Cross-posting from the "Why is "Hindu Nationalism" spoken of in a pejorative sense?" Thread
Sorry for the long post!
For Hindutva, what is important is this:shiv wrote:Good Prince banished, wife kidnapped, kidnapper pursued and killed, wife returns, kingdom restored..
Good Prince (of some Rajya in Bharat) banished, wife kidnapped, kidnapper pursued and killed, wife returns, kingdom restored.
Everyone reading Ramayana and Mahabharata would see different things, which are important to him. Most Hindus consider Ramayana to be Itihas, with the samantics "Thus it happened" and thus Satya!shiv wrote: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.
However as I see it, Satya does not mean "literalism"!
Speaking for myself, my thought process about this episode would be
"Shri Hanuman transported a whole lot of herbs over a long distance in a short time as he could not discern which herb was the appropriate one to administer to Shri Lakshman for healing his wound"!
"Mountain" can be a misunderstanding of the semantics of the word, an error in transmission, an embellishment, an exaggeration, or have some cultural significance, or it too could be the truth, I don't know, and things that I don't know, one can speculate on it, but there just isn't sufficient data or evidence to determine what exactly was the case, and whatever theory people come up with, it would remain an interesting theory, and nothing more. But since in the text, we read "mountain" that is how I would advocate its further use, because "mountain" semantics has become part of our traditional culture.
shiv saar,shiv wrote:Quoting Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeismThis 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"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.
http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/deismSo 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.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.
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
I think there is a fundamental difference in the thinking and motivation of Europeans, who came up with Deism, and Bharatiyas, which leads to two different outcomes.
Here we return to our discussion on Religion and Sanskriti.
For true Christians, it is imperative to believe in the Bible, in the Word of God, and to have faith in that. That is the foundation of Church, of Religion. Without that faith, everything collapses. Bible or Qu'ran are efforts of self-appointed Emissaries and their groupies to make a case for God and their own representation of Him on Earth, by glorifying His power, by terrifying the believer into submission, by suggesting models in response to existential questions and by claiming representational authority by presenting genealogical lines and showing miracles! In short, it is a sales pitch based on gullibility.
There is no ethical imperative in Christianity to perpetuate tradition, preserve culture, understand underlying philosophy, live by noble ethics autonomous of those given by God, or even to seek knowledge! All that is irrelevant!
We make the mistake that the basis of our faith and associated action/behavior is the same as that in Christianity or in Religion in general!
Religion is analogous to a Slide in the hot Sun. Faith is a pair of thick trousers. If you wearing those, then you would slide smoothly and the hot metal of the slide would not burn your butt and legs. If you lose faith, then the religion may not remain that appealing.
Sanskriti is more like a whole amusement park! You can try whatever suits you - you can ride Itihas, Darśanams, Śruti, Ishwarvadi Bhakti, Pooja, Paath, Saṃskāra, Yoga, Tapa, Dharma, Virya, Shilpkala, Nritya, Natak, Saṃskṛtam, whatever you feel like! And everything is somehow interconnected like in an amusement park! The Darśanams keep our Faith rooted in Logic and Rationality by presenting the appropriate perspective.
We are a Sanskriti, and not a Religion, and thus we are not Fragile!
If we were to make Western Universalism as the Subject observing us as an Object, then we lose all our independence of thought. In fact even if we try to hide ourselves from the gaze of the Subject, then the Subject still sees us as hiding ourselves. That is where our insecurity comes from.
Our insecurity does not come from researching our texts for their historicity, but from having the West as the Subject.
Sure there are Hindu "Chauvinists" who like to take our Itihas literally in every aspect and respond to Macaulayist poking by making extraordinary claims. Their fault is that in order to respond, they accept and use Western categories and vocabulary, and thus sound irrational in that framework. Before answering a query made in a Western semantic framework, a Hindu would perhaps have to make several changes to Western semantics, in order to explain his thinking to them. But considering the rhetorical nature of such an exchange, often that effort is not made and as such responses end up being ridiculous and sounding "irrational". It is in this case that Rajiv Malhotra's suggestion of having Sanskrit Non-translatables makes sense.
And just like our Sanskriti is a whole amusement park, so too is our Itihas.
Yes of course is our Itihas for "Adhyatmic Jñāna", but those speaking in favor of restricting our Itihas only to spiritual knowledge are in some ways also acting according to Exclusivist paradigm. Itihas's purpose is only for "Adhyatma" and don't dare consider it as history or anything else!
This is where I find Balu's advice to Hindutva not to look at our Itihasic characters as historic people. It is presumptuous, and it is arrogant!
No Hindutvavadi is telling Balu, he should not read Ramayana or Mahabharata, solely for his Adhyatmic fulfillment. But he thinks Hindutvavadis are a bunch of people too obsessed with responding to Western poking about our historicity! He may be telling the Mouse it shouldn't move when the Scientist pokes him with a stick, for then the Scientist would go away! But in this scheme, the Scientist remains the Scientist and the Mouse remains the Mouse! The Subject remains the Subject and the Object remains the Object! The only difference that one has made is that the Scientist would jot down in his lab notes, that the Mouse refused to move due to some sense of pride and feigned ignorance of the provoking stick.
Trying to restrict Itihas only to "Adhyatmic Jñāna" is asking the Mouse to remain still when poked, so as to deny the Scientist the joy of seeing the Mouse react to his provocation. Should the Mouse then chew up his own legs, just so that it denies the Scientist the satisfaction of seeing it moving? "Na rahega baans, na bajegi baansuri"? This way the Mouse can perhaps additionally prove that it did not move because it had no legs, so that the Scientist then doesn't know why the Mouse did not move? All this keeps us in the cage of Western Universalism!
Balu's advice to Hindutvavadis does not change the West as a reference frame, but rather only perpetuates it. {My advice to the Mouse would be to bite the Scientist's finger really deep and then take notes on how much blood comes out!}
It is in the nature of the beast, that Itihas would continue to mean many things to different people, and there is no need to criticize one or the other, as long as the one treating the texts retains a sympathetic disposition towards our Sanskriti.
Just as an example, I accept Nilesh's dating of Rama's birth - Nov 29. 12240. For me that is plausible! There are other Hindus who suggest the date to be 1.2 million years ago, during the Treta Yuga! Fine, that is what they believe in, what their framework of beliefs and assumptions suggests to them! I have no problem with that.
Balu should know that for Hindutvavadis, the focus is a very different one than what he represents.
Itihas for Hindutva is that what keeps Sanskriti rooted to our Rāṣṭra.
The Hinduist stream of thought seems to be trying to uproot our Sanskriti from its geography, i.e. Bharat, and trying to make it an exportable commodity, something that one can put in a suitcase and take along to Amreeka, and forget that its roots lie in India. That is Hinduists are helping the West digest our Sanskriti. The Hinduists would make the case that everything in our Sanskriti, all our texts are basically non-historical in nature, for "Adhyatmic" purposes only.
The Hindutvavadi stream of thought tries to bind our Sanskriti to our Rāṣṭra through the sacred geography, and by keeping Itihas as something that happened in the sacred geography of Bharat, as Bharat's past. Hindutvavad does not reject the exportability of Āryatva Sanskriti, but we do insist on a copyleft license like say the Apache License II with a Notice text file referring to the Bharatiya sacred geography!
The Hinduists however wish to ignore the geography and to discard any Notice Text. The West which seems now to support Hinduists, may want in the future to do away with the copyleft licensing as well and set up a Hindu Holy See which would start telling Hindus all over the world what is the right path in Hinduism.
So I am against this "Adhyatmic" movement which tries to bury the sacred geography of "Āryatva Sanskriti"!
In many ways it looks not much different than the AIT.
First the British appropriated Aryan epithet for themselves from the Hindus, then they called the Dravidians some black mass of heathendom and then telling them that North Indian Brahmins considered them inferior due to the Aryan roots, so to avoid this "discrimination", the Dravidians should better convert to Christianity, and forget Hindi/Sanskrit.
Here the West may be appropriating Hindu epithet for themselves from the Hindus, by first calling Hindu Nationalists some names like irrational chauvinists, and then telling them that the British Colonialists, Macaulayists, Seculars derided them in the past, so to avoid this "ridicule" the Hindus should better convert to "Adhyatmic Hinduism", and forget history/geography.
Here is what you wrote in the first post
and subsequentlyshiv wrote:Hindu history is more one of geography and culture. The geography is intrinsic to Hindu history.
This is generally what I too can concur with, except perhaps the "They may be made up stories." part.shiv wrote:It is the geography that I was speaking of when I mentioned the Ramayana and Mahabharata, not a claim that the stories are 100% true and consistent. It is the place-names of the Ramayana and Mahabharata that are so significant. Have you read detailed versions recently? They may be made up stories. But those made up stories speak of a common culture across a geographic region and the stories exist in some form or other across that region. That is why I made a point about history and geography being taken separately or together. History without reference to geography is meaningless. ignoring geography in the literary and cultural memes of a people is equally a sign of illiteracy and denial of history.
Yes the main focus is the geography for Hindutvavadis, much less the timing, or the technological claims.