Professor Huang    Xinchuan
Department of Oriental Philosophy
Institute of    Philosophy
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
5, Jian Guo Men Nei    Dajie Street
Beijing 100732, China

The religious as well as the cultural interflow between Indian and China occurred as early as over two thousand years ago. Following the Buddhist and Hindu religious activities, the Indian orthodoxy philosophy---the Six Darsanas, Vedanta in particular once flourished in China. Vedanta had exerted also some influences on Chinese Buddhism and Taoism in its own way.

In China we have preserved abundant historical records and relics of Hinduism as well as Buddhism. Since the third century AD, China has discovered numerous Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit. There are records in Buddhist and Hindu scriptures either systematic or piecemeal.    For example, the Vedas and Upanishads as seen in Chinese historical record were translated freely into Chinese as Ming-Lun (the Science of Knowledge),    Zhi-Lun (the Science of Intelligence) or transliterated into Chinese as Feituo, Pituo, etc. Besides, there are Chinese historical sources of Vedangas.    At the stage of Mahayana Buddhism, Madhyamika drew close to Vedanta in both theory and practice. Samkara's Advitaism was in confrontation with Nagarjuna's Sunyata. We can find out the influences on some Sects of Prajna School (Three Treaties Sect, Tiantai Sect, Mahayanasamgraha Sect etc.) in Sui and Tang Dynasties and also on some eminent Buddhist monks. At the last stage of Indian Buddhism, it mixed with Hinduism again, in other words, Vajna-yana Mixed with Sakta.

It is noted that Vedanta's concept and application also directly influenced the formation of the Jo-nna Sect of Tibet. The Jo-nna Sect preached the "doctrine of non reality of person". This doctrine is similar to Vedanta's theory of two kinds of Brahmans, Mayavada and Adhyasa. Jo-nna Sect was formed in the 12th century and flourished during the period of 14-17th centuries, and still exists today. Tarnath's History of Indian Buddhism and a number of Buddhist works in Tibetan versions described the arguments between Samkara and Pandits Hulisasestha, Dharmakriti, Kumaralila and Kunadarorul in Varanasi, and worth making studies. Taoism is indigence to China. Chinese Taoism has something in common with Saktism. The interflow between Taoism and Brahmanism-Hinduism rarely appeared in ancient China, nonetheless, we can find some examples. One text in which the Tung Hsuan Section of the Tao Tsung (Taoist Canon) originated goes by the name Lin Pao Ching (Book of the Marvelous Jewel). In this text, we can find the influence of Brahmanism and Upanishad (Vedanta) in particular. It has a portrait of Yuan Shih Tien Tsun (the Highest God of Taoism) based on the portrait of the Maha Brahma of Brahmanism at the numerous kalpas in the unlimited darkness of Chaos. Thus, He transforms himself into thirty-three devas, asuras, " Ten directions of the Universe" etc. Thus we can say that there existed interflow between Taoism and Vedanta.

Vedic China Evidence
    Posted by: "Vrndavan Parker" vrnparker@yahoo.com
    Date: Fri Oct 26, 2007 1:44 am ((PDT))

Click links to see the images and details
Chinese Most Ancient Known Pictograms had Vedic Symbols
http://vedicempire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=9

Ancient Chinese Document Reveals Vedic Based Society
http://vedicempire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=9
 ___________________________________________

Courtesy of Vedic Culture list

Taken from http://www.Chennaionline.com

Mutt chief invites MK for Ram debate

Chennai, Sept 22: Flaying Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi for his remarks on 'Lord Rama', Vishweswara Theertha Swami of Pejawar Mutt in Karnataka's Udupi district, today invited him for a public debate on the issue.

"If he can have a debate with (senior BJP leader) L K Advani on Ramayana, why can't he have one with me?" he asked while adding that he will be sending a letter to the Chief Minister today inviting him for the debate.

The Swami said that though there might be a difference of opinion, the debate would be very "friendly and peaceful".

"Though Karunanidhi might have his own opinion on God and Ramayana, he should respect the Hindu sentiments as a Chief Minister", he said while speaking to reporters here.

"Karunanidhi may not have belief in God and may deem God to be imaginary, but will he agree to demolish temples, mosques and churches to build industries?" he asked.

The Swami said he was not against the Sethusamudram project but was only against the demolition of the Ramar Sethu, which was a "holy shrine" to many Hindus.

On Karunanidhi's comments quoting Valmiki that Rama was a drunkard, the Swami referred to actor and politician, Sarath Kumar's words that 'madhu' in Tamil meant 'honey' and not alcohol, as mentioned by Karunanidhi.

When his comments were sought on Union Transport and Shipping Minister, T R Baalu's remarks that the Ram Sethu never existed, the swami said it (Ram Sethu) has been mentioned in Ramayana authored by Valmiki, Tulsidas and Tamil poet, Kambar. "The name Adam's bridge may have been given later to the Ramar Sethu," he said.

On another comment by Baalu that those who took up this issue were religious fundamentalists, the Swami said it was all about faith and there was no inter-community rivalry or clash of faith.

He said as a minister, Baalu should respect the sentiments of crores of Hindus. He also termed the proposed demolition of the Sethu as 'undemocratic'.(Agencies)

LONDON, ENGLAND, August 13, 2007: Memoirs of a British civil servant never published until now show how much the partition of India was decided by just two men. In a quiet village in the northern English county of Yorkshire, Robert Beaumont rifles through his father's archives. The various and somewhat tatty pieces of paper he unearths are no ordinary collection of paternal memoirs. They are the thoughts and reflections of his father, Christopher Beaumont, who played a central role in the partition of India in 1947, which resulted in arguably the largest mass migration of peoples the world has ever seen. It is estimated that around 14.5 million people moved to Pakistan from India or travelled in the opposite direction from Pakistan to India. After the death in 1989 of Mountbatten's Private Secretary, Sir George Abell, Beaumont was probably not exaggerating when he claimed to be the only person left who "knew the truth about partition."

The famil y documents show that Beaumont had a stark assessment of the role played by Britain in the last days of the Raj. "The viceroy, Mountbatten, must take the blame - though not the sole blame - for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men, women and children perished," he writes. "The handover of power was done too quickly." The central theme ever present in Beaumont's historic paperwork is that Mountbatten not only bent the rules when it came to partition - he also bent the border in India's favor. The documents repeatedly allege that Mountbatten put pressure on Radcliffe to alter the boundary in India's favor. On one occasion, he complains that he was "deftly excluded" from a lunch between the pair in which a substantial tract of Muslim-majority territory - which should have gone to Pakistan - was instead ceded to India.

For the rest of this article, click URL below.

Courtesy of Hinduism today

In the following article there are many links and side links to related topics, see the BBC URL below

Partitioning India over lunch
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6926464.stm
Memoirs of a British civil servant never seen in public until now show how much the partition of India was decided by just two men, the BBC's Alastair Lawson reports.

In a quiet village in the northern English county of Yorkshire, Robert Beaumont rifles through his father's archives.

The various and somewhat tatty pieces of paper he unearths are no ordinary collection of paternal memoirs.

They are the thoughts and reflections of his father, Christopher Beaumont, who played a central role in the partition of India in 1947, which resulted in arguably the largest mass migration of peoples the world has ever seen.

After the death in 1989 of Mountbatten's Private Secretary, Sir George Abell, Beaumont was probably not exaggerating when he claimed to be the only person left who "knew the truth about partition".

'Bending the border'

It is estimated that around 14.5 million people moved to Pakistan from India or travelled in the opposite direction from Pakistan to India.
 
It was a time of mass migration, uncertainty and bloodshed

In 1947, Beaumont was private secretary to the senior British judge, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who was chairman of the Indo-Pakistan Boundary Commission.

Radcliffe was responsible for dividing the vast territories of British India into India and Pakistan, separating 400 million people along religious lines.

The family documents show that Beaumont had a stark assessment of the role played by Britain in the last days of the Raj.

"The viceroy, Mountbatten, must take the blame - though not the sole blame - for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men, women and children perished," he writes.

"The handover of power was done too quickly."

The central theme ever present in Beaumont's historic paperwork is that Mountbatten not only bent the rules when it came to partition - he also bent the border in India's favour.

The documents repeatedly allege that Mountbatten put pressure on Radcliffe to alter the boundary in India's favour.

On one occasion, he complains that he was "deftly excluded" from a lunch between the pair in which a substantial tract of Muslim-majority territory - which should have gone to Pakistan - was instead ceded to India.

Beaumont's papers say that the incident brought "grave discredit on both men".

Punjab 'disaster'

But Beaumont - who later in life was a circuit judge in the UK - is most scathing about how partition affected the Punjab, which was split between India and Pakistan.

"The Punjab partition was a disaster," he writes.

"Geography, canals, railways and roads all argued against dismemberment.

"The trouble was that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were an integrated population so that it was impossible to make a frontier without widespread dislocation.

"Thousands of people died or were uprooted from their homes in what was in effect a civil war.

"By the end of 1947 there were virtually no Hindus or Sikhs living in west Punjab - now part of Pakistan - and no Muslims in the Indian east.

"The British government and Mountbatten must bear a large part of the blame for this tragedy."

Personality clash

Beaumont goes on to argue that it was "irresponsible" of Lord Mountbatten to insist that Beaumont complete the boundary within a six-week deadline - despite his protests.

On Kashmir, Beaumont argues that it would have been "far more sensible" to have made the flash-point territory a separate country.

According to Beaumont, the "formidably intelligent" Radcliffe "did not get on well" with Mountbatten.

"They could not have been more different," he writes.

"Mountbatten was very good-looking and had a well-deserved history of personal bravery but, to put it mildly, he had few literary tastes.

"Radcliffe... was very quietly civilised. It was a relationship so like chalk and cheese that Lady Mountbatten had to use all her adroitness to keep conversation between them on an even keel."

Beaumont died in 2002 - his son Robert remembers him with great affection.

"He was also a man of supreme honesty, who spoke out on numerous occasions against the official British version of events surrounding partition without in any way being disloyal to his country," Robert Beaumont recalls.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6926464.stm

Well funny you should ask. It turns out that this find is very near to the city of that well known
blue personality named Krishna. The city's name was Dwaraka. It was built by Krsna and it sunk
into the ocean soon after He left the planet. The stories related to to dwaraka are literally in
the thousands. In the west a small single sentence about Atlantis has generated the whole Atlantis
legend. whereas hundreds of books, thousands of stories and an actual city to this day near the
old site, with the same name as Krishna's city of Dwaraka, is merely seen as religious belief. Now
with repeated finds in the area of Dwaraka surely there is alot more to the legend of Dwaraka than
there is to the legend of Atlantis. However if one were to browse the libraries, Tv guides,
movies, books etc one is startled as to how the single sentence regarding Atlantis is enough to
flood the world. Whereas the living culture of Hinduism and its authentic claim to a startling
history are ignored and sielined as myth. It is presented by many as merely a religious emotional
belief system unworthy of serious consideration. However there are many out there revealing the
truth of our collective human history.

Vedik Culture list - Vrindavan Parker

Devotee: If the Vedic culture was a superior culture, how come man gave up
the Vedic culture to take to the materialistic life? one

Prabhupada: No one has given up. You are taking up. No one has given up.
Devotee: But five thousands years ago...

Prabhupada: That's all right. Otherwise how you are getting if it was given
up? How you are getting now? It was not given up. Who says it was given up?

Devotee: Well, America was formed on a materialistic society.

Prabhupada: America may say, but if it was given up, then how you are
getting now?

Brahmananda: Now Americans are taking it up.

Prabhupada: Yes. How it is given up?

Laksmi-narayana: They will say that it became dormant. Not that many people
liked it anymore so...

Prabhupada: Not dormant. It is coming. It is coming. We have not lost it. It
may be that a few people know it, but it is not lost. It is not that missing
bone; it is not like that.

Morning Walk
-
July 11, 1975, Chicago

(From 1868 to 1874 Grant Duff served as under-secretary of state for India)

Posted On: Wed, 2007-03-14 05:37 by josh sitapati
The two most astonishing thing for the British who invaded India were.

1) The Indian gurukula system.

2) The Indian agriculture system.

The then Governor of British India Robert Clive made an extensive research on the agriculture system in India.

The outcome of the research was as follows:-

1) Cows were the basis of Indian agriculture and agriculture in India cannot be executed without the help of cow.

2) To break the Backbone of Indian agriculture cows had to be eliminated.

The first slaughterhouse in India was started in 1760, with a capacity to kill 30,000 (Thirty thousand only) per day, at least one crore cows were eliminated in an years time.

He estimated that the number of cows in Bengal outnumbered the number of men. Similar was the situation in the rest of India.

As a part of the Master plan to destabilize the India, cow slaughter was initiated.

Once the cows were slaughtered, then there was no manure and there is no insecticide like cow urine.

Robert Clive started a number of slaughter houses before he left India.

A hypothesis to understand the position of Indian agriculture without slaughter houses:-

In 1740 in the Arcot District of Tamil Nadu, 54 Quintals of rice was harvested from one acre of land using simple manure and pesticides like cow urine and cow dung.

As a result of the 350 slaughterhouses which worked day and night by 1910. India was practically bereft of cattle. India had to approach England’s doorstep for industrial manure. Thus industrial manure like urea and phosphate made way to India.

After India attained independence in the name of “Green Revolution” there was extensive use of industrial manure.

Before British left India. The daily news paper Guardian interviewed India.

To one of the questions Gandhiji answered, that the day India attains Independence, all the slaughter houses in India would be closed.

In 1929 Nehru in a public meeting stated that if he were to become the prime minister of India, the first thing he would do is to stop all the slaughterhouses.

The tragedy of the situation is since 1947 the number has increased from350 to 36,000(thirty six thousand) slaughter houses.

Today, the highly mechanized slaughterhouses Al-kabir and Devanar of Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra has the capacity to slaughter 10,000(ten thousand) cows at a time.

It’s a warning signal to one and all in India to rise to the occasion!!!

If you think that's a little bit conspiratorial, just read a little about the history of British involvement in India. This page http://www.geocities.com/raqta24/bangla5.htm gives an informative overview.

Chapter Two
The Tip of An Iceberg
Sita Ram Goel

The mention made by Maulana Abdul Hai (Indian Express, February 5) of Hindu temples turned into mosques, is only the tip of an iceberg, The iceberg itself lies submerged in the writings of medieval Muslim historians, accounts of foreign travellers and the reports of the Archaeological Survey of India. A hue and cry has been raised in the name of secularism and national integration whenever the iceberg has chanced to surface, inspite of hectic efforts to keep it suppressed. Marxist politicians masquerading as historians have been the major contributors to this conspiracy of silence.

Muslim politicians and scholars in present-day India resent any reference whatsoever to the destruction of Hindu temples in medieval times.  They react as if it is a canard being spread by those they stigmatise as Hindu communalists.  There was, however, a time, not so long ago, when their predecessors viewed the same performance as an act of piety and proclaimed it with considerable pride in inscriptions and literary compositions.  Hindus of medieval India hardly wrote any history of what happened to their places of worship at the hands of Islamic iconoclasts.  Whatever evidence the "Hindu communalists" cite in this context comes entirely from Islamic sources, epigraphic and literary.

Epigraphic Evidence

There are many mosques all over India which are known to local tradition and the Archaeological Survey of India as built on the site of and, quite frequently, from the materials of, demolished Hindu temples.  Most of them carry inscriptions invoking Allah and the Prophet, quoting the Quran and giving details of when, how and by whom they were constructed.  The inscriptions have been deciphered and connected to their historical context by learned Muslim epigraphists. They have been published by the, Archaeological Survey of India in its Epigraphia Indica-Arabic and Persian Supplement, an annual which appeared first in 1907-08 as Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica.  The following few inscriptions have been selected in order to show that (1) destruction of Hindu temples continued throughout the period of Muslim domination; (2) it covered all parts of India-east, west, north and south; and (3) all Muslim dynasties, imperial and provincial, participated in the "pious performance."

1. Quwwat al-Islam Masjid, Qutb Minar, Delhi: "This fort was conquered and the Jami Masjid built in the year 587 by the Amir... the slave of the Sultan, may Allalh strengthen his helpers.  The materials of 27 idol temples, on each of which 2,000,000 Delhiwals had been spent were used in the (construction of) the mosque..." (1909-10, Pp 3-4). The Amir was Qutbud-Din Aibak, slave of Muizzud-Din Muhammad Ghori. The year 587 H. corresponds to 1192 A.D. "Delhiwal" was a high-denomination coin current at that time in Delhi.

2. Masjid at Manvi in the Raichur District of Karnataka: "Praise be to Allah that by the decree of the Parvardigar, a mosque has been converted out of a temple as a sign of religion in the reign of... the Sultan who is the asylum of Faith ... Firuz Shah Bahmani who is the cause of exuberant spring in the garden of religion" (1962, Pp. 56-57).  The inscription mentions the year 1406-07 A.D. as the time of construction.

3. Jami Masjid at Malan, Palanpur Taluka, Banaskantha District of Gujarat: "The Jami Masjid was built... by Khan-I-Azam Ulugh Khan... who suppressed the wretched infidels.  He eradicated the idolatrous houses and mine of infidelity, along with the idols... with the edge of the sword, and made ready this edifice... He made its walls and doors out of the idols; the back of every stone became the place for prostration of the believer" (1963, Pp. 26-29).  The date of construction is mentioned as 1462 A.D. in the reign of Mahmud Shah I (Begada) of Gujarat.

4. Hammam Darwaza Masjid at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh: "Thanks that by the guidance of the Everlasting and the Living (Allah), this house of infidelity became the niche of prayer.  As a reward for that, the Generous Lord constructed an abode for the builder in paradise" (1969, p. 375).  Its chronogram yields the year 1567 A.D. in the reign of Akbar, the Great Mughal.  A local historian, Fasihud-Din, tells us that the temple had been built earlier by Diwan Lachhman Das, an official of the Mughal government.

5. Jami Masjid at Ghoda in the Poona District of Maharashtra: "O Allah! 0 Muhammad! O Ali!  When Mir Muhammad Zaman made up his mind, he opened the door of prosperity on himself by his own hand.  He demolished thirty-three idol temples (and) by divine grace laid the foundation of a building in this abode of perdition" (1933-34, p.24). The inscription is dated 1586 A.D. when the Poona region was ruled by the Nizam Shahi sultans of Ahmadnagar.

6. Gachinala Masjid at Cumbum in the Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh: "He is Allah, may he be glorified... During the august rule of... Muhammad Shah, there was a well-established idol-house in Kuhmum... Muhammad Salih who prospers in the rectitude of the affairs of Faith... razed to the ground, the edifice of the idol-house and broke the idols in a manly fashion.  He constructed on its site a suitable mosque, towering above the buildings of all" (1959-60, Pp. 64-66).  The date of construction is mentioned as 1729-30 A.D. in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah.

Though sites of demolished Hindu temples were mostly used for building mosques and idgahs, temple materials were often used in other Muslim monuments as well.  Archaeologists have discovered such materials, architectural as well as sculptural, in quite a few forts, palaces, maqbaras, sufi khanqahs, madrasas, etc.  In Srinagar, Kashmir, temple materials can be seen in long stretches of the stone embankments on both sides of the Jhelum.  Two inscriptions on the walls of the Gopi Talav, a stepped well at Surat, tell us that the well was constructed by Haidar Quli, the Mughal governor of Gujarat, in 1718 A.D. in the reign of Farrukh Siyar.  One of them says, "its bricks were taken from an idol temple." The other informs us that "Haider Quli Khan, during whose period tyranny has become extinct, laid waste several idol temples in order to make this strong building firm..." (1933-34, Pp. 37-44).

Literary Evidence

Literary evidence of Islamic iconoclasm vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship is far more extensive.  It covers a longer span of time, from the fifth decade of the 7th century to the closing years of the eighteenth.  It also embraces a larger space, from Transoxiana in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south, and from Afghanistan in the west to Assam in the east.  Marxist "historians" and Muslim apologists would have us believe that medieval Muslim annalists were indulging in poetic exaggerations in order to please their pious patrons. Archaeological explorations in modern times have, however, provided physical proofs of literary descriptions.  The vast cradle of Hindu culture is literally littered with ruins of temples and monasteries belonging to all sects of Sanatana Dharma - Buddhist, Jain, Saiva, Shakta, Vaishnava and the rest.

Almost all medieval Muslim historians credit their heroes with desecration of Hindu idols and/or destruction of Hindu temples.  The picture that emerges has the following components, depending upon whether the iconoclast was in a hurry on account of Hindu resistance or did his work at leisure after a decisive victory:

1. The idols were mutilated or smashed or burnt or melted down if they were made of precious metals.

2. Sculptures in relief on walls and pillars were disfigured or scraped away or torn down.

3. Idols of stone and inferior metals or their pieces were taken away, sometimes by cartloads, to be thrown down before the main mosque in (a) the metropolis of the ruling Muslim sultan and (b) the holy cities of Islam, particularly Mecca, Medina and Baghdad.

4. There were instances of idols being turned into lavatory seats or handed over to butchers to be used as weights while selling meat.

5. Brahmin priests and other holy men in and around the temple were molested or murdered.

6. Sacred vessels and scriptures used in worship were defiled and scattered or burnt.

7. Temples were damaged or despoiled or demolished or burnt down or converted into mosques with some structural alterations or entire mosques were raised on the same sites mostly with temple materials.

8. Cows were slaughtered on the temple sites so that Hindus could not use them again.

The literary sources, like epigraphic, provide evidence of the elation which Muslims felt while witnessing or narrating these "pious deeds." A few citations from Amir Khusru will illustrate the point. The instances cited relate to the doings of Jalalud-Din Firuz Khalji, Alaud-Din Khalji and the letter's military commanders. Khusru served as a court-poet of sex successive sultans at Delhi and wrote a masnavi in praise of each.  He was the dearest disciple of Shaikh Nizamud-Din Awliya and has come to be honoured as some sort of a sufi himself.  In our own times, he is being hailed is the father of a composite Hindu-Muslim culture and the pioneer of secularism.  Dr. R. C. Majumdar, whom the Marxists malign as a "communalist historian" names him as a "liberal Muslim".

1. Jhain: "Next morning he (Jalalud-Din) went again to the temples and ordered their destruction... While the soldiers sought every opportunity of plundering, the Shah was engaged in burning the temples and destroying the idols.  There were two bronze idols of Brahma, each of which weighed more than a thousand mans.  These were broken into pieces and the fragments were distributed among the officers, with orders to throw them down at the gates of the Masjid on their return (to Delhi)" (Miftah-ul-Futuh).

2. Devagiri: "He (Alaud-Din) destroyed the temples of the idolaters and erected pulpits and arches for mosques" (Ibid.).

3. Somanath: "They made the temple prostrate itself towards the Kaaba.  You may say that the temple first offered its prayers and then had a bath (i.e. the temple was made to topple and fall into the sea)... He (Ulugh Khan) destroyed all the idols and temples, but sent one idol, the biggest of all idols, to the court of his Godlike Majesty and on that account in that ancient stronghold of idolatry, the summons to prayers was proclaimed so loudly that they heard it in Misr (Egypt) and Madain (Iraq)" (Tarikh-i-Alai).

4. Delhi: "He (Alaud-Din) ordered the circumference of the new minar to be made double of the old one (Qutb Minar)... The stones were dug out from the hills and the temples of the infidels were demolished to furnish a supply" (Ibid.).

5. Ranthambhor: "This strong fort was taken by the slaughter of the stinking Rai.  Jhain was also captured, an iron fort, an ancient abode of idolatry, and a new city of the people of the faith arose.  The temple of Bahir (Bhairava) Deo and temples of other gods, were all razed to the ground" (Ibid.).

6. Brahmastpuri (Chidambaram): "Here he (Malik Kafur) heard that in Bramastpuri there was a golden idol... He then determined on razing the temple to the ground... It was the holy place of the Hindus which the Malik dug up from its foundations with the greatest care, and the heads of brahmans and idolaters danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet, and blood flowed in torrents.  The stone idols called Ling Mahadeo, which had been established a long time at the place and on which the women of the infidels rubbed their vaginas for (sexual) satisfaction, these, up to this time, the kick of the horse of Islam had not attempted to break.  The Musulmans destroyed in the lings and Deo Narain fell down, and other gods who had fixed their seats there raised feet and jumped so high that at one leap they reached the fort of Lanka, and in that affright the lings themselves would have fled had they had any legs to stand on" (Ibid).

7. Madura: "They found the city empty for the Rai had fled with the Ranis, but had left two or three hundred elephants in the temple of Jagnar (Jagannatha).  The elephants were captured and the temple burnt" (Ibid.).

8. Fatan: (Pattan): "There was another rai in these parts ...a Brahmin named Pandya Guru... his capital was Fatan, where there was a temple with an idol in it laden with jewels.  The rai fled when the army of the Sultan arrived at Fatan... They then struck the idol with an iron hatchet, and opened its head.  Although it was the very Qibla of the accursed infidels, it kissed the earth and filled the holy treasury" (Ashiqa).

9. Ma'bar: (Parts of South India): "On the right hand and on the left hand the army has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus, in which Satanism has prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished.  All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan's destruction of idol-temples, beginning with his first holy expedition to Deogir, so that the flames of the light of the Law (of Islam) illumine all these unholy countries, and places for the criers of prayers are exalted on high, and prayers are read in mosques.  Allah be praised!" (Tarikh-i-Alai).

The story of how Islamic invaders sought to destroy the very foundations of Hindu society and culture is long and extremely painful.  It would certainly be better for everybody to forget the past, but for the prescriptions of Islamic theology which remain intact and make it obligatory for believers to destroy idols and idol temples.

Indian Express, February 19, 1989

This is a breakthrough on the subject of the astronomical dating of the Kurushetra battle (3067 BC):

A Critical Examination of the Astronomical References in Mahäbhärata and Their Simulation by Planetarium Software
by B. N. Narahari Achar
University of Memphis

" omens ... refer to planets ... but scholars have not taken note of it.
Explicit references by specific names to comets have been mistranslated as planets ... "

"... simulations show an amazing degree of coherence, consistency, and agreement with the astronomical references in the epic  ... "

The work was supported in part by a grant and an award from the University.

A vast number of statements and materials presented in the ancient Vedic literatures can be shown to agree with modern scientific findings and they also reveal a highly developed scientific content in these literatures. The great cultural wealth of this knowledge is highly relevant in the modern world.

Techniques used to show this agreement include:

• Marine Archaeology of underwater sites (such as Dvaraka)

• Satellite imagery of the Indus-Sarasvata River system,

• Carbon and Thermoluminiscence Dating of archaeological artifacts

• Scientific Verification of Scriptural statements

• Linguistic analysis of scripts found on archaeological artifacts

• A Study of cultural continuity in all these categories.

Introduction

Early indologists wished to control & convert the followers of Vedic Culture, therefore they widely propagated that the Vedas were simply mythology.

Max Muller, perhaps the most well known early sanskritist and indologist, although later in life he glorified the Vedas, initially wrote that the "Vedas were worse than savage" and "India must be conquered again by education... it's religion is doomed"

Thomas Macaulay, who introduced English education into India wanted to make the residents into a race that was: "Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect."

However, the German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stated that the Sanskrit understanding of these Indologists was like that of young schoolboys.

These early Indologists:

• Devised the Aryan Invasion theory, denying India's Vedic past

• They taught that the English educational system is superior

• They intentionally misinterpreted sanskrit texts to make the Vedas look primitive.

• And they systematically tried to make Indians ashamed of their own culture

• Thus the actions of these indologists seems to indicate that they were motivated by a racial bias.

Innumerable archaeological findings and their analysis have recently brought the Aryan Invasion Theory into serious question. This theory is still taught as fact in many educational systems despite much contrary evidence.
 

The Aryan Invasion Theory Defined

• Vedic Aryans entered India between 1,500 and 1,200 B.C.

• They conquered the native Dravidian culture by virtue of their superiority due to their horses & iron weapons

• They Imported the Vedic culture and it's literatures.

• This Aryan Invasion Theory, however, deprives the inhabitants of India of their Vedic heritage. The wealth of their culture came from foreign soil.

The Aryan Invasion Theory raises an interesting dilemna called Frawleys Paradox: On the one hand we have the vast Vedic Literature without any archaeological finds associated with them and on the other hand, we have 2,500 archaeological sites from the Indus-Sarasvata civilization without any literature associated with them.

A preponderance of contemporary evidence now seems to indicate that these are one and the same cultures. This certainly eliminates this paradox and makes perfect sense, to an unbiased researcher.

Facts which cast serious doubt on the Aryan Invasion Theory

• There is no evidence of an Aryan homeland outside of India mentioned anywhere in the Vedas. On the contrary, the Vedas speak of the mighty Sarasvati River and other places indigenous to India. To date, no evidence for a foreign intrusion has been found, neither archaeological, linguistic, cultural nor genetic.

• There are more than 2,500 Archaeological sites, two-thirds of which are along the recently discovered dried up Sarasvati River bed. These sites show a cultural continuity with the Vedic literature from the early Harrapan civilization up to the present day India.

The archaeological sites along the dried up Sarasvati River basin are represented by black dots.

• Several independent studies of the drying up of the Sarasvati River bed, all indicate the same time period of 1,900 B.C.E.

• The significance of establishing this date for the drying up of the Sarasvati River is, that it pushes the date for the composition of the Rig Veda back to approximately 3,000 B.C.E., as enunciated by the Vedic tradition itself.

• The late dating of the Vedic literatures by indologists is based on speculated dates of 1,500 B.C.E. for the Aryan Invasion and 1,200 B.C.E. for the Rig Veda, both now disproved by scientific evidence.

Max Muller, the principal architect of the Aryan Invasion theory, admitted the purely speculative nature of his Vedic chronology, and in his last work published shortly before his death, The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, he wrote: "Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 15 hundred or 15,000 B.C.E., they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature of the world."

The Vedic Culture is indigenous to India

It can be scientifically proven that the Vedic Culture is indigenous, through archaeology, the study of cultural continuity, by linguistic analysis, and genetic research.

For example, the language and symbolism found on the Harappan seals are very Vedic. We find the Om symbol, the leaf of the Asvatta or holy banyan tree, as well as the swastika, or sign of auspiciousness, mentioned throughout the Vedas. Om is mentioned in the Mundaka and Katha Upanisads as well as the Bhagavad Gita.

The Holy Asvatta tree is mentioned in the Aitareya and Satapata Brahmanas as well as the Taittiriya Samhita and Katyayana Smrti.

The pictoral script of these Harappan seals has been deciphered as consistently Vedic and termed "Proto-brahmi," as a pre-sanskrit script.

This piece of pottery from the lowest level of Harappan excavations with pre-harappan writing is deciphered as ila vartate vara, referring to the sacred land bounded by the Sarasvati River, described in the Rig Veda.

Additionally, other archaeological finds are culturally consistent, such as the dancing girl, whose bracelets are similar to those worn by women of Northwest India today as well as the three stone Siva Lingas found in Harappa by M. S. Vats in 1940. The worship of the Siva Linga is mentioned in the Maha Narayana Upanisad of the Yajur Veda and is still ardently practiced today.

The Vedas were maligned by early indologists because of their disagreement with their Eurocentric colonialists world view, a view which produced and depended on the Aryan Invasion Theory. The fact that the Aryan Invasion Theory has been seriously challenged recently by scholars and indologists, adds credence to the Vedas as viable, accurate and indigenous sources of information.

Satellite imagery of the Dried Up Sarasvati River Basin

Using modern scientific methods, such as satellite imagery and dating techniques, it can be shown that the ancient statements of the Vedas are factual, not mythical as erroneously propagated. High resolution satellite images have verified descriptions in The Rig Veda of the descent of the ancient Sarasvati River from it's source in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea.

"Pure in her course from the mountains to the ocean, alone of streams Sarasvati hath listened."

The mighty Sarasvati River and it's civilization are referred to in the Rig Veda more than fifty times, proving that the drying up of the Sarasvati River was subsequent to the origin of the Rig Veda, pushing this date of origin back into antiquity, casting further doubt on the imaginary date for the so-called Aryan Invasion.

The Satellite image (above) clearly shows the Indus-Sarasvata river system extending from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. Here the Indus River is on the left, outlined in blue, while the Sarasvati River basin is outlined in green. The black dots are the many archeological sites or previous settlements along the banks of the now dry Sarasvati River.

The drying up of the Sarasvati River around 1900 B.C.E. is confirmed archaeologically. Following major tectonic movements or plate shifts in the Earth's crust, the primary cause of this drying up was due to the capture of the Sarasvati River's main tributaries, the Sutlej River and the Drishadvati River by other rivers.

Although early studies, based on limited archaeological evidence produced contradictory conclusions, recent independent studies, such as that of archaeologist James Shaffer in 1993, showed no evidence of a foreign invasion in the Indus Sarasvata civilization and that a cultural continuity could be traced back for millennia.

In other words, Archaeology does not support the Aryan Invasion Theory.

Evidence for the Ancient Port City of Dvaraka

Marine archaeology has also been utilized in India off the coast of the ancient port city of Dvaraka in Gujarat, uncovering further evidence in support of statements in the Vedic scriptures. An entire submerged city at Dvaraka, the ancient port city of Lord Krishna with its massive fort walls, piers, warfs and jetty has been found in the ocean as described in the Mahabharata and other Vedic literatures.

This sanskrit verse from the Mausala Parva of the Mahabharata, describes the disappearance of the city of Dvaraka into the sea.

"After all the people had set out, the ocean flooded Dvaraka, which still teemed with wealth of every kind. Whatever portion of land was passed over, the ocean immediately flooded over with its waters."

Dr. S. R. Rao, formerly of the Archaeological Survey of India, has pioneered marine archaeology in India. Marine archaeological findings seem to corroborate descriptions in the Mahabharata of Dvaraka as a large, well-fortified and prosperous port city, which was built on land reclaimed from the sea, and later taken back by the sea. This lowering and raising of the sea level during these same time periods of the 15th and 16th centuries B.C.E. is also documented in historical records of the country of Bahrain.

Amongst the extensive underwater discoveries were the massive Dvaraka city wall, a large door-socket and a bastion from the fort wall.

Two rock-cut slipways of varying width, extending from the beach to the intertidal zone, a natural harbor, as well as a number of olden stone ship anchors were discovered, attesting to Dvaraka being an ancient port city.

The three headed motif on this conch-shell seal (above), found in the Dvaraka excavations, corroborates the reference in the scripture Harivamsa that every citizen of Dvaraka should carry a mudra or seal of this type.

All these underwater excavations add further credibility to the validity of the historical statements found in the Vedic literatures.

Thirty-five Archaeological Sites in North India

Apart from Dvaraka, more than thirty-five sites in North India have yielded archaeological evidence and have been identified as ancient cities described in the Mahabharata. Copper utensils, iron, seals, gold & silver ornaments, terracotta discs and painted grey ware pottery have all been found in these sites. Scientific dating of these artifacts corresponds to the non-aryan-invasion model of Indian antiquity.

Furthermore, the Matsya and Vayu Puranas describe great flooding which destroyed the capital city of Hastinapur, forcing its inhabitants to relocate in Kausambi. The soil of Hastinapur reveals proof of this flooding. Archaeological evidence of the new capital of Kausambi has recently been found which has been dated to the time period just after this flood.

Kurukshetra

Similarly, in Kurukshetra, the scene of the great Mahabharata war, Iron arrows and spearheads have been excavated and dated by thermoluminence to 2,800 B.C.E., the approximate date of the war given within the Mahabharata itself.

The Mahabharata also describes three cities given to the Pandavas, the heroes of the Mahabharata, after their exile:

Paniprastha, Sonaprastha & Indraprastha, which is Delhi's Puranaqila. These sites have been identified and yielded pottery & antiquities, which show a cultural consistency & dating consistent for the Mahabharata period, again verifying statements recorded in the Vedic literatures.

Renowned Thinkers Who Appreciated the Vedic Literatures

Although early indologists, in their missionary zeal, widely vilified the Vedas as primitive mythology, many of the worlds greatest thinkers admired the Vedas as great repositories of advanced knowledge and high thinking

Arthur Schopenhauer, the famed German philosopher and writer, wrote that: I "...encounter [in the Vedas] deep, original, lofty thoughts... suffused with a high and holy seriousness."

The well-known early American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, read the Vedas daily. Emerson wrote: "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita"

Henry David Thoreau said: "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita... in comparison with which... our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial."

So great were Emerson and Thoreau's appreciation of Vedantic literatures that they became known as the American transcendentalists. Their writings contain many thoughts from Vedic Philosophy.

Other famous personalities who spoke of the greatness of the Vedas were: Alfred North Whitehead (British mathematician, logician and philosopher), who stated that: "Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived."

Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the principle developer of the atomic bomb, stated that "The Vedas are the greatest privilege of this century." During the explosion of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer quoted several Bhagavad-gita verses from the 11th chapter, such as:

"Death I am, cause of destruction of the worlds..."

When Oppenheimer was asked if this is the first nuclear explosion, he significantly replied: "Yes, in modern times," implying that ancient nuclear explosions may have previously occurred.

Lin Yutang, Chinese scholar and author, wrote that: "India was China's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics... " and so forth.

Francois Voltaire stated: "... everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges."

From these statements we see that many renowned intellectuals believed that the Vedas provided the origin of scientific thought.

The Iron Pillar of Delhi

The Vedic literatures contain descriptions of advanced scientific techniques, sometimes even more sophisticated than those used in our modern technological world.

Modern metallurgists have not been able to produce iron of comparable quality to the 22 foot high Iron Pillar of Delhi, which is the largest hand forged block of iron from antiquity.

This pillar stands at mute testimony to the highly advanced scientific knowledge of metallurgy that was known in ancient India. Cast in approximately the 3rd century B.C., the six and a half ton pillar, over two millennia has resisted all rust and even a direct hit by the artillary of the invading army of Nadir Shah during his sacking of Delhi in 1737.

Vedic Cosmology

Vedic Cosmology is yet another ancient Vedic science which can be confirmed by modern scientific findings and this is acknowledged by well known scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan and Count Maurice Maeterlinck, who recognized that the cosmology of the Vedas closely parallels modern scientific findings.

Carl Sagan stated, "Vedic Cosmology is the only one in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology."

Nobel laureate Count Maurice Maeterlinck wrote of: "a Cosmogony which no European conception has ever surpassed."

French astronomer Jean-Claude Bailly corroborated the antiquity and accuracy of the Vedic astronomical measurements as "more ancient than those of the Greeks or Egyptians." And that, "the movements of the stars calculated 4,500 years ago, does not differ by a minute from the tables of today."

The ninety foot tall astronomical instrument known as Samrat Yantra, built by the learned King Suwai Jai Singh of Jaipur, measures time to within two seconds per day.

Cosmology and other scientific accomplishments of ancient India spread to other countries along with mercantile and cultural exchanges. There are almost one hundred references in the Rig Veda alone to the ocean and maritime activity. This is confirmed by Indian historian R. C. Majumdar, who stated that the people of the Indus-Sarasvata Civilization engaged in trade with Sooma and centers of culture in western Asia and Crete.

The Heliodorus Column and Cultural Links to India

An example of these exchanges is found in the inscriptions on the Heliodorus Column, erected in 113 B.C.E. by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador to India, and convert to Vaisnavism, as well as the 2nd century B.C.E. Coins of Agathocles, showing images of Krishna and Balaram. These artifacts stand testimony that Sanatan Dharma predates Christianity.

This also confirms the link between India and other ancient civilizations such as Greece and shows that there was a continuous exchange of culture, philosophy and scientific knowledge between India & other countries. Indeed the Greeks learned many wonderful things from India.

 Vedic Mathematics

Voltaire, the famous French writer and philosopher) stated that "Pythagoras went to the Ganges to learn geometry." Abraham Seidenberg, author of the authoritative "History of Mathematics," credits the Sulba Sutras as inspiring all mathematics of the ancient world from Babylonia to Egypt to Greece.

As Voltaire & Seidenberg have stated, many highly significant mathematical concepts have come from the Vedic culture, such as:

The theorem bearing the name of the Greek mathematician Pythagorus is found in the Shatapatha Brahmana as well as the Sulba Sutra, the Indian mathematical treatise, written centuries before Pythagorus was born.

The Decimal system, based on powers of ten, where the remainder is carried over to the next column, first mentioned in the Taittiriya Samhita of the Black Yajurveda.

The Introduction of zero as both a numerical value and a place marker.

The Concept of infinity.

The Binary number system, essential for computers, was used in Vedic verse meters.

A hashing technique, similar to that used by modern search algorithms, such as Googles, was used in South Indian musicology. From the name of a raga one can determine the notes of the raga from this Kathapayadi system. (See Figure at left.)

For further reading we refer you to this excellent article on Vedic Mathematics.

Vedic Sound and Mantras

The Vedas however are not as well known for presenting historical and scientific knowledge as they are for expounding subtle sciences, such as the power of mantras. We all recognize the power of sound itself by it's effects, which can be quite dramatic. Perhaps we all have seen a high-pitched frequency shatter an ordinary drinking glass. Such a demonstration shows that Loud Sounds can produce substantial reactions

It is commonly believed that mantras can carry hidden power which can in turn produce certain effects. The ancient Vedic literatures are full of descriptions of weapons being called by mantra. For example, many weapons were invoked by mantra during the epic Kuruksetra War, wherein the Bhagavad-gita itself was spoken.

The ancient deployment of Brahmastra weapons, equivalent to modern day nuclear weapons are described throughout the Vedic literatures. Additionally, mantras carry hidden spiritual power, which can produce significant benefits when chanted properly. Indeed, the Vedas themselves are sound vibrations in literary form and carry a profound message. Spiritual disciplines recommend meditational practices such as silent meditation, silent recitation of mantras and also the verbal repetition of specific mantras out loud.

A Clinical Test of the Benefits of Mantra Chanting was performed on three groups of sixty-two subjects, males and females of average age 25. They chanted the Hare Krsna Maha Mantra twenty-five minutes each day under strict clinical supervision.

Results showed that regular chanting of the Hare Krsna Maha Mantra reduces Stress and depression and helps reduce bad habits & addictions. These results formed a PhD Thesis at Florida State University.

Spiritual practitioners claim many benefits from Mantra Meditation such as increased realization of spiritual wisdom, inner peace and a strong communion with God and the spiritual realm. These effects may be experienced by following the designated spiritual path.

Conclusion

Most of the evidence given in this presentation is for the apara vidya or material knowledge of the Vedic literatures. The Vedas however, are more renowned for their para vidya or spiritual knowledge. And even superior is the realized knowledge of the Vedic rsis or saints — that which is beyond the objective knowledge of modern science — knowledge of the eternal realm of sat, cit ananda, eternality, blissfullness and full knowledge. But that is another presentation.

The Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge is available from DevaVision Video Documentaries as a DVD video and will be available for download as a Quicktime video by 17 November 2006: Devavision Video Downloads http://www.devavision.org/videos.html

Namaskar Mitra,
My latest article in todays Hindustimes Times. Makes some points on education as well. Sorry for an impersonal mail.
http://www.esamskriti.com/html/essay_index.asp?cat=892&subcat=891&cname=caste_ht_article or read below.

When caste was not a bad word

By Sanjeev Nayyar. Article appeared in Hindustan Times, Mumbai on June 4, 2007.

Were caste equations always as bad as they are today? Not quite. There were always castes but they were not backward.

Now that the Supreme Court has referred the matter of 27% reservations to a Constitutional Bench it might be worthwhile revisiting certain historical truths. Proponents of the 27% reservation for OBCs argue that reservations would help them overcome centuries of discrimination! However, if such animosity really existed between the forwards and backwards, how could the Indian Civilization have thrived for over 5,000 years?

A noted Gandhian, Dharampal visited British & Indian archives and reproduced reports of Surveys undertaken by the British in Bengal, Punjab and Madras Presidency (1800-1830). According to Collectors reports reviewed by Governor Sir Thomas Munro on 10/3/1826, of the 30,211 male school students in Madras Presidency 20% were Brahmins and Chettris, 9% were  Vaishyas,50% were Sudras, 6% were Muslims and others were 15%. Madras Presidency then consisted of areas that fall in modern day Tamil Nadu, A.P, Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka. Another report by J Dent, Secretary, Fort Geroge dated 21/2/1825 stated that out of 1,88,680 scholars in all collectorates of Madras Presidency Brahmins were 23% while Sudras constituted 45%.

Startling as it may sound, these percentages establish that Sudras not Brahmins comprised the majority of students and scholars.  How & Why do the Backward Classes find themselves in the situation they are today?

Before British rule, traditionally, educational institutions were funded by revenue contributions made by the community and State. About one third of the total revenue (from agriculture & sea ports) was assigned for the requirements of social & cultural infrastructure (including education). This system stayed mainly intact through all previous political turmoils. The British, however, increased the quantum of land revenue and adversely changed the terms of payment for the community. They centralized collection of revenue, leaving hardly any revenue to pay for social and cultural infrastructure.

Further, the means of the manufacturing classes (small scale enterprises or SME in today's parlance) were greatly diminished by the introduction of European goods. Craftsmen especially those engaged in the making of cloth, manufacture and mining of metals, construction work were through fiscal and other devices reduced to a state of homelessness.

Sapped for funds, educational institutions and manufacturing classes became history, leading to grave consequences. One, it obliterated literacy and knowledge amongst the Indian people. Two, it destroyed the Indian social balance in which, traditionally, persons from all sections of society appear to have received a significant degree of schooling. Three, this destruction along with economic plunder led to great deterioration in the status, socio-economic conditions and personal dignity of those, now known as scheduled castes; and to a lesser degree, that of the vast peasant majority encompassed by the term 'backward castes'.

From about the end of the 19th century, various factors began to attempt a reversal of the results of British policy. This led to what are now known as backward caste movements. The manner, in which their objectives are presented however, seems to suggest that the 'backward' status they are struggling against is some ancient phenomenon. In reality, however, their cultural and economic backwardness (as distinct from their ritualistic status on specific occasions) is post 1800, and what basically all such movements are attempting to achieve is the restoration of the position, status, and rights of these peoples prior to 1800.

Dharampal wrote in 'Rediscovering India', "For the British, as perhaps for some others before them, caste has been a great obstacle, in fact, an unmitigated evil not because the British believed in casteless ness or subscribed to non-hierarchical system but because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomization, and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult".

The interest in caste peaked around 1891 when the census came out with what were termed as Index of Castes. The word 'caste' is of Spanish origin and fails to capture the meaning of the Indian term, "jati," which more properly translated as "community."  Jati in traditional India promoted and preserved diversity and multiculturalism by allotting every jati a particular space and role in society so that no jati would be appropriated or dominated by another. America, which has long glorified the ideal of a "melting pot" of one assimilated culture, is now coming to see the value of the "salad bowl" model, in which different cultures co-exist in harmony. The epitome of this model was the Indian jati system, revealing that our ancient practices are relevant to the modern world. Moreover, the jati system was integral to the survival of the Indian nation: in Swami Vivekananda's words: "Caste is an imperfect institution no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to breakthrough."

So, the widespread notion that discrimination in opportunity for education existed for millennia is a dangerous misconception that clouds our policies and threatens the real progress of the backwards castes.

The logical next steps are that, one, caste based reservations must come with a sunset clause as was envisaged in the Indian Constitution. Two, since economic deprivation has led to backwardness, economic backwardness should be the basis of reservation. The apex court has said that the creamy layer in OBCs must be denied reservations.

The reservations policy and caste-based politics of the last sixty years have managed to make people more aware of and narrowly identified by their caste, rather than focusing on true social and economic integration. Instead of increasing supply of education facilities, successive Governments have over regulated the sector, stifling its growth. Under the guise of protecting SME's, government policy has made them less efficient and does not allow economies of scale.

The words Caste and Class have become conflated together, when in reality they refer to different phenomena. Also, the nomenclature used to describe the backward classes keeps changing. In the 1890s they were called The Depressed Classes. In the early 1930's, Gandhi named them Harijans. The Government of India Act 1935 introduced the words Scheduled Castes for the first time. Since the 1990s, the word Dalit has come into prominence.

Jats are a backward community in Rajasthan but a very powerful community in neighboring Punjab. Is there a comprehensive national definition of who constitutes an OBC?

There are multiple solutions to the Reservation problem that need to be pursued simultaneously. One, Government should focus on primary education only. Two, it must lay down a transparent regulatory framework for higher education. This would increase investment in education across various sectors. Three; it must lay emphasis on vocational training that would make a graduate employable. It should support institutions that provide short term courses in retail, financial planning, analytics and pharma. Once supply is enhanced and identity based reservation eclipsed, India will have an egalitarian educational system where the only affirmative action will be financial assistance to economically weaker students.

Four, help students strike a work / life balance. Five, allow student to expand their knowledge beyond mere academics and to strengthen and explore their inner nature. Education should also encompass Indian wisdom and thought. Six, success is enhanced by the power of concentration so students must learn how to concentrate. Lastly, students should be made to realize that a degree is a passport to a job! Therefore, personality and character count.

All actions originate from thoughts. Pure thoughts result in constructive deeds. The above ideas could help students be at peace within rather than be caught in the chakravuya of reservations.

With so much emphasis on education I remember Mark Twain's words, "I do not allow my schooling to interfere with my education."

Sanjeev Nayyar is a Management Consultant and founder www.esamskriti.com.

3 paras below were part of the article but not published at the discretion of the respected Editor. Thought they might be useful so here they are for you.

1. To read 'The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the 18th century" by Dharampal

http://www.esamskriti.com/html/essay_index.asp?cat_name=why&cid=1062&sid=174

2. Four, help students strike a work / life balance. Five, allow student to expand their knowledge beyond mere academics and to strengthen and explore their inner nature. Education should also encompass Indian wisdom and thought. Six, success is enhanced by the power of concentration so students must learn how to concentrate. Lastly, students should be made to realize that a degree is a passport to a job! Therefore, personality and character count.

3. All actions originate from thoughts. Pure thoughts result in constructive deeds. The above ideas could help students be at peace within rather than be caught in the chakravuya of reservations.

NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 21, 2007: Japan wants to encourage studies of Hindu Gods and Goddesses found in their country. Saraswati, Laxmi, Brahma, Ganesha among a large number of other Deities are still prayed to there though under different names. Saraswati's sketches (Benzaiten in Japanese) sanctify kitchens in rural areas of Japan even now, says Director International Academy of Indian Culture Lokesh Chandra. Japanese understood her as sa-rasavati or the Goddess of the kitchen. Rasavati is 'rasoi' in Hindi. Talking to the Hindustan Times the Japanese Cultural Counsellor Shigeyuki Shimamori said, "We would like to encourage more studies by scholars on the Hindu deities found in Japan."

It is the Mantrayana sect of Buddhism emphasizing mantras and rituals through which Hindu Deities reached Japan, Dr. Chandra said. The Japanese also perform homa known as "goma" to their Deities. Sarasvati or Benzaiten in Japanese is one of the Seven Lucky Deities (Shichi-fuk u-jin) blessing every home. Couples who desire to have beautiful daughters pray to Her. She is known as the patroness of writers, composers, musicians and painters. German scholar Philipp Franz von Siebold has written that in 1832 there were 131 shrines dedicated to Goddess Sarasvati and 100 to Lord Ganesha in Tokyo itself. A 12th century temple to Ganesha in Asa Kusa suburb of Tokyo is a National Treasure of Japan. Hindu Gods and Goddesses were introduced into Japan in 806 ADE by Kobodaishi a Japanese saint who went to China and brought with him Mantrayana text, scrolls and images.

hinduism today

Hindu scholars have always claimed that in remotest times, their ancestors visited every part of the globe, mapping it accurately, and mining gold and copper in such places as Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, England, Ireland, Peru, and Bolivia. Known to us as "Indo-Europeans," they lost their grip on the world in about 1500 BC., retreating to what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India. However, they continued to visit the Americas in their large teakwood ships, many of them 250 feet long and five- to six-masted, until about 1200 A.D. After that, the sectarian fanaticism and territorialism of their religious leaders, rebellions among their conquered subjects, constant internecine rivalries, and troubles with Moslem invaders forced them into isolation.

No Westerner naively accepts India's claims of having once dominated the world. Right? Well, some of us do.

In an essay entitled On Egypt from the Ancient Book of the Hindus (Asiatic Researchers Vol. III, 1792), British Lt. Colonel Francis Wilford gave abundant evidence proving that ancient Indians colonized and settled in Egypt. The British explorer John Hanning Speke, who in 1862 discovered the source of the Nile in Lake Victoria, acknowledged that the Egyptians themselves didn't have the slightest knowledge of where the Nile's source was. However, Lt. Colonel Wilford's description of the Hindu's intimate acquaintance with ancient Egypt led Speke to Ripon Falls, at the edge of Lake Victoria.

The Hindus also claim that the gospel of their deity Shiva was once the religion of the world and the progenitor of all religions coming after it.

"Isvar was the only god in India, the whole of Asia, the southern parts of Russia, Mediterranean countries, Egypt, Greece, the whole of Europe, the human inhabited places of both Americas…and also in England and Ireland. In all these lands, Isvar was the religion with slight variations in the pronunciation of the word Isvar….the Isvar religion is the mother of all religions in the world, including Christianity and Islam."
(Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism, by Kuttikhat Purushothama Chon; p. 36.)

While the languages our forefathers spoke thousands of years ago would be completely unrecognizable to us now, the names of their deities (those that survived to this modern age) may be immediately recognizable to their respective modern adherents, such as the Christians, Jews, Moslems, Jains, Buddhists, and Hindus. Names of deities tend not to change.

Isvar was and is especially visible (to discerning eyes) in our own Southwest as well as in Northern and Central Mexico. Some tribes even worshiped God Shiva's wives and consorts. Spanish priest, Andres Perez de Ribas wrote in his book, My Life Among the Savage Nations of New Spain, that a Northern Mexican tribe worshiped two deities: Viriseva and a mother goddess named Vairubai. Viriseva means "Lord Siva" in Sanskrit. Vairubai has to be (a mispronouncing of) Bhairava, another name of Siva's consort, Goddess Durga.

A few Hindu scholars insist that not all their gods and religious traditions are natives of the Indian subcontinent. When the ancient Nagas retreated to India, they also took back the deities and religious traditions they had acquired abroad, incorporating them into "Hinduism," a term meaning "The Indus Valley Way of Life."

Historian Chon states:

"There are strong indications in our ancient texts that the places and events described in them are lying outside the geographical limits of India But when we talk of geographical limits, …are they the national boundaries of post-independent India? Or are they the boundaries of India, the ancient?"
(Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism; p.30.)

I'm especially impressed with the traditions of the Pimas (Akimel O'Odham) and Papagos (Tohono O'Odham) of Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico. Although I could write a lengthy article about Isvarist (worship of the Hindu deity, Shiva) practices in practically every Southwestern United States, Mexican, Central and South American Indian tribe, even India-Indian spiritual geography is reproduced abundantly in the O'Odham nation.

Though the pre-conquest era O'odhams were relatively primitive, the Spaniards admired them for their intelligence, industry, and high philosophy. Some Catholic missionary priests thought they were the progenitors of the Aztecs.

About 5,000 BC or earlier, a brilliant deified Phoenician Naga king and philosopher named Kuvera (also Kubera) learned how to smelt copper, gold, and other metals. These activities took place in the kingdom named after him, Khyber ("Kheeveri"), which consisted of a group of craggy mountains in what are now Southeastern Afghanistan and Northeastern Pakistan (i.e. the Khyber Pass). According to Hindu mythology, Kuvera and God Shiva lived in the totally barren, mineral-poor, goldless, frigid, lofty, bell-shaped or pyramidical peak of Kailasa in Western Tibet.

Edward Pococke stated in his book India in Greece,

The Khyber; its region is wealthy and abounds with rubies; gold is found in the mines in its vicinity, and it (the Kheeveri kingdom) was likewise the ruling power in those early days. (p.220.)

We derived our word "copper" from Kuvera's name. Eventually, the Nagas extended their influence over all of India. If you've intuited that Afghan Khyber (Kheever), Hebrew Heber (pronounced Kheever), Egyptian Khepri, Greek Khyphera, Cabeiri, Cypriotic Cip'ri (Kheep'ri), biblical Capernaum, Arabic Khabar, O'Odham Babo-Quivari (Kheeveri), Francisco de Coronado's search for the fabled Quivira (Kheevira), ad infinitum, are somehow linked, you've intuited correctly.

But why do the Hindus and Buddhists worship Kuvera and Shiva in a barren peak and not in the Khyber mountain range itself? I don't want to get "mystical," but the "reason" for this anomaly is the world's best-kept millennium's-old secret. Besides, it's not the focus of this article.

Kuh or Koh = "Hump; Mountain"
while Vera or Vira = "Hero; Lord."

The Nagas, also called Nakas and Nahu(a)s, were a highly civilized ruling, maritime and mercantile class who once inhabited what is now Afghanistan, Tibet, Pakistan, and Northwestern India. The Nag ("Self-Consuming Serpent") was one of their principal tribal emblems. The substance of Kuvera's teachings is that God, then called Dyau, Deo, Dyaus or Jyaus, put all the plants, animals, ores, and minerals on earth for Man's enjoyment. As long as Man protects the happiness and security of all humanity, he need not place any limits on his greed. Kuvera's teachings spread throughout the whole world.

"Originally, the Asuras or Nagas were not only a civilized people, but a maritime power, and in the Mahabharata, where the ocean is described as their habitation, an ancient legend is preserved of how Kadru, the mother of serpents, compelled Garuda (the Eagle or Hawk) to serve her sons by transporting them across the sea to a beautiful country in a distant land, which was inhabited by Nagas, The Asuras (Nagas) were expert navigators, possessed of very considerable naval resources, and had founded colonies upon distant coasts."
(The Encircled Serpent, by M. Oldfield, p. 47.)

"Asura" is the Indian equivalent of Assyria (really Asuriya and Asir) and the Persian Ahura of Zoroastrianism. It derives from the name of the ancient Hindu sun god Ashur. The Naga capital was called Oudh, Iodh, Yudh, and Ayodhya. Located near what is now Herat, Afghanistan, it is not to be confused with todays Oudh or Ayodhya in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The citizens of Oudh were called Oudh-am and Otia-Am. Am = "People" in Sanskrit.

In those days, only a few million people inhabited the earth. Most humans were cavemen and less. The Nagas didn't entrust their highly developed technologies to such aborigines. But they did teach them how to build simple thatch and adobe homes, and to raise vegetable and animal foods. They also taught them about the Creator of All Life, Dyaus or Jyaus. Even today the O'Odhams call it Jeoss or Josh. Joshi is one of God Shiva's many names. Some White Arizonians mistakenly insist that the O'Odhams derived this term from Dios (Spanish for "God"), Jesus, or Joshua.

The innocent Arizona aborigines believed these Nagas from Oudh, Afghanistan (part of India until the late 1700s) were gods. They even named themselves Oudham, which they pronounced as O'Odham or O'Ot'ham. An ancient Sanskrit word for "brotherhood; fraternity" is Ton; Tahun. The Papagos called themselves Tohono O'Odham, or "Oudh-am Fraternity." Tohono now means "Desert" in the O'Odham language. The Pimas settled along winding rivers, which seemed to look like writhing serpents. They named themselves Akimel O'Odham. "Akimel" derives from the Sanskrit Ahi-Mahal (Great Serpent). This name eventually came to mean "River."

The Nagas dug deep wells in the desert, siphoning water out of the ground with long, thick tubes. The exterior ends of these tubes were large and bulbous, and painted to look like human heads, in order to mystify the aborigines. The water spouted out from what looked like round, puckered human mouths. The heads had horns which were really handles for pulling tubes to different irrigation channels. As the flowing water caused these tubes to writhe and undulate like serpents, the primitive Arizonians thought they were real. In Kashmiri, Nag means "a snake, esp. a fabulous serpent-demon or semi-divine being, having the face of a man and the tail of a serpent, and said to inhabit Patala. In Kashmir, they are the deities of springs." (Grierson's Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language; p. 624, item 2.) The Kashmirians also called these siphons Nag-Beg (Snake-Lords). Patala was one of the ancient Indian names for "America." It's real meaning is "Underworld," but not an underground world. They used it as we often call Australia: "The Land Down Under."

The Arizonian O'Odhams similarly called the water siphon Nah-Big. According to both Kashmiri and O'Odham legends, the Nah-Big was harmless. However, if someone "killed" it, the spring dried up - and for good reason. Without a proper siphon, needed water could no longer spew out of the well. Several Southwestern Indian tribes worship exact replicas of the Kashmiri Nag-Beg (siphon) in special religious ceremonies. However, some of them call it by other names. Certain O'Odham and other Native-American clans in the Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora area also call this mythical serpent Corua (KoROOah, with the "R" trilled as in our English "City"). It derives from Sanskrit: Krura-Sarpavat (Violent-Serpent); Kadruja (Serpent Mother Kadru's equally serpent son).

Another O'Odham word for "snake," Vah-Mat, is nearly identical to the Kashmiri/Sanskrit Veh-Mar: "Poisonous-Snake." The O'Odham language contains an unusually high number of North Indian words.

When the Nagas arrived in Arizona, they found a huge stone peak in the desert, resembling Kuvera and Shiva's (I-Itsoi's) Kailasa in nearly every way except one. The Indian Kailasa, also in a desert, is nearly four times higher above sea level than the O'Odhams' holy peak. To honor their spritual progenitor, the Nagas named this Arizona peak Babu-Kheever ("Grandfather" or "Illustrious Indian Immigrant" Kuvera), adhering closely to the exact pronunciation of the mineral-rich Kheever (Khyber) mountain range of Afghanistan.

Baboquivari (Babo-kheeveri) has retained almost the same name after more than six millenniums. The O'odhams also call it Waw-Kiwulk, which sounds like "Vahv-Kivur". Just as the Hindus, Jains and Buddhists call Kailasa the navel of the world, so do the O'odhams give Baboquivari the same distinction.

Babo-Kheeveri and the Afghan Kheeveri mountains were supposedly filled with unlimited gold, copper, and precious stones. Even today, much of the gold mined in that part of Arizona keeps leaking endlessly out of the Babo-Kheeveri (Baboquivari) mountain range.

Jutting upward at more than 7,750 feet above sea level, Baboquivari can be seen on a clear day from as far away as 80 miles, even from the Mexican side of the border. Few natural wonders equal the majesty and beauty of this spectacular peak. In my opinion, it is a "must-see" for any lover of Nature's wonders. You will notice that the mountain enjoys the close association of lesser peaks, forming a large trident.

Being such a prominent landmark, Baboquivari keeps incoming undocumented Mexican aliens and drug smugglers from getting lost. That part of the desert also abounds in water-filled cacti to slake their thirst, including edible fauna and flora. Evidently, the INS knows about Baboquivari. On the day my wife and I visited the peak, we saw several of their vans in the area, waiting to pick up uninvited guests and transport them back to the border - or to prison.

When I told the O'Odhams that I had learned about the unlimited quantities of gold within Baboquivari from Hindu books written millenniums ago, one woman moaned hopelessly, "Now that this news is out, the White man will even rob us of our God." She wasn't too far afield. The government has always wanted to probe the interior of Baboquivari.
A Possible Historical Scenario
About 3,000 BC, a saintly Indian prince and high priest of the Kheeveri empire left Afghanistan for Arizona, to manage the mining operations at Baboquivari and govern the O'Odhams. In India, he is variously called Shiva, Siva, Shaveh, Suva, Su, Ish, Esh, Yesh, Isa, Itsa, Ishvara, Yishvara, Yeshva, Moshe, Mahesh, Mahisa, etc. The suffixes Va and Veh refer to someone who is vengeful and short of temper. Vara = "Blessings of." The prefixes Mo, Mu. and Mah means "Great." Ish, Esh, Yesh, Isa, etc., = "Material Universe" in both Sanskrit and Hebrew cabalism. From these Sanskrit elements we derived our term "Messiah," which in Sanskrit is Masiha, and Massee'akh in Hebrew. These terms were honorific titles of the highest ecclesiastical and leadership castes of that period in history. These supreme "Sivas," whether good, bad, or indifferent, were also regarded as earthly gods.
 

We may never know what this "Shiva's" real name was.

The Pimas call him Se-eh-ha; Siwa; Su-u (Elder Brother). The Papagos worship him as I'Itoi or I'Itsoi, which linguistically is nearly identical to "Isa."

Not yet united by a centralized government, the ancient Hindus weren't conscious of themselves as Indians - just as similar peoples separated by different tribes and kingdoms. All of them competed by fair and foul means for the resources of the world. Internecine rivalries tore them apart constantly.

During Shiva's Arizona reign, a powerful Indian emperor, Priyavarta, sent his armies to all the countries of the world, to unite all Indians and their colonial possessions as one nation. He appointed his sons as viceroys. One son, Sevana or Sewana, was sent to conquer and govern North America. Notice that he, too, was a "Siva." O'odham legends mention this Sewana whom they call Siwana. When I'Itoi or Se-eh-ha wouldn't submit to Priyavarta, he and Siwana met on the battle field. Ultimately, I'Itoi prevailed; Siwana was killed.

According to some Indian historians, later on, back in Southeast Asia, the volcano Krakatoa exploded violently, creating the China Sea. Our globe became extremely unsteady on its axis, causing rains, earthquakes, and floods to occur all over the world. The coastlands of Western India submerged by more than fifty feet and as many miles inland in some places. Even as you read this article, Indian archeologists are uncovering fabulous ruins lying just off the mainland, under the Arabian sea.

Dwarka, Indian deity Lord Krishna's capital city, is the focal point of these underwater digs. Dwarka may prove to be the greatest archeological dig in human history.

These floods forced millions of Indian refugees to flee to other parts of the world. When the Arizona desert flooded, the Pimas and Papagos took refuge on Baboquivari where I'Itoi or Se-eh-ha (Siva) helped them survive. After the waters had subsided, he helped the O'Odham re-establish themselves. Therefore, no matter to what religion they are converted, the O'Odham are always going to revere and respect I'Itoi.

Nearly all of today's O'Odham are Catholics. However, the Franciscan fathers tending to their spiritual needs allow them to set up the Swastika, I'Itoi or Isa's standard, on the altars of the Catholic churches there, even on the altar of San Xavier Mission church near Tucson.

There are other Shaivite reminders among the O'odhams. O'Odham Catholic churches usually face east as the Shaivite temples do in India. And, like the Hindus, they bury their dead in an east-west direction. They also revere the Shiva-Linga or Pillar of Energy, usually erected in front of and some distance away from their churches, placed on a tiered pyramid or pyramidical mound, exactly as in India. However, nowadays the Shivling is a Christian cross. In the book he wrote in 1644, Father Ribas acknowledged that the Northern Mexican Indians worshiped Shivlings.

"One of the padres, traveling along a trail near Guasave, observed an Indian suddenly depart into the woods. In curiosity they followed this Indian, presently coming upon him in the act of making reverence before a stone. This stone was about a vara (33 inches) in height, shaped in the form of a pyramid, and had some crude inscriptions carved upon it.
 
San Xavier Mission Church near Tuscon, Arizona.
"The Padre ordered this false idol destroyed. The Indian, horrified at the thought, declared that he dare not destroy it, for fear of death." (My Life Among the Savage Nations of New Spain; p. 34.)

During my visit at San Xavier mission, I also saw representations of the undulating serpent Nah-Big on the exterior of the church of San Xavier. And get this: The O'Odhams call their way of life Himday or Himdag! Hindi?

I was especially intrigued by the Pima name for "Medicine-Man:" Javet-Makai. Dyaus-Pitar or Jyapeti (Japhet) is really another title of Shiva. Makai may be derived from Maga (Priest-Magician). Javet-Makai = Jyapeti Maga?

DNA analysis may prove that today's O'Odhams are genetically related to the India-Indians. Arjuna, Krishna's companion in the Mahabharata Wars (fought on Northern India's Kuruksetra plains in about 3000 BC), was married to a Patalan (American) princess. Military forces from Patala, possibly even some O'Odham among them, fought in those famous wars.

How did I'Itoi's deification get exported to India? Because Isvar was once the religion of all mankind, It could have been a partial contributor to all worldwide myths about Siva, eventually becoming consolidated in the Indian subcontinent. I'Itoi earned "godhood" on his own merits. Also, as a Hindu supreme leader, he was deified anyway. After all, the O'Odham and the Hindus do share the same India-originated "Way of Life."

Hindu immigrants to this country often tell me that they see the Southwestern Native-Americans as long-lost brothers. They say that many Native-Americans tell them the same thing. If we use Sanskrit language resources, Hindu mythology, Shaivite practices and mutually identical holy names as measuring sticks, the kinship between Native-Americans and South Asians becomes easily verifiable, no matter what the "experts" say. Could there be a special political reason why "The Great White Father" doesn't want certain Native-Americans to know they're Himday?

Some tribes, such as the Huicholes in Central Mexico, even remember from what Indian seaport they left for America - Aramra in Gujarat. The Huicholes revere a part of the beach at the old Mexican seaport of San Blas, Nayarit, as Aramara, "Place of Origin of the Huicholes." Millenniums ago, Gujarat was called Jukhar. Juj-Kha is an O'Odham name for "Mexicans." The Navajos call them Nakaii (Nagas). The Apaches claim to be Inde (Indus People.) They worship Shiva as Yusn. In Sanskrit, Yishan = "Shiva." Apache = "Enemy" in O'Odham. In Sanskrit, Apachnan = "Destroyer." Another name of the Zunis ("Zoonyees") is Ashiwi (Azhuva?, "Way of the Serpent," in Sanskrit). Two of their principal deities are Shivani and Shiwanikoya. Zoonya (Zuni?) and Zeenya ware epithets of ancient Kashmir. According to Indian historian K. P. Chon, the Naga Azhuvas, perhaps the forefathers of the Zunis, were India's oldest ruling dynasty. He said that they ruled for more than a thousand years.

"The descendants of this dynasty are still to be found in the southernmost part of India in Kerala. They are even now called Azhuva or Ezhava. The emperor Azi Dahaka, -- with two snakes around his neck -- was a devotee of Isvara."
(Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism; p. 22.) The Ezhavas' ships were said to have sailed all over the world.

The Hopis worship Siva under several of his names, one of which is Massawa (Maheswa?). The Hopis are ophiolators (snake worshippers). Thousands of years ago, a famous Naga cult called Hophiz lived near Kabul, Afghanistan. Orginally, this nation was named Oph (Serpent) + Gana (Group; Family) + Stan (Nation). "Afghanistan" evolved from "Oph-gana-stan." The Afghan Hophiz snake cult spread to Greece, becoming Ophis. The Ophis cult was popular in the ancient world, even among the Christian gnostics. Needless to say, it also found its way to the American Southwest. We may never know the exact "hows."

The name of the ancient Hopi village of Oraibi causes me to wonder whether the Hopi nation was a famous stronghold of Saivism, known even in India. This unusual word lacks only the "Bh" in Bhairavi, epithet of Goddess Durga. However, Grierson's Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language mentions another meaning of the term, which may explain exactly how and why Oraibi got its name: "Name of a certain class of lower deities who form Siva's host..." One of these is after the local godling of some locality or tract of country. Special localities protected by him are looked upon as sacred" (p. 129; item 44.) Was Southwestern United States an important Shaivite holy center in earliest times?

Other ancient Naga sea-faring miners, traders, conquerors and colonizers who left their bloodlines and names all over the Americas and the rest of the world were the Ute, Yuti, Yutiya, or Juti (Jutes). The Northern Mexican Indians called the invading Spaniards, "People-Who-Came-Before:" Yutiya ("Judeeya"); Yuti; Juti ("Jodee" or "Judee)." In Spanish, the word is usually spelled as Yori; Yuri. "R" is trilled as in "City." "Y" often approximates our "J." Because of the Spanish spelling, we can't see that this word is really the English "Jute.". Why did these Indians believe the Spaniards were Jutes? Juti now means "non-Indian Mexicans and Gringos." In Sanskrit, Juddhi; Yuddhi = "Conquerors." Our history books tell us that the "Jutes" were "Northern German or Danish tribes." Does it surprise you to find "People-Who-Came-Before" in Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico?

Such human groups as "Phoenicians, Assyrians, Teutons, Jutes, Celts, Scythians, Chaldeans, Hittites, Kassites," plus many others, were not exactly who and what we've been told they were. The India-Indians can give mankind broader and more accurate descriptions of these principal actors on the stage of Ancient History. The Native-Americans are "Indians" after all!

Skeptics often tell me that I'm just using a fertile imagination to link the Southwestern Native-Americans with certain ethnicities and communities in South Asia. Just in case any of my readers think I'm imagining all these correspondences, put yourself in my place. Pretend that you've read a book about ancient Tibet. In this book, you read about a little mountain village called Dina. The villagers practice their national Tibetan religion: Bon. Their shamans use sand-paintings to heal the sick. After that, you read a book about the Navajos. Their real name is Diney. Their religion is Bahanney. Their shamans use sand paintings to heal the sick. Intrigued, you start comparing other Native-American tribes with peoples living in India, consistently finding tight similarities. What would you then think - or know? Of course, these India-related correspondences are not confined only to Native-Americans. But the rest of the world's peoples is not what this article is all about.

The spirit of I'Itoi, one of many Isas around the world, wanders within the bowels of Kheever or Quivari eternally, in a maze of tunnels running throughout the interior of Baboquivari. These tunnels may be shafts from which the ancient Hindus extracted unending quantities of gold, transporting it to India.

 
 
Like I'Itoi's swastika (on left), this maze (right) is also a sacred O'Odham emblem. It, too, stands at the altar of San Xavier Mission.

About Coronado's Ill-Fated Expedition
During my fact-finding mission to the O'Odham nation in September, 1999, a young O'Odham man told me that at the beginning of the Spanish conquest, a certain Spanish officer and his men tried to dig their way into Baboquivari. Suddenly, the ground under them opened; Baboquivari swallowed them. I intuited that he was giving me a mythologized version of Francisco de Coronado's search for the Seven Cities of Cibola and a place called Quivira, where, he was told, he could get his hands on unlimited quantities of gold.
 

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1510-1554) was the first explorer of America's Southwest. He arrived in Mexico in 1535, becoming governor of Nueva Galicia (the present states of Aguascalientes, Jalisco and Zacatecas). During his governorship he heard about the supposedly gold-rich Seven Cities of Cibola and Quivira, believed to be in what is now the American Southwest, somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico.

With 300 Spanish soldiers and some Native-Americans, he marched to the present state of Arizona. The news about the Spaniards' obsession for gold surely reached the O'Odham nation long before he did. A Northern Mexican Indian named Esteban, possibly an O'Odham, told Coronado that he knew the location of the Seven Cities of Cibola and the fabled Quivira. "Cibola" turned out to be a sleepy little Zuni village. Cibola, pronounced "Sivola" in Spanish, is similar to the Sanskrit Swala (Svala), a name of Shiva's wife Parvati, also called Sivani. The Hindu cult of Swala eventually spread to Phyrigia and Rome, becoming Cybele. The high priests of this wide-spread cult were often berdaches ("gender-benders") and eunuchs. It's a curious anomaly that berdaches are also regarded as holy people among the Zunis.

Esteban, also called El Turco, led the Spaniards away from Baboquivari, to what is now the Lindsborg, Kansas area. Coronado began to suspect that he had been tricked. Another Indian accompanying the expedition could have grown fearful that El Turco might be persuaded to lead the Spaniards back to Arizona. He begged Coronado to quit paying attention to El Turco, promising to lead the Spaniards farther northward, to the real "Quivira," but Coronado had lost his fascination with fairy tales. He had El Turco strangled to death, returning to Mexico in disgrace in 1542. It never occurred to Coronado to remove "Babo" from "Quivari."

Recently, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art held an exhibit called "Pharaohs of the Sun". It turned out to be the most popular exhibit ever. The exhibit featured artifacts from the reigns of Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and the famous King Tut.

Modern scholars claim that Akhenaton was the worlds first known monotheist. However, the fact is, he was actually reviving an ancient monotheistic religious tradition. Unknown to most is the true nature of this religion. This religion was not only vedic, but was actually an indiginous Egyptian form of Vaisnavaism.

Research has proven Akhenaton's vedic roots through his familial connections to the Hurrian/Mitanni peoples. Everyone agrees that the Mitanni were a Sanskrit speaking and writing people and they worshipped the vedic gods. What is forgotten is the fact that Akhenaton's father, his mother, and wife were all related to the vedic Mitanni. Thus, it is no surprise that Akhenaton's religion has so many vedic similarities. The research of BhaktiAnanda Goswami has proven the Vaishnava nature of his religion.

On April 10, 2000, BhaktiAnanda Goswami of E.O.H.N. (Ecumenical Order of the Holy Name), and Vedic Empire Productions put together a tour and presentation on Akhenaton's vedic/vaishnava past. During the two hours of the tour BhaktiAnanda Goswami enthusiastically pointed out the various vaishnava connections. Again and again he amazed and enlightened the tour participants. It is truly amazing how many ancient artifacts are related to the worship of Hari. Using the torchlight of knowledge, BhaktiAnanda Goswami clearly revealed the Vaishnava nature of Akhenaton's religion. During the tour, many people unconnected to our group were intrigued and asked intelligent and sincere questions which BhaktiAnanda Goswami answered.

The program continued that evening at the Los Angeles Hare Krishna Temple where BhaktiAnanda gave a detailed talk on various examples of the ancient world's global Vaishnava traditions. Using a scientific approach called linguistic archaeology, some of the key points he presented are as follows:
The original forms of the Supreme Personality of Godhead worshipped in the Mediterranean region were Radha-Krishna and Balarama. The center of this ancient Vaishnava culture was the Greek Isle of Rhodes.
Jews, Egyptians, and Europeans all worshipped Lord Krishna in many forms all familiar to the modern day Vaishnava. Forms such as Matsya, Korma, Narasimha, and Kalki. This tradition was called Heliopolitan because they worshipped Helios (Greek for Hari).
Hundreds of Jewish, Egyptian, and Greco Roman deity names (theophoric names) can be clearly identified as names of Krishna or Vishnu.
Official religious emblems, including the state seals of the Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judah, were indisputably Vaishnava symbols, and directly connected to Akhenaton's religion and the eternal Vaishnava traditions of India.
In ancient Egyptian religion, creation began from the form of NHRYN (Narayan) lying on the primordial waters. A lotus grows from His navel, and on this lotus appears the four armed and four headed Heliosphanes (Brahma) who speaks creation.
Ancient Mediterranean Vaishnavism can be properly understood when we compare it to the authentic Vaishnava scriptural sources especially Bhagavad-Gita, and Srimad Bhagavatam, where the viratarupa (Universal Form) conception of the Supreme Lord is revealed. For example, Krishna's self revelation in the "I Am" verses of the Bhagavad-Gita directly parallels the great hymns of HR-Heri of ancient Egypt. Therefore, ancient Egyptian religion considered HR-Heri the origin of all gods and deities. That is why they used the name HR-Heri or Asu (Vasu) along with deities considered to be aspects of Heri. Thus, the god of wealth was called KPHR/Kepe-Heri because in the Gita Krishna says "?I am Kubera".
Being authentic followers of Vaishnavism, ancient Heliopolitan cities always had a presiding deity of Helios (Hari). He was always worshipped with His Fortuna (Goddess of Fortune or Shakti). Evidence shows that the original form of Helios (Hari) was worshipped on the Greek Isle of Rhodes as Kouros. The original form of Fortuna was named Rhoda.
Even modern scholars accept that Kouros was considered the origin of all the Greek gods. He is described as a beautiful youth tending His sacred white cows with His elder brother and friends. He plays a flute and leads the boys in dance as they clash their cymbals. He dances with Rhoda and Her expansions in a circle dance named after Him called the Chorus Dance. As the Lord of the Dance He is called Choreagos from which is derived the modern word 'choreographer'. The peacock feather was the pre-eminent symbol of both Helios and Kouros. Throughout the region Helios (Hari) was worshipped as the Lord of the Heart and the Supreme Personality of Love. That is why He is the Lord of all living entities, cultures, and traditions.

All of this evidence highlights the fact that we are all rooted in the tradition of pure devotional service to Sri Sri Radha Krishna and Balarama. BhaktiAnanda Goswami hopes that his research can be instrumental in reuniting all of God's children and awaken the world to its common heritage as the people of Hari.

The Mission Field 1881 AD

http://ia301221.us.archive.org/2/items/missionfieldamon31unkwuoft/missionfieldamon31unkwuoft.pdf

Study of Sanskrit in relation to Sanskrit Monier-Williams Boden Prof. 1861

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books&FORM=BCBB#q=%22Sanskrit%22&bookid=466525004d46eeed&p=7

Christian Conquest of Asia by John Hennry Barrows Univ. Of Chicago

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books&FORM=BCIR#q=Hindu&bookid=935fa465ba2d460b&p=9

NEW DELHI, INDIA, June 18, 2007: S. P. Gupta, former director of Allahabad Museum and current chairman of Indian Archaeological Society, is credited with excavating several Indus Valley sites. He spoke to Rohit Viswanath on recent developments in marine archaeology.

What are the latest advancements in marine archaeology? "We do not use the term marine archaeology anymore. It is called underwater archaeology. That is because the term merely denotes oceanic and deep-sea archaeology. However, underwater archaeology has a wider scope. Fresh-water sources have been historically conducive to human habitation. Many ancient port cities and towns were located at the mouth of rivers or estuaries, where ships could be anchored. S. R. Rao has done great work in Dwarka. Vast discoveries have also been made in Lakshadweep and Elephanta islands. Several port sites have been found on the east coast in Andhra Pradesh."

What is the significance of these findings? "Rao asserts that the remains excavated by his team from the mouth of the Gomti river in the Gulf of Kutch are part of Krishna's Dwarka, on the basis of a seal found at the site. At the Elephanta islands, 2,000-year-old Roman pottery has been discovered, indicating rich trade with the late Roman Empire between the 4th century AD and 7th century AD. The findings establish it as a significant port of the period. Further, on the west coast, at Chaul, a team from Deccan College has found evidence of trade with Oman from the 1st century AD to 13th century AD. Evidence of trade has also been traced right up to Japan from the west as well as the east of the country. We now know that India had contacts all over the ancient world, right from the Red Sea in the west to South China Sea in the east. India was right in the middle of global trade.

hinduism today

(CNN) -- The dispute over a historic religious site in the northern town of Ayodhya has come to define the often fiery mix of politics and religion in India.

The fight over just who owns the patch of ground has caused deep divisions between Hindus and Muslims and has been at the core of secular violence throughout the past decade.

In December 1992, angry Hindu mobs descended upon the site and tore down the Babri Mosque that had stood there since the 16th century.

The razing of the mosque ignited nationwide Hindu-Muslim riots that left more than 2,000 dead.

In March 1993 a series of blasts in Mumbai killed more than 200 and injured over 1,000.

The bombings were blamed on underworld gangs seeking to avenge the killing of scores of Hindus during the riots.

Tensions over the site simmered until February 2003 when a fire erupted inside a train in Gujarat. The train was carrying Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya, where they had been attending a campaign to build a temple at the site.

More than 50 Hindus died and weeks of bloody sectarian violence ensued. In the rioting that followed, more than 3,000 people -- most of them Muslim -- are believed to have died.

The cause of that fire has remained in dispute.

Many Hindus say the disputed land in Ayodhya was the birthplace of the god Rama -- one of the most revered deities in Hinduism.

Muslims, however, say they have claim to land because the mosque was built there in 1528.

India, which prides itself for its secular freedoms laid down in its constitution, is home to the world's largest Muslim minority population of 140 million.

The surge of Islamic fundamentalism in the past 20 years has been matched by a rise in Hindu nationalism.

Following the violence in 2002, an Indian court ordered archaeological excavations to determine its history.

The archaeologists' report was presented to the Allahabad high court in August 2003 and contained a potentially explosive finding.

The study by the Archeological Survey of India found remnants of an ancient Hindu temple under the rubble of the Babri mosque.

But many Muslims, both in India and abroad, have disputed the findings.

Gwalior family donates some rare 17th century works

Express News Service

Vadodara, March 8: WITH voluntary donations of rare manuscripts and books coming its way, the vast treasure of rare handwritten scripts at the Oriental Institute of MSU is growing richer. Recently, the Gwalior-based Kelkar family donated around 150 manuscripts to the institute, which are believed to be 250 years old. Earlier, a family from Wai, Satara in Maharashtra had given some given rare manuscripts to the institute, and there have also been such donations from families and individuals across Gujarat.   The manuscripts brought from Gwalior include a copy of the Rig Veda with a distinct Vedic accent, Ganesh Gita, Padma Purana, Sanskrit grammar, Vratkatha-Mahatmya, Amarkosh, Ramayan, Vedas, Upanishads, Straut Sutra, Gruhya Sutra and Dharmshashtra. Some of these handwritten manuscripts are also in colour.
                 According to Oriental Institute researchers, a few manuscripts were written in the Modi script of Marathi, which was used for preparing confidential reports, especially by kingdoms in Central India. In this case, the institute may require experts who can read this very traditional style of writing. Few manuscripts date back to the 17th century.   Institute director M L Wadekar said, "We aim to collect all such rare documents which are scattered across the country and need preservation." He said that for an individual, such manuscripts were not of much use and would be very difficult to preserve. He added, "If such donations do not come to us, there are chances that we may lose age-old knowledge scripted by scholars."   The manuscripts belonged to late Prof Chintamani Kelkar, a Sanskrit scholar at the Madhav College of Gwalior. He was also the brother of Prof Ramesh Kelkar of the Faculty of Technology and Engineering at MSU. Research officers at the Oriental
 Institute, Sweta Prajapati and Usha Brahmchari, had gone to Gwalior and sorted out these manuscripts from a large collection of papers and books maintained by Sharda Kelkar, Prof Chintamani's widow.   Researchers at the institute said that with such materials landing up at their doorstep, they had a good opportunity to undertake a comparative study of the contents and other details contained in the manuscripts found from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and other regions of India.   According to Wadekar, the Gwalior manuscripts would now be classified and categorically arranged to enable people to study them.   Incidentally, a delay of almost two months on the part of the varsity to give a go-ahead to the institute to get the manuscripts proved to be costly, as the Kelkar family already donated some rare books to a nearby library.   In the last year itself, the institute received around 300 manuscripts from different people, including manuscripts on Veda, Karmakanda and
 Dharmashashtra from Vedic scholar Pandit Vaman Joglekar. The institute now has a collection of 30,000 manuscripts on different and diversified topics like Vedas, Sanskrit, Grammar, Dharmashashtra, mathematics, architecture, arts, music, dance and others covering almost all fields of knowledge.   http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=225710

On receiving silver bullion from Spain for the provision of 4,800 African slaves, Britain had a surplus of silver which it then used for trading with India. At Battle of Plassey in 1757 British troops commanded by Robert Clive defeated the Bengal ruler a Mughal viceroy and put in British puppet. Robert Clive said there would be little or no difficulty in obtaining absolute possession of these rich kingdoms. At this point silver was no longer needed for trading with India.

Before British rule, there was no private property in land. The self- governing village community handed over each year to the ruler or his nominee a share of the years produce. East India Company put a stop to this and introduced a new revenue system superseding the right of the village community over land and creating two new forms of property on land - landlordism and individual peasant proprietorship. It was assumed that the State was the supreme landlord. Fixed tax payments were introduced based on land whereby payment had to be made to the government whether or not crop had been successful. As one British put it we have introduced new methods of assessing and cultivating land revenue which have converted a once flourishing population into a huge horde of paupers. Indeed the first effect was the reduction in agricultural incomes by 50% thereby undermining the agrarian economy and self- governing village.

In 1769 the Company prohibited Indians from trading in grain, salt, betel nuts and tobacco and discouraged handicraft. Company also prohibited the home work of the silk weavers and compelled them to work in its factories. Weavers who disobeyed were imprisoned, fined or flogged. Company's servants lined their own pockets by private trading and bribery and extortion. Goods were seized at a fraction of their price and resold to their owners at five times their price.

In 1770s one writer said of Bengal : one continued scene or oppression. Systematic plunder led to a famine in which 10 million people perished. Bengal was left naked, stripped of its surplus wealth and grain. Famine struck in 1770 and took the lives of an estimated one third of Bengal's peasantry. A Commons Select Committee report in 1783 said that natives of all ranks and orders had been reduced to a State of Depression and Misery.

In 1787 a former army officer wrote: In former times the Bengal countries were the granary of nations, and the repository of commerce, wealth and manufacture in the East...But such has been the restless energy of misgovernment, that within 20 years many parts of those countries have been reduced to desert. The fields are no longer cultivated, extensive tracks are already overgrown with thickets, the husbandman is plundered, the manufacturer (handicraftsman) oppressed, famine has been repeatedly endured and depopulation ensured.

As India became poor and hungry, Britain became richer. Colossal fortunes were made. Robert Clive arrived in India penniless - activities of Company investigated by House of Commons. The Hindi word loot was introduced into English language because of the plunder of India. Colossal fortunes helped fund Britain's Industrial Revolution e.g.:
1757 - Battle of Plassey
1764 - Hargreaves spinning jenny
1769 - Arkwright's water frame
1779 - Crompton mule (whatever that is)
1785 - Watt's steam engine

When British first reached India they did not find a backwater country. A report on Indian Industrial Commission published in 1919 said that the industrial development of India was at any rate not inferior to that of the most advanced European nations. India was not only a great agricultural country but also a great manufacturing country. It had prosperous textile industry, whose cotton, silk, and woollen products were marketed in Europe and Asia. It had remarkable and remarkably ancient, skills in iron-working. It had its own shipbuilding industry in Calcutta, Daman, Surat, Bombay and Pegu. In 1802 skilled Indian workers were building British warships at Bombay. According to a historian of Indian shipping the teak wood vessels of Bombay were greatly superior to the oaken walls of Old England. Benares was famous all over India for its brass, copper and bell-metal wares. Other important industries included the enamelled jewellery and stone carving of Rajputana towns as well as filigree work in gold and silver, ivory, glass, tannery, perfumery and papermaking.

All this altered under the British leading to the de- industrialisation of India - its forcible transformation from a country of combined agriculture and manufacture into an agricultural colony of British capitalism. British annihilated Indian textile industry because a competitor existed and it had to be destroyed.

Shipbuilding industry aroused the jealousy of British firms and its progress and development were restricted by legislation. India's metalwork, glass and paper industries were likewise throttled when British government in India was obliged to use only British-made paper.

The vacuum created by the contrived ruin of the Indian handicraft industries, a process virtually completed by 1880, was filled with British manufactured goods. Britain's industrial revolution, with its explosive increase in productivity made it essential for British capitalists to find new markets. India turned from exporter of textile or importer. British goods had to have virtually free entry while entry into Britain of India goods was met with prohibitive tariffs. Direct trade between India and the rest of the world had to be curtailed. Horace Hayman Wilson in 1845 in The History of British India from 1805 to 1835 said the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms.

While there was prosperity for British cotton industry there was ruin for millions of Indian craftsmen and artisans. India's manufacturing towns were blighted e.g. Decca once known as the Manchester of India, and Murshidabad-Bengal's old capital which was once described in 1757 as extensive, populous and rich as London. Millions of spinners, and weavers were forced to seek a precarious living in the countryside, as were many tanners, smelters and smiths.

India was made subservient to the Empire and vast wealth was sucked out of the subcontinent. Economic exploitation was the root cause of the Indian people's poverty and hunger. Under Imperial rule the ordinary people of India grew steadily poorer. Economic historian Romesh Dutt said half of India's annual net revenues of £44m flowed out of India. The number of famines soared from seven in the first half of 19th Century to 24 in second half. According to official figures, 28,825,000 Indians starved to death between 1854 and 1901. The terrible famine of 1899-1900 which affected 474,000 square miles with a population almost 60 million was attributed to a process of bleeding the peasant, who were forced into the clutches of the money- lenders whom British regarded as their mainstay for the payment of revenue. The Bengal famine of 1943, which claimed 1.5million victims were accentuated by the authority's carelessness and utter lack of foresight.

Rich though its soil was, India's people were hungry and miserably poor. This grinding poverty struck all visitors - like a blow in the face as described by India League Delegation 1932. In their report Condition of India 1934 they had been appalled at the poverty of the Indian village. It is the home of stark want...the results of uneconomic agriculture, peasant indebtedness, excessive taxation and rack-renting, absence of social services and the general discontent impressed us everywhere..In the villages there were no health or sanitary services, there were no road, no drainage or lighting, and no proper water supply beyond the village well. Men, women and children work in the fields, farms and cowsheds...All alike work on meagre food and comfort and toil long hours for inadequate returns.

Jawarharlal Nehru wrote that those parts of India which had been longest under British rule were the poorest:Bengal once so rich and flourishing after 187 years of British rule is a miserable mass of poverty-stricken, starving and dying people.

India was sometimes called the 'milch cow of the Empire', and indeed at times it seemed to be so regarded by politicians and bureaucrats in London. Educated Indians were embittered when India was made to pay the entire cost of the India Office building in Whitehall. They were further outraged when in 1867 it was made to pay the full costs of entertaining two thousand five hundred guests at a lavish ball honouring the Sultan of Turkey.

In India, the hunger and poverty experienced by the majority of the population during the colonial period and immediately after independence were the logical consequences of two centuries of British occupation, during which the Indian cotton industry was destroyed, most peasants were put into serfdom (after the British modified the agrarian structures and the tax system to the benefit of the Zamindars - feudal landlords) and cash crops (indigo, tea, jute) gradually replaced traditional food crops. Britain's profits throughout the 19th century cannot be measured without taking into account the 28 million Indians who died of starvation between 1814 and 1901.

NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 17, 2007: Apart from the widely known fact that Buddhism in Japan has its origin in India, not many probably know that so many Hindu Deities surround the life of a Japanese. Speaking at a lecture titled "Hindu Gods and Goddesses rooted to Japan" here Friday, Lokesh Chandra, the director of International Academy of Indian Culture, highlighted how deeply Indian religion and culture has influenced Japanese culture and tradition over the past centuries. He said that many temples across Japan are full of Hindu Deities. Chandra said Japanese couples who desire to have a beautiful daughter pray to Goddess Saraswati even to this day. Saraswati is also believed as the patroness of writers and painters. "In ancient times, Japanese generals prayed to Saraswati to be victorious in war," Chandra told the gathering which was also attended by the Japanese Ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki and his wife. Year 2007 is being celebrated as Japan-India Friendship Year to commemorate the 50th year of the cultural agreement between the two countries. According to Chandra, who has travelled to Japan many times to study the country's culture and tradition, Saraswati is also worshipped as the "Goddesses of the kitchen."

There is a suburban district in Tokyo named Kichijo, which traces its roots to "Lakshmi," the Hindu Goddess of Wealth. Lakshmi was propagated to China along with Buddhism in the ancient time, to be known as Kichijo in its Chinese form and then reached Japan as a Buddhist Goddess. Chandra also spoke extensively about how Sanskrit language has influenced traditional Japanese calligraphy. The Indian text was introduced into Japanese society many centuries ago. Japanese monks had to study Sanskrit in order to master Buddhism from original Indian scriptures and textbooks. Lord Ganesha in Japan symbolizes the joy of life that arises from the power rooted in the virtues of wisdom and compassion. There are roughly 100 temples dedicated to Ganesha in Japan, Chandra added. An 11th century Ganesha temple is the oldest among them. Together with Hindu Gods and Goddess, ancient Japanese society was also introduced to Indian dance forms and musical instruments. One can also see the Indian epic Ramayana in the traditional Japanese dance forms of Bugaku and Gigaku.

Hinduism today

Vidya Bannerjee

A recent survey of 2,300 employers across Britain said that 74% of companies in Britain have chosen not to display Christmas decorations. The employment law firm Peninsula that conducted the survey claimed that this was so as not to open companies to litigation for discriminating against non-Christian religions. The National Secular Society dismissed the reports as "exaggerated and misleading." President Terry Sanderson said: "Where Christmas parties and decorations are being discontinued it is usually for cost or health and safety reasons. We do not consider the move to be 'Christophobic' as Christians are increasingly prone to claim".

Most of you will know that 25th December is celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe to be God's only begotten son and the redeemer of all mankind. But what many of you will not know, is that this was not always so. It was only much later in the history of Christianity that 25th December became associated with the birth of Jesus.

The early Church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus at all. In fact they didn't celebrate anyone's birthday, as they considered celebrating birthdays to be an inherently sinful practice.

The celebration of Christmas has its roots in the pre-Christian Pagan traditions of Europe. The Winter-Solstice or Yuletide or Mother Night had been one of the major festivals of all pre-Christian Pagan religions and celebrated in a variety of different ways.

December 21st, Called Yule (remember the Yule Ball in Harry Potter?), is one of the traditional Celtic fire festivals and marks the return of light after the longest night of the year. The tradition of giving presents, feasting with family and friends and generally being merry comes from the festival of Saturnalia, which used to be celebrated around December 17th in honour of Saturn, God of agriculture and plenty. Big feasts were generally laid out by the rich, to feed their poorer neighbours.

These festivities continued over the "holidays" and were followed by the solstice feast of Mithras, God of light, on December 25th and the New Year celebrations. It marked the renewal of hope and people would decorate their homes with all sorts of greenery to symbolize new life. That's where the tradition of the green Christmas tree and the holly comes from. For that matter, decorating the tree with toys, singing carols about the promise of spring, kissing under the mistletoe and even Santa, yes him too (but that's another story)…they all find their origins in the religion of the Pagan ancestors of Europe. On a side note, Hindus too celebrate this sacred time of the year with the festival of Panch Ganapati.

It is well known that when Europe was Christianised, the old religions and traditions were brutally suppressed, with mass conversion to Christianity. However, even after their conversion to Christianity, people continued to practice and celebrate their old Pagan festivals, including the Winter-Solstice, (the same as how many Hindus who have converted to Christianity for whatever reason, usually continue to celebrate Hindu festivals like Diwali).

In this scenario, the Church leaders found it easier to consolidate their power by giving Christian meanings to previous traditions and celebrations. So eventually, the Church pronounced the traditional winter festival as the birth of Jesus Christ, as a matter of strategic interest.

But it did not end there. Even after the Church decreed the birthday of Jesus to be on 25th of December, various practices that betrayed Pagan origins were frowned upon, with an attempt to suppress them. The mistletoe (a name which means 'all heal') was not allowed inside Christian churches. The church had long anguished over the performance of carols and song-dances and these were explicitly banned in the 7th Century at the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône. Even mince pies were looked on with disfavour! Why? Well why not? They're derived from consecrated cakes of the Pagans after all.

In later history, every time puritanical Christian sects have established power, they've made it a point to ban Christmas. When a Puritan parliament triumphed over King Charles I of England (1644), Christmas was officially banned (1647). During the Cromwellian period anyone celebrating Chri