Religion Thread - 9

shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34982
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Post by shiv »

Acharya wrote:
Manny wrote:
Say what? Yes..the Hindus have been in power for the last 60 years. And they are destroying Hinduism and the Hindus. Majority of the left wing are Hindus. What is so surprising?
They are Hindus in name only. There was no expansion of Hinduism.
If a lack of expansion of Hinduism can be attributed to the presence of "Hindus in name only" it raises a whole cloud of other questions

Isn't there a premise that Hinduism has been in a continuous state of contraction for 1000 years? That means that Hindus in "name only" have been predominating for 1000 years.

If things have got worse in that last 60 years, it means that the exit of "Christian" and Islamic ruling powers handed power to the "Hindus in name only" and that 1000 years of Islamic and Christian rule did less damage than the rule of "Hindus in name only" in the last 60 years. Weren't the former preferable then?

Finally how does the allegation of loss to Hindus gel in with the massive expansion of Hindu population today. Is it being alleged that the huge expansion in population and power of Hindus after independence has been an expansion of "Hindus in name only" and not real Hindus who would lead to a real expansion of Hinduism.

Unless real Hindus can provide answers, or comprehensively defeat Marxists, Leftists, Christians and the "Hindus in name only" -I see the future for real Hindus as desperately bleak.

Who is this real Hindu who is so weak but persistent that he has been on the run for 1000 years but did not disappear, and is now on the decline after independence? Does he stand the chance of a fart in a hurricane to survive against all the forces arrayed against him?

Does he exist in any form other than in imagination?

Can he and his kind come up with real world answers that can pull him out of his virtual reality? I have found no serious answers to this question. Brainwashing is harder to remove than making the accusation that brainwashing has occurred. Is the real Hindu actually dead and all talk of his existence mere dreaming.
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Thank you Shiv, Your posts are classic. :D
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

He understood history in terms of the dynamics of socio-economic formations rather than just a chronological narration of "episodes" or the feats of a few great men - kings, warriors or saints
What is wrong with this ? Do you think history is the study of great kings and warriors ?

Here are some parts that Acharya didn't quote from the Wiki article on Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmanand ... ar_Kosambi
When the Indian independence movement was at its peak, Kosambi returned to India and taught at Gujarat University without any remuneration. He also started recruiting volunteers for Salt Satyagraha. He got six years of imprisonment for participating in the Salt Satyagraha[1].

Besides Buddhist works, Kosambi also studied and translated many Jain works. Under the influence of Jainism, he decided to give up life through sallekhana (voluntary fasting). But Mahatma Gandhi prevented him from doing so[1]. Later, Kosambi founded Bahujanavihara, a shelter house for Buddhist monks in Bombay. Fasting led to his death at Sevagram in 1947.

He authored one of the most popular biographies of Buddha, Bhagwan Buddha (1940) in Marathi.[2]. It was later translated in English and in other Indian languages by Central Sahitya Akademi. Besides Bhagwan Buddha, Kosambi also authored eleven books on Buddhism and Jainism
Looks like Kosambi (father) had more budhist influence than than marxist influence.

On his son, DD Kosambi. following is the quote that Acharya missed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.D._Kosambi
"THE light-hearted sneer “India has had some episodes, but no history“ is used to justify lack of study, grasp, intelligence on the part of foreign writers about India’s past. The considerations that follow will prove that it is precisely the episodes — lists of dynasties and kings, tales of war and battle spiced with anecdote, which fill school texts — that are missing from Indian records. Here, for the first time, we have to reconstruct a history without episodes, which means that it cannot be the same type of history as in the European tradition."
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Sajan wrote:
He understood history in terms of the dynamics of socio-economic formations rather than just a chronological narration of "episodes" or the feats of a few great men - kings, warriors or saints
What is wrong with this ? Do you think history is the study of great kings and warriors ?
There are several quotes in the net. Why is then there debate and discussion among historians on history in NCERT and Indian Univ for the past 30 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_Hi ... heir_Fraud
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

not just in India ... the Thapar Menace is far reaching ...
During the 2006 Californian Hindu textbook controversy, Thapar joined Michael Witzel in opposing changes to school textbooks dealing with Indian history, arguing that while Hindus have a legitimate right to a fair and culturally sensitive representation, the proposed changes included unscientific, religious-based material that distorted the truth and pushed a political agenda.
:rotfl:

unscientific indeed ... did she read the books and what they say about other religions? ... :roll:
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

the circle completes as follows:
Thapar secured her doctorate under A. L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University in 1958.
D. D. Kosambi spent some time at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton. In London, he started his long-lasting friendship with indologist and historian A.L. Basham.
in Kali-Yug you have Eminent Historians commenting on scientific aspects of religion ...
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

There are several quotes in the net. Why is then there debate and discussion among historians on history in NCERT and Indian Univ for the past 30 years?
Arun Shourie!! A Real reliable source indeed!!! :D :D

It may be better to quote RSS website
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Sajan wrote:
There are several quotes in the net. Why is then there debate and discussion among historians on history in NCERT and Indian Univ for the past 30 years?
Arun Shourie!! A Real reliable source indeed!!! :D :D

It may be better to quote RSS website
Sine you are recent member of BRF
BR quotes from every source - no source is considered untouchable here.
Raju

Post by Raju »

HINO ~ Hindus in name only


[quote="Sajan"][/quote]

Sajan this is for you,

Saajan Saajan Pukaroon Galiyon Mein...
Greg
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 29
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:42

Post by Greg »

@Alok_N
so Greg, going by that, would you consider EJ activity a "sin" against what is natural to an individual?


I find aggressive missionary activity a bit bothersome because historically, missionaries have depleted the planet's ethnosphere on a global scale. I feel sad when a primitive tribe in the Amazon is "converted" to being a bunch of beggars lining outside the church for their weekly ration of food in exchange of blind belief in religious dogma that did not coevolve with their own anthropologic history.
SaiK
BRF Oldie
Posts: 36424
Joined: 29 Oct 2003 12:31
Location: NowHere

Post by SaiK »

Alok_N wrote:.."it is ok because she is a girl and can't be expected to be good at math" ... :lol:
uh ho! achtung! achtung! achtung!..

http://www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/women/women.htm

i guess there are no women posters in BR!
Greg
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 29
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:42

Post by Greg »

@ Johann and Alok_N (subject: Science and Religion)
however, the fact remains that only two sets of theories claim to have been operational 10 billion years ago: physics and religion ...


Physics arrives at its theory by virtue of a framework that has delivered the general nature of our operational world with a remarkable and useful accuracy. As far as revelation of the natural world goes, physics has a level of credibility that puts it in a category above and beyond any religion. The idea that religion has the understanding of the fundamental nature of the Universe suffers from a glaring lack of credibility. Easily demonstrable of course is the historic failure of all religions to illuminate, on their own philosophical planks, significant aspects of the physical world that we now understand well and can thus verify the accuracy of religious thought on the same. I mean things like general principles of Newtonian physics, electromagnetism, chemical reactivity, biochemical nature of life, evolutionary theory, physical nature of the mind - stuff that you find in high school textbooks. IMO, this fact alone bolsters the idea that religious theories are inadequate at best and grossly misleading at worst when it comes to revealing the most easily detectable workings of the natural world, let alone absolute reality.

Considering the fact that we do not know the nature of the absolute physical reality (and may never know it), I think it is prudent to judge religious theories based on their historic track record in generating scientifically credible knowledge rather than their diffusely interpretable and slippery ideas about the nature of the Universe 10 billion years ago. That is why I think its a travesty to lump science and religion together while talking about the origin and nature of the Universe. Religion has a statistically demonstrable value to human psychological and cultural needs. It also remains the most efficient vehicle of transferring ancestral culture from one generation to the next - which is deemed important by all peoples. Since, its benefits are not scientific in nature, its largely a moot point to compare religions based on their scientific content. Its like asking which bacterial strain is more like a hippopotamus. :) JMT.
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

Sine you are recent member of BRF
BR quotes from every source - no source is considered untouchable here.
I don't think that was the response I got when I quoted Praful Bidwai's article here.
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Sajan wrote:
Sine you are recent member of BRF
BR quotes from every source - no source is considered untouchable here.
I don't think that was the response I got when I quoted Praful Bidwai's article here.
Everybody reads it but only for information
Greg
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 29
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:42

Post by Greg »

@ Pulikeshi (re: Schrodinger's "what is life")

After reading this book, I had a chat about it with a very close friend who is a Professor of Neurobiology and found out that although physicists often refer to this book as the basis for discovery of genes, it is patently false. The theory of heredity was quite well-advanced by the time Schrodinger wrote this book. Indeed, after Gregor Mendel's work was rediscovered in the early 1900s, a robust experimental framework for the study of genetics was developed by people like Woodworth, Castle and most importantly Thomas Hunt Morgan. By 1920, Morgan had convincingly demonstrated that genes were carried on chromosomes and he even developed the first genetic map in 1913. By the time Schrodinger wrote this book, Morgan had even recieved a Nobel Prize for his discovery. Even the discovery of DNA as the chemical identity of genes was carried out by biochemists led by Oswald Avery before the publication of this book. In any case, Schrodinger did not inspire the discovery of genes even though the statement is bandied about loosely all across the web. Biologists had a strong grasp of genes by that time and the only remaining question was the actual structure of DNA. Schrodinger's speculation on that aspect proved to be wrong. The book is much better known for its application of thermodynamic principles to biological systems...a topic that remains on the margins of biology.

@Alok
it also reinforces my comment to Johann that "fundamental discoveries in biology will be made by physicists" ...


In that case, you will have to look elsewhere to reinforce that comment. :) To be honest with you, I used to think exactly the same way till I started reading up on biology and found that the real pushers and movers were hard core geneticists and biochemists.
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

Greg wrote:In that case, you will have to look elsewhere to reinforce that comment. :) To be honest with you, I used to think exactly the same way till I started reading up on biology and found that the real pushers and movers were hard core geneticists and biochemists.
I haven't read the book yet, so I can't comment ... Shroedinger is famous enough without getting credit for genetics ...

his invention is the basis for the majority of world commerce today ... :)
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

Sajan wrote:I don't think that was the response I got when I quoted Praful Bidwai's article here.
every rule exists so that exceptions can be highlighted ...

ProFool is one such ... Uneven, KhaliPeeli, IAss, etc etc have been thoroughly deconstructed ... in Derrida terms, they are "under erasure" ... :)
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

I found Kosambi's approach to history rather interesting because of my earlier exchange with AnandK regarding the travancore monarchy. I had stated at that time that lowercastes and minorities were discriminated in travancore and Anand was trying to counter that by trying to paint the monarchy in favorable colors

Now see the following about history of kerala

http://www.kerala.gov.in/history&culture/emergence.htm
In Travancore, political agitation began with the Nairs who found their dominance on the decline and resented the monopolization of higher officers by the Tamil Brahmins inducted from outside. Their appetite for political participation was whetted with the formation of the Travancore Legislative Council in 1888 - the first ever legislative started in an Indian State. The Malayali Memorial, a memorandum bearing the signatures of over 10,000 people, including a sprinkling of Ezhavas, Christians and Muslims, was submitted to the Maharaja in 1891. It was really a Nair plea for privileges and positions. This was soon followed by an Ezhava Memorial (1896), submitted with over 13,000 signatures pleading for extension of civic rights, Government jobs, etc. to the lower castes
Not only that, more on "ezhava memorial" and why the king relented and allowed the entry of lower castes into temples. As the following will prove, this happened not because of the progressive nature of the kings as Anand tried to prove, but because of teh fear that their political power will erode if large number of ezhavas converted to christianity or any other religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezhava
A sizeable part of the Ezhava community, especially in central Travancore and in the High Ranges, embraced Christianity during British rule, fed up with the injunctions of caste system enforced by the Monarchical state. The Ezhava Memorial" was a charter of human rights drafted by the Ezhava community, the endorsement of which by the Travancore State was a condition that they set forth, were they not to convert to Christianity en masse.

“The Thiyya (Ezhava) Hindu of Hindu Travancore has not as much right of free citizenship as the lowest Hindu in the Mohammadan state of Hyderabad or the lowest Hindu of Christian British India. To be a Hindu in the Hindu state of Travancore is not a privilege for the non-caste Hindus; it is not a mere handicap; it is a curse; it is an insult.â€
Last edited by Sajan on 06 Apr 2007 10:22, edited 3 times in total.
Raju

Post by Raju »

Tirupati lord goes to Dalit homes

Ashok Das
Tirupati, April 4, 2007

For year, Dalits have been treated as less than human, tolerated from a distance. Even God has been out of bounds. But they are waking up to their rights and others too seem to be realising their folly.

Many temples are now opening their doors to Dalit devotees. The presiding deity of the Jagannath temple in Puri comes out once a year so the "untouchables" can have a darshan of the Lord. Now the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) has decided to carry the Lord to the Dalitwadas or Dalit villages. The temple deities will not only be carried to the villages, a team of priests and veda pundits from the main temple will perform the rituals of the Lord — including Srinivasa Kalyanam, the marriage of the Lord and his divine consort — in a Dalit home. Thereafter, the Lord and his servants will spend the night in the Dalit colony.

The revolutionary step is also a well-calculated move. "Dalits have been discriminated for years. The alienation was leading to religious conversions. We have to make them feel they are not second class citizens and bring them into the religious mainstream," said TTD chairman B Karunakar Reddy.

A few months ago, the TTD did a dry run at a Dalit village in Nellore district where a large number of conversions had taken place. The incident became a talking point among Dalits there. Spurred by the good response, the TTD decided to do the same across the state in a phased manner.

Calling the programme a "revolution of sorts", Reddy said it would be conducted every month. He also urged other Hindu organizations to follow suit to assimilate the Dalits and weaker sections into Hindu society. "Veda is for all. God is for all," he said.
url
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Sajan wrote:


That is precisely why I stated that we need a free-market economy when it comes to religion also.

I think this is a fair illustration of the perils of looking at history only from the perspective of a few kings.
Nationalist historical perspective is different from history of Kings and conquests.
So AnandK posts are his own and they dont have wide consensus.
samuel
BRFite
Posts: 818
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:52

Post by samuel »

Raju, your post encourages my confidence and hope that all will be well with hinduism. wonderful, wonderful, thanks for posting!
Raju wrote:Tirupati lord goes to Dalit homes

Ashok Das
Tirupati, April 4, 2007

For year, Dalits have been treated as less than human, tolerated from a distance. Even God has been out of bounds. But they are waking up to their rights and others too seem to be realising their folly.

Many temples are now opening their doors to Dalit devotees. The presiding deity of the Jagannath temple in Puri comes out once a year so the "untouchables" can have a darshan of the Lord. Now the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) has decided to carry the Lord to the Dalitwadas or Dalit villages. The temple deities will not only be carried to the villages, a team of priests and veda pundits from the main temple will perform the rituals of the Lord — including Srinivasa Kalyanam, the marriage of the Lord and his divine consort — in a Dalit home. Thereafter, the Lord and his servants will spend the night in the Dalit colony.

The revolutionary step is also a well-calculated move. "Dalits have been discriminated for years. The alienation was leading to religious conversions. We have to make them feel they are not second class citizens and bring them into the religious mainstream," said TTD chairman B Karunakar Reddy.

A few months ago, the TTD did a dry run at a Dalit village in Nellore district where a large number of conversions had taken place. The incident became a talking point among Dalits there. Spurred by the good response, the TTD decided to do the same across the state in a phased manner.

Calling the programme a "revolution of sorts", Reddy said it would be conducted every month. He also urged other Hindu organizations to follow suit to assimilate the Dalits and weaker sections into Hindu society. "Veda is for all. God is for all," he said.
url
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

Some one told the TTD types that BRF is discussing reforming them in the religion threads!

My next step would be to have Dalits trained as Archakas at TTD.
samuel
BRFite
Posts: 818
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:52

Post by samuel »

So lets go back in history to find a real hindu(s), so we can calibrate ourselves. We may not have to go back a 1000 years, lets go back a few hundred. Most would probably count chatrapati shivaji as a real Hindu, is that correct?

Here is what wiki says (but clearly a better source might be preferable, nonetheless, and I would like to know if this site provides too "westernized" a description)
Maratha Empire

- Shivaji and almost all Maratha kings and generals including Peshwas followed a true secular policy.

- Religious tolerance and religious pluralism as an important pillar of the nation-state was initiated by Shivaji.

- It was not dependent on whims and fancy of an individual.

- Maratha Empire was the only Indian empire which didn't adhere to the caste system. Here, the Brahmins (Peshwe) were the prime ministers of the Kshatriya (Maratha) emperors and lower caste Shudras (Holkars) were the trusted generals of the Brahmin Peshwas.

- Since its start, many people of talent were inducted in the Maratha Empire which made it one of the most socially mobile empire. Note that ruler of Indore was a Dhangar, a tribal, rulers of Gwalior and Baroda were from ordinary peasant families, Peshwas of Bhatt family were from ordinary backgrounds, Shivaji's most trusted secretary Haider Ali Kohari was from an ordinary Muslim family and was in fact, a Maulana.

- Marathas militarily controlled huge tracts which threw out the yoke of Mughals. Today's India is more or less synonymous with the areas of Maratha confederacy.

- It created a legacy of fighting against the invaders. It is worth to mention that many leaders of freedom movement from Maratha lands.

- The empire is also credited for creating a significant navy, which at its height was led by the legendary Kanhoji Angre who proved invincible even to the many colonial powers.

- Maratha princes played a vital role in the integration of Indian states.
It created a legacy of continuous social changes. All major social policies of India originated from Maratha land eg. women education(Baroda), reservation for backward classes(Kolhapur), problems of peasants(Pune).


So now I am getting myself tied in knots about who a real Hindu is, when a nationalistic and political barometer cannot be separated.

For example, is PV Narasimha Rao a real Hindu? What about Emperor Ashoka?

I think this notion of a real vs in-name-only may not be a fruitful distinction to make to address the questions this thread started with, but I am not sure on that count.
shiv wrote:
Acharya wrote: They are Hindus in name only. There was no expansion of Hinduism.
If a lack of expansion of Hinduism can be attributed to the presence of "Hindus in name only" it raises a whole cloud of other questions

Isn't there a premise that Hinduism has been in a continuous state of contraction for 1000 years? That means that Hindus in "name only" have been predominating for 1000 years.

If things have got worse in that last 60 years, it means that the exit of "Christian" and Islamic ruling powers handed power to the "Hindus in name only" and that 1000 years of Islamic and Christian rule did less damage than the rule of "Hindus in name only" in the last 60 years. Weren't the former preferable then?

Finally how does the allegation of loss to Hindus gel in with the massive expansion of Hindu population today. Is it being alleged that the huge expansion in population and power of Hindus after independence has been an expansion of "Hindus in name only" and not real Hindus who would lead to a real expansion of Hinduism.

Unless real Hindus can provide answers, or comprehensively defeat Marxists, Leftists, Christians and the "Hindus in name only" -I see the future for real Hindus as desperately bleak.

Who is this real Hindu who is so weak but persistent that he has been on the run for 1000 years but did not disappear, and is now on the decline after independence? Does he stand the chance of a fart in a hurricane to survive against all the forces arrayed against him?

Does he exist in any form other than in imagination?

Can he and his kind come up with real world answers that can pull him out of his virtual reality? I have found no serious answers to this question. Brainwashing is harder to remove than making the accusation that brainwashing has occurred. Is the real Hindu actually dead and all talk of his existence mere dreaming.
Pulikeshi
BRFite
Posts: 1513
Joined: 31 Oct 2002 12:31
Location: Badami

Post by Pulikeshi »

Greg wrote:@ Pulikeshi (re: Schrodinger's "what is life")

After reading this book, I had a chat about it with a very close friend who is a Professor of Neurobiology and found out that although physicists often refer to this book as the basis for discovery of genes, it is patently false.
The structure not genes themselves. Schrödinger's brilliance was in seeing that life - has negative entropy! Perhaps, it was all thanks to Roaslind Franklin. But, let the religious debate continue. :-)

Before Watson and Crick

Some excerpts:

In 1943, another scientist at one remove from the world conflict (because he had been offered a haven in neutral Ireland) gave a series of lectures in Dublin, called provocatively "What is Life?" An audience of 400 for every lecture suggested that his supposedly difficult subject was of great general interest.

Erwin Schrödinger, a Viennese, had shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933 for laying the foundations of wave mechanics. That same year he left Berlin, where he had been working, because, although not himself Jewish, he would not remain in Germany when persecution of the Jews became national policy. A long odyssey through Europe brought him, in 1940, to Dublin at the invitation of Eamon de Valera, Ireland's premier. De Valera had been a mathematician before he became a revolutionary, then a politician; in 1940 he set up the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. Schrödinger found Ireland "paradise," not least because it allowed him the detachment to think about a very big question.


In his Dublin lectures, Schrödinger addressed what puzzled many students—why biology was treated as a subject completely separate from physics and chemistry: frogs, fruit flies, and cells on one side, atoms and molecules, electricity and magnetism, on the other. The time had come, Schrödinger declared from his Irish platform, to think of living organisms in terms of their molecular and atomic structure. There was no great divide between the living and nonliving; they all obey the same laws of physics and chemistry.

He put a physicist's question to biology. If entropy is (according to the second law of thermodynamics) things falling apart, the natural disintegration of order into disorder, why don't genes decay? Why are they instead passed intact from generation to generation?

What Is Life? was the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of biology—a small book that started a revolution.

He gave his own answer. "Life" is matter that is doing something. The technical term is metabolism—"eating, drinking, breathing, assimilating, replicating, avoiding entropy." To Schrödinger, life could be defined as "negative entropy"—something not falling into chaos and approaching "the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death." Genes preserve their structure because the chromosome that carries them is an irregular crystal. The arrangement of units within the crystal constitutes the hereditary code.

The lectures were published as a book the following year, ready for physicists to read as the war ended and they looked for new frontiers to explore. To the molecular biologist and scientific historian Gunther Stent of the University of California at Berkeley, What Is Life? was the Uncle Tom's Cabin of biology—a small book that started a revolution. For post-war physicists, suffering from professional malaise, "When one of the inventors of quantum mechanics [could] ask 'What is life?,'" Stent declared, "they were confronted with a fundamental problem worthy of their mettle." Biological problems could now be tackled with their own language, physics.

Research into the new field of biophysics inched forward in the late 1940s. In 1949 another Austrian refugee scientist, Erwin Chargaff, working at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, was one of the very few who took Avery's results to heart and changed his research program in consequence. He analyzed the proportions of the four bases of DNA and found a curious correspondence. The numbers of molecules present of the two bases, adenine and guanine, called purines, were always equal to the total amount of thymine and cytosine, the other two bases, called pyrimidines. This neat ratio, found in all forms of DNA, cried out for explanation, but Chargaff could not think what it might be.

That is where things stood when Rosalind Franklin arrived at King's College London on 5 January 1951. Leaving coal research to work on DNA, moving from the crystal structure of inanimate substances to that of biological molecules, she had crossed the border between nonliving and living.
Coal does not make more coal, but genes make more gene
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

samuel wrote:
Here is what wiki says (but clearly a better source might be preferable, nonetheless, and I would like to know if this site provides too "westernized" a description)
Maratha Empire

- Shivaji and almost all Maratha kings and generals including Peshwas followed a true secular policy.
What is missing is that he fought for SD. Preserving SD from Mughals was the core mission of his kingdom.

Added later=
There is a contiual link from the vijayanagar empire 1300 to the modern times for protecting SD from foreign invasion.
Last edited by svinayak on 06 Apr 2007 10:43, edited 1 time in total.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

And he got/inherited that from the Vijayanagar Empire.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34982
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Post by shiv »

samuel wrote:
So now I am getting myself tied in knots about who a real Hindu is, when a nationalistic and political barometer cannot be separated.
I am no scholar.

Someone please tell me where Vivekananda found Hindus and how he found them?

Did Vivekananda have any idea about Hindus as opposed to Hinduism? Does the concept of true Hindu correlate in any way with Vivekananda's views.


What of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa? What did he have to say about Hindus?

Can "Indian" be separated from "Hindu"?
Raju

Post by Raju »

Acharya, ramana chk your yahoo mail.

thnks
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34982
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Post by shiv »

Acharya wrote: What is missing is that he fought for SD. Preserving SD from Mughals was the core mission of his kingdom.
What is SD?
Raju

Post by Raju »

shiv wrote:
Can "Indian" be separated from "Hindu"?
According to Dr. Zakir Naik (honorary plenipotentiary) "Hindu" is a geographical term and Indian muslims can thus be called "Hindu" as well.
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

Greg wrote: Since, its benefits are not scientific in nature, its largely a moot point to compare religions based on their scientific content.
that was not the assertion ... religion does not contribute to scientific knowledge ... I don't believe anyone was arguing that ...

however, several other points were indeed argued:

1. Hindu thought is not in contradiction to scientific thought ... this may seem like an accident to you, but I am of the view that it is truly remarkable ... especially when you consider that science had itself not come to some of its realizations until recently ...

so, how would you explain this coincidence?

2. Scientific understanding of the universe is in a crisis mode ... the last layer of the onion to be peeled has revealed darkness which no one understands ...

so, how would you proceed in this situation?

if you are thrashing about looking for new ideas would you outright reject hints provided to you by religion? ... what gives you that luxury?

3. the example of linear versus cyclic time was discussed ... Big Bang Cosmology is linear ... it has invented "inflation"" to cure some of the problems faced earlier ... but the basic problem is the concept of time itself ... if time has a "beginning", science can not deal with what was there "before" the beginning of time ...

so, if some religious ideas hint towrds cyclic nature of time, would you reject that right away? ... again, what gives you that luxury?

4. the holy grail of physics is "unification" ... it is very far from being realized ... I really don't see any signs that it will happen anytime soon ... so, what is one to do? ...

if a body of thought exists that insists on "unification" in non-mathematical temrs, would you not be curious enough to at least read it and see if there is anything of value there?

5. the connection to biology was brought up ... the point is simple ... if 10 billion years ago, there was no life but physical laws were in effect then where did life come from if not from some physical process?

there is no complete theory for origin of life, but what besides physics can contain the answer?

6. there is dark matter/dark energy out there ... together they constitute 96% of the universe's energy density ... isn't it naive to think that they are not the dominant players in the dynamics of all of nature? ...

it is quite plausible that there are interactions/forces that have not yet been discovered ... what phenomena would these forces govern? ... no one has any good guesses even ...

so, what if there is some understanding of these phenomena that is buried in the religios texts but stated in such a different language compared to physics that it is impossibly arcane? ... would you rule that out? ... what gives you that luxury?
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

I think the hagiography about Maratha Kings proves Kosambi's point again
Maratha Empire was the only Indian empire which didn't adhere to the caste system. Here, the Brahmins (Peshwe) were the prime ministers of the Kshatriya (Maratha) emperors and lower caste Shudras (Holkars) were the trusted generals of the Brahmin Peshwas.
I found the following regarding this
http://ambedkar.org/News/hl/Low%20-%20cost.htm
Take the case of the social reformer, Mahatma Phule, who was approached by the "nationalists" to forget the social inequalities that existed in the society and join wholeheartedly in the fight against the alien rulers. He was well aware of how the Brahmins had used Marathas against the Mughals by temporarily making them Kshatriyas. But they were made Shudras once the Peshwas superseded the Marathas. Phule, therefore, replied that the caste discriminations were not a corruption but a natural outcome of the Hindu worldview.
Raju

Post by Raju »

He was well aware of how the Brahmins had used Marathas against the Mughals by temporarily making them Kshatriyas. But they were made Shudras once the Peshwas superseded the Marathas.
Sharad Pawar the "Maratha" leader is both considered as a "Maratha" and as belonging to the backward "Kunbi" jati at same time. So is he "Maratha" or is he a "Kunbi" ??
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Image


Image
Last edited by svinayak on 06 Apr 2007 11:12, edited 1 time in total.
Alok_N
BRFite
Posts: 608
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 19:32
Location: Hidden Gauge Sector

Post by Alok_N »

regardless of maratha or kunbi, can he fix cricket? :)
Sajan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 55
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 23:52

Post by Sajan »

More on Mahatma Phule's opinion of the Peshwa rule - not as egalitarian as others would like to portray here

http://www.mahatmaphule.com/jp1.html
Readers will please recall the inhuman death, inflicted upon the valiant, famous Vithojirao Holkar, in the manner described above, in Poona (on 16th April 1801) by the treachevous, ungrateful Peshwa
...
If we reflect on these severe punishments dispassionately) we are forced to wonder whether the law-enforcing agencies (authorities) who were the Peshwas' caste-men were constantly planning and mediating on diverse methods of torturing and harassing the poor subjects day in and day out
....
The Brahmin bureaucracy regarded the poor subjects as less than vermin or less than dumb animals (in the field). The poor subjects, according to the Bhat rulers were specially created (by God) to serve the Bhat Peshwas and their caste-men as helots. These helots were supposed to till the fields and garner rich harvests, to weave clothes, to toil and moil in the burning heat of sun, and to produce and supply diverse luxuries needed by the Peshwas and their cast-men, their women-folk and children too.
....
samuel
BRFite
Posts: 818
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 08:52

Post by samuel »

ramana wrote:And he got/inherited that from the Vijayanagar Empire.
Hi Ramana, Acharya,

Is it not the case then that Shivaji is being viewed as a real Hindu but through a nationalistic lens. He protected his (inherited) nation-state (a secular one I might add, if the veracity of wiki is to be believed). But then so was Haider Ali and a third of his army, muslims. [utrl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haider_Ali_Kohari] Haider Ali [/url]. Are they real Hindus too? So then who is a real Hindu?
I am truly twisted up because if I cannot separate nationalism from hindiusm and define a real Hindu in terms of these two roles, then I don't really know where to begin threading a narrative that is cogent in its logic, clear in its boundaries, succinct in its message, and wise in its import.
PS: Added later,
Maybe we can get the TTD folks out on our forum too and get their views?
Last edited by samuel on 06 Apr 2007 11:06, edited 2 times in total.
Vijnan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 25
Joined: 04 Jan 2003 12:31

Post by Vijnan »

But they were made Shudras once the Peshwas superseded the Marathas.
When did this happen and how?
Raju

Post by Raju »

that is the western view, it ofcourse gives us an idea. But we need the Hindu theological/astrological view, it might give a far more accurate picture.
JwalaMukhi
BRFite
Posts: 1635
Joined: 28 Mar 2007 18:27

Post by JwalaMukhi »

Sajan et al.,
Here is a take on the caste system from a blogger.
http://www.maanojrakhit.com/9788189746_11_7.pdf
Objectively look at what he has to say.
Locked