Sanatana Dharma - Aka Hinduism (3rd Bin)

[Husky]

1. Some obvious problems in this next article. Or rather, the problem's with the author's POV that, like many modern 'Hindu' nationalists, makes equidistant and equalises all ancient Indic perspectives. In this case, the author actually presents Adi Shankara as being as equidistant from the Vedas as the Charvakas (no wonder then that everyone else is bleating that Buddhism is the same as Hindoos' heathenism, or at the very least the Vedanta part).



swarajyamag.com/columns/why-india-celebrates-shankara/



But best of all is that not one but two people didn't roll over (out of ~20+ or so, with the rest applauding, but can't win everything), but instead commented with their disagreement. Hardly dare pinch myself. 'Cause websurfing 'Hindus' are usually total shove-overs.

Some resistance at last.



The dissenting comments:

vaijayanthi

vaijayanthi a month ago



Perhaps you have chosen a style that would make Sankara sound appealing to modern minds or actually I don't want to even get into it. I am not sure this is the right introduction to Sankara for those who don't him. Two points I want to make - in a free flowing style you have just made a sweeping statement dragging Sri Krishna in to the picture to show Vedas are not infallible. There is no questioning the Pramanas and with reference to Sankara it is only an issue of if Karma Kanda is to be followed or not. (And even then, wouldn't any such conclusions on the Karma Kandam only be applicable to sannyasis? Plus didn't the Gita say renunciation is of the phalam not karma - or something?) That is left to experts to debate. Later to bring in Caravakas to "lambast the Vedas"? What else does one expect of Caravakas, and how on earth their non-theistic school and Sankara's theistic school both the be "dealing Vedas with impunity"?

And this:

Sharan Sharma a month ago



Am sorry to be critical - but am not sure where this article is positioned



1) The title talks of why we should venerate sri bhagvatpAda but a big

chunk is devoted to lambasting rituals and trying to propagate a

'rational' mindset.



It is the same sankarAchArya who said vedOnityamadhiyatAm (study the veda daily). Across our shastrAs, whenever a (supposed) anti-ritual stand is adopted, the context is a philosophical karma vs jnana debate vis-a-vis mokSa; nothing really changes from a practical/daily life point of view. In fact, in the sAnkara sAmpradAya, your access to vEdAnta is barred until you've been punctilious with your ordained rituals.

(Exactly.)



It is probably very fashionable to talk about how 'rational' our

dharma/saints/philosophers are - yes, but let's not throw the baby with

the bathwater. Cherry-picking verses is not helping. It's giving the

wrong impression - comparing the guru's statements to what chArvakAs say is especially ludicrous.



(To blame are all the countless universalising Indic types seen on the web, all going by the "Hindu/Hindu nationalist" tag: the ones who declare there is no such thing as a distinct Hindoo heathenism and equate it with Buddhisms and Jainisms and increasingly with the Charvakas (and then deliberately conflate Charvaka with modern day plain vanilla atheism or even communism and pseudo-'rationalism'). All in order to declare that it is all one Indic 'civilisation' or 'Dharma', which modern "rationalists" (misnomer), to whom heathenism doesn't compute, can still feel they have a right to claim. <- And that is the *only* reason that Hindoos' heathenism=SD/Vedic Religion/Hinduism/etc is being conflated with Buddhism/Jainism/current Sikhism/Charvaka etc.

Sadly for the de-heathenised who want to piggyback on Vedic religion and its inextricable cultural and civilisational expressions by claiming the now-generalised Hindu tag, heathenism is lost to them. They're just wandering post-Hindus, pretending they're a natural product of something - the ancestral heathenism of the subcontinent - that ceased to have any connection to or continuation in them.

De-heathenised should move on. They have no claims on Hindoo-dom anymore. And I doubt Jains or Buddhists want de-heathenised/post-Hindus to similarly parasite on=subvert Jainism and Buddhism either, via the universalising equations.)



2) "his ideas draw upon human experience and not belief"

This is wrong. The starting point is belief in the infallibility of the vEda. vEdic statements are taken to be axiomatic but which need to be properly interpreted and validated through personal experience. Experience and belief and not contradictory as portrayed here.

(W.r.t. the usage of the word "belief" in the above, I think the above means the infallibility is assumed by traditionalists when they're starting off, who then go on to prove it for themselves (?))



3) Finally, this: "The golden age that we must go back to, is not one of flying machines, test tube babies and nuclear technology". It's irksome when the outlier case of 'flying machines' is brought up time and again without context - proof that we seem to have bought into the mainstream media's shrill campaign. Surely, we can be proud of our scientific achievements - there's a huge amount to talk about and research there - "flying machines" is just one insignificant data point (re: Sri Roddam Narasimha's editorial in Current Science, 25/02/2015). Bringing this up here without context is doing great disservice to ancient Indian thought.



Again, sorry for being critical but i strongly feel for these points.

Then some obvious modern new ageist responded to the above with:

Indian > Sharan Sharma a month ago



The point is that Sanatana Dharma is not just Vedanta. The Charvakas, Mimamsakas and Samkhyas were also "Hindu" but were atheist. Some sects accepted the Brhman but denounced the Vedas. So, you see; dogmatism is not, and should never be a part of our culture. This piece is wonderful, in that it shows the true liberalism of Hindu culture, you can be a Hindu without believing in any God.

<snip>

Sharan Sharma > Indian a month ago



The title of the article is "why India must celebrate Shankara". What has atheism or vEda-bashing got to do with bhagvatpAda? Nothing.



If you want to celebrate atheism or anti-vEdic thinking, another post would be totally appropriate. Invoking the great AchArya's name in the discussion is a sign of muddled thinking or trying to find favor with the modern Joneses.



(and, no - mImAmsakAs are not atheistic and no AstIka darsana denounces the vEda)

[INSERT aside: Just recently chanced upon another article - also at IIRC swarajyamag, not sure when it was written - which was by some team of writers and which declared that Advaita was an agnosticism. Huh? Did they even run this opinion by actual advaitins? I don't mean the mass-proliferating new-agey kind, obviously, but the established, authentic ones.

Agnostic and atheist "Hindus" are totally pulling a replacement theology on Hindoo heathenism.]



Contrary to modern "Indic universalists" (=mostly agnostic/atheist Indians who peddle the novelty that 'all Indic religions are one' and do so for pillaging and piggybacking purposes), there is a *world* of difference between the soteriological atheism of classical Sankhya (the soteriological part being inherited from pre-classical sankhyam) and the atheism of Charvakas, whose movement wanted to eradicate considerations of any afterlife including the samsaara framework.



I'd also never originally heard - not before IF, I should say - that Meemaamsa was an atheism. I only ever heard that the distinction was that for them (well, definitely for the later kind that was classed as its own darshana in the more uh classical period, can't swear to what went before*) Ishwara was not the one who ensured the phalam of the veda karmas, but that the Meemaamsakas rather held that the phalam was inevitably accrued from correct performance. Whereas Vedanta - and all other theistic Vaidika=Hindoo branches** (which also included Vedic ritualists, of course) - was to have held that Ishwara was the bestower of the karma phalam (starting with vedic karmans).



* Possibly relevant - or not - is a translation of the Aditya Hrudayam in my possession. Need to look up.



** <snipped and replaced with links below>

E.g. Darukavana narrative. Refer to, in conjunction:

- 1st paragraph of gkamesh.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/darukavana-himalaya/

- chidambaram.rajadeekshithar.com/temple_mahatmyam.htm





2. The author of the swarajyamag article is one of those types that once they learn Skt they feel expert enough to lecture on more than the lingo. If this had been a language well-known to people today, no one would take his pretence at expertise on the materials he discusses seriously. But - like a certain class of Classicists do - they take advantage of the fact that they have learnt a little of something that others have not, but then use it to interject their own views and deny tradition.



He's also an IE-ist, IIRC. Goes together, doesn't it?



<snip>



Anyway, by accident the same author did provide some useful bits. But no credit to him except as a translator (besides, can find enough of those - and better - among traditionalists). That is, in spite of him and solely because of the authenticity of the original the following still comes out meaningful, but his bridging statement is typically distracting:



swarajyamag.com/columns/when-poetry-went-viral-in-medieval-india/

“मातः!” “किं यदुनाथ?” “देहि चषकं” “किं तेन” “पातुं पयः”

“तन्नास्त्यद्य” “कदास्ति वा?” “निशि” “निशा का?” “वाऽन्धकारोदयः”।

आमील्याक्षियुगं निशाप्युपगता देहीतिमातुर्मुहुः

वक्षोजांशुककर्षणोद्यतकरः कृष्णस्स पुष्णातु नः ॥



“Mother!” “What is it, Krishna?”

“Give me a cup” “Why?” “I want to drink milk”

“No drinking milk now.” “Then when?” “At night”

“What is night?” “When it’s dark”

Krishna then closed his eyes and demanded

“It’s now night. Give it now, give me, give!”

while pulling at Yashoda’s garment.

May this Krishna nourish us all.

(Līlāśuka’s śrīkṛṣṇakarṇāmṛtaṁ)



(Magnificent double meaning. But also good is to recall how Hindoos' heathenism was a lived religion, a live one, in Leelaashuka's time, as it was still until more recently, as it remains still in some ever-dwindling pockets untouched by the gangrene which hasn't reached these yet.)





रामो नाम बभूव हुं तदबला सीतेति हुं तां पितुर्

वाचा पञ्चवटीतटे विहरतस्तस्याहरद्रावणः ।

निद्रार्थं जननीकथामिति हरे हुंकारतः शृण्वतः

सौमित्रे क्व धनुर्धनुर्धनुरिति व्यग्रा गिरः पान्तु वः ||



“Once upon a time there was Rāma” “hmmm”

“Sītā was his wife” “hmmm”

“In the forest, Rāvana kidnapped Sīta”

The sleepy Krishna listening to his bed time story,

Suddenly shouted—

“Lakshmaṇa, where is my bow! my bow! my bow!”

May his alarmed words protect you.





There is yet another verse in which the sleeping Krishna fancies himself as Vishnu:

(Uh, he doesn't fancy himself as Vishnu. [And I could be totally wrong, but it looks like even the previous shloka refers to Krishna as Hari in the line where he's listening to his mother's narration of the Ramayanam, and where he is himself uttering auspicious humkaaras while drifting off, just before that line where he - ('accidentally'?) in Rama mode - calls out to the Soumitra.]



But it's illegal now to observe so, since Elst/Elstians/similar-sounding will threaten how their anal-ysis knows better*, and everyone else - those following tradition - are merely deluding themselves.

* Of course, all such should hold to this forever, and be made to forever hold to it too; and all their progeny, for all time to come. Backpeddling being utterly disallowed. There is something immensely satisfying about knowing that works like the above by Leelaashuka etc is permanently out of bounds for these people, and that they should know in themselves that encroaching and poaching on such is not allowed them.



Anyway, statements like "Krishna fancies himself as Vishnu" - no, at most it's his mother who infers that this ('fancying'/delusions of grandeur) is what the little Yadunaatha is doing while napping - is what the future state of so-called 'Hindus' is going to be like: people for whom traditional views don't compute but militate with their own tendencies~>conclusions, and their own interpretations is what they will be passing on. At most they think it's all 'quaint' and amusing - like aliens looking in - which condescension is not even accepted from non-Indian aliens. I don't know why modern 'Hindus' even bother. Gangrene.)



शंभो स्वागतमास्यतामितयितो वामेन पद्मासन

क्रौञ्चारे कुशलं सुखं सुरपते वित्तेश नो दृश्यसे।

इत्थं स्वप्नगतस्य कैटभजितः श्रुत्वा यशोदा गिरः

किं किं बालक जल्पसीति रचितं धूधूकृतं पातु नः ॥



“Shambhu, Welcome! Please sit down”

“Brahma! Come here to the left”

“Subrahmanya! Is all well?”

“Indra! Everything good?”

“Kubera! You haven’t been around”

Hearing this prattle of the sleeping Krishna, Yashoda thought

“What all this boy says!”

And chanted dhoo-dhoo to ward off evil spirits.

May it protect you too.



(Leelashuka could have mentioned the first-line as "Dear brother-in-law (Shambhu)...". Would make it even funnier/more endearing.

Isn't it 'long time no see/haven't seen you in a while' (to the Vittesha)? Am only guessing, of course, being utterly unfamiliar with Skt.)

That the shlokas are wonderful goes without saying.



But modern 'Hindus' (de-heathenising/de-heathenised) are such failures. Failed heathens. Post-Hindus.

I don't know why they don't own it to themselves, stop encroaching (by finally cutting all ties and stop pretending there are any) and move on. If only they did that, they wouldn't be gangrene, wouldn't be a danger to heathenism, as they will stop circulating their subverted and subversionist selves in heathen=Hindoo matters and among Hindoos.