Those Primitive Vedic People

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(image via archaeologyonline.net)

In a recent review of Frits Staal’s Discovering the Vedas, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri writes

  1. Even a non-history buff will find the role of the Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) and the Iranian Wedge in the evolution of Hinduism fascinating.

  2. What led such primitives to dwell so much on infinity or develop numbers so large they “have nothing to do with the universe,” he wonders.

After the Aryan Invasion theory failed, some proponents moved to a convenient migration-of-cattle-breeders-looking-for-pastures theory and the BMAC was hailed as new Aryan homeland They found some evidence too; an antennae-hilted sword found in Bactria looked similar to one found in Fatehgarh. It was also claimed that BMAC people had fire-worship temples, supposed use of soma, a horse skeleton assumed to be used in ashvamedha and cult motifs on precious stones

On closer examination however it was found that most of these claims required imagination in liberal doses. Looking at the evidence of the sword, Dr. B. B. Lal, who was the Director General of the ASI said, “if I said that the occurrence of a cylinder seal at Kalibangan in Rajasthan entitles Rajasthan to be the ‘motherland’ of the Mesopotamian Culture, I am sure my learned colleagues present here would at once get me admitted to the nearest lunatic asylum.” Analysis of other evidence found no use of soma, no proof of ashvamedha, and in case of fire worship, that the migration was from India to Central Asia.

Even if they had some connection, the BMAC people, who belonged to the Bronze age culture of Central Asia, were not primitives, for they had well planned structures, multi-roomed temples, pottery kilns, metal objects, and sculptural art. But as soon as they completed their journey from Bactria to India, they became primitives.

The usual view of Vedas, the composition of these neo-primitives, is that of semi-civilized people wondering about nature, creating anthropomorphic gods and goddesses, moving from polytheism to monotheism to monism. People like Staal condescendingly wonder how such people are able to produce great concepts? Maybe they were not culturally primitive. As Chandradhar Sharma notes, “the correct position seems to us to be that the Vedic sages were greatly intellectual and intensely spiritual personages who in their mystic moments came face to face with Reality and this mystic experience, this direct intuitive spiritual insight overflew in literature as Vedic hymns.”

This attempt to cast people who wrote the Nasadiya Sukta as primitive comes from 19th century models which portrayed the natives as semi-civilized. Pick up a book like Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation which is used as text book in graduate courses, and you will find that colonial politics is still alive. Even when one part of their theory contradicts the other, it is presented to us with a straight face and if you disagree you are labelled a Hindu nationalist.

Groping Around

Recently Santosh Madhavan aka Swami Amritachaithanya, a self proclaimed godman, was arrested in Kerala for among other things molesting girls and blackmailing them with videos of it. The Communists were all over the news marching against godmen and speaking sanctimoniously.

Then the other day a television channel showed the image of a woman being groped by a Communist party district leader as the Chief Minister was inagurating a bridge. The abused woman, it turns out, was a Communist MLA and the image was shown on Kairali TV, a Communist TV channel, thus making the whole thing an in-house entertainment package.

“We did not know that the lady in it was an MLA. So we went ahead and included it in the episode. We thought if there was anything against any party member, the channel would cut it out during preview. But the pictures were broadcast with her face masked,” said Leen.[MLA files complaint against TV channel (via Ranjith)]

Stop All Terrorists

Recently Bal Thackeray suggested that ‘Hindu Suicide Sqads’ be created to fight ‘Islamic Terrorism’. Thackeray was of proud some terrorists who planted a bomb in an auditorium in Thane which injured seven people. Justifying this, he said that Hindus were safe only because Shivaji took up arms against the Mughals.

Now according to an Indian Express report, there are other Hindu terrorist groups who are preparing to take arms.

While the SS and the HJS are both registered in Goa as charitable organisations, the Dharmashakti Sena was set up in 16 Maharashtra towns and cities on Gudi Padwa day this April. Its stated aim: establishing “Ramrajya” and to make Hindus “capable of action”.Publications linked to the three groups say the Dharmashakti Sena offers free training in self-defence and the training involves inculcating “mental courage”. It also reminds readers of the “armed battle of revolutionaries and saints”, RSS leader Golwalkar’s work on “protecting Hindus” and his teaching that “weapons should be countered with weapons”.[Those Hindu Terrorists]

This has to be nipped in the bud and such “leaders” should be stopped using strong anti-terror laws before these groups become deadly like SIMI or Naxalites. Now that the Hindu terrorists have arrived, the ‘concerned citizens‘ should have less opposition for such laws.

The World's Oldest Church?

Abdel-Qader al-Housan, director of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies in Jordan, announced that they had found the world’s first church. It was not a building, but a cave located under Saint Georgeous Church near Amman. In the cave they found a circular worship area with stone seats and a tunnel leading to a source of water.

The reason why they believe it to be a church was an inscription found on the floor, which read, “the 70 beloved by God and the divine.” The theory was that this 70 referred to the seventy disciples who fled Jerusalem fearing Roman persecution.

Many have found this argument quite a stretch since organized churches did not exist till the time of the Gupta empire in India. There were small communities till then, like the ones which wrote the gospels, who mostly worshipped in homes, domestic buildings and by the riverside.

“If they are talking about a cave, it could have been a hiding place. In time—if there were martyrs there or something significant that took place there or a well-known individual who was among the disciples of Jesus—then you would have had reason to commemorate the site, which could later be used by the church’s monks.”

“But the cave that’s there is one that doesn’t necessarily commemorate anything … I don’t know how you can take an underground cave and say it could present itself as a first-century church.”[“Oldest Church” Discovery “Ridiculous,” Critics Say]

Hampi's North Pole

The Hindu, recently had a feature on Hampi.

From the DVD we know that the city was planned as a microcosm of the Universe, suggesting an equivalence between divinity and kingship. John Malville explores this idea in depth. The principles of Vastu appear to have been used to create a totality, with interlocking relationships between constructed and natural features. Several examples, with detailed measurements, support this argument.

For instance, the Royal Centre is divided into public and private spaces by a north-south axis that passes from the king’s Audience Hall in the east to a palace structure in the west.

Other structures such as the Virabhadra temple atop Matanga Hill are set in a precise alignment with this axis, and if the night sky is viewed from the ceremonial gateway one can see that the north pole of the rotating heavens lies immediately above the tower of the temple. This conjunction between the pole and the axis of the city indicates an astonishing degree of architectural and astronomical sophistication long before the telescope was invented.[New light on Hampi]

If the north pole is right above the tower of the temple, shouldn’t the temple be located at the north pole?

World's Oldest Wheat

Wheat, which resulted from a sinful relationship between einkorn and emmer, was previously thought to be 6000 years old, but now..

A series of DNA analyses conducted on ancient wheat samples have led scientists to conclude that the oldest known wheat was grown in Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia. Professor Mahinur Akkaya from the Middle East Technical University’s (ODTÜ) department of chemistry says the world’s oldest wheat found so far comes from Çatalhöyük, this according to a series of DNA analyses made on 8,500-year-old wheat samples. “Our discovery is of great importance as it gives us significant insight into the birth of the first civilization in Anatolia. With our analyses, we have shown that the oldest known wheat was grown in Çatalhöyük,” she said in an interview with the Anatolia news agency.[Oldest wheat found in Çatalhöyük]

The Chinese Agents in India

Amulya Ganguli writes about the Indian Communists and who they owe allegiance to.

In this tussle for supremacy, India is at a disadvantage because China can count on whatever support it can receive from its friends in India. The latter’s strenuous efforts to scuttle the nuclear deal is evidently a part of their tactic of undermining India’s ambition to secure the “Big 5 plus 1” position at the high table of diplomacy. The CPM has even been candid enough to admit that one of its reasons for opposing the deal is that the resultant proximity to the US will enable America to encircle China with India’s help. Even if this is indeed the American objective, such an alliance will also have the potential of curbing China’s bellicosity in the north-east, especially in “southern Tibet”, as Beijing likes to call Arunachal Pradesh.

Like the Chinese, the Indian communists believe in the untenable “colonial” nature of the McMahon Line, which calls for adjustments although the Chinese have had no hesitation in accepting the same line in Myanmar. Given this stance, it is hardly surprising that in 1962, E M S Namboodiripad had argued, according to Mohit Sen in his book, A Traveller and the Road: the Journey of an Indian Communist, that “the Chinese had entered territory that they thought was theirs and hence there was no question of aggression as far as they were concerned”.[Together They Stand]

A Spanner in Reviving Sanskrit

This January, the Indian Govt. cut funding for a Sanskrit program because it is now a sin to learn an ancient language and the reason: India has a large Muslim population.

Such camps, run by volunteers from Hindu nationalist groups, are designed to promote a language long dismissed as dead, and to instill in Hindus religious and cultural pride. Many Sanskrit speakers, though, believe that the camps are a steppingstone to a higher goal: turning back the clock and making Sanskrit modern India’s spoken language.

Their endeavors are viewed with suspicion by many scholars here as part of an increasingly acrimonious debate over the role of Sanskrit in schools and society. The scholars warn against exploiting Indians’ reverence for Sanskrit to promote the supremacy of Hindu thought in a country that, while predominantly Hindu, is also home to a large Muslim population and other religious minorities.

“It is critical to understand Sanskrit in order to study ancient Indian civilization and knowledge. But the language should not be used to push Hindu political ideology into school textbooks,” said Arjun Dev, a historian and textbook author. “They want to say that all that is great about India happened in the Hindu Sanskrit texts.”[Summer Camps Revive India’s Ancient Sanskrit]

When the Supreme Court of India writes judgements admiring the language in which Indian minds expressed noblest ideas, it takes the UPA Govt. to accuse that it is communal. Instead of whining about the Govt. the best course of action would be to organize a Samskrita Bharati camp in your area.