karma are inescapable, the form that they take and the schedule on which they occur can be modified by later actions—in this case, Angulimala experienced physical suffering during the course of his last life, rather than experiencing torment in another birth for a much longer period of time.


Being an arahant, Angulimala remained firm and invulnerable in mind and heart. But his body, the symbol and fruit of previous kamma was still exposed to the effects of his former evil deeds. As an arahant, he needed no words of consolation, but a reminder of the kammic concatenation of cause and effect, which still has to be endured until the end.

When he entered Sāvatthi for alms, he was attacked by the mob, but on the admonition of the Buddha, endured their wrath as penance for his former misdeeds.


 As Angulimala says, "Some prisoners are tamed with punishment of a stick, or a hook or a whip. I was tamed without a stick or a weapon. I was tamed by the kind words of the Compassionate" Buddha."

A  COURTESY OF   www.wikipedia.org

                                                     A GIFT OF MANKIND !!! LOVE U :) <3                                          

                                                                                    

                                                                                                     

Saxphone

                                                                                 
The newest of the woodwinds, it was invented by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian. He was born in 1814, and as a child he learned to make instruments in his father’s shop. At the Brussels Conservatory, he studied the clarinet and the flute. In 1840, Sax decided to construct an instrument that would fulfill the middle range sound of a military band. The sound that he was seeking would be between the woodwind tone of the clarinet, and brass sound of the trumpet. He moved to Paris in 1842, and completed his work in 1845. The created instrument he named the "saxophone". It was soon taken up by many French orchestral composers. The saxophone started to be used in little orchestras in the 1800’s. It was also popular in military bands. It gained greater popularity in the 1920’s because of jazz music.

The reason a saxophone is considered a woodwind is because the way it is played is very similar to the clarinet. It is made of brass, and is the only woodwind that has never been made of wood. It has a single reed mouthpiece. It is made of a long, bent tube with holes in it, which are covered by pads called keys. The player operates the keys, opening and closing them, determining the pitch. The saxophone has three parts: the body, the neck and the mouthpiece. Soprano saxophones are straight, whereas deeper-toned saxophones have a bent crook and an upturned bell.

Since saxophones and clarinets are similar, many clarinetists, in their spare time, also play the saxophone. There are at least six different types of saxophones in use today, the most popular being the alto sax. The smallest of the saxophone family is the soprano, which is only 16" long. But the biggest is the contrabass, being 6-1/2 feet tall. The saxophone is used more in jazz and military bands than in orchestras, though it is included in some classical music.


The range for the alto saxophone is from the D-flat below middle C going up to an octave above middle C, and up to the A-flat Above that. 

   A COURTESY OF     www.library.thinkquest.org 

                                                                                          

Let's Go

                                                                           
The nation of Austria has a long and colorful and sometimes painful historical record. The country that now stands as the Republic of Austria has seen the good times as well as the bad. It has been through various stages and phases of turmoil and warfare as well as progress.

The history of Austria actually dates back to prehistoric times when it was inhabited and over run by different tribes. The Celts, Vandals and Romans are amongst the many tribes that have set foot on the lands of Austria. The country now known as Austria once existed as a part of the Roman Empire for several centuries. The fate of Austria began to change after the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century.


The collapse of the Roman Empire paved the way for further invasions. By the 8th century Charles the Great attacked and conquered Austria. He is known to have been a great patron of Christianization and colonization. The territories that came under the rule of Charles the Great were then later bequeathed to the House of Babenberg.

The interesting thing to notice is that the name Austria is not to be found in the written records that exist prior to this period. The first ever written records that show the name Austria belong to the above mentioned time period. It is to be found in the documents describing the Babenberg March.


The Habsburgs took over the dying Babenberg line round about the 13th century. The Habsburgs house remained the ruling party of Austria up until the end of the First World War. Since the Habsburgs ruled the country for such a long time they managed to have a big impact on the cultural development of Austria. Their influences are obvious in the art and architecture that the nation has to display.


It was under the Habsburgs rule that Austria began to experience massive expansion. The Habsburgs married with other royal families of the world bringing in different territories into the Austrian Empire. It was during this era that Austria became the breeding ground for some of the most talented artists and musicians that the world has ever seen.

The end of monarchy and the birth of the Republic

The Holy Roman Empire came to an end with Napoleon’s victory over the Austrian forces in 1806. The Austro-Hungarian Empire came into existence by the middle of the 19th century. It included German, Serbian, Czech and other lands that made it one of the central powers of the time.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed after the First World War after which monarchy came to a complete end and Austria became a Republic in 1918. In 1938 Austria was forced to submit to the German Third Reich. Then in 1945 Austria was again declared as a republic due to the victory of the allies over Germany.

It was after the declaration of 1945 that the land of Austria was constitutionally secured. From then onwards Austria declared its intentions to exist as a permanent neutral country and till date exists according to those principles. In 1995 Austria acceded to the European Union.

A COURTESY OF  kwintessential.co.uk

                                                                              

I Have to Fight With Myself, To Overcome Me ! ;)

                                                                       
                                                                           
Mind Control is the establishment of that specific state in which the individual is completely liberated from all unintended and previously uncontrolled thought-forms. He is a master over his being, over his mind and he enjoys the bliss, wisdom and power of being absolutely free: Free from the mind, hence free from desire, mental limitations and free from suffering.


It's a process called Self Realization or Enlightenment: Freeing yourself from the conditioned mind establishes the most profound experience of joy and inner freedom. Liberation of this kind is what we are all, consciously or not, longing for. It is this longing that drives us to do the things we do. Somewhere deep inside we all long for freedom, satisfaction and pure ecstasy. The only illusion/difficulty here is that most of us seek for it in all but the right place..


The conditioned mind is mis-taking the pleasurable, transitory shapes and forms of the external world for the highest joy coming only from within. This is the Illusion (in Sanskrit terminology: Maya) of the mind and it clouds our vision to see what is true and what not.

Because of the mind's tendency to cloud our vision; we constantly search in the wrong directions for something which is actually found in only one 'direction'.


What we are looking for is not a direction in the common, three-dimensional sense of the word; the 'direction' we are trying to find is that one, mystical, space- and timeless yet practical shift of Consciousness evolving inwards.


This is where Yoga and Meditation Techniques and practices become an incredible aid.

Yoga is not merely retaining physical postures (called: Asanas):
Many people nowadays belief and promote yoga as a form of physical exercise alone. Yoga has surprisingly little to do with improving bodily flexibility. Training the body is just one of the lower stages of Yoga which can be very helpful but is not at all the actual goal as meant and defined by the word "Yoga", meaning: Union.

Yoga practice reaches all the way from retaining physical postures to attaining that state of absolute Mind Control and Enlightenment. This site's educational purpose is, primarily, that of the higher stages of Yoga science, as it is taught by the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali.

These higher stages are, more directly than the lower stages, about gaining control over your mind and transforming into a true master of your being; of your Self. Mind Control is that state of mastery out of which the experience of Yoga or union arises and establishes as your primary experience of life.


We are looking everywhere for the keys to the ultimate freedom and enlightenment except there where the only key is to be found: Inside the one doing all the searching... and it awaits there to be found for everyone.

A COURTESY OF yoga-mind-control.com
 

                                                                              

A Tale of Desert

                                                                                    

Travel Guide China claims that in the Uigur language, Takla Makan means 'you can get into it but can never get out'. Even if untrue, such a label fits such a large, dry, dangerous place for humans and most animals. Wang Yue and Dong Guangrun of the Desert Research Institute in Lanzhou, China, say that in the Taklamakan Desert average annual rainfall is less than 40 mm (1.57 inches). It is about 10 mm -- that's just over a third of an inch -- in the center and 100 at the bases of the mountains, according to Terrestrial Ecoregions - Taklimakan desert (PA1330). Large lakes, including Lop Nor and Kara Koschun, have dried up, so over the millennia the area of desert has increased. The inhospitable approximately 1000x500 km (193,051 sq. mi.) oval Taklamakan Desert is far from any ocean, and so hot, dry, and cold, by turns, with shifting sand dunes covering 85% of the surface, propelled by northerly winds, and sand storms, that it came as a surprise to find how comfortably people would have lived there 4000 years ago. That was part of the surprise, the other part is that mummies found in the region, perfectly preserved by the arid conditions, are presumed to be Indo-European-speaking Caucasians. Science, in a 2009 article, reports
"In the northeastern edge of the desert, archaeologists from 2002 until 2005 excavated an extraordinary cemetery called Xiaohe, which has been radiocarbon-dated to as early as 2000 B.C.E.... A vast oval sand hill covering 25 hectares, the site is a forest of 140 standing poles marking the graves of long-lost society and environment. The poles, wood coffins, and carved wooden statues with pronounced noses come from the poplar forests of a far cooler and wetter climate."

One of the world's largest deserts, the Taklamakan, is located in the northwest region of modern China, in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. There are oases located on two routes around the desert that served as important trading spots on the Silk Road. Along the north, the route went by the Tien Shan Mountains and along the south, the Kunlun Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau. Economist André Gunder Frank, who traveled along the northern route with UNESCO, says the southern route was most used in ancient times. It joined up with the northern route at Kashgar to head into India/Pakistan, Samarkand and Bactria.

                                                         A COURTESY OF ABOUT.COM