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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).
***
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
***
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).
***
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.
***
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).
***
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).
***
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).
***
(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).
Top
of Page
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.
***
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).
Top
of Page
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).
***
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).
Top
of Page
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
***
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."
***
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?
***
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 Dr. Rajnikant Lahri - indolink.com).
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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of Page
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.
Top
of Page
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).
Top
of Page
'Secular
India' declares three day State mourning - Who mourned the Pope?
Francois Marie Arouet | 
