--- On Mon, 9/3/09, ss <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: ss <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [silk] What is "Indian culture"?
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Monday, 9 March, 2009, 10:11 PM
>
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> On Monday 09 Mar 2009 9:41:57 pm
> Radhika, Y. wrote:
> > Some of you may be interested in the South Asian Idea
> weblog, started by
> > Dr. Anjum Altaf of Pakistan
>
> This is a favorite theme of Hindutva. After all "Kandahar'
> is the town from
> which Gandhari came, and Kasur in Pakistan was named by one
> of Ram's
> sons "Kusha" (of Lava-Kusha), and Lahore by Lava.
No, Shiv, no.
This is not undisputed; nothing about these parts or these names is undisputed.
However, this is my best-guess about the two names, Kandahar and Gandhara.
Kandahar is placed more or less on the site of Alexandria in Arachosia, which
is the first section of eastern Persia/ western India/ southern Afghanistan
that he came to: please let us recall that Persia and India meant rather
specific things at that time, and have come to refer to widely different things
at later times.
Gandhar was roughly Kabul and eastward; you might describe it as the territory
north and west of Kuru territory. The Gandhar, the Madra and the Kamboja were
contiguous; the Gandhar more or less in Kabul and the Khyber Pass area, the
Madra in the Punjab, their branch known as the Uttara Madra in Bactria, the
Kamboja in close proximity to the Uttara Madra and a tribe known as Parama
Kamboja further north.
A quick look at the map will explain what I mean. The Gandharas and Gandhara
the place were quite distant from Kandahar.
There are also stretch explanations which put the Kambojas in the Arachosia
region, so some have tried to argue by extension that therefore the Gandharas
being south and west of the Kambojas should have been <in the region of
Kandahar>, if not more or less in and around the city proper.
This is a natural mistake due to the fact that the positions described are
probably reflective of the period prior to 500 BC, whereas under Hiung Nu=>Yueh
Chi (=Kushan) movement, the Kambojas were pushed down southward and westward,
along with the Sakas (one branch of the Kambojas veered off eastward into Tibet
and are mentioned in Tibetan records of the time). It was at this time, around
the turn of the millennium, that the Sakas came to north of Arachosia and for
which reason, that part of the world came to be known as Sakasthan or Seisthan.
All this quibbling and nit-picking has nothing to do with your argument, which
I found compelling.
>
> What is the cut off date for Indian culture?
>
> At what date was culture in India "purely Indian"? When did
> "mixing" start?
> This gets more and more Nazi-esque as we move backwards in
> time searching for
> culture as "what was" rather than looking at culture as
> "what is".
>
> Pakistan is commiting hara-kiri by trying to remove every
> vestige of "Indian
> culture" from Pakistan. Some Indians too appear to be
> trying to do exactly
> the same thing in India.
>
> Let me unashamedly cross post my own thoughts from another
> forum on the same
> subject:
>
> ".. what a lot of us say and do is shaped in a Western
> framework. I accept
> this, but I would also like to point out that at least some
> of what we say
> and think might also, in the same manner, carry Islamic
> baggage or
> influences. I am dead certain this is the case - but it is
> very difficult to
> try and address the degree of influence Islam may have had
> on Indian psyche
> without getting into emotion and controversy. Saying that
> there may be
> unquantifiable Islamic influence in the modern Indian mind
> on this forum is a
> bit like alleging that there is a bit of rapist in every
> man's mind. The idea
> causes anger and revulsion (on here) - but it may be the
> anger of cognitive
> dissonance.
>
> If we can accept that we have swallowed a part of the
> Western mindset to
> arrive at the modern Indian, the idea that we may also have
> swallowed an
> Islamic mindset is not difficult to construe, but more
> difficult to dissect
> and examine objectively in an environment that sees Islam
> as a rigid
> embodiment of murder, intolerance and mayhem.
>
> But the possibility exists that we have internalised
> certain Islamic
> influences for whatever reason and those Islamic influences
> are mixed with
> older indic influences and newer Western influences to make
> the modern
> Indian.
>
> We get a real problem here (or a real solution) depending
> on how you want to
> view it.
>
> The Indian mind today could well have a mixture of
> influences. Claiming that a
> given mind has more of one influence and less of another is
> exactly the game
> of politics that is being played by various groups and
> parties in India. When
> you speak of a "battle for the hearts and minds" of Indians
> - this is exactly
> what it means.
>
> That brings me to the second point you make - in the second
> para quoted above.
> What is the way forward. Do we seek "forward" by engaging
> reverse gear
> attempting to remove X, Y or Z influences as Pakistan is
> doing?
>
> Or do we battle the people who are trying to do that and
> say - we
> need "forward" not "reverse"?
>
> If we do, what is forward?
>
> shiv
>
>
>
>
Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on
http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/
