The Identity Crisis of a Modern Muslim

This is exactly what i have been thinking for quite sometime. It seems if iqbal saab had not written this stuff it would have been me.

I would like to know more about the writer

thanks

Sarmad Tanwir

Ref rsridhar #: 523

[It may interest you to know that some monasteries in Siberia still perform rituals in sanskrit. The person doing it does it from a vocal tradition with no knowledge of what he is saying.]

If Sanskrit is indeed used in some Siberian monastery, it is probably due to the spread of Buddhism from India to Central Asia. Mongolians were observant Lamaist Buddhists who had a religious system similar to Tibet`s, including a Head Lama known as the Gergen. For a while, there was rivalry between the Gergen and the Dalai Lama but the Mongolians accepted the superiority of the Dalai Lama and used to make pilgrimages to Lhasa.

Regarding your statement that Indians don`t have a collective memory of their place of origin outside of India and this refutes the Aryan Invasion Theory, I don`t think one can be as simplistic as that. In fact, I have read articles in some old religious magazines which claim that Mount Meru is in the Arctic Circle and Aryans originated from Scandinavia! We should let unbiased historians write the history of India from a variety of evidentiary sources, including linguistic, archealogical, etc.

The current fad of trying to debunk the Aryan Invasion Theory is nothing but an attempt to respond in kind to the crappy history that has whitewashed the crimes against humanity of the various sultanates in India. There will be no objective history written about India by any Indian because they are all in the pay of the government in power, depending on it as they are for research grants, book grants, professorships, etc.

re:Reply #: 517

macgupta,

Have you read the book ``The return of Aryans`` by Gidwani? He makes the pitch that Aryans were always original inhabitants of India and went abroad and settled in various places. Many of them came back. It is a well researched book.

I find it hard to believe that people who left their lands and came to India would not mention their birthplaces out of nostalgia. There is no mention of such place(s)be it Siberia or Central Europe or Iran. Rg Veda has no mention of places from where the early Aryans were supposed to have descended.

Many researchers (Max Mueller et al)have tried to discredit India by implying such a great culture and language (sanskrit)could not have been invented by Indians (Macaulay`s logic), so it has to come from outside. There is no proof it did come from outside India. Sanskrit is not spoken anywhere else except in India even after many thousand years. The closest to that language is the Zorastrian language. So, a whole lot of people are questioning the AIT.

It may interest you to know that some monasteries in Siberia still perform rituals in sanskrit. The person doing it does it from a vocal tradition with no knowledge of what he is saying.

Sridhar

re:Reply #: 483

soysauce,

IS Johar is known for his tongue-in-cheek remarks. Once, asked by another bollywood comedian (i think Mehmood),what I.S in his name stand for, he said ``Incometax Saving`` because he does not believe in paying Income Tax. Everyone in the audience was amused, everyone except an IT guy. Johar`s residence was raided within a week!

Sridhar

re:Bharatanatyam dance

There is some lively discussion going on here regarding classical dances.

Reply #: 452

harimau,

I would not advise anyone to go and see Vijayantimala Bali`s dance. For one, she is not young anymore. Secondly, she, i am told, is scary looking. In her younger days, she was no doubt superb. If anyone has not seen a movie ``Amrapalli`` he has missed some superb dancing by her.

I think, there have been many great dancers in Bharata Natyam starting from Rukmini Arundale. Balasaraswati is often considered the greatest by many experts. My sister had the previlege of learning BN from her sister, Swarna Saraswati, who has a reputation as good as Bala. She was old and lived on govt scholarship in Delhi. Many of her students started their own schools and are training many students today. Swarna saraswati emphasised Bhava more than the movements. She was so strict that she would go into fitful rage if students kept repeating mistakes.

My sister,after giving her Arangetram (first public performance)has,alas, given up dancing and is today a homemaker in US.

Sridhar

http://ifihhome.tripod.com/bbl001.html

Zafar - ok ok i accept !!!

Take care,

aicha

I know this board is more or less dead but - Kathak is def more graceful than Bharatnatyam. A bit slow. However the most graceful (among other things) i would think is belly dancing!!

One more thing - the two reasons why I think that the standard view of history is problematic, and that either the Indo-European homeland is South Asia or that the Indo-Europeans arrived much earlier than the 1700-1400 BC that standard history teaches are :

1. The already mentioned Saraswati river.

2. The enormous extent of the existing civilization. The Hittites and Greeks were Indo-European intruders on their respective areas in Anatolia and Greece, and the pre-existing languages there have left their traces on Hittite and Greek. Supposedly about 50% of Greek vocabulary is non-IndoEuropean and a larger percentage of Hittite. And this was in relatively small areas.

The linguists want us to believe that somehow, I-E intruders into South Asia so effectively buried the traces of the pre-existing languages over such a wide area that Rig Vedic Sanskrit barely shows a trace of non-I-E influence (less than 5% of the vocab is non-I-E). Kind of hard to believe.

Then, the ancient Iranians, Sumerians, Egyptians, and even the Tamils in India have the legends of having come from another place. But these Vedic people (whose closest known relatives, linguistically speaking are the ancient Iranians, the language of the Zend Avesta is like Sanskrit) and their descendants with an unparalleled record of oral tradition have not the least hint of any tradition or legend of having come from somewhere else.

Oh, yes, there are just as many problems with the theory of native Indo-Europeans, but what that tells us is that no-one really knows for certain.

-Arun Gupta

hobbyt, I really feel sorry for you, like I would for Rip Van Winkle.

Jarrige first excavated Mehrgarh 1974-1986. It is one of the earliest sites of the so-called Indus Valley Civilization. Excavations resumed in 1996.

As I mentioned in a previous note, the civilization is the most wide-spread of all the ancient civilizations, and even naming it after two rivers (Saraswati-Sindhu) let alone one (Sindhu or Indus) is a misnomer. The current known extent of this civilization is of the order of a million square kilometers, and new discoveries keep expanding the scope.

I suggest you read the material on harappa.com, a site run by a Pakistani (so no Hindu propaganda on it :-)).

-Arun Gupta

Zafar:

``watch any group of Southies at a concert and a lot of them usually beat out the taal with their hands.``

Big Deal, next time in Delhi go to the local Punjabi Dhaba and you can see the Tandooriya do the exact same thing when making Tandoori Rotis :)

saminashah and others interested:

For all you culture vultures, I just read in a newspaper today that the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is putting together a stage production of ``Midnights Children``, which after its British run, will tour India, Pakistan and the USA at some point later this year. Keep your eyes peeled!

re: saminashah

{{ Do you really think Ali and Rsax are brothers?....oh...that would explain many things...}}

ouch, i didn`t deserve that insult

{{ Maybe they should take up knitting or bread making....its quite relaxing... }}

...sweaters and bread are too cheap to make them at home...and i wouldn`t want Xiang Lao Peng in some sweatshop in China to lose his job because I am not buying finished sweaters...

Macgupta, Sadna, Zafar

How do you think Hindu Nationalists will react to the development below - How will hook it with the Vedas? - But besides the polemic of Hindu or Vedas, what might it mean for peoples on either side of the divide - to have a archelogical record which does not fit the political ideologies prevalent in Pakistan or India?

Do you have any info on any possible tie between the Indus Civ and the Bactrian Civ?

From: ``News International`` Feb. 1, 2002

``Ruins of 7,000 BC civilisation discovered in Balochistan

ISLAMABAD: International archaeologists have discovered a rich civilisation dating back to around 7,000 BC at Mehrgarh, Balochistan, that may have links to Moenjodaro in the Indus valley.

This was revealed by Prof Jean-Francois Jarrige, a noted French Archaeologist and Director at the prestigious Musee Guimet, National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris. Jarrige and his team, working at Mehrgarh for the last 30 years, made the discovery of one of the oldest civilisation during excavation there. While giving a presentation on his recent discoveries at the Islamabad Club Auditorium, he said Pakistan is a country with rich archaeological sites of international interest like Mehrgarh to discover. Highlighting his discoveries, he said some ancient buildings were found in very good condition in Pakistan, Eastern Iran and India, which showed that the people were living in well-built and organised houses.

He also showed a long brick with a finger print which depicts that people were using their hands to properly adjust the bricks used for construction. Later, these bricks become smaller, he added. He disclosed that his team had also discovered about 30 graves from the Mehrgarh site as majority of them were females with the age from 18 to 22.

Their bodies, he said, were above normal. He also showed slides of some discoveries found from the site of excavation, including clay pots, stones, skeletons, ornaments, building structures and other articles of human use.``

re: Zafar

{{Next time you’re in Bombay try and see some good Bharath Natyam. It WILL change your mind.}}

arrey? mujhe maalum tha...you have secret bombay envy...everything is bigger and better there, isn`t it?...now if you just admit it, we can figure out where you can meet some hotties on your next trip to bombay...oh wait, mrs. zafar will shoot you if she finds out, won`t she?..

. . . my list on Muslim girls was not anything other than part of an effort to teach the alphabet. Forgive me if anybody was left out, other than the penguins, which nobody noticed anyway.

. . . as for you stuka/ali and the others may I suggest that both of you get better insults going please?