Unmasking AIT

ramana · 07-30-2007, 08:52 PM

Fair enough. Once we get the link we can post it here for completeness.

dhu · 08-11-2007, 11:53 PM

QUOTEatwill forumÂ

nelson-johnson

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
â Seneca

The above quote does seem to indicate that rulers of Rome in Seneca's day knew quite well how to manipulate the superstitious masses using religion.Â The wisdom of that statement echoes down through the centuries to today's government.Â There will always be those who believe for no reason, and those with no reason to believe.

Nelson
_______________________________
atwill

Hi Nelson:
Notice below that Cicero not only prefigures much of Christian theology but also actually advocates for the State to âpersuadeâ the masses to adopt the theology most appropriate for the empire.

"We must persuade our citizens that the gods are the lords and rulers of all things and what is done, is done by their will and authority; and they are the great benefactors of men, and know who everyone is, and what he does, and what sins he commits, and what he intends to do, and with what piety he fulfills his religious duties."

Joe
_______________________________________
Mr. Prancer

If the ancient royals weren't so incredibly superstitious one might suspect they were proto-Secular Humanists, Atheists or Deists.Â Possibly Gnosticm was the closest thing to that in those times.Â By the way, Tobias Churton (Gnostic Philosophy, 2005) makes the case that Existentialism is an outgrowth of ancient Gnosticism.

08-15-2007, 01:13 AM

Can someone tell me the origin of Pathans/Pashtuns and who were they et al, I did not find anything upon searching, If this isnt the right place to post please delete it and tell me where to post it.

ramana · (This post was last modified: 08-25-2007, 03:11 AM by ramana.)

Jaggu there is a report that they are Muslim converts of Rajput tribes of Afghanistan. Some one had made a names analysis and found corresponding names in the Rajput clans. Could be true if you recall that Afghanistan was lost around 1000AD to Subuktigin who was Mahmud Ghazni's father.

MeanwhileVolataire's image of India

ramana · 08-25-2007, 03:17 AM

x-posted from BRF
QUOTE("Paul")Are the Pathans Hindu Rajputs ?

By Khaled Ahmad

Both Pathans and Rajputs are warlike people. Their bravery and sense of honour are legendary. But are they also the same people? At least one person thought so.

A British doctor Henry Walter Bellew (1834-1892) thought in 1864 that most Pakhtun tribal names were actually Rajput names which had undergone changes over time. This actually gave rise to the theory that Hindus had occupied the region called Afghanistan before the âforeignersâ took it over.

As civil surgeon in Peshawar Bellew perfected his knowledge of the local languages. He was chief political officer in Kabul during the Second Afghan War. When he retired as Indiaâs surgeon-general he was already an authority on oriental languages.

In a nutshell, Bellewâs thesis is that all Afghan tribal names can be traced to Greek and Rajput names, which posits the further possibility of a great Greek mixing with the ancient border tribes of India. Some of this survives in Punjabâs Jhang district today where local inhabitants are conscious of homophonous similarities between their names and the great Greek tribes.

Bellew looks at the zai and khel suffixes indicating Pakhtun bloodlines. He thinks that zai is from Persian zaadan (to give birth) which is the same as Sanskrit jan; and khel is clearly Sanskrit kul (family). The Hindu name Kuldip means lamp of the family. The Pakhtun use zai and khel interchangeably.

Bellew starts with the mythology of the origin of the Afghans â perhaps the most detailed story given anywhere. Then he goes to the great Greek historian Herodotus when he discusses the Greek-Bactrian tribes North of Afghanistan.

The Lydoi (Greek âyâ is actually âuâ) are the Lodis, Maionoi are the Miyanis, Mysoi are the Afghan tribes taking Musa as prefix, Thynoi and Bithynoi are Tanis and Bitanis, the Karoi are Karo, Ionoi are Yunus, Doroi are Dor, and Aioloi are Ali.

It should be noted that wherever possible the Afghans will try to convert their pagan names to Muslim ones, as Isapzais have become Yusufzais. This also inclines them to trace themselves to Jewish roots. Bellew gives us the other dimension: all these Greek-sounding names are also Rajput, meaning that Greek intermixing was with the Rajput races when they lived in the
region now occupied by the Afghans.

Bellew thinks prefix Suleman is derived from Rajput Solan which is today visible in Solanki. Daud, as it appears in Daudzai and Daudputra among Muslims, is actually Rajput Dadi or Dadika.

Utmankhel or Utmanzai (to which the family of Wali Khan belongs) are mentioned by Herodotus as a Greek tribe Utoi. Utmanzais have sub-tribes like Baddo (Rajput Yaddo, the tribe of Krishna), Ballo is Rajput Bhalla khatri,

Bura is Bora (Vohra) mercantile Rajput, a name taken by Bohras, the Ismailis of Gujrat, Mandal is the Jat tribe Mada, its version Mandanr, live along Jadun or Gadun tribes (of Hazara which is Sanskrit Abhisara), which names are variant of the Jadu Rajput tribe. These are Yadavas of India.

Gaduns established Gajni which is today Ghazni. The Afghan Batanis are ancient Bhattis, the elite of the Rajputs serving at the court as ministers.

Mahmand actually means âthe great Mandâ. They are in Peshawar but their Rajput relatives are now found near Bombay. Pliny calls them Mandriani of Afghanistan; they are the Wends of Austria. A branch of them called the Bai-zai are located in Kohat which was an old Greek city.

The Suri Pakhtun were people brought from Syria by the son of Seleukus who ruled that part of Alexanderâs eastern empire. The Afridis are mentioned by Herodotus as Aparytai brought to their present abode by Ghaznavi, but they came from the Afghan province of Maimana.

Similarly, the Orakzai are mentioned by Arrian as Arasakoi, and their rivals Bangash came originally from Ghazni. The Bangash are also called Bangak which relates to Bangat Chohan Rajputs. Their neighbours the Turis are the same as Tiwari Rajputs of India. Thus the story of Pakhtun tribes goes on.


and

QUOTEStudy of the Pathan Communities in Four States of India
Safia Haleem

India has been attracting invaders, travellers and traders since the time of Alexander the Great. Every invader had left its marks on the geography, history and culture of the country. The impact of some like the Moguls is very prominent in the monuments like the Taj Mahal. The others such as Iran had left its legacy in the language and literature. One set of invaders whose marks are either not visible or little attention has been paid to them were by the Afghans or the Pathans as they are popularly known in India.

The word Afghans and Pathan is synonymous when we deal with the history of the sub-continent. Pathans came as invaders, traders and they served in the armies of the rulers, whoever was on the Throne. They were hired as soldiers, officers and diplomats by different rulers throughout the history of the last few centuries. Moreover, the whole clans would follow from the tribal areas of Afghanistan and settle in the green pastures of India. Very little is known of the legacy of these Pathans, except that they still live as close community in, Punjab, Utter Pradesh, Central India and Bihar on the North Eastern borders. The Indian film industry has always thrived on the actors with the family name of Khan and it was always assumed that their ancestors were Pathans.

Pathan! What does it mean in India?
Generally the Pashtoons outside India believe that anyone with the Sir name of Khan means a Pathan. The Indian film industry has famous names with this title, such as Shahrukh Khan, Aamer Khan and Salman Khan. When a new film of these stars is released on Video, people in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, watch it with special fondness. It becomes a matter of Pride for them to identify with their favourite stars as their Kinsmen. However the reality is different.

The teachers and students of History and Social Anthropology in the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi warned me to be careful with the word âKhanâ. It was used as a title by the Mughals and then the British during their rule. The word Pathan is also used by those Hindu Rajputs who were converted to Islam. As they considered themselves superior to the other casts in India, they wanted the same status after becoming Muslims. It happened that because the Pathans were a warrior people like the Rajputs and they were respected and feared for their bravery, the Rajputs adopted not only the title of Khan but they adopted the clan names such as Yousafzais or Khattak and Afridi etc. It is interesting to know that the Pathans of these clans had no objection to this practice. During the course of my study, I talked to the Rajput Pathans as well.

The Caste System of India had its effects on Muslims as well and there are clear parallels which the Muslim Sociologist Aysha Sunbul told me to watch. In Hindu Religion there are four castes. As it happened the Muslims of India have unconsciously followed the same pattern by having four equal groups.

The Sayyeds: The descendents of the Prophet Mohammad.
The Pathans: The Martial race and the warriors.
The Sheikhs: Converts who till the land and are mainly in businesses.
The Workers: Barbers, cooks, Ironmongers etc.
Bhopal

This Pathan state was founded by an Orakzai tribesman from the Tirah area in 1710/11. Dost Mohammad Khan was a soldier in the Mughal King Aurangzebâs army. It was the time when the Mughal Empire was crumbling and the small states and their rulers were employing fighters to keep their fiefdoms. Dost Mohammad Khan became one of such Warriors with a group of 100 Pashtoons who earned their living by using their skill of swordsman ship and horse riding. He started capturing the areas around Bhopal in the middle of 18th Century and built strong forts to establish himself as the Ruler. Ever since he took over the area, the other tribesmen followed and the practice stopped only after the Partition of India in 1947.

The story of Dost Mohammad Khan is not known to many Muslims living in Bhopal. But they know that the state was ruled by four women one after the other in the past 200 years.

The Women Rulers of Bhopal
Â
Qudsia Begum Regent and 8th ruler 1819-37
Sikandar Begum Regent and 10th ruler 1844-68
Shahjehan Begum 11th Ruler 1868-1901
Sultan Jehan Begum 12th Ruler 1901-26

The state army of Bhopal always consists of the Pathans who were specially brought from the Afghan areas and they were given land and money at the time of their retirement if they wanted to settle down in Bhopal.

The whole of India was one big piece of land before the British left and people of different ethnic groups could move from one place to another as they do in any free country. Some families could speak/understand Pashto. The reason was that until a few years ago, most of them were able to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan. There was a better communication at each level of the family and the children would be able to understand. However this is not possible now and the women folk are not able to speak the language, although they understood what was being said.

Talaezar Khan who came from Bunair in the Tribal areas about 70 years ago has fond memories of the time of the last Nawab, but he is not well off and lives like the rest of the lower middle class families. There are many villages where the Pathan families are land owners and are working hard on the land to keep a decent living. Some of the villages have Pashto names which have been localised due to different pronunciations, such as Raisan area, Khan Dera (the place where the Khans live), Bavalia, Silvani, Auchiara, Nakhtara (name of a tree in Pashto). The population of these Pathans is less than 5% in each village on average. Nobody could tell me the exact figure though.

Traditions of the Pathans in Villages of Madhya Pradesh
Traditional foods of Bhopal are no different from the rest of India, however the Pathans eat a lot of meat and they do not serve lentils to the guests especially in the villages. They prepare fried sweet pastry pieces called Ghonzakhi which is given to the bride when she goes to her in laws or someone who is travelling far. They also prepare pancakes on rainy days or for the guests which are called âWaishallayâ (called Cheelay in Bhopal Language).

Language
Talking to the Bhopali Pathans, I found the following Pashto expressions.

Ghat (big or fat) used for a boy who was bigger than his age.
Chilla (extreme cold) Pashto word Tsilla (which means frost).
Vara Varrai (Vaada Madai) in Pashto it means meal for all. This meal consists of big pieces of meat cooked in water and served with pieces of bread. It is eaten in a big dish and all eat from it using their hands.
Bihar
Bihar always held a fascination for me for two reasons. One, that it had Buddhaâs birthplace and second, it was ruled by the great Pashtoon King Sher Shah Suri (1540 -1545) who took power from Mughals in the 16th Century and ruled for 5 year until his death. But he has left his mark on the Indian society and they still revere him. His Revenue system and Postal system are still followed in the 21st century.

The Pathan lands and villages are scattered all over Bihar and I concentrated only on the area where Sher Shah lived, which was mostly in and around Patna and Sehsaram. There is a famous place called Sher Ghati and villages in that area are reputed for having wild Pathans.

Patna
There were many Mohallas inhabited by the Pathans and they are named after the clans such as âLodhi Kadrraâ, âKhattak Toliâ and âAfridi Tolaâ. There are also two gardens named Kalo Khan and Mallo Khan. These were the two of the commanders who came with Taimurlane when he attacked India in 8th Century.

Shah Arzaniâs Shrine and Monastery
Arzani is one of the famous Pashto Poets and a Sufi of the Roshania movement which started as a reaction to the Mughal King Akbarâs new religion Din-e-Elahi. It started in the 17th Century, and later became a Sufi way of life, going along with the Chishtia Tariqa. The whole place around Arzaniâs shrine looked peaceful, but I was told that only two weeks ago, there was an Urs (annual celebrations to mark the birthday or death of a saint) and about 10,000 people came which is minimum. Between, 30 and 40,000 people come in good weather. The interesting thing is that there are two days of the Urs, one for men and the second for the women. On the womens day, all the shops are run by women and no man is allowed to go near the place.

When I was about to leave the place after the evening prayers came to an end in the main mosque, I saw a group of women heading towards the Shrine singing traditional wedding songs. They were taking the bride to the shrine to have the blessings. This is a very old tradition followed in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan now. A day before the wedding the bride to taken to the local shrine by the women of the family.

Sehsaram and Sher Shah Suriâs clan
In Sehsaram district, very few Pathans live and in fact none of the Sher Shah Suriâs family members were ever traced successfully. However the villages at the vicinity about 100 km from Sehsaram have fragmented population of the Pathans who carry their family names with them. As far as the differences of the traditions, I could not spot many amongst the different clans e.g. Khattaks and Afridis or Yousafzais. However there were many subtle differences. Yousafzais were more educated and joined the government services. The Khattaks and Shiranis work on the land. Their women folk are usually from their own tribe and they hardly marry outside the family. The Afridis are more open and they marry with other families, although the education level amongst them is not that high.

Jagdesh Pur Village in Bihar
It is 80 km North West of Patna. The total number of houses in the village is about 1000. There are about 50 Pathan families and all of them live in one area which is called âPathan Tolaâ. It was interesting to know that wherever there were Muslims living in an area in Bihar, there is bound to be one Pathan Toli or Tola (which means group).

Some of the family traditions are still followed strictly.

When a child is born, they shoot in the air. Three shots for a boy and two for a girl.
The family has kept some of the swords and shields safe although they were in a bad condition.
The men shout outside the door when they enter their own house, so that if there are any women guests, they could cover themselves.
The family is strictly religious and they kept the men and the women quarters separate from each other.
At the time of the wedding, no demand is made for the Dowry and the boys family will always present two gold coins in a plate at the time of the Rukhsati (bride leaving her parentâs house) to the brideâs family. It is usually given to the bride now a days.
A lot of meat is cooked at the wedding feast. Special meat with no spices is cooked in earthenware and is eaten with leavened bread baked on the Charcoal.
Punjab: Maleer Kotla
The capital of the state is also called Maler Kotla and it is situated at a distance of 28 miles to the South of Ludhiana and 36 miles from Patiala. It has a population of 100,000 and the total area of the state is 164 square miles. It is comprised of 213 villages and has rich fertile land plain broken by sand drifts here and there. The Muslims are 65% of the population and 20% of them are of Pathan origin.

There are several myths about the city and one is plausible enough about Shaikh Sadruddin. He was a pious man from Daraband area (present day Quetta in Pakistan) of Shirani tribe sometimes between 1430 and 1440. He settled in the village of present day Patiala living in a small hut praying and meditating and was considered a saint by the local people. It happened that Behlol Lodhi (1451- 1517) the Afghan king who had most of the western parts of India under his control wanted to rule Delhi and was on his way with a big force. He was caught in a sand drift and while there was nothing visible in the darkness, the King spotted a dim light of a lamp still burning in the wind. It was the hut of Shaikh Sadruddin and when the king found out, he came to the hut to show his respect and asked the holy man to pray for him to bear a son and have victory.

The king married off his daughter Taj Murassa to Sadruddin after he got the throne of Delhi, and also gave him the area of Maler Kotla. This happened some time between 1451 and 1452. The descendents of Shaikh Sadruddin branched into two groups. One started ruling the state and they were given the title of Nawabs. The other branch lived around the Shrine of Shaikh Sadruddin and they control the revenues of the shrine. Muslims and Sikhs live peacefully at present and there was never any ethnic violence since the partition. There are many mosques in the city and call for prayer is heard on loud speakers at the time of the prayers.

Pathans of the City
The level of education amongst the Muslim population is low, but those Pathans who do get education, usually join the government service. Their preferred field is Police and it happened that they are successful Police officers. Some of the Pathans are renting out their properties and a few of them are still keeping the old family business of Rearing horses and selling them in the annual fairs of Punjab. Most of them are religious, and they send their children to several of the Madrassas in the city where the boys and girls study. Children from the nearby villages also come to such Madrassas and Quranic education is considered compulsory. There are schools and one college for girls. For Post Graduation, they go to either nearby Patiala or Ludhiana.

The Nawab's Family in Maler Kotla
Sajida Begum is the second wife of the last Nawab Iftikhar Ahamd Khan of Maler Kotla. I went to see her in the main palace which is decaying day by day. It was built at the end of the 18th Century, but every successor improved it. It is built of brick and mortar, with huge wooden doors and high ceilings. The original palace was surrounded by Green fields and it must have been a grand place, but all the grounds have been sold now and new shopping plazas are being built.

Family Traditions of Pathans in Maler Kotla
Iqbal told me that rearing horses was done by his family in the past 300 years. But they never sold horses. It was started only by him to make a living. All the horses are named at birth and they are marked with the Shirwani seal. Akhlaq Ahmad Khan is also from the same family and he is a famous advocate of the city. He is also holding on to some of the family heirlooms. In fact the Sword from his house is always borrowed by the other families at the time of the weddings

The Kamees Shalwar is called "The Pathan dress".
The traditional embroidered shoes are also called Pathani shoes by the local population and they are worn on special occasions.
Pathan women observe Pardah strictly when they go out. They used to wear Burqas, but now they are using Shawls and big sheets of material to cover themselves.
The Pathan married women will always spend the weekend (Sundays) with her parents along with her husband and children. Her parents make sure that she is well entertained and there are plenty of meat especially Kabab and Tandoori Naan are cooked for her. This tradition continues until her death. In the absence of her parents, the brothers and their wives will keep this tradition.
Up until 1903, the Pathans of Maler Kotla did speak Pashto amongst themselves. However it gradually died down and now Punjabi is the common language with Urdu spoken by the Muslims. There are 29 shrines of all sizes in Maler Kotla and most of the saints buried there came from Afghanistan. The Pathans respect and believe in the power of these saints.

Uttar Pradesh
It is the biggest state of India which had the largest number of Pathans living in many big cities.

Rohilla State (Rohail Khand)
This is the area in U.P (Utter Pardesh) Province, in which Pashtoons were either given land by the emperors or they settled for Trade purposes. Roh was the name of the area around Peshawar city, in Pakistan. Yousafzai Pathans especially Mandarr sub clan, living in this valley were also known as Rohillas when they settled down the area was known as Katehr, which literally means soft well aerated loam which is extremely suitable for cultivation. It later became known as Rohil Khand ( the land of the Rohillas ) The great majority of Rohillas migrated between 17th and 18th Century.

Hafiz Rahmat Khan (the famous Rohilla leader) who was also involved in the horse trade, moved to Rohil Khand around 1730. He used to Purchase horses from the north of present day Afghanistan disposed them off in Delhi while going to his new home in Aonla It is important to note that Rohaikhand as a whole became the crossroads of trade routes from the North, North West as well as the East. The axis of the Mughal empire, the Grand Trunk Road ( first built by Sher Shah Suri ) which had linked Bengal with the Mughal Capitals of Agra and Delhi & via Sirhind and Lahore ( in Punjab ) eventually reached Kabul was completely Redirected. During 18th Century the Eastern track shifted northwards entering Rohilkhand via Central Awadh and Farrukhabad. From there traffic could bypass Delhi altogether and continue either south to Jaipur and other Rajput cities or through Baraily, along the hills via Najibabad. The rout circumvented the Punjab & Delhi and Caravans could reach Peshawar and Kabul without touching Sikh territory.

Although the Pathans are poor in this area they are still living off their wits and courage, sometimes taking law into their own hands. Taking revenge is still common and on a few occasions, there were murders which even the police could not handle.

Rae Bareli, in Western U.P it is at the moment under the influence of the Pathan Peer Ali Raza Khan. He has a School of thought and has thousands of followers all over the world. As he is the vote bank for any contestant of the election, all the communities respect him. His family has their own monastery in Bareli and do not see women there.

Farrukhabad has a mixed population of Pathans dominated by the Bangash and Yousafzais. In Qaim Ganj there are many Pathan landlords who do not do much and give their land to be cultivated by other communities. They keep guns and shoot at the time of the weddings or at childbirth.

Uttar Pradesh Traditions
Orbal. The tiny plaits of hair at the time of the weddings for the bride. It is dying now in the educated families.
Boiled meat eaten with Nan bread. It is called Tar Tanoori.
Rampur knife industry was the pride of the town. Some knives are still being made and the young men carry them to show off. These days the same professional ironmongers are making good copies of the guns at a small level. These guns are used for hunting which is a pastime of the Pathans. Shannu Khan ordered a dozen knives for me to choose from and I took only the smallest one with a bone handle.
The Jirgah system is intact and for small disputes people do call a jirgah.
Snuff is used and special, elaborate boxes were in fashion but not now.
The youngsters kiss the hands of their elders.
They do not smoke or chew Paan (beetle leave) in front of their parents.
Until 1940s the white Burqa (shuttle cock like shroud which women of Afghanistan wear when they go out) was abandoned by many women of Uttar Pradesh 20 years ago but it is in fashion now in an Arab style, due to the Identity crises.
The first Thursday of the Lunar month is considered Auspicious and sweet dishes are prepared to send to the local shrine for the poor to eat.
A married woman should spend the first day of the new moon in her Parents house and she has to sight the moon there.
A pregnant woman should drink milk in the light of the full moon if she wants her baby to be fair skinned. On the sixth day after the Childbirth, the woman is taken out at night in the courtyard and she looks at the stars. If it is a cloudy night she must do it the next day.
At weddings, most of the traditions are common with the other U.P Muslims but Mahpara told me that when bride and the groom are brought together for the Ceremonies of the Mirror and Quran ( Arsy Mashaf ) an elderly lady of the brides family must pull her plaited hair before the groom looks at her face in the mirror for the first time.
Shalwar Qamees and Turban is a must for the men on special occasions.
If you don't eat enough meat, it is considered a lack of proper diet. Handay Ka Gosht (meat cooked in a clay pot) Tikka (small pieces of meat which is barbecued).
Some of the Pashto words are still use e.g. Patka (turban) Peshawari Chappal (Sandles from Peshawar) Loopatta. (Long scarf) Saaloo ( shawl )
Pardah is strictly observed by women in the countryside
Poetry Charbait (Quartet) competitions
Pathans love poetry, especially the epoch. For the Pathans there is a special fascination in the night. They are thrilled by the moon and the darkness and go hunting or sit around the fire and recite poetry or sing and dance. Even now all the big events in the state happen at night.

As the language is no more spoken, the Charbaits are composed in Urdu. The content of the poetry is usually a famous war in history of the area.

There are Charbait competitions at night and they are called "Akhadas" All the poets who compose Charbait take part in these events and at the time of the Nawabs used to get valuable prizes when they won. These competitions are famous in UP. At these events the Rabab is also played which the musical instrument of the Pathans.

Libraries and literary works
Rampur Raza Library also known as the Taj Mahal of books. It was started as a personal collection of the Nawab Faizullah Khan in 1774. The succeeding Nawabs added to the collection and then Nawab Hamed transferred it into his own Palace, Hamed Manzil. It has over 50,000 manuscripts and about 100,000 books. It is considered the largest library in India for Manuscripts.

Khuda Bakhsh Library in Patna
This library has also started as a personal collection of Maulavi Khuda Bakhsh ( not a Pathan ) The person who enriched it and gave it a proper building was Dr. Zakir Hossain ( ex-President of India who was the governor of Bihar in 1961 ) Zakir Hossain bought manuscripts from private collection all over Bihar and donated them to the library.

CONCLUSION
The most important area of Pashtoons was "Rohil Khand" in U.P State. I was also told that there is Bara Basti (12 settlements) that means the number 12 for the 12th tribe of the Jews which left Israel and wandered away. Many Pashtoons in India believe that they are the 12th tribe of Israel. The actual number of settlements in Bara Basti is 17 and when I searched in the history books, the original settlements were 9. There was also the question of authenticity, as I was warned that there are fake Pathans. But it was interesting to find out the reasons for people to call themselves Pathans. Aysha Sumbul (Sociologist in Jawaharlal Nehru University ) told me that there are three reasons for that.

The word Khan symbolises a status and a glorified past.
The Pathans had a good reputation in the Indian community and they are still influential. The Muslims feel insecure especially after the communal violence of the recent past.
People, who migrate from their birthplace for economic reasons, want a new and impressive identity in a new environment.

and reply from Airavat

QUOTE<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEThe Caste System of India had its effects on Muslims as well and there are clear parallels which the Muslim Sociologist Aysha Sunbul told me to watch. In Hindu Religion there are four castes. As it happened the Muslims of India have unconsciously followed the same pattern by having four equal groups.

The Sayyeds: The descendents of the Prophet Mohammad.
The Pathans: The Martial race and the warriors.
The Sheikhs: Converts who till the land and are mainly in businesses.
The Workers: Barbers, cooks, Ironmongers etc.
Bhopal

The lady is mistaken. Only the first three (along with the Mughals) are the equal groups....the last, Indian converts, were the lowest and were shunned socially by the foreign Muslims.

It was actually a racist system where the foreign races (Ashraf) considered themselves superior to the Indian converts (Ajlaf).

And the foreigners were also divided further into those who were of foreign birth (vilayet-za) and those who were of foreign descent (several generations had lived in India).
</div>

Husky · (This post was last modified: 09-26-2007, 06:34 PM by Husky.)

Scavenging about the Sarasvati-googlepages site led to this:

http://sarasvati95.googlepages.com/aryanmythology.pdf
Aryan Mythology as Science and Ideology by Stefan Arvidsson (who also wrote that book "Aryan Idols" which Rajesh_G had brought to our attention).

I've not read all of the above PDF - just glanced over it and copied/typed out what I found interesting from the bits that I did have a look at.
Arvidsson makes many different points. Some of them - the way I've excerpted them below - don't seem directly connected with the Oryan Theory. Like the bits on "Myth" - but in their own right, I found these additional points instructive or supportive of things we already suspect/know.
Read the entire article, there would probably more such ideas in there.

(All stuff in quoteblocks in this post are Arvidsson's words, except for the purple stuff which are mine.)

QUOTESince the 1980s there has been a heated debate about whether or not the influential theories of George Dumezil have been affected by ideological motives. Critics of Dumezil have argued that Dumezil's ideas about the unique structure of Indo-European mythology were governed by his right-wing sympathies and his romantic view of ancient Indo-Europen - that is, "Aryan" - peoples. This article is meant as a background to that debate. By discussing the historical relationships between the scholarly and the political interest in Aryan religion, I hope to shed light on the intricate but important work of identifying ideological components in the history of religious studies.
Let us begin by looking into one of the most successful attempts to create a religion for "the Indo-European race": the sounds, visions, movements, and messages of the "total art" of Richard Wagner (1813-1883).
Other sections:
THE MYTHOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE
....
THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTH
Includes the paras:
QUOTEIn the world of Christian scholars non-biblical, "pagan" (i.e., mainly Greek and Roman) myths were used as educational and artistic aids (de Vries:18-32). With the help of the allegoric and euhemeristic modes of interpretation taken over from antiquity, the religious content of these myths could be disregarded, thus preventing the myths from forming a truly religious, "heathen" alternative. Aside from the allegorical and euhemeristic ways of interpretation the church also developed what could be called a hermeneutic of mission. This mode of interpretation unveiled the pagan myths as mere plagiarism of the Holy Writ or, even more crudely, as the work of the devil. In contrast to the earlier, classical modes of interpretation the hermeneutic of mission efficiently excludes the possibility of finding anything rational in the mythologies.
(Christianity does the same today to every non-christoislamic religion. Hence psecular Indians with their christo-conditioned mindsets blindly accept the historicity of a jeebus and his 'resurrection' from death as a fact, whilst immediately assuming Dharmic or other countries' religious characters and recorded/handed-down traditions are all myths.)
In fact, four modes of hermeneutics have continued into our own day, although in a modified form: myths are speculation about nature (the nature-allegoric school of the nineteenth century), myths are disciplinary or moral stories (the sociological approach), myths are distorted history (historicism), myths are lies (Marxism). QUOTEMyth, however, was for the first time thought of as a life-affirming genre in the romantic vogue in fashion around the beginning of the nineteenth century and contradicted the everyday sense of the word (which it retains despite protests from today's spiritual camps) as a false story.
The word "myth" (mythos) became a synonym of "lie" already in its etymological country of birth, the Greece of antiquity (see Graf; Lincoln 1996; Vernant: 203-260)....
THE 'MYTH' OF ROMANTICISM
...
TWO RELIGIOUS STRATEGIES
p.6 on how Europeans then "immunized Christianity from rationalistic attacks" in a recent century.
...
A SCIENCE OF RELIGION
...
MYTH OR REASON
...
HISTORY OF RELIGION: AN ANTI-LIBERAL RIPOSTE
(Mueller wanted philology to be the science that lead to religion: p. 7-10)
Hah. Here, Arvidsson says it himself:
QUOTEThe science of religion that Mueller dreamt of never materialized. Instead, the discipline called history of religions was created with the aim to study all religions excluding Christianity. This division of labor between academic subjects gave rise to two diverse concepts (Christianity shares some concepts with its "Semitic" cousins, Judaism and Islam): Christian theology/pagan cosmology, Christian liturgy/pagan rituals, Christian angels/pagan spirits, Christian religion/pagan mythology. Even today the concepts of myth and mythology - the focus of this article - are seldom used when it comes to Christian or "Semitic" (Abrahamic) stories: the man who was swallowed by a giant fish or the carpenter's son who could walk on water are not "myths".7 The collections of myths that today are sold in large editions follow the same model, as do scientific surveys of the world's mythologies.8ARYAN MYTH, SEMITIC PIETY (pages 337-338 missing...)
...
REAL ARYANS CELEBRATE LIFE
...
JESUS THE ARYAN
...
MYTH AND AUTHENTICITY
...
MYTH AND WISDOM
Funny paragraph:
QUOTEFurthermore, Jung emphasized the importance for every individual to connect with the gods/archetypes of his or her own people. Similar ideas were at the same time being formulated among neo-pagan groups, active in Europe since the late nineteenth century: to be able to bear living in the modern, disenchanted world one has to contact - through heathen rites, "Germanic yoga," or the like - the ancient Aryan divinities or one's own Teutonic ancestors.19'Germanic yoga'? <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /> Why do people who are in love with the Oryan Idea keep copycatting from India? There is no - nor ever was - a 'Germanic yoga', a 'Germanic dharma', a 'Germanic Samskritam'. Period. There never was, is and never will be. Why do they keep following that still-invisible-and-intangible Indo-European ball of wool to India and then use that to even claim stuff that India's Hinduism developed *locally*? Any place they can put in their IE collection-box and they start imagining they must have had all the things developed there as well... Very funny.
Why don't they look for what they actually did have, instead of imagining up things that never were (basing their ideas of the past on some pure fantasy - the Oryan Fantasy)? Hopeless. Why did and do they prefer to continue with wishful thinking rather than try to uncover historic facts?

THE REBIRTH OF THE ARYAN MYTHOLOGY
QUOTEDumezil, however, had since the 1930s argued that the mythology of the Aryan/Indo-European peoples is altogether unique. In the Vedas, in the Eddas, in Roman texts, and in other texts written in Indo-European languages, Dumezil detected a special "tripartite ideology" that he claimed, due to the similarity between the structure occurring in different sources, had been transmitted from a primordial proto-Indo-European people and thus could properly be called Indo-European. The three different "functions" in the tripartite structure appeared, according to Dumezil, in the social organization as well as in the pantheon of the Indo-Europeans. In the Vedas, for example, Dumezil found traces of the three positiojs: farmers and artisans (vaisyas) warriors (ksatriyas), and priests (brahmanas) and corresponding divinities: the Gods of production (Nasatyas), the God of War (Indra) and the Gods of Sovereignty (Mitra-Varuna).
The keywords in here being: "Dumezil detected", "according to Dumezil" and "Dumezil found".
That is, he was merely delusioning solo (he then set the tone for others like him to delusion themselves too: like today's Victor Meh-Meh Mair).
The above does explain so much: they imagine something must be the case, then they magically 'find' it everywhere where they wish to see it... Good one! That explains why those of the online crowd who are infatuated with Oryans have the most peculiar ideas about Kshatriyas, Brahmanas,... I always did wonder where they got their preconceived notions from, when actually they *know* nothing about the matter and never even been to India. It must be all this indological dawaganda that they've been exposed to over the last couple of centuries.

Continues from the above:
QUOTEIn his early works, Dumezil used a sociological perspective in which the pantheon was conceived as a reflection of the social order. It was the drift away from Mueller's nature-allegorical view to this perspective that could be called social-allegorical, which made it possible to restore the tarnished Aryan mythology and to make it appear more relevant to contemporary scholarly concerns. The sociological approach, however, threatens the entire project: if mythology is determined by social organization, why then should linguistic criteria determine the field of study, i.e., why select myths recorded in Indo-European languages rather than myths grounded in similar socio-political systems? Therefore, Dumezil in his later works chose to place the Indo-European "essence" in a Platonic world of ideas, since he clamed that an Indo-European "ideology" had existed that determined both the pantheon and the social organization (see Littleton:3-5; Pinotti).22 What it is exactly that should have supported the existence of this "ideology" so firmly that it was able to continue its existence over centuries of geographical, cultural and economical change was never established. Was it the languages, the race, or something else?As is apparent from the above, these indologicals just keep changing the story whenever they think common sense is approaching or science is about to dismantle everthing. So they keep making things more abstract: placing their fables further and further into Neverland where these might not be disturbed by inconvenient things like sense, science and logic.

Further down:
QUOTEIt has for good reasons been suggested that the "tripartite ideology" of the Aryans/Indo-Europeans owes its origins as much to the politics of fascist Italy, which Dumezil admired, as to the Vedas or the Eddas.23 in his scholarly work Dumezil seems to have tried to ground in nature - with the help of his theory about the Indo-Europeans' unique
order of producers, warriors, and sovereignsÂ - the fascist dream about an integrated, hierarchical society consisting of workers, soldiers, and leaders. Even the division of "the sovereign function" into two distinct parts - the power of magic and the power fo legislation - which, according to Dumezil is a typical Indo-European trait, might, if we are to believe the historian of religions Bruce Lincoln, be nothing but a reflection of Dumezil's enthusiasm for Mussolini's decision not to crush the magical power flowing from the Vatican but instead to reach an agreement about the distribution of power (the Lateran treaty) (Lincoln 1997).Two things:
(1) Dumezil's "theory about the Indo-Europeans' unique order of producers, warriors, and sovereigns":
How frustrating it must be that their data points from India don't align with their theories: in Hinduism, Kshatriyas are the warriors and rulers (the 'sovereigns'). But indologicals will doubtless manage to fudge this too so that it can fit in with their grandiose nonsense-theories.
(2) Again, Indologicals imagine something (in this case it is Dumezil's infatuation with Italy's fascist period) and then project it onto the lalaland of the Oryans which exists only in their heads (<- yes, the Urheimat has finally been found). All the early and even recent indologicals either had ulterior motives, or were trying to make a contemporary point using the imaginary Oryans as the backdrop (Maria Gimbutas), or they were outright liars. So why is anyone still taking the Oryan fantasy seriously when all the most important pillars the theory was resting on turn out to be nothing but air?
Oh that's right. The lie must prevail at all costs, eh? Because the whole Oryan thing is just too pretty an idea to them - however unrealistic and therefore fragile - for them to allow it to be wafted away by uncomfortable truth. Shouldn't let small negligeable things like 'facts' get in the way.

QUOTEPOSTSCRIPT
As we have seen, the scientific study of Indo-European mythology has been permeated with different ideologies (Christian liberalism, romanticism, fascism, and so forth). Today it is disputed whether or not the downfall of the Third Reich brought about a sobering among scholars working with "Aryan" religions; the discussion of Dumezil's Indo-European mythology, his political sympathies, and their impact on his scholarly works, which historians of religion have lauded as some of the best research the discipline has produced, is still not closed. Perhaps it will lead to the ragnarok (twilight of the Gods) of the concept of Aryan/Indo-European mythology.Yes please, curtains down on IE/Oryan mythology. And Oryans too. "'Til Never!" - and other such words of fond parting.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 09-27-2007, 01:45 AM by dhu.)

Amazingly, the following FJ site (fabricated/fictional jesus as opposed to MJ and HJ) has an entire section advocating OIT. Plus Carotta's famous quote about the Divius Iulian cult missing its scriptures while the Christian cult misses its Founder is an exact parallel to Frawley's paradox in the case of India. The West is doing all it can to suppress both Carotta's paradox and Frawley's paradox, while Indians are indifferent to Carotta's paradox.

http://www.mountainman.com.au/Indus_Sarasvati.htm

ramana · (This post was last modified: 09-26-2007, 11:42 PM by ramana.)

Lecture notes on Indus civilization.

Indus Harappa Lecture notes

Please look around and see if you can find more info...
The first 13 chapters are on ancient India

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~tart/arth...th382.html

dhu · (This post was last modified: 09-27-2007, 08:35 AM by dhu.)

QUOTESherman Lee and me

Leeâs Introduction p. 18

Okakura Kokuzoâs "Asia is one" and ideas of the "Oriental mind" are false. As were Coomaraswamyâs acceptance of them and his contention that the all Eastern artists worked in similar ways. Though much of the East âthe Far Eastâdeveloped far from the West until the unfortunate event of Western Imperialism, there are many contrasts in Asia as well. Aggressive materialism versus a supposedly self-sufficient spiritualism is not a true reality. Biases are common on all sides . Christians called otherâs savages, but Muslims have not been much different about Hindus and the Chinese have always considered their nation the center of the world. This book doesnât accept this attitude. 

It's almost painful having to tread through this usual liberal western tripe. Balagangadhara has made clear that the qualitative differences in western and Eastern worldviews are d/t normative versus non-normative orientations. Whoever can combine Carotta and Frawley with a Balagangadhara-like depth will take the prize.

dhu · 09-27-2007, 08:19 AM

The author seems to railing against the Japanese version of Vivekanada:

Okakura KakuzÅ (February 14, 1863 - September 2, 1913;
wikipedia: Okakura_Kakuzo
<img src='http://www.terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/img/okakura.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
QUOTE...
His book, The Ideals of the East, (1904), published on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, is famous for its opening line, "Asia is one." He argued that Asia is "one" in its humiliation, of falling behind in achieving modernization, and thus being colonized by the Western powers. This was an early expression of Pan-Asianism.
..

The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tea.htm

dhu · 09-27-2007, 08:34 AM

QUOTEPan-Asianism

Pan-Asianism is an ideology that Asian countries and peoples share similar values and similar histories and should be united politically or culturally.

Origins

Pan-Asianism in Japan

Pan-Asian thought in Japan began to develop in the late nineteenth century and were spurned on particularly following the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905). This created interest from Rabindranath Tagore, Sun Yat-Sen and Sri Aurobindo.

The Japanese Pan-Asianist Okakura Kakuzo coined the phrase "Asia is One" in his book The Ideals of the East, (1904):

Â Â ASIA is one. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilisations, the Chinese with its communism of Confucius, and the Indian with its individualism of the Vedas. But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal, which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race, enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world, and distinguishing them from those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, who love to dwell on the Particular, and to search out the means, not the end, of life.

In this Okakura was utilising the Japanese concept of sangoku, which existed in Japanese culture before the concept of Asia became popularised. Sangoku literally means the three counties HonshÅ« (the largest island of Japan), To (China) and Tenjiku (India).

The growing official interest in broader Asian concerns was shown in the establishment of facilities for Indian Studies. In 1899 Tokyo Imperial University set up a chair in Sanskrit and Pali, with a further chair in Comparative religion being set up in 1903. In this environment, a number of Indian students came to Japan in the early twentieth century, founding the Oriental Youngmen's Association in 1900. Their anti-British political activity caused consternation to the Indian Government, following a report in the London Spectator.

Sun Yat-Sen in 1925 and Lee Kuan Yew in the 1990s both argue that the political models and ideologies of Europe lack values and concepts found in Asian societies and philosophies. Some proponents argue that these values are better for all human societies. Some would argue that they are better or more suited for Asian societies. European values such as individual rights and freedoms would not be suited for Asian societies in this extreme formulation of Pan-Asianism.

In the 1930s and 1940s this ideology was used by the Japanese government as part of a propaganda campaign against European (and U.S.) imperialism in support of its rival imperialist Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

During the Cold War Pan-Asianism took a back seat. Several countries like India, Cambodia and Indonesia advocated for greater ties with the rest of the developing world within and beyond Asia, while others were economically and politically more orientated towards either one of the superpowers. However ASEAN emerged in 1967, providing a framework for cooperation in South-East Asia.

The idea of Asian values is somewhat of a resurgence of Pan-Asianism. One foremost enthusiast of the idea of Asian values is the former prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.

Articles that mention Pan-Asianism include:

Â Â * Sun Yat Sen's 1925 speech on Pan-Asianism

dhu · (This post was last modified: 09-27-2007, 11:32 AM by dhu.)

western Supremacist clown railing against Sangoku:

Emperors of the Sangoku, the "Three Kingdoms," of India, China, & Japan

QUOTEIndia and China are the sources of the greatest civilizations in Eastern and Southern Asia. Their rulers saw themselves as universal monarchs, thereby matching the pretentions of the Roman Emperors in the West. The only drawbacks to their historical priority were that India suffered a setback, when the Indus Valley Civilization collapsed (for disputed reasons), and China got started later than the Middle Eastern civilizations. By the time India recovered, it was a contemporary of Greece, rather than Sumeria, with many parallel cultural developments, like philosophy. And, curiously, China reached a philosophical stage of development in the same era, the "axial age," 800 to 400 BC. Later, when the West, India, and China all had contact with each other, it was at first India that had the most influence on China, through the introduction of Buddhism. Indian influence on the West, though likely through the skepticism of Pyrrho, and possibly evident in the halos of Christian saints (borrowed from Buddhist iconography), did not extend to anything more substantial. While China then made Buddhism its own, India later endured the advent of IslÃ¢m, which introduced deep cultural and then political divisions into the Subcontinent. The only comparable development in China was the application of Marxism by the Communist government that came to power in 1949. While China has now embraced a more liberal economic vision and has outgrown India, it retains the political dictatorship of Communism. India, with a successful history as a democracy, has found its growth hampered by socialist expectations and regulations (the stiffling "Licence Raj"), with some, but not enough, economic liberalization in the 1990's.

The idea that there are "Three Kingdoms" (Sangoku -- we might call it the , "India, China, Japan") is a Japanese conceit, placing those peripheral islands on equal standing with the great centers of civilization, India and China. Until the 20th century, there would not have been a shadow of justification for that, except perhaps in subjective judgments about the creativity or originality of Japanese culture, which I am sure would be disputed by Koreans and Vietnamese. However, after a process of self-transformation sparked by American intervention, Japan lept to the status of a Great Power by defeating Russia in 1905. The Empire then spent the next 40 years throwing its weight around, occupying Korea and invading China, ultimately taking on the United States in a disastrous bid for hegemony (1941-1945). Catastrophic defeat slowed Japan down a little, but by the 1980's, the country had vaulted to the highest per capita income in the world, with wealth and economic power that deeply frightened many, even in the United States. Japan remains the only Great Power, in economic terms (as the Japanese military establishment remains low profile), not directly derived from European civilization. Now, even after a decade of economic stagnation, Japan remains the second largest economy in the world (about 40% the size of the United States, more than 1.7 times the size of Germany, and finally reviving a bit in 2004), although in per capita terms declining from 3rd in the world in 2003 to 11th in 2007 [The Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2007 Edition]. This all might be thought to justify the Japanese view of themselves as unique, or at least special, certainly geopolitically important, giving us some motivation for the inclusion of Japan in a "Sangoku" page.

.....

ramana · 12-06-2007, 02:08 AM

I have been reading World Hisory along wit my son. One fact I noticed about Europeans was thy always had non-local(foreigners) as their rulers from the ancient times. The current British were subjected to invasions and conquests and the the leaders/ruling elite were of the conquering people. The Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, the Picts and the Normans etc wee among the conquering people. Similarly the Russians had the Vikings, the Tatars and so on conquering them and formingthe ruling elite. The French and Germans we already know.

So is it possible that they came up with the AIT to be similar to their own experience? They could not reconcile that there could be an advanced civilization based on native intelligence.

Shambhu · 12-07-2007, 01:06 AM

Prof B B Lal's address, mid 2007.
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts...-paradigms.html

ramana · 12-07-2007, 05:35 AM

Is there an elegant way to print the above article as a whole or save as single file? Thanks.

12-07-2007, 08:29 AM

QUOTE(ramana @ Dec 7 2007, 05:35 AM)Is there an elegant way to print the above article as a whole or save as single file? Thanks.
[right][snapback]75878[/snapback][/right]


here ya go

dhu · (This post was last modified: 01-25-2008, 08:46 AM by dhu.)

QUOTE(acharya @ Jan 25 2008, 02:56 AM)link
#1
The Aryan Invasion Theory is part of a bigger net of inter-connected and inter-dependent theories.
[right][snapback]77544[/snapback][/right]


One of these theories is the lost theory of the Caesar masquerading as Jewish Peasant (ie Christianity). That is why Mountainman has Frawley links on his site, John Hudson is an associate of Edmund Leach, and Roman Piso made the inadvertant statement about planned Roman invasion of India. Negating OIT (and Buddhism in the West) made Christianity and Monotheism a logical necessity. The connections which were maintained even after the initial outbound migrations needed to be negated for the west to constitute itself as a distinct entity.

dhu · 01-25-2008, 04:03 AM

QUOTEW. Burkert, The orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early archaic age, Cambridge Mass. 1992 [read introduction for brief history of classical scholarship]

Orientalizing influence in the Archaic age!!!

dhu · 01-25-2008, 04:12 AM

Orientalism, Hellas, and the Fall of Rome

dhu · (This post was last modified: 01-28-2008, 08:20 AM by dhu.)

QUOTERethinking Religion in India, a platform for exchange of knowledge
Posted January 24th, 2008 by Sandeep Datta

NewRethinking Religion in India Delhi, Jan. 24 (ANI): The international conferenceâRethinking Religion in Indiaâheld in the capital has turned out to be a major confluence of individuals who wish to observe and understand India from Indian and non-native viewpoint.

On the final day, during Parallel Paper session III on Caste system and Indian religion, three speakers Rajaram Hegde, A. Shanmukha and Dunkin Jalki from South India presented their research papers which generated deep interest and confluence at the conference.

âScholars say that there is caste system in India, it is a part of Hinduism and is based on the Vedic texts, Brahminical priesthood and Varna system. Our field work demonstrates that no such things characterize our present society,â said Rajaram Hegde, representing research work of 70 villages from 20 districts of Karnataka, on Fictitious Connections: Caste system and Hinduism.

âWhatever theories we have today about practice of unctouchability do not clear understanding about what this practice is all about. The so far available theories do not give any solution for the practice of untouchability,â said A. Shanmukha, while presenting his research paper on The Practice of Untouchability and Hinduism.

âClassical theory assumes as there is religion called Hinduism which generates social system called caste system which compels the people to practice untouchability. But in the field work it was not evident that people are practicing untouchabilty by following Hindu religions,â Shanmukha, added.

Dunkin Jalki presented his paper on Stereotyped stories and their Action Consequences.

On Wednesday, during a Parallel Paper session II on Caste system and Indian religion, four speakersâSumio Morijiri, John Zavos, Claudia Pereria and Ullo Valkâpresented their research papers before the audience.

Sumio Morijiri, a visiting Professor Department of Kannada, Mangalore University, presented paper on Rethinking Animism in India and Japan, a comparative perspective. He said: "Jaati also exists in Japan, it is what me, my father and grandfather have been doing as profession from one generation to generation."

Ullo Valk, a professor of the Department of Estonian and Comparitive Folklore, Universtiy of Tartu (Estonia) presented his paper on Caste Division in Religious Narratives of Tamil Nadu.

Having done his research in Tamil Nadu's Athipakkam and Kalleri Villages, with the native Dr. S. Lourdusamy as research fellow who died last month, Ullo Valk informed: "We were working on the local narratives or stories/legends that are related to local deities. We observed that the topic of caste divisions and caste identities emerged in the stories. The caste system exists in the local customs, beliefs and folklores related to the local deities."

Claudia Pereria, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University Institute for Social Sciences, Labour Studies and Technologies (Lisbon, Portugal), presented her paper on Religion and Caste: The Christian and Hindu Gaudde of Goa.

Her paper analysed the relationship between Hindus and Christians in a village of Goa and the reciprocal social and political classifications, attempting to understand their dynamics as part of plural India under transformation. Her focus was on Gaudde, who are at the bottom of the social system and who show an interesting sociological duality.

John Zavos, a lecturer in South Asian Studies in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University of Manchaster, U. K was in the Chair.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday during a separate parallel paper session, speaker Marianne Keppens, a Doctoral Researcher at Ghent University, Belgium, presented her paper on Indians are Aryans, so what?. Rajaram Hegde was present as a respondent while Martin Farek was in the chair.

Speaking on the old debate on the Aryan invasion; whether Aryans came from outside or they always existed in India, Marianne said: "There has been a long debate questioning the theory that says Sanskrit speaking Aryan people invaded India around 1500 B. C. What if the problem with the Aryan invasion theory doesn't lie in the geographical origin of the Indo-Aryan languages or certain aspects of Indian culture but in the absence of evidence for the existence of an Aryan people and culture?."

Marianne questioned through her paper that what would be the implications for the understanding of Indian culture if it turns out that there has been never been an Aryan people?

In the international conference on Rethinking Religion in India (January 21-24), includes overall nine Parallel Paper sessions on the four themesâEvolutionary explanations of religion, Indians are Aryans, so What?, The caste system and Indian religion, Colonialism and religion in India. (ANI)

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