Fwd: Definition of Aryan

[Guest guest]

IndiaArchaeology , " Avtar Krishen Kaul "

<jyotirved wrote:

 

Dear Dr. Elst,

I want to clarify just a couple of points:

 

<Thus, on the HinduCalendar list, I see people attempt

to discuss astronomical facts and then interrupt theis scientific

effort with considerations of the Puranic yugas, uncritically

adopting the fairly late interpretation of yuga as being 432,000

years long (or something of that magnitude), an obviously unlikely

and certainly non-astronomical unit.>

As you would be aware, HinduCalendar is a forum that is not

moderated for posts! It is actually a brain-storming-exercise forum

for arriving at some sort of consensus about streamlining the

Vedic/Hindu calendar.

Regardig the duration of various Yugas, the Vedas are silent about

it! There is a pancha-smavatsaratmaka yuga in the VJ and that

appears to have been carried over into the Mbh etc.

 

It is a moot point as to whether the duration of the yugas as per

Puranas vis-a-vis the Surya Sidhanta was impacted by Puranas or it

was the other way round! Most probably, it is the latter!

 

By now we are at least sure that no " new yuga " could have started

astronomically on February 17/18, 3102 BCE! That itself puts a

question mark on the duration and thereby the starting dates of all

the other yugas astronomically.

 

It is actually " Vedic astrology " on the shoulders of the Surya

Sidhanta of Maya the mlechha that has done the maximum damage to

Hindu cultural fabric, as it had become imperative in the past to

interpret anything and everything in a manner that would be as per

the " astronomical principles " adumberated in that work! Phalit

Jyotishis could not brook any opposition to those " principles " and

that is why Munjala was relegated to obscurity as he wanted that the

Uttarayana was to be celebrated really on the shortest day of the

year instead of as per the fancies and whims of jyotishis!

 

However, that " condemning " of " research " has not been the fate of

Hindu scientific research alone! Even Gallelio had to recant his

statement during Inquisition that " the earth moves round the sun "

though he muttered " soto-voce " -- " et per se it moveth " i.e. " all the

same, it moves " .

 

<Yet, there is a kind of Hindu creation, though it doesn't lock the

world up in a narrow Biblical time-span of six thousand years,

preferring the Puranic mega-million-cycles instead. Among Hare

Krishnas, at least, I find a lot of rejection of evolution, not in

the sense of rejecting the dinosaurs, but in the sense (after

Michael Cremo: Forbidden Archaeology) of rejecting that humans are

descendents of, and later than, monkeys and dinosaurs. In comic-

strips you get to see humans co-existing with dinosaurs; >

 

Darwin's Theory of Evolution is actually a sort of " commentary " on

the Theory of Creation as per the Vedas and Upanisahdas---though

Darwin could not understand the subtle points of " evolution " .

 

Unless something is " involved " in something else, it just

cannot " evolve " out of that " something else " . In the Upanishadas,

it has been said " Eko aham Bahuda syam " ---i.e. " I am one and want to

be many " . In these very Upanisahdas, it has also been said that He

(you can call Him even IT!) " experimented " with several forms and

was ultimately satsifed with the human form!

 

 

The Purshuasukhta---known as The Hymn of Creation---of the Rig Veda

also descirbes evolution in as pithy a form as is humanly possible!

 

Where Darwin erred, or was having scientific constraints, was the

fact that he could not have envisaged that it was One who had become

many by and by! In other words, the One evolved Himself into myriad

forms! And all these forms are eaqually dear to Him because they

are all His forms!

But then that is a realm of philosophy rather than Archaeology!

Hence, bye for the time being!

With regards,

Avtar

 

IndiaArchaeology , " Koenraad Elst "

<koenraad.elst@> wrote:

>

> IndiaArchaeology , " Carlos Aramayo "

> <cararam50@> wrote:

> >

> > IndiaArchaeology , " Koenraad Elst "

> > <koenraad.elst@> wrote:

> >

> > > You will date a book on the

> > > dinosaurs to the Jurassic era.

> > >

> >

> > Is it a real scholar in a real academic discussion who makes

such

> an

> > offensive claim to his Hindu opponent????

> >

>

>

> Dear Carlos,

>

> It is because I have largely identified with the Hindu cause that

I

> think I can permit myself the freedom to speak of " Hindu

polmeicists "

> and disparage their idiosyncrasies a bit. They are right to

question

> the AIT, and therefore I am right in criticizing them for making

the

> anti-AIT position look ridiculous with their smug

counterscientific

> claims and their logical fallacies.

>

> When you read in their posts things like " therefore... " , " so now

you

> can't deny anymore... " , " thus it is totally evident

that... " , " only a

> fool can still deny... " , or " this proves " , you'd better reach for

> your gun, for chances are that a fallacy is coming. On lists

> pertaining to Indian history, Hindu religion, the AIT debate or

Vedic

> astrology/calendar, you can find hundreds of examples.

>

> The background problem is a deeply defective sense of historicity,

> i.e. of the fact that things have a history, as opposed to being

> eternal ideas parachuted from heaven and now forming immutable

> cornerstones of our world-view. Thus, the MBh has a history.

Between

> its first inspiration and its final edition, many centuries

elapsed,

> fifteen or so. Social and religious developments from the

intervening

> centuries found the place in the final version but stand out as

> anachronisms when you read it as an account of the original events

> inspiring the epic. There is nothing particularly anti-Hindu about

> stating this, it merely extends to the Hindu world a phenomenon in

> evidence everywhere else. Thus, in medieval paintings showing

scenes

> form the Gospel, we see Jesus and his audience in medieval-

European

> buildings wearing medieval-European clothes. Likewise, the final

> editor of the MBh brought his story closer to his audience by

> marginally including the Yavanas and other contemporaneous ethnic

> groups of whom Krishna had never heard. Sometimes the anachronism

was

> deliberate and motivated, e.g. the insertion of the brutally

casteist

> Shambuka story at the end of the Ramayana, reflecting caste

relations

> of the editor's own time, totally unattested in the Ramayana core

> narrative.

>

> Sometimes there is no anachronism but later readers created it by

> taking a title too literally: the Manu Smrti is an unabashed

account

> of the sociology of Hindu society in the beginning of the

Christian

> age. there is no attempt to make it look mre ancient,-- except for

> the name " Manu Smrti " implying the claim that the " laws " laid down

in

> the text date back to the ancient patriarch Manu. It is unclear

how

> literal anyone took that claim at the time of its editing. But the

> sad fact is that list members do argue in all seriousness that the

> Manu Smrti was literally composed by that Manu " long before the

MBh

> war " . Applying the Puranic dynastic lists, which put the Vedic

kings

> well after Manu (actually as his descendents), they should have to

> add that Manu lived " long before the Vedas " , but there the logic

is

> overruled by another Hindu but non-Vedic belief, viz. that the

Vedas

> are as old as the universe. On that point, if only they'd read

> scripture literally! Then they'd know that the Vedic huymns are

self-

> described human composition, set in space and time and addressed

to

> (as against dictated by) the gods. There, many Hindus sovereignly

> overrule the testimony of their divine scriptures to follow a

crassly

> irrational notion of a scripture given at the time of creation.

>

> Hindus do their own cherished historical theses, such as the Aryan

> non-invasion, great harm by sticking to pre-critical attitudes

such

> as the literalist reading of scriptures. And I am not asking for a

> total overhaul of anything, just read your own writings to notice

the

> contradictions. Thus, on the HinduCalendar list, I see people

attempt

> to discuss astronomical facts and then interrupt theis scientific

> effort with considerations of the Puranic yugas, uncritically

> adopting the fairly late interpretation of yuga as being 432,000

> years long (or something of that magnitude), an obviously unlikely

> and certainly non-astronomical unit. The combination of pretending

to

> do science and yet sticking to a literal reading of scripture is

> often quite comical. And that's the only thing that outsiders

> remember after reading it: those Hindus are funny!

>

> So, i think I am really doing Hindus a friend's service by

breaking

> ranks with the Hindutva society of self-praise.

>

> As for those dinosaurs. I was interviewed last week by a young

local

> journalist, and some of his questions amounted to an insistent

> comparison between Hindu and Protestant " fundamentalists " , such as

> what they think about abortion, about euthanasia, stem-cell

research

> etc., and of course about creationism. Some time ago, some Hindu

> polemicists alleged that the AIT amounted to creationism and that

> atheist Steve Farmer was a Biblical literalist and creationist. In

> fact, their own rejection of IE linguistics amounted to a form of

> creationism: just as Christian creationists reject the deduction

of

> dinosaurs from the existence of dinosaur bones, they reject the

> deduction of a PIE language from the existence (now or in the

known

> past) of its daughter-languages.

>

> But let us stick to the topic of creationism in its literal sense,

> popular among Protestants and Muslims. Hindus usually pride

> themselves on never having had a problem with evolution

> theory: " Isn't the series of Vishnu's incarnation a preview of

> evolution theory? " Yet, there is a kind of Hindu creation, though

it

> doesn't lock the world up in a narrow Biblical time-span of six

> thousand years, preferring the Puranic mega-million-cycles

instead.

> Among Hare Krishnas, at least, I find a lot of rejection of

> evolution, not in the sense of rejecting the dinosaurs, but in the

> sense (after Michael Cremo: Forbidden Archaeology) of rejecting

that

> humans are descendents of, and later than, monkeys and dinosaurs.

In

> comic-strips you get to see humans co-existing with dinosaurs;

those

> Hindus take this literally.

>

> Now, this is a peculiar belief of one Hindu sect, but it feeds

upon

> an attitude thart is far more widespread among Hindus, viz. a very

> defective grasp of historicity. It's an important topic to which

we

> shall certainly return.

>

> Kind regards,

>

> KE

>

 

--- End forwarded message ---