Dear Admins,

Many Europeans are challenging me to a debate on the origins of the Rgveda.

They claim that it was the Europeans who came up with this book.
They say that this is self evident from certain passages in the book.

I would like to invite them to come here and debate with us, so that the erudite scholars here can clarify their claims.

I am requesting your permission to start this thread.
If you feel this thread is not in keeping with the guidelines of the forum, feel free to delete it.

Thank You.

<b><span style='color:red'>The Kanchi Conundrum</b></span>

Life is indeed stranger than fiction. One accusation of a murder has made the supreme seer of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham a villain, while those who have lead men to murder in the thousands are proclaimed heroes -- to paraphrase Beilby Porteus, the eighteenth century evangelist and abolitionist.

The arrest of the Kanchi seer has become a reason for celebration and triumphalism for the Brahmin haters of Tamil Nadu, led by a writer of tawdry dramas, whose men tried to disrobe the actress who became Chief Minister, and who in turn arrested at midnight the writer of those tawdry dramas when she became Chief Minister. While the VHP, the RSS and the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha are dumbfounded by this event and have made sundry calls for bandhs, gheraos, and protests, the internet is abuzz with talk of “Hinduism is under attack”. Conspiracy theories abound, and I get back channel information from someone who heard from someone else about the Kanchi seer being this and that, or that it is a Marxist-Christian-Muslim plot to defeat Hinduism in India.

It is indeed strange that the Acharya was arrested as he was, without his ability to consult with a lawyer, and while he was in Hyderabad performing a pooja. He would have fled to Nepal, the demagogic Chennai public prosecutor asserts, and proclaims the Seer an “undeserved criminal”. Even as we are struck by the shrillness of the public prosecutor’s indictment, we wonder why Jayalalithaa is silent about this whole drama. Isn’t she still the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu? Does she fear that if she doesn’t incarcerate Jayendra Saraswati, his life itself might be endangered? Does she fear that there is an organized attempt to dismiss her government using this case as an excuse? The vernacular press reported that Karunanidhi had threatened to fast in Kanchipuram if Jayendra Saraswati was not arrested. Earlier, Nakkeeran, a magazine with DMK leanings also published the purported evidential letters from Sankararaman. How did Karunanidhi get access to so much police data? Does he stand to gain the most from the murder of Sankararaman and by implicating Jayendra Saraswati?


It is amazing that all kinds of politicians – at the local and at the national level -- and well-connected bureaucrats, businessmen, and others get away with murder indeed, and never see the inside of a police station let alone a prison and here we have the Kanchi seer arrested and lodged in Vellore Central Prison, without any proof that he was the one who either ordered the murder or countenanced it. Yes, indeed these are strange times. What was the need to arrest him, and worse yet put him in prison, when he could simply have been served orders to appear in court?

There is surely something most foul in this episode, and at present we are all left to our own devices for figuring out the motives, men, and women in this drama. But one thing I am sure about: this is as much about politics as it is about crime. For why else would the DMK and its “I have something to hide behind my dark glasses” leader be so keen on the arrest of the Swamiji, and why are sundry Dalits being interviewed and quoted in this instance? The murdered man was not a Dalit. The Kanchi seer has not abused Dalits. In fact, one of the great ironies is that the Swamiji was seriously involved in projects to ameliorate the condition of the Dalits. So, why is it that we are hearing such invective aimed against the pontiff, including one by a Dalit woman who is reported as calling for the destruction of the Kanchi hermitage and temple? The ugly mix of caste, religion, and politics is indeed a dangerous portent to the denouement of what may be a simple case of a pontiff who succumbed to the seduction of money and power, if indeed that was the case, or it is a deliberate and pungent mix to distract the people from the real crimes committed or orchestrated by different people.

We should try and unravel this case ourselves for we are sure to be distracted and detracted by forces which for long in India have made it a fine art of dissembling to the people and hoodwinking them. So, in that spirit, let us try and figure this case out.

For the last seven years Sankararaman, the man murdered, it is said, was managing the accounts of the Vaishanavite Varadaraja Perumal Temple, not those of the Sankara Matham (What is it with Indian newspapers spelling “matha” or “matham” as “mutt” and “math”, by the way?). So, he couldn’t have been privy to any details of financial irregularities on the part of Swami Jayendra Saraswati, supposing that any such irregularity existed. By all reports, since 1987, Sankararaman had an estranged relationship with the Kanchi seer. If that was the case, how was it that he knew what was happening in the Sankara Matham? He even had trouble visiting the Sankara matham, we are told, and therefore very unlikely to have known the details of the accounts of that temple. What could he have therefore exposed that threatened the Kanchi seer?

A few years ago, Sankararaman filed a writ in the court challenging Jayendra Saraswati’s proposed visit to China. Sankararaman objected that a sannyasi cannot cross the seas. If the Swamiji wanted, he can travel by road to China, he mindlessly argued. Jayendra Saraswati cancelled the planned visit to China. If Sundararaman could file a petition on such matters, why wouldn’t he have filed a writ if he had noticed financial irregularities?
Even if he had some knowledge or information about the misuse of funds, the Sankara matham being a private trust, was not accountable to the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department. What gives the DMK leader Karunanidhi, by the way, to urge that “the government and the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department must explore avenues to save the Mutt and come up with a way to ensure that it does not disintegrate” when he and his lumpen supporters were beating up Hindu priests who attended the bail hearing for the Swamiji? Karunanidhi also urged that the government take over the Kanchi hermitage. Is this not clear indication that the DMK is involved in this matter in ways that show their premeditation in harming the Sankaracharya? We do know that the DMK leader and the Swamiji had crossed swords before. The DMK is anti-Hindu, and has publicly avowed so.

Anyway, from what we can surmise, prima facie there is no compelling motive for the murder. Let us look further at the evidence so far presented by the police and the public prosecutor:

1. The public prosecutor and the chief investigating police officer claim that phone calls were made from the cell phone of the Swamiji to the accused murderers. As a friend pointed out, if indeed the Swamiji was the mastermind behind the murder, would he be stupid enough to talk directly to hit men from his cell phone? The Swamiji’s lawyer pointed out that the seer does not carry the cell phone himself. Why is this “evidence” being released several weeks after the murder? It would be interesting to know what kind of change, configuration and security procedures the cell phone company call transaction system has. Is it foolproof at the levels of on-line transaction and backup? If not, this is no evidence at all, my friend points out.

2. One million rupees was withdrawn the day after the murder, the prosecutor revealed, and parts of that supposedly recovered from some of the criminals. According to sources, the temple withdraws anywhere between 200,000 to 2,500,000 rupees every day. Often parts of that amount are deposited back. This is due to two reasons: one, the temple runs many projects – including three major charitable hospitals in Chennai alone (Child’s Trust Hospital, Hindu Mission Hospital, and Tamil Nadu Hospital) -- and two, it also receives large donations.

If the temple authorities indeed paid the “hired murderers”, obviously they would not leave an easy trail leading back to the temple. They would have paid the goons through some clever scheme, or they would have paid from the as yet undeposited donations to the temple. Why would they withdraw money from the bank to pay the hatchet men? As someone who has worked in an Indian bank, I can say that no bank records the serial numbers of currency notes disbursed unless there is a police or Central Bureau of Investigation request to do so.

In the case of Shri Jayendra Saraswati, nobody could have predicted that he was going to plot the death of a low profile temple accountant, and therefore lay a trap in Kanchipuram to snare the seer. So, the onus is on the police to prove that the money supposedly recovered from the criminals was disbursed by the bank to the temple. But, it doesn't stop there. The money was supposedly recovered from the murderers several weeks after the murder of Sankararaman. How do we know that it did not pass several legitimate hands after leaving the temple (assuming it did) before it went to the murderers? The voluble public prosecutor has to prove it didn’t. If he can, then it means that there was a plot to entrap the Swamiji. The plot would then indeed get thicker. What was the prima facie case that led the prosecutor and sleuths to lay a trap for the Swamiji?

3. A letter from Sankararaman to the Swamiji threatening he would expose the misdeeds of the Swamiji to the public/police is now claimed to be in the hands of the police. According to the police, the Swamiji handed this letter over to the murderers and asked them to trace the sender and his address. The police claim that they recovered this letter from one of the murderers. Nothing sounds sillier or amateurish than this. If indeed that is what happened, this plot should enter the hall of fame of “dumb criminals” as a classic. Why should the pontiff hand over the letter to the murderers? How could the murderers trace the anonymous sender? If the pontiff did not have a clue about the sender, how would the professional hit men from a different city (Chennai) have a clue? Were they handwriting experts that went round the small town asking people to give their samples of handwriting? If indeed the Swamiji knew who sent the letter, where was the necessity to hand over the letter? Kanchipuram is neither Baghdad nor Fallujah, nor the borderland between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Swamiji obviously knew where Sankararaman worked and lived. If the motive indeed was murder, all that the Swamiji or his henchmen had to do was order Sankararaman murdered. Why at all hand over the letter?

If we don’t smell a rat here, we the gullible public will be to blame if this event leads to the undermining of Hindu temples and institutions, and Hindu leadership in India. Obviously, someone has been planting evidence. As I write this, I just saw a report that says Karunanidhi declared that the Tamil Nadu government should take over the Kanchi hermitage. This is sure to outrage Hindus. This is the first salvo in a battle of wits, but there is, I believe, a reason to suspect that this ploy is a smokescreen for something else. The Swamiji is being offered as a sacrificial lamb by somebody else. Who could that be? Hmmm, we wonder why Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is keeping silent in this matter. Actually, according to reports, her “Jaya TV” has been equally harsh in condemning the Swamiji as the DMK-owned “Sun TV”.

Sankararaman is said to have petitioned the Hindu Religious Endowment Board about some irregularities. There are reports that the officials of the temple where he worked were also unhappy because he was honest and strict. So, the reports that he sent, if at all they contained any incriminating evidence, pertained to the temple that he was intimately familiar with. It could not have pertained to the Sankara matham. So, someone felt threatened by the reports he sent, and Sankararaman had to be got rid of. We all know that the Dravidianist politicians of Tamil Nadu always lease the temple properties at virtually no rent to commercial businesses, slaughter-houses, etc. Did Sankararaman touch a raw nerve when he started recovering rents? Or, did he uncover something even grave and paid with his life?


Who would want the Swamiji implicated and why? The answer can be found only when the real complaints filed by Sankararaman are known -- if at all he really filed any. There is no confirmation that he did. Remember that all the anonymous complaints were supposed to have been written by one Kanapadigal. How did the police establish it was Sankararaman? After all, his family had no clue that he had petitioned any authority. If somebody had an urgent need to implicate the Swamiji, some hermitage official most probably obliged them with a few phone calls.

May be it is time for us to implore Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes to come back from the grave and help us resolve this.

<i>Ramesh Rao
November 13, 2004</i>

I was looking up the history of Kanchi math, as according to history, Sri Adi Shankaracharya established only four maths in Sringeri, Dwarka, Badrinath and Puri. I came across a site http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/alt_hindu_msg.html which says that Kanchi Math was a relatively recent math which started as a branch of Sringeri Math, and it appears convincing. Any thoughts?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In article <31a8jt$21j@ucunix.san.uc.edu> sadananda@anvil.nrl.navy.mil (K. 
Sadananda) writes:
> In article <311hto$ni@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, editor.csm.uc.edu (digest 
editor)
> wrote:
>
> > * Former President Inaugurates Celebrations
> >      Kanchipuram, July 24 (PTI) The former President, Mr R
> > Venkataraman, today inaugurated the year long 60th centenary
> > celebrations of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, the head of the 2,500
> > year old Kanchi mutt, amidst religious fervour.
> >      Sri Jayendra Saraswathi is the 69th pontiff of the mutt,
> > which was established here by Adi Sankara, who was the first
> > 'peedapathi' (head of the mutt) from 482 to 477 bc.

> SIR
> May I bring to your attention that by all accounts Adi Sankara time was
> some where around 8th to 9th century AD.  And of the four Matts that he
> established Kanchi is not one of them.  Either the Mutt is less than
> 1100 years old or if it is 482 B.C. as is claimed in the news then it
> must not have been established by Adi Sankaracharya.  Please check the
> dates and the real history of the kanchi matt. Is there any one in the
> network that has better information about the Kanchi peetam?  Sadananda


Both this post and a previous one by Bon Giovanni have raised questions of 
historicity of Adi Sankaracharya and the Kanchi math. This is not a new 
question. It is generally accepted as tradition that Adi Sankaracharya, 
the famous Advaita philosopher, founded four maths (monasteries) at 
Sringeri, Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath; that he ascended the famous 
sarvagna-pitha in Kashmir, and finally passed away near Kedarnath. None of 
the four recognized mathas claims jurisdiction over the other three. However, 
the Kanchi math claims that Sankaracharya established a fifth math in 
Kanchi, with jurisdiction over the recognized four mathas; that 
Sankaracharya ascended a sarvagna-pitha not in Kashmir, but at Kanchi, and 
that he passed away not in Kedarnath, but at Kanchi. These and other such 
claims have been widely publicized by the followers of the Kanchi math 
with the direct participation of and encouragement from the heads of the 
Kanchi math, including the recently departed centenarian Sri 
Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (C.S., for short) and his successor Sri 
Jayendra Saraswati (J.S.).

In Tamil, we have a saying "Do not question the origins of rivers 
(nadimoolam) and rishis (rishimoolam)." Still, in terms of answering some 
basic questions regarding dates in Indian history, one has to perforce 
look at these. C.S. had a commanding personality. He impressed people of 
such wide interests as Mahatma Gandhi, Arthur Koestler, Paul Brunton, 
Milton Singer etc. Some of his more ardent followers have gone to the 
extent of deifying him as "Nadamadum deivam" - the deity who walks. People 
compose and sing songs in his praise, and dancers stage dance-dramas on his 
life - all of which are widely advertised and reviewed in the south Indian 
press. However, while some people might respect the recently departed 
acharya of Kanchi as a rishi or as a deity, there is no reason why a frank 
discussion cannot be held regarding the origins of the Kanchi math, and 
C.S.'s involvement in propagating a thoroughly revised history of that 
math - so thoroughly revised as to be almost wholly falsified. I would 
like to clarify at the outset that no disrespect is meant to the Kanchi 
math or its heads, but while talking of some aspects of history, one has 
to call a spade a spade.

Seven years ago, on August 22, 1987, Sri Jayendra Saraswati disappeared 
from the Kanchi math. R. Venkatraman, an ardent devotee of the Kanchi math 
was President of India at that time. A frantic search was held, with the 
police of all four southern states, the CID and other agencies involved. 
What made the disappearance more shocking to the orthodox followers of the 
Kanchi math was that it was the period of chaturmasya, when a sannyasi was 
not supposed to travel from his camping station. Sri Jayendra Saraswati 
was finally traced to Talakaveri, the source of the Kaveri near Coorg in 
Karnataka. Whatever else it accomplished, this episode created major stories
in the Indian media. Tthe Kanchi math came under the spotlight once again,
and it obtained wide publicity in the national media. I quote a few excerpts
(without permission) from the Sept. 13, 1987 issue of The Illustrated Weekly
of India, from a feature written by well-known journalist, K. P. Sunil. [1]

Under a box titled "Disputed Lineage," K. P. Sunil writes, (My comments 
are in parantheses):

"On August 25, as speculation about the whereabouts of Jayendra 
Saraswati mounted, the Sankaracharya of Dwaraka, Swaroopananda Saraswati, 
camping at Pune for the Chaturmasya Vrata, while demanding a high level 
probe into the mystery, asserted: "Sri Jayendra Saraswati cannot be 
regarded as a Sankaracharya at all, because the Kanchi math is not one of 
the four peethas constituted by Adi Sankaracharya. It is only a shakha 
(branch) of the Sringeri peetham."
"Several years earlier, Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, who headed the 
central commission on Hindu religious and charitable endowments, had 
announced that `there is no such thing as the Kanchi Kamakoti peetham.'
..................
"Yet the Kanchi math has emerged as one of the most powerful 
religious institutions in the country.
"Full credit for this should go to Chandrasekharendra Saraswati 
himself, who lifted a math disintegrating in Kumbhakonam and 
re-established it in Kanchipuram, according it a position of pre-eminence.
....................
"Legend has it that Sankara, at the age of 32, after having toured 
most parts of India and after having established the four maths ........
"The turn of the present century saw a math claiming a lineage of 
over 67 pontiffs in Kumbhakonam in Tanjore district."
..............
"It was only in the 20th century works, all compiled after 
Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, the present Paramacharya ascended the 
peetha, that the history of the Kanchipuram math has been rewritten. 
Accordingly, it was established (by whom, may I ask?) that Adi 
Sankaracharya had spent the last days of his life in Kanchipuram where he 
attained samadhi, and not in the Himalayas as is generally believed. A 
mandapam named after the father of the school of advaita philosophy, seen 
in the Kamakshi temple premises, is cited as his samadhi. (The said 
mandapam has been constructed very recently. It was originally called 
`Sankaracharya samadhi', but when it was pointed out there could not be a 
samadhi inside a Devi temple, the mandapam was renamed `Sankaracharya 
sannidhi' - sanctum, not a tomb.)
"The twentieth century chronicles explain that before his demise, 
Sankaracharya established a fifth math at Kanchi which he intended to be a 
controlling centre of all the other maths. Sri Sureswaracharya, Sankara's 
prime disciple was placed in charge of it. Interestingly, the Sringeri 
math also claims Sureswaracharya as their first pontiff. (As an aside, the 
tale of Sureswaracharya being in charge of the Kanchi math is pure 
fiction. If Sankaracharya did not establish the Kanchi math at all, 
where was the need to appoint a successor there?!! It is the Kanchi math 
that "claims" Sureswara. The Sringeri math does not "claim" so. In fact, a 
very old structure that is reputed to be Sureswara's samadhi is still 
preserved outside the Sarada temple at Sringeri.)
"According to the Kanchi chronicles, the math in Kanchipuram had 
to be shifted in the 18th century AD, in the face of opposition from local 
kings and hence the shift to Kumbhakonam. (One does not know of any 
Hindu-hating king near Kanchipuram from the 18th century.)
"Historians, however, hold that the Kumbhakonam math was in verity 
a branch of the Sringeri math established in 1821 AD by the famous monarch 
of Tanjore, Serfoji. (Mr. Sunil has a fact wrong here. The monarch of 
Tanjore in 1821 was not Serfoji, but Pratap Singh Tuljaji. The 
date 1821 is correct - it is the date of the oldest inscription found in 
the Kumbhakonam math building.) Later, when a war broke out between the 
kings of Tanjore and Mysore, the Kumbhakonam math proclaimed independence 
from Sringeri and established itself as the Kamakoti peetham." (There is 
no war documented between the Maratha rulers of Tanjore and the Wodeyars 
of Mysore after 1821. By this time, both were more or less puppets of the 
British. That the Kumbhakonam math proclaimed independence from Sringeri 
however, is a fact. One does not have to explain it as a consequence of an 
imaginary war that the maths had no connection with.)

Mr. Sunil captures the major facts regarding the Kanchi math correctly 
though. Briefly,

1. A branch of the Sringeri math was established in Kumbhakonam, the 
building for which was constructed in 1821 AD, with the help of the 
Tanjore king. The seal of this math is in Kannada language, and refers to 
it as a "Sarada math." Since Sarada is worshipped only at Sringeri, and 
the Goddess at Kanchipuram is Kamakshi, not Sarada, it is seen at once 
that the Kumbhakonam math did not originally come from Kanchipuram.

2. The Kumbhakonam math soon proclaimed independence from Sringeri. In 
fact, this math went one step further. In addition to denying the 
historical truth of its origin as a branch of the Sringeri math, the story 
propagated was that it was originally established by Adi Sankaracharya 
himself at Kanchipuram, with control over the recognized four maths. 
Worse, a wholly fictitious story that Adi Sankaracharya ascended a 
sarvagna-pitha at Kanchi and attained samadhi at Kanchi is propagated as 
"tradition." The real problem though was that in the course of this 
campaign, someone with more enthusiasm than scholarship, "fixed" the date 
of Adi Sankaracharya as 477 B.C. and wrote up a continuous list of gurus 
of the math from 477 B.C. to the present! This guru parampara is filled 
with names of sannyasis taken at random, with no thought to chronology.

3. The Kumbhakonam math shifted to Kanchipuram in accordance with its new 
story. In 1839 AD, the head of the Kumbhakonam math applied for permission 
to the English Collector to perform the kumbhabhishekam of the Kamakshi 
temple in Kanchipuram. In 1842 AD, he was appointed sole trustee of the 
Kamakshi temple by the English East India Company Government. This is well 
documented because the original priests of the Kamakshi temple, who were
thereby deprived of their rights, complained to whomever they could possibly
complain to. Numerous petitions, counter petitions, letters, and other such
documents are available from this period that allow us to piece together this
account. [2] Thus the Kanchi math as an institution dates from 1842 AD. The
headquarters continued to be at Kumbhakonam but the sannyasi head would
periodically visit Kanchipuram to assert his rights over the Kamakshi temple.
This math originally had a limited following in the Tanjore and Kanchipuram
areas, but soon embarked on a massive propaganda campaign that ensured it
prominence.

4. This propaganda campaign to disseminate disinformation received a major 
fillip from the activites of C.S. As Mr. Sunil puts it, it is only in the 
20th century, after C.S. took over as the head of the disintegrating math 
at Kumbhakonam, that the accounts have been totally rewritten. Part of this 
propaganda campaign includes a guru parampara that dates back to 477 BC. 
One can go into great details to show that this guru parampara is false. 
Suffice it to say however, that it is full of holes and is correct only in 
the details given for the post-1820 period. Thus J.S. who is said to be 
the 69th in direct succession from Adi Sankaracharya himself is actually 
only the 6th or the 7th head  of the Kumbhakonam/Kanchi math. C.S. and  
J.S. have been extremely fortunate in favourably impressing people like 
Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, the famous philosopher, and Sri S. Ramakrishnan, 
the executive secretary of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, not to speak of 
influential journalists like Arun Shourie and Ram Nath Goenka, and
politicians like President R. Venkatraman. As an example, in recent years,
there has not been a single issue of the Bhavan's Journal without some
feature or the other on either C.S. or J.S. For example, when the Berlin wall
fell, the well-known guru, Sri Chinmoy, sent a piece of the rubble to the
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan as a souvenir. Sri Ramakrishnan immediately saw a
photo opportunity, took the rock to Kanchipuram, and featured a picture of
J.S. holding the rock on the cover of the Bhavan's Journal. Thus, Sri Chinmoy
sends a souvenir to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and J.S. of Kanchi Kamakoti
Peetham gets photo credit! Sri Ramakrishnan apparently has no qualms in
converting a prestigious magazine like the Bhavan's Journal into yet another
propaganda pamphlet of the Kanchi math.

If I sound like I am fulminating unjustifiably against the propaganda that 
the Kanchi math engages in, I assure readers here that I am in fact 
perfectly justified. I can cite innumerable instances where the most 
blatant lies have been made without any compunction. All with an eye at 
enhancing the apparent prestige of the Kanchi math. What the Kanchi math 
doen't realize however, is that such stories only weaken its own 
credibility and the respect which people may have for its acharyas. Thus a 
simple PTI news item about the 60th birthday celebrations of J.S. 
necessarily has to state something about the "2500 year history" of the 
math. If the news item had been silent about it, I would not have felt the 
need to write this article debunking their myths. The following excerpt 
from the same article in the Illustrated Weekly should show readers the 
exact means which the Kanchi math propaganda adopts.

"The Vyasachaliya Sankara Vijayam, written by Maha Devendra 
Saraswati, the 53rd acharya of the Kumbhakonam math in the 15th century, 
makes no mention of the Kanchi math in his work. However, in a Tamil 
translation of the work by Acharya Krishna Sastri, it is mentioned that 
the then King of Nepal had accepted the acharya of Kanchi, located in 
Kumbhakonam, as his Rajguru and was making a payment to the math every 
year as guru dakshina.
"Researchers, who doubted the claim, referred the matter to the 
royal family of Nepal. the reply dated May 13. 1940 read `...Nepal has 
never recognized the head of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham as their guru. 
Nor do we annually contribute any portion of our income as alleged by 
Pandit Acharya Krishna Sastri.'"

Mr. Sunil who quotes this bit of history, seems to have overlooked one 
minor point though. If the Kumbhakonam math was only established as a 
branch math in 1821 AD, as he says in his article, the question of its 
existence in the 15th century does not arise. Much less a name of its head 
and a number to be attached to that name. Such "Pandits" as Acharya 
Krishna Sastri who do not hesitate to blatantly lie, have been routinely 
pressed into service by the Kanchi math for conducting its propaganda. 
After all, who in south India would have thought of verifying his story 
from such a distant place as Nepal? The technique of the Kanchi math has 
been to lie left and right, with such thoroughness, that invariably some 
part of its preposterous claims are accepted as truth by people. Exactly 
the same phenomenon has occured with Mr. Sunil. He does not question the
veracity of the claim that the Vyasachaliya Sankara Vijayam was written
by one "Maha Devendra Saraswati, the 53rd acharya of the Kumbhakonam
math in the 15th century." Nor does he particularly elaborate on the
strangeness of the fact that this fictitious author of this real book only
mentions the four traditionally accepted maths, and makes no mention of
"his own" math.

To sum up, the claims of the Kanchi math have been unprecedented in the 
history of Hinduism. We have never had an organized structure comparable 
to the Roman Catholic Church. In the event, a math in the remote south 
claiming to be the central math of the Advaita sampradaya makes no sense. 
Firstly, such centralized religious jurisdiction is alien to the spirit 
and history of our culture. Secondly, even if Adi Sankaracharya did 
establish a central math with jurisdiction over the recognized four, was 
he so ignorant of India's geography that he bypassed all holy cities with 
more central locations (Prayag/Kashi/Ujjain?) and chose instead Kanchi in 
the extreme south? Thus, the idea of a central math is clearly pure myth. 
The reality is that the Kanchi math is a relatively recent institution 
with tall claims. That it has a large following is an undeniable fact. 
Every saffron-robed person invariably attracts some following. Couple that 
with the tremendous charisma that C.S. had, and a famous temple like the 
Kamakshi temple in Kanchipuram - one has a ready-made formula for success 
in attracting a following. The sad part is that the sannyasis involved 
take advantage of the general reverence that people show them, for their 
own ulterior motives.

In India, among south Indian Brahmin circles especially, when this topic 
comes up for discussion, most people usually say something like, "The 
Kanchi math is also doing so much for the cause of dharma. Why rake up 
this issue?" My answer is that firstly it is the Kanchi math which forces 
one to rake up the issue by ceaselessly continuing its propaganda of 
disinformation. Secondly, and more importantly, an institution like the 
Kanchi math which supposedly is doing so much for dharma, should not 
forget the most basic dharma of all - satyam vada. People are free to choose 
their gurus, but when the guru sets such a perniciously wrong example, by 
not sticking to the truth, dharma itself is compromised.

S. Vidyasankar


1. The Illustrated Weekly of India, "The Weekly Cover Story" - K. P. 
Sunil, September 13, 1987.


2 a. The Truth about the Kumbhakonam Math, - Sri R. Krishnaswamy 
Aiyar and Sri K. R. Venkatraman, Sri Ramakrishna Press, Madurai, 
1977.

  b. Kanchi Kamakoti Math - a Myth - Sri Varanasi Raj Gopal Sarma, 
Ganga Tunga Prakashan, Varanasi, 1987.
     LC Call No.: BL1243.76.C62 K367 1987
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After 57 years of independence Indian had produced 1000s of new doctors and health facilities all over India. India is able to eradicate lot of disease and gain knowledge in cheap cure.
But in modern time there is lack of awareness towards disease and patients are wide spread. Health industry is dominated by greedy citizens and business houses.

I have started this thread to collect news and discussion on ills of Health Industry in India.

One of the most fateful events in Hindu history was the battle of Talikota that occurred during the time of Ramaraya who was the de facto ruler of Vijayanagar. Several attempts have been made by secularist writers to paint Ramaraya as a villain and downplay his eventful reign. He did commit miscalculations in different directions: 1) He killed many of Hindu Nayakas and replaced them by his own clansmen resulting in considerable discontent amongst the Hindu elite. He seized power through intrigue from the clan of Krishnadeva Raya and made himself the principal ruler of the Vijayaganagar Empire, displeasing many of the chiefs. 2) In a manner similar to the modern Indian state, he went against the age-old policy of the Vijayanagara state in recruiting Moslem soldiers indiscriminately in his army. 3) He destroyed the traditional Hindu civil service officials to place his own favorites and henchmen in their place. But he was by no means a slouch when it came to defending the Hindu Dharma at a very critical junction.

The chaos following Krishnadeva’s death resulted in the Hindus coming under assault from many directions. The local chiefs of the Tamil country were in an intercine revolt, while Francis Xavier, the Portuguese Christian terrorist, was wreaking havoc on the Gulf of Mannar and reaping large numbers of converts. The Jesuit and Franciscan friars were planning a plundering raid on the rich temples of Kanchipuram. The Portuguese also captured the port of Nagore and were plundering the temple of Ranganatha there. This was when the Hindus appealed to Rama Raya to save from the Christian terror. Rama Raya dispatched his cousin, Chinna Tirumala (Timma) to deal with this task. Chinna Timma first conquered the Chandragiri fort and squashed the southern rebellion. Another traitorous Hindu chief of the fort of Bhuvanagiri was trying to make common cause with the Portuguese but the fort was stormed by Chinna Timma. From there he marched along the coast and crossed the Kaveri and attacked the Portuguese army in Nagore. The invading Christian army was butchered and the wealth stolen by the Christians from the Ranganatha temple was recovered and restored. From there Chinna Timma and his brother Vitthala defeated rebellious chiefs in Madurai, Puddukotai, Tanjavur, Tuthukudi and the Keralan chief of Travancore was also brought in line. Then Chinna and Vitthala set up a tower of victory in Kanya Kumari after massacring and driving out the Christian garrison stationed there. The temple at Tiruvanantapuram was also repaired.

The Christian brigand Martin Desouza of Goa damaged and plundered the Bhatkal port and the Catholic priests were spreading a reign of terror in the Konkans. Ramaraya repulsed him and cleansed the place of the violent Christian evangelists. He was replaced by Joao Decastro, who negotiated a peace treaty with the Hindus and established a horse trade market. However, five years later the Christian missionaries were fanning out into the Konkan and robbed the Tirupati temple in an undercover raid and tortured Hindus along the coast. Ramaraya launched a retaliatory strike on the Christian garrison of San Thome. A large Portuguese army set out to help the San Thome garrison from Goa. But Ramaraya’s cousin Vitthalaraya launched a preemptive attack on the Goa army along with another Vijayanagaran division under Sankanna Nayaka of Ikkeri. The Christians faced a major set back and were repulsed. Ramaraya killed all the major Jesuit friars who were spreading terror in the country and captured 5 other senior bishops whom he ransomed for 100,000 pagodas.

However, before Vijayanagar could effectively liberate Goa itself, the Moslem rulers, Adil Shah and Nizam Shah made a common cause to wage Jihad on the Hindus. Adil Shah invaded Vijayanagar, but Ramaraya who was dealing with the Christians dispatched his general Sadashiva Nayaka to deal with the Moslems. The Moslem army was routed and retreated in disarray. Rama Raya then started playing the 5 Moslem Sultans against each. He induced Nizam Shah to attack Barid Shah and kept them engaged with each other. Then he engineered a treaty where by the Moslems would collectively be under the eye of Vijayanagara. Ramaraya then invaded Bidar itself and defeated Barid Shah and brought him under his control. Thereafter, Ramaraya’s brother Venkatadri defeated the army of Qutb Shah and seized the southern districts of the Golconda kingdom. As result of Qutb Shah and his ally Nizam Shah’s retreat the Kalyani fort was taken by Vijayanagar. Then Ramaraya decided to deal with Nizam Shah while Adil Shah was fighting Qutb Shah. The Vijayanagaran army entered Maharashtra and besieged Ahmednagar. However, at the decisive moment the Hindus were robbed of their ultimate conquest by the flooding of the Sina river that washed away their baggage train forcing them to fall back. Not deterred by the retreat, the Vijayanagaran army turned to attack Golconda and pin down Qutb Shah who had just been defeated by Adil Shah. He tried to counter-attack by assaulting the Hindu fortress of Kondavidu. But the Hindu army repulsed his attack and inflicted heavy losses on the Moslem army. Ramaraya devastated the Qutb Shahi kingdom and captured its mainline of defensive forts of Kovilkonda, Ganpura and Pangal. Ramaraya also demolished the Mazaars and Masjids that had been built on Hindu structures. During his invasion of Ahmednagar he took the opportunity even while retreating due the weather to demolish a large Masjid that had earlier been erected on a Hindu shrine. All these sent a clear message to the Moslem rulers.

At this point the Moslems realized that they were puppets at the hands of the Hindu ruler decided to make a common cause for a concerted Jihad to end the Hindu kingdom. The first sealed their friendship through a series of dynastic marriages and then had a combined meeting to sign a pact for Jihad. They gathered together their armies on the plains of Bijapur at the end of 1564 and built up an enormous Islamic horde of around 700,000 troops. This vast army started marching southwards with considerable speed. Ramaraya faced the situation calmly and on Vijayadashmi day 15th September 1564 asked his generals to prepare for an all out war with the Moslems. By December the Moslems reached Talikota, a fortified town near the Krishna river and declared holy war on the infidels. Ramaraya took all the right steps. He sent his brother Tirumala with a large force to prevent the Moslems from crossing the Krishna. He sent his other brother Venkatadri to defend the south bank of the Krishna and he himself came in next with the rest of the army to form the rear. The total Hindu armies appear to have been between 500,000 core troops, plus the mercenaries. The main chinks in the Hindu armies were the two divisions of a total of about 140,000 troops which belonged to Moslem commanders who had been hired foolishly by Ramaraya after their eviction from Bijapur by the Sultan. These divisions were along with Ramaraya’s main divisions.

By December 29th 1564 the first battles broke out. Qutb Shah and Nizam Shah, who were great friends, decided to go on their own first and led their divisions to clash with Tirumala’s division. The Hindu army inflicted a huge defeat on the Moslems and the Sultans fled in disarray losing thousands of men in the encounter. The Sultans were shaken by this encounter and asked Adil Shah to forget previous arguments and stand by them for the intended Hindu counter-attack. The Sultans met secretly and decided that the only way to succeed was to resort to stratagem. Nizam Shah and Qutb Shah decided to parley with the mighty Raya who was now planning a massive counter-thrust into the Moslem flanks. At the same time Adil Shah sent a false message to the Hindu commander that he wished to remain neutral. While this was going on messengers from the Sultans went to the Moslem commanders in the Vijayanagaran army and appealed to their religious duty of Jihad and secured their alliance to launch a subversive attack. As a result of these parleys Ramaraya delayed his counter-thrust giving a small but critical time window for the Moslems to regroup. Sultan Imad Shah of Berar made the first thrust by attacking Tirumala’s division guarding the Krishna ford. Tirumala fell upon him with his full force and in short but intense encounter destroyed the Sultan’s army and sent him flying for life. However, the euphoria of this victory proved short-lived as the sultans Nizam Shah, Qutb Shah, Barid Shah on one side and Adil Shah on the other used this distraction to cross the Krishna and attack the main Hindu divisions.

Ramaraya, though thoroughly surprised, rapidly responded. Despite his advanced age (in the 70s) he decided to personally lead the Hindu armies and took to the field in the center. He was faced by Nizam Shah’s division. Ramaraya’s first brother Tirumala hurriedly returned to form the left wing of the Hindu army that was countered by Adil Shah and traitorous Hindus under the Maharatta chief Raja Ghorpade. His second brother Venkatadri formed the Hindu right wing that was opposed by Qutb Shah and Barid Shah, strengthened by Nizam Shah’s auxiliaries as the battle progressed. On 23rd Jan 1565 the enormous armies clashed on the plains near the villages of Rakshasi and Tangadi. Several reports claimed that over a million men were involved in this historic clash. Venkatadri struck early and within the first two hours the Hindu right wing’s heavy guns fired constantly on the ranks of Barid Shah. As the ranks were softened the Hindu infantry under Venkatadri plowed through the divisions of Barid Shah annihilating them. The assault was so vigorous that it looked like a Hindu victory was imminent. Qutb Shah too was in retreat, when Nizam Shah sent his forces to shore up the ranks of the Sultans. Nizam Shah himself was then pressed hard by the heavy cannonade from Ramaraya’s division and was facing a Hindu infantry thrust with Ramaraya at the helm. At this point the Sultans signaled to the Moslem officers in the Vijayanagaran army to launch a subversive attack. Suddenly Ramaraya found his rear surprised by the two Moslem divisions in his ranks turning against him. About 140,000 Moslem troops had opened a vigorous rear attack on the Hindus and captured several artillery positions. Several cannon shells landed near Ramaraya’s elephant and he fell from it as his mount was struck by a cannon shard. Ramaraya tried to recover but Nizam Shah made a dash to seize him.

He was dragged to the Moslem camp and the Sultan asked him to acknowledge Allah as the only god. Ramaraya instead cried “Narayana Krishna Bhagavanta”, and Nizam Shah slit the Hindu king's throat and declared himself a Ghazi in Jihad. Ramaraya's severed head was then fixed to a pole and waved before the Hindu troops. The Hindus panicked at the death of their commander and chaos broke out in their midst. Venkatadri was also killed as the Qutb, Nizam and Barid put all their forces together and launched a concerted punch. Tirumala tried to stiffen the center but at that point the whole division of Adil Shah that was waiting all the while made the final assault on the rear of Tirumala’s division. The Vijayanagar artillery had by then been exhausted and was blasted by the Adil Shah’s artillery and the Hindus faced a rout. Several 100,000s of troops were slain.

Tirumala seeing the total rout fled to Vijayanagara and taking up the treasury on 1500 elephants fled south towards Penukonda. Those who could flee the city survived, the rest became victims of the Islamic Jihad. The Moslems swooped down upon the city and beheaded several tens of thousands of the male inhabitants as they could find (“every one became a ghazi by killing a Kaffr”). The young women were captured for the harems and the rest were herded into groups and burnt alive. Miscellaneous dacoits, Maharatta Hindu brigands under Raja Ghorpade Bahadur, and the Maharashtrian Brahmin thief, Murari Rao, who got wind of the news also arrived with their henchmen and looted the grand city. The looting is supposed to have gone on for six months, after which the sultans fired the city. The heat from the burning of the city is supposed to have been so intense that it left cracks in the granite hills on its periphery. Ramaraya's skull was taken by Nizam Shah to Ahmednagar and was fitted to the spout of a drain that opened out of the fort. This grotesque gargoyle bearing the fallen Hindu king's skull was seen for several years after the event. Thus the first great Hindu counter-offensive against the ravages of Islam and Christianity in the South ended. However, it did not mean the end of the Hindu resistance. We shall in the subsequent part how the complete Islamization of south India was prevented by the successors of Ramaraya in a prolonged struggle over the next 100 years, when the baton of the Hindu revival was taken over by the Maharattas under Shivaji.

<b> Sources and bibliography:</b>
A history of South India (4th edition) KAN Sastri.
Firishta (Translated by J. Briggs in "History of the rise of the rise of Mohammedan power in India, Vol II)
The early Muslim expansion in South India. Venkataraman Ayya
Further sources of Vijayanagar History. KAN Sastri and Venkataraman Ayya
A forgotten empire. R. Sewell
Achyuta Raya Abhyudaya. Rajanatha Dindima.
Collected papers on Vijayanagara.
The character and significance of the Empire of Vijayanagara in Indian history. Krishnaswami Aiyangar.
The battle of Talikota--before and after K.K. Basu

Krishnaswami Aiyangar's monumental critical edition/translation notes of native sources (in collected sources volume; 81-7305-257-3)
Ramarajiyamu of Venkayya
Krishna Raya Vijayam by Kumara Dhurjati
Ahobilam inscription of Sriranga-I (After the restoration)

<b>SECULARISM, COLONIALISM AND THE INDIAN INTELLECTUALS</b>


Jakob De Roover

Research Assistant, Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders
Research Centre <i>VERGELIJKENDE CULTUURWETENSCHAP</i>
Ghent University, Belgium.

In the last few decades, “secularism” has become the subject of caustic debate in the Indian media. The dispute about the value of this idea to contemporary India is no longer confined to the academic circles. Politicians, journalists and others have strong views on the topic. Secularism regularly surfaces in newspaper articles, speeches and public meetings. The critics of the idea, however, are not often taken seriously at the theoretical level. The proponents of secularism dismiss all objections against their pet idea as misguided. Critics are either considered to be naive obscurantists, who dream of a return to a romantic image of Indian traditional society; or they are condemned as Hindu fundamentalists, who resist modern secular values and strive for a Hindu religious state.

Though the secularists are genuinely concerned about the tensions currently disrupting Indian society, their fight for secularism has not been very effective when it comes to putting an end to “the Hindu-Muslim strife.” In fact, the Nehruvian secularism of the first few decades of the independent Indian state appears to have had as its long-term result an upsurge – rather than a decline – of intercommunity confliict. The problem I will address is to account for the stubborn adherence to the value of secularism among the Indian intellectuals, in spite of this spectacular failure. This adherence seems based in dogmatism, rather than in rational, critical or scientific argument. To account for this state of affairs, I will first turn to the history of the idea of secularism and show the deep roots it has in the religious doctrine of the Christian West. Next, I will analyse the role it has played in the colonial domination over the subcontinent and its intellectuals. The idea of secularism has been one of the backbones of the colonial educational project, which approached India as a backward society in need of conversion to modern western values.

These two steps bring me to the conclusion that the Indian secularists are today sustaining the colonial stance towards their own culture and society. They <i>presuppose</i> that the modern value of secularism or toleration is the superior way of organising a plural society. Given this assumption, they easily come to the conclusion that India should adopt this value like all other modern nation-states. This is not an exhibition of human scientific rationality, but rather an instance of the fallacy of <i>petitio principii</i>. That is, the secularists take as a presupposition what they actually have to prove: the superiority of the modern value of secularism. The consequences are dramatic. Alternatives to secularism – <i>e.g.</i>, the “traditional” ways of living together as they have developed on the subcontinent – are not even taken seriously as solutions to the predicament of pluralism in twenty-first-century India. Any one who dares challenge this supreme value is classified as a naive conservative, a Hindu communalist, or worse. Thus, secularism limits the options of the Indian intellectuals to two equally flawed positions: either one continues the colonialism of the last three centuries through a dogmatic adherence to “modern secular values;” or one fights this stance on its own terms by becoming an “anti-modern”, “anti-western” or even “anti-scientific” fanatic.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this dilemma. It is to be found in the old human pursuit of knowledge. At a time when societies all around the world are becoming more diverse, we have to be ready to re-examine our long-standing ideas about pluralism and tolerance. More than ever, the search for scientific solutions to the problems of humankind should direct itself at the knowledge developed in the non-western world. The ways of living together of several Asian cultures have proven successful at creating a relative stability and harmony in extremely plural societies. Therefore, I argue, we should set up a massive enterprise to examine the nature and the success of these alternative ways of living together.

1. A Modern Christian Value?

A recent exchange in the Indian weekly <i>Outlook</i> revealed some of the damage done by colonialism to the Indian intellectuals and their understanding of secularism. It started with an opinion piece by Kuldip Nayar, who criticised Ashis Nandy’s views on secularism (<i>Outlook</i>, May 31, 2004). Nandy’s reply, “a Billion Gandhis” (June 21, 2004), restated his critique of secularism as “a dry import” from the West unable to find roots in the Indian soil. This in its turn lead to a vitriolic reaction by the historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam (July 5, 2004). The latter accused Nandy of being ignorant of European history. The word “secularism,” Subrahmanyam suggested, has never been all that important in western politics. It has acquired “a deep meaning and significance” in India, which it never had in Europe. Therefore, it is ridiculous to call secularism an imported idea. Nandy, he concluded, keeps on repeating his views only because he is “profoundly ill informed” about the history of concepts. Neither the derogatory language used by Subrahmanyam nor his impressive career in the European academia should blind us to his own lack of understanding of the western history of ideas. Unlike what he thinks, the main problem in the Indian secularism debate does not lie in the fact that a thinker like Nandy has not studied European history. Rather, it is rooted in the way Indian scholars have blindly adopted the <i>self image of the Europeans</i>.

To deny that secularism is an export from the West to India, one cannot simply repeat the old story about the British thinkers who coined the term in the nineteenth century, and the way its meaning changed in India. Secularism is not just a word; it is <i>an idea</i>. As an idea it has a long history going back to medieval times, but it is as alive as ever in the nation-states of the contemporary West. European intellectuals and politicians may prefer to use terms such as “toleration,” “state neutrality”, <i>“laïcité”</i>, <i>“de lekenstaat”</i>, or <i>“Toleranz.”</i> However, like “secularism,” these terms refer to a number of norms and values regarding the way a plural society and its state should be organised. The basic idea is that the state and its laws ought not to mingle with the realm of religion. The state should be secular, that is, its laws cannot be based in one or another religion. Today, this idea is presented as the one rational and democratic ideal for all human societies. Like liberal democracy, the secular humanists believe, this political salvation for the humankind should be exported to India and other plural countries.

Fortunately, we have independent thinkers like Ashis Nandy, who challenge the universal value of this idea. He suggests we would better look into the traditional ways of living together on the subcontinent, before we impose the barren idea of secularism on the cities and villages of India. And a barren idea it is. How and why it is so will not become clear by studying European history through the standard framework developed by the western intellectuals. This might make for Indian academics who share the assumptions, the vocabulary, and the pretences of their colleagues at Oxford or Harvard. But it does not produce significant insights into the encounter between India and the West.

The idea of secularism or toleration has become as barren as it is today, because it has been detached from the religious background that made it significant and fruitful. In order to get a grasp on its history, we first have to understand the Christian theological framework from which it emerged. Early in the history of Christianity, the belief became dominant that the human world is split into two different realms. On the one hand, there is the spiritual realm. Each human individual has a soul, Christian doctrine claimed, and this soul should become as spiritual as possible. That is, it should turn away from “the carnal world” in which we live and towards “the spiritual world” of God. In this eternal spiritual realm, the Holy Spirit operated and it regenerated the human soul so as to convert it to Christ. This realm was opposed to the temporal carnal realm. Each individual also consisted of a body – “the sinful flesh,” as Christian thinkers liked to call it. This sinful body lives here on earth in the temporal carnal realm, which is ruled by Satan – “the lord of this world.” From Augustine to Aquinas, all of the dominant political thought in Christian Europe took this two-fold division of human society as its starting-point.

Then happened the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century – a cultural revolution that shaped the modern western culture. Its reform was also based in the opposition between the spiritual (or religious) world and the temporal (or secular) world. But it changed the relationship between the two worlds dramatically. Whereas the spiritual and the temporal had been equated with the clergy and the laity in the medieval Church, the Protestants claimed there was no such hierarchical division of humanity. There could not be a spiritual estate of priests as opposed to a temporal estate of laymen. All human beings lived in these two worlds at the same time. And all human souls should be left free to be regenerated by the Spirit of God. This gave rise to the entrenched normative belief that <i>the state and its laws ought not to intrude upon religion.</i> The Protestant thinkers asserted that one human being could not compel others as to what to believe and how to worship God, since “God alone was the Lord of our souls.” In theological terms, they said the following: (a) all human beings live in two spheres, the spiritual (or religious) and the temporal (or secular); (b) in the religious sphere, they strive for the salvation of their souls, and this is a purely individual affair over which God alone has authority; ( c) in the secular sphere, they are bodies who pursue the preservation of their earthly interests, and here they should always obey the laws of the secular authorities. This was the Protestant theological framework within which thinkers like John Locke and Pierre Bayle elaborated their theories of toleration and liberty of conscience. The same religious motivation brought Thomas Jefferson to the famous claim that there should be “a wall of separation” between church and state. As he wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, dated January 1, 1802:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This Protestant doctrine remains the implicit background of the contemporary political theories of liberal toleration in the West. The idea of secularism or toleration is dependent on a number of deep-seated Christian assumptions concerning the nature and the aim of the human life. It takes the conceptual schemes of Christian theology – more specifically, its division of the world into a spiritual religious sphere and a temporal political sphere – as though these correspond to the universal structure of human societies. Moreover, secularism suggests that plural societies will fall apart, if they fail to adopt the Protestant norm of separation of the religious and the political.

Naturally, this does not fit in with the story mainstream scholars like to tell about European history. This is the case, because they have accepted the West’s self-understanding – in which it is supposed to have released itself from Christian religious dogma at the time of the Enlightenment. This story is part of the mythology built by the western culture to claim for itself a grandiose place in human history. Earlier, it was the religion of Christianity that was to grant spiritual salvation to all peoples crowding the earth. Nowadays, it is the “secular” modernity of the West, which should bring political salvation to all cultures and societies. In between, the main change has been the shift from an explicitly religious language to a new “secular” vocabulary, which also claims to be “universal” and “rational” (this point is argued extensively by S.N. Balagangadhara in his <i>“The Heathen in His Blindness …”: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion</i> (E.J. Brill, 1994); a new edition by Manohar Publishers will be available later this year).

2. Secularism and the Colonial Project

If the history of ideas proves that secularism is a Christian idea, why then have so many Indian intellectuals appropriated it as the norm to be attained by the Indian state and its citizens? This question becomes all the more pertinent once we are aware of the many theoretical shortcomings of the concept of secularism. For instance, as I have argued elsewhere, we do not possess a scientific framework today that allows us to distinguish the religious from the secular or the political. We do not even have a clue as to what makes the Hindu traditions into religion. All we have is vague and useless definitions of the word “religion,” which do not offer us any understanding of the phenomenon of religion. Still, we keep on saying that “the religious” should be separated from “the political” or that the state ought to be “secular” and not “religious” as though it were eminently clear what distinguished these spheres. Without providing any convincing argument, the secularists never cease to preach that “secularism should be revived in India” (see my “The Vacuity of Secularism,” in the Economic and Political Weekly, September 28, 2002, pp. 4047-4053).

The danger is that this critique of secularism is mistaken for a justification of “the Hindu religious state” in India. But this is not at all implied by my argument. Rather, the suggestion is that the conceptual distinction between “the religious” and “the secular” does not help us to understand Indian society and that the norm of secularism does not help us to alleviate the inter-community tensions of this society. Still, a bizarre but often-heard reply suggests that this is equivalent to rooting for a Hindu state. In other words, the secularists assume that any deviation from – or opposition to – secularism amounts to “religious fundamentalism.” To understand where this comes from, we have to reveal the role played by the idea of secularism in the colonial educational project.

During its “golden age” in the nineteenth century, western colonialism presented itself as an educational project, which claimed to bring native societies to the developmental stage of the modern West and its “scientific values.” Colonial education intended to reveal to the colonised how backward they actually were. It either assumed implicitly or claimed explicitly that the practices, stories and traditions of the indigenous cultures had to be replaced by the law and order of western civilization. As S.N. Balagangadhara shows in a forthcoming article (“Colonialism, Colonial Consciousness, and Political Theory”), this stance makes colonialism into an immoral phenomenon. This is the case because of the following reasons: (a) Like all educational projects, colonialism tries to transform the experience of the colonised. It does so by replacing the cultural experience of the colonised with western colonial descriptions of his or her own culture and of the West. (b) But, the latter accounts have never been proven to be cognitively superior to the indigenous accounts. Instead, the colonial descriptions presuppose the superiority of the western culture and from this they conclude that the colonised culture must be inferior to that of the West. ( c) The consequence is that fallacious colonial accounts, which beg the question as to the superiority of the West, are imposed on the colonised. As these accounts are not cognitively superior to those of the colonised, the use of violence becomes inevitable in this process of indoctrination. The coloniser does not have cogent arguments, so he is forced to take recourse to other means. Therefore, colonialism <i>cannot be</i> an educational project, though it claims to be that. In reality, it consists of a vicious circle that takes the “modern western values” as the beginning and end of human civilization.

Balagangadhara’s account of the immorality of colonialism is well illustrated by the imposition of secularism on the Indian people. When the British missionaries, travellers and colonial administrators described Indian society, it was self-evident to them that this society was suffused by religion, albeit a false one. The “Hindoo religion” and, to a lesser extent, its “Mahometan” rival were said to determine every sphere of life and action. In India, no distinction was made between the political and the religious, so the colonials asserted: in fact, religion was consistently abused for political ends and the state took the form of a pernicious theocracy. Naturally, this description was implicitly opposed to the modern West. In the European self-image, the Reformation and the Enlightenment had demonstrated that toleration and the separation of church and state were the necessary conditions of civilized coexistence among religious groups. This self-image also shaped the image of India: if the political was not separated from the religious here, destructive conflict would inevitably erupt between the Hindus and the Muslims. Obviously, the Europeans thought, the Indians could not attain this insight by themselves. Colonial schooling had to educate them in the virtues of modern secularism. The Indian elite – created by this educational system – adopted the view of India as a caste-ridden society living under the tyranny of religion. It embraced the colonial description, which was founded on the presupposition of the superiority of the western civilization. The results were a Raja Rammohan Roy in the nineteenth century and a Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the twentieth.

A few steps can be discerned in the process of intellectual colonisation that shaped these “makers of modern India.” Firstly, the Indian elite accepted the terms of description of the western colonials as though these were scientific. This could happen because the colonial educational system put these fallacious descriptions of caste and religion in India at par with the accounts of Newtonian physics and other scientific theories. Thus, the elite began to conceptualise Indian society in terms of the division between “the religious” and “the secular” (or “the political”), even though this conceptual distinction was rooted in Christian dogma. Secondly, the conception of the subcontinent as an inferior civilization brought about the conviction that India should become like Europe. In the present case, this meant that the state ought to steer clear from “the Hindu religion,” just as church and state had been separated in Europe. Politics ought to be based in “modern secular values,” that is, in the norms of nineteenth- and twentieth-century western Christendom. The third step made this normative order into the one viable alternative to inter-community conflict. Without these values, the story went, India would eventually be reduced to chaos and violence. The language of secularism became the only vocabulary in which a stable and harmonious plural society could be imagined. In other words, peace and order in society were conflated with a particular normative description of the way in which “India ought to be secular.” The final step caused a similar change in the identification of the problems and tensions of Indian society. The colonial descriptions of the inferiority of India became the standard textbook stories on this “backward, caste-ridden and fossilised civilization, permeated by irrational religion and blind ritual.” Again, this specific description was equated with the very structure of Indian society and its problems.

The outcome of this process is the dead end we have reached today. The current tensions in the fabric of Indian society can be conceptualised in one way alone, it seems: these are “the predicaments of caste, communalism, and religious conflict.” Thus, a particular description of certain phenomena continues to be conflated with these phenomena themselves (<i>viz</i>., the tensions among different communities in India). The distinction is ignored between a description and the phenomena it describes. When such constraints are put on the identification of a problem, these will also operate on the solutions that are developed. As a consequence, according to this view, the one supreme virtue India needs today is secularism. As Salman Rushdie once put it: “Secularism, for India, is not simply a point of view, it is a question of survival.” This value is seen as the safeguard of peace, order and sanity in society. In the absence of secularism, India is bound to fall apart, so our colonial intuition tells us. Therefore, this point of view transforms any critic of the idea of secularism into a proponent of communalism, fundamentalism, theocracy, caste, inequality, and other evils.

3. Ways of Living Together

The time has come to move beyond the constraints of this colonial stance. India does not need secularism for its survival. Hindus, Muslims, Christians and several other groups were quite successful at living together in relative peace for a long period of time in India. This plural society did not fall apart. Yet, it had never even heard of “secularism” or “toleration.” Therefore, the task ahead is to examine the ways of living together as they have emerged in various regions of India. In what remains, I will briefly consider two strategies that have been dominant in the search for alternatives to the modern western value of secularism. These strategies, I think, have had a harmful impact on this quest.

The first is the anti-modern and anti-scientific stance we find among some Gandhians, including Nandy. Considering what has happened to the world after the rise of industrialism, capitalism and modern technology in the West, this negative attitude towards science and technology is understandable. The problem, however, is that it takes a particular conception of science, its role in society and its value to humanity as though this is the only way to think about science. It confuses science with the western story on “modern scientific values.” However, one does not have to accept the latter story in order to appreciate and adopt the cognitive criteria developed by the natural sciences in the last few centuries. Science has given us the heuristics to attain reliable theoretical knowledge about the world. These heuristics and criteria of scientific knowledge cannot be thrown overboard in the search for alternatives to secularism. Rather, our hypotheses and theories on the traditional ways of living together in Indian society will be most fruitful when they share the characteristic features of any scientific hypothesis: refutable, refinable, coherent, and internally consistent. In the same way as the richest natural-scientific theories we possess today, they should have empirical consequences, strive for clarity of terms and identify the structures and mechanisms behind the phenomena. In this manner, our alternative theories of pluralism and co-existence among various religious and cultural groups will be able to outshine the normative dogmas of secularism.

The second strategy takes recourse to the widespread belief that the Indian traditions have their own doctrine of “Hindu secularism” or “Hindu tolerance,” which surpasses that of western secularism. Both the proponents of <i>Hindutva</i> and many Gandhians claim that the innate belief in the <i>equality of all religions</i> has allowed all kinds of religious traditions to co-exist peacefully in the past, and that it will continue to do so in the future. This claim is easily refuted. The belief that all religions are equal <i>cannot possibly</i> be accepted by Muslim and Christian believers. The very foundation of Islam and Christianity suggests that these religions are the unique revelation of God – the Creator and Sovereign of the universe. Therefore, they have to distinguish between themselves as the true religion and all others as false religions. All religions cannot be equal, according to the religions of Muslims and Christians. Nevertheless, in past centuries, various communities of these two religions were part of the relatively peaceful and harmonious co-existence of Indian society. They lived side by side with Vaishnava, Jaina, Virashaiva, Buddhist and other groups, while they ceased to take part in systematic persecution, religious violence and aggressive proselytisation. This cannot be explained in terms of a shared belief in the equality of all religions. Therefore, this story on the doctrine of “Hindu tolerance” does not help us to understand the Indian mode of pluralism.

How, then, could we go about examining the ways of living together of the Indian culture? Let us have a closer look at these phenomenona. On the one hand, we have the “internal” pluralism of the Hindu traditions. Although there were clashes among these traditions, these never developed into the systematic persecution of some particular tradition or the other. Alongside these clashes, there was a tendency in each of these traditions to absorb or adopt elements from the other traditions. On the other hand, we have the interaction among these Hindu traditions and the religions of Islam and Christianity, which reveals the same kind of pattern. Again there were violent clashes, but Muslims and Christians were not assaulted or persecuted because of their religious beliefs or their worship of Allah/God. On the contrary, the Hindu traditions had no qualms about the adoption of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or the prophet Mohammed as avatars. They would even include these new characters in their puja’s. Hindus joined Muslims in showing reverence at the <i>dargahs</i> of the Sufi <i>pirs</i>, or in the celebration of <i>Muharram</i>. Moreover, the initial intolerance of the Muslim invaders and Christian converts towards the “idolatry” of the Hindus soon disappeared from local Islamic and Christian traditions. Indian Muslims and Christians participated in Hindu festivals and revered some of the Hindu gods. They made contributions to traditions of Hindu literature, music, and painting – often adding Islamic or Christian elements. Importantly, the proselytising drive of both Islam and Christianity was tempered to a large extent in their local manifestations on the Indian subcontinent.

The current explanations of these phenomena share a basic assumption: there must be a common framework – a shared set of values – which allowed these diverse groups to live together. To grant plausibility to this background assumption, one would have to identify this constitutive set of values shared by the different communities. The single candidate today is the account of Hindu tolerance, which says that these communities were able to live together because they all accepted the equality of religions. We have already confronted one flaw in this account. Another flaw concerns the Hindu traditions themselves: it is often pointed out that one cannot identify any one belief, doctrine, or principle on which they all agree. Still, if one explains the fact that these traditions did not persecute each other or Islam and Christianity in terms of a common principle of Hindu tolerance, one will have to show that they all shared this principle. But there is no proof for the claim that all of these traditions endorsed some orthodox Hindu belief that “all religions are equal” or that “the truth is one but can have plural manifestations,” besides the fact that they did not engage in systematic persecution. It seems that this explanation presupposes that there must be a common principle of tolerance, which has enabled the different traditions to live together. Consequently, one looks for such a principle in the “sacred texts of Hinduism,” and one finds it in the Sanskrit aphorism <i>“Ekam Satya, Viprah Bahudah Vadanti”</i> from the <i>Rig-Veda</i>, which is presented as the basic doctrine of Hindu tolerance.

Could there have been another framework of values that was shared by the various communities – which we are yet to discover? This is unlikely. It would have to be an extremely complex system of values not only to allow co-existence, but also to cause the different communities to absorb elements and attitudes from each other’s traditions, and to participate in each other’s practices. The question then is what has enabled the various Hindu traditions to co-exist with each other, and with others? What explains the peculiar interplay of vigorous clashes and mutual exchanges among these traditions? How come the local Islamic and Christian traditions interacted with the Hindu traditions in a similar way? At the Research Centre <i>Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap</i> at Ghent University, we are currently examining an alternate route to answer these fascinating questions. The route suggests that different communities were able to build a reasonably stable and harmonious society, not because they agreed on a common framework, but because they developed a specific way of going about with each other. This plural Indian society did and does not revolve around a shared belief in some set of values or in the norm of secularism – rather it hinges on a set of practices and attitudes that has allowed the various communities to live together. Our future work will analyse the mechanisms of these ways of going about.

Let me end by paying tribute to the main partisan of anti-secularism in India, Ashis Nandy. As he once pointed out in a pithy metaphor, secularism limits the options of humankind dramatically: it is either Coca-Cola or Ayathollah Khomeini. Though this may be a hyperbole, the image illustrates the constraints the story of “modern secularism” has imposed on our thinking about the problems of pluralism in India. Either secularism or violence. We should heed the insight of Nandy’s anti-secularist manifestos: chaos and violence will not erupt when we leave behind the barren idea of secularism. It is a pity this proposition can still lead to bitter retorts like that of Subrahmanyam. Naturally, as the historian points out, one should practice what one preaches in this matter and truly examine the nature and the history of Indian pluralism. To do so, however, a climate needs to be created that stimulates and sustains such research projects. Rather than singing the mantras of secularism, the academic world should provide a fertile soil for innovative research into the co-existence of communities in India. In more general terms, we are confronting a fundamental question: What direction should the Indian social sciences take today? Should they continue to gather empirical details that merely serve to sustain the intellectual colonialism of the West? Or should they move into exciting new fields where our current understanding of human beings and societies may be turned upside down?

This is a recent book sold in Amazon, showing the latest DNA research
Some clear points in this book
So such thing as Aryan Invasion of India
Next ALL non-African humans resided in India from 85k to 60k years ago
The root DNA for all non-africans is in India

The Real Eve : Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa (Paperback)
by Stephen Oppenheimer
<img src='http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0786713348.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

India has a rich literary bhakti and devotional heritage. In this thread I would like to collect all Bhakti and devotional songs/poems/stories/etc that are devotional in nature. In particular it would be cool if we can have various regional language things (along with english translations) posted on this thread. I will post a few bhakti songs from Narasinh Mehta, a gujju bhakti icon over the next few days. His krishna bhakti songs are just awesome.

I may have posted this before. I am looking for feedback on these principles. we are looking for overarching principles and not those which lack generality in their scope. This can be merged with the history thread after a couple of weeks

<b>What should be the principles on which a History of India be based</b>?



There is no single answer to this question. But some ideas for such a historiography suggest themselves.

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Primary among such considerations is the notion that the Indic civilization not unlike other civilizations characterized by longevity, was a substantial net exporter of ideas and values in addition to being a recipient of ideas originating elsewhere. Cultural influences should be regarded as the result of a complex interplay of ideas, languages and religions. For example, instead of concentrating on migrations to India, one can ask how the Indo-European languages spread over such a vast area of Europe and Asia with a common substratum of words. Could it have been the result of significant commerce and/or academic exchanges, such as occurs today?</span> It is important to remind oneself that unlike the India of the 19th century, the Ancients of the Indian subcontinent were in the top rungs of the Maslow hierarchy of needs, and had the time and inclination to pursue what they believed to be essential ontological issues in relation to the human species. It is conceivable therefore that such academic exchange was more than likely over vast regions even considering the more primitive modes of travel prevalent during that period. It can therefore be postulated with a fair degree of credibility, that Indian academics of antiquity played the same role that the Anglo Saxon academics play in the world today. After all, Adi Sankara was able to traverse the entire subcontinent more than once on foot without much difficulty or absence of safety to his person.

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Another principle in developing a historical narrative for India that suggests itself is the notion that Indian History should not be subject to reductionist arguments and be boxed in or essentialized into a watertight compartment such as South or South East Asia. India has much in common with various disparate cultures and is in fact the quintessential melting pot of cultures, and the Indic civilization is one with a Universal Weltanschauung. </span>The reason that Indic philosophies have appeal is because of the Universalist principles on which they are based and the resort to ontological arguments. It is in this context that Indians find exhortations to secularism to be particularly incongruous. The secularist imperative of Indian society is merely a subset of ontological principles celebrating the universality of the human spirit. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>The Indic civilization has always welcomed a catholicity of views and ideologies as alternate paths suitable for human beings at different stages of their development. Reminding the Indian to be secular is as redundant as reminding the Chinese to revere their ancestors.</span>
Grammar School education in India in general and the teaching of History in particular must be undertaken with a great degree of deliberation and seriousness, comparable to that which is done in most European countries. A history of an entire nation should never be relegated for the most part to the subjects of another power or nation, much less a colonial power. In developing a curriculum for History education in India, we must be far more accepting of our oral tradition of transmitting knowledge which predates the development of scripts by several millennia

Last but not least the Indian must once again be encouraged to have pride in his/her historical tradition, regardless of religious affiliation. The current practice where all activities remotely considered nationalistic are immediately ridiculed, as jingoism is a practice that appears peculiarly Indian. Under no circumstances should the modern Indian let the History of India be driven and directed by a small group of people alien to the traditions of the subcontinent and who are accountable to no one in the subcontinent.

<span style='color:red'>Again the point here is not to concoct a history that speaks only in glowing terms of the past accomplishments of India while ignoring the inevitable blemishes which certainly India was not immune to. The purpose is to avoid broad generalizations and to accept as fact, events in history without any evidence whatsoever that they occurred and merely because it was asserted by a European.</span>










I would like us to identify the core values of the Indian people that distinguish them for the other people in this globalized new age. In other words what constitutes Indian identity?

Once the core values are identified which of them should be preserved and which can be altered. This set can form the basis for defining the national interests.
Please no polemics.