Non-Western Worldview

[ramana]

X-posted...

Nichols explains the migrations out of India ( ie Bactria-margiana ) solely as a function of Geography. The migration *patterns* across Eurasia are overwhelmingly from East to West. Basically, you just need to get a dialect into the steppe expansion zone and this will naturally be carried across into the western cul de sac, leading to a compilation of a pseudo diversity (nongenerative) at the western end. IE, Iranian, turkic, Uralic, and Indic all expand from East to west. When you factor in the sole out-of-africa southern migration route with South Asia serving as a genetic diversification crucible, this only reinforces an overwhelming east to west historical gradient across Eurasia. Hunnic invasions into South Asia are a minor affair (and are nonetheless mostly from the East itself) and do not alter the south asian cultural landscape.

This is the default migration pattern with a non-normative ( heathen ) societal configuration. Any reversal within a non-normative configuration will be minor and will not result in any overwhelming cultural change on the scale of (putative) AIT. Likewise, the emigrant groups from south asia will not experience any ideological dissonance, nor will the receiving groups. of course conflict per se is not precluded (ie the conflict will be heathen type conflict, eg between kings and rulers (and not tribal).

To reverse this general pattern of migrations (which is dependent solely upon geography and the initial populating inoculations), you actually have to reverse the cultural configuration from non-normative to normative.
Alexander's invasion was the beginning where there is just a small residue of normativism. Judaism is the first _application_ of Normative ethics as imperial propaganda in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid setting. Christianity is the Roman successor.

So where does Islam fit in this scheme?

[Rahul M]

source thread ?

[ramana]

Its from India Forum in response to a question on whats normative process and how has it reversed the East--> West migrations over the millenia.

Dhu replied to my question:

Muslims are biggest consumers of western propaganda concerning heathens but they are not able to manufacture it proportionately. I tend to think they are primed as converted sepoys for the empire. The color revolution in nepal which happened before our eyes is the main model which we should be applying. As you have said, Church may have resurrected Arianism to remove their Byzantine and Persian opponents and create fodder class in Asia. Just basing upon current parallels.

[ramana]

X-posted...

backing losing causes/criminals in asia seems to be a US speciality -

it is no coincidence. Anglo-saxon strategy is to back the smaller revisionist entity rather than the status-quo power.
Only in developing situation can they work out their agenda.
Look at how they support muslim Bosnia against Christian Serbia in Europe.
It is an extension of the same paradigm. It is also an extension of the age old imperialist strategy for creating empires.

The rules are like this:
Back
- underdog vs status quo
- minority vs majority (Takleef factor)
- Religious minority vs pagan
- Anyone vs Orthodox Church

Of these the last is the oldest.

[Raju]

the support is not for 'any minority', but the 'strongest minority' which can take up the challenge of the majority in their perception.

[ramana]

X-posted...

Following is most accurate description of Marxism that I've found. It was written in 1995.

S. R. Goel The missionary-colonial attack was reinforced by another attack - Marxism. Its source too was Europe and it was even more Eurocentric than regular Imperialism. It used radical slogans but its aims were reactionary. It taught that Europe was the centre and rest of the world its periphery - not by chance but by an inherent dialectics of History. Marx fully shared the contempt of British Imperialists for India. He said: "Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of succesive intruders." He also said that India neither knew freedom nor deserved it. To him the question was "not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Briton." This also became the faith of his Indian pupils.

In India, Macaulayism prepared the ground for Marxism - early Marxists were recruited from Macaulayites. Marxism in turn gave Macaulayism a radical look and made it attractive for a whole new class. While Marxists served European Imperialism, they also fell in love with all old Imperialist invaders, particularly Muslim ones. M.N. Roy found the Arab Empire a "magnificient monument to the memory of Mohammad." While the Marxists found British Imperialism "progressive", they opposed the country's national struggle as reactionary. They learnt to work closely with Muslims both during and after Independence.

[ramana]

Cradle of Indian History

By Rao Bahdur C.R. Krishnamacharyulu

Its about the history and Geography of the Puranas.

[SwamyG]

I am cross-posting my own post from another thread.

Sudhir: Recently I had drawn this picture about the State vs Family vs Individual. It is my opinion that in the West the individual relationship with each other in family is weakening and the State relationship with the individual is strengthening. For example the State's say over an individual is more than the say by a family member. The strong lines from the State suggest the "hold" over the individual is increasing. The amusing thing is this is all happening where democracies flourish.

In the non-Western World, say in India - the relationship between the individuals in a family had more say. For example the family honor mattered. Then the clan honor mattered. Essentially the individual was identified with family, caste, clan and other factors that held stronger connections. In the Western Democracies; the State is exercising and demanding stronger relationship with the individual - sometimes supplanting existing familial relationships. For example there is a case going on in USA, where a family is rejecting chemotherapy for its 13-yr old son. I think the Judge is ruling that the boy is too young to decide but he must undergo treatment. The State might be intervening in cases where an individual is not an adult or is not in a position to make decisions, but there is a steady encroachment into family relationships.

We are not yet seeing this in India, it can happen in another 2-3 generations if the West continues to hold its sway over the World.

[ramana]

In India Forum there is long running thread on Historicity of Jesus. Recently it has been able to collect some important conclusions. A blog was created to take the reader through the logic. Its still in work so please visit it often. Alternateivley one can swim thru the ~13 pages of the original thread. One will also realize some mind blowing stuff about INC and its mission.

http://ascendantasia.blogspot.com/

Link to IF

Historicity of Jesus-2

its not just about Jesus but you get an understandingof Greek and Roman thinking.

[ramana]

Need to explore the rise of the Anglo-Saxon West. By and large in three centures from 1588 (Spanish Armada) to 1888 it supplanted the Islamic mercantile system, became a naval and colonial power. Its language and customs became widespread and the sun never set on the British Empire. It withstood three big challenges: American Independence, Napoleon, and the first Indian war of Independence.

Around 1880, US started its rise in industrial production and began its drive to supplant the British which it did after WWII.

[ramana]

One thing remarkable about the long centuries of Asian dominance of global GDP us the absence of coupling it with imeprialistic or militarist ambitions. The dominance helped spread culture and values.

Its only with the Anglo-Saxons rise that we see the coupling of imperial and militarist ambitions with global economic domination. In fact they drive of each other in a closed loop and spiral upwards.

I would like a map that shows the cultural footprint of Indic values as shown in history.

[John Snow]

West was driven by aquisition of natural resources like the Lizard is doing in Africa, where as the orientals (prior to west dominance) were exporting and trading the finished product ( of advanced technology like ornaments silk carpets and perccious stones & metals processed not ores)

[ramana]

The British lost because of the Western European turmoil which sucked them in their search for stability in Europe. So loss of balance of power in Europe was the cause for their loss of the Empire.

[Prem]

Anglo Saxons occupy lot of real estate on this planet . Indoos should try to populate Australia, Canada and further "develop" them culturally and economically for World benefit.

[svinayak]

Anglo Saxons occupy lot of real estate on this planet . Indoos should try to populate Australia, Canada and further "develop" them culturally and economically for World benefit.

Finally the real solution by somebody!

[Prem]

Acharya Sir ,
"Developing " these lands with India in the Middle will bring upon Geo -political change on Yuga scale . India with huge human resources can expedite their entry into big boys league. Past 2030 , Indicians should be into good economic condition to initiate trillon dollar development plans for these under exploited territories .After all we are also English speaking people.

[vsudhir]

Democracy - the God that failed (Book extract)

Worthwhile read and impinges on Yindian historical narratives (or lack thereof).

To make a decision regarding such incompatible interpretations, we need a theory. By theory I mean a proposition whose validity does not depend on further experience but can be established a priori. This is not to say that one can do without experience altogether in establishing a theoretical proposition. However, it is to say that even if experience is necessary, theoretical insights extend and transcend logically beyond a particular historical experience. Theoretical propositions are about necessary facts and relations and, by implication, about impossibilities. Experience may thus illustrate a theory. But historical experience can neither establish a theorem nor refute it.

The Austrian School

Economic and political theory, especially of the Austrian variety, is a treasure trove of such propositions. For instance, a larger quantity of a good is preferred to a smaller amount of the same good; production must precede consumption; what is consumed now cannot be consumed again in the future; prices fixed below market-clearing prices will lead to lasting shortages; without private property in production factors there can be no factor prices, and without factor prices cost-accounting is impossible; an increase in the supply of paper money cannot increase total social wealth but can only redistribute existing wealth; monopoly (the absence of free entry) leads to higher prices and lower product quality than competition; no thing or part of a thing can be owned exclusively by more than one party at a time; democracy (majority rule) and private property are incompatible.

Theory is no substitute for history, of course, yet without a firm grasp of theory serious errors in the interpretation of historical data are unavoidable. For instance, the outstanding historian Carroll Quigley claims that the invention of fractional reserve banking has been a major cause of the unprecedented expansion of wealth associated with the Industrial Revolution, and countless historians have associated the economic plight of Soviet-style socialism with the absence of democracy.

From a theoretical viewpoint, such interpretations must be rejected categorically. An increase in the paper money supply cannot lead to greater prosperity but only to wealth redistribution. The explosion of wealth during the Industrial Revolution took place despite fractional reserve banking. Similarly, the economic plight of socialism cannot be due to the absence of democracy. Instead, it is caused by the absence of private property in factors of production. "Received history" is full of such misinterpretations. Theory allows us to rule out certain historical reports as impossible and incompatible with the nature of things. By the same token, it allows us to uphold certain other things as historical possibilities, even if they have not yet been tried.

Read it all.

[ramana]

Two quotes on ancient India

From Arrian's indica...

This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indica_(Arrian)

And

From Megasthenes indika...

Of several remarkable customs existing among the Indians, there is one prescribed by their ancient philosophers which one may regard as truly admirable: for the law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess: for those, they thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot: for it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to be unevenly distributed.

http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/histo...enes-Indika.htm

[SwamyG]

Anglo Saxons occupy lot of real estate on this planet . Indoos should try to populate Australia, Canada and further "develop" them culturally and economically for World benefit.

I used to joke around long long ago, India should export what we produce in large and good quantities - people. Indian workers were moved by the British, now why not India - where and when ever it makes sense.

[satya]

EU is going to open up big time 2010-2020 time frame and its not sector specific , they need immigrants in almost all spheres of economy ( already Spain has a special business visa , italians have seasonal farm workers visa & portugal also happen to has a very low skill requirement visa where intake is presently low somewhere in thousands owing to current slowdown & to get EU level legislation in place before making it very open & large scale .Once implemented it will have somewhere around million + per annum intake on low side ) .If India plays its cards right so far ok overall , we will easily have the largest share of immigration in mainland EU .

[ramana]

Will also see an opening in basic engineering jobs in US too as the uty output is falling.

[Prem]

Europe is already crowded and not much spare natural resources. The aim ought to be to own and bring under our control the vast territories and the natural resources. Australia is major empty space close to us and imagine 100 Million Yindoss in Canda next to the biggest developed market with old, downhill superpowerdum looking for crutches to make a stand . Its a great oppertunity staring at our face and win win for all parties .Canadianwill like it and OZ deserve all zzzzzs till eternity. Soon Chinese will make move toward vast empty Russian territories, indoos can offer same to our dear friends in Moscow

[SwamyG]

I agree with Prem, Australia is a prime real-estate. But Canada would be more easy, no?

[ramana]

From IF

How the ‘Aryan invasion theory’ came
to be

As the Catholic ex-priest James Carroll (2001) has detailed in
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, European
Christians have, for a tragically long time, denigrated and
reduced the living Jews among them, oppressing them
alternatively with genocide, inquisition, forced conversion,
expulsion, genocide… The same history has inflicted, on
Christians, a profound intellectual awkwardness: the ancient
‘heroic age’ of Christianity is Jewish! It just doesn’t feel
comfortable, in an antisemitic civilization, that one’s story of
origins should be Jewish; or that this story should be so much
longer than the Christian ‘New Testament’; or that it should be
so much more interesting and fun to read. But it cannot be
avoided, because Christianity claims to have developed out of
ancient Judaism.

It is remarkable that this absurd state of affairs has
remained stable for so long, but signs that it would not remain
so forever began to appear in the eighteenth century. At this
time, many European intellectuals began looking for a way out,
and tried to give themselves an ancient ‘heroic age’ that would
not be Jewish. Navaratna S. Rajaram explains that,
The humanist movement now known as the
European Renaissance was followed by voyages of
discovery in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, leading to greatly increased trade and
colonizing activities. This had resulted in Europe
becoming aware of the richness, antiquity and the
complexities of Indian history and culture. As Jim
Shaffer notes:
“Many scholars such as Kant and Herder, began to
draw analogies between the myths and philosophies
of ancient India and the West. In their attempt to
separate Western European culture from its Judaic
heritage, many scholars were convinced that the
origin of Western culture was to be found in India
rather than in the ancient Near East.” (Shaffer
1984:80)

At the time, skin color in particular was also capturing
the European imagination, because colonialism brought close
contact with dark-skinned peoples whom the Europeans, with
their more effective weaponry, had subjugated. So the story
these conquering Europeans came up with became that, in
ancient times, mirroring the contemporary experience, the socalled
‘Aryan race’—blond, blue-eyed, and white-skinned—
had burst forth from Central Asia and invaded everything,
becoming the ruling class in India, Iran, and Europe, replacing
the dark-skinned natives just as the modern Europeans in
colonial times were subjugating the dark-skinned natives
everywhere else

Not exactly original.

It was German intellectuals with a nationalist bent who
became most interested in this alternative ‘heroic age’ story of
origins, the better to coalesce around it in pride. Why?
Because, for a long time, the Germans had been divided into
small principalities rather than unified into a single state, and in
consequence were pushed around by the other European
powers. The ‘Aryan race’ theory was a convenient and
unifying alternative myth of origins with which the German
nationalists were able to stir the imagination of the German
masses to mobilize together politically. The theory became
popular all over ‘Nordic’ Europe, but the German nationalists
claimed special ownership over this theory by saying that the
Germans were the ‘purest’ descendants of the original Aryans.
As a dominant European power, the British had zero
interest in fostering German unification—and yet they
accidentally did just that, by sponsoring the ‘Aryan race’
theory. Here is how it happened.

The British were looking for ways to undermine Indian
culture and pride in order more effectively to rule India. For
example, in 1831, Colonel Boden bequeathed to Oxford
University his entire fortune—worth £25,000—to create the
Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, the explicit purpose of which
was to promote knowledge of Sanskrit among Englishmen so
as “to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of
the natives of India to the Christian religion” (quoted in
Rajaram 1995:71). More significantly, “as chairman of the
Education Board,” Thomas Babbington Macaulay (1800-1859)
“was instrumental in establishing a network of modern English
schools in India, the principal goal of which was the
conversion of Hindus to Christianity” (ibid. p.105). This is not
speculation: in a letter to his father in 1836, Macauley wrote,
It is my belief that if our plans of education are
followed up, there will not be a single idolater among
the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years
hence. And this will be effected without any efforts
to proselytize, without the smallest interference with
religious liberty, by natural operation of knowledge
and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the project.—
quoted in Rajaram (1995:105)1

Macauley was obviously a narrow Christian chauvinist,
convinced of the superiority of Christian doctrine. And yet he
was not so self-assured that he felt comfortable with a level
playing field: to ensure that the Brahmins would become
Christians, he “wanted someone willing and able to interpret
Indian scriptures in such a way that the newly educated Indian
elite would see for itself the difference between their scriptures
and the New Testament and choose the latter” (ibid. p.106). It
was in Germany that Sanskrit studies were flourishing the
most, so Macauley eventually recruited a German scholar to
make a translation of the Vedic scriptures that would
undermine Indian religion. That he selected his man with care
may be inferred from the fact that it took him fifteen years to
find him: the ardent German nationalist and Sanskrit scholar
Max Müller.

Given that the rise of German Prussia as a European
power was then worrying the British, and given the fateful
consequences of Max Müller’s work for Prussian expansion, it
is ironic that it was the Prussian ambassador, Christian Karl
Hosias, who brought the 31-year-old Müller to meet Thomas
Babbington Macauley, the man who would become his British
sponsor. It was hardly fitting for a German nationalist to assist
the British in their efforts to turn themselves into an even more
formidable international power, but Max Müller was also a
devout Protestant Christian—and hard up. So, for the sake of
Christianity, and for the sake of his own economic stability, he
accepted payment from the British East India Company for the
work that Macauley commissioned (ibid. pp.106-107). A letter
that he wrote to his wife in 1866 shows that Max Müller took
his Christian mission seriously:

…this edition of mine and the translation of the
Veda, will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate
of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that
country. It [the Vedic scripture] is the root of their
religion and to show them what that root is, I feel
sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung
from it during the last three thousand years.

Rajaram quotes the above passage and comments that,
since Müller had no particular reason to misrepresent his
motives in a private letter to his wife, we may take the above as
a sincere expression of his intent (ibid. p.108). I think that’s
reasonable. Rajaram (ibid. p.114) also quotes a letter that
Müller wrote to N.K. Majumdar, an Indian social reformer, late
in his life:

The first thing you have to do is to settle how much
of your ancient religion you are willing to give up, if
not as utterly false, still as antiquated; …Tell me
some of the chief difficulties that prevent you and
your countrymen from openly following Christ, and
when I write to you I shall do my best to explain how
I and many who agree with me have met them, and
solved them… (In Devi Chand 1988:xxvi-xxvii)

This leaves little doubt that Müller’s purpose was to
undermine Indian belief, which is hardly a recommendation for
someone who is supposed to be a scholarly authority on Indian
beliefs, and the author of the Vedic translation that many
scholars still today are using.

In one sense Macauley’s effort was highly successful,
because the upper-class Indians whom Macauley targeted
responded very well to British-style education—except that
they didn’t convert to Christianity. But if Macauley failed to
undermine Indian religion, he did manage to create a new
religion in Europe, because Müller’s work was a huge log in
the fire of the ‘Aryan race’ theory.

Though he was not the only one or the first German
nationalist to do this, Müller interpreted the words ‘Arya’ and
‘Aryan,’ which appear repeatedly in the Rigveda, as referring
to a race—the ancestral ‘Aryan race’ to which the German
nationalists were learning to imagine themselves as the purest
descendants. Thus, for example, “in 1861 he gave a series of
lectures under the title ‘Science of Languages’ in which he
made extensive use of Vedic hymns to show that the Vedic
words Arya and Aryan were used to mean a race of people”
(ibid. p.109). This completely contradicts the way in which
these words are used in the original Sanskrit. For this distortion
Müller bears a special responsibility because, “Unlike most
other German romantics and nationalists, he as a Sanskrit
scholar was fully aware that in Sanskrit, Arya does not refer to
any race” (ibid.; original emphasis). Not all Sanskrit scholars
followed Müller in this. For example, “Shlegel, no less a
romantic or German nationalist always used the word Aryan to
mean ‘honorable’ or ‘noble’ which is much closer to the
original Sanskrit in meaning” (ibid. p.110). But the
interpretation of the Aryans as a supposed race was more
influential by far. And it matters, because it was the claim that
the ancient Sanskrit texts speak of a supposed Aryan race—
when they don’t—that became the basis for the belief that there
had ever existed such a race or people.

As it turned out, Max Müller was very successful with
this ‘Aryan race’ stuff, and the emerging ideology was
instrumental to Otto von Bismarck’s push to create a unified
German empire by extending the borders of his native Prussia.
Ever since the 1700s, when Frederick I of Prussia had
“raised the army to 80,000, effectively making the whole state
a military machine,”1 Prussia had been, as in the case of the
ancient Greeks, though not quite as extreme, society as army.
Though Prussia had lost—like everybody else—to Napoleon
Bonaparte, by the time it provoked a war with France in 1870-
71 (after provoking wars with Denmark and Austria), it was
again a redoubtable fighting machine. The outcome of the
Franco-Prussian war was a resounding victory for Prussia,
1 "Prussia." Britannica Student Encyclopedia from Encyclopædia Britannica
Online.
http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:8409/ebi ... Id=9276562
[Accessed April 20, 2005].

which then allowed its leader, Bismarck, to annex the south
German principalities, creating Germany. In order to expand
Prussia’s borders to create the German Empire or ‘Reich,’
Bismarck appealed to the German speaking peoples of Europe
in a way that shows the importance of the ‘Aryan race’ theory
of German origins:

Bismarck’s famous exhortation to the German
people, over the heads of their particular political
leaders, to ‘think with your blood’ was a[n]…attempt
to activate a mass psychological vibration
predicated upon an intuitive sense of consanguinity.
An unstated presumption of a Chinese (or German)
nation is that there existed in some hazy, prerecorded
era a Chinese (or German) Adam and
Eve, and that the couple’s progeny has evolved in
essentially unadulterated form down to the
present.—Connor (1994[1978]:93-94)

The Germans were learning to think of themselves as
the exalted pure descendants of an Aryan—not Jewish—Adam
and Eve: the ‘Aryan race.’ This worked so well that even in
Austria, which was then a major power in Europe, a movement
grew among the German-speakers to join ‘Germany.’ For
example, “a large part of the membership [of the student
fraternity Deutsche Lesehalle in Vienna] insisted on Austria’s
subservience to Germany…and supported Austria’s eventual
union with Bismarck’s militant empire” (Elon 1975:52). This
view was widespread. As is well known, the mood of
nineteenth century pan-German nationalism continued into the
twentieth century, making Adolf Hitler’s bloodless annexation
of his native Austria—under the banner of a now truly assertive
‘Aryan race’ ideology—relatively easy.

German nationalism produced a tragic irony: “Many, if
not most, Jewish students in Austria were ardent German
patriots” (Elon 1975:53). In fact, hardly anybody was more
infatuated with German culture than the German-speaking
Jews: “many Jewish intellectuals were dazzled by the rise of
German power under Bismarck” (ibid.). It took these Jews a
long time to recognize the dangers to them inherent in German
power, something that can be dramatically appreciated by the
fact that one of the Austrian Jews who most firmly believed
himself to be ‘German,’ and who was initially most in love
with the rise of Germany, was Theodore Herzl, the very man
who in time would create the Zionist movement to protect the
European Jewish population from the antisemitic violence that
he finally realized would engulf his people. And yet German
nationalism was clearly antisemitic, based on the ‘Aryan race’
theory that exalted white skin, blue eyes, and yellow hair, and
explicitly desired to exclude Jews: “‘Nowadays one must be
blond,’ Herzl wrote in a revealing note found among his papers
from that time” (ibid. p.54). Herzl’s own pro-German
fraternity, Albia, soon became a nest of antisemites, and in
March of 1883 he resigned in anger (ibid. pp.60-61)—but it
was a while still before he became seriously worried for the
fate of the Jews, and despite the eventual success of his
belatedly feverish and heroic efforts to create a Jewish
homeland, his dire predictions would find themselves
confirmed in the twentieth-century German assault against the
Jewish people.
The Western Jewish naïveté before the growing
German threat appears to many, in hindsight, remarkable; but
proper—i.e., historically informed—hindsight produces an
exactly opposite assessment: this was normal. Herzl’s
biographer, Amos Elon, writes that “Never was an attachment
by a minority [German-speaking Jews] to a majority [Germans]
so strong” (1975:53), and yet the modern Jewish attachment to
and infatuation with the United States is arguably stronger,
despite the fact that US foreign policy towards Israel in the
twentieth-century, and into the twenty-first, has been a series of
stunningly vicious attacks, something the Jews appear entirely
blind to, but of which I have now given a book-length
demonstration.1 Anybody who has read historian Christopher
Simpson’s 1988 work, which documents, with material
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, that US
Intelligence was created after the World War by absorbing in
secret tens of thousands of Nazi war criminals, cannot be
surprised that US foreign policy has prepared the impending
destruction of the Jewish state.2 But most Jews have not read

Conclusion

The best current evidence agrees with the view that the Iranians
are a development out of the Vedic-Indian civilization of the
Sarasvati river (later, the Indus Valley), and it appears that
they emerged into their own at least in part as a result of
ideological movements produced by class conflict, with the
proto-Iranians representing the ancient left, and in turn
producing a world-saving leftist movement: Zoroastrianism. In
time, as we shall see, the Zoroastrians would sponsor a more
radical leftist movement: Judaism.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/6428395/Aryan ... heory-Crux

[Keshav]

Ramana -
What parts of India did Arrian and Megasthenes travel to?

How do their accounts match with the concept of the caste system that surely existed in those areas in those times?

[ramana]

megasthanes as you know was the Selucid Greek envoy to the court of Chandragupta. So likely he travelled all over from modern day Afghanistan to Pataliputra.

Arrian wrote an account of Alexander's invasion but a couple of centuries later. I dont know if he travelled to India. If you find out let us know.
Somewhere on my back up HD archives I have the full text of his account.

[Keshav]

megasthanes as you know was the Selucid Greek envoy to the court of Chandragupta. So likely he travelled all over from modern day Afghanistan to Pataliputra.

An excerpt can be found here. I don't know how reliable it is but it is from a university website.

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Indica.html

He describes seven castes but makes no mention of untouchables or even those who do menial labor. It is possible that he did not differentiate between those who did higher labor and those who did lower labor (taking care of dead bodies, cleaning toilets, etc.).

[ramana]

Thanks. A request please dont follow up this stuff in this thread as I dont want it to be another exploring India thread.

Thanks,
ramana

[svinayak]

He describes seven castes but makes no mention of untouchables or even those who do menial labor. It is possible that he did not differentiate between those who did higher labor and those who did lower labor (taking care of dead bodies, cleaning toilets, etc.).

Did he also describe human rights in that period and the state enforcing human rights on 'higher labor' and 'lower labor'.

[ramana]

Acharya, Please see my post above yours. Thanks, ramana

[Keshav]

Acharya -
I will post a response in the "Distorted History" thread.

[ramana]

Saudi Oil company Aramco's Journal issue of July 2005

Indian Ocean and Global Trade in 750-1500 A D

[svinayak]

Saudi Oil company Aramco's Journal issue of July 2005

Indian Ocean and Global Trade in 750-1500 A D

Instead of India talking about its history and its world trading position in the past we have other countries publishing it.

[brihaspati]

Find the comparison of "Judaism" as "Left" ideology, quite problematic. The Abrahamic is entirely based on claims about history. Without history there is nothing left of foundations or legitimacy in the ideological claims. The "Left" on the other hand is entirely based on a rupture with history - it is about inverting the dialectics of "hidden hand of history" in Feuerbach and Hegel, into "historical materialism" that is used to overturn history. "Left" cannot source its legitimacy from "history" and therefore is constantly in need of a rupture from the past and reconstruct a new line for the future.

[ramana]

This x-post should be read again and again for it captures the true force of history.

Yeah it was on the Indian Naval discussion board, found the link:

Thanks Skratu.That was very informative.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 564974.ece
Currency, culture, Confucius: China's writ will run across the world

I humbly disagree with the content of the British article. If History is taken as a precedence as the author does, then it wont be China, but India that would dominate the future.This is nothing to do with being pro-Indian or anti-Chinese, but strictly by using the same yardstick which the author is using which is historical precedence. Strictly speaking, China's influence never reached beyond East Asia and even its limited influence in south east asia is nothing comparable to the historical Indian influence there.On the other hand, India's influence reached beyond Indian Subcontinent ('South Asia' in Anglo-American terms).Entire South East Asia including what is now called 'Indo-China' was called 'Greater India' for centuries.The Chinese never militarily penetrated any terrorities beyond Manchuria in the east and Xinjjiang in the west.In other words, today's china's borders (which was a gift of non-Han manchus who united the nation with current borders)are the greatest extent to which any chinese empire penetrated.On the other hand, Historical India was far larger and far powerful than historical china.Economically in the last 2000 years, Historical India was the World's largest economy for 1600 years, historical china merely for 200 years. Militarily, Indian Empires in different time periods penetrated as far as Persia in the west during Mauryan times and Indonesia-Malyasia in the east during the Chola times.And Zheng He 's 'voyages' of attacking small coastal areas are nothing compared to the Chola's 'invasion's' of huge established empire and Kingdoms.In terms of ideas and culture, historical china itself is a recipient of historical India's superior idea's and culture.If you take historical precedence as yard stick, from every angle it will be India that would be dominant in Asia once again in the long term, not china IMVHO.

[svinayak]

Anybody figured what is a "New World Order"

[ramana]

The western tradition civilized? The British punished Indian mutineers in the Sepoy Rebellion only 150 years ago, by firing them from cannons.

[brihaspati]

"Civilization" for Europe is essentially about power and dominance. A "culture" carries art, literature, philosophy, science, music - creative products of the human imagination that stimulates other human imaginations. For Europe, culture is a product of civilization, but civilization is not a product of culture. This means, for Europe, civilization is not defined or characterized by culture alone. For the eternally vulnerable, small tribal, existence with a persecution complex, where everyone and everything appears to be out to get them, the European tribesman learnt to worship power and dominance. This was power to control the environment and other humans.

The reasons for this persistence of tribal mentality lies in the fractured land geography of Europe. The Mediterranean served the role of the Great Asian rivers and pluvial cultures, but a far more dangerous path of interaction it was. Thus we see, some degree of cultural homogenization only along the Mediterranean rim leading to imeprial ambitions and attempts at centralization. But bulk of the "subcontinent" is separated geographically from this influence.

It was this fractured tribal existence that shaped their attitude towards "civilization". For them, therfore, civilization meant a greater sense of control over uncertainty of existence. This led them to abhor diversity, and each "tribe" wanted to shape all others in its own image, and preferably as dominated one. But the contradictory pull of distrust of the other tribes remained, leading to easily identifiable, visually characterizable, distinctions and hierarchies. This is the key to understanding Europe's visual based racism, and its overwhelming urge to have unified and centralized world views which each "small" tribe hopes to dominate. Power and domination needs conscious and ruthless exercise of coercion, because the others sought to be dominated will also resist from the same viewpoint.

Parallel this with the great perennial riverine civilizations of the East, and it is easy to see why in the East, it is "civilization" which is the product of "culture". Extreme diversity leads to seeking extreme unification. Extreme unification leads to seeking extreme diversity. Indic philosophies contain a hint of accommodating both elements, but that is OT here.

[ramana]

Here is the mother of Non-Western World view!!!

Non Jonesian History of the World.

His book is published by Minerva Publications, New Delhi.

http://www.ranajitpal.com/

[ramana]

Interesting conclusions on Linear A script of ancient Greek.

The Language of Minoan Greeks

Beginning our research with inscriptions in Linear A carved on offering tables found in the many peak sanctuaries on the mountains of Crete, we recognise a clear relationship between Linear A and Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. There is also a connection to Hittite and Armenian. This relationship allows us to place the Minoan language among the so-called Indo-European languages, a vast family that includes modern Greek and the Latin of Ancient Rome.

The Minoan and Greek languages are considered to be different branches of Indo-European. The Minoans probably moved from Anatolia to the island of Crete about 10,000 years ago. There were similar population movements to Greece. The relative isolation of the population which settled in Crete resulted in the development of its own language, Minoan, which is considered different to Mycenaean. In the Minoan language (Linear A), there are no purely Greek words, as is the case in Mycenaean Linear B; it contains only words also found in Greek, Sanskrit and Latin, i.e. sharing the same Indo-European origin.

More at this site: Dr. Owens

http://www.teicrete.gr/daidalika/