The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Tahmed # 958,

"except for BJP trying to emulate long-dead muslim invaders by destroying Babri Mosque"

Aapne hamarey statement kee hawa nikaal dee... -:)
Have a good long weekend.

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Murad,
# 948.

You conveniently labeled my post 'interesting' for all the details I have provided that show that your assertion of 'one God' concept in Hinduism enters only after 7th century AD as false. Your comments about Hinduism destroying and persecuting the Buddhists and Jains in India are not new. I have heard it from other Indian muslims as mere gossip to cover their own ancsetors misdeeds. Perhaps these muslims like you feel that by claiming that hindus commited the same 'sins' we all become 'is hamam main hum sub nangey hain'.
Apart from the gossip of some muslims there is no historian who has uncovered any evidence anywhere that has even remotely suggested any form of persecution of these groups of people. When you continuously peddle a baseless hypothesis as fact it merely unveils your own prejudices and motives.
I have been to most of the famous historical places in India. Apart from the evidences of temples being destroyed by islamic invaders there has not been a single case of a buddhist or jain temples being destroyed by Hindus. I am convinced now that you wear a charade of history to cover your prejudices about Indian culture.
Adios

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation We all talked about genuine research in the past. I think we've also touched about the biases of the authors of history. For a change an oxford educated historian of indian origin did some compelling research...details..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460682.stm

I'll read this one for sure.
Adios

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Eklvaya,
#190
Well thats a classic problem. I don't think we can have a word for that. And any attempts to do so may prove counter productive. If you recall, the europeans falsely coined the word "Gods" to translate "Devatas" from sanskrit. Eventually it gave these people the impression that we're all believers in many "Gods" and hence the polytheism label stuck with us.
What is more surprising is that we indians use the word Gods for Puja or archana etc. I think that indicates clearly that we don't understand our own culture accurately enough and rely on outsiders opinions to shape ours. The sloka 'ekam sat....vadanti" has captured it well and lets leave the art of labeling to the others. Just as they coined the word Hindu for us let them spend time coining another word, while we actually live with that philosophy.
Adios

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation pinku,
I think you covered all the points very well in your earlier posts. I was merely trying to elicit a response from the author. But I think it is useless.
Adios

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Eklavya,
Agreed...
"the idea of Universal Singularity worshipped in many ways"
Ekam sat, Vipra Bahudha Vadanti.

We lost it when we were taught history by the JNU types.

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation There is a factual error in this article. The monotheism concept was not started by Shankaracharya. Concepts of Dvait and Advaita to explain sepration of an omniscient consciousness into self (atman) and supreme self (parmatman) date back to the Upanashidic times (roughly 1000-500BCE). Yajnavalkya's catechism with his wife Maitreyi in BrihadAranyaka Upanishad explain this well. The words Ishwara and Brahman are used interchangably in many of these scriptures to mean the one eternal (Anantah), ancient (Puraatan) and shashvat supreme being from whom the whole universe has also arisen. A natural philospohical progression of enquiry from the earliest Vedas to the Upanishads show a timeline of the development of the concept of the "Indian monotheism". I call it Indian monotheism as it is disctinctly separate from the Abrahamic monotheism. The gradual developemnt of this concept of the creator or "judge" in the universe ends in the Upanishads with the final settled view amongst most of the preists. The settled view of this Iswara is the one indivisble, omnipresent,eternal and nondestructible entity which forms the basis of this Universe. Ofcourse, as usual disagreements are also clearly highlighted. The difference between Nirguna and Saguna Iswara is a case in point.
This article also conveniently ignores that the separation of Purusha and Prakriti comes from the one Brahman (close to the concept of one substrate from whom all matter and consciousness arises). This point has been ignored to give validity to the main thrust that monotheism was introduced in India perhaps during Shankracharya's time.

I'm glad to see that most of the followers of Sanatan dharma understand enough about their own roots to be misled by an outsider with spurious knowledge.

Murad,

You have assumed that the concept of Monotheism in India and the Abrahamic faiths is same. Actually they are a far cry from each other. There is still no consensus between various Sanatan schools of thought about the nature of Iswara. Some even question wehether it is possible to have a debate on the nature of Iswara i.e. the attributes like it is merciful, benevolent, angry and such details. These Saguna and Nirguna schools of thought have valid points of view that have co-existed for as long as this idea germinated in India. Note that these were not revealed to anyone and hence always open for dsicussion.
The Abrhamic God has been described in absoluteness and no questions can be raised in these matters. More importantly, since these statements about God have been made by God himslef in the revealed scriptures it is impossible to have any discussion on it. As Karen Armstrong rightly put it "The Brahman (God) in India never speaks to humans". That job is given to the lesser Devatas who are assumed to have some human form.
Which is why your analysis about "One God" Religions of Revealation needs serious input from an "Indian Monotheist".
I think an Indian monotheist who is not beholden to any fear of this "One God" may consider the concept of this God itself accountable to many world problems. Please note that I'm trying to say "concept of God" and not "God".
Adios

Were Buddhists and Jains Persecuted in Ancient India? Dear Murad,
I liked your style of writing i.e. Presenting opinions as facts. Most of Rajasthan if you ever cared to visit it, has the largest temples devoted to Mahavira Jain. There are fewer traces of Hindu temples. The exquisite jain temples of Ranakpur and Dilwara come to mind. If you visit Ranakpur, please ask the preists to give you a guided tour (they do it free of cost). After showing you the temple, they'll take you to an underground hidden tunnel within the temple. They'll tell you that whenever muslims invaded the area, the preists used to carry all the Mahavira idols in this hidden chamber. I don't recall him mentioning hindu invaders though. Perhaps he guessed my religion and did not wish to offend me.
Rajasthan and Gujarat have a very large jain population who are one of the most successful and prosperous communities. The recent census in India mentions the Jains as the most educated community. I'm surprised that this educated and most aware community is the most staunch supporter of BJP despite your claim of their persecution and extreme violence by Hindus.
My travels in Orissa have taken me around some very beautiful Buddhist temples (thronged by Hindus), I have to say that the Hindus are weird people to persecute followers of the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. There is way too much contradiction here my firend and you may have to devote an army of researchers (and "fabricate" some evidence) to prove that the Hindus persecuted the Buddhists and Jains.
I must also add here that the Hindus have to be an ass to allow an open opponenet to their faith (B.R. Ambedkar) to author the constitution of India. Your example of Shankara usuurping Badrinath and Kedarnath from the Buddhsits is a good one. Remind me If I'm wrong, but I thought Shankara defeated a famed scholar (Mandana Mishra in Bihar) in open debate to recapture the following for the Vaishnav philosophy. I can see a distinct paralell of this event with that of prophet Mohammed's usurping the temples at Mecca. Certainly, Shankara's method is the intolerant one and I'm with you in deploring the acts of Hindus' persecution of Buddhsits and Jains.
You should reframe your article to read "How not to present opinions without any evidence and in the process defeat the very intention of writing it". For the sake of scholarship, please have excellent refernces to back facts in your next article. This rabble rousing will not serve any purpose in discerning our past that is already muddled by many.
Adios

Race to the Finish Pardesi & HP,

Thanks for your comments Paedesi.
I think it is less publicised that these new immigrants until early 70's could not bring their spouses to this country. This issue was fought by Dalip Singh Sound (Hope I get his name correct) to finally pave the way to allow the immigrants to bring their wives here. The same goes for the chinese forced labor, who had to live without partners as that was the law then.
I don't deny that a lot of liberal or God fearing US citizens actively supported equal rights for minorities in the sixties and seventies without which this change would have been impossible. Thankfully, this country's direction was molded by such activists otherwise the US too could have been just another country. BTW, I also think that the larger population supported the positive changes as they had bought their own propaganda of being "good" with regards to the "evil" commies. Otherwise, without the propaganda the acts in vietnam are not much different from that of afghanistan by the soviets. I hope I'm not being too cynical of the good intention of the US populace. Because they are the friendliest and the most relaxed people as well.
Equally critical was the hippi movement of anti-establishment during the sixties that threw out the authoratirian and black and white world view of a very typical abrahamic POV. Bear in mind that the FBI had labeled Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon as threats to national security and their way of living. Now that it is all hindsight we are free to celebrate MLK day as a holiday and give John Lennon his due. The Hippi movement was a true homegrown all american cultural renaissance that brought the government shackles down.
All points to the US govt. also for finally giving in to this demand of change.
Adios

Race to the Finish If I may jump in this interesting discussion and add that Khanna's book as mentioned by Bubba is right on money. The art used by the west to conquer the world has been well understood by China and is beating them in the game. Actually US and EU may soon be secondary and tertiary powers compared with china.
I think this "White Culture" syndrome is misplaced as they too were extremely barbaric while conquering the world. I don't think anybody should emulate that.
Much of the positive improvements in the admired "White way of thinking" has come about only in the last 40-50 years as they had to define themselves in relation to the oppressive communist system.
Hamidm,
Had it not been for the commies so virulently opposed to the USA, your daughter could not have dreamed of marrying a white guy before 1967 in the US as inter racial marriage was illegal. I assumed here that you would have wanted that of course due to your admiration for white race.
Actually had it not been for the commies, your kids would have learnt creationism at school and turned out a close relative of talibans.
The gist I'm try to communicate is that they were forced to change by outside world in order to define themselves better then others. And that is a good thing. Thank God for that.
But beyond that the cause of their gradual decline I think is this erroneous belief that is close to yours. This is why they are sleeping in contentment while the world has awoken and trying to surpass them.
Adios

Race to the Finish Tahmed # 28,

Thanks for the correction. Nevertheless, Panini's ashes must be whirling in tornadoes seeing the plight of his people.
Adios

Race to the Finish Gentlemen,

This nature vs nurture usually tilts towards nurture as human beings tend to use their brains to overpower nature. For e.g. Pannini was born in today's NWFP (the first one to introduce grammar in language and hence civilise us all). But his desecndents who were nurtured in the opposite direction resulted in Taliban or rather in general a jehadi. Now that is a classic nurture overpowering nature in case of humans.
Adios

Pakistan: The War of Drones Dr. Hoodbhoy,

Its too late for anything. The pakistani awam is culpable too and paying for their choices and decisions. The foresight was missing when pkasitani generals were getting fat with US money waging jehad in afghanistan and enjoying the freebies. The general population was enjoying excellent standard of living then. The same model was then replicated for kashmir too. As long as the gawaanr villager from frontier was waging jehad outside apkistan it was cheered on. No one criticised them for being responsible for innocent lives lost in another country. It was justified then to strike terror at the enemy's heart.
It takes time for a tree to grow and give fruits. Now that the fruits are falling from the tree people are becoming human rights champion and blaming the army or jehadis. weren't both of these nurtured by the pak society?

Adios

Is Decline of the Fourth-Estate Here and Happening? Mahesh,

This is not new. Living in the US we had to disconnect all the indian news channels from our dish network seeing the quality of the reporting. It is gross tabloid journalism. The sacking of MJ Akbar, who in my opinion is one of the best figures in the news media is not surprising. It confirms the trend. Dost had written an article on the pakistani news media being better than ours and he's right on his money.

Sadna,
Lemme add to sonia aunty and her chamcha's list of praiseworthy deeds. Remember Rajasthan anti-conversion bill and how the then governor of Raj. Smt. pratibha Patil refused to sign it. And now she's the president in place of Abdul Kalam. You can put 2+2 together.

This is the state of affairs of our country. One 12th class pass foreign woman runs the indian show with jokers replacing excellence be it in media or governance. But the best part is that these things are not even touched in media as Mahesh correctly points out. Instead we are made to feel proud that we have a woman president before even US.

Adios

How did Hindus Become Vegetarians? Murad,

You chose an excellent topic to write on. I think India suffers greatly from lack of research in many areas of history. History has become just whatever the white man deems fit to focus on. No attempt has been made to research the genesis of all the languages, variations in cultures, cuisines , music, sciences and arts in India by the Indians at a big scale.
Coming to the topic, first some inaccurate statements by you need to be corrected. Shiva is not a pre-vedic deity. He is also called Rudra eloquently mentioned in the Vedas in many verses riding on the bull etc. Second, Krishna movement is not a cult. If it were, then you may have to start calling Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed as cult leaders too.
Your premise that vegetarianism started in Hinduism due to the influence of Buddhists and Jains is based on Ambedkar's views. They are quite far from the facts.
It is here that the contribution of Krishna as the world's first environmentalist needs to be mentioned. Since you have researched many scriptures, you may want to focus on Srimad Bhagvatam to know what I'm writing below.
Prior to Krishna, the hindus worshipped Indra as the supreme deity as mentioned in the Rigveda. Animal sacrifice as you mentioned was rampant. The sacrifice was done to appease the unseen power in the skies (God). These were also the times that the concept of judgement at the end of one's life was an accepted belief. Hence the need to appease the judge to get in heaven. Krishna changed it by challenging the view that sacrifices need to be made to propitiate the unseen power high above us all. He instead argued that before caring for this unseen power, the immediate surroundings need to be cared for. Thus the importance of cows and other animals for milk and other things should be considered as a higher priority than this unseen and unknown power. Thus he came to be called Go-Vardhan (protector of cows). A respect for these animals then helps the society also get rid of useless rituals without calling the veneration of Indra as a false God and going to war against his worshippers. A needles ritual is replaced by inner reform silently and inclusively.
His sculptures of lifting the mountain to challenege the might of Indra (and hence called Giridharan) and that of Go-vardhana are there even in Mahabalipuram (6th-7th century AD).
The concept of animal sacrifice was replaced in Gita by sacrificing (AAhuti) one's desires and fruits of Karma in the sacrificial fire (Yagna). This way, Krishna freed the Hindus from rituals afflicting mindless violence in the name of God. The only other way of reform would have been to attack the Indra worshippers as wrong and exclude them from the fold of Hinduism or perhaps wage a war.
Is it any wonder then that Gandhi took Gita for inspiration and concluded that the method is equally important than the end. He perhaps understood the supreme rationality of Krishna's actions and message.
The last para was an unnecessary digression.
Adios

Pervez Musharraf and India Pakistan Rapproachment Dost Mittar,

I read your article but found time to respond only now. You have characterised the improvement in relations between the two nations and all the related events very well. But as some have already pointed out that this rapproachment was perhaps more due to forced circumstances than Pervez Musharraf. The official stance of GOI after emergency spoke very well about the reasonable response to their situation and our improvements with them. I think it went something like "It does not matter who rules pakistan as far as policies towards India is concerned. Whether army or civilian rules, they have consistently been the same."
I believe you are giving more credit to mushy than he deserves. Yes he is decisive, but that does not mean his decisions were always good. He was forced to bring about this rapproachment decisively only due to external circumstances. He is thorough bred army walla who puffs his chest up at the mere mention of India.
In general on the policy of rapproachment with Pakistan I think the cautious line taken by the GOI in my opinion is reasonable. There is a lot of bon homie between the two peoples today. But it is best not to forget times like Kargil also. If you would like, check the posts of some of our 'friends' who are ridiculing musharraf today. They were in absolute glee when musharraf came to power dislodging the same man who has been elected today. They were praising him to heavens for his brilliant move in kargil.
I think that if the new leadership of pakistan can manage to stop this jehadi buisness at their homes we can talk of rapproachment. Until then let them blow each other up. We have got enough problems of our own to take care of.
I don't believe I'm a hardliner, but do think of the Indian jawans who laid down their lives fighting the jehadi maniacs over the years. That too is a reailty and should be considered before any rapproachment.
Adios