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A Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast Asia.

Japan

Hinduism played a very significant role in moulding Japanese character and culture. The new teachings of the Shingon sect originated in India much before it was introduced in China in the 8^th century A.D. The Shingon or esoteric principles are based on Tantric rituals which were practiced in India by the followers of Sanatan Dharma since early times.

Hajime Nakamura (1912 - 1999) Japanese scholar. His field of research was exceedingly broad, encompassing Indian philosophy, Buddhist studies, historical studies, Japanese thought, comparative thought. He was the author of The History of Early Vedānta Philosophy an epoch-making study in four volumes.

He has remarked that:

"India is culturally, Mother of Japan. For centuries it has, in her own characteristic way, been exercising her influence on the thought and culture of Japan."

(source: India: Mother Of Us All - By Chaman Lal p. 25).

He believed that:

“Without Indian influence Japanese culture would not be what it is today.”  "As most Japanese profess the Buddhist faith, needless to say, they have generally been influenced by Indian ideas to a great extent."

(source: Japan and Indian Asia - By Hajime Nakamura  p. 1).

Sir Charles Elliot (1862-1931), British diplomat and colonial administrator, in his book, Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. I, p 405 wrote:

"Zen is the Japanese equivalent of Sanskrit Dhyana (meditation) or Ch'an and is the name given to the sect founded in China by Bodhidharma.

Dr. Post Wheeler (1869 - 1956) a diplomat and editor of The Sacred Scriptures of the Japanese: With All Authoritative Variants, Chronlogically Arranged also said:

‘Many fragments of the Japanese myth-mass were unmistakably Indian. The original homeland of the first man and women of Japanese mythology is said to have been in the Earth-Residence-Pillar i.e. Mount Meru of Indian mythology. There is another story of Buro-no-Kami whose identity has been established with the deity called Brave-Swift-Impetuous-male. This Kami may be none other than the Indian deity Gavagriva, the Ox-head deity. The story recounts in the style of the jatakas how the deity punished the heartless rich brother and rewarded the king hearted poor brother. In India one of the names of the moon is Sasanka (lit. having a rabbit in the lap) and there is an ancient Indian legend why it is so called. The belief prevalent in ancient Japan that there lived a rabbit in the moon was probably an outcome of the Indian influence." 

(source: India and Japan: A Study in interaction during 5th cent - 14th century - By Upendra Thakur p. 27 - 41).

Dr. D. T. (Daisetz Teitaro) Suzuki  (1870-1966) was a Japanese Buddhist and Zen scholar, who has written several books, including Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture and An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. He has said:

“The study of Japanese thought is the study of Indian thought”

(source: India: Mother of Us All - By Chaman Lal p. 25).

Donald A. Mackenzie (1873 - 1936) author of Myths of Pre-Columbian America has written:

"The Indian form of myth of The Churning of the Milky Ocean reached Japan. 

"In a Japanese illustration of it the mountain rests on a tortoise, and the supreme god sits on the summit, grasping in one of his hands a water vase. The Japanese Shinto myth of creation, as related in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihon-gi, is likewise a churning myth. Twin deities, Izanagi, the god, and Izanami, the goddess, sand on "the floating bridge of heaven" and thrust into the ocean beneath the "Jewel Spear of Heaven". With this pestle they churn the primeval waters until they curdle and form land."

(source: Myths of Pre-Columbian America - By Donald A. Mackenzie ASIN 185958490X  p.190 -191).

Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850 - 1935) One of the foremost Western interpreters of things Japanese has observed:

"In a sense Japan may be said to owe everything to India; for from India came Buddhism, and Buddhism brought civilization – Chinese civilization, but then China had been far more tinged with the Indian dye than is generally admitted even by the Chinese themselves.”   

""They do not realize, for instance, that the elderly man or woman who become, as they say inkyo, that is, hands over the care of the household to the next generation....they do not realize that this cheery and eminently practical old individual is the lineal representative of the deeply religious Brahman householder, who, at a certain age, - his worldly duties performed, - retired to the solitude of the forest, there to ponder on the vanity of all phenomena, and attain to the absorption of self in the world-soul through profound metaphysical meditation."

"Or the "true name", which is kept a sacred, is an Indian heritage. The fire-drill for producing the sacred fire at the great Shinto shrines of Ise and Izumo seems to be Indian; the elaboration of ancestor-worship seems to be Indian; all philological research in the Far East is certainly of Indian origin, even to the arranging of the Japanese syllabaries in their familiar order. Not only can some of the current fairy tales be traced to stories told in the Buddhist sutras,....but so can some of the legends of the Shinto religion, notwithstanding the claim confidently put forward, and too easily accepted by European writers, to the effect that everything Shinto is purely aboriginal. The very language."

"the very language has been tinctured, many common words being of Indian derivation, and even a few common ones, such as abata, "pock marks"; aka, "water baled out of a boat; dabi, "cremation" danna, "master" hachi, "bowl" kawara, "title" sendean, "sand-wood" (we English having borrowed the same Indian word for this Indian thing); sora, "the sky"; to say nothing of such words connected with religion as garan, "temple"; shamon, "priest" English shaman is the same word); kesa, "vestment; " shari, "relic," and numerous others. Indian is the use of tea now so characterized of China and Japan; India has dictated the national diet fostering rice-cultures and discrediting the use of flesh, which seems to have been a staple article of Japanese food in pre-Buddhistic days."

(source: Things Japanese – By Basil Hall Chamberlain  p. 246 - 247).

Dr. Subhash Kak (1949 - ) is a widely known scientist and a Indic scholar. Currently a Professor at Louisiana State University, he has authored ten books and more than 200 research papers in the fields of information theory, quantum mechanics, and Indic studies. He is a Sanskrit scholar and is author of Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda, and India at Century's End: Essays on History and Politics. Dr SubhashKak has recently resolved Einstein's twin paradox.

He has observed: 

“The Vedic devas went to China and Japan through Kashmir . The fourth great council was held there under the patronage of the Kushana emperor Kanishka (r. 78-120) in around 100 CE, where monks of the Sarvastivādin School compiled a new canon. This became the basis of Mahāyāna. The Vedic devas were a part of this understanding, as was dhyāna of the Vedic tradition (Ch’an in China and Zen in Japan ) with devotion to Īśvara (Śiva) as its ultimate objective (Yogasūtra 1.23). The Parihāsapura monuments (near Śrīnagar ) of the Cankuna stūpa (Kārkota dynasty, 8^th century) “served as a model all across Asia from the Pamir Mountains to Japan ”.

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Imperial Patronage 

The new religion began to be widely professed, partly due to the arrival in Japan of missionaries, magicians, the Scriptures and various accessories for rituals, etc. Buddhism received its first Imperial patronage from Prince Shotoku (574-621), who became regent to the Female Emperor Suiko in 593. He drew up Japan's first Constitution, proclaiming the "Three Treasures" (triratna), ie. The Buddha, The Dharma and the Sangha, to be the ultimate objects of faith. At government expense, he built Buddhist temples, pagodas, hospitals, and asylums for the aged and the destitute. Horyu-ji Temple built by him near the city of Nara, is the most ancient wooden building still existing in the world. 

Portrait of Prince Shotoku: An oldest portrait in Japan with Prince Eguri on the left and Prince Yamashiro-no-Oe on the right.

Horyu-ji temple built by him near the city of Nara, is the most ancient wooden building still existing in the world. 

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Brahmaprabha on the panel of Tamamushi-no-Zushi, preserved in the Golden Hall of the Horyu-ji Temple, the paintings by litharge technique.

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

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During the past 1200 years, Indians have come to Japan from time to time. It is said that in the period of Emperor Kotoku (645-654) a seer called Hodo (Dharma-marga or Dharma-patha) came from Rajagrha of India. The first Indian to come to our land was Bodhisena, a Buddhist monk. He was born of a Brahmin family in India. His clan (Gotra) was Bharadvaja. Receiving a mystic inspiration from  Manjushri Bodhisattva, he went to China and lived in the Wu t'ai shan Mountain. At the request of several Japanese who were in China for diplomcatic negotiations and for study, Bodhisena came to Japan along with other Buddhist monks from China and Indo-China in 736. He arrived at his destination in 736 AD. He was cordially received by the Imperial Family, and was appointed Head Priest informally called as Baramon (Brahman) archibishop.

Hindu Gods Introduced to Japan

Hajime Nakamura (1912 - 1999) His field of research was exceedingly broad, encompassing Indian philosophy, Buddhist studies, historical studies, Japanese thought, comparative thought. Author of several books including Japan and Indian Asia, he has written:

"Without Indian influence Japanese culture would not be what it is today.”   

"As most Japanese profess the Buddhist faith, needless to say, they have generally been influenced by Indian ideas to a great extent."  

Indra, god of thunder found in the Rig Veda, is adored in Japan as Taishakuten.

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Indra, originally the god of thunder and then most popular of all gods to be found in the Rig Veda, is adored by people here under the name of Taishakuten (literally, Emperor of Gods or Shakra). 

Ganesha, the Indian god of wisdom, who has the head of an elephant and the trunk of a human being, is worshipped under the name of Sho-ten, (literally, Holy God), in many Buddhist temples, as one who confers happiness upon its votaries, especially in love affairs. In Japan we very often find figures of two Ganeshas, male and female, embracing each other (Mithuna).   

Ganesha known as Sho-ten in Japan.

A new concept of Vinayaka couple both elephant-headed – a unique development in the religious history of Japan. The concept of this twin form of Ganesa (with Ganesani) could not develop in India proper.   

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A sea-serpent, worshipped by sailors, is called Ryugin/Ryujin a Chinese equivalent of the Indian Naga. Hariti and Dakini, Indian female demons, are also worshipped, the former under the name of Kishimo-jin, and the latter retaining its original name.  Bishamon is the a Japanese equivalent of the Indian Vaishravana (Kubera), the god of fortune. Not only Japanese Buddhism, but Shintoism also, has been considerably influenced by Indian thought. The following are some interesting examples: 

Suiten (water-god) is a Shintoist name. But the god, widely worshipped by people in downtown Tokyo, was originally Varuna (water-god in India) and was introduced into the Buddhist Pantheon by esoteric Buddhism, and then adopted by Shintoists, though Shintoists may hesitate to agree with this explanation. Kompira, a god of sailors, is worshipped at Kotohira Shrine, in Kagawa Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. Kompira is corrupt form of Kumbhira, a Sanskrit word for crocodile in the Ganges. Ben-ten (literally, Goddess of Speech) is the Chinese and Japanese equivalent of Saraswati. 

Benten from Japan. Saraswati from Brihadeshvara temple, Tanjore, India.

Sarasvati is yet another Hindu deity extremely popular in Japan, and is known by various names such as Benzai-ten, Bezai-ten, Benteu, Benten, Sama, Benzamini.

This concept of the goddess, it appears, was irretrievably linked up with her personification with the famous Vedic river Saraswati. 

Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge

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

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Along the sea coast and around ponds and lakes, one often finds shrines of Ben-ten where her image is installed. Daikoku, a God of fortune (literally, god of great Darkness or Blackness) is a favorite god with the common people. The name is the Chinese and Japanese equivalent of Mahakala, another name for Lord Shiva, the mightiest god of the Hindu Pantheon, though Daikolu is clad in Japanese robes and has a benign and smiling countenance.    

Shiva (Mahakala) is known as Daikoku in Japan. Shiv Parvati 10th century, India.

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Visvakarman, maker of the world in the Rigveda, also was esteemed as the god of carpenters in the royal court in ancient times under the name of Bishukatsuma. Cf. “Eiga-monogatari.” Sanskrit characters are also observed even in Shintoistic rites. The traditionally dressed climbers of Mount Ontake, put on traditional white robes on which, sometimes, Sanskrit characters (siddham) of an ancient type, are written all over. They sometimes wear white Japanese scarfs (tenugui) on which the Sanskrit character “OM” the sacred syllable of the Hindus, is written, although the climbers themselves cannot read it."

Deep Influence of India

Historical records show that an Indian drifted to the shore of Aichi Prefecture in 799 AD and taught the people how to cultivate cotton. An ethnology scholar has pointed out that there is evidence that an Indian community existed in Shima district in Mie Prefecture. 

(source: Japan and Indian Asia - Hajime Nakamura  p. 1 - 31).

Hinduism and Buddhism went from India to China and Korea to Japan. Images of Ganesha and Vishnu have been found throughout Japan. 

According to Historian D. P. Singhal, "Some Hindu gods, who had been incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon, were amongst them. For example, Indra, originally, the god of thunder but now also the king of gods, is popular in Japan as Taishaku (literally the great King Sakra); Ganesha is worshipped as Sho-ten or Shoden (literally, holy god) in many Buddhist temples, and is believed to confer happiness upon his devotees. A sea-serpent worshipped by sailors is called Ryujin, a Chinese equivalent of the Indian naga. Hariti and Dakini are also worshipped, the former as Kishimo-jin, and the latter by her original name. Bishamon is a Japanese equivalent of the Indian Vaisravana (Kubera), the god of wealth. 

Bishamon is a Japanese equivalent of the Indian Vaisravana (Kubera), the god of wealth. 

The Indian sea god Varuna, is worshipped in Tokyo as Sui-ten (water-god).

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Even Shinto adopted Indian gods, despite its desperate efforts after the Meiji Revolution to disengage itself from Buddhism. The Indian sea god Varuna, is worshipped in Tokyo as Sui-ten (water-god); the Indian goddess of learning, Saraswati, has become Benten (literally, goddess of speech), with many shrines dedicated to her along sea coasts and beside lakes and ponds. Shiva is well known to the Japanese as Daikoku (literally, god of darkness), which is a Chinese and Japanese equivalent of the Indian Mahakala, another name of Shiva. Daikoku is a popular god in Japan. At the Kotohira shrine on the island of Shikoku, sailors worship a god called Kompera, which is a corruption of the Sanskrit word for crocodile, Kumbhira. The divine architect mentioned in the Rig Veda, Vishvakarma, who designed and constructed the world, was regarded in ancient Japan as the god of carpenters, Bishukatsuma. The Indian Yama, the god of death, is the most dreaded god of Japan, under the name of Emma-o, the king of hell. 

According to author Donald A. Mackenzie: "The Indian form of myth of The Churning of the Milky Ocean reached Japan. In a Japanese illustration of it the mountain rests on a tortoise, and the supreme god sits on the summit, grasping in one of his hands a water vase. The Japanese Shinto myth of creation, as related in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihon-gi, is likewise a churning myth. Twin deities, Izanagi, the god, and Izanami, the goddess, sand on "the floating bridge of heaven" and thrust into the ocean beneath the "Jewel Spear of Heaven". With this pestle they churn the primeval waters until they curdle and form land."

(source: Myths of Pre-Columbian America - By Donald A. Mackenzie ASIN 185958490X  p.190 -191).

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Hinduism played a very significant role in molding Japanese character and culture. 

"Shintoism has been designated by some scholars as the Japanese version of Hinduism" - Chaman Lal. 

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The new teachings of the Shingon sect originated in India much before it was introduced in China in the 8^th century A.D. The Shingon or esoteric principles are based on Tantric rituals which were practiced in India by the followers of Sanatan Dharma since early times. China received esoterism in the fourth century A.D. it actually flourished there from the eighth century onward. From there it reached Japan through Saicho (Dengyo Daishi) and Kukai (Kobo Daishi).    

Seven Gods of Japan.

Hindu Gods and Goddesses who found their way to Japan and China slightly changed, ‘hued in Chinese dye.’   

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Hindu deities accepted in Indian Buddhism found their way to China as part of Buddhist pantheon, and the mode of worship of these divinities was exactly the same as followed by the Buddhists in India. The Chinese transformed the Indian elements in Buddhism in their own way, with the result that the character and role of the Buddhism oriented Hindu Gods and Goddesses who found their way to Japan and China slightly changed, ‘hued in Chinese dye.’   

Seven lucky Gods of Japan - Ebisu, Daikoku (Shiva, Mahakala), Benzaiten (Saraswavti), Bishamonten (Vaisravana or Kubera), Fukurokyu, Hoteil and Juroujin.

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The Hindu deities in course of time again passed through another phase of transformation to suit the Japanese thoughts and ideas, and many of these transformed deities gained highly revered positions which they had never before attained either in India or China. In fact, several minor gods and goddesses who were too insignificant to merit careful attention in India, attained a considerably exalted position in Japanese Buddhist pantheon. It is commonly believed in Japan that the Hindu deities if worshipped properly, bestow quickly material benefits and other favors in day to day life on their devotees rather than any spiritual gain. This has made these gods and goddesses very popular in Japan as “the common people are more interested in worldly or material benefits than in the so-called abstract spiritual achievement.” 

Of the various Hindu deities who were widely worshipped in Japan: 

Indra (Taishaku-ten), Varuna (Sui-ten), Yama (Emma), Agni (Ka-ten), Mahakala (Daikoku-ten), Sarasvati (Benzai-ten or Banten), Ganesa (Sho-ten or Kangi-ten), Brahma (Bonten), Vayu (Hu-ten), Vaisravana or Kubera (Bishamon-ten), Mahesvara (Makei-shura-ten), Isana (Ishana-ten), Nilakantha (Shokyo-Kannon), Prithvi (Ji-ten), Surya (Nit-ten), Chandra (Gat-ten), Narayana or Vishnu (Naraen-ten), Kumara or Kartitikeya (Kumara-ten), Lakshmi (Kichijo-ten) Marishiten, Idaten (Skanda) and many other minor deities.

These deities protected Buddha and the Buddhist world. Indra, the king of gods, played an important role as a virtual protector of Buddhism. In China and Japan, Indra was worshipped with usual vajra (thunderbolt) and guarding the entrance of some monastery or temple. Taishaku-ten, the Japanese name of Indra, is derived from the Chinese Ti-shih-t’ien. He is variously known in Japan as Shakudaikanin (Sakra devanam), Makaba (Maghavan), Basaba (Vasava), Shashibachi, Kausika and Sngan (the thousand-eyed: Sahassa natta).  The different Japanese texts, such as Dainichi-kyo (the Mahavairocana Sutra), the Sonsho-Buccho-Shuyuga-Ho-Kigi, the Seiryo-ki, the Shosetsu Fudo-ki and the Kongo-kai-Shichi-shu, are unanimous in placing Indra in eastern gate, wearing jeweled crown and ornaments and holding vajra in his hand. 

Besides him, Agni is also one of the twelve guardian-deities in Japan who is everywhere depicted as guarding the south-east corner. He naturally finds his place in Japanese Mandara which has remarkable similarity with the representation of Agni in some Indian sculptures.   

Agni and Yama - Ka-ten and Emma-ten in Japan.

(source: Tokyo National Museum).

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The worship of Yama is incorporated in the Ju-o or Ten Kings. He is known as Yama-ten ie. Yama deva when benign and Emma O when dreadful as the Judge of the Dead. In Japan such shrines are dedicated to Yama are called Emma-do ‘Hall of Yama’, with drawings or paintings of ten kings inside the hall.    

Shiva/Maheshvara  - Makeishura-ten or Daikoku/ Also known as Ishana. Of whom various forms have been conceived in Japan.

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The other god, who plays a significant part in the religious life of the Japanese people, is Maheshvara (Makeishura-ten), otherwise called Shiva of whom various forms have been conceived in Japan. He is depicted as having two, four, eight and eighteen arms and riding a white ox. Mahakala (Daikoku), the terrific god (another form of Shiva), whose images abound in the temples of Tibet and China enjoys an exhalted position as a household deity in Japan whose association with wealth and prosperity gave rise to a strange but interesting custom known as Fuku-nusubi (fortune-stealing). This custom started with the belief that he who stole divine figures (gods and goddesses) was assured of good fortune, if not caught in the act of stealing. In the course of time stealing of divine images became so common a practice in Japan that the Toshi-no-ichi or the ‘year-end-market’ held in the Asakusa Kannon temple became the main venue of the sale and disposal of such images by the fortune-seekers. Many small stalls were opened where articles including images of Daikoku or Mahakala were sold on the eve of New Year celebrations.  

In ancient times, the Japanese warriors went to war in helmets bearing Sanskrit bijas as benediction for victory. Such helmets can still be seen at the Reihokan Museum at Koyasan. The Tokonoma or alcoves in Japanese parlor often have a smiling image of Daikoku or Mahakala, clad in Japanese robes, and standing on two bags of rice representing affluence. Mahakala, as we know, symbolized the Great Time (maha = great and kala = time): the time of affluence, in contradistinction to a-kala (famine): the negation (a) of good time (kala). The Japanese also maintain the Bijaksara of Mahakala as a Siddham-nagari monogram. The traditional pilgrims climbing the holy Mount Ontake wear tenugui on white Japanese scarves with the sacred mantra Om.  

Vishnu, one of the Puranic trinity, is not as popular as in India. He is referred to as Naraen-ten (Narayana), also called Kengo-rikishi or Kongo-rikishi or Nio has many common features with Vishnu (Bishinu-ten) in Japanese. Visnu-Narayana, according to Japanese conception, possesses unusual physical strength, generally rides Karura (Garuda), has one face and two arms, or three faces with two arms, the left face assuming the face of an elephant or lion and the right one having the form of a bear. He is shown having four or eight arms only in rare cases. In the Karura-o-Oyobi-Shoten-Mitsugon Kyo he is also refered to as Vijaya, having three faces and four arms, with a halo of green color behind his head. Karura (Garuda) received treatment in Japan apart from his position as Nararen-ten’s mount, and the Sesasayana aspect of Narayana is nowhere referred to in the Japanese text.    

Vishnu and Garuda

Vishnu as Naraen-ten or Kongo-rikishi. Visnu-Narayana. According to Japanese conception, possesses unusual physical strength, generally rides Karura (Garuda),

Nio guardian figures are named Misshaku Kongo (Agyo) and Naraen Kongo (Ungyo). They represent the use of overt power and latent power, respectively. Naraen is also called Narayana (Sanskrit). 

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In Japan, the Nio guardian figures are named Misshaku Kongo (Agyo) and Naraen Kongo (Ungyo). They represent the use of overt power and latent power, respectively. Naraen is also called Narayana (Sanskrit)

Ganesha or Sho-ten or Shoden (also Vinayaka in Japanese), on the other hand, seems to have been widely worshipped god in Japan with whom is associated the Chinese-Japanese conception of the elephant-headed male-female embracing Vinayaka. One of the most popular deities in Japan, Ganesa traveled through China. 

Variously known as Daishokangi-ten (abbreviated as Kangi-ten), Sho-ten, Ganabachi (Ganapati), Nandikeshvara and Binayaka-ten (Vinayaka), he is without doubt the product of the introduction of Tantricism in China and Japan (806 A.D onward) which envisaged an elephant-headed Yogini form of female Vinayaka giving birth to a new concept of Vinayaka couple both elephant-headed – a unique development in the religious history of Japan. It is really strange to find that though the Japanese Durani-shu-kyo (Dharani Samuccaya) originated in India, the concept of this twin form of Ganesa (with Ganesani) could not develop in India proper.   

Lord Ganesha known as Kankiten, Shoten, Shoden in Japan.Kankiten statue in front of Fukuoka Tower. 

One of the most popular deities in Japan, Ganesa traveled through China. 

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The popularity of this god can be judged from the fact that there were about 250 temples in Japan in which the images of Sho-ten and Kongi-ten are worshipped either as a single image or double-bodied images. In the Hozan-ji temple on Mt. Ikoma in Nara, Sho-ten is worshipped mainly by the merchants. In Osaka we have the biggest temple of Sho-ten, where, besides devotees, a permanent priest offers prayers daily. Moreover, the priests also separately offer prayers to him to remove obstacles in way to success. 

In the Japanese test Daisho-kangi-Soshin-Binayaka-tongyo-Zohon-Giki (vol. I) he is also called Daijizai-ten (Maheshvara) a conception which we come across also in Brahaddharma Purana, where Ganesha is given fifty different appellations one of which says that “Shiva and Sankara’ are but the two appellations ascribed to Ganesa which is further corroborated by the Agni Purana (chap. 71) wherein Mahadeva is said to be one of the many appellations of Ganesha. Ganesha is still worshipped in Japan. A special temple is consecrated to the esoteric Twin Ganesa at the Jingoji monastery of Takao where every year worship is held in his honor. Besides this, special shrines are also dedicated to Ganesha in some other Mantraynic monasteries. Sometimes, even in shops one comes across graceful images of either standing or seated Ganesha. 

Skanda-Karttikeya also appears to have been one of the extremely popular deities in Japan. Variously known as Kumara-ten, Kenda or Ida-ten he is regarded as the son of Daijizai-ten (Maheshvara) in Japanese mythology.   

Goddess Saraswati known as Ben-ten in Japan.

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Saraswati is yet another Hindu deity extremely popular in Japan, and is known by various names such as Benzai-ten, Bezai-ten, Benteu, Benten, Sama, Benzamini, Myo-ongakuten, Meoongten, Myo’on-ten (goddess with sweet voice), Daiben, Dai-Benzai-ten (goddess of great intelligence), Dai-bentenno, Bio-ten, Ku-doku, Mio-on-Tennio. Etc. 

The first such goddesses made in Japan were of Kichijo-ten (Sridevi or Lakshmi) and Benzai-ten (Sarasvati). The Indian concept of Sarasvati being the consort of Brahma is also retained in Japan. Generally considered as an extremely beautiful lady, she is supposed to be the ideal of feminine beauty, and the goddess of music, wealth, fortune, beauty, happiness, eloquence and wisdom. 

This concept of the goddess, it appears, was irretrievably linked up with her personification with the famous Vedic river Saraswati. 

It is interesting to note that while in India she is always depicted as a charming goddess of music, fine arts, and learning holding a vina with her both hands, in Japan she is sometimes portrayed as a ferocious goddess too, embodying ugliness as well as beauty. Benten with a lute is a beautiful lady, but Benten with a sword is a brave lady like Itanuka of whom the people are frightened. There is an image of Benten in war-like posture, in Enoshima, holding a sword in her hand with a serpent and tortoise sitting at her foot and two Deva kings standing on either side.    

  Lakshmi - Kichijo-ten, the goddess of wealth in Japan. Lakshmi from Angkor, Cambodia.

The elegant image of Kichijo-ten was first made it impressed the Japanese Buddhist monks so much that they became ardent devotees of this goddess and her popularity spread far and wide within a very short period.

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

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Lakshmi (Kichijo-ten), the goddess of wealth, is extremely popular. She is variously known as Kichisho-ten or Kissho-ten or Makashiri (Maha Sri) and as Lakushmi.  

From the Mikkyo-no-Bijutsu we learn that the image of Laksmi (Kichijo-ten) was the first image of a female deity in Japan in the Nara period (645 – 794 AD) which for the first time witnessed the making of the images of the female divinities like Lakshmi and Sarasvati (Benzai-ten) and Hariti (Kishi-mojin). 

From the Mikkyo-no-Bijutsu we learn that when the elegant image of Kichijo-ten was first made it impressed the Japanese Buddhist monks so much that they became ardent devotees of this goddess and her popularity spread far and wide within a very short period. This is further confirmed by a passage in the Nihon Ryoki. The “dazzling beauty” of this goddess “aroused more than ordinary interest on the part of the priests. Needless to say, the popularity of Kissho-ten worship spread quickly. There is even an old story about a man who fell in love with a picture of this splendid beauty.”

She is depicted in various forms. She is generally seen beside Bishamon-ten.  

In the Nara period the images of this goddess were made “both in icons and objet d’art. Two images of this deity belonging to the Nara period are still preserved in the refectory of the Horyuji temple and in the Hokke-do shrine of the Todai-ji temple. One of the many images of this goddess, one preserved in the Yakushi-ji temple is very famous. It is painted in fine colors on fine hemp cloth. Another beautiful image made of wood (1078 AD) of the Heian period is preserved in the Golden Hall of the Horyu-ji temple. Yet, another very famous sculpted image of the goddess is preserved in a Zushi or shrine of the Jaruri-ji temple, Kyoto. 

Besides these Vedic deities, the Raksasas and the Asuras were also given due place in the Japanese pantheon. In Japanese mythology, Raksasa and Nairrti are known as Rasetsu and Nirichi (Niri-ieio) respectively.

Garuda, the mythical bird and mount of Lord Vishnu is known as Karura in Japanese mythology which is also associated with Naraen-ten or Narayana as his vehicle.

Lord Vishnu on Garuda, his vehicle. 

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Co-existence of the native Shinto and Indian Buddhists and Vedic deities in the same temple was, and is a common feature in Japan. Like Buddhism, Tantricism, an inseparable part of Hinduism spread far beyond the boundaries of India, Nepal, Tibet and Burma. Thus, we find that the Hindu gods who were incorporated into Indian Buddhism gradually found their way to China and then to Japan where many of these Hindu deities found a status which they had never attained either in India or China.

(source: India and Japan: A Study in interaction during 5th cent - 14th century - By Upendra Thakur p. 27 - 41).

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Indian Influence on Japanese Stories

A considerable portion of the cosmogonical and mythological literature of Japan bears traces of Indian influence. Hajime Nakamura observed ' Some stories of ancient India were very influential in shaping Japanese stories by providing them with materials. In the process of shaping, however, Indian materials were greatly modified and adapted in such a way as would appeal to the mentality of common people of Japan in general' quoted from Lokesh Chandra and others - India's Contribution to World Thought and Culture.  

In the annals of the Todaiji temple, it has been stated that the worship of Sarasvati and Lakshmi was first introduced in 722 AD. and continued down the centuries. 

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Post Wheeler editor of The Sacred Scriptures of the Japanese: With All Authoritative Variants, Chronlogically Arranged, also said ‘Many fragments of the Japanese myth-mass were unmistakably Indian. The original homeland of the first man and women of Japanese mythology is said to have been in the Earth-Residence-Pillar i.e. Mount Meru of Indian mythology. There is another story of Buro-no-Kami whose identity has been established with the deity called Brave-Swift-Impetuous-male. This Kami may be none other than the Indian deity Gavagriva, the Ox-head deity. The story recounts in the style of the Jatakas how the deity punished the heartless rich brother and rewarded the king hearted poor brother. In India one of the names of the moon is Sasanka (lit. having a rabbit in the lap) and there is an ancient Indian legend why it is so called. The belief prevalent in ancient Japan that there lived a rabbit in the moon was probably an outcome of the Indian influence.

In the annals of the Todaiji temple, it has been stated that the worship of Sarasvati and Lakshmi was first introduced in 722 AD. and continued down the centuries. 

In Bessom Zakki (Description of Gods) written in the 12^th century written in the Siddham script, a corrupt Sanskrit mantra reads: 

'Sarasvatai svaha namo sarasvatyai mahadevyai svaha, namo bhagavati mahadevi sarasvati sidhyatu mantrapadami svaha'. 

A description of Sarasvati occurs in the voluminous text Asabasho by Shocho 1205-82 and the rituals connected with her worship have been recorded by Ryoson 1279 to 1349 in Chapter CXLIX of his Byaku-hokku-sho (The White Jewel of Indian Tradition). The adoption of these Hindu deities into the Buddhist and Shintonist pantheons of Japan indicate the influence of India on Japanese religions as well as the syncretic character of the religious systems of Japan.

The survey made above reveals the immense contribution of India to the theology of Japanese Buddhism as well as to Japanese literature. The present indications are that the texts utilized were all written in Sanskrit, probably in the Siddham script, and there was no intrusion of Pali, unlike in the Buddhist countries of South-East Asia. 

"Shintoism has been designated by some scholars as the Japanese version of Hinduism"- Chaman Lal - author and researcher.

(source: Indian Influence on Japanese Stories - esamskriti.com).

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Language and Literature in Japan

Sanskrit language has been kept in Japan for nearly 1,400 years in the colleges attached to the great Buddhist temple. Several Sanskrit texts in the Chinese script had also been brought to Japan. We have some very ancient Sanskrit manuscripts preserved in some of the Japanese temples which were brought from India or Central Asia to China and from there to Japan. It is really surprising to note that some of the manuscripts found in the Japanese temples are much older than those preserved in India. Moreover, there are few countries in the world where so many scholars are learning Sanskrit as in Japan. 

Hajime Nakamura (1912 - 1999) author of The History of Early Vedānta Philosophy, has pointed out  that the Hindu Ramayana and its various versions are found in the name of ‘Taiheiki’ in China and Japan. Even Indian logic was introduced in China by Hiuan-Tsang (600-664 AD).

The Japanese scholars regard the arrangement of the Japanese syllabary into fifty phonetic sounds as "no more than an adoption of the Sanskrit alphabet. The Japanese characters are generally constructed on the lines of Chinese characters, like the Devanagari letters, are phonetic and are arranged in a sentence in the same order as in Sanskrit - subject (kartta), object (karma) and verb (Kriya). Bodhisena, the great Buddhist thinker, made this change in Japanese system possible. Had the Chinese language and alphabet not penetrated into Japan before the Japanese came into contact with the Nagari character, the Japanese no doubt would have adopted the Indian script rather than the Chinese character.

Some Japanese warriors in medieval Japan went to the battle ground with helmets bearing Sanskrit characters for blessing (mangala) on their heads. While scaling the sacred Mt. Ongake as a religious observance, the Japanese climbers wearing traditional white dress have inscribed on their robes Sanskrit Saiddham characters of early type. Sometimes they put on white Japanese scarfs (tenugui) carrying Sanskrit character Om, the sacred sound symbols of the Hindus. 

The Sanskrit word maha meaning great, appears in Japanese as maka. The word moment 'ksana in Sanskrit is setsuna in Japanese. The Chinese transliteration Chana is close to the original. The Sanskrit homa, meaning sacrificial fire, becomes goma in Japanese. The mythical mountain Sumeru which was supposed to occupy the center of the world, towering 84,000 Yojanas high, is called Shumisan in Japanese, sau meaning mountain. It is also interesting to note that the Japanese also used Yojun (Yojana) in this context. 

It is interesting to note in this connection that some stories of ancient India proved very influential in shaping Japanese stories by providing them with interesting themes which in turn were greatly modified and adapted in such a way as to suit the taste and mentality of the common people in Japan. People in early times in India commonly believed that a hare or a rabbit lived in the moon and hence the latter was called Sasin (literally 'containing a hare'). The idea influenced the ancient Japanese so much that they too in the course of time came to believe that there lived a hare in the moon which made rice-cakes and pounded cooked rice with pestle which is evident from the popular Japanese stories like The Fascinating Story of Monkey and His Liver and The Story of Monoceros (Ekasrnga) as contained in the Sase Kishu, a medieval collection of popular Japanese stories. 

Hajime Nakamuar has pointed out  that the Hindu Ramayana and its various versions are found in the name of ‘Taiheiki’ in China and Japan.

One can also see the influence of the Indian epic Ramayana in the traditional Japanese dance forms of 'Bugaku' and 'Gigaku'  

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The story of Rsyasrnga describes how a saint who had never seen a woman was seduced by the daughter of King Lomapada - a famous story graphically narrated in the Mahabharata which also finds mention in another important Japanese work, the Taiheiki, the Japanese Ramayana. The Rishi is called Ikkaku Sennin or Ekasrnga (Unicorn). This Japanese version of the story also inspired the composition of the famous Kabuki drama.

Maurice Winternitz (1863-1937) famed Indologist, author of History of Indian Literature, while explaining the purpose of this legend says that various versions of this legend "may be found in other Indian works of literature, especially in the Ramayana, in the Padma Purana and in other Buddhist Jataka books. But, how popular this humorous tale was, is shown by its being familiar in different versions in Tibet, China and Japan, and in its having left traces behind even in the Unicorn-legend of the West.

Besides the Ramayana, Indian logic, called Immoyo (Hetuvidya), was introduced in China by Hiuen Tsang (600 - 664 A.D.) which later found its way into Japan along with the study of Yuishiki (consciousness only) thought. The Japanese name for this (Indian science of causes) is Immoyo-gaku and it continues to the present time in the so-called Hosso Sect. 

(source: India and Japan: A Study in interaction during 5th cent - 14th century - By Upendra Thakur p. 53  - 79).

Textual theme of Ramayana in Japan - By Minoru Hara 

Two renditions which apparently are derived from the Valmiki Ramayana as preserved in Mediaeval Japanese literature.

The first is an abridged version of the Rama story as given in a collection of popular tales, named the Hobutsushu (Ratna-samgraha?) by Tairano Yasoyori in the 12^th century, and the second is a modified story of an episode given in the second book of the Valmiki Ramayana, that is, Dasaratha’s unwitting slaughter of a young ascetic, which foreshadows the tragic death of the king in his later days. 

The two Japanese versions are in their main framework undoubtedly derivations of the Valmiki Ramayana, but they have come to differ in detail from their original in the course of their transmission through India to China, and China to Japan. These Japanese versions are not directly taken from their Indian original, but came through the Chinese Tripitaka.  

(source: The Ramayana Tradition in Asia - By V Raghavan. p. 334 – 347).

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Japan's Hindu linkages still alive  

One can also see the influence of the Indian epic Ramayana in the traditional Japanese dance forms of 'Bugaku' and 'Gigaku'  

Apart from the widely known fact that Buddhism in Japan has its origin in India , not many probably know that so many Hindu deities surround the life of a Japanese. Speaking at a lecture titled 'Hindu Gods and Goddesses rooted to Japan' here Friday, Lokesh Chandra, the director of International Academy of Indian Culture, highlighted how deeply Indian religion and culture has influenced Japanese culture and tradition over the past centuries.

He said that many temples across Japan are full of Hindu deities.

Lokesh Chandra, the director of International Academy of Indian Culture and Japanese Ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki.

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Chandra said Japanese couples who desire to have a beautiful daughter pray to goddess 'Saraswati' even to this day. 

Saraswati is also believed as the patroness of writers and painters. 'In ancient times, Japanese generals prayed to Saraswati to be victorious in war,' Chandra told the gathering which was also attended by the Japanese Ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki and his wife. Year 2007 is being celebrated as Japan-India Friendship Year to commemorate the 50th year of the cultural agreement between the two countries. 

Benzaiten or Saraswati in Japan.

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According to Chandra, who has travelled to Japan many times to study the country's culture and tradition, Saraswati is also worshipped as the 'goddesses of kitchen'. Many traditional Japanese plays are dedicated to the Indian deity. Sharing a trivia he said how in 1934, a Japanese woman had a vision that she was the incarnation of goddess Saraswati and stared writing in Sanskrit, a language she never heard off. 

There is a suburban district in Tokyo named Kichijo, which traces its roots to 'Lakshmi', the Hindu goddess of wealth. Lakshmi was propagated to China along with Buddhism in the ancient time, to be known as Kichijo in its Chinese form and then reached Japan as a Buddhist goddess. 

Chandra also spoke extensively about how Sanskrit language has influenced traditional Japanese calligraphy.

The Indian text was introduced into Japanese society many centuries ago. Japanese monks had to study Sanskrit in order to master Buddhism from original Indian scriptures and textbooks. Lord Ganesha in Japan symbolises the joy of life that arises from the power rooted in the virtues of wisdom and compassion. Young Japanese worship Ganesha to win in love whereas the old worship the deity to get success in business. There are roughly 100 temples dedicated to Ganesha in Japan. 

An 11th century Ganesha temple is the oldest among them.

Together with Hindu gods and goddess, ancient Japanese society was also introduced to Indian dance forms and musical instruments. A typical example is the ' Biwa ',which actually had its origin from the Indian 'Veena'. One of Japan 's largest lake is also known as Lake Biwa. One can also see the influence of the Indian epic Ramayana in the traditional Japanese dance forms of 'Bugaku' and 'Gigaku'. The yearlong cultural celebration was kicked off here last week that was attended by former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori among others.  

(source: Japan 's Hindu linkages still alive  - rxpgnews.com).

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Japan wants to encourage studies of Hindu gods

Japan wants to encourage studies of Hindu gods and goddesses found in their country. Saraswati, Laxmi, Brahma, Ganesha among large number of other deities are still prayed to there though under a different names.

Saraswati's sketches (Benzaiten in Japanese) sanctify kitchens in rural areas of Japan even now, says Director International Academy of Indian Culture Lokesh Chadra. Japanese understood her as sa-rasavati or the goddess of the kitchen, Rasavati is 'rasoi' in Hindi.

Talking to the Hindustan Times the Japanese Cultural Counsellor Shigeyuki Shimamori said, "We would like to encourage more studies by scholars on the Hindu deities found in Japan."It is the Mantrayana sect of Buddhism emphasising mantras (chants) and rituals through which Hindu deities reached Japan, Dr Chandra said. The Japanese also perform "homa" known as "goma" to their deities even today, they get ghee flown from Australia, he added.

Sarasvati or Benzaiten in Japanese is one of the Seven Lucky deities (Shichi-fuku-jin) blessing every home. Couples who desire to have beautiful daughters pray to her . She is known as the patroness of writers, composers, musicians and painters. Besies veena holding Saraswati's another popular form of Sarasvati found in Japan is eight armed Saraswati holding weapons in each. In the Rig Veda itself Sarasvati is termed as "Vritra-hantri" or slayer of demons, Dr Chandra said.

In Golden Light Sutra there is a hymn to Sarasvati:

"May Goddess Saraswati protect us in the field of war". 

Many Japanese Generals used to pray to her to defeat their enemies. Japanese classical theatre NOH has a drama dedicated to Saraswati" 

Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796 - 1866) German scholar has written that in 1832 there were 131 Shrines dedicated to Goddess Sarasvati and 100 to Lord Ganesha in Tokyo itself .

A 12th century temple to Ganesha in Asa kusa suburb of Tokyo is a National Treasure of Japan." Hindu Gods and Goddesses were introduced into Japan in 806 AD by Kobodaishi a Japanese saint who went to China and brought with him Manytrayana text, scrolls and images. Ganesha is worshipped as god of love by many young boys and girls for achieving success in their courtship. The old worship him for success in business, Dr Chandra said.

Letters or 'bijaksharas' for twelve devas like Agni, Varuna, Indra, Chandra, Nairritri, Prithvi, Ishana, Brahma, Aditya ,Yama, Vaishravana, Vayu,were calligraphed by Master Chozen in Siddham script (called Shittam in Japanese) a seventh century form of modern Devanagari, he added.

(source: Japan wants to encourage studies of Hindu gods - By Satyen Mohapatra - hindustantimes.com - February 21, 2007).

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Art and Painting in Japan 

We have a large number of representations of Hindu gods and goddesses in old Japanese paintings and sculptures meant for worship in temples, which unmistakably vouchsafe for widespread prevalence and popularity of these deities. 

The door panels and walls of miniature shrines contain paintings which also form part of murals on wooden pillars of temples. The Mandaras (Mandalas) constitute bigger painted scrolls, generally on silk, and hung on temple walls, often portraying figures of Hindu gods and goddesses. Moreover, we have representations of individual, or group of Hindu deities in paintings of different kind, such as eight armed Sarasvati, and Hariti appearing in a panel of the Kichijo-ten Zushi (Lakshmi), painted representation of Indra in Tamamushi shrine and figures of Shi-Tenno (Four guardian deities_ on the door of Lady Tachibana’s shrine. Indra also figures in paintings in the Tamamushi shrine, Toda-ji temple and Joruri-ji temple, in addition to his various images made in the refectory of the Horyu-ji temple along with his famous vajra (thunderbolt).   

The lively painting of Bon-ten (Brahma) in To-ji temple at Kyoto is another remarkable feat in this series. Portrayed on the panel of a pair of six-fold screens as one of the Juni-ten (Twelve Deva Kings or Guardian Deities) in colors on silk, this and other images of this set were painted by Takuma Shoga for use at a religious service. The four-headed and four-armed images of Brahma vividly portrayed in bright colors stands on lotus pedestal with a long trident in one of the left hands and the other left holding a longish pot (kamandalu). The most striking feature of this presentation is that each of its four faces bears the third eye placed vertically on the forehead. Varuna, the water-god, also figures in some of the paintings in Japanese shrines. There is a ninth century painting of Sui-ten(Varuna) in color, depicted as one of the Twelve Guardian Deities in Toda-ji temple in Nara. Seated on a large tortoise and wearing a crown decorated with the figures of five dragons he is represented as “the god of seas and rivers.” We have yet another colored painting of Varuna done on a piece of silk and kept in the To-ji temple in Kyoto. It is decorated with  ornaments and is no doubt a fine piece of painting. Another important piece of painting we have is the very old painted image of Nit-ten (Surya) which is preserved in the Jingo-ji temple and is depicted without any mouth. The most interesting point to remember about this god is that while he is considered to be a goddess in Shinto conception, he is very much masculine god in Japanese Buddhism. However, Ji-ten or Prithvi is the earth god (not goddess) in Japanese Buddhism.    

Bon-ten (Brahma) in To-ji temple at Kyoto. Brahma, Chola period. India.

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Sho-ten or Ganesa or Vinayaka seems to have been a most popular god in Japan who, like other Hindu deities, reached there through China. We have various kinds of Vinayakas painted in outer frame of Ryokai Mandara.  Six kinds of Vinayaka are arranged in four different directions on the outer hall of Kongo-kai Mandara and are variously known as Kongosai-ten or Sangai Vinayaka, Onjiki-ten or Kemon Vinayaka, Kongoi-ten or Kakyusen Vinayaka, Kongo-chobuku-ten or Chofuku-ten or Kutu Vinayaka and Kangi-ten or Vinayaka-ten – all elephant headed gods. While in India Ganesha is regarded as the God of Learning, in Japan he is popularly believed that the devotees of Ganesa or Vinayaka gain wealth. The biggest temple of Sho-ten in Osaka attracts a large number of people every day for offering worship. 

Saraswati, the goddess of learning, music and fine arts, is also regarded as the goddess of good luck and plenty in Japan and figures in many of the paintings in different forms. Sarasvati came to be worshipped in Japan as the Goddess of River and her image is generally installed in temples besides a river or lake or pond, and a snake is assumed to be the messenger of Benzai-ten. 

The school of meditative or Dhyana Buddhism produced the greatest influence on Japanese art. This is popularly known in Japan as Zen Buddhism which reached Japan from India through China.  

The earliest known music dance of Japan is Gigaku a kind of mask-play which Mimashi brought to Japan from Korea in 1200 AD. This art (Gigaku) was of Indian origin as indicated by masks representing Indian features which are still preserved in a considerable number in the temples of Nara. There were characters among the dancers who represented a lion and an eagle which does suggest links with India, because in China and Japan there were no lions. Moreover, the term for the eagle character is Karuna which is nothing but the derivative of the Sanskrit world Garuda.  

Gugaku is the name for a piece of music, and the dance accompanying it is known as Bugaku. It is the great Indian monk Bodhisena and Fu-che, a Vietnamese (old Champa), who are credited with having introduced these two popular forms in Japan from India about 1200 years ago. For the first time this court dance and music was performed in 752 AD, on the occasion of the opening of the Todai-ji temple at Nara when Shomu unveiled the statue of the Vairocana Buddha. It is said, hundreds of foreign musicians, including a large number of Indian musicians, participated in this great performance. Though about 1200 hundred years old, this music drama is still preserved in its original form in Japan, not only in records, musical instruments and masks, but in the dance form itself in the Horyu-ji temple. It is surprising to note that the original form is not preserved in present-day India, nor in other Asiatic countries. The Japanese are justly proud of this art which they have succeeded in preserving through the centuries. 

Japanese music is composed of eight (probably more) pieces  - botatsu, garyobin, konju, bairo, bato, riowo or roy-o amaninomai and banshurako. Some of these names can easily be traced to Indian origin: eg, botatsu (Sanskrit. Bodhisattva), bairo (Sanskrit. Bhairava), garyobin (Sanskrit. Kalavinka, a sonorous, sweet-voiced bird) etc. According to Takakusa, the Riowo dance is a part of an ancient Indian opera Nagaananda (The Joy of the Snake) which was written by Emperor Harsavardhan. The famous Chinese traveler, I-tsing, while in India, had seen a performance of this music-drama, and it was probably he who brought this drama to China whence it entered Japan.  

Another remarkable feature of Japanese art is the No plays which means Dengaku-no-noh, field-music performance. The two men responsible for this music performance were Kanami, the priest of the Kasuga temple near Nara (1333- 1384 AD and his son Zeami an outstanding author, actor and composer. It is interesting to note the analogies between Indian drama and the Japanese No plays. Just as the Indian drama was a combination of song and dance, usually performed at sacred festivals, so was the Japanese No play. The narrative connection in Indian drama was often preserved by interpreters whose function closely resembled that of the chorus in Japanese No. 

The wonderful art of Ikebana which means putting living plants in water is to love flowers as living beings and tend them with kind feelings. The Japanese bow before the flowers after arranging them. An aesthetic creation, it was the essence of life itself, pervaded by the warmth of the human heart. The Japanese tradition speaks of “Indian monks who, in their universal love, were the first to pick plants injured by the storm or parched by the heat, in order to tend them with compassion and endeavor to keep them alive. While they developed different trends and schools of flower-arrangement, the fine feeling for form and the “three main lines” as the foundation remained constant, which correspond to the tribhanga in Indian art. In the course of time the ceremony of incense burning added to the essence of the ritual discipline which a budding flower and a few leaves inculcated. The clouds of incense, the gracefully created form, a profound thought caligraphed on a scroll by the hand of a Master were the Zen expression of the pancopacara wherein puspa and dhupa had a core role: so that man may be touched by the deeds of life itself.  

Despite the great distance and natural barriers between India and East Asian countries, cultural exchange on such a large scale is truly a fact in world history that merits admiration.  

(source: India and Japan: A Study in interaction during 5th cent - 14th century - By Upendra Thakur  p.  65 - 84).

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Follow up History
Persecuting the indigenous religions of Japan: forced conversions, murders and demolished temples

In Japanese, Kyushu means both arsonist and a Christian. Its origins lie in the fact that, besides employing other means of persecution, Nihonjin Christians would burn down Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in order to convert the Kyushu population. It was one of the reasons for Japan banning Christianity. As seen before, Christianity caused the same problems wherever it went and amongst all populations practising pre-Christian religions.  In the history of Japan we have an even more striking instance of Vatican aggressiveness with profound repercussions in the world. As in China and Siam , the basic policy was to see that Catholic merchants and Catholic priests worked together so that both, by extending their own interests, should ultimately extend those of the Catholic Church.

As is explicit in her doctrines, the Japanese converts could not remain the subjects only of the Japanese civil authorities. The mere fact that they had entered the Catholic Church made them also the subjects of the Pope. Once their loyalty was transferred outside Japan , automatically they became potentially disloyal to the Japanese civil rulers. This brought serious dangers to both the internal and the external security of the Japanese Empire. Internally, religious intolerance led to violence against other religions because of the fundamental Catholic tenet that only Catholicism is the true religion. This, of course meant civil strife. In the external field, Japanese communities, by following the directives of foreign missionaries, had to favor not only the commercial interests of Catholic foreign merchants but also the political plans of Catholic powers intent on political and military penetration of the Orient. Not many years after the first Catholic missionaries appeared, Japanese civil rulers began to realize that the Catholic Church was not only a religion, but a political power intimately connected with the imperialistic expansion of Catholic countries like Portugal , Spain , and other Western nations.

To the Japanese, anything connected with Christianity had become suspect of deceit, intolerance, and conquest.

(source: History of Christianity in Japan).

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US drops bombs on Japan

"We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power for a number of years. ..The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and the destruction of Japanese cities by means of atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such an attack on Japan could not be justified in the present circumstances..."

Atomic bombs are primarily a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities. Once they were introduced as an instrument of war it would be difficult to resist for long the temptation of putting them to such use.

The last few years show a marked tendency toward increasing ruthlessness. At present our Air Forces, striking at the Japanese cities, are using the same methods of warfare which were condemned by American public opinion only a few years ago when applied by the Germans to the cities of England. Our use of atomic bombs in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness.

(source: Hiroshima & Nagasaki -the Worst Terror Attack in History The Record Speaks - tamilnation.org).  

For U.S political and military intervention, refer to Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace – By Gore Vidal

Admiral Halsey recommended that Shinto shrines be bombed ?

Much of the discussion about racism and the bomb deals only with the question of whether racism played a role in the decision to use the weapon. Just as anti-Japanese racism documented by Takaki and others helps explain the far greater hatred by the American public and GIs for Japanese than Germans, the relocation into concentration camps of people of Japanese, but not German or Italian, descent, and the lesser degree of hesitation and caution shown in launching conventional attacks on civilians in Japan than in Germany, so too racism made Japan an easier atomic target than Germany would have been.

(source: The obliteration of Hiroshima – By Stephen R Shalom).  

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India's 2000 year-old connection with South Korea

India’s early contacts with Korea date back more than 2000 years. Two thousand years ago, a 16 year old princess from Ayodhya, accompanied by her brother, sailed from India for Korea. We only know her by her Korean name, Huh Wang-Ock. There she wed King Kim Suro, founder of the ancient Korean kingdom of Karack. The King himself received her upon her arrival, and later built a temple at the place where they had first met. She is said to have died at the grand old age of 189. Her story is narrated in the ancient Korean history books, "Samkuksaki" and "Samkukyusa".

Her tomb is located in Kimhae and there is a stone pagoda in front of the tomb. The pagoda is built with stones, which the princess is said to have brought with her from Ayodhya. They have engravings and red patterns. They are believed to have a mysterious power to calm stormy seas. The Kimhae kingdom's influence is still felt in modern-day South Korea. Kimhae Kims and Kimhae Huhs trace their origins to this ancient kingdom and Korea's current President Kim Dae Jung and Prime Minister Jong Pil Kim are Kimhae Kims. In February, 2000, Kimhae Mayor Song Eun-Bok led a delegation to Ayodhya. The delegation proposed to develop Ayodhya as a sister city of Kimhae and there are plans to set up a memorial for Queen Huh. Note: Ayodhya is the modern Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh. It was the capital of the kingdom of Lord Ram, the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu. 

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Follow up History

Kristallnacht - Destruction of Native Culture in South Korea - Lessons for Hindus 

"The US is one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist societies in the world. "

                                                                                          - Naom Chomksy is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of several books including Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance - American Empire Project and Year 501: The Conquest Continues.

***

Even though this region was once overwhelmingly Buddhist, aggressive American Christian evangelism after the Korean War converted South Korea into a region where politicians have to be Christian to get elected. This conversion was not without violence: during the 1990s, Buddhist temples were burned and Buddha statues were beheaded as the then-president, a Christian, openly equated Buddhist images with Satanism. 

(source: Competing for Souls - crusadewatch.org). For more refer to chapter on Glimpses IV, Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor and Conversion.

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University equally famous and bigger than Nalanda found in South India

A bigger and more prominent university than Nalanda University has been discovered near Hampi. Believed to have housed more native and foreign students than Nalanda, the Lokapavana University at Chakratheertha near Hampi is expected to open up new vistas of discussion in history.

The newly discovered Lokapavana University was built by Vyasaraya during the Vijayanagar era in Hampi.

Virupaksha Temple at Hampi.

Lokapavana University was built by Vyasaraya during the Vijayanagar era in Hampi.

***

However, the persons who discovered this historical monument do not belong to any research group. They are commoners, illiterates, to whom this monument was just the ‘Vyasa Mutt’.When the Deccan Herald reporter visited the spot, photographed the sites and discussed them with experts, more startling facts came to light.

The University, located opposite the Vali Sugriva cave, near Chakratheertha, faces the western direction. To the South West of the varsity, one can see the gopura of Virupaksha Temple ; on one side is also the Mathanga Parvatha, while on the other (South) is the temple of Anjaneya , who was the well-revered God for Vyasaraya. To the left of the varsity is a sloping road and a Purandara Mantapa while to the North East is Vijaya Vittala temple, the abode of the lord of Vyasaraya’s poems, Krishna.  

At the entrance to the main building of the varsity is an statue of Goddess Saraswathi. Alongside the Goddess, are two elephants holding a Kalasha each, atop the Goddess’ head. In the nearby columns there are two sets of Ashtadalas etched within a circle. There are also nine kindis to the north wall of this room.

There is a gopura to the south of the main building and a mantapa on the first storey, which is etched with beautiful inscriptions. If one sees the monument from its front, one can see Anjaneya to the left and Garuda to the right, as if welcoming the visitor. Similar inscriptions are seen at the rear portion of the monument too.

A Mutt was built for Vyasaraya, who was the Rajaguru of Vijayanagar emperor Sri Krishnadevaraya, near Chakratheertha in the 15th Century. A hall, library and a school was built within this Mutt. Vyasaraya, who set up a scholarly institution, expanded it gradually into the Lokapavana University .

Eventually, people began referring to the Mutt as the Vishnupavana Mutt.

The head of the University was Vyasaraya himself and over 10,000 students were educated here, among them German and Yehudi students too. In addition to Vedic education, students were trained in Vaasthu, sculpting, psychology, commerce, mechanics and other such streams. In fact, the varsity is said to have had many branches across the country.

In Hardwar , it was Sathyanath, in Kashi Jayadev, in Bengal it was Eshwarsoori, in Gaya Harimishra, in Udupi Vadiraja, in Mulbagal Pragnanidhi, in Kanchi it was Srinivas Theertha who ran the show — these men were made vice-chancellors in the respective areas, according to ‘Vyasayogi Charitha’, a Sanskrit Champu Kavya by Somanatha and ‘Saraswatha Parinama’, an epic by Raghavendrappa in 1811.

The foreign traveler Nannis, in his writings about the Vijayanagar empire, speaks of the long processions, a decorated yathi seated in a golden chariot, with musical accompaniments, as part of the varsity’s convocation.

(source: Varsity equally famous as Nalanda found - deccan herald.com).

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Education shorn of values in India  

Ngugi WaThiong'o (1938 - ) who renounced English, Christianity, and the name James Ngugi as colonialist; a Kenyan author of Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, 1986 writes on the effect of devaluing our native languages:

"The effect (of a cultural bomb) is to annihilate a people's belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves."

***

"Indian intellectuals look to the West with and adulation that is often blind, if not obsequious."

                              - observes David Frawley ( ? ) the American teacher and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine.

***

There are occasions when one wonders why people the world over still admire India for its past contributions to the growth of civilisation and the evolution of thought. How could Indians achieve such spiritual insights that have eternal relevance on the time scale of history? This puzzle now has a contemporary context.

The aura and influence of India in the ancient world was not confined to the shores of India alone. The invaders and the conquerors did retard the progress of India's search for knowledge and the quest for understanding what lies beyond this world. The systems of generating, disseminating and utilising information and knowledge were relegated to the background for obvious reasons.

Yet, we managed to become the world's most illiterate nation. There can be no more comprehensive articulation of the distressing state of education in India than the famous words of Mahatma Gandhi, delivered at Chatham lines, London, on October 20, 1931: 

"I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was 50 years ago or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of the things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished."

A couple of points that emerged in the scrutiny of the educational records, prepared and authenticated by the British officers between 1813 and 1830 established that almost every village had a school. G L. Pendergast, a senior British officer, wrote about the Presidency of Bombay around 1920: "There is hardly a village great or small throughout our territories, in which there is not at least one school; in larger villages, more."

Several such details have been unearthed from the records and indicate the existence of a widespread educational network extending to higher education in various disciplines. Supported entirely by charity and funding from the rulers of the area, these had more than 800 per cent students from what are classified as the lower strata of the society. Poverty or social status never debarred a young learner.

The British began a process of dispossession, ensuring that the revenue sources to the educational institutions got dried up.  

The collector of Bellary, in his report on indigenous education wrote: "In many villages where formerly there were schools, there are now none." This indicates how the system was allowed to whither away. It's inner strength, combined with India's collective indomitable spirit, however, helped it maintain a semblance of continuity.

Every Indian is an inheritor of that powerful ancient heritage that attracts even the most modern-minded young person from every corner of the globe in search of peace, spirituality and in locating the real meaning of life and living.  

Kailashnath temple at Ellora caves.

Every Indian is an inheritor of that powerful ancient heritage that attracts even the most modern-minded young person from every corner of the globe in search of peace, spirituality and in locating the real meaning of life and living.  

Unfortunately, in India, the very usage of terms like "Ancient Indian culture", "Civilisation", "Vedanta", "Sanskrit", etc., makes our Marxist intellectuals squirm. 

"Since childhood, I was curious to know why there has been such a big mismatch between our traditional knowledge and the formal education system that portrays a perverse picture about our history. Brainwashing young, impressionable Indian minds in the name of modern science by the former colonists and their Indian sycophants have coloured our education system and the media beyond recognition. It has been to such an extent that we have almost a negative impression of our rich heritage." 

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

***

Growth and evolution of cultures rarely follow linear paths. By the end of the 20th century, it was clear to everyone that the colonial era had damaged the cultural and educational context of hundreds of nations who were materially exploited for centuries.

They needed their own futuristic education systems in place of the transplanted models forced upon them by their alien rulers.

UNESCO now accepts that education in every country must be "rooted to culture and committed progress". Unfortunately, in India, the very usage of terms like "Ancient Indian culture", "Civilisation", "Vedanta", "Sanskrit", etc., makes our Marxist intellectuals squirm. 

Character assassination, the most potent weapon in their armory, is thrown in to action: the canard of "Saffronisation".  

It also must be realized that these people, now in power with Left support, are becoming willing partners in the designs of their supporters to cut off India's new generation from its glorious heritage and legacy.

(source: Education shorn of values - By J S Rajput - dailypioneer.com February 25 06). Refer to Dharampal: Not many know the Indian past he had discovered! - By S Gurumurthy. Watch Ganapati Om Kirtan - By Dave Stringer. Watch Kirtan in Boulder, CO. USA. Refer to Indian-American scientists restore Hindu scriptures and Space Shuttle Astronaut Sunita Blasts off with Ganesha and The Bhagawad Gita  

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Hindu Intellectual’s Deep Sense of Inferiority Complex
Why is Indian Media shy of reflecting our achievements?

"You cannot be proud of a heritage you know nothing about, and in the name of secularism, we have spent 50 years in total denial of the Hindu roots of this civilisation. We have done nothing to change a colonial system of mass education founded on the principle that Indian civilisation had nothing to offer." 

"As for me I would like to state clearly that 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."

                                                     - writes Indian columnist Tavleen Singh - The Indian Express June 13, 2004.

"The desire of Indians to ingratiate themselves to the British is a wonder to behold. Spies, masquerading as journalists and academics, perfectly well-known to Indian intelligence, strut about in the company of Indian government ministers, including the prime Minister himself. They are lionised by the rich and powerful in Indian cities and now leaven Indian film sequences in shameless displays of white allure because they are unspeakably desirable to many Indians. In private these same white Europeans speak contemptuously of cloying Indians though to true to form they never refuse the proverbial free lunch thrust upon them by the same Indians. Be it noted that these same irredeemable Indians have not the slightest compunction insulting their own compatriots either because they misjudge them to be inconsequential or merely because they are humble, however honourable.

In the UK itself, Hindus are singularly obsessed with professional advancement and making money. . Once they attain these twin evil catalysts of pride the abandonment of Godliness, they stop at nothing to be recognised by the same white Europeans that regard them as mere irritants at best. And elevation to a British peerage or knighthood, though few of the illiterates can tell the difference even after their own anointment, turns them in a trice into spies against their community and the country of their ancestors. It is impossible to join the House of Lords and remain an honourable Indian in a society that cleverly divides non Europeans with devious propaganda and by rewarding the few willing to collaborate against their own."

                          - writes Dr. Gautam Sen who taught at the London School of Economics - The Organiser

***

"The word 'secularism' has been so prostituted that it has ceased to have any relevance. It has been reduced to mean self-denigration. " 

"India’s worst enemies are not external they are us, ourselves."

***

In an address delivered in Hyderabad early in May, President A. P. J. Kalam spoke about his three visions of India and he felt that the points he raised were so important which indeed they are that the paper he produced was put in general circulation in the Internet.

The first vision he envisaged was freedom. Freedom not just for India but for everyone. He asked: “In 3,000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds, looted us and took over what was ours.

Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed anyone’s land or tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why?” His own answer to that question was: Because we respect the freedom of others”. 

The inferiority complex we suffer from is colossal and this, even after we have been an independent nation for six decades. The British tried to destroy our respect for Sanskrit and sought to dismiss Sanskrit as “a dead language”. (Refer to chapter on Sanskrit).

When under the BJP-led NDA government an effort was made to put Sanskrit back on the school and college curricula, a hue and cry was raised by none other than a decadent set of Hindu intellectuals. 

Lord Brahma - Angkor wat 13th century.

Hindu intellectuals feel that to be known as a liberal whatever that means one must deride Hinduism, Hindutva and everything that is associated with them. How can a nation with a Hindu majority thrive, when the majority itself is ashamed of its history, culture and achievement?

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

***

For them Hinduism itself was something to be ashamed of. 

It was that utter sense of self demeaning that gave birth to the war cry of Hindutva and provoked the Mumbai-based Sena, for example, to raise the slogan: Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai. (Say with Pride that I am a Hindu).

President Kalam recalled how, when once he was in Tel Aviv in Israel there was an attack from outside by the Hamas resulting in a lot of deaths that was shocking. “But” President recalled, “the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary”.

Added Dr Kalam: “It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside, buried among other news”. Contrast this with what is happening in India. Even as Dr Kalam was addressing a meeting in Hyderabad, a handful of TV channels were trying their utmost to trigger communal riots in Gujarat, if not the rest of India.

As Swapan Dasgupta, a former editor of India Today, writing in The Pioneer (7 May) noted, 

“it was clear as daylight that the media was bent on stirring things up” following the riots in Vadodara in the wake of a demolition of a dargah dictated “by the imperatives of urban renewal in this case, road widening”. Forgotten by the media was the fact that at least ten Hindu shrines had also been demolished in the city for the same reason.

As Dasgupta put it: “To suggest that the roadside shrine should have been left because it was so dear to local Muslims suggest that there should be one rule for the aam admi and one rule for minorities”. And the blame for the fury of Muslims was automatically laid on Narendra Modi.

The loathsome hatred of Modi is a reflection of the Hindu intellectual’s deep sense of inferiority complex which he makes no effort to overcome. The word `secularism’ has been so prostituted that it has ceased to have any relevance. It has been reduced to mean self-denigration.

India deserves inner self respect more than external recognition. The first thing the Government should do is to pull up the media especially the electronic media for its utter misbehaviour and irresponsibility. India’s worst enemies are not external they are us, ourselves.

(source: Why is Indian Media shy of reflecting our achievements? - By M V Kamath - samachar.com). Refer to Timeless universality - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com.  Refer to chapters on First Indolgists and European Imperialism.   Watch the Bloody History of Communism - videogoogle.com.

***

What’s nectar for secular US is toxin for secular India!

Saffron Concepts?

Just a century ago, Max Weber (1864 - 1920) political economists and sociologist, declared that the Hindus and Buddhists remain backward because they believed in their ancient, faulty faiths!

Weber was a celebrated socio-economic thinker of the West. He counselled that belief in Karma - in which, he believed, fatalism hid - led people to accept their lot as their fate. He thus saw the Hindu-Buddhist faith in Karma as fatal to development itself. He diagnosed that Karma-centric faiths, which denied hopes to individuals, rendered their adherents unfit for modern development process.

Indian intellectualism, particularly in free India, carbon-copied Weber’s thesis and almost accepted that the traditional Indian beliefs are the nemesis of India. This turned the Indian establishment thinking apologetic about not just ancient Indian faiths but about ancient India itself!

Under the pressure of Weber’s interpretation, some bright Indian minds sidestepped the Aurobindo-Vivekananda view on ancient India as world’s future hope. They took refuge in socialist and secular ideas and delegitimised and drove the ancient Indian ideas underground. This enabled free India’s secular intellectualism, which saw ancient Indian thoughts as its principal adversary, declare everything about ancient India - whether it was Patanjali’s Yoga or Krishna’s Gita – as saffron toxic and anti-secular. In the end, Weber prevailed over free India.

Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda.

Under the pressure of Weber’s interpretation, some bright Indian minds sidestepped the Aurobindo-Vivekananda view on ancient India as world’s future hope. This enabled free India’s secular intellectualism, which saw ancient Indian thoughts as its principal adversary, declare everything about ancient India - whether it was Patanjali’s Yoga or Krishna’s Gita – as saffron toxic and anti-secular. In the end, Weber prevailed over free India.

For secular India Bhagwat Gita and Karma Yoga are toxic substances to be kept out of the Indian discourse. That is the measure of its hate for thoughts and things Indian. Yes the secular India dismisses as toxin what secular America realises as nectar.

Watch the Bloody History of Communism - videogoogle.com.

***

Now comes, a full century after Weber theorised on how fatal is Karma, a surprising U-turn in the West. The very idea of Karma, which Weber had diagnosed as the nemesis of India, seems to be emerging as the life vest of the West! The West, fatigued with the ‘greed-is-good’ capitalism for over a century, is now looking for an alternative to the greed-based capitalism.

International Business Week in its recent issue (Oct 20, 2006) sees the emergence of ‘Karma Capitalism’, that is, capitalism founded on the idea of karma! The magazine defines karma capitalism as a gentler, more emphatic ethos that resonates in the post-Enron and post-technology bubble in the West.

“Big business is embracing Indian philosophy,” says the “Business Week”. Look at what it sees as Indian philosophy. “Phrases from ancient Hindu texts such as the Bhagwat Gita are popping up in management tomes and on web sites of consultants,” it says. And it goes on: “Top business schools have introduced “self-mastery” classes that use Indian methods to help managers boost their leadership skills and find inner peace in lives dominated by work”.

Not only that. Bhagwat Gita, according to “Business Week”, has replaced the 6th century BC Chinese classic Art of War of Tsun Tsu, which dominated business schools two decades earlier. The magazine says that while it used to be ‘hip in management circles’ to quote from the Chinese classic, the ‘trendy ancient Eastern text on Thursday is Bhagwat Gita”, which the magazine says “more introspective”.

For secular India Bhagwat Gita and Karma Yoga are toxic substances to be kept out of the Indian discourse. The Indian management gurus and spiritual leaders are doing what Swami Vivekananda did over a century ago - namely proclaim that greatness of the Indian thought in the US and import it from the US to India. They are actually validating in the US what has been driven underground in secular India.

If the Indian management gurus did something similar in India it would attract the abuse of the seculars that they are toxifying even business and economics with saffron concepts! It may even charge that the corporate America is becoming addicted to toxic saffron. That is the measure of its hate for thoughts and things Indian. Yes the secular India dismisses as toxin what secular America realises as nectar.

(source: What’s nectar for secular US is toxin for secular India! - By S Gurumurthy - newindpress.com).

***

Refer to A 'M K Hussain' of Tamilnadu: We hate Hinduism

Chief Minister M Karunanidhi Chief Minister of Tamilnadu has failed to publicly apologize for the 'vulgar remarks' he recently made against the Hindu Gods and Deities. 

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu is well known for his Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating or Hindu-baiting stances and postures, often laced with either malicious or ludicrous statements from time to time during the past five decades.

(source: A 'M K Hussain' of Tamilnadu: We hate Hinduism - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com).

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Umberto Eco speaks of "Rasa and Taste"
JNU Gods and Priests Writhe  

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

The JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University - Citadel of Indian Marxism) high priests must have cursed the moment they decided to invite Umberto Eco (1932 -  ) novelist and philosopher, to speak. 

Says this report:

Celebrated Italian author Umberto Eco left many academics and students at Jawaharlal Nehru University squirming with embarrassed ignorance on Monday.

Delivering a lecture on " Rasa and Taste", Eco spoke with great scholarly confidence and even greater scholarly tentativeness about Bharata's Natyashastra, Anandavardhana and Avinavagupta, which he had read in translation but few in his audience seemed to be acquainted with.

Few? I daresay that almost none in the "red" audience would've read about these Masters leave alone their works. For it is taboo in the Citadel of Indian Marxism. They're banned there for their feudal, backward-looking ideas. Eco heaped further agony on the crowd:

As he constantly struggled, with a spirit of genuine inquiry, to understand the rasa theories in relation to Western philosophers - St Augustine, David Hume, Kant and Aristotle - many in Delhi's academia looked as if they were completely at sea.

"You would know, according to Abinavagupta, the ninth rasa is peace and tranquility?" 

He looked up to find mostly blank faces staring at him in the audience.

If Prof Eco had only begun on Marx and Engels… No wonder no major newspaper has given his visit extensive coverage.

(source: JNU Gods and Priests Writhe  -  www.sandeepweb.com - October 25, 2005).

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Death throes of Aryan Invasion theory?
People in north and south India belong to the same gene pool:  ICHR Chairman 

Aryans came here 15,000 years before the Common Era does not hold water.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests of blood samples from people in the Indian subcontinent have confirmed that the human race had its origins in Africa and not Europe or Central Asia as claimed by a few historians.

The test has classified the people in north and south India as belonging to one gene pool, and not different ethnic groups such as Aryans and Dravidians.

Giving the information to The Hindu here, Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research D. N. Tripathi said geneticists from Pakistan had collected samples for genetics analysis of the people of Indian subcontinent and sent them to cellular and molecular biology laboratories in the U.S. Scientists in Pakistan concluded from the test results that the human race spread out of Africa 60,000 years before Christ. They settled in the subcontinent. Geneticists in Pakistan concluded that people living in the northern and southern regions of India and those in the West Asian region were from the same gene pool, he added.

Asked about the argument of many historians tracing the lineage of people in north India to Aryans, Prof. Tripathi said test results had proved this wrong. "We have the results of studies. 

The conclusion of some historians that Aryans came here 15,000 years before Christ does not hold water," he added.

(source: People in north and south India belong to the same gene pool: ICHR Chairman - hindu.com). For more refer to chapter on Aryan Invasion Theory and First Indologists. Also refer to Indology Researchers’ fan club - http://irffanclub.blogspot.com/

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Censorship of Internet Websites? Hypocrisy of India's UPA Government?
Hizbollah web site acceptable; but not Hindu Human Rights?

The 'intelligentsia' in India are not worried. stands to reason, because a lot of the English-language media's (ELM) hypocrisy is being exposed on Blogs.

In Arjun Singh lexicon, Hindu Human Rights = Religious Extremism, but christist/mohammedan/marxist terrorism = good. A very neat encapsulation of UPA policy. Now stand by for an announcement of the Emergency, any day now.  

Hizbollah web site acceptable; but not Hindu Human Rights?

India was the first country in the world to ban The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The book Understanding Islam through Hadis by Ram Swarup was also banned. Several books of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin have been banned in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Book banning in India

There have also been claims that the history of the Islamic invasion of India is being systematically whitewashed and censored in Indian school-books and in other media (e.g. Eminent Historians - By Arun Shourie 1998). Refer to chapter on Islamic Onslaught.

Refer to Indira Gandhi and Emergency - Indian democracy lay in serious jeopardy in the summer of 1975 as Indira Gandhi's Emergency destroyed the country's democratic framework. Twenty years ago the Indian people voted decisively to defeat the hated regime of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi which had clamped a state of Emergency and sent democracy to jail. It is frightening even to contemplate what would have happened if Indira Gandhi had won. 

The Emergency would have continued, deepening public discontent and leading to a violent confrontation between the government and sections of the restive population. The Emergency, proclaimed on June 26, 1975 had lasted 21 months. The most shameful aspect of the Emergency was not its imposition but the manner in which almost the whole country succumbed to it and accepted it meekly. "Not a dog barked," Indira Gandhi said later. 

Sadly, this was true. Less than half a dozen newspapers denounced the action. A few judges and lawyers protested. As Soli Sorabjee, an eminent constitutional expert and later attorney general of India, noted that the performance of the Supreme Court as a guardian of fundamental rights was deplorable

Also refer to Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China and to Internet censorship in Pakistan and How to Bypass Internet Censorship and Censorship in India,  Also refer to the chapter on Glimpses XVIII for the Terrorism in India - Mumbai Blasts 7/11. (source: Internet Censorship and Govt cracks down on websites, blogs and Hizbollah web site acceptable; but not Hindu Human Rights?

Why my website was banned in India ? - By Rusty Shackleford

Two days after the Mumbai bombings last week that killed more than 180, the government of India issued a directive banning 17 websites. These websites were singled out because, according to the Indian government, they might incite religious violence. The nine American websites banned by India are all critical of the Islamist movement. Not a single website of Islamic extremists justifying and even celebrating the Mumbai bombings has been banned.

Why did India ban these websites? And what is the larger meaning of this action? The short answer to the first question is that we offended Islamists, and India is afraid of its own Muslim citizens. The short answer to the second question is that liberty may not be able to exist where there are large populations of Muslims.

A nation cannot truly have freedom of religion if that religion is immune from public criticism. A nation cannot truly have freedom of speech if blasphemy becomes a criminal act.

India is said to be a secular state with aspirations of greatness. Its recent actions show that it is neither completely secular nor ready for its proper place on the world stage. This is all doubly sad because India is also a natural ally against the cancer of Islamic fundamentalism.

It is India, not the U.S., which has bloody borders with Islam. Mumbai should be a reminder to India who its real friends are and who are its enemies. 

The move towards religious censorship by India is a mistake. A nation does not cement its alliances by adopting the values of its enemies and rejecting those of its allies. Despite this slap in the face by India, I will continue to wish her continued progress and prosperity. A wealthy India is an India better able to stave off the attacks of the barbarians who are our common enemies at her gates. India may have turned its back on us, but we should not be so petty as to completely turn our backs on her.

(source: Why my website was banned in India - By Rusty Shackleford - worldnetdaily.com).

***

Hindu Website Ban Backfires. More People Log in

On July 18th, the Indian Government banned www.hinduhumanrights.org  along with a few other websites.  Ostensibly, the reason to block access to Hinduhumanrights.org was that it could cause religious disharmony and civil disturbances in India.  

The real reason may be the websites differences of opinion with some Indian academics in UK with close links to the current Indian Government.

The ban has actually backfired. The Indian State does not have the resources to implement such a ban which is practically impossible on the internet.  Thousand of more people logged in to the website to see what the fuss was all about, giving Hinduhumanrights a big boost. Natural justice processes were not followed – one morning the people running the website woke up to hear it had been banned.  Techgoss checked out the website for the first time yesterday and found that except for a  few graphic photos, there was nothing which could justify a blanket ban by a liberal democracy like India which takes great pride in respecting all opinions.  Like it or not,  some of the causes taken up by this organization have been quite popular with the general Hindu population in Europe and USA.

(source: Hindu Website Ban Backfires. More People Log in - By Ratna Singh - techgoss.com). Refer to World Conquering Creeds in chapter Glimpses XVI.

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The centre of east and west

Speaking to Rainer Kellers, a German journalist on a short stint with this newspaper, was edifying. He was pleasantly surprised to see that Indians, even after letting in the winds of globalisation, had not lost their strong cultural moorings - something that wasn't true of many other places he had seen even in his own native Germany. This, when we often hear the lament amongst ourselves that we are in danger of getting knocked off by Americanism; or that the rate at which our urban youth is changing, our culture will soon get subsumed by a new identity that will be wholly alien to what we were till recently. Such backsliding logic beats me because the indications are rather to the contrary. There is an increasing interest in the West about India and if one were to take note of its trajectory, this appeal has only been intensifying.

However, that is an acceptance of India on the world stage at a more general level. For, classical India with its music, yoga and astrology - together constituting the "mystic package" - has always found "converts" to Hinduism in the West. This is true to such an amazing extent that I often find a greater - and more refined - understanding of India in westerners than many of us at home. To many people in the West, India answers their academic and spiritual quests to a higher degree and with far better results than their own socio-religious and philosophical contexts.  

 For, classical India with its music, yoga and astrology - together constituting the "mystic package" - has always found "converts" to Hinduism in the West. 

Watch Ganapati Om Kirtan - By Dave Stringer. Watch Kirtan in Boulder, CO. USA.

***

This search had brought Rainer Kellers to India twice before. As a back-packing trekkie, he discovered the quieter, gentler side of India. In fact he reminded me of another German I had met three years ago at Rishikesh who held similar appreciation of India. From my notes of that period, I recall he was Peter Meir, a chartered accountant from Bremen in his mid-50s.

worshippers at Magh mela

"Most of the places in my country have become monstrously ugly. Concrete forests populated by automatons. When I come to Rishikesh, I realise there isn't a single place in my country that connects us with our past in the same way. There is no inhabited place in Germany where time has stopped." Meir and Kellers are both among a growing tribe of Westerners who, given a chance, could reacquaint Indians with India. But there are others as well, who do so in even more profound ways.

(source:  The centre of east and west - Gautam Siddharth - dailypioneer.com May 1 2005). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com

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Mahabharata in Chinese sold out, goes into second edition

"There is a growing desire in China to learn about India's culture and tradi­tions."

"For a long time, Chinese scholars paid too much attention to the West. Now, there is a growing desire to know Indian civilisation and imbibe its wisdom," Huang Baosheng, who headed the five-member team of translators at Beijing University.

"The 5,000 sets released in the first edition were bought not just by libraries ­as happens m the case of most such works - but also by ordinary readers," Huang, who is a teacher at the university's Sanskrit department, said. The sets are mod­erately priced at 680 yuan (Rs 3,862) each.

There is a growing desire in China to learn about India's culture and traditions. The Mahabharata in Chinese sold out, goes into second edition.

***

Huang and his team worked for over 10 years translating the epic from the Sanskrit edition brought out by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. The institute's version, Huang said, is the best of the epic in Sanskrit.

"The Chinese version has more than 30 illustrations taken from the original. The work has been appreciated by scholars around the world, including those from Harvard, who recently visited us in Beijing." The Mahabharata's version comes several years after the Ramayana was translated into Chinese. Ji Xianlin, a Sanskrit scholar, secretly transla­ted the epic in 1976. Huang and most Sanskrit scholars in China are students of the 95-year-old Ji, who is now in hospital near the university. The other scholars involved in the Mahabharata project are Huang's wife Guo Liang Yun, and Ge Weijun, Li Nan and Duan Qin.

(source: Mahabharata in Chinese sold out, goes into second edition - By Saibal Dasgupta - timesofindia.com November 22, 2006). Refer to chapter on Hindu Scriptures and India and China.

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Idea of INDIA Under Assault 
UPA Government Communalizing Vande Mataram ?  

" India ’s leaders are too secular to even fight for the survival of their nation. They would rather witness the end of their civilization and escape with a green card to America to join their children. "  

                                                                    - Dr.Gautam Sen

***

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) first prime minister of free India, the archangel of our secularists, wrote:

"Vande Mataram is obviously and indisputably the premier national song of India, with a great historical tradition, and intimately connected with our struggle for freedom. That position it is bound to retain and no other song can displace it. It represents the position and poignancy of that struggle."

Mahatma Gandhi, too, saw Vande Mataram as the most powerful anti-imperialistic battle cry and had declared that he associated the purest nationalist spirit with it.

***

Ode to Motherland

Vande Matram - the first expression of Indian Nationhood.

"I bow to you, my mother"

Vande maataram
Sujalaam suphalaam malayaja shiitalaam
Sasyashyaamalaam maataram
Shubhrajyotsnaa pulakitayaaminiim
Pullakusumita drumadala shobhiniim
Suhaasiniim sumadhura bhaashhiniim
Sukhadaam varadaam maataram
Koti koti kantha kalakalaninaada karaale
Dwisapta koti bhujaidhrat kharakaravaale
Abalaa keno maa eto bale
Bahubaladhaariniim namaami taariniim
Ripudalavaariniim Maataram
Tumi vidyaa tumi dharma
Tumi hridi tumi marma
Tvam hi praanaah shariire
Baahute tumi maa shakti
Hridaye tumi maa bhakti
Tomaara i pratimaa gadi
Mandire mandire
Tvam hi Durgaa dashapraharanadhaarinii
Kamalaa kamaladala vihaarinii
Vaanii vidyaadaayinii namaami tvaam
Namaami kamalaam amalaam atulaam
Sujalaam suphalaam
Maataram
Vande Mataram
Shyaamalaam saralaam susmitaam bhuushhitaam
Dharaniim bharaniim Maataram

***

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838 - 1894) wrote the lyrics of Vande Mataram, or at least the first two stanzas of the song, much before he penned Anandamath, his novel celebrating the sanyasi uprising against the tyrannical rule of Bengal's Muslim subedars. The original version was written sometime in the early 1870s - probably 1875 - and was later expanded into its full version and incorporated in Anandamath in 1881.  

Much later, when Vande Mataram became the rallying cry of India's freedom movement, after it was set to music by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and adopted as the National Song at the Varanasi session of the Congress on September 7, 1905 (it was accorded this status, bringing it at par with the National Anthem, officially by the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950), leaders of what was then incipient Muslim separatism began to raise the bogey that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's creation was "idolatrous" and, therefore, unIslamic. In time, this became, and continues to remain, the chant of those sections of the clergy and community who remain hopeful of setting the clock back by 150 years, if not more, when much if not all of India was ruled through firmans issued from the masnad of Delhi, more specifically Lal Qila. In Hyderabad, Maulana Syed Shah Badruddin Qadri, president of the Sunni Ulema Board, issued a fatwa, instructing Muslims not to sing the National Song and added that Muslims should not send their children to schools where Vande Mataram is sung. In Allahabad, India's all-weather Islamist and Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari turned apoplectic with rage and described any attempt to make Muslims sing the National Song as "oppression of Muslims". 

Such resistance and refusal has been registered by the ulema earlier too. Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi, aka Ali Mian, who, while he was alive, came to represent theological fanaticism and practised it with unabashed gusto as chairman of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, often raved and ranted against Vande Mataram while rubbishing all suggestions that the National Song defines the idea of Indian nationhood as something sacred and divine. Nor is it surprising that the same Ali Mian, in his stirring address to a gathering of Indian and Pakistani Muslims in Jeddah on April 3, 1986, should have exulted, "Cow slaughter in India is a great Islamic practice, (said) Mujadid Alaf Saani II. This was his farsightedness that he described cow slaughter in India as a great Islamic practice. It may not be so in other places. But it is definitely a great Islamic act in India because the cow is worshipped in India."  

Bharat Mata: Mother India - By Abanindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee who composed Vante Mataram.

(source: Indian Art - By Vidya Dehejia).

The soft if not servile attitude of the UPA Government, Marxist dominated media, left-minded social activists and 'liberal' Muslim scholars towards the on going controversy has only strengthened the Muslim communalists. Insult to National Song is not only an insult to the nation but it is the replay of the same pre-partition divisive politics of All India Muslim League.  

***

Hence the renewed rage against Vande Mataram because it symbolises the motherland India worships; it must be profaned because we associate with the "ode to the motherland", to quote Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, "the purest national spirit"; it must be denigrated because, as Bipin Chandra Pal (a "terrorist" in the present UPA regime's jaundiced eyes) put it, "The new nationalism which Vande Mataram reveals is not a mere civic or economic or political ideal. It is a religion." It is this religion of nationalism and patriotism, and not merely India's National Song, which is once again under attack from those who hawk Islamic revanchism and preach bigotry and separatism in the guise of protecting the identity of India's Muslims. 

Before independence, the Congress sacrificed the cultural and civilisational content of Vande Mataram, which even in its truncated form is nothing but a hymnal tribute to an idyllic Mother India, on the altar of the Muslim League's separatist politics. We see a similar capitulation today with the Congress declaring, in response to the ulema's rant against Vande Mataram, that it is not compulsory to sing the National Song. Soon, it will be the turn of the National Anthem, and then the idea of India as a nation and a nation-state. No price, it would seem, is too high to pay in order to keep the ulema in good humour. 

***

The ongoing controversy over Vande Mataram is an insult to our freedom movement and the nation as a whole. History is replete with instances when the song enthused our freedom fighters besides providing a common ground for equality of religions in our national life. 

Composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1876, the song was incorporated in the novel, Anandamath, in 1882. The first occasion when it was sung was at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1896. Rahamatullah M Sayani, president of that session, was not only a leading advocate, but also the secretary of Anjuman-i-Islam. Rabindranath Tagore composed the music of Vande Mataram for that historic session. 

During the partition of Bengal in 1905, the Bengal provincial conference of the year was held in Muslim-dominated Barisal (now in Bangladesh) in August. A leading Muslim presided over the conference and Vande Mataram was sung there. After the conference, the delegates marched in a procession through the streets of Barisal, shouting Vande Mataram to protest the partition of Bengal. Soon, it became a battle cry of Hindus and Muslims alike. Then it was not considered a Hindu song, but a slogan against imperialism and communalism. 

Then came the 1906 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. Dadabhai Naoroji came from England to preside over the session, which was heralded by Vande Mataram.

Vande Mataram is free from regionalism, parochialism and communalism. It was the first revolutionary song against foreign rule in India. Every Indian should remember its historic importance, which reminds us of the heroic deeds of our freedom fighters.

(source: A Horst Wessel? - Op Ed dailypioneer.com  August 26, 2006 and National Song that unites - Sarat Chandra Mallick Edit page august 24, 2006 – dailypioneer.com and Idea of INDIA Under Assault – By Kanchan Gupta. Refer to the chapter on European Imperialism.  Refer to Confront the anti-Hindus: The only way to rescue Hinduism - By J.G. Arora. Refer to Seizing India with some help from Hindus - by Dr. Gautam Sen

Madame Cama and Vande Mataram

On August 22, 1907 Madame Bhikaji Cama (1861 - 1936) and her band of exiled revolutionaries hoisted the Indian flag at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in Germany. This flag too had Vande Mataram inscribed on it. 

Madame Cama set up base in London. There, she became Dadabhai Naoroji's private secretary. He was an important Indian dignitary. Through him, Madame Cama allied herself with many patriots and began speaking against British rule.

Madame Cama became so famous and influential, the British concocted an assassination or murder plot against her! When Madame Cama caught wind of this plot, she secretly escaped across the English Channel to France! She turned her French home into a secret hideaway for revolutionaries worldwide. She made friends by sending pistols disguised as Christmas gifts to Irish and Russian nationalists. As the British saw her influence abroad increase, they begged France to send her back to India. When the French government refused, the English exiled her from her motherland and seized her inheritance. Naturally, despite all British attempts to disillusion Madame Cama, she continued championing her cause. In 1905, Madame Cama with other patriots, designed India's first tricolour flag. The flag had green, saffron, and red stripes. The top, green stripe had eight blooming lotuses representing India's then eight provinces. ‘Vande Mataram’ was written across the central, saffron stripe in Hindi. On the bottom, red stripe, a half moon was on the right and the rising sun on the left.

Madame Cama, became private secretary to Dadabhai Naoroji designed India's first tricolor flag with Vande Mataram on flag. Madame Cama became so famous and influential, the British concocted an assassination or murder plot against her! 

For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism.

***

Madame Cama's flag was smuggled into India by socialist leader from Gujarat Indulal Yagnik and later displayed in the library of Maratha and Kesari (the publications started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak) in Pune. The portrait of Madame Cama displayed in Parliament has her holding this flag.

Lokmanya Tilak and Madan Lal Dingra who assassinated Lord Curzon-Wyllie and was hanged with cries of Vande Mataram on his lips.

Madame Cama's flag was smuggled into India by socialist leader from Gujarat Indulal Yagnik and later displayed in the library of Maratha and Kesari (the publications started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak) in Pune. 

For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism.

***

The song travelled across the seven seas and became the binding factor for the Indian entity. In July 1909 Madan Lal Dhingra (1887 - 1909) assassinated an India office bureaucrat Sir William Hutt Curzon-Wyllie (lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army and of the government of India foreign department, also served in the Afghan War 1879 -1880)  in London and went to the scaffold with memorable enunciation of an ode to Motherland: 

"Neither rich nor able, a poor son like myself can offer nothing but his blood on the altar of Mother's deliverance... may I be reborn of the same Mother and may I re-die in the same sacred way, till my mission is done and she stands free for the good of humanity and to the Glory of God." He kissed the noose with cries of Vande Mataram. 

Vande Mataram as the expression of Indian Nationhood, was soon to travel to the Pacific coast of the United States of America. By early 1920s a substantive colony of Punjabis had come into existence, which faced extreme racial discrimination. As protest to this, the famous Ghadr Movement began in 1913 with Sohan Singh Bhakna as its founder and later Lala Hardayal as its most famous leader. 

(source: Émigré Indians' ode to Motherland - By Sidharth Mishra - Top stories dailypioneer.com September 1, 2006 and Madame Cama - deccanherald.com and Madame Bhikaji Cama - Zorastrian Association of Victoria. 

***

India: The siege within  

Senior citizens who lived through the traumatic days of partition must be feeling a sense of déjà vu when they hear Muslim clerics launching a shrill attack on our National Song Vande Mataram, 56 years after India became a secular, democratic republic. They know that in the past such arguments became the basis of separatist demands. 

While the Muslim League formally put forth the demand for partition, Mohammed Ali Jinnah prepared the ground for the vivisection of India three years earlier when he raised objections to the singing of Vande Mataram, the tricolour which we adopted as our National Flag and Hindi, our national language. Jinnah told a party conference in Lucknow in 1937 that the song, the tricolour and the language were all Hindu symbols, which ought to be shunned by Muslims.  

Muslim clerics like Syed Abdullah Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, and Maulana Khalid Rasheed who are now saying that Muslims cannot sing Vande Mataram because it is "un-Islamic" are therefore not saying anything new. Jinnah had said this before. His discomfort with Vande Mataram, our National Flag and our national language eventually culminated in the partition of India. The Bukharis and the Rasheeds are the new voices of discord. Emboldened by the pusillanimity of the Congress and the prevarication of many of its leaders on issues pertaining to national symbols and national pride, they have begun to gnaw at the vitals of Indian nationalism. We need to stop them in their tracks if we wish to remain secular, democratic and united.  

Vande Mataram has been sung at every session of the Congress over the last 100 years and every session of our Parliament ends on this patriotic and mellifluous note. We also ushered in freedom with Vande Mataram when Sucheta Kripalani sang it at 11 pm on the night of August 14, 1947, when the Constituent Assembly met to formalise the transfer of power from Britain to democratic India. 

Rajendra Prasad settled the issue in regard to the status of Vande Mataram in his statement before the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950, just before the formal signing of the Hindi and English versions of the Constitution by the members. Prasad said:

"The composition consisting of the words and music known as Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations in the words as the Government may authorise as occasion arises; and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it." The record of the proceedings of that day says that the members "applauded" Prasad's announcement. 

Today, the Muslim population in India has risen from 35 million in 1947 to over 150 million and though blessed with a secular, democratic environment, all that the community has to show is "leaders" like the Shahi Imam, who are now attacking the symbols of our nationalism. They are targeting Vande Mataram today. They will go after the National Flag tomorrow. These are persons who do not fit into modern, secular, democratic societies. We must coax them to leave for "purer" Islamic pastures like the ones in our neighbourhood because with them around we will be saddled with the feeling "India khatre mein".

(source: India: The siege within - By A Surya Prakash  - Edit dailypioneer.com August 29 2006). Refer to chapter on  Islamic Onslaught and Islamic Terrorism in Mumbai - chapter on Glimpses XVIII. Refer to Politics of a Song - It’s not about Vande Mataram. It is about vote banks - indiareacts.com and Confront the anti-Hindus: The only way to rescue Hinduism - By J.G. Arora. Refer to Appeasement of Minorities Destroying Hinduism - By Dr. T Hanuman Chowdary.

***

UPA Government Appeasing Minorities?

Justice KT Thomas Former Supreme Court Justice of India has remarked:

It is quite an unnecessary move on the part of the Government to lessen the importance of Vande Mataram (by making its singing optional) as it is a song that has inspired millions during and after our freedom struggle. The three songs, Vande Mataram, Jana Gana Mana and Saare Jahan Se Achha have been weaved into the national ethos of our country.

Giving less importance to one as part of a move to appease minority communities is not in good taste and is against the secular fabric of our country. I still don't understand what is objectionable about Vande Mataram.   

It is unnecessary to deflect public attention from the real message of the National Song (just because) ...religious obscurantists cannot shift their vision towards a patriotic song that has inspired millions of hearts. Theologians are twisting some verses of the song out of context. In every song even atheists will find religious elements. That should not be encouraged. I am shocked to see such a controversy even erupting over a patriotic song.   

The content and the patriotic fervour present in Vande Mataram are lucid and cloudless. Therefore, I fail to understand why some people are creating an issue out of it. A question that the dispute raises is: How loyal is a person to the nation? 

I strongly feel that the present arguments against the singing of Vande Mataram are highly objectionable and unwarranted. This is certainly not the way to appease minorities. Nobody is asking anyone to sing the song or bow before the song, but one should not forget history and the role played by Vande Mataram in the national freedom struggle. Every Indian should understand and spread the message of the National Song rather than engage in such petty controversies.

(source: Unnecessary controversy - By Justice K T Thomas Top stories – August 28 2006 dailypioneer.com).  

Communalization of 'Vande Mataram': An avoidable controversy

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay composed Vande Mataram (Salute to Motherland) song in 1870 for his historic novel Anandmath. Later, this song became a vibrant chorus of the freedom movement and also a battle cry against the British power. The thundering slogan of 'Vande Mataram' thrilled the students and youth of the country irrespective of their religious faith till the Muslim League linked it with idolatry and called it an insult to Islam.

After independence despite objections raised by some Muslim leaders the constituent Assembly settled the issue and adopted Vande Nataram and Jana gana mana Adhinayak jaya he Bharat Bhagya Vidhata as National Song and National Anthem of India respectively on January 24, 1950. National leaders like Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru and others had fully endorsed this decision and since then both the songs got constitutional status. Any controversy over these two symbols of national unity and integrity is therefore an insult to the constitution.

It is sad that the present Government instead of taking action against the fanatics showing disrespect to the National Song succumbed to the pressure of the latter and made the singing of national song optional.

The soft if not servile attitude of the UPA Government, Marxist dominated media, left-minded social activists and 'liberal' Muslim scholars towards the on going controversy has only strengthened the Muslim communalists. Insult to National Song is not only an insult to the nation but it is the replay of the same pre-partition divisive politics of All India Muslim League.

(source: Communalization of 'Vande Mataram - An avoidable controversy - By R.Upadhyay - saag.org).

***  

This song keeps us together- By Bharat Bala, producer of Vante Mataram video

The political brouhaha over (the singing of the National Song) Vande Mataram is futile. People are giving vent to their personal grouses and emotions in public and it's alarming to see the extent to which some of them are going to politicise the issue. It is a historical song and Indians have been singing it for ages. Now, all of a sudden, a problem has been created.

Vande Mataram is such an imaginative description of our country that every citizen can relate to it, regardless of race, religion or caste. It glorifies India and stands for its aesthetics that lies in people's hearts and minds and must be left at that. 

The song is not about destabilising any faith. Through the years of our freedom struggle the song served to unite us and marked the sacrifice of every Indian martyr. In the 21st Century, too, with its global cultural influences, this song can keep us together.

Vande Mataram - Maa Tujhe Salam.

Through the years of our freedom struggle the song served to unite us and marked the sacrifice of every Indian martyr.

A R Rahman, the symbol of today's Indian youth, gave it the Gen-X touch. My primary motive was to re-present the National Song so that every Indian child can be proud of his/her nationality. Every Indian, regardless of his or her religion, should be proud of our National Song. Anyone who delves deeper into its lyrics will understand the true meaning of its sublime poetry. Let's not be vulgar and disrespect our National Song.

(source: This song keeps us together - By Bharat Bala - Top stories dailypioneer.com August 29 2006 and Vande Mataram - rediff.com). Refer to the chapter on European Imperialism

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'We have fallen on evil days' 

No one except communalist politicians will gain from the present controversy about the song Vande Mataram. And no loss in the current course of events is greater than the loss of that indefinable aura which usually surrounds the National Song in every country. 

About a hundred years ago when Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh (not yet the sage of Pondicherry) and others ushered the song into the public sphere from out of the pages of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel Anandamath, the song and the slogan Vande Mataram was decidedly not read as a battle cry against another community. The song was an evocation of the beauties of the motherland, shading off in the latter part into a militant representation of what mother might have been.  

That did not worry the thousands who shouted the slogan for decades all over India. It is indeed surprising how rapidly this difficult text, written in Sanskrit and Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, was translated into other Indian languages. Versions in Marathi and Kannada were available in 1897, in Gujarati in 1901, in Hindi in 1906, in Telugu in 1907, in Malayalam in 1909, and so forth. 

The use of Sanskrit in the initial verses of the song no doubt helped in the case of languages derivative from Sanskrit, but in Tamil Nadu, too, the song was translated by the great poet, Subrahmanya Bharati, first in 1905 for a periodical and later in 1908 when it was included in a collection titled sapta koti. While the song was accessible only to the educated, the words Vande Mataram entered the lexicon of most Indian languages and common people shouted it as an act of defiance or as a rallying cry. 

From the beginning of the Swadeshi movement in 1905-07, when Tagore personally led processions in Calcutta singing Vande Mataram, for at least three decades the song held its own as the first of the national songs then current. It is well-known from the decade leading to the Partition of 1947 a communalist cast of mind led to the rejection and denigration of the song - and simultaneously on the other side there was a Hindu communalist tendency towards the political appropriation of the song. 

One is reminded today of Mahatma Gandhi's words in Harijan in July 1939:

"... we have fallen on evil days. All that was pure gold has become base metal today. In such times it is wisdom not to market pure gold and let it be sold as base metal. I would not risk a single quarrel over singing Vande Mataram at a mixed gathering. It will never suffer from disuse. It is enthroned in the heart of millions." 

I read this as a strident condemnation not only of communalism, but also of the political instrumentalisation of the creative and intellectual element in national life.

(source: 'We have fallen on evil days' - By Sabyasachi Bhattacharya - August 31 2006 daily pioneer.com Top stories). Mr. Bhattacharya is formerly professor at JNU and V-C at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, is author of Vande Mataram: The biography of a poem (Penguin, 2003). Refer to the chapter on European Imperialism

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Perversity of Indian Secularism
Fatwa against singing Vande Mataram

With the new academic year set to start next week and the admission process at its peak, several city--based muftis issued a fatwa on Tuesday asking Muslims not to admit their children in schools where Vande Mataram is sung every morning. Children who are already studying in such institutions must be immediately shifted to other schools, the fatwa ordered.

Vande Mataram was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838 - 1894).  Among those who approved the singing of Vande Mataram at the Nagpur Congress was Mahatma Gandhi.  

Mahatma Gandhi, too, saw Vande Mataram as the most powerful anti-imperialistic battle cry and had declared that he associated the purest nationalist spirit with it.  

Refer to the chapter on European Imperialism.

***

Muftis, including All--India Sunni Ulema Board president Moulana Syed Shah Badruddin Qadri Aljeelani, Moulana Mohammed Hasnuddin, Moulana Mohammed Mastan Ali, Nazima Aziz and Rizwana Zarreen of Jamiat--ul--Mominath, jointly issued the fatwa when some parents approached them seeking a shariah ruling on Vande Mataram. 

Several schools in the city start their day with a recital of the national song. “Vande Mataram was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838 - 1894).

It emphasises that Indians treat their land as God. Ours is a secular country. Asking Muslims to do something like this cannot be advocated,” Moulana Badruddin Qadri Aljeelani told TOI after issuing the fatwa.

(source: Fatwa against singing Vande Mataram - timesofindia.com). Refer to A spectre haunting India - economist.com and Al-Qaeda letter says Taj next target - ibnlive.com. Refer to Islamic Terrorism in Mumbai - chapter on Glimpses XVIII.

***

There's nothing anti-Islamic in Vande Mataram - By Firoz Bakht Ahmed (Educationist and grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad)

The melody, the thought content and the ambience of patriotism of Vande Mataram is unmatchable. 

As an Indian, I simply fail to understand as to why some of my co-religionists are trying to make a religious issue out of Vande Mataram that has a universal appeal for all Indians irrespective of caste, creed and faith.

As a Muslim, I would like to convey a message to all my countrymen and especially my own community that some politically motivated people are trying to make an emotive issue of Vande Mataram, gem of a song which in my view should have been the national anthem in place of Jana gana mana...

What is unfortunate is that clerics like the Shahi Imam (of Jama Masjid), Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangimahli and others give Hindutva forces the handle to beat Muslims with. Why should we fault VHP leaders for giving anti-Muslim statements when our own clerics utter vitriolic things which give an impression that Muslims are less patriotic than the Hindus?

The beautiful song got caught up with the electoral calculations keeping in view the approaching UP elections. The media is also responsible for creating such an impression by repeatedly giving publicity to speeches by these clerics who are no more than bigots. It is because of irresponsible statements made by these people that Muslims have to suffer.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Then how can singing Vande Mataram be un-Islamic? Moreover, the words of Vande Mataram “Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams... Mother, to thee I bow...”,

The voices of secular, patriotic and liberal Muslims never get a forum. 

***

The voices of secular, patriotic and liberal Muslims never get a forum. We live in a liberal society where we are encouraged to know about one another’s religion. Does a Hindu become ‘ashuddh’ by going to Jama Masjid or a church? Don’t the Muslim children going to Christian schools sing psalms from the Bible in the morning assembly like “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name”? Do they come back home losing their faith?

Then how can singing Vande Mataram be un-Islamic? Moreover, the words of Vande Mataram “Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams... Mother, to thee I bow...”, found to be objectionable to the clerics, have nothing of that kind as we are not making ‘sijda’ (bow) before anyone except Allah. Where’s the controversy except in the minds of the misguiding fundamentalists?

Muslims must follow the example of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first education minister, who though born in a predominantly Hindu environment, was bold enough to propagate nationalism to Muslims at variance with the prevalent political consciousness based on communalised politics while supporting the same with Islamic sanction.

Maulana Azad saw in Vande Mataram the fusion of the endogenic creativity, the Vedantic vision of many parts of truth with the Islamic doctrines of Wahdat-e-Deen (unity of religion) and Sulah-e-Kul (universal peace).

(source: Don't colour Vande Mataram with religion - By Firoz Bakht Ahmed (Educationist and grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad - dailypioneer.com August 25, 2006 and There's nothing anti-Islamic in Vande Mataram - By Firoz Bakht Ahmed (Educationist and grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad - economictimes.indiatimes.com).

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Veda will be chanted in US Senate

“I am sure the report ’Hindu Prayer to open US senate Session’ (June 27), about the chanting of Rig Veda, Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita in the US Senate at its inaugural session on July 12 would have gladdened the hearts of millions of Hindus."

"Even though the majority of US citizens are evangelists, its legislature has taken this momentous step of honoring an ancient religion like Hinduism. This is true secularism where all religions are respected. Only in India does secularism mean ‘anti-Hinduism’. For some so-called secularist parties, Hindutva is a dirty word and any party that advocates Indian tradition and culture is treated like a political pariah”.

                                                                                               -  Rajalakshmi Subramanian from USA.

received via email. Published by Times of India, New Delhi in the column ‘My Times, My Voice’  

Refer to Statement from the Hindu American Foundation Celebrating Opening of the U.S. Senate With Hindu Prayer - HAF - "The Hindu American Foundation joins all Hindu Americans in celebrating yesterday's epochal events in our community's history in the United States. Yesterday, the faith of 2 million American Hindus and nearly 1 billion of the world's population was represented in the chambers of the U.S. Senate for the first time."

***

Washington D.C. June 25, 2007: Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain living in Nevada, is scheduled to give a Hindu prayer at the July 12 opening of United States Senate in Washington DC. It is believed this will be the first time any Hindu prayer will have been delivered in the US Senate since its formation in 1789. According to US Senate website, "...Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honored the historic separation of Church and State, but not the separation of God and State...During the past two hundred and seven years, all sessions of the Senate have been opened with prayer, strongly affirming the Senate's faith in God as Sovereign Lord of our Nation..." Usually the Senate Chaplain delivers the opening prayer, but sometimes guest chaplains are invited from all over the country to read the prayer. According to a Senate Chaplain Office communique, the purpose of the opening prayer is to seek God on behalf of, and for the Senators and the prayer should affirm our rich heritage as a Nation "under God".

(source: Veda will be chanted in US Senate - Hinduism Today).

Intolerance and Christian Fundamentalism in America?
Prayer War on the Hill: Hindu Invocation In Senate Reveals Religious Right Rancor

John Adams (1797 – 1801) Second President of the US and a Unitarian, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, December 25, 1813 describing Hinduism and noting how it contains the same basic teachings as Christianity:

“Where is to be found Theology more orthodox or Phylosophy more profound than in the Introduction to the Shast[r]a [a Hindu Treatise]? “God is one, creator of all, Universal Sphere, without beginning, without End. God Governs all the Creation by a General Providence, resulting from his eternal designs — Search not the Essence and the nature of the Eternal, who is one; Your research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough that, day by day, and night by night, You adore his Power, his Wisdom and Goodness, in his Works.”

(source: John Adams - positiveliberty.com).  

Refer to Our Founding Fathers were not Christians. Refer to Top Military Officials Endorsed Evangelizing In The Pentagon and Evangelical Pentagon?- Christian Embassy video.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers and the author of the concept that the United States should maintain a "wall of separation" in order to avoid the development of a state religion of the sort that had existed in the monarchies of Europe, was a student of Hinduism. 

His library included Hindu texts, and when he wrote the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, which laid the groundwork for the Constitution protection of religious practice and pluralism, he specifically avoided making reference to the Christian faith -- though its adherents dominated the public life of Virginia and other colonies -- because he wanted it to be known that all religions, including Hinduism, were respected and welcomed in the United States.  

In his notes on the Virginia statute, Jefferson specifically argued that Hinduism and other faiths would be afforded the full protection and privileges of the act. Noting the overwhelming rejection by Virginia legislators of an amendment to his statute that proposed to insert a reference to Jesus Christ, Jefferson found "proof that they (the legislators who enacted the measure) meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the (non-practicing and disbelieving) infidel of every denomination."  

Jefferson 's respect for religious pluralism in general, and Hinduism in particular, led him to compare notes with other founders of the American experiment. The third president and his predecessor, John Adams corresponded at some length about their respect for the teachings of the Hindu religion.

(source: Sectarian Extremists Versus Jefferson - By John Nichols - thenation.com).

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Heckling on the Capitol Hill
Feeling Ashamed to be an American?

Our nation’s Religious Right cabal carps constantly about a lack of religion in the public square and promotes the wildly misleading notion that the nation’s Founding Fathers envisioned a government devoted to Christianity.

This morning an incident unfolded in the U.S. Senate that provided a glimpse of the nastiness that movement has wrought. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had invited a Hindu clergyperson to offer a prayer to open today’s session, and it was disrupted by angry howls from a gaggle of Religious Right protestors.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) a Mormon and Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) had invited a Hindu clergyperson to offer a prayer to open today’s session, and it was disrupted by angry howls from a gaggle of Religious Right protestors. Reid has commented on the event:  “If people have any misunderstanding about Indians and Hindus, all they have to do is to think of Gandhi.” Today was a historic first for religion in America 's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists. Hindus constitute only 4% of America's population.

Disgrace on American Democracy and Pluralism? Shockingly, far from being an isolated and spontaneous incident of hatred, it is reported that a large number of well-organized fundamentalist Christian groups throughout the nation had been clamoring against allowing a Hindu priest to lead a prayer in our nation's capital. The American Family Association has been on the forefront of urging Christians to take direct action against religious tolerance and asked their followers to contact the Senate to ban a Hindu from leading prayer.

Christian Right Activists Disrupt First Hindu Prayer In Senate: "This Is An Abomination" American Taliban? Intolerance and Christian Fundamentalism. America - Is it the Land of Philosophers like Emerson and Thoreau or Rabble rousers like that of Pat Robertson, Jonathan Falwell, Franklin Graham and Ann Coulture? 

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As Rajan Zed prepared to give his prayer, one protestor shouted that what was about to occur was “an abomination” and a woman protestor wailed something about the nation only belonging to Christ. 

Those protestors, the news service reported, called themselves “Christians and patriots” as they were being led from the chamber. 

Intolerant, uninformed and rude are more fitting descriptors. But Religious Right activists, such as the American Family Association and “Christian nation” lobbyist David Barton, have spent decades fomenting such behavior. Indeed, when they got word of Reid’s invitation to Zed, they began prodding their followers to deluge the Senate with complaints about the planned prayer. The AFA’s news arm reported that Barton knocked Hinduism as having few followers in America and spouted drivel about prayer to a “non-monotheistic god” as being un-American.

Pastor Rod Parsley, president of the Columbus, Ohio-based Center for Moral Clarity, said in an interview that Zed's appearance reflects American diversity, and said he had no objections.

"My opinion would be that America is the marketplace of ideas and that we should open our doors and our hearts to those of differing religious persuasions than ours, and in a free and open society allow points of views to be heard as loudly and clearly as they can be made," he said.

As the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, noted to the AP, the disruption and complaints from the Religious Right revealed their intolerance and the fact that the only religion they want paraded around in the public square is their own. Regarding the Religious Right’s claim that the nation’s founders wanted a government devoted to God, one should look at the work of James Madison, often dubbed the “Father of the Constitution.” The Religious Right has spent years working to re-write American history, and they’ve unfortunately influenced some people and inflamed others. The movement as today’s religious squabble in the Senate chambers shows is a divisive one. It promotes religious conformity, not religious liberty. Far removed from the nation’s constitutional principles, the Religious Right movement remains hostile to liberty for all.

(source: Prayer War on the Hill: Hindu Invocation In Senate Reveals Religious Right Rancor and Conservative Christian Groups Protest Hindu Prayers in Senate).  Refer to Christianity has persistently fought against Pluralism and Victims of Christian Faith and A Christian jihad? - By Khaled Diab - guardian.co.uk and Theocracywatch.org and Dominionism - religioustolerance.org. Refer to When Feds Forget Freedom of Faith (and the Fundies Who Love Them) - By Tim Mitchell - crusadewatch.org. Watch video -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9To30Hz7A 

Good ole Christian tolerance ?
Are majority religions by the power of their numbers and economic clout going to smother Vedic religions?

It's absurd but so typical of Christian extremists that they would freak out at the imposition of a prayer that does not reflect their beliefs — welcome to my world, guys. We learn from an early age that the appropriate response is just to wait it out and not participate … and that any protests have to be made at an appropriate opportunity.

(source: Good ole Christian tolerance - By P Z Myers). Watch Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour Watch video.  Refer to Defaming of Hinduism-I – By V Sundaram – newstodaynet.com and Defaming of Hinduism-II – By V Sundaram – newstodaynet.com. For more on Christian Intolerance refer to chapters on The Goa Inquisition, European Imperialism, Conversion, and First Indologists.

Hindu Prayers and Christian Hegemony

Mind you, when we criticize the fact that the Senate begins every other day with a Christian prayer, we are accused of trying to destroy religious freedom. When any other type of prayer is offered, this magically has nothing at all to do with religious freedom. Silly Hindus, don't you realize that only Christians get to have the official government imprimatur upon their religion? You just sit back and enjoy your cheeseburger and let the Christians pray.

(source: Hindu Prayers and Christian Hegemony - By Ed Brayton). Refer to US Senate Opens With Hindu Prayer, Confuses David Barton - talk2action.org.

Violated by a false Hindu god? Gross Idolatry?

The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

"Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them." said Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue.

He also said it is emblematic of the modern tendency of "other religions being held on a par with Christianity. Of course, we have said that is not true, that indeed Christianity is one way."

(source: Theology Moved to the Senate and was Arrested - christiannewswire.com and Head Of Christian Right Group Calls Hindu Senate Invocation "Gross Idolatry"). Watch Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour Watch video. Also refer to Christian Right Up in Arms Over Hindu Chaplain's Prayer in U.S. Senate - jewsonfirst.org and Prayer to Whom? – By Tom Perkins – Family Research Council. Refer to Our Founding Fathers were not Christians. 

'Christian' Wahabbis rising in the West

Just as the institution of slavery was incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ, so too is the religious supremacist approach, demonstrated by the three hecklers who sought to prevent a Hindu priest from opening the July 12 session of the U.S. Senate by a prayer that called for reflection on "the glory of the Supreme Deity, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of Heaven." Rajan Zed of Nevada ended with the traditional Hindu invocation: "Peace, peace, peace." This is hardly stuff that can be said to challenge the Christian scriptures, but to the protestors, any "non-Christian prayer" was sacrilegious, even one that celebrated the unity of the divine.

These days, fundamentalist groups that have misappropriated the term "Christian" fund missions to India, where preachers use language against local beliefs and deities that is, to put it mildly, uncomplimentary. In this, they are following in the path of the "professors" at Islamabad 's Red Mosque, who told their charges that Hindus were "pigs" and Christians "dogs."

(source: 'Christian' Wahabbis rising in the West - By M D Nalapat - crusadewatch.org). Refer to To Rajan Zed’s Hecklers: Who Are You? What Are You? (Beatles parody) - dailykos.com.  Also refer to The Business of the Catholic Church – By Bill Maher - Huffingtonpost.

Was the US Senate attack on Hinduism an isolated instance?

The denigration of Hinduism influences the way Americans relate to Indians. Andrew Rotter, an American historian, and professor at Colgate University, in his book on the US foreign policy’s tilt against India and towards Pakistan during the Nehru era, cites declassified documents revealing US presidents’ and diplomats’ suspicions of Hinduism. 

They regarded “Hindu India” as lacking morality and integrity, and its “grotesque images” reminded them of previous pagan faiths conquered by Christians, such as Native Americans. American ideas about India are intertwined with stereotypes about Hinduism.

(source: Was the US Senate attack on Hinduism an isolated instance? - By Rajiv Malhotra - usinpac.com).

Backhanded or Genuine?

It took America, a nation that supposedly prides itself on religious freedom and diversity, over 200 years since its establishment to ask someone from one of the largest non-Abrahamic faiths in the world to give a prayer in both its House of Representatives and Senate. This delayed invitation, in addition to America 's ongoing support of evangelical Christian missionary efforts in the Hindu homeland of India, makes this inclusion of a Hindu chaplain feel more backhanded than genuine, even if protestors hadn't been present.

Bible class advocates argue that Christianity is part of America's heritage, the indigenous tribal religions that inhabited America before the arrival of Europeans were not Christian at all and often faced prejudicial treatment from the American government for their non-Christian beliefs and practices. To follow the resulting analogy: "Christianity" is to "Be American" as "Traditional American Indian Religions" is to "Not Be American"

(source:  When Feds Forget Freedom of Faith (and the Fundies Who Love Them) - By Tim Mitchell - crusadewatch.org). Watch Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour Watch video

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Secular means anti-Indian   

The Washoe County Commission in the US observed Sanskrit Day on January 12 and organised a two-day seminar to mark the occasion. What could be more ironical than knowing that a Sanskrit seminar was held on American soil while the mother of most Indian languages, the dev bhasha (language of gods), is ignored in its own country. 

Sanskrit, German scholar Max Müller had observed, was the greatest language of the world. Mahatma Gandhi had said that without the knowledge of Sanskrit, nobody could become a truly learned man. Only in India could such a language take shape and flourish. Unfortunately, Government does not realise what a national treasure this language is; this reminds one of the Sanskrit saying which means "a monkey cannot value the gift of a necklace of pearls". 

This cannot be a result of ignorance. It must be a part of the larger conspiracy to eliminate Indian languages. Our present-day rulers are doing with impunity what Lord Macaulay could only partly achieve through his policies in the 19th century. His system of education has now got a new name -- 'secular education'. It seems it is now a sin to teach students the glory of ancient India .

Everything non-Indian, even anti-Indian, is being taught in classroom in order to give the curriculum a 'secular' look. If our textbooks praise the Vedic period, the descendants of Lord Macaulay raise a hue and cry. The authors of the textbooks would rather heap praise on the Mughal period in order to add a 'secular' colour to the books. 

If the 'secularists' find some tatsam (undistorted) words in Hindi textbooks, they accuse it is 'saffronisation' of Hindi. In order to make the Hindi books 'secular', the language has to be replete with words of Arabic and Persian origin. 

The mere mention of the word Ganesh, the lord of wisdom, in a textbook of a south Indian State , was so unbearable for the self-styled champions of secularism in the country that the chapter had to be replaced by one on an animal. But an entire opening chapter, "Jisu mahan" (Jesus, the great), of a Government textbook in a North-Eastern State invites no resentment from any quarter. 

(source: Secular means anti-Indian - By  Indulata Das Edit page dailypioneer Jan 22, 2008).

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UPA Governments' Arjun Singh's fatwa against things Hindu
Marxists denigrating India's Spiritual Foundation ?

(Note:  Communism is dead - What we are witnessing in India today is a conflict between living history and dead ideology. Their present indignation represents the mortal thrashes of a faith that is dead everywhere else in the world but flickers on with a semblance of life in the immense scope for opportunism that Indian politics provides. source: Ancient Indian Logic - By Sunanda Dattaray - telegraphindia.com).

Soon after becoming Human Resources 'Destruction' Minister, Arjun Singh took care to carefully select men like Prof J S Grewal and Prof Irfan Habib, who have jointly authoured the medieval India section of the Indian History Congress' notorious Index of Errors, which spearheaded the Leftist attack on NCERT. 

These two historians are to the Hindu 'refugees' of India what Hitler was to the Jews of Germany. It is now widely known that Prof Habib met Arjun Singh's committee, as did the activists of Sahmat, an organisation that hosted the press conferences wherein Leftist academics spat venom against NCERT.

As Rajeev Srinivasan has stated in this context: 'This, however, is what one expects: 

"Each nation and culture pumps up the valorous deeds of its people, as part of its propaganda efforts, and to establish its greatness. India, misled by sundry nattering nabobs of negativism, is the only nation that does the opposite, namely downplaying the real and brilliant achievements of its culture and civilisation and its citizens. The stunning accomplishments of Indian civilisation have been denigrated in a sustained campaign. With Nehruvian Stalinists and Marxists in power, this process has received fresh impetus'.

What is the upshot of all this attempts at de-saffronisation of history text books engineered by the HRD Minister Arjun Singh? UPA, fully supported by the Marxists, Leninists and the Nehruvian Stalinists rests on an effective denial of the spiritual foundations of Indian civilisation and of its original, sustained, varied contributions to the progress of humanity. How our spiritual culture has had a great cementing and unifying impact on the Indian masses is also passed over in silence.

What is Arjun Singh's definition of de-saffronisation? 

The whole world would be shocked by the way in which Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has been introduced in a text book for children officially produced by Arjun Singh's HRD Ministry through the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). 

The non-communal, cosmopolitan and secular author of this book is comrade Satish Deshpande. He is part of Arjun Singh's crusade to detoxify the students afflicted by the so-called 'saffronisation'. 

He has written in this book that 'Sri Ramakrishna was an illiterate and mentally unbalanced person'. This blasphemous statement cannot be casually dismissed as an individual's perversion but driven by a Marxist philosophy of class hatred.

In this context I have to refer to the great writings of Romain Rolland (1866-1944) who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 for his famous novel 'Jean Christophe'. 

He wrote the biography of Swami Vivekananda in two volumes. In one of those volumes he wrote how Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa identified the genius and potential of Swami Vivekananda as a spiritual leader of humanity:

Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekanada.

Sri Ramakrishna was an illiterate and mentally unbalanced person'. This blasphemous statement cannot be casually dismissed as an individual's perversion but driven by a Marxist philosophy of class hatred. 

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'Ramakrishna Paramahamsa with his intuitive genius for souls, for whom time was not, and who could discern in the twinkling of an eye the whole flood of the future, believed that he had seen his great disciple in the womb of the elect before he met him in the flesh. I will give here an account of his beautiful vision. We know that a mighty vision creates and produces that which it has seen. In a deeper sense, the prophets of the hereafter have been real characters of what was not yet, but which was trembling on the verge of being. The torrent forming the remarkable destiny of Vivekananda would have been lost in the bowels of the earth, if Ramakrishna's glance had not, as with one blow of an axe, split the rock barring its way, so that through the breach thus made the river of his soul could flow'.

Unfortunately for us comrade Satish Deshpande cold-bloodedly writes otherwise about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Arjun Singh and his Marxist comrades would run down Romain Rolland as 'communal' and uphold world-famous comrade Satish Deshpande as 'secular' and transcendental(!) with the full blessings and benediction of de jure Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and de facto Prime Minister 'Mother Superior'. 

Petty men like our HRD Minister cannot silence Hindu voice for ages to come. Hinduism has withstood the onslaught of external invaders for more than 2000 years. 

It is capable of defending itself against all its internal invaders, the torchbearers of pseudo-secularism, who are trying to hold aloft the green flag of de-saffronisation.

(source:  Arjun Singh's fatwa against things Hindu - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com).  Refer to A spectre haunting India - economist.com and Al-Qaeda letter says Taj next target - ibnlive.com. Refer to Shameful - By Dr. T Hanuman Chowdary

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Dark Clouds Descend on India

Quota system, Communist ruled states in India

Medical students and practitioners have launched massive strikes and protests in India lately. For a notion of what the fuss is about, consider the following stories.

In 2005, the NY Times reported that a patient undergoing routine cataract surgery in a hospital within the ‘worker’s paradise’ of Communist ruled West Bengal, India, died when ants ate her eyeballs following the procedure. This ghastly incident is an example of shoddy medical treatment offered in leftist and Communist ruled states in India.

Amazingly, India is routinely feted as having the best medical professionals and facilities in the world. Time magazine devoted many pages recently to medical tourism in Asia, and 60 Minutes last year profiled the tens of thousands of American and British residents who fly annually to India and receive the most complex treatment for bargain prices.

This dichotomy is present in every sphere in India. The private sector, a few select educational institutions like the elite IITs and states like Gujarat, which emphasize merit over quotas, prosper and provide the world’s highest caliber doctors, engineers, and professionals of all stripes. By contrast, populist leftist leaders like the former Laloo Yadav who court Muslims and lower castes, have rendered infrastructure and development in basket cases like Bihar state equivalent to sub Saharan Africa.

India’s economy provides ample merit based advancement opportunity for all minorities.

The wealthiest community in India is the Zoroastrian minority, which fled Islamic oppression in Iran for sanctuary in India. Jains also enjoy higher than average incomes and enormous success. All of these groups prospered without quotas or special privileges. 

UPA Government: Human Resources 'Destruction' Minister, Casteist divide and rule, Arjun Singh and Roman Catholic Sonia Maino Gandhi.

The government is in the process of making caste the only reality in India." The Congress-led Indian government, which relies on a coalition with Communist parties for support, will go down in history as the most destructive regime to ever rule India. 

Watch the Bloody History of Communism - videogoogle.com.

Where do Arjun, Sonia's grandkids study?

The Saudi media has heaped praise on the visiting Union Minister for Human Resource and Development Arjun Singh, describing him as a very ‘seasoned politician’ and an ‘icon (?) of Indian secularism’.

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The dark cloud which mars India has always been favoritism which populist governments use to win votes from minorities, like Muslims, and supposedly ‘underprivileged’ castes. The ‘caste system’ is a myth: employment discrimination based on caste has not existed for decades. Successive leftist regimes, in the all-consuming goal of courting votes, falsely used the bogey of caste discrimination to impose ridiculous quotas for ‘backward castes’ in public universities and government employment. Currently, quotas range from 22.5% in federal institutions to as high as 60% in states such as Tamil Nadu.

The current leftist federal government, keen on currying minority votes, will reverse this progress by increasing quotas by another 27% in universities and public firms. This additional reservation will increase the quota in federal government institutions to 50% and will result in obscene levels in some states such as Tamil Nadu, where up to 87% of seats will be reserved for the "so called" lower castes. These ruinous quotas may be extended to private sector firms later. This constitutes the beginning slide which will lead to the destruction of India’s economic miracle, and wiping out billions of dollars of foreign investment in India.

This issue is not just a domestic Indian affair: as the intellectual economies of the West and India have become entwined, we have a vested interest in ensuring that the excellence in products and services that our economies need continues to be developed. Every major American firm, especially in technology, today is critically dependent on Indian talent to provide cutting edge design and innovation, not just low-end services.

Destruction of the Indian jewel will drag down the entire global economy along with India, and considerably weaken American competitiveness and innovation, especially compared to China. The Congress-led Indian government, which relies on a coalition with Communist parties for support, will go down in history as the most destructive regime to ever rule India.

(source: Dark Clouds Descend on India - By Ron Banerjee - canadafreepress.com)  Refer to Anti-Brahmanism should stop! - By Francois Gautier - rediff.com). Refer to A spectre haunting India - economist.com and Al-Qaeda letter says Taj next target - ibnlive.com.

Quotas - they're just Marie Antoinette solutions'

Andre Béteille (1934 - )  is appalled by the recent quota announcements as a potentially damaging interference in caste relations that were of their own showing- signs of positive -alteration. His resignation from the National Knowledge Commission this month is a stance backed by decades of consistency. 

"I have been a skeptic, not an opponent but a skeptic of reservations," he says.

"We go on creating rights which cannot be enforced and which are probably unenforceable," he says. "I call it the Marie Antoinette solution. They don't have schools so give them rights. 

Why do you only allow these children abysmal schooling and then think you can make up for it by quotas in the IIT's?"

(source: Quotas - they're just Marie Antoinette solutions' -  By Shyama Halder - tehelka.com).

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Caste-based reservation is ‘Operation Destroy India’

First, may one point out to a paragraph in a circular to the presidents of all Pradesh Congress Committees issued by none else than Jawaharlal Nehru, on May 26, 1954?

That paragraph said: "In particular, we must fight whole-heartedly against those narrow divisions which have grown up in our country in the name of caste, which weaken the unity, solidarity and progress of the country...."

When the British Government sought to give separate electorates to the Scheduled Castes, Mahatma Gandhi went on a hunger strike that is old history now, which ended in the Poona Pact in 1932.

Some seven and a half decades later, on September 6, 1990 Rajiv Gandhi made a similar, though not as sensational, effort to promote national unity in a speech in parliament criticising the Mandal Report, lasting, to his eternal credit, some two and a half hours. Rajiv Gandhi, like the Mahatma before him, was not opposed to enabling the Scheduled Castes, make progress in all fields.

Addressing the Lok Sabha he said: "If you believe in a casteless society, every major step you take must be such that you move towards a casteless society. And you must avoid taking any step which takes you to a caste-ridden society.

”Unfortunately, the step that we are taking today (accepting the Mandal Report), the manner in which it has been put, is a casteist formula. While accepting that is a reality, we must dilute that formula and break that formula by adding something on to it". 

Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi all were against dividing the nation in the name of caste.

Nehru wrote: "In particular, we must fight whole-heartedly against those narrow divisions which have grown up in our country in the name of caste, which weaken the unity, solidarity and progress of the country...." 

Rajiv Gandhi wrote in 1990: "Even now there is time to pull the country back from this caste division…Ministers are provoking caste wars". 

When the British Government sought to give separate electorates to the Scheduled Castes, Mahatma Gandhi went on a hunger strike that is old history now, which ended in the Poona Pact in 1932. 

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Attacking the then Prime Minister V P Singh whom he charged with not having the guts to stand up and say whether he believes in a casteless society or not, Rajiv Gandhi said: "This government is creating a vested interest in casteism and the country is going to pay a very high price for it". 

An angry Rajiv Gandhi shot out: "Does the government subscribe to the Mandal Commission view that political constituencies should be carved out on a caste basis? Are we going back to the Round Table Conference for having separate electorates? That was designed to break our country, Sir".

Warming up in his address, Rajiv Gandhi said that "even at this late hour (and this was in 1990) there is time to pull the country back from this caste division…Ministers are provoking caste wars".

Continuing, he said: "The Raja Saheb's (V P Singh's) statement doesn’t command wide acceptance in the country. They (the Ministers) have weakened our national fabric and to add to that, the Central Government, the Ministers, have deliberately provoked the caste confrontation and caste wars....".

Rajiv Gandhi said that "an issue like reservation cannot be treated in a piecemeal manner. We must look at the whole picture." He quoted Mandal himself who had said that "the aim is to overcome historical and geographical handicaps, not to create new vested interests" and admitting that "the categorisation of backward classes has always been difficult".

Rajiv Gandhi quoted V P Singh as having told a newspaper that implementation of the Mandal Commission Report "was purely a political strategy".

And he went on to say: "Raja Saheb's policies are not very different from what the Britishers were doing. It was the British who tried to divide our country on the basis of caste and religion and today it is Raja Sabheb sitting there, who is trying to divide our country on caste and religion... Already you are taking this country towards religious electorates. First you are dividing into reservations in jobs. This government is taking the country in this direction".

Are you reading this, Soniaji? Are you reading this Manmohan Singh? Kindly read the parliamentary proceeding in full, and carefully. Rajiv Gandhi believed in the unity of this country. Are you?

(source: Caste-based reservation is ‘Operation Destroy India’ - By M V Kamath - free press journal). 

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Where do Arjun, Sonia's grandkids study?

First, let us drop the pretense that Mr Arjun 27 per cent was acting on his own when he announced his new quotas. In the Congress party and the Manmohan Singh Government, nothing, absolutely nothing, happens without Sonia Gandhi's authorisation. Everyone connected to political Delhi knows this.

Second, let us drop the pretense that the new quotas have anything to do with education. They do not. They have everything to do with next year's elections in Uttar Pradesh which, unlike anything you may have heard about Rae Bareli, are Rahul baba's real political test. Fawning, sycophantic political commentators have gushed over his having shown himself ready for a ''bigger role'' by running Mummy's political campaign during her needless re-election.

So, some cynical political pundits in the backrooms of the Congress party came up with the idea of Arjun Singh's announcement of a 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Class students. Set the country on fire if this is what it takes to win elections. This has been the Congress way for a long time, only India has changed and this kind of tactic no longer works. But Indian education, already a mess, will end up damaged beyond repair unless public opinion succeeds in defeating political cynicism.

Let it discover, as I did in a Gujarati village last week, that in rural India people are not even sure what an OBC is. In the village I visited I asked which castes would qualify for the new quota and they said Adivasis and Dalits. When I told them they already had their own quota they looked puzzled and said, 

''We don't have any other backward castes in this village.''

When the 27 per cent quota starts being implemented, though, we might find that everyone is suddenly an OBC. At a time when caste divisions even in the darkest depths of rural India are beginning to weaken whoever thought this one up has some really bad karma coming his way.

(source: Where do Arjun, Sonia's grandkids study? - By Tavleen Singh- indianexpress.com - May 21 2006). Refer to Anti-Brahmanism should stop! - By Francois Gautier - rediff.com). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com

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Quota Mess made by the UPA Government
Making caste the only reality in India

"What is surprising is that the ruling United Progressive Alliance—including the Left—has given scant attention to the fact that the nation would be further divided on the basis of caste, a factor that has trivialised society. An outgoing member of the Knowledge Commission has rightly said that, "The government is in the process of making caste the only reality in India." 
                             -  says  Kuldip Nayar

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Proposed quota expansion has serious political and social ramifications and will divide India : Indian Supreme Court

Indian Supreme Court said proposed quota expansion has serious political and social ramifications and will divide India on the basis of caste. 

The vacation bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice L S Panta challenged Manmohan Singh's Government with three basic issues. How does Indian Government fix the OBC categories? How does the Government justify the basis of fixing the OBC categories? What will be modalities and basis for modalities after the quota is implemented?
The justices gave Manmohan Singh and his Congress party led Government eight weeks to answer and file counter-affidavit on implementation of the policy.

(source: Proposed quota expansion has serious political and social ramifications and will divide India : Indian Supreme Court - indiadaily.com).

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It will divide India: Sri Ravi Shankar

Expressing concern over the fast-spreading protests against the proposed reservation in educational institutions for OBCs, spiritual guru and ‘Art of Living’ proponent Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Monday said that providing quota would not end disparities.

“Caste-based reservation will not end disparities in the society. While being born in any particular caste should not be a curse, reverse discrimination is not the way for justice,” he said in a release issued in Chennai.

(source:  It will divide India: Sri Ravi Shankar - indianexpress.com)

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Palash Sen slams UPA Govt for 'dividing India'

Hitting out against the UPA government's reservation policy, doctor and singer Palash Sen on Monday said the government should rather focus on removing the huge economic disparity in the country than indulging in "vote-bank politics".

"Poverty is the major cause of concern in the country. It has created a deep divide in the society. This needs to be bridged by creating more employment opportunities than enforcing reservation. Poverty comes by birth, not caste," said Sen, the lead singer of rock band Euphoria.

After singer Rabbi Shergill and Art of Living proponent Sri Sri Ravi Shanker, Sen is another celebrity to pledge his support to the anti-reservation campaign. "It is appalling to see that the political leaders are leading the nation towards path of destruction."

A practising medico himself, the singer said, "I know how much I toiled to get a medical seat. We put in our blood and sweat while the government gifts away seats on a platter to some not even eligible for it."

"These politicians partitioned our nation on the basis of religion. Now they are dividing the country on caste basis. 

While we are trying to bridge the communal divide by having Pakistani rock band Strings perform with us," Sen, whose troupe members sported black arm bands to protest the government decision, said. He also objected to every political leader rushing abroad for medical treatment. "This shows that they themselves don't have faith in our doctors," Sen said, adding, "they continue to harness vote bank politics." 

(source: Palash Sen slams UPA Govt for 'dividing India' - sify.com). Refer to Anti-Brahmanism should stop! - By Francois Gautier - rediff.com).

Of reservation & retribution

A law on 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Castes in the government's higher educational institutions being agreed upon by one and all of our political animals in Parliament, the yeoman strike by doctors will probably have ended by the time this appears in print. The coming of the law is now certain, but having got an assurance from the government that the number of the general category of seats will remain unchanged, the knights with stethoscopes will ultimately have died with their boots and white coats on.

Never mind that they didn't get the quota rolled back; never mind that they didn't get a commission to review the entire reservation scheme; the fact of the matter is that our bright, young medicos, oh some of them so petite and pretty, have revived memories of pre-Independence day civil disobedience agitations. They have sown those very old seeds again and it's a warning for those political animals who rule this country for votes, votes and more votes, for more power, more pelf and more prestige.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
"I dislike any kind of reservations…if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis we (will) swamp the bright and young able people and remain second-rate or third-rate."

The pro-business pragmatic BJP government which ruled in the late 1990s stoked economic growth and contained self-destructive populism.

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Jawaharlal Nehru wrote, 'I dislike any kind of reservations…if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis we (will) swamp the bright and young able people and remain second-rate or third-rate…the moment we encourage the second-rate we are lost...this way lies not only folly but disaster.' And, mind you, Nehru wrote what he did although reservation of seats and special representation were principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution from its inception in 1950.

But it would have been a sight to see all Congressmen, from Arjun Singh to Sonia Gandhi, squirm when confronted by a placard, a poster or a banner bearing Nehru's warning in letters of red. Intriguingly enough, the medicos chose to first meet the HRD minister, then the prime minister and thereafter the President, but not Sonia Gandhi. Why? What was the message the young were delivering? That the Italian Maharani wouldn't feel their feelings? Or that they knew she just didn't care a damn for them?

Meanwhile, Francois Gautier's article in rediff the other day reveals the latest India tragedy: the plight of today's Brahmins, once regarded as the Most Forward Caste. The Frenchman showed in figures how the relentless pursuit of reservations in our country has plunged the MFC to the position of what once our Dalits were as a class.

(source: Of reservation & retribution - By Arvind Lavakare - rediff.com).

How reservations fracture Hindu society

The recent fuss about caste-based admission quotas to educational institutions, as well as the threat to force industry to adopt mandatory quotas, inflames people's passions. But considered in context, reservations a. are needed only because of poverty perpetuated by the establishment, and b. have become principally a tool to divide and rule Hindus.

The 'Lords of Poverty', that is the Congress party and the Marxists, are pushing this agenda. This alone should make the neutral observer pause. These groups need people to be poor, so as to seduce them with rhetoric about socialism and re-distribution.

It is clear that the agenda behind this divisive and polarising issue is to perpetuate this sort of status quo, pitting Hindu groups against each other. The Kerala example is being replicated all over the country: reservations are being misused to keep Hindus disunited. It is 'divide and rule' in a new incarnation

(source: How reservations fracture Hindu society - By Rajeev Srinivasan - rediff.com).

Empowering through entrepreneurship

The empowerment of the weaker sections among the SC/STs and OBCs must be through entrepreneurship and business rather than by quotas." - says R. Vaidyanathan - author is Professor of Finance and Control, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

(source: Empowering through entrepreneurship - By R Vaidyanathan - hindubusinessline.com).

Indian media caught in a caste warp

Journalism is called the fourth pillar of democracy and media has always raised a vociferous debate on the caste cauldron in society. But has the Fourth Estate itself ignored the principles of democracy in their institutions? 

The survey covered over 300 top editors working in 40 television and print news networks, and profiled them in terms of age, religion, caste/community and gender. It reveals that Hindu upper caste men, who constitute just eight per cent of the total population of India, hold over 70 per cent of the key posts across newsrooms in the country. The so-called twice born Hindu castes dominate 85 per cent key posts despite constituting just 16 per cent of the total population, while the intermediary castes a represent meagre three per cent.

The Hindu Other Backward Class groups, who are 34 per cent of the total population, have a share of just four per cent in the Indian newsrooms.

(source: Indian media caught in a caste warp - ibnlive.com). Refer to Anti-Brahmanism should stop! - By Francois Gautier - rediff.com).

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Arun Shourie questions very notion of quotas in new book

Amid the furore over reservations for OBCs in higher education, former BJP Minister Arun Shourie has joined the anti-quota chorus, egging on the judiciary to strip political parties of their populist cover once and for all.

In his new book 'Falling Over Backwards: An essay against reservations and against judicial populism,' he documents what he says are attempts by state legislatures and Parliament to bend the law for their benefit, and how the courts - including the Supreme Court - have been virtually ineffective in tackling arbitrary government functioning.  The book, which comes in the backdrop of the government's proposal to reserve 27 per cent seats for Other Backward Classes in higher education as well as a move to reserve jobs in the private sector, charts the history of reservations and and questions the very notion of quotas.  

Arun Shourie in his new book - Falling Over Backwards: An essay against reservations and against judicial populism.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who said quotas based on communal lines would lead to disaster.

Refer to Shourie for PM? - indiareacts.com - Relatively young.  Honest. Tough. Visionary. And deep. Arun Shourie is a deep man. For emergent India, he is quite a remarkable prime minister to have.

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Shourie begins by quoting the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who said quotas based on communal lines would lead to disaster. He then cites a number of instances to prove that "affirmative action through reservations" has done little to improve the lot of the underprivileged across India.

"By legitimising a programme based on caste, they have perpetuated a tumour. They have not just slowed down growth, they have lowered norms of conduct, and thereby harmed the very ones whom they wanted to help. They have done worse; they have lent their hand to dividing our people and country," Shourie writes.

While discussing possible solutions to the quota issue and to raise living standards of the poor, Shourie has a word of suggestion for courts and anti-reservationists. "Judges must reflect on the encouragement they have given to the worst instincts of the political class," he says, and adds, "Those who are making the new India by their innovations, hard work and by striving for excellence must speak up. They must organise."

(source:  Arun Shourie questions very notion of quotas in new book - thehindu.com). Refer to The State As Charade: V.P. Singh, Chandr Shekhar and the Rest. For more refer to chapter on Quotes

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The Death of Meritocracy in India

It was too good to last.

For a little over a decade, it looked really real. At long last, India was getting its act together and was beginning to compete successfully in the global marketplace. The long night of being led by Fabian socialists who were content with the Hindu rate of growth was over. The world was just getting used to the natural business acumen, the intellectual genius, and the creative talents of Indians.

Newspapers and business magazines could not refer to China without mentioning India in the same sentence.

Stop the presses. Party's over. Bad news, folks. It's the same old, same old. Just as the world was turning flat, India has decided to retreat into its own spherical bubble of class warfare. The quota raj is over. Long live the quota raj. Plus ça change, at least in Bharatvarsha. In all seriousness, the UPA-Left Coordination Committee's decision to introduce a 27 per cent quota in educational institutions from June 2007 should be viewed as a defining moment in the history of modern India. This is a battle for the very future of India. And the battle is far from over.

(source: The death of meritocracy - By Ram Kelkar - rediff.com).

Like their doctor-colleague in England, perhaps the agitating doctors in India are crying out for something much more than just the reservation of seats in colleges. 

They are fighting against the impending partitioning of India's soul.

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Fighting for India's Soul
The Next Partition of India

The die is cast. Manmohan Singh's government has announced that the legislation to reserve additional 27 per cent seats in higher educational institutions will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. This is the beginning of India's second partition, which follows the one that took place 59 years ago. That one was geographical; this one will go right through every town and city.

Nothing is forever. The great centres of learning in India before independence -- like the universities in Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi and Bombay that produced some of the world's leading scholars of the first half of the 20^th century -- are pale shadows of their old selves. 

One would expect that the IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS would also soon slide into mediocrity.

Perhaps the Indian elite are not particularly worried about all this. They don't need excellent institutions in India as much as they did twenty years ago. The world has become a village, and the rich will adjust by sending their children to colleges overseas in Europe, America, Australia, or Singapore.

Like their doctor-colleague in England, perhaps the agitating doctors in India are crying out for something much more than just the reservation of seats in colleges. They are fighting against the impending partitioning of India's soul.

(source:  The Next Partition of India - By Subhash Kak - rediff.com). Refer to Anti-Brahmanism should stop! - By Francois Gautier - rediff.com).

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Hindu temple in Lahore (Pakistan) demolished

The only Hindu temple in the Pakistani city of Lahore has been demolished to pave the way for construction of a multi-storied commerical building.

The temple was recently demolished after officials of the Evacuee Property Trust Board, the government body maintaining properties of minorities, specially Hindus and Sikhs, reportedly concealed facts from the board chairman about the nature of the building, daily Dawn reported on Tuesday. A private developer was allowed to demolish 'Krishna Mandir' at Wachhoowali, Rang Mahal and raise a commercial building in its place in violation of the EPTB's own scheme for management and disposal of urban evacuee trust properties, it said. Quoting documents, the paper said board officials did not mention that the property being given to an influential jeweller of the area, was a Hindu temple.

The demolished Krishna temple was the only Hindu place of worship in the city. This is the second Hindu temple to have been permitted to be demolished by EPTB administrator Chaudhry Javed Bashir, sources in the EPTB said. 

(source: Hindu temple in Lahore (Pakistan) demolished - rediff.com). Refer to World Conquering Creeds in chapter Glimpses XVI.

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Japanese embrace yoga to keep fit 

Tokyo: A yoga boom that first began in United States is growing fast in Japan with the world's largest yoga training organisation being built which shall offer courses in Tokyo's Ginza district.

In the one-month since Bikram Yoga, which teaches so called “hot yoga”, launched its first training programme, about 2,200 people have signed up for the classes.

"About 70 per cent of the learners are women in their 20s and 30s who hope to lose weight or get rid of stress," said Kenji Ehara, 36, from the business division of Bikram Yoga, which runs about 1,500 fitness studios in various countries.

Bikram Yoga plans to open four such studios in Tokyo and in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan, by the summer of this year. There are plans of establishing 10 new courses this year. Its Ginza studio is an answer to those found in India, which is the cradle of yoga.

The room temperature is set at 40 degrees Celsius and the humidity at 55 per cent. About 40 people in T-shirts, including several men, greet their instructor with bottles of water ready at their feet. The distinctive feature of hot yoga is that its enthusiasts go through a series of 26 different poses, including one called ''Garudasana (eagle pose),'' while practicing conscious breathing and perspiring heavily.

The creator of hot yoga, Bikram Choudhury, who is of Indian origin said that his discipline is more akin to body care than exercise during his recent visit to Japan He added that it places only a small burden on joints and muscles because the high room temperature helps warm the body and increases the healing power of the body and mind as a result the blood circulation improves. 

(source: Japanese embrace yoga to keep fit).

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Stealing India's cultural and religious identity ?
Stolen Lord Vishnu statue sent back to India

New York: A stolen 9th century stone statue with carvings of all the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu began its journey back home to be reinstalled in the Varaha temple in Mandsour, Madhya Pradesh, from where it was stolen six years ago.

Indian Consul-General Neelam Deo and Special Agent in charge of investigation at the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Martin D. Ficke signed the papers at a brief ceremony on Monday, formally handing it over to India. This was one of the two idols stolen. The search for the other is still on. Despite its tortuous journey to New York, the 127 cm tall and 71 cm wide idol is in good condition with only a mark at the back from where it might have been chipped off at the Mandsour temple. The recovery was described by Indian and United States officials as the ``fruitful'' result of coordinated investigations in India and the U.S. ``The Government and the people of India greatly appreciate this gesture of goodwill from the government and people of the United States,'' Ms. Deo said. 

"When someone steals a cultural artefact from a country, that country loses a part of its identity and its heritage.  

Today, we are able to return the Varaha statue to the government and people of India and restore a part of its cultural heritage that had been stolen from her,'' Mr. Ficke commented as he signed the papers.

Senior Special Agent James McAndrew, who investigated the case, said the probe led the investigators to Namkha Dorjee, owner of the Bodh Citta Gallery, who was operating from his apartment in New York. Once agents closed in, he voluntarily handed them the statue. Mr. McAndrew said that it was particularly difficult to investigate undocumented artefacts and a great deal depended on the way the theft is investigated in the home country. No arrest had yet been made in the U.S. as the crime could not be pinned on any individual.

The statue was originally destined for Switzerland but was diverted to Britain and papers were altered somewhere along the journey. The person who was responsible for sending it from Britain to the U.S. was reportedly killed in Afghanistan some time ago. He was apparently trying to smuggle out that country's heritage, American investigators said. It was only in 2003 that ICE received information from the Indian police and Interpol that the statue was in the United States which ultimately led to its recovery. 

In Varaha incarnation, Lord Vishnu is said to have rescued the earth from being drowned by Hiranyaksha. Varaha, using his boar attributes, saved the earth from being drowned in the cosmic sea.

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

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The principal subject of the sandstone statue is Vishnu in his third incarnation as a boar and it shows the killing of Hiranya demon and the liberation of the earth. On the left elbow, earth is depicted as a feminine figure. Around the statue are the other incarnations of Vishnu. In Varaha incarnation, Vishnu is said to have rescued the earth from being drowned by Hiranyaksha. Varaha, using his boar attributes, saved the earth from being drowned in the cosmic sea.

(source: Stolen Lord Vishnu statue sent back to India - hindu.com).

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Temple gods that display a shocking beauty

To the Western eye, these gods and goddesses are, given their sacred function, almost shockingly beautiful. Divinity and sensuous, sexual beauty seem to be inextricably mixed. But the appreciation of a god's physical beauty was one of India's customary approaches to the divine. Perfection of the body was considered a prerequisite for the flow of inner beauty and supremacy of spirit.

If we look at the Goddess Uma, for example, she is portrayed as a slender, seductive and exquisitely beautiful woman. She has a statuesque and graceful figure, her full breasts are softly sculpted and her skirt is slung so low as to reveal the curve of her stomach. Other deities, too, such as the superb Shiva, Lord of Dance, are exquisitely elegant with their perfectly proportioned thighs and legs, plump and supple and decorated with folds of tightly drawn cloth, and their long curved feet and fingers.  

Goddess Uma and Shiva Nataraja: Lord of the Dance.

There is grace in elegance.

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These figures are nearly 1,200 years old, yet their details are still remarkably crisply defined. The lost wax method of modelling was done to such high standards, both technically and aesthetically, that it is still used today unchanged.

No wonder François-Auguste-René Rodin (1840-1917), one of our masters of bronze modelling, whose work can be seen at the Royal Academy, was overwhelmed when he saw the Chola sculptures in 1913. 

"There are things that other people do not see: unknown depths, the wellsprings of life," he said.

"There is grace in elegance; above grace, there is modelling; everything is exaggerated; we call it soft but it is most powerfully soft! Words fail me then."

(source: Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India - By Joanna Pitman at the Royal Academy - The Times). For more refer to chapter on Hindu Art.

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Victorian Prudery or Evangelical mindset of a British scientist?
Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box?  - By Dr Terence Kealey - excerpts

"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly."

                                          -  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher.  Refer to Proving that Bible is Repulsive video - godisimaginary.com.

The Inquisitor who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, "the Hammer of the Witches," explained that women are more likely to become witches than men:

"Because the female sex is more concerned with things of the flesh than men; because being formed from a man's rib, they are 'only imperfect animals' and 'crooked' whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged."

(source: The Heretics: Heresy Through the Ages - By Walter Nigg  p. 277 and The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe p. 114 - 118).

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English author, mathematician and philosopher in his book Marriage and Morals:

"The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the passages from St Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life."

(source: 'Churchianity' - An artifice for aggression - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com). Watch The Bible is Bullshit - Penn & Teller examine the Bible.

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Sitting on Judgment on Hindu Past?

Dr Terence Kealey the author has been Vice-Chancellor at the University of Birmingham, UK since April 2001. He is a well-known academic specializing in Clinical Biochemistry, writes:

"The Hindu temples of central and southern India can be startlingly erotic. The temples of Khajuraho are the most explicit, being encrusted with statues of naked females — big-breasted and narrow waisted — doing naughty things with rampant men (see them on Google images). How can a religion be so pornographic? The standard explanation is that Hinduism harnessed sex in the service of mysticism, but we scientists are materialists and we distrust spiritual accounts. How would anthropologists explain pornographic temples?  

Intolerant tendencies of Monotheism? Victorian Prudery in 21st century England? 

"The great pre-Christian civilizations of Greece and Rome had no religious wars and had a far healthier view of their frolicking gods and goddesses than the intolerant monotheistic Christianity that later came to dominate Europe." - says Jean-Pierre Lehmann

Adam and Eve were supposed to be naked on Earth. Christianity and nudity are two substances that historically don't mix ?

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Consequently, DNA testing has confirmed that upper- caste females in India are genetically indistinguishable from lower-caste females, because pretty hoi polloi girls have always been imported into the palaces. But the upper-caste males of India — who are the descendants of the Aryan conquerors of 5,000 years ago — have never allowed male proles to marry their daughters, and they remain genetically distinct. They have, therefore, retained the spoils of conquest for themselves and their sons. 

Temple prostitution was, therefore, a feature of Hinduism and other imperial cultures — and a profitable one too. There were, for example, some 400 women on the payroll at the Rajarajesvara temple in Tanjore in the 11th century. They were procured by priests who roamed the land in search of pretty young girls.  

Author/Scientist Dr. Terence Kealey, Vice Chancellor of University of Birmingham, UK. His prejudices seem to be stemming from his Christian background as well as total ignorance of Hindu iconography.

Victorian Prudery - A woman British tourist during the British Raj in India. Indian temples were a popular destination for British tourist, but escorts usually steered female sightseers away from the erotic art featured on some temple facades.  One 19th century guide book advised women to tip local guides for not pointing out suggestive temple carvings.

(image source: What Life Was Like in the Jewel of the Crown: British India AD 1600-1905 - By The Editors of Time-Life Books  p. 156). 

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Doubtless the girls were seduced by a theology of mysticism, just as the widows who, as suttees, threw themselves on their dead husbands’ funeral pyres believed they were attaining spiritual purity, but the sexual economics of female exploitation provide a candid explanation of what was happening. As do the statues on the temples. Frankly, they are arousing, even in these jaded times, being more explicit than the photos in today’s telephone booths. In short, a millennium ago the temples of India were brothels — they may have been more than that, but they were brothels too — and they advertised their wares as brothels always have. The erotic temple statues of India remind us, therefore, that kings and priests — like politicians today — have always been despots."

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Infuriated Comments from readers on this article:

"The Pope says Muhammed's teaching were evil. Here this guy says Hindu temples are brothels. Are you Christians on drugs? " 

(For more on The Pope refer to Pope launches battle for Europe - By Sandhya Jain and Pope's remark was unnecessary - By B Raman - rediff.com and refer to Pope's comments on Islam hit 'civilization clash' fault line and 'A man with little sympathy for other faiths' - guardian.co.uk and Attempted assassin warns Pope against Turkey visit and Lord Carey former Archbishop of Canterbury backs Pope and issues warning on 'violent' Islam - Arguing that Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

"Its not porn it's love. And hooray for a religion that doesn't make us feel as though we are doing something disgusting when we are only doing what humans are supposed to do - reproduce - and why can't it be fun?"

"Well this only confirms that you Westerners have scant respect for other cultures. Get your basics correct. Your pet Aryan theory is rubbish and this has been proven beyond doubt."

"What an utter load of space wasted. Mr Kealey apparently does not know to distinguish cheap selling pornography from high class exquisite sculptures. I guess he must have been counting on the fact that Hindus are far more peaceful. And history is replete with Popes who have actually committed well documented - how shall I put it - transgressions. I never expected newspaper so respected like The Times to allow such bilge to be printed. Whenever the key thing going around the world is inter-religious understanding, this article serves purely to inflame passions. The least Mr Kealey can do is to tender an unconditional apology."

"It is with great sadness that I read the fictional story written by Dr Kealey. I am even more surprised that he is in fact the Vice Chancellor at Buckingham University. For one in education, he has sold his soul to the devil. He shows a serious lack of judgment and it becomes clear that prejudice rather than objective and critical reasoning guides his principles. The question I have is, will Buckingham University disassociate itself from his comments? Or should students show their displeasure by refusing to attend? I am inclined to believe that any university that allows such words of its Vice Chancellor to go unchallenged shows that it is not worthy of being considered seriously or being attended by open minded students. Dr Kealey has forgotten the basic tenants of his occupation. He has published commentary on a topic where his understanding is less than shallow. If this is not enough, he does so without any supporting evidence. Incompetence is a diplomatic description."

"His reliance on Aryan Invasion theory is as baseless as his ignorance of the Hindu dharma is total. East and West twain may meet but never the Semitic religions and Sanatan dharma."

(source: Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box?  - By Terence Kealey - science notebook - timesonline.co.uk). Note: Christians in Voltaire's day carried the holy (Jesus) foreskin in processions and paid sacred homage to it. For more refer to chapter on Glimpses IV. Refer to Christian Nude art . Watch Sex Crimes and the Vatican video. Refer to Why The Christian Right Should Want To Ban The Bible - By Denise Noe and Watch the movie - Indoctrination in Jesus Camp.

For more information refer to chapters on European Imperialism, First Indologists, Aryan Invasion Theory and Conversion and  Refer to Skeptics Annotated Bible and Refer to Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis - By Philip Jenkins.  Refer to Women's Inferior Status in the Bible. Also refer to History of Chastity belts that were used in Europe.  

Refer to Gay Bashing in the Bible - "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Leviticus 20:13.  Church still has Dark Ages attitude on sex where gays are still treated as "deviant and a threat to society.” Vatican's most anti-gay rhetoric comes from the Pope calling calling homosexuality "an intrinsic moral evil."  

Infinite Tolerance - the hallmark of Hinduism - Third Nature 

In Vedic India, homosexuality is recognized as a separate and third nature (tritiya-prakriti). Third-gender citizens were fully tolerated and incorporated into society. Whether it is homosexuality or the promiscuous behavior, the fact is that Hinduism tolerates the ignorant souls of this whole wide world without crushing them with the weight of its scriptural authority. Hinduism does not encourage homosexuality nor condemn it very badly.  There is no condemnation of homosexuality in Hindu scripture. During the British Raj, homosexuality was considered a sin. Two years after the 1857 rebellion, the British passed the anti-sodomy law of 1860 is enforced upon the entire empire that now includes India. (Ironically, while the British drafted Section 377 of the IPC, while replacing a tolerant Indian attitude towards sexuality with a highly oppressive one, this law was repealed  in the UK in 1967). The law, which remarkably is still in place in India today as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, reads: “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall be liable to fine.” This law was taken to be an improvement for Great Britain, which had previously punished homosexuality by execution and torture, but for India it was a great step backward since Hindu culture had never previously criminalized homosexuality.  For more refer to chapter on thoughts.

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Four Aims of Life of Ancient India

"The Cosmic Being created the world because by himself he knew no joy. He wanted to be two. – Bridadaranyaka Upanishad.

"Women is the image of Nature (Prakriti), and man is the image of Being (Purusha). When they unite, they dissolve into divine unity." (quoted in Siddanata  p. 275). 

Artistic Loving embrace and Divine Unity at Khujaraho temples, India. 

Sex in Ancient India was considered an Art not a perverse, vulgar, tasteless, titillating entertainment as it is in today's modernized TV/Hollywood world. Sex was natural and was not repressed as in the Dark Ages of Europe.

Sex (Kama) was one of the four aims of life, along with Dharma (virtue), Artha (wealth), and Moksha (liberation).

Prudery was quite unknown to ancient Indian artists, who had no conception of ‘the sins of the flesh’ with which Western civilizations are so preoccupied even today.

Surprisingly Modern, Bold and healthier concepts of Hinduism. Unlike the intolerance of Christianity, Hinduism did not vilify sex.

To the Westerner, imbued with the Puritan ethics of Christian tradition and Victorian prudery, it is difficult to grasp the meaning of these temples.

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According to Alain Danielou (1907-1994), son of French aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion, history and arts of India, including Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India. He was perhaps the first European to boldly proclaim his Hinduness, has written:

"There are four aims of life – Dharma (virtue), artha (wealth, power, success), kama (pleasure) and moksha (liberation). At no stage of life, however, can any of these aims be achieved if the others are neglected. "

(source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India p. 67 - 74 and 109 - 126). 

Khujaraho temples, India.

The British writing suffered from being imprisoned with the Victorian framework. Their unwillingness to accept Indian art on its own terms was certainly due to the puritanical norms of the Victorian times.

Refer to Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art - By Partha Mitter 

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St. Augustine, the much celebrated Father of the Church, thought that sex was intrinsically evil. “this diabolical excitement of the genitals” as Augustine referred to sex, is evidence of Adam’s original sin which is now transmitted “from the mother’s womb,” tainting all human beings with sin, and leaving them incapable of choosing good over evil or determining their own destiny. 

Sex as an act that empowers the individual threatens a religion intent upon controlling society. As Clement of Alexandria said, “lust is not easy to restrain, being devoid of fear…” 

Denying human free will and condemning sexual pleasure made it easier to control and contain people.  Christian history is replete with condemnations of human sexuality. The witch hunts also demonstrated great fear of female sexuality. The word “witch” comes from the old English wicce and wicca, meaning the male and female participants in the ancient pagan tradition which holds masculine, feminine and earthly aspects of God in great reverence. Hence, sexual desire was considered ungodly.   

St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.” 

The sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, “Woman is a temple built on a sewer.” The 13^th century St, Thomas Aquinas suggested that God had made a mistake in creating woman: “nothing (deficient) or defective should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then.” And Lutherans at Wittenberg debated whether woman were really human beings at all. Orthodox Christians held women responsible for all sin. As the Bible’s Apocrypha states: “Of woman came the beginning of sin/ And thanks to her, we all must die.” As I Corinthians 7:1 states, “It is a good thing for a man to have nothing to do with a woman.”

(source: The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe  p. 30 – 33 - 114 - 125). Refer to QuickTime trailer and Part One of the film The God Awful Truth.  Refer to Proving that Bible is Repulsive video - godisimaginary.com. Watch Sex Crimes and the Vatican video.

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Religious Pluralism?
Rev. David A Hart  aka Anandakrishnadas

Thiruvananthapuram: Can an Anglican Christian priest believe in Hindu way of worship? The debate is spreading the whole world. Many, particularly Christians, argue that a true Christian cannot believe in any other God other than Jesus Christ. Based on the age-old Hindu tradition, others argue that whatever be ones religion one has the right to choose ones mode of worship. 

Unconcerned by the controversy and the wide publicity David A Hart, an Anglican Priest settled in Kerala, recites Gayathri Mantram with the same devotion with which he renders the verses of the Bible. He has no hesitation in reciting Hindu Hymns along with the Bible. At his residence photos of Sri Krishna, Mahalaksmi and Ganesha adore the walls of his pooja room along with that of Jesus Christ.

Recently, due to his fascination for Lord Ganesha, he celebrated Vinayaka Chaturthi (birthday of Lord Ganesha) along with his friends and offered Pooja.

The 51-year-old Rev.Hart is an associate professor in Theology and Religious studies at the University of Winchester in the U.K.  Recently Rev Hart renewed his orders for priesthood under the Bishop of Ely, Cambridge shire.  He says that his ‘Pilgrimage to the ocean’ on September 1 to immerse the idol (of Lord Ganesha) would mark the culmination of a spiritual journey he had undertaken since his school years.

Rev. David A Hart, Anglican priest and Lord Ganesha. Due to his fascination for Lord Ganesha, he celebrated Vinayaka Chaturthi (birthday of Lord Ganesha) along with his friends and offered Pooja. 

“The modern world is no longer dominated by any single form of belief.  It is a world of religious pluralism.” 

***

The spiritual image of Ganesha as the remover of obstacles has a special appeal for all. He says that in England the idol of Ganesha is more popular than Krishna or any other Hindu God and many households have Ganesha in the living room.

About the criticism that a Christian priest is worshipping an Indian God, he says, “The modern world is no longer dominated by any single form of belief.  It is a world of religious pluralism.” Rev. Hart is the international secretary of the World Congress of Faiths based in London. He officiates the Holy Communion at St.James Parish Church in Stretham, Cambridge, when he is in England. “God is the same irrespective of whether you pray to him in a temple, church or mosque,” he adds.

(source: Interview with Rev. David A Hart (Anandakrishnadas) - haindavakeralam.org).

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Vile Attack on Hinduism

Abraham Kaplan (1918-1993) was an American philosopher, in his book, The New World of Philosophy  p. 207says: 

“It is paradoxical that we, (the West) who put so much emphasis on individualism in economics and politics, have so little room for it in morality and religion, as compared with Indian thought.”

(source: Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India-China-Tibet-Japan - Hajime Nakamura  p. 171 - 172). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com  

"Evangelical Christianity, born in England and nurtured in the United State, is leaving home."

                    -  Paul Nussbaum, author of Evangelical Christianity shifting outside West - Philadelphia Inquirer  Feb 20, 2006.

***

Christian Evangelist Diatribe against Hindu Gods and Goddesses

"The Christian God, Nietzsche taught, was pitiable, absurd and "a crime against life." 
                                    
                                                                           –  Friedrich Nietzsche  (The Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist).

(source: Famous Dead Nontheists). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com and Refer to World Conquering Creeds in chapter Glimpses XVI.  Refer to Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress - By Howard Zinn and Refer to Proving that Bible is Repulsive video - godisimaginary.com. Watch the movie - Indoctrination in Jesus Camp.

Watch Ganapati Om Kirtan - By Dave Stringer. Watch Kirtan in Boulder, CO. USA.

***

Samuel Thomas, involved in a conspiracy to publish a controversial book 'Haqeequat' which has certain inflammatory references against Hindu and Jain deities, was today arrested in NOIDA on the outskirts of Delhi by Rajasthan police.

Hindu-bashing is nothing new for Christian evangelists in India - they do it with as much ease as they distort Islam or Buddhism in other countries. 

Nor is the concept of harvesting souls in distress a novel method to add numbers to followers of Christ. From Indonesia to Sri Lanka, there were howls of protest against the manner in which evangelists tried to convert victims of the 2004 tsunami by preying on their emotional vulnerability. 

What is new is the brazenness with which evangelists have begun to abuse objects and symbols of Hindu reverence, a trend that began a decade ago with Pat Robertson's proselytising visit to Rajahmundry where he infamously chided Hindus for "washing away their sins in the sperm of the God," the God being Lord Shiva. 

Pat Robertson, on that occasion, characterised Hinduism as having "evil tendencies". Later, on 'Club 700', his immensely popular TV show, he expounded on this thesis by claiming 

"Shiva (is) the God of Destruction, and his consort, the Goddess of death (Kali) - that black, ugly statue there with all those fierce eyes."

Instead of denouncing Emmanuel Mission's scurrilous screed called 'Haqeeqat', Evangelists are brazenly abusing the Rajasthan Government. On Monday, March 20, Assist News Service, based in Lake Forest, California, USA, which circulates news about the work of evangelists around the world, put out a story by Michael Ireland, its chief correspondent, headlined 'India's Prime Minister launches investigation into arrest and persecution of Indian Christians'. 

Hopegivers Executive Director Michael Glenn says, "India's Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has launched an investigation into the arrest of Hopegivers International President Dr Samuel Thomas. The story then goes on to urge Christians in the US to petition Senators, Congressmen and the US President against what it portrays as outrageous action by the Government of Rajasthan, prodded by 'Hindu fascist.

What it does not mention, however, is the reason why Dr Thomas and his associates have been booked for violating Sections 153(a) and 295(a) of the IPC, "which deal with deliberately outraging religious feelings or insulting the religious beliefs of another community."

In reality, it is unadulterated abuse of Hindu scriptures, faith, ritual and tradition. It denigrates every tenet of Hinduism and pours undiluted scorn on Hindu icons and gurus. It casts aspersions on the chastity of Hindu women and questions received wisdom.

***

Abusing freedom, falsifying Hindu Gods

Here are some samples of what Haqeeqat, which was being used by the Thomases and their associates to convince Hindus in Kota to abandon their faith and embrace Christianity, has to say:

* "Hindu gods and goddesses are fictitious and were invented to persecute Dalits" (Page 9). 

* "To prevent indigenous people from acquiring knowledge, Saraswati invented difficult Vedas (which nobody can understand)". (Page 16) 

* "With the progression of time, people all over the world (except India) were freed of their ignorance and they began to disown wicked and cruel gods and goddesses. But in India, because people are (enveloped) in the darkness of ignorance, imaginary gods and goddesses are still worshipped." (Page 17) 

* "Naked sanyasis are worshipped by (Hindu) women. The moment (Hindu) women see naked sanyasis, they fall on the ground and prostrate themselves before the sanyasis. (Hindu) women pour water on the sanyasis' penises and then happily drink that water. Ling Devata is gratified when he sees all these repulsive things and feels empowered... These people are ignorant and do not know the difference between what is right and wrong." (Page 93) 

* "Sita was abandoned in the forest as per Ram's wishes... Ram later asked Lakshman to kill Sita. In the end, Ram frustrated with life, drowned himself in Saryu. Such are the teachings of half-naked rishis who are praised by Hindutvawadis." (Page 100) 

Shiva Nataraja, processional bronze. 12th century. National Museum. Delhi.

"This conception itself is a synthesis of science, religion and art. The clearest image of cosmic activity of God which any art or religion can boast of. This conception itself is a synthesis of science, religion and art.

"The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva." - Carl Sagan.

***

* "Lord Shiva, to get people to worship him, dropped his penis on Earth (Devi), shaking the ground and the sky! ... . Poor Dharti Devi was shaken by the weight of his penis. Seeing this, all the Gods were scared. It seems Gods would use their penises as bombs! Whenever and wherever they wanted to, they would drop their 'penis bombs' to terrorise the people. Thus, they were able to enslave the people... But compared to foreign bombs, these penis bombs were a damp squib." (Page 106-107) 

* "(Ramakrishna) Paramahansa should have known that Ganga is the world's filthiest and dirtiest river. How many dead bodies float down this river every day? How many half-burnt dead bodies are dumped into it every day? And Hindus call it the holy river! In fact, all the rivers of India are dirty and polluted... Hindutvawadis pollute the rivers... and then depend on their false Gods to cleanse them..." (Page 122-123) 

* "(For Hindus) men can be Gods, women can be Goddesses... animals are gods, snakes are gods... they (Hindu Gods) fight among themselves, marry among themselves, throw out their wives, run away with others' wives, they steal, get intoxicated, drink blood, are reincarnated as animals, fish and tortoise, some of them can lift mountains... Some Gods are in same-sex relationships and are yet able to produce babies. These Gods and Goddesses are always armed because they believe in killing and plunder. Some Gods think their penises are more powerful than nuclear bombs. Others like animals live naked among their followers. Some of them spend their time in yogic exercises, others are in samadhi and happy to see the number of blind followers swell... You can wash away your sins by worshipping the penises of Gods" (Page 146) 

* "How could Arya Hindus bring Aryanisation on this earth. To be Arya, one has to be born of an Arya womb... If Arya Hindus want to bring Aryanisation then they must lend or rent out all Arya wombs to non-Aryans. Non-Aryans should be given Brahmin women so that children are born from Brahmin womb" (Page 182-183). 

* "In modern India, many Ramas of this belief are living a carefree life. They marry several times, desert their wives, marry several times, and leave them. Many Ramas kill their Sitas. They are following their God Rama." (Page 269) 

* "(Lord) Krishna had a despicable sex life... Shri Krishna is famous because of his love life. He had 16,008 wives. And all Yadav women were his illegitimate lovers. (Hindu) women are drawn towards him because of pornographic and vulgar tales of his sex life." (Page 391) 

About the national song Vande Mataram 'Haqeeqat says: 'For India the only use of Sanskrit is by Hindutvawadis to sing Vande Mataram.'

This is not the first time that the Emmanuel mission has run foul of the local administration and upset Hindus. On February 24, 2005, there was a near riot situation following the mission's crude attempt to convert Hindus through allurement and false propaganda. On that occasion, the mission head, Mr M A Thomas, had promised not to continue with such provocative activities.

In recent years, the issue of conversion/re-conversion has also become a major cause of communal tensions in some parts of the country. Allegations of forced conversions/ reconversions and subsequent communal tensions have surfaced from time to time. On many occasions even apprehensions, not founded on facts, on this account have given rise to communal tensions. Cases in point are the recent events on the occasion of the annual religious Assembly of the Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti at Kota, Rajasthan, in February 2005. The situation was controlled due to prompt measures taken by the District States of Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have already passed legislations to regulate conversions by coercive means or offering allurements." And yet, there is outrage over action against the Thomases. 

Such perverse drivel, such horrendous hate, as exemplified by the contents of Haqeeqat, the operating manual of Emmanuel mission, of course, is of no consequence to those who have taken up cudgels on behalf of its peddlers masquerading as Good Samaritans and Christian evangelists. 

Instead, they are faxing letters to the White House, the US State Department, the United Nations, and Indian ambassadors to the US and the UN to paint the Government of Rajasthan in communal colours. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, did not belong to the R S S or Sangh Parivar. This fact by itself should gladden the hearts of vermin like Mathew, Dr D M Thomas and Samuel Thomas. 

But P B Shelly in his immortal lines of poetry gives a death blow to them not as a Prophet or as a Poet, but as an able lawyer! I would like Shelly speak on his own behalf: 

"Who was Jesus Christ?
The divine teacher yes
He led
The crowd, he taught them justice, truth and peace, 
In semblance; but he lit within their souls        
The quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword
He brought on earth to satiate with the blood 
Of truth and freedom his malignant soul! " 

(source: Abusing freedom, falsifying Hindu Gods - Op ed dailypioneer.com March 24 2006 and After green doves, it's white pigeons!! - By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com).  Refer to Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and Refer to World Conquering Creeds in chapter Glimpses XVI.

Refer to Luigi Cascioli - "The Fable of Christ - Signor Cascioli’s contention - is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims. Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of “substitution of persons”. 

The God Who Wasn't There, Jesus Seminar fellow Robert M. Price tells us the excuse that early Church fathers offered for this very inconvenient fact. Price is a former fundamentalist Christian who, upon investigating his religion in seminary, became convinced that Jesus Christ most likely did not exist at all. Newsweek says "irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed."  In this provocative, critically acclaimed documentary, you will discover: 

The early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus 
The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and the figureheads of pagan savior cults Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion 
Fundamentalism is as strong today as it ever has been, with an alarming 44% of Americans believing Jesus will return to earth in their lifetimes. And God simply isn't there .

***

Hypocrisy of Christian organizations in the West ?

Christian organizations have shown a blatant lack of respect for Hinduism with hate and perverse drivel in manuals like Haqeeqat by Hopegivers International and yet are upset at depiction of Jesus Christ - refer to  'Jesus with erection' ignites outrage - A Catholic activist organization has written to Oregon's governor and state lawmakers to protest a University of Oregon student newspaper for having published cartoons showing Jesus Christ naked and with an erection.

In its March edition, the Insurgent, an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide.

***

(source: Jesus with erection' ignites outrage - worldnetdaily.com). Watch An Invasion through Conversion - videoyahoo.com and Refer to World Conquering Creeds in chapter Glimpses XVI.

Refer to Vatican Tries to Break "Da Vinci Code - The Vatican has stepped up its denouncement of the hotly anticipated movie, upgrading its disapproval of the book's supposedly anti-Christian theories from pulpit-spewing rants to full-blown boycott. Cartoon controversy in Denmark - Afraid of violent reaction from the Muslim world - Church leaders urge dialogue with muslims following cartoon controversy and Welsh Archbishop Apologises for Prophet Cartoon. Refer to Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

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Is Yoga Without Hindu Influence Still Yoga?

The origins of yoga reach all the way back to the Hindu religion, before Christ was even born. But many faithful churchgoers are chanting phrases from the Bible when they do their Downward Dog, and it's causing yoga purists to lose their cool.

Susan Bordenkircher teaches a Monday night Christian yoga class called "Outstretched in Faith." "I approach each class as a way to share with people something great about their faith," she said. But which faith? 

Sage Patanjali. North facade garbhagraha - Melakkadormbur. South Arcot. Sri. Amrtakatesvam temple. 
(courtesy:  French Institute of Indology. Pondicherry. India)

The origins of yoga reach all the way back to the Hindu religion, before Christ was even born.

***

Traditional yoga, with it's roots in the Hindu religion, predates Christianity. Its original goal was to develop self-awareness and find divinity within oneself. Those Hindu ideals offend some Christians. Pope Benedict XVI has warned that yoga "can degenerate into a cult of the body."

When Bordenkricher, a devout Methodist, was first exposed to Yoga, she loved the exercise, but was turned off by some of the Hindu-based chanting. "It made me feel uncomfortable," she said. "It made me feel as if those were elements that I certainly did not want to participate in." So Susan joined a growing trend, modifying traditional yoga, replacing many of the Hindu chants with biblical phrases, or Christian themes.

There are clear physical benefits to this kind of activity. It stretches the muscles and relaxes the body. 

But Yoga purists say that Yoga without Hinduism, isn't Yoga at all.

"If you take a tree an chop off it's roots, then you don't have a tree, do you?" said Professor Subhas Tiwari, a professor of Yoga philosophy at Hindu University.

Tiwaris says yoga is not something that can be edited with the Hindu parts cut out.

"Yoga is mind body spirit," he said. "You want to make those separations then you live in a schizophrenic world." 

(source: Is Yoga Without Hindu Influence Still Yoga? - abcnews.com). For more refer to chapter on Yoga and Hindu Philosophy.

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Europe's contempt for other cultures can't be sustained

Pitrim Alexandrovitch Sorokin (1889-1968) Russian-American sociologist of Harvard University had said: 

"During the past few centuries the most belligerent, the most aggressive, the most rapacious, the most power-drunk section of humanity has been precisely, the Christian Western world. During these centuries western Christendom had invaded all other continents; its armies followed by priests and merchants have subjugated, robbed or pillaged most of the non-Christians. Native Americans, African, Australian, Asiatic populations have been subjugated to this peculiar brand of Christian "love" which has generally manifested itself in pitiless destruction, enslavement, coercion, destruction of the cultural values, institutions, the way of life of the victims and the spread of alcoholism, venereal disease, commercial cynicism and the like."

(source: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters - By Sita Ram Goel  ISBN 9990049173 p. 370). 

A continent that inflicted colonial brutality all over the globe for 200 years has little claim to the superiority of its values.

Europe has never had to worry too much about context or effect because for around 200 years it dominated and colonised most of the world. Such was Europe's omnipotence that it never needed to take into account the sensibilities, beliefs and attitudes of those that it colonised, however sacred and sensitive they might have been. On the contrary, European countries imposed their rulers, religion, beliefs, language, racial hierarchy and customs on those to whom they were entirely alien. There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world. With one crucial difference, of course: the white minorities ruled the roost, whereas Europe's new ethnic minorities are marginalised, excluded and castigated, as recent events have shown.  

A continent that inflicted colonial brutality all over the globe for 200 years has little claim to the superiority of its values.

This kind of mentality - combining Eurocentrism, old colonial attitudes of Supremacism, Racism, provincialism and sheer ignorance - will serve our continent ill in the future.

***

But it is no longer possible for Europe to ignore the sensibilities of peoples with very different values, cultures and religions. First, western Europe now has sizeable minorities whose origins are very different from the host population and who are connected with their former homelands in diverse ways. If European societies want to live in some kind of domestic peace and harmony - rather than in a state of Balkanisation and repression - then they must find ways of integrating these minorities on rather more equal terms than, for the most part, they have so far achieved. That must mean, among other things, respect for their values.

This kind of mentality - combining Eurocentrism, old colonial attitudes of supremacism, racism, provincialism and sheer ignorance - will serve our continent ill in the future. Europe must learn to live in and with the world, not to dominate it, nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous. Any continent that has inflicted such brutality on the world over a period of 200 years has not too much to be proud of, and much to be modest and humble about - though this is rarely the way our history is presented in Britain, let alone elsewhere. It is worth remembering that while parts of Europe have had free speech (and democracy) for many decades, its colonies were granted neither. But when it comes to our "noble values", our colonial record is always written out of the script.

This attitude of disdain, of assumed superiority, will be increasingly difficult to sustain. We are moving into a world in which the west will no longer be able to call the tune as it once did. China and India will become major global players alongside the US, the EU and Japan. For the first time in modern history the west will no longer be overwhelmingly dominant. By the end of this century Europe is likely to pale into insignificance alongside China and India. In such a world, Europe will be forced to observe and respect the sensibilities of others. 

A small example is the bitter resistance displayed on the continent to the proposed takeover of Arcelor by Mittal Steel: at root the opposition is based on thinly disguised racism. But Europe had better get used to such a phenomenon: takeovers by Indian and Chinese firms are going to become as common as American ones. A profound parochialism grips our continent. When Europe called the global tune it did not matter, because what happened in Europe translated itself into a global trend and a global power. No more: now it is simply provincialism.

For 200 years the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the US and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt. Europeans have treated this chapter in their history by choosing to forget.

We might think the opium wars are "simply history"; the Chinese (rightly) do not. We might think the Bengal famine belongs in the last century, but Indians do not.

(source: Europe's contempt for other cultures can't be sustained - By Martin Jacques - guardian.co.uk).

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We are always taught to hate India - says a woman from Pakistan

I grew up in Pakistan and we were always taught to hate India, Israel and America. Our school books described Christians, Jews and Hindus as evil people, and unfortunately most Pakistanis exhibit a lot of hatred because of this. I was ashamed when Pakistanis celebrated on the streets after innocent people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fortunately, I had the chance to leave Pakistan and find freedom in America. Now, I do not have to cover myself with a burqa.

I learned that one can be a good person even without being a Muslim and I got the confidence to question Islam. Islam is an artificial religion of medieval Arabs. Why should I accept any religion that forces me to wear a burqa and prevents my education?

Mr. Altaf's letter talks about caste system in India. I want to point out that the caste system is alive and well in Pakistan as well. It is hypocritical of Pakistanis to talk of a caste system.  

We are always taught to hate India 

I want to point out that the caste system is alive and well in Pakistan as well. It is hypocritical of Pakistanis to talk of a caste system.  

***

The people of Pakistan are no different from the people of India except that we are born into Islam. This unfortunate difference gave birth to Pakistan, which has the dishonor of being created as the world's first religion-based country. We should never have left India because forming a country based on religion tells the world that we are hateful people.

Ironically, my own life has been one where the differences between Indians and Pakistanis have been buried. After leaving Islam, I searched for spiritual peace and met a wonderful man who is a Hindu from India. Today, he is my husband and I find that I have a lot of freedom. Women in Islam do not have any freedom and four women are considered to be equal to one man.

(source: We are always taught to hate India, says a woman from Pakistan - milpitaspost.com). 

Pakistani pamphlets link militants to Hindus, Jews

Pakistan's military airdropped pamphlets this week over towns in restive tribal regions near the Afghan border urging tribesmen to shun "foreign terrorists", saying they were part of a Hindu and Jewish plot.

The pamphlets were dropped over Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and Miranshah in North Waziristan as part of a campaign to win support among tribesmen who have shown sympathy for both Taliban and remnants of al Qaeda living among them. A Reuters reporter in Tank, a town close to the boundary with the semi-autonomous tribal agency of South Waziristan, obtained one of the pamphlets, bearing the sign-off "Well Wishers, Pakistan's Armed Forces".

Titled "Warning", the pamphlets said the foreign militants were fighting against Pakistan in connivance with "Jews and Hindus", a term that would play on traditional prejudices among the region's Muslim conservatives. 

(source: Pakistani pamphlets link militants to Hindus, Jews - yahoo.com).

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Bio-piracy of India's ancient Knowledge ?
Neem - India's tree of life

The Neem tree grows prolifically throughout South Asia, especially in India, Sri Lanka and Burma. Its medicinal properties have been known about for thousands of years - Neem features in ancient Sanskrit texts - and its uses are so varied that this tree is called the "Village Pharmacy" of South Asia. Recently, there has been a growing interest from the international agro-chemical business over the potential of Neem as an organic alternative to industrial pesticides. Patents on the use of Neem have been taken out by international companies, one of which was at the centre of a 10-year court battle. An international group led by the Indian environmentalist Dr Vandana Shiva took the case to the European Patent Office, claiming you can't patent ancient knowledge, and calling it bio-piracy. "We wanted to reveal what bio-piracy is, this patenting of indigenous knowledge and bio-diversity," she says. "We thought a patent that's held by the biggest superpower of the world and one of the biggest chemical giants would be an effective patent to take on." The patent was revoked. 

Daily life

In the villages of Rajasthan near Jodhpur, the Neem tree is still essential to daily life. A large Neem tree usually stands in the centre of each village, providing shade and cool underneath its branches - it is said that the temperature under a Neem tree is always two or three degrees cooler than in any other shade. When the British laid out the Indian capital, New Delhi, at the beginning of the last century, they planted avenues of Neem as a natural air conditioner for the new city. The traditional uses of Neem are many and varied; when a child has a fever or chickenpox, Neem leaves are put on the bed. For eczema, psoriasis, ulcers or any other skin problems, a paste of Neem bark or leaves is made up and applied directly to the skin. When winter clothes are put away for the summer, Neem leaves are put between them to keep away moths, and its leaves are boiled to make a bitter drink to cure worms and diarrhoea. Animals eat Neem leaves as fodder in this desert climate where little else grows, and the seeds of the fruit are ground to make a natural pesticide. 

The tree is so crucial to life in this part of India that the Hindu villagers described how they worship it as a God, and told the story of Lord Krishna comparing himself as a God amongst men as the Neem tree is a God amongst trees.

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

***

'Antiseptic'

The tree is so crucial to life in this part of India that the Hindu villagers described how they worship it as a God, and told the story of Lord Krishna comparing himself as a God amongst men as the Neem tree is a God amongst trees. Perhaps the most prolific use of the Neem tree throughout India is as a natural antiseptic toothbrush. People break off a small twig, peel off the bark and then chew it into a soft brush at one end, which they then rub around the gums and teeth. Finally, they split the twig in two and use the flat hard surface to scrape their tongues.

Global impact

The most valuable part of Neem for modern scientific research is the oil produced from pressing the Neem kernel. Scientists call the active ingredient in this oil Azadirachtin - and the strength and quality of this is central to using Neem as a pesticide or fungicide. Dr Ramesh Saxena, head of the Neem Foundation in India, has pioneered the use of Neem as a natural pesticide in South Asia, the Philippines, East Africa and Australia. He says Neem has been in his blood for the past 40 years, and believes it can have a global impact on some of world's greatest problems including malaria, dengue fever, Aids and human population growth. However, he warns that India has to act fast to realise Neem's potential and profit from it as China and Brazil are rapidly overtaking India, each cultivating millions of Neem trees each year.

Digital library

Crucial to unlocking the potential of Neem is finding a way for multi-national companies to work in cooperation with South Asian governments' Neem research. For the past 10 years, the right to patent a fungicidal use of Neem has been fought over and lost in a bitter bio-piracy case. Part of the Indian government's answer to the threat of bio-piracy was to set up the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library in Delhi. Here the director, Vinod Gupta, explained how his team has translated millions of recipes of traditional ayurvedic medicines from ancient texts into modern medical terms and collated them into an online library. This will be made selectively available in different languages to patent offices around the world to enable them to check whether a request for a patent is for a genuinely new use of an ancient medicine like Neem, or one that has been known about and used for thousands of years.

(source: Neem - India's tree of life - BBC.com). For more refer to chapter on Nature Worship.

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Dalits build their own temple in Orissa 

Kendrapada, Orissa: Denied entry into a temple in Orissa by the upper castes, Dalits of a village have built a shrine of their own and appointed a Brahmin priest.

Chauriberhampur village on the outskirts of Kendrapada town in the coastal district of the same name is home to nearly 1,400 people from different castes as well as Muslims. It has a temple dedicated to Hindu God Shiva where Dalits and other lower castes were being denied entry as part of an age-old practice.

"There are 900 people in the village who belong to the 'hadi' (scavenger) community and considered lower castes," said Dalit leader Abhumunya Naik. Most of them clean streets, toilets and do other odd jobs.

"We have been worshipping Hindu Goddess Maa Mangala in an open place. We decided to build a temple in that place for the deity," Naik told.

"People from our caste not only contributed financially but also built the 30-feet high temple. It was completed last month at a cost of nearly Rs.200,000." Naik said Krupasindhu Patri, a Sanskrit scholar, had been appointed the priest of the temple at a monthly salary of Rs.1,000.

"We appointed a Brahmin priest because they know how to perform the rituals," he said.

(source: Dalits build their own temple in Orissa - timesofindia.com).

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Did You Know?

Soaring Through Ancient Skies 

The writing of ancient India are perhaps the richest in tales of aviation. The Mahabharata, an epic tells of an "aerial chariot", with the sides of iron and clad with wings,"  

The Hindu Samara Sutradhara, a 11^th century AD collection of texts dating back to antiquity holds a wealth of information on flight, treating many aspects of aircraft design and even advising on the proper clothing and diet for pilots.

 "The aircraft which can go by its own force like a bird is called a Vimana," runs one passage. "The body must be strong and durable and built of light wood, shaped like a bird in flight with wings outstretched. Within it must be placed the mercury engine, with its heating apparatus made of iron underneath."  

The text goes on to describe "the energy latent in mercury" at some length; unfortunately, though, it offers little information on how that energy was utilized.  

The Ramayana, the great Indian epic describes a double decked circular aircraft with portholes and a dome – a configuration reminiscent of 20 ^th century flying saucer reports. Fueled by a strange yellowish white liquid, the craft was said to travel at the "speed of wind" attain heights that made the ocean look like "a small pool of water" and stop and hover motionless in the sky.  

(source:  Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients  - Time Life Books  p. 29). 

For more refer to chapter on Vimanas.    

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Updated - October 28, 2008