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Your are correct in the sense that
the case of Religion is a bit tricky.
But Religion also evolves over time
although with much resistance.
The thing is that Culture and
Language have, we may say, only the front ends, which people see or care about
more or less.
At least that is what they
practice, the front.
But religions have the front and
the back with which people are concerned.
So how religions evolve into
something else from the original keeping the back end fixed?.
The front of the religion evolves
to the need of the day and people do that by reinterpreting the
back to suit.
And when they cannot
reinterpret any more, a new religion evolve.
Take the case of
Hindusim:
Originally it had no name and it
was pure poetry and questioning regarding the essence of creation and
gods.
That evolve to what may be
termed Vedic religion of sacrifice or Brahmanism as it is
called..
Now that went too far to one
extreme of sacrifice that people started questioning.
And we got Buddhism and
Jainism which rejected the Vedic religion of sacrifice and
branched off to two new religions.
The Vedic religion that remained
also were reformed and new elements added, tribal religions were
absorbed.
And we got common
Hindusim of the people.
So as a result, in Hindusim today,
we got worships of all non Aryan deities like Durga, Kali, Siva, Krishna,
Ganesha etc which were not there at all in original Vedic
religion.
What a fundamentalist actually do
is to cling to his Durga/Kali/Krishna/Siva/Hanuman/Ganesh worship and
reinterpret the religion such that you satisfy both.
Thus all these gods became over
time reincarnation of one Hindu God.
The Hindu Geeta is actually
a reinterpretation of Hindusim through the mouth of
Krishna.
Now what all Hindu reformers
(except our Xong.kordeva) did before proceeding with their reform movement
during the middle ages is to reinterpret the Geeta in
their own way. In fact without writing such a 'doctoral thesis' on
interpretation of the Geeta, one is not qualified to start a new
tradition.
Shankara, Ramanusm, Madhava,
Saitanyadeva and everybody did that.
Two of the reformers
did not do that.
One is Guru Nanak, and we got a new
religion -Sikhism.
The other is
Xong.kordev.
They did not write a
reinterpretaion (or vasya as it is called) of the Geeta.
According to me, Xong.kordev
started a new religion.
However, the Assamese are
smart. They are today trying to reinterpret Xong.kordev so that he
conforms to Pan Indian Hindusim.
Yes, I agree, religion is tricky,
but it evolves to something new over time.
Same is the case with Islam and
Christianity to different extents.
RB
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 3:15
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Himendra's reply to
Saurav
At 2:17 PM -0600 1/25/06, Rajen Barua wrote:
Bravo!!!
Culture, Religion, Language all are like rivers.
They flow and take the paths of least
resistence.
*** Cultures evolve. Languages do too, although far less easily, unless
enforced
with overwhelming political power and/or military might.
But do religions evolve in the same manner? If so, where does
fundamentalism come from? Why are certain religions ready to kill, before
letting one change to another or attack reformers as heretics and converts as
apostates? And why is it that all religious wisdoms were found millenia ago,
with no farther developments in religion, no new wisdoms found? Or could it be
that newly derived wisdoms in the field are not accepted as legitimate,
asserting that religions are not meant to be changed - like certain
governments?
RB
----- Original Message -----
From: Malabika Brahma
To: [email protected] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Himendra's reply to
Saurav
I would disgree with both Jugal da and Himenda.
Religion, Language, Culture, Nation all are constantly
evolving over time and will always undergo change. Any resistance is
not only futile but also against the normal and natural course of
history.
For example, most of the Assamese (Koches) speakers or for
that matter the Bengali speakers in North Bengal were Bodo speakers at one
point of time. Does it mean that the Koches should abandon their Assamese
or Bengali speech and return to Bodo fold ?
Or for that matter, Mithraism was the dominating religion all
over Middle East and Europe before Islam or Christianity. Should all of
them (those Christians or Muslims) abandon their faith and return to their
ancient religion ?
We should learn to realise that NONE is ever eternal - be in
Religion, Language, Race or Nationality. The ONLY ETERNAL FACT is
the Change itself.
Utpal
Rajib Das <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> people of Assam to remain Hindu, but become
>
Hindi-speaking!! I am not sure what history has in
> store for
Assam, but I would like the language
> preserved for
eternity!!
Jugalda,
Conversely, would you be happier if
the people of
Assam keep Assamese as a language but become
all
Muslims? Let go of all the "secular" customs and
traditions
that are associated with Assamese being
Hindus?
And in
alternative situations, would you rather the
language be Hindi-ized
(meaning significant Hindi
influence) or Arabicized (significant
Muslim
influence) if these are the only two options
available?
Bengali in Bangladesh is undergoing rapid
transformation as the
country itself transforms into a
fundamentalist state.
Just
interested in understanding your point of
view?
Rajib
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