Non-Western Worldview

[G Subramaniam]

My personal anti-xtianity website
http://www.jesus-and-bible-debunked.fre ... sting.com/

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com is also good.

This site shows idols of JC with the face of Constantine

[Tilak]

Bhai log..

How justified is the topic being discussed above ?, personally I am not interested if XYZ existed or not.. and frankly it's not my business. "We" have more than a plateful, and should worry about the mortal "believers" and how they they use XYZ's name to achieve their narrow "less than divine" goals, which might/could affect me..

2 Cents..

[ramana]

Folks I do not want to turn this into a bash other religions thread. So no more religious refs.

Thanks, ramana

[shiv]

Folks I do not want to turn this into a bash other religions thread. So no more religious refs.

Thanks, ramana

Ramana I see your viewpoint here and concur fully.

But since this is the non western world-view thread I must make a point about religions in general. I now realize many people in the world have a completely secular and completely non-theist viewpoint from which they are able to see all the problems that have come into being (and continue to be created) by religions.

It is increasingly beginning to appear to me that if you are a white American of Christian ancestry living in the US, or a white European of Christian ancestry living somewhere in Europe and you choose to be critical of Christianity - you are given space to be critical as having an atheist viewpoint. You can be similarly critical of Islam (or any other religion) as an atheist although you are likely to be dubbed an Islamophobe by the US/European equivalents of "misguided seculars"

For Indians the situation becomes more complex. We come from a social background in which you can be secular or atheist, but you are not allowed to be critical of religion because of a very Indian tendency to hide your true thoughts and not say certain things for fear of hurting someone's sentiment. The Indian is less likely to be "up front" about his thoughts and more likely to have his sensitivities offended by the discussion of religion. There is a very Indian tendency to live and believe that every religion must be given respect because of a pluralist Sanatan Dharmic belief that all gods are equal,But this does not allow any space for people who do not believe in religion or god.

This then sets up a very unequal situation in debate because religion is allowed to say anything, while anyone who sees any fault in religion is unable to have a say for fear of upsetting some raving religionist.

I admit that debate in this regard is complicated by the worry that criticism of a religion is always at the expense of one, while trying to prove that the other is correct.(My god is bigger) Debates between religionists have always been this way. And the avoidance of the nastiness of such a debate makes us balk at the idea of discussing religion

But a debate between those who are secular and atheist on the one hand and a religionist on the other hand will not give religion a chance to escape the criticism it deserves in being responsible for a lot of the flaws set up by history as well as a lot of geopolitical strife today.

[Keshav]

But a debate between those who are secular and atheist on the one hand and a religionist on the other hand will not give religion a chance to escape the criticism it deserves in being responsible for a lot of the flaws set up by history as well as a lot of geopolitical strife today.

Maybe we should talk about how Sanatana Dharma relates to secularism. My own take is that secularism is primarily a Western concept against the Church in an attempt to remove the Church from government because religion was heavily part of the state.

... but if religion never played that big a role in government, what's the need for secularism (that is, to actively attempt to separate them)?

"Hinduism", for example, was far ahead of its time in terms of science and religion because it never stifled the former, and it dealt with criticism with debate akin to any other philosophy (thus removing the falsity that society gives a free pass to religion, according to atheists. Charvaka was dealt with in the same manner, I believe, and not violently).

Also, because dharma is primarily a "secular" idea based on principles (and not particular laws or commandments) and not hampered by trivial laws designed only to distinguish oneself from another, it is functional. The ambiguity of ideas such as compassion, justice, etc. coupled with karma seemed to work well to create order.

Honestly, I think much of the rigidity in caste came about because of the Islamic invasion and British occupation to stop converts, but I think its silly to say it started with Shankaracharya. Much of the reason we advanced was due to the peace brought about by the Mauryas (excepting Kalinga, of course) and later on, the Guptas. Even political upheaval afterwards didn't stop ingenuity, but it did isolate ideas that may have been closer had there been an active central power and information city. The idea flow would have been greater had people from different parts of India congregated in one place.

[Raju]

M. J. AKBAR
23 MARCH 2008

Bush has financed this colossal misadventure with IOUs on history and debt from the world economy, setting off a sinful (as opposed to virtuous) cycle.

Debt and war have destroyed perpetrator and victim alike in the past. They are doing so again. Bush's wars cost $33.8 billion in 2002; they have ballooned to $171 billion by 2007. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel for Economics, has estimated that the cost of the Bush wars could cross three trillion dollars by 2017, that is, in another ten years. Go figure, as they say in America. Where has the money come from? Debt.

Debt has helped weaken the dollar. Producers who sell oil in dollars, seeking to keep their income constant in real terms, and oil companies who profit in whichever direction the wheel spins, have kept raising the price of oil. A spiral effect has driven prices into the stratosphere. Oil was $23 a barrel when the Iraq war began; it is over $110 now. The pressure of prices has induced an impassioned chorus for alternative energy. Bush decided to subsidise the production of ethanol to produce this alternative energy.

American farmers switched from food-for-the-stomach to crops-for-cash. There is now a critical shortage of wheat and rice around the world. The temptation of cash and higher prices impact on the pattern of agriculture. Cash crops replace staple crops. The prices of basic edibles join the spiral. India is now on the cusp of inflationary pressures that could go ballistic, even as the government has no solution in mind except a series of sops that will be throwing a bucket of water into a desert. Prices of basic food and oil in the Indian bazaar are rising at a dramatic pace. For the poor, this is a kick where it hurts most, in the stomach. Their pain will be reflected in the vote in the next general elections.

This too is globalisation, a chain of sequence and consequence that is linked across the world.
The managers of 'globalisation', a vast and varied array of vested interests that may not necessarily be in harmony on some issues but always closes rank to protect its core interest, take care to cohere globalisation to good news. It is a brand that needs protection in order to get promotion. Bad news, even when it becomes a worldwide epidemic from a single virus, is never called globalisation. No one uses the term when the New York Stock Exchange sneezes and Mumbai catches a cold. This would tarnish the image of globalisation as the panacea in a post-Marxist age, a libertarian answer to socialism's impenetrable dogma. Very few — although Stiglitz is famously among the few — wonder about the tipping point, when the liberty of this philosophy morphs into license into virtually printing money.

One reason — of course, not the only one — why share markets today are as flat as the globalised world is because the meaning of capital has changed, shifting in the process the original goalposts of capitalism. Capital was the means necessary for the production of goods and services that could be sold for a profit, creating jobs and higher-standard lifestyles. Profit, of course, has always been an elastic word, stretching as far as the market will bear. Hence, marketing became a tool by which a need was enhanced into an illusion in order to raise prices and maximise profits.

Thus soap, a need for the elimination of dirt, was elevated into a magic wand that would make you into a filmstar. Perfume is no longer a discreet veil over body odour, but a sex accessory. A handbag is no longer a convenience; it is a photograph of your bank statement. A watch no longer merely tells the time; it is a status symbol. But all this is acceptable because, at the core, there is a product, created out of capital.

But we have now moved into share markets and a world economy where there is illusion without a base, and value is attached to a fiction; and when the principal purpose of money is not to add to the quantum of goods and services but merely to make more paper or plastic money. The Sensex keeps rising in increasingly thin air, crossing peaks that are not made of rock but are arbitrary niches in the financial ozone layer. Even in the best of times, turbulence in the American economy, by far the most powerful, would have sent shudders. But connectivity now honed to marginal shifts in value, a sub-prime crisis in America wipes out bank profits in India. There is little insulation.

[pandey]

**admin deletion**
see note by ramana above

[shiv]

[quote="logicnote"][/quote]

The name logic note is not acceptable as per forum guidelines. Please read them. I have changed your name to pandey.

[ramana]

What is the origin of the double headed eagle of the Tsars, the Kaisers and other imperial powers in the West? I read that the Tsars picked it up from the Byzantium after it fell to the Turks.

In India that kind of double headed bird is called ganda berunda pakshi.

Here is a Hoyasala symbol

[Pulikeshi]

Hittite use of Ganda Berunda

I've heard that the origin of this myth is from the Vishnu Purana if not earlier. Many ancient cultures have used some version of this symbol. The rulers of Vijaynagar Kingdom, Hoysala, Kadamba, etc in India/Karnataka included.

Also remember seeing the depiction of a two headed bird lifting four-five elephants with its beaks and talons - but dont remember the temple now.

Currently, the symbol is used by Karnataka Government.

PS: There is some claim that the single eagle rendered during Roman times and current used by the U.S. can be traced back to this symbol. But, it is hard to substantiate these claims with the current evidence at hand.

[Murugan]

ramana:

an interesting coin with double headed bird from probably karnataka region, appeared at an auction in Ahmedabad last month:

Vijaynagar, ½ Pagoda, Gandabarunda

also look at this

http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/prani/ganda.htm

[JwalaMukhi]

The Gandaberunda form is quite ancient and is associated with Narasimha. The Yadagirigutta Laxmi Narasimha temple also associated with this form. Question for gurus to shed light on this? Gandaberunda is a derivative of Garuda form. What about the etymology of this word? (Ganda has several meanings in samskrit and one of it refers to face.)

http://www.yadagirigutta.in/history_temple.htm

Sri Yada Maharshi son of Sri Rushyashrunga Maharshi with the Blessings of Anjaneya Swamy had performed great penance for Lord Narasimha Swamy (an incarnation of Lord Vishnu) in a cave on the hill currently known as Yadagirigutta. Pleased with his deep devotion, Lord Narasimha appeared before him in five different forms as Sri Jwala Narsimha, Sri Yogananda Narasimha, Sri Ugra Narasimha, Sri Gandaberunda Narasimha, and Sri Laksmi Narasimha.

It is believed that the Lord Initially appeared as Jwala Narasimha Swamy (Lord as a flame). Yada Maharishi was unable to face the intensity of this form of appearance. Later the Lord appeared in a peaceful form as Yoga Narasimha (Lord in a Yogic Padmasana posture with open palms on the knees). Not satisfied with the Lord appearing alone, Yada Maharshi sought to see him with his consort, so he is said to have appeared with Lakshmi on his lap', known as Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy.

Interestingly, another form "Makara", which is composed of attributes of seven(?) different animals "Tusk of elephant, Mouth of crocodile, Talons of eagle, torso of lion, (do not remember rest)" also flanks the Ugra Narasimha over the mantapa dwara, in the famous Belur temple (makaratorana). See image link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Belur2_retouched.jpg

[mayurav]

The Garuda is widely used in Mongolia. I didn't know that Garuda is an important Buddhist symbol !?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulan_bator#Symbols

[quote]The official symbol of Ulan Bator is the garuá¸

[mayurav]

The Karnataka emblem also has the Sharabha - half elephant, half man.




Also Albanian coat of arms has a symbol very similar to Ganda Berunda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Alba ... emblem.svg

[ramana]

Here is google link on Double Headed Eagle

Looks like Byzantium adopted it and made it legitimate European symbol which got adopted by anyone caliming to be successors of the Roman Emperors!

The freemasons also adopted it and now its a Non Indian symbol! But what does the double headed eagle mean to Byzantium? Did they get the idea from Alexander's time as an imperial symbol?

[svinayak]

Here is google link on Double Headed Eagle

Double headed eagle is different from Gunda Berunda bird.

[gashish]

continuing discussion from Tech Forum started by this BBC survey:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/03survey.htm

India's image would be much more positive if India was not so closely associated with terrorism. In Canada, Sikh Khlaistan terrorists blew up AI jet, so the word 'India' is associated with turban wearing people who blow up planes! In UK and Australia too, with these Muslim Indian doctors being implicated in terrorist plots, India's image takes a beating.

I have spoken to people in States who think India is a Muslim nation, they dont even know it is majority Hindu!

Once on hearing my rather harsh criticism of pakistan, one of my american collegues innocently asked:"Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Hindi a sub-sect of islam like shia and sunni?"

frankly..i didnt even roll-eyes..i was just dumbfounded, because I considered him one of those better educated and smart americans. This guy was a ex-navy fighter pilot...had been on bombing missions to iraq during desert storm! I can only imagine how ignorant average joe who has never been outside States can be!

The World Service survey, released on Wednesday, also shows that the views about India are divided in Spain-- 35 per cent positive and 31 per cent negative; and on the whole lean towards being negative in Central America with 33 per cent negative, 21 per cent positive.

this attitude has seeped into Latin America from their civilisational masters.

Brazilians sometimes refer to their country as Belindia-to refer that their country is rich like Belgium in South and poor like India in North. Most of of this can be attributed to lack of exposure to Indian culture and our current progress. During my interactions with Brazilians, I used to find them totally perplexed to see me-a brown-skinned guy who doesn't speak either Portuguese or Espanol-lecturing on circuit design. They just didn't seem to grapple the fact a poor country like India can produce quality engineers and become a IT powerhouse.

Spain and its ba$tard civilisational offshoots in Americas in not worth caring for.

But, Brazil,IMO, is a heavyweight and so perceptions here has to be changed. And they can be. Brazil is huge country with developing economy-their market, problems and needs are very similar to us. Brazil is not racist in traditional european sense. 45% of the population is non-white called Mulatos(mule-like, mixed breed-a derogatory term not used officially now). An Indian fluent in Portuguese can pass of as Brazilian easily. Business relations in IT,Pharma,agriculture and automobiles are potential sectors for co-operation. TATA has already taken up the lead in auto sector by starting a joint venture with Marcopolo to manufacture buses. Pharma and IT Cos have started to trickle in;inshallah in few more years the place shall be swarmed by IT warriors from India and forever change perception of India among Brazilians.

When it comes to culture they borrow everything from Europe or America;I see huge market for Yoga and Bollywood. In fact, lots of Brazilian women that show off in dental floss bikinis on Rio's beaches have potential to become item song dancers in our movies..

[svinayak]

Once on hearing my rather harsh criticism of pakistan, one of my american collegues innocently asked:"Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Hindi a sub-sect of islam like shia and sunni?"

frankly..i didnt even roll-eyes..i was just dumbfounded, Pharma and IT Cos have started to trickle in;inshallah in few more years the place shall be swarmed by IT warriors from India and forever change perception of India among Brazilians.

Stop using words highlighted and you would be fine being identified with muslim/Pakis.

I have talked to Christian fundamentalists and they have similar views.
But if they are educated and involved in conversion then they would know who we are.

Now there is another category of people who are trying to not acknowledge Hindus at all deliberately even if they know of Hindus. Some of them think Hindus are sympathetic to Muslims and hence should be called Muslims. One of the person asked me how muslims were in India and the difference between Hindus and Pakis.

[Murugan]

Garuda was a symbol of mighty gupta kings too:





Chandragupta - II Kshatrapa Type
Denomination: Drachma
Metal : Silver
Weight : 2.3 g

Reverse : Shows stylized Garuda (first image) with brahmi legend around

Obverse : Portrait of Chandragupta-II
Date : Saka 321 (in Brahmi) (AD 399) behind the hairs of the kings portrait

Chandragupta-II minted this coin after defeating kshatrapa Rudrasimha by AD 395. In this coin of AD 399 Chandragupta-II adopted the type and era of the conquered.

(the above coin is from your's truly's collection)



Gold Heavy Dinar of Skandagupta (8.x gram)

on the left side of the image a garuda standard is visible (Garuda sitting on a pillar in front of King Skandaguta standing)


Skanda is written in Brahmi under the left arm of the king

[Murugan]

btw,
garuda dhvaja (a flagstaff/flag pillar or sthambha with Garuda) is very old in indian tradition.

Purana, mythology mentiones garuda dhvaja as lord Vishnu's symbol.

mangalam pundarikaksha, mangalam garuda dhvaja....

[Murugan]

The most beautiful and national bird of India is close to every Hindus since ages:

here is one beautiful example depiected on one of the skandagupta drachma:



with couplet written in Brahmi around the peacock:

Vijitavanir avanipati jayati dim skandagupto' yam

arthat:

This Skandagupta, having conquered the world, [as] world-lord, wins heaven

(silver coins of all gupta emperors are very scarce and very rare in better condition, though gold coins are profusely available and they are splendid!!! No numismatic art of that period can match their execution. they are innovative and versatile)

[Murugan]

Kumargupta-I Lion Slayer Type

Gold Dinar (In gupta time this denomination was known as Suvarna)



Obverse :King shooting lion which is falling backward

Kumargupto yudhi sinhavikkramah

arthat=

Kumargupta, who has the valour of a lion in battle


Reverse: Goddess Ambika-Lakshmi(!) seated on a lion, holding fillet and lotus

There are many varieties of Gupta emperors killing attacking lion, tiger, rhino either standing or riding a horse or elephant

[Murugan]

Samudragupta, Asvamedha Type

A depiction of the "Asvamedha," or horse sacrifice, marking a successful military campaign.


Gold Stater (also, Suvarna or Dinar)
approx 7 grams




Probably, the First example of abbreviation used on Indian Coin : Brahmi Si under the horse's belly. Si for Samudragupta.

Couplet:

Rajadhirajah prithvivijitva divam jayatya hrtvajimedhah

arthat:

The king of kings, having conquered the earth, wins heaven, being the Restorer of Asvamedha

Rev:
The queen standing left, holding chouri and cloth; filleted suchi to left.

[ramana]

Thanks for all the posts about ancient coins but how is it relevant to this thread? Please exercise some restarint. Thanks, ramana

I admit I asked about the possible links about the Hoysala symbols and the regnal symbols of the Western European kings. That has been answered and does not mean open season to post gifs of coins in this thread unless you can show some linkage of those coins to Western Europe. Or what world view they represent.

And congrats on acquiring that Gupta coin!

[Paul]

Once on hearing my rather harsh criticism of pakistan, one of my american collegues innocently asked:"Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Hindi a sub-sect of islam like shia and sunni?"

frankly..i didnt even roll-eyes..i was just dumbfounded, Pharma and IT Cos have started to trickle in;inshallah in few more years the place shall be swarmed by IT warriors from India and forever change perception of India among Brazilians.

Stop using words highlighted and you would be fine being identified with muslim/Pakis.

I have talked to Christian fundamentalists and they have similar views.
But if they are educated and involved in conversion then they would know who we are.

Now there is another category of people who are trying to not acknowledge Hindus at all deliberately even if they know of Hindus. Some of them think Hindus are sympathetic to Muslims and hence should be called Muslims. One of the person asked me how muslims were in India and the difference between Hindus and Pakis.

If this happens they should be reminded of the debt they owe to the Muslims

One notable example of such an alliance was Suleyman's outward support of Lutherans fighting the Pope in the Holy Roman Empire. Suleyman considered the Protestant rejection of icons and papal authority to be closer to Muslim belief than either Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, and his support of Protestantism was one of his key policies in Europe. By encouraging the disunity of Christianity, the Ottomans hoped to decrease the chances of Christian Europe uniting in a Crusade against the Muslim Ottomans. It has been suggested that Ottoman pressure played a decisive role in persuading the Habsburgs to grant several concessions to the Protestants. The Ottoman Empire was thus vital to maintaining the European balance of power in the 16th century.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/ ... eyman.html

[ramana]

Wiki Link on Caroll Quigley

Please read his lectures to get an idea of what makes the Russians tick according to Quigley.

[svinayak]

Wiki Link on Caroll Quigley

Please read his lectures to get an idea of what makes the Russians tick according to Quigley.

I want to begin, not
by going back to Russia's childhood or to the womb, but to Russia's
parents. Russia has two parents, just like most of us.
lye might say that the mother of Russia was the Byzantine civilization,
the great civilization of the Roman Empire ~n the East,
centered around the Capital City of Byzantium. You will recall that
the Western Empire ceased to exist about 476 A. D., but the Eastern
Empire continued for almost another thousand years~ until 1453. During
that thousand-year period of Byzantins history, it adopted certain

characteristics which are not found in the V~estern Empire and certainly
not found in western culture. It is that Byzantine empire
which is the mother of Russia.
But Russia's father was the Vikings, In Russian history they
are generally known as the Varangians. Tl~at is to say, about the
year 800 or so, the Northmen, whom we know as the Vikings, were
spreading out from Norway and Sweden in every direction. You will
recall perhaps that they are supposed to have come out from this
area to Iceland, through Greenland, even to North America. They
established Normandy in 911. They invaded England under Canute.
Eventually they came down and established the great kingdom of
Sicily about the year 1050 or so and a little later they established
the Norman kingdom of Syria.

[Murugan]

Ramana:

I posted first three images showing use of Garuda standard in non-western India, which i am afraid was part of the discussion. Use of Garuda/Eagle as a regnal symbol/standard/emblem is found with many dynasties. But the use of Garuda emblem is ancient to India and the oldest general example is found on gupta coins/arts.

This is also true with the symbol of elephant - which was adopted by Indo-greek/Indo Bactrian and roman emperors. Which they profusely used on their coins. (will not post any image till i establish the imporatance of numismatics in understanding the Socio-Economical conditions, art, monetary system and technolgy which will help in having some worldview!).

the other three images i shared was for the sheer joy one will derive looking at non-western numismatic art and non-western imagination!
History is a study of our past which and coins contributed a great deal to it. World-views are the impressions of the past !?!

It may be pertinent to point out that our ancient Indian script Brahmi was deciphered by James Prinsep in 1837 AD on the basis of study of Indo-Greek bilingual coins, the same way the Egyptian hieroglyphic script was analysed by French scholars after studying the multilingual inscription found on Rosetta stone.

You might be aware that roman currency (especially gold coins) were legally accepted in India. We still find many hoards in Bharuch (broach or barygaza and in Madurai) containing roman gold coins which were slashed (a long gash across the bust of roman king on the coins) in the middle as a test mark and as approval. Large hoards of gold roman Coins found in madura establishes the fact that south india was having a very strong link with Romans. These coins dates back to 2nd century BC to 5th Century AD

As far as art is concerned general perception is everything beautiful and generally accepted are considered western/greek/roman etc and cruder examples are from east especially from india. Those extra three images were just a small effort to nullify such belief.

Coins or posting coin images here was not for fun, they are, most of the time, only source of establishing and ascertaining historical facts! A piece of History. Sometimes they help confirm non-wesern worldview in Indian context, they will continue to be in future

if the above justifies relationship with the thread subject, i will try to share few more - only if reference is required.

neways, thanx!

[Shwetank]

Murugan, what's your view on the assertion that coins and the art of making them were introduced for the first time in Indian region by the Greeks?

[Murugan]

Shwetank:

here also the western historians have goofed up.
they always give example of lydia, according these historians the first coins of world were minted in lydia. ugly metal pieces with some obscure mark on it without any standard weight.

As far as India is concerned It has been established beyound doubt that the monetary system and coinage is typically Indian.

there have been references of Nishka, Karshpana and pana currency in vedic/upanishadic literature, this is the earlier reference.

Punch Marked Coins (PMC)

India developed some of the world's earliest coins sometime around 600BC. The coins were made by taking a flat, though often irregularly shaped, piece of silver, cutting it to the proper weight, then applying a series of punches to the front of it, indicating where and when it was made.

The punches covered a wide variety of symbols. As the coin circulated, additional punches were sometimes put on the back, verifying the weight and fineness of the coin. The coin, known as the Punchmarked Karshapana, continued to be issued until about the second century BC. Today the coin is one of the least expensive early coins available, and represents one of the earliest approaches to the development of coinage.

The greek came by the river indus around 325 bc.

Earliest punchmarked coins is at least 600 bc of gandhara janapada which are available with reputed seller at a price between Rs. 600-1500 per piece today. they are still found in excavation sites in afghanistan and pakisatan regions.

Here is a link, which shows few of the earliest punch marked coins - one is Shatamana - silver bent bar of Gandhara Janapada. there are other interesting PMC images of other janpadas and mahajanpadas. the bent bars are typical. a long bar of certain weight 11.10 to 11.40 gram having two similar images punch on either sides and sometimes small marks in the middle of the coin.

http://www.rbi.org.in/currency/museum/c-ancient.html

In nutshell, to keep the western historian happy - indian coinage is as old as (i strongly believe it to be older than) western coinage. moreover indian coinage has standard weight, symbols and Bankers' marks on reverse. proves that there were certifying agencies who authenticated the metal and weightage.

You will also notice a common symbol - sun with rays - on most of the different janpada/mahajanpada and city state coins.

Indian coinage is Unique, Older and Precise compared to oblong metal pieces of lydia, IMHO.

Greeks started minting their coins with image of the ruler and that was probably new to india. Kushana kings started minting coins with images of rulers but they are totally different from the greek coins! metal, execution and imagination.

No doubt, greeks have used better devices and imagination in their coins and they are really beautiful!

[ramana]

From Rajiv Malhotra

LINK

III. Cognitive Scientist Versus Yogi/Meditator:

The laboratory measurement of higher states of consciousness achieved by advanced yogis and meditators is at the cutting edge of transpersonal and humanistic psychology, mental health, neuroscience, and phenomenology. And some Indic theoretical models are at the center of the philosophy of quantum physics based emerging worldviews. But many ancient Hindu-Buddhist inner science discoveries are being mis-appropriated and/or plagiarized:


'Lucid Dreaming' is the western name for Indo-Tibetan nidra yoga, and Stanford's Stephen LaBerge is nowadays the acknowledged discoverer.
'Mindfulness Meditation' is Jon-Kabat Zinn's trademarked repackaging of vipassna.
Herb Benson repackaged TM into his 'Relaxation Response' and now runs a multimillion dollar business based at Harvard, claiming these as his discoveries. Numerous spin-offs in mainstream stress management and management consulting theories came from this source.
Rupert Sheldrake recently 'came out' in an interview acknowledging that his famous theory known as 'Morphogenic Resonance' was developed while researching in India's ashrams.
Ken Wilbur started out very explicitly as an interpreter of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy for the benefit of psychologists, but now places himself as the discoverer on a higher pedestal.
Esalen Institute appropriated J. Krishnamurti and numerous other Indic thinkers into what its contemporary followers regard as it own 'New Worldview'.
Thomas Berry, Brother Keating (successor to Bede Griffiths), and others have constructed the New Liberal Christianity, using Indic appropriations. Jewish scholars have likewise constructed the 'non-dualistic Kabala' based on Vedanta.

This is only part of a long list: the core of the emerging 'western' worldview and cosmology involving physics, cognitive science, and biology is being rapidly built upon repackaged Indic knowledge, but too frequently the source is being erased and over time. Yogis and meditators, who should be regarded as co-discoverers, usually remain anonymous 'laboratory subjects' and native informants.

Does this remind us of the way America is said to have been 'discovered' in 1492, as though the millions of Native Americans who lived here for thousands of years did not matter? It became a bona fide discovery only when Europeans registered it as such. Because land owned by the natives had not been recorded in European registration systems, their ownership was declared illegitimate. Much of the Renaissance and Enlightenment of Europe was based on the appropriation of Indic and Chinese civilizations, and yet these civilizations were demonized to justify colonialism.[4]

...
[4] See for example J.J. Clark, "Oriental Enlightenment"

And partial book review of Oriental Enlightenment at amazon.com

Clarke argues, along with other scholars whom he cites, that in the West the Renaissance and the Reformation ushered in a philosophical restlessness and uncertainty which made Europeans be more inquisitive and open to other ways of thinking. This uncertainty was generated from within European culture, whereas in Asia it was only when Western technology and power irrupted into the area that the interest of Asians in European culture began, in response to a challenge from outside rather than from within their own culture. Clarke acknowledges this interest, but devotes only a small part of the book to the impact of Western thought on Asia.

He documents how in the 18th century the philosophes set up their rosy view of Confucian China in opposition to the religious and social criticisms they made of their own society; how, when this interest faded, it was replaced in the 19th century by the interest of the Romantics in Indian thought. We learn of Anquetil Duperron (1723 to 1805) who first translated the Upanishads (into French) and of William Jones (1746 to 1794), who showed that most European languages have an affinity with Sanskrit, which suggested that many of the peoples of Europe came originally from Asia. German nationalists, resenting French cultural hegemony, preferred the idea that their culture was rooted in the Aryan languages (and later, by a perversion of the word, in the Aryan race). Philosophically also, the most profound impact of Indian thought was on a line of German philosophers: Hegel, Schelling, Schlegel and Schopenhauer saw an affinity between the monism of the Absolute and that of Brahman, between their own metaphysical ideas that the world as we know it through our senses is not the real world and the Indian notion that we see the world only through the veil of maya. Both Confucianism and Buddhism were seen by many Europeans as a system of ethics which was independent of a belief in God, and was therefore espoused by many western thinkers in reaction to the claims that religion was the essential basis of ethics.

Towards the end of the 19th century and into the twentieth, at the very time when the West's cultural imperialism emphasized by Edward Said was at its height, there was also the countervailing current that the West's cultural hegemony was increasingly questioned in the West itself; and the interest in Eastern ideas became a broad stream with wide diffusion. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 to 1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817 to 1862) popularized Eastern thought in America on a scale that earlier thinkers had not been able to achieve. Edwin Arnold's poem The Light of Asia (1879), disseminated the Buddhist message and sold nearly a million copies. The Theosophical Society, founded by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Alcott in 1875, had over 45,000 members in 1920. It was strongly infused with oriental ideas, and even played a part in the revival of Hindu and Buddhist self-awareness and self-respect in Asia itself. Some Western actually thought that western civilization, with its frenetic materialism and its spiritual life eroded by rationalism, was worn out and needed to draw on Eastern thought to renew itself. Eastern influences have moved out of the academic and literary world to permeate the very life-style of many westerners.

So Zen and Tibetan Buddhism have found many followers in the West; there are now many practitioners of t'ai chi, yoga and transcendental meditation; the young have gone on the hippy trail to visited ashrams in India. From this point onwards, about half way through the book, Clarke produces so many examples of the interaction between East and West - on literature, on the arts, on religion, on psychotherapy, on holistic medicine, on ecological thinking, on non-violence, even on the philosophy of modern physics (though, curiously, only marginally on the mainstreams of western academic philosophy) - that a short review like this cannot do justice to them. There was even a strand in fascism which claimed an Oriental heritage. Clarke's range is truly encyclopaedic, and in this second half of the book that there will be found much detailed material and many names that are likely to be unfamiliar to the educated non-specialist.

The mainly narrative chapters are followed by two final superb reflective ones. In the first of these Clarke reflects on the philosophical traps into which Orientalism can fall and sometimes has fallen, but his defence of the value of Orientalism is eloquent and persuasive. In the second (more difficult) one he shows how deconstructive Post-Modernism challenges Orientalism but can also find an ally in it.

[ramdas]

Rajiv Malhotra's article in his article wrote 'Yogis and meditators, who should be regarded as co-discoverers, usually remain anonymous 'laboratory subjects' and native informants." A case in point in the recent times is that of Swami Rama. In the 1970's he travelled to the US and demonstrated under controlled conditions the ability to influence his heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and the like which were thought to be impossible by western medical science. His work generated considerable research and spawned among other things an entire area called bio-feedback. Apart from being treated as lab rat by western scientist in their fancy coats, he did not get any acknowledgement. It did not stop with that. He was vilified as being a sex offender. The end effect is that Swami Rama is hardly known today.

Contrast this with the case of street magician David Blaine. He recently fasted for 40+ days as a publicity stunt. A medical team studied him throughout this exercise and the paper they wrote listed David Blaine as a co-author. From New York Times(Apr 22, 2008, search using google news for David Blaine, and NYT):


"He'd fasted for 44 days in a box suspended over the Thames, a nutritional experiment that was written up in The New England Journal of Medicine (with Mr. Blaine listed as a co-author)."

The bias could not be any more explicit.

As Rajiv Malhotra writes, the west is busy appropriating yogic techniques like pranayama. It usually happens in two steps: first step is to give the technique a fancy western name (could be English, Greek, French etc). In the case of pranayama, the grab bags are "abdominal breathing", "deep breathing", "diaphramatic breathing". In the second step, credit western individuals as having discovered special or more powerful variants of "abdominal breathing". There are already some contenders for this: search for "Buteyko method", "Kussmaul breathing". I am sure there are many more such contenders floating around. One of these will slowly be accepted by the whole west (depending on power equations in the academia/media) and pranayama will be be tarred and discarded. This is already happening to yoga. Pilates, a simple variant of the physical aspect of yoga that is gaining ground steadily, is now treated as a separate method though it is known that the founder Joseph Pilates had studied yoga. Over the next 20-30 years, the whole western yoga crowd will move over to pilates, carrying with them the techniques they learnt from yoga and the appropriation will be complete. If Indians don't have control over Indian media by then, English educated crowd in India will then be shelling out money to join the latest greatest pilates studio.

[SwamyG]

I read the following excerpt from Akira Kurosawa's book "Something like an Autobiography" in another book.

On August 15, 1945, I was summoned to the studio along with everyone else to listen to the momentous proclamation on the radio: the Emperor himself was to speak over the air waves. I will never forget the scenes I saw as I walked the streets that day. On the way from Soshigaya to the studios in Kinuta the shopping street looked fully prepared for the Honorable Death of the Hundred Million. The atmosphere was tense, panicked. There were even shopowners who had taken their Japanese swords from their sheaths and sat staring at the bare blades.

However, when I walked the same route back to my home after listening to the imperial proclamation, the scene was entirely different. The people on the street were bustling about with cheerful faces as if preparing for a festival the next day. I don't know if this represents Japanese adaptability or Japanese imbecility. In either case, I have to recognize that both these facets exist in the Japanese personality. Both facets exist within my own personality as well.

If the Emperor had not delivered his address urging the Japanese people to lay down their swords—if that speech had been a call instead for the Honorable Death of the Hundred Million—those people on that street in Soshigaya probably would have done as they were told and died. And probably I would have done likewise. The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self-sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life. We were accustomed to this teaching and had never thought to question it.

I felt that without the establishment of the self as a positive value there could be no freedom and no democracy. My first film in the post-war era, Waga seishun ni kuinashi (No Regrets for Our Youth), takes the problem of the self as its theme.

[satyarthi]

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh receives a model of PSLV- C9 from its Mission Director George Koshy as ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair (R) looks on, during a meeting in New Delhi on Monday, May 5, 2008. PSLV-C9 has set a record with putting 10 satellites in orbit recently.

I am always fascinated by a display of such rituals in India. As far as I know no other country shows such a consistent penchant for such rituals.

It is not sufficient for scientists to actually have done the abstract deed of dedicating the rocket launch to the nation, but that abstract deed must be brought into a physical domain and a physical image must be made and ritually offered.

Indian religions have great abstract heights. But never have they relinquished the physical ritual worship. It seems something is thought to be amiss unless something worth adoring is not adored in all possible levels including the physical.

This character shows through many such non-religious rituals we see all around India, indulged in even by intellectuals and scientists and politicians.

This surely shows something distinct about the Indian world view.

[svinayak]

X-posted

vsudhir, A great con is being put on all the innocent people. Fascist and Nazis are really the outgrowth of the 19th century evolution scientists clubbed with Evangelism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible. Those two groups are "Evangelical Darwinists". So until the Chinese get evanjihadized, the Ledeen description cant be true. One cant be Marxist and Evangelized Darwinist"

What is this 'Evengelized Darwinist'

[Paul]

The recent case of the a man confining his children in his cellar for 24 years and having them bear his children reminds me of the social environment in 19th century Austria in which Herr Schiklegruber was born.

His mother was 18 and his father was 57 as I recall it. and she was his cousin to boot. His father was an illegitimate child as well. Sigmund Freud grew up in Austria in a similar environment and gave him an eagle'e view to formulate his theories.

Added later: I believe my instincts are right...I did a google search and get this. There is a connection between this brutal incident and Austro-Germany's Nazi past. see the comments in the blog.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/04/analysing-austria/

[quote]One needs to make a distinction between the crime itself and detection of the crime, although these two phenomena may be connected in some way.

it’s interesting to note that Fritzl’s brutalised daughter herself blamed her brutalisation at the hands of her father and an as-yet unknown number of others on Austria’s Nazi past.

This form of intimate analysis does deserve some thought before being chucked into the “knee-jerk basketâ€

[Raju]

THE DANCE OF GHOSTS
By M.J.AKBAR
18 MAY 2008

Old rules get old because they have legs to walk through generations. Time, then, to recall one of the oldest: When you are dead, lie down. So many politicians simply don't get this, whether they are provincial wannabes like the erstwhile Congress satrap from Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Das or the woman who wanted the White House, Hillary Clinton.

I am familiar with the face of defeat – not least my own in 1991, when I failed to get re-elected in the general election, during my brief departure into politics. But never have I seen a visage as utterly depressed, seething with the last twitches of a withered dream, as that of Bill Clinton standing behind Hillary on the night of 7 May. For the record, she was delivering a "victory" speech after the Indiana primaries, but her words turned instantly into ash the moment they left her mouth. Poor Bill got the blowback. He knew that this was the last dance of a dead campaign. Four more years of adulation and power had disappeared into a blank. I've seen long faces too, but that evening Bill's jaw was nearer his nipple than his lip.

There are no exact parallels, least of all between democracy in the United States and India, but common questions can open fresh lines of thought.
Does Barack Obama represent the arrival of a new role model? Will this drama of startling shifts energise hope elsewhere?

Barack is young, but he is not about youth. George Bush and Tony Blair were startlingly young when they won office; they have aged decades in less than ten years. Power seems to be an aphrodisiac for the old (P.V. Narasimha Rao yesterday, John McCain today), and decomposes the young.

The Barack phenomenon is about identity, not youth, the vital first act as America attempts to exorcise the demons that have kept the enslaved and dispossessed on the margins, not totally excluded in these "liberal" times, but not fully included either. His personal history is the antidote of convention. He is a child of an absentee black, talented Muslim father and a white, bright, single mother who survived for a while on food stamps. His personality, his success and his dramatic invasion of the white political club, with- to the shock of traditional America - a coalition of white college kids and his black community, provokes reservations, suspicion and downright, barely-disguised hatred. The Clintons, who are brilliant at surreptitious politics and viral-marketing, positioned him as the ultimate Manchurian candidate at a time of Bush's war against "Islamofascism": they converted him into a "closet Muslim" without of course letting the phrase escape through their noble, if clenched, teeth. Worse, he was an uppity snob who had the temerity to wear Gucci, drink latte, and, worst of all, dress and dance better than the Clintons. The Clintons have every right to a bank balance of $109 million between them, earned in the last eight years. An upstart should remain a degree below latte. Obama prevailed among the Democrats not because he had changed but because enough of America has changed.

One suspects that Congress whizkids and a few whizuncles will rush to sell Rahul Gandhi as India's Obama. The similarity is superficial, if there is one at all. Rahul Gandhi is an image of youth but not of change; he is yet another rung of an ageing idea called dynasty.

The Real Parallel To Obama In India Is The Spectacular Trajectory Of Mayawati.

She never studied in Harvard, and the only law she knows is that of the jungle through which her elephant has had to fight for survival. But she rose from the margins and is imploding upon the Centre by extraordinary political skills. Her coalition of Brahmin, Dalit and Muslim is if anything more impressive than Obama's. She does not wear Gucci (she thinks Rahul Gandhi does). But she does wear diamonds; the contempt/anger/hatred and pseudo-morality that her wealth induces is evident enough. She does not belong to the class that has a hereditary right to be dishonest. But the most important similarity is that she has energised her own community to an unprecedented degree. The Dalits are the blacks of India; Babasaheb Ambedkar is their Martin Luther King; Kanshi Ram is their Jesse Jackson; and Mayawati is their Obama. Being less suave than Obama, she is both the acceptable and unacceptable face of Change; she can apply the rhetoric of Obama and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr, the pastor who has made incendiary remarks against white racism and America, depending on the audience she is addressing, or dismissing.
Obama is leading a sophisticated upheaval.

Maya is heaving against prejudice that has congealed over many thousands of years.

In neither case has the Establishment surrendered, yet. The Republicans believe they can slice Obama up and feed him to middle America. The Congress is convinced it can undermine Maya after she has sabotaged herself. All options are possible, for the turbulence and direction of change can never be certain. Hillary Clinton refuses to lie down even when declared dead because she still hopes that the unpredictable will somehow emerge from the inconceivable. If the correctly-pigmented John Edwards had pounded her as Obama has done, she would have shaken his hand and accepted the Vice President's nomination some time ago. But with chocolate-flavoured Obama, you never know when some circumcised skeleton will fall out from the cupboard…

The candidate may be dead. The ghosts dance on.

There is a second old rule in politics. Stick with friends, but stick closer to enemies.
An Obama or a Mayawati has learnt that sentiment is a trap.

Once you have fought a foe to death, you can always dance with the ghost on the way to power.

[derkonig]

^
hi,
Do put this in the Psyops thread as well.

[Kalantak]

Western criticism: Look at the East
By Dipak Basu

The distinguishing virtues of the Western civilizations are not unique; these were there also in the Eastern civilizations.

The problem with the Western intellectuals is that they know very little beyond their own countries but are arrogant enough to make comments about the whole world.

Guy Sorman is one of those Western intellectuals who has taken as his profession denigration of the East or the Eastern civilisations. As a critic of the East he has considered, forgetting India altogether, only the Chinese and the Muslims as the representatives of the East and pointed out some fundamental differences between the East and the West. According to Sorman three major characteristics that separate the East from the West are innovative nature, self criticism and gender equality. According to him the East cannot innovate but is dependent on the West for every scientific innovation. The East cannot criticise the concept of God or deny it. He says the East also discriminates against women.

Similar opinions were expressed by a number of Western intellectuals. Paul Krugman, professor of economics in Harvard in 1995 in the Foreign Affairs magazine also wrote that the Eastern people, including the Russians, couldn’t innovate but depend on the West for every scientific innovation. Another Harvard professor, historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in a number of articles in the Foreign Affairs that the concept of human rights is purely European; the Asian civilisations have no idea about it.

The first problem is that there is no proper boundary of the Western or the Eastern civilisations. Where exactly the East starts, if the Arab world is the Middle East? If it starts from Constantinople, a fusion of Greek, Roman and Armenian civilisations, then Greek itself is also a part of the East. The Hindu deity Mitra was the principal god in Persian, Roman and Byzantine Empire before Constantine. Ancient temples of Mitra still exist in both Armenia and in Britain, which was a colony of the Roman Empire.

Even before the birth of Gautam Buddha there was a great university in Taxila. After the death of Buddha, several universities were formed in Nalanda, Ujjain, Vikramshila and Paharpur, which received scholars from China, the Arab world; besides South East Asia, until their destruction by the Turkish invasion of India in 12th century. The oldest surviving university of the world today is in Cairo.

Since the days of the invasion of India by Alexander until the Arab invasion in 7th century, Afghanistan had Indo-Greek kingdoms creating fusion of all knowledge from three great civilisations India, Persia and Greece. Since the 7th century, Baghdad became the reservoir of knowledge of the world until it was destroyed by the Mongol invasions in 11th century. Scholars from India were invited to go there and translate books of Indian mathematics and sciences from Sanskrit to Arabic. Several Arab scholars, like Al-Beruni and Iban Batuta, also came to India searching for knowledge.

Modern development of science and mathematics in Europe had started in Italy in 14th century, when Italian and Armenian traders transmitted the knowledge of India translated by the Arab scholars in Baghdad and Constantinople.

Thus, much of what is considered as Western is nothing but recycled Eastern knowledge; that is particularly true about inventions in science, technology and mathematics. That was the reason when the East India Company first came to India, it had nothing new to offer to Asia until they began the industrial revolution with the money brought in from the exploitation of Bengal. However, even then the East had made major contributions in 19th century science, which was not acknowledged by the West.

Radio transmission, for example, was first invented and demonstrated by J C Bose in Calcutta, India in 1896 and in London in 1897 but was copied by Marconi who got all the credit. That was also true about Copernicus who only had repeated the discovery made by Arya Bhatta in the 4th century.

Self-criticism is the fundamental part of Indian philosophy. Thousands of years ago in the Rig Veda, the most important book of the Hinduism and the first book composed in Indo-European language group, it is written, “Only that god in highest heaven knows whence comes this universes. He only knows or perhaps he knows notâ€

[ramana]

I have been thinking about Post colonial literature in the West. is is a new form of Orientalism? IOW is the West still dominating the discourse of the ex-colonials? By self abnegating themselves they (West) are denying the voice of the former colonials to complain on their past masters and more importantly to recoup and move on.

And why is the base for these studies in US and not in the former colonial powers- UK, France, Belgium and Holland?