India: its religion,science&superstition:a rational perspective

Azygos · August 17, 2005

India: its religion,science & superstition : a rational perspective

For the last 4 months, i have been trying to discover the wonderful religion of sanatana dharma or hinduism.

And so far although i am short of any realizations, i feel completely mesmerized with its serenity, its depth, its tranquility, its taming of the highest intellect, its conception of the highest, and finally its revelation of the divinity of man. I feel blessed to have been born in the country which has given to this world the most wonderful, the greatest of all religions and its nectar of spirituality, a way of life which synthesizes with such ease the highest renunciation, the highest ethics and the highest morality unparalleled in the annals of human civilization.

Not only did India had spirituality, along with it, it was gifted in art and literature. Indian literature has been bestowed with the greatest of the epics, the works of Kalidasa, and innumerable more works in Sanskrit. And the diverse languages which arose from it have further aggrandized our literary treasure, not to forget the classic dravidian languages. Also in art and arctitecture our civilization has been nonpareil. In Music, India had gifted the world the diatonic scale around 350 BC, along with the beauty of our classical music and dance forms.

However, when the question of science arises, it is an enigmatic problem indeed.

For the greatness of our religion is we have discovered the highest truth within ourselves without the revelation by any divine prophet.

The other religions have been inspired, the religion of hinduism has been expired.

But to discover the natural sciences one has to look outward like the greeks did. Indeed, our forefathers also looked outward first. Our great astronomical discoveries are in a league of their own, the modern numerals and the marvellous zero have all come from India.

In medicine, the indigenous ayurvedic system of medicine, is still in practice and holds its own inspite of the gigantic rise of western medicine. In surgery, plastic surgery, tonsillectomy were known in India even around 1000 BC. And last but not the least, inspite of the best medical care, the highest life expectancy in the most developed of the European nations and japan has not reached 90 while in the vedic age, the average life expectancy was regarded as 100. Thus, the four phases of human life were regarded as 25 years apiece.

But as soon as the aryan indians looked within, they discovered a new world, and limitless possibilities, which didnt exist when looking towards the external nature. And thus, they grasped the highest metaphysical truths whose treasures are there in the vedas and the upanishads.

Not looking towards the external nature, should mean the aryan indians never let the materialistic technology to be invented and take them away from their goal. But some recent nationalistic historians proclaim that India had all the knowledge of the modern sciences.

Like the 100 kauravas were all test tube babies, the brahmasthra was the hydrogen bomb, all those vimanas mentioned in the epics of ramayana and mahabharata surpassed modern aircraft, dhitarashtra the kaurava king was kept informed about the events in the battlefield by vedic television, the arrows were actually missiles and innumerable more such ancient marvels which rival and sometimes surpass the modern marvels of today.

In my humble opinion, i feel that these latter theories are far fetched. Indian science could not never have been so advanced. For to prove these, we need certain archaeological evidence. Unfortunately so far we have none. Much of the blame lies with our historians and the archaeological survey of India, one of the most incompetent bodies in the country. Lack of interest in History among today;s youth is another matter for concern, for our country;s history has been taken over by the coterie of Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, S P Sharma and co. who are declared communists and their shibboleths smack of anti nationalism. They have been acclaimed abroad, and from the pseudosecularists in power (the congress and the left) for denigrating our pure religion by the worst calumny. And unfortunately these historians rule the roost and are the writers of the commonly prescibed NCERT school history books as well as university level books especially in JNU. To preserve our history and prevent it from getting distorted we as informed citizens must come forward and protest this history rewriting which is brainwashing the future generation and portraying our forefathers as uncivilized barbarians, glorifying the mughal barbarians and the communist dictators like Stalin, and defaming our pristine religion of sanatana dharma. No wonder, they are not interested in excavating the truths because their nefarious designs would stand exposed, and their hypocrisy will be unveiled amongst all.

My only doubts are regarding Indian materialistic science having ever existed. For the only possibility of them having existed is because of their mention in the epics of ramayana and mahabharata. The aim of both these epics was to portray society, its strengths and weaknesses (like the story of eklavya which reflects the follies of the caste system), and the role of the Rama and Krishna, the godly incarnations to maintain virtue, and defeat the forces of evil which wanted to inflict a reign of chaos and adharma.

But to consider ALL the incidents in both epics to be true would be a folly. The mahabharata was written by not one, but multiple authors. 2,00,000 lines cannot be written by a single man, howsoever great he might be! and all writers wrote under the pseudonyn of Vyasa, so Vyasa could never have been a single man.

Then why those stories of those vimanas, etc at all? I think the authors also brought in an element of fantasy or technically science fiction. Havent modern authors written about parallel universes, and other worlds. But they are all figments of imagination within the authors;s mind. But then, one might counter by stating that Science fiction stories are depicted in the future. However, that is probably because according to the western mind, science advances with age. But in the vedic age, in the minds of the aryan rishis, the men of yesteryer in the sattvic age must have been more advanced in science and technology. Both ramayana and mahabharata tell the stories of the past, a past where materialistic science along with spirituality was at its zenith.

It has also become a recent trend by defenders of Hinduism to attach subtle meanings to all our customs and attach some symbolic vedic truth with all those puranic stories. And although, i admit that there is some relative truth in them, i dont see the point in justifying all those superstitions and those customs which need to be shunned. Vedas and upanishads, our primary scriptures or srutis have nothing to do with superstition. The puranas at some place, state that a man can live for 1000 yrs which is preposterous.

THe purnas are secondary scriptures, the authenticity of some of them is doubtful, and they are to believed only as long as they agree with the vedas. Since the vedas speak of only one incarnation, we should stick with it instead of trying to trace Rama;s ancestry and getting involved in useless speculation about the ADVENT OF KALKI. All these unnecessary dependance on a future incarnation is totally uncalled for. Remeber these words "great is a nation with heroes. But The greatest is the one which DOES NOT NEED HEROES". If every citizen of the country can be like our aryan rishis of yore, if the qualities of nationalism, knowledge, truth, integrity and unbound strength are there in everyone then we wont need to depend on an incarnation to liberate us from the clutches of the ills of poverty, illiteracy, corruption, nescience, superstition and degradation in every possible field of life. We dont need to prove how much our forefathers knew about science, the fact of the matter is even if that science had existed it has now been lost. The need of the hour is twofold, the first is to spread the word of the vedas and the upanishads throughout the land, among the masses especially those who never had access to them. The second is to progress simultaneously in western science and education, be self sufficient in industry, agriculture, services which would automatically provide jobs to our vast human resources, and raise the standard of living. Depending on a future incarnation is absolute cowardice of the highest degree. Remembering Vivekananda;s words "awake, arise and stop not until the goal is acheived" should be the rallying cry of every patriot in our hallowed land. We dont need incarnations, the vedanta says "everyone is potentially divine"......the divinity is within us all.....and that divinity can make India glorious again, even more glorious than its past.............

August 22, 2005

{But to consider ALL the incidents in both epics to be true would be a folly. The mahabharata was written by not one, but multiple authors. 2,00,000 lines cannot be written by a single man, howsoever great he might be! and all writers wrote under the pseudonyn of Vyasa, so Vyasa could never have been a single man.}

I'd agree with that but I think if the mahabharata was written by Vyasa, I doubt it was the same Vyasa who wrote the 18 puranas. And is the same Vyasa also known as Badrayana who wrote the brahma-sutras? I doubt it. Since the Brahma-sutras date after the Mahabharata and before the Puranas.

{But to consider ALL the incidents in both epics to be true would be a folly.}

Yes, they can't be taken litterally, like Hanuman swallowing the sun or Bhima's son growing into a giant. But I think as the Ramyana and Mahabharata are poems we are dealing with similies, metaphors and allegories.

{The puranas at some place, state that a man can live for 1000 yrs which is preposterous}.

I agree, it's silly, especially those who think Vyasa is still alive somewhere in India, though they or nobody they know has seen him.

{Depending on a future incarnation is absolute cowardice of the highest degree.}

That's true, it's ridiculous how some believe that an incarnation is going to come and save India, when it hasn't come for the past 5000 years. When India needed an Incarnation the most (during the muslim invasion) there was no incarnation to help the Hindus. I think the Muslim attrocities were far worst than Duryodhan did. The Hindus were disunited and cowardly and did not take Sri Krishna's advice in the Gita, to fight back when under attack.

I think the thing that distinguishes Hinduism from other religions is that we still have sages coming and will continue to come in the future to revive the teachings and add their contibution to the ever-growing religion. Hinduism is based on the teachings of hundreds of sages, not one or two. With other religions their prophets have stopped coming a few thousand years back.