03-10-2005, 11:58 AM
Excellent article nachiketa! Great posts from Sunder and Rajesh G!
Mudy, thanks for the note â I did get a chance to look up AS this evening â found what I was looking for regarding the different kinds of war. I could not get to your link â help!
I have to agree with the first point that Rajesh G makes, regarding translations:
<b>dharmaâderived from the Sanskrit root dhr meaning to hold up, to carry, to bear, to sustain. Human society, for example, is sustained and upheld by the dharma performed by its members.</b>
The word Dharma also has personal spiritual connotations, in spite of this and other meanings, <b>we cannot translate Dharma Yudha as holy war!</b>
Among most sexually reproducing species there are different ways in which battles are fought over territory and mates: some are to death, others are mere shadow boxing, etc. In a similar way, I wonder if this concept of Dharma Yudha and/or Prakasha Yudha or what I call <b>âBattle till tea timeâ</b> became the choice method of warfare among the Hindus, which reduced the whole art and the syntax of war to a symbolic ballet. These stage managed games were so rule ridden, that they are almost useless exercises when faced with a motivated and ruthless enemy.
Is this what happened with the advent of the Islamic invasions into India? I grew up with stories of Hindu kings defeating the marauders but pardoning them, only to be eventually put to death by the very looser that we defeated. My family's, grandmotherâs, version of MB for example had rules like: one could not kill a man while pissing, shitting, eating, copulating, etc. How far was this true?
I have wondered if our so called pusillanimity in the face of invasions is perhaps our misunderstanding of the external, opposed to our âBattle till tea timeâ syndrome, nature of war that the mlecchas brought to our doorstep. Perhaps this is why our kings defeated the invaders but let them have their lives back as good Kshatriayas were brought up to do. This strategy was brilliant in a "federation of states", but was a collosal failure against an external enemy. Our good Hindu Kings considered the invaders Kshatriayas as well, and did not recognize them for the malignant and retrograde forces that they wereâ¦.. We are still commiting this same blunder today!
Mudy, thanks for the note â I did get a chance to look up AS this evening â found what I was looking for regarding the different kinds of war. I could not get to your link â help!
I have to agree with the first point that Rajesh G makes, regarding translations:
<b>dharmaâderived from the Sanskrit root dhr meaning to hold up, to carry, to bear, to sustain. Human society, for example, is sustained and upheld by the dharma performed by its members.</b>
The word Dharma also has personal spiritual connotations, in spite of this and other meanings, <b>we cannot translate Dharma Yudha as holy war!</b>
Among most sexually reproducing species there are different ways in which battles are fought over territory and mates: some are to death, others are mere shadow boxing, etc. In a similar way, I wonder if this concept of Dharma Yudha and/or Prakasha Yudha or what I call <b>âBattle till tea timeâ</b> became the choice method of warfare among the Hindus, which reduced the whole art and the syntax of war to a symbolic ballet. These stage managed games were so rule ridden, that they are almost useless exercises when faced with a motivated and ruthless enemy.
Is this what happened with the advent of the Islamic invasions into India? I grew up with stories of Hindu kings defeating the marauders but pardoning them, only to be eventually put to death by the very looser that we defeated. My family's, grandmotherâs, version of MB for example had rules like: one could not kill a man while pissing, shitting, eating, copulating, etc. How far was this true?
I have wondered if our so called pusillanimity in the face of invasions is perhaps our misunderstanding of the external, opposed to our âBattle till tea timeâ syndrome, nature of war that the mlecchas brought to our doorstep. Perhaps this is why our kings defeated the invaders but let them have their lives back as good Kshatriayas were brought up to do. This strategy was brilliant in a "federation of states", but was a collosal failure against an external enemy. Our good Hindu Kings considered the invaders Kshatriayas as well, and did not recognize them for the malignant and retrograde forces that they wereâ¦.. We are still commiting this same blunder today!