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

[member_22733]

This maybe a bit OT (but I am unable to sleep with all the cold weather around):

One disturbing question (disturbing because I had no explanation for it) I had was why the Jews of the recent pass (and maybe even the distant past) were so different when compared to the other two Abrahamic religions?

Jews were able to fit in nicely everywhere they went, even in Bakistan (until recently). Why?

The only thing I can come up with as a reason is because Jews never had an expansionist "past" (or "history"). I maybe quite wrong here as I am not sure how their past or "history" is.

Christianity was not really expansionist until the Romans adopted it. From that they inherited the Greko-Roman expansionism (i.e. probably the first time "civilizing the savages" was used).

Islam differs from both of these religions as Islam was designed to be expansionist and extremely narcissistic. I dont find that quality that intensified in both Christianity and Jewism.

All this is amateur research so please take it with adequate salt

[RajeshA]

Rajesh - you may have missed my comment about Sushruta made many weeks ago in the WU thread, soon after Modi used the Plastic surgery analogy
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 1#p1744271

But the point I am making is about how one person may communicate to another person a concept that might be alien or new to the person who is listening.

For example a foreigner visiting India for the first time sees rotis and goes back to call them "a type of pancake". Even if he learns the word "roti" and says "i saw and ate rotis in India" the listener would be mystified. So the teller explains using analogies that the listener can understand readily. Similarly imagine an Indian who goes to Europe and sees and eats cake for the first time. He might explain that as a type of "mithai"

How do you tell an Indian that the concept of Ganesh - i.e a being that was created by putting an elephants head on a human body might be technically possible?

One way of explaining this would be religious one "God (Shiva) did it. he had supernatural powers"

But suppose you did not want a religious explanation and a secular/technical one, what could one say? Here one is faced with the issue that I pointed out above - that is explaining a concept to another person using words that he can understand. It turns out that Modiji used the example of plastic surgery because he possibly believed that this concept could be understood by his audience.

Was Modi wrong? Could he have used a better example?

Modi was not wrong in trying to inspire Indians to see India's past and aspire to a great future. But the examples he used IMO left much to be desired.

For example, what would Shiva have done to create Ganesh in technological terms? Whatever he might have done we don't know for sure that it was plastic surgery.. We do know that technological feats are possible. In fact if a head transplant has to be done, it would probably not involve plastic surgery at all. It would be done by neurosurgeons, orthopaedic surgeons and vascular surgeons. In fact it might not be surgery at all. It could have been robotics and artificial intelligence. Whatever it was, it was an advanced concept that we should aspire to achieve in future. By using words like "plastic surgery" and "genetic engineering" Modi has lifted words invented in the west and has tried to fit them into concepts that really existed in India (like Sushruta) or concepts whose names we do not know. Sushruta himself never used the words "Plastic surgery". But what he did was copied by plastic surgeons 3000 years later.

Unfortunately, our colonized minds do not know Sushruta and his achievements. But we do know the word "plastic surgery" Like the man who knows "pancake" and not 'roti" and needs to be told that roti is like pancake, Indians need to be told "Plastic surgery" to describe what Sushruta did thousands of years ago. This means that we are seeing and describing India through western eyes.

I observe a certain fudge.

1) The Given: We are living in TODAY, in a world where many cultures have cross-pollinated each other, where some cultures have had dominating influence over others, where science and technology have a profound influence on our worldview, where our elite suffers from a civilizational break with the past, where we lack a substantial mass of intellectual elite rooted in our civilization.


2) The Problem: To a large extent our elite has somehow been weened away to project the colonizer as the superior and the native as the inferior, and the only way they protect their superior position in society is by making the case that they represent the intermediate stage between the superior colonizer and the inferior native. This class however show themselves as culturally suave and in fact aficionados of classical Indian culture. Why? So as to impress the colonizer that the Indian Elite is the representative of a rich culture, a culture not at odds with that of the colonizer's, and is a representative of a big mass of people, and thus he deserves the colonizer's respect too. This society feels proud that they form the bridge between two different cultures, at home in both of them, that they are internationalists. Mostly this class would even talk with their kids in English. Bharat's problem with this elite is simply that they continue to uphold the superiority of the colonizer viz-a-viz the native. Being the elite, many try to join their ranks and adopt a similar attitude of scorn towards the native.


3) The Hindutvavadi Response: Considering that so much of the Indian elite (DIE) has shifted to deracination, and considering the inordinately big influence they have in India, the Hindutvavadis are trying to reject the absurd claims of DIE in the language the DIE have established in India as the standard-bearer of modernity: English.


4) The Issue: The Hindutvavadis use English vocabulary to react to various claims of Indian inferiority which get thrown around in India habitually. In this thread, an issue is being made that since the Hindutvavadis are not aware of the cultural contextual semantics of various English words, they end up making a fool of themselves, as they cannot relay the Bharatiya sense in English properly. Furthermore a second claim is being made that Hindutvavadis only react to Western and Secular rebukes of Indian inferiority in an emotional way, and they often in response make claims of Indian Superiority which defy the "actual sense" of the Indian texts. From this we then jump to the claim that just like Seculars, Hindutvavadis too have a "deeply colonized mind".

This as far as I can tell is simply empty rhetoric.

Indians need to be told "Plastic surgery" to describe what Sushruta did thousands of years ago. This means that we are seeing and describing India through western eyes.

a) What the Hindutvavadi is trying to do is translate from his native understanding of Indian texts into English.

This translation can differ in quality. Some translations would end up as crude. Others may be accompanied with sufficient disclaimers; formulation of claims as theories rather than facts; claim of multilayered semantics in Indian texts; room for abstraction, symbolism, embellishments, exaggerations in Indian texts, etc.

The Hindutvavadi mostly is a creature of his own native waters trying to swim in a foreign language. There is no need to consider him a colonized mind. Obviously the target language of the translation, i.e. English, is not the language in which he understands the world, so how can one say he is a colonized mind.

It is NOT describing India through Western eyes, but it is certainly describing India through a Western language: English, and there is naturally going to be translation fidelity issues.

Now Modi could have said that ancient Indians used to do "Nasikasandhana", rather than saying "Plastic Surgery" or more concretely "Rhinoplasty". But how many would have then understood "Nasikasandhana"?

Translation is done so that the audience can understand the meaning of the spoken in words that are known to them. So how can "trying to do translations" change into "having colonized minds"?

The same problem exists when an MP says that someone "conducted a nuclear test" in India many thousands of years ago. It is true that our ancient texts have many references to weapons that could burn up cities or consume the entire world. We have no "knowledge" that these were "nuclear weapons". We have no knowledge that "nuclear tests" were conducted back then.It could have been advanced technology that we have no idea about. Antimatter weapons or something even more exotic - "Thought weapons". But our Haridwar BJP MP does not think of or understand all this. His knowledge only extends as far as what he has been taught in his Macaulayite education - i.e "Nuclear weapons" and "Nuclear tests". And he speaks of ancient Indian weapon descriptions using western terminology that every Indian can understand. Once again this is a case of Indians describing ancient India using a western framework and western example. We see ourselves and our past through western eyes and use words given to us by the west. That is mental colonization.

b) The Haridwar MP could have said, in Pracheen Bharat there existed "Parmanu Hatyaar", instead of "nuclear weapons"! Would that have made his statement less controversial? May be, may be not, depending on the media.

What I don't understand here is the notion, yes, our texts are for inspiration, for Ādhyātmika purposes, but somehow when one applies that in the present world-context, then people start saying, "O No, you cannot do that! You have a colonized mind!"

What our ancient texts say would be interpreted in many ways by the people, and they will speculate and produce their own theories. Modi may consider Ganesha's elephant head to be a case of "Nasikasandhana". Others may have a different theory. Question is, are people allowed to produce their own explanations and theories, of how certain passages in our texts can be interpreted?

Speculation, interpretation, theory-building, that is the way one tries to understand one's own recorded past, or for that matter tries to rationalize the past, with the conventions of rationality that one may have accessible to him, in that time and day.

What language one uses is secondary, as long as besides the conceptual term one uses to capture one's theory, one makes clear in the language through further explanations what exactly one means to say, and how the concept may differ from the traditional use of the word!

It is okay to say "roti" is "like a pancake" or "roti" is "Indian pancake" as long as the audience is made aware that it should not understand it in the traditional sense of the word, and that upon interest, the audience should try to understand the exact deviation from standard meaning.

Speculation, interpretation, theory-building is all kosher, permissible! What use is a treasure, if one is not willing to apply it!

[RajeshA]

Why the Jews of the recent pass (and maybe even the distant past) were so different when compared to the other two Abrahamic religions?

Jews were able to fit in nicely everywhere they went, even in Bakistan (until recently). Why?

The only thing I can come up with as a reason is because Jews never had an expansionist "past" (or "history"). I maybe quite wrong here as I am not sure how their past or "history" is.

Judaism did not make any universalist claims. There is an acceptance that other people would have other gods.

[RajeshA]

Top down model nice pic

Excellent pic!

[member_20317]

What kind of a mind is a colonized mind in terms of:

1) personal character/lifestyle choices/habits/fears/greed etc.,
2) opinions (on various kinds of issues under various emotional states),
3) source of primary knowledge (search for primary/source evidence),
4) sources of secondary knowledge (reposing faith in __),
5) methods of solving problems,
6) expectations of results or wishlist for future (individual & collective) (lakshya sadhana),
7) sangat/surroundings

[csaurabh]

Shiv Ji,

Have been absent from the thread for some time. But having returned to the thread. The discussion that I am seeing is not attempting an answer to the question asked?

What I am seeing is a discussion on why we are the way we are as a society. But I don't think that this answers the question why.

To me the answer is simple.

It was intended by the leadership of the nation to make sure that we loose all sense of self respect in the nation. Once that is accomplished, they were sure that the voters will make stupid choices and voters have been making stupid choices for a long time. In so doing we became accustomed to the phenomenon of nothing will change in this country, regardless of who is voted for in the nation.

I am sure that you have observed that the opposition in the fist 6 months of the NaMo rule has been making statements that this govt has not changed any thing, the same theme is all around in the so called MSM.

All these statements are made to make the people continue to believe that nothing can & will change.

There is change happening for people who have the eyes to see.

From today's New Indian Express

"There is a need to decentralize power and planning. There cannot be a universal scheme that suits all states. It is a fallacy that one size fits all"- Arun Jaitley

"States must have a greater role in the new body, as it is impossible for the nation to develop unless the states develop. The process of policy planning also has to change from 'top to bottom' to 'bottom to top' " - Narendra Modi

Side OT rant here: I could not find the article ( front page , titled 'Modi sounds Death Knell for Plan Panel" by Yatish Yadav ) online, and just typed quotes above . For how excellent the newspaper is ( light years ahead of TOI and Hindu ), it's online version is a deplorable mess. I did find this article though, which appears in page 7 of the physical paper.

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Bharateeyam thread

I am Sanskrit

I am the ghost that refuses to go away.

[shiv]

Rajesh this is how I see it:

What is the original procedure performed by Sushruta, described in simple English: The procedure is a recreation of a nose for people who have had their nose cut off or destroyed - for whatever reason. This is a highly advanced and brilliant idea for a sophisticated type of surgery. What is the need to call this "plastic surgery"? It is only because Indians minds are already primed by the English word that they so readily blurt out that name. Would an Indian have called it Plastic Surgery 200 years ago when that name did not exist? Why this eagerness to call it "Plastic surgery"?

What is the original description of the fearsome weapon used in ancient Indian legends? In fact there are a large number of weapons. There were weapons that could simply cause darkness. There were weapons that could cause unconsciousness. And there were weapons that burn up armies, or even the earth. And there were counter weapons for these There is a western equivalent only for one of these: a weapon that is destructive and burns up things and that is called a nuclear bomb. This is the pinnacle, the height of weapon advancement in Western eyes. But as for the Indian idea of a supremely destructive weapon, nowhere do Indian references call it "nuclear". They do not call it Laser either. They do not call it anti-matter weapon. It could be anything. It could be technology that is unknown today and may be re-invented at some future date. So why the eagerness to call it "nuclear weapon"?

You are saying that this eagerness to call it "plastic surgery" or "nuclear weapon" is because Hindutvavadis know these English words as existing western concepts, so they understand those words when used as an analogy because they are forced to use English.

I agree with you so far, but..

By definition, when one culture needs to use the achievements, cultural icons and imagery of an alien culture in order to be able to imagine their own culture, it is a sign of mental colonization.

You have tried to explain this away by saying:

It is NOT describing India through Western eyes, but it is certainly describing India through a Western language: English, and there is naturally going to be translation fidelity issues.

This statement is only partially correct and I will speak of that below, but i am saying that it is colonization of the mind that makes it necessary for people to be presented with western concepts to understand what India had thousands of years ago. There are simple Indian descriptions of the meanings of both, but Indians, both Hindutvavadis and sickulars do not know them and a light comes on in their minds only with English words and western concepts because for Indians, the pinnacle of achievement is not our past, but the western present.

The reason I say that your statement is only "partially correct" is as follows. The language that you think in gives you your identity. You can have a dual identity by thinking in more than one language. But when everything good and advanced is known to you from a foreign language and only rudimentary things can be described by the imagery of your native language there there is colonization of the mind. And when these conflicts exist in the mind and you are unable to find words in your native languages for things that occur in your culture and you are forced to use bad translations of them in an alien language - such as "religion" and "nuclear weapon" to explain your own culture and past - it indicates a deep degree of colonization.

There is only one step to descend from here - and that is deracination where you reject your culture and past and embrace the foreign one and then justify that embracing as good.

You have stated that:

What the Hindutvavadi is trying to do is translate from his native understanding of Indian texts into English.

He is not. He is merely using the translations that have been handed to him by the colonizers and the now deracinated sickulars who were simply colonized earlier. And equipped with this faulty knowledge the Hindutvavadi is now ready to instantly recognize western technological and cultural icons. He is doing no translation of his own. He might be smart enough to translate if he had access and knowledge of his own past. But even that has been denied to him by his Macaulayite education. He is helpless but that is not his fault. Sympathy is the last thing he needs

Your defence of the Hindutva vadi is touching but misplaced. Feeling empathy for him may be kind-hearted, but the bitter truth is that the Hinduva vadi too has been detached from his past and fed with the achievements of an alien culture in that alien's native language so that those are the only things he now recognizes easily. In the next generation this genre of Hindutva vadi will also be deracinated.

So defence of the Hindutvavadi is only comforting, but pointless at best and probably dangerously counter productive with a failure to understand how deep the colonization runs.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, is part of the argument that if we talked of Agneyastra, Brahmastra, Garudastra, etc., and these were terms familiar to everyone (in an Indian audience), then we are being precise and correct, and not e.g., implying that there should be radioactivity in Sri Lanka where the Rama vs. Ravana battle took place (and Brahmastra was used)?

[member_22733]

The question we need to ask is the following:

Can one draw lessons, learn, and get inspired by our past and ONLY our past? Can it stand on its own, without having to be in the crutches of Brishit Macaulay explanations for everything?

For example take this "analogy" : Brahmastra == Nuclear Weapon.

Why do we have to make that comparison? Can Brahmastra and its associated stories/itihaas not stand by itself. Why do we need to validate our past by drawing an == to Nuclear weapons? THere is a deeper issue here than the fact that it gives fodder to a sepoy to make fun of the "crazy Yindooooooo fundamentalist".

It is that the Yindooo fundamentalist himself cannot bring himself to show pride in his culture, he has to get it validate by drawing an == to the west, and it shows insecurity at worst and lack of understanding of our "past" at best.

Now even if someone does realize how "hollow" that statement looks. Or have a gut feeling that "there is something fishy" about that statement. To convince Hindutva-vaadis and inspire them, that person will still have to use such "crutches" to prop up our past and make people feel proud of it.

Thus both the sepoy and Hindutva-vadi are two sides of the same coin, called "The Colonized".

We need to get rid of the Macaulay-Crutches, we are not crippled, we dont need them anymore.

[shiv]

Shiv, is part of the argument that if we talked of Agneyastra, Brahmastra, Garudastra, etc., and these were terms familiar to everyone (in an Indian audience), then we are being precise and correct, and not e.g., implying that there should be radioactivity in Sri Lanka where the Rama vs. Ravana battle took place (and Brahmastra was used)?

The image is one of "great destruction".

If you did not know about nuclear weapons then anyone claiming such great destruction by a weapon would either be a believer (because the stories come from his past) or a sceptic - a Briton who would have pooh poohed that as impossible.

But in 1945, what was considered impossible became possible. And from that time the western attitude has not been that "The Indians had described something similar from their past" (despite Oppenheimer recalling that). The link between a weapon of great power and India has been made into such a footnote that even Indians do not claim it any more. On the other hand, they eagerly grab the "nuclear weapon" imagery as an equivalent without the analysis that would show that ancient Indian weapon descriptions were not "nuclear" weapons specifically. Precision and a connection with our past would help in pointing out that fiery destruction was not the only weapon. Many of the weapons have no contemporary equal - so they are either lies or they are unparallelled pioneers. How about getting weapons designers to design a weapon that renders and army unconscious? Naturally, colonization informs us that it is all "mythology".

In general the Indian past has been dismissed without knowledge or analysis and that dismissal has been accepted by Indians.

The surgery reference makes me both angry and sad simply because I know and see so much more. Sushruta's idea is not just anatomically and physiologically brilliant but it cannot be done without some form of anaesthesia. Modern surgery with some safety became possible only in the 20th century because of the advent of safe anaesthetic technique - so concepts like plastic surgery did not come until much later. We are talking about a highly sophisticated surgical art form in 100 BC India requiring knowledge of anatomy and physiology that did not appear in Europe till the 16th century and later.

But Indian medicine had seen startling heights that we all know about and do not see it. What no lay person might know is that the prevention of infection after surgery plays a huge role in safe surgery. And prevention of infection is not by antibiotic but by physical methods to stop bacteria from entering surgical wounds. If you watch Nat geo or discovery you will find similar physical methods of prevention of contamination is operating theaters as well as other clean rooms like kitchens. And guess what, the Brahmin technique of washing and then not touching anything unwashed after that is the exact same technique used by surgeons of today. But this is part of untouchability innit? Moorkhta is all that we have left.

We have been detached from our past and after emptying our minds, we have been filled with the language, icons and imagery of the west. It is the detachment that is significant, because our past is forgotten. The filling up with alien imagery is a simple consequence os that.

[vishvak]

I think we tend to constrict our own literature in several ways, because of textual references that are translated and then multiple meanings lost in translation.

In fact, the colonized mind will NOT be made to understand this by any chance unless given authority - as per standards set by foreigners.

So, we do NOT know what is written in Sushruta Sam-hita, which is thousands of years old science of medicine with following major divisions:
[*] Sutra-sthaana of Sushruta, where he invokes bhagavan Dhanvantari. link
[*] Nidan-sthaana - about science of pathology
[*] Shareer-sthaana - about science of anatomy
[*] Chikitsa-sthaana - about science of therapeutics
[*] Kalpa-sthana - about science of toxicology
[*] Uttara-Tantra - Conclusion (?) part - itself has multiple chapters.

We need to get over Sushruta having reference to 'plastic' surgery and move on to 'reconstructive surgery reference', etc.

[shiv]

What I am seeing is a discussion on why we are the way we are as a society. But I don't think that this answers the question why.

To me the answer is simple.

It was intended by the leadership of the nation to make sure that we loose all sense of self respect in the nation. Once that is accomplished, they were sure that the voters will make stupid choices and voters have been making stupid choices for a long time. In so doing we became accustomed to the phenomenon of nothing will change in this country, regardless of who is voted for in the nation.

+1

Without writing all the hi-funda stuff we have been discussing you have described the exact methodology that is employed by the "top-down" religions to control people. Westphalian nation states too have taken up this exact top-down mechanism

the mechanism was (in Christianity) the concept of God as an absolute sovereign who had absolute rights to do absolutely whatever he wanted with anything or anyone. Everyone had to submit to God. Later God was substituted with "monarch" and still later monarch was substituted by "national government". God's domain was the eintire earth and heaven. the Monarch's domain was his nation - but ot could be the entire world if he went our and conquered it on behalf of God.

That is the system of government in most countries now, including India

[A_Gupta]

Let us also turn the question around: what forms of Hindu assertion do various people fear, can we examine and analyze those fears and the people who fear it?

[RajeshA]

Rajesh this is how I see it:

What is the original procedure performed by Sushruta, described in simple English: The procedure is a recreation of a nose for people who have had their nose cut off or destroyed - for whatever reason. This is a highly advanced and brilliant idea for a sophisticated type of surgery. What is the need to call this "plastic surgery"? It is only because Indians minds are already primed by the English word that they so readily blurt out that name. Would an Indian have called it Plastic Surgery 200 years ago when that name did not exist? Why this eagerness to call it "Plastic surgery"?

Because the Target Audience are those who have been educated in the English medium and are on their way to embrace the Macaulayist deracinated Indian Elite ideology.

Hindutvavadis' use of English terminology is to reach a particular audience, and not because Hindutvavadis can't think in their own native languages anymore.

It is simply a fact of life in India that English has made very deep encroachments.

Now if the national language was Sanskrit, and everybody, including the better off, had Sanskrit as the common medium than there wouldn't really be a need to use English terminology.

According to your argument, Hindutvavadis should simply stop addressing the well-off English speaking Elite in India.

What is the original description of the fearsome weapon used in ancient Indian legends? In fact there are a large number of weapons. There were weapons that could simply cause darkness. There were weapons that could cause unconsciousness. And there were weapons that burn up armies, or even the earth. And there were counter weapons for these There is a western equivalent only for one of these: a weapon that is destructive and burns up things and that is called a nuclear bomb. This is the pinnacle, the height of weapon advancement in Western eyes. But as for the Indian idea of a supremely destructive weapon, nowhere do Indian references call it "nuclear". They do not call it Laser either. They do not call it anti-matter weapon. It could be anything. It could be technology that is unknown today and may be re-invented at some future date. So why the eagerness to call it "nuclear weapon"?

What is wrong with speculation? It is an individual's PoV. No Historical Plenum has declared that "nuclear weapons" were used!

When one does such speculation, often the response from Seculars is complete ridicule, rather than pointing out references, that even though such weapons were deemed as terrifying and weapons of mass destruction, one cannot take the weapons as necessarily nuclear in nature. Just like you have done! But that is not how they do it. They just ridicule, and most Hindus are made to feel extreme shame.

But speculation can mean false but also possibly true. There isn't enough evidence to reject the hypothesis either that these were NOT nuclear weapons!

You are saying that this eagerness to call it "plastic surgery" or "nuclear weapon" is because Hindutvavadis know these English words as existing western concepts, so they understand those words when used as an analogy because they are forced to use English.

I agree with you so far, but..

By definition, when one culture needs to use the achievements, cultural icons and imagery of an alien culture in order to be able to imagine their own culture, it is a sign of mental colonization.

You have tried to explain this away by saying:

It is NOT describing India through Western eyes, but it is certainly describing India through a Western language: English, and there is naturally going to be translation fidelity issues.

This statement is only partially correct and I will speak of that below, but i am saying that it is colonization of the mind that makes it necessary for people to be presented with western concepts to understand what India had thousands of years ago. There are simple Indian descriptions of the meanings of both, but Indians, both Hindutvavadis and sickulars do not know them and a light comes on in their minds only with English words and western concepts because for Indians, the pinnacle of achievement is not our past, but the western present.

The reason I say that your statement is only "partially correct" is as follows. The language that you think in gives you your identity. You can have a dual identity by thinking in more than one language. But when everything good and advanced is known to you from a foreign language and only rudimentary things can be described by the imagery of your native language there there is colonization of the mind. And when these conflicts exist in the mind and you are unable to find words in your native languages for things that occur in your culture and you are forced to use bad translations of them in an alien language - such as "religion" and "nuclear weapon" to explain your own culture and past - it indicates a deep degree of colonization.

I don't think anybody contests that India has been intellectually colonized and our Elite often like to deal with intellectual stuff in English. That is simply the sorry state of India.

But that is true for a whole variety of people in India and to a certain level everybody would be affected by linguistic colonization.

But you're interchanging the two concepts at will, arbitrarily.

1. An Indian projects a native system, be it Dharma, Itihas, Nyaya, or something else onto foreign concepts like Religion, History, Law, etc without truly understanding the cultural-contextual semantics of the foreign terminology. And hence it is a bad fit.
2. An Indian thinks in foreign terminology, gets acquainted with the use of that terminology in foreign contexts, e.g. reading foreign books and magazines, and then maps foreign terms onto Indic terms, considering them equivalent. And hence he misunderstands the Bharatiya thinking on these subjects.

So what is a "colonized mind" here? 1 or 2.

I would say a Hindutvavadi is more 1, while a Macaulayist is more 2. But both are not the same.

There is only one step to descend from here - and that is deracination where you reject your culture and past and embrace the foreign one and then justify that embracing as good.

Actually on SM one sees many previously most definitely deracinated Indians who have had their interest in Bharatiya studies rekindled after they were subjected to the greatness of their own culture, but presented to them in English!

In time they take more interest in learning Sanskrit as well, and in due course they would also be able to understand and explain in Indic languages.

You have stated that:

What the Hindutvavadi is trying to do is translate from his native understanding of Indian texts into Engli sh.

He is not. He is merely using the translations that have been handed to him by the colonizers and the now deracinated sickulars who were simply colonized earlier. And equipped with this faulty knowledge the Hindutvavadi is now ready to instantly recognize western technological and cultural icons. He is doing no translation of his own. He might be smart enough to translate if he had access and knowledge of his own past. But even that has been denied to him by his Macaulayite education. He is helpless but that is not his fault. Sympathy is the last thing he needs

So I presume, our PM Narendra Modi, whom the Seculars doubted to even be able to speak an English sentence properly some months ago, is a "deeply colonized mind" and his use of "plastic surgery" w.r.t. Ganesh is just another example of it!

So I presume, that Haridwar MP, who thinks astrology is above all sciences, is also a colonized mind, as he spoke of "nuclear weapons" in India.

I mean, sure, nomads like me with a generational break from Sanskriti, can be considered as "deeply colonized minds" and I don't mind admitting that possibility, but making statements about Hindutvavadis being "deeply colonized minds" would be too sweeping.

Your defence of the Hindutva vadi is touching but misplaced. Feeling empathy for him may be kind-hearted, but the bitter truth is that the Hinduva vadi too has been detached from his past and fed with the achievements of an alien culture in that alien's native language so that those are the only things he now recognizes easily. In the next generation this genre of Hindutva vadi will also be deracinated.

So defence of the Hindutvavadi is only comforting, but pointless at best and probably dangerously counter productive with a failure to understand how deep the colonization runs.

Your defence of Balu was also touching....

What I see is an effort to make a perfect theory: The "unified theory of the deeply colonized mind", which says that everything we can think of is ultimately Western in origin, and as such Seculars == Hindutvavadis because both have colonized brains. Except Balu of course!

Indians should forget History, as we have none. We should forget our Calendars and Time-keeping, our Sakas, Yugas, Manvantaras, because all that is also thoughts of "deeply colonized minds". Better to consider everything at some spiritual philosophical level, because if we say something historical the lightning of Western ridicule would fall on our heads and turn us into ridicule omlets. We should simply hide our faces under a Purdah of Adhyatma!

Doing any modern research or theorizing on our Itihas, its references, its claims, would constitute going yet deeper into mental enslavement of the West, and hence it is a No Go area!

This is what I understand till now!

A weak point of this theory is that it postulates that concepts from one language are totally untranslatable in another language, even if one were to use a whole book to try to convey the meaning.

Sure! Religion =!= Dharma. But Religion can be explained in Indic languages, just as Dharma too can be explained in Western tongues, both albeit not with single words.

A weak point of the theory is that it postulates that Indians are not capable of comprehending the concept of "like", where something is similar in some way to something else, e.g. Itihas is like history or vice versa. If something is similar in some way, then it is also different in other ways. Yes at some pragmatic level one may ignore the difference and opt to use a foreign word with localized semantics, which can lead to problems when the same word is used for multi-cultural contexts, but often people know in what context a term is being used.

But in the "unified theory of deeply controlled minds" this natural awareness is being discarded.

[shiv]

The primary problem as I see it is that Indian minds are not empty. We retain a variable degree of memory of the past and our culture and the rest is filled with new knowledge - suited for what we call the modern world. We cannot wily nilly demand the emptying of our minds of all that we have acquired and leave a void - because the void will be very large even if such emptying were possible. Ancient Indian knowledge is copious and complex and cannot simply be acquired easily.

What we need to do is arrive at a solution that does not mock and condemn our past and try to discard what we have now. It is not possible, in my view, to simply turn the clock back and try and get to the past and angrily discard the present. When I break this problem into smaller parts I get the feeling that the first step is to try and regain our past by not mocking it and automatically discarding it as useless. That past - no matter how ridiculous it may seem now, occurred at a time with a context that made it relevant then. It may not be relevant now, or it may be. We need to analyse objectively and for that analysis we will have to discard pre-conceptions in our mind.

The problem with colonization is the preconceptions. The preconceptions we suffer from are that we are a faulty people who had bad things like caste, idol worship, sati and "superstitious belief" like astrology, animal worship, we were uncaring about poverty, callous about other people, lawless, indisciplined. All Indians have such attitudes put into them to a greater or lesser degree.

These notions need to be discarded, or at least set aside for further scholarly analysis. Indians were not specially bad people. If you look objectively at all the "bad things" that we have had said about us - many of those things have been linked to the "Hindu religion". That should really give us a massive clue as to who initiated those accusations against indians. It was the religions - the exclusivist, intrusive, top down religions Christianity and Islam

We have millions of Christians and Muslims in India. Even if you are a person who thinks there is a "Hindu religion" i would like to know which part of the Hindu religion asks you to destroy Muslims and Christians. There is none. In fact Hindu culture allows other belief systems. But all this does not mean that we should be overzealously secular and embarrassed to point out that at their core, neither Islam nor Christianity can accept Hindu forms of worship as valid. Unless we can say that out loud and clear to ourselves without imagining that we are being "communal" we cannot progress further. Part of our problem is the suppression of all Hindu culture because it was dubbed as part of a religion. we need to look objectively at what this "Hindu religion" means. For that we need to know what we mean by "religion"

If Hindus are not out to destroy Muslims or Christians that accusation is false and we need reassurance that Islam and Christianity will not force their ideal of converting everyone else based on the claim that anyone who is not a believer needs to be "worked on" until he becomes a believer. Hindu self hate originated from the need to diss the Hindu religion and a "religion" was cooked up specifically to dismiss as false. I think Hindus need to analyse and understand this better and that can only be done by understanding the way Christian Portuguese and British saw Hindus.

We have discussed a lot of stuff that causes self hate - but the only a major topic that we have left untouched is caste. This is something I would like to attack, as a subject, in due course. One of the things that the "caste issue' has done to Indians is to put people of forward caste descent on the defensive and people of backward caste descent to proudly wear a chip on their shoulder. These issues have led to a secondary anger of forward castes against what many of them see as needless and unfair characterization of them as bad. In turn, people of backward castes have been told that this is payback time for them - to either claim privileges or extract some sort of reparation. Some of these latter choices have been encouraged by Islamic and Christian groups specifically because it helps them get more converts.

Naturally, discussing such a topic will bring out angry reactions from unexpected (and expected) quarters. I ask that anger be set aside. 'I am justified in being angry" is not productive for a discussion where everyone might learn something. By all means get angry, but don't troll out of anger.

[shiv]

Rajesh:

So I presume, our PM Narendra Modi, whom the Seculars doubted to even be able to speak an English sentence properly some months ago, is a "deeply colonized mind" and his use of "plastic surgery" w.r.t. Ganesh is just another example of it!

So I presume, that Haridwar MP, who thinks astrology is above all sciences, is also a colonized mind, as he spoke of "nuclear weapons" in India.

I mean, sure, nomads like me with a generational break from Sanskriti, can be considered as "deeply colonized minds" and I don't mind admitting that possibility, but making statements about Hindutvavadis being "deeply colonized minds" would be too sweeping.

It is highly likely that Modi and the Haridwar MP are all colonized. They have been exposed to the same Macaulayite education as you and me. There is nothing that indicates that some Indians are escaping colonization in their education - even back in the 1930s - before Modi was born. But Modi at least has decolonized his mind to a great extent. That does not mean that the hallmarks of colonization do not slip out every now and again. it can happen to anyone. Decolonization is a continuing process. There are areas of your mind that might be colonized that don't show up until the issue comes up and you muddle through and decolonize yourself. Angrily saying that X is not colonized and Y is colonized is only indicative of trends. I am basically saying that all education in India leads to colonization of the mind and that has been true for at least 75-80 years. All the books and teachers associated with education are products of colonization. no one actually escapes.

What I see is an effort to make a perfect theory: The "unified theory of the deeply colonized mind", which says that everything we can think of is ultimately Western in origin, and as such Seculars == Hindutvavadis because both have colonized brains. Except Balu of course!

That was below the belt - anger is talking here. Unnecessary.

[shiv]

Which is The Hindu Holy Book?

[RajeshA]

What I see is an effort to make a perfect theory: The "unified theory of the deeply colonized mind", which says that everything we can think of is ultimately Western in origin, and as such Seculars == Hindutvavadis because both have colonized brains. Except Balu of course!

That was below the belt - anger is talking here. Unnecessary.

shiv saar,

No, there was no anger! Sorry if you felt so!

I just think that if everybody has indeed been deeply colonized, than Balu too may not have escaped this colonization, and hence his recipe, that we do not consider our Itihas as history, but only as something Adhyatmik, can also be a result of a "deeply colonized mind" and hence would be just as an untrustworthy and uncertain course as say declaring India as a Nuclear Weapon State, predating our 1st nuclear test to 6459 BCE, which of course the Haridwar MP has been trying to do, despite Macaulayist resistance!

[vishvak]

In fact Hindu culture allows other belief systems. But all this does not mean that we should be overzealously secular and embarrassed to point out that at their core, neither Islam nor Christianity can accept Hindu forms of worship as valid. Unless we can say that out loud and clear to ourselves without imagining that we are being "communal" we cannot progress further. Part of our problem is the suppression of all Hindu culture because it was dubbed as part of a religion.

We need to think a lot more than usual -allowing other belief systems- terminology. Did Sikh sardars, in the past, 'allow' invaders to keep on suppressing Hindu culture? The answer clearly is no. Somewhere one form of resistance was broken by another bunch of exclusivists who did exactly the same in another fashion.We can't even call spade a spade - an invasion and invasion or an exclusivist as an exclusivist. As majority, it is the duty of Hindus to set things right also for other minorities.

[A_Gupta]

Enough of nonsense.

As Adi Sankara said, a thousand pronouncements of the Shruti cannot render fire cold. To that I would add even ten thousand pronouncements of the Itihaas cannot render Brahmastra into a nuclear weapon.

Elements that can undergo fission in a chain reaction are the same today as they were in the indefinite past. How these occur in nature and what needs to be done to what is found in nature to make nuclear weapons is a constant. "Nuclear weapon" sets a bar of evidence so high that I will confidently say that it will never be crossed. Some metal artifacts should have survived in the archaeological record. Where are they?

And so on.

The one "sure" knowledge the West has produced is (science & mathematics). It is because this is based on nature & reason that anyone can verify for themselves. It is the description of human things (religion, psychology, culture, etc.) that is suspect.

What I won't say is that Brahmastra, etc., are fiction. Fiction means something like "Harry Potter". The Brahmastra, etc., are part of a philosophy of about what the world is constituted of; and whether a philosophy turns out to be valid or not, it is not called fiction. Nor is it called mythology.

Similarly, this "lakhs of years ago" - genetics tells us that Indian populations are derived from peoples that arrived 50-60,000 years ago; so whatever it is, we are not descendants of those people who lakhs of years ago supposedly had nuclear weapons.

[shiv]

I just think that if everybody has indeed been deeply colonized, than Balu too may not have escaped this colonization, and hence his recipe, that we do not consider our Itihas as history, but only as something Adhyatmik, can also be a result of a "deeply colonized mind" and hence would be just as an untrustworthy and uncertain course as say declaring India as a Nuclear Weapon State, predating our 1st nuclear test to 6459 BCE, which of course the Haridwar MP has been trying to do, despite Macaulayist resistance!

Balu discovered the extent of colonization of his own mind when he went to Europe. he seems to have spent years after that studying and exposing the chicanery of the European mind that led to the attitudes of European supremacy and Universalism based on European Christian values. He has his uses

I think he was the first person whose works made me understand how we are taught to see things like Europeans. Unfortunately this leads to the question, "How should an Indian see things?"

If I, or Balu, or you tried to answer this question honestly we would first have to be sure that we know how indians should think without any European influences. So how do we get to know how Indians should think without any European influence?

This is not an easy question to answer. Balu has tried to answer it by looking at what European influence means and how Europeans (European Christians) see the world. If you are able to see the world as European Christians do then you have some idea about the attitudes that Europeans have put into other people to make them think like Europeans. balu is not the only one who has done such work. Edward Said a pioneer.

It appears that a whole lot of European attitudes have been instilled into Indian and Indians seem to say things like Europeans. What this means is that Indian attitudes towards Indian society and the past are being judged in a thousand different ways with a European/British eye - by Indians who don' t even know that they are doing it.

Whether this is good or bad is a different issue - but it the cause of a lot of conflict, and that conflict is actually leading to ruptures in Indian society.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Here is Balu's challenge from 1985:

A Question...
But this is not what we have in mind when we speak of ‘decolonizing’ social sciences. So, what do we have in mind? Let us look at the issue this way. Without the least bit of exaggeration it could be held that the study of societies and cultures is a project initiated by the Western world. Over the centuries, Western intellectuals have studied both themselves and other cultures and, in the process of doing so, they have developed a set of theories and methodologies to understand the human world. What we call ‘social sciences’ are the result of the gigantic labour performed by brilliant and not-so-brilliant men and women from all over the world over a long period of time.

Let us formulate a hypothetical question in order to express our intuition: would the results have been the same or even approximately similar if, say, the Asians had undertaken such a task instead of the Europeans? Suppose that, in the imaginary world we are talking about, it was the effort of the Asian intellectuals reflecting about the European culture and that of their own, as they saw both, which eventuated in social sciences. Would it have looked like contemporary social sciences?

...and an Answer

I put to you that the most natural answer to the question is this: “We do not know”. It is worthwhile reflecting on this answer.

We know the West as the West looks at itself. We study the East the way West studies the East. We look at the world the way West looks at it. We do not even know whether the world would look different, if we looked at it our way. Today, we are not in a position even to make sense of the above statement. When Asian anthropologists or sociologists or culturologists do their anthropology, sociology or culturology – the West is really talking to itself.

We have not decolonized ourselves until you have the answer. The strong indication is the answer is No. But it requires, to use a term from mathematics, a proof by construction.

[shiv]

Similarly, this "lakhs of years ago" - genetics tells us that Indian populations are derived from peoples that arrived 50-60,000 years ago; so whatever it is, we are not descendants of those people who lakhs of years ago supposedly had nuclear weapons.

I saw the "lakhs of years" quote in the news item but I did not comment because i do not know the original quote - and what was said exactly.

I think Modi' s usage of Plastic Surgery and genetic engineering were better choices as political statements although I still dislike using western cultural imagery when Indian imagery is sufficient. Modi is an astute enough politcian to know the sort of imagery that might appeal to his listeners. The Haridwar MPs statement came across to me as not particularly smart but then again the report may be deeply biased by the preconceptions of the reporter and editors. I need to know the context and the exact statement.

Because the Indian past has been mocked so much I think that whatever is worthy of pride from the past needs to be presented in terms that are difficult to dispute or dismiss in terms of semantic accuracy. That is not too difficult if one spends a minute thinking about what one wants to say. Here again it appears to me empirically that the notable things about our past that we talk about like "nuclear weapons" and "plastic surgery" is not because Hindus put in any study and revealed them to the English speaking world, but because Europeans dug them out and publicized them. Every time we use those images we are simply re using what the Europeans gave us about our past, and that is always accompanied by the baggage of everything else the Europeans said about India and Hindus.

We have a few people working on the past - more power to them but as I said, failure to find proof is not proof that everything is wrong.

[shiv]

On the general question of how Indians should see things without the shadow of colonization let me ask a question or two

1. European observation: caste system is bad
2. Indian society: Everyone has a jati. We call that jati "caste". We openly use that caste/jati for our family and social relationships. jati/caste is still a primary information requirement for marriages. As a society we see no harm in this.
3. The Indian government India has outlawed "caste" discrimination. At the same time the Indian government perpetuates caste discrimination by demanding that people declare their caste (meaning jati) and then rewarding some castes with certain advantages in education and jobs

So what is the problem? Is caste/jati alright? is it bad? is it good and bad?

Wtf?

[A_Gupta]

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... lok-sabha/

[member_22733]

^^^ Here is Balu's challenge from 1985:

A Question...
But this is not what we have in mind when we speak of ‘decolonizing’ social sciences. So, what do we have in mind? Let us look at the issue this way. Without the least bit of exaggeration it could be held that the study of societies and cultures is a project initiated by the Western world. Over the centuries, Western intellectuals have studied both themselves and other cultures and, in the process of doing so, they have developed a set of theories and methodologies to understand the human world. What we call ‘social sciences’ are the result of the gigantic labour performed by brilliant and not-so-brilliant men and women from all over the world over a long period of time.

Let us formulate a hypothetical question in order to express our intuition: would the results have been the same or even approximately similar if, say, the Asians had undertaken such a task instead of the Europeans? Suppose that, in the imaginary world we are talking about, it was the effort of the Asian intellectuals reflecting about the European culture and that of their own, as they saw both, which eventuated in social sciences. Would it have looked like contemporary social sciences?

...and an Answer

I put to you that the most natural answer to the question is this: “We do not know”. It is worthwhile reflecting on this answer.

We know the West as the West looks at itself. We study the East the way West studies the East. We look at the world the way West looks at it. We do not even know whether the world would look different, if we looked at it our way. Today, we are not in a position even to make sense of the above statement. When Asian anthropologists or sociologists or culturologists do their anthropology, sociology or culturology – the West is really talking to itself.

We have not decolonized ourselves until you have the answer. The strong indication is the answer is No. But it requires, to use a term from mathematics, a proof by construction.

Sadly, I realized this about 4 years back (after reading about Native American psychology) and also the initial description of European invaders by Native Americans. Initially I was mocking them when they called the first Europeans ugly and uncouth. It took me a while to realize what I was doing. I was looking at the Native American culture through European eyes. After that I made it a point to seek out works that were completely non-European in origin and tried to study them and what they said about the Europeans. It was life changing (along with a few other 'racist' incidents that happened to me).

I dont know if I came across Balu long time back, not sure where I got the "avoid all European influenced works to look at Europeans" idea. It was such a simple and obvious thing to do and yet I missed it. I am not any kind of an intellectual (measly unknown yingineer from xyz engineering college). Given that I am a simpleton, I am surprised and saddened by how deep and fractaly recursive my own mental colonization has been. My 'new' life has been a constant, deliberate struggle against every tiny belief I have about everything. Everything has to be questioned and broken down into its essence It is paranoid, but I guess it did help me to see a lot of things that I otherwise would not have realized.

I believe Indian society should do the above. It has to turn inward, look for answers within for they are all there. It has to break down the shackles that it does not need to carry. For that we need a visionary leadership and many many man years of scholarship to really "reverse the gaze" as RMji says.

Here is one example of what my mental colonization has cost me:
One of the things I wanted to do (being a Sci-Fi fan and all) was to write a story about an imaginary part of our culture that was so advanced that it split off into an interstellar space, as a quest (not conquest ..... and bear with me for this is nothing but a fantasy), about 11,000 years back. They make a journey back to earth and arrive in 20xx, and suddenly realize that nothing is remaining of their past here. They attempt to teach the Indians of the "past" that was, in the way it was supposed to be studied. In doing so, Indians realize that they are truly free when there is internal harmony between their "past", "present" and the future.

All this is wonderful, but for that I need to learn how to view my own culture in a harmonious manner . I have no clue, no answer, no idea on how to do it. Learning Sanskrit from non-European sources and reading the original works and their translation prior to Brishit arrival in India may also help. But there is no way I can 'google' it, or 'call a guru (aka prof)', since there are no experts in that "field".

[harbans]

Just for the record/info on the Plastic surgery thing:

[harbans]

Actually the whole Dharmic: Abrahmic issue is about Evolution vs Absolutism.
Dharmic stresses on evolution Tamas to Sattva and beyond. It underlines the process and means. Meditation, Yoga etc.
Abrahmics stress on absolutism to achieve goals. Commandments, Thou do this and that etc.
Most Indics including most seculars understand that deep inside.
Hindutvaadis give the impression that they too believe in Absolutism to achieve most goals. That is one reason they give a lot of ammo to seculars that ==Abrahmic absolutist fanaticsim with Hindutvaadi fanaticism.
Everything fits in to the above.

[Vayutuvan]

Someltimes it is impossible to figure out who are scientific and who are pseudo-scientific. While searching for a thesis called "Simulation of Simplicity" (for some my personal research), I came across this Wikipedia bio of a chinese (US trained and PR of US) Biocehmist who has been awarded the Maddox Prize by Nature and Sense out of Science. What is missing in Indian context is that the crictics themselves (eg. Susanna Roy, Medha Patkar, Guha, or some journalists) lack scientific training required to be a critic of scientists. Mporeover they use wetsren rhetoric infused with terminology which is an outgrowth of top-down western religions.

Fang Zhouzi (Wikipedia entry)

Fang Shimin (Chinese: 方是民), better known by his pen name Fang Zhouzi (Chinese: 方舟子; pinyin: Fāng Zhōuzǐ), is a Chinese popular scientific writer who is also well known for his campaign against pseudoscience and fraud in China.[3] President and co-director of New Threads, a publication and website that promotes Chinese culture to the general public,[4] Fang's aggressive campaign against allegations of academic fraud has been hotly debated; while Fang's works have appeared in many Chinese publications,[5] various Chinese scholars have accused him of vigilantism and of using populist rhetoric in academic research.

What is the connection to the paper I am looking for is left as an exercise (which is interesting in itself).

[Vayutuvan]

Recieved the following in email from my local library newsletter. Bill Nye used to have an interesting show on PBS called Bill Nye the Science Guy

Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation
By Nye, Bill
Editor Powell, Corey S.

Publisher Comments

"Evolution is one of the most powerful and important ideas ever developed in the history of science. Every question it raises leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself. It is also the most meaningful creation story that humans have ever found."--Bill Nye

Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In "Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation," he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a London subway; takes a stroll through 4.5 billion years of time; and explores the new search for alien life, including aliens right here on Earth.

With infectious enthusiasm, Bill Nye shows that evolution is much more than a rebuttal to creationism; it is an essential way to understand how nature works--and to change the world. It might also help you get a date on a Saturday night.

While technology of Plastic Suergery is certainly within realm of pluasibility for artisan scientists of shushruta's time, nuclear power/weapons are a whle different ballgame, that too at least 2000-4000 thousand (if we accept the widely believed dates for rAma - not the ones that people are trying to prove) years before shushruta.

[nachiket]

While technology of Plastic Suergery is certainly within realm of pluasibility for artisan scientists of shushruta's time, nuclear power/weapons are a whle different ballgame, that too at least 2000-4000 thousand (if we accept the widely believed dates for rAma - not the ones that people are trying to prove) years before shushruta.

"Plausibility" is much less important than evidence, when one is making an assertion. If you have evidence and a reasoned argument, backing up your hypothesis, then you can confidently make an assertion no matter how implausible it seems. Einstein initially believed Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to be too implausible for example, but it turned out to be true nonetheless.

In this case, saying Brahmastra == Nuclear weapon is pointless, because in addition to being seemingly implausible, there is no evidence or reasoned argument backing it. Trying to retrofit modern science into religious texts is a losing endevour, for any religion. I have seen ridiculous efforts to prove that the Quran accurately predicts the speed of light, etc. I consider statements like Ganapati has an elephant's head because of plastic surgery to be in the same light. There is absolutely no need to do this. We are just making excuses here. You either believe in God, or you don't, and if you do, you can explain pretty much anything by saying "God made it possible". If we believe in Indra, a divine entity wielding enormous power, why do we need to reduce Indra Shakti for e.g to a nuclear weapon, which even humans can produce? We can call it as a manifestation of Indra's power. The Christians and Muslims do it all the time to explain the unbelievable stuff in their texts. Why can't we?

[Vayutuvan]

Nachiket: gNEshA's elephant head is but an exaggeration of sceintific knowledge avaialble and possible at the time the story was added to the shiva purANa.

But brahmastra is same as nuclear weapon is not even plausible due to two objections - firstly the time frames that are being talked about are such that, if one believes in evolution, they are completely fabricated. Of course, one has to believe in evolution (which I personally do - so just that objction is good enough) and the other objection is that mathematics, physics (theory and practice) are so intricate that lot more understanding about a very wide array of sciences needs to be mastered before anything like that is even possible.

Those two afre not in the same league.

I will post a refrence shortly about a mathematical concept that was known in chchandas shAstra. But you would immediately agree that the envelope today is far beyond what hindu sages could think of - it has happened through several milleniums of east to west movemtn of mathematics (possibly originating in India).

As for your "Why cant we?". Sure you can, but it would serve only rehortorical "my d**k is bigger than your d**k" narrative but neither does quench scientific curiosity nor buttress the scientific - both hindu and western - method, which is based on questioning and debate with well laid out ground rules.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Re: Trying to retrofit modern science into religious texts is a losing endevour, for any religion & The Christians and Muslims do it all the time to explain the unbelievable stuff in their texts.

---- The Christians and Muslims have nothing if their texts are false. As far as I know, there is no mandate for a Hindu to believe in the literal truth of the "texts". The ananth/sesha-naag that Vishnu sleeps on can be taken figuratively as infinity (ananth) or more than the phenomenal world (sesha) or can be taken literally or with yet other meanings -- as a person progresses in understanding, the meaning to the person changes, the text is not invalidated. There are layers upon layers of meaning and symbolism. In Himal magazine or some such that I read a decade ago, and which to my regret I did not save, a devotee wrote of his meditations on Ganapati, and how the form ultimately made sense in a moment of deep meditative insight. All this is trashed by the insistence on making these literal, historical texts judged by historical truth with ahistorical accretions that don't make scientific sense.

Live by the book, die by the book. Christianity and Islam will eventually wither away under the glare of science and with their ideas of an irascible and petulant God in Heaven. Or else, like with the blasphemy law in Pakistan (or even just the unchallengable Christian myth that I encountered with Sonia Faleiro) they will have to keep something unchallenged and unchallengeable. The Hindu is under no such constraint, unless the misguided movement to historicize and translate into science proceeds further.

[nachiket]

Nachiket: gNEshA's elephant head is but an exaggeration of sceintific knowledge avaialble and possible at the time the story was added to the shiva purANa.

But brahmastra is same as nuclear weapon is not even plausible due to two objections - firstly the time frames that are being talked about are such that, if one believes in evolution, they are completely fabricated. Of course, one has to believe in evolution (which I personally do - so just that objction is good enough) and the other objection is that mathematics, physics (theory and practice) are so intricate that lot more understanding about a very wide array of sciences needs to be mastered before anything like that is even possible.

Those two afre not in the same league.

With respect, it is far more than a mere exaggeration. Even if surgical techniques back then were many times more advanced than what we have today, replacing a human's head with that of an animal would be firmly in the realm of fantasy. As for the Brahmastra==Nuclear weapon part, I'm not disagreeing with you. Statements like these are counter-productive because pretty much any rationalist can poke gigantic holes in them. It is much better to firmly assert that you believe whatever is written in the epics as true, because you believe in the Hindu Gods who have supernatural powers which humans cannot explain or even comprehend. Don't Christians do exactly the same when they say they believe in Moses parting the sea and Jesus rising from the dead?

As an aside, for a Christian to believe in evolution, would mean he has to necessarily disbelieve everything Christianity stands for because the concept of "original sin" is rendered meaningless by evolution. So a true Christian has to oppose evolution (which is a scientific fact) at all costs. People who say they believe in both are deluding themselves.

[A_Gupta]

" It is much better to firmly assert that you believe whatever is written in the epics as true, because you believe in the Hindu Gods who have supernatural powers which humans cannot explain or even comprehend." --- yes, it is better than the more counter-productive alternatives, but it is still not entirely right, this very much in my opinion.

My take on the natural/supernatural is:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.in/2013/01 ... tural.html
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.in/2013/01 ... ral-2.html

It can certainly do with further development. Input is most welcome.

PS: this too:
http://www.hipkapi.com/2011/03/17/the-a ... raditions/

[shiv]

When you are trying to apply modern science to ancient epics and legends what is being done is the application of rationality to an old story or belief. Rationality itself deals with "what you have reason to believe as being reasonable". This latter statement is a very tricky one because "What we have reason to believe" is based upon our experiences.

For example, the book "20,000 leagues under the sea" has someone showing wonderment at lights inside the submarine that were "cold" - ie with no heat production. At the time the book was written, light always meant intense heat. It was only the invention of the incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp and now LEDs that have really made light without intense heat possible. Even today people will say "Incandescent lamps" (bulbuddins) are intensely hot. Yes compared with fluorescents, but no compared to fires.

If there is an ancient text that claims something currently unbelievable and in dues course that unbelievable claim becomes credible because of some invention or discovery we suddenly start looking at that old text in a new light. But that does not mean that everything in that old text might become true some day. We have no way of knowing. What I have been doing so far is speaking about rational analysis of old texts.

But tell me this. Why analyse old texts for rationality at all? Why not simply leave them alone to tell their story. the knowledge and beliefs of a particular period of the past have helped those people live their lives in the best way they could - coping with pressures that we all feel. I would like to illustrate that with an example.

When I left home and joined college - I was sent to a place that was over 1000 km from the place that I called "home" with the security and comfort of my parents. There were no phones (at least not easily accessible) and travel took more than 24 hours. How did my parents cope with the anxieties that all parents have about a 16 year old child gong away. i for my part had to set aside concerns about my parents health. When I compare with today - that same distance can be covered in hours and in any case, with cellphones and the Internet I can contact my children instantly even when they are thousands of km away. When I read a biography f a relative who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s I find that in those days people would leave for a 'kashi yatra" and vanish for months on end. Imagine your father doing that when you were a kid. Every society builds mechanisms to cope with the same pressures of life - to explain puzzles and to give comfort. Why should these be "analysed scientifically" for "truth".

The problem that crops up in my mind is as follows: Suppose you can 'scientifically prove' some part of that past story - say about 10 or 15% can be "proven" to be "scientifically credible" or scientifically tenable. Then what do you do with the remaining 85%? Do you discard it as false? Declare it as trash? This is what the Europeans did to our past.

Why did they do it? The problem seems to crop up from the absolutism of Christianity and the Church. It was demanded that everyone believe Biblical stories . As European society evolved, people started questioning the absolutism of the Church. The work of Darwin and others contributed to the downfall of the Church and people started looking back at their past with scepticsm, looking at science as the new and "rational" way to live life. But in Europe, Christian and Biblical knowledge was imposed top down on a population and they were made to suffer for being unbelievers. The reaction against the church was expected as Europeans achieved the mental enlightenment that India has reached thousands of years ago

Why do an equal equal between Biblical tales and Indian folklore? Indian folklore and epics were never used for subjugation or to impose rigid beliefs on Indian society. They were simply a body of beliefs, memories and stories that were the collective experience of Indian society for thousands of years, they have harmed no one and are not forcing anyone to question science. They are not a threat to your rationality or your ability to be scientific. They are not forcing you to unquestioningly reject anything.

Why then are we treating our past the way the Europeans treated the Biblical past with scepticism and disbelief? They had a problem. We had no problem with our past. yet we do a copycat critique of our past and try and apply science and rationality. if we cannot prove our past with science, does it cease to be our past? r does only 10% of it become true and 90% false? How have we been harmed by our past, our stories and our legends for us to do a reductionist rape of our own epics. We are doing it simply because we are treating our Hindu past the way the Europeans treated their Biblical stories. A copycat European style critique and a method of imposing new truth on Hindu society when Hindu society was in no need of that new truth. When did the Mahabharata or any other aspect of itihaas ask you not to believe the theory of evolution? When did the Hindu past force you to believe that God created everything in 6 days and rested on day 7? There was no absolutist ideological inquisition/coercion from our past. What is it that makes us treat our past like it was the Bible - an incredible and irrational story that you are forced to believe?

All we are doing is to think like Europeans and do a copycat act of ripping up our past by viewing it as "useless superstition" the way the Europeans taught us to view the past

[Vayutuvan]

shiv ji:

Even today people will say "Incandescent lamps" (bulbuddins) are intensely hot. Yes compared with fluorescents, but no compared to fires.

not quite. If somebody had a fireplace with some kind of a barrier (say glass), then both have the same intensity of heat modulo what can be sensed with one's senses. in the oldebn days in the west theyh would cook near the fireplace on the slate/stone laid out aroudn the fireplace which is called the hearth.

What I heard (but do not know for sure) that ascetics (hindu?) who roam around in the cold clime of the himalayas, cook their rice and veggies in the hot springs by tying the grains/greens in a cotton cloth and immerse in the hot spring while taking a dunk in the spring and do their daily ablutions of sandhya vandanam and other meditations and prayers. Please somebody correct me if it is an (urban?) legend.

[shiv]

Some clarifications are in order because I have written some stuff that appears contradictory. I owe it to Balu for his role in turning on some lights in my mind

Early European Christianity, that later became the Catholic Church faced opposition from the Romans. Read this from Balu

Apart from the Jews, who were sceptical and dismissive of the claims of Jesus to Christhood, the Christians also confronted the intellectuals of the Roman Empire. Among other things, these intellectuals found that the Christians were making ridiculous claims about ‘God’, ‘the Devil’ and Jesus of Nazareth. Even though they tolerated the Jewish customs and traditions, they never accepted the story of the Jews as the history of humankind. In Christians, they not only found a silly sect that claimed that some entity called ‘God’ could create whatever He wanted just by ‘willing’ it into existence but also a new group that made ridiculous assertions about resurrection after death. Jesus must have been a magician, they thought, who merely pretended to die while convincing the gullible that he was ‘really dead’. Who had ever heard of someone being resurrected after death? Among other things, they thought that Christians were simple minded fools, who ran away from all discussions and tried to ‘convert’ only the children, slaves and women. (None of these three, the Romans thought, was able to ‘reason’ the way a mature citizen could.)

The Christians first made their Biblical stories "true and beyond question" - "real history". The Protestants then rejected Catholic ideas about saints and Miracles. The Protestants accepted that only God could have done miracles and all of God's miracles were written in the Bible. There could be no more. The Protestant view of miracles, in Balu's words was

Any talk of miracles outside of what is recorded in the Bible reflects the disease of the human mind.

Macaulay was a Protestant and hence his attitude:

It is... no exaggeration to say that all the historical infor­ma­tion that has been collected to form all the books written in the Sanskrit lan­guage is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridge­ments used at preparatory schools in Eng­land

So on the one hand we had the British attacking all of the Indian past by their Christian viewpoint that apart from Bible - all else is false.

But there is an added layer here - and that is the "age of reason" in Europe that caused people to revolt against any belief in miracles in the Bible. The work of Charles Darwin added to the revolt against the Christian belief

So we need to understand two phases that Europe went though
1. An early phase when the Bible was declared absolute and true and Christian histpry as the only true history in the world with all other histories being false
2. A later phase when even the Biblical miracles (eg creation) were questioned on "rational" grounds

If you look at the above facts you find that these things happened in Europe only because of teh pwoerful top-down coercion of Christianity, Christian belief and Christian texts

This was never ever a problem of Hindus, Hindu belief and Hindu texts. Hindu texts were never forcing anyone to believe by forcing something on people. Hindus had no reason to revolt against their past or even make a special differentiation to codify one small part of the past as "true history"

But the British in India were the first to study and start tearing down Indian itihaasa as false. Christian belief had already declared all non Christian histories as false. But "the age of reason" in Europe created a new move to question Biblical belief as science started competing with religion and started tearing down the beliefs forced from "above" (The Church) on Europeans.

In India in the meantime, Hindu had been made to accept that hey had a religion and the age of reason demanded that Hindus should scintifically analyse their "religious texts" for reason and truth

wtf? What for?

India texts were never an imposed religion that forced belief on Indians. No one was expected to live his life by believing that Plastic surgery was done on Ganesh. We Hindus were perfectly comfortable with our past. the past was past, it had its place in our culture. There was no need to subject it to sceptical reasoning and scientific analysis teh way the Europeans did to tear down their Christian dogma


Why should we tear down Hindu epics and itihaas and smritis as "Hindu religious dogma that must be rationally analysed". Are we not simply doing a blind aping of what Europeans did to Christianity and the bible? Are we mad?or are we simply mental slaves? I say we are mentally enslaved and are unable to differentiate our own past from the European Christian past. We treat our Hindu past as if it was an imposed lie the way Christianity was imposed in Europe.

[shiv]

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