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India: A Geographic expression?

"India is just a geographic expression. It is only the British who united us. We aren't even one nation - for a nation must have one language, one religion, one race." How often we hear that hurled at us!

Of some 180 countries in the world, notes Eric J. Hobsbawm, one of the world's foremost scholars on nationalism, not many more than a dozen states can plausibly claim that their citizens coincide in any real sense with a single ethnic or linguistic group."

Little do people know that the expression - "a geographic expression" - is Count Metternich's (1773-1859) description. Not of India, but of Germany! It is only in 1871 that 300 separate and practically independent feuding states and principalities were welded into one "Germany." Today "geographic expression" is a country and its reunification is hailed by our intellectuals as the erasing away of an artificial partition. But we, Indians have no business continuing as one!

A nation is one the people of which are from a common race? The Kings and Queens of England are a symbol of the oneness of that country - most certainly for the educated Indians. They would be surprised to read, that "...there has not been an 'English' dynasty ruling in London since the 11th century to read that Prince Albert, Victoria's consort, wrote to the King of Prussia as a German...," that it was only the anti-German sentiment which swept England during the First World War which forced "the British royal family to change the venerable dynastic name to Guelph for the less German-sounding Windsor"

The states in Latin America, the states which have resulted from even more recent settlement – Australia, and New Zealand – the states in the Middle East – Jordan, for instance are even more the constructs of colonial powers and the rest. Winston Churchill boasted how he had created some of the present states in the Middle East one afternoon holidaying on a beach, by just drawing lines on a map! The British decided that India and Pakistan shall be two, and so they are.  

The land, its mountains and rivers are venerated in the Rig Veda, in the Arthava Veda in the very way they are in Bankim’s Vande Mataram or Tagore’s Jana-Gana_Mana. The land is celebrated and venerated from those ancient times not just because of the great bounties it bestows on us but because it is seen as the Karma-bhumi, because it has been the place where the greatest souls revered by the people have performed great deeds – of nobility, of valour – where they have attained the deepest insights. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana describe warring states but they are the epics of one people. Adi Shankaracharya traverses the country. He is received with the same reverence everywhere – in Dwaraka in the West King Sudhanva attends his discourses along with his court nobles; when Shankara visits the royal court, the King washes his feet and makes him sit on an elevated dias; in Nepal in the North he is received as a royal guest; in Kanchi in the South he consecrates a yantra; his maths established in distant parts of the country remain places of pilgrimage throughout the centuries to this day.

Is a nation one the people of which have a common religion? Again the criterion does not hold. Christian states have been fighting each other since they adopted Christianity. The umma of Islam are killing each other to our day - West Pakistanis killing the Mohajirs in Pakistan, the Iranis and Iraqis killing each other, the Afghans - all of one religion. 

Is a nation one whose people have one language? Again Hobsbawn gives a number of examples. Philippines we learn is "a land of hundred tongues but not a single language." The new nation of Pakistan - did not have a common language - it had Urdu, Pushto, Baluchi, Sindhi, Punjabi, Bengali. It did not have a common history. Its people did not constitute a common race. 

And yet we are told that Indians have no business to continue as one!

(source: A Secular Agenda: For saving our country, For welding it - By Arun Shourie p. 3 - 11). (please refer to E. J. Hobsbawm - Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality Cambridge 1990). 

Note: There has been an often repeated prediction of the "Balkanisation" of India, and that India was an artificial nation created by the British and that it would inevitably break up. But India is still intact and has celebrated 50 years of freedom because of its democracy and pluralism. Till recently, American foreign policy agencies made no secret of their designs on India's unity. When she was US ambassador to the UN, Mrs. Jean Kirkpatrick once said that "the break-up of India is one of the goals of the American foreign policy." Patrick Moynihan, who had held the same job, said more recently, "After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the artificial state India is also bound to break up."

(source: Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst p. 59-60).

Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia was defeated in the primaries, also spoke about the imminent breakup of India because of its 17 separatist movements."

(source: times of india.com - October 4; 2002).

Neither Britain nor the USA wanted the creation of a large state like India. Nor were they in favor of a strong and powerful India. Look at the reaction of the white members of the Commonwealth to Pokhran II! And let us not forget that both the USA and the UK supported the independent movement of the Nagas and Sikh separatism. Even as late as 1995, the Labor Party passed a resolution in which it spoke of Kashmir as separate from India and supported a UN plebiscite. Gujral was so enraged that he called Britain “a third rate power.”

(source: Cut the cord that ties India to Commonwealth - By M.S.N. Menon - TribuneIndia.com).

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) scholar and late curator at the Boston Museum, has observed the following about Indian Nationality:

Two essentials of nationality there are - a geographical unity, and a common historic evolution or culture. These two India possesses superabundantly. 

The fact of India's geographical unity is apparent on the map, and is never, I think, disputed. The idea of social unity has been grasped more than once by individual rulers, - Chandragupta, Asoka, and Vikramaditya.  It was recognized before the Mahabharata was written; when Yudhishtira performed the Rajasuya sacrifice on the occasion of his inauguration as sovereign, a great assembly was held, and to this assembly came Subala (King of Gandhara), etc...and others from the extreme south and north (Dravida, Lanka and Kashmir). No one can say that any such idea as that of a Federated States of India is altogether foreign to the Indian mind. It is for nothing that India's sacred shrines are many and far apart; that one who would visit more than one or two of these must pass over hundreds of miles of Indian soil? Is the passionate adoration of the Indian people for the Ganges thrown away? How much is involved is such phrases as 'The Seven Great Rivers' (of India)! 

Om gange cha yamune chaiva godavari, sarasvati
narmade, sindhu kaveri jale smin sannidhim kuru

"Hail! O ye Ganges, Jamuna, Godavari, Sarasvati, Narmada,
Sindhu and Kaveri, come and approach these waters."

(source: Essays on National Idealism - By Ananda K. Coomraswamy Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.1981 p. 7-8).

The most mischievous statement we have of the claim that India has no unity, it is not a nation, were made by the British. However, later, Sir Ramsey Macdonald, at one time Premier declares that India is one in absolutely every sense of the word.

"Political and religious traditions have also welded it into one Indian consciousness. This spiritual unity dates from very early times in Indian culture."

There is no greater uniting force known among people and nations in the world than religion. This applies with pre-eminent emphasis to India.    

(source: India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom - Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland p. 238-289. For more please refer to chapter on European Imperialism). For more refer to chapter on Glimpses VIII).

For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Svetlana Stalin and Hindu philosophy

Civilizational traits of different races, their religious preferences, prejudices and cravings for riches are part of human complexities which go beyond any set doctrine. Even Stalin's younger daughter Svetlana took to astrology while deciding to marry an Indian Marxist ideologue, Brajesh Singh, elder brother of former External Affairs Minister Dinesh Singh. Their marriage was secretly solemnized in accordance with Hindu rituals. 

Some years later when her husband passed away, she visited India to immerse her husband's ashes in the river Ganga. She was anxious to stay in India for a longer period having been attracted to Hindu philosophy. But the Russian embassy in Delhi would not consent to the extension of her visa, which was suspicious of her motives right from the start. 

(source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020208/edit.htm#3).

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Pride in Hinduism   

Though Vivekanada was world famous as a "Hindu monk" he launched the still popular slogan:

"Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain.

"Say it with pride : we are Hindus", is what Swami Vivekananda taught his fellow Hindus. Some anti-Hindu people insinuate that this slogan implies a doctrine that Hindus are superior. In that case, Black is beautiful would mean that white is not beautiful; it would therefore be a racist slogan and quite reprehensible. In fact, every colour is beautiful in its own way, and it is quite alright to express pride in the long-despised black colour. And everyone is entitled to have and to express pride in his identity. Expressing pride is not a matter of superiority, but being denied the right to express pride, is very certainly a proof of an imposed inferiority. 

In order to instill a proper and well-founded pride in Hindus, it is (once more) most important to restore the truth about Hindu history, especially about Hindu society's glorious achievements. Pride in being Indian means, for 99%, pride in Hinduism...So, this legitimate pride has to be nourished with broad and in-depth knowledge of Hindu culture. The two enemies of this effort are the secularist morbidity that glorifies the destroyers of Hindu culture, denies the unity and integrity of Hindu culture, and discourages its study altogether.."

Much of India's backwardness has been created by the foreign occupies. This is not just a convenient allegation: in other countries too, we see the destructive impact of foreign occupation on the flourishing of arts and sciences. The flourishing of science needs a safe political as well as economical cradle. In India too, we see total stagnation in the sciences during the entire Muslim period, and a mere passive adoption of Western science under the British rule.

Of the British occupiers, it is known that they destroyed the existing system of education, that they dismantled industries and disturbed agriculture in order to integrate India into the colonial trade system. They also obliterated quite a chunk of Ayurvedic medical knowledge, by discouraging and sometimes even forbidding its practice and teaching. Earlier, the Muslims had destroyed many universities, and if Hindu pandits are such an obscurantist lot, it is largely because the academic framework that gave life to their scholarship, has been destroyed. Hindusthan was always a proverbially rich country. Now, mother Theresa has made it something of a synonym with poverty. But this poverty cannot be blamed on Hindu culture. 

(source: Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst Voice of India Issues Before Hindu Society SKU: INBK2650 p. 349-353 and Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst  Publisher: Rupa ISBN: 81-7167-519-0  p.116).http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/).

Microcomputer pioneer Adam Osborne thinks India has the potential to be the next Japan. Want he has in mind is technological achievement and a vibrant economy, nothing hazy and rapturous. But the clue to this very tangible kind of greatness is pride: "There is no doubt in my mind that India is one of the great financial success stories of the future. The curse of India is that Indians lack pride in being Indian. The moment they have that pride, India will be the next Japan." 

(source: Times of India, 7/12/1990). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Kashmir's Hindu past

Kashmir actually has been one of the major nurseries of Indian civilization. 

For millennia, it was known to be a Shivite centre, especially in the valley, which was considered to be the embodiment of Goddess Uma, wife of Lord Shiva.

Srinagar, situated on the banks of the Jhelum, finds mention in the Rig Veda. It is a known fact that Vedic Indians who settled along the banks of the Indus were very much familiar with the valley.

Kashmir has been an integral part of Indian civilization and culture. It is a symbol of secularism which is the very basis of the Indian nationhood. This secular legacy is visible even in the Amarnath temple tradition. The offerings there are shared by both the Hindu and Muslim custodians of the temple.

(source: Tribune India)

Long before there was a Pakistan and in fact long before a Muslim had ever stepped foot in Kashmir, the region was part and parcel of India and Hinduism’s golden heritage. Kashmir finds repeated mention in the Rig-Veda, the oldest philosophical treatise in the world dated to over 6000 thousand years ago, and in the Mahabharat, a subsequent epic that is itself dated to over 4000 years ago. The descendants of Arjun, the fearless warrior who turned the tide of the Kurukshetra war in the Mahabharat, settled down in Kashmir as rulers.

In 300 B. C., Kashmir was part of the Mauryan Empire of India. Ashoka, the greatest Mauryan ruler who united nearly the entire subcontinent, founded Srinagar, the current capital of Kashmir. Kashmir was part of the empire of subsequent great Indian rulers such as Kanishka and Harshavardhan. The region served as a fountainhead of Hindu religion and was an established center of education in the subcontinent. The marvelous Sun temple was built by King Lalitaditya, who ruled much of North India around 600 A. D. Some of the holiest Hindu shrines such as Amarnath in Kashmir valley and Vaishno Devi near Jammu are visited by millions of Hindu devotees every year.

In contrast to its glorious Hindu heritage, the Muslim history of Kashmir is full of violence, oppression, conversions to Islam and decimation of the Hindu population, its culture and its monuments. The first Muslim invasion occurred in the 12 century A. D. Within 200 years, only 11 Hindu families remained in Kashmir valley. The pogroms against Hindus continued until the British restored Hindu rule in the 19^th century.

(source: Kashmir Herald - Editorial).

The secularists in India, have generally kept quiet about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, and, in fact, repeatedly extended support to separatist elements in the Valley in the garb of protection of human right

(source: Truth in Gujarat - By Balbir K Punj - Daily Pioneer.com April 25th 02). For more refer to Kashmiri Pandits and Communist Betrayl - Kashmir Wail of A Valley).

Kashmiri Hindus (Pandits) are in their eleventh year of exile after Islamic religious fundamentalists in the valley of Kashmir took to armed subversion and terrorism and drove them out of their centuries old habitat. 

(source: Panun Kashmir.org). Refer to My People, Uprooted: "A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal"  - By Tathagata Roy

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English Educators of India

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) scholar and art historian, has written: 

" One of the most remarkable features of British rule in India has been the fact that the greatest injuries done to the people of India have taken the outward form of blessings. Of this Education is a striking example; for no more crushing blows have ever been struck at the root of Indian National evolution than those which have been struck often with other, and the best intentions, in the name of Education. It is sometimes said by friends of India that the National movement is the natural result of English education, and one of which England should be proud, as showing that, under 'civilization' and the Pax Britannica, Indians are becoming, at last, capable of self-government. The facts are otherwise. If Indians are still capable of self-government, it is in spite of all the anti-national tendencies of a system of education that has ignored or despised almost every ideal informing the national culture. 

The most crushing indictment of the Education is the fact that it destroys, in the great majority of those upon whom it is inflicted, all capacity for the appreciation of Indian culture. Speak to any graduate of an Indian University, of the ideals of the Mahabharata - he will hasten to display his knowledge of Shakespeare; talk to him of religious philosophy - you find that he is an atheist of the crude type common in Europe a generation ago, talk to him of Indian dress - he will tell you that they are uncivilized and barbaric....He is indeed a stranger in his own land.

Lord Macaulay, a most pompous and self-important philistine, who believed that a single shelf of a good European library was worth all the literature of India, Arabia and Persia. England, suddenly smitten with the great idea of 'civilizing' India, conceived that the way to do this, was to make Indians like Englishmen. To this task England set herself with the best will in the world, not at all realizing that, as has been so well said by the Abbe Dubois:

" To make a new race of the Hindus, one would have to begin by undermining the very foundations of their civilization, religion, and polity, and by turning them into atheists and barbarians."

And no words of mine could better describe the typical product of Macaulayism. The government practices toleration - by ignoring Indian culture - and the Missionary practices intolerance - by endeavoring to destroy that culture, in schools where education is offered as a bribe, and where the religion of the people is undermined.

Sir George Birchwood truly says: "Our education has destroyed their love of their own literature, the quickening soul of a people, and their delight in their own arts and worst of all, their repose in their own traditional and national religion. It has brought discontent in every family so far as its baneful influences have reached." 

The root of the question is this,  that modern 'education' which Englishmen are so proud of having 'given' to India, is really based on the assumption - that India is a savage country, which it is England's divine mission to civilize. This is the more or less conscious underlying principle throughout. The fact were more truly realized by Sir Thomas Munro, when he wrote that "if civilization were to be made an article of commerce between the two countries, England would soon be heavily in debt."

In the words of Sir Henry Craik, it is necessary to abandon ..."the senseless attempt to turn an Oriental into a bad imitation of a Western mind. ...It is not a triumph for our education  - it is, on the contrary a satire upon it - when we find the sons of leading natives expressly discouraged by their parents from acquiring any knowledge of the vernacular...We must abandon the vain dream that we can reproduce the English public school on Indian soil. We must recognize that it is a mistake to insist that a man shall not be considered to be an educated man unless he can express his knowledge otherwise than in a language which is not his own.."

(source: Essays on National Idealism - By Ananda K. Coomraswamy Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.1981 p.96 -106). For more information on education refer to chapter Education in Ancient India).

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Secularists be warned

Secularism in India smells of hypocrisy, cowardice, an attitude of holier-than-thou and a singular ignorance of history unparalleled in the annals of our sorry times. 

There were no secularists around when Ghazni invaded India 13 times, smashed the lingam in the Somnath Temple and took the pieces to be scattered in front of a masjid in his hometown for his kinsmen to merrily trample over. 

Nor were there any secularists living when, during the long Islamic reign in India, 3,000 temples were demolished. It was considered part of medieval behaviour and so to be taken in one’s stride.

If not Babar it was his general who destroyed a temple in Ayodhya, and despite the hysterical denials of our demented historians, a temple did exist where the Babri masjid once stood and there are enough records — and architectural evidence — to prove the fact. Only the determinedly blind will refuse to accept the testimony of writers like Mirza Jan (1856), Mohammad Asghar (1858), Mirza Rajah Ali Beg Sarur (1787-1867) and Sheikh Md Azmat Ali (1869) who have had no reason to tell a lie.

(source: Secularists be warned - By M V Kamath - Hindustan Times). For more refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught).  Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com. Refer to My People, Uprooted: "A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal"  - By Tathagata Roy

Refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught. 

Our secularists are only fooling themselves if they believe that all the sinners belong to the parivar. The damage unwittingly being done to the Hindu psyche by the so-called secularists needs to be understood. It has so far gone unchallenged. The majority of the Hindus feels assaulted from all sides. The silent Hindu Majority is quivering with anger at the writings of some of our English national dailies and some of the television channels.

A foreign writer, Koenraad Elst has described this tendency among Hindus in India as 'negationism'. The Hindus revel in self-flagellation. It results in two developments: One, it encourages Muslims to extremism and unwillingness to compromise and two, it further deepens Hindu resentment against Muslims. We know with what disastrous consequences. It is very noble on the part of educated Hindus to take on all the blame for any rioting on themselves. But these educated Hindus rightly described as the chatterati totally divorced from reality - do something truly sinister they look down on those less fortunate than themselves attacking their religiosity in ways 'totally unbecoming. Here is an instance of action and reaction: the more the chatterati look down on the hurt feelings of those who strongly believe in their religion' and their gods, the greater is the reaction of the latter and the vicious cycle steadily gets enlarged until emotions explode in unmitigated fury. The truth is that all these years the Congress and the Englishspeaking chatterati - have refused to acknowledge that such a thing as minority communalism exists; it is easier to blame the Sangh Parivar than to do something to counter it.

(source: Blaming Modi is not just enough: what is Congress role in restoring peace? - By M V Kamath - Free Press Journal). 

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As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living Center recently said in an interview: "In the Indian context, we have respect for all religions. Privilege for one religion above the other is not right. In our country the majority religion does not get facilities. Those people who go to the Kumbh Mela have to pay taxes whereas people are given a grant to go to Haj. These are disparities. That's why there is a sense of resentment in the majority community."  

This is only the beginning. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar pointed out in the same interview:

"The minority community institutions are fully exempted from taxes whereas majority community institutions are not. In Karnataka, we have 40,000 temples. The income from these temples is Rs 40 crore. Only Rs 50 lakh is spent on the temples, the rest goes to the government. Whereas grants are given to the minority communities (to an extent of Rs 8 crore) while their income is only Rs 50 lakh. These disparities should go. Everybody should be treated equally."

Will someone please explain how diverting money from temples to mosques is 'secular'? This kind of discrimination against the majority-or giving privileges to minorities-extends to businesses also.

The situation gets even more confusing when we get to politics, which is only to be expected. Following the recent explosion in Gujarat, there have been cries from the 'secular forces' to remove its Chief Minister. Interestingly, there were no such calls after the burning alive of passengers on the Sabarmati Express, where the victims were all Hindus. There have been other such instances. A few years ago, more than a hundred pilgrims going to Amarnath were massacred. Over the past ten years, Hindus have been systematically eliminated in Kashmir, and lakhs of Kashmiri Hindus have been living as refugees in Delhi. Yet, there has never been call for the removal of the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

Incidentally, there is a simple if cynical way of answering all the questions posed and resolving the confusion: In India, secularism means minority communalism. Politicians and a part of the intelligentsia have been fooling the public by calling it secularism. This has now been unmasked, for as Abraham Lincoln once said, you cannot fool all the people all the time.

(source: Will someone please answer these ‘secular’ questions? - By Dr. K.S. Shadaksharappa).

Media Coverage of the Events in Gujarat

Even moderate, educated Hindus are beginning to tune out the blather emanating from India's established academics, editorialists, and the ever-ready-to-pander-to-the-Muslim-vote-bank politicians.

(source: Media Coverage of the Events in Gujarat - By Ramesh N. Rao). 

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So-called Indian intellectuals

The Hindus of this country gave sufficient opportunity to these pseudo-secularists to prove themselves. Jawaharlal Nehru was fond of saying that majority communalism is a greater danger than minority communalism. The Hindus accepted this thesis and voted for him. So secure were these pseudo-secularists of their own importance that when the BJP got only two seats in the 1984 general elections, they wrote obituaries of Hindutva. 

Chitra Subramaniam, in her book, India Is For Sale, writes:

 "India is probably the only democracy in the world where intellectuals wear their brain on their sleeves.  In other parts of the civilized world, thinkers draw attention away from themselves and light-seekers are identified for what they are.  In other parts intellectuals come from all walks and all sections of societies. In India they come from circles so closed and incestuous that ultimately they become irrelevant to the country's needs."  

In the process they have become alienated from the rest of the society.  And when the society started to reject them, they evolved the tactics of apportioning the blame somewhere else.  So we have statements like:

"The tragic legacy of Nehru era was that it made all sane Hindu voices of the intelligentsia deny their Hindu roots, speak in an alien voice not rooted in Indian society and inflict their imported notions of culture on the people in a most contemptuous way". 

(source: Amitabh Mattoo in The Independent, December 19,1992.)

"I really believe that one of the failures of Congress secularism was that it treated everything Hindu, thereby Indian, with disdain. 

(source: Tavleen Singh, "Forget the drivel, get fiscal", Indian Express, Oct 15, 1995.)

"The State's ostrich attitude towards God has led to the hijacking of the Hindu religion by illiberal men, and portions between faiths have hardened, perhaps irreparably." 

(source: Ramesh Menon, "Expelling God", Indian Express, Nov 19, 1995.)

India has remained a secular country - unlike its truncated parts - because it has a Hindu majority. 

M J Akbar in his book, India - The Siege Within ISBN 8174760768 Penguin, UK, 1985, p 24), wrote: 

"It needs to be pointed out that India remains a secular state, not because one-fifths of the population is Muslim, Sikh or Christian, and, therefore, obviously has a vested interest in secular constitution, but because nine out of ten Hindus do not believe in violence against the minorities.  If all the Hindus had been zealots, no law-and-order machinery in the world could have prevented the massacre of Muslims who are scattered in villages and towns all across the country." 

(source: Hindu Vivek Kendra). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com

Indian Secularists and TV serials (Ramayana and Mahabharata)

Koenraad Elst has remarked: " The secularists had objected to showing of TV serials like Ramayana and Mahabharata, as "religious scriptures" of one community, and therefore their showing should be limited to places and channels of Hindus only! I am amazed at the crudeness in these secularists' understanding of religious and cultural matters. They just don't have the education, or the power of discrimination, to distinguish between cultural epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, and "religious Scriptures". The question has been put to secularists several times, but they have not come up with any trace of an answer: if Indonesian Muslims can venerate Ram, why can't Indian Muslims, as well as Indian secularists, do the same? 

Another non-Hindu tribe that has given a warm reception to the Ramayana and Mahabharat epics, are the European film and theatre audiences. Between 1985 and 1990, these epics have found their way to the public in Europe. they have been top of the bill at the Avignon theatre festival. The BBC has even broadcast the Hindi TV serials. The secularists in India like to portray themselves as the bringers of civilization from the West to obscurantist India. Well, let them not fool anybody. In Europe, not a single critic has come up with the idea that these epics could somehow be "communal". On the contrary, they have all stressed that these stories are about universal human values.

(source: Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst - Voice of India. Issues Before Hindu Society  SKU: INBK2650 p. 215-216). for more on Indian Secularism, refer to chapter on Glimpses X). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

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Ramayana and Marxist agenda

Hindus have protested to the American Museum of National History here for exhibiting two documentaries, saying they distort the history of Hinduism and India and asked for their withdrawal.

 In a letter to Director of Public Affairs of the museum, Elaine Charnov, Parishad, Gaurag G Vaishnav says the documentaries - We are not monkeys and In the name of God, produced by Anand Patwardhan - would "not only mislead the viewer because of gross distortions of facts but also help advance politically motivated Marxist agenda."

Patwardhan, an egregious Marxists, attempts to demonstrate that Rama, the main character in the epic Ramayana, was an Aryan who enslaved Dravidian people and called them his monkeys. "Nothing is farther from truth. Not only this presentation tends to continue to advance the recently debunked colonialist theory of Aryans' invasion of India but it also tends to create artificial division among the people of India along imposed on racial lines," the letter released by the Parishad said.

In Indian history, it explained, the word 'Arya' has never referred to a race but rather to nobility of spirit, thought and deeds. "You may be aware that more than a dozen authentic, well-researched and respected classic commentaries are available on Ramayana and Mr  Patwardhan's documentary is certainly one of them."

Indonesian Muslims can venerate Ram, why can't Indian Muslims, as well as Indian secularists, do the same ? The well-informed Indonesians don't object to Ram as a communal character, as a god of one religion and therefore anathema to others.

Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com. For more refer to chapter on Aryan Invasion Theory). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

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Ravana was an Aryan Brahmin

Bishop Caldwell named the languages of the south as Dravidian. That Tamil or some old form of it was spoken throughout India is evident from Valmiki Ramayana where we find Sita conversing with Hanuman in a language different from Sanskrit, the language of the twice-born (Brahmin) in which Ravana spoke; and Sri Rama and his brother were conversing freely with Sugreeva and Vali. But the most surprising fact is that, according to Valmiki, Hanuman was a great Vedic scholar, well-versed in Vyakarana and in Sama Veda, an opinion expressed by Sri Rama also. These facts evidently show that throughout India, there were people who could freely speak both Sanskrit and Tamil, and that Vedas were studied throughout India by all communities from the remote past.  

(source: Perennial Hindu Culture and The Twin Myths – By M. Vaitialingam The Thirumaka Press. 1980 p. 58-67. 

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Where the Gods tread

Sorab Irani made a six part travelogue on the exile route taken by Ram, as a part of celebration for the 50th year of Indian independence. He recreates Lord Rama's journey from Ayodhya to Lanka which covers around 2,000 kms. The film shows fascinating stories of how Ram lives on near Hampi, where villagers pray to fossilised bones of Bali and Sugreev, and then there was the discovery of the Gupt Godavari, an underground spring that welled up in a cave at Chitrakoot, where Godavari, the myth goes, went in disguise to have a glimpse of Lord Ram.

Chitrakoot was a revelation for Irani. "If ever I believed that Ram walked on the earth, it was at Chitrakoot." The sensual flow of the Mandakini, the unspoilt greenery of the landscape, .....the most untouched spot in the entire journey and the most pleasurable." says Irani. 

(source: Where the Gods Tread - The Sunday Review - Times of India August, 7' 1997. Please refer to Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India - By Jonah Blank).

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Social Order in Hinduism

The social order in Hinduism is designated, by its integration of functions, to provide at the same time for a common prosperity and to enable every member of society to realize his own perfection. 

Sir George Birchwood remarks in his Sva, 1915, p. 83-5:

"The enactments embodied in the Code of Manu, and cognate law books of the Hindus, have achieved this consummation from before the foundations of Athens and Rome...we trace there the bright outlines of a self-contained, self-dependent, symmetrical, and perfectly harmonious industrial economy, deeply rooted in the popular conviction of its divine character, and protected, through every political and commercial vicissitude, by the absolute power and marvelous wisdom and tact of the Brahmmanical priesthood. Such an ideal social order we should have held impossible of realization, but that it continues to exist, and to afford us, in the yet living results of its daily operation in India, a proof of the superiority, in so many unsuspected ways, of the hieratic civilization of antiquity over the secular, joyless, inane, and self-destructive modern civilization of the West."

(source: Hinduism and Buddhism -  Edited by K. N. Iyengar and Rama P. Coomaraswamy p. 36-37). 

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Song of Ganga

They call her sursari, river of the gods. 

From the lotus feet of Brahma to the sage Bhagirath, to the matted locks (jataa) of Shiva from where she emerged as Bhagirathi. She traverses the mountains, singing tuneless songs, unknown lilts, accepting waters from known and unknown tributaries, stopping for none and carrying all with her without discrimination.

Not very far from Gaumukh where the Bhagirathi descends upon the earth from among the heights of the Himalayas, between the Nar and the Narayan peaks, from the bowels of the earth, bubbles up another river - the Alaknanda. Full of fun and frolic, she hurtles down the mountains, under the rock bridge built by Bhima, kissing the feet of the Lord of Badrinath and the temple of Adi Sankaracharya devastating all with her beauty and speed. At Vishnu Prayag, she finds a friend, the Ghagharia which brings with it news of the Valley of Flowers and the lake at Hemkunt Saheb.

Together, like chattering sisters, they continue on their way, laughing, talking, rushing to be on their way. The trees and the flowers, the stones and the sand, the mountains and the sky smile as they watch over their progress.

When they reach Nand Prayag, their circle expands as they receive in to their midst the Nandakini. Soft and dainty, the Nandakini comes tripping over the rocks and boulders like a fairy. On its banks smile exquisite flowers while there is nary a soul to sully its purity.
The Alaknanda, now the elder sister, welcomes the new entrant, carrying her in her arms. The journey is still long.

Cutting through the mountains, pushing through the rocks, they gurgle and gush, sometimes lapping gently, sometimes roaring furiously. Till they reach Karna Prayag where they meet the Pindar Ganga, a river of some stature. It is a dignified and mature meeting, which adds to the status of all.

Amicably they continue on their way. The mountains have been left behind somewhat and so has the haste. The Alaknanda is calm and unhurried when it meets the Mandakini at Rudra Prayag. The Mandakini flows from a glacier by the temple to Lord Shiva at Kedarnath. The beauteous Mandakini is a maiden whose grace and loveliness belong in myth and legend. Its clear waters and white untouched foam, its frolic on the rocks, its frills and flounces on its banks, all at glacial temperatures and dangerous speeds, it leaves one speechless.

At Sone Prayag the Mandakini is joined by the Sone which adds stability to its wayward prettiness. But at Rudra Prayag, its clear, delicate green waters are swallowed up by the travel-weary, muddy Alaknanda. It is a large, placid river that leaves Rudra Prayag on its way to the vast plains of North India.Meanwhile, the Bhagirathi too has traversed the mountains, past town and village - Uttarkashi, Dharasu, Tihri, before it reaches Dev Prayag. Here in a great embrace the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda merge and submerge, and from their confluence is born the Ganga.

Stately and majestic, she proceeds on her way, carrying the diverse with her, accepting all in her indivisible oneness.

(source: Song of Ganga - By Bela Lal -  Times of India 2/27/02).

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Chaphekar brothers - June 22, 1897. A hundred years later, the memories live on

The year was 1897. Date June 22. Walter Charles Rand, the special officer for plague, was returning after attending a function at the government guest house.

Ganeshpind road on which his carriage was to pass was deserted. Hiding in the forest nearby were the three Chapekar brothers -- Damodar, Vasudev and Balkrishna -- and their associates. As a carriage passed by, Vasudev ran after it shouting, ''Gondiya ala re.''

It was a signal for Balkrishna to finish off Rand, the infamous British officer who had created much distress among the masses with his tactless handling of the Pune plague. Fired with revolutionary zeal, Balkrishna boarded the covered carriage and shot the occupant dead. Suddenly he found that it was Lt Ayerst, an associate of Rand.

Realising the folly, Damodar, the eldest of the three, jumped on to the carriage carrying Rand and fired, killing the British officer on the spot, the first act of revolutionary terrorism in British India.

The killings shook the British empire and the government announced a reward of Rs 20,000 for anyone who helped track down the killers, who had added a colourful chapter to the history of the freedom movement. Exactly 100 years later, people of independent India will witness the shooting acted out by 35 actors of the Krantiveer Chapekar Samarak Samiti as a tribute to the Chapekar brothers.

After the killings, the Chapekar brothers fled the city, but two of them were arrested following a tip-off by the Dravid brothers. The two informers paid with their lives for their act of betrayal when Vasudev and Ranade shot them at their Sadashiv Peth residence after posing as messengers for the British officer investigating the Rand killing. Damodar was tried for the crime in the sessions court which ordered his execution on March 2, 1898. He was hanged on April 18. Vasudev was hanged on May 8, 1899, Ranade on May 10 and Balkrishna on May 12. Lokmanya Tilak was accused of sedition for inciting the Chapekar brothers in his articles and sent to jail.

Chapekar Wada, the house the brothers lived in, was turned into an illicit liquor den after their death. The same house, now in a dilapidated condition, has been bought by the Samiti which will use two of its rooms as a museum to store revolutionary literature while the other rooms will be converted into a vyayamshala -- a gymnasium -- as a tribute to Damodar who was a bodybuilder. The Samiti also plans to hold a seminar on April 18, 1998, the day Damodar was hanged 100 years ago, by inviting surviving freedom fighters along with the grandsons of the Chapekar brothers, says Samiti secretary Girish Prabhune.

(source: http://www.rediff.com/news/jun/20pune.htm. For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism).

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Studies on Early Krishna Worship

One of the earliest and the most important of the Puranic religious systems to emerge  was Bhagavatism which came to be described at a comparatively late date as Vaishnavism. In the Puranas and the Mahabharata it centers around the worship of the Sattvata chief Vasudeva – Krishna. It has enjoyed and still enjoys immense popularity among the masses. It has attracted the attention of Indologists from the very beginning of the study of ancient Indian religions in the modern period. Unfortunately, however, their attitude towards it has not always been objective. As this religion betrays several common features with Christianity – such as belief in the grace of god, efficacy of faith and devotion, value attributed to prayer, doctrine of incarnation etc. – Western scholars, with their conviction in the theory of the White Man’s Burden, found it difficult to resist the temptation of assuming that Krishna worship was nothing but a plagiarism of Christianity. Some of them, such as Pavie even thought it humiliating for Christianity to be compared with the Krishna cult, while people like H. H. Wilson pleaded for the study of Vaishanvism and other Hindu religions if only to prove  the falsity and persuade the Hindu intelligentsia to adopt the Christian faith. 

Christian Bias in the Historiography of Early Krishna Worship 

The theory that Krishna worship originated as a distorted form of Christianity and that the name of Krishna itself is only ‘a corruption of the name of the Savior’ was first advanced by P. Georgi as early as 1762. It found a number of adherents among Western scholars, though many of them conceded that Krishna was an ancient god of India whose worship was radically transformed under the impact of Christianity. Albercht Weber, who wrote his famous on ‘An Investigation into the Origin of the Festival of Krsna Janmastami ‘ in 1874, that is more than a century after Georgi, gave a new impetus to this theory. In this and many other articles he argued that the transformation of the personality of Krishna from the ‘eager scholar’ of the Chandogya Upanishad and the brave hero of the early portions of the Mahabharata into a deity can be explained only on the supposition of an eternal influence which in the circumstances could be no other than Christianity. He also stated his conviction that the theory of avatara originated as an imitation of the Christian doctrine of incarnation. 

Weber thesis was supported mutates mutandis by Hopkins, Macnicol, Grierson, Kennedy, Lorinser etc. and on some Western scholars are still trying to flog a dead horse. The attempt of Allan Dahlquist, a Swedish scholar, is a case in point.

(source: Bias in Indian Historiography - By S. R. Goyal  p. 120-130). For more refer to chapter on First Indologists). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Distortions of Hinduism

David Frawley (Vamadev Shashtry) has observed: " Hinduism, without doubt the most denigrated and misunderstood of the major world religions, if it is recognized as a world religions at all. It is common to look down on Hinduism as primitive and those who call themselves Hindus, as backward or obsolete. Instead of looking at Hinduism in terms of its profound philosophies and deep mysticism, it is associated with idolatry, caste and various social evils, as if there was nothing more to it. Many of them complain about the primitive idol worship in Hindu religion. After all, Hindu gods like Hanuman and Ganesha have animal face and forms. Such people are offended to see an animal face on God, though they eat animals, and their God with his wrath often has traits that would be regarded as tyrannical or egoistic in a person.

This denigration has occurred largely because Hinduism has borne the brunt of missionary propaganda, perhaps un paralled by any religion in the world.  

Hinduism represents the survival of the very type of traditions that the conversion-based religions have tried so hard and so long to stamp out. 

While the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Pagan Arabs have all long fallen to the missionary assault, Hinduism has survived remarkably the onslaughts of both missionary religions for a period of over a thousand years! And to their dismay in the modern world HIndu teachings are spreading again and getting revitalized. 

Indian Marxists have even formed a common front with the missionaries to eliminate Hinduism, their common enemy. Now that Marxism is dying in the world, Indian Marxists are becoming more strident, trying to hold on to their last bastions of power in the intellectual realm, which only make their anti-Hindu propaganda more shrill and more irrational.

The Catholic Church has spread its tentacles into India, hoping like what it did to ancient Greece to subvert the profound philosophies of the region into tools of the Christian faith, reformulating the Hindu Upanishads like the Aristotelian philosophy of the Greeks into a form of Christian theology. Evangelical Christians in America like the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant sect in America, are targeting India with cruder but more forceful and vitalistic creed, preaching of hell, fire, damnation and the impending end of the world. 

Asia is still recovering from Marxism and Colonialism, which makes the poor and uneducated, who are basically looking for social upliftment, vulnerable to missionary work which promises that as a by-product of conversion. They don't realize that Evangelical Christianity with its rejection of the theory of evolution, which they want removed from the schools, represents one of the most regressive trends in American culture and is largely a religion of the farm belt ridiculed in the universities.

The most devout Catholics in the world are the poor and uneducated Catholics of the Third World, not the scientific or intellectual elite of the West that is largely agnostic. Asian countries that accept Catholicism are more likely to end up poor like the Philippines, the main Catholic country in Asia, not developed like Japan which did not accept Christianity as part of modernization but relied on its own warrior spirit instead.

(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup - Forward by David Frawley p. xii-xvi). For more refer to chapter on First Indologists). for more refer to chapter on Quotes 181_200). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

Biased reporting

Hindus cannot help it that the Non-Hindu politician Adolf Hitler did them the injustice of misinterpreting "their" swastika as a symbol of racial purity, a meaning it never had for its Hindu-Jain-Buddhist users, neither in the past nor in the contemporary Hindutva movement. But that does not keep India reporters from exploiting this opportunity for engineered misunderstanding to the fullest.

Thus, reporting on the million-strong demonstration for the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, (Delhi, 4 April 1991), Brian Barron of BBC, showed a monk carrying a saffron-colored flag with a white swastika. And for the less perceptive viewers, he added in so many words that the Hindu movement "carries the swastika." For Hindus, the swastika is an age-old symbol of good fortune (sanskrit swasti = well being" freely anlayzable as su asti, "it is good").

***

Victimization of Hindus in South Asia has been internationally ignored. The governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh discourage serious research into the Hindu death toll in order not to foster anti-Muslim feelings. Moreover, with Pakistan being a Western ally, the powerful Anglo-American media have apparently chosen not to pay too much attention to the massacres of the East Bengal Hindus. The net result is that the victimization of Hindus remains unknown and all spotlight can be focused on the sparser cases of the "poor hapless Muslim minority's misfortunes."

(source: The Saffron Swastika - By Koenraad Elst - Voice of India ISBN 8185990697 p. 30 and 809-810). For more refer to chapter on Quotes 201_220). 

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Has the World Ended Before?

Charles Berlitz, author of several books, including The Bermuda Triangle, was the grandson of the founder of the world-famous Berlitz schools, wrote:

"If atomic warfare were actually used in the distant past and not just imagined, there must still exist some indications of a civilization advanced enough to develop or even to know about atomic power. One does find in some of the ancient writings of India some descriptions of advanced scientific thinking which seemed anachronistic to the age from which they come. 

The Jyotish (400 B. C) echoes the modern concept of the earth's place in the universe, the law of gravity, the kinetic nature of energy, and the theory of cosmic rays and also deals, in specialized but unmistakable vocabulary, with the theory of atomic rays. And what was thousands of years before the medieval theologians of Europe argued about the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin. 

Indian philosophers of the Vaisesika school were discussing atomic theory, speculating about heat being the cause of molecular change, and calculating the period of time taken by an atom to traverse its own space.

  Readers of the Buddhist pali sutra and commentaries, who studied them before modern times, were frequently mystified by reference to the "tying together" of minute component parts of matter; although nowadays it is easy for a model reader to recognize an understandable description of molecular composition."

(source: Doomsday 1999 - By Charles Berlitz p. 123-124. For more on Charles Berlitz, refer to chapter on Vimanas and Advanced Concepts). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Dalits eye new rites in UP...

In a few days from now, another - the last and most decisive - bastion of the Hindu upper castes is set to fall in Uttar Pradesh. With the graduation of the first batch of curriculum-trained priests in the state, several Dalit pundits will be ready to offer their services for the entire range of traditional Hindu rites.

The class of 2002 in the UP Sanskrit Sansthan's paurohitya (priesthood) course includes several Dalit and other non-Brahmin students. The three-month course that was started in February, aimed at training students in the range of karmakand rites from mundan and vivah sanskar (marriage) to vrats (fasts) and tyohar (festivals).

The students have been trained by priests who were picked from a large pool of Sanskrit scholars in the state.

The scholars were given extensive training before being asked to fan out in the districts to impart their knowledge to priesthood-hopefuls. With the course now nearing completion almost everywhere, lists of successful trainees have begun to come in - they will receive certificates, and will be recognised as 'registered pundits' qualified to perform karmakand rites.

The course attracted 35 students on an average in each of the 70 districts where it was offered. It was welcomed enthusiastically at some places, and received a lukewarm response at others.

The maximum number of Dalit trainees in a district was five - in Varanasi. There were four in Lalitpur, three each in Gorakhpur and Unnao, two each in Mirzapur, Lucknow and Chitrakoot, and one each in Jaunpur, Deoria, Mau, Ambedkarnagar and Kushinagar.

"We had kept the course open for everyone, as we wanted the knowledge to be made available to all," said Dr Sachidanand Pathak, director of Sanskrit Sansthan.

"But we had no idea that we would receive such a good response from castes other than Brahmins as well."

(source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/080502/detnat01.asp).

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Development of Aldous Huxley's thoughts

Huxley is one of those who enriched the West greatly with the wisdom of the East. Though he came late on the scene, his influence was nonetheless real and deep. Huxley always distrusted monotheism from the earliest days of his intellectual life. In an article 'One and Many' written in an early phase of he says that 'monotheism, as we know in the West, was invented by the Jews." Living in a desert, they found nothing in the surrounding bareness to make them suppose that the world was richly diverse. And their belief in monotheism "prevented them from having any art, any philosophy, any political life."

He observed that while historical religions have been violent, eternity-philosophies like Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism, which has gone hand in hand with the political and economic oppression of the colored peoples." 

He tells us how the time-worshipping Catholicism institutes Inquisition and how it "burns and tortures in order to perpetuate a creed, a ritual and an ecclesiastical-politico financial organization regarded as necessary to men's external salvation."; he tells us how "Bible-worshipping Protestant fight long and savage wars, in order to make the world safe for what they fondly imagine to be the genuinely antique Christianity of apostolic times."

Unity of all religions has been a special infirmity of the Hindu mind. It has its doctrinal and historical reasons. Brought up in his own religious tradition, a Hindu could not even conceive that a religion could teach persecution. And though its continuing victim for a thousand years, he thought there was a mistake somewhere and its perpetrators had not understood their own religion. 

(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup p. 126-150). For more refer to chapters on Hindu Art and Quotes 1_20).

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The Raj and the Reich

Michael Portillo, a Conservative Minister for Kensington and Chelsea in the British government, in early 1995 compared one-time British government in India - the so-called 'Raj' - with the Nazi regime. 

The fact remains that British rule in India was largely rule with an iron fist, even though it may most often have been in a velvet glove. As an conquering and occupying power, the British East India Company were largely free from legal control from Britain and could virtually make their own laws to subdue, divide and rule these states and their peoples. These laws were made just as draconian as the demand for control of India's resources, draining its economy for huge profits and ensuring the ascendancy of the British white man demanded.

After the so-called 'Mutiny' the British lived more and more as an isolated ruling caste, with all too widespread disdain and hardened attitudes towards most peoples in the sub-continent. The British thought and behaved as a 'master race' towards their subordinates. Among the many sins of the British was the recruitment under false pretences and promises of Indian workers to labor in their other colonies in Africa and the West Indies. Their exile was permanent as they could not get the means to return to India and were exploited thoroughly - bonded laborers under virtual slavery in all but name, often held in their places by systems of unjust debts.

In Place of Slavery - Indentured laborers

Slavery was abolished in Suriname in 1863. Between 1873 and 1940 more than 34,000 British Indians entered Suriname and effectively replaced the former slaves. Deplorable condition of Indian labor: 

"Under the colour of a Bill for protecting the Indian labourers, it is proposed to legalize the importation of them into the colonies." "Hundreds of thousands of poor helpless women and children are now to be abandoned to want, that the growth of sugar in the West Indies may not languish."  Indentureship recruitment, the Indo-Trinidadian scholar Kenneth Permasad reminds us, "took place in an India reeling under the yoke of colonial oppression." Colonialism induced massive transformations in Indian economy and society, and the increase in famines under colonial rule, the destruction of indigenous industries, and the proliferation of the unemployed all attest to the heartlessness of colonial rule. From Calcutta and Madras Indian men, and a much smaller number of women, especially in the first few decades of indentured migration, were herded into "coolie" ships, confined to the lower deck, the women subject to the lustful advances of the European crew. Sometimes condemned to eat, sleep, and sit amidst their own waste, the indentureds were just as often without anything but the most elementary form of medical care. Many did not survive the long and brutal "middle passage"; the bodies of the dead were, quite unceremoniously, thrown overboard.

Discipline was enforced with an iron hand, and the whip cracked generously: as a number of Indian laborers in Surinam were to state in a complaint in 1883, "if any coolie fails to work for a single day of the week, he is sent to jail for two or four days, where he is forced to work while day and night kept under chains. We are tortured very much. For this reason two to three persons died by swallowing opium and drowning themselves." Indians are apt, like many other people, to associate the phenomenon of slavery solely with Africans, but it is not realized that indentured labor was only, in the words of Hugh Tinker, "a new form of slavery".

(source: Manas - Indentured Labor). For more information please refer to the chapter on European Imperialism).

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Nostradamus (1503-1566) of France and Hindu Destiny?

Quatrain 96, Century X

Religion du nom des mers vaincra,
Contre le sect fils Adulancatif,
Sects obtinee deploree craindra,
Des deux blessez par Aleph and Aleph

Religion named after the seas (Hindu Mahasagar - Indian Ocean) will be victorious,
Against the sons of the Caliph's adalat or rule.
Obstinate deplorable sect will greatly fear, 
The two religions injured by Alif and Alif.

(source: Hindu Destiny in Nostradamus - By G. S. Hiranyappa Bangalore 1986 p. 6-9).

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Katherine Mayo's Hatred For Hindus

Katherine Mayo (1867-1940 ) was ardently Anglophile and believed in Kipling's doctrine of the White Man's Burden. Behind much of her advocacy, however, lay her own preoccupations with Anglo-Saxon racial superiority.

She wrote couple of books starting with Mother India, Slaves of the Gods and Isle of Fear, the Truth about the Philippines

She wrote a book on American rule in the Philippines called the Isle of Fear in which she painted a lurid picture of the Philippines and their culture. These two elements and the love for the British and their empire and her distaste for Asians, needed only the third element to prepare her to write a book on India. That third element was the British interest in her work on the Philippines and a wish that she could do a similar job in India.

Mother India begins with a description of the sacrifice of a goats at the Kali temple and then goes on into villages and cities. It is replete with quotations and statistics which Miss Mayo could have scarcely have collected on her own. She criticizes Gandhi for whom Mayo had nothing but disdain. She criticizes the Hindu religion, its gods, its social code, its rituals, its castes and the debilitating ethos...She remarks that "If only Gandhi and his agitators are kept away the Indian villagers would live in paradise indeed." Mayo's book on the Slaves of the Gods deal with the institution of the Devadasis - or temple dancers. 

She came out to condemn India and she succeeded marvelously in shaping the image of India in the average American mind. 

In fact her book is the most negative of all writings by foreigners on India.

Miss Mayo forgot that every civilization has its own skeletons in its many cupboards and India is no exception. The British were mightily pleased with here efforts and were delighted with what she had to say. Miss Mayo confirmed and made explicit Western racism in aspects of thinking about the non-West."

Manorangan Jha in his Katherine Mayo and India (New Delhi 1971) has done an impressive piece of work in marshalling circumstantial evidence to point a finger of suspicion at British complicity in Mayo's visit to India. In the 1920's with a rising tide of Indian nationalism, the British in London and New Delhi were becoming sensitive to American critical interest in the nature end effect of British imperial rule. The British wanted to project an image of India and the Indian people as basically not ready for Independence and the necessity of Britain continuing her good work to lift the Indian masses out of their self-made morass of debilitating Hindu religion, its cruel customs, and abominable ritual and social hygienic practices. 

(source:  India in the American Mind - By B. G. Gokhale p.44-48).

She holds Rabindranath Tagore to ridicule by quoting him, out of context, in such a away to make him appear as an advocate of child marriages. She has nothing but sarcasm for Gandhi. In tune with the British policy of pitting one against another, Mayo highlights the passionate monotheism of Islam and the vitality, sturdiness and practical-mindedness of  the Muslims as against the 'degenerate materialism' of the Hindus which 'masquerades' as spiritualism. Mayo completely absolves the British of any responsibility for the ills of India or for India's political backwardness and squarely lays it at the door of the Indians themselves. 

Complicity of the British in Mayo's Work - To Secure American Support for the British

The news of the publication of Mother India reached India toward the end of July 1927, and it immediately raised a storm throughout the country. The Indians felt that it was a scandalous libel on their civilization and character. Moreover, they suspected the hand of the British in the publication, and felt that the aim of the book was to discredit India. When Mother India came out speculation was rife as to what impelled Mayo to mount such a scurrilous attack on Hinduism and Indian nationalist forces. One reason given was that she wanted to counteract the anti-British propaganda that was being carried on in America by the Indians as also to expose their statement claiming spiritual supremacy for India. 

Gandhi was painfully wrote to Mayo: "I am sorry to have to inform you that the book did not leave on my mind at all a nice impression." He asked the publishers of Young India to send her a copy of his own review of the book entitled "A Drain Inspector's Report."

To what wicked length Mayo and her British collaborators went in their hatred for Hinduism is illustrated by the papers in the Mayo Collection. 

The motives for publishing of Mother India were primarily political; to win American support for the British cause in India. To frighten even British liberals into giving up the constitutional reforms that they envisaged for India. The British masters of India were anxious to win American opinion in their favor and cleverly used American journalists, writers, publicists and propaganda men to work which would serve the British interest. And who better to pick than Katherine Mayo who had written The Isles of Fear? 

Indian Reaction: Hundreds of meeting were held in India against the British officials of nefarious plots against India. Incidents, big and small, of Negro lynching, moral deviations, sexual aberrations, and other forms of corruption in the social and political life of the United States were grabbed by the journals and editorials under heading like, "Pot Calls the Kettle Black" and "Glass Houses and Stone Throwing." etc.  Kanhaya Lal Gauba wrote a book on the United States titled -  Uncle Sham: Being the Strange Tale of a Civilization Run Amok  Claude Kendall Publisher Place of Publication: New York, NY 1929). 

No abatement in Mayo's Hatred for Hindus. 

In fact, Mayo was so consumed with hatred for the Hindus that she returned to her pet theme again and again. In her next book, Slaves of the Gods (1929), she narrates twelve stories that she claims to have taken from 'real life.' The last in the series was The Face of Mother India published in 1935. This was a pictorial book containing about 400 hundred photographs showing various facets of the land of India and her people. The picture section was proceeded by a long introduction in which Mayo traced Indian history from about A.D. 1000, when Mahommed Ghazni, began his raids in north-western India, the temple of Somnath being his special target. As regards to her bias, F. H. Brown, who reviewed the book in The Observer:

"It is to be regretted that so suitable a Christmas gift of well-planned pictures should be introduced by a polemical dissertation which shows that these eight years have brought little or no abatement of Miss Mayo's sharply contrasted dislike of and contempt for the Hindu, the male Hindu at least, and her praise for the Moslem "the purest of Monotheists." In her judgment the Hindu has a double dose of original sin. If there is a hero of the story it is Mahmoud Ghazni, of whom she writes exultingly that he destroyed many great Hindu temples, shattered many idols, and took back to Ghazni many thousands of slaves and much precious treasure - "but never did he linger in the land of the idolator."

It is interesting to note the infatuation of the British with Mother India while they banned books written by Gandhi - Hind Swaraj and Will Durant -  A Case For India. Durant held the view that no part of the world suffered so much poverty and oppression as India did and that this was largely due to British imperialism. 

Another book that was banned by the British was India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom published in 1928. The author was Rev. Jabez Sunderland, a countryman of Katherine Mayo. The central theme of the book was that the British rule in India was unjust, that the Indians were abundantly competent to rule themselves and that America should support the cause of Indian nationalism. The book appeared to be so seditious to the British authorities in India that it was not only proscribed, its publisher was arrested and proceeded against under the Indian Penal Code. (For more about these book please refer to chapter on History of Hinduism).

(source: Katherine Mayo and India - By Manorangan Jha People's Publishing House New Delhi 1971.p. 23-104).

An Eminent American clergyman, Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert wrote: "We would like to suggest to Miss Mayo that she write one more book, this time about America. "The Only Land where Lynchings Occur."

Notwithstanding the facts that Miss Mayo wrote the book to bolster up British rule and that the imperialists and "Bourbons" of Great Britain hailed its appearance with joy, there were some Englishmen who denounced it. Mr. Wilfred Wellock, M.P. writes: "Mother India is the most nauseating book I have ever read and it will do incalculable harm to India.."

Mr. S. K. Radcliffe wrote in The New Republic, in 1927: " I have lived for five years in India....As I call up the memory of those people and scenes, and set, the reality of my recollection alongside the appalling pictures which Miss Mayo has drawn. I am filled with bewilderment and regret. The vast multitude of India's common people makes upon every Westerner a wonderful impression of goodness, endurance and dignity. Often the Indian woman has a hard time. But I see her, as she comes up every morning from her ceremonial bath in the river, walking noiselessly with a troop of her fellows, a figure unsurpassed in the world of beauty, and serenity, and grace." ...many of the pictures that Miss Mayo draws, are profoundly untrue.."

Dr. James H. Cousins, Irish poet and author wrote: "The whole edifice of falsehood erroneously labeled "Mother India" rises naturally from a foundation of race prejudice."

Major D. Graham Pole, a Labor candidate for the British Parliament, who had much personal knowledge of India, writes: "Some years ago Miss Katherine Mayo visited the Philippines and wrote a book about her visit. It was called the Isles of Fear and was defence of American Imperialism. She has now, after her visit to India, done a like service to British Imperialism, in her Mother India. No wonder the book is regarded as godsend by all British reactionaries."

Mrs Annie Besant writes with indignation of "Mother India" : "Miss Mayo has published a wicked book, slandering the whole of the Indian people...I have spent in India the greater part of my time since 1893, living as an Indian, welcomed in their homes as though I were one of their own people, and I have never come across the horrors she describes...The writer seems to have merely sought for filth. Does she imagine that if her presentation were an accurate picture of Hindu civilization that Hinduism could have produced a civilization in India dating from thousands of years before the Christian era? It would have been smothered in its own putrefaction."

Rev. Jabez Sunderland summarized: "That the book is misleadingly named. The title "Mother India" causes readers to expect to find in its pages a spirit of kindness, appreciation and sympathy towards India. Instead of that, they find everywhere haughty and cynical criticism...In order to be honest, it had been titled as Mahatma Gandhi suggested "A Report of India's Drains and Sewers."

Professor Franklin Edgerton of Yale University wrote to Prof. S K Iyengar: "I hope you and others in India will believe that there are some of us in America who know how to appraise justly Miss Mayo's scurrilous book. We are deeply ashamed to acknowledge her as our fellow countrywoman, and we neglect no chance to deny the truth of the picture of India which she draws."

(source: India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom - By Rev. Jabez Sunderland p. 510 - 553. For more on Rev. Sunderland's book refer to chapter on European Imperialism).

Katherine Mayo's book was so full of filth, slander and calumny that writing in Young India, Mahatma Gandhi said:

"The carefully chosen quotations give it the appearance of a truthful book but the impression it leaves on my mind is that of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country....The book is without doubt untruthful, be the facts stated ever so truthful..."

(source: The Hindu - By K V Paliwal and B. Datt Bharti   p. 75). Refer to Let Not the West mislead India - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com.

Note:  Many books were written by Indians, answering to this absurd book. 

1. A Son of Mother India replies - By Dhan Gopal Mukerjee.
2. Father India: A Reply to Miss Mayo - By S C Ranga Iyer, Member of the Indian Legislative Assembly.
3. Unhappy India - By Lala Lajpat Rai.

For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Hinduism miscalled "Brahminism"

M. Vaitialingam says: "Hinduism has often been miscalled 'Brahminism' which would mean 'a religion of the brahmin, professed and propounded by brahmins"

This is a very prejudiced view. There are a number of seers in the Rig Veda who are non-brahmins. 

In fact, the seer of the first sukta of the First Mandala of the Rig Veda is a non-brahmin. He is Madhuchchandas, son of Visvamitra. The hymns of Mandala III are ascribed to the Rishi Vishvamitra or to the members of his family. Visvamitra, as we know, was born a kshatriya, but by virtue of his intense tapas attained brahminhood. The Western scholars have even imagined a rivalry between Visvamitra and the Rishi Vasistha and have referred to them as founders of two opposing schools of thought, brahmin and non-brahmin. The Gayatri mantra (M III. S64. 10) the celebrated verse in the Rig Veda which forms the main part of the devotions of the brahmins is a production of a non-brahmin - Visvamitra. Brahmins as priests, no doubt, have made a much greater contribution to the philosophy and rituals of the religion than laymen.

(source: Perennial Hindu Culture and The Twin Myths - By M. Vaitialingam  The Thirumakal Press. 1980. p. xv). 

For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Golden Age of the Guptas

Ancient India saw her golden age under the banner of the Guptas and the root of the Hindu civilization took its strong hold in this period. These were times of great material and cultural prosperity with great civic buildings, public undertakings, splendor, opulence and luxury. 

"An impartial historian", said Dr. Binfield Havell, "might well consider that the greatest triumph of British administration would be to restore to India all that she enjoyed in the fifth century A.D. "

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Bhagavad Gita:  a dishonest book? - says expert

"The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think," Wendy Doniger holds doctorates from Harvard and Oxford Universities. She is Mircea Eliade Professor of History of Religions in the Divinity School and author of several books, She is the author of Siva: The Erotic Ascetic; Hindu Myths; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Textual Sources for the Study of Religion; and Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities, said, in a lecture titled "The Complicity of God in the Destruction of the Human Race." "The Gita is a dishonest book; it justifies war," Wendy Doniger told the audience of 150, and later acknowledged: "I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars." 

(source: Risa Lila: 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome - By Rajiv Malhotra - sulekha.com). For more refer to chapter on Glimpses IX and Glimpses X).

Several in the audience objected to her reading of the Gita, but she tendered no apologies.

The article discusses the Gita at length and relates that Drexel University in Philadelphia recently sponsored an interdisciplinary course on the Gita. Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago was among the "high-profile" lecturers. When it comes from a highly regarded scholar of Indian studies associated with a prestigious university, one is somewhat disappointed, not to say shocked. Surely, Wendy Doniger knows better than to make such a simplistic statement to an audience which may not be well acquainted with the complexities of the culture she is commenting upon.

Her justification for the judgment is even more naive: "It justifies war: I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars." If all she got out of the Gita was that the book justifies wars, then sadly, even with all her expertise in archaic Sanskrit and in mythology, she seems to be in dire need of a little basic education on the nature and content of religious texts. 

I am sure Ms Doniger is aware of Moses sending spies into Canaan, of Gibeah's trickery in war, of Elisha praying to God to blind his enemies, etc. which are reported in the Old Testament. From this to declare to a not very well informed audience that the Old Testament is a dishonest book is not only silly, if not sacrilege, but is irresponsible too; and certainly unbecoming of a reputed scholar.

As for violence, has any US president apologized sitting on his knees at Hiroshima? I know Wendy Doniger will say Oppenhiemer is a gita enthusiast. Was gita an official scripture of US army during world war II? If Iraq invades Kuwait next time, is Wendy going to garage her SUV because no more oil will flow? It is a fashion these days to talk of peace, and point to conflicts elsewhere for stock market performance, but some gutsy economists at Princeton Economics Institute had predicted conflicts coming up in 2003..."

(source: Indology - Archives  - University of Liverpool). Also refer to chapters on Glimpses_IX

"God now hurls the kings and armies successively of Babylon, Syria, Sudan, Egypt...on the people He has chosen as His own.. They rape, kill, loot...God's aim is the same old one: to inflict such cruel punishment on His people that they shun other gods, and worship Him alone."  - Jeremiah 9.25-26). Refer to Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Oxford Companion to the Bible

(source: Harvesting Our Souls: Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie. ASA publication ISBN:81-900199-9-6 p. 330).

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Godly incarnations         

These incarnations relate to human evolution, from aquatic life to human life, and are consistent with modern theory of evolution. 

1. Matsya (fish) - saves Sage Manu from floods and recovers the Vedas from demons. 
2. Kurma (tortoise) - sustains the earth on his back.
3. Varaha (boar) - brings the earth back from the bottom of the ocean where it was dragged down by a demon, known as Hiranyaksha; Varaha kills the demon.
4. Narasimha (man-lion) - kills the demon King Hiranyakashipu, who was planning to kill his own son, a devotee of Lord Vishnu.
5. Vamana (dwarf) - the first human incarnation of the Lord, kills the demon King Mahabhali, who had deprived the gods of their possessions.
6. Parasurama (the warrior with an axe) - saves Brahmins from the tyranny of the arrogant Khastriya.
7. Rama - kills Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. 
8. Sri Krishna - the most popular incarnation; Krishna's contributions throughout his life include the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna.
9. Buddha - Hindus consider Buddha as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and accept his teachings, but do not directly worship him.
10.Kalkin - (a man on a white horse) - this incarnation is yet to come and will mark the end of all evil in the world. 

(For more on Vishnu avatars refer to The Hindu Mind - By Bansi Pandit p. 167 and A Survey of Hinduism - by Klaus K Klostermaier p. 146 and 241 Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen p. 184-193).

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Brahmins are made not born

A priest in Hindu religion is called a brahmin. His position is similar to that of the priests in other religions. In the beginning brahmins were made not born. The Veda puts the following mantra in the mouth of Goddess Saraswati.

"I, verily, myself say this
Which is welcome to the Devas and to men
Him whom I love I make mighty
I make him a brahmin, a Rishi, a man of talent."

"It is clear from the above that in the Vedic sense a brahmin is made not born. To be a brahmin is not to belong to a specially favored caste but to be divinely inspired with wisdom."

"A Sudra becomes a brahmin and brahmin a sudra (by conduct) - know the same (rule to apply) to him who is born of a Kshatriya and Vaisya." - says the Manu Smriti  ch. 10-64).

In the Mahabharata, the great sage Vyasa, through Yudhshithira expresses the same view. The 13th question of the Yaksha is as follows:

"O! King! by what does brahminhood result? Is it by Kula or ancestry, Vrta or conduct, swadhyaya or study of the Vedas or sruta, hearing or culture? Tell me definitely.

The answer of Dharamputra is as follows:

"Listen, O Respected Yaksha! it is not ancestry or study or learning of Veda or hearing or culture that is the cause of brahminhood. Without doubt it is conduct that is the cause of brahminhood...The teachers and pupils and all who merely study the sastras are to be regarded as fools. He alone who possesses conduct is the man of real knowledge."

(source: Perennial Hindu Culture and The Twin Myths - By M. Vaitialingam  The Thirumakal Press. 1980. p. xv - xxix).

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Ram Museum

The museum would ‘‘bring to life 10,000 years of the country’s heritage and inspire people to visit all the places visited by Lord Ram’’. As tourism minister, Ananth Kumar built the Rs 6-crore Kurukshetra Museum in the town of the same name to commemorate the famous battle. He also spoke of the need to develop a ‘Ramayana circuit’ for cultural tourists on the lines of the Buddhist circuit (which includes Bodh Gaya and Nalanda). ‘‘It was a concept discussed with my Sri Lankan counterpart when I was Tourism and Culture Minister. He had said that we should include Sri Lanka as part of the Ramayana circuit and showcase our cultural and spiritual history.’’

(source: Indian Express -  http://www.indian-express.com/ie20020104/top6.html).

Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.

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Cultural "self-alienation?

Under the indigenous educational system a child was familiarized with the nation's epics, religion and literature. This did not suit the white rulers and missionaries during the British Raj. With the British gaining supremacy several things happened. The scorn, falsifications and caricatures of our culture by the missionaries had a free field. So they put forward the principles of "secularism" and religious neutrality" - principles which continue to be pleaded even today by our brown sahibs with equal duplicity and equal harm to the deeper life of the nation. 

Thus the nation's accumulated riches were denied to the new generations and they grew in self-forgetfulness of their rich heritage. The nation's sciences, philosophies, religion and literature were taken out of the life of the growing generation and these merely became the topics or subjects of Indology. Under the indigenous system, the Hindu schools were closed on Poornima of every month and on other Hindu festivals. Under the new dispensation, Sunday became the new holiday. Thus we were cut off from our calendar too with which so much else in our history and religious discipline and observances is also connected. British rule ruthlessly fracture the patterns of Indian society

The result is before us: for seven hundred years (under Islam) to talk of the essence of our tradition was blasphemy; for a two hundred years (the British Raj) it was stupid; for the last forty years (Marxism, secularism) to do so has been "revanshist", "chauvinist", and, the latest, "communal."

(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup p.194-195).

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Eminent Historians?

Arrogance and elitism are the hallmarks of the India's leftist intellectuals.

Marxist historians of India out to have been an empty land - filled by successive invaders.  

They have made present-day India, and Hinduism even more so, out to be a zoo - the agglomeration of assorted, disparate specimens. No such thing as "India", just a geographic expression, just a construct of the British; no such thing as Hinduism, just a word used by Arabs to describe the assortment they encountered, just an invention of the communalists to impose a uniformity - that has been their stance. For this they have blackened the Hindu period of our history, and, as we shall see, strained to whitewash the Islamic period. They have denounced ancient India's social system as the epitomy of oppression, and made totalitarian ideologies out to be egalitarian and just. 

These intellectuals and their patrons have worked a diabolic inversion: the inclusive religion, the pluralist spiritual search of our people and land, they have projected as intolerant, narrow-minded, obscurantist; and the exclusivist totalitarian, revelatory religions and ideologies - out to be the epitomes of tolerance, open-minded, democracy, secularism!

(source: A Secular Agenda: For saving our country, For welding it - By Arun Shourie p. x-xi).

Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.

Romila Thapar, Gyanendra Pandey, Aijaz Ahmed, Achin Vanaik, Partha Chaterjee, Bipan Chandra, K. N. Panikkar and others. Labeled "eminent historians" or eminent political scientists" by the Indian media and by Western academics who have collaborated in their work, these scholars have carried out a sustained attack on the traditional reading of Hindu philosophy, religion, and history, and an equally sustained attempt at redeeming the attacks on Hinduism, both ancient and modern by Islamic, Christian and Communist forces and ideologies.

(source: Secular "Gods" Blame Hindu "Demons" - By Ramesh N. Rao Publisher: Har-Anand ISBN 81-241-0808-0  p. 27-28).

Romila Thapar, the doyen of Communist historians, has characterized in her (History of India) of the Rig-Veda as "primitive animism", of the Mahabharata as the glorification of a "local feud" between two Aryan tribes, or of the Ramayana as "a description of local conflicts between the agriculturists of the Ganges Valley and the more primitive hunting and food-gathering societies of the Vindhyan region" 

(For more information on The Rig Veda, Mahabharata and Ramayana, please refer to chapter on Hindu Scriptures). 

(source: A reply to Frontline’s story by Profs. Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer & Romila Thapar - By Michael Daninio).

India's "Succular" (sic) thinkers, writers, artistes and politicians
Abuse of the word Hindu

So, one of our new secular ministers tells us that the Sindhu Darshan festival, started by the last government to celebrate the river India gets her name from, will be made less communal. Excuse me? 

The word Hindu is being used as a term of abuse. Hindu fanatic, Hindu fundamentalism, Hindu nationalist, Hindutva. Mostly, that is how the word Hindu gets used and nearly always pejoratively.

It bothers me that I went to school and college in this country without any idea of the enormous contribution of Hindu civilisation to the history of the world. It bothers me that even today our children, whether they go to state schools or expensive private ones, come out without any knowledge of their own culture or civilisation. I believe that the Indic religions have made much less trouble for the world than the Semitic ones and that Hindu civilisation is something I am very proud of. If that is evidence of my being ‘‘communal’’, then, my inner voice tells me, so be it.

(source: This inner voice too needs hearing - By Tavleen Singh - indianexpress.com).  

Jawaharlal Nehru considered the induction of Hindu women in Muslim harems as the cradle of "composite culture" (his euphemism for Hindu humiliation. Time and again, the negationist historians - Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipin Chandra, K.N. Panikkar, S. Goyal, Irfan habib, Asghar Ali Engineer, Gyanendra Pandey, R. S. Sharma, Sushil Srivastava - all professors at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, the Mecca of "secularism" and negationism write that the medieval wars were not religious wars.

(source: Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam - By Koenraad Elst  South Asia Books 1992 ASIN 0836458087 p. 37-51).

Some of the gems from so called "Authentic" Marxist historians (like Romila Thapar, R. S. Sharma and others) of India:

- Muslims were mere visitors to India. (When Romila Thapar tries to make gullible readers believe that Mahmud Ghaznavi only desecrated temples for their wealth she must know (assuming, as all her quoters do, that she is competent historian) that Mahmud is revered by the Muslims as a devout Muslim, that he calligraphed Quran text "for the benefit of his soul", and that he actually refused a huge ransom which Hindus were ready to pay if he agreed to give back an idol, instead of breaking it. Mahmud preferred breaking idols to selling them, even if that meant foregoing wealth. So her theory of Mahmud's economical rather than religious motives is at best an unscientific imposition of Marxist dogma upon the facts of Indian history, otherwise a deliberate lie.)
- Incest was common in Vedic period. 
- Aurangzeb was a good king. His atrocities does not go beyond damaging some temples. 
- Akbar was a GREAT king. 
- Ram never existed. His temple was not there in Ayodhya. 
- Aryan were outsiders who came to invade India. 
- Jinnah was a secular person to the core of his heart who wanted Hindu-Muslim unity with Sarojini Naidu describing her as "Ambassador" of Hindu-Muslim unity. 
- For special guests beef was served as a mark of honor" by none other than Brahmins. 
- Sanskrit and Arabic are ancient languages of India.  

Consider the status of the leftist historians who are now waxing eloquent about their 'objectivity.' Arun Shourie, in Eminent Historians, ASA Publications, 1999. Shourie skewers each of the individuals famously grousing now about their lovely textbooks being rejected: R S Sharma, D N Jha, Satish Chandra, et al. He shows them to be shady characters just short of being charlatans, scarcely the saintly academics they like to pretend to be. It is nothing short of astonishing that these are the people who have been allowed to mould India's children for the past half-century. India's citizens have clearly failed in their duty of vigilance. Why won't India's leftists then accept Naipaul's opinions?

(source: Historicide: Censoring the past... and the present - Rajeev Srinivasan rediff.com and Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst).

Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.

By denouncing Hinduism day in and day out, these 'eminent historians' deny the land itself. They leave the people no sense of self-worth. will a society bereft of self-worth do anything worthwhile? Will a people deprived of self-worth stand by any norms? Do our commentators not see that by the rhetoric they espouse not one leader of our reawakening - Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Tilak, Gandhi, Ramana Maharshi - NOT ONE is anything but a Hinduism monger?

(source: Indian Controversies - By Arun Shourie South Asia Books 1993 ASIN 8190019929 p. xiv - xv and Eminent Historians - India Connect).

K. N. Panikkar and Sanskrit

A friend sent me information about the appointment of K N Panikkar, former professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, as the vice-chancellor of the Adi Sankara Sanskrit University at Kaladi, Kerala, the birthplace of Adi Sankara. K N Panikkar (or is it K N Pannikar, I forget) is an extreme, radical Marxist whose utter contempt for Hinduism is legendary. He knows no Sanskrit either. He has been foisted on this university by the ruling Marxists of Kerala: widespread protests have had no effect. Only in the Nehruvian-Stalinist Alice-in-wonderland world of India would such a thing be possible! This appointment is roughly the equivalent of Osama bin Laden being made the head of the Vatican's main seminary!

He was recently given the position of Vice chancellor of a Sanskrit University in Kerala; the appointment was made by the Marxist government in Kerala. There has been some negative repercussions about this appointment because Professor Panikkar does not know Sanskrit and has never studied Sanskrit.

(source: Puzzling Dimensions and Theoretical Knots in my Graduate School Research - By Yvette Claire Rosser - Infinity Foundation.com and Postscript - By Rajeev Srinivasan rediff.com). 

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Lost city found off Indian coast

An ancient underwater city has been discovered off the coast of south-eastern India. Divers from India and England made the discovery based on the statements of local fishermen and the old Indian legend of the Seven Pagodas.

The ruins, which are off the coast of Mahabalipuram, cover many square miles and seem to prove that a major city once stood there. A further expedition to the region is now being arranged which will take place at the beginning of 2003.

International significance

The discovery was made on 1 April by a joint team of divers from the Indian National Institute of Oceanography and the Scientific Exploration Society based in Dorset. Expedition leader Monty Halls said: "Our divers were presented with a series of structures that clearly showed man-made attributes. "The scale of the site appears to be extremely extensive, with 50 dives conducted over a three-day period covering only a small area of the overall ruin field.

"This is plainly a discovery of international significance that demands further exploration and detailed investigation."

During the expedition to the site, divers came across structures believed to be man-made. One of the buildings appears to be a place of worship, although they could only view part of what is a huge area suggesting a major city. 
Jealous Gods

The myths of Mahabalipuram were first set down in writing by British traveller J. Goldingham who visited the South Indian coastal town in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven Pagodas. The myths speak of six temples submerged beneath the waves with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore.

The myths also state that a large city once stood here which was so beautiful the gods became jealous and sent a flood that swallowed it up entirely in a single day. One of the expedition team, Graham Hancock, said: "I have argued for many years that the world's flood myths deserve to be taken seriously, a view that most Western academics reject.

"But here in Mahabalipuram we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong."

Scientists now want to explore the possibility that the city was submerged following the last Ice Age.

If this proves correct, it would date the discovery at more than 5,000 years old.

(source: Lost city found off Indian coast - BBC news.com April 11, 02). For more refer to chapter on Aryan Invasion Theory). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Diamomds were first mined in India

Knowledge of diamond and the origin of its many connations starts in India, where it was first mined. The word most generally used for diamond in Sanskrit is translitereated as vajra, "thunderbolt," and indrayudha, "Indra's weapon." Because Indra is the warrior god from Vedic scriptures, the foundation of Hinduism, the thunderbolt symbol indicates much about the Indian conception of diamond. The flash of lightning is a suitable comparison for the light thrown off by a fine diamond octahedron and a diamond's indomitable hardness. Early descriptions of vajra date to the 4th century BCE which is supported by archaeological evidence. By that date diamond was a valued material.

Writings: The earliest known reference to diamond is a Sanskrit manuscript, the Arthasastra ("The Lesson of Profit") by Kautiliya, a minister to Chandragupta of the Mauryan dynasty in northern India. The work is dated from 320-296 before the Common Era (BCE). Kautiliya states "(a diamond that is) big, heavy, capable of bearing blows, with symmetrical points, capable of scratching (from the inside) a (glass) vessel (filled with water), revolving like a spindle and brilliantly shining is excellent. That (diamond) with points lost, without edges and defective on one side is bad." Indians recognized the qualities of a fine diamond octahedron and valued it.

The "Ratnapariksa" of Buddha Bhatta is a 6th-century text on gems. The manuscript summarizes Indian knowledge about diamond, which it introduces through an origin myth -- a window into the culture's cosmology and values.

(source: American Museum of Natural History - http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/diamonds/india.html).

Looted Diamond on Exhibit in Canada

 The Idol's Eye diamond, a 70 carat stone and one of the most famous historical diamonds in the world. It adorned the forehead of a statue of Shiva in a Hindu temple close to the city of Nasik. No mention has been made of returning this looted artifact to Hindus.

(source: http://www.newswire.ca/releases/March2002/01/c6584.html )

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Bias English Media reporting on riots in India

The response to riots in the English-language media in India has been quite intriguing. The then Times of India editor, Dileep Padgaonkar, offers what amounts to a textbook illustration of biased anti-Hindu reporting in his book on the riots of January 1993, When Bombay Burned. 

When Hindus are killed by Muslims, he and his sub-editors stick to the Press Council rules, so that the violence is very impersonal and the perpetrators remain unidentified: Mobs, unidentified persons, or miscreants are words used...

But when a Muslim is the victim, we are left in no doubt about his communal identity. Consider also Time magazine’s reporting on the Mumbai riots of December 1992, about which nobody denies the Muslim initiative: “In nationwide communal riots that erupted after Hindu fanatics destroyed the Babri mosque in the town of Ayodhya, 1200 people were killed.” The Hindu attack on the Babri mosque was committed by “Hindu fanatics, of course, but the Muslim retaliation was not the handiwork of “Muslim” rioters, it merely “erupted.”

A regularly scheduled Sabarmati Express was carrying, in a few coaches, several hundred Hindu pilgrims, including many women and children, returning from a trip to Ayodhya, where they had participated in some rituals. A mob (Muslims) A mob of some 2000 people, apparently Muslims, then attacked the train with firebombs and acid bombs, and burned alive at least 57 people inside the locked coaches, including a dozen children.

Notice the muted criticism of the horrific incident of cold-blooded massacre at Godhra by the so-called secularists and compare it with the hue and cry raised by the same people at the doubtless gruesome killing of the Christian missionary Graham Staines a couple of years ago. Nobody in his right mind could have justified the killing of Staines. No, nobody. 

It seems our secularists have two sets of standards to gauge human tragedy. One is for people like Staines and other members of the minority community. And the other is for the large majority community. 

The cold-blooded massacre of the 'kar sevaks'does not evoke angry comment from the secularists and their accomplices among the editorialists precisely because they were 'kar sevaks'. That would explain why the secularists did not stall proceedings in Parliament on the Godhra outrage though they were foremost in creating a nation-wide shindy over the tragic killing of Staines. In this context, the statement issued by the AIADMK Supremo, J. Jayalalitha, is most apt. Chastising political leaders for making a crass differentiation between violence perpetrated against the majority and minority community, she said the Godhra outrage should be viewed as a crime against humanity." 

The secularist argument that the minority community needed special treatment and protection has over the years created a Hindu backlash. The secularists with their blind opposition to anything which respects the sentiments and wishes of the majority community have only helped to justify the rise of militant Hinduism.

(source: Secularists to blame - Free Press Journal).

The secular pack is outraged over the "fact" that Gujarat, the land of Mahatma Gandhi, which was an island of peace, has been set afire...

The first part of the statement (regarding Gandhi) is half-true and the rest is a total lie. No doubt Gandhi was born in Gujarat but so was Jinnah, the father of Pakistan. 

(source: Truth in Gujarat - By Balbir K Punj - Daily Pioneer.com April 25th 02). Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.

***

It is bad enough that hordes of out-of-work European Peeping Toms have descended on India to derive voyeuristic pleasure from the violence in Gujarat. Some of them are also indulging in wanton quackery by seeking to post-mortem the events.

(source: Lay Off India - Editorial - Daily Pioneer.com - April 23, 02). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

Double standards in Godhra?

"That the victims were Hindus is enough to change the conduct of the secular establishment. It establishes that the secular rule of standing by the victims will not apply if the victims were Hindus. A different test will apply to them - that is, whether the Hindu victims perished by their own wrongs. Another question. ``When Graham Staines and his children were burnt alive,'' he asked, ``did we say that Christian missionaries had made themselves unpopular by engaging in conversion, and so, they had it coming? `No', he said, 'of course, we didn't.''

(source: Promoting secularism by lies _ admissions and confessions - By S. Gurumurthy). For more on Indian Secularism refer to chapter on Glimpses X).

In Hindu-majority India, secularism has become a tool to justify the wrongs done by the minorities. Two, the pseudo-secularist media indulges the minorities almost to the point of being anti-Hindu. It dismissed the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits and the burning alive of Hindus in Godhra, but was outraged by the retaliatory attacks on Muslims.

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says about the Godhra victims: they were all “activists”! All 58 women, men and children charred to death in the train compartment had branded on their foreheads a vermilion mark that surely indicated to the world that they were dreaded Hindu 'activists'.

(source: A Left-Right Upper-Cut To The RSS - By Ramesh Rao - sulekha.com).

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US Army report: Indian Islam benefits from Indian tolerance

"The frequency and intensity of interfaith violence has decreased impressively over the past half century. Given that Muslims make up at least 12 per cent of India's billion people, and given the poverty that still afflicts much of its population, India could be regarded as an emerging model of tolerance," Ralph Peters, a retired US Army officer said in an article in the Army War College's Quarterly Journal. 

"India is a rule-of-law state, displaying surprising religious diversity within its government and armed forces."

(source: Times of India).

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Saraswati Vandana 

Saraswati Vandana is a beautiful poem to art, culture and spirituality. 

It is a praise of learning not the promotion of any church or prophet. “Saraswati Vandana is unsecular,” said the Marxists. That is why pure secularists even scorn the idea of lighting lamps at functions - because it is a Hindu symbol. But in the US, the Government declares a whole year as ‘Bible Year’ - that does not make the Government unsecular. But here a mere suggestion - which would never become a decision unless all the great men, and the greatest woman from Italy agree today - that Upanishads and Vedas should be taught in schools ‘is regarded as communal and imposing the ‘Hindu Agenda’. Ronald Reagan was not charged with imposing the Christian Agenda when he declared 1983 as the ‘Year of the Bible’ in the US. The “secularists” have convinced the minorities that secularism means rejecting everything that has a Hindu origin.

When he moved the resolution for the declaration, Reagan said: “Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, in recognition of the contribution and influence of the Bible on our Republic and our people, do hereby proclaim 1983 the ‘Year of the Bible’ in the USA. I encourage all citizens in his or her own way to re-examine and rediscover its priceless and timeless message.” His appeal was to all citizens - not just to Christians.

There is in it no insistence on any  one God, book or savior, salvation for the true believers and eternal damnation for those who think differently. The song projects lofty human ideals and nothing of religious sectarianism or exclusivism. But such a Saraswati must be suspect in modern India. The cry against Saraswati is being led by Sonia Gandhi, the last Gandhi one could say, an Italian Catholic who has received the Gandhian mantle by widowhood alone. Sonia should remember the example of Mahatma Gandhi who regularly conducted prayer meetings, praised the Bhagavad Gita and chanted the name of Rama.

Among those who approved the singing of Vande Mataram at the Nagpur Congress was Mahatma Gandhi. 

In early 1998, there was a totally unnecessary furore about singing Vande Mataram in schools. Patriots who are ‘normal’ rather than ‘secular’ questioned: if freedom fighters of all religions sang this in the struggle for Independence, why do the secularists oppose singing it in schools now? Did any MP object when Parliament unanimously decided to sing it at the beginning of every session as suggested by the then Speaker and now Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shivraj Patil? It was a shame that the BJP retreated while the popular musician A.R. Rahman, a Muslim, popularised it amongst the youth.

Today those who claim to be the political heirs of Mahatma Gandhi are boycotting Saraswati Vandana. Dr. Annie Besant and Sister Nivedita, upheld all that is Hindu in origin as the main inspiration for them to serve India. Annie Besant said: “Minus Hinduism, India is irrelevant.” In raising a mighty national awakening that transformed into the movement for India’s freedom. Swami Vivekananda and Maharishi Aurobindo who built the intellectual foundation for the freedom movement were influenced by all that our secularists from India and Italy call unsecular - the Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita. Balgangadhar Tilak wrote the Gita Rahasya as the guide for his participation in the independence movement. Mahatma Gandhi said that but for reading the Gita he would have committed suicide. Whether it is Guru Tegh Bahadur or Guru Gobind Singh, who sacrificed everything, including their lives to protect the Vedas and the Cow, or a Ravidas or a Surdas, a Nandanar or Sri Narayana Guru, their inspiration came only from ancient Indian thought. 

The West meanwhile is looking to the Dharmic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism to provide a spiritual alternative to modern materialist culture. If so-called Indian secularists have their way, those traditions would be no more and India great gift to the world would be eliminated. What they want is a new India without Saraswati or Dharma.

(source: Saraswati Vandana - pragna.org). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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V. S. Naipaul on Hinduism's resurgence

The change in their thinking has come about due to a resurgence of Hinduism, as reflected in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.  On this, V S Naipaul, in an interview with The Times of India (July 18, 1993), had the following to say: 

"What is happening in India is a new historical awakening .... Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening .... (T)he intellectuals have a duty to perform.  The duty is the use of the mind.  It is not enough for intellectuals to chant their liberal views or to abuse what is happening.  To use the mind is to reject the grosser aspects of this vast emotional upsurge .... (I)t is not enough to use that fashionable word from Europe: fascism. There is a big, historical development going on in India. Wise men should understand it and ensure that it does not remain in the hands of fanatics. Rather they should use it for the intellectual transformation of India." 

It is becoming quite clear that the intellectuals have failed in their duty.

In an interview with French newspaper, Le Monde, Naipaul said:

"I know that people charge me with such ideas! But to speak of Hindu fundamentalism, is a contradiction in terms, it does not exist. Hinduism is not this kind of religion. You know, there are no laws in Hinduism. And there are many forces in Hinduism that do not take the form of the BJP. 

My interest in these popular movements is due to the pride they restore to their adherents in a country ravaged by five or six centuries of brutal government by Muslim invaders. These populations, in particular the peasantry, have been so crushed, that any movement provides a certain sense of pride. The leftists who claim that these wretched folk are fascists are wrong. It's absurd. I think that they are only reclaiming a little of their own identity. We can't discuss it using a Western vocabulary." 

(source: Naipaul – Hindu fundamentalist? Le Monde interview 07 Dec. 01). 

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Hinduism and the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India

Koenraad Elst, a Belgian who has closely studied and written about Hinduism and the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India. In February 1991, in the introduction of his book Ayodhya and After, he wrote the bitter truth about this nation: 

"The struggle of Hindu society is not primarily with the Muslim community. The most important opponents of Hindu society today are not the Islamic communal leaders, but the interiorized colonial rulers of India, the alternated English-educated and mostly Left-leaning elite that noisily advertise its secularism ... keep Hinduism down and prevent it from proudly raising its head after a thousand years of oppression. The worst torment for Hindu society today is not the arrogant and often violent agitation from certain minority groups, nor the handful of privileges which the non-Hindu communities are getting. The worst problem is this mental slavery ... which Leftist intellectuals, through their power positions in education and the media, and their direct influence on the public and political arena, keep on inflicting on the Hindu mind".

(source: Secular state, Hindu nation - By M. C. Joshi).

All these cries of "We are not Hindus", which are mostly coupled with separatist demands, are partly the result of the over-all image of weakness which Hinduism has continued to acquire during the last few centuries. Nobody wants to belong to such a weak community with so little self- respect. The day Hinduism shows strength, all these separatists will proudly declare : "We are Hindus". They will even shout at each other: "We are better Hindus than you".

(source: Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst).

Lets Be Hindus first 

"If Hindus were intolerant, there wouldn't be 200 million Muslims in India today. You can hardly say 200 million Muslims are a minority in India? or that Indian government pays each Muslim 20,000 rupees to go to Mecca when Hindus do not get a single paisa to go to Kashi?

(source: Lets be Hindus First - Letter to the Editor India Abroad April 19, 02).

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Cotton in India is the "King of Crops

"Cotton in India is the "King of Crops" and is also the "White Gold" of India. The history of Cotton is as old as the history of India. From time immemorial, India was the only country known for its cotton fabrics, the rest of the world being clad in wool. An examination of the samples of apparel found in the excavation at Mohen-jo-daro disclosed to the world the height of excellence reached in the manufacture of cotton textiles on India some 5000 years ago.

In fact, for over 3000 years (1500 BC to AD 1700) India was recognized as the cradle of the cotton industry. The earliest reference to cotton is found in the Rig-Veda written about 1500 BC. More than a thousand years later, the great Greek historian Herodotus testified that Indians possessed "a kind of plant, which, instead of fruit, produces wool, of a finer and better quality than that of sheep : of this the Indians make their clothes". Soon India had a flourishing trade in cotton textiles with Greece, Egypt, Persia and the Roman Empire. For twenty centuries thereafter, Indian cotton fabrics clothed the kings, the nobles and the slaves alike in most parts of the Old World.

...even the British rulers of India could not neglect Indian cotton. For practically till the end of the eighteenth century, no source of supply of cotton other than India was known to the world. Even as early as in 1764, India exported about 10,000 bales of cotton to Great Britain... "

(source: History of Cotton).

But of course conventional knowledge as taught to us by the text books published by NCERT tell us that cotton was introduced to India by the British.

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Hindu Koh - The Indian Mountain

After every conquest by a Muslim invader, slave markets in Demascus, Ghazni, Baghdad, and Samarkand were flooded with Hindus. Slaves were likely to die of hardship, eg. the mountain range Hindu Koh, "Indian Mountain", was renamed Hindu Kush, "Hindu-Killer" when one cold night in the reign of Timur Lenk (1398-99), a hundred thousand Hindu slaves died there while on transport to Central Asia. Though Timur conquered Delhi from another Muslim ruler, he recorded in his journal that he made sure his pillaging soldiers spared the Muslim quarter, while in the Hindu areas, they took "twenty slaves each". Hindu slaves were converted to Islam, and when their descendents gained their freedom, they swelled the numbers of the Muslim  community. It is a cruel twist of history that the Muslims who forced Partition of India were by and large the progeny of Hindus enslaved by Islam. 

(source: The Saffron Swastika - By Koenraad Elst Voice of India ISBN 8185990697 p. 827).

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Saffron in India Flag

The Indian flag is symbolic of India's struggle for freedom. The three colours used in the flag are again symbolic, where 'Saffron' used on the top denotes Patriotism, Courage, Sacrifice and the Spirit of Renunciation. 'White' in the middle stands for Peace, Purity and Truth, whilst 'Green' at the bottom denotes Prosperity, Faith and Fertility. A navy blue wheel with 24 spokes in the centre of the flag indicates the Dharma Chakra representing the wheel of law prevalent in Sarnath, the erstwhile capital of Ashok the great.

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Har Har Mahadev

Shiva continues Indra's role of warrior god. Till today, many Shiva sadhus are proficient in martial arts. The Shaiva war-cry Har Har Mahadev is still used by some regiments of the Indian army. It is a very effective battlefield mantra instilling fear in the enemies of Hinduism, was clear from secularists' demand to cut out the Har Har Mahadev sequences from the Chanakya TV-serial (broadcast in truncated version on Doordarshan in 1992).

(source: Indigenous Indians : Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst   p.41).

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Tribals and the British

According to Suresh Desai :

"The British imperialists had various ideas for the conversion of tribals in India.  They wanted to sow the seeds of division, dissension and separatism in the Hindu society to perpetuate their own rule. 

That's why the 1871 census described the tribals as animists.  

Animists means people who worship spirits and propitiate them. It is indeed very difficult to define where Hinduism ends and tribalism begins.

But when I go to my village, I see there my own cousins doing yoga for meditation in the morning and indulging in worshipping the spirits of the ancestors, the Kuldaivata, the gram daivata, the Vetala and the Cobra in the evening.  Would you say that they are Hindus in the morning and animists in the evening?  Some of them are extremely well-versed in the subtlest nuances of the philosophies of Hinduism. Even Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi have been organically imbedded in this what you may call animist past.  Hinduism is a continuous process of evolution over the last thousands or perhaps lakhs of years.  Some people moved up by the elevator, some people are coming up the ladder rung by rung.  But they are the same people. Hinduism has developed from animism to the subtle and scintillating philosophies of the Gita and the Upanishadas. 

But when I go to my village, I see there my own cousins doing yoga for meditation in the morning and indulging in worshipping the spirits of the ancestors, the Kuldaivata, the gram daivata, the Vetala and the Cobra in the evening.  Would you say that they are Hindus in the morning and animists in the evening?  Some of them are extremely well-versed in the subtlest nuances of the philosophies of Hinduism. Even Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi have been organically imbedded in this what you may call animist past.  Hinduism is a continuous process of evolution over the last thousands or perhaps lakhs of years.  Some people moved up by the elevator, some people are coming up the ladder rung by rung.  But they are the same people. Hinduism has developed from animism to the subtle and scintillating philosophies of the Gita and the Upanishadas.

(For more refer to chapter on Conversion, European Imperialism and First Indologists). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

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Europeanization of the Earth

Christian Europe has always believed that it has the divinely ordained mission of bringing all heathendom under the domain of the Church; similarly at the dawn of modern period, Imperial Europe felt heavily the "white man's burden of civilizing the world".  Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859-1938) says: "Naturally, the Europeanization of all foreign parts of the world" is the destiny of the earth. God made Europe in His own image, and now the rest of mankind will be made in the image of Europe. M. Heidegger (1889-1976) also refers to the "complete Europeanization of the earth and of mankind", but he is less proud about it. Recently, Dr. Francis Fukuyama, a scholar and official of the United States, wrote an essay, The End of History, which was widely discussed. It celebrated the "triumph of the West, the Western idea." Many Afro-Asian countries tried to go western in the hope of acquiring the West's power or even approval, but without success. Some of these countries like Brazil and Mexico failed even in the more external forms. They tried to adopt Western patterns of industrialization but their harvest has been colossal debts, inflation, economic bankruptcy, and great social upheaval. It is clear that whatever the adjustments it is necessary for the non-European countries to make, the path of imitation is hardly the path of their salvation.

Thanks to West's glamour and its technological achievements in many fields, it is not widely and fully realized that Europeanization has also meant the externalization of the Spirit. What will happen if the Afro-Asian countries also become consumers and polluters on the European scale? What the earth, including Europe, needs is not Europeanization, but a new philosophy, a new life-style which is in harmony with man's spiritual nature and ecological system.

Europeanization of the earth may satisfy the West's ego, but the satisfaction will be short-loved. The West does not realize how deep is man's including its own, present spiritual crisis. 

(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup p.121-123).

The West has entirely lost its transcendental moorings. Once the utmost sensual pleasure of the individual is given the highest social priority, economic laws quite naturally become all-pervasive. Occidental civilization nowadays is indeed all about the maximization of profit and the optimization of production. Ironically, in the process, human beings are reduced to no more than irritating, irrational factors, likely to mess up production, statistics and cybernetics. Thus, liberated Western man loses his dignity while, supposedly, ‘realizing himself’. The West-in spite of being in such great trouble-has the nerve to offer itself as the obligatory model for every other nation. Cultures not willing to imitate the West are under threat of being marginalized. This was the true message when Francis Fukuyama, in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, proclaimed the “end of history.” What he was saying was that the so-called Project of Modernity, also known as the American Way of Life or Macdonaldization, is the peak of civilization, unsurpassable for all times.

(source: Dr. Hoffman comments on End of History). (For more refer to chapter on Conversion, European Imperialism and First Indologists).

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Celebrate 'Basant Panchmi' instead of Valentine's Day?

Legend behind Who was Valentine?

In one story it is said that Valentine was a priest that secretly married couples, defying the law of Emperor Claudius which temporarily forbid marriages. Valentine was imprisoned for refusing to worship pagan  gods. Making friends with the jailers daughter, he is said to have cured her through prayer, and on the date of his execution (Feb. 14th) he is said to written her a  not signed "Your Valentine". The one thing we can be sure of is that at least one person by the name of Valentine did live and that he was killed for being a Christian. Beyond this we are on shaky ground.

The 14th of February was set apart as the special day to remember Saint Valentine. This was one day before the Roman feast of Lupercalia, a pagan love festival. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius changed Lupercalia from the 15th to the 14th to try and stop the pagan celebration. The church realized that there was nothing wrong with celebrating love, only the pagan elements insulted God. Lupercalia was done away with, but it had left it's mark on Saint Valentine's Day.

(source: http://www.bright.net/~magates/Valentine/).

Refer to Lupercalia – the true origin of Valentine’s Day and Whip My Roman Sex Gods: You want the true Valentine's Day? Forget roses and candy, sweetheart, and kneel before the Lupercalia - sfgate.com.

Basant Panchmi

Hindu groups have appealed to the country's youth to boycott the 'Western festival' and instead observe the 'Basant Panchmi' as a day of love and friendship in a 'decent Indian way'. Unmarried couples get societal license for sex on the day of Saint Valentine's day. How ironic of a Saint to permit licentious behavior!   Indian value system places ultra-importance for a bramacharya to gain inner control over this all-consuming primal force and direct it toward the Supreme Brahman. Unwed people celebrating valentines day will most definitely lead to "sex before marriage", unwed mothers and other social ills that plague western society. Western societies have excellent government programs to tackle social issues and steer clear of catastrophic disasters like AIDS and other STDS. Hindu festivals are banned in the Northeast.

Indian youth was imitating the Western values at a time when the Western people were increasingly attracted to Indian ethos. It is ironic that even after celebrating Valentine's Day, the West has the highest divorce rates in the world.  According the Scientific American magazine: Divorce rates in most Western countries are much higher now than they were before 1970, probably resulting in part from the growing economic independence of women, which makes it easier for wives to walk away from bad marriages. Only 67 percent of American women aged 35 to 44 were legally married as of 1998. In Britain, divorce rates are up as well according to ABCNews.com May 17.2002). It is an indirect imposition of cultural change and consumerism for the benefit of big businesses. It has nothing to do with any religion at all nor with expression of love.

The festival of Basant Panchmi heralds the arrival of spring. Throughout the world, Spring is welcomed as the season of hope and rebirth. It is in this spirit that this festival is celebrated in the school. Saraswati puja is a festival dedicated to the Indian Goddess of learning and fine arts. Considering the emphasis laid on both these aspects in the school, it is befitting that the students worship the Goddess and seek her blessings. A clay idol of the Goddess is made and beautifully adorned by the students themselves. They give vent to their creativity and their reward is a deep sense of accomplishment. After traditional worship, the idol is immersed in the river Ganges. A solo music competition is also organized and students are encouraged to enhance their musical capabilities. This festival -- although it involves the worship of a Hindu Goddess -- is truly secular in character since Art knows no boundaries, and neither does Spring.

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Silk - The Indian context

Whether the culture of silk was native to India, and thus independent of China — tussur, eri and muga are the silks that one clearly knows to be Indian — will always remain a question: the arguments for and against are too complex to go into here, even in outline. But one Sanskrit word for silk that we commonly come upon in early literature is of interest: it is kausheya, from kosha, which stands, among a number of other things, for a sheath, a pod, a receptacle, a membrane covering an egg, and, more specifically, for the cocoon of a silk-worm. The Smritis of Yajnavalkya and Manu speak of kausheya and kosha, as does the Mahabharata. In the last-mentioned, in fact, there is a passage that is often cited in the context of the history of silk in India. When Yudhishthira established his kingdom, this passage states: "The Cheenas and the Hunas from the mountains brought tribute to Yudhishthira, silk and silkworms."

Varanasi, formerly Banaras, and mentioned in Pali literature as Kasi, was reputed for its silk. Kasi Kuttami and Kasiya were generic terms for certain silks. In the second century B.C, Patanjali mentions Kasiya as a silk superior to that manufactured in Mathura.
Silk-weaving of dhotis, saris and chaddars probably commenced in the pilgrim centre of Varanasi. It was imperative for these to be in pure silk as they were required for puja purposes. This tradition exists today also. A Chinese queen, Sing-Ling-te, who invented the first loom was worshipped after her death as Goddess of Silkworm. Chinese silk was a fashionable evening wear in Egypt. Pliny disapproved of it. Silk was a commodity which linked the Orient to the Occident.

(source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/20011202/spectrum/art.htm)

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Communal parity will aggravate crisis - says Columnists Sandhya Jain

Swami Vivekananda has said: A Hindu fanatic may burn himself on a pyre, but he will never light the fire of Inquisition under another being. Hinduism separated political and religious power from the beginning, and thus had no problems in embracing democracy and adjusting to the values of the modern age. The East India Company established control over major parts of the country, the Mutiny led to direct Crown rule, and the British soon realized the value of pampering the Muslim community. The story of Partition is well-known.

At the same time, we need to understand that what distinguishes Gujarat from previous communal riots is that Hindus have felt so affronted by the initial provocation that they have been unable to rein in their emotions. Rather than condemning the entire community, we should ponder why the civilisationally pacifist Hindu has been goaded to this pass.

Much of the problem lies with the real and perceived bias of the media, justice-dispensing bodies, and politicians. As a result, minorityism has run riot. 

As former Supreme Court judge Mr Kuldip Singh has said, "Indian secularism has been reduced to apologetic communalism. The minorities must realise that they cannot disown the culture, heritage and history which happen to be in sync with the Hindu way of life. Minorityism cannot and should not be allowed to become a sub-text of anti-nationalism". 

(source: India Today, April 8).

Eminent citizens are beginning to realize that there is need to look at some issues from a Hindu viewpoint.

(source: Communal parity will aggravate crisis - By Sandhya Jain).

A Hindu, in sharp contrast, is one who runs scared from all the symbols, precepts and practices of his faith.  Hinduism embraces all, even those who may openly discard it.  For eclecticism is at the core of Hindu religion. 

(source: Secularism is a mask Muslims wear to hide their separatist agenda - Virendra Kapoor - Free Press Journal April 14' 02).

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Puppetry was introduced to Indonesia from India 

Puppetry was introduced to Indonesia about 900 years ago by traders and immigrants from India, Arabia, and China. In wayang kulit, the dalang sits on a mat behind an illuminated screen, manipulating the puppets to cast their shadows. The stories are sometimes based on local Javanese tales but more often on Javanese adaptations of the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. 

The ancient world of the Indonesian wayang kulit, Indonesia's renowned shadow puppets, is fast disappearing. Sugiri, 47, a well-known dalang, or puppeteer, is carrying on a family tradition that goes back more than 300 years. "All my family and relatives can play dalang or play the instruments," said Sugiri. But although the wayang kulit retains a hard-core following on Java, the traditional puppet shows are struggling to maintain their popularity in an increasingly urbanized country awash in foreign soap operas and other cultural imports. Some Indonesians are fearful that they are fighting a losing battle to save their signature art form. There are only a few schools left where students can learn how to make and perform with the traditional puppets. Indonesia's economic crisis of the past four years has quickened wayang's retreat, making performances too expensive for many people.

(source: :http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/002/nation/Puppetry_loses_allure_in_Indonesia+.shtml). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor and Seafaring in Ancient India).

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Image Worship in the British Rule

Much was said on Image worship in the preliminary period of the British Rule in India. It was the time when the missionaries who fondly anticipated to evangelize the East, were directing their first offensive against our spiritual fortresses. And they pitched upon the idol worship as one of the weakest point in the complete structure. The world was in their accounting divided into two enemy camps; the image worshippers and the worshippers of pure God. All the Hindus were to be indiscriminately swept into the first category and the advanced faiths of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism were allotted to a dignified place in the next class. 

It is no wonder then that while the missionaries in their enthusiasm thought they were shaking the very center of the Hindu system, they were really breaking their hands against the outermost borders of the system. Our sleep or digestion was not disturbed by the hammer-strokes of these zealots. 'Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un wrung.' We were quite assured that whatever may be the result of the idol-worship in the world, Hinduism would not be affected by it. It was not an essential feature of the Great Faith, under the powerful wings of which we have based ourselves, much less was it the center of it. Idol worship may come and go, but Hinduism will remain forever. It is a Sanatana faith, one which does not only rule either the past, or the present, or the future, but for all time.

Image worship is a symbolic worship. It is the worship of supernatural realities through the symbols which are thought to represent them best. It is the translation for the present, of the infinite in terms of the finite, of the spiritual in terms of the material...In words of Alfred Lyall who said: "Idolatry is only the hieroglyphic writ large in popular character..."

Now these debates provoked by the attacks of an aggressive Christianity are mostly dead. The great offensive has spent itself. Yet backed by mighty organization, financed by missionaries, supported by the authorities that be, the missionaries, efforts have taken another paths. The efforts have grown more subtle; but nonetheless it is equally ineffective. Conscious missionary efforts have failed; but the new environment came into our country by the western education is very effective in uprooting the fabric of our time-honored beliefs. 

(source: Ancient Hindu Culture - By V. D. Ojha p. 99-106). (For more refer to chapter on Conversion, European Imperialism and First Indologists).

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Saguna/Nirguna approach to the Divine

Belgium scholar Koenraad Elst has pointed out the polytheism in other religions.  "The Catholic Church has solved the problem of polytheism by re-introducing polytheism through the back door: Catholics worship many different aspects of the Divine. You have the Trinity (like Hindu Trimurti), the Son Crucified, the Son Resurrected and Glorified, the Holy Heart, the Virgin Mary in all her different aspects. Mother of Sorrow, Intercessory, Immaculate) and with own litany of names (Queen of the Angels, Morning Star, Ivory Tower, Seat of Wisdom etc.,) and the galaxy of Saints. This endless list of specific relations of the Divine with the worshipper, i.e. of aspects or face of the Divine, is what Hindus call the saguna ("with a specific quality") understanding the Divine."

The Saguna approach to the Divine is the usual way of worship. It makes use of visual representations, or idols. It makes use of verbal representations, the names of the object of worship, listed in litanies or chalisas. Denying people the right to use idols as a focussing tool, and at the same time conceiving of the Divine as "Father" or "Creator" or "the Merciful", the Compassionate" or "the Timeless Indweller", is a contradiction: the idol is nothing but a visual materialization of the underlying concept, the visual form merely expresses the mental form. If God must not be given form in stone, he should not have a form in mind either. The rituals which Hindus do before an idol, the Sikhs do before a copy of the Guru Granth, Muslims keep an image of the Kaaba or a calligraphy of the opening verse of the Quran. Idol-worshippers know that their idol is only a chosen form representing something beyond form. Idol-breakers have such a crude idea of the Divine, that they limit it to their own accepted category or idols (Arab calligraphy, crucifix, Guru Granth, Omkara in Gurumukhi script) and deny it elsewhere.

Complimentary to the saguna understanding is the nirguna ("without quality, formless") Here, the Divine is understood as not participating in the phenomenal world. The Divine is changeless, formless and not in opposition with anything. It cannot be mentally conceived, as the mental process implies delimitation. The nirguna God cannot have any qualities like Compassionate, Just, Jealous. He cannot be in any relation to anything like, Creator, Father. He cannot be situated in a specific place or pilgrimage, neither Kashi nor Kaaba. he cannot intervene in the phenomenal world, not through a Chosen People because He is impartial, not through a Be-gotten Son, nor through Messengers or Prophet. A God who speaks, is ipso facto not nirguna. The only way to approach him through silent meditation. 

(source: Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam - By Koenraad Elst  p.155).

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Tamil Sangam

The Sangam Age in South India is a landmark in her history. Dr. K. K. Pillai writes that: "The Sangam is unique institution of the early Tamils. It has lent its name to a number of classical works with the result that Sangam literature and Sangam Age have acquired certain specific connotations, though in respect of details, doubt still continue to persist."

The word Sangam is the Tamil form of the Sanskrit word Sangha which means a group of persons or an association. The Tamil Sangam was an academy of poets and bards who flourished in three different periods and in different places under the patronage of the Pandyan kings. According to the tradition, the first Sangam was founded by Sage Agastya and its seat was Thenmadurai (South Madurai) which is said to have submerged in the sea. Agastya had settled as a hermit at the top of Mount Podiyam, not far from Kodaikkanal, where he wrote the grammar, which is now lost, but is the source of all later Tamil grammar. His disciples were twelve grammarians, and in addition a few doctors, for he was very knowledgeable on all subjects. One of the twelve, Tolkappiyar, was the author of the oldest Tamil grammar to be handed down, called Tolkappiyam. 

The first Sangam lasted 4,400 years and crowned 4,449 poets and was patronized by 89 kings.; the second Sangam rewarded 3,700 poets in 3,700 years; and in third, which sat at Madurai, lasted 1,850 years and awarded prizes to 449 poets. 

The eminent members of the first Sangam were Agastya, Murugavel, Mudinagarayar, Murinjiyur etc. The important works of this Sangam were agathiyam, Paripadal, Mudukurugu and Kalariyavirai. 

The seat of the second Sangam was Kavadapuram, another capital of the Pandyas which is also mentioned in the Sanskrit Ramayana was also in the submerged areas. 

Many of the poems constituting the Sangam anthologies was also the twin epics of Silappadikaram or Manimekalai describe a society the general features of which are borne out by references we get from the Greek and Roman classical writers of the early centuries of the Christian era. 

(source: Ancient India - By V. D. Mahajan p. 795 and Larousse World Mythology – Edited by Pierre Grimal p. 267).

For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor

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Taj Mahal - Indian Icon?

Long marginalized, Hindu nationalism is becoming mainstream in India. Indeed, more than 50 years after independence from Britain, many Indians invoke memories of past invasions so that future generations will not be too pacifistic.

"You can turn the other cheek for only so long," a female friend commented during my visit. "Sometimes you have to show the world that you are proud."

Educated women seem to be on the forefront of the Hindu nationalistic movement today. Many now join peasants in their annual trek to the Kumbh Mela and other spiritual gatherings.

Unless future American foreign policy takes Hindu nationalism into account, violence in the subcontinent may well escalate, and might lead to a military, even a nuclear, conflict.

Standing in the visa line at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco recently, I noticed the large picture of the Taj Mahal covering an entire wall. "Isn't it ironic," I said to a friend, "that the one icon most people identify with India happens to be a Muslim tomb?"

"I wish they would use a picture of the Minakshi Temple instead," she replied. The temple is Hindu. 

(source: U.S. Policy Should Acknowledge Hindu Nationalism - By Sarita Sarvate). For more refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught).

Watch History of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.

***

Dr. Ernest Binfield Havell (1861-1934) principal to the Madras College of Art in the 1890s and left as principal of the Calcutta College of Art some 20 years later. His major ideas about Indian art theory are to be found in his two works, Indian Sculpture and Painting (1908) and, more important, The Ideals of Indian Art (1911). 

He has written about the civilizing influence of Hindu art on the invaders: 

"It is very important to remember also that from motives of self-interest, and not from any respect for art, these ferocious invaders, who massacred wholesale men, women, and children of the general population, usually spared the artisans and craftsmen,  and thus preserved for their own uses the art-traditions of the countries they ravaged and desolated. Skilled craftsmen were always the prizes of war, and when an uncivilized race like the Mongols triumphed over a highly cultivated one the craftsmen of the defeated became the teachers of the victors; this transplantation into a new soil brought new vigor into art, and was the beginning of great developments. When Timur the ancestor of the Indian Moghul dynasty, withdrew his hordes from northern India in 1398, after ravaging it with fire and sword, he took back with him as captives all the masons who had built that famous mosque of Ferozabad, in order that they might build one like it at Samarkhand. This Indian art fulfilled once more its civilizing mission, and when two and half centuries later Timur’s descendant…”   

(source: The Art Heritage of India - By Ernest Binfield Havell p. 77-78). For more refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught and Hindu Art).

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Admirers of Hinduism

Sir Edmund Hillary declared, after a journey along the Ganga and visiting many ashrams:

"I became a Hindu. I was very close to the Hindu ethic. It was a great spiritual experience." 

This was unbearable to the Hindu - baiters present, so the press conference continued with a product of modern Indian education: "When it was pointed out to him that having faith in the Hindu ethic essentially involved a belief in destiny " (predetermination), Sir Edmund remarked :"No, not in that sense. I believe a man can make his own destiny through his work and effort". No matter what faults you may be able to find with Hindu doctrine, belief in predetermination and impotence in the face of destiny (which is very much present in Islam) is not one of them. As Hillary correctly pointed out to these illiterate press people, a man makes his own destiny through his own effort. And that is not a modern novelty, it is precisely the meaning of the age-old karma doctrine: we make our destiny through our own actions.

Microcomputer pioneer Adam Osborne thinks India has the potential to be the next Japan. Want he has in mind is technological achievement and a vibrant economy, nothing hazy and rapturous. But the clue to this very tangible kind of greatness is pride: "There is no doubt in my mind that India is one of the great financial success stories of the future. The curse of India is that Indians lack pride in being Indian. The moment they have that pride, India will be the next Japan."

(source: Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst). 

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Moplah rebellion

The Muslim community of the Moplahs of Malabar are the products of union between Muslim merchants from Arabia and the women on the west coast of India. 

In August 192, the Muslim Moplahs in Malabar pronounced jihad against the Hindus there. The Hindus had been lulled into a false sense of security by the slogans of Hindu-Muslim unity raised by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress in their support of the Khilafat movement started by Muslims in 1919 with the dual objective of restoring the liquidated Khilafat and the Turkish empire after the British had won the First World War with Muslim co-operation, but broken its reciprocal promise of protecting the seat of the caliph and the Turkish empire, notwithstanding the latter's defeat.

Thousands of these misled and beguiled Hindus were massacred by the Moplahs; thousands of their houses burned for days together and the number of forced circumcisions defied enumeration. The whole savagery was so pronounced that even the British government, which normally sided with the Muslims, had to resort to its army to end the four-month genocide (Threat of Islam: Indian Dimensions, Unnati Prakashan, 1994, by B N Jog, pg 155).

(source: Why 'secular' history repeats itself - By Arvind Lavakare - rediff.com).

Although the Khilafat Movement fizzled out in 1921 itself, propaganda was set afloat among Kerala's local Muslims -- the Moplahs -- that the British regime had ended and Khilafat had been reinstated. The time to eliminate all kafirs had come, they were told. The Moplahs followed it up by anointing one Mohommed Haji as their Caliph and proclaimed jihad -- against the British first and, after being defeated by the colonialists, against the Hindus. According to the Report of the Enquiry Committee of the Servants of India Society, the number of Hindus murdered was 1,500, the number of those forcibly converted was 20,000 and property looted was assessed at about Rs 30 million, while the molestation and abduction of Hindu women was apparently endless. 

In The future of Indian politics: a contribution to the understanding of present-day problems page 252, Dr Annie Wood Besant (1847-1933) social reformer and leading Theosophist, wrote, 

"They murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatise. Somewhere about a lakh (100,000) of people were driven from their homes with nothing but their clothes they had on, stripped of everything."

(source: Of Sabarmati secularism & non-violence - By Arvind Lavakare - rediff.com). For more refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught).

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Unity in Diversity

Some Westerners interested in the history of India are puzzled at her many contrasting features such as the splendor of her temples, mosques and tombs alongside her villages, and the wonderful way in which India has assimilated strands of the different cultures with which she came in contact at the same time retaining the essentials of her own culture has attracted the attention of several historians. In spite of countless revolutions the people have managed to maintain the spirit of the immemorial past. 

Indeed as a British historian puts it India is a 'land, vast, unknown, unknowable, where the keenest Western minds, after a lifetime of endeavor, profess that they know no more of the inner being of the people than they did at the beginning."

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Brahminism or Hinduism

The term Brahminism to designate the religion of the Hindus was erroneously applied first by the Orientalists in Europe. 

It has no support in any sacred texts of the Hindus. "Hinduism" has been accepted by usage to stand for Santana Dharma particularly in its applications to the visesa dharma of the Hindus. 

Brahminism or Hinduism' is not only the oldest of the mystery religions, or rather metaphysical disciplines, of which we have a full and precise knowledge from literary sources, and as regards the last two thousand years also from iconographic documents, but also perhaps the only one of these that has survived with an unbroken tradition and that is lived and understood at the present day by many millions of men, of whom some are peasants and others learned men well able to explain their faith in European as well as in their own languages. Nevertheless, and although the ancient and modern scriptures and practices of Hinduism have been examined by European scholars for more than a century, it would be hardly an exaggeration to say that a faithful account of Hinduism might well be given in the form of a categorical denial of most of the statements that have been made about it by European scholars and by Indians trained in our modern skeptical and evolutionary modes of thought.

(source: Hinduism and Buddhism: New Edition. Edited by K. N. Iyengar and Rama P. Coomaraswamy   p.3). (For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists).

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Kalidasa - The Towering genius of Ancient India

The towering genius of the ancient India is Kalidasa. He is recognized as one of the world's greatest poets. It is unfortunate that we do not have sufficient details of his life. 

Tradition associates the nine gems of Sanskrit literature with Vikramaditya of Ujjain, the most brilliant among them being Kalidasa, 'the prince of Sanskrit poets and dramatists.'  

Scholars associate Kalidasa with the legendary Vikramaditya of the first century B.C.E. on the ground that Asvaghosha borrowed from Kalidasa and that Malavikagnimitra places Kalidasa near the age of the Sungas rather than in the Gupta times. Kalidasa's chief poems are the Raghuvamsa, or the 'story of the Race of Raghu' the Kumarasambhava or 'Birth of the War god' the Ritusamhara or 'Cycle of Seasons' and the Meghaduta or 'Cloud Messenger', a lyrical gem which won the admiration of Goethe.

Kalidasa's three plays, Malavikagnimitra or 'The Friendship of Malavika and Agnimitra', Vikramorvasi or 'Urvasi won by valor' and Shakuntala; the last is recognized on all hands to be the greatest of all the classical Sanskrit dramas. Vivid portraiture, compact and elegant expression and an ardent love of Nature, mark his poems and drama.

(source: Advanced History of India - By Nilakanta Sastri and G. Srinivasachari  p. 220-221). Refer to chapter on Sanskrit. 

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Western stereotypes of Hinduism and India

The western stereotype about India and Indians that existed in the tiny and self-limited western world in India. This was a world of cliques and snobbery and smallness and the complication which made "perceptive persons miserable." For the Briton India was a "horrible country, this monster with its plagues and terrors, its splendor and shabbiness, its hospitality and cruelty." Britons hated to come to India and more so to stay for any length of time. The European was generally frightened of India - its vastness, violence, heat, dust millions of people, animals, and birds of prey and even the sound of the rain made it a "vicious and abominable country." 

The Hindu rite of the cremation of the dead had "a kind of macabre beauty" for it denied the "importance of the body." The European viewed with simultaneous aversion and fascination the appearance and practice of Hindu worship such as Kali and lingam worship. 

***

In the Asian studies departments in Western universities, there is a sharp hostility for Hinduism (and for India to the extent that it is the current political embodiment of Hindu civilization) among the India experts. 

The only Hinduism which they like is museum Hinduism; any Hinduism that displays a will to survive is treated with the same horror that would be aroused if a mummy were to show signs of life.

(source: Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst  Publisher: Rupa ISBN: 81-7167-519-0 p. 73-74). For more refer to chapters on Glimpses IX and Glimpses X).

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Scientist looks for Jesus' body in Kashmir

An American researcher who believes she has found the final resting place of Jesus Christ is campaigning to exhume a body at a Muslim shrine in Kashmir for scientific tests.

Suzanne Marie Olsson, a New York-based researcher is currently in Srinagar, studying the Muslim shrine of Rozabal.

While Muslims say Rozabal houses the tomb of Yuza Asaf, a Muslim saint, many researchers believe it contains the body of Jesus Christ.

To put an end to speculation Olsson has suggested exhuming the remains at Rozabal for DNA testing and carbon dating.

"This will trace him (the saint) to his origin ... and resolve the raging controversy over the identity of the place forever," she told the Sunday edition of Kashmir's leading daily, the Greater Kashmir.

Olsson has already dug up a shrine at the Murree hill station in Pakistan under the supervision of archaeologists Ahmad Hassan Dani and Saida Rahman.

Muree is believed to be the resting place of Jesus' mother, Mary (Marium). "The exhumed remains have been sent for the DNA testing and the report is awaited," she told the newspaper.

"Now Rozabal holds the key. If the remains there are sent for testing and then tallied with the results of the Murree project, it will either establish the link between the two shrines as being of similar origin and thus authenticate the Marium-Jesus theory or prove it wrong for good."

However, her project has run into trouble with the managers of the Rozabal shrine, who are strongly opposed to its "desecration".

"We will never allow it," said Mohammed Amin, one of the managers. But Olsson, stressing the "purely scientific nature of her work" and her identity as a "seeker of truth", is pleading to be allowed to "verify the origin and identity of the saint" to put to rest wild speculation.

She has even written to Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah for help. Olsson also believes Moses is buried in Bandipore in north Kashmir, the Islamic prophet Haroun at Harwan, on the outskirts of Srinagar, and Solomon at Takht-i-Suliaman in Srinagar.

"You have more Christian holy sites than even Egypt or Israel," she said in her appeal to the chief minister.

Olsson says she wants to unravel the truth about the shrines so that Kashmir, ravaged by a decade-long insurgency that has claimed 35,000 lives, can become a pilgrimage centre for Christians and Muslims.

(source: sifynews.com). For more refer to chapter on Hinduisms Influence).

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Did You Know?

Iconoclasm

One who destroys images and idols. Opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures. Semitic "My-Godism" described as Monotheism has another dimension: Iconoclasm. In fact, the two are two sides of the same sides of the same coin. When worshippers of the Semitic God came into contact with their neighbors, it was not clear what they abhorred more, their Gods or their idols. In point of fact, they made no such fine distinction. Trained as they were, they made war on both indiscriminately. 

The Judaic God commands his worshippers that when they enter the land of their enemies, they will "destroy their altars, and break their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire." (Bible. Deut. 7.5). Wherever, these creeds went (Christianity and Islam) temple-razing followed. Christianity destroyed shrines of the Pagans with un paralled thoroughness and self-satisfaction. When America was discovered, the Benedictine monks destroyed single-handed 170,000 images in Haiti alone.

Juan de Zummarage, the first Bishop of Mexico, writing as early as 1531, claimed that he destroyed 500 temples and 20,000 idols of heathens. In our own country, in Goa, Jesuit father destroyed many Hindu Temples. 

  St. Francis Xavier, who participated in this meritorious work, wrote back home: "As soon as I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken to pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done."

Islam did the same. Temples in India were destroyed not for the "hoarded wealth" as Marxist historians propagate - but was part of a larger policy of religious persecution. To destroy Hindu pride and self respect, and to remind them that they were Zimmis, an inferior breed.

Hindus were great temple builders because their pantheon was prolific in Gods and Goddesses and their society rich in schools and sects, each with its own way of worship. The cradle of Hindu culture on the eve of the Islamic invasions included what are at present the Sinkiang province of China, the Transoxiana region of Russia, the Seistan province of Iran and the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Muslim historians, in India and abroad, have written hundred of accounts in which the progress of Islamic armies across the cradle of Hindu culture is narrated, stage by stage and period by period. The two giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan province who have watched over the restive plains of Afghanistan for many centuries were recently destroyed.

(source: Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them - By Sita Ram Goel Volume 1. p. 37-46). 

Refer to My People, Uprooted: "A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal"  - By Tathagata Roy

Recently the two gigantic Buddha statues were destroyed in Afghanistan. These two giant Buddhas (55 m. and 38 m. high, respectively) stood in the beautiful Bamiyan valley, situated 230 km NW of Kabul at an altitude of 2500 metres. Buddhism was introduced into this area in the third century B.C. by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka. It found fertile soil in the former Gandhara province (nowadays, East Afghanistan and North Pakistan) around the first and second centuries A.D. under the rule of the great Kushan ruler Kanishka.

During the centuries they have probably been assailed by iconoclasts. The idea behind the destruction was to take away the soul of the hated image by obliterating, or at least deforming, the head and hands. Although there is no firm evidence the Buddhas were subjected to iconoclasm, this fate was certainly meted out to the frescoes surrounding the Buddhas, namely the numerous religious places and monk's cells also hewn out of the rock and covered with beautiful paintings. The faces in these were destroyed by one of the many groups of invaders who have passed that way.

(For more refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught and Hindu Art).

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Updated -  October 28, 2008