Hindu/Indian Culture Outside India

[Husky]

Is there a way to order wrist bands in saffron color to make it cool to wear symbols of Hindusim? I am thinking like the yellow rubber band by Lance Armstrong? How does one get these made? Add some Om type symbols on it.

Ramana, is this for you or your kids?

Because... look, I don't want to rain on your parade, but I don't know *how* you can make an orange wrist-band remotely cool. (Not even mentioning the OM type symbols.) We don't live in the 80s with their scary neon "OMG I've gone blind" colours anymore. (I'm talking about if you're living in the west. In India one can wear nice colours and it's just perfectly fine.)

Maybe you can convince your kids to wear your family's tilaka if in India, and if they're living overseas they can wear it whenever they're at home? Nothing takes on as much as that which makes us more attractive: and a bindi or kungumam with veeboothi or namam certainly makes all Hindus more kallai. Plus bhasmam and chandanam smell dreamy. Rudraksha armlets look rather attractive on men. So does the poonal come to think of it (have to be shirtless for that to work though...) Obviously none of those things are remotely fashion gear, being Hindoo stuff - they're just different things various Hindoos traditionally wear and which just additionally/coincidentally happens to make them look extra kallai.

And the accessorising girls/women (at least those in Bharatam) surely can't say no to any or even all of: Earrings, noserings, toerings, necklaces, armlets, bracelets, anklets. Various hair jewellery. Or especially flowers in the hair - smells yum again. Not to mention looking rather prettily Hindoo.





As for statements by the Romanian "HareKrishna" in his post 68 like:

1. On the Hindu saree

The saree and other indian dress as we see it today was heavily influenced by islamic customs.Before islam ,indians were almost naked.

On Saree being Hindu since the Vedam, see for example posts 146 and 147 of the Indian Dress Styles thread. But the Romanian was already made aware of that in that thread itself. So why he has to pretend he doesn't remember now, remains a "question".

Similarly churidar type clothes - including male tunic + pants - as seen in ancient Indian sculptures, were also discussed long ago, probably in that same thread.





2. The Romanian also claimed:

turbans was introduced in India by muslims.

Apparently Megasthenes of Indika fame thought otherwise? (Would go towards explaining why the "Alexander" film featuring Farrell in the lead had Indians with turbans, I suppose...)

http://sowingseedsofthought.blogspot.com...orist.html

This brings us to recorded history of travellers of antiquity. One such travelogue which has survived the ravages of time is the Indika by Megasthenes which became a reference guide even to later day travellers such as Arrian and Strabo. Megasthenes was the ambassador of Seleucus Nikator, Satrap (Governor) of Alexander the Great for middle east and Asia minor (Turkey) to the court of Indian Emperor Chandragupta Maurya and travelled extensively around India from 250 BC to 298 BC. In his book Indika Megasthenes minutely describes the people, customs, traditions, attire, food religion, laws, geography, fauna, flora and all other possible details that he ecounters while travelling around India from Pentapotamia (Greek for land of the five rivers present day Punjab) to Patalibotra (Patliputra, present day Patna) to Kanyakumari in the south to Serendib (Lanka).



In his description of the people of India he clearly states that they are tall but lightly built (lean) dark skinned with black long hair which they tie in a bun on top of their head and wear turbans with twisted cloth.

[color="#800080"](Hmmm, I'd have expanded on Indian men's light build as *lanky* rather than merely "lean"... Nice look that. Dark and lanky.)[/color]

[...]

There ya go, a type of "turban" existed among the natives of India - or so said the ancient Greek - long before islam even existed. Or christianism, for that matter. Or all that came after.





3. Google "sudheer birodkar" again. He states the Buddhist dome influenced the islamic dome matter-of-factly, but still, hard to argue that Buddhist domes predate islamic ones...

- the Gumbaz that we see on mosques all over the world

originated as the interlocking dome in the "Stupa" of

the Buddhist architectural tradition of India.

Jain, Buddhist. Doesn't matter. But it wasn't islamic.



Hindu and Jain pillars were stolen to make islamic minaret structures (I think the Qutb Minar - or however one is to spell it). Hardly islamic credit to steal other people's pillars, dump it together and say "voila, islamic masterpiece/innovation." Here I'm *assuming* "minar" bears some relation to minaret. The photo of the QM certainly looks like a minaret to me -

The Kutub Minar built by Kutub-ud-din Aibak. The Kutub Minar is one of the earliest Islamic monuments in India. This Minar was built from the columns of destroyed Hindu and Jain temples. It stands at the site of Pithoragarh which was the capital of Prithiviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu ruler of Delhi.The damaged motifs in this picture show clear Hindu origins - a testimony to the vandalism of the Muslim aggressors. There are many such temples which had been converted into mosques like the Bhoja Shala Mosque, the Gyan Vyapi Mosque, the Krishna Janmabhoomi Idgah, apart from the now liberated Ramjanmabhoomi at Ayodhya. The total runs to 3000 (Three Thousand).

[...]

The Quww'at-ul-Islam Mosque (Power of Islam).

This Mosque which stands in the Kutub Minar complex was built by Kutub-ud-din Aibak, the first Muslim ruler of Delhi. The Quww'at-ul-Islam Mosque (Power of Islam) is the first mosque erected in India by Muslim invaders after the Islamic aggression of India. This Mosque was built with the columns from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples. It stands at the site of Pithoragarh which was the capital of Prithiviraj Chauhan the last Hindu ruler of Delhi.

The rest of the Romanian's post was yet more assertions without evidence. No one needs to refute conjecture that goes against known status quo: it stands as a lie (not even mere gossip) until proven with verifiable and irrefutable documentation. What's that they say again? Onus is on the claimant (i.e. offence) side - not on the defence side: Hindus have got the sarees, etc. Buddhist stupa domes were around long before islam and this apparently influenced islamic mosques. In any case there can certainly have been some mutual influence between Buddhist and Jain temple structures, without having to imagine islamic influence?

Besides, lots of the so-called islamic-style architecture is owing to kidnapped heathens "slaves" building it.