http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_060616.htm
ASI and planned death of history
V. Sundaram
Bijamandal Temple at Vidisha is one of massive dimensions comparable with Konarak in Orissa. It was desecrated again and again since the days of Sultan Shamsuddeen Iltutmish who first indulged in his iconoclasm at this site. Then followed Allaudin Kilji. His record was bettered by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. Finally came Aurangazeb Alamgir a renowned champion of human compassion and deathless humanity.
During one night in the monsoon of 1991, there was heavy rain at a small town called Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, 40 kilometers from Bopal. The downpour was so heavy that it washed away the wall that was concealing the frontage of the Bijamandal Mosque established by Aurangazeb in 1682. This Masjid is a centre of attraction for the Muslims. The Muslim clerics called it Alamgir Masjid. But for the common people of the area it was known as Bijamandal Mosque.
The broken and capsized wall following heavy rains in 1991, completely exposed and brought to public light so many Hindu idols that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was left with no pseudo-secular choice for further concealment and consignment into oblivion.
The fact to be noted is that for more than 300 years, these Hindu idols were buried under the platform on the northern side, which was used as the Hall of Prayer conducted especially on days of Eid.
The District Collector having control over this town in 1991, came forward to offer protection to the Surveyors of the ASI, who were always exposed to the ever present risk of violent wrath of bigots.
Exquisitely beautiful treasures of sculpture were retrieved by the ASI. Many of the statues were particularly splendid, with some of them being as high as eight feet. But the patent fact which must be noted by all enlightened citizens in India today is that the ASI within a month received instructions to stop further work. The officer of the ASI working on the excavations as well as the Collector were transferred. There was widespread public belief in all the villages around Vidisa that this was done at the behest of the then Human Resource Development Minister at the Centre Arjun Singh, a deathless champion of "secularism".
Is he not trying vigorously to re-write Indian History in order to hide well-known facts relating to Islamic terrorism in India after 1000 AD?
As a lover of history, I was reading a report of inspection of this site by Sir Alexander Cunningham who was the first Director of the Archaeological Survey of India established by Lord Canning, the Viceroy, in 1862. He visited this site in 1874 and 1876. This is what he wrote in Volume X of the ASI Report: “Inside the town there is a stone Masjid called Bijay Mandir, or the temple of Bijay. This Hindu name is said to have been derived from the original temple Bijay Rani. The temple was thrown down by the order of Aurangazeb and the present Masjid erected in its place; but the Hindus still frequent it at the time of the annual fair. By the Musalmans it is called "The Alamgiri Masjid", while Bhilsa (earlier name of Vidisha) itself is called Alamgirpur. The building is 781/2 feet long by 261/2 feet broad and the roof is supported on four rows of plain square pillars with 13 openings on front”.
So much by way of non-saffron, non-communal documentary evidence in favor of the Hindu origins of this famous Mosque in Vidisha. It was Aurangazeb who destroyed the temple known as Bijay Mandir and converted it into a Mosque called Bijay Mandal Mosque in 1682. Royal celebrations were held at the site to commemorate the visit of Aurangazeb to the area and he took the opportunity of renaming Vidisha as Alamgirpur.
Though it had been known for a long time that Bijamandal was originally a temple, namaz at Eid time continued right up to 1965. In 1965, Dr. Dwaraka Prasad Misra was the Congress Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. It was his government which banned Muslim worship in what was a protected ASI monument. It is not surprising that Dr Dwaraka Prasad Misra earned the gratitude of most Vidishans and others in Madhya Pradesh. It was Dr D P Misra who displayed the requisite moral courage of halting namaz in the edifice. The Madhya Pradesh government gave a grant of Rs 40,000 for the construction of a separate Idgaah nearby.
About 150 years before Aurangazeb's wanton act of destruction of the Bijamandal Temple at Vidisha, Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, captured the town of Vidisha in 1526-27. The first thing he did after capturing the town was to desecrate the Bijay Mandir, proclaiming that the conquest of Bhilsa (Vidisha) was in the service of Islam. This fact is recorded in Mirat-I-Sikandri. About 200 years before him, another great humanist called Sultan Allaudin Kilji in 1293 had also enjoyed the "devout" and "dedicated" pleasure of damaging the Bijay Mandir. But the supreme credit of being the Columbus of destruction of this temple in 1234 goes to Sultan Shamsuddeen Iltutmish.
Much of the factual information in this article is based on a brilliant article called Four Vandals, one Temple by Gargi. To quote Gargi in this context: “Few temples have had the misfortune of getting desecrated four times. Being a huge structure, built in solid stones, it was able to survive and be restituted as a Mandir, three times. The ASI is still to undo the damage perpetrated finally by Aurangazeb in 1682. Excavation work by ASI which was stopped by Government of India in 1993-94 is yet to be resumed. It is no doubt difficult to redeem the pristine glory of Bijay Mandir, whose scale and dimensions are reminiscent of the Konarak Temple, but it would be a shame if independent India allows its architectural treasures remain in a state of desecration and buried without an attempt even to redeem them. It is all the more unfortunate that the ASI is not being allowed to work on the site despite pressure from local citizens”.
The credit of having converted a neutral public service organization like the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) into a slave of Congress-sponsored historical negationism and anti-Hindu pseudo secularism goes wholly to the Congress Party in India after independence.
Let me contrast the shameful record of the Congress Party in India after independence in the matter of preservation of our cultural heritage and ancient monuments with that of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India during 1899 to 1905. He took special interest in the Archaeological Department. It was he who was responsible for the passing of the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act in 1904.
Lord Curzon is remembered for the care he gave to India's great monuments, not only to the new ones celebrating the British Raj, but also India's ancient heritage, many of which were in desperate need of conservation. He showed great sensitivity and refinement in his appreciation of Hindu and Muslim art.
He was determined to ensure that the beauty of the past should be preserved and those monuments of historical interest and aesthetic value in India be restored and preserved. He brushed aside the specious argument that it was not the duty of a Christian Government to preserve the monuments of pagan art or the sanctuaries of an alien faith. He believed that art and beauty and the reverence that was owing to all that had evoked human genius or had inspired human faith, were independent of particular creeds and insofar as it touched religion, were embraced and united by the common religion of all mankind.
Lord Curzon wrote emphatically in this context: “There is no principle of artistic discrimination between the Mausoleum of the Muslim despot and the Sepulchre of the Christian or Muslim Saint or a Hindu monument or temple. Whatever is beautiful, whatever is historic and whatever that tears the mask off the face of the past and helps mankind to read its riddles and not the dogmas of a primitively combative theology these are the criteria by which a responsible Government in India must be guided in its approach to preservation of monuments. I cannot conceive of any obligation more strictly appertaining to a supreme government than the conservation of the most beautiful and perfect collection of monuments in the world, or one more likely to be scamped and ignored by a delegation of authority to provincial administrations.”
The conservation work done by the dedicated Officers and men of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1862 to 1947 was indeed remarkable and glorious. It could well be described as the golden age of Archaeology in India. The British Officers and men of the ASI conducted their work with complete objectivity. Regardless of whether it was a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian monument, their efforts to preserve were the same and their description was always impartial.
All these great traditions in the field of preservation and conservation of ancient and timeless monuments were destroyed by pseudo-secular men like Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao with consummate skill and organized pseudo-secular unscrupulousness. Today this great responsibility of destruction of our cultural and spiritual heritage is being jointly shouldered by a Catholic Christian & a Pseudo-secular Pagan—I mean the immortal and indispensable Sonia Gandhi and mortal and dispensable Arjun Singh!!
To conclude in the beautiful words of Gargi: “A visit to Vidisha would enable any enlightened visitor to emotionally understand and appreciate that there is a lingering below the surface resentment against the Government treatment of what they believe to be their dearest treasure, architectural as well as sentimental. The moral of a pilgrimage to Vidisha is that no purpose would be served by hushing up what is a naked history.”
Related stories:
1) Never Forget History @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/forgive-but-never-forget-%e2%80%93-history/
2) Censoring History?? @ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=238&page=28
3) Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam @ http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.org/books/negaind/index.htm
4) Whitewashing History @ http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/india-usa-blog-column43.htm
5) Don't play with History @ http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_050405.htm
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
** Word as Weapon
The Misuse of Terminology in the study of Hinduism
Word as Weapon- Dr. Frank Morales
The inherent power of the word is a phenomenon that has been both omnipresent and essential throughout the long histories of literature, philosophy, religion and politics. The power of words has always been recognized for both its potentially constructive, as well as its devastatingly destructive, force.
In the Vedic era, the potency of shabda (or the Divine Word) was lauded for its soteriological, liberating properties, as well as for its role as a means of epistemic insight into the nature of the Absolute. The word both liberated and revealed - and both of these functions were accomplished via mantra, sound frequencies precisely sequenced in such patterns as to most optimally utilize the inherent shakti - or potency - of sound resonance.
The Divine Word in the form of mantra could heal illness, relieve suffering and deliver freedom. Many millennia later, borrowing from the much earlier Hindu concept of shabda, we find somewhat similar parallels duplicated in the Biblical literature, in which the Word is seen as being ontologically non-differentiated from the natura esse, or essential nature, of God. "In the beginning was the Word", the Gospel of John assures us, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus the power of the word has been attested to in the history of India, as well as the West.
The converse side of the positive power of words is seen in the destructive employment of words used, not to convey truth or to heal, but to obscure and deconstruct reality. Whether we speak of the sinister slogans of the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbles or the rabidly dishonest propaganda ministries of now defunct Marxist states, words have been repeatedly used with pointed polemic accuracy throughout the long history of human discourse. Words have always been employed by one group of individuals to control and de-legitimize the political, social, religious, and philosophical freedoms of other groups.
Academia has, unfortunately, been far from free of the use of such ideologically charged - even if infinitely more subtle - polemic terminology. For the last hundred years, if not arguably longer, the hallowed pronouncements of ideologically-driven professors and scholars have led to widespread bigotry and stereotyping of minority groups in America.
Such biased and politically motivated scholarship has led in the last few decades to the necessary creation of such fields as African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, Holocaust Studies, and now Anti-Hindu Defamation Studies, as new academic movements designed to balance previously perpetrated intellectual injustices.
In the following, I will explore only a few of the more insidious terms used specifically throughout the history of South Asian Studies and Hindu Studies that have been traditionally used to denote various phenomena and features of the Hindu religion. Such words have been used in the past to obscure the factual meaning of many philosophical, theological, social and ritual phenomena found within the Hindu context.
I will proceed by outlining 1) the commonly used terms for these phenomena, 2) the proper Hindu view of the actual nature of these phenomena, and 3) I will offer several alternative terminological devices that will hopefully be more accurate indicators of the full nature and extent of these Hindu religious phenomena.
Sanatana Dharma: Reclaiming Our Religion’s True Name
The first two terms that we will examine are the terms usually used to indicate the overarching spiritual/cultural matrix of traditional, indigenous South Asian religion itself. These are the very terms "Hindu/Hinduism" themselves. Used often as a matter of convenience even by followers of the religion itself (including by this author), the term "Hindu" is not a term that is inherent to the religion itself. Rather, the term is known to have been first coined by the ancient Persians, who were culturally, religiously, and prospectively extrinsic to the culture. The term was first used by these ancient Persians in order to conveniently designate the ancient Vedic spiritual culture, and was mistakenly used to refer to the Vedic religion as primarily a geographic and ethnic phenomenon, more than as a religio-philosophical world-view.
To the ancient Persians, the word “Hindu” simply referred to the culture, people, religion and practices of the peoples who lived on the other side of the Sindhu River. In the ancient Avestan Persian language ‘s’ grammatically became ‘h’. Thus, the Persians pronounced the name of this river “Hindhu”, rather than “Sindhu”. Thus, ironically, the currently used word “Hindu” is itself a corruption of the Persian word “Hindhu”, which is in turn a corruption of the term “Sindhu”, which is itself only referring to a river, and not a religion! Thus when the word “Hindu” is used today to refer to the ancient religion of India, the term is in actuality a corruption of a corruption of a word whose meaning is irrelevant to begin with.
The terms "Hindu/Hinduism" are not self-referential terms that the practitioners of the Vedic world-view chose for themselves or called themselves. These words are not attested to in any of the ancient Vedic or Classical Sanskrit literatures, or even in any of the many local dialects of ancient India until the medieval era. One will not find the term “Hindu” used to describe the Vedic religion in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, or anywhere else in the Vedic scriptures. The word “Hindu” is not intrinsic to the religion of the Vedas at all. It was not, in fact, until as late as the 19th century, under the colonial rule of the British Raj, that these dual terms even acquired any legal significance on a national scale in India.
The actual term that the Vedic tradition uses to refer to itself is “Dharma”. The word Dharma is found repeatedly throughout the entire corpus of the Vedic scriptures, from the Rg Veda to the Bhagavad Gita. There is almost no scripture in the entirety of Hinduism where one will not come across the word Dharma as the preeminent name of the religion in question. Sometimes the word Dharma is used by itself; at other times it is used in conjunction with other qualifying words, such as “Vaidika Dharma” (Vedic Dharma), “Vishva Dharma” (Global Dharma), or "Sanatana Dharma" (the Eternal Dharma). The diversity of adjectival emphasis will vary in accordance with the precise context in which the word is used. Of these terms, the name “Sanatana Dharma” has been the most widely used name of this ancient religion, and is used as far back at the Rg Veda, the very earliest scripture of Hinduism, and the earliest written text known to humanity. It is also the most philosophically profound and conceptually beautiful name for our religion.
While many reading this work have no doubt encountered the term “Sanatana Dharma” before, not every follower of Sanatana Dharma is necessarily as familiar with the full philosophical implications of the term’s meaning. Thus it is necessary to explicate the term’s full meaning in depth. The Sanskrit word "sanatana" is the easier of the words to translate into non-Sanskrit languages. It denotes that which always is, that which has neither beginning nor end, that which is eternal in its very essence.
The concept of eternality that the word “sanatana” is trying to convey is a radically different concept than is ordinarily understood in the Western Abrahamic religions. When the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam employ the concept of eternality, it usually means that x thing, having come into being, will never come to an end. In other words, “eternal” for the Abrahamic religions, usually refers only to the future. A more accurate term for this Abrahamic concept is thus “everlasting”, rather than “eternal” proper.
In Sanatana Dharma, however, the concept of eternality denotes something quite different from the standard Western notion. In this more expansive and bi-directional model, the concept of sanatana extends not only into the infinite recesses of the future, but into the past as well. By referring to something as “sanatana”, the idea is that not only will it never come to an end, but it has always had necessary existence. Thus, God (Brahman), the individual self (atman), prime materiality (jagat or prakriti), Truth (satya), the Veda (Truth rendered into literary form), and Dharma itself all have necessary existence. They always have been - and they shall always be.
The Metaphysics of Dharma
Unlike the word “sanatana”, the term ''dharma" is a term that can be properly rendered into the English language only with the greatest of difficulty. This is the case because there is no one corresponding English term that fully renders both the denotative and the connotative meanings of the term with maximal sufficiency. Rather than merely communicating a nominal subject for which there can be an easy word for word equivalency, dharma is communicating a metaphysical concept. The denotative meaning of "dharma" straightforwardly designates an essential attribute of x object - an attribute whose absence renders the object devoid of either rational meaning or existential significance. A thing’s dharma is what constitutes the thing’s very essence, without which, the very concept of the thing would be rendered meaningless.
To illustrate the full meaning of this term, we can use the following examples: It is the dharma of water to be wet. Without the essential attribute (dharma) of wetness, the concept and existential fact of water loses all meaning. Likewise, it is the dharma of fire to be hot, the dharma of space to be expansive, etc. The denotative meaning of dharma is easy enough to comprehend. It is, however, when we come to the connotative meaning of the term "dharma" that we then leave the more microcosmic concerns of Vaisesika categoriology behind, and then enter the realm of the overtly philosophical.
For, according to the Vedic tradition itself, the very empirical cosmos in which we find ourselves currently situated also has its own inherent dharma, its essential attributive nature, without which the universe becomes meaningless. In this more macro-cosmological sense, the term dharma is designed to communicate the view that there is an underlying structure of natural law that is inherent in the very intrinsic constitution of Being itself. The Vedic world-view sees the universe as a place that has inherent meaning, purpose and an intelligent design underlying its physical principles and laws. The world is here for a purpose – God’s purpose. The word Dharma, in this more important philosophical sense, refers to those underlying natural principles that are inherent in the very structure of reality, and that have their origin in God. Dharma is Natural Law. Thus, if we needed to render the entire term “Sanatana Dharma” into English, we can cautiously translate it as "The Eternal Natural Way". Sanatana Dharma is the true name of our religion.
The term “Sanatana Dharma” more accurately communicates the axiomatic metaphysical nature of this concept than do the less meaningful and concocted terms “Hindu/Hinduism”. Thus, when the terms "Hindu/Hinduism" are repeatedly used by both Euro-American and Indian scholars, as well as by actual followers of this eternal spiritual tradition, we fall very far short from fully communicating the metaphysical, ethical and ontological components of the world-view of Sanatana Dharma. The former term – i.e., “Hinduism” - is a word mistakenly created to describe a culture in a purely ethnic, national and social context. The latter – “Sanatana Dharma” - is describing an illustrious science of Being in a purely philosophical - and therefore highly rational, and inherently beautiful - sense.
It is understandable that the terms “Hindu/Hinduism” will continue to be used periodically as a matter of convenience. After all, it takes time, coupled with continuous education, for people to break themselves of a two hundred year old habit. For the sake of accuracy, as well as to uphold the dignity, beauty and grandeur of our ancient and sacred religion, however, we must always do our utmost to use the much more meaningful, linguistically correct and beautiful name Sanatana Dharma when referring to our religion. Our religion is Sanatana Dharma.
Euro-American Idol
Having examined the problematic issues of a very broad term that has been misapplied in the discussion of Vedic religion, I will now briefly examine several more specific terms that have been misemployed in the history of the study of Sanatana Dharma. The first of these more specialized polemically charged words is the term “idol”. This word has been repeatedly used by purported scholars of Sanatana Dharma (both Euro-American, as well as Indian scholars) in their study of our religion.
Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the derogatory term “idol” has been continuously and unthinkingly used by even religious Hindus, as well as by supposedly intelligent Hindu leaders, to this very day. At least once a month, for example, I get notices from various Hindu temples inviting me to “idol” installations, pujas to the “idol”, etc.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Hindus, the term “idol” is not an innocently neutral term meant only to signify the objective reality of a religious statue or some other focal point used as a means of meditation upon the Divine. In actuality, it is a term that is historically and theologically devoid of any positive connotations. It is a word that is purely negative in meaning. First arising from a purely Christian/Islamic religious and cultural context, the theologically derived terms “Idol/Idolatry” were quite clearly designed by the creators of the Abrahamic religions to signify the misguided worship of the graven images of fictitious gods. By its very definition, the word “idol” means an image of a false god.
In the Old Testament, idol worshippers are repeatedly condemned to death. In the Koran, the worshipers of idols are relegated to the category of the demonic. This theological baggage attendant upon the word “idol” was later naturally imported into the nascent field of indology by the 18th and 19th century European founders of modern Vedic studies.
Thus, over time, what originated as a purely religious term, specifically meant to designate a false practice and erroneous theological view, progressed to being accepted as an academic term meant to describe the practices and views of a “foreign” religion. In turn, tragically, the greater Hindu community has itself now unknowingly embraced this term as a legitimate word meant to convey one of the most sacred and integral mechanisms of Hindu worship.
Unfortunately, when a Christian theologian, a Muslim cleric, or a colonialist-tempered scholar is using the term “idol”, they are interpreting the specific religious phenomenon of murti-puja in a radically different manner than is the typical Hindu worshipper. For the Christian and Muslim, murti-puja is nothing more than the demonic worship of abominable graven images. For the atheist academician, it is merely an instance of primitive superstition, worthy of no more consideration than any other intriguing object of anthropological study.
Consequently, each and every time we foolishly call our sacred images “idols”, we are actually insulting the divinities we are claiming to worship, and proclaiming to the world that we are worshipping false gods.
For those scholars who have allowed themselves to develop a more sophisticated and objective understanding of the phenomenon of murti-puja – that is one that arises from a Hindu, and thus an insider, perspective – it becomes rather apparent that the practice that is occurring via the process of murti-puja (or what is sometimes called archa-puja) is something radically distinct from the stereotyped image of idol worship that is dishonestly painted by rabidly iconoclastic ideologies. Followers of Sanatana Dharma are not blindly worshipping false idols, but are using divine images whose forms have been revealed via the non-mediated intuitive perception of the Absolute experienced by the rishis (the enlightened saints and sages of Sanatana Dharma). Moreover, such images are used primarily as focal points designed as aids to meditative awareness. Archa-puja is not a superstition, a form of primitive magical fetishism, or a concocted form of worship, but rather a tried and tested soteriological and meditative device.
This being the case, I urge both scholars of Hindu Studies, as well as everyday practitioners of Sanatana Dharma, to refrain from using the derogatory term “idol” and to instead use one of the more culturally sensitive, and more academically accurate terms that are used by the tradition itself. Such terms include: murti, archa, etc. Take your pick.
Is Sanatana Dharma Predicated upon Lies?
The next term that we will examine is the word “myth” as used to describe the sacred stories of Sanatana Dharma. The related terms "myth", "mythology", "mythological", etc., have had an interesting history and a very pointed polemic use in Euro-American discourse on Sanatana Dharma. That the terms are rife with very negative connotations is doubted by very few. The way the terms are used today both within academia, as well as by the general public, is to denote something that is untrue, false, a lie, "primitive" (i.e., not Euro-American).
Several months ago, during a visit to the dentist's office, I saw a pamphlet on the table called "The Myths About Sexually Transmitted Diseases". The ultimate question that all Hindus need to ask ourselves is: is it really of any intellectual necessity that such a powerfully negative term as “myth” also be associated with the sacred stories, teachings and history of Sanatana Dharma?
Polemically speaking, one culture's "myth" is another culture's sacred history...and visa versa. The academic field of the study of "mythological" literature was founded by 18th century European Classicists who took their simplistic misconceptions about their own Greco-Roman, pre-Christian religious and cultural heritage, and attempted to then graft these misconceptions onto all contemporary non-Christian cultures - including that of India.
These founders of "mythology" studies - including such individuals as Sir George Grey, Rudolph Otto and Karl Kerenyi - were convinced, as is unarguably evident in their writings, that the entire realm of religious story could be clearly demarcated into two radically distinct camps: Myth and History.
The first category is "Myth" proper, that is: the “primitive” stories about gods, goddesses, spirits, demons, magic and mysticism, etc. found throughout all of the indigenous, pre-Christian, and non-Biblical cultures of the world. Such stories are all considered to be certainly no more than the ignorant "pre-scientific" attempts of primitive peoples (their words, not mine) to come to terms with and explain such frightening mysteries as natural weather phenomena (the stereotypical scenario offered by these atheistic scholars is that the inexplicable spectacle of lightning and thunder left our ancestors trembling in worshipful fear!). The study of such woefully mythologically ridden cultures was then relegated by these supposed mythology authorities to the nascent fields of anthropology, folk-lore studies, ethnic studies, and art history studies. The “myths” of all non-Judeo-Christian cultures were thus falsely portrayed as being archaic, primitive, and not worthy of serious scholarly study.
The second category that religious stories were placed in was termed "History", that is: Biblical literature and all supposedly factual accounts of events proceeding such literature to be found throughout the history of Europe and the post-Columbian Americas. Whereas stories about Rama as the Dharma-raja (Dharmic King) of Ayodhya were considered quaint heroic myths, for example, stories of Moses parting the Red Sea were accepted as being thoroughly historical – this, though there is more archeological and textual evidence for the former than for the latter being actual historical facts. In order to study these supposed historical facts about Judeo-Christian culture, Euro-American scholars employed a very different battery of academic disciplines entirely, including philosophical, ethical, literary, psychological, etc.
The only overlapping exception to this biased division of study is the field of philology, which was employed to research both the glorious history of Europe, as well as the primitive utterings of the Rg Veda. Apparently, only the “history” of Western man is a worthy enough subject for liberal arts study, philosophical consideration, and serious intellectual analysis.
There is the wonderful saying that we have all encountered that assures us that "history" is written by the victors. Consequently, the mostly improvable stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, Abraham, Moses, the Judges, David, etc. are unquestioningly accepted by most European historians - and tragically by many Indian historians! - as being incontrovertible and established fact. This, even though the evidence for these supposed historical facts are in many cases no stronger, or even less so, than the evidence supporting the historicity of the ancient stories of Sanatana Dharma.
What these Western scholars and their Westernized Indian counterparts called the "mythical" Sarasvati River, for example, was later discovered to be a concrete geological fact in our century by no less empirical evidence than satellite photography. Krishna's "mythological" city of Dvaraka was, likewise, impertinently discovered off the coast of Gujarat about three decades ago (anyone out there have a crane?). The supposed myths of the Shastras seem to have the incorrigible habit of consistently allowing themselves to be proven factual.
Despite these hard geological and archeological facts, the histories of the Puranas and Itihasas are - unlike the stories of the Bible – summarily relegated by modern Euro-American scholars to the misty realm of myth. Or more bluntly: to the realm of primitive fables. If we would venture to speculate that what has brought this stark double standard about has been nothing less than European xenophobia and intellectual colonialism, coupled with a very strong element of Hindu inferiority complex, we would not be far from the mark. The terms "myth", "mythology", "mythological", etc., have been used as a powerful weapon for decades in order to delegitimizing the world-view of Sanatana Dharma, as well as the Hindu and Indian way of life.
Whether such unscholarly use of these otherwise legitimate terms will be allowed to continue as a weapon against the sacred stories of Vedic culture, or whether the use of such terms will be relegated to the same dust-bin of other such derogatory terms, is up to the will of the global Hindu community. We ourselves, as Hindus, need to stop using derogatory terms to describe the beliefs and elements of our religion. Such terms as “myth” should be absolutely anathema to every sincere and self-respecting Hindu when speaking about the sacred stories of Sanatana Dharma. If we ourselves don’t have the determination to describe our own religion in legitimate and positive terms, how can we expect anyone else to?
As a more positive alternative to these terms, I propose that scholars who study the religions of South Asia approach their purported object of research in a similar manner as do scholars who study many other formally oppressed non-Christian cultures (such as those who study Native American tribes). In these fields the religious stories of the subjects under study are often referred to by the more culturally sensitive term "Sacred Stories". I propose that we scholars of Hindu Studies owe the Hindu world no less respect. We need to begin referring to the stories of the Hindu scriptures as Sacred Stories, or divya katha in Sanskrit. We can later, as informed persons, debate over the actual meaning of these stories - whether they are literal history - which in many cases they very clearly are - or are meant to be taken allegorically or metaphorically. Let us all, in any case be in agreement that these Sacred Stories of Sanatana Dharma must never again be degraded by terming them "myth".
Reclaiming the Power of Our Words
The perennial use of politically surcharged words to stifle the aspirations of a people, to deflect the actual meaning of an action or concept, and to otherwise keep a people subservient to the dominant cultural mainstream is nothing new. Additionally, it is not new that the very people who have been the direct victims of such propangandistic terminology will inevitably come to adopt such terms in self-referential ways. We have the case of the Ethiopian Jews, for example, who for hundreds of years were termed “Falashas” – an incredibly derogatory term in the Ethiopian language– by those who persecuted them.
After hundreds of years of such persistent persecution, sadly, the Jews of Ethiopia even began to refer to themselves as the “Falasha” community. If a people are called inferior for long enough a period of time, eventually that population group will start to call themselves inferior as well. Such instances of the victims adopting the polemic terminology of their oppressors has been witnessed repeatedly over the long course of human history – among the Jews, Native Americans, European Pagans, and Gypsies (Romani). Now the Hindu community has joined their ranks.
Consequently, the use of inaccurate, and often consciously and maliciously distorted, terminology has been a double-edged source of oppressive discourse. The use of such terms has been made use of by an intellectually lethargic tradition of South Asian scholars who view the religion of Sanatana Dharma, not as the noble living tradition that it is, but as their personal academic plaything.
On the other hand, Hindus themselves have then blindly accepted these non-indigenous and inaccurate terms, and unknowingly adopted them as their own. Thus, while the bulk of the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the oppressors, the victims too need to free themselves of a colonialist-induced mentality of inferiority and acceptance of their oppression. It is my fervent hope that we followers of Sanatana Dharma will stop using the terminology of our antagonists to describe our religion.
We must begin to call our religion by its true name: Sanatana Dharma. We must never use the words “idol” and “mythology” to describe our murtis and sacred stories again. We must reclaim our heritage. Such positive change might come about slowly, one person at a time. Every revolution, however, begins with thoroughly grasping the power of the word.
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About the AuthorDr. Frank Gaetano Morales, Ph.D. earned both a doctorate and a Masters degree in Languages and Cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, Dr. Morales earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Theology from Loyola University Chicago. His fields of expertise include Philosophy of Religion, Hindu Studies, Sanskrit, History of Religion, Comparative Theology, Contemporary South Asian Politics, and the interface between Hinduism and modernity. Dr. Morales is currently recognized as one of the nation’s leading authorities on Hindu philosophy and religion, as well as South Asian studies. In addition to directing his own institute, Dr. Morales works in conjunction with several educational institutes and think tanks globally. Dr. Morales maintains a very demanding schedule consisting of lecturing, consulting and writing. Dr. Morales has been a guest lecturer at over two-dozen major universities throughout the USA, including Cornell, Northwestern, Illinois Institute of Technology, and University of Virginia. In addition, Dr. Morales has served as a South Asian affairs consultant for such corporations as Ford Motor Company, Lucent Technologies, Goodwin Procter Law Firm, and the Global Health Corporation. His first book, “Experiencing Truth: The Vedic Way of Knowing God”, is scheduled for publication in 2006. In addition to his academic duties, Dr. Morales has been a practicing orthodox Hindu for 30 years, and is an ordained Hindu priest. The practice of Yoga, meditation and puja are of central importance in his life. His website is http://www.dharmacentral.com/. http://boloji.com/hinduism/102.htm
Word as Weapon- Dr. Frank Morales
The inherent power of the word is a phenomenon that has been both omnipresent and essential throughout the long histories of literature, philosophy, religion and politics. The power of words has always been recognized for both its potentially constructive, as well as its devastatingly destructive, force.
In the Vedic era, the potency of shabda (or the Divine Word) was lauded for its soteriological, liberating properties, as well as for its role as a means of epistemic insight into the nature of the Absolute. The word both liberated and revealed - and both of these functions were accomplished via mantra, sound frequencies precisely sequenced in such patterns as to most optimally utilize the inherent shakti - or potency - of sound resonance.
The Divine Word in the form of mantra could heal illness, relieve suffering and deliver freedom. Many millennia later, borrowing from the much earlier Hindu concept of shabda, we find somewhat similar parallels duplicated in the Biblical literature, in which the Word is seen as being ontologically non-differentiated from the natura esse, or essential nature, of God. "In the beginning was the Word", the Gospel of John assures us, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus the power of the word has been attested to in the history of India, as well as the West.
The converse side of the positive power of words is seen in the destructive employment of words used, not to convey truth or to heal, but to obscure and deconstruct reality. Whether we speak of the sinister slogans of the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbles or the rabidly dishonest propaganda ministries of now defunct Marxist states, words have been repeatedly used with pointed polemic accuracy throughout the long history of human discourse. Words have always been employed by one group of individuals to control and de-legitimize the political, social, religious, and philosophical freedoms of other groups.
Academia has, unfortunately, been far from free of the use of such ideologically charged - even if infinitely more subtle - polemic terminology. For the last hundred years, if not arguably longer, the hallowed pronouncements of ideologically-driven professors and scholars have led to widespread bigotry and stereotyping of minority groups in America.
Such biased and politically motivated scholarship has led in the last few decades to the necessary creation of such fields as African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, Holocaust Studies, and now Anti-Hindu Defamation Studies, as new academic movements designed to balance previously perpetrated intellectual injustices.
In the following, I will explore only a few of the more insidious terms used specifically throughout the history of South Asian Studies and Hindu Studies that have been traditionally used to denote various phenomena and features of the Hindu religion. Such words have been used in the past to obscure the factual meaning of many philosophical, theological, social and ritual phenomena found within the Hindu context.
I will proceed by outlining 1) the commonly used terms for these phenomena, 2) the proper Hindu view of the actual nature of these phenomena, and 3) I will offer several alternative terminological devices that will hopefully be more accurate indicators of the full nature and extent of these Hindu religious phenomena.
Sanatana Dharma: Reclaiming Our Religion’s True Name
The first two terms that we will examine are the terms usually used to indicate the overarching spiritual/cultural matrix of traditional, indigenous South Asian religion itself. These are the very terms "Hindu/Hinduism" themselves. Used often as a matter of convenience even by followers of the religion itself (including by this author), the term "Hindu" is not a term that is inherent to the religion itself. Rather, the term is known to have been first coined by the ancient Persians, who were culturally, religiously, and prospectively extrinsic to the culture. The term was first used by these ancient Persians in order to conveniently designate the ancient Vedic spiritual culture, and was mistakenly used to refer to the Vedic religion as primarily a geographic and ethnic phenomenon, more than as a religio-philosophical world-view.
To the ancient Persians, the word “Hindu” simply referred to the culture, people, religion and practices of the peoples who lived on the other side of the Sindhu River. In the ancient Avestan Persian language ‘s’ grammatically became ‘h’. Thus, the Persians pronounced the name of this river “Hindhu”, rather than “Sindhu”. Thus, ironically, the currently used word “Hindu” is itself a corruption of the Persian word “Hindhu”, which is in turn a corruption of the term “Sindhu”, which is itself only referring to a river, and not a religion! Thus when the word “Hindu” is used today to refer to the ancient religion of India, the term is in actuality a corruption of a corruption of a word whose meaning is irrelevant to begin with.
The terms "Hindu/Hinduism" are not self-referential terms that the practitioners of the Vedic world-view chose for themselves or called themselves. These words are not attested to in any of the ancient Vedic or Classical Sanskrit literatures, or even in any of the many local dialects of ancient India until the medieval era. One will not find the term “Hindu” used to describe the Vedic religion in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, or anywhere else in the Vedic scriptures. The word “Hindu” is not intrinsic to the religion of the Vedas at all. It was not, in fact, until as late as the 19th century, under the colonial rule of the British Raj, that these dual terms even acquired any legal significance on a national scale in India.
The actual term that the Vedic tradition uses to refer to itself is “Dharma”. The word Dharma is found repeatedly throughout the entire corpus of the Vedic scriptures, from the Rg Veda to the Bhagavad Gita. There is almost no scripture in the entirety of Hinduism where one will not come across the word Dharma as the preeminent name of the religion in question. Sometimes the word Dharma is used by itself; at other times it is used in conjunction with other qualifying words, such as “Vaidika Dharma” (Vedic Dharma), “Vishva Dharma” (Global Dharma), or "Sanatana Dharma" (the Eternal Dharma). The diversity of adjectival emphasis will vary in accordance with the precise context in which the word is used. Of these terms, the name “Sanatana Dharma” has been the most widely used name of this ancient religion, and is used as far back at the Rg Veda, the very earliest scripture of Hinduism, and the earliest written text known to humanity. It is also the most philosophically profound and conceptually beautiful name for our religion.
While many reading this work have no doubt encountered the term “Sanatana Dharma” before, not every follower of Sanatana Dharma is necessarily as familiar with the full philosophical implications of the term’s meaning. Thus it is necessary to explicate the term’s full meaning in depth. The Sanskrit word "sanatana" is the easier of the words to translate into non-Sanskrit languages. It denotes that which always is, that which has neither beginning nor end, that which is eternal in its very essence.
The concept of eternality that the word “sanatana” is trying to convey is a radically different concept than is ordinarily understood in the Western Abrahamic religions. When the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam employ the concept of eternality, it usually means that x thing, having come into being, will never come to an end. In other words, “eternal” for the Abrahamic religions, usually refers only to the future. A more accurate term for this Abrahamic concept is thus “everlasting”, rather than “eternal” proper.
In Sanatana Dharma, however, the concept of eternality denotes something quite different from the standard Western notion. In this more expansive and bi-directional model, the concept of sanatana extends not only into the infinite recesses of the future, but into the past as well. By referring to something as “sanatana”, the idea is that not only will it never come to an end, but it has always had necessary existence. Thus, God (Brahman), the individual self (atman), prime materiality (jagat or prakriti), Truth (satya), the Veda (Truth rendered into literary form), and Dharma itself all have necessary existence. They always have been - and they shall always be.
The Metaphysics of Dharma
Unlike the word “sanatana”, the term ''dharma" is a term that can be properly rendered into the English language only with the greatest of difficulty. This is the case because there is no one corresponding English term that fully renders both the denotative and the connotative meanings of the term with maximal sufficiency. Rather than merely communicating a nominal subject for which there can be an easy word for word equivalency, dharma is communicating a metaphysical concept. The denotative meaning of "dharma" straightforwardly designates an essential attribute of x object - an attribute whose absence renders the object devoid of either rational meaning or existential significance. A thing’s dharma is what constitutes the thing’s very essence, without which, the very concept of the thing would be rendered meaningless.
To illustrate the full meaning of this term, we can use the following examples: It is the dharma of water to be wet. Without the essential attribute (dharma) of wetness, the concept and existential fact of water loses all meaning. Likewise, it is the dharma of fire to be hot, the dharma of space to be expansive, etc. The denotative meaning of dharma is easy enough to comprehend. It is, however, when we come to the connotative meaning of the term "dharma" that we then leave the more microcosmic concerns of Vaisesika categoriology behind, and then enter the realm of the overtly philosophical.
For, according to the Vedic tradition itself, the very empirical cosmos in which we find ourselves currently situated also has its own inherent dharma, its essential attributive nature, without which the universe becomes meaningless. In this more macro-cosmological sense, the term dharma is designed to communicate the view that there is an underlying structure of natural law that is inherent in the very intrinsic constitution of Being itself. The Vedic world-view sees the universe as a place that has inherent meaning, purpose and an intelligent design underlying its physical principles and laws. The world is here for a purpose – God’s purpose. The word Dharma, in this more important philosophical sense, refers to those underlying natural principles that are inherent in the very structure of reality, and that have their origin in God. Dharma is Natural Law. Thus, if we needed to render the entire term “Sanatana Dharma” into English, we can cautiously translate it as "The Eternal Natural Way". Sanatana Dharma is the true name of our religion.
The term “Sanatana Dharma” more accurately communicates the axiomatic metaphysical nature of this concept than do the less meaningful and concocted terms “Hindu/Hinduism”. Thus, when the terms "Hindu/Hinduism" are repeatedly used by both Euro-American and Indian scholars, as well as by actual followers of this eternal spiritual tradition, we fall very far short from fully communicating the metaphysical, ethical and ontological components of the world-view of Sanatana Dharma. The former term – i.e., “Hinduism” - is a word mistakenly created to describe a culture in a purely ethnic, national and social context. The latter – “Sanatana Dharma” - is describing an illustrious science of Being in a purely philosophical - and therefore highly rational, and inherently beautiful - sense.
It is understandable that the terms “Hindu/Hinduism” will continue to be used periodically as a matter of convenience. After all, it takes time, coupled with continuous education, for people to break themselves of a two hundred year old habit. For the sake of accuracy, as well as to uphold the dignity, beauty and grandeur of our ancient and sacred religion, however, we must always do our utmost to use the much more meaningful, linguistically correct and beautiful name Sanatana Dharma when referring to our religion. Our religion is Sanatana Dharma.
Euro-American Idol
Having examined the problematic issues of a very broad term that has been misapplied in the discussion of Vedic religion, I will now briefly examine several more specific terms that have been misemployed in the history of the study of Sanatana Dharma. The first of these more specialized polemically charged words is the term “idol”. This word has been repeatedly used by purported scholars of Sanatana Dharma (both Euro-American, as well as Indian scholars) in their study of our religion.
Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the derogatory term “idol” has been continuously and unthinkingly used by even religious Hindus, as well as by supposedly intelligent Hindu leaders, to this very day. At least once a month, for example, I get notices from various Hindu temples inviting me to “idol” installations, pujas to the “idol”, etc.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Hindus, the term “idol” is not an innocently neutral term meant only to signify the objective reality of a religious statue or some other focal point used as a means of meditation upon the Divine. In actuality, it is a term that is historically and theologically devoid of any positive connotations. It is a word that is purely negative in meaning. First arising from a purely Christian/Islamic religious and cultural context, the theologically derived terms “Idol/Idolatry” were quite clearly designed by the creators of the Abrahamic religions to signify the misguided worship of the graven images of fictitious gods. By its very definition, the word “idol” means an image of a false god.
In the Old Testament, idol worshippers are repeatedly condemned to death. In the Koran, the worshipers of idols are relegated to the category of the demonic. This theological baggage attendant upon the word “idol” was later naturally imported into the nascent field of indology by the 18th and 19th century European founders of modern Vedic studies.
Thus, over time, what originated as a purely religious term, specifically meant to designate a false practice and erroneous theological view, progressed to being accepted as an academic term meant to describe the practices and views of a “foreign” religion. In turn, tragically, the greater Hindu community has itself now unknowingly embraced this term as a legitimate word meant to convey one of the most sacred and integral mechanisms of Hindu worship.
Unfortunately, when a Christian theologian, a Muslim cleric, or a colonialist-tempered scholar is using the term “idol”, they are interpreting the specific religious phenomenon of murti-puja in a radically different manner than is the typical Hindu worshipper. For the Christian and Muslim, murti-puja is nothing more than the demonic worship of abominable graven images. For the atheist academician, it is merely an instance of primitive superstition, worthy of no more consideration than any other intriguing object of anthropological study.
Consequently, each and every time we foolishly call our sacred images “idols”, we are actually insulting the divinities we are claiming to worship, and proclaiming to the world that we are worshipping false gods.
For those scholars who have allowed themselves to develop a more sophisticated and objective understanding of the phenomenon of murti-puja – that is one that arises from a Hindu, and thus an insider, perspective – it becomes rather apparent that the practice that is occurring via the process of murti-puja (or what is sometimes called archa-puja) is something radically distinct from the stereotyped image of idol worship that is dishonestly painted by rabidly iconoclastic ideologies. Followers of Sanatana Dharma are not blindly worshipping false idols, but are using divine images whose forms have been revealed via the non-mediated intuitive perception of the Absolute experienced by the rishis (the enlightened saints and sages of Sanatana Dharma). Moreover, such images are used primarily as focal points designed as aids to meditative awareness. Archa-puja is not a superstition, a form of primitive magical fetishism, or a concocted form of worship, but rather a tried and tested soteriological and meditative device.
This being the case, I urge both scholars of Hindu Studies, as well as everyday practitioners of Sanatana Dharma, to refrain from using the derogatory term “idol” and to instead use one of the more culturally sensitive, and more academically accurate terms that are used by the tradition itself. Such terms include: murti, archa, etc. Take your pick.
Is Sanatana Dharma Predicated upon Lies?
The next term that we will examine is the word “myth” as used to describe the sacred stories of Sanatana Dharma. The related terms "myth", "mythology", "mythological", etc., have had an interesting history and a very pointed polemic use in Euro-American discourse on Sanatana Dharma. That the terms are rife with very negative connotations is doubted by very few. The way the terms are used today both within academia, as well as by the general public, is to denote something that is untrue, false, a lie, "primitive" (i.e., not Euro-American).
Several months ago, during a visit to the dentist's office, I saw a pamphlet on the table called "The Myths About Sexually Transmitted Diseases". The ultimate question that all Hindus need to ask ourselves is: is it really of any intellectual necessity that such a powerfully negative term as “myth” also be associated with the sacred stories, teachings and history of Sanatana Dharma?
Polemically speaking, one culture's "myth" is another culture's sacred history...and visa versa. The academic field of the study of "mythological" literature was founded by 18th century European Classicists who took their simplistic misconceptions about their own Greco-Roman, pre-Christian religious and cultural heritage, and attempted to then graft these misconceptions onto all contemporary non-Christian cultures - including that of India.
These founders of "mythology" studies - including such individuals as Sir George Grey, Rudolph Otto and Karl Kerenyi - were convinced, as is unarguably evident in their writings, that the entire realm of religious story could be clearly demarcated into two radically distinct camps: Myth and History.
The first category is "Myth" proper, that is: the “primitive” stories about gods, goddesses, spirits, demons, magic and mysticism, etc. found throughout all of the indigenous, pre-Christian, and non-Biblical cultures of the world. Such stories are all considered to be certainly no more than the ignorant "pre-scientific" attempts of primitive peoples (their words, not mine) to come to terms with and explain such frightening mysteries as natural weather phenomena (the stereotypical scenario offered by these atheistic scholars is that the inexplicable spectacle of lightning and thunder left our ancestors trembling in worshipful fear!). The study of such woefully mythologically ridden cultures was then relegated by these supposed mythology authorities to the nascent fields of anthropology, folk-lore studies, ethnic studies, and art history studies. The “myths” of all non-Judeo-Christian cultures were thus falsely portrayed as being archaic, primitive, and not worthy of serious scholarly study.
The second category that religious stories were placed in was termed "History", that is: Biblical literature and all supposedly factual accounts of events proceeding such literature to be found throughout the history of Europe and the post-Columbian Americas. Whereas stories about Rama as the Dharma-raja (Dharmic King) of Ayodhya were considered quaint heroic myths, for example, stories of Moses parting the Red Sea were accepted as being thoroughly historical – this, though there is more archeological and textual evidence for the former than for the latter being actual historical facts. In order to study these supposed historical facts about Judeo-Christian culture, Euro-American scholars employed a very different battery of academic disciplines entirely, including philosophical, ethical, literary, psychological, etc.
The only overlapping exception to this biased division of study is the field of philology, which was employed to research both the glorious history of Europe, as well as the primitive utterings of the Rg Veda. Apparently, only the “history” of Western man is a worthy enough subject for liberal arts study, philosophical consideration, and serious intellectual analysis.
There is the wonderful saying that we have all encountered that assures us that "history" is written by the victors. Consequently, the mostly improvable stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, Abraham, Moses, the Judges, David, etc. are unquestioningly accepted by most European historians - and tragically by many Indian historians! - as being incontrovertible and established fact. This, even though the evidence for these supposed historical facts are in many cases no stronger, or even less so, than the evidence supporting the historicity of the ancient stories of Sanatana Dharma.
What these Western scholars and their Westernized Indian counterparts called the "mythical" Sarasvati River, for example, was later discovered to be a concrete geological fact in our century by no less empirical evidence than satellite photography. Krishna's "mythological" city of Dvaraka was, likewise, impertinently discovered off the coast of Gujarat about three decades ago (anyone out there have a crane?). The supposed myths of the Shastras seem to have the incorrigible habit of consistently allowing themselves to be proven factual.
Despite these hard geological and archeological facts, the histories of the Puranas and Itihasas are - unlike the stories of the Bible – summarily relegated by modern Euro-American scholars to the misty realm of myth. Or more bluntly: to the realm of primitive fables. If we would venture to speculate that what has brought this stark double standard about has been nothing less than European xenophobia and intellectual colonialism, coupled with a very strong element of Hindu inferiority complex, we would not be far from the mark. The terms "myth", "mythology", "mythological", etc., have been used as a powerful weapon for decades in order to delegitimizing the world-view of Sanatana Dharma, as well as the Hindu and Indian way of life.
Whether such unscholarly use of these otherwise legitimate terms will be allowed to continue as a weapon against the sacred stories of Vedic culture, or whether the use of such terms will be relegated to the same dust-bin of other such derogatory terms, is up to the will of the global Hindu community. We ourselves, as Hindus, need to stop using derogatory terms to describe the beliefs and elements of our religion. Such terms as “myth” should be absolutely anathema to every sincere and self-respecting Hindu when speaking about the sacred stories of Sanatana Dharma. If we ourselves don’t have the determination to describe our own religion in legitimate and positive terms, how can we expect anyone else to?
As a more positive alternative to these terms, I propose that scholars who study the religions of South Asia approach their purported object of research in a similar manner as do scholars who study many other formally oppressed non-Christian cultures (such as those who study Native American tribes). In these fields the religious stories of the subjects under study are often referred to by the more culturally sensitive term "Sacred Stories". I propose that we scholars of Hindu Studies owe the Hindu world no less respect. We need to begin referring to the stories of the Hindu scriptures as Sacred Stories, or divya katha in Sanskrit. We can later, as informed persons, debate over the actual meaning of these stories - whether they are literal history - which in many cases they very clearly are - or are meant to be taken allegorically or metaphorically. Let us all, in any case be in agreement that these Sacred Stories of Sanatana Dharma must never again be degraded by terming them "myth".
Reclaiming the Power of Our Words
The perennial use of politically surcharged words to stifle the aspirations of a people, to deflect the actual meaning of an action or concept, and to otherwise keep a people subservient to the dominant cultural mainstream is nothing new. Additionally, it is not new that the very people who have been the direct victims of such propangandistic terminology will inevitably come to adopt such terms in self-referential ways. We have the case of the Ethiopian Jews, for example, who for hundreds of years were termed “Falashas” – an incredibly derogatory term in the Ethiopian language– by those who persecuted them.
After hundreds of years of such persistent persecution, sadly, the Jews of Ethiopia even began to refer to themselves as the “Falasha” community. If a people are called inferior for long enough a period of time, eventually that population group will start to call themselves inferior as well. Such instances of the victims adopting the polemic terminology of their oppressors has been witnessed repeatedly over the long course of human history – among the Jews, Native Americans, European Pagans, and Gypsies (Romani). Now the Hindu community has joined their ranks.
Consequently, the use of inaccurate, and often consciously and maliciously distorted, terminology has been a double-edged source of oppressive discourse. The use of such terms has been made use of by an intellectually lethargic tradition of South Asian scholars who view the religion of Sanatana Dharma, not as the noble living tradition that it is, but as their personal academic plaything.
On the other hand, Hindus themselves have then blindly accepted these non-indigenous and inaccurate terms, and unknowingly adopted them as their own. Thus, while the bulk of the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the oppressors, the victims too need to free themselves of a colonialist-induced mentality of inferiority and acceptance of their oppression. It is my fervent hope that we followers of Sanatana Dharma will stop using the terminology of our antagonists to describe our religion.
We must begin to call our religion by its true name: Sanatana Dharma. We must never use the words “idol” and “mythology” to describe our murtis and sacred stories again. We must reclaim our heritage. Such positive change might come about slowly, one person at a time. Every revolution, however, begins with thoroughly grasping the power of the word.
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About the AuthorDr. Frank Gaetano Morales, Ph.D. earned both a doctorate and a Masters degree in Languages and Cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, Dr. Morales earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Theology from Loyola University Chicago. His fields of expertise include Philosophy of Religion, Hindu Studies, Sanskrit, History of Religion, Comparative Theology, Contemporary South Asian Politics, and the interface between Hinduism and modernity. Dr. Morales is currently recognized as one of the nation’s leading authorities on Hindu philosophy and religion, as well as South Asian studies. In addition to directing his own institute, Dr. Morales works in conjunction with several educational institutes and think tanks globally. Dr. Morales maintains a very demanding schedule consisting of lecturing, consulting and writing. Dr. Morales has been a guest lecturer at over two-dozen major universities throughout the USA, including Cornell, Northwestern, Illinois Institute of Technology, and University of Virginia. In addition, Dr. Morales has served as a South Asian affairs consultant for such corporations as Ford Motor Company, Lucent Technologies, Goodwin Procter Law Firm, and the Global Health Corporation. His first book, “Experiencing Truth: The Vedic Way of Knowing God”, is scheduled for publication in 2006. In addition to his academic duties, Dr. Morales has been a practicing orthodox Hindu for 30 years, and is an ordained Hindu priest. The practice of Yoga, meditation and puja are of central importance in his life. His website is http://www.dharmacentral.com/. http://boloji.com/hinduism/102.htm
** 19th century paradigms
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html
Let not the 19th century paradigms continue to haunt us!
Inaugural Address delivered at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology,held at University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy on July 2-6, 2007.
Distinguished fellow delegates and other members of the audience,
I am most grateful to the organizers of this conference, in particular to the President, Professor Maurizio Tosi, not only for inviting me to participate in this Conference but also for giving me the additional honour of delivering the Inaugural Address. Indeed, I have no words to thank them adequately for their kindness. Perhaps this is the first occasion when a South Asian is being given this privileged treatment by the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists.
The conference hall is full of scholars from all parts of the world – from the United States of America on the west to the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan, on the east. All these scholars have contributed in a number of ways to our understanding of the past of South Asia, and I salute them with all the humility that I can muster. However, I hope I will not be misunderstood when I say that some amongst us have not yet been able to shake off the 19th-century biases that have blurred our vision of South Asia’s past.
As is well known, it was the renowned German scholar Max Muller who, in the 19th century, attempted for the first time to date the Vedas. Accepting that the Sutra literature was datable to the 6th century BCE, he gave a block-period of 200 years to the preceding three parts of the Vedic literature, namely the Aranyakas, Brahmanas and Vedas. Thus, he arrived at 1200 BCE as the date of the Vedas.
However, when his contemporaries, like Goldstucker, Whitney and Wilson, objected to his ad-hocism, he toned down, and finally surrendered by saying (Max Muller 1890, reprint 1979): “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.” But the great pity is that, in spite of such a candid confession by the savant himself, many of his followers continue to swear by his initial dating, viz. 1200 BCE.
The ultimate effect of this blind tenacity was that when in the 1920s the great civilization, now known variously as the Harappan, Indus or Indus-Sarasvati Civilization, was discovered in South Asia, and was dated to the 3rd millennium BCE, it was argued that since the Vedas were no earlier than 1200 BCE, the Harappan Civilization could not have been Vedic. Further, since the only other major linguistic group in the region was the Dravidian, it was held that the Harappans were a Dravidian-speaking people.
Then came the master stroke. In 1946, my revered guru Mortimer Wheeler (later knighted) discovered a fortification wall at Harappa and on learning that the Aryan god Indra had been referred to as puramdara (destroyer of forts) he readily pronounced his judgment (Wheeler 1947: 82): “On circumstantial evidence Indra [representing the Aryans] stands accused [of destroying the Harappan Civilization].” In further support of his thesis, he cited certain human skeletons at Mohenjo-daro, saying that these were the people massacred by the Aryan invaders. Thus was reached the peak of the ‘Aryan Invasion’ theory.
And lo and behold! The very first one to fall in the trap of the ‘Aryan Invasion’ theory was none else but the guru’s disciple himself. With all the enthusiasm inherited from the guru, I started looking for the remains of some culture that may be post-Harappan but anterior to the early historical times. In my exploration of the sites associated with the Mahabharata story I came across the Painted Grey Ware Culture which fitted the bill. It antedated the Northern Black Polished Ware whose beginning went back to the 6th-7th century BCE, and overlay, with a break in between, the Ochre Colour Ware of the early 2nd millennium BCE. In my report on the excavations at Hastinapura and in a few subsequent papers I expressed the view that the Painted Grey Ware Culture represented the early Aryans in India. But the honeymoon was soon to be over.
Excavations in the middle Ganga valley threw up in the pre-NBP strata a ceramic industry with the same shapes (viz. bowls and dishes) and painted designs as in the case of the PGW, the only difference being that in the former case the ware had a black or black-and-red surface-colour, which, however, was just the result of a particular method of firing. And even the associated cultural equipment was alike in the two cases. All this similarity opened my eyes and I could no longer sustain the theory of the PGW having been a representative of the early Aryans in India. (The association of this Ware with the Mahabharata story was nevertheless sustainable since that event comes at a later stage in the sequence.) I had no qualms in abandoning my then-favourite theory.
But linguists are far ahead of archaeologists in pushing the poor Aryans through the Khyber / Bolan passes into India. In doing so, they would not mind even distorting the original Sanskrit texts. A case in point is that of the well known Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University, Professor Witzel. He did not hesitate to mistranslate a part of the Baudhayana Srautasutra (Witzel 1995: 320-21). In 2003 I published a paper in the East and West (Vol. 53, Nos. 1-4), exposing his manipulation.
Witzel’s translation of the relevant Sanskrit text was as follows:
"Aya went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and Kasi Videha. This is the Ayava(migration).(His other people)stayed at home in the west. His people are the Gandhari, Parasu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group).
Whereas the correct translation is:
Ayu migrated eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas. This is the Ayava (migration). Amavasu migrated westwards. His (people) are the Ghandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasu (migration).
(Fig. 1)
According to the correct translation, there was no movement of the Aryan people from anywhere in the north-west. On the other hand, the evidence indicates that it was from an intermediary point that some of the Aryan tribes went eastwards and other westwards.
This would be clear from the map that follows(Fig. 1).
Professor Witzel and I happened to participate in a seminar organized by UMASS, Dartmouth in June 2006. When I referred, during the course of my presentation, to this wrong translation by the learned Professor, he, instead of providing evidence in support of his own stand, shot at me by saying that I did not know the difference between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit.
Should that be the level of an academic debate? (Anyway, he had to be told that I had the privilege of obtaining in 1943 my Master’s Degree in Sanskrit (with the Vedas included), with a First Class First, from a first class university of India, Allahabad.)
Next Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Related stories:
Invading the Sacred @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/invading-the-sacred/
Motivated Indology @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/communal-clash-13-arrested/
Evangelist's Interview @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/interview-of-anevangelist/
British Caste System @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/the-british-caste-system-vs-the-indian/
Let not the 19th century paradigms continue to haunt us!
Inaugural Address delivered at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology,held at University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy on July 2-6, 2007.
Distinguished fellow delegates and other members of the audience,
I am most grateful to the organizers of this conference, in particular to the President, Professor Maurizio Tosi, not only for inviting me to participate in this Conference but also for giving me the additional honour of delivering the Inaugural Address. Indeed, I have no words to thank them adequately for their kindness. Perhaps this is the first occasion when a South Asian is being given this privileged treatment by the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists.
The conference hall is full of scholars from all parts of the world – from the United States of America on the west to the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan, on the east. All these scholars have contributed in a number of ways to our understanding of the past of South Asia, and I salute them with all the humility that I can muster. However, I hope I will not be misunderstood when I say that some amongst us have not yet been able to shake off the 19th-century biases that have blurred our vision of South Asia’s past.
As is well known, it was the renowned German scholar Max Muller who, in the 19th century, attempted for the first time to date the Vedas. Accepting that the Sutra literature was datable to the 6th century BCE, he gave a block-period of 200 years to the preceding three parts of the Vedic literature, namely the Aranyakas, Brahmanas and Vedas. Thus, he arrived at 1200 BCE as the date of the Vedas.
However, when his contemporaries, like Goldstucker, Whitney and Wilson, objected to his ad-hocism, he toned down, and finally surrendered by saying (Max Muller 1890, reprint 1979): “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.” But the great pity is that, in spite of such a candid confession by the savant himself, many of his followers continue to swear by his initial dating, viz. 1200 BCE.
The ultimate effect of this blind tenacity was that when in the 1920s the great civilization, now known variously as the Harappan, Indus or Indus-Sarasvati Civilization, was discovered in South Asia, and was dated to the 3rd millennium BCE, it was argued that since the Vedas were no earlier than 1200 BCE, the Harappan Civilization could not have been Vedic. Further, since the only other major linguistic group in the region was the Dravidian, it was held that the Harappans were a Dravidian-speaking people.
Then came the master stroke. In 1946, my revered guru Mortimer Wheeler (later knighted) discovered a fortification wall at Harappa and on learning that the Aryan god Indra had been referred to as puramdara (destroyer of forts) he readily pronounced his judgment (Wheeler 1947: 82): “On circumstantial evidence Indra [representing the Aryans] stands accused [of destroying the Harappan Civilization].” In further support of his thesis, he cited certain human skeletons at Mohenjo-daro, saying that these were the people massacred by the Aryan invaders. Thus was reached the peak of the ‘Aryan Invasion’ theory.
And lo and behold! The very first one to fall in the trap of the ‘Aryan Invasion’ theory was none else but the guru’s disciple himself. With all the enthusiasm inherited from the guru, I started looking for the remains of some culture that may be post-Harappan but anterior to the early historical times. In my exploration of the sites associated with the Mahabharata story I came across the Painted Grey Ware Culture which fitted the bill. It antedated the Northern Black Polished Ware whose beginning went back to the 6th-7th century BCE, and overlay, with a break in between, the Ochre Colour Ware of the early 2nd millennium BCE. In my report on the excavations at Hastinapura and in a few subsequent papers I expressed the view that the Painted Grey Ware Culture represented the early Aryans in India. But the honeymoon was soon to be over.
Excavations in the middle Ganga valley threw up in the pre-NBP strata a ceramic industry with the same shapes (viz. bowls and dishes) and painted designs as in the case of the PGW, the only difference being that in the former case the ware had a black or black-and-red surface-colour, which, however, was just the result of a particular method of firing. And even the associated cultural equipment was alike in the two cases. All this similarity opened my eyes and I could no longer sustain the theory of the PGW having been a representative of the early Aryans in India. (The association of this Ware with the Mahabharata story was nevertheless sustainable since that event comes at a later stage in the sequence.) I had no qualms in abandoning my then-favourite theory.
But linguists are far ahead of archaeologists in pushing the poor Aryans through the Khyber / Bolan passes into India. In doing so, they would not mind even distorting the original Sanskrit texts. A case in point is that of the well known Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University, Professor Witzel. He did not hesitate to mistranslate a part of the Baudhayana Srautasutra (Witzel 1995: 320-21). In 2003 I published a paper in the East and West (Vol. 53, Nos. 1-4), exposing his manipulation.
Witzel’s translation of the relevant Sanskrit text was as follows:
"Aya went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and Kasi Videha. This is the Ayava(migration).(His other people)stayed at home in the west. His people are the Gandhari, Parasu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group).
Whereas the correct translation is:
Ayu migrated eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas. This is the Ayava (migration). Amavasu migrated westwards. His (people) are the Ghandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasu (migration).
(Fig. 1)According to the correct translation, there was no movement of the Aryan people from anywhere in the north-west. On the other hand, the evidence indicates that it was from an intermediary point that some of the Aryan tribes went eastwards and other westwards.
This would be clear from the map that follows(Fig. 1).
Professor Witzel and I happened to participate in a seminar organized by UMASS, Dartmouth in June 2006. When I referred, during the course of my presentation, to this wrong translation by the learned Professor, he, instead of providing evidence in support of his own stand, shot at me by saying that I did not know the difference between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit.
Should that be the level of an academic debate? (Anyway, he had to be told that I had the privilege of obtaining in 1943 my Master’s Degree in Sanskrit (with the Vedas included), with a First Class First, from a first class university of India, Allahabad.)
Next Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Related stories:
Invading the Sacred @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/invading-the-sacred/
Motivated Indology @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/communal-clash-13-arrested/
Evangelist's Interview @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/interview-of-anevangelist/
British Caste System @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/the-british-caste-system-vs-the-indian/
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