Schmidheiny, Hurden, Ashoka

From Lake Zürich, Margaret Mackenzie comments on the posting about AVINA: "The world is so small!  I have
forwarded your comment to Stephan Schmidheiny. I am an artist in residence at the Futur Foundation, founded by Thomas Schmidheiny, his brother! (The art is the smallest aspect of it:  the rest is for innovative young entrepreneurs, drawn from the local hochschule,  who are awarded three years here to develop their technological/engineering/electronic ideas and business plans). Hurden is simply across the Seedam from here in Rapperswil on the southern side of the lake--yes, it is small, but historically richly significant.  I have walked to it across a wooden bridge that has been restored in the last few years.  Ashoka was the ruler in India who conquered more of it than anyone else had about 300BC.  After all his victories, he was sickened by war, and revolted at the slaughter.  He became an advocate of peace and had a long reign that was peaceful. He became Buddhist, and Buddhism became the official religion of a large part of India at that time.  It was he who had those magnificent immense stone gates built that are some of the masterpieces of Indian sculptural art. 
 
I have actually had the immense good fortune of visiting the library in Einsiedeln, and it is as magnificent as you imagined.  It was so overwhelming to be in the presence of those astounding early books and ancient manuscripts, that I found myself gazing speechlessly there.   The Schmidheiny father was here, founded one of the main cement companies in the world, Holderbank, which was at Holderbank near Lenzburg, and is now Holcim.  It was overseen by Thomas Schmidheiny until a couple of years ago, and would be likely to be the source of Stephan Schmidheiny's endowment.  It has extensive plants in Mexico and I think, in South America--not to mention every other continent.  I think it is the second biggest cement company in the world.  The family came from the area near the Rhine, beyond Chur and up towards Bodensee, and still there is the family vineyard there".

RH: Ib was puzzled by the syntax of GrupoNueva. Edgar Knowlton writes: "I found grupo nueva vida as a missionary organization, and also a grupo nueva generacion related to music. This is suggestive for  the syntax".  RH: In other words, vida (life) or generación should be understood. Einsiedeln is the most famous pilgrim shrine in Switzerland.I wonder why Margaret was allowed to see the library and I was not.  Perhaps she has a more coaxing manner. WAIS leads to unforeseen problems, such as jurisdiction over Lake Zürich, whose  shores are divided among three cantons: Zürich, Schwyz and St. Gallen. Switzerland is a confederation, not a federation, which means that the cantons are in theory sovereign. The law becomes complicated. The Caspian See is defined as a sea, not a lake. which means that international law prevails.  An additional problem is that in German there is der See (lake) and die See (sea, ocean). The Bodensee is bordered by thee states: Germany, Switzerland and Austria.  We call it Lake Constance, but it is technically international. Both it and Lake Zürich are "der See", but I wonder if that solves the problem. Surely there are arguments, say about fish, along the three states bordering the Bodensee and the three canrons bordering Lake Zûrich?

I am grateful to Margaret and Christian Leitz for having  yanked y attention to India; I was trying to decipher ASHOKA as a Latin American acronym!  Ashoka  has a special interest for me since he sent Buddhist missionaries as far as the Mediterranean. I am tempted to accept the theory that Jesus, influenced by them, went to India to study during his missing years. But what about Bactria, the holy place of Zoroastrianism?  Surely it was on the way to India? Zoroastrianism is said to have influences Christianity.  Was in through Jesus himself? This is a vast subject whose discussion must be left for a WAISer day. The conversion of Ashoka reminds me of John Kerry's testimony before Congres.