A Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast Asia.

Bali, Indonesia - Hindu Temple - Goa Gajah

The Balinese practice Hinduism with great pride. It might not even be too way off the mark to say that in today’s age, Bali is probably the only place where Hinduism is closest to being practiced in its true form. Bali has been given many other names like, The Island of Peace, Island of Gods, The Morning of the World and so on. Perhaps to this list should be added The Island where Hindu Sacred stories and Legends are Reality. Every part of Bali’s panorama is infused with stories from Hindu epics - The Ramayana and The Mahabharat. For example, almost everywhere one goes in Bali one would see a statue of some character from either of these two epics. The one that easily come to mind is the depiction of the fight between Rama and Ravana at the roundabout just outside of Ngurah Rai International Airport The Goa Gajah, also known as the Elephant caves, which dates back to at least the 11th century, was excavated in 1922. Not far from the central Bali town of Ubud is Goa Gajah, popularly known as the Elephant Cave. The cave is a former hermitage for the eleventh century Hindu priests.

 

Goa Gajah, which dates back to at least the 11th century, was excavated in 1922. A huge face at the entrance of the cave for ascetics. All around are fantastically carved leaves, animals, waves and humans running from mouth in fear.

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

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A huge face at the entrance of the cave for ascetics. All around are fantastically carved leaves, animals, waves and humans running from mouth in fear. Inside is a 43 ft long passage, which stops at a T-junction, 49 ft wide. The inner sanctum contains several niches, which could have served as sleeping compartments for ascetics. At the one end of the passage is a statue of Ganesha.  

 

        

Statue of Lord Ganesha and three Shiv linga

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Village of Yeh Pulu

 

   

The picture on the left has small pond which in ancient times used by the Kings wives and princess as playground. Picture on the right - The relief carving in Yeh Pulu depicts the daily life of island people its fully chiselled on rock wall for about 25 meters and some parts depicts Krishna’s manifestations. Dating 14th Century.

 

 Buddha statue missing which is found in the forest behind Goa Gajah.

(Images and text contributed to this site by Vikneswaran Shunmugam, Indonesia).

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Other Hindu temples in Bali, Indonesia

Gunung Kawi  

After Goa Gajah, this Vishnu Temple is said to be the second oldest temple in Bali built around 11th century.

 

Lord Vishnu's footsteps in Bali.

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Much of the place still intact except the entrance part which in ruins due to earth quake. The rock cut and chiselled shrines are of rock mountain. There are so many alters but all the statues are gone, either kept in secret by villagers and some in Bali museum.  

 

 

Vishnu Temple is said to be the second oldest temple in Bali built around 11th century.

(Images and text contributed to this site by Vikneswaran Shunmugam, Indonesia).

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Legend says that temple is built for king Udayana, his Javanese queen Guna Pria Dharma Patni, his concubine, his oldest son Airlangga who ruled East Java , and his youngest son Anak Wungsu. Anak Wungsu ruled on Bali from 1050 to 1077. The four temples on the west side of the river should then have been built for the chief concubines of Anak Wungsu. 

Tirtha Empul is revered by all Balinese. They say that it was created by the god Indra when he pierced the earth to create a spring of amrita, the elixir of immortality, with which he revived his forces who were poisoned by the evil king, Mayadnawa. The bathing place was built under the rule of Sri Candrabhaya Singha Warmadewa in the 10th century.  

The waters are believed to have magical curative powers. Every year people journey from all over Bali to purify themselves in the clear pools. After leaving a small offering of thanks to the deity of the spring, men and women go to opposite sides to bathe. 

Pura Arjuna Metapa – Temple where Arjuna meditated is just south of the Pura Pusering Jagat – Temple of the Navel of the World. Arjuna is the hero in the epic of Mahabharata. In this story, Arjuna is meditating on a mountain top, gathering his energies for an upcoming battle with the evil demon Niwata Kawaca. 

Pura Bukit Dharma Found here is the famous 7 ft high statue of the Goddess Durga in the act of killing a bull possessed by a demon under her feet. In a fighting attitude, her four arms hold a spear, an arrow, a cakra, a shield, a bow and a winged conch shell. Goddess Durga is the wrathful aspect of Siva’s wife or Shakti.   

Pura samuan Tiga – which means the temple “of a meeting of three parties.” During the reign of Queen Gunapriya Dharmapatni and King Udayana (988-1011), Balinese religion had no cohesiveness, no basic tenets which everyone followed. Therefore six holy men gathered at Pura Samuan Tiga to try and simplify the existing religion. Out of this meeting emerged the key tenets of Balinese Hinduism today a) the three elements of manifestation of Sanghyang Widhi, or the Absolute God, being Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu 2) the triune temple system in each village 3) the concept of desa adapt.  

Pura Jagatnatha – Every full moon, young people pay homage at this temple. Dedicated to the Supreme God – Sandhyang Widi Wasa. The tall padmasana, constructed of white coral, symbolizes universal order. The turtle Bedawangnala and two naga serpents represent the foundation of the world; the towering throne signifies the receding heavens. This design, so prevalent on the island, relates to the Hindu myth of the churning of the ocean of milk, when the gods and demons stirred the cosmic ocean to create the nectar of immortality.  The Catuh Mukha, Lord Shiva in his four faced emanation, overseas traffic in the city of Denpasar main intersection.

Sangeh – Ravana, the villainous giant of the Ramayana epic, could die neither on earth nor in air. To kill him, the monkey general Hanuman devised a plan to suffocate the giant by pressing him between two halves of the holy mountain Mahameru – a destruction between the earth and air. When Hanuman took Mahameru, part of the mountain fell to the earth in Sangeh, along with a group of monkeys from his army, whose descendents stayed to this day.  

Such is the legendary origin of Bukit Sari, or The Monkey Forest, a cluster of towering trees and home of hundreds of spritely monkeys. The forest is sacred and for many years no one has been permitted to chop wood here. A moss covered temple lies in the heart of the woods. The temple, Pura Bukit Sari, has a large statue of Garuda in the central courtyard. 

Pura Besakih – Mother Temple called thus, as it houses ancestral shrines for all Hindu Balinese. A cluster of temples, Pura Besakih is the pinnacle of the sacred to all Balinese. It has 86 temples with 22 main temple complexes. It was built in the 8th century, some of the structures were added later in 14th to the 18th century. Today it is the state temple for the provincial and national governments which meet all the expenses. Within the Besakih complex, the paramount sanctuary is the Pura Panataran Agung with its lofty merus on a high bank of terraces. Steps ascend in a long perspective to the austere split gate, Inside the main courtyard stands the three seated shrine enthroning the three aspects of God: Shiva, God as creation; Pramashiva, god without form and Sadashiva, God as half male and half female. Many interpret this trinity to be Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. There are three colors associated with the shrine: red, black and white. Red symbolizes the earth as lava and is associated with Shiva, and black is both water and outer space and associated with Vishnu.    

 

Temple is dedicated to the Goddess of the Lake, Devi Danu, and her consort Vishnu, who rules over water. 

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

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Pura Ulun Danu – temple is dedicated to the Goddess of the Lake, Devi Danu, and her consort Vishnu, who rules over water. This is one of the two main subak temples in Bali which determine how water reaches the irrigation ditches all over southern Bali. These waters, enriched with volcanic minerals from the Batur highlands, lead from one terrace to another in descending steps to the sea.  

Pura Saraswati at Ubud  

The royal family commissioned this temple and water garden, dedicated to Saraswati - the Hindu goddess of art and learning, at the end of the 19th century.

 

 

Monkey Forest , Ubud, Bali .

Sacred Monkey Forest of Padangtegal during the mid-14th century. It is possible that this temple was built by the Pejeng Dynasty (the Pejeng Dynasty was centred on Bali in the vicinity of Ubud and was conquered by the Majapahit empire in A.D. 1343).

(Images and text contributed to this site by Vikneswaran Shunmugam, Indonesia).

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(source: Insight Guides – Bali – created by Hans Hofer and Eyewitness Travel Guide to Bali & Lombok). Refer to My Bali Diary - By B Raman - saag.org). (Note: Recently an Ancient statue of Lord Vishnu has been found in Russian town of the Volga region. For more refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi).

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US couple goes the Hindu way in marriage 

She's a Jew from California, he's a Christian from Arizona, but both chose to get married according to Hindu rituals in Orissa's temple town of Konark

Thousands of people attended the wedding of the American couple, Rabital Volk, 33, and Cain Carroll, that took place last week at a yoga ashram in Konark, 70 km from Bhubaneshwar. They had been formally married in the US earlier, but decided to go in for a Hindu wedding as well. Every traditional detail was observed - there were Vedic mantras, a priest, a fire and even two locals, who stood in for the bride's parents for the ritual of kanyadan to give her away.

Rabital had first come to India three years ago as a tourist and toured several religious spots like Rishikesh and Varanasi before finding her moorings in Konark. Her husband followed her and came to teach yoga. Both worked at the Konark Natya Mandap (KNM), a dance institute founded by famous Odissi guru Gangadhar Pradhan -- Rabital as a student and Cain as a yoga teacher.

" India is the birthplace of yoga and Vedic traditions and spirituality fascinates me," said Cain. "This was a marriage with a difference. It hardly matters that they belong to other religions. Their love for our culture and tradition motivated me," said Prafulla Mohapatra, the priest, who conducted the rituals.

(source: US couple goes the Hindu way in marriage - hindustantimes.com).  For more refer to chapter on Yoga and Hindu Philosophy.

 

 

Sage Patanjali
The Yogic practices originated in the primordial depths of India's past.
India is the birthplace of Yoga and Vedic traditions and spirituality.

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About Rishi Patanjali

Snake temples at Prayag honor the sage Patanjali’s yogic mastery. His name means “gift of a snake.” It signifies that Patanjali had mastered the Kundalini, the serpent-like energy in the subtle body. 

Nag Kuan: The place, where on Nagpanchmi day, the snake worship is held, is connected with Rishi Patanjali the famous Sanskrit grammarian, located at Jaitpura (3rd BC). Chidambaram: It was here that Lord Siva performed the Tandava dance of creation, and where sage Patanjali later lived and wrote the Yoga Sutras.

(source:  About Rishi Patanjali - Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen p. 222. For more refer to chapter on Yoga and Hindu Philosophy).

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The Death of Traditional Hinduism – By Frank Morales 

A tragic occurrence in the very long history of Hinduism was witnessed throughout the 19th century, the destructive magnitude of which Hindu leaders and scholars today are only beginning to adequately assess and address. This development both altered and weakened Hinduism to such a tremendous degree that Hinduism has not yet even begun to recover.

British Attack on Hinduism

The classical, traditional Hinduism that had been responsible for the continuous development of thousands of years of sophisticated culture, architecture, music, philosophy, ritual and theology came under devastating assault during the 19th century British colonial rule like at no other time in India's history.

Innovative Cultural Genocide

What the Hindu community experienced under British Christian domination, however, was an ominously innovative form of cultural genocide.

What they experienced was not an attempt at the physical annihilation of their culture, but a deceivingly more subtle program of intellectual and spiritual annihilation. It is easy for a people to understand the urgent threat posed by an enemy that seeks to literary kill them. It is much harder, though, to understand the threat of an enemy who, while remaining just as deadly, claims to seek only to serve a subjugated people's best interests.

 

Sage Valmiki composing the Ramayana epic.

The ancient grandeur and beauty of a classical Hinduism has stood the test of thousands of years.

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

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Anglicized Hindu Intellectuals

During this short span of time in the 19th century, the ancient grandeur and beauty of a classical Hinduism that had stood the test of thousands of years, came under direct ideological attack. What makes this period in Hindu history most especially tragic is that the main apparatus that the British used in their attempts to destroy traditional Hinduism were the British educated, spiritually co-opted sons and daughters of Hinduism itself. Seeing traditional Hinduism through the eyes of their British masters, a pandemic wave of 19th century Anglicized Hindu intellectuals saw it as their solemn duty to "Westernize" and "modernize" traditional Hinduism to make it more palatable to their new European overlords.
One of the phenomena that occurred during this historic period was the fabrication of a new movement known as "neo-Hinduism".

What is Neo-Hinduism?

Neo-Hinduism was an artificial religious construct used as a paradigmatic juxtaposition to the legitimate traditional Hinduism that had been the religion and culture of the people for thousands of years. Neo-Hinduism was used as an effective weapon to replace authentic Hinduism with a British invented version designed to make a subjugated people easier to manage and control.

The Christian and British inspired neo-Hinduism movement attempted to execute several overlapping goals, and did so with great success:  

a) The subtle Christianization of Hindu theology, which included concerted attacks on iconic imagery (archana, or murti), panentheism, and continued belief in the beloved gods and goddesses of traditional Hinduism.
b) The imposition of the Western scientific method, rationalism and skepticism on the study of Hinduism in order to show Hinduism's supposedly inferior grasp of reality.
c) Ongoing attacks against the ancient Hindu science of ritual in the name of simplification and democratization of worship.
d) The importation of Radical Universalism from liberal, Unitarian / Universalist Christianity as a device designed to severely water down traditional Hindu philosophy.

The Death of Traditional Hinduism

The dignity, strength and beauty of traditional Hinduism was recognized as the foremost threat to Christian European rule in India. The invention of neo-Hinduism was the response. Had this colonialist program been carried out with a British face, it would not have met with as much success as it did. Therefore, an Indian face was used to impose neo-Hinduism upon the Hindu people. The resultant effects of the activities of Indian neo-Hindus were ruinous for traditional Hinduism. 

A Confused Existence

Hinduism will continue to be a religion mired in confusion about its own true meaning and value until traditionalist Hindus can assertively, professionally and intelligently communicate the reality of genuine Hinduism to the world.

(source: The Death of Traditional Hinduism – By Frank Morales). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

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The Colonized Mind
Macaulayism and Colonial Slavery

Ashish Nandy, a Christian critic of old and new forms of colonialism, has observed: "The pressure to Westernize is the most conscious form of this colonial mentality: "Colonialism has a long way to go before it is vanquished! Our nations are ostensibly independent, but our minds still remain enslaved. "

The Indian press, like most of its Third World counterparts, puts a premium on all that is modern and condemns as degenerate all that is traditional....In order to put the stamp of legitmacy on modernization, we have to believe that the traditional civilization was inhuman. Instilling guilt about the "evils of Hindu society" is indeed a favorite weapon of the secularist elite.

Dr. Koenraad Elst has written: 

"But Indian Marxism as such has been only a passing phase in a much larger trend known as Macaulayism, named after the British administrator Thomas Babington Macaulay, who in 1835 initiated an education policy designed to create a class of people Indian in skin color but British in every other respect. “Macaulayites” are those Indians who have interiorized the colonial ideology of the “White Man’s Burden” (as Rudyard Kipling called it in a famous poem): The Europeans had to come and liberate the natives, “half devil and half child”, from their native culture, which consisted only of ignorance, superstition and the concomitant social evils; after this liberation from themselves, these Indians became a kind of honorary Whites. 

Macaulay’s policy was implemented and became a resounding success. The pre-Macaulayan vernacular system of education was destroyed, even though British surveys found it more effective and more democratic than the then-existing education system in Britain. The rivaling educationist party, the so-called Orientalists, had proposed a Sanskrit-based system of education, in which Indian graduates would not have been estranged from their mother civilization as they became through English education, and in which they could have selectively adopted the useful elements of Western modernity, more or less the way Japan modernized itself. 

As Ashish Nandy, a Christian critic of old and new forms of colonialism, had observed: “Schooling is the chosen instrument of alienation. The brightest children are snatched away from familiar surroundings to be introduced in schools based on the Western model. When they leave they speak the language of the colonizer and can no longer communicate with their own people.” 

It is this class of Hindu-born “Macaulayites” which have inherited the mantle of the colonial ruling class. Its most conspicuous representative was the first Prime Minister of free India, Jawaharlal Nehru, then sometimes nicknamed India’s last Viceroy”, and recently evaluated as “the English gentleman who came to ruin India”. 

(source: Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst Rupa & Co. January 2001 ISBN 8171675190  p. 25 - 27 and 49). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

For more refer to chapter on First Indologists and Education in Ancient India

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The Indian Media (Macaulay Putras?) and Hinduism   
Gain respectability in the US under the guise of attacking the "Hindu nationalist" 

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, in Feb. 1855, had said that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India. 

He wished that the Hindus forget their past and get familiar with the English by means of literature and as a result cease to regard them as foreigners, speak of their great men with the same enthusiasm as the English do. In due course they are sure to become more English than Hindu.  

We cherished the idea that in independent India, we will be free to cultivate ancient values and tradition suited to modern times. The freedom dawned on August 15, 1947. Since then we have been witnessing that though the English are gone, English prevails and English traditions still rule. It got a strange fellow, the Marxists, as the aim of both was the same, to keep the country off its ancient values. We had even before seen on record such a friendship in the form of a pact between the opposing sides of a German Max Mueller and The English Maculae for the agreed cause of uprooting ancient Vedic values.

 

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59)  

Dismissing with incredible arrogance the profound speculation and beautiful language of the Sanskrit classics, he said, " I doubt whether the Sanskrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors." 

"We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." 

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Today we have an English media impressed and influenced by the West. Then there is the Marxist media of foreign origin totally cut off from Indian values and roots. Unfortunately our independent India has not developed any such media in English that has roots in the soil and among the people. The English press has become notorious for its neglect of Indian traditions and cultural heritage.

I have the following points to raise in this connection in good spirit. The English media invents its own phrases to suit their requirements and one such prase is Hindu Nationalist Party. Do you know what image does it produce in the mind of a reader who is not well versed with Indian culture and tradition? This phrase is used to attack BJP, a national party ruling today. It has secular credentials and stands for a secular India. Never ever it has even hinted at the idea of a Hindu nation. The media is “pleased”to put a prefix Hindu National before it. It means that the party stands for a nation of Hindus, an absurd idea of infant fancy. In foreign eyes, it is meant to equate the party with the Islamic fundamentalists. 

The misuse of the word secular—I think most of us do not know that the word secularism has never been defined and is being used by the media in its own way to serve its purpose. It is productive of more mischief than good and the English media finds it useful to engage it in its design. The word secular does not appear in the Preamble of the constitution it finds only a single casual mention as ‘ Economic, financial, political and otherwise secular activity’ in article 25(2c). 25 years later in 1975 ,during emergency, the lame duck Lok Sabha through 42nd.amendment, got the word secular prefixed to the description of India as a ‘sovereign Republic.’ No definition was ever given to the word. The word secular remains in the preamble as a political slogan, meaning nebulous and negotiable. When India was partitioned, it was divided on the basis of two-nation theory. The fight was between Nationalism and Communalism. Hindu majority India chose Nationalism and its nationalism was based on pluralism and belief in unity in diversity. Indira Gandhi in the interest of her political survival gave it a new turn with the connivance of communists. She turned Nationalism versus Communalism into Secularism versus Communalism. Now there is no idea of nationalism. Every one is for the party and govt. Vote bank idea is important. Society can be divided into castes and subcastes, caste groups can be formed and high posts can be filled by caste and vote considerations. They are called secular. Slogans and half-truths and incitements with a view to garnering votes can be done in garb of secularism. The media highlights these as secularists and patriots. They would rather see the country burn to ashes than see any problem settled in favor of Hindus as it loses their votes. Hindu baiting is a game that does not matter as they gain by it. The English media fails to highlight the exploitation of religious sentiments of the minorities by some sectarian majority Hindu parties who have in it rank communal minded elements.

The English media does not care to find out why is there no leadership for a mutual dialogue on contentious issues like Ayodhya? The English media has failed to let us know the causes why the Hindu population in Pak declined from 14% in 1947 to 2% today, where as the Muslims in India, despite the media presentation of their insecurity, rose from 10% to 14% during the same period? The media has an obligation to detail the nation about the condition of Hindus in Muslim countries and especially in Bangla Desh where they are raped and tortured regularly. The print and the television have failed to picture the rape scenes and burning of the innocent people which it shows time and again in case of minorities in India. The media has a responsibility to let us know why the Muslims and the clergy distance itself from immoral acts of its fellowmen but never condemn or publicly denounce these barbarous acts. 

      

The Hindu Shankaracarya and Hon’ble Ravi Shankar have offered themselves for mutual talks and settlements of issues facing them but why is there no such offer from the Muslim side?

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The Hindu Shankaracarya and Hon’ble Ravi Shankar have offered themselves for mutual talks and settlements of issues facing them but why is there no such offer from the Muslim side? Is not this the result of Hindu baiting and political appeasement of the minorities to the detriment of national interest? The media intensifies the sense of minoritism and there by keeps them at a distance from the main stream majority 

The English media has failed to criticize the growing trend of international interference in our internal affairs by countries which have a record of human right violations. The people have a right to know about the frequent foreign trips of these media men and admissions and fellowships to their wards and job for progeny. 

The Hindu faith lies in the belief that every one has to reap the consequences of his action in this or in consecutive lives and the press is no exception. Let God kindle our path from darkness unto light. AUM

(source: The Media and Hinduism - By For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists. Also refer to Brown Sahib`s Burden – By Venkat Lakshminarayan - indiacause.com).  Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

The Incomplete Decolonization
Macaulay and India's rootless generations

Malcolm Muggeridge, who worked in India as a teacher and journalist for long years, writes: 

“I dimly realized, that a people can be laid waste culturally, as well as physically—not only in their land but in their inner life—as if it is sown with salt. That is what happened in India; an alien culture, itself exhausted, trivialized and shallow, was imposed on them. When we (British) went, we left behind... a spiritual wasteland. We had drained the country of its life and creativity, making it a place of echoes and mimicry.”

(Note: Mr. Muggeridge, (with the BBC) unleashed the myth of "Mother" Theresa on the unsuspecting pagans of India. Indeed, through MT, the Church seeks to impose on the pagans "an alien culture, itself exhausted (steep decline in its western stronghold), trivialised and shallow (credo qui absurdum). Refer to http://www.meteorbooks.com/chap3.html and chapter on Conversion.

Refer to Former Catholic Sister Says Even Mother Teresa Is a Fraud - By By Greg Szymanski June 6, 2007.

We can still hear the echoes and mimicry from this wasteland—from the ‘children of Macaulay’. 

Rabindranath Tagore used to call them ‘shadows’. They are not real people, but zombies programmed by Macaulay to act like the Caliban, the slave. (the slave in Shakespeare's The Tempest).

Macaulay wanted only Babus: men, as he said, Indian in colour, but British in the way they thought. But the British masters sat rather heavily on these babus and left a deep imprint of their ugly bottoms on them. So, if you see the babus going about with the ugly imprint of the bottoms of their erstwhile masters, you should not be surprised. The slaves are rather proud of it.

Naturally, the ‘children of Macaulay’ grew up ashamed of their civilisation, of their ancestors, while they felt overwhelmed by the ‘great achievements’ of Europe.

Nirad Choudhury's Continent of Circe is perhaps the best known outcry of this sense of shame among westernised Indians. But, then, he was an Anglophile. His pride? That he knew the names of every street in London! Did he know anything about India? No. Not till he was old. Not much has changed even after the country became independent. Why? Because power passed into the hands of these very babus—the Nirad Choudhurys of India.

So, generations of Indians grew up in this country, fascinated by the achievements of the West, of Britain in particular. Did the ‘liberators’ of India change Macaulay's educational system? Not at all. Why? Because they knew even less than Nirad Choudhury of their country. What has happened to Macaulay's children? Nirad Choudhury is no more. He died a heartbroken man. He became one of the bitterest critics of Western civilisation, particularly British.

Nationalism is taboo to our minorities. We know why. (But on this later.) They would like to change their history. But one must have roots in one's country, for a man without roots is like weeds in a field.

That is why the denigration of nationalism is all wrong. That is why this hankering after other people's way of life is all wrong. Macaulay had his day. And England is no more what it was. The sun has set over the British empire. But the sun of India is rising over the horizon. Let us hope, it will dispel the ‘shadows’ from our land.


(source:
Macaulay and India's rootless generations - By M.S.N. Menon - organiser.org). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists

A proud Macaulay putra ? says Jerry (Jaithirth) Rao 

I, for one, am grateful to Macaulay. Without his gift to us, so many of us would be lesser individuals, not just different individuals. I use the word “lesser” quite deliberately. English is not just a medium or a means to an end; it is part of our very consciousness.

(source: In praise of Thomas Macaulay  - By Jerry (Jaithirth) Rao CEO of Mphasis).  Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

English in India: the mask of conquest

Unlike some of the African colonies, India had very well developed systems of education and written and oral literatures in Indian languages. How then did English get established as a language of the elite? Gauri Vishawanathan, a professor at Columbia University, in her book Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India, has done a study of the establishment of English language and literature in India. The establishment of the English-speaking elite in India took a 3-pronged approach:

1. The destruction and/or denigration of native education
2. The requirement of English for becoming part of the governing elite
3. The establishment of English only, i.e. English medium schools, along with the cessation of teaching English as a language in native-language schools.  

In particular, the soul of a nation is carried in its native literatures. In turning a nation away from its soul, the British bred ignorance and contempt of the native experience, while placing the idea of the “perfect” Englishman, contained in its literature, on the native pedestal. This created a class of native “brown sahibs” more comfortable with the English idiom than with their own and the establishment of a literary and cultural elite that was completely dissociated from their land.

(source: The English Class System - By Sankrant Sanu - sulekha.com). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

The modern Brown Sahibs

Lord Macaulay
could not have imagined that his Minute on Education, written for the British Colonial Administration in 1835, would still be valid 170 years later. His idea to create “Brown Englishmen” in India is alive and well, but with an important difference: the brown sahibs have now arrived in Europe and North America as well, and are hard at work to please their masters. In addition to the Brown Englishman, there is also now the Brown Frenchman, Brown Dutchman, Brown American, and so on. Macaulay’s Brown Englishmen were so thoroughly Westernised that, nearly 60 years after the departure of the colonialists, their descendants are still implementing their agendas. It is simply impossible for them to think or act independently; the instinct for subservience runs too strongly in their blood. Without the patronage of the white man, they cannot survive. 

Almost all colonized people display two characteristics: total subservience to the colonial master, and utter contempt for their own peoples. The depth of their subservience is the direct result of colonialism, but is dependent not on its duration, rather on its “depth and texture.” These modern-day house slaves, however, ignore a simple historical fact: colonialists have no permanent friends, only permanent interests; they have little use for such a slave mentality, especially when they know that the house slaves are a tiny minority of the colonized peoples.

(source: The modern Brown Sahibs - By Zafar Bangash - world.mediamonitors.net). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists and Conversion.

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Vedic Time - Cyclic versus Linear  

Professor Arthur Holmes (1895-1965) geologist, professor at the University of Durham. He writes regarding the age of the earth in his great book, The Age of Earth (1913) as follows:

"Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book."

When the Hindu calculation of the present age of the earth and the expanding universe could make Professor Holmes so astonished, the precision with which the Hindu calculation regarding the age of the entire Universe was made would make any man spellbound.

(source: Hinduism and Scientific Quest - By T. R. R. Iyengar p. 20-21).

Unlike time in both the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and the current view of modern science Vedic time is cyclic. What goes around come around. What goes up must come down. The Vedic universe passes through repetitive cycles of creation and destruction. During the annihilation of the universe, energy is conserved, to manifest again in the next creation. 

Our contemporary knowledge embraces a version of change and progress that is linear. The saga of the universe proceeds in a straight line, beginning at unique point A and ending at unique point B.    

 

The Vedic universe passes through repetitive cycles of creation and destruction. During the annihilation of the universe, energy is conserved, to manifest again in the next creation.   

According to the Hindu scriptures, each half cycle is said to last for 4.32 billion years. The Sun, too, revolves around the center of our galaxy once in 325.5 million years. Modern science pegs this in the range of 225 to 270 million years. The point of departure between ancient Hindu cosmology and modern cosmology is that unlike modern cosmology, ancient Hindu cosmology relates the rotational speed of our own galaxy to the period of oscillation of the endless cycles of creation, growth and eventual decay. Our known galaxy is known as Parameshti Mandala, and it is said to rotate around Svayambhu Mandala, the center of all galaxies with a time period of 4.32 billion years, also. Interestingly, the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested that the universe might actually consist of rotating systems rotating around larger rotating systems.  

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

***

The ascendancy of Christianity brought the first major shift to historiography as handed down by the Greeks. 

Rejecting the cyclic understanding of existence, Augustine (AD 343-430) saw history as moving in a linear path, purposely from point A to point B. Furthermore, each succeeding civilization was an improvement over its predecessors. Augustine’s notions have now influenced the West for more than fifteen hundred years. 

Christians encouraged a new concept of time that similarly had no connection to nature’s cycles. Up until the Reformation, most people understood time to be cyclical. Reformational Christians, however, adopted St. Augstine’s idea of linear time. 

Augustine described the Pagan theory of cycles, circuitus temporum as: 

"…those argumentations whereby the infidel seeks to undermine our simple faith, dragging us from the straight road and compelling us to walk with him on the wheel.. "

Like the theory of reincarnation, the idea of cyclical time denied the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ. If time spirals around, providing repeated opportunities to grow and change, then the spirit of Jesus’s life and resurrection could theoretically be experienced by anyone at anytime, regardless of apostolic succession or hierarchical rank. Moreover, if time is cyclical, life might not consist of just one frightening chance to repent or else to be forever damned, but rather of unlimited opportunities to develop a closer relationship with God. Controlling people is more difficult when they believe that there are many means and opportunities to return to God other than simply the one that the Church offers. 

Even the atheistic Karl Marx took shelter in history as a straight line with purpose – a worker’s paradise, not Christian redemption.

Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (1880- 1936) German historian and philosopher (one of the most controversial historians of this century) refused to grant Western culture a superior position over other cultures. His most famous work, The Decline of the West presents an inevitable disintegration of civilization as Westerners know it. 

He considered that each civilization “passes through the age phases of the individual man. It has a childhood, youth, and old age.” We can note that once again, even in modern times, the ancient outlook of history moving in cycles still demonstrates its attractiveness. 

(source: Searching for Vedic India - By Swami Devamitra  p. 335 and 47 and The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe p. 157 - 158). Also refer to The concept of Age.

For more refer to chapter on Hindu Cosmology and Advanced Concetps.

Dr. Carl Sagan said: "Hindu cosmology gives a time-scale for the earth and the universe which is consonant with that of modern scientific cosmology", as opposed to the limited Biblical-Quranic cosmology, which was protected against more far-sighted alternatives by a vigilant religious orthodoxy."

Dr. Koenraad Elst has observed: "Like in other ancient civilizations, in Hindu India priests and scientists were often the same persons; the conflict between religion and reason is not the primitive condition but a contingent historical development in post-classical Europe, paralleled to an extent by the stagnation of Muslim culture from the twelfth century onwards."

(source: Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst Rupa & Co. January 2001 ISBN 8171675190  p.30).

Dr. Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943), the great German Indologist, a man of penetrating intellect, the keenest esthetic sensibility observed:

“In one of the Puranic accounts of the deeds of Vishnu in his Boar Incarnation or Avatar, occurs a casual reference to the cyclic recurrence of the great moments of myth. The Boar, carrying on his arm the goddess Earth whom he is in the act of rescuing from the depths of the sea, passingly remarks to her: 

“Every time I carry you this way….” 

For the Western mind, which believes in single, epoch-making, historical events (such as, for instance, the coming of Christ) this casual comment of the ageless god has a gently minimizing, annihilating effect.  It is easy for us to forget that our strictly linear, evolutionary idea of time is something peculiar to modern man. 

Even the Greeks of the day of Plato' and Aristotle , who were much nearer than the Hindus to our ways of thought and feeling did not share it. Indeed, St. Augustine seems to have been the first to conceive of this modern idea of time. 

(source: The Myth and Symbols in India Art and Civilization – By Heinrich Zimmer p. 18 and 152 - 155 ). Refer to chapters on Advanced Concepts and Hindu Cosmology.

Refer to A conflict between science and God - By Martin Kettle - Crusade against science in Modern America - Three-quarters of Americans, in other words, still do not accept what Darwin established 150 years ago. Just under half of all Americans believe the natural world was created in its present form by God in six days as described in Genesis. They believe, incredibly, that the earth is only a few thousand years old.

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Urdu is derived from Sanskrit - says Oxford Scholar Isabelle Onianf

Isabelle Onianf is visiting Pakistan for the first time, in search of roots of a language she teaches at Oxford. Having studied Greek and Latin at London University, she says she was motivated to pursue Sanskrit. “It’s a language spoken only by a very select group of people, and is as diverse and vast as any other.

“While a few Indian universities offer Sanskrit studies, it is taught nowhere in Pakistan,” she criticises. “A sad fact,” she says, “since most of Urdu is derived from Sanskrit.”

Ms Onianf went on to explain the roots of “acha”, one of the most frequently uttered words in Urdu.

“Its origins lie in Sanskrit, where it’s used to describe the purity of water, and literally means pure and clear. In the evolved language, it is used completely out of context.”


(source: Oxford scholar searching Pakistan for Sanskrit, beer - dailytimes.com).

Urdu, being nothing but a variation of Hindi, is also a daughter (or perhaps great-granddaughter) of Sanskrit.

Modern Urdu evolved from the popularly spoken khadi boli of Delhi region. Practically all the Farsi/Arabic words in Urdu are loan words. You can replace any of them with Sanskrit or English words, an Urdu text will still make sense. 

Tu: derived from Sanskrit (tvam)
hai: derived from Sanskrit (root as)
badi: derived from Sanskrit (brahat)
jovan: derived from Sanskrit (yovan)
nahin: derived from Sanskrit (na hi)
koi: derived from Sanskrit (kah)
dosh: Sanskrit
nam: Sanskrit
bahen: derived from Sanskrit (bahu)
mor: derived from Sanskrit (mayur)
chit: derived from Sanskrit (chitta)
chor: Sanskrit
ghan: Sanskrit
ghata: Sanskrit
ankhon: derived from Sanskrit (aksha)
etc.

The great thing about Hindi/Urdu is that it has been enriched by many languages, although its basis is Sanskrit. That give it the kind of flexibility unmatched by any other language.

(source: IndianCivilization yahoo group).

Urdu                                   Sanskrit/Hindi

1. Id                                   Id: Pooja, to pray
2. Id(gaah)                          Id (as above; Griha: ghar or home
3. Id-az-juha                        Id; Ajah: goat
4. Macca-Madina                   Makh-Maidini: Place for fire worship
5. Stan (eg Pakistan)             Sthan: Place
6. Namaz                             Namoh+yaj
7. Hftah                              Saptah (Sa replaced by Ha) Week                              
8. Shab-e-barat                   Shiv-ratri
9. Chand                             Sans -Chandra; Hindi: Chand; Moon
10. Aamin                           Appears to have a phonetic relationship with "OM"; the other word derived from  OM is  Omni  (present/potent)
11. Iran/Iraq                     Ir dhatu meaning dry sandy place.
12. Arab/Arabia                   Arv;Ashava; horse        

(source: Contributed by Dr Mayank Rawat, Bharat/India).

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'Secular India' declares three day State mourning - Who mourned the Pope?

Francois Marie Arouet