Why is "Hindu Nationalism" spoken of in a pejorative sense?

[RajeshA]

Rajesh, what is your reaction to this statement from balu

is it totally false?

So in that sense, today, the challenge to Indian historians is to begin to understand much more differently ...the role of texts, if you want to call them texts, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas, not to do what Sangh Parivar is doing, that is to transform them into historical figures. If you do that, just think of it, we're already experiencing it. Suddenly the Dalits will stand up and say, Vaanaras were the name of a tribe, basically Dalits of those days and they were called Vaanaras because the Brahmins did not respect the Dalits. Rakshasas, they were the Dravidians....Krishna was some upstart in a place called Mathura.

It is false, because rephrasing it: it is pure Pakistaniyat! How?

- Either you give us Kashmir or otherwise our non-state actors would continue terrorism in India and we cannot do anything about it. Balu says,

- Either you admit that Rama, Krishna were all fictional figures to teach Adhyatma, or all our Western social theories for India, equating present groups with past classifications, would start ripping Indian social fabric apart.

Our Itihas and the Aryanization Process, some call it Sanskritization Process, need to be explained. Moreover Varna and Jati needs to be explained. Not much has happened as yet, and so we get Bihari Manjhis, Kanchan Ilaiyas and Dravidian parties making stupid statements. We still live in stupid Secular Maya onlee!

[RajeshA]

johneeG garu,

Here I myself am a strong proponent of "Hinduism" NOT being a "Religion"!

I think we will have to discuss this, just the two of us, in some appropriate thread, with cool heads, about what is the best architecture for our Sanskriti!

[shiv]

Actually Balu does not say 3. He admits that the Europeans saw "disguised history" in our Itihas, like they saw in their own mythology! Now how is it that what Balu is saying is different from them? After all even according to him, or so you claim, or so I think you claim, that history is disguised, as Adhyatma. And how is it that even what Hindutvavadis consider Itihas would be different from "disguised history"?

Also how is it that "If you remove adhyatma from itihass you get GIGO"? I know there are lessons to be learned there, but why is the rest GIGO? It is up to you or not if you want to learn any Adhyatma lessons from the text. But why does it make the text GIGO if you are not interested in learning any lessons from it?

This is what Balu says:

when they {Europeans} looked at India, they described using their notions, their conceptions, their theories, their words, and they looked at the myths and the legends of the Puranas and the so-called Itihaasa literature as disguised history.

Balu is saying that the Europeans saw pure fiction that they felt Indians were trying to pass off as history, that is "fiction in the guise of history". Do you disagree with that?

Balu disagrees with the idea that itihaas is simply fiction that is being passed off as history. He says that western scholars want history to be written in a particular way and are dismissive of anything that does not appear like that.
Balu says that itihaas was never intended to be written the way western scholars liked it - in a sort of quasi biblical work.

As for your question about my explanation:

Also how is it that "If you remove adhyatma from itihass you get GIGO"? I know there are lessons to be learned there, but why is the rest GIGO? It is up to you or not if you want to learn any Adhyatma lessons from the text. But why does it make the text GIGO if you are not interested in learning any lessons from it?

Let us look at a part of the Ramayana. Hanuman sits higher than Ravana on his rolled up tail and humiliates him. His tail is set on fire and Hanuman uses that to set Lanka on fire.

Now can you explain to me which part of this is adhyatma and which part is true history of what happened?

Finally, please tell me whether it matters at all whether it really happened or not if you can learn the embedded lesson?

[shiv]

- Either you admit that Rama, Krishna were all fictional figures to teach Adhyatma, or all our Western social theories for India, equating present groups with past classifications, would start ripping Indian social fabric apart.

No. You are misinterpreting what he is saying. He has not denied that they could have (yes "could have") existed. He only asks that Hindus should not fall for the western demand to create a history for every little detail in a way that makes it credible for western "scholars" and their secular leftist chamchas. By insisting on the historic veracity (in western terms) of every single Indian text, we are simply aping them and trying to give them what they want and please them after they buggered about with our minds. How come we did not need all this tamasha and argument before they came?

Just because Brits came and said "Rama did not exist. Monkey God cannot exist. tail cannot be so big. You can't set it on fire" why on earth should Hindus go overboard and say "No No No No No it is all true it is all recorded history.

As if it would become false and unbelievable unless we convinced the west. We never had a problem with any of these things until they came. Now we get our chaddis in such a huge twist that we need archaeological excavations below the Babri Masjid that it was truly a holy Hindu place. We are mental slaves. Why this slavery?

Does Ayodhya become unholy if there is no archaeological evidence of Rama? What if the real Ayodhya was 1500 meters to the North and we missed it? Would Hinduism die? wtf?

As Balu says it will certainly die if we try and supply western style proof to every single line of our itihaas after making the expansive claim that every word is an exact historic record. This does not mean that it is not history. It is history with lessons. It is the lessons that are important. What is this great need to "prove" that every Hindu thing is history just because the Brits/west did not believe it? Are some Hindu groups with colonized minds not doing exactly that?

[RajeshA]

Actually Balu does not say 3. He admits that the Europeans saw "disguised history" in our Itihas, like they saw in their own mythology! Now how is it that what Balu is saying is different from them? After all even according to him, or so you claim, or so I think you claim, that history is disguised, as Adhyatma. And how is it that even what Hindutvavadis consider Itihas would be different from "disguised history"?

Also how is it that "If you remove adhyatma from itihass you get GIGO"? I know there are lessons to be learned there, but why is the rest GIGO? It is up to you or not if you want to learn any Adhyatma lessons from the text. But why does it make the text GIGO if you are not interested in learning any lessons from it?

This is what Balu says:

when they {Europeans} looked at India, they described using their notions, their conceptions, their theories, their words, and they looked at the myths and the legends of the Puranas and the so-called Itihaasa literature as disguised history.

Balu is saying that the Europeans saw pure fiction that they felt Indians were trying to pass off as history, that is "fiction in the guise of history". Do you disagree with that?

Balu disagrees with the idea that itihaas is simply fiction that is being passed off as history. He says that western scholars want history to be written in a particular way and are dismissive of anything that does not appear like that.
Balu says that itihaas was never intended to be written the way western scholars liked it - in a sort of quasi biblical work.

okay! thanks for taking the trouble to explain it!

As for your question about my explanation:

Also how is it that "If you remove adhyatma from itihass you get GIGO"? I know there are lessons to be learned there, but why is the rest GIGO? It is up to you or not if you want to learn any Adhyatma lessons from the text. But why does it make the text GIGO if you are not interested in learning any lessons from it?

Let us look at a part of the Ramayana. Hanuman sits higher than Ravana on his rolled up tail and humiliates him. His tail is set on fire and Hanuman uses that to set Lanka on fire.

Now can you explain to me which part of this is adhyatma and which part is true history of what happened?

Finally, please tell me whether it matters at all whether it really happened or not if you can learn the embedded lesson?

To be frank, I can't say whether it happened the way we interpret it, nor can I say that it is Adhyatma necessarily, because what lesson am I supposed to learn from this, rather than if the method of humiliating Ravana or setting Lanka on fire was different.

The way I see it is that "it really happened, because it is Itihas"! It is another matter whether our interpretation of what really happened is correct!

[RajeshA]

- Either you admit that Rama, Krishna were all fictional figures to teach Adhyatma, or all our Western social theories for India, equating present groups with past classifications, would start ripping Indian social fabric apart.

No. You are misinterpreting what he is saying. He has not denied that they could have (yes "could have") existed. He only asks that Hindus should not fall for the western demand to create a history for every little detail in a way that makes it credible for western "scholars" and their secular leftist chamchas. By insisting on the historic veracity (in western terms) of every single Indian text, we are simply aping them and trying to give them what they want and please them after they buggered about with our minds. How come we did not need all this tamasha and argument before they came?

Just because Brits came and said "Rama did not exist. Monkey God cannot exist. tail cannot be so big. You can't set it on fire" why on earth should Hindus go overboard and say "No No No No No it is all true it is all recorded history.

As if it would become false and unbelievable unless we convinced the west. We never had a problem with any of these things until they came. Now we get our chaddis in such a huge twist that we need archaeological excavations below the Babri Masjid that it was truly a holy Hindu place. We are mental slaves. Why this slavery?

Does Ayodhya become unholy if there is no archaeological evidence of Rama? What if the real Ayodhya was 1500 meters to the North and we missed it? Would Hinduism die? wtf?

As Balu says it will certainly die if we try and supply western style proof to every single line of our itihaas after making the expansive claim that every word is an exact historic record. This does not mean that it is not history. It is history with lessons. It is the lessons that are important. What is this great need to "prove" that every Hindu thing is history just because the Brits/west did not believe it? Are some Hindu groups with colonized minds not doing exactly that?

shiv saar,

there is no need to prove anything! That is not what I am saying, that we need to prove anything! What I am saying is that we know it is Satya and the text refers to what happened. However due to change of semantics over time, or even pronunciation, or due to poetic embellishments and exaggerations, we not be able to understand what it was that actually happened.

Secondly we need not give in to any claims by Westerners that something cannot have happened, because they too cannot prove that something cannot have happened.

Who knows Hanuman could have access to Pym particles and could have changed his size, or that he wrapped his tail in some material which even when catching fire does not transmit heat to his tail underneath! Who knows what happened?! But Westerners cannot prove that something didn't happen! So one has a draw!

But there are also articles of faith and there is tradition, and if tradition says that Rama was born at some place, then we respect that tradition! Irrespective of Rama himself, tradition too needs to be respected.

With RJB, the debate went into a stupid direction, as seculars demanded that Hindus should prove a, b, c, and instead of saying eff off, some started giving explanations!

[shiv]

A classmate of mine in college and I used to have a friendly argument with another 7th Day Adventist classmate about how the actual dimensions of Noah's Ark were not large enough to accommodate a pair of all species. He would agree with all the logic until we came to the conclusion, where he would laugh and disagree with the conclusion.

He had enough faith in the story to be able to laugh off our "scientific scepticism". If we try and prove everything we have in our itihaas - it means we have lost faith and that we need to prove it to others the way they want it to be proved. We are unable to say "fuk you I believe it. That is our history. Are you asking me if it really happened? That should not matter to you so long as I believe it and it is a darned good story whether it is history or not."

The minute we get out of this and buy into the doubts instilled in our minds by others we are trying to prove to them what we have stopped believing. We do not have to present our puranas the way "they" want them We take them as they are as our history as a matter of faith. If you doubt that and ask stupid questions, you get a kick in the ass for you insolence. My views are a matter of my belief, and my belief does not have to be in God. I can believe in Superman or UFO or even the Devil. I need not explain my belief to anyone else in a way that you can convince him, because he does not want to be convinced.

But as a meta-fact that extends from this - we have what Balu tells us. Balu tells us that "western history" is no more "fact" and cannot be "proven" any more than Ramayana. It's just that they believe it the way it has been written. We seem to have bought the story that the way they write their stuff makes it history and not fiction, but our itihaas has to be proven not to be fiction because it is not written the way they want to see it.

This is simply mental colonization, whether the secular laughs at our itihaas or whether the Hindu desperately tries to get his itihaas to be "proven and believable" in a western frame of mind - like trying to offer "satisfactory to the western method of enquiry" explanations about how monkey's tail could burn or how mountain could be carried - ie by super-duper monkey shaped antigravity spaceship.

[shiv]

Who knows Hanuman could have access to Pym particles and could have changed his size, or that he wrapped his tail in some material which even when catching fire does not transmit heat to his tail underneath! Who knows what happened?! But Westerners cannot prove that something didn't happen! So one has a draw!

Such explanations are unnecessary because the questions are insolent and racist.

One of Balu's theses is that if we really studied the west in the way they study us, it is easy to pick holes in what they consider "history". Their own history is as unprovable in modern day terms as Ramayana and Mahabharata. The only thing they did was to carefully remove stuff that could have no rational explanation (in current day terms) and then what was left of stories was called "history". The article is out there somewhere. I will find it and post.

We could do to the Ramayana and Mahabharat what the west did with their history. We could filter our anything "incredible" and leave the rest and say "This is our history". But by leaving out the "incredible stuff' like how 4 thirsty Pandavas in vanvaas die at a lakeshore for not being able to answer questions about dharma, until Yudishthira answers the questions and gets water and the lives of his brothers from the "Spirit of th lake" that is Dharmaraj/Yama. By filterimng out "incredible stuff" or by giving "quasi scientific explanations" we are simply falling for a western taunt that our stories are not history, they are junk. And we can make them junk by trying to meet such demands.

[Tuvaluan]

Shiv:"Balu tells us that "western history" is no more "fact" and cannot be "proven" any more than Ramayana. It's just that they believe it the way it has been written. We seem to have bought the story that the way they write their stuff makes it history and not fiction, but our itihaas has to be proven not to be fiction because it is not written the way they want to see it."

They (the doniger types and western know-italls) even created a new word "theology" to peddle their religious fiction and always refer to the Indian equivalent as "mythology". Same attitude of the guy who refused to reach the logical conclusion about Noah's ark is seen in religious muslims -- it is only hindus who go around mumbling that "hindu religion worships all gods as one" and then get stunned that such brotherly feelings are not reciprocated, without realizing that maybe hinduism is not about religion at all, which is why there are a lot of gods of all types under the same tent --- a concept that is disallowed at the root of the religious axioms the underlie Xtianity and Islam (about Jesus being the son of god and Allah being the creator of all reality). JM2C

[RajeshA]

This is simply mental colonization, whether the secular laughs at our itihaas or whether the Hindu desperately tries to get his itihaas to be "proven and believable" in a western frame of mind - like trying to offer "satisfactory to the western method of enquiry" explanations about how monkey's tail could burn or how mountain could be carried - ie by super-duper monkey shaped antigravity spaceship.

No it is not just due to our need to prove something to the West.

When the West went about proving that their Biblical stories may have some truth in them, whom did they want to prove it to?

Similarly even confident Hindus would be inquisitive about their texts and want to know what was possible and what could have been an embellishment, and if possible what could be possible explanations! Inquiry is in the nature of a thinking person! One can't and one shouldn't just choke this drive! Who laughs and who laughs not is immaterial.

[shiv]

When the West went about proving that their Biblical stories may have some truth in them, whom did they want to prove it to?

They "proved it" by removing the incredible stuff like miracles and leaving the rest as truth. This helps them evangelize an otherwise empty faith while mocking others as lies. As I said in my post above, we could do that too. But I would fight that idiocy with all my strength A copycat removal of "what is incredible" from our itihaas is a crime. The wealth of knowledge in the "incredible stuff" is too precious to be discarded and replaced by bland explanations based on a 20-21 century idea of "spirit of enquiry"

[Tuvaluan]

I am confused. If "Who laughs and who laughs not " were immaterial, what is this thread all about? I mean why bother why "hindu nationalism" is considered evil and/or a joke in India. Piskological games are being played on Indians and they cannot break out of it because words and ideas have been redefined to make them uncomfortable about their own identity. I think a navel-gazing "learning for the sake of learning" is basically useless outside of a personal standpoint -- yes, one learns and one's spirit of inquiry leads one to personal discovery, and then one dies. The original problem of people who have lost their own past remains.

[A_Gupta]

Does Ayodhya become unholy if there is no archaeological evidence of Rama? What if the real Ayodhya was 1500 meters to the North and we missed it? Would Hinduism die? wtf?

My memory is hazy about the studies I did back in the 1990s during the RJB affair, but as I recall, per our own traditions, Ram's Ayodhya was lost; and only later found by a King Vikramaditya (we don't know which king that was). I think it is said some deva gave him the location in a dream. The Buddhist era literature refers to Saketa rather than Ayodhya; we have reason to believe Saketa and Ayodhya are identical. The point of my mentioning this is that none of this helps us understand the Ramayana. And as long as the next generation seeks to emulate Rama rather than saying, "Dad, what a load of myth and superstition", the Ramayana and the culture it engenders will endure.

[A_Gupta]

Balu says that the facts of history are like the telephone directories - books full of facts, to be sure, but pretty useless for human happiness and flourishing. The root philosophy of study of history in Christendom is to understand God's Revelation and Plan so that humans may comply with that Plan. This root philosophy did not exist in ancient India, and nor do we have to adopt that philosophy today. If you know your great-grandfather's grandfather's name and date of birth, that is history. If you know Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman, that is knowing the past (and actually pretty much every Treta Yuga, so future too ). The past is more important than history, which is why you likely know Rama but not your great-grandfather's grandfather's name.

[Gus]

when i was in a muslim high school, one fellow asked me - "how can a little mouse carry that big pillayar (ganesh)".

i did not have an answer then. my answer should have been "once you accept there is pillayar and the mouse is his vahanam, you don't really worry about can the mouse carry the pillayar."

[RajeshA]

By filterimng out "incredible stuff" or by giving "quasi scientific explanations" we are simply falling for a western taunt that our stories are not history, they are junk. And we can make them junk by trying to meet such demands.

And by not speaking out what can be and what we think, we are falling for a western taunt that were we to do it, we might be the object of Western taunt and ridicule!

Why is everything packaged as a demand by the West? Can't we speculate on our own?

When the West went about proving that their Biblical stories may have some truth in them, whom did they want to prove it to?

They "proved it" by removing the incredible stuff like miracles and leaving the rest as truth. This helps them evangelize an otherwise empty faith while mocking others as lies. As I said in my post above, we could do that too. But I would fight that idiocy with all my strength A copycat removal of "what is incredible" from our itihaas is a crime. The wealth of knowledge in the "incredible stuff" is too precious to be discarded and replaced by bland explanations based on a 20-21 century idea of "spirit of enquiry"

I would say, actually they proved that there wasn't much of a proof to all those Bible stories. Today, one doesn't believe in the Exodus story for example. It is the lack of being able to prove anything that ultimately led to a loss of faith after the people had attained a "scientific temperament".

Most of Christian faith in Europe is mostly cultural and values now!

I don't think we are in danger of this, because proof of something or not is not essential for our Śrad'dhā. Bible is essentially a claim of genealogical basis of prophethood and thus of valid revelations. Our Śrad'dhā is not based on such prophetic revelations. This is a fundamental difference!

The question was "to whom" they wanted to prove it! It was to themselves, perhaps as an affirmation of their faith.

So if we go about researching our past, and digging for archaeological finds, trying to compare the found and the inherited, it does not mean we are unsure of ourselves, or if we can't find something, it means we forget our Sanskriti.

Archaeological research is a science in itself and why shouldn't Hindus indulge in it?!

One shouldn't be too hung up about "what would others think? If I do historical research, then European a,b,c would think I am insecure!" Even that is insecurity! Let's screw that.

We go about researching as and what we want!

The point of my mentioning this is that none of this helps us understand the Ramayana. And as long as the next generation seeks to emulate Rama rather than saying, "Dad, what a load of myth and superstition", the Ramayana and the culture it engenders will endure.

Sure it should endure!

But what is this obsession that people should be interested only in the Adhyatmic Jñāna, and any further analytic studies of our texts, for example for their historicity, looking for clues for various cities, etc. is something to be looked down upon!

This elevation of Adhyatmic Jñāna over everything else is a movement to reduce our Sanskriti to only "पूजा-पाठ का धर्म" and philosophy, and to take away "राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म"! It is to detach "Hinduism" from Hindustan!

[vishvak]

I think proof of History of Hindu ism shouldn't be discussed here. From other threads, we can make clear calculated informed decision that Itihaas is as-(was/is/will be). We can't leave anything for others to decide. They had hundreds of years to see the Aeiryan horse invasion theory and see what they have done about it. They have no standards really to decide things.

[A_Gupta]

Will followers of the Sanatana Dharma ever compose a new Purana?

[A_Gupta]

But what is this obsession that people should be interested only in the Adhyatmic Jñāna, and any further analytic studies of our texts, for example for their historicity, looking for clues for various cities, etc. is something to be looked down upon!

This elevation of Adhyatmic Jñāna over everything else is a movement to reduce our Sanskriti to only "पूजा-पाठ का धर्म" and philosophy, and to take away "राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म"! It is to detach "Hinduism" from Hindustan!

The last time I will make this point, if it fails to take hold, so be it - the Puranas, Mahabharata etc., were not meant to be historical documents. Sure, you can look for historical and linguistic clues in them, etc., etc.. But the eternal element of these works is not in their historicity and their value does not change whether you can demonstrate some historical element or not.

[brihaspati]

I dont see the need to be so defensive or obsessed with supposed differences between "factual" history and "embellished/artistic/philosophically-retouched" history.

Every factual history is still some human's interpretation of some other human's interpretation of yet another human's interpretation, ad infinitum/iteratively to some phenomenon that appears to/or claimed to have happened. Time, location, participants, characteristics, details, all are interpretations of supposed/claimed observations. The very fact that these are iterative interpretations make every "factual history" also a partial myth, not just a reconstruction - but almost surely a construction - of an event that might not even have taken place really.

Many so-called foundation stories/or dynastic histories or description of battles, political changes, all in narratives seem to be uncannily similar or having similar structures/elements. What if historical events were being imagined or constructed exactly to bring out analogies with pre-existing popular/estanlished interpretations of how such events were supposed to take place to yield the intended psychological/propaganda effects?

The same process might be affecting how narrators were writing about events which are now used as "facts". A little correction might be possible with archeology or non-narrative studies for corroboration. but the very nature of wide and profound destruction of evidence, especially the near impossibility of recording of actual human behaviour/expression/speech etc., in the past [and the situation might not have improved even in the modern period/latest tech as it may actually be subject to much greater editing and modification] - makes almost every "western"-style narrative history a multilayered edited, influenced, modified, interpretation - affected by biases, imaginations, wishes, pet obsessions, in a chain of mutations as it proceeds in time and through people.

"western" factual history may actually be as much a reconstructed and imagined history as Hindu epics may appear to be. please go through the histories on Alexander, or Thucidide's march of the 10,000, or the war of Peloponnesus. Pliny and Plutarch's histories for Rome, even Suetonius - all have common elements and structures of heroism/model behaviours/ speeches/motivations/even repeated patterns of birth/death/important events in life of individual and society.

They are working to a model, which had come before, and reusing it to gain legitimacy for a certain political or ideological claim and perception.

I am sorry that I have not found this taken on board by the eminents striking out a new assertion for "Hindu history".

[shiv]

"western" factual history may actually be as much a reconstructed and imagined history as Hindu epics may appear to be. please go through the histories on Alexander, or Thucidide's march of the 10,000, or the war of Peloponnesus. Pliny and Plutarch's histories for Rome, even Suetonius - all have common elements and structures of heroism/model behaviours/ speeches/motivations/even repeated patterns of birth/death/important events in life of individual and society.

They are working to a model, which had come before, and reusing it to gain legitimacy for a certain political or ideological claim and perception.

I am sorry that I have not found this taken on board by the eminents striking out a new assertion for "Hindu history".

+1

But we will never figure all this out unless we look at the west and understand how and why they started thinking the way they think. We tend to concentrate on explaining to ourselves why we think the way we do because of questions the west has asked of us.

[shiv]

Why is everything packaged as a demand by the West? Can't we speculate on our own?

<snip>

I would say, actually they proved that there wasn't much of a proof to all those Bible stories. Today, one doesn't believe in the Exodus story for example. It is the lack of being able to prove anything that ultimately led to a loss of faith after the people had attained a "scientific temperament".

It is well worth understanding why the west did this. It started with the "age of enlightenment" and "the age of reason" where rationalists and deists got together to rebel against a corrupt church to establish a new type of theology, a new type of worship

Quoting Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Deism , derived from the Latin word deus meaning "god") combines a rejection of religious knowledge as a source of authority with the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe. Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment – especially in Britain, France, Germany and the United States – who, raised as Christians, believed in one god but became disenchanted with organized religion and notions such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy and the supernatural interpretation of events such as miracles. Included in those influenced by its ideas were leaders of the American and French Revolutions.

This is the direction from which the British approached Hindu knowledge and tradition. Under these rules, it is necessary to have monotheistic religion (which is deemed "universal") but with no "miracles" or "revelations" or anything that cannot be explained by the current standards of what they called "rationality"

http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/deism

DEISM, n. [L. God.] The doctrine or creed of a deist; the belief or system of religious opinions of those who acknowledge the existence of one God, but deny revelation: or deism is the belief in natural religion only, or those truths, in doctrine and practice, which man is to discover by the light of reason, independent and exclusive of any revelation from God. Hence deism implies infidelity or a disbelief in the divine origin of the scriptures.

So not only did the Brits corner English speaking Hindus into accepting a religion, they have also pushed Hindus into asking if irrational things (Like Monkey Tail throne, or Monkey carrying mountain) should be accepted or not.

Hindus ideally should have the sense to understand that some parts of out itihaas are not there to appeal to western deistic ideas of rationality, but as timeless lessons and therefore become irrational nonsense if you fail to take the lesson and start looking for "rational" explanations in "modern science" about how monkey carried mountain for one herb.

If you look at the Mahabharata, the story of gambling and losing everything is "rational and credible". It could be dubbed "history". The story of house of lac designed to burn the Pandavas is rational and "credible" and could be called "history" But then a lesson on the value of worship when all else seems lost, when one's near and dear one's cannot or will not help you - ie. Draupadi's unending garments while she was bing disrobed. This story is "irrational" and would have to be discarded and "not history and unnecessary" And the other entire chapter on the meaning of dharma that I mentioned earlier, where 4 Pandavas lie dead at a lake shore while Yudishthira answers questions on Dharma would be an "irrational story" that should be discarded. Cannot be history. Requires miracles.

Deists in the west did it for reasons steeped in their own history. We need to work with our history and not take cues from them as too many Hindus, both secular and Hindutva-vadis seem to be doing. This may actually be the appeal of western universalism

[peter]

....
Why are people doing this? One guys says "read Rig veda again"

Seriously READ Rig veda?

Yes. Read Rig Ved. Ugrasravas in Mahabharat Shlok 1 - 1 - 208 says that weight of Mahabharat on a scale is more then that of four vedas put together.

Your rant is the rant of colonized mind. What you are not realising is that you are still operating between the goal posts created by the west where India had no writing! Sign of a colonized mind.

There is zero difference between this and the belief system of Islam and Christianity

. No. Your belief has been shaped by your inability to question everything that the west has dumped on our heads. High time you get rid of the baggage.

[peter]

“The evil spirits will flee far away at mere sight of the yantra…
In the best temples dedicated to Sakti and to Rudra, this yantra must certainly be placed.
Then the monument will stand unmoved forever… this yantra is utterly secret, it should not be shown to everyone.
For this reason, a love-scene had to be carved on the lines of this yantra… the kamabandha is placed there to give delight to people”

Silpa Prakasa 2.535, 538-9

Describes Tantric temples, not all temples.

Arguing without any substance. Time has come to go visit some temples and do field work.

[peter]

The text is quite clear that : "For this reason, a love-scene had to be carved on the lines of this yantra".

Furthermore Silpa Prakash is a 10 century text. It did not originate in vaccum. Temples prior to it also have love scene carved in them.

Peter sab, but no one has seen it!

10th century..ok slipa prakash did not originate in vaccum, temples prior to 10th century, if temples prior to it had scenes carved in them, then why did statements seems to come from Silpa prakash which is quite older? nevermind there were not enough people to even write them..

I think you need to be a bit more clear on what you are trying to say or ask.

[peter]

So what is the talk of राष्ट्र-सेवा के धर्म? Why deny it?

Shivaji is hoping against all hope that the rajputs who were subservient to Mughals somehow kindle राष्ट्र-सेवा के धर्म in them. It did not help. So by and large there was no राष्ट्र-सेवा के धर्म.

Kind of thought you were coming from there!

So if it wasn't then, then probably it isn't even now, this राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म! No? It is not our Dharma to protect our land! Because according to you, Dharma is religion, and religion is just some पूजा-पाठ!

So this is what one gets - a whole lot of juvenile nonsense - when one starts pushing Āryatva Sanskriti into your tailor-cut "Hinduism" Religion! Whole concept of Dharma gets skewed!

Well. Let us see if there is a flaw in your logic:
a) Shivaji is talking about a राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म |
b) In Shivaji's mind Jai Singh of Amber is not exhibiting राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म |
c) Let me add all rajputs who were serving mughals were also not exhibiting राष्ट्र-सेवा का धर्म |
d) Though when Jai Singh on orders of Awrangzeb attacked Shivaji he did not indulge in destruction of temples in maratha country.

So temples got saved. But fellow hindus were attacked (Shivaji).

I can add more layers of complication to this analyis.

Suffice it to say as we can see multiple "Dharms" are in operation at the same time. There is not a single "Dharmic path" that can be upheld or was upheld.

Same is true in Mahabharat where some of the most learned did not know what the Dharm was at Draupadi's Chir Haran.

What religion/dharm were rajputs saving prior to them becoming subservient to mughals?
What religion/dharm were rajputs saving after becoming subservient to mughals?

[peter]

RajeshA saar,
.......
a) Aryan Invasion Theory: Peter seems to be using this as the basis of his arguments.

No. I have no belief in Aryan Invasion Theory.

[peter]

......

.....

Yes, Dharma is to preserve Itihaasa, but there is no Dharma to preserve History -- or else you have to also assert that Hindus were quite incompetent at history, Hindus by and large have not put in the effort to preserve history.

A colonial myth in your post is highlighted. India has the most number of inscriptions. Even if you put all nations of the world together and India on the other balance we still come out ahead.

The amount of written history that survives (do note this word very carefully) is extremely large. Do travel to universities in rajasthan and ask to be shown the tomes written in local langauges. And you will be shocked.

Sad thing is that we all are not aware of it and hence we accept the stupid colonial myth about Indians not writing their history as fact.

Let me add that this treasure is being eaten by termites and silver ants on a massive scale as we speak.

[shiv]

Can monkeys build a bridge? Are there any real life examples of monkeys building bridges across rivers, let alone across a stretch of ocean?

Is the Ramayana a history of people taking monkey help to build bridges, or is it far more than a history?

Hindus had no ideological doubts calling for the boxing of events and legends into "history" or "not history" based on epistemology, availability of dates, attestations and the standards of credibility of any particular age. Of course there were disagreements and debates. The basic story remained the same - Good Prince banished, wife kidnapped, kidnapper pursued and killed, wife returns, kingdom restored.. This could be dubbed as "the real history" of the Ramayana. But the Ramayana is not about the "real history of credible, scientifically tenable, rationalistic (wtf is that?) "facts". It is much much much more.

Dubbing it as history and trying to apply the parameters that "historians" use is a travesty and dumbs it down. It is a moral and ethical guide for Hindus bundled in a fantastic story that can be told for a thousand and one nights and retold. If you want the history - I have told it to you in a few words above.

And on the converse side, saying that Ramayana is not simply a "history" is being interpreted as an accusation that Hindus have no history and that Ramayana should be believed as history for one to be a true Hindu? Really? is that all that the Ramayana is? A history? Do these folks even know what history means? Can the Ramayana be boxed into a small space called "History of Hindus" and learned and discarded like we learn and discard what Siraj ud Daula may or may not have done? Seriously?

We are mentally colonized into seeing the world in ways that we don't even understand. I think that needs to change.

[peter]

The Balu debate:
I like Balu though I am not very aware of his works.

My reasons are that he gives solid platform to people who oppose AIT. And he does this in a very academic setting.

He is hated by most "experts" from the yanki land.

Lastly see the output of his student:
http://www.outlookindia.com/people/3/JakobDeRoover/4249

In my humble opinion we should in whatever way possible strengthen the hands of such academics and learn from them what is the best way to oppose the entrenched "scholarship". Yeah they may have made some points that we may not agree with. But so what?

[peter]

...
Dubbing it as history and trying to apply the parameters that "historians" use is a travesty and dumbs it down.

Yes and no. Do not play on the field set by the west. Yet as Dr BB Lal has shown , emphatically, that there are physical descriptions of Saraswati in Mahabharata which map exactly to the ones that modern geologists are unearthing. We *HAVE* to use our sanskrit texts to find evidence that corroborates science.

........
We are mentally colonized into seeing the world in ways that we don't even understand. I think that needs to change.

The only thing we need to change is question everything that is assumed to be scholarship about India from the west.

[shiv]

....
Why are people doing this? One guys says "read Rig veda again"

Seriously READ Rig veda?

Yes. Read Rig Ved. Ugrasravas in Mahabharat Shlok 1 - 1 - 208 says that weight of Mahabharat on a scale is more then that of four vedas put together.

Stop bullshitting. Rig veda was and still is transmitted orally. No need to have an inferiority complex about oral transmission as your colonized mind seems to indicate. Only YOU don't know that because your own knowledge does not extend beyond one-liners. I will regret posting this message because like a bell being struck you will post a one liner reply "tannnng!" - but I wil not read it because you are on my ignore list and I am sorry I saw your message when my browser was not logged in.

[A_Gupta]

Arguing without any substance. Time has come to go visit some temples and do field work.

[A_Gupta]

Yes and no. Do not play on the field set by the west. Yet as Dr BB Lal has shown , emphatically, that there are physical descriptions of Saraswati in Mahabharata which map exactly to the ones that modern geologists are unearthing. We *HAVE* to use our sanskrit texts to find evidence that corroborates science.

There is a lot of work going on about the Saraswati, and I am hopeful; but the matter is far from settled. Suppose you are unable to corroborate the Mahabharata Saraswati -- does that mean I should think less of the Mahabharata?

[A_Gupta]

A colonial myth in your post is highlighted. India has the most number of inscriptions. Even if you put all nations of the world together and India on the other balance we still come out ahead.

Do you mean "manuscripts" or do you mean "inscription" (as in engraved in rock, metal or clay)? If you mean the latter, I don't believe you. The number of inscriptions the Archaeological Survey of India has is of the order of 100,000. Just cuneiform documents in the Middle East number to more than 2 million.

Manuscripts - possibly yes, India is estimated to have of the order of seven million to thirty million. But of what has been read and transcribed, little is history. Catalogued are two million.

PS: Dominic Wujastyk who ran the Indology list on which Witzel, etc., had a platform writes (2014):
https://www.academia.edu/1020918/In_pre ... anuscripts

In spite of these advances, which have mostly taken place at scholarly centres outside India, real progress in the recovery and deep understanding of the Indian literary heritage and the ocean of Indian manuscript sources that testify to it, will only come when Indian universities awake from theirfascination with English, however valuable that may be, and begin teaching classical Indian languages on a wide scale, together with modern techniques of primary and secondary textual criticism. It remains to be seen whether this will happen before the Indian manuscript heritage has physically decayed beyond recovery.

If I can do nothing else, I should at least try to master Sanskrit instead of spending time here, I think.

[member_22733]

This link maybe OT here, but it has some very pertinent information about the concept of a "western/white" gaze. This is a story of a very elite, black person whose teenage son was called the "N**ger" word by his white school mates. Its an interesting read, and I would recommend everyone to read the whole article, but let me post the relevant parts here:

https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/11/1 ... om-racism/

He and his wife taught their children the ways of upper-class White folks, dressed them in preppy clothes, gave them perfect diction and “that air of quiet graciousness”.

And yet, somehow, his 15-year-old son was still called the N-word by Whites! In broad daylight! At a leafy New England boarding school! The White gentlemen were not even drunk. His son had done nothing wrong. Nothing!

This is a perfect example of what I said in the post on respectability politics:

No matter how many degrees you have, no matter how nicely you dress, no matter how “articulate” you are, Whites will still see you as a “nigger”

From that he should have gathered, at some point during the following 46 years, that racism has little to do with anything that Black people are doing wrong, that White ideas about Blacks are not grounded in fact or reason, that White racism is irrational.

Instead he concluded that apparent racism is a simple misunderstanding, that if his children did everything right – wore the right (White) clothes, spoke the right (White) English, followed particular rules, etc – that they would be protected from White racism.

But that is itself White racism: the idea that there is nothing wrong with White people but there is something wrong with Black people. It makes Black humanity conditional on good behaviour and White approval.

By growing up with White people, Graham did not grow to understand them – instead, ever the good student, he grew to believe their lies, to understand them the way they understood themselves.

The colonized mind does the same thing. It tries to measure itself and everything around it in an alien framework, and finds that nothing fits. No matter how hard they try to "please" or "be nice" or "be sekooolar" it is still not enough. It is an unwinnable race, and the colonized mind does not realize it is setup that way. You will always be inferior in this framework, no matter what you do. No matter how "nice" you behave. No matter how much you conform.

When I was 15 or so I used to read a ton of pseudo sickular magazines that my dad used to bring home (he is a big sickular colonized mind to this day), every once in a while there will be an article from someone with a white sounding name about "the yeeevils of Brahminism", "cashtu-XYZ were busy opressing cashtu-ABC" etc etc. I used to think : "Maybe if I change myself, renounce everything about my identity and adopt their POV, maybe they will treat us with respect". That is what a 15 year old me thought at that time. It took me about 15 more years to realize that I was living a lie, and those who wrote that article were fundamentally neurotic in their hatred of Hinduism.

This is again, fractally recursive, which means that everything we KNOW, every little thing we believe about Indian culture maybe an alien view implanted in our brain by the colonizer. It is very hard to recognize what is real because you do not have the tools for the search, as the only tools you have are alien in origin.

The first step for change among the mass perception is to discredit the colonizers and the Hindu haters of the west. Only then can the undoing of mental colonization begin. But then to discredit the colonizers one should NOT be colonized in the first place. Thus we are in a Catch-22 limbo. I hope that when my hair grows white, and there are a couple of marbles rolling in my head I get to see the first step occuring.

[shiv]

Western cultures have evolved from certain Greek philosophical explorations - which seem very shallow compared with the depth of exploration of "knowledge" in India. But that is not the point. The Greeks indulged in semantics and sophistry that prevented them from advancing beyond a point in philosophy. Some of the concepts they wrestled endlessly with can be examined by the frequent use of the word "epistemology". I did not begin to understand this word until recently when I finished reading Plato's "Republic"

As an introduction to what the word epistemology deals with, see this page
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_ ... ology.html

It deals with what is "knowledge"? What do you really know? Is it what you see,sense or hear? Is it what you believe etc etc

As a philosophical exploration this stuff can be fascinating, and when applied scientific reasoning - it forms the basis of good science, because it constantly asks if you can really believe what you see or find and whether you can prove it in some other way.

But when this same reasoning is applied elsewhere it becomes nonsense

Let me illustrate that with an example. This is the story of the "Boy who cried wolf". It is a moral tale with a lesson

Once there was a shepherd boy who had to look after a flock of sheep. One day, he felt bored and decided to play a trick on the villagers. He shouted, “Help! Wolf! Wolf!”

The villagers heard his cries and rushed out of the village to help the shepherd boy. When they reached him, they asked, “Where is the wolf?” The shepherd boy laughed loudly, “Ha, Ha, Ha! I fooled all of you.

I was only playing a trick on you.”
A few days later, the shepherd boy played this trick again.
Again he cried, “Help! Help! Wolf! Wolf!” Again, the villagers rushed up the hill to help him and again they found that boy had tricked them. They were very angry with him for being so naughty.
Then, some time later, a wolf went into the field. The wolf attacked one sheep, and then another and another. The shepherd boy ran towards the village shouting, “Help! Help! Wolf! Help! Somebody!”

The villagers heard his cries but they laughed because they thought it was another trick. The boy ran to the nearest villager and said, “A wolf is attacking the sheep. I lied before, but this time it is true!”
Finally, the villagers went to look. It was true. They could see the wolf running away and many dead sheep lying on the grass.

We may not believe someone who often tells lies, even when he tells the truth.

Now let me subject this tale to rational, sceptical epistemological analysis.

Who was this boy? Did he really exist? Where did he live? When did he live? What was his name? Did the tale really occur as told, of has someone simply imagined it? Is it a fabrication?

The question I would like to ask of readers is: Do any of these epistemological questions really matter in this tale? The boy may have existed. His name and country are irrelevant. The boy may well have existed, in which case it is history. If you provide or cook up a name and a place you have a "historic attestation". Even if he did not exist, it does not matter because it is a moral tale. The moral is what is important and not the epistemology of the components and characters of the tale. Whichever way you look at it the tale is neither proof nor denial of history. It could be a historic tale of something that actually occurred.

Apply the Western epistemological method of enquiry to the Ramayana and Mahabharata and we get questions like

• Can you believe this tale?
  Did Rama exist?
  Where is Ayodhya
  Can Monkeys build a bridge?
  Where is the Saraswati river? What is your evidence?

Such questions are completely irrelevant to the two epics. No guarantee is given that every single character existed or did not exist, like the characters in the Boy who cried wolf" tale. If they existed, as we believe, that is fine. But even if someone or something did not exist it does not matter. But accepting that does not mean that the epics and puranas do not contain historical facts. If there is not sufficient epistemological proof of historicity, it does not mean "absence of historicity". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We only have the utter irrelevance of "historicity" as a doctrine to cling on to as they do in the west. And such analyses are stupid, whether seculars laugh at the absence of evidence or Hindus scramble to provide evidence.

An epistemological historical enquiry into the Ramayana or Puranas is a case of casting pearls before swine, except that we have absorbed the word of the swine and now want to convince ourselves the way the swine asked to be convinced.

[Pulikeshi]

You need to join this group
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/The ... dness/info

Thanks Shiv - like all the threads you start this one is also running away at a pace my brain cannot deal with...
but some great posts clarifying the cobwebs as usual.

[Pulikeshi]

Will followers of the Sanatana Dharma ever compose a new Purana?

This is a great question and my answer is yes, it is happening as we speak... but like all new ideas in the market place it takes time for it to gain share. It is almost impossible to guess which one will win aprior and hence near impossible to observe beyond the superficial. However, one can notice trends and make projections.

[Pulikeshi]

....
PPS: Ultimately it is by understanding the root philosophy behind Itihaasa that one can answer the charge that Puranas are fabulous stories concocted by wily Brahmins to keep the public in thrall to them.

Balu is glorifying the importance of one pillar of our Itihas - Dharmic message, and at the same time bringing the other to collapse - the embodied History!

3. itihaas combines real events with adhyatma - this is what Balu is saying (if you listen to the talk). he says If you remove adhyatma from itihass you get GIGO and if you consider itihaas as pure fiction - that is also GIGO. Itihass is, according to Balu a combination of adhyatma and history telling. A story that happened is told with lessons to be learned.

Couple of points to tie this back to my conventions and declarations ideas posted in the WU thread:

1. If the Smriti(s) are declarations, then the Itihasa are conventions. Declarations are always more expensive to enforce and Conventions are always more cost effective to implement (atleast that is my key assumption).
2. The conventions or Itihasa reinforce the declarations of the Smriti and enable their modification as and when needed. This is the complete framework (partial for SD) to have a system that evolves with time.
3. Itihasa combines real events, but does not focus on linear time. Moreover, they are not just concerned with Adhyatma, the scale goes beyond given its role as a convention enforcer.
4. Growing up, I listened to a lot of Hari Katha - in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. I can't remember how many times the narrator sprung from the stories of Indra or the other gods and jumped right from the heavens into current affairs and politics and humor. Miss those really, we have lost something in just my generation.
5. Itihasa were not the creation of only wily Brahmins, exactly because they are conventions. The original author of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata may have been Shudras, but they were augmented by thinkers and writers of all Varnas, either in the original or in their various variants. Thus Itihasa was the common weave of the different Jati/Varna feeding its values into what needed to be codified as declarations in the Smriti.
6. If anything, new Itihasa (purana, etc.) have to be created precisely because new conventions are arising and the interruption of the past has to come to an end. There is more value in creating new solutions than in seeking proof and codification of the historicity of previous conventions.

My theory - comments and criticisms are welcome.