Rajen-da,
You try to put me in a spot but I think the answer is not tht elusive-lets see:
1. ALL Hindus believe in God
2. All Hindus believe in reincarnation - rebirth
3. All Hindus believe that it is possible to attain Moksha/Nirvana through
meditation/Yoga , prayer etc -- that is meet God in one own's lifetime..
Let me add some more points - which actually are more central to my comments
4. All Hindus that caste system has been part of Hindu society for long - that
means they believe in some system which has a religious head (Brahmin)-who has
a job to assist others in their prayers --so that means that person should have
some qualification. That qualification should be common to ALL jobs who hold
that job across India/Hindu society
5. ALL Hindus believe that there was a city called Indraprastha (current Indian
capital Delhi) and that Mahabharat war was fought near it -at Kurukshetra - and
its participants were then real persons.
If one does not believe in the above (atleast the first three) that person
cannot be
called a Hindu. In social science -exceptions do not change the rule - it is a
mater of a significant number of the group acting or believing in a certain
way. So even if 5% of the Hindus (read the so-called westernised educated
ones) do not believe in any of the above - their views can be disregarded.
Umesh
Rajen & Ajanta Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >The only logic many
vested interests do not want to acknowledge that Indians could have (or have
had) a collective vision - a harmonious culture sharing common beliefs,
holidays and celebrations.
I don't want to argue or comment on anybody's belief. But don't you think the
above is correct ie Hindus (forget Indians) don't have a collective vision? Is
not that the problem with present India? The Hindus (forget the Indians) donot
have a common harmonius culture sharing common beliefs, holidays and
celebrations. If you don't want to acknowledge that, then please cite at
least just (3) THREE things which in your opinion ALL Hindus believe. I think
you would have a hard time to answer that and find even this small section of
netters to agree with your view. In fact for the last two hundred years that
is what all scholars, Indian and non Indian, (including Vivekananda, Tegore,
Ram Mohon Roy, Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan and others) have
been trying to answer that question without much success. So before we blame
the West, let us at least try to understand where we are. Let us hear from you.
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: Ram Sarangapani ; barua25
Cc: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Indian reality versus Western mythology
Ram-da and Rajen-da,
The point is not whether Jesus or Krishna or Rajen or Umesh or Ram existed
- it is that they are believed to be so - just liked USA is believed to be
the only Super Power in the world. Someone in remote India may have NO
inkling what is Roman empire or that any such country ever existed -- but
that person should or would bow down to the fact that so many educated
Indians believe it does. Why cannot someone in the West understand that
most Indians (read Hindus 800 million of them) believe Krishna and Ram lived
on earth - just Westerners (even athiests ) believe that Abraham lived on
earth to the age of 800 years (as per Bible) and that Jesus was born of
Virgin Mary.
Belief of a group can be put on wikipedia etc - why do westerners oppose
even that ? Why belittle it as some minor literary text characters aka Ian
Fleming's (I refer to Ram or Krishna here) -- which has no consequence to
spiritual or religious beliefs of Hindus.
The only logic many vested interests do not want to acknowledge that
Indians cuold have (or have had) a collective vision - a harmonious culture
sharing common beliefs, holidays and celebrations. Isn't it much easier to
paint a picture where every Indian was following his or her own thing
--someone worshipping in the east another in the west. One day one person
celebrating , next day another celebrating something --so the whole city or
region never saw eye to eye ----so NO culture!!
I was surprised to learn that Krishna is the most revered person in way down
India's south Guruvayoor temple --same as in Manipur (far east ) just as
in far west at Dwarka and up above in Badrinath, Gangotri etc. But some
westerners would assert that Hindus are a bunch of individualists - who
believe different things - have no religion except caste system (the only
unifying social force or common thought).
SCIENCE:
So when a nation/civilization has no common social system except caste
system (as per above logic) then how can it have intellectuals sitting
together to do scientific work and promoting and rejecting hypothesis and
building consensus.
Umesh
Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Barua,
Just couldn't resist not butting in.
Without going into the existence of Krishna, Shiva or Jesus :)here is a
site about Ancient Math in India. Also let us not forget Aryabhatta
(Math) and Kautilya(Politics & Governance).
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html
(BTW: the site is from a UK University and NOT something conjured up in
India:)
--Ram
On 8/10/07, barua25 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: When I
say FACTS AND FIGURES, I was talking not about our religious heroes, but
about Science and Mathametics.
Say for instance, what India did in case of Mathematics and when?
Can you produce any written evidence that India invented the Zero
and when? It is difficult.
I donot like to deal with mythical figures like Shiva, Krishna
etc. I consider these Indian gods to be purely mythical figures
transformed from some original tribal religious cults. In my opinion,
Shiva was orginally a local god in the Harappa civilization and Krishna
was a Dravidian local tribal god. This much history tells. Do you have
any other evidence to counter that , not who believes what?
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: Rajen & Ajanta Barua ; [EMAIL
PROTECTED] ; [email protected]
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Indian reality versus Western mythology
Rajen-da,
Good to get your response. Now about facts - would you not agree that
most Hindus hail Krishna as one of the Hindu heroes and believe that
he lived in India thousands of years back --- I wanted to put that on
Wikipedia page of Krishna - and they asked for facts -- what do you
expect me to do? I believe wiki is a good example of people over the
globe trying to have "sameness" - even here there is bias.
Second, on Jesus's wiki page I added a comment that many Indians
believe that Jesus came to learn his skills in India (and I added a
BBC report on that with weblink) and that was deleted - saying this is
no research evidence -- for Indian news on Indian culture even an
obscure reference (with no weblink) in any newspaer article in remote
India is considered okay by its editors -- incidently for Jesus they
have stopped anyone from editing the page. Anyone is free to write
anything about Krshna , Ram etc -- thats free for all.
whats that to do with facts? Thats plain bias.
Umesh
Rajen & Ajanta Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
Umesh:
What you are saying is right.
The West has a Eurocentric view of the world. They claim
that the basic foundation of the Western Civilization, especially on
science, is mainly based on Greek civilization. They even donot like
to give proper credit to the Indian and Chinese contribution in
mathetics and other science. I would say, the West is still in the
Dark Age. However, they have a point. Indians basically donot have
any record of what they did. If you want to counter the present
Eurocentric view, the best (and only way) is to debate will SOLID
facts and figures and not with rhetoric.
If you have any specific issue, I would be glad to discus.
Rajenda
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 7:04 PM
Subject: [Assam] Indian reality versus Western
mythology
Some days back a student of Indian origin born and raised in US
was surprised to learn that India had a glorious history - he
hardly believed me though.
And it did not surprise me since I have come to realize that
every civilization wants to promote itself as the best - Greek and
Roman civilization are promoted as ideals (closely followed by
Egyptian one) -- Indian and Chinese ones are lesser ones.
Greek Toga costume parties are common features of Western univs
just like Indian kurta, dhoti are picking up in Indian college
fashion shows.
However, the problem is that Western historians/scholars of non
Western spheres call themselves (and each other) as the world's
foremost/only reliable experts on their chosen area of expertise -
namely hows and whys of other civilization. Most believe (I believe)
that those in non-western world/developing world are too
naive/unscientific/non-modern/non-rational to understand and
appreciate the distinction between good and bad; and right and
wrong.
I believe a lay westerner is more tolerant of others' views than
these experts (whose reputation and even careers depend on
promoting what they have always held as true).
I just created a wikipedia page called Hindu Reality -speaking
against this tendency (I'm sure someone will come along and remove
my arguments).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_reality - I just checked
--someone has deleted the page itself.
Wiki seems to be about might is right -
Any comments?
Umesh
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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