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Umesh:
I congratulate in your
endeavor. This may give you an opportunity to acquaint yourself with the
Hindu scriptures. But remember the saying, 'the devil is in the
details'.One way to simplify your job is by process of elimination. I would
suggest you find one single Hindu scriptures out of the myriads and try to
establish the historicity. That will serve a solid purpose
instead of speaking in generality. Or if you find any book which has established
such historicity please let me know.
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 2:05
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru
Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development
- Beyond discussions
Rajen-da,
I just sawthe museum's exhibit this weekend and so takingme time to make
comparisons. One thing which struck me was that even in Christianity most
priests and missionaries relied on oral tradition to transmit the tales and
teachings over centuries since books or even paper was nearly non-existent at
the time of Christ. some used wooden boards and leafs to write on (like
Indians).
Thus, the Hindu scriptures tell tales of much earlier period -so there
were hardly any written material of that period .
Books developed much later -and hence Bible (which is a collection of
books) and Hindu scriptures etc were gathered fromdifferent sources and much
recently declared and true and officially accepted copies.
Hindu scriptures are much bigger - in more detail so cannot be compiled
in a single book - unlike Christian and muslim or Jewish scriptures which are
concise enough to put placed in a single book form.
Umesh
Barua25 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Do you then have a comarable
collection of scripture book in Hinduism?
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 8:53
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru
Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution;
development - Beyond discussions
Bible is also a collection of hundreds of scriptures.
>Why I had gone to the museum was to see why Bible is considered
real and Hindu scriptures are considered myths. After the trip they both
seem to have evolved the >same way ---collections of (real) stories
from many story-tellers.
Umesh:
First, you are trying to compare
the historicity of the Bible, the Book, against the historicity of
the Hindu scriptures. But before you do that, I think you need to narrow
your focus on a particular Hindu scripture as there are literally
hundreds of Hindu scriptures and all of them are not supposed to be
historical, some are purely philosophical. In my opinion what
makes Bible the unique is that there are some records of writing which
one can put a date scientifically. Question is does any Hindu scripture
have any such records of writing that one can put a date?
Historicity is determined by how many people actually recorded the event
after it happened. Say in case of Rama, do we have any other
record of writing other than that of Valmiki? Or do we find the same
story in any other recording other than the Ramayana? You must be very
objective in your research. Overall I think it will be a good
excercise. Please keep us in the loop.
>PS: There is more to religion than book reading --anyone can
become a scholar---was Jesus a scholar -or was Krishan one or was Guru
Nanak one or same for Prophet >Muhammad.
According to Bertrand Russell,
religion has not served any purpose in the world. According to me, it
has at least served one purpose; it has contributed to the invention of
writing and to the spread of language. So be careful, if you try to take
away the reading books from reliogion, you will be left with nothing as
Russel says.
Rajen-da.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006
3:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru
Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution;
development - Beyond discussions
Rajen-da,
I was trying to bring out some good things about Christian faith
--not denounce some negatives about Hindu faith. However, since you
raise the issue I may point out that NO religion allows women priests
--even now. No Pope or Shankaracharya or Imam or Chief Rabbi is a
woman . No non-white guy has ever become a Pope just as no
non-Brahmin has ever beome a Shankaracharya.
Why I had gone to the museum was to see why Bible is considered
real and Hindu scriptures are considered myths. After the trip they
both seem to have evolved the same way ---collections of (real)
stories from many story-tellers.
Umesh
PS: There is more to religion than book reading --anyone can
become a scholar---was Jesus a scholar -or was Krishan one or was Guru
Nanak one or same for Prophet Muhammad.
Barua25
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>HINDUS: Indians --Hindus esp were content in letting
reading of scrptures be the game of a small coterie -- the so-called
brahmin priests.... hence there was no thrust in >promoting faith
by educating followers to become literate so that they can read
scriptures.
This is correct, In fact the
Hindus were trying to keep the religion of the Vedas very much
secret from the public. Thus there was no incentive to evolve a
writing method to record the Vedas which was handed over orally for
many centuries. Even when writing was evolved, at the inspiration of
the Buddhist, this written knowledge of the Vedas was kept as much
secret as possible. First the Sudras and women were barred from
raeding of the Vedas.
Against this Hindu
conservativenessm the Christians as well as the Buddhists attitude
was to propogate the Dharma to as many people as possible. Buddha's
decree, like that of Jesus, was:"Go and tell the people about the
Dharma". Along with Buddhism, and the Indian epic story Ramayana,
the local languages were developed in many countries besides
India. The Vedas on the other hand are still being recited in
Sanskrit.
Rajen Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, October 22,
2006 9:16 PM
Subject: [Assam] Guru
Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution;
development - Beyond discussions
Hi,
Today went to see the exhibit - first of its kind --very long
queue to enter--how the Bible (Christian religious book) evolved
over the first 1000 years of the religion's origin.
How from the time of Dead Sea Scrolls (rolled paper) the book
evolved into a modern style book form (evolving
book technology) ....and how in the process of its
propagation the missionaries even created alphabets (like for
Armenian and Georgian) and helped define what books are today.
Ofcourse, over time many new additions were there and some like
one refering to Jesus as a teacher (Edgerton's book ?) were
declared heresies.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:
Their preoccupation with the written word in book form as the
most potent means of religious expansion (from onwards 5th
century into Britain ..etc) perhaps helped build the western
preoccupation with books and learning ---since all were expected
to familiarize themselves with the text. Ofcourse it was mostly
the priests who did the reading and preaching but since they could
be from any class or tribe --ALL th society was energized towards
book reading, literacy and education-----resulting in knowledge
gathering and knowledge production later on----Industrial
revolution since 1600s.
HINDUS: Indians --Hindus esp were content in letting reading
of scrptures be the game of a small coterie -- the so-called
brahmin priests.... hence there was no thrust in promoting faith
by educating followers to become literate so that they can read
scriptures.
Muslims had in later days become content with reading Arabic
only --instead of translating the Quoran in other languages --so
limited literacy.
LITERACY:
Literacy provides religious communication and cohesion as
well -and perhaps thats whay Hindus are largely disconnected. They
cannot communicate with each other --most are functionally
illiterate. (So are most muslims in South Asia atleast.)
GURU & the teacher:
Yesterday I was invited by a student to go to th Sikh
Gurudwara to celebrate Diwali. My Malayalee landlord went along
-his first . He asked whom do Sikhs worship? Do they worship
Krishna, Ram etc? I said they worship the book --the Guru Granth
(book) --which is their Guru . The God they worship is the
formless God (of the Yogis, Gnostics, Buddhists etc).
Surprisingly, I later realized it was the first time I was in
presence of the Guru - while my student was in the room. A teacher
in front of the Guru!!
Sikhs have a different reason for Diwali celebration -- you
know why?
Umesh
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna
ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International
Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of
Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog:
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends
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_______________________________________________ assam
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Umesh
Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C.
Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell
Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard
Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of
2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website:
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Umesh Sharma
5121
Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD
20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International
Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard
University,
Class of 2005
weblog:
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna
ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education
Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard
University,
Class of 2005
weblog:
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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