'Indian history was distorted by the British'

civfanatic

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* Rig Veda is not supposed to have any inherent 'meaning'. This is a very old proposition by Mimansa which is an orthodox school. The Rig Veda is simply eternal. (There is no need to be offended by this statement since its a very abstract concept)
The very premise on which the Mimamsa school based their propositions is fatally flawed. There is nothing "eternal" about the Rig Veda, it is simply a collection of useless ramblings that is assigned divine status by the followers of certain dogmas. The Mimamsa did come up with some very interesting theories, working off their belief in the divine status of the Vedic corpus, but those theories were BS.

This brings up another interesting point. The Mimamsa school is often considered to be "atheistic", apparently because it doesn't believe in anthromorphic deities. But doesn't it treat the Vedic corpus almost as a deity in itself? Can any school which bases its theories off a dogmatic belief in the infallibility and "eternity" of a meaningless series of chants, be called "atheistic", much less rationalistic?
 

Virendra

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So then, the brahmans conducting the said sacrifices intentionally "misinterpreted" the Vedas for all those centuries?
We don't if it was intentional misinterpretation or corruption/misunderstanding that crept in with time.
What we know is, the Veda is not an entity that advocates animal sacrifice.

It is a 17th century Mewar painting made by the famous Sahibdin. There were no "Indologists" like Max Mueller around then, so the depiction of horse sacrifice in the painting could only have been drawn from the native Hindu understanding of ashwamedha.
17th century A.D. is far off from Rigveda .. thousands of years off.
The painting could have been depicting contemporary practices and beliefs of the martial Royals rather than what the Veda said.
Not to forget that Sahibdin was a muslim.

And why exactly can't purushamedha mean human sacrifice? The custom of human sacrifice was practiced around the world in ancient times, so why not in India?
Lets not fight over can or can't. Does it ??
Doesn't Rig Veda itself deal with the sacrifice of Purusha, the Primordial Man, from whose dismembered limbs sprung the four varnas?
And where does it say that this Cosmic Man is a physical being roaming on the Earth and his physical dismembering (if at all it happened) should be replicated among mortal humans on the Earth in the times to come ??

These interpretations of the Vedas seem like the work of the Hindus of the 19th and 20th centuries who were shocked by their perceived backwardness in regards to the colonizing European, and sought to "reconstruct" the Vedas and make them more appealing to the European as well as the Europeanized pseudo-Dharmic. These same Hindus, for example, are ashamed of the intense erotic depictions found in much Indic art and architecture, and the uncomfortably frank and explicit (from their point of view) descriptions of sexual activity found in much Indic literature. Raja Ravi Varma was one such Hindu who was unduly influenced by the European, and who sought to reconcile Hindu mythology with the moral standards and expectations of Victorian Britain. In regards to the Vedas, these Hindus suddenly became painfully aware of the inherent meaninglessness of the Vedas as they came under the scrutiny of the self-proclaimed "Indologists", and so sought to construct new interpretations that would impress the European and Europeanized Hindu alike (it didn't help that many Westerners themselves actually bought the faux profundity of the Vedas championed by the pseudo-Dharmics). The brahmans could no longer expect the populace to buy the giant lie of the Vedas as they had for the past several millennia, and so it became imperative to give new meaning to these supposedly sacred texts, where no meaning existed before. I am, of course, referring primarily to the Arya Samaj movement, for they represented the epitome of the new Europeanized Hinduism. The famed Dayanand Saraswati rejected the classical commentaries on the Vedas as "corruptions", and tried to reduce the Ashwamedha to a purely abstract, allegorical ritual, despite the considerable detail in which the ritual is physically described in other Hindu works (including the depiction of women engaging in sexual activity with the horse). The pertinent question, of course, is whether or not Dayanand Saraswati would have championed such a radical re-interpretation of the Vedic corpus, if he wasn't living in the late 19th century India during the so-called "Hindu Renaissance" under the intellectual and moral shadow of the West in general, and the British Empire in particular?
Interpretations don't change by themselves. A correct interpretation in 1500 A.D. would be the same as a correct one in 1500 B.C.
If interpretations differ, it means some are wrong and some right.

If Vedas are incomprehensible ramblings, how do we comprehend that they mean Animal sacrifice?
I would like to know of the verses that encourage animal sacrifice and how they became comprehensible in the middle of incomprehensible ramblings.

@pmaitra
Interpretation in letter does not keep the context and hence may give a wrong meaning; like the example of 'Maans'.
Many of such mechanical interpretations are even technically incorrect.

Regards,
Virendra
 
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hit&run

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I understand that name-calling has been the hallmark of the brahmans since ancient times, and that this tradition has been passed on to their intellectual pseudo-Dharmic descendants in the modern day who pretend to be "Dharmic" while having no knowledge of Sanskrit, forming their opinions and worldview from Western writers and Westernized "Hindus", and who physically live in the West to boot. One does not know what to make of such people.

Ashok's stone edicts may or may not be the "truth", but they are at least comprehensible and have clear, discernible meanings. This simple fact lends them more historical value and importance than one thousand Vedas or Puranas. Indeed, I would give more value any day to hard evidence like a stone epigraph, authentic historical painting, or even a coin than I would to the useless mass of ramblings which go by the name of "Vedas".

Of course, I am not the only person who believes that the Vedas are incomprehensible ramblings. This view is echoed by numerous people throughout the ages, perhaps ever since the Vedas were first composed. There were Indians even in the 1st millennium BC.E. who thought the Vedas were meaningless rubbish. The most vocal advocates of this view were the Charvaks.

From Chapter 1 of Madhava Acharya's Sarvadarshanasamgraha, giving an exposition of Charvak thought:


Indeed, it is a testament to the greatness of ancient Indian civilization that it produced such beacons of rational and progressive thought as the great Brihaspati, Ajita Kesakambali, and of course Siddhartha Gautama. These great individuals, and undoubtedly many others, were able to see through the destructive and self-serving dogmas of religion which plagued the world at the time, and indeed continue to do so today. It is unfortunate that the voices of these individuals have since been drowned by the sea of ignorance and superstition promoted by the proponents of religion. This is only natural, for religion in essence is the polar opposite of rationalism and progress, and ignorance and superstition are its natural allies.
Disrespecting vedas is a hall mark of Shudras and Buddhist. Name calling is done by Shudras and stereotyping of Brahmans which is prevalent in India is good example of name calling.

Next time when you rant against one community then be ready for plenty of spits coming your way. If someone is attacking you in personal capacity then you tackle him the same way than doing the nonsense you have just done.
 
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hit&run

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If vedas being such an extensive work inherited from oral tradition, are not a literature worth giving insight of the history of this land then I doubt any material would be.

The so called Mythology was a tool to make History non-perishable, the oral tradition is as authentic as any relic found on a landscape and people who do not value that concept opted by our ancestors regardless of how unscientific it has become today are simply naive or evil minded.

People can be seen here glorifying Buddha but declaring rest of the Hindus literature fiction shouldn't expect themselves to be considered seriously. The problem is Hindus do not have a face who can collectively own all the Hindu literature and if its is been owned by Brahman then rest of faction who suffer from idiopathic allergy from Brahmans call it incomprehensible.

I would further say the misdeeds and discrimination Brahmins did as a society and individually against other sections of society should have seen this coming. Then the icing on the cake was we were invaded by white bigots and others who came with clear agenda of assimilating us, not to mention their strive is still on.
 

civfanatic

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We don't if it was intentional misinterpretation or corruption/misunderstanding that crept in with time.
What we know is, the Veda is not an entity that advocates animal sacrifice.

17th century A.D. is far off from Rigveda .. thousands of years off.
The painting could have been depicting contemporary practices and beliefs of the martial Royals rather than what the Veda said.
Not to forget that Sahibdin was a muslim.
All that is relevant. I posted that picture to show that the native Hindu understanding of ashwamedha prior to the arrival of Indologists was indeed one of physical horse sacrifice. That it is an undeniable fact. I could care less what the Vedas say or don't say on the matter; what matters is what people actually did. All the historical evidence points to animal sacrifice being widespread in ancient India, and this practice was seen as sanctioned by the Vedas.


Lets not fight over can or can't. Does it ??

And where does it say that this Cosmic Man is a physical being roaming on the Earth and his physical dismembering (if at all it happened) should be replicated among mortal humans on the Earth in the times to come ??
How am I supposed to know? Human sacrifice may or may not have been practiced in ancient India; what is for sure, however, is that we can't draw any meaningful conclusions from the Vedas themselves, given how incoherent and meaningless the Vedic verses are. i just posted the example from Rig Veda to show that the term purushamedha may indeed refer to a physical human sacrifice, and not some abstract allegorical ritual. But attempting to draw further extrapolations from the Vedic corpus would be akin to milking a dead cow. I wouldn't use this as the basis for any type of historical argument, simply because the Vedas can hardly be considered a coherent historical document.


Interpretations don't change by themselves
Interpretations change all the time. Following the 19th century and the sudden exposure of Hindu religious thought to Western beliefs and civilization, many radical reformations and re-interpetations took place. That is a well-known fact. With the changing interpretations, Indian culture changed considerably as well. Indian ethics and norms today are certainly quite different from how they were in the 18th century, and one can only imagine how different Indian culture was when the Vedas were composed.


If Vedas are incomprehensible ramblings, how do we comprehend that they mean Animal sacrifice?
We don't. It is indeed impossible to derive any sort of greater meaning out of the Vedas, because no such meaning exists. What we know is that sacrificial rituals were conducted alongside Vedic chants as part of the ancient Brahamnical religion, and that the morphemes contained in the Vedas were taken to refer to sacrifices.
 

civfanatic

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Disrespecting vedas is a hall mark of Shudras and Buddhist. Name calling is done by Shudras and stereotyping of Brahmans which is prevalent in India is good example of name calling.

Next time when you rant against one community then be ready for plenty of spits coming your way. If someone is attacking you in personal capacity then you tackle him the same way than doing the nonsense you have just done.
I don't understand why you are so upset. It is a well-known that brahmans of the past were polemicists who used their monopoly on literacy skills and knowledge of the Vedic corpus to twist meanings and slander their opponents. Calling a brahman a historical polemicist is no different than calling a Vandal a vandal, or a Turkic ghazi a religious fanatic. We can observe some examples of the Brahmanical polemicism even in your own posts, when you contemptuously refer to Shudras and Buddhists in the same line as if they were one and the same. In reality, the earliest Buddhists, including Siddhartha Gautama himself, were Kshatriyas; the shudras joined later. However, the Brahmanical polemicists in their propaganda literature (such as the Puranas) arbitrarily degraded all Buddhists to the status of shudras, and indeed proclaimed that the Buddha himself was a shudra. They further denigrated the Buddhists as polluting to the touch, and mandated that anyone coming into a physical contact with a Buddhist must perform a ritual ablution to cleanse themselves. What do we call people who create such rules?

The Brahmans feared those who could think independently, for they knew that skepticism and rational inquiry would spell the end of their social dominance. It was thus in their natural interest to promote the spread of superstition, ignorance, and rigid hierarchy, which they did quite admirably.
 

Virendra

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All that is relevant. I posted that picture to show that the native Hindu understanding of ashwamedha prior to the arrival of Indologists was indeed one of physical horse sacrifice. That it is an undeniable fact. I could care less what the Vedas say or don't say on the matter; what matters is what people actually did.
It doesn't show the native Hindu understanding. It shows what a muslim painter painted and what some poeple might have asked him to paint.
In 21st century when we're fighting over Vedas, practices, interpretations; diverse views would have existed even then.

All the historical evidence points to animal sacrifice being widespread in ancient India, and this practice was seen as sanctioned by the Vedas.
The evidence of which is eagerly awaited.

How am I supposed to know? Human sacrifice may or may not have been practiced in ancient India; what is for sure, however, is that we can't draw any meaningful conclusions from the Vedas themselves, given how incoherent and meaningless the Vedic verses are. i just posted the example from Rig Veda to show that the term purushamedha may indeed refer to a physical human sacrifice, and not some abstract allegorical ritual.
So now it all falls to "may be" and "may be not" ??

We can observe some examples of the Brahmanical polemicism even in your own posts, when you contemptuously refer to Shudras and Buddhists in the same line as if they were one and the same. In reality, the earliest Buddhists, including Siddhartha Gautama himself, were Kshatriyas; the shudras joined later. However, the Brahmanical polemicists in their propaganda literature (such as the Puranas) arbitrarily degraded all Buddhists to the status of shudras, and indeed proclaimed that the Buddha himself was a shudra.
This one is between you and HR but are you angry because Buddhists were bracketed with Shudras?
Because I don't find it offending. I don't think a Shudra is in any way lesser than a Kshatriya or Brahmin. It is like Apples and Oranges.

Regards,
Virendra
 

panduranghari

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I understand that name-calling has been the hallmark of the brahmans since ancient times, and that this tradition has been passed on to their intellectual pseudo-Dharmic descendants in the modern day who pretend to be "Dharmic" while having no knowledge of Sanskrit, forming their opinions and worldview from Western writers and Westernized "Hindus", and who physically live in the West to boot. One does not know what to make of such people.

Ashok's stone edicts may or may not be the "truth", but they are at least comprehensible and have clear, discernible meanings. This simple fact lends them more historical value and importance than one thousand Vedas or Puranas. Indeed, I would give more value any day to hard evidence like a stone epigraph, authentic historical painting, or even a coin than I would to the useless mass of ramblings which go by the name of "Vedas".

Of course, I am not the only person who believes that the Vedas are incomprehensible ramblings. This view is echoed by numerous people throughout the ages, perhaps ever since the Vedas were first composed. There were Indians even in the 1st millennium BC.E. who thought the Vedas were meaningless rubbish. The most vocal advocates of this view were the Charvaks.

From Chapter 1 of Madhava Acharya's Sarvadarshanasamgraha, giving an exposition of Charvak thought:


Indeed, it is a testament to the greatness of ancient Indian civilization that it produced such beacons of rational and progressive thought as the great Brihaspati, Ajita Kesakambali, and of course Siddhartha Gautama. These great individuals, and undoubtedly many others, were able to see through the destructive and self-serving dogmas of religion which plagued the world at the time, and indeed continue to do so today. It is unfortunate that the voices of these individuals have since been drowned by the sea of ignorance and superstition promoted by the proponents of religion. This is only natural, for religion in essence is the polar opposite of rationalism and progress, and ignorance and superstition are its natural allies.

You are truly a 'Sophist'

Dutt P.B. - Western Indologists: A Study in Motives
 

panduranghari

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It is understandable that Witzel may err in interpreting a Sanskirt verse (lets forget for now that it may have been deliberate). Anyone can.
What is disappointing is that some Indian scholars eagerly and blindly pointed to his intrepretation as the Gospel and made tall claims over it.
They didn't even cross check the verse and its meaning and used it to write so much in their own books. :tsk:

Vedas aren't incomprehensible. Only that there is some confusion prima facae; due to the colonial breed of Indologists doing mechnical, inaccurate translations.and incontextual interpretations.

Regards,
Virendra
Dutt P.B. - Western Indologists: A Study in Motives

This may interest you.
 

panduranghari

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@pmaitra
Interpretation in letter does not keep the context and hence may give a wrong meaning; like the example of 'Maans'.
Many of such mechanical interpretations are even technically incorrect.

Regards,
Virendra

@pmaitra

Darius of persia could also be interpreted as Dhryus

द्रुह् druh adj. injuring
द्रुह् druh adj. hurtful
द्रुह् druh adj. hostile to
द्रुह् druh f. harm
द्रुह् druh f. offence
द्रुह् druh f. injury
द्रुह् druh m.f. fiend
द्रुह् druh m.f. demon
द्रुह् druh m.f. injurer
द्रुह् druh m.f. foe

Single word various meanings.
 
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LurkerBaba

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The very premise on which the Mimamsa school based their propositions is fatally flawed. There is nothing "eternal" about the Rig Veda, it is simply a collection of useless ramblings that is assigned divine status by the followers of certain dogmas. The Mimamsa did come up with some very interesting theories, working off their belief in the divine status of the Vedic corpus, but those theories were BS.

This brings up another interesting point. The Mimamsa school is often considered to be "atheistic", apparently because it doesn't believe in anthromorphic deities. But doesn't it treat the Vedic corpus almost as a deity in itself? Can any school which bases its theories off a dogmatic belief in the infallibility and "eternity" of a meaningless series of chants, be called "atheistic", much less rationalistic?
Eternal has a different meaning in this context. Eternal means something which has always existed and will exist, like some of the Laws of Physics. It may or may not have an inherent meaning, it may or may not be of human benefit.

The Nyaya school believes the Vedas to be of divine origin though
 

hit&run

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I don't understand why you are so upset. It is a well-known that brahmans of the past were polemicists who used their monopoly on literacy skills and knowledge of the Vedic corpus to twist meanings and slander their opponents. Calling a brahman a historical polemicist is no different than calling a Vandal a vandal, or a Turkic ghazi a religious fanatic. We can observe some examples of the Brahmanical polemicism even in your own posts, when you contemptuously refer to Shudras and Buddhists in the same line as if they were one and the same. In reality, the earliest Buddhists, including Siddhartha Gautama himself, were Kshatriyas; the shudras joined later. However, the Brahmanical polemicists in their propaganda literature (such as the Puranas) arbitrarily degraded all Buddhists to the status of shudras, and indeed proclaimed that the Buddha himself was a shudra. They further denigrated the Buddhists as polluting to the touch, and mandated that anyone coming into a physical contact with a Buddhist must perform a ritual ablution to cleanse themselves. What do we call people who create such rules?

The Brahmans feared those who could think independently, for they knew that skepticism and rational inquiry would spell the end of their social dominance. It was thus in their natural interest to promote the spread of superstition, ignorance, and rigid hierarchy, which they did quite admirably.
Well known my %$^&,

Stop talking like a cunning politician. I gives me heaps of pain when I go against my own mates, I swear to god I haven't read rest of your post but came in just after reading 'Well Known''. I have pointed you out on something which to me is quite a balanced post.

Name calling is only done against Brahmans and its been quite a practice by many clowns in this very forum. FC posters I have seen apprehensive (not me) on using the word Shudra even. Don't tell me what is well known. I know what is well know a fact and I have personally experienced the same.
 

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@panduranghari @Virendra

The 'pro-Indian' scholars aren't really better than Witzel types (except they deny AIT). They're both making the same mistake. Rig Vedas are not written in Sanksrit and translating them is a futile activity.

Both sides of the debate are 'colonial historians'. The people who truly understand are probably pundits in obscure gurkuls. AFAIK ancient Indian scholars didn't bother translating the Rig Veda.

@civfanatic
Did Dara Shikoh translate the Rig Veda or only the Upanishads ?
 
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Virendra

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@LurkerBaba
Dara Shikoh translated only one Upanishad which he believed is referred to in Islam as the 'hidden book'.
I can understand that RV itself is sounds and not a Sanskrit story. It was jotted down in Sanskrit later on.
Question is - how can you note down something via a language (any damn language) when you don't understand what it (it being the sound) means ??
 
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LurkerBaba

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@LurkerBaba
Dara Shikoh translated only one Upanishad which he believed is referred to in Islam as the 'hidden book'.
I can understand that RV itself is sounds and not a Sanskrit story. It was jotted down in Sanskrit later on.
Question is - how can you note down something via a language (any damn language) when you don't understand what it (it being the sound) means ??
Was it ever jotted down in Sanskrit ? AFAIK Oral tradition reigns supreme for Rig Veda

Also, by orthodox tradition Rig Veda is the 'Cosmic Sound', I don't think Indian schools of thought claim that they fully understand it.
 
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Virendra

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So they understand like, half of it? How much? Which parts ?
 

LurkerBaba

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So they understand like, half of it? How much? Which parts ?
I think by "understanding" we're expecting the Rig Veda to be something like the Gita with some stories, moral messages etc. I mention Gita because I feel its the closest analog to the Bible/Koran. So, perhaps you're not asking the right questions ? Maybe our worldview is completely warped by Abrahamic religions ?

It would have been so much easier if we could directly read those texts :(
 

civfanatic

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It doesn't show the native Hindu understanding. It shows what a muslim painter painted and what some poeple might have askhttp://defenceforumindia.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=691913ed him to paint.
In 21st century when we're fighting over Vedas, practices, interpretations; diverse views would have existed even then.
Yes, it shows the native Hindu understanding of ashwamedha. The fact that he is Muslim is irrelevant; he would have painted what his patrons (who would have been native Hindus) wanted him to paint, which in this case was a clear depiction of horse sacrifice. It really doesn't get much clearer than than this:




The evidence of which is eagerly awaited.
What type of evidence do you want? Coins, paintings, inscriptions, literature? I already provided Ashoka's edicts as evidence for animal sacrifice being prevalent in ancient India.

So now it all falls to "may be" and "may be not" ??
What do you think purushamedha means, if not human sacrifice?


This one is between you and HR but are you angry because Buddhists were bracketed with Shudras?
Because I don't find it offending. I don't think a Shudra is in any way lesser than a Kshatriya or Brahmin. It is like Apples and Oranges.
Maybe you don't find a shudra to be lesser in any way than a Kshatriya or Brahmin, but did ancient Indians (in particular, ancient brahmins) feel the same way?

I have no problem with Buddhists being Shudras or vice versa. I just posted that as an example of brahmin polemicism and slander.
 

civfanatic

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Eternal has a different meaning in this context. Eternal means something which has always existed and will exist, like some of the Laws of Physics. It may or may not have an inherent meaning, it may or may not be of human benefit.

The Nyaya school believes the Vedas to be of divine origin though
On what basis did the Mimamsa school come up with the idea that the Vedas have always existed and always will exist? What was their rationale?
 

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