shvu

There are any number of such links about theories on Atlantis. Here is another. http://www.atlan.org I can put up a few myself. Angelfire gives free web pages. Cheers

...Which is what the European Translations say too. While Indra is the biggie in the Rig-veda Samhita, his position is minimal by the time of the Brahmanas where Vishnu is the body of the sacrifice [vide Shatapatha Brahmana]. Come further to the Puranas and Indra is only a Deva vis-a-vis Vishnu who is the Supreme Entity. Yes. Even today Rig-veda mantras are chanted during occasions like child naming etc, where Indra and other Rig-vedic Gods are invoked. The Mittani are believed to have been Indian Aryans who migrated west later (After Aryan entry into India). This speculation has been around for the last 100 years or more. Cheers

Namadeva is one of the many Indian saints who lived in Pandarpur, Maharashtra [Western India] sometime during the 13h century. He was a contemporary of the famous Jnaneshwara, the author of Jnaneshwari [a commentary on the Gita]. As in the case of others, his story is hagiographic too. He was a great devotee of Lord Panduranga [Vishnu] and according to legends when Namadeva offered food to the Lord, the Lord appeared in the form of a boy and actually accepted his offering. Consequently, Namadeva grew headstrong and one day Panduranga did not appear to accept his devotee's offering. Namadeva was distressed at this, after which he was told to go to a village Amvadya and meet a great saint named Vishobakesha. When he reached the village he was directed to a Shiva temple and when he walked into the temple, he found a old man lying asleep with his feet on the Shiva-linga. Namadeva became angry at this sight and woke up the old man rudely, shouting at him to remove his feet from the Linga. The old man asked, "I am old and weak. Can you do me a favor by moving my legs someplace where there is no Shiva?" Namadeva consented and lifted the old man's legs to place them elsewhere, when a Linga appeared just where he was about to place the legs. He tried to place the legs in different places and everytime a Linga popped up in that spot, making it impossible for him put the legs down. Suddenly Namadeva realized what was going on. He told the old man, "How ignorant am I! Where is the place where there is no Shiva! My head full of ego and ignorance is the only place where there is no Shiva." Saying thus, he place the old man's feet on his own head. The old man said, "Although a great devotee of the Lord, there was some ego in you until now. But now that is gone too." After returning to Pandarpur, Namadeva did not visit the temple, but stayed home. Some days went by and not seeing Namadeva at the temple, Lord Panduranga Himself came to his devotee's house and knocked at the door. "Namadeva," he called, "Please open the door. Where have you been so long, I'm missing you!" From inside, Namadeva called back to Panduranga: "My dear Lord, I have seen through your game. You won't fool me again. You made me believe the temple was the only place to see you. But now I know that all is You and there is nothing but Yourself!" Panduranga laughed and blessed Namadeva. [This message has been edited by shvu (edited 01-28-2002).]

Thanks for the Info. I had never heard about the other side before. btw, assuming it is all true, is it possible the money was going into BOV without her knowledge? Cheers

Good one. Cheers

Excuse me for stepping in, but Jndas did not diasgree with Prabhupada's interpretation. What he said was Jainism is not explicitly mentioned in the Bhagavatam verse, which is true. And also, it would be more appropriate to discuss Jainism and it's practices on a thread about Jains rather than imposing outside views. Cheers

Me too, which is why I am curious to hear out Karthik. Cheers

Wasn't she serving the poor after all? I would like to know more about this. Thanx

This reminds me of something similar. My boss and me were discussing reincarnation the other day and he had this to tell. During his college days [early 60s], he had taken a course in advanced calculus. There was a 10 year old boy in this course who knew more about calculus than the professor himself ! This kid knew everything about Mathematics and he used to take classes with people who were atleast twice his age. Apparently back then, it was fashionable for Universities to have a prodigy or two. My boss recalls there were 2 more kids along with this one. He felt reincarnation was the best explanation for such a wonder. However the kid himself had no recollection of memories from a past life. He just knew everything about Math. Cheers

There was a recent tamil movie titled Majnu, which has been taken apart by this reviewer. I had a good laugh. <a href=http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/jan/04majnu.htm> Click here </a> Cheers

Since when did reincarnation become a reality? Reincarnation is still hypothetical and if one claims there are people who 'remembered' past lives, there are an equal or more number of cases where the so_called memories turned out to be a fake. For instance, a girl has memories of a lady on a swing, a particular kind of house, etc which later turned out to be her neighbor when she was very little. Those hazy memories were interpreted by some enthusiastic folks as memories of a past life. Of course, this does not prove there is no reincarnation, but there certainly isn't sufficient evidence to say reincarnation is a reality. No. Assuming there is such a thing as reincarnation, one is not supposed to remember any past life, because of the heavy load it brings on memory. In one of the many reincarnation stories in India, one young man suddenly remembers his past life, identifies the village where he lived and goes there. There he finds his wife from his previous life still alive [she is old] and his son a young man, but older than him. On seeing them, all the past feelings well up and consequently, he gets confused because he has a mother and a girfriend in this life! He does not feel like breaking away from his past and yet he knows he should. Not a nice thing to happen to anyone. Thus, even if there is reincarnation, it is fortunate that one doesn't remember any past life. It can only make things worse. Disclaimer: Just like other posts made by other people, this is my own opinion. No need for anyone to get upset and angry at an 'un-devotee-like' post. Anyway, there are plenty of christian devotees, who do not believe in reincarnation and some of them (from my own experience) give excellent logic to refute it. Cheers

I used to know one boy of Arya Samaj who was very knowledgable of the Vedas and he was only 17. A very bright guy. Once when we were discussing the Rigveda references of the River Saraswati, he disagreed emphatically. According to him [and probably Arya Samaj] the Vedas did not talk about physical locations in North India, but actually meant divine personalities. To him, Saraswati in the Rig-veda meant Goddess Saraswati and not a river. Cheers

Don't bother with the 'prophecies' of the Bhavishya Purana. The Pratisarga Parva is an example of extreme corruption, which was constantly upated to keep it's prophecies up to date. Any popular personality of some repute was promptly added to the prophecies section. Consequently, the Islam kings, Britishers, Queen Victoria and even the East India company [ROTFL] found their way into the Pratisarga Parva ! Read, Historical and cultural data from the Bhavishya Purana [Rajkumar Arora] The Puranas [Ludo Rocher] Unforunately for the interpolaters, Venkateshwara Steam Press of Bombay decided to publish the BP in 1879, thus putting these interpolaters out of jobs. This is because once a book is published, no more interpolation is possible and so the BP's prophecies ended with that date. Hence, one will not find any mention of post-1879 personalities in the BP. No Vivekananda, Indira Gandhi, or Amitabh Bachchan. Cheers

Another similar point which I found very interesting. Winternitz says, "In the entire Vedic literature, there is no mention of the Mahabharata war. But in the Brahmanas, the Kuru field is mentioned as a place where Gods and men performed great sacrifices. Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit is mentioned in the Brahmanas and in a song of the Atharvana veda, Parikshit is praised as a peace loving king under whose reign the Kuru country flourished. In the Yajur veda, Kurus and Panchalas are often mentioned and in the Kathaka (8.6) an anecdote on Dhritarashtra, the son of Vichitravirya is told. But nowhere is the name of Pandu and the Pandavas to be found, as also names like Duryodhana, Karna, etc, in the entire body of Vedic literature." Cheers

My Arya Samaj buddy was of the same opinion. He said it may have been possible that a river may have been named after the Goddess Saraswati, but Saraswati in the Rig-veda does not mean a river. If one believes the Vedas are eternal, this will make sense. Obviously the Rig-veda then, cannot talk about a phsyical river in one part of the world, which was flowing at some point of time. It does not make sense for someone to chant eternal mantras about a river which is no longe extant or even if the river is still running and the person is in a different geographical location. Cheers

Considering Rama came at the end of Treta and Krishna at the end of Dwapara, how can they have been the Sat-Gurus for their Yugas? it would be more approriate to say they were/are Sat-Gurus for subsequent Yugas. Where is it said, the real Dharma of kali-yuga is limited to sat-sangha and mantra japa only? The teachings of Rama are still valid in the kali-yuga and so are Krishna's teachings. They never limited real Dharma in kali-yuga to Sat-sangha and mantra-japa only. Cheers

There is no such one_single_authoritative scripture for the Hindus. That is the clear cut answer. Different groups of Hindus have different scriptures as authority. Cheers

Good point. Perhaps the present day Hastinapura is not that Hastinapura, which may have changed names over time. Besides the Mahabharata of today is unreliable considering that it exists in many recensions where whole cantos are different and even the common portions are ordered differently and so on indicating the Mahabharata has come a long way from it's original form. Without a doubt. Indian historians are clear that Indian history is reliably known only from the period of the Buddha onwards and that too with several points uncertain and unknown. Anything before this period is mostly speculation. Cheers

Forgive them Bhakta Shab, for they know not what they are doing. Remember Krishna pardoned Shishupala a hundred times and draw inspiration from that example. Always pardon people of their offenses as much as you can, including the Mayavadins. Pray to Krishna that he may have mercy on them and may redeem their souls by removing their ignorance. Hare Krishna

For instance, there was the Bhandarkar foundation [indians], which carried out excavation around Hastinapura during early and mid 20th century. The oldest date of activity in that area was determined to be 600 BC. I 'll pull out the exact details. Also the Dwaraka excavation by Rao, which was dated as 1500 - 800 BC. Cheers

If you are God, then what is meant by finding God 'in yourself'? Cheers

Although not exactly related to this topic, it is interesting to note, Madhva did not consider the Valmiki Ramayana as authority. Perhaps, it wsa because he was aware of many versions of VR? Anyway, when he quotes Ramayana, he always quotes from Sruti [not extant now], which he calls the Moola Ramayana. Hence, for the tattva-vaadis, Valmiki Ramayana is not authority. Cheers

The AIT was not an ad hoc concoction. There have been reasons [true or false] provided for how they arrived at such a theory. I presume you have read Basham about the Gods worshipped in Harappa, the animals, etc. Now if someone can conclusively prove Aryans never over threw Dravidians, that will finish AIT. Note however that although some people are making a lot of noise about it, nothing significant has come out of it yet. Not that I am attesting AIT, but I will take the anti-AIT team seriously when something concrete comes out of their work. Because, I know there are always a set of people who like to take history back to fantastic sounding dates. For example, although the Great Pyramid in Egypt is dated to almost 5000 years back, there are some people who feel it is 10000 years old and complain about bureaucracy. If the pyramids were dated to 10000 bc, they would have probably felt it was 20000 years old. Similarly a set of Indians would have compained anyway, even if history had dated the Vedas to 50,000 bc. They would have said the Vedas are eternal, the Indologists cannot accept such things because they are 'biased westerners' and so on. Obviously not, because history still talks about AIT and the anti-AIT team is complaining about bureaucracy, etc. That is the current position. Because it is part of AIT. He cannot accept part of AIT and leave out another part of it. I don't understand how astronomy helped date the Rig-veda. I would like to know how, thanx That is fine...I understand totally. I am not a Basham supporter or something. But I prefer history vis-a-vis traditional stories. And yes, I understand history may be wrong at times too, but it has to be proved beyond doubt which has not happened in this case, yet. Basham mentions the ArthashAstra to show meat-eating was practised in those days. What about the animal sacrifices of the Vedic times? What was done with the animals after they were sacrificed and what about Yajnavalkya in the Krishna Yajur? It is believed Vedic style sacrifices disappeared in India due to criticizm by other scools like Buddhism and Jainism. Naturally that would have cut down meat consumption too. That is the idea. Cheers

Anonymous tried to pull a fast one with, You are right. Not one, but four people answered your question about evidence. But even if forty people had answered your question, you would have probably said "What? Did someone say something?" And further, not wanting to confront evidence, anonymous tries to digress with, Do you really want people to answer this question or at the end of 4-5 answers, will you say, "So no one has come forward with any answer to my question"? If you want people to take your Qs seriously, you will have stop trying to pull fast ones. But if you still wish to do so, you will have to do better than this. Cheers

Dear Don Muntean, I am saying, meat eating was not considered respectable in India from as early as the 5th century, if not earlier. Let me know, if you have more doubts about what I am saying. Cheers