Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Dipanker »

Dr Bibek Debroy dates Mahabharata war to 1200 BC.

Understanding Mahabharat with Dr Bibek Debroy
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

>>1200 BC is roughly when we see the second wave of urbanization in Indian subcontinent, namely, the Ganges valley. Which makes sense, since IVC collapsed around 1900 BC and the next 500-700 years would be an expected timeline for mass-scale farming presence in Gangetic plains by IVC settlers and then eventually densifying into urban culture.

IVC "collapsed" - what does collapsed mean? Sindhu was always there, wasn't it? The civilization around it was always there? It collapsed around 1900 BC points to a disruption? What was this disruption? What is the evidence of this disruption? It was IVC settlers who setup mass scale farming presence in the Ganga valley - around 1200 BC. Again, how does one come to these definitive conclusions?
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

SriJoy wrote: However, i still don't see what conditions would be prevalent pan-India (or atleast, across entire North India) to forment such a war with multiple players involved. the prima-facie reason for war in Mahabharata is highly unlikely in reality. We see Indians such as Kakatiyas, Chalukyas, Cholas, etc. not giving a damn about brutal genocide in NW India under Ghorids and Ghaznavids. Or even the Palas or Gujjars of Kannauj caring much for these kinds of brutal genocide of their own western kin. So it is a bit much to expect that rulers from Bengal or tamil Nadu or even Bihar showed up to fight & get their own men killed for 'who is the more righteous candidate for throne of Hastinapura'. So for Mahabharata to be true, we need a socio-economic condition for it to affect everyone in the north and have rammifications for the south.
Hundreds of thousands or even millions of Indians from Indus valley migrating eastwards due to ecological disaster, creating strong expansion pressure throughout gangetic plains and into central India, does sound like a major cause involving all players to fight an epic war. We also see this kind of massive alliances & alliance wars during the Germanic great migrations period too.
Spoken with a leftist lens to look for socio-economic conditions as the driver for all events - just because that is how European history evolved. When was the last Rajasuya yagnya said to be performed - a real one with tribute from the entire sub-continent? The attempt to falsify ALL of our heritage needs to be resisted. This is exactly the kind of reasoning leading to erroneous conclusions that is the bane of our view of ourselves. Just because Ghori was not resisted, how can Vanga and Anga and Dravid and Magadha participating in a great battle be true? This is nothing but an attempt by a colonized mind to take away the few sources of pride in our past. If you are an Indian you need to see the game for what it is. To keep our minds colonized. The main topic of MBH was Dharma. The battle was to preserve Dharma. By binging in a socio-economic dimension without reference to the main issue is playing into this game setup by the west.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

Srijoy: Itihaas is not history but it is not entirely mythical too. To practitioners like myself how much of MBH was myth and how much was real and its dates are slightly irrelevant to the design intent of this beautiful magnus opus. Its works are there to impart Dharma and is a treatise on the four objectives of human life as SD sees it. Questions like was the war real, were the numbers real, were they less or were they more are actually not the topical questions relevant to the text. The debate on the text should rightly be the questions that are asked in the text on what the text is about. Questions that Draupadi asked. Questions that Narada asked of Yudhishitara. The exposition of Bhishma in the Shanti Parvah and of course of Vasudev in BG. To a lesser degree, it is somewhat like the Vedas, where historical dating et al and validity of events is not the main point.

A revered teacher said, look at these works akin to Shakespeare writing about Henry V. Cannot use that as work of history but it is not entirely mythical either. We quickly go to some pieces of exotic or unprovable pieces of the text and say gotcha and many intellectuals decry the entire text (nearly 100,000 pages) as a worthless piece of junk. Our civilization loses with such an approach. Best to use the text and debate it in context of what MBH was designed for and leave the incidental pieces as just that incidents and not use it to date history.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

SriJoy wrote:
Nilesh Oak wrote: Yes, Big Bang, but also many other -- human origins (single point out of Africa), mathematics,
Again, Big Bang is empirically emphatic. So is human origination from Africa. to challenge these, is to challenge empirical evidence on the basis of faith alone, with zero evidence to support a counter-argument. Which gets laughed at outside of religious congregations. Btw, mainstream academia does not claim mathematics to have a single point of origination. No scientist in the world will take you seriously if you claim Big Bang is wrong or Out of Africa is wrong. Because we have overwhelming evidence of both, with practically zero evidence of another scenario.
As per Wikipedia, Georges Lemaitre:
Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".
How is that different from 'Hiranyagarbha'? or Lord Shiva being called "Primary Matter"?

If Swami Nityananda had proposed this, what would have been the outcome?

How do these theories with empirically evidence suffer constant challenges from other scientists if they are so factual. Are these scientist not to be taken seriously? Quite a few it appears.


Apologies to the moderator, please delete if this inappropriate for this thread.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

SriJoy wrote:
1. Nonsense. thats not how 'European history' has evolved, thats how pretty much all of history has evolved. Because whether you are dharmic or adharmic, indian or new guinean, killing people for either loot or control has always been the top two motivators of warfare in society. its called being human.

2. Issue isn't that Vanga, Kalinga, tamils fought in Kurukshetra war, its why. there is not a single war in Indian history that i can think of,where something like Mahabharata (basically a glorified civil war) has happened with that many players. Look no further than civil war torn Delhi Sultans or Mughals: they never had all provincial/vassal armies arrayed against each other. If you want to say 'oh they are evil muslims, not dharmics', then look at wars between Cholas and Chalukyas. When Someshwara (i forget which one) caused a civil war in his kingdom, where were his Marwar vassals ?!
Some claim religion has been the reason for major wars? Wars can be fought in the name of Freedom, Jihad, Crusades but not in the name of Dharma! Our memory of a somewhat dominant Hindu monarch is well into the past and many doubted our ability to be a single state, a democratic republic! Yet, here we are. If India has had no possibility of uniting under the aegis of Dharma, how did we unite for Freedom or does that not qualify? Many doubted our ability to unite with similar arguments from our “history” to be cited as proof, but they were proven wrong.

I see no reason to dismiss the events of MBH as a mere civil war. If Marathas can die in Kashmir today and Punjabis could fight for Bengalis then I see no valid reasons for your suppositions. Europe can unite and stop Islamic hordes at the gates of Vienna under the Pope’s banner but India cannot under the banner of the Vasudev?

Also, I think the events you are probably referring to is the drying up of the Sarasvati in that time period. The Sindhu has always been a flowing river and presumably a continued civilization has existed around it for many millennia into the past. Even the digs at Mehrgarh are arguably parts of the Sindhu civilization continuum although western historians have tried their best to link it with Mesopotamia.

Instead of all these Indus Valley, Sarasvati, Gangetic and its time periods etc and follow the western narrative of selective readings, it will be apt to rename our entire sub-continental ancient history as the Vedic civilization. My read is it is a single continuum within its natural borders, from its ancient roots, say from 8000 BCE to current.

There is a certain truth in the claim that the rise of prakrits and loss of Sanskrit, probably resulted in the loss of a sense of political unity in the land but to say that such a war under the aegis of Dharma, when its language divisions were less pronounced, would not have been possible, is stretching it too far.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Dipanker »

A Turkmenistan archeological site ( BMAC ??) dating > 2000 BC, this is from the 10 part BBC documentary on India iirc from 2007 (?). Overall this was a good series sans the controversial AIT/AMT part.

This site is supposed to be a Indo-European site on the way to their southward migration.

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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

SriJoy: a request. Can you plz keep down your volume of posts? I see entire pages with either your posts or responses to it & miss out on other informative posts. There are no rules on this forum on the # of posts you can make. Its just etiquette (like not talking too much in a conversation and letting others have a say).
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SaiK »

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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

ShauryaT wrote:Shiv ji: Another person who has some inspiring interpretations of the vedas is David Frwaley - aka Vamdev Shastri. There are others too, but many are in Indian languages and being a colonized Hindu cannot read most of them. Another one that i would be reading down the road is the take of Bibek Debroy's translations. Hopefully it wall allow me to form my own interpretations from a fairly straight forward translation of the verses.
Aurobindo is good if voluminous. I have Frawley's book "Gods Sages and Kings". I actually met him once with NS Rajaram when the latter use to live near my house. I asked Frawley if we should replace the word Hindu with "Sanatana Dharma". He disagreed. His Tweets are precious, in general.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

If you look at it from the Sanatana Dharma viewpoint, the Big Bang may not have been "Big Bang" at all but simply a manifestation of matter from a state of nothingness. Yeah I guess that is a bang of sorts.

If one does not get one's chaddis in a big twist about what they laugh at and and what they don't laugh at in western universities the opening of Shiva's 3rd eye simply collapses the whole universe into nothingness. - that is to say that if the conscious sensing of matter and time as truly existing is removed then the universe simply collapses into nothingness. Symbolically Shiva's 3rd eye senses that the universe is simply a mass of nothing (or everything) and manifests as it is sensed by the being that senses the universe and describes it. From a Sci Fi viewpoint you could have sentient stars that think and communicate and I have read scifi books to that effect. Very prescient IMO

Is the Universe expanding? Well that is what our sensors tell us.

Will the Universe stop expanding and collapse into nothingness? That is two questions in one. The universe - as per ancient Hindu wisdom can certainly be collapsed into nothingness by awareness of what senses do to us. Will the universe stop expanding? No one knows for sure

But continuous expansion into infinity and collapse into nothingness both currently pose dilemmas to science that people are trying to answer using reductionist science. Reductionist science is not the only way. The method adopted by Hindu seers was also a form of neurophysiology. Rejecting one for the other is a form of dogma.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

All this squawking about "evidence" reminds me of:
SriJoy wrote:
shiv wrote: Sure call me names and take comfort from your predictions and cook up statistics.

Aryan is a racist term and needs to be eliminated from general use, like Gollywog and Ch!nk

Keep running away from the fact- i will post evidence of this after coming weekend to completely blow apart your nonsensical view that 'Aryan has always been a racist term like Chink/Gook' .
The weekend came and went, and still we await this earth-shattering evidence with bated breath. If it weren't for the rock-solid integrity and impeccable credibility of the claimant, I might actually have begun to wonder if we'll ever see it.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by krisna »

SriJoy wrote:
Georges lemaitre is a professor of physics. Swami Nityananda is not. So why would i listen to Nityananda over Lemaitre ? since when does being the right or wrong religion override professional qualifications ?!
Jesus probably fiction but allegedly Christianity founder. He was not even a christian.
Prophet was illiterate but Islam founder
But 100000s followers of the above.

Even today church says another Jesus cannot come. He has to come thru their stable. IOW vetted by church aka professor ship in certain other quarters.

Many scientists mathematicians poets etc etc were not necessarily given those titles. But after their works captured some serious interests etc.

----------
I am a lowly hakim in my workshop. Many a time I question and override specialists like cardiology pulmonology ICU Infectious diseases folks and many others. I do it with clear facts and logical reasoning. I have taken on professors in their chosen fields. They have complained about me. But facts and logical reasoning have done me well. :|
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by krisna »

SriJoy wrote:
Do you know how science works ? You have empirical evidence, you come up with a theory that fits evidence. New evidence found leads to new theory, if incompatible with old theory. that is how its supposed to work- its called figuring things out. Far better methodology than trying to come up with 'pronounciations that cannot be challenged ever' as the main goal, from nothing. And how is that even relevant to Big Bang ? Yes, it has been modified/calibrated due to new evidence, but thats true for practically any theory out there.

What you term 'western science' is evidence based methodology. Something our ancestors were experts at. Which is why we were one of the most advanced ancient civilizations. the same thing westerners adopted in the last 500-600 years and have similarly, become the most advanced society ever.
Why are you trying to politicize science ?
Little too preachy. That's ok otherwise.

What science we know is like iceberg. Visible 10% rest unknown.
Empirical evidence and methodology is important but not complete science.
Reason why neuroscience psychiatry astrophysics yoga etc and many other fields took off late is due to lack of methodology empirical evidence to produce consistent results. Of course the pioneers in these fields had not inconsiderable help from Hindu philosophies .

Now who were the pioneers of Hindu philosophies--none of them were professors as coined by westerners.

Same with economics social sciences. Not necessarily exact sciences.

Heck even in mathematics higher forms not exactly straight forward.


Only Hinduism I repeat again only Hinduism with no malice against other religions has no problems with science since immemorial times.
Many ancient rishis were keen Observants of nature . Probably scientists of old.

Even today many seers swamijis etc of Hinduism are probably of social sciences variety or something similar types.


It is our ego of stupidity and sickular western education which makes not see these stuff wrt Hinduism.


Usually I don't comment here but here I am :((
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

krisna wrote: I do it with clear facts and logical reasoning.|
If a person does not want to leave space for your viewpoint no matter how reasonable or logical, and is dogmatic about one set of views - you will get a monologue. But that said - it is important to post your viewpoint so other readers know that a monologue is not the only viewpoint that exists

Just sayin..
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

SriJoy wrote: but its winning by a country mile in terms of evidence of consistent theory over dodgy religious dogma- hindu or otherwise.
This reminds me of
Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth
Great as rhetoric - but blinkered.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

Agasthi wrote: If Swami Nityananda had proposed this, what would have been the outcome?

How do these theories with empirically evidence suffer constant challenges from other scientists if they are so factual. Are these scientist not to be taken seriously? Quite a few it appears.


Apologies to the moderator, please delete if this inappropriate for this thread.

Have you read "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery?

There is a semi serious part where the Little Prince - the hero of the story says that the star that he lives on was discovered by a Turkish astronomer who presented his findings at a European astronomy conference wearing traditional Turkish clothes. He was laughed at and booed out. The next year he presented the same thing wearing a suit and tie and everyone accepted his findings and the star was "discovered"

But when the mind is colonized - it is like the converted who are more zealous than the padre.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

SriJoy wrote:What you are doing- proclaiming 'equal status to hindu sages of the past with modern science' is no different than what legions of muslims or christians do, trying to find 'science' in their own books written by semi-literate ancients.
Why should that bother you? You are confident of your science and people such as myself should not even come to your exalted attention.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by krisna »

shiv wrote:
krisna wrote: I do it with clear facts and logical reasoning.|
If a person does not want to leave space for your viewpoint no matter how reasonable or logical, and is dogmatic about one set of views - you will get a monologue. But that said - it is important to post your viewpoint so other readers know that a monologue is not the only viewpoint that exists

Just sayin..
Thank you.

I prefer agree to disagree. If I have the power to do something I do it -As I am the person in charge I do override profs and other specialists as and when it helps patients. Many profs specialists see only their way not of patients. I don't want to go into that as it will be OT here.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Pulikeshi »

SriJoy wrote: So i see it as 'we need conditions ripe for a pan-India war involving many actors' to give some historical credibility to Mahabharata. One such condition that immediately jumps out, is the collapse of Indus Valley civilization and its ramifications. Nothing of that sort jumps out about 5000 BC.
So Witzel dates the Dasa Rajah Yuddha (Battle of Ten Kings) at 1450 and 1300 BCE - so you are suggesting that Mahabharata occurred before this?
What is this Pan-India war business? The key question is when was the Ganga/Yamuna/Narmada valley settled by civilized folks? If the answer is 5000BCE then the conditions are sufficient for the war to have occurred then.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

SriJoy wrote:
Agasthi wrote: Georges lemaitre is a professor of physics. Swami Nityananda is not. So why would i listen to Nityananda over Lemaitre ? since when does being the right or wrong religion override professional qualifications ?!

Do you know how science works ? You have empirical evidence, you come up with a theory that fits evidence. New evidence found leads to new theory, if incompatible with old theory. that is how its supposed to work- its called figuring things out. Far better methodology than trying to come up with 'pronounciations that cannot be challenged ever' as the main goal, from nothing. And how is that even relevant to Big Bang ? Yes, it has been modified/calibrated due to new evidence, but thats true for practically any theory out there.

What you term 'western science' is evidence based methodology. Something our ancestors were experts at. Which is why we were one of the most advanced ancient civilizations. the same thing westerners adopted in the last 500-600 years and have similarly, become the most advanced society ever.
Why are you trying to politicize science ?
I never said right or wrong religion nor did I say 'western science'. You did!

My point remains, the physics professor cum priest whom you rather listen to, a guy who is schooled in a creation myth for years comes up with this so called path breaking idea that universe big banged from a "cosmic egg". How different is that from "Hiranyagarbha" of Swami Nityananda? What kind of physics is that?

You said there is evidence and then you come up with theory. Well in this case, theory came first and then the evidence to fit the theory.

And found this on google: http://www.spaceandmotion.com/cosmology ... theory.htm

A few years ago, scientists said cholesterol is bad for health. Now they say there is good and bad cholesterol. They said coconut oil was bad for health now they say it is super duper good. I do not claim to know how science works but looks like a lot a scientists don't know either.

Science has been politicized for a long time. If you are claiming you are unaware, that is surprising given your voluminous posts about science and evidence. The Lancet hit job on the indian medical industry with all cooked up evidences is one that comes to memory. There are many more.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

shiv wrote:
Agasthi wrote: If Swami Nityananda had proposed this, what would have been the outcome?

How do these theories with empirically evidence suffer constant challenges from other scientists if they are so factual. Are these scientist not to be taken seriously? Quite a few it appears.


Apologies to the moderator, please delete if this inappropriate for this thread.

Have you read "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery?

There is a semi serious part where the Little Prince - the hero of the story says that the star that he lives on was discovered by a Turkish astronomer who presented his findings at a European astronomy conference wearing traditional Turkish clothes. He was laughed at and booed out. The next year he presented the same thing wearing a suit and tie and everyone accepted his findings and the star was "discovered"

But when the mind is colonized - it is like the converted who are more zealous than the padre.
:-) Interesting isn't it, to see old prejudices work in full flow right before your eyes. Abject fealty to a word in English, utter contempt to the same thing in Indian. Its like those indians who think it is cool to say cuss words in english but would be horrified to utter the same in indian languages.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

Maybe 1 in a thousand. Rest are all con-artists, promising things or claiming things they cannot prove or deliver on. Same with every religion, because whether you are a Christian minister faith-healing or hindu swami, there is a vested interest in peddling BS, conning people and making money off of them.
And George isn't one? Aren't there n number of scientists who have a vested interest in peddling BS, conning governments and people?
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

Couldn't care less if he is a juggler or a priest. He is a PhD in Physics, talking about physics. Automatically out-ranks a guy with zero physics education talking about physics. Would i prefer an atheist physicist ?ofcourse i would. but a christian priest who is a phD in Physics decisively outranks and out-qualifies a hindu mystic with zero physics background. And that should be pretty straightforward too.

As for Hiranyagarbha- last i checked, i didn't find any evidence presented for it, no cosmic ray analysis. None, nada, zip. So at best, lucky guess. At worst, typical 'fortune-telling' type language con-job, where series of open-ended statements can be made to fit vast number of scenarios.
You are contradicting yourself. Hiranyagarbha is same as the cosmic egg in two different languages, thats all. So if I say 'Hiranyagarbha' it is fortune telling type language con job and if I say 'cosmic egg', Ph.D in physics with cosmic ray analysis evidence :rotfl: :rotfl:

Let me repeat, What I'm saying this - 'Cosmic Egg' and 'Hiranyagarbha' are both theories. However, what you are saying is this - 'Cosmic Egg' is emperical science, "hiranyagarbha' is the ranting of semi literate bums who did guesswork. How different are you from say a certain Witzel?

Seriously, cosmic egg is Physics??
thats not science. thats data-mining and pseudo-science. theory before evidence is at best, a lucky guess, at worse, psuedo-science con-job.
Again you are contradicting yourself. Are you saying the 'Big bang' theory was a psuedo-science con-job?
Incorrect. Only soft sciences have a political element to it, especially social sciences. What is 'political' in physics, chemistry or biology ?!
We are talking about physics here. Which is not political, nor is it subject to be party to politics.
Really what is this then?

One for biology: http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/h ... tycpw.html

One for Chemistry: http://theconversation.com/fraud-and-tr ... -too-13814

One for Physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal

A nobel prize winner is under investigation for fraud: http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/scie ... searchers/

One more thing and a request, can you see how annoying it is to see reply to quote by quote? We are all here to learn and succinct replies would suffice to get the point across. Just voluminous quoting and reply to each and every sentence is just arguing for argument sake.
Last edited by Agasthi on 18 Jul 2017 13:48, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Agasthi »

SriJoy wrote:
Agasthi wrote:
And George isn't one? Aren't there n number of scientists who have a vested interest in peddling BS, conning governments and people?

You realize, if you could prove the data for Big Bang is wrong, you'd automatically collect a nobel prize ?! We are talking about Physics here. Big Bang. Not some nebulous wishy-washy opinion driven field. Anyone can verify/investigate a physics theory if they follow empiric procedure.

Maybe he is racist, maybe he isn't. I don't have time for racism- whether it is coming from the likes of Witzel or whether its coming from members here who auto-default to suspicion based on who the messenger is/what their skin color is.

So yes, if you can find reason/evidence to suggest he is racist, i will not put stock in his ideas. But as of now, he is far, far more credible about origin of universe, than some hindu mystic with big fat zero in terms of physics education. Because the man you are questioning, is a physics professor.
And that should not even be in question. I find it ironic that those who are decrying racism from Euros here are engaging in racism themselves, where a physics professor is overridden by a hindu mystic with jack $hit education, simply because that man is a white christian priest.

And now the same racist posters will hurl 'white worshipper/colonized mind' slurs my way, for pointing out the foolishness of putting greater stock in an uneducated guy than a physics professor in a topic about physics.
You are mixing things up. Where was it said that this professor was racist? You are imagining things where there is none. It was only a theory that if you are brought up on something for years it is very much likely to influence your theories.

Looks like there are a few who agree: http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Cosmology ... Theory.htm

"Though we like to think of science as the objective study of truth, history shows that this is far from the truth. Most scientists are religious - this necessarily influences their thinking. As Nietzsche writes of philosophers and scientists, they;

"... pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic: while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an 'inspiration,' generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event" (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil)

Thus we can understand why the Big Bang theory is so popular, it satisfies this religious need for a god / creator. As Pope Pius XII wrote;

In fact, it seems that present-day science, with one sweeping step back across millions of centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to that primordial 'Fiat lux' (Let there be light) uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, while the particles of the chemical elements split and formed into millions of galaxies ... Hence, creation took place in time, therefore, there is a Creator, God exists! (Pope Pius XII, 1951)"


You assume that the posters here are hindutva lite out to prove that atomic bombs were invented in ancient india and that you are here to defend science and evidence, don't you?
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Misra »

SriJoy wrote:
Couldn't care less if he is a juggler or a priest. He is a PhD in Physics, talking about physics. Automatically out-ranks a guy with zero physics education talking about physics. Would i prefer an atheist physicist ?ofcourse i would. but a christian priest who is a phD in Physics decisively outranks and out-qualifies a hindu mystic with zero physics background, when it comes to Big Bang or any physics related phenomena. And that should be pretty straightforward too.
gotta say i'm having a lot of fun hearing such weighty assertions in this thread. having been at the cutting edge of science for some time (with the certified heft of a phd in the physical sciences of course), which has included contributing to several 'grand challenges'--projects where they just throw money at you for several years to just nudge the envelope a wee bit, where every little step and every small headway is steeped in doubt--i find myself saying to all and sundry today that i am a fairly knowledgeable idiot. so do all my current and former scientist colleagues.

several of us found the following discussion very enlightening. (yes, that includes world renowned physicists, too.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SPyungtZBw

cheers
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by JE Menon »

I'm missing something in the above discussion on Hiranyagarbha and Cosmic Egg. The latter has today's scientific evidentiary heft behind it, the former does not have today's scientific evidentiary heft behind it? Secondly, however the former was dreamed up, does it make that assertion wrong, even if it was just a "lucky guess"? Finally, how do we know it was a lucky guess, because if it was, it was one hell of a guess and there are several such lucky guesses to go along with it.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by deejay »

JEM, you are not alone!
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Misra »

^ the whole thing comes down to realizing (or rather being comfortable with the idea) that there are non physical dimensions of the universe that cannot be studied by physical methods--that the 'intellect' depends on physical information/data gathered through physical senses that become unreliable for exploring the non physical
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

SriJoy wrote:
shiv wrote: Why should that bother you? You are confident of your science and people such as myself should not even come to your exalted attention.
Because it is still spreading misinformation and pandering to sentimentalism over empiricism.
You mean my views of creation as Ishwar are a threat to science and people will eagerly believe my misinformation over your black holes and background radiation and missing mass? Are you surprised?
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by svenkat »

Seven No-Trump‏ @macgupta123
How to read the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata (PDF)

http://www.presocratics.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/5.-Vishwa1.pdf
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by A_Gupta »

To me, the key idea I learned last week is the idea that the Mahabharata carries the keys to how to read it; that the whole giant epic has a deliberate structure, that all the evidence we have is that the interpolations are minor, and do not interfere with the carefully created structure; the idea of layers upon layers of accretions on the epic is simply unsupported, and is circular (i.e., if you assume that the Mahabharata is a bunch of accretions around a central core, you can find such layers, i.e., you "prove" what you assumed.)

To be sure, I always thought so that the Mahabharata was an integral whole; but that was just my belief, I did not know that it has the weight of scholarship behind it. E.g., there are the Indological statements that the Bhagavad Gita was interpolated into the Mahabharata. If that is true, I thought, the surgery behind it was quite delicate. There is Krishna's determination to give equal treatment to his cousins, the Pandavas and Kauravas. But Arjuna is given a darshan of the cosmic Krishna only in the Gita; while the Kaurava court is given this vishvarupa darshan when Krishna is in Hastinapura trying to sue for peace on behalf of the Pandavas. So to me, whomever might have hypothetically grafted the Gita into the Mahabharata had to have done a very careful set of interpolations. So I never believed such philological speculations. But it was just a belief, an intuition so far.

And now to understand that the Mahabharata likely carries the instructions on how to interpret its own text; i.e., it has ontological completeness! This, IMO, would make it plain that it is one of the greatest works of human genius. Inshallah, I will one day read the entire text for myself in the original Sanskrit.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by shiv »

Misra wrote: several of us found the following discussion very enlightening. (yes, that includes world renowned physicists, too.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SPyungtZBw

cheers
What Sadguru does is what many other Hindu seers have done in the past - and that is to offer another perspective - a window that western science has never looked into. It requires an open mind which those physicists obviously have. No one ever discovered anything by acting as if he knows it all and what he knows is better than what anyone else knows and that is the end of knowledge.

But then - not everyone is gifted with an open mind.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by JE Menon »

>>Inshallah, I will one day read the entire text for myself in the original Sanskrit.

As the Arabs say: "From your mouth to Allah's ears" (for me too)!!!
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

Dismissing the MBH as a civil war misses the point reiterated in the MBH itself again and again. It is a treatise on the puruShartha. To delink the centrality of the questions about Dharma from it is a travesty of the first order, equivalent to defamation were Vyasa to be a live person or ignorance, if one has not read the text or learnt from someone who has.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

A_Gupta: I am not entirely sure by what you mean by the above post. The fact that there is a deliberate design in much of the MBH and there is a carefully constructed narrative and many, many of its sub plots and stories are mostly to emphasize and expound upon some point about Dharma or the plot of the story is unmistakable. But, it is also true that the MBH - as we know it, is unlikely to have been composed by one person. Even after the revisions of the BORI edition, it is said most likely the compositions that makeup the critical edition itself would have been composed over a span of 100-200 years or so. There were layers of accretions that BORI has tried to remove to come to a "version" of authenticity. The evolution from Jaya to Bharata and then the MBH is well accepted, or are you contesting this? The primary process of BORI
was to remove these accretive layers found to be not authentic and clearly later additions and not germane to the main story. For those wanting to read and cannot do Sanskrit, highly recommend reading unabridged translations - patiently :)
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Nilesh Oak »

A_Gupta wrote:To me, the key idea I learned last week is the idea that the Mahabharata carries the keys to how to read it; that the whole giant epic has a deliberate structure, that all the evidence we have is that the interpolations are minor, and do not interfere with the carefully created structure; the idea of layers upon layers of accretions on the epic is simply unsupported, and is circular (i.e., if you assume that the Mahabharata is a bunch of accretions around a central core, you can find such layers, i.e., you "prove" what you assumed.)
It would be interesting exercise for likes of Adluri/Bagchee to employ similar analysis to Ramayana (granted, there are no multiple beginnings and such).

This is what I wrote in the concluding section of my SI-2 (Swadeshi Indology) paper [as a side note, the paper won the best paper award]

The Epics as Unitary works

Pollock writes (2006b:15-16) in his introduction to the translation of ‘Aranya Kanda’ in the Clay series:

"The problem of what unifies these two very different sections of the poem (referring to Ayodhya and Aranaya Kanda sections of Valmiki Ramayana) remains a challenging one. In the case of ‘The Ramayana’ the view persists that the poem is a fusion or amalgamation of two very different and in fact unrelated stories. Not only has the need to develop a unitary understanding of the poem been eliminated by eliminating the perception of the poem as a unitary work, but what in this tradition has been considered the first and greatest poem, and venerated as such for two thousand years, is now declared to be, not a meaningful whole – as Indian audiences have invariably taken it to be – but a congeries of utterly distinct and unrelated materials."



The cumulative evidence of 800+ testable observations from the Mahabharata and Ramayana text, establishes beyond doubt, whether one is talking of either eighteen ‘parvas’ of Mahabharata or seven ‘kandas’ of Ramayana, that they form a unified whole. However, elaboration of this assertion would require a longer discussion, beyond the purview of this paper.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SBajwa »

by SriJoy
find me an instance of a war in the name of Dharma-
Mahabharata is also called Dharam-Yudh!

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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by ShauryaT »

I have taken some quotes from Debroy's work and posting it here. Folks into the history of the MBH can comment. But to be fair to Debroy, he is least concerned about these dates. What he does is translation with the least interpretive judgments or commentaries in his works.
It wasn’t composed on a single date. It was composed over a span of more than 1000 years, perhaps between 800 BCE and 400 ACE. It is impossible to be more accurate than that. Debroy, Bibek (2015-06-01). The Mahabharata: Volume 1 . Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
From the Vedas and Vedanta literature, we know that Janamejaya and Parikshit were historical persons. From Patanjali’s grammar and other contemporary texts, we know that the Mahabharata text existed by around 400 BCE. This need not of course be the final text of Mahabharata, but could have been the original text of Jaya. The Hindu eras or yugas are four in number— Satya (or Krita) Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. This cycle then repeats itself, with another Satya Yuga following Kali Yuga. The events of the Ramayana occurred in Treta Yuga. The events of the Mahabharata occurred in Dvapara Yuga. This is in line with Rama being Vishnu’s seventh
Debroy, Bibek (2015-06-01). The Mahabharata: Volume 1 . Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
In popular belief, following two alternative astronomers, the Kurukshetra war has been dated to 3102 BCE (following Aryabhatta) and 2449 BCE (following Varahamihira). This doesn’t mesh with the timelines of Indian history. Mahapadma Nanda ascended the throne in 382 BCE, a historical fact on which there is no dispute. The Puranas have genealogical lists. Some of these state that 1050 years elapsed between Parikshit’s birth and Mahapadma Nanda’s ascension. Others state that 1015 years elapsed.

This takes Parikshit’s birth and the Kurukshetra war to around 1400 BCE. This is probably the best we can do, since we also know that the Kuru kingdom flourished between 1200 BCE and 800 BCE. To keep the record straight, archaeological material has been used to bring forward the date of the Kurukshetra war to around 900 BCE, the period of the Iron Age.
Debroy, Bibek (2015-06-01). The Mahabharata: Volume 1 . Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
His position on the astronomical references is they do exist in the MBH but the different dates of compositions make the dates inconsistent and hence not reliable.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by A_Gupta »

ShauryaT wrote:A_Gupta: I am not entirely sure by what you mean by the above post. The fact that there is a deliberate design in much of the MBH and there is a carefully constructed narrative and many, many of its sub plots and stories are mostly to emphasize and expound upon some point about Dharma or the plot of the story is unmistakable. But, it is also true that the MBH - as we know it, is unlikely to have been composed by one person. Even after the revisions of the BORI edition, it is said most likely the compositions that makeup the critical edition itself would have been composed over a span of 100-200 years or so. There were layers of accretions that BORI has tried to remove to come to a "version" of authenticity. The evolution from Jaya to Bharata and then the MBH is well accepted, or are you contesting this? The primary process of BORI
was to remove these accretive layers found to be not authentic and clearly later additions and not germane to the main story. For those wanting to read and cannot do Sanskrit, highly recommend reading unabridged translations - patiently :)
I'll simply quote Adluri here. It is a patchwork, please read the links provided previously on this thread to get a more coherent picture:
If one sets aside these text-historical prejudices for a moment and considers the text itself, it becomes clear that the text is not deficient with respect to structure but, rather, carefully and purposefully constructed. The entire Mahābhārata is arranged in 18 chapters, the Bhagavadgītā and the Nārāyaṇīya also feature 18 chapters, 18 armies encounter each other in the Mahābhārata battle, and the battle itself lasts 18 days.64 Further, as Oberlies already saw, the Anugītā is composed of 36 (18 x 2) chapters, the Pāṇḍavas are exiled for 12 years, and Arjuna must spend 12 years65 alone for intruding on Yudhiṣṭhira and Draupadī in their private quarters. These numeric equivalences are, of course, only the most visible sign of careful composition or redaction, but they hint at an interest in symmetry that can also be found, for example, in the stories of Ruru and Jaratkāru.Symmetry, doubling, and repetition are crucial elements in a narrative based on a cyclical understanding of time.
Stating its fiction that the Vaiśaṁpāyana narrative had grown over time,70 the Ādiparvan provides a rationale for canonizing the text in its present form by legitimizing the original recitation at the second retelling by the bard Ugraśravas at Śaunaka’s twelve-year sacrificial session. The opening minor books of the Ādiparvan thus authorize the text in its redacted form, articulate a unified set of concerns, and seal off the canon against further “expansion.” While these “expansions” of the epic have been noted, explanations of the logic of expansion have been unsatisfactory. Ranging from the ease of insertions into loose leaf manuscripts (cf. van Buitenen 1973: xxix) to sophisticated theories of “embedding” texts according to the hierarchy of sacrifice (cf. Minkowski 1989), all theories thus far provide overtly mechanical and formal models. My analysis of the Ādiparvan, however, shows that the logic of expansion is also philosophical. The double beginning of this major book especially cannot have been an accident, as it demonstrates great textual self-consciousness and enables the text to overcome the problem of positing an absolute origin in time.
An analysis of the double beginning is thus not just limited to the “texthistorical” question of whether both beginnings are equally original, or belong together, or represent a conflation of different manuscripts. Instead, it opens on to the global question of how the epic is to be read. Is the Mahābhārata, as 19th century German Indologists thought, no more than the story of a small conflict between tribal chieftains of the Indo-Gangetic plain only latterly inflated through the addition of extraneous material?105 Or, is it, as Indian tradition has always held, an all-encompassing text with fundamental insights into being, becoming, dharma, the puruṣārthas, etc.? One can see how incommensurable the two interpretive frameworks are. Tracing the four genera thus constitutes an essential step in demonstrating that the Kurukṣetra war is not war as ordinarily understood, but thematized under the aspect of representing a genus of becoming. Agōn is the paradigmatic human activity: even Heraclitus says “strife [polemos] is the father of all” (Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι; fr. 53) It would be as absurd to try to extract some “historical” Ionian battle from this statement as to identify a historical Kuru conflict on the basis of the Mahābhārata, and yet the latter has been attempted time and again in epic scholarship.
Obsessed with reconstructing Indian ethnography and history on the basis of the epic, “text-historical” scholarship has rarely asked about why exactly Janamejaya should be the patron of the great snake sacrifice that constitutes the setting for the first narration of the Mahābhārata. Oldenberg, for example, based on a single Ṛgvedic reference to king Janamejaya, is able to imagine “the splendor of Janamejaya’s kingdom” (1922: 12) where brahmins seated on “gold-embroidered mat(s)” (1922: 15) recite the narrative to a king interested in hearing the “the heroic poem of the deeds of his ancestors” (1922: 12). We should set aside Oldenberg’s absurd attempts to secure historical antiquity for Janamejaya, to ask: why Janamejaya? Why this king whose name means “victorious over birth”? Janamejaya, I argue, is the one who hears the entire story of the Mahābhārata, that awesome narrative of the destruction of the Kuru line, and understands its meaning.
As an alternative to the dogmatism of the Lassen school, I have been working since around 2007 on the idea of the Mahābhārata as a “project with a purpose,” i.e., as a self-conscious attempt to preserve Vedic knowledge and disseminate it on a pan-Indian basis, while retaining its esoteric character by concealing it among a mass of narratives. There is now general consensus that the epic is much more Vedic than previously thought, and my recent and forthcoming articles demonstrate a consistent encoding of Vedic sacrifice into the text. These overlappings can hardly be accidental, nor would it make much sense to take up an original “bardic” epic and insert so much Vedic/Brahmanic material into it. Regarding the thesis of Brahmanic “interpolation,” Lassen and Goldstücker are the prime culprits, but the myth of “Brahmanic contamination” or “Brahmanic corruption” refuses to die out: 20th century revivals include Fitzgerald (1983) and Oberlies (1995 and 2008). Understanding the Mahābhārata as a project with a purpose allows us to comprehend the massive scribal effort and the effort at pan-Indian dissemination behind the epic, both so ably described for us in this volume by Mahadevan, as also the presence of jointures in the text that seem to have been designed to allow for local variation and insertions.
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