<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Sep 17 2007, 08:00 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Sep 17 2007, 08:00 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->How come we have non experts who talk about religion when they knw nothing
Two views of Hinduism
Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times
And what are the consequences for India if development is to be held hostage to mythology?
Like most liberals, I have no desire to inflame Hindu sentiment. But as a member of this great culture, I have a right to ask whether one of the worldâs most intellectually-sophisticated religions is to be shorn of its layers of philosophical complexity, evolved over the millennia, and turned into a literal, history-based credo.
Those who say they are fighting to protect Hinduism are actually doing it a huge disservice by stripping it of everything that makes it great and by turning it into a mirror image of the simplistic, literal-minded religio-political cults (such as jehadi Islam) that have done so much damage to the world.
Their small-minded, petty approach makes a mockery of the greatness and complexity of the Bhagvad Gita.[right][snapback]73243[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->All I read was "blablabla blablabla". Sorry, that was disrespectful to the hard labours Ve're Sanghvi underwent to write that. So I better try reading it again.
Okay. Says Vir Sanghvi: "Your Hindoo religion is ahistorical. (It might as well have started yesterday.) We will <i>for now</i> call it philosophy, but mind, even then we will not allow it to be anything more than philosophy (and we know that even in that the Greeks were better - also, look what happened to them and their philosophy: replaced by the super-superior christianism). And forget you have sacred sites and temples and have recognised holy places and visited them in pilgrimage for ages beyond count. I, the psecular communist, know better than you Hindooos about your own Hindooooism and will tell you that nothing that you think is Hinduism is part of Hinduism at all."
How unexpected: Vir Sanghvi is wrong. (It might be unexpected for real if he were ever <i>right</i>...)
The fact is: temple sites, sacred rivers, sacred groves, sacred plants, sacred trees, sacred spots, sacred natural constructions and sacred man-made constructions - Hinduism has them all.
Being pedantic about historicity, ahistoricity is something uniquely related to christoislamism - the religion famous for having stolen others' sacred sites. Vir Sanghvi is pedantic about historicity too, as his article inadvertently shows. His thinking therefore doesn't move beyond the circles defined by his psecularism (christoislamism).
However, Hinduism has a lot of historical and cyclical themes. Hence Hindus celebrate Rama Navami, Gokulaashtami and many other things that have to be history-oriented (birthdays mark some point in time, after all....) No need for Vir Sanghvi to ignore all that, just 'cause they don't fit in with the 'point' he hopes to foist on others.
Mosques have no real meaning to islamis, there's no reason for any closeness of islamis to their mosques. It's merely the building where islamis go for their prayers.
Churches - outside of a few key sites in Europe/ME, which I will come to next - are places that christians gather to hear the preacher sermonise. (This is especially the case with protestant churches.) The 'holy' old churches of Europe/ME were stolen from pagan hands, and are therefore actually ahistoric where it concerns any jeebus; yet the same locations are sacred to the long-dead Greco-Romans, Arabians, Syrians, Assyrians (and to any of their descendants currently carrying on their true religions).
Hindus have always had sacred sites, and we are deeply attached to them.
We have vast numbers of them. Many of these - not all - are marked by temples. Others aren't. Ramarsethu is one of the sacred Hindu sites. Something Vir Sanghvi has conveniently overlooked - on purpose, obviously. His idea of 'Hinduism' is a modern psecular-communist construct, one that would make it easier to dismantle Hinduism if only people would buy it. (Hence his article title "Two views of Hinduism" - trying to set up his view as the TRUE, CORRECT, ONLY ONE as opposed to that of the 'misled ignorant masses of Hindoos who don't know better'. Sanghvi showing off possession by christoislamania there...) How annoying for him and his Comrades that by far most Hindus don't recognise his re-imagining of Hinduism. But what can I say, Hindus <i>are</i> annoying: we just won't die.
However, for the likes of Vir Sanghvi to understand this, he might have to hear it from western people instead of us Hindoos:
This bit from Flight of the Deities: Hindu Resistance in Portuguese Goa, Paul Axelrod; Michelle A. Fuerch, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2. (May, 1996), pp. 387-421.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The attachment, after 450 years of separation between deity and its village of origin, suggests that <b>the importance in Hindu thought of the substantive link between place and person</b>, described so brilliantly by Daniel,19 <b>applies to the relationship between deity and place as well.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->And person and deity, I hardly need add.
In fact, just doing a Find on the word "connection" on that IF page, one can easily see how intimately Hindus are tied to our Gods, temples and sacred sites. (The excerpts on the linked IF page highlight the case of Goan Hindus - they are but an example of the closeness to our sacred sites and Gods that all Hindus share.)
Poor poor Vir Sanghvi, another new article of his and yet again it has failed to raise his record of writing even an inch from the dirt where it permanently resides.
Two views of Hinduism
Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times
And what are the consequences for India if development is to be held hostage to mythology?
Like most liberals, I have no desire to inflame Hindu sentiment. But as a member of this great culture, I have a right to ask whether one of the worldâs most intellectually-sophisticated religions is to be shorn of its layers of philosophical complexity, evolved over the millennia, and turned into a literal, history-based credo.
Those who say they are fighting to protect Hinduism are actually doing it a huge disservice by stripping it of everything that makes it great and by turning it into a mirror image of the simplistic, literal-minded religio-political cults (such as jehadi Islam) that have done so much damage to the world.
Their small-minded, petty approach makes a mockery of the greatness and complexity of the Bhagvad Gita.[right][snapback]73243[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->All I read was "blablabla blablabla". Sorry, that was disrespectful to the hard labours Ve're Sanghvi underwent to write that. So I better try reading it again.
Okay. Says Vir Sanghvi: "Your Hindoo religion is ahistorical. (It might as well have started yesterday.) We will <i>for now</i> call it philosophy, but mind, even then we will not allow it to be anything more than philosophy (and we know that even in that the Greeks were better - also, look what happened to them and their philosophy: replaced by the super-superior christianism). And forget you have sacred sites and temples and have recognised holy places and visited them in pilgrimage for ages beyond count. I, the psecular communist, know better than you Hindooos about your own Hindooooism and will tell you that nothing that you think is Hinduism is part of Hinduism at all."
How unexpected: Vir Sanghvi is wrong. (It might be unexpected for real if he were ever <i>right</i>...)
The fact is: temple sites, sacred rivers, sacred groves, sacred plants, sacred trees, sacred spots, sacred natural constructions and sacred man-made constructions - Hinduism has them all.
Being pedantic about historicity, ahistoricity is something uniquely related to christoislamism - the religion famous for having stolen others' sacred sites. Vir Sanghvi is pedantic about historicity too, as his article inadvertently shows. His thinking therefore doesn't move beyond the circles defined by his psecularism (christoislamism).
However, Hinduism has a lot of historical and cyclical themes. Hence Hindus celebrate Rama Navami, Gokulaashtami and many other things that have to be history-oriented (birthdays mark some point in time, after all....) No need for Vir Sanghvi to ignore all that, just 'cause they don't fit in with the 'point' he hopes to foist on others.
Mosques have no real meaning to islamis, there's no reason for any closeness of islamis to their mosques. It's merely the building where islamis go for their prayers.
Churches - outside of a few key sites in Europe/ME, which I will come to next - are places that christians gather to hear the preacher sermonise. (This is especially the case with protestant churches.) The 'holy' old churches of Europe/ME were stolen from pagan hands, and are therefore actually ahistoric where it concerns any jeebus; yet the same locations are sacred to the long-dead Greco-Romans, Arabians, Syrians, Assyrians (and to any of their descendants currently carrying on their true religions).
Hindus have always had sacred sites, and we are deeply attached to them.
We have vast numbers of them. Many of these - not all - are marked by temples. Others aren't. Ramarsethu is one of the sacred Hindu sites. Something Vir Sanghvi has conveniently overlooked - on purpose, obviously. His idea of 'Hinduism' is a modern psecular-communist construct, one that would make it easier to dismantle Hinduism if only people would buy it. (Hence his article title "Two views of Hinduism" - trying to set up his view as the TRUE, CORRECT, ONLY ONE as opposed to that of the 'misled ignorant masses of Hindoos who don't know better'. Sanghvi showing off possession by christoislamania there...) How annoying for him and his Comrades that by far most Hindus don't recognise his re-imagining of Hinduism. But what can I say, Hindus <i>are</i> annoying: we just won't die.
However, for the likes of Vir Sanghvi to understand this, he might have to hear it from western people instead of us Hindoos:
This bit from Flight of the Deities: Hindu Resistance in Portuguese Goa, Paul Axelrod; Michelle A. Fuerch, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2. (May, 1996), pp. 387-421.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The attachment, after 450 years of separation between deity and its village of origin, suggests that <b>the importance in Hindu thought of the substantive link between place and person</b>, described so brilliantly by Daniel,19 <b>applies to the relationship between deity and place as well.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->And person and deity, I hardly need add.
In fact, just doing a Find on the word "connection" on that IF page, one can easily see how intimately Hindus are tied to our Gods, temples and sacred sites. (The excerpts on the linked IF page highlight the case of Goan Hindus - they are but an example of the closeness to our sacred sites and Gods that all Hindus share.)
Poor poor Vir Sanghvi, another new article of his and yet again it has failed to raise his record of writing even an inch from the dirt where it permanently resides.