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saidevo
27 February 2008, 02:32 AM
A recent tendency/trend among HDFpuri Hindus is to look for any Advaitic roots in Christianity, digging up its teachings and extrapolating any semblances of roots found as wholesome spiritual food for humanity. Nirotu, a devout Christian, earlier used to do this work of extrapolation, but he did it only in a Hindu Forum like HDF. His job is now made far easier.

Does Christianity really teach Advaita? How far has such teachings, if any, percolated into the Christian psyche? What is the position of the Christian notables--priests, scholars, politicians, media men and others who are prominent? Are the Christian commons aware of such 'findings'? Would they agree with them and implement them in life, and respect the Hindu (pagan) gods and the Hindu culture? Would they raise in unison against the evangelical and conversioin efforts of the Christian Churches that is going on a 24x7x365-basis?

Notably, only Hindus in HDFpuri take up such things, and that only in HDF. To what end? Do we need to convince the Christian people in HDFpuri so they can see the Ultimate Truth or make those who have recently embraced Hinduism feel comfortable by pointing out remote agreements in concepts and teachings between the two religions? Can we post this 'new knowledge' in the Internet's popular Christian forums so those Christians too can see and realize the Truth?

As has been pointed out by Bhagavan Das in his book The Science of Peace and by H.P.Blavatsky in the Proem to her book The Secret Doctrine, Christianity, at best, is an Arambha-vAda, the first answer to a seeker's efforts of Self-Realization, which is the theory of Creation by a Personal First Cause. In other words, God is the Creator and Man is the Created. Man can attain liberation only by God's grace, not by any amount of Self-realizing, true knowledge. And if Man does not seek God his Creator in Jesus, he is doomed to be sent to an Eternal Hell.

Unless and until the Christian notables agree to seek Advaita in Christ's teachings and the Christian commons accept it for a life of peaceful religious co-existence, mutual respect, and love between all faiths in the world, Hindus' efforts of finding Advaita in Christian scriptures with the hope that the Christians would ultimately see their point can only be a pipe dream.

Hindus desire and dream of a hunky-dory scenario in the world of Western religions, but the stark reality is otherwise, as these pointers indicate:

• Violences against Hindus, their gods and culture still happen in an advanced democratic country like the USA. During the year 1987 and later, an American gang that called themselves 'Dot-Busters' terrorised the Hindu women who sported their religious mark of Tilak on their foreheads by bashing up their husbands. The result: most Hindu women in the USA today shirk from wearing Tilak or 'bindis' on their forehead, which is a spiritual, traditional and holy Hindu custom. Young women, residing or settled in the USA, proudly wear Tilaks while in India, but go without them in their domicile country.

• Even Hindu gods are abused by periodical display of their portraits by one consumer company or another in toilet seats, beer bottles, tea-shirts, corsets and as hideous sculptures in art museums in the U.S.A. Feeble protests arise from Hindu outfits, the company concerned says sorry, temporarily withdraws the products from the market, and the Christian notable or common hardly cares. He simply chugs his beer from a 'Ganesha' beer container, smoking and reads trash, sitting on a 'Ganesha' toilet seat.

• Pope of the Vatican City seeks an unconditional apology for past Christian atrocities and hostilities towards other religions (and there ends the matter!) but says that henceforth harvesting of souls will be on the basis of love (and money power if not military).

• Though the Pope admitted that the apostle St.Thomas visiting India and becoming a martyr at the hands of Mylapore (Chennai) brahmins was a myth created to harvest souls in India, and though the truth is out of the bag, the Christian notables would not retract claims to the St.Thomas mount, the Santhome Church in Mylapore, Chennai or the entire lot of religious property established in-between, but happily continue to propagate the myth, supported by the pseudo-secular state and central government in India. And the Santhome Church sits smugly over the destruction of the once-famous sea-shore Kapali (Shiva) Temple, dispensing Christian grace with the relic of Thomas supposed to be interred there.

• The Vatican appoints their agents in Hindu Politics (most notable of them being the You-Know-Who, the proxy prime minister who runs the Congress Government at the Center in India today) and connives with corrput political leaders to cast aspersions on a Shankaracharya, foist cases and imprison him, thereby seeking discredit of a 2500-old Sankara MaTham (in Kanchipuram).

• Conversions by 'love' under the coercion of money power is swelling all over India, and North East India has almost become a Christian bastion, where Hindus are not allowed to celebrate their religious festivals. As a tactic of conversion, the Christian conversion mechanism abuses Hindu Gods in printed pamphlets and speak derisively of them in their propaganda vans. In one or two recent such incidents, the Hindus protested, captured the vans and handed them over to the police, with no action taken against the abusers.

yathA rAja tathA prajA (As the Ruler so the Ruled). So the Christian agression goes on, while we at all our levels from the Hindu commons to the Yogis seek ways to explore their scriptures for common concepts and teachings, not to educate them, but only to fool ourselves.

sm78
27 February 2008, 03:01 AM
Namaste Saidevo,

I think it helps to temporarily cover up the mental discomfort that doctrines like christianity raise in one's conciousness, thus helping us to reassure that in the end there is no problem but in the mind's understanding. The problems of the world is in my own midn after all.

I have long stopped following such posts here.

I still find some posts by sri sarabhanga giri very informative in clarifying dharma as per traditional understanding, and thus still follow the forum.

sarabhanga
27 February 2008, 05:18 AM
Does Christianity really teach Advaita?

Namaste Saidevo,

Similarly, one could ask whether Hinduism really teaches Advaita. And the answer would depend on the particular texts selected for consideration, and on the particular philosophical viewpoint one adopted while interpreting those texts.

When you say “Christianity”, do you mean the English interpretation propagated by Protestant Christianity (which itself comes in very many shades), or the Latin interpretation of Catholic Christianity, or the Greek and Aramaic interpretations of the various Orthodox Churches, or the Essene interpretation, or an interpretation based only on the Gospels, or an interpretation based on the surviving words attributed to Jesus himself ?

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.



How far has such teachings, if any, percolated into the Christian psyche? What is the position of the Christian notables--priests, scholars, politicians, media men and others who are prominent? Are the Christian commons aware of such 'findings'?

I am sure that there are notable Christians well aware of these “findings”, but the Church has tried very hard over 2,000 years to cover up the very connexions that I have been revealing here on HDF. And it is certainly not a new phenomenon in my internet postings (on various sites) over the last decade.

Any Christian who does not at least obey the ‘Ten Commandments’ is technically not a Christian. Just as an Arya without adherence to law of Yama is technically not an Arya.



Would they agree with them and implement them in life, and respect the Hindu (pagan) gods and the Hindu culture? Would they raise in unison against the evangelical and conversion efforts of the Christian Churches that is going on a 24x7x365-basis?

If the Sermon on the Mount (for example) was properly understood, then all conversion efforts would cease. And so, despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.



Notably, only Hindus in HDFpuri take up such things, and that only in HDF. To what end? Do we need to convince the Christian people in HDFpuri so they can see the Ultimate Truth or make those who have recently embraced Hinduism feel comfortable by pointing out remote agreements in concepts and teachings between the two religions?

“Remote agreements” ??? Have you actually considered the various points that I have made?

It seems to me that most Christian opposition in this forum has disappeared, knowing that their posts will only stimulate me to reveal more and more connexions which might increase doubts about the authenticity of their supposed “new revelation”.

If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting ??



Can we post this 'new knowledge' in the Internet's popular Christian forums so those Christians too can see and realize the Truth?

Feel free to post this very ancient and now largely forgotten knowledge on any Christian forum :) But the result might not be desirable for this forum, when rabid Christians come swarming to HDF and I am compelled to repeat the same arguments, which (requiring an understanding of Sanskrit, and an open mind) will probably not lead to a satisfactory conclusion.



As has been pointed out by Bhagavan Das in his book The Science of Peace and by H.P.Blavatsky in the Proem to her book The Secret Doctrine, Christianity, at best, is an Arambha-vAda, the first answer to a seeker's efforts of Self-Realization, which is the theory of Creation by a Personal First Cause. In other words, God is the Creator and Man is the Created. Man can attain liberation only by God's grace, not by any amount of Self-realizing, true knowledge. And if Man does not seek God his Creator in Jesus, he is doomed to be sent to an Eternal Hell.

If the crucifixion is properly understood as an allegory of yoga samAdhi, and not simply as an unjust but politically expedient execution of a dissident preacher, then all of the above is not a correct impression of the understanding of Jesus himself. And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.

The understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things !

saidevo
27 February 2008, 08:17 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

There, you have started a healthy discussion, on this important subject! I hope Satay and the other members will also participate and exchange views.



Similarly, one could ask whether Hinduism really teaches Advaita. And the answer would depend on the particular texts selected for consideration, and on the particular philosophical viewpoint one adopted while interpreting those texts.


You very well know that this point is only academic, because you know that the Hindu commons and notables at all levels--right from the illiterate kRSTa (plowman) through the atheistic intellectual and politician who would hate Hinduism but not give up his Hindu rights, and up to the enlightened yogi--know that Brahman is the only God in Hinduism, all other Gods are its forms and that we have the spark of that one God within us.

In addition, all Hindu scriptures are necessarily based on the Vedas that talks of Brahman as the only God. And every Hindu is aware of this fact, though he/she might not have read the Vedas or Upanishads.

Compare this scenario with the Christian Bible, whatever its version. Most Christians are aware of the various Biblical versions and that there are significant variations among them, yet--from the sayings of Christ that have been highlighted here and are commonly known--does every Christian, notable or common, believe that Christ taught Advaita?



When you say "Christianity", do you mean the English interpretation propagated by Protestant Christianity (which itself comes in very many shades), or the Latin interpretation of Catholic Christianity, or the Greek and Aramaic interpretations of the various Orthodox Churches, or the Essene interpretation, or an interpretation based only on the Gospels, or an interpretation based on the surviving words attributed to Jesus himself?

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away,...


While I am aware that there are various interpretations of the Christian Bible with possible corruptions, I am not familiar with the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts.



Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.


Since I have read and I believe that Sanatana Dharma was the prevailing dharma in the ancient times throughout the world, I am happy with and wholeheartedly support your contention that the teachings of Jesus Christ are from the original Sanskrit texts and that he was aware of them. I am also happy with your efforts at revealing this truth.



I am sure that there are notable Christians well aware of these "findings", but the Church has tried very hard over 2,000 years to cover up the very connexions that I have been revealing here on HDF. And it is certainly not a new phenomenon in my internet postings (on various sites) over the last decade.


This is some good news as well as bad news. I am really happy that your decade-long Net messages have reached at least some Christian notables. May Parameshvara Shiva bless them and let their numbers grow! We need their numbers to swell for any change of heart.



If the Sermon on the Mount (for example) was properly understood, then all conversion efforts would cease. And so, despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.


If even the Sermon on the Mount is not properly understood and the Ten Commandments are not (agreed to be) followed in letter and spirit by the Evangelical Christians, they are commiting a serious sin: of being unfaithful to their own Guru and God and by cheating their own faithfuls. Since they do it in full knowledge, perhaps even Jesus may not ask his Father to forgive them, saying, "Father, they know not what they do"!





Notably, only Hindus in HDFpuri take up such things, and that only in HDF. To what end? Do we need to convince the Christian people in HDFpuri so they can see the Ultimate Truth or make those who have recently embraced Hinduism feel comfortable by pointing out remote agreements in concepts and teachings between the two religions?


"Remote agreements" ??? Have you actually considered the various points that I have made?


As I have said above, I have read, considered and am happy with your revelations of the connexions of Christianity with its original Sanatana Dharma, from the very name of this western religion. I used the phrase 'remote agreements' for the point of view of discerning Christians who may not see enough prima facie evidences.



It seems to me that most Christian opposition in this forum has disappeared, knowing that their posts will only stimulate me to reveal more and more connexions which might increase doubts about the authenticity of their supposed "new revelation".


If it can stimulate you to "reveal more and more connexions", then let us revive the Christian opposition in this forum! Perhaps you should seriously consider publishing your valuable findings as a book, both on the Internet and in print. You had such ideas, I think.



If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting??


For this to happen, you need to publish your valuable findings in English, Hindi and perhaps Tamil and distribute it widely in India. I wish we at HDFpuri take some initiative in this direction. If you can prepare a comprehensive and handy book in English, some of us can translate it to Hindi and Tamil, cross-check our translations, contribute something by way of financing the project, and publish the book as an NRI initiative, from an overseas publication at a low price, for that can carry weight and steer past any political hurdles, I think. A freely downloadable copy of the book in PDF form in English, Hindi and Tamil can also be made available on the Internet.

For all their majority, Hindus in India are direly in need of Hindu media resources. All cable TV channels throughout India show two or three Christian evangelical channels but in Tamilnadu, even the internationally popular Sanskar TV channel is not shown in the suburbs of Chennai. I practically quarrelled with my cable TV service provider but to no avail.

There are no popular FM broadcast channels dispensing Hindu teachings common to all sects. As for the print media, a magazine named 'Hindu Voice' published from Bombay for over two years now, have started making waves, but has very little circulation. Hindu institutions under the auspices of the VHP, RSS and some Ashrams do a lot for dissemination of Hindu values and culture among the grass roots, but the efforts are local and scattered.



Feel free to post this very ancient and now largely forgotten knowledge on any Christian forum But the result might not be desirable for this forum, when rabid Christians come swarming to HDF and I am compelled to repeat the same arguments, which (requiring an understanding of Sanskrit, and an open mind) will probably not lead to a satisfactory conclusion.


I only wanted to know if you have posted this knowledge in Christian forums! ;) After your above observations, why should anyone even think of doing it? As you have been saying all along recently, right knowledge is only given to the understanding and deserved.



If the crucifixion is properly understood as an allegory of yoga samAdhi, and not simply as an unjust but politically expedient execution of a dissident preacher, then all of the above is not a correct impression of the understanding of Jesus himself. And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.

The understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things!


I understand that Kenneth Humphrey, a British theologian, wrote a book "Jesus Never Existed". The book was published by Iconoclast Press, Uckfield, East Sussex, the UK. I have not read this book but I have read the book Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression by Sita Ram Goel, a great and patriotic Hindu. (This book can be read/downloaded at http://www.hamsa.org/).

What are your thoughts/findings about the historicity of Jesus Christ?

devotee
27 February 2008, 09:11 AM
I am sure that there are notable Christians well aware of these “findings”, but the Church has tried very hard over 2,000 years to cover up the very connexions that I have been revealing here on HDF. And it is certainly not a new phenomenon in my internet postings (on various sites) over the last decade.

Namaste Sarabhanga ji,

I agree with you. The original teachings of Jesus have been polluted by Church to obnoxius levels. Actually, while analysing Christianity & the behaviour of the Church we should remember that the Christian Father is not like a Hindu Priest & the Church is not like Hindu Temple, it is like an empire & the Empire can go to any extent to keep its interests intact ! Christianity is a highly organised religion & the Church was so powerful that nobody could dare challenge for nearly 1500 years. The Church was part of administration & enjoyed a lot of powers. It is only after Industrialisation, rise of Nationalism & democracy, Church started losing its power. Many a distortions came due the greed of the Church to be able to maintain its supremacy.

Jesus taught Non-violence, compassion & love. However, what happened in the name of Christianity was the worst in the name of religion. People think that Islam is the most cruel religion when it comes to dealing with Non-muslims but the reality is that the cruelty unleashed by Christianity is unparalled in the history of mankind. Many religions were almost wiped out from the face of this world at the behest of Christianity.

Some excerpts :



In 1122 Christian crusaders swept over Jerusalem and slaughtered men, women and children, 'until their horses were knee deep in blood.

In 777 , Charlemagne, a devout Christian, after conquering the Saxon rebels, gave them a choice between baptism and execution. When they refused to convert, he had 4500 of them beheaded in one morning.

In the fourth century, Emporor Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, had over 3000 Christians executed because their interpretation of the Bible did not agree with his. That is more than the number of Christians who died at the hands of the Romans during the well known 1st century "Christians to the lions" persecutions.
Queen Isabella, famous for sending Columbus to the New World in 1492, was well known also for her 'Spanish Inquisition', the gruesome torture and murder of tens of thousands of Spanish Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, people who read or wrote, uppity women, and anyone else not up to the Queen's strict standards. Isabella was a champion of the faith, piously congratulating herself as her victims writhed to their deaths in the flames and the many other ingenious methods of torture invented by her inquisitors.


In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Inquisition was born, with Christians killing Christians, during what was known as the Albigensian heresies. Hundreds of thousands of people died because their Christianity did not agree with official dogma. This adds to the irony of murder in the name of Christ, when the majority of victims of the early inquisitions were themselves Christians.

English Catholics suffered horribly under Protestant regimes. American historian William T. Walsh writes: "In Britain, 30,000 went to the stake for witchcraft; in Protestant Germany, the figure was 100,000". In Scotland, too, alleged witches were cruelly put to death. Karl Keating quotes from the : "It is well-known that belief in the justice of punishing heresy with death was so common among the 16th-century Reformers-Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and their adherents-that we may say their toleration began where their power ended" .

1000 year old oak trees that had been sacred to the pagans were hacked down and replaced with cathedrals. The altar was often built on the stump of the tree; some altars are built over boulders or embedded stones that were ancient Pagan ritual sites.
As Christianity took over Europe, attempts to supress Pagan holy day celebrations met fierce resistance. Their solution was to absorb these holidays, purloin them, and make them into Christian holidays.


Regards

OM

Znanna
27 February 2008, 12:36 PM
Namaste, all,

While I agree with many of the points already made here, and don't wish to drift the thread from the direction of the discussion, I feel compelled to note this:

Modern "Christianity" isn't about all that.

Modern "Christianity" is about seeking converts to "Christianity".

IMO, modern "Christianity" is about the most perverse "religion" in that it perpetuates the "us" versus "them" mentality by continuous differentiation of the "saved" versus the "damned."

Please beware the insidious tentacles of this mindset.


ZN
/end rant and drift

saidevo
27 February 2008, 08:09 PM
Namaste Znanna.



Modern "Christianity" isn't about all that.
Modern "Christianity" is about seeking converts to "Christianity".

IMO, modern "Christianity" is about the most perverse "religion" in that it perpetuates the "us" versus "them" mentality by continuous differentiation of the "saved" versus the "damned."

Please beware the insidious tentacles of this mindset.


You have pin-pointed the problem in your usual terse words. Advaita or no Advaita, I would appreciate Christianity if this concept/dogma/mindset of 'harvesting souls' is not there. If this concept is taught by Jesus in the Bible, then how can it amount to Advaita? If Jesus is perceived to have not taught it, why is it there at all in the Christian dogma?

sarabhanga
28 February 2008, 04:10 AM
Similarly, one could ask whether Hinduism really teaches Advaita. And the answer would depend on the particular texts selected for consideration, and on the particular philosophical viewpoint one adopted while interpreting those texts.

You very well know that this point is only academic, because you know that the Hindu commons and notables at all levels know that Brahman is the only God in Hinduism, all other Gods are its forms and that we have the spark of that one God within us.

In addition, all Hindu scriptures are necessarily based on the Vedas that talk of Brahman as the only God. And every Hindu is aware of this fact, though he/she might not have read the Vedas or Upanishads.

Compare this scenario with the Christian Bible, whatever its version. Most Christians are aware of the various Biblical versions and that there are significant variations among them, yet--from the sayings of Christ that have been highlighted here and are commonly known--does every Christian, notable or common, believe that Christ taught Advaita?

Namaste Saidevo,

All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

All names and forms are taken by that indefinable essence of immortal existence, yet no name or form is sufficient for the unborn advaitam. That unnamed rudra is know only in samAdhi (not by name or form, but only by the indescribable experience of absolute identity), but its apparently diverse rudrAs are followed by the various theologies, each adhering to its own expression of the one name that is truly beyond all names.

In the highest samAdhi of ajAtivAda (which is perfect advaitam) there is only the one God, so that any suggestion of plurality or verifiable form is impossible.

Now, if this supreme yoga is ignorantly misapplied in the realm of duality (which immediately denies the possibility of the ultimate aim) then the only apparent course is to denounce and destroy or fundamentally convert all views and appearances that are divergent from one’s own partial understanding. And taken to the extreme, a literal interpretation of ajAtivAda by dvaitavAdins, manifestly applied in the world, requires the destruction of the world itself; but before that, the first step is to make all ‘others’ just like our own. That is the conversion process which must precede the final dissolution, and that is why millennial evangelical Christianity (predicting Armageddon) is bent on converting the whole of humanity to their own religion, for only then will eternal advaitam be truly manifest, in the final conflagration of the mortal coil. And this is exactly where the modern (fundamentally Judeo-Christian) world governance is leading us all ~ world monoculture, followed quickly by world destruction, with all true souls finally united in heaven.

All of this may be the ultimate view of the whole world process, from illusory start to illusory finish, but NO mortal being is fit to create or to destroy manifest worlds!

If every living thing simultaneously realized advaitam, then the manifest universe would no doubt cease to exist, but the chances of that are as rare as the likelihood of all matter meeting up with its corresponding antimatter, which would likewise destroy the whole creation. Something like this will occur at the end of time, but no mortal being has the power to bring it about, nor any authority to try.

But with the understanding that all sins are forgiven even as they are committed, and with the denial of any spiritual essence in other living species (other than their blood, which requires liberation) or in the earth itself (other than its gold, which is the rightful inheritance of those who would rape their own mother), and with advaitavAda wielded as a club by proud devotees whose partial comprehension remains divided and divisive, even the destruction of the whole world can be justified. :eek:




You need to publish your valuable findings in English, Hindi and perhaps Tamil and distribute it widely in India. I wish we at HDFpuri take some initiative in this direction.

I have often mentioned non-Hindu traditions, but such considerations are peripheral to my overall intention (important to notice, but only to bring the focus back to the main aim, which has always been Hindu). I have thought of publishing (on various matters) but when it comes to the similarities between Christian and Hindu texts and traditions, I really don’t know where to begin! I have focused on a few key issues (the sayings of Jesus, the gospels, the birth of Christ and the passion of Christ, the creation story, the ten commandments, the very names of the characters and the “prophesies” of their motivations and actions which arise from an understanding of their Sanskrit roots), but if that is not already sufficient, then even a well justified re-translation of the whole bible may not be enough. :rolleyes:

But HDF has been steadily extending its reach, and I assume that many seeds have already been planted, since we now have more than 2,000 visitors each month from India alone; and those readers are spread across 65 cities, from Srinagar to Trivandrum, and from Rajkot to Gauhati. :Cool:




All cable TV channels throughout India show two or three Christian evangelical channels but in Tamilnadu, even the internationally popular Sanskar TV channel is not shown in the suburbs of Chennai. I practically quarrelled with my cable TV service provider but to no avail. There are no popular FM broadcast channels dispensing Hindu teachings common to all sects.

What? No Samskar TV ??? Without the Samskar TV channel I wouldn’t bother watching Indian television at all! Perhaps that is why HDF has more visitors from Chennai than anywhere else in India. If only everyone turned off their TV and switched to HDF instead. :D




What are your thoughts/findings about the historicity of Jesus Christ?

Well, there seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure. The only evidence is the Christian gospel and comments made long after the supposed events. The teachings were made public in the Middle East at a certain time, and someone must have been responsible for that release, but the exact circumstances are unrecorded. From an historical perspective, the bible stories alone cannot be taken as solid evidence of historical truth. How do we know that the character really existed? Because the book tells us so! And those with unshakeable faith in the literal truth of the book will never be swayed, while those without faith will never be convinced.

To my mind, the whole story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before the supposed historical events, so no particular person or true historical events are actually required to explain it. But a Christian who denies the possibility of such connexions is left searching in vain for imagined archaeological remnants ~ either that or they would be forced to admit that their religion was prophesied by (or simply translated from) the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma.

The Bible itself gives the perfect clue to the historical “birth” of Christ in the Middle East, by the simultaneous arrival of both Jesus and the “three sages” from the Orient (surely the trayI-vidyA), which implies that the story began when a wise Brahmin arrived, following the course of the sun and navigating by the stars from somewhere far to the east (surely bhArata). :)

Ganeshprasad
01 March 2008, 03:19 PM
Pranam all

Scriptural considerations not withstanding, to give any credence to
Christianity, is shooting ourself in foot, we make their job of 'harvesting souls' the lost souls, that much easier.

That is my take on it.

Jai Shree Krishna

suresh
01 March 2008, 11:04 PM
Pranam all

Scriptural considerations not withstanding, to give any credence to
Christianity, is shooting ourself in foot, we make their job of 'harvesting souls' the lost souls, that much easier.

That is my take on it.

Jai Shree Krishna

A rational response, at last! From RamMohan Roy to Sri Sri, hindu 'gurus' have been actively propagating Christianity and Jesus' divinity, all the while receiving donations from Hindus.;) What has this resulted in? Christians can point to these gurus and say, "While we attack your gods as demons, we have your hindu gurus to defend the divinity of our Jesus. While we call Hinduism a devil-worshipping pagan faith, we have your hindu gurus praising Christianity as an authentic religion. While we never fail to mention sati, caste etc. while describing hinduism, your hindu gurus do us a huge favor by NEVER mentioning crusades, witch hunting, and inquisitions.

In short, we'll attack Hindus and Hinduism relentlessly, safe in the knowledge that your hindus gurus will continue to praise our religion and savior to the extreme. Your Hindu gurus are our defense counsel, god bless them!":)

sarabhanga
02 March 2008, 12:27 AM
The fisher analogy of the Gospels refers to the natural attraction of others by the inspiring light of one’s own perfection.


And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.


But the harvest analogy comes from the Revelation (i.e. the Veda), which is considering the final dissolution.


And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.

And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb.

And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

saidevo
02 March 2008, 06:18 AM
Namaste everyone.



"In short, we'll attack Hindus and Hinduism relentlessly, safe in the knowledge that your hindus gurus will continue to praise our religion and savior to the extreme. Your Hindu gurus are our defense counsel, god bless them!"


There is at least one Hindu guru, who calls a spade a spade: His Holiness Sri Jayendra Sarasvati Swamiji, the Sankaracharya of the Kanchi MaTham. Dr.Subramanian Swamy, president of the Janata Party and a fearless crusader in protection of Hindu Dharma recently published a book titled "Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out". While speaking on the book release function at Delhi on 18th September 2006, HH Jayendra Sarasvati Swamiji spoke as follows (a streaming video of the speech in Hindi with English subtitles is available at http://www.tiosam.com/videos.asp?q=Hindus)(emphasis mine):

"(Quoting a 'nIti shloka' in the beginning): The culture, tradition and principles of our own country: people from the world over should learn and understand and try to adopt it in their own lives. This is the meaning of that shloka. According to that, even now, many persons, including foreigners, people of other religions, to increase their knowledge of the Self, and to improve their own culture, many thousands of persons, leave their own paths, leaving Christianity, and leaving the Muslim religion, even now many persons are coming. Our Dharma is eternal and immutable. And so are our principles and knowledge of the Self: they are eternal and immutable...

"By changing a person's mind, it is possible to convert that person to another religion. But some persons will turn up who will ensure that Dharma and principles will always exist...

"So many persons from other religions come here and come from foreign countries waged wars ruled this country and left. It is the nature of our country, India. Our country is well known to welcome guests: 'athithi devo bhava'. Anyone can come and live in our country is all well, but having arrived in the form of guests and stealing right here, if someone comes to destroy our culture, then to get rid of them is also Dharma. This is what we have been seeing in the country's history. Which is why, if the guest behaves as one he/she can stay forever.

"There are Parsis in India. They still continue to live here. They were well integrated with us, in the same way as milk and suger get mixed together. And that's why we have no disputes or quarrels with them. They are well integrated and well blended in with our culture. But people from other religions, even after leaving this country they have left some of their generations behind.

"This generation, has to now integrate well with us just like the Parsis have done. This will ensure their welfare, the country's welfare, everyone's welfare. When someone puts salt in milk, then it is of no use to anyone. In the same way, there are attempts to break our culture and tradition. But whatever they may do, it is similar to cutting off the branches of a tree, one by one. But the more branches are cut, the more will the tree grow. This is one of the main features of the Hindu Dharma.

"In Kurukshetra, at the time of the Bhagavat Gita, many of us. Even with large scale deaths on both sides of the (Mahabharata) war, in spite of that, today we are not less in population. We are more than 100 crores. So, where there is a cut, there will be growth. This is a special feature of our Hindu Dharma and Indian culture. 'yada yada dharmasya glanir bhavathi Bharatha'.

"Whenever the followers of Dharma are threatened or troubled, at such times, it will increase. And how will it increase? "paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkrutaam". When the number of sadhus, saints, truthful people, cultured people increase, people who oppose them, the opposing people will be destroyed. Without understanding this, some people say that we are faulty. They say that in Hindu Dharma God takes avatar and destroys people and destroys everything.

"To understand this destruction, for example, if our body is afflicted with cancer, the place of the cancer gets operated upon. This is not destruction. The operation is to prevent the spread of the cancer. In the same way, where there is ill will, there is nothing wrong in destroying it.

"But these days, in our country, (we have) some of their generations, still continuing to live amongst us in our country. It is good. They should live amongst us in the form of guests. In this lies the welfare and happiness of everyone. Even if these people (of other religions in our country) go to other countries, even there they need their passports, they need to get their visas, and (in the end) they say, "let's go back to our country, to India". In London, South America and the Gulf, no one will be ready to keep the people of their own religions. These people eventually say, "let's go back to our own country (India)." Even with people from other religions in our country, only by everyone (jointly) protecting the Indian culture, it is possible to live life (peacefully/happily).

"Those people should understand the shloka "Ekam desha" so that in all countries, about the Vedanta philosophy, about the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, (it is acknowledged that) for many generations, they only had one Dharma, which was the Sanatana Vedic Dharma. This is why the shloka implies that there is a lot to be learnt here in our country. But nowadays, even the learning of our Dharma within the country is on the decrease. Therefore, in the entire country, Sanatana Dharma was prevalent all over, which kept on reducing and now the current situation is what we were left with. Even when one sees in the Bible, idol worship has been condemned. Even the Koran has condemned idol worship. It has condemned it because it existed before then, which is why they condemned it. At those times, they did have the custom of idol worship and other elements of our culture. That is why it is condemned in the Bible and in the Koran. If idol worship had not been existing, then they would not have mentioned it. Therefore, our culture was prevalent everywhere in the world before the advent of the Bible and Koran. And when these two religions formed, they suppressed idol worship, etc. They spread everywhere and the result is also evident here (in India). Our culture was prevalent in all countries.

"This God, that God, with any number of Gods, there is only one God. (Sanskrit shloka). God is one but is manifested in different forms to differnt persons. So it is important to keep that in mind and pray to God with the aim of attaining God. When was this said? This was said before the Muslim and Christian religions commenced. This is not a new saying. Lord Sri Krishna has said it in Dwapara Yuga. These concepts have been there for so many thousands of years. These have been taught to us very long ago, in the Gita, about attaining God, etc. Which is why these new things that have come, are not right. And so, worship God, a God of your personal preference, or the God being worshipped in your family, or by your ancestors. Worship any God, but perform your worship with full faith in God. Never fight in the name of God. It is the same God who manifests in different forms and blesses us all..."

sarabhanga
03 March 2008, 06:51 AM
In about 52 AD, a 'new' religion appeared in Bharata when Saint Thomas established a Christian community at Muziris (modern Kodungullur on the Malabar Coast of Kerala). This ancient port was described by Pliny (1st Century AD) as the most important port in the Indies, and was known in Bharata as Vanji, capital city of the Keralas. He travelled eastwards, preaching his gospel, and was murdered at Mylapura (near modern Chennai) in 68 AD. Diasporic Jews, immediately after the fall of Jerusalem (69 AD), reported the presence of Christians around Muziris.

The next Christian influx came in the 345 AD, when members of seven tribes of Syrian Christians fleeing from Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Nineveh, and led by another Thomas (the merchant 'Knayi Thoma' or Thomas Cananeus), arrived at Muziris. They established the seven churches of Saint Thomas and, as Christians became increasingly involved in the lucrative merchant business of Kerala, the distinction between historical Thomases was obscured.

It is said that Jesus Christ himself (Ishu Krishta ~ cf. Isha Krishna) sailed to the Malabar Coast after his liberation from Calvary, and spent his remaining days quietly in the northern mountains of Gandhara (modern Kashmir) ~ and he was buried there, in Srinagar. It has also been claimed that Moses is buried on Mt Niltoop, near Bandipur (Kashmir), and that Mary lies in Murree, (now in Pakistan). Saint Thomas is supposed to have been cremated by angry Brahmins at Mylapore (near Chennai).

The historical Jesus was apparently an Essene Jew, whose strict monastic codes were considered essential for salvation/liberation. Essene thought was substantially that of Nivritti-Marga, and their renunciate monks lived in Jordan, in a secluded community on the shores of the Dead Sea. Their disciplined purification of body, speech, and mind, considered necessary for union with the Divine (i.e. Yoga), and their development of true perception and insight through Jnana, and also their view that these aims might best be achieved in communal renunciate hermitage, are all directly linked with earlier oriental Dharmas.

It is unfortunate that the Nivritti-Marga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire Essene community. Modern Roman Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul, and along with all religions that have become ruling-state orthodoxy, its chief focus is distinctly Pravritti-Marga.

The legend of Thomas in India arises from the Syrian and Armenian Christians of Malabar, who called themselves 'Nazarinis'. They have maintained a quasi-Brahmin identity in Hindu society through a confusion of Nazarini with Nambudiri, and they claim descent from Brahmins who were converted to Christianity by St Thomas himself.

The Church of Rome has never officially declared that the biblical Thomas actually travelled to India, but has claimed the subcontinent as part of her apostolic patrimony on the grounds that Saint Thomas may have been martyred there.

Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries and their followers persecuted Hindus, especially in the Portuguese colonies, and many temples were destroyed. Indeed, most 16th and 17th Century churches in India include rubble from old temples in their construction, and occupy former temple sites. The Portuguese accepted the title Paranghi (Foreigner, or 'Feringhee' ~ a term used by Muslims since their own interactions with crusading western Christians, and taken to mean 'a barbarous and beastly individual without any education') and they were surprised that most Brahmins refused conversion to their 'Paranghi religion'.

See also: The Myth of Saint Thomas (http://hamsa.org/01.htm)

saidevo
03 March 2008, 11:35 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



In about 52 AD, a 'new' religion appeared in Bharata when Saint Thomas established a Christian community at Muziris (modern Kodungullur on the Malabar Coast of Kerala)... He travelled eastwards, preaching his gospel, and was murdered at Mylapura (near modern Chennai) in 68 AD.

Saint Thomas is supposed to have been cremated by angry Brahmins at Mylapore (near Chennai).

The Church of Rome has never officially declared that the biblical Thomas actually travelled to India, but has claimed the subcontinent as part of her apostolic patrimony on the grounds that Saint Thomas may have been martyred there.


The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple

St.Thomas was "murdered at Mylapura" in 68 CE, "cremated by angry Brahmins at Mylapore" and thus "may have been martyred there"; and yet the famous Santhome Cathedral Basilica in Mylapore is said to have been built over the tomb of St.Thomas, it was originally built by the "Apostle St.Thomas himself", and "In 1523 a church had been built over the ruined church of the Apostle." (http://www.santhomechurch.com/santhome/santhome.html)!

This myth has been effectively exploded now, exposing the evil designs of the Christian missionaries. An entire Website has been constructed (http://www.hamsa.org/) that presents a detailed and factual analysis on the The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple.

We now know from the presentation that the Santhome Church was built by the Portugese in the 16th century CE by destroying the seashore Kapali Shiva temple in Mylapore, Chennai and killing the brahmin priests and other Hindu worshippers who protested the action.

Koenraad Elst in his Forward to the presentation says:

"According to Christian leaders in India, the apostle Thomas came to India in 52 A.D., founded the Syrian Christian Church, and was killed by the fanatical Brahmins in 72 A.D. Near the site of his martyrdom, the St. Thomas Church was built. In fact this apostle never came to India. The Christian community in South India was founded by a merchant Thomas Cananeus in 345 A.D. (a name which readily explains the Thomas legend). He led four hundred refugees who fled persecution in Persia and were given asylum by the Hindu authorities.

"No one knows how many priests and worshippers were killed when the Christian soldiers came to remove the curse of Paganism from the Mylapore beach. Hinduism doesn't practice martyr-mongering, but if at all we have to speak of martyrs in this context, the title goes to these Jina- and Shiva-worshippers and not to the apostle Thomas."

Note #22 of Part 7 of the 24-parts presentation says:

"The earliest records of the Madras area, including money-lenders' accounts, go back to the fourth century C.E. They identify Mylapore, Triplicane and Tiruvottiyur as temple towns. The Nandik-kalambakam describes Mylapore as a prosperous port under the Pallavas, the early-fourth-to-late-ninth century emperors of Kanchipuram, who patronized various schools of Hinduism including Jainism and Buddhism, built temples and generously supported the arts. There is no record of a Christian church or saint's tomb at Mylapore before the Portuguese period, and Olschki is basing his comments on the wrong assumption that Marco Polo did visit Mylapore and that he found a church there. Friar Oderic is describing the original Kapaleeswara Shiva Temple on the Mylapore seashore (see Henry Yule's comment on page 60), which Jnanasambandar has positively identified as being there at least before the sixth century C.E.

Also check the article 'The New Indian Express makes a tsunami' http://www.hamsa.org/tsunami.htm for more details.

For debunking another myth that St.Thomas was killed by a Hindu King, check the article, 'Did a Hindu king kill St. Thomas?' at http://www.hamsa.org/sharan.htm

And finally, 'Pope denies St. Thomas came to South India', http://www.hamsa.org/pope.htm driving perhaps the last nail on the coffin of the Thomas myth.

For some of the latest efforts in this direction by a Syrian Christian who is a popular columnist in the New Indian Express newspaper and how he was made to cut a sorry figure, check these links:
http://www.hamsa.org/george.htm
http://www.kanchiforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2254

Sarabhanga ji,

When myths are explored to find any historicity about them, we needs must look at them from all available angles, whether we subscribe to any findings or not. I notice that you have given the hamsa.org Website just as a 'See Also' link and not discussed its findings in your post. Hence the above details.

sarabhanga
03 March 2008, 05:39 PM
When myths are explored to find any historicity about them, we needs must look at them from all available angles, whether we subscribe to any findings or not. I notice that you have given the hamsa.org Website just as a 'See Also' link and not discussed its findings in your post. Hence the above details.

Namaste Saidevo,

I am not sure which angles have been omitted, or which particular views you think I might be subscribing to (and thus promoting at the expense of other views, which I am trying to hide away) but I have simply repeated some notes I made years ago, which were intended to debunk the myth ~ but perhaps the intention has been missed.

Some extrapolations of Christianity in India:



In about 52 AD, a ‘new’ religion appeared in Bharata when Saint Thomas established a Christian community at Muziris (modern Kodungullur on the Malabar Coast of Kerala). This ancient port was described by Pliny (1st Century AD) as the most important port in the Indies, and was known in Bharata as Vanji, capital city of the Keralas. He travelled eastwards, preaching his gospel, and was murdered at Mylapura (near modern Chennai, Tamil Nadu) in 68 AD. Diasporic Jews, immediately after the fall of Jerusalem (69 AD), reported the presence of Christians around Muziris.

The next Christian influx came in the 345 AD, when members of seven tribes of Syrian Christians fleeing from Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Nineveh, and led by another Thomas (the merchant 'Knayi Thoma' or Thomas Cananeus), arrived at Muziris. They established the seven churches of Saint Thomas and, as Christians became increasingly involved in the lucrative merchant business of Kerala, the distinction between historical Thomases was obscured.

It is said that Jesus Christ himself (Ishu Krishta ~ cf. Isha Krishna) sailed to the Malabar Coast after his liberation from Calvary, and spent his remaining days quietly in the northern mountains of Gandhara (modern Kashmir) ~ and he was buried there, in Srinagar. It has also been claimed that Moses is buried on Mt Niltoop, near Bandipur (Kashmir), and that Mary lies in Murree, (now in Pakistan). Saint Thomas is supposed to have been cremated by angry Brahmins at Mylapore, near modern Chennai (Tamil Nadu).

Historical origins:



The legend of Thomas in India arises from the Syrian and Armenian Christians of Malabar [who did not arrive in India until 345 AD], who called themselves 'Nazarinis'. They claim descent from Brahmins who were converted to Christianity by St Thomas himself.

Historical doubts and political purpose:



The Church of Rome has never officially declared that the biblical Thomas actually travelled to India, but has claimed the subcontinent as part of her apostolic patrimony on the grounds that Saint Thomas may have been martyred there.

Facts:



Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries and their followers persecuted Hindus, especially in the Portuguese colonies, and many temples were destroyed.

Indeed, most 16th and 17th century churches in India include rubble from old temples in their construction, and occupy former temple sites.

And no surprise:



The Portuguese accepted the title Paranghi ('a barbarous and beastly individual without any education') and they were surprised that most Brahmins refused conversion to their 'Paranghi religion'.

And the final bold see also was not intended to hide more details on these matters, but rather to direct readers straight to the further details contained on http://hamsa.org !

saidevo
04 March 2008, 05:34 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

Thanks for your clarifications. The points you have made were perhaps clear earlier, but more 'visible' now!

We can perhaps discuss now some more points about the Jesus myth/historicity:

As to your opinion about the historicity of Jesus, you have stated:



Well, there seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure. The only evidence is the Christian gospel and comments made long after the supposed events.

To my mind, the whole story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before the supposed historical events, so no particular person or true historical events are actually required to explain it. But a Christian who denies the possibility of such connexions is left searching in vain for imagined archaeological remnants ~ either that or they would be forced to admit that their religion was prophesied by (or simply translated from) the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma.

The Bible itself gives the perfect clue to the historical "birth" of Christ in the Middle East, by the simultaneous arrival of both Jesus and the "three sages" from the Orient (surely the trayI-vidyA), which implies that the story began when a wise Brahmin arrived, following the course of the sun and navigating by the stars from somewhere far to the east (surely bhArata).


I have some doubts and questions about this text of yours. If you don't mind, you might add more clarity to them:

1. Which Hindu scripture gives 'the whole story' about the birth of Christianity? Who could have been the wise Brahmin who 'arrived' and 'gave' the trayI-vidyA? To whom did he teach them?

2. All religions other than Sanatana Dharma were established by a single teacher or prophet. If Jesus did not exist, who was the teacher or prophet for Christianity?

3. If Jesus probably was not a historical figure, what about his Apostles? Since the Nicene Council rejected many other 'gospels' picked up only the present ones that accepted Jesus as a Son of God, what was the fate of these other 'gospels'? Were they all destroyed completely or is there a possibility that some are hidden and might surface at the appropriate time? Are the Dead Sea Scrolls related to these other 'gospels'?

Nuno Matos
04 March 2008, 01:39 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga,

" The Church of Rome has never officially declared that the biblical Thomas actually travelled to India, but has claimed the subcontinent as part of her apostolic patrimony on the grounds that Saint Thomas may have been martyred there. "

Let me remind you that in the period The church statement was that the subcontinent was under Islamic dominion and not a matter of believing or not in Saint Thomas early presence. The Hindus wore not a problem. And there are substancial historical evidences about cultural comunication and trade betwen the two cultures.
Let me remind you also that in that period the tughees still killed undreds of hindu new riches trought out all India. Instead of all i do think that sociologicaly people are less violent and more tolerant today than they wore century's ago.

saidevo
07 March 2008, 05:57 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

The gap between a thought and its reduction into words is so large, and tricky, that the reader often fails to understand the purport of the writer. The following quote of your text is perhaps one such example:





Originally Posted by Saidevo
We can perhaps discuss now some more points about the Jesus myth/historicity:

As to your opinion about the historicity of Jesus …

Which Hindu scripture gives 'the whole story' about the birth of Christianity?


Please forgive me for following up these ideas about the relationship of Hinduism and Christianity. I have not completed the attempted explanation, but perhaps Saidevo will be happy with your more constructive comments ~ end of story.


'I have not completed the attempted explanation, but perhaps Saidevo will be happy with your more constructive comments...'--what exactly is meant by these words? The possible implications are:

1. That Saidevo will be happy if TatTvamAsi gives more constructive comments than the Rig Vedic quotes Sarabhanga (whose explanation is yet to be completed)?

2. That Saidevo will be happy with what TatTvamAsi has said about Sarabhanga's quotes because Saidevo would consider them 'more constructive'?

I am not offended if either or both of these meanings are implied, but perhaps I would be happy with the first one, though I have not read much of Vedas and the Bible (and therefore from the position of a layman wanted Sarabhanga to explain how the 'birth' of Christianity is 'prophesied' in the Hindu Scriptures.

Frankly, Sarabhanga, I am not able to make out the intended explanation from the elaborate Rig Vedic quotes you have provided, but then don't think you have cast pearls before a swine! I really want to understand the explanation in layman's terms, so please provide as much of it as you can; because I consider it important that both the Hindu common and Hindu notable should know that Christianity is after all derived from Sanatana Dharma; that the teachings in the Bible were not given by Jesus who perhaps has no historicity; that those teachings have been corrupted by the Church for their own vested interests.

Here is my take on the points raised by TatTvamAsi and Suresh:

1. I had no occasion to read TatTvamAsi's deleted post, but think the deletion could have been avoided. I would request Sarabhanga to re-post it if possible; if it not be, I would request TatTvamAsi to post it again, perhaps with an explanation of his 'joke'.

2. Well, I think TatTvamAsi's remarks about the personal nature and spiritual achivements of Sarabhanga are not in good taste, but he has made some other points. The entire misunderstanding, I think, is due to the failure to see the intended connection in Sarabhanga's quotes and etymology, which can be solved by providing explicit explanations that a layman would understand.

3. Suresh has a knack of making some good points: "It's therefore prudent to conclude that differences are more important than similarities." Yes, we need to understand how different is today's Bible from the (whatever) original teachings (that can be found in them), which of the many gospels are nearer to the truth and so on.

Friends, let us continue the debate and discussion, avoiding personal remarks.

satay
07 March 2008, 08:57 AM
Admin Note

Namaskar,

I have deleted pots that were irrelevant to the discussion on hand. The focus of the thread (correct me saidevo) is to 'understand the trend of why hindus in general try to find similarities in christianity'.

I would like to understand this behaviour also. If in the end this thread proves with evidence that Sanatana Dharma is the father and mother of ALL religions (including of the so called cults that demean Hinduism as originating from the heart of the Devil) then I see this as an advantage when getting hit over the head by Christians in debates.

Saidevo, sarabhanga please continue....this topic is dear to my heart.
Though my own personal feelings about today's christianity are close to TTA's and Suresh's, I would like to understand the proof once and for all that original christian teachings were actually from the Vedas.

Thanks,

sarabhanga
07 March 2008, 07:28 PM
The focus of the thread (correct me saidevo) is to ‘understand the trend of why hindus in general try to find similarities in christianity’.

Namaste Satay,

If the question is regarding “why Hindus in general try to find similarities”, the answer is simply because sanAtana dharma is founded in the wisdom of the dharma cakram and yama and yoga and advaitam. Whereas the devoted followers of an individual guru, following just one spoke of the eternal wheel, in ignorance (or denial) of any other true spokesman, take their dharma as a veritable sword cleaving a straight path to the source of all illumination.

Knowing the whole field of dharma (cf. kurukshetram) the wise guru understands that many different paths are valid for different individual circumstances, but that (when all true paths are considered) there is ultimately no difference at all. And Hindu understanding (the mother of all monistic religion) has always been tempered by this overriding thought of ultimate unity.

Sometimes naïve devotees get carried away by their obsession with apparent differences and the absolute truth of their own path. And in the absence of subsequent instruction from the advaita dharma cakram (the sun of dharma), which has over the centuries cast an occasional “bright spark of true illumination” (AryaHinduH) to the west, dvaitavAda rises to proud supremacy and adharma invariably results. An occasional ray of brilliant light shooting westwards into the darkness, from the dawning of immortal wisdom that eternally recurs in the east, only to be trampled and lost. And while this is surely a case of “casting pearls before swine”, those muddied gems still lie hidden and only awaiting their discovery.

The original (forgotten) diaspora of bRMhan became abRMham in the west, and the subsequent diaspora has become what appears today as a range of separate religions.

Each spoke in the wheel of dharma has its own guided path, and while the language remains the same the sign posts on another path remain familiar instructions, but if the language is translated then the similarities soon become invisible to anyone unfamiliar with both tongues (which clash impossibly for the ignorant, but sing in harmony for the wise).

The forked tongue of the devil is the very revelation of the prophets (as inspired transmitters and wise interpreters of god’s word ~ i.e. as translators of saMskRtam).

sarabhanga
07 March 2008, 09:38 PM
'I have not completed the attempted explanation, but perhaps Saidevo will be happy with your more constructive comments...'--what exactly is meant by these words? The possible implications are:

1. That Saidevo will be happy if TatTvamAsi gives more constructive comments than the Rig Vedic quotes Sarabhanga (whose explanation is yet to be completed)?

2. That Saidevo will be happy with what TatTvamAsi has said about Sarabhanga's quotes because Saidevo would consider them 'more constructive'?

I am not offended if either or both of these meanings are implied, but perhaps I would be happy with the first one, though I have not read much of Vedas and the Bible (and therefore from the position of a layman wanted Sarabhanga to explain how the 'birth' of Christianity is 'prophesied' in the Hindu Scriptures.


Namaste Saidevo,

This is irrelevant now, but I was forced into the position of having to justify my recent collection of material from the Rgveda, which has been spurred on by your prompting. I had only just begun with your first question (“which Hindu scripture gives ‘the whole story’ about the birth of Christianity?”) before being rudely interrupted by TatTvamAsi. And in deference to his supreme erudition and superior insight I was leaving the discussion open for his “more constructive comment”. I really didn’t think you would be satisfied with a simple “all Christians are idiots, end of story”, and the mention of your name was incidental, implying nothing about your actual happiness or otherwise!

I have already pointed out many key points, which may be dismissed individually as “mere coincidence” or “juggling with words”, and, since there is still misunderstanding, all of these examples are clearly insufficient to dispel lingering doubts. I have also suggested that for some individuals even a full re-translation of the whole bible, documenting the exact origins of every word, would be insufficient!

There are a few stumbling blocks to comprehension here, and anyone unfamiliar with saMskRta (vocabulary and grammar) or denying the natural principle of evolution (which applies equally to memes as it does to genes) will surely have difficulty grasping the explanation.

I will try to answer all your questions, but please don’t expect a rapid, single line argument that is intelligible to every layman. Perhaps such a gem will arise in our discussions, but please allow some time. Two philosophers could simply say “AUM”, with both nodding in perfect agreement, but the layman would most likely assume that both individuals were crazy!

The deletion of TTA’s first post was inevitable, and the post really doesn’t warrant repeating, although I assume that it was inspired by my earlier comment about dvaitins wielding advaita and having no qualms about raping their own mother (i.e. pillaging and degrading the natural world) for her material riches.

sarabhanga
08 March 2008, 04:31 AM
Namaste Satay & Saidevo,

Here is a collection of information already presented, but which perhaps requires reconsideration:

Scripture, like poetry, carries multiple levels of meaning that cannot easily be compressed and transcribed into another language.

Every translation into another language can only be the translator’s interpretation of the original words.

Without any translation, examine the meaning of this line:


Only cats dogs and mice with three legs are accepted.

Are only three-legged animals accepted (i.e. only cats, dogs, and mice, with three legs, are accepted), or is it only the mice that must be three-legged (i.e. only cats, dogs, and mice with three legs, are accepted)?

And are they (however numerous their legs) only accepted by someone who uses three legs (i.e. only cats, dogs, and mice, with three legs are accepted)?

Now, before anyone can translate this line into any other language, they must fully understand its context and the meaning intended by the one who spoke those words.

And is it only actual cats and dogs that are being considered, or could the terms “cat”, “dog”, “mouse”, “with three legs”, and even “accepted”, have various more esoteric meanings?

Language (or tongue) is only secondarily written and read ~ for primarily it has always been spoken and heard ~ and so illiteracy has no bearing on this matter.

It is essential, however, for proper communication, that both the speaker and the listener understand exactly the same language.

And the essence of dharma is surely linguistic!

Full knowledge of saMskRtam is required for full understanding of dharma ~ and such perfect comprehension is synonymous with complete immersion in devanAgarI, the “city of God”.

The authentic Word was anciently revealed, and it is the sacred duty of all religious communities to keep that Word true ~ in their hearts and their minds, in thought, word, and deed, and faithfully into the next generation. Both from parent to child and from guru to shiSya ~ indeed, the two relationships are identical.

There are some northern european languages that seem to be near the root language of “original saMskRta”, but saMskRta itself (especially vaidika saMskRta) is extremely close to the root.

The term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages. And everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit.

The “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”. The now extinct Anatolian (including Hittite) branch was established by about 2,000 BC. And in India, vedic Sanskrit was spoken ONLY by brAhmaNAs.

saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAc of brahmA.

If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Indo-European will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

Even a cursory examination of any of the Indo-European languages will reveal many similarities ~ it really doesn’t require any great scholarship to notice that Sanskrit seems to permeate all of the languages grouped as “Indo-European”.

The whole history of Creation may be found in the fundamental principles of mathematics and geometry and language.

Blessed be the Grammarians!

The standard (continuous text, after saMdhi) form of the veda is known as the saMhitApATha. And it is derived from the padapATha, in which the parts are considered separately (without saMdhi) in regular sequence. And then there are various defined patterns of recitation, beginning with the simple step-wise kramapATha and culminating in the elaborately woven gaNapATha. There are (at least) five different modes of recitation, and every case derives true words and reveals self-consistent meanings!

For example:

saMhitApATha ~ 12345678
padapATha ~ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
kramapATha ~ 12, 23, 34, 45, 56, 67, 78,
jaTApATha ~ 122112, 233223, 344334, 455445, 566556, 677667, 788778,
gaNapATha ~ 1221123321123, 2332234432234, 3443345543345, 4554456654456, 5665567765567, 67766788776678,

The ekAdasha saMhitAprakAra provides eleven methods, including also: mAlApATha, shikhApATha, lekhApATha, dhvajapATha, daNDapATha, and rathapATha.

If even one letter of the saMhitA is altered, or a single syllable is added or omitted, the error soon becomes obvious, and by this science of poetic elaboration and analysis the veda has been accurately transmitted from generation to generation over thousands of years.

And the enormous difficulty in properly translating such verses into any other language should be obvious.

All words have a range of true meaning. But that does not mean that true words can have any or all meanings arbitrarily imposed.

Religion was originally a personal matter of correct “selection” or “perception” of Truth. Over time, however, the various selections made by some inspired members of different cultural groups have become “set in stone” for those groups, and subsequently their particular cultural version of “religion” or dharma has been presented more dogmatically.

The vedAs were originally passed by learned brAhmaNAs from generation to generation only by direct speech, and were never actually written down, and this process has been continuous over millennia.

At some point, the written code of brAhmI (and later saMskRtam) was established, and the vedAs were fixed in writing for the first time.

The production of actual scripture (the written word as opposed to the spoken word) is perhaps the main reason for the historical change in the perceived nature of religion (from wise choice to veritable bondage) which has tended to occur in all the established faiths.

Islam is the only major religion that was absolutely fixed in writing from its very inception, and most Judeo-Christian sects rely entirely on texts that were fairly rapidly fixed ~ and dogmatism is one of their hallmarks.

The Bible became fixed in Latin translation, and then re-fixed in English translation, and thence into every language on earth; but this has all happened in the absence of any living Guru, since the Prophet who presented the original words (in Aramaic) was executed (or at least disappeared) and his devotees declared that there can never be another teacher who is actually one with God!

For Hindus, however, the purity of an eternal and yet living Word of God is available in the mantras and shlokas transmitted and explained by wise gurus; and there remains the possibility of fine-tuning the vidya (without altering its essence) for individual circumstances.

It is the long experience and deep consideration of a wise guru that makes his/her advice valuable (indeed priceless).

The revealed scripture, the wise teacher’s transmission, and the aspirant’s own heart ~ these are the essential components of sanAtana dharma.

A mantra is the essential embodiment of a deity, encapsulating the ethereal resonance of that deity or one of its powers. The literal meaning is an important component, but the more powerful mahAmantrAs are so pregnant with layers of concentrated meaning and potent intention that any translation is bound to be only a dim reflection of the original.

The philosophies of Jainism and Taoism seem to be distinguished only by the language used. And the original separations of Vedanta and Jaina and the Tao, and also the teaching of Christ, are fundamentally due to translation of the one dharma into different tongues.

The major upaniSadas were composed in the first half of the first millennium BC, and it was during this time that the Brahmi, Phoenician, and Aramaic, scripts were developed. And by recording the oral traditions in an easily translatable script, they were effectively released for broad publication.

And I believe that a major factor in the philosophical revolution around 600 BC was actually the codification of the shruti (which had previously only been heard and remember by heart) in written form, which created for the first time what we now consider as “scripture” and spawned various “new” religions, which are in truth only different translations of exactly the same eternal truths. And in the absence of the original oral traditions, the various dispensations have continued to diverge under their own cultural influences, with their original identities masked by the general veil of non-comprehension between different languages and scripts.

The speciation of dharma has occurred along the lines of biological species, and originally identical paths have become different paths only when their previously regular intercourse becomes interrupted by some isolating cause (such as geography and language).

The veda was revealed to various RSayas over a long period of time, but they are songs which have been sung for thousands of years, learned by heart as a sacred tradition and passed over countless generations from father to son (with no mistakes allowed). And the songs are virtually self-composed from the very nature of saMskRta language and the natural history of reality itself (the two are intimately bound).

Of course, the interpretations are subtly revised and represented for new generations and new situations, and that is why the corpus of Hindu texts is so vast, with layers and layers of coherent reinterpretation of exactly the same theme.

There would certainly be no Gospels or New Testament if writing had not been invented; and, although the orthodox Pentateuch (the pañca-abRMha-mantra, so to speak) would survive in the rabbinical community,

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.

satyagraha is a synonym of satyastha, inferring ahiMsA, and implying ahiMsAsatyAsthe, and compressing the whole well known pañcayAma mantra of patañjali (which is the same mantra given to Adam (adambha), and to Noah (manu), and to Abraham (abRMham), and the first half of the mantra later revealed to Moses (skandha).

satyagraha & ahiMsA (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=19370&postcount=2)

indu dharma (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=19395&postcount=7)

Arya kRSTi (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=19440&postcount=11)

ahiMsatyA (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=19483&postcount=18)

yamaniyama (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=21316&postcount=46)

iSu kRSTis (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=18674&postcount=3)

Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.

The understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things !

pratyAhAra is the “last supper”, before the final communion of saMyama and samAdhi, which is the crucifixion, the ultimate tapasya of kRSTi (“passion of christ”).

“The message of Jesus, as I understand it,” said Gandhi, “is contained in the Sermon on the Mount, unadulterated and taken as a whole ... If then I had to face only the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, ‘Oh, yes, I am a Christian.’ But negatively I can tell you that, in my humble opinion, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount ... I am speaking of Christianity as it is understood in the west.”

According to the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.’

And according to the shvetAshvataropaniSad: ‘This highest secret in the vedAnta, expounded in a former age, should not be given to one whose passions have not been subdued, nor to one who is not a worthy son, nor to an unworthy disciple.’

The old testament is more like the veda and smRti texts (especially manu), and the new testament is more like the vedAnta and sUtra texts (especially patañjali).

There were agricultural settlements using sun-dried clay bricks (iSTakA) in Balochistan (western Pakistan) from about 7,000 BC. And the first agricultural irrigation systems were developed in Mesopotamia in about 5,500 BC. But similar methods were very successfully applied in the Sarasvati-Sindhu region, skillfully controlling the life-giving waters with dams and channels, greatly increasing the harvest and enabling the establishment of urban civilization (c. 3,600 BC) which was flourishing over a wide area by 3,000 BC. Sails and wheels seem to have been invented in the Middle East (c. 3,500 BC), and by 3,000 BC the maritime trade between India and the Middle East was well established (with the Sarasvati navigable all the way to Ropar, near Chandigarh). And around 2,350 BC the major revenue-source for Harappa was its export trade to Sumer and Akkad.

The sea route to the ports of Dwarka (Gujarat) and Sopara (Sofale, just north of Mumbai) was known from very ancient times and, by the time of Christ, the port of Muziris (modern Kodungullur on the Malabar Coast of Kerala) was also known. And after the safe return of Alexander’s fleet (commanded by Nearchus, whose record of the voyage was later used by the Roman historian Arrian to compose his famous “Indika”) from the Indus back to the Euphrates in 324 BC the Greeks had no doubt about the sea-route. And by the time of Christ even Rome must have been aware of the possibility of a quick passage to India from Arabia.

saidevo
09 March 2008, 12:22 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

I am really happy with the knowledge you are disseminating through your findings about the origin of Abrahamic religions, specially Christianity. Please carry on with the task to its natural and logical conclusion.

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, who took the initiative to write a true history of Bharata-varsha and Sanatana Dharma in his book The Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduism is of the view that the hypothesis of a Proto-Indo-European language "a monstrous lie that confused and misled the sincere intelligentsia of the whole world".

The motive for this hypothesis was to deny the parantage of Sanskrit. Until the 17th century CE, the western linguists subscribed to the fact that Sanskrit was the first and original language of the world.

Sir William Jones, British jurist and a great scholar of Latin and Greek languages, who studied Sanskrit and wanted to discredit its greatness and mislead the western scholars, as part of the divide-and-conquer policy of the British colonnial rule in India, initiated efforts in creating the hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European language, and it was Franz Bopp who shaped and popularised around 1833 CE and especially mentioned it in his work Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic and German. (download details of this book in the 'My Personal Hindu Library' published in HDF).

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati says:

It is an open fact that the phonology (the speech sound) and morphology (the science of word formation) of the Sanskrit language is entirely different from all of the languages of the world. There is no comparison in any way.

1. The sound of each of the 36 consonants and the 16 vowels of Sanskrit are fixed and precise since the very beginning. It was never changed, altered, improved or modified. So all the words of the Sanskrit language always had the same pronunciation as they have today. There was never any sound shift or change in the pronunciation of any word in the history of the Sanskrit language. The reason is its absolute perfection by its own nature and formation, because it was the first language of the world.

2. Its morphology of word formation is unique and of its own kind where a word is formed from a tiny seed root (called dhatu) in a precise grammatical order which has been the same since the very beginning.

3. There has never been any kind, class or nature of change in the science of the Sanskrit grammar as it is seen in other languages of the world as they passed through one stage to another.

4. The perfect form of the Vedic Sanskrit language had already existed thousands of years earlier even before the infancy of the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew and Latin etc.

5. When a language is spoken by unqualified people the pronunciation of the word changes to some extent; and when these words travel by word of mouth to another region of the land, with the gap of some generations, it permanently changes its form and shape to some extent. Just like the Sanskrit word matri, with a long 'a' and soft 't,' became mater in Greek and mother in English. The last two words are called the 'apbhransh' of the original Sanskrit word 'matri.' Such apbhranshas of Sanskrit words are found in all the languages of the world and this situation itself proves that Sanskrit was the mother language of the world.

It is so obvious that anyone who learns Sanskrit grammar knows these facts. But still, these 18th and 19th century linguists created a term 'Proto-Indo-European' for the original parent language which was assumed to be spoken about 5,000 years ago by the nomads who assumingly roamed around near the southeast European plains. They further assumed that from the speech of those earlier nomads came the languages of the world like Greek, Latin, Slavic, Russian, Germanic and Indo-Iranian etc., whereas the Sanskrit language came from the Indo-Iranian group.

Now the question is, when an original parent language, Sanskrit, is already in existence, why was the 'Proto-Indo-European' term designed, and, instead of deriving the ancestral relationship of the languages of the world with the Sanskrit language through the findings of the Sanskrit apbhransh in them, why was an inferior parallelism of the Sanskrit language drawn along with the Greek and Latin languages?

Isn't it laughable, and at the same time a big black hole in the history of linguistics? Why did they do so, and create such a monstrous lie that confused and misled the sincere intelligentsia of the whole world?

(Ref: The article 'The deliberate speculation of the term Proto-Indo-European language; and Sanskrit morphology' at http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/23_the_speculation_of.htm)

sarabhanga
09 March 2008, 10:10 PM
Namaste Saidevo,



There are some northern european languages that seem to be near the root language of “original saMskRta”, but saMskRta itself (especially vaidika saMskRta) is extremely close to the root.

The term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages. And everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit.

The “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”. The now extinct Anatolian (including Hittite) branch was established by about 2,000 BC. And in India, vedic Sanskrit was spoken only by brAhmaNAs.

saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAc of brahmA.

If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Indo-European will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

Even a cursory examination of any of the Indo-European languages will reveal many similarities ~ it really doesn’t require any great scholarship to notice that Sanskrit seems to permeate all of the languages grouped as “Indo-European”.

If even one letter of the saMhitA is altered, or a single syllable is added or omitted, the error soon becomes obvious, and by this science of poetic elaboration and analysis the veda has been accurately transmitted from generation to generation over thousands of years. And the enormous difficulty in properly translating such verses into any other language should be obvious.

The vedAs were originally passed by learned brAhmaNAs from generation to generation only by direct speech, and were never actually written down, and this process has been continuous over millennia.

For Hindus, the purity of an eternal and yet living Word of God is available in the mantras and shlokas transmitted and explained by wise gurus.

A mantra is the essential embodiment of a deity, encapsulating the ethereal resonance of that deity or one of its powers. The literal meaning is an important component, but the more powerful mahAmantrAs are so pregnant with layers of concentrated meaning and potent intention that any translation is bound to be only a dim reflection of the original.




Swami Prakashanand Saraswati is of the view that the hypothesis of a Proto-Indo-European language “a monstrous lie that confused and misled the sincere intelligentsia of the whole world”.

The motive for this hypothesis was to deny the parentage of Sanskrit. Until the 17th century CE, the western linguists subscribed to the fact that Sanskrit was the first and original language of the world.

Sanskrit IS the oldest living language, and Hindu scripture traces an unbroken line back to the source of language itself, with only slight changes along the way. And Sanskrit is well-recorded in mantras and shlokas from every stage.

English dictionaries generally trace the roots of words back to Latin, and Latin dictionaries trace their words back to ancient Greek roots, and lexicons of ancient Greek trace their words back to Sanskrit roots. And these very ancient root elements are the basis of all subsequent languages now grouped as “Indo-European”.

Sanskrit precisely defines more sounds than in any other language, and its grammar is more complex than in any other language, and some major differences arising in the development of subsequent languages involve the loss of grammatical details that have always been present in Sanskrit.

Just as different monistic religions are like spokes in the wheel of Hindu dharma, each language of the Indo-European family represents a part of the whole, and resting at the hub is surely Sanskrit.

Everything we know about ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, and the original Rig Veda mantras have existed from the very beginnings of writing (more than 5,000 years ago).

There is no concrete evidence of language before the development of writing, but the original Sanskrit must have existed long before that.

There is no motivation to deny the parentage of Sanskrit!

Sir William Jones wanted to discredit the greatness of Sanskrit and mislead western-scholars, to divide and conquer India, so he invented the monstrous lie of ‘Proto-Indo-European’ ??? This is exactly the kind of slander made against Charles Darwin by Christian creationists!

And how has Franz Bopp become entangled in this accusation of deliberate falsification? What were his motives in compiling a comparative grammar?

There is no root of sound and meaning in the postulated precursor language that is not found in Sanskrit. And for the purpose of this discussion there is no need to even consider the exact details of the absolutely primal language.

If the term “Proto-Indo-European” (which I only used in passing) offends you, why not focus on the equally valid alternatives: “proto-Aryan” or “pre-vedic Sanskrit” ???

The Sanskrit of the Puranas is slightly different from that of the Vedas, and there are various terms and grammatical quirks found only in the Rig Veda, which is clearly the most ancient text.

So it cannot be denied that Sanskrit has evolved over the last 5,000 years. But it has never ceased to be Sanskrit. And it is wrong (but I would not go so far as to call it a ‘monstrous lie’) to suggest that Sanskrit has absolutely no comparison to any other language.

If it is your fixed opinion that there can be no useful comparison made between Sanskrit and any other language, then I can completely understand why you might find my argument difficult to grasp!



The philosophies of Jainism and Taoism seem to be distinguished only by the language used. And the original separations of Vedanta and Jaina and the Tao, and also the teaching of Christ, are fundamentally due to translation of the one dharma into different tongues.

The major upaniSadas were composed in the first half of the first millennium BC, and it was during this time that the Brahmi, Phoenician, and Aramaic, scripts were developed. And by recording the oral traditions in an easily translatable script, they were effectively released for broad publication.

And I believe that a major factor in the philosophical revolution around 600 BC was actually the codification of the shruti (which had previously only been heard and remember by heart) in written form, which created for the first time what we now consider as “scripture” and spawned various “new” religions, which are in truth only different translations of exactly the same eternal truths. And in the absence of the original oral traditions, the various dispensations have continued to diverge under their own cultural influences, with their original identities masked by the general veil of non-comprehension between different languages and scripts.

The speciation of dharma has occurred along the lines of biological species, and originally identical paths have become different paths only when their previously regular intercourse becomes interrupted by some isolating cause (such as geography and language).

And all of this has occurred more than 2,000 years after Vedic Sanskrit was already well established ~ more than 2,000 years after the hypothetical (but well-justified) “proto-Aryan” had already disappeared (not by extinction, but by its gradual incorporation into all of the Indo-European languages).

If a creature is already perfect (and given no change in external conditions) there is no pressure for evolution to occur, and any variation will be less perfect than the original. And some organisms, still existing today, have remained virtually unchanged from their inception. Other types may have evolved from their errant offspring, but they themselves remain as perfect “living fossils”, whose investigation can shed great light on subsequent variations and how it was that they might have arisen. And Sanskrit exists today, almost exactly as it did in the beginning, for the same reasons and with the utmost value in any consideration of Indo-European language.

saidevo
11 March 2008, 08:47 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



Sir William Jones wanted to discredit the greatness of Sanskrit and mislead western-scholars, to divide and conquer India, so he invented the monstrous lie of ‘Proto-Indo-European’ ??? This is exactly the kind of slander made against Charles Darwin by Christian creationists!

And how has Franz Bopp become entangled in this accusation of deliberate falsification? What were his motives in compiling a comparative grammar?


1. As you know, literary and religious scholarship up to 19th century when the great Britannia ruled most parts of the civilised world, were measured by the scholar's knowledge of Greek and Latin. Even when he was young, William Jones mastered Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic and learned the basics of Chinese writing. Later, after he studied law, he was posted as a judge of the Supreme Court of Bengal in 1783, thus becoming part and parcel of the British colonnial rule and its subversive policies.

Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and studied Sanskrit. Captivated by the beauty and perfection of that language, he wrote his following famous lines in admiration:

"The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."

However, no western scholar of his times would give a date earlier than 1500 BCE to the Vedas. And the pagan Hindu gods and the Puranas about them were anathema to the British. The astronomical dates and the cycles of time mentioned in the Hindu texts were just tall fantasies. And his own Bible gave 'an accurate' account of genesis of the world and its civilization spanning a period of only around 6,000 years...

So Jones reconciled all these things in two ways: first he related Sanskrit to Greek and Latin (instead of doing it the other way) and came up with the idea of a "Proto-Indo-European" language as a common ancestor of all languages of the world.

Secondly, for all his scholarship, he fell in line with his colleagues and denied all truth of history to the Hindu Puranas and equated the divine Hindu Gods to the mythological Greek and Roman gods, in his work "On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India". The height of idiocy in his comparison was this passage:

"RAMA and CRISHNA, must now be introduced, and their several attributes distinctly explained. The first of them, I believe, was the DIONYSOS of the Greeks."

"The first poet of the Hindus was the great VALMIC, and his Ramayan is an Epick Poem… comparison of the two poems (the Dionysus and the Ramayan) would prove DIONYSUS and RAMA to have been the same person; and I incline to think, that he was RAMA, the son of CUSH, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia." (pp. 214, 221)

2. "The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar..." says Wikipedia. A common and perhaps valid criticism of Bopp's work is that he based his study on the translated Sanskrit grammar work published by Wilkins and Colebrooke, of the Asiatic Society and not on the native works of Panini and others.



There is no root of sound and meaning in the postulated precursor language that is not found in Sanskrit. And for the purpose of this discussion there is no need to even consider the exact details of the absolutely primal language.

And all of this has occurred more than 2,000 years after Vedic Sanskrit was already well established ~ more than 2,000 years after the hypothetical (but well-justified) “proto-Aryan” had already disappeared (not by extinction, but by its gradual incorporation into all of the Indo-European languages).


This is not clear to me: one the one hand you say that Sanskrit is a divine language given by Goddess Sarasvati, and on the other you say that Sanskrit has all the roots of sounds and meanings of any primal language, hypothetical or real. What exactly is the relationship between the PIE and Sanskrit? Which is earlier in time?

My impression is that the PIE is a bottom-up (as against the top-down) approach to reconstruct a common ancestral (spoken) language. I can understand this approach because it is baffling how the people of Bharata-varsha in the beginning of Kali Yuga (3102 BCE) and earlier times spoke the divine Sanskrit when civilization was at its nadir in other parts of the world where people spoke all sorts of gibberish tongues some of which initially had no vowels!

The western scholars say that there is no direct evidence of PIE, because it was never written. The PIE is popularly supposed to be spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who are not, however, mythological people, but the humans that lived during 3000-4000 BCE.

And--as the icing on the cake--the Wikipedia article on the Vedas says:



The Sanskrit word véda "knowledge, wisdom" is derived from the root vid- "to know". This is reconstructed as being derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *u?eid-, meaning "see" or "know".[9]

As a noun, the word appears only in a single instance in the Rigveda, in RV 8.19.5, translated by Griffith as "ritual lore":

yaH samidhA ya ahutI yo vedena dadAsha marto agnaye |
yo mamasA svadhavaraH ||

"The mortal who hath ministered to Agni with oblation, fuel, ritual lore, and reverence, skilled in sacrifice."

The noun is from PIE *u?eidos, cognate to Greek (?)e?d?? "aspect, form".


If Sanskrit and the Vedas have their roots in the PIE spoken by people of whatever sort of civilisation of 3000 BCE or earlier, this places the times of Sri Krishna and Sri Rama in the realms of mythology!



If it is your fixed opinion that there can be no useful comparison made between Sanskrit and any other language, then I can completely understand why you might find my argument difficult to grasp!


Sanskrit is of divine origin, as you have said it yourself. So any comparison that places Sanskrit as having its origins in a PIE is nothing less than the obstinacy of western scholarship that denies superior origin and values to the Hindu language and culture.

On the other hand, I can appreciate this scenario:

The sounds and nuances of a language change much under the influence of culture which is in turn based on geographical and climactic conditions. Sanskrit is an open language that makes full use of the human vocal apparatus and breath; such manner of speaking was not possible for people who lived away from Bharata-varsha. Therefore, in course of time, when the original global roots of Sanatana Dharama withered, the people of these regions derived their own languages based on the apbhransh (impure usages) of the Sanskrit roots.

Sources:
http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/site_map.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/pie.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_(philologist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Bopp

saidevo
13 March 2008, 01:15 AM
The Borrowing Theory: Christian Way of Extrapolation

While we debate here for the roots of the present day Christianity in the eternal Sanatana Dharma, here is how the Christian scholars in the 18th century, who had seen India, extrapolated their religion and declared that Hinduism was borrowed from Christianity! Later discoveries, however, turned the tables on the Christians.

It was Antonio Giorgi who first came up with the 'Borrowing Theory', as it was known, with the publication of his book Alphabetum Tibetanum (Roma 1762). His writings were based on the manuscripts of the Capucine missionaries (1741) led by Horacio de la Penna (a particularly zealous missionary) who traveled in India and Tibet for several years. And the result was:

Georgi by comparative philology, and the other Christian scholars came up with these 'findings':

• Vaishnavism and Buddhism were a corrupted form of Christianity.

• "Krishna is only a corruption of the name of the Saviour [Christ]; the deeds correspond wonderfully with the name, though they have been impiously and cunningly polluted by most wicked imposters." (Georgi)

• The parellels in the lives of Christ and Krishna, such as--their being blessed by angles at birth; their Kings setting out to kill infants; their powers to dispel demons, cure the sick, and perform miracles--confirm the Vaishnavite Hindus borrowing their religion from Christianity. (Albrecht Weber)

• Weber even contended that the whole Vedic system of avatars, or incarnations of God, was "borrowed" from the "Incarnation of Jesus Christ."

• The author of the Bhagavad-gita knew and used the Gospels and Christian Fathers. The similarities were not single and obscure, but numerous and clear. There was no doubt in Lorinser's mind that the Bhagavat-gita had been largely "borrowed" from the New Testament.

• Sir William Jones, founder of the Asiatick Society, Calcutta, said that Sanskrit bore a certain resemblance to classical Greek and Latin. In The Sanskrit Language (1786) William Jones suggested that all three languages had a common root.

How the Tables were Turned

Destiny in due course of time, turned the tables on the Christian dominated debate that considered only the Bible as the ultimate source of literary and theologically evidence and brushed aside all other scriptural evidences.

• It was Edward Moore, the English philosopher, who first 'saw' that the truth was, in fact, the other way. He said that the popular Greek myths had some basis in real life and could be traced ultimately to India.

• Sometime in the 3rd century BCE, Meghasthenes travelled to India. King Chandragupta Maurya appointed him as the ambassador of his royal court. Meghasthenes wrote extensively on what he saw and heard, but none of his writings have survived the passage of time. However, today we have fragments of them through the works of early Greek historians like Arrian, Diodorus, and Strabo.

• German orientalist Christian Lassen brought Meghasthenes into the debate on the borrowing theory and said that Megasthenes wrote of Krishna under the pseudonym of Heracles.

• Richard Garbe, a respected German Indologist, who journed to India during 1885-1886, agreed with the analysis of Lassen and called the testimony of Megasthenes indisputable. Soon, some other scholars changed their mind and seeing the concrete evidences admitted that the evidence of Megasthenes had exploded the borrowing theory once and for all.

• Later, several archaeological evidences were discovered. By far, the most important among them was a curious ornamental column discovered by General Sir Alexander Cunningham, who mistakenly attributed it to the period of the Gupta Dynasty (CE 300-550). Thirty-two years later, Lake and Dr.J.H.Marshall discovered by scrapping off some red paint smeared by pilgrims on the lower part of the column, that the pillar was erected in 113 BCE.

• The ancient Brahmi inscription on the pillar was later translated and found to read: "This Garuda-column of Vasudeva (Visnu), the God of Gods, was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of Visnu, the son of Dion, and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as Greek ambassador from the Great King Antialkidas to King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the Savior, then reigning prosperously in the fourteenth year of his kingship." The column had been erected in BCE 113 by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador to India.

The findings on the Heliodorus pillar published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1909 effectively put a stop to 'the borrowing theory' of the 18th century Christian scholars.

(for more details: http://www.burningcross.net/crusades/borrowing-theory.html)

sarabhanga
13 March 2008, 08:20 PM
So Jones reconciled all these things in two ways: first he related Sanskrit to Greek and Latin (instead of doing it the other way) and came up with the idea of a "Proto-Indo-European" language as a common ancestor of all languages of the world.

Namaste Saidevo,

No doubt he was a Christian by denomination, and an Englishman by nationality, and his initial impressions from 1784 are not perfect in every detail, but the approach of Sir William Jones seems quite reasonable to me!

William Jones introduced his essay with the following important declarations:


“The comparison, which I proceed to lay before you needs be very superficial; partly from my short residence in Hindustan, and partly from my want of complete leisure for literary amusements.

“We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another; since Gods of all shapes and dimensions may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but, when features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them. It is my design, in this Essay, to point out such resemblance between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus. Nor can there be room to doubt of a great similarity between their religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phoenicia, Syria; to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and even islands of America: while the Gothick system, which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe, was not merely similar to those of Greece and Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images apparently Asiatic.”

“From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world.”

“Disquisitions concerning the manners and conduct of our species in early times, or indeed at any time, are always curious at least, and amusing; but they are highly interesting to such as can say of themselves, ‘We are men, and take an interest in all that relates to mankind’.”

“It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.”

“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”

“After such a declaration, I cannot be displeased, if, in the course of my work, I make as free with any arguments that he may have advanced, as I should really desire him to do with any of mine, that he may be disposed to controvert.”

“Having no system of my own to maintain, I shall not pursue a very regular method, but shall take all the Gods, of whom I discourse, as they happen to present themselves; beginning, however, like the Romans and the Hindus, with Janus or Ganesa.”




The height of idiocy in his comparison was this passage:

"RAMA and CRISHNA, must now be introduced, and their several attributes distinctly explained. The first of them, I believe, was the DIONYSOS of the Greeks."

"The first poet of the Hindus was the great VALMIC, and his Ramayan is an Epick Poem… comparison of the two poems (the Dionysus and the Ramayan) would prove DIONYSUS and RAMA to have been the same person; and I incline to think, that he was RAMA, the son of CUSH, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia."


“The height of idiocy” ?? How does this passage prove the supreme idiocy of Jones’ comparison ?

Again from William Jones:


“The Hindus have a great number of regular dramas at least two thousand years old, and among them are several very fine one’s on the story of Rama. The first poet of the Hindus was the great Valmic, and his Ramayan is an epick poem on the subject of Rama, which, in unity of action, magnificence of imagery, and elegance of style, far surpasses the learned and elaborate work of Nonnus, entitled Dionysiaca. I shall never have leisure to compare the Dionysiacks with the Ramayan, but am confident, that an accurate comparison of the two poems would prove Dionysos and Rama to have been the same person; and I incline to think, that he was Rama, the son of Cush, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia.”

“Meros (cf. Meru) is said by the Greeks to have been a mountain of India, on which their Dionysos was born.”

Nonnus of Panopolis was a Greek poet who lived in Egypt in the 5th century AD, and he composed the epic poem “Dionysiaca” in 48 books.

From svAmI prakAshAnanda’s “True History” :


Hold your breath, if you have a regard for Bhagwan Ram you may be shocked to read his outrageous statement where he says,

“Rama and Crishna, must now be introduced, and their several attributes distinctly explained. The first of them, I believe, was the Dionysos of the Greeks.”

“The first poet of the Hindus was the great Valmic, and his Ramayan is an epick poem … an accurate comparison of the two poems would prove Dionysos and Rama to have been the same person; and I incline to think, that he was Rama, the son of Cush, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia.”

First look to his understanding where he says that Kush was the father of Ram.

Along with the above writings an ugly black and white picture with a footnote “Rama” is printed. The picture shown there appears to have been specially created to look like a worldly stern Muslim ruler with a sword in his hand.

Now come to his main statement about Bhagwan Ram and Dionysus, which is like synonymizing divinely blissful and glorious daylight with the demonically scary spooky and darkest midnight.

Dionysus was an imagined god of wine and worldly enjoyment. The demented hilarity of the followers of the demonic Dionysian cult involved frenzied and worse than cannibalistic savagery when intoxicated men killed some animal as a sport and frantically ate its raw flesh as a blessing of Dionysus and drank the blood of the animal.

I think Jones has established a record of how low a person could go down in deliberately degrading the religion of another nation. However, it appears that their meat eating passion was so great that they could not think of anything better. Even in their New Testament at God’s dinner party, the meat of horses and the meat of captains and men were served and an angel called out to all the flying fowls to come and enjoy the leftover varieties of human meat.

Well, from this excerpt, I think that the author has himself stooped rather low in both distorting and degrading the religion of others (both Christian and Dionysian) and distorting and degrading the honest research of others (Sir William Jones)!

Perhaps without the deliberate omission Jones’ praise of the Ramayana as both more ancient and more brilliant than the Dionysiaca, the quote would not have been so shocking.

“The Hindus have a great number of regular dramas at least two thousand years old, and among them are several very fine one’s on the story of Rama. The first poet of the Hindus was the great Valmic, and his Ramayan is an epick poem on the subject of Rama, which, in unity of action, magnificence of imagery, and elegance of style, far surpasses the learned and elaborate work of Nonnus, entitled Dionysiaca. I shall never have leisure to compare the Dionysiacks with the Ramayan, but am confident, that an accurate comparison of the two poems would prove Dionysos and Rama to have been the same person; and I incline to think, that he was Rama, the son of Cush, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia.”

All of the illustrations in Jones’ essay are rather sketchy black and white line-drawings, but I don’t think there was any intention to mislead ~ they are just not very good drawings! :D

Dionysos is actually very much like rudra as pashupati or Isha, and Christian theology has absorbed much of the anciently widespread Dionysian doctrine and its mysteries (along with its holy sites).

And the “God’s dinner party” that the Swami denigrates is actually a reference from the the final chapter of Revelation, which describes the dissolution of the world (with equine metaphors suggested by the appearance of kalki, the horse-man of the apocalypse), when EVERYTHING is consumed at the end of Time.

Revelation 19:17-18


And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

That ye may become like soma! Consider the kauSItaki upaniSad [2.9], which provides the basis for the biblical description of the ultimate soma sacrifice:


somo rAjAsi vicakshaNaH
pañcamukho’si prajApatiH
brAhmaNasta ekaM mukhaM tena mukhena rAjño’tsi
tena mukhena mAmannAdaM kuru
rAjA ta ekaM mukhaM tena mukhena visho’tsi
tena mukhena mAmannAdaM kuru
shyenasta ekaM mukhaM tena mukhena pakshiNo’tsi
tena mukhena mAmannAdaM kuru
agniSTa ekaM mukhaM tena mukhenemaM lokamatsi
tena mukhena mAmannAdaM kuru
tvayi pañcamaM mukhaM tena mukhena sarvANi bhUtAnyatsi
tena mukhena mAmannAdaM kuru
mAsmAkaM prANena prajayA pashubhirapaksheSThAH
yo’smAndveSTi yaM ca vayaM dviSmastasya prANena prajayA pashubhirapakshIyasva
iti daivImAvRtamAvarte
AdityasyAvRtamanvAvarte

Thou art soma, the king, the wise, the five-mouthed, the lord of creatures.
[Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God]

The brAhmaNa is one of thy mouths; with that mouth thou eatest the kings; make me an eater of food by that mouth!
[That ye may eat the flesh of kings,]

The king is one of thy mouths; with that mouth thou eatest the people; make me an eater of food by that mouth!
[and the flesh of mighty men,]

The hawk is one of thy mouths; with that mouth thou eatest the birds; make me an eater of food by that mouth!

Fire is one of thy mouths; with that mouth thou eatest this world; make me an eater of food by that mouth!

In thee there is the fifth mouth; with that mouth thou eatest all beings; make me an eater of food by that mouth!
[and the flesh of all men,]

Do not decrease by our life, by our offspring, by our cattle; he who hates us and whom we hate, decrease by his life, by his offspring, by his cattle.

Thus I turn the turn of the god, I return the turn of Aditya.

It would be very easy to take these lines out of context and then similarly denigrate all Hindus as “worse than cannibals”, but it would only stir up indignation and fuel mindless hatred ~ which seems to be the intention of Swami Prakashananda (founder of the “International Society of Divine Love”). :rolleyes:




"The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar..." says Wikipedia. A common and perhaps valid criticism of Bopp's work is that he based his study on the translated Sanskrit grammar work published by Wilkins and Colebrooke, of the Asiatic Society and not on the native works of Panini and others.

I still fail to see how Franz Bopp has any implication in your suggestion of deliberate falsification aimed at conquering India !!



Sir William Jones wanted to discredit the greatness of Sanskrit and mislead western-scholars, to divide and conquer India, so he invented the monstrous lie of ‘Proto-Indo-European’ ??? This is exactly the kind of slander made against Charles Darwin by Christian creationists!

And how has Franz Bopp become entangled in this accusation of deliberate falsification? What were his motives in compiling a comparative grammar?

And perhaps Bopp’s work has been criticized, but how does any criticism actually effect the general proposition of grammatical relationships? Were the early works of Wilkins and Colebrooke so misguided in their translation of Sanskrit grammar that Bopp’s work becomes completely meaningless??

There is no root of sound and meaning in the postulated precursor language that is not found in Sanskrit. And for the purpose of this discussion there is no need to even consider the exact details of the absolutely primal language.

And all of this (i.e. the direct scriptural borrowing) has occurred more than 2,000 years after Vedic Sanskrit was already well established ~ more than 2,000 years after the hypothetical (but well-justified) “proto-Aryan” had already disappeared (not by extinction, but by its gradual incorporation into all of the Indo-European languages).




This is not clear to me: one the one hand you say that Sanskrit is a divine language given by Goddess Sarasvati, and on the other you say that Sanskrit has all the roots of sounds and meanings of any primal language, hypothetical or real. What exactly is the relationship between the PIE and Sanskrit? Which is earlier in time?

The term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages. And everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit.

The “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”.

If the term “Proto-Indo-European” (which I only used in passing) offends you, why not focus on the equally valid alternatives: “proto-Aryan” or “pre-vedic Sanskrit” ???

Surely, saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAc of brahmA.

If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere EXACTLY as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Aryan will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

saMskRta itself (especially vaidika saMskRta) is extremely close to the root.

Everything we know about ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, and the original Rig Veda mantras have existed from the very beginnings of writing (more than 5,000 years ago).

And there is no concrete evidence of language before the development of writing, but the original Sanskrit must have existed long before that.

And there is no motivation to deny the parentage of Sanskrit!

There is no root of sound and meaning in the postulated precursor language that is not found in Sanskrit. And for the purpose of this discussion there is no need to even consider the exact details of the absolutely primal language.




My impression is that the PIE is a bottom-up (as against the top-down) approach to reconstruct a common ancestral (spoken) language. I can understand this approach because it is baffling how the people of Bharata-varsha in the beginning of Kali Yuga (3102 BCE) and earlier times spoke the divine Sanskrit when civilization was at its nadir in other parts of the world where people spoke all sorts of gibberish tongues some of which initially had no vowels!

At the beginning of kaliyugam (as in every preceding yugam) it was rare for anyone other than a brAhmaNa to understand saMskRtam.

There has NEVER been any “gibberish tongue” that never had any vowels!!! Perhaps there was no expressed variety of vowel sound, but some vowel sound must have been implied and employed.

Of course there cannot be direct evidence of pre-Vedic Sanskrit, because the Rig Veda is the most ancient exemplar of all “Indo-European”, but of course the language itself must have already been perfected before any mantras could have been revealed!

Sanskrit has always existed, implicit in (or as) the very matrix of Creation, but the code had to be discovered and established in the minds of the sages before any sage could speak the original Vedic mantras.

Surely the Rishis did not speak in tongues that they themselves did not fully comprehend, and then have to re-examine their words to first discover the inherent language and its grammar and then come up with an interpretation of what it was that they had unwittingly uttered previously!




And--as the icing on the cake--the Wikipedia article on the Vedas says:

The icing on what cake? :headscratch:

It is completely true that the noun veda only occurs once in the Rgveda (as the singular instrumental vedena), but other forms of the root vid are quite common.

veda is “knowledge, sacred knowledge or lore, or knowledge of ritual”.

vid (nominative singular vit, nominative plural vidaH) is “knowing or understanding” or “one who knows”.

vid means “to know, understand, perceive, learn, become or be acquainted with, be conscious of, have a correct notion of, know how to, recognize or consider as, take for, declare to be, call, mind, notice, observe, remember, experience, feel, inquire about, make known, announce, report, tell, teach, or explain”.

And the perfect form of vid is veda (first person “I know” or third person “he/she/it knows”).

The phrase ya evam veda, however, occurs in the brAhmaNam, meaning “who knows thus” or “who has this knowledge”.

Griffith translates the noun veda as “ritual lore” ~ so what ???

From the Sanskrit vit to the English wit, there has been very little change.

English and Old Saxon wit, Old Norse vit, Danish vid, Swedish vett, and German witz.

All with the same meaning ~ “knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind”.

And the suggested proto-Aryan root is veid or vid, meaning “to see”, and thus “to know”.

Sanskrit veda, Avestan vaeda, Greek oida, Doric woida ~ “I know”
Bulgarian vidya ~ “I see”
Latin videre, Russian videt, Greek idei, Polish widzeic ~ “to see”
English wise, Old English and Old Swedish witan, German wissen, Old Russian vedat, Gothic weitan, Polish weidzeic, ~ “to know”
And Old Irish fis (“vision”) or fuiss (“knowledge”).




If Sanskrit and the Vedas have their roots in the PIE spoken by people of whatever sort of civilisation of 3000 BCE or earlier, this places the times of Sri Krishna and Sri Rama in the realms of mythology!

Why? :dunno:

And regarding ‘apbhransh’:

prAkRtam is “any provincial or vernacular dialect cognate with saMskRtam”, and apabhraMsha is “corruption” or “ungrammatical language”, particularly indicating the most corrupt dialects of prAkRtam.

saidevo
13 March 2008, 11:35 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

I am glad that you have given your explanations to almost all the points I raised. Since I am not well read in classical western texts or in the Christian scriptures, I have more doubts/queries/impressions/exceptions/reservations about your points. I shall express them in convenient lots, so we can avoid long posts. First about William Jones' view of Rama.



“The height of idiocy” ?? How does this passage prove the supreme idiocy of Jones’ comparison ?


William Jones' height of idiocy is in his two perceptions:

1. His comparison of Sri Rama to Dionysos (or Dionysus, also known as Bacchus), the Greek god of wine and revelry, whose worship was by a festival called Bacchanalia, characterised by a drunken party and orgy (Websters' dictionary definition).

Won't this comparison seem idiotic (and even be shocking) to every Hindu? Surely Jones must have known about and perhaps witnessed the worship of Rama in India. In what way did he find those rituals similar to the Bacchanalian worship, or the characters of Rama and Dionysos similar, that gave him the 'confidence' to equate Rama with Dionysos?

What is so odd about Swami Prakashananda, founder of the 'International Society of Divine Love', taking exception to it, specially when he is a Vaishnava Swamiji? As Jones' 'approach' seem 'quite reasonable' to you, and since you have also highlighted it in red, how does this comparison seem to you?

I can understand that Jones did not comprehend the advaitic nuances behind the Sanskrit of Valmiki Ramayana (assuming that he read it in original). What I can't understand is that while you have merely said that Dionysos is more like rudra, and hinted at Swamiji's ignorance about "God’s dinner party", you have not said anything about Jone's comparison of Rama to a Greek wine god (which comparison only smacks of ignorance and idiocy to me, a common Hindu)!

2. And then Jones' statement that Rama, "the son of Cush, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia."

You have not said anything about this statement either, except simply quoting the passage, while you have laughed at Swamiji's words about the black and white picture of Rama that Jones printed!

Who is this Cush and what way is he related to Rama or Dionysos for that matter? So far as I can search it out, in the Old Testament, Cush was one of the sons of Ham, who was Noah's second son. What connection did Jones find between Rama and Dionysos to state that Rama was 'the son of Cush', while the Kush Hindus know is Rama's son, and which is why Swamiji took exception?

Perhaps as with the case of the "God’s dinner party", Swami Prakashananda missed something here too? Please enlighten us.

sarabhanga
14 March 2008, 12:17 AM
Rgveda 8.19


taM gUrdhayA svarNaraM devAso devamaratiM dadhanvire |
devatrA havyamohire || 1 ||

Sing praise to him, the lord of light. The gods have made the god to be their messenger,
And sent oblation to gods.

vibhUtarAtiM vipra citrashociSamagnimILiSva yanturam |
asya medhasya somyasya sobhare premadhvarAya pUrvyam || 2 ||

Agni, the bounteous giver, bright with varied flames, laud thou, O singer sobhari,
Him who controls this sacred food with soma blent, who hath first claim to sacrifice.

yajiSThaM tvA vavRmahe devaM devatrA hotAramamartyam |
asya yajñasya sukratum || 3 ||

Thee have we chosen most skilled in sacrifice, immortal priest among the gods,
Wise finisher of this holy rite:

Urjo napAtaM subhagaM sudIditimagniM shreSThashociSam |
sa no mitrasya varuNasya so apAmA sumnaM yakshate divi || 4 ||

The son of strength, the blessed, brightly shining one, agni whose light is excellent,
May be by sacrifice win us in heaven the grace of mitra, varuNa, and the floods.

yaH samidhA ya AhutI yo vedena dadAsha marto agnaye |
yo namasA svadhvaraH || 5 ||

The mortal who hath ministered to agni with oblation, fuel, ritual lore,
And reverence, skilled in sacrifice.

tasyedarvanto raMhayanta Ashavastasya dyumnitamaM yashaH |
na tamaMho devakRtaM kutashcana na martyakRtaM nashat || 6 ||

Verily swift to run are his fleet-footed steeds, and most resplendent fame is his.
No trouble caused by gods or wrought by mortal man from any side overtake him.

svagnayo vo agnibhiH syAma sUno sahasa UrjAmpate |
suvIrastvamasmayuH || 7 ||

May we by thine own fires be well supplied with fire, O son of strength, O lord of might:
Thou as our friend hast worthy men.

prashaMsamAno atithirna mitriyo’gnI ratho na vedyaH |
tve kshemAso api santi sAdhavastvaM rAjA rayINAm || 8 ||

Agni, who praises like a guest of friendly mind, is as a car that brings us gear.
Also in thee is found perfect security thou art the sovran lord of wealth.

so addhA dAshvadhvaro’gne martaH subhaga sa prashaMsyaH |
sa dhIbhirastu sanitA || 9 ||

That man, moreover, merits praise who brings, auspicious agni, sacrificial gifts,
May he win riches by his thoughts.

yasya tvamUrdhvo adhvarAya tiSThasi kshayadvIraH sa sAdhate |
so arvadbhiH sanitA sa vipanyubhiH sa shUraiH sanitA kRtam || 10 ||

He for whose sacrifice thou standest up erect is prosperous and rules over men,
He wins with coursers and with singers killed in song: with heroes he obtains the prize.

yasyAgnirvapurgRhe stomaM cano dadhIta vishvavAryaH |
havyA vA veviSadviSaH || 11 ||

He in whose dwelling agni is chief ornament, and, all-desired, loves his laud well,
And zealously tends his offerings,

viprasya vA stuvataH sahaso yaho makshUtamasya rAtiSu |
avodevamuparimartyaM kRdhi vaso vividuSo vacaH || 12 ||

His, or the lauding sage’s word, his, son of strength, who is most prompt with sacred gifts,
Set thou beneath the gods, vasu, above mankind, the speech of the intelligent.

yo agniM havyadAtibhirnamobhirvA sudakshamAvivAsati |
girA vAjirashociSam || 13 ||

He who with sacrificial gifts or homage bringeth very skilful agni nigh,
Or him who flashes fast with song,

samidhA yo nishitI dAshadaditiM dhAmabhirasya martyaH |
vishvetsa dhIbhiH subhago janAM ati dyumnairudna iva tAriSat || 14 ||

The mortal who with blazing fuel, as his laws command, adores the perfect god,
Blest with his thoughts in splendour shall exceed all men, as though he overpassed the floods.

tadagne dyumnamA bhara yatsAsahatsadane kaM cidatriNam |
manyuM janasya dUDhyaH || 15 ||

Give us the splendour, agni, which may overcome each greedy fiend in our abode,
The wrath of evil-hearted folk.

yena caSTe varuNo mitro aryamA yena nAsatyA bhagaH |
vayaM tatte shavasA gAtuvittamA indratvotA vidhemahi || 16 ||

That, wherewith mitra, varuNa, and aryaman, the ashvinau, bhaga give us light,
That may we, by thy power finding best furtherance, worship, O indra, helped by thee.

te ghedagne svAdhyo ye tvA vipra nidadhire nRcakshasam |
viprAso deva sukratum || 17 ||

O agni, most devout are they, the sages who have set thee sage exceeding wise,
O god, for men to look upon:

ta idvediM subhaga ta AhutiM te sotuM cakrire divi |
ta idvAjebhirjigyurmahaddhanaM ye tve kAmaM nyerire || 18 ||

Who have arranged thine altar, blessed god, at morn brought thine oblation, pressed the juice.
They by their deeds of strength have won diem, mighty wealth, who have set all their hope in thee.

bhadro no agnirAhuto bhadrA rAtiH subhaga bhadro adhvaraH |
bhadrA uta prashastayaH || 19 ||

May agni worshipped bring us bliss, may the gift, blessed one, and sacrifice bring bliss;
Yea, may our praises bring us bliss.

bhadrammanaH kRNuSva vRtratUrye yenA samatsu sAsahaH |
ava sthirA tanuhi bhUri shardhatAM vanemA te abhiSTibhiH || 20 ||

Show forth the mind that brings success in war with fiends, wherewith thou conquerest in fight.
Bring down the many firm hopes of our enemies, and let us vanquish with thine aid.

ILe girA manurhitaM yaM devA dUtamaratiM nyerire |
yajiSThaM havyavAhanam || 21 ||

I praise with song the friend of man, whom gods sent down to be herald and messenger,
Best worshipper, bearer of our gifts.

tigmajambhAya taruNAya rAjate prayo gAyasyagnaye |
yaH piMshate sUnRtAbhiH suvIryamagnirghRtebhirAhutaH || 22 ||

Thou unto sharp-toothed agni, young and radiant god, proclaimest with thy song the feast,
Agni, who for our sweet strains moulds heroic strength when sacred oil is offered him,

yadI ghRtebhirAhuto vAshImagnirbharata uccAva ca |
asura iva nirNijam || 23 ||

While, served with sacrificial oil, now upward and now downward agni moves his sword,
As doth the asura his robe.

yo havyAnyairayatA manurhito deva AsA sugandhinA |
vivAsate vAryANi svadhvaro hotA devo amartyaH || 24 ||

The god, the friend of man, who bears our gifts to heaven, the god with his sweet-smelling mouth,
Distributes, skilled in sacrifice, his precious things, invoking priest, immortal god.

yadagne martyastvaM syAmahammitramaho amartyaH |
sahasaH sUnavAhuta || 25 ||

Son of strength, agni, if thou wert the mortal, bright as mitra, I worshipped with our gifts,
And I were the immortal god,

na tvA rAsIyAbhishastaye vaso na pApatvAya santya |
na me stotAmatIvA na durhitaH syAdagne na pApayA || 26 ||

I would not give thee up, vasu, to calumny, or misery, O bounteous one.
My worshipper should feel no hunger or distress, nor, agni, should he live in sin.

piturna putraH subhRto duroNa A devAM etu praNo haviH || 27 ||

Like a son cherished in his father’s house, let our oblation rise unto the gods.

tavAhamagna UtibhirnediSThAbhiH saceya joSamA vaso |
sadA devasya martyaH || 28 ||

With thine immediate aid may I, excellent agni, ever gain my wish,
A mortal with a god to help.

tava kratvA saneyaM tava rAtibhiragne tava prashastibhiH |
tvAmidAhuH pramatiM vaso mamAgne harSasva dAtave || 29 ||

O agni, by thy wisdom, by thy bounties, by thy leading may I gather wealth.
Excellent agni, thou art called my providence: delight thou to be liberal.

pra so agne tavotibhiH suvIrAbhistirate vAjabharmabhiH |
yasya tvaM sakhyamAvaraH || 30 ||

Agni, he conquers by thine aid that brings him store of noble heroes and great strength,
Whose bond of friendship is thy choice.

tava drapso nIlavAnvAsha Rtviya indhAnaH siSNavA dade |
tvammahInAmuSasAmasi priyaH kshapo vastuSu rAjasi || 31 ||

Thy spark is black and crackling, kindled in due time, O bounteous, it is taken up.
Thou art the dear friend of the mighty mornings: thou shinest in glimmerings of the night.

tamAganma sobharayaH sahasramuSkaM svabhiSTimavase |
samrAjaM trAsadasyavam || 32 ||

We sobharis have come to him, for succour, who is good to help with thousand powers,
The sovran, trasadasyu’s friend.

yasya te agne anye agnaya upakshito vayA iva |
vipo na dyumnA ni yuve janAnAM tava kshatrANi vardhayan || 33 ||

O agni, thou on whom all other fires depend, as branches on the parent stem,
I make the treasures of the folk, like songs, mine own, while I exalt thy sovran might.

yamAdityAso adruhaH pAraM nayatha martyam |
maghonAM vishveSAM sudAnavaH || 34 ||

The mortal whom, adityAs, ye, guileless, lead to the farther bank,
Of all the princes, bounteous ones

yUyaM rAjAnaH kaM ciccarSaNIsahaH kshayantammAnuSAM anu |
vayaM te vo varuNa mitrAryamansyAmedRtasya rathyaH || 35 ||

Whoever he be, man-ruling kings, the regent of the race of men,
May we, O mitra, varuNa, and aryaman, like him be furtherers of your law.

adAnme paurukutsyaH pañcAshataM trasadasyurvadhUnAm |
maMhiSTho aryaH satpatiH || 36 ||

A gift of fifty female slaves hath trasadasyu given me, purukutsa’s son,
Most liberal, kind, lord of the brave.

uta me prayiyorvayiyoH suvAstvA adhi tugvani |
tisRRNAM saptatInAM shyAvaH praNetA bhuvadvasurdiyAnAmpatiH || 37 ||

And shyAva too for me led forth a strong steed at suvAstu’s ford:
A herd of three times seventy kine, good lord of gifts, he gave to me.

atanu
14 March 2008, 04:10 AM
Namaste All,

I find this thread to be excellent and of high standard.

Hoping that the earlier passions (which will always obscure the samaan due to attachment to a nation or to a national concept of religion) have subsided, I dare to put in a few words.

The truth is beyond National Boundaries. The truth is beyond any Vadas (theories). The truth is that which alone conceptualises the Vadas and all other things. And the truth is ONE.

God's dinner party is not vulgar. But its descripton may appear vulgar to some who do not see (know) 'dissolution of flesh of heroes' as Mukti, bestowed by the ever compassionate Soma Bliss. (Yet Panchamukha Soma is Prajapati under the sway of Vak, who says in Rig Veda that "I uphold Soma".

Only pure knowledge singular Sada Shiva is beyond Vak. And every form has (and also has not) root in that pure knowledge.

For an Advaitin, who has seen the Samaan or who is established in the Samaan, the nationalities, the caste designations, the philosophical differences etc. are fleeting. The nationality of last incarnation is not known. Who knows Swami Prakashanada's affiliation in his last incarnation? As per Yoga Vashista, one's last incarnation might have been in an altogether different realm such as in an universe which might have had no sun. Or in an universe where directions could be reversed, due to different positioning of fixed stars etc..

Yet a true Advaitin does not deny the Sahasra Shira (head) Purusha -- wherein the shiras (thoughts) are varied which host many different qualities. Therefore, Advaitins will not deny the Guna differences in different literature of different places and times (relative) but will not see real abiding difference in these transitory differences. For an Advaitin, the nastikata, dvaita and VA are natural products of ignorance.

For example.

When one compares the ultimate truth taught by Gaudapada: There is no one ignorant, no one seeking liberation (which means that the intelligent BEING is ONE GOD alone who is never ignorant or never seeking liberation).********

with following partial Buddhist stand:

"---Of a liberated being working for liberation of others"

or of VA position:

"I will teach the name of Narayaana to the ignorant ones, shouting from roof top"

or of partial Christian position:

"Do not spill pearls to swines",


a true knower of Samaan, will just smile and keep silent, knowing and transmitting silently that a liberated one does not see another but may see another Shira of Purusha, who is ONE and ONLY ONE. Or such a liberated one will not see even the Saharsa Shira Purusha but only advaita Atman and nothing else.

----------

On the other hand, Buddha raising a flower and Mahakashyapa smiling, or Dakshinamurti silently emanating the Advaita Jnana to the four Kumaras, denote understanding of the truth (in my POV). With "i" reigning strong, the ultimate truth is never visible.

Saying all these, Shri Jones' “It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.” is good.


Om Namah Shivaya


******** Gaudapada's stand concurs with the Upanishadic dictum "There is no other Seer but Him. There is no other knower but Him". This proves wrong the dvaitic concepts that Advaita Shiva and Narayaana are two different beings.

Om

saidevo
14 March 2008, 05:31 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



It would be very easy to take these lines out of context and then similarly denigrate all Hindus as "worse than cannibals", but it would only stir up indignation and fuel mindless hatred ~ which seems to be the intention of Swami Prakashananda (founder of the "International Society of Divine Love").


Firstly, I am not a devotee/disciple of Swami Prakashananda or in anyway connected with his institution. That said, I think you have formed your opinion in haste about Swamiji just from one of his statements, while you would like to weigh Jones' words by looking at all the aspects of what he wrote, which seems to me to be prejudicial.

The statement of Swamiji about "God’s dinner party" that gives you the impression that it seems to be his intention of 'fuelling mindless hatred', has been part of his well-received book The True History and the Religion of India: A Concise Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduism, parts of which he has reproduced in his Website.

The book has received favourable reviews from Hindu notables in different walks of life and from at least one Christian notable, Dr. David Campos, Professor, Roosevelt University, Chicago; none of them has taken exception to the statement on the lines you are suggesting.

Here is a brief review of the book and its author, posted in the Website http://www.accessmylibrary.com/ (undelining mine).



At last here is a book about India by an Indian, who is also a renowned religious leader, a social reformer and a Vedic historian. Swami Prakashananda Saraswati had intense training in Indian philosophy, metaphysics, logic and related subjects over a 40-year period. He was offered the prestigious position of the pontiff of the ancient order of Shankara, at the Jotishmath. He refused to accept this and went to Mathura, the birth place of Lord Krishna and devoted himself to the service of the community and the temple at that place. In 1988, he came to Austin, Texas and established the largest temple complex in north America. He has written over 9 books on various aspects of Hindu ethics, scriptures and practices....


I thought that Swami Prakashananda was a Vaishnavite. From this review I understand that he is a Advaita Shaivite, since he was offered an order of the pontiff at Shankara Jotishmath. I think the Sanskar TV telecasts his teachings at regular intervals. I listened to a few of them when the channel was available to me at home. Swamiji has a beautiful and resonating voice, and his spoken English is clear like his Sanskrit, flowing like a stream.

I have not bought and read the book in print, since it is prized at Rs.995/- (for 778 pages, a rather stiff price for me), but I do read and constantly refer to the briefs he has given in his Website.

When we discuss the seemingly endless adharma done to our religion, culture and nation by the mlecchas, it is natural that emotions run high, judgments are clouded and opinions are biased in the expressions of Hindu commons like me or my friends here. I think and wish that people like you who has wisdom and enlightenment should handle the inputs and outputs of the less wise and enlightened with sympathy, empathy and compassion and not on rigid technicalities or with stern and ironical pronouncements and emotical face-showing.

Be assured, however, that all of us here in HDFpuri appreciate your immense knowledge with Hindu scriptures and the depth of your Sanskrit scholarship. You can also notice from the number of views of this thread, that many of us do read your Hindu scriptural quotes and Sanskrit derivations; we are only waiting for you to show the connections on the lines you have done for "God’s dinner party" in the book of Revelation and the kauSItaki upaniSad, which I personally appreciate and am happy with.

As I have been reiterating, I think after you give us all your explanations about the Sanatana Dharmical roots of the western religions, you may take up compiling them into a series of articles or book and publish it on the Internet, perhaps in Wikipedia or other suitable sites.

saidevo
14 March 2008, 01:50 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



1. The term "Indo-European" was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit.

2. The "Indo-European" or "Aryan" language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

3. The expansion of "Proto-Aryan" began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and "European".

4. If the term "Proto-Indo-European" (which I only used in passing) offends you, why not focus on the equally valid alternatives: "proto-Aryan" or "pre-vedic Sanskrit" ???

5. Surely, saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAc of brahmA.

6. saMskRta itself (especially vaidika saMskRta) is extremely close to the root.

7. Everything we know about ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, and the original Rig Veda mantras have existed from the very beginnings of writing (more than 5,000 years ago).

8. And there is no concrete evidence of language before the development of writing, but the original Sanskrit must have existed long before that.

9. And there is no motivation to deny the parentage of Sanskrit!


I have numbered the quotes from your text for ease of relating them in my understanding. I am not offended by the term 'PIE' or am specific about the term 'Proto-Aryan'. My entire question is why should there be a PIE in lieu of Sanskrit, if Sanskrit is the oldest of ALL the languages in the world and the entire comparison and relation is attuned to Sanskrit.

1. Now, the term "Indo-European" is the name of a group whereas the term "Proto-Indo-European" (PIE for short) refers to a common ancestral language for these (and other) languages of the world, right?

2. You reiterate that Sanskrit (saMskRtam) is a divine language given by Goddess Sarasvati (#5), but the quotes #6 and #7 seem to contradict this statement.

3. What do you mean by saMskRta itself (especially vaidika saMskRta), being 'extremely close to the root'. Which root, the hypothetical PIE? Doesn't this mean that 'the root', the PIE, precedes (vaidika) saMskRta in time and that the latter is derived from the PIE?

Or do you mean to say that the root, the PIE is very close to vaidika saMskRta, which is much earlier in time?

4. When a 'common ancestral tongue' was spoken perhaps as early 4,000 BCE (#2) and the 'Proto-Aryan' family of languages expanded from it from 3,000 BCE (#3), and Sanskrit belongs to this 'Proto-Aryan' or 'Indo-Iranian' family, this surely means that the PIE is earlier to Sanskrit!

5. Again, if whatever we know of Sanskrit comes from the original Rig Veda mantras that were first written down 'more than 5,000 years ago' (#7), this would place the time of Rig Veda as 3,000 BCE, 1000 years later to the date of the PIE. If we agree that all dates relate only to this Kali Yuga that started in 3102 BCE, then what about the period Sri Rama who lived at the end of the Treta Yuga, or even the dates in the Dvapara Yuga? What language did Rama and Krishna speak? Are they not historical figures?

6. All languages are first spoken; reducing them to letters in writing comes later. Even today, there are languages that have no script (Tulu, I think, is one such language). Therefore, as you say the "original Sanskrit must have existed long before" (#8). And that Sanskrit was perhaps only a spoken language.

7. You say "there is no motivation to deny the parentage of Sanskrit!" but the ideas of PIE proponents seem to be different. While they say that PIE was never written down, only spoken, so there is no concrete evidence of it, they also say that Sanskrit is not a spoken language, so they deny any date to it earlier, at best to the date of Rig Veda (which is officially around 1500 BCE)!

If the civilization in Bharata-varsha was the most ancient and earliest in time, and Sanskrit was spoken there (as Sanskrit by the Brahmanas and Prakrit by the general public), and if Sanskrit is the 'mother of all languages', then there is no need for the hypothetical PIE at all; this is my position on the subject.

sarabhanga
16 March 2008, 01:32 AM
William Jones' height of idiocy is in his two perceptions:

1. His comparison of Sri Rama to Dionysos (or Dionysus, also known as Bacchus), the Greek god of wine and revelry, whose worship was by a festival called Bacchanalia, characterised by a drunken party and orgy (Websters' dictionary definition).

Won't this comparison seem idiotic (and even be shocking) to every Hindu? Surely Jones must have known about and perhaps witnessed the worship of Rama in India. In what way did he find those rituals similar to the Bacchanalian worship, or the characters of Rama and Dionysos similar, that gave him the 'confidence' to equate Rama with Dionysos?

What is so odd about Swami Prakashananda, founder of the 'International Society of Divine Love', taking exception to it?

As Jones' 'approach' seem 'quite reasonable' to you, and since you have also highlighted it in red, how does this comparison seem to you?

Namaste Saidevo,

What I have highlighted in red is simply the omission made Swami Prakashananda.

Since the import of the omission seems to have been missed, I will repeat it:

The Hindus have a great number of regular dramas at least two thousand years old, and among them are several very fine one’s on the story of Rama, which, in unity of action, magnificence of imagery, and elegance of style, far surpasses the learned and elaborate work of Nonnus, entitled Dionysiaca. I shall never have leisure to compare the Dionysiacks with the Ramayan.

Perhaps without the deliberate omission Jones’ praise of the Ramayana as both more ancient and more brilliant than the Dionysiaca, the quote would not have been so shocking.

And this has nothing to do with “advaitic nuances” !!

We should consider what Sir William Jones actually has to say on the subject at hand:


Two incarnate deities of the first rank, Rama and Crishna, must now be introduced, and their several attributes distinctly explained. The first of them, I believe, was the Dionysos of the Greeks, whom they named Bromius, without knowing why; and Bugenes, when they represented him horned; as well as Lyaios and Eleuththerios, the Deliverer, and Triambos, or Dithyrambos, the Triumphant: most of those titles were adopted by the Romans, by whom he was called Bruma, Tauriformis, Liber, Triumphus; and both nations had records or traditionary accounts of his giving laws to men and deciding their contents, of his improving navigation and commerce, and, what may appear yet more observable, of his conquering India and other countries with an army of Satyrs, commanded by no less a personage than Pan.

It were superfluous in a mere essay, to run any length in the parallel between this European god and the sovereign of Ayodhya, whom the Hindus believe to have been an appearance on the earth of the Preserving power; to have been a Conqueror of the highest renown, and the deliverer of nations from tyrants, as well as of his consort Sita from the giant Ravan, king of Lanca, and to have commanded in chief a numerous and intrepid race of those large Monkeys, which our naturalists, or some of them, have denominated as Indian Satyrs: his General the Prince of Satyrs, was named Hanumat … and, with workmen of such agility, he soon raised a bridge of rocks over the sea, part of which, say the Hindus, yet remains; and it is, probably, the series of rocks, to which the Muselmans or the Portuguese have given the foolish name of Adam’s (it should be called Rama’s) bridge.

I had almost forgotten, that, Meros is said by the Greeks to have been a mountain in India, on which their Dionysos was born, and that Meru, though it generally means the north pole in Indian geography, is also a mountain near the city of Naishada or Nysa, called by the Greek geographers Dionysopolis, and universally celebrated in the Sanskrit poems; though the birth place of Rama is supposed to have been Ayodhya or Audh. That city extended, if we believe the Brahmans, over a line of ten Yojans, or about forty miles, and the present city of Lac’hnau, pronounced Lucnow, was only a lodge for one of its gates, called Lacshmanadwara, or the gate of Lacshman, a brother of Rama.

The war of Lanca is dramatically represented at the festival of Rama on the ninth day of the new moon of Chaitra; and the drama concludes (says Holwel, who had often seen it) with an exhibition of the fire-ordeal, by which the victor’s wife Sita gave proof of her connubial fidelity.

[And regarding Mahadeva:] in regard to Bacchus, the God of Vintage (between whose acts and those of Jupiter we find, as Bacon observes, a wonderful affinity), his Ithyphallick images, measures, and ceremonies alluded probably to the supposed relation of Love and Wine; unless we believe them to have belonged originally to Siva, one of whose names is Vagis or Bagis, and to have been afterwards improperly applied. Though, in an essay on the Gods of India, where the Brahmans are positively forbidden to taste fermented liquors, we can have little to do with Bacchus, as God of Wine, who was probably no more than the imaginary President over the vintage in Italy, Greece, and the lower Asia, yet we must not omit Suradevi the Goddess of Wine, who arose, say the Hindus, from the ocean, when it was churned with the mountain Mandar: and this fable seems to indicate, that the Indians came from a country in which wine was anciently made and considered as a blessing; though the dangerous effects of intemperance induced their early legislators to prohibit the use of all spiritous liquors; and it were much to be wished, that so wise a law had never been violated.

Many learned Mythologists, with Giraldus at their head, consider the peaceful Minerva as the Isis of Egypt; from whose temple at Sais a wonderful inscription is quoted by Plutarch, which has resemblance to the four Sanskrit verses above exhibited as the text of the Bhagavat: “I am all, that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal hath ever removed.” For my part I have no doubt, that the Iswara and Isi of the Hindus are the Osiris and Isis of the Egyptians; though a distinct essay in the manner of Plutarch would be requisite in order to demonstrate their identity: they mean, I conceive, the Powers of Nature considered as male and Female; and Isis, like the other goddesses, represents the active power of her lord, whose eight forms, under which he becomes visible to man, were enumerated by Calidasa near two thousand years ago: “Water was the first work of the Creator; and Fire receives the oblation of clarified butter, as the law ordains; the Sacrifice is performed with solemnity; the two Lights of heaven distinguish time; the subtil Ether, which is the vehicle of sound, pervades the universe; the Earth is the natural parent of all increase; and by Air all things breathing are animated: may Isa, the power propitiously apparent in these eight forms bless and sustain you!” The five elements, therefore, as well as the Sun and the Moon, are considered as Isa or the Ruler, from which the word Isi may be regularly formed, though Isani be the usual name of his active Power, adored as the Goddess of nature.

By means of the Puranas, we shall in time discover all the learning of the Egyptians without deciphering their hieroglyphicks: the bull of Iswara seems to be Apis, or Ap, as he is more correctly named.

In the temples and paintings of Hindustan … it never seems to have entered the heads of the legislators or people that any thing natural could be offensively obscene; a singularity, which pervades all their writings and conversation, but is no proof of depravity of morals.

We must not be surprised at finding, on a close examination, that the characters of all the pagan deities, male and female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two; for it seems a well-founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses in ancient Rome, and modern Varanes, mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the Sun, expressed in a variety of ways.

Thus have I attempted to trace, imperfectly at present for want of ampler materials, but with a confidence continually increasing as I advanced, a parallel between the Gods adored in three very different nations, Greece, Italy, and India; but, which was the original system and which the copy, I will not presume to decide; nor are we likely, I believe, to be soon furnished with sufficient grounds for a decision: the fundamental rule, that natural, and most human, operations proceed from the simple to the compound, will afford no assistance on this point; since neither the Asiatick nor European system has any simplicity in it; and both are so complex … that the honour, such as it is, of the invention cannot be allotted to either with tolerable certainty.

Since Egypt appears to have been the grand force of knowledge for the western, and India for the more eastern, parts of the globe, it may seem a natural question, whether the Egyptians communicated their Mythology and Philosophy to the Hindus, or conversely; but what the learned of Memphis wrote or said concerning India no mortal knows: and what the learned of Varanes have asserted, if any thing, concerning Egypt, can give us little satisfaction.

As far as Etymology can help us, we may safely derive Nilus from the Sansrit word nila, or blue; since Dionysius expressly calls the waters of that river “an azure stream” … and the name Nila is given to a lofty a sacred mountain with a summit of pure gold, from which flowed a river of clear, sweet, and fresh water. M. Sonnerat refers to a dissertation by Mr. Schmit, which gained a prize at the Academy of Inscriptions, “On an Egyptian Colony established in India”: it would be worth while to examine his authorities, and either to overturn or verify them by such higher authorities, as are now accessible in these provinces. I strongly incline to think him right, and to believe that Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna, which the Brahmans most assuredly would never have left: they might, indeed, have come either to be instructed or to instruct; but it seems more probable, that they visited the Surmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge; nor is it likely, that the self-sufficient Brahmans would have received them as their preceptors.

Be all this as it may, I am persuaded, that a connection subsisted between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before they migrated to their several settlements, and consequently before the birth of Moses.

The Hindus … would readily admit the truth of the Gospel; but they contend, that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras: the deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God, to whom several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church.




What I can't understand is that while you have merely said that Dionysos is more like rudra, and hinted at Swamiji's ignorance about "God’s dinner party", you have not said anything about Jone's comparison of Rama to a Greek wine god (which comparison only smacks of ignorance and idiocy to me, a common Hindu)!

I can only suggest that anyone who denies the comparison has never witnessed the navarAtra in rural (especially northern) India!

Please consider the nature of rAma dAsharathi and the rAmAyaNa and the navarAtrika festival, along with some notes on dionysos (and his relationship with India):

rAmAyaNa is “relating to rAma dAsharathi” and vAlmIki’s rAmAyaNam describes the ayana (“goings”) of the dAsharathI (rAma and lakshmaNa) and sItA.

And rAmAyaNa is a patronymic formation, meaning “son of rama” ~ just as nArAyaNa is the “son of nara”.

The cerebral semi-vowel rakAra arises from agni and is associated with kAla (as time and division).

ra indicates “motion or vibration, acquiring or giving, and thus possessing or having”.

ra is “fire, brightness, splendor, gold, love, desire, or amorous play”.

ra is invoked as raktA, and raM is the agni bIjam.

rakta is “coloured, dyed, painted, reddened, red, crimson, excited, affected with passion or love, impassioned, enamoured, charmed, attached, devoted, fond, beloved, dear, lovely, pleasant, sweet, engaging in pastime, playful, or sporting”.

rakta is “redness or fire”, and raktam is “blood, or particularly the menstrual fluid”.

ram means “to stop, stay, make fast, calm, stand still, set at rest, abide, delight o be delighted, gladden or be glad, please or be pleased, make happy, rejoice, play or sport, put to stake, dally, caress, enjoy carnally, have sexual intercourse, or couple (as deer)”, indicating “brightness or splendor”.

And the second person active imperative, compelling all of the above, is rama.

rama is “pleasing, delighting, rejoicing, dear, or beloved”, indicating “joy, a lover or husband, or the god of love (kAmadeva)”.

ramA is “a wife or mistress, or the goddess of fortune (lakshmI)”, “good luck, fortune, splendour, opulence, or pomp”.

rAma is “causing rest” or “dark or black”, “a black bird or crow”, or “pleasing, pleasant, charming, lovely, or beautiful”, indicating “a lover, pleasure, joy, or delight”.

rAmI is “darkness or night” ~ synonymous with rAtrI or rAtri, as “the bestower”, “the season of rest”, “the darkness or stillness of night” ~ and rAtrau or rAtryAm is “at night or by night”.

rAmA is “a beautiful woman, any young and charming woman, a mistress or wife, any woman, a dark woman, or a woman of low origin”

rAmA is “vermilion, red earth, or gorocanA (a bright yellow orpiment prepared from the bile of cattle, employed in painting and dyeing, and in marking the tilaka on the forehead, and also used as a sedative or tonic)”.

rAmam = kuSTham = kuSThikA (“the contents of the entrails”) or kakundaram (“the cavities of the loins”).

kuS means “to tear asunder, pinch, force or draw out, extract, knead, test, gnaw, or nibble”.

kusha is “a grass with long pointed stalks (Poa cynosuroides)” or “a rope (made of kusha grass) used for connecting the yoke of a plough with the pole”.

kushA is “a ploughshare”, and kusham is “water”.

kusha is “a son of rAma”.

And kusha may also be “wicked, depraved, mad, or inebriate”.

kushavat is “covered with kusha grass”, and kushAvatI is “residence of kusha (the son of rAma)”.

kushala (also kuSala or kusala) is “right, proper, suitable, good, well, healthy, in good condition, prosperous, fit, competent, able, skilful, clever, or conversant”.

kushalam is “welfare, well-being, prosperous condition, happiness, benevolence, virtue, cleverness, competence, or ability”.

kushalavat is “well or healthy”, and kushalavAc is “eloquent”.

The kushalAs are the “brAhmaNAs of kushadvIpa”, and the kushalau represent the ashvinau.

The kushalavau or kushIlavau are “the two sons of rAma (kusha and lava)”.

And kushAmba is “a son of kusha (and founder of the town kaushAmbI)”.

kushi is “an owl”, and kushika is “squint-eyed”, and kushin is “furnished with kusha grass”.

kushikas is “a ploughshare”, or “the father of vishvAmitra”, and the kushikAs are his descendants.

kosala or koshala is another name for ayodhyA, the capital of kosala; and kosalajA (“daughter of kosala”) is the mother of rAma.

And rAma is kaushikapriya (“dear to kaushika” ~ i.e. to indra, and the descendents of vishvAmitra, the son of kushika).

kushIlam is “a bad character”, and kushIlava is “a bard, herald, actor, mime, or newsmonger”, and kushI or kushIlava are names of vAlmIki, who brought up kusha and lava (or lavaNa) as his own, and taught them to repeat the rAmAyaNa at assemblies.

lava is “cutting, reaping, mowing, plucking, gathering, loss, destruction, or sport”.

lAva is “cutting, cutting off, plucking, reaping, gathering, cutting to pieces, destroying, or killing”.

lavana is “a cutter or reaper”, and lavanam is “the act of cutting, reaping , mowing, etc.” or “an implement for cutting, a sickle, knife, etc.”.

lavaNa is “saline, salt, briny, tasteful, graceful, handsome, or beautiful”, and lavaNA is “lustre, grace, or beauty”.

lakshmaNa is “having marks or signs or characteristics, endowed with auspicious signs or marks, lucky, or fortunate”, and lakshmaNam is “a mark, sign, or token”. And what is the “auspicious mark” if not the shiva liÑgam?

sita is “white, pale, bright, light (as the waxing moon), candid, or pure”.

And sita is “bound, tied, or fettered, joined, or accompanied”.

sitA is “white sugar, moonlight, a handsome woman, or spirituous liquor”.

sItA is “a furrow” or “the track or line of a ploughshare”, and she is ayonijA, born through the sacrifice of janaka. And sItA also indicates “spirituous liquor”.

rAma dAsharathi is descended from dasharatha (“having ten chariots”), who is the son of navaratha.

And dasharatham is “the body”.

dasharAtra is “a ceremony lasting ten days”, and navarAtra is “a ceremony lasting nine days”, and the rAmAyaNa and rAmAyaNI are observed simultaneously over nine nights and ten days, as the autumnal harvest festival and celebration of the destruction of rAvaNa on the tenth day of dashera, which is “mordacious, injuring or attacking or killing (especially when asleep). And dasheram is “a beast of prey”.

The blood-thirsty devImAhAtmyam is chanted throughout the navarAtrika, and on the ninth day goats are sacrificed, and on the tenth day human effigies are burned; the rAmAyaNa is performed, and the wicker man is rAvaNa, whose destruction is associated with joyous revelry.

And what of Dionysos, “the god of wine and revelry” ?

The mother of Dionysos was Semele (“the earth mother”), and his consort was Aphrodite, and their son was Priapos. And Dionysos is characteristically worshipped with the dithyrambos (“a wild chorus”). And from this thriambos (“hymn to Dionysos”), comes the Etruscan triumpus and Roman triumphus (“achievement or success, particularly marked by a procession for the victorious general”).

At the festival of Dionysos at Athens, the trilogia (a series of three related tragedies) was performed.

The erect liÑgam is the signature of Dionysos, and the worship of Dionysos included orgia (“secret rites”), involving extravagant dancing, singing, and drinking, but the term has degenerated in English to broadly indicate “any licentious revelry”.

There is much similarity between rudra (as hara, the hunter) and Dionysus Zagreus (god of the orphic mystery cults), and rustic shaiva worship is just like that of the Dionysiacs.

In some accounts, Dionysus is the son of the god Zeus and the mortal woman Semele, who is killed by Zeus’ lightning bolts while Dionysus is still in her womb. Dionysus is rescued and undergoes a second birth from Zeus himself, after developing in his thigh. Zeus then gives the infant to some nymphs to be raised.

And in others, Dionysus is first the son of Zeus and Persephone, but the Titans rip him to shreds and eat all but his heart, which is saved and implanted by Zeus in Semele, who bears a new Dionysus Zagreus.

And Dionysus is thus known as “twice born”.

According to Megasthenes, there were dionysiac festivals in honor of shiva in the ashvaka region (north of the Kabul River), where vineyards were abundant.

The Dionysiac festival involved drinking wine as a necessary ritual, conveying immortality, and shiva is likewise always associated with intoxication. Both the Bacchants and the keshin followers of rudra shiva dance and sing and behave like lunatics, often revolting the common man’s sense of decency.

See also: soma and the keshin (http://www.geocities.com/sarabhanga/keshin.html)

shiva is known as unmattaveSapracchanna ~ “clad in the wild dress of a lunatic” ~ and gaNesha is unmattavinAyaka ~ “leader of the lunatics”.

Euripides calls Dionysos “the bull-horned god”, and “a snake with darting heads”, and the most important offering to Dionysos was a bull.

Other names of Dionysos include, Bacchos, Iacchos, Lyaios, Lenaios, Evios, Bromios, Liber, and Thriambos.

According to Arrian:


In the country traversed by Alexander between the Kophen and the Indus, they say that there stood the city of Nysa, which owed its foundation to Dionysos.

[Akubhi, the president of Nysa, told Alexander:] “Dionysos called our city Nysa, and our land the Nysaian, after the name of his nurse Nysa; and he besides gave to the mountain which lies near the city the name of Meros.”

Alexander confirmed the inhabitants of Nysa in the enjoyment of their freedom and their own laws; and he praised their laws because the government of their state was in the hands of the aristocracy.

Anyone who hears these stories is free to believe them or disbelieve them as he chooses.

The Indians worship the other gods, and especially Dionysos, with cymbals and drums, which he had taught them to use. He also taught them the satyric dance, called the kordax.

Nysa was called Nagara or Dionysopolis by Ptolemy, which is most likely the ancient capital of nagarahAra (near Jalalabad and the Khyber Pass).

Nearby is Mount Elum, otherwise known as Ram Takht (“the throne of Rama”), which fits the descriptions given of Meros.

According to Strabo:


In Sophocles, a person is introduced speaking the praises of Nysa, as a mountain sacred to Bacchos: ‘Whence I beheld the famed Nysa, the resort of Bacchanalian bands, which the horned Iacchos makes his most pleasant and beloved retreat, where no bird’s clang is heard.’ From such stories they gave the name Nysaians to some imaginary nation, and called their city Nysa, founded by Bacchus; a mountain above the city they called Meros, alleging as a reason for imposing these names that the ivy and vine grow there, although the latter does not perfect its fruit, for the bunches of grapes drop off before maturity in consequence of the excessive rains.

The country lying between these two rivers [the Kophes and the Indus] is occupied by the Astakenoi, Masianoi, Nysaioi, and the Hippasioi.

According to Pliny:


Most writers assume that the city Nysa, and also the mountain Merus, consecrated to the god Bacchus, belong to India. This mountain whence rose the fable that Bacchus issued from the thigh (meros) of Jupiter. They also assign to India the country of the Aspagani, so plentiful in vines, laurel, and box, and all kinds of fruitful trees that grow in Greece.

On Nysa, a mountain in India, there are lizards 24 feet in length, and in colour yellow or purple or blue.

According to observations of the rAma lIlA recorded by Bishop Heber in his Indian Journal:


The two brothers Rama and Luchman, in a splendid palkee, were conducting the retreat of their army. The divine Huniman, as naked an almost as hairy as the animal he represented, was gamboling before them, with a long tail tied round his waist, a mask to represent the head of a baboon, and two great pointed clubs in his hands. His army followed, a number of men with similar tails and masks, their bodies dyed with indigo, and also armed with clubs.

I was never so forcibly struck with the identity of Rama and Bacchus. Here were before me Bacchus, his brother Ampelus, the Satyrs, smeared with wine-lees, and the great Pan commanding them.




And then Jones' statement that Rama, "the son of Cush, who might have established the first regular government in this part of Asia."

You have not said anything about this statement either, except simply quoting the passage

Well, Jones says nothing more on the matter ~ do you expect me to invent something ???

William Jones was simply using the biblical name (“Raamah, son of Cush”) and relating that to the known characteristics of rAma, the inheritor of koshala and most famous “son of kusha” whose own son is named kusha.

Genesis 10:


Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.

And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

And the sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

And the sons of Cush: Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba, and Dedan.

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

Out of that land went forth Asshur, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,

And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,

And Pathrusim, and Casluhim (out of whom came Philistim), and Caphtorim.

And Canaan begat Sidon his first born, and Heth,

And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,

And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,

And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.

And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.

The children of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

And the children of Aram: Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.

And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah,

And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah,

And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba,

And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan.

And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east.

These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

Genesis 11:


And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah;

And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber;

And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg;

And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu;

And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug;

And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor;

And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah;

And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.




while you have laughed at Swamiji's words about the black and white picture of Rama that Jones printed!

I was laughing more at the pictures themselves, which in some editions are rather poor. But the illustration of shrI rAma (reproduced in the attached image) should certainly not be considered as offensive or derogatory!

343

Swami Prakshananda exclaims:


Hold your breath, if you have a regard for Bhagwan Ram…

Along with the above writings an ugly black and white picture with a footnote “Rama” is printed. The picture shown there appears to have been specially created to look like a worldly stern Muslim ruler with a sword in his hand.

Can you (or anyone) explain such remarks made about an 18th century depiction of Lord Rama? ~ except as a deliberate attempt to generate scorn and derision regarding the author so that anything he might have said becomes tainted with the same impression of corruption and the whole work and all of its implications can be simply dismissed.

I am quite familiar with this tactic!




Who is this Cush and what way is he related to Rama or Dionysos for that matter?

Armed with such a limited understanding of the matter, do you not think that it is rather premature and arrogant to suggest that Sir William Jones’ understanding represents the “height of idiocy” ???

sarabhanga
16 March 2008, 04:17 AM
I think you have formed your opinion in haste about Swamiji just from one of his statements, while you would like to weigh Jones' words by looking at all the aspects of what he wrote, which seems to me to be prejudicial.

When we discuss the seemingly endless adharma done to our religion, culture and nation by the mlecchas, it is natural that emotions run high, judgments are clouded and opinions are biased in the expressions of Hindu commons like me or my friends here. I think and wish that people like you who has wisdom and enlightenment should handle the inputs and outputs of the less wise and enlightened with sympathy, empathy and compassion and not on rigid technicalities or with stern and ironical pronouncements and emotical face-showing.

According to Swami Prakashananda:


Such a heinous plot was launched against India with two main objectives: (1) To destroy Bhartiya religion, and (2) to mutilate its history. One can imagine the depth of the evilness of their intentions of which Jones was the main implementor.

“On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India” by Jones … in which Jones had tried to demean all the forms of the Hindu God and Goddess in a very humiliating manner and tried to condemn Their Divine greatness by all means.

His writing clearly shows his atheistic views and a deep scorn for the Indian religion in his heart where he tries to demean all the forms of our God by comparing them with the fictitious mythological figures of the Greeks and Romans and calling everyone heathens.

Could you believe that such an important figure of the 18th century has gone so low as to compare the most important supreme Divine Goddesses of Vaikunth with the imaginary non-vegetarian goddesses of Homeric origin?

But, hold your breath, if you have a regard for Bhagwan Ram you may be shocked to read his outrageous statement …

Now come to his main statement about Bhagwan Ram and Dionysus, which is like synonymizing divinely blissful and glorious daylight with the demonically scary spooky and darkest midnight.

Along with the above writings an ugly black and white picture with a footnote “RAMA” is printed. There were a lot of beautiful pictures of Bhagwan Ram and also of other forms of God, but the picture shown there appears to have been specially created to look like a worldly stern Muslim ruler with a sword in his hand.

Dionysus was an imagined god of wine and worldly enjoyment. The demented hilarity of the followers of the demonic Dionysian cult involved frenzied and worse than cannibalistic savagery when intoxicated men killed some animal as a sport and frantically ate its raw flesh as a blessing of Dionysus and drank the blood of the animal.

I think Jones has established a record of how low a person could go down in deliberately degrading the religion of another nation. However, it appears that their meat eating passion was so great that they could not think of anything better. Even in their New Testament at God’s dinner party, the meat of horses and the meat of captains and men were served and an angel called out to all the flying fowls to come and enjoy the leftover varieties of human meat.

Every historian knows that the Greek and Roman gods were the imaginary figures created by the primitive people of those countries.

And I still think that, when it comes to degrading the religions of other nations, Swami Prakashananda has established his own record !

sarabhanga
16 March 2008, 06:26 PM
partial Christian position: "Do not spill pearls to swines"

Namaste Atanu,

How does this “partial Christian position” differ from the traditional Hindu position ?

saidevo
16 March 2008, 09:59 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

Your dissection of the name 'Rama' to its syllabic roots with a surgeon's precision may be technically correct, but is lifeless, because it does not bring out the divinity of Rama.

For instance, in your eagerness to equate the name and God Rama with the Greek mythological wine-god Dionysus alias Bacchus, you have failed to highlight these facts about the root syllables of the name Rama:



Saint Thygaraja sings of Sri Rama:

ziva mantramunaku ma jIvamu
mAdhava mantramunaku rA jIvamu(y)I
vivaramu telisina ghanulaku mrokkeda
vitaraNa guNa tyAgarAja vinuta (evarani)

"For the ziva mantra (OM namazzivAya), 'ma' is the soul; for the viSNu mantra (OM NamO nArAyanAya), 'rA' is the soul; I salute these great personages who understand this detail. O Lord having the quality of munificience praised by this tyAgarAja!"

There are only two mantras, in the whole of Hindu religious tradition, which get the epithet 'taaraka' (that which can ferry you across); and these are the syllable OM, and the name Rama.

The two most popular mantras of worship in Sanatana Dharama are: AUM namo nArAyaNa and AUM namaH shivAya.

The name rAmaH is obtained from the jIva-akShara live-giving-letters of the above two mantras.

rA comes from the eight-lettered mantra of Narayana.
maH comes from the five-lettered mantra of Shiva.

Without the syllable rA, the Vishnu mantra becomes na ayanAya, meaning 'not going on'.
Without the syllable ma, the Shiva mantra becomes na sivAya, meaning 'not for good'.

Thus the word Rama combines in itself the life-giving letters of the two most important mantras of the Hindu religion.

• The syllable 'ra' the moment it comes out of the tongue purifies you from all the sins by the very fact that it comes from the mantra of the protector, Naaraayana.

• On the other hand, the syllable 'ma' burns all the sins by the very fact that it comes from the mantra of Siva, the destroyer.

This is therefore the King of all mantras, the holy jewel of mantras, as is rightly sung by Saint Thiagaraja, who is one of the most famous recent historical examples of persons who attained the jivan-miukti stage - the released stage even while alive - by the sheer repetition of the Rama name.

Sources:
http://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.com/2007/07/thyagaraja-kriti-evarani-nirnayinchiri.html
http://www.geocities.com/profvk/mantra3.html


What does your derivation of the name Rama say and imply of the great God, worshipped by millions of Hindus?

• rAma is the equivalent of kAma(deva) because both are "pleasing, pleasant, charming, lovely, or beautiful".

• rAma is "dark or black", so also is kAma that deludes and hides the eyes.

• When you chant the name rAma as rAmA, you invoke "a beautiful woman, any young and charming woman, a mistress or wife, any woman, a dark woman, or a woman of low origin"!

• lokAbhirAmam shrIrAmam may be taken to mean "Rama is favourite with the world and people because rAmam is the equivalent of kakundaram and thus appeals to the "the cavities of the loins".

• rAmAyaNa describes the ayana ("goings") of Rama, who is only such a personality.

The above implications may be far-fetched extrapolations; but they are there--ready for use and exploitation by a nAstika like Viramani who has inherited the Hindu and brahmin-baiting philosophy of EV Ramasamy Naicker; or a western scholar who studies Hinduism only for the sake of comparative study of religions; or worst, a Christian missionary.

There is a proverb in Tamil Ettu suraikkAi karikku udavAtu, which means, "The bottle gourd on paper won't do to make the curry." I am sorry that your dissections and derivations in the name of scholarship and comparative study do not bring out the true divinity and devotion, which is the undercurrent of all paths of sAdhana in Sanatana Dharma.

sarabhanga
17 March 2008, 01:10 AM
Your dissection of the name 'Rama' to its syllabic roots with a surgeon's precision may be technically correct, but is lifeless, because it does not bring out the divinity of Rama.

rAmAyaNa is a patronymic formation, meaning “son of rama” ~ just as nArAyaNa is the “son of nara”.

The cerebral rakAra (i.e. r) arises from agni and is associated with kAla.

ra indicates “motion or vibration, and thus giving and taking”.

ra is “fire, light, and love”.

ram is the agni bIjam and the rakta bIjam.

rakta is “impassioned, devoted, and beloved”.

rakta is “fire”, and raktam is “blood”

ram means “to set at rest, abide, make happy, and rejoice”.

rama is the active imperative form of ram.

rama is “pleasing, delighting, rejoicing, and beloved”, indicating “joy and love”.

ramA is lakshmI, or “good fortune and splendour”.

rAma is “causing rest” or “dark” or “beautiful”, indicating “joy and love” and both “the beloved and the lover”.

rAmI is “darkness or night” ~ synonymous with rAtrI, as “the bestower”, “the season of rest”, “the darkness or stillness of night”.

rAmA is both “a beautiful woman” and “the red earth”.




For instance, in your eagerness to equate the name and God Rama with the Greek mythological wine-god Dionysus alias Bacchus, you have failed to highlight these facts about the root syllables of the name Rama:

Not at all! In your own eagerness to find fault, you have ignored the stated fact that:

The veritable dasharatham of rAma is the rAmAyaNa, which is “the son of rama”.

And rama is “the imperative of ram”, which is “the seed of rakta”, which is agni !




What does your derivation of the name Rama say and imply of the great God, worshipped by millions of Hindus?

What does your omission of the words quoted above imply ?

Anyone who does not recognize the utmost divinity of agni can hardly be described as Hindu !




The above implications may be far-fetched extrapolations; but they are there--ready for use and exploitation by a nAstika or a western scholar who studies Hinduism only for the sake of comparatie study of religions; or worst, a Christian missionary.

“The bottle gourd on paper won't do to make the curry.”

I am sorry that your dissections and derivations in the name of scholarship and comparative study do not bring out the true divinity and devotion, which is the undercurrent of all paths of sAdhana in Sanatana Dharma.

What is the point in any discussion when the most important details of what anyone has to say are completely ignored and the argument goes in leaps and bounds from one irrelevant detail to another in ever expanding circles from the original theme ?

Before giving ANY particular explanation to questions posed at the start of this thread, I happened to mention “Proto-Indo-European” in passing, and everything else has been completely ignored or distorted, and certainly distracted, with current argument raging over the political implications of the length of the nose depicted in a single 18th century illustration of Lord Rama !!!

You may not find ultimate divinity in the eternal conception of agni, and you may choose to ignore my mention of agni in first place in the “dissection” of rAma. But there would be no life without agni, and certainly no veda ~ so your point is moot.

I have explained my apparent omission of “life” from the diverse implications of rAma and the rAmAyaNa, and I have explained how Sir William Jones could have seen similarities between the Dionysiac mysteries and the rAmAyaNa, especially from an understanding of saMskRtam and from direct observation of the navarAtra festival in India. And I have explained how rAma could be conceived as the “son of kusha”. All of which is really beside the point of this thread.

It was NOT my idea to bring Swami Prakashananda’s opinions into this discussion, but my simple question to you remains unanswered, with only implications of the worthlessness of my answers in reply !!!

saidevo
17 March 2008, 12:56 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga and others.



Armed with such a limited understanding of the matter, do you not think that it is rather premature and arrogant to suggest that Sir William Jones' understanding represents the "height of idiocy" ???


With all humility I admit that I have only a limited understanding of the comparative study of religions, philology and history and that I have even less knowledge about Jones' works. I appreciate your elaborate quotes from Sir William 'Oriental' Jones. I also did dig up some references about him. I am convinced that Jones had extensive scholarship and am inclined to change my opinion about suggesting his 'idiocy' (by which I actually meant ignorance, 'avidyA').

Yet, for all his great scholarship, I feel and subscribe to the view that Jones had a hidden agenda and subjected all his excellent knowledge to that end and tailored it suitably to aid and abet the conversion and subversion policies of his colleagues--the colonnial ruling class of which he was part and parcel of. You may or may not agree with my opinion here which is not only based on the study of Swami Prakashananda, but from other links I have given below. I leave it to the other members for their own consideration.

Jones, in fact, can surely be called the pioneer of the ideas of PIE (Proto-Indo-European language) and the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory), though these conspiratorial concepts and designs in those names came up later. Here are some details of Jones' hidden agenda:

Jones was first and foremost an orthodox Christian who declared:

• "The tenet of our church cannot without profaneness be compared with that of the Hindus, which has only an apparent resemblance to it, but a very different meaning." (Sastry, p.86)

and this was his hidden agenda (emphasis mine):

• "We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other Church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the prophets, particularly of Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which tne predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by sts natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason." (Sastry, p.86-87).

Here is a picture of the marble panel in The Chapel of Oxford College that depicts Jones with a missionary skull cap, with brahmins cowering at his feet:
344

With these quotes, anyone can have a clear idea about the whole purpose of his extensive work (to which he gave a facade of scholarship but actually worked with vested interests behind the scenes) and can understand as to

• why he did not find correspondences between Krishna and Jesus Christ (or his God, the Father), as did some of the other western scholars and still continue to do, in their lives and teachings. Had Jones done it, he would have surely lost his job, probably branded as a hertic and possibly subjected to an inquisition!

In fact, if anyone had noticed, Jones was careful to omit the 'h' in the natural Anglican spelling of Krishna's name and spell it as Crishna, not Chrisna, (compare the names Christ, Christian, Christopher, Christina)--lest he should give the Church any impression of possible heresy in his scholarship!

So much for the scholarship and quest for true knowledge of a knighted, noble man, lauded and eulogized by most western scholars and many Hindu pundits. Perhaps I was not after all wrong in having called this noble, nescient! Nescience or not, Jones surely lacked the guts of a true seeker of wisdom that should have been the hallmark of such scholarship and study.

• the reason for his undermining the divinity of Hindu gods by finding all sorts of correspondences of their origin and function with the Greek and Roman pagan gods; the hidden agenda here was to prove that the Hindu Gods were also extinct like the Greek and Roman gods, so can never be equated with the Christian Gods--the Father or the Son;

• the reason for Jones' iniative on the suggestion of a common ancestor for the languages Sanskrit, Greek and Latin (though he did admit that Sanskrit was used in many parts of the world and subsequently lost its status as a vernacular) and suggest a PIE (in which PIE he let the Eurpoeans keep their fingers and bring all the tongues to be kept waiting for the f(l)avour and taste of the PIE)!

• the reason for Jones dismissing the Hindu cycles of Time in four yugas as "untenable because the first three ages were merely mythological--Krita, Treta, Dwapara--and the fourth was traceable no earlier than probably 2000 B.C." (Sastry, p.87)

• the reason for Jones' fictitious connection of Sandracottus with King Chandra Gupta Maurya (1541-1507) (for details, check http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/33_two_more.htm)

• how Jones paved the way for the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) that came up later, through his suggestion of PIE that gave birth to the idea of Proto-Indo-European people (Aryans). For Jones' own contribution to the AIT, check Bible and the Aryan Race Theory at http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html

Tailpeace: Some opinions about Sir William Jones

• "Unwittingly, even the church in England has become a part of this conspiracy. The Chapel of Oxford College took the lead, and presented William Jones wearing a skull-cap on a marble panel, showing Jones to be a missionary, though he had earlier been lauded as a Sanskrit-lover, as the Father of Indo-European Linguistics attesting to the supremacy of Europeans and their burden to civilize many colonies including the Indian colony. Hindus were shown on the marble panel cowering at the feet of William Jones. See photo at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kalyan97/detail?.dir=57ce&.dnm=e3ad.jpg " (or at http://www.hinduwisdom.info/aryan_invasion_theory.htm)

• "It was Sir William Jones who misrepresented Vedic allegories and conjured up the Aryan race by Immaculate Conception-a seedless parenthood, that is to say, one without any foundation. Yet his colonial brethren embraced the spurious offspring with the fervour of new converts; the rest is history." (http://www.lycos.com/info/aryan-invasion-theory--rig-veda.html)

With this presentation, I would like to end the topic of Jones and his PIE, which is considered as a digression from the purpose of the thread by Sarabhanga (though I differ in that opinion), and request him to proceed with his work.

(Source: 'Sastry' for the book Sir William Jones: Interpreter of India to the West by Prof.LSR.Krishna Sastry)

sarabhanga
19 March 2008, 03:21 AM
With this presentation, I would like to end the topic of Jones and his PIE, which is considered as a digression from the purpose of the thread by Sarabhanga (though I differ in that opinion), and request him to proceed with his work.

Namaste Saidevo,

Despite the admitted digression, I cannot allow the host of unsubstantiated allegation and falsehood to stand uncontested by facts.




I am convinced that Jones had extensive scholarship and am inclined to change my opinion about suggesting his 'idiocy' (by which I actually meant ignorance, 'avidyA').

Yet, for all his great scholarship, I feel and subscribe to the view that Jones had a hidden agenda and subjected all his excellent knowledge to that end and tailored it suitably to aid and abet the conversion and subversion policies of his colleagues--the colonnial ruling class of which he was part and parcel of. You may or may not agree with my opinion here. I leave it to the other members for their own consideration.

Jones, in fact, can surely be called the pioneer of the ideas of PIE (Proto-Indo-European language) and the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory), though these conspiratorial concepts and designs in those names came up later. Here are some details of Jones' hidden agenda:

Jones was first and foremost an orthodox Christian …




No doubt he was a Christian by denomination, and an Englishman by nationality, and his initial impressions from 1784 are not perfect in every detail.



William Jones was simply using the biblical name (“Raamah, son of Cush”) and relating that to the known characteristics of rAma, the inheritor of koshala and most famous “son of kusha” whose own son is named kusha.


And the sons of Cush: Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba, and Dedan. [Genesis 10.7]



William Jones introduced his essay with the following important declarations:

The comparison, which I proceed to lay before you needs be very superficial; partly from my short residence in Hindustan, and partly from my want of complete leisure for literary amusements.

We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another; since Gods of all shapes and dimensions may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but, when features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.

It is my design, in this Essay, to point out such resemblance between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus. Nor can there be room to doubt of a great similarity between their religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phoenicia, Syria; to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and even islands of America: while the Gothick system, which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe, was not merely similar to those of Greece and Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images apparently Asiatic.

From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world.

Disquisitions concerning the manners and conduct of our species in early times, or indeed at any time, are always curious at least, and amusing; but they are highly interesting to such as can say of themselves, ‘We are men, and take an interest in all that relates to mankind’.

It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.

And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.

Having no system of my own to maintain, I shall not pursue a very regular method, but shall take all the Gods, of whom I discourse, as they happen to present themselves; beginning, however, like the Romans and the Hindus, with Janus or Ganesa.


And the last lines do consider the evangelical Christian urge for conversion and “saving souls”, not in any hidden agenda, but openly published (presumably in response to questions from his colleages, rather than as a declaration of the secret aim of his life’s work).



The Hindus … would readily admit the truth of the Gospel; but they contend, that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras: the deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God, to whom several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by its natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason.

His suggestion was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit. But after two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable, and I have already suggested why that might be!

What did those who actually knew Sir William Jones have to say about him?

From a Discourse delivered at a Meeting of the Asiatick Society, in Calcutta, on 22nd of May, 1794, by the Honourable Sir John Shore.


I shall begin with mentioning his wonderful capacity for the acquisition of languages, which has never been excelled. In Greek and Roman literature, his early proficiency was the subject of admiration and applause; and knowledge of whatever nature, once obtained by him, was ever afterwards progressive.

At an early period of life his application to Oriental literature commenced; he studied the Hebrew with ease and success, and many of the most learned Asiaticks have the candour to avow, that his knowledge of Arabick and Persian was as accurate and extensive as their own : he was also conversant in the Turkish idiom, and the Chinese had even attracted his notice.

It was to be expected, after his arrival in India, that he would eagerly embrace the opportunity of making himself master of the Sanscrit; and the most enlightened professors of the doctrines of Brahma confess with pride, delight, and surprise, that his knowledge of their sacred dialect was most critically correct and profound. The Pandits, who were in the habit of attending him, when I saw them after his death, at the public Durbar, could neither suppress their tears for his loss, nor find terms to express their admiration at the wonderful progress he had made in their sciences.

But the judgement of Sir William Jones was too discerning to consider language in any other light than as the key to science, and he would have despised the reputation of a mere linguist. Knowledge and truth, were the object of all his studies, and his ambition was to be useful to mankind; with these views, he extended his researches to all languages, nations, and times.

Such were the motives that induced him to propose to the Government of this country, what he justly denominated a work of national utility and importance, the compilation of a copious digest of Hindu and Mahommedan Law, from Sanskrit and Arabick originals, with an offer of his services to superintend the compilation, and with a promise to translate it.

And his experience, after a short residence in India, confirmed his sagacity had anticipated, that without principles to refer to, in a language familiar to the judges of the courts, adjudications among the natives must too often be subject to an uncertain and erroneous exposition, or willful misinterpretation of their laws.

To the superintendence of this work, which was immediately undertaken at his suggestion, he assiduously devoted those hours which he could spare from his professional duties. After tracing the plan of the digest, he prescribed its arrangement and mode of execution, and selected from the most learned Hindus and Mahommedans fit persons for the task of compiling it.

Encouraged by his applause, the Pandits persecuted their labours with cheerful zeal, to a satisfactory conclusion.

During the course of this compilation, and as auxiliary to it, he was led to study the works of Menu, reputed by the Hindus to be the oldest, and holiest of legislatures; and finding them to comprise a system of religious and civil duties, and of law in all its branches, so comprehensive and minutely exact, that it might be considered as the Institutes of Hindu law, he presented a translation of them to the Government of Bengal. During the same period, deeming no labour excessive or superfluous that tended, in any respect, to promote the welfare or happiness of mankind, he gave the public an English version of the Arabick text of the Sirajiyah, or Mahommedan Law of Inheritance, with a Commentary.

To these learned and important works, so far out of the road of amusement, nothing could have engaged his application, but that desire which he ever professed, of rendering his knowledge useful to his nation, and beneficial to the inhabitants of these provinces.

The students of Persian literature must ever be grateful to him, for a grammar of that language, in which he has shown the possibility of combining taste, and elegance, with the precision of a grammarian; and every admirer of Arabick poetry, must acknowledge his obligations to him, for an English version of the seven celebrated poems, so well known by the name of Moallakat, from the distinction to which their excellence had entitled them, of being suspended in the temple of Mecca : I should scarcely think it of importance to mention, that he did not disdain the office of Editor of a Sanskrit and Persian work, if it did not afford me an opportunity of adding, that the latter was published at his own expense and was sold for the benefit of insolvent debtors. A similar application was made of the produce of the Sirajiyah.

Of his lighter productions, the elegant amusements of his leisure hours, comprehending hymns on the Hindu mythology, poems consisting chiefly of translations from the Asiatick languages, and a version of Sacontala, an ancient Indian drama, it would be unbecoming to speak in a style of importance which he did not himself annex to them. They show the activity of a vigorous mind, its fertility, its genius, and its taste.

Of the ability and conscientious integrity, with which he discharged the functions of a Magistrate, and duties of Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature in his settlement, the public voice and public regret bear ample and merited testimony. The same penetration which marked his scientific researches, distinguished his legal investigations and decisions; and he deemed no inquiries burthensome, which had for their object substantial justice under the rules of law.

His addresses to the jurors are not less distinguished for philanthropy, and liberality of sentiment, than for just expositions of the law, perspicuity, and elegance of diction; and his oratory was as captivating as his arguments were convincing.

I have already enumerated attainments and works, which, from their diversity and extent, seem far beyond the capacity of the most enlarged minds; but the catalogue may yet be augmented. To a proficiency in the languages of Greece, Rome, and Asia, he added the knowledge of the philosophy of those countries, and of every thing curious and valuable that had been taught in them. The doctrines of the Academy, the Lyceum, or the Portico, were not more familiar to him than the tenets of the Vedas, the mysticism of the Sufis, or the religion of the ancient Persians; and whilst with a kindred genius he perused with rapture the heroic, lyrical, or moral compositions of the most renowned poets of Greece, Rome, and Asia, he could turn with equal delight and knowledge, to the sublime speculations, or mathematical calculations, of Barrow and Newton. With them also, he professed his conviction of the truth of the Christian religion.

We all recollect, and can refer to, the following sentiments in his eighth anniversary discourse.

“Theological inquiries are no part of my present subject; but I cannot refrain from adding, that the collection of tracts, which we call from their excellence the Scriptures, contain, independently of a divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books, that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom. The two parts, of which the Scriptures consist, are connected by a chain of compositions, which bear no resemblance in form or style to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning; the antiquity of those compositions no man doubts, and the unstrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, as a solid ground of belief that they were genuine predictions, and consequently inspired.”
There were in truth few sciences, in which he had not acquired considerable proficiency; in most, his knowledge was profound. The theory of music was familiar to him; nor had he neglected to make himself acquainted with the interesting discoveries lately made in Chymistry.

His last and favourite pursuit, was the study of Botany, which he originally began under the confinement of a severe and lingering disorder, which with most minds, would have proved a disqualification from any application. It constituted the principle amusement of his leisure hours. In the arrangements of Linnaeus he discovered system, truth, and science, which never failed to captivate and engage his attention.

The last composition which he read in this Society, was a description of select Indian plants.

It cannot be deemed useless or superfluous to inquire, by what arts or method he was enabled to attain a degree of knowledge almost universal, and apparently beyond the powers of man, during a life little exceeding forty-seven years.

The faculties of his mind, by nature vigorous, were improved by constant exercise; and his memory, by habitual practice, had acquired a capacity of retaining whatever had once been impressed upon it. To the unextinguished ardour for universal knowledge, he joined a perseverance in the pursuit of it, which subdued all obstacles; his studies began with the dawn, and during the intermissions of professional duties, were continued throughout the day; reflection and meditation strengthened and confirmed what industry and investigation had accumulated. It was a fixed principle with him, from which he never voluntarily deviated, not to be deterred by any difficulties that were surmountable, from prosecuting to a successful termination, what he had once deliberately undertaken.

But what appears to me more particularly to have enabled him to employ his talents so much to his own and the public advantage, was the regular allotment of his time to particular occupations, and a scrupulous adherence to the distribution which he had fixed; hence, all his studies were pursued without interruption or confusion : nor can I here omit remarking, what may probable have attracted your observation as well as mine, the candour and complacency with which he gave his attention to all persons, of whatsoever quality, talents, or education; he justly concluded, that curious or important information, might be gained even from the illiterate; and whenever it was to be obtained, he sought and seized it.

Of the private and social virtues of our lamented President, our hearts are the best records; to you, who knew him, it cannot be necessary for me to expatiate on the independence of his integrity, his humanity, probity, or benevolence, which every living creature participated; on the affability of his conversation and manners, or his modest unassuming deportment : nor need I remark, that he was totally free from pedantry, as well as from arrogance and self-sufficiency, which sometimes accompany and disgrace the greatest abilities; his presence was the delight of every society, which his conversation exhilarated and improved; and the public have not only to lament the loss of his talents and abilities, but also that of his example.

And consider what Jones himself actually had to say:

From ‘Discourse on the Hindus’ by Sir William Jones’ (1786)


The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet being to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists : there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

Of the Indian Religion and Philosophy … it will be sufficient in this dissertation to assume, what might be proved beyond controversy, that we now live among the adorers of those very deities, who were worshipped under different names in old Greece and Italy, and among the professors of those philosophical tenets.

The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Dersana Sastra, comprise all the metaphysicks of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum; nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing, that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India.

We are told by the Grecian writers, that the Indians were the wisest of nations; and in moral wisdom, they were certainly eminent.

The Philosopher, whose works are said to include a system of the universe founded on the principle of Attraction and the Central position of the sun, is named Yavan Acharya, because he had travelled, we are told, into Ionia : if this be true, he might have been one of those, who conversed with Pythagoras; this at least is undeniable, that a book on astronomy in Sanskrit bears the title of Yavana Jatica, which may signify the Ionic Sect; nor is it improbable, that the names of the planets and Zodiacal stars, which the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldest Indian records, were originally devised by the same ingenious and enterprising race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled; the race, who, as Dionysius describes them, “first assayed the deep, and wafted merchandize to coasts unknown, those, who digested first the starry choir, their motions marked, and called them by their names.”

Of these cursory observations on the Hindus, which it would require volumes to expand and illustrate, this is the result : that they had an immemorial affinity with the old Persians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, the Phenicians, Greeks, and Tuscans, the Scythians or Goths, and Celts, the Chinese, Japanese, and Peruvians; whence, as no reason appears for believing, that they were a colony from any one of those nations, or any of those nations from them, we may fairly conclude that they all proceeded from some central country, to investigate which will be the object of my future Discourses.

From ‘Discourse on the Persians’ (1789)


It has been proved by clear evidence and plain reasoning, that a powerful monarchy was established in Iran long before the Assyrian government; that it was in truth a Hindu monarchy.

The Brahmans could never have migrated from India to Iran, because they are expressly forbidden by their oldest existing laws to leave the region, which they inhabit at this day.

From ‘Discourse on the Origin and Families of Nations’ (1792)


That Nature, of which simplicity appears a distinguishing attribute, does nothing in vain, is a maxim in philosophy; and against those, who deny maxims, we cannot dispute; but is vain and superfluous to do by many means what may be done by fewer, and this is another axiom received into courts of judicature from the schools of philosophers : we must not, therefore, says our great Newton, admit more causes of natural things, than those, which are true, and succinctly account for natural phenomena; but it is true, that one pair at least of every living species must at first have been created; and that one human pair was sufficient for the population of our globe in a period of no considerable length.

If the human race then be, as we may confidently assume, of one natural species, they must have proceeded from one pair.

On that part of it, to which our united researches are generally confined, we see five races of men peculiarly distinguished … but we have reduced them to three, because we can discover no more, that essentially differ in language, religion, manners, and other known characteristicks : now those three races, how variously soever they may at present be dispersed and intermixed, must (if the preceding conclusions be justly drawn) have migrated originally from a central country, to find which is the problem proposed for solution. Suppose it solved; and give any arbitrary name to that centre.

Nor does the argument in any form rise to demonstration, which the question by no means admits : it amounts, however, to such a proof, grounded on written evidences and credible testimony, as all mankind hold sufficient for decisions affecting property, freedom, and life.

The most ancient history of that race, and the oldest composition perhaps in the world, is a work in Hebrew, which we may suppose at first, for the sake of our argument, to have no higher authority than any other work of equal antiquity, that the researches of the curious had accidentally brought to light : it is ascribed to Musah; for so he writes his own name, which, after the Greeks and Romans, we have changed into Moses; and, though it was manifestly his object to give an historical account of a single family, he introduced it with a short view of the primitive world, and his introduction has been divided, perhaps improperly, into eleven chapters.

Three sons of the just and virtuous man, whose lineage was preserved from the general inundation, travelled, we are told, as they began to multiply, in three large divisions variously subdivided : the children of Ya’fet seem, from the traces of Sklavonian names, and the mention of their being enlarged, to have spread themselves far and wide, and to have produced the race, which, for want of a correct appellation, we call Tartarian; the colonies, formed by the sons of Ham and Shem, appear to have been nearly simultaneous; and, among those of the latter branch, we find so may names incontestably preserved at this hour in Arabia, that we cannot hesitate in pronouncing them the same people whom hitherto we have denominated Arabs; while the former branch, the most powerful and adventurous of whom were the progeny of Cush, Misr, and Rama (names remaining unchanged in Sanskrit, and highly revered by the Hindus), were, in all probability, the race, which I call Indian, and to which we may now give any other name, that may seem more proper and comprehensive.

Now these primeval events are described as having happened between the Oxus and the Euphrates, the mountains of Caucasus and the borders of India.

When we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin: and not to depart from the example before us, when we see Cush or Cus (for the Sanskrit name is variously pronounced) among the sons of Brahma, that is, among the progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree preserved in the Ramayan; when we meet with his name again in the family of Rama; when we know, that the name is venerated in the highest degree, and given to a sacred grass, described as a Poa by Koenig, which is used with a thousand ceremonies in the oblations to fire, ordained by Menu to form the sacrificial zone of the Brahmans, and solemnly declared in the Veda to have sprung up soon after the deluge, whence the Pauranicks consider it as the bristly hair of the boar which supported the globe; when we add, that one of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas of this earth, has the same appellation, we can hardly doubt that the Cush of Moses and Valmic was the same personage and an ancestor of the Indian race.

That the branch of Ya’fet was enlarged in many scattered shoots over the north of Europe and Asia, diffusing themselves as far as the western and eastern seas, and, at length in the infancy of navigation, beyond them both : that they cultivated no liberal arts, and had no use of letters, but formed a variety of dialects, as their tribes were variously ramified; that, secondly, the children of Ham, who founded … the monarchy of the first Chaldeans, invented letters, observed and named the luminaries of the firmament, calculated the known Indian period of four hundred and thirty-two thousand years, or an hundred and twenty repetitions of the saros, and contrived the old system of Mythology … that they were dispersed at various intervals and in various colonies over land and ocean; that the tribes of Misr, Cush, and Rama settled in Africk and India.

From ‘Discourse on the Philosophy of the Asiaticks’ (1794)


I have already had occasion to touch on the Indian metaphysicks of natural bodies according to the most celebrated of the Asiatick schools, from which Pythagoreans are supposed to have borrowed many of their opinions; and, as we learn from Cicero, that the old sages of Europe had an idea of centripetal force and a principle of universal gravitation (which they never attempted to demonstrate), so I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the neverfading laurels of our immortal Newton, that the whole of his theology and part of his philosophy may be found in the Vedas and even in the works of the Sufis : that most subtil spirit, which he suspected to pervade natural bodies, and, lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulsion, the emission, reflection, and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a fifth element endued with those very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the Sun, thence called Aditya, or the Attractor.

From ‘Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words in Roman Letters’


A perfect language would be that, in which every idea, capable of entering the human mind, might be neatly and emphatically expressed by one specific word, simple if the idea were simple, complex, if complex; and on the same principle a perfect system of letters ought to contain one specific symbol for every sound used in pronouncing the language to which they belonged : in this respect the old Persian or Zend approaches to perfection … and the same may indubitably be said of the Devanagari system; which, as it is more naturally arranged than any other, shall here be the standard of my particular observations on Asiatick letters. Our English alphabet and orthography are disgracefully and almost ridiculously imperfect; and it would be impossible to express either Indian, Persian, or Arabian words in Roman characters, as we are absurdly taught to pronounce them.




Here is a picture of the marble panel in The Chapel of Oxford College that depicts Jones with a missionary skull cap, with brahmins cowering at his feet:

Have you not read the caption to this panel?

“HE FORMED A DIGEST OF HINDU AND MOHAMMEDAN LAWS”
William Jones was appointed as a Supreme Court Judge in Bengal, and he immediately realized that India could not be governed by an imposed judiciary with no understanding of local laws and customs. So he employed Hindu and Muslim scholars to select and explain the relevant texts, the whole body of which, at the time, remained unknown to the British.

Jones was NOT a missionary. What defines his cap as a “missionary cap”? Why do the Brahmins who are reading sacred texts have their own heads covered in the image?

And Brahmins “cowering at his feet” ??? Complete nonsense !! Two of them are engrossed in their own reading, and one has his back turned, apparently deep in thought. No character in this panel is bowing to anything but Wisdom itself!




With these quotes, anyone can have a clear idea about the whole purpose of his extensive work (to which he gave a facade of scholarship but actually worked with vested interests behind the scenes)

Your quotes and images prove nothing more than a paranoid imagination!




Why he did not find correspondences between Krishna and Jesus Christ (or his God, the Father), as did some of the other western scholars and still continue to do, in their lives and teachings. Had Jones done it, he would have surely lost his job, probably branded as a hertic and possibly subjected to an inquisition!

More hysterical nonsense! Jones was employed as a Judge, and the Asiatick Society was his own creation. And he did find and mention correspondences between Krishna and Christ !

From ‘On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India’


Each sect must be justified by its own faith and good intentions : this only I mean to inculcate, that the tenet of our church cannot without profaneness be compared with that of the Hindus, which has only an apparent resemblance to it, but a very different meaning.

One singular fact, however, must not be suffered to pass unnoticed. That the name of Crishna, and the general outline of his story, were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly.




In fact, if anyone had noticed, Jones was careful to omit the 'h' in the natural Anglican spelling of Krishna's name and spell it as Crishna, not Chrisha, (compare the names Christian, Christopher, Christina)--lest he should give the Church any impression of possible heresy in his scholarship!

So much for the scholarship and quest for true knowledge of a knighted, noble man, lauded and eulogized by most western scholars and many Hindu pundits.

Perhaps I was not after all wrong in having called this noble, nescient! Nescience or not, Jones surely lacked the guts of a true seeker of wisdom that should have been the hallmark of such scholarship and study.

You were absolutely wrong in calling Sir William Jones nescient! And what do you mean by “lacking the guts of a true seeker of wisdom” ???

And Jones himself fully explains the reasoning behind his orthography.

From ‘Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words in Roman Letters’


We come now to the first consonant of the Indian system, in which a series of letters, formed in the throat near the root of the tongue, properly takes the lead. This letter has the sound of our k and c in the words king and cannibal; but there will be great convenience in expressing it uniformly by the second of those marks, whatever be the vowel following it. The Arabs, and perhaps all nations descended from Sem, have a remarkable letter founded near the palate with a hard pressure, not unlike the cawing of a raven, as in the word Kasim; and for this particular sound the redundance of our own alphabet supplies us with a useful symbol : the common people in Hhejaz and Egypt confound it, indeed with the first letter of Gabr, and the Persians only add to that letter the hard palatine found in the Arabian kaf; but, if we distinguish it invariably by k, we shall find the utility of appropriating our c to the notation of the Indian letter now before us. The third letter of the Roman alphabet was probably articulated like the kappa of the Greeks; and we may fairly suppose, that Cicero and Cithara were pronounced alike at Rome and at Athens.

Nescient is “holding that only material phenomena can be known and knowledge of spiritual matters or ultimate causes is impossible”, or simply “ignorant, uneducated, lacking knowledge or sophistication, unlearned and incapable of understanding complex issues”.

Sir William Jones was certainly not “nescient” (in any sense) ~ but those who mindlessly condemn the whole of his work surely are!




the reason for his undermining the divinity of Hindu gods by finding all sorts of correspondences of their origin and function with the Greek and Roman pagan gods; the hidden agenda here was to prove that the Hindu Gods were also extinct like the Greek and Roman gods, so can never be equated with the Christian Gods--the Father or the Son;

How does finding correspondences in any way undermine the divinity of Hindu Gods?

And what makes you so sure that the Grecian and Roman deities, and I presume the whole of the Celtic and Gothic pantheon, is extinct? This is the most arrogant presumption of all. Based on nothing but ignorance !!




the reason for Jones' iniative on the suggestion of a common ancestor for the languages Sanskrit, Greek and Latin (though he did admit that Sanskrit was used in many parts of the world and subsequently lost its status as a vernacular) and suggest a PIE (in which PIE he let the Eurpoeans keep their fingers and bring all the tongues to be kept waiting for the f(l)avour and taste of the PIE)!

The reason has been given above, very plainly from Jones’ own words.




the reason for Jones dismissing the Hindu cycles of Time in four yugas as "untenable because the first three ages were merely mythological--Krita, Treta, Dwapara--and the fourth was traceable no earlier than probably 2000 B.C." (Sastry, p.87)

Jones did not agree with the vast extent of time suggested by the Hindu understanding of yugas. But that does NOT invalidate everything he said on a myriad of other matters.




the reason for Jones' fictitious connection of Sandracottus with King Chandra Gupta Maurya (1541-1507).


From ‘Discourse on Asiatick History, civil and natural’ (1793)


The jurisprudence of the Hindus and Arabs being the field, which I have chosen for my peculiar toil, you cannot expect, that I should greatly enlarge your collection of historical knowledge; but I may be able to offer you some occasional tribute, and I cannot help mentioning a discovery, which accident threw in my way.

To fix the situation of Patalibothra (for there may have been several of the name), which was visited and described by Megasthenes had always appeared a very difficult problem; for, though it could not have been Prayaga, where no ancient metropolis ever stood, nor Canyacubja, which has no epithet at all resembling the word used by the Greeks, nor Gaur, otherwise called Lacshmanavati … yet we could not confidently decide that it was Pataliputra, though names and most circumstances nearly correspond, because that renowned capital extended from the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges to the site of Patna, while Patalibothra stood at the junction of the Ganges and Erannaboas, which the accurate M. D’Anville had pronounced to be the Yamuna : but this only difficulty was removed, when I found a classical Sanskrit book, near two thousand years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden-armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannaboas, or the river with a lovely murmur, was in fact another name for the Sona itself, though Magasthenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This discovery led to another of greater moment; for Chandragupta, who, from a military adventurer, became like Sandracottus, the sovereign of upper Hindustan, actually fixed the seat of his empire at Pataliputra, where he received ambassadors from foreign princes, and was no other than that very Sandracottus who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator; so that we have solved another problem, to which we before alluded, and may in round numbers consider the twelve and three hundredth year before Christ …

Megasthenes was a friend of Seluekos Nikator, and his ambassador at the Court of Sandrokottos, king of Palibothra. And Demarchos was ambassador at the same court in the days of the son and successor of Sandrokottos.

According to Arrian:


Megasthenes resided with Siburtios the satrap of Arakhosia, and who tells us that he frequently visited Sandrakottos the king of the Indians.

But even Megasthenes, as far as appears, did not travel over much of India, though no doubt he saw more of it than those who came with Alexander, the son of Philip, for, as he says, he had interviews with Sandrokottos, the greatest king of the Indians.

According to Plutarch:


Androkottos presented Seleukos with 500 elephants, and overran and subdued the whole of India with an army of 600,000 men.

According to Appian:


And having crossed the Indus, he [Seleukos] warred with Androkottos, the king of the Indians, who dwelt about that river, until he entered into an alliance and a marriage affinity with him.

According to Strabo:


Megasthenes, who was in the camp of Sandrokottos, which consisted of 400,000 men, did not witness on any day thefts reported which exceeded the sum of 200 drachmai, and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything from memory.

According to Athenaios:


Phylarchos says that among the presents which Sandrokoptos, the king of the Indians, sent to Seleukos were certain powerful aphrodisiacs.

Sandrokottos overthrew the Macedonian rule in the Punjab, and ascended the throne of Magadha, whence he established the Mauryan empire.

The Asiatick Society found reference to Chandragupta as founder of the Mauryan dynasty of Magha, and ascertained the date of his coronation as about 312 BC

Seleukos Nikator, the king of Syria, advanced eastwards to recover the territory previously held. The exact date of the expedition is uncertain, but it is presumed to have occurred around 305 BC.

A treaty was signed, in which Seleukos received 500 elephants and relinquished any claim to Greek conquests beyond the Indus, and also gave up even more territories west of the Indus, along with his own daughter, to Sandrokoptos.

At Pataliputra, the Sisunagas were succeeded by the Nandas in 370 BC, and the Mauryas succeeded them in 315 BC. And the last Nanda king is called Xandrames by the Greeks, and Agrammes by Curtius. While Indian authorities name him as Dhanananda, Nanda, Mahapadma, or Hiranyagupta. And Xandramas is an exact Greek transliteration of the Sanskrit Chandramas.

More baseless comments from Swami Prakashananda:


Two more attempts of Jones to destroy the Divinity of Sanskrit language and to mutilate Bhartiya history.

His second attempt was to mutilate the Divine greatness of Sanskrit language, and his third attempt was to create a fiction…

This was his third attempt to destroy the culture and the history of Bharatvarsh by mutilating the historic dates.

To establish that that Chandragupt belonged to the Maurya dynasty, he mentions about some poem by Somdev which tells about the murder of Nand and his eight sons by Chandragupt in order to usurp the kingdom. In this way Jones created a fictitious connection between Chandragupt Maurya and Sandracottus.

Anyone could see that these people were adamantly prone to fabricating false statements all the time just to demean our culture …

All the things referred to in this speech are absolutely wrong and outrageous.

Somdev was just a story writer of fun and frolics.

He never described Chandragupt Maurya as the usurper of the kingdom.

There was never a written book in India that lasted for 2,000 years.

Now we know that there was no such book that was 2,000 years old. Moreover, Jones never produced or showed that book to anyone, even to his close associates. It was simply his word of mouth to relate the fake story of a 2,000 year old book.

Everyone who has read Megasthenes knows that his writings are most unreliable. But Jones found an excuse to quote the writings of Megasthenes.

Jones, deliberately overlooking these facts and taking an excuse of the unfounded writings of a worldly disdained gossiper, Megasthenes, fabricated the story of matching Chandragupt Maurya with Sandracottus.

In fact, he was doing his job as he was told by his superiors. However, these scheming strategies show the malignancy of their promoters, the people of East India Company.

The non-credibility of the statements of Megasthenes.

Nothing Jones said about Sandrakottus is refuted by Swami Prakashananda, who simply dismisses Jones, Megasthenes, and even Somadeva, as fools with nothing true to offer.

And what did Jones have to say about Somadeva?


The popular tales of the Hindus, in prose and in verse, contain fragments of history; and even in their dramas we may find as many real characters and events, as a future age might find in our own plays … for example, a most beautiful poem by Somadeva, comprising a very long chain of instructive and agreeable stories, begins with the famed revolution at Pataliputra by the murder of King Nanda, with his eight sons, and the usurpation of Chandragupta; and the same revolution is the subject of a tragedy in Sanskrit, entitled the Coronation of Chandra, the abbreviated name of that able and adventurous usurper.

The identity of Chandragupta and Sandrokoptos does NOT depend on anything written by the poet Somadeva (whose work Swami Prakashananda dismisses as “just a story of fun and frolics”).

The important document is actually a Buddhist Chronicle, and examining the Greek accounts of Sandrokoptos and Buddhist accounts of Chandragupta the two are found to agree on all main points.

According to the Buddhist accounts, his father was the ruler of a small valley in the Himalayas, called Maurya because of its many peacocks. He was killed resisting an invasion, and his wife fled to Pataliputra, where she gave birth to a son, who was called Chandragupta.

A Brahmin from Taxila, named Chanakya, was residing in Pataliputra. He was mortally offended by king Dhanananda, and vowed to avenge the insult. Learning that he was of royal descent, Chanakya adopted the young Chandragupta and trained him in the Kshatriya arts. And when grown, he was put in command of body of troops, but their attempted rebellion against Dhanananda was suppressed and Chandragupta fled to the desert, where he collected a new force and returned from the Panjab to invade Magadha, which he captured. The unpopular king Dhanananda was killed, and Chandragupta Maurya ascended the throne.




how Jones paved the way for the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) that came up later, through his suggestion of PIE that gave birth to the idea of Proto-Indo-European people (Aryans).

Jones gave birth to the idea of Aryans ??? What about the Vedas ???




Unwittingly, even the church in England has become a part of this conspiracy. The Chapel of Oxford College took the lead, and presented William Jones wearing a skull-cap on a marble panel, showing Jones to be a missionary, though he had earlier been lauded as a Sanskrit-lover, as the Father of Indo-European Linguistics attesting to the supremacy of Europeans and their burden to civilize many colonies including the Indian colony. Hindus were shown on the marble panel cowering at the feet of William Jones.

Jones was NOT a missionary. He was a Supreme Court judge!

And if the Church of England didn’t know anything about Jones’ cunning plan to destroy Hinduism and conquer India for Anglican Christianity, he must have kept it very secret!




It was Sir William Jones who misrepresented Vedic allegories and conjured up the Aryan race by Immaculate Conception-a seedless parenthood, that is to say, one without any foundation. Yet his colonial brethren embraced the spurious offspring with the fervour of new converts; the rest is history

Conjured up the Aryan race? Once again, what about the Vedas ???

saidevo
19 March 2008, 10:56 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

Alright, I give up, because I have no time/energy/inclination to puruse my study of Sir William 'Oriental' James, the most profound oriental scholar and the noblest soul the world has ever seen; moreover, it digresses me far away from whatever little svAdhyAya (study) I am pursuing.

Nevertheless, I am not fully convinced by your repetitive verbiage on Jones' pANDityam (scholarship) that all his excellence transcended his Orthodox Christianhood (Christian hood too), and his explicitly professed mission of conversion and subversion. If I were to remain less enlightened for lack of knowledge about Jones and his excellence, let it be so. If that would increase the avidyA (nescience) in me, I am prepared to suffer that avastha (state).

I have a small suggestion for you, take it or leave it as you deem fit. Below is a selection of some of your comments on this thread (emphasis mine), with my observations against each given within brackets in blue color.



Post dated 19 Mar 2008
Your quotes and images prove nothing more than a paranoid imagination!

More hysterical nonsense! Jones was employed as a Judge, and the Asiatick Society was his own creation. And he did find and mention correspondences between Krishna and Christ!

(Jones might be such an important personality in your estimation, but this type of accusatory expletives that border on personal attack are neither expected from a Sannyasi nor required to be spilled against the less enlighted mortals who do not see the truth you see in him or his work.)

Post dated 17 Mar 2008
Anyone who does not recognize the utmost divinity of agni can hardly be described as Hindu!

(Had you said instead, "Every Hindu should recognize the utmost divinity of agni in all his/her karmic, ritual and spiritual activities", that would have been the words from a guru!)

Post dated 16, 17 Mar 2008
I can only suggest that anyone who denies the comparison has never witnessed the navarAtra in rural (especially northern) India!

Not at all! In your own eagerness to find fault, you have ignored the stated fact that:

The veritable dasharatham of rAma is the rAmAyaNa, which is "the son of rama".
And rama is "the imperative of ram", which is "the seed of rakta", which is agni!

(I saw some relations in the above terms you have spelled out, but am now less inclined to ask you to rather spell it out more explicitly in layman's language, lest I should be told in retaliation that all the information is already there and it is plain nescience not to see the connections! I am sure most members here in HDFpuri would agree with me on this.)



I would only reiterate my earlier request to you.



Post dated 16 Mar 2008
When we discuss the seemingly endless adharma done to our religion, culture and nation by the mlecchas, it is natural that emotions run high, judgments are clouded and opinions are biased in the expressions of Hindu commons like me or my friends here. I think and wish that people like you who has wisdom and enlightenment should handle the inputs and outputs of the less wise and enlightened with sympathy, empathy and compassion and not on rigid technicalities or with stern and ironical pronouncements and emotical face-showing.


Kindly proceed now on with your noble work of exposing the Sanatana Dharmic roots of the Christian scriptures and teachings. On that score, we are all ears for you.

sarabhanga
21 March 2008, 02:10 AM
Namaste Saidevo,

Beginning with your own personal attacks on Sir William Jones:


Sir William Jones, who studied Sanskrit and wanted to discredit its greatness and mislead the western scholars, as part of the divide-and-conquer policy of the British colonial rule in India.

Isn’t it laughable … such a monstrous lie that confused and misled the sincere intelligentsia of the whole world?

The height of idiocy in his comparison was this passage …

Jones’ comparison of Rama to a Greek wine god (which comparison only smacks of ignorance and idiocy to me).

The whole purpose of his extensive work, to which he gave a facade of scholarship …

So much for the scholarship and quest for true knowledge of a knighted, noble man.

Perhaps I was not after all wrong in having called this noble, nescient!

Jones surely lacked the guts of a true seeker of wisdom.

And your false impressions, such as:


Jones with a missionary skull cap, with brahmins cowering at his feet.

Why he did not find correspondences between Krishna and Jesus Christ …

Jones was careful to omit the 'h' in the spelling of Krishna's name … lest he should give the Church any impression of possible heresy.

Jones’ fictitious connection of Sandracottus with King Chandra Gupta Maurya.


Backed up by quotes from and links to the sustained personal attack on William Jones by Swami Prakashananda:


One can imagine the depth of the evilness of their intentions of which Jones was the main implementer.

Jones had tried to demean all the forms of the Hindu God and Goddess in a very humiliating manner and tried to condemn Their Divine greatness by all means.

His writing clearly shows his atheistic views and a deep scorn for the Indian religion in his heart where he tries to demean all the forms of our God.

Could you believe that such an important figure of the 18th century has gone so low …

I think Jones has established a record of how low a person could go down in deliberately degrading the religion of another nation. However, it appears that their meat eating passion was so great that they could not think of anything better.

Two more attempts of Jones to destroy the Divinity of Sanskrit language and to mutilate Bhartiya history.

His second attempt was to mutilate the Divine greatness of Sanskrit language, and his third attempt was to create a fiction…

This was his third attempt to destroy the culture and the history of Bharatvarsh by mutilating the historic dates.

It was simply his word of mouth to relate the fake story of a 2,000 year old book.


My main intention in the last few posts was to temper such personal attacks and unnecessarily inflammatory language.

Just as Jesus should not be blamed for wrongs later committed by misguided Christians, and Einstein should not be blamed for death and suffering later caused by nuclear weapons, it seems unfair to blame and vilify William Jones for the later behavior of evangelical Christians and even the rise of Nazism!

Swami Prakashananda’s style has apparently been widely praised, and you obviously find it quite acceptable, but there seems to be some kind of double standard here, where Swami Prakashananda can make the most vehement personal attack on William Jones, but the slightest hint of emotion from Baba Sarabhanga is deemed inappropriate. :confused:




I have a small suggestion for you …



Your quotes and images prove nothing more than a paranoid imagination!

More hysterical nonsense! Jones was employed as a Judge, and the Asiatick Society was his own creation. And he did find and mention correspondences between Krishna and Christ!

This type of accusatory expletives that border on personal attack are neither expected from a Sannyasi nor required to be spilled against the less enlighted mortals who do not see the truth …

I have NOT used any expletives !!!

Where in any of my posts do you find a curse, or any profane or obscene expression?

A paranoid imagination is one having delusions of persecution or conspiracy, and most of the numerous points made in your closing presentation were false accusations. Since you have been finding conspiracy in places where surely none exists, the term paranoid seemed appropriate. “Paranoid” is certainly NOT a profanity. And since I was referring to the excerpts quoted from other sources, unless you are claiming ownership of those quoted words, my own comment cannot be taken as any kind of personal attack !




Why he did not find correspondences between Krishna and Jesus Christ?

Had Jones done it, he would have surely lost his job, probably branded as a heretic and possibly subjected to an inquisition!




More hysterical nonsense!

Again, “hysterical” is not a profanity. I used the term “hysterical” (i.e. “marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion”) in response to your comment about Jones losing his job, being branded as a heretic, and being subjected to an inquisition, for supposedly not finding any correspondence between Krishna and Christ. And such an excessively emotional response does seem both hysterical and nonsensical, especially since (as previously mentioned) Jones DID find clear correspondences ~ but he explained them away as borrowings from Christianity when found in more recent Hindu texts, or veritable prophesies of Christianity when found in more ancient Hindu texts.






Anyone who does not recognize the utmost divinity of agni can hardly be described as Hindu!

Had you said instead, “Every Hindu should recognize the utmost divinity of agni in all his/her karmic, ritual and spiritual activities”, that would have been the words from a guru!

Well, I stand by the original statement, which was made in response to your unwarranted comments about my “lifeless dissection” of Rama, and the question of consequent implications.




Your dissection of the name 'Rama' to its syllabic roots with a surgeon's precision may be technically correct, but is lifeless, because it does not bring out the divinity of Rama.

For instance, in your eagerness to equate the name and God Rama with the Greek mythological wine-god Dionysus alias Bacchus, you have failed …

What does your derivation of the name Rama say and imply of the great God, worshipped by millions of Hindus?

After removing any mention of divinity or life-essence from my words, you quoted a few (misunderstood) fragments back and asked what the mangled remains of my analysis must imply! :(

And then finishing off with:



“The bottle gourd on paper won’t do to make the curry.”

Your dissections and derivations in the name of scholarship and comparative study do not bring out the true divinity and devotion, which is the undercurrent of all paths of sAdhana in Sanatana Dharma.


And now you feign agreement that Sir William Jones is “the most profound oriental scholar and the noblest soul the world has ever seen”.

You don’t have to love the man, or even like him, but the only reason I entered into a discussion of William Jones was to stop false accusations and personal attacks on a remarkable individual who was highly respected by everyone that knew him (Christian, Muslim, and Hindu).

And one could argue that Sir William Jones should never have been lording over Bengal as any kind of magistrate or judge, but given that the British were already governing the country, the involvement of a man like William Jones was surely a comparative blessing.




I am not fully convinced by your repetitive verbiage on Jones' pANDityam (scholarship) that all his excellence transcended his explicitly professed mission of conversion and subversion.

By “his explicitly professed mission of conversion and subversion”, I assume you are referring to the last lines of ‘On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India’, which do consider the evangelical Christian urge for conversion and “saving souls”, not in any hidden agenda, but openly published (presumably in response to questions from his colleagues, rather than as a declaration of the secret aim of his life’s work).



The Hindus … would readily admit the truth of the Gospel; but they contend, that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras: the deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God, to whom several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by its natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason.

His suggestion was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit. But after two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable, and I have already suggested why that might be.

The introduction given by Jones is equally (if not more) important to note:



It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.

And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.

Having no system of my own to maintain, I shall not pursue a very regular method, but shall take all the Gods, of whom I discourse, as they happen to present themselves; beginning, however, like the Romans and the Hindus, with Janus or Ganesa.


As I noted earlier, perhaps it would be more useful (if one disagrees) to consider where the message is actually in error, rather than simply poking a stick at the messenger.




When we discuss the seemingly endless adharma done to our religion, culture and nation by the mlecchas, it is natural that emotions run high, judgments are clouded and opinions are biased.

I still don’t see why any such discussion is actually required in a rational consideration of the likely origins of the story and teachings of Jesus! :dunno:

sarabhanga
21 March 2008, 02:44 AM
The veritable dasharatham of rAma is the rAmAyaNa, which is "the son of rama".
And rama is "the imperative of ram", which is "the seed of rakta", which is agni!

I saw some relations in the above terms you have spelled out …

rAmAyaNa is a patronymic formation, meaning “son of rama” ~ just as nArAyaNa is the “son of nara”.

The cerebral rakAra (i.e. r) arises from agni and is associated with kAla.

ra indicates “motion or vibration, and thus giving and taking”, and ra is “fire, light, and love”.

ram is the agni bIjam and the rakta bIjam, and ram means “to set at rest, abide, make happy, and rejoice”.

rakta is “impassioned, devoted, and beloved”, rakta is “fire”, and raktam is “blood”.

rama is the active imperative form of ram, and rama is “pleasing, delighting, rejoicing, and beloved”, indicating “joy and love”.

ramA is lakshmI, or “good fortune and splendour”.

rAma is “causing rest” or “dark” or “beautiful”, indicating “joy and love” and both “the beloved and the lover”.

rAmI is “darkness or night” ~ synonymous with rAtrI, as “the bestower”, “the season of rest”, “the darkness or stillness of night”.

rAmA is both “a beautiful woman” and “the red earth”.

rAma dAsharathi is descended from dasharatha (“having ten chariots”), who is the son of navaratha (“having nine chariots”).

And dasharatham is “the body”.

dasharAtra is “a ceremony lasting ten days”, and navarAtra is “a ceremony lasting nine days”, and the rAmAyaNa and rAmAyaNI are observed simultaneously over nine nights and ten days, as the autumnal harvest festival and celebration of the destruction of rAvaNa on the tenth day of dashera, which is “mordacious, injuring or attacking or killing (especially when asleep). And dasheram is “a beast of prey”.

The blood-thirsty devImAhAtmyam is chanted throughout the navarAtrika, and on the ninth day goats are sacrificed, and on the tenth day human effigies are burned; the rAmAyaNa is performed, and the wicker man is rAvaNa, whose destruction is associated with joyous revelry.

The veritable dasharatham of rAma is the rAmAyaNa, which is “the son of rama”. And rama is “the imperative of ram”, which is “the seed of rakta”, which is agni !

sarabhanga
23 March 2008, 10:00 PM
saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAk of brahmA.

Rgveda 10.125

[vAk praising vAk]

ahaM rudrebhirvasubhishcarAmyahamAdityairuta vishvadevaiH |
ahammitrAvaruNobhA bibharmyahamindrAgnI ahamashvinobhA || 1 ||

I travel with the rudrAs and the vasavas, with the AdityAs and all-gods I wander.
I hold aloft both varuNa and mitra, indra and agni, and the ashvinau.

ahaM somamAhanasambibharmyahaM tvaSTAramuta pUSaNambhagam |
ahaM dadhAmi draviNaM haviSmate suprAvye yajamAnAya sunvate || 2 ||

I cherish and sustain high-swelling soma, and tvaSTar I support, pUSan, and bhaga.
I load with wealth the zealous sacrificer, who pours the juice and offers his oblation.

ahaM rASTrI saMgamanI vasUnAM cikituSI prathamA yajñiyAnAm |
tAmmA devA vyadadhuH purutrA bhUristhAtrAmbhUryAveshayantIm || 3 ||

I am the queen, the gatherer-up of treasures, most thoughtful, first of those who merit worship.
Thus gods have established me in many places, with many homes to enter and abide in.

mayA so annamatti yo vipashyati yaH prANiti ya IM shRNotyuktam |
amantavo mAM ta upa kshiyanti shrudhi shruta shraddhivaM te vadAmi || 4 ||

Through me alone all eat the food that feeds them, each man who sees, breathes, hears the word outspoken.
They know it not, but yet they dwell beside me. Hear, one and all, the truth as I declare it.

ahameva svayamidaM vadAmi juSTaM devebhiruta mAnuSebhiH |
yaM kAmaye taMtamugraM kRNomi tambrahmANaM tamRSiM taM sumedhAm || 5 ||

I, verily, myself announce and utter the word that gods and men alike shall welcome.
I make the man I love exceeding mighty, make him a sage, a RSi, and a brahmANa.

ahaM rudrAya dhanurA tanomi brahmadviSe sharave hantavA u |
ahaM janAya samadaM kRNomyahaM dyAvApRthivI A vivesha || 6 ||

I bend the bow for rudra that his arrow may strike and slay the hater of devotion.
I rouse and order battle for the people, and I have penetrated earth and heaven.

ahaM suve pitaramasya mUrdhanmama yonirapsvantaH samudre |
tato vi tiSThe bhuvanAnu vishvotAmUM dyAM varSmaNopa spRshAmi || 7 ||

On the world’s summit, I bring forth the father: my home is in the waters, in the ocean.
Thence I extend over all existing creatures, and touch even yonder heaven with my forehead.

ahameva vAta iva pra vAmyArabhamANA bhuvanAni vishvA |
paro divA para enA pRthivyaitAvatI mahinA sambabhUva || 8 ||

I breathe a strong breath like the wind and tempest, the while I hold together all existence.
Beyond this wide earth and beyond the heavens, I have become so mighty in my grandeur.





The reason for Jones’ initiative on the suggestion of a common ancestor for the languages Sanskrit, Greek and Latin …

The reason has been given very plainly from Jones’ own words:


When features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.

If it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world.

When we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin: and not to depart from the example before us, when we see Cush or Cus (for the Sanskrit name is variously pronounced) among the sons of Brahma, that is, among the progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree preserved in the Ramayan; when we meet with his name again in the family of Rama; when we know, that the name is venerated in the highest degree, and given to a sacred grass, described as a Poa by Koenig, which is used with a thousand ceremonies in the oblations to fire, ordained by Menu to form the sacrificial zone of the Brahmans, and solemnly declared in the Veda to have sprung up soon after the deluge, whence the Pauranicks consider it as the bristly hair of the boar which supported the globe; when we add, that one of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas of this earth, has the same appellation, we can hardly doubt that the Cush of Moses and Valmic was the same personage and an ancestor of the Indian race.

That the branch of Ya’fet was enlarged in many scattered shoots over the north of Europe and Asia, diffusing themselves as far as the western and eastern seas, and, at length in the infancy of navigation, beyond them both : that they cultivated no liberal arts, and had no use of letters, but formed a variety of dialects, as their tribes were variously ramified; that, secondly, the children of Ham, who founded … the monarchy of the first Chaldeans, invented letters, observed and named the luminaries of the firmament, calculated the known Indian period of four hundred and thirty-two thousand years, or an hundred and twenty repetitions of the saros, and contrived the old system of Mythology … that they were dispersed at various intervals and in various colonies over land and ocean; that the tribes of Misr, Cush, and Rama settled in Africk and India.

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet being to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists : there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

A perfect language would be that, in which every idea, capable of entering the human mind, might be neatly and emphatically expressed by one specific word, simple if the idea were simple, complex, if complex; and on the same principle a perfect system of letters ought to contain one specific symbol for every sound used in pronouncing the language to which they belonged : in this respect the old Persian or Zend approaches to perfection … and the same may indubitably be said of the Devanagari system; which, as it is more naturally arranged than any other, shall here be the standard of my particular observations on Asiatick letters. Our English alphabet and orthography are disgracefully and almost ridiculously imperfect; and it would be impossible to express either Indian, Persian, or Arabian words in Roman characters, as we are absurdly taught to pronounce them.

Of the Indian Religion and Philosophy … it will be sufficient in this dissertation to assume, what might be proved beyond controversy, that we now live among the adorers of those very deities, who were worshipped under different names in old Greece and Italy, and among the professors of those philosophical tenets.

The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Dersana Sastra, comprise all the metaphysicks of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum; nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing, that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India.

We are told by the Grecian writers, that the Indians were the wisest of nations; and in moral wisdom, they were certainly eminent.

It has been proved by clear evidence and plain reasoning, that a powerful monarchy was established in Iran long before the Assyrian government; that it was in truth a Hindu monarchy.

The Philosopher, whose works are said to include a system of the universe founded on the principle of Attraction and the Central position of the sun, is named Yavan Acharya, because he had travelled, we are told, into Ionia : if this be true, he might have been one of those, who conversed with Pythagoras; this at least is undeniable, that a book on astronomy in Sanskrit bears the title of Yavana Jatica, which may signify the Ionic Sect; nor is it improbable, that the names of the planets and Zodiacal stars, which the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldest Indian records, were originally devised by the same ingenious and enterprising race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled; the race, who, as Dionysius describes them,


“first assayed the deep, and wafted merchandize to coasts unknown, those, who digested first the starry choir, their motions marked, and called them by their names.”

Of these cursory observations on the Hindus, which it would require volumes to expand and illustrate, this is the result : that they had an immemorial affinity with the old Persians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, the Phenicians, Greeks, and Tuscans, the Scythians or Goths, and Celts, the Chinese, Japanese, and Peruvians; whence, as no reason appears for believing, that they were a colony from any one of those nations, or any of those nations from them, we may fairly conclude that they all proceeded from some central country.

If the human race then be, as we may confidently assume, of one natural species, they must have proceeded from one pair.

On that part of it, to which our united researches are generally confined, we see five races of men peculiarly distinguished … but we have reduced them to three, because we can discover no more, that essentially differ in language, religion, manners, and other known characteristicks : now those three races, how variously soever they may at present be dispersed and intermixed, must (if the preceding conclusions be justly drawn) have migrated originally from a central country, to find which is the problem proposed for solution. Suppose it solved; and give any arbitrary name to that centre.

Three sons of the just and virtuous man, whose lineage was preserved from the general inundation, travelled, we are told, as they began to multiply, in three large divisions variously subdivided : the children of Ya’fet seem, from the traces of Sklavonian names, and the mention of their being enlarged, to have spread themselves far and wide, and to have produced the race, which, for want of a correct appellation, we call Tartarian; the colonies, formed by the sons of Ham and Shem, appear to have been nearly simultaneous; and, among those of the latter branch, we find so may names incontestably preserved at this hour in Arabia, that we cannot hesitate in pronouncing them the same people whom hitherto we have denominated Arabs; while the former branch, the most powerful and adventurous of whom were the progeny of Cush, Misr, and Rama (names remaining unchanged in Sanskrit, and highly revered by the Hindus), were, in all probability, the race, which I call Indian, and to which we may now give any other name, that may seem more proper and comprehensive.

Now these primeval events are described as having happened between the Oxus and the Euphrates, the mountains of Caucasus and the borders of India.




My entire question is why should there be a PIE in lieu of Sanskrit, if Sanskrit is the oldest of ALL the languages in the world and the entire comparison and relation is attuned to Sanskrit.



If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ “Proto-Indo-European” or “Proto-Aryan”.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Indo-European will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

The term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages. And everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit.

The “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ “Indo-Iranian” (or “Indo-Aryan”) and “European”. The now extinct Anatolian (including Hittite) branch was established by about 2,000 BC. And Sanskrit permeates all of the languages grouped as “Indo-European”.

The Veda was revealed to various Rishis over a long period of time, but they are songs which have been sung for thousands of years, learned by heart as a sacred tradition and passed over countless generations from father to son (with no mistakes allowed). And the songs are virtually self-composed from the very nature of Sanskrit language and the natural history of reality itself (the two are intimately bound). The whole history of Creation may be found in the fundamental principles of mathematics and geometry and language.

Sanskrit has always existed, implicit in (or as) the very matrix of Creation, but the code had to be discovered and established in the minds of the sages before any sage could speak the original Vedic mantras.

Of course there cannot be direct evidence of pre-Vedic Sanskrit, because the Rig Veda is the most ancient exemplar of all “Indo-European”, but of course the language itself must have already been perfected before any mantras could have been revealed.

The vedAs were originally passed by learned brAhmaNAs from generation to generation only by direct speech, and were never actually written down, and this process has been continuous over millennia.

At some point, the written code of brAhmI (and later saMskRtam) was established, and the vedAs were fixed in writing for the first time.

Sanskrit is the oldest living language, and Hindu scripture traces an unbroken line back to the source of language itself, with only slight changes along the way. And Sanskrit is well-recorded in mantras and shlokas from every stage.

English dictionaries generally trace the roots of words back to Latin, and Latin dictionaries trace their words back to ancient Greek roots, and lexicons of ancient Greek trace their words back to Sanskrit roots. And these very ancient root elements are the basis of all subsequent languages now grouped as “Indo-European”.

Sanskrit precisely defines more sounds than in any other language, and its grammar is more complex than in any other language, and some major differences arising in the development of subsequent languages involve the loss of grammatical details that have always been present in Sanskrit.

Just as different monistic religions are like spokes in the wheel of Hindu dharma, each language of the Indo-European family represents a part of the whole, and resting at the hub is surely Sanskrit.

Everything we know about ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, and the original Rig Veda mantras have existed from the very beginnings of writing (more than 5,000 years ago). There is no concrete evidence of language before the development of writing, but the original Sanskrit must have existed long before that. And there is no root of sound and meaning in the postulated precursor language that is not found in Sanskrit.

The Sanskrit of the Puranas is slightly different from that of the Vedas, and there are various terms and grammatical quirks found only in the Rig Veda, which is clearly the most ancient text. So it cannot be denied that Sanskrit has evolved over the last 5,000 years. But it has never ceased to be “Sanskrit”.

saMskRtam is the perfect template from which the various prAkRtika dialects have diverged.

The Rgveda was apparently compiled after 1500 BC, but the mantras themselves are generally much older.

The perfect conception of saMskRtam has always existed, but the language in practice remained somewhat variable until the grammar was codified by pANini.

While the perfect saMskRtam is a single language, there is a range of slight variations included under that title. And saMskRtam is grouped with its related dialects as “Indo-Aryan”.

The Indo-Aryan (“Indic”) language group is closely related to Old Iranian, and the ancient “Dardic” language of the first wave of Aryans who settled in the Pamir mountains, and all are assumed to have arisen from a “Proto-Indo-Aryan” precursor.

Proto-Indo-Aryan (and Anatolian) existed around 2000 BC, and their common ancestor (before 3000 BC) includes the precursor of all European languages.

And the presumed progenitor of both “Proto-Indo-Aryan” and “Proto-European” is termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

In each case, a group of languages or dialects is assumed, but the various “proto” languages are theoretical constructs, presented as an ideal.

We speak of Sanskrit, but beyond Panini’s ideal there are historical variations on the theme, so that “Sanskrit” refers to a (narrow) range of language. And likewise, the ideal of PIE is presented as the archetype of the supposed common language group that gave rise to all subsequent languages.

Sanskrit may be traced from post-Vedic, back to the Vedic, and the (assumed) pre-Vedic language. And, in the context of Sanskrit alone, there is no reason to consider the variations as anything other than Sanskrit (“modern”, “classical”, “old”, “very old”, etc.).

And equally, if we were considering another lineage in isolation, the same name could be applied to all of its historical variations (e.g. “Iranian”, “Old Iranian”, “Proto-Iranian”).

When the whole range of different lineages are considered simultaneously, however, a more generally applicable terminology is required ~ thus the suggestion of “Proto-Indo-European”, rather than “Proto-Sanskrit” or “Proto-Indic” or “Proto-Dardic” or “Proto-Iranian” or “Proto-European”, etc.

sarabhanga
25 March 2008, 07:44 AM
Again, if whatever we know of Sanskrit comes from the original Rig Veda mantras that were first written down 'more than 5,000 years ago' …

If we agree that all dates relate only to this Kali Yuga that started in 3102 BCE …

Namaste Saidevo,

I have certainly not intended to suggest that the Vedas were first written down more than 5,000 years ago! Some mantras may have been encoded in the ancient Indus script, but there is no unequivocal evidence.




Everything we know about ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, and the original Rig Veda mantras have existed from the very beginnings of writing (more than 5,000 years ago).

Whatever we know of ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, which were compiled between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, but never written down until after 500 BC, and including mantras that were themselves composed before 2000 BC, perhaps as early as 3000 BC, which is around the time that the very first writing systems were developed.

And it is not necessary to accept AryabhaTTa’s date of 3102 BC ~ see http://www.vpmthane.org/news/news155.htm for a clear explanation of the confusion.

saidevo
25 March 2008, 12:20 PM
Namaste Everyone.



And it is not necessary to accept AryabhaTTa’s date of 3102 BC ~ see http://www.vpmthane.org/news/news155.htm for a clear explanation of the confusion.


You thought that the Hindu Time Cycle of four yugas are in the proportion 4,3,2,1 starting from Satya or Krta Yuga, (then Treta Yuga, then Dvapara Yuga, and finally Kali Yuga) and that Kali Yuga has a span of 432,000 solar years with corresponding time-scales for other Yugas? YOU ARE WRONG! Come on, we are in the Infotech age wherein DOWNSIZING is the norm!

Swami Yukteswar Giri downsized the total span of the Chatur Yuga to 12,000 solar years with his own findings, in a bid that "demonstrates the underlying unity between Sanatan Dharma and Christianity, by comparing Sanskrit slokas to passages from the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation." (Wikipedia on 'The Holy Science').

Now we have a new and budding young historian of Bharatam: Niraj Mohanka, a genius who has compiled his "Royal Chronology of India"'s timeline, after 4 months of hard work, in his sparetime amidst his professional activities as a high tech engineer. He has already earned the name 'Amatur Historian and Indologist' and it seems we have another Sir William Jones in the offing, an enthusiast scholar who pursues research on the history of this great nation Bharat in his leisure time.

You can download the gigantic Excel spreadsheet prepared by Niraj Mohanka on which he has charted out the complete and elaborate history of Bharatam, here: http://www.newdharma.org/India_Chron.zip

Here are some of the findings of this budding scholar who has "an Indian mind outfitted by Western--mostly American--education; a mind that combines rigour and depth."

3200 BCE start of Krta Yuga
2650 BCE start of Treta Yuga
2075 BCE start of Dvapara Yuga
1275 BCE start of Kali Yuga

The Ramayana war sometime around 2100 BCE.
The Mahabharata war sometime around 1300 BCE.

The traditional time scale proportions of the Yugas are all wrong and old-thinking! The Kali Yuga started in 1275 BCE and is still running, perhaps to create a track record as the longest Yuga in the era of New Age Hindu Thinking!

If you still think that Arya Bhatta and the astronomical dating of Kali Yuga and the war of Mahabharata have their values, check this link: http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/datingMahabharat.html

I have no competence/time/inclination/patience to delve into the findings of New Age Hindus like Niraj Mohanka. I will be the last Hindu to subscribe to such findings, however.

sarabhanga
26 March 2008, 03:01 AM
I will be the last Hindu to subscribe to such findings.

The “new and budding young new-age amateur historian” Niraj Mohanka explains his historical quest here: http://www.boloji.com/history/030.htm

AryabhaTTa’s date of 3102 BC marks the beginning of the present astronomical era. But it is not necessary to assume that the historical eras refer to exactly the same time-scale.

And AryabhaTTa himself introduced changes in the traditional yuga system.



1) He defined a kalpa as a period of 1,008 mahayugas (instead of 1,000). Since 1,008 is divisible by seven, each new kalpa would begin on the same week day.

2) He divided a mahayuga into four equal rather than unequal parts so that each consisted of 108,000 years.

Aryabhatta started his astronomical Kaliyuga at 6 A.M. on Friday, 18 February 3102 BC (Julian) at Lanka, which is hypothetically placed at the intersection of the equator with the meridian of Ujjain. In astronomical parlance, this choice of epoch defines the Aryapaksa, “the Arya school” of Siddhantic astronomy.

Aryabhatta also propounded another system, in which the Kaliyuga began six hours earlier, that is on the midnight of 17/18 February 3102 BC (Julian) at Ujjain. This is known as the ardha-ratri-ka-paksa “the midnight school”. Since planets move, their configuration cannot be the same at midnight and at sunrise.

In particular, the sun and moon cannot remain aligned at two points in time, six hours apart. It is thus clear that Aryabhatta’s Kaliyuga is a theoretical artifact, and not the epoch of an actual astronomical observation.

How did Aryabhatta arrive at this particular date? It seems that his starting point was the observed planetary positions at a known epoch.

Since he knew the orbital periods, he could calculate backwards the epoch when all the planets could be taken to have been aligned at the beginning of the zodiacal sign Aries (Mesa). It is now known that planetary orbits are subject to various kinds of perturbations, and a theory depending on the orbital period as the sole parameter cannot give accurate results.

According to modern numerical simulations, on 17/18 February 3102 BC the five geocentric planets were not aligned but spread over two neighboring zodiacal signs.

This again underlines the inference that the significance of the date was hypothetical rather than real. Even if Aryabhatta had chosen a slightly different epoch, it would not have made much difference as far as the actual sky conditions are concerned.

The choice of 3102 BC, however, had a special significance for Aryabhatta. Midday at Ujjain on the equinoctial day 21 March AD 499 exactly corresponds to the beginning of the year 3600 of his Kaliyuga. Since the ardharatrikapaksa starts its Kaliyuga six hours before the Aryapaksa, Aryabhatta artificially made the duration of the year slightly longer in the former case so that in both the schools the 3600th year starts at the same time. We may recall that AD 499 is the year of the composition of Aryabhatiya.

The acceptance of the new date must have become universal by 634 C.E. for in that year we have the public use of it in the Aihole Inscription of King Pulakesin II dating itself in the Kaliyuga Era side by side with the Saka Era and referring to the Bharata War.

Unfortunately, while talking of the passage of time, Aryabhatta did not explicitly say “before the Kaliyuga”. Instead, he used the term Bharatat Purvam, that is “before [the] Bharata ”, obviously alluding to the Puranic yuga system. This is what gave currency to 3102 BC as the date of the battle. The use of Aryabhatta’s epoch in the Puranic context is ironical in the light of the fact that he was severely castigated by his student critic Brahmagupta (b. AD 598) for deviating from smrti (“tradition”) while formulating his own yuga system.

The date 3102 BC for the Puranic Kaliyuga is not tenable. First, the Puranic and astronomical yugas are widely different in length. The Puranas divide 94 generations from Manu to the Bharata battle into three yugas, so that each yuga is approximately 31 generations or say 600 years. Aryabhatta’s yugas, on the other hand, run into hundreds of thousands of years.

Secondly, an astronomical epoch begins at a precise moment which is chosen by the astronomer. In contrast to the astronomical Kaliyuga, the beginning of the Puranic Kaliyuga is not precise at all. According to Mahabharata Adiparvan (2.13), the battle occurred at the junction of Kali and Dvapara.

The Bhagavata Purana, on the other hand, gives two versions of the epoch. In one version (1.15.36), Kaliyuga started the day Krsna died, while the second version (12.2.33) starts Kaliyuga at the very moment Krsna died. One can see the feeling of discomfort here. It did not look quite the right thing to have Krsna live into the Kaliyuga. (According to the chronology of the Mahabharata, Krsna dies some 20 years after the battle. This was the time when Yudhisthira abdicated in favour of his grand-nephew Parikshit.)

We thus see that the Puranic Kaliyuga is a manner of speaking rather than a carefully chosen point of time as in astronomy.

[B]The Puranas do not recognize Aryabhatta’s date at all. They provide their own information on the subject.

It is possible to calculate the Bharata battle’s date from statements within the Puranas. Unfortunately, one can derive not one but many dates. The Puranas contain a bland statement that 1,015 (or 1,050) years elapsed between Pariksit’s birth (shortly after the battle) and the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda. Nanda’s coronation was a singular event from the Puranic point of view because he was a son of a Sudra mother, and exterminated all blue-blooded Ksatriyas.

The Jain Parisistaparvan calls Nanda the son of a courtesan by a barber. The Greek historian Quintas Curtius also says that Nanda was a barber who being handsome gained the affection of the queen. Through her influence he obtained a position of royal confidence which he treacherously used to murder the king.

The Matsya Purana assigns 88 years to the reign of the first Nanda. The figure is unreasonably high; 88 (astasiti) appears to be a mistake for 28 (astavimsati), which the Vayu Purana quotes. The first Nanda was succeeded by his eight sons who, all Puranas agree, ruled for 12 years, giving a total of 40 years for the Nanda rule. (Ancient Sri Lankan chronicles reduce the figure to 22 years).

A hoard of coins discovered from the Bhir mound at Taxila in 1924 contains 1,059 punch-marked coins from Magadha. These coins belong to three successive dynasties: Sisunaga, Nanda and the Maurya. Significantly, while one can distinguish between coins issued by different kings in the case of the Sisunagas and the Mauryas, the Nanda coins all belong to a single ruler. This is consistent with the brevity of the Nanda rule.

The Nandas were dethroned by Candragupta Maurya whose date of coronation is known from independent sources to be about 320 BC.

Thus the Puranas themselves suggest about 1400 BC for the Bharata battle.





If you still think that the astronomical dating of Kali Yuga and the war of Mahabharata have their values, check this link: http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/datingMahabharat.html


According to Dr Balakrishna’s excellent analysis:


Aryabhata (476-550 AD) stated that Kaliyuga started 3600 years ago, when he was 23 years old (in year 499 AD), making the start as 3102 BC.

The Lunar-Solar eclipse pair from Julian year 1397 BC meets the "thirteen day" period requirement. The season is right. The two retrograde planets Brihaspati and Sani are very near declared positions. This eclipse pair is a good candidate for the Mahabharata war.

And this convincing proof of the appropriate astronomical conditions in 1397 BC fits very well with Niraj Mohanka’s suggestion (based on evidences from the Puranas themselves) of “about 1400 BC”, as the date of the Mahabharata war. :)

sarabhanga
26 March 2008, 06:07 AM
Physician heal thyself.



The British should never have been trying to rule India in the first place.
And Sir William Jones should never have been lording over Bengal as any kind of magistrate or judge.

As we all know, William Jones once remarked:

We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical…

Although it has perhaps been missed that his suggestion (submitted with some doubt) was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit.

But after two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable ~ for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.

How can discussion proceed when the most important details of what anyone has to say are completely ignored and the argument goes in leaps and bounds from one irrelevant detail to another in ever expanding circles from the original theme ?

In repeated digression, some more important points seem to have been missed:

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And the Church has tried very hard over 2,000 years to cover up these very connexions.

If the Sermon on the Mount (for example) was properly understood, then all conversion efforts would cease. And so, despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.

If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting?

All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

All names and forms are taken by that indefinable essence of immortal existence, yet no name or form is sufficient for the unborn advaitam. That unnamed rudra is know only in samAdhi (not by name or form, but only by the indescribable experience of absolute identity), but its apparently diverse rudrAs are followed by the various theologies, each adhering to its own expression of the one name that is truly beyond all names.

In the highest samAdhi of perfect advaitam there is only the one God, so that any suggestion of plurality or verifiable form is impossible.

Now, if this supreme yoga is ignorantly misapplied in the realm of duality (which immediately denies the possibility of the ultimate aim) then the only apparent course is to denounce and destroy or fundamentally convert all views and appearances that are divergent from one’s own partial understanding.

There seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure. The only evidence is the Christian gospel and comments made long after the supposed events. The teachings were made public in the Middle East at a certain time, and someone must have been responsible for that release, but the exact circumstances are unrecorded. From an historical perspective, the bible stories alone cannot be taken as solid evidence of historical truth. How do we know that the character really existed? Because the book tells us so! And those with unshakeable faith in the literal truth of the book will never be swayed, while those without faith will never be convinced.

To my mind, the whole story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before the supposed historical events, so no particular person or true historical events are actually required to explain it. But a Christian who denies the possibility of such connexions is left searching in vain for imagined archaeological remnants ~ either that or they would be forced to admit that their religion was prophesied by (or simply translated from) the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma.

The Bible itself gives the perfect clue to the historical “birth” of Christ in the Middle East, by the simultaneous arrival of both Jesus and the “three sages” from the Orient (surely the trayI-vidyA), which implies that the story began when a wise Brahmin arrived, following the course of the sun and navigating by the stars from somewhere far to the east (surely bhArata).

The historical Jesus was apparently an Essene Jew, whose strict monastic codes were considered essential for salvation/liberation. Essene thought was substantially that of Nivritti-Marga, and their renunciate monks lived in Jordan, in a secluded community on the shores of the Dead Sea. Their disciplined purification of body, speech, and mind, considered necessary for union with the Divine (i.e. Yoga), and their development of true perception and insight through Jnana, and also their view that these aims might best be achieved in communal renunciate hermitage, are all directly linked with earlier oriental Dharmas.

The Nivritti-Marga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire Essene community. And modern Roman Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul.

If the question is regarding “why Hindus in general try to find similarities”, the answer is simply because sanAtana dharma is founded in the wisdom of the dharma cakram and yama and yoga and advaitam. Whereas the devoted followers of an individual guru, following just one spoke of the eternal wheel, in ignorance (or denial) of any other true spokesman, take their dharma as a veritable sword cleaving a straight path to the source of all illumination.

Knowing the whole field of dharma (cf. kurukshetram) the wise guru understands that many different paths are valid for different individual circumstances, but that (when all true paths are considered) there is ultimately no difference at all. And Hindu understanding (the mother of all monistic religion) has always been tempered by this overriding thought of ultimate unity.

Sometimes naïve devotees get carried away by their obsession with apparent differences and the absolute truth of their own path. And in the absence of subsequent instruction from the advaita dharma cakram (the sun of dharma), which has over the centuries cast an occasional “bright spark of true illumination” (AryaHinduH) to the west, dvaitavAda rises to proud supremacy and adharma invariably results. An occasional ray of brilliant light shooting westwards into the darkness, from the dawning of immortal wisdom that eternally recurs in the east, only to be trampled and lost. And while this is surely a case of “casting pearls before swine”, those muddied gems still lie hidden and only awaiting their discovery.

The original (forgotten) diaspora of bRMhan became abRMham in the west, and the subsequent diaspora has become what appears today as a range of separate religions.

Each spoke in the wheel of dharma has its own guided path, and while the language remains the same the sign posts on another path remain familiar instructions, but if the language is translated then the similarities soon become invisible to anyone unfamiliar with both tongues (which clash impossibly for the ignorant, but sing in harmony for the wise).

The “forked tongue of the devil” is the very revelation of the prophets (as inspired transmitters and wise interpreters of god’s word ~ i.e. as translators of saMskRtam).

Scripture, like poetry, carries multiple levels of meaning that cannot easily be compressed and transcribed into another language. And every translation into another language can only be the translator’s interpretation of the original words.

Religion was originally a personal matter of correct “selection” or “perception” of Truth. Over time, however, the various selections made by some inspired members of different cultural groups have become “set in stone” for those groups, and subsequently their particular cultural version of “religion” or dharma has been presented more dogmatically.

The vedAs were originally passed by learned brAhmaNAs from generation to generation only by direct speech, and were never actually written down, and this process has been continuous over millennia. And at some point, the written code of brAhmI (and later saMskRtam) was established, and the vedAs were fixed in writing for the first time.

The production of actual scripture (the written word as opposed to the spoken word) is perhaps the main reason for the historical change in the perceived nature of religion (from wise choice to veritable bondage) which has tended to occur in all the established faiths.

The philosophies of Jainism and Taoism seem to be distinguished only by the language used. And the original separations of Vedanta and Jaina and the Tao, and also the teaching of Christ, are fundamentally due to translation of the one dharma into different tongues.

The major upaniSadas were composed in the first half of the first millennium BC, and it was during this time that the Brahmi, Phoenician, and Aramaic, scripts were developed. And by recording the oral traditions in an easily translatable script, they were effectively released for broad publication.

And I believe that a major factor in the philosophical revolution around 600 BC was actually the codification of the shruti (which had previously only been heard and remember by heart) in written form, which created for the first time what we now consider as “scripture” and spawned various “new” religions, which are in truth only different translations of exactly the same eternal truths. And in the absence of the original oral traditions, the various dispensations have continued to diverge under their own cultural influences, with their original identities masked by the general veil of non-comprehension between different languages and scripts.

And all of this (i.e. the direct scriptural borrowing) has occurred more than 2,000 years after Vedic Sanskrit was already well established ~ more than 2,000 years after the hypothetical (but well-justified) “proto-Aryan” had already disappeared (not by extinction, but by its gradual incorporation into all of the Indo-European languages).

The speciation of dharma has occurred along the lines of biological species, and originally identical paths have become different paths only when their previously regular intercourse becomes interrupted by some isolating cause (such as geography and language).

And from William Jones:

“It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.”

“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”

satyagraha is a synonym of satyastha, inferring ahiMsA, and implying ahiMsAsatyAsthe, and compressing the whole well known pañcayAma mantra of patañjali, which is the same mantra given to Adam (adambha), and to Noah (manu), and to Abraham (abRMham), and the first half of the mantra later revealed to Moses (skandha). And pratyAhAra is the “last supper”, before the final communion of saMyama and samAdhi, which is the crucifixion, the ultimate tapasya of kRSTi (“passion of christ”).

Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints ~ and the understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things!

sarabhanga
26 March 2008, 08:25 AM
Ye will surely say unto me this proverb: Physician, heal thyself.

Life is rendered unstable,
By violence, oppression, revenge, and the exercise of power.
Slay thy self, and thou wilt have honor!

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

ahaM taSTeva vandhuramparyacAmi hRdA matim |
kuvitsomasyApAmiti ||
nahi me akshipaccanAchAntsuH pañca kRSTayaH |
kuvitsomasyApAmiti ||

atanu
26 March 2008, 12:45 PM
Although it has perhaps been missed that his suggestion (submitted with some doubt) was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit.
----
How can discussion proceed when the most important details of what anyone has to say are completely ignored and the argument goes in leaps and bounds from one irrelevant detail to another in ever expanding circles from the original theme ?


Namaste

Nothing has been missed and nothing skipped. I do not think that it is frog leaping over irrelevant details to point out the below:


Perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by its natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason.

The assumptions are very clear here. Why well educated natives (and not arrogant aggressors) need be subjected to plain prefatory discourses and to sanskritized Bible? Nothing against Jones or anyone, but this smacks of reformative arrogance.

Om

satay
26 March 2008, 03:05 PM
Namaskar,


How can discussion proceed when the most important details of what anyone has to say are completely ignored and the argument goes in leaps and bounds from one irrelevant detail to another in ever expanding circles from the original theme ?


Your above post is a good summary and answers some of my own questions.

Thanks,

yajvan
26 March 2008, 03:33 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~


Swami Yukteswar Giri downsized the total span of the Chatur Yuga to 12,000 solar years with his own findings, in a bid that "demonstrates the underlying unity between Sanatan Dharma and Christianity, by comparing Sanskrit slokas to passages from the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation." (Wikipedia on 'The Holy Science').



Namaste saidevo (et.al)

regarding this discussion of Swami Yukteswar's orientation of yugas, there was a substantial conversation on this matter in 2007.

If you ( and others) have interest, you can see the math, logic and audit trail , with some observations from myself and sarabhanga. See what you think if you wish to review:


Post 1: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1784 (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1784)
Post 2: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1803 (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1803)


pranams

saidevo
26 March 2008, 10:36 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



Whatever we know of ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, which were compiled between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, but never written down until after 500 BC, and including mantras that were themselves composed before 2000 BC, perhaps as early as 3000 BC, which is around the time that the very first writing systems were developed.


The date between 1500 BCE and 500 BCE for Vedas, specially the Rig Veda (the oldest book of mankind) was assigned by Max Mueller in order that it fell within the creation date of 4000 BCE of the Bible; however, Max Mueller recanted his earlier assignment near the end of his life, since he felt that the evidence was flimsy.

The date of composition and compilation of Vedas, specially the Rig Veda could be earlier to 3000 BCE, as this analysis by SAKSI (Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture) indicates:



Now we will discuss the date of Rigveda from all the available multidisciplinary evidence, some of which were collected in the last decade, some others known earlier.

• Let us first consider the satellite photography studies of the Indus Valley. The Sarasvati described in Rigveda is a massive river, located between Yamuna and Shutadri (Sutlej) flowing into the ocean. The satellite studies indicate this river as completely dried up by the date 1750 BCE. The Satellite study cannot refer to the Sarasvati (Haraquiti) river in Afghanistan since it is a small river that dries up in the desert. Thus the lower bound for the Vedic civilisation is 1750 BCE. It is more ancient than this date because Rigveda does not mention any desert; it is mentioned in the Brahmana books - Shatapatha Brahmana - which is at least 500-1000 years later than Rigveda Samhita.

• The knowledge of mathematics in Rigveda and related texts is another important evidence. Rigveda not only mentions the decimal number system for integers but also the infinity. It mentions in detail the spoked wheel with arbitrary number of spokes (1.164.13,14,48). Clearly such verses would imply that these authors knew the associated mathematical properties of circle and square. The algorithm for circling the square needed for making the spoked wheel is given in the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra which is the oldest of the Shulba Sutras, ancient mathematical texts dealing with the methods for the construction of altars needed in Vedic rituals and other related mathematical topics. These books are later than the Rigveda Samhita. Even though Dutta made a detailed study of these books around 1930 and showed that the theorem attributed to Pythogoras is contained in these books in a more general form, the western indologists like Keith (or Whitney earlier) did not pay much attention since they were convinced, without any proof, that all the sciences in ancient India - mathematics, astronomy etc., were borrowed from Greeks or Egyptians. It was in 1962 that the American mathematician Seidenberg showed that, “the elements of ancient geometry found in Egypt and Babylonia stem from a ritual system of the kind found in Shulba Sutras.” The Shulba Sutras contain the algorithm for building the pyramid shaped funeral altar (smashana chit). Recall that the Egyptian pyramids are used as tombs for the dead. There is no ancient Egyptian literature for the detailed construction of these pyramids. Hence it is more than likely that their source is the Shulba Sutras. This piece of evidence fixes the date for the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra which gives a lower bound date for Rigveda.

• Next let us consider the astronomical evidence. Rigveda and all other ancient books contain several statements of astronomical significance like the position of Sun in the Zodiac on the two equinoxes, vernal or spring equinox and autumn equinox. Indian Astronomy is based on sidereal Zodiac. The Zodiac is divided into 27 roughly equal segments, all are measuring 130 20' of arc. The seventh mandala of the Rigveda records the vernal equinox in Mrigashira Constellation pointing to a date around 4000 BCE - a fact noted by Jacobi and Tilak. Again several Shulba Sutras declare that a pole star is visible. Since a visible pole star occurs only at certain epochs, such a citation gives a normal range of dates for that event. There is much more information beyond the scope of this paper.

• Next we consider the Harappa culture. Findings tested with calibrated C-14 methods show that, “the Harappa culture should be dated to the period 2700-2000 BCE with a terminal date not lower than 1900 BCE, a date suggestively close to the drying up of Sarasvati”. It was a fashion for the historians to declare that the Harappa Culture had no connection with the culture of the Vedic era. Now things are beginning to change. In one of the seals of the Harappa period, there is a picture of a bull with one horn. It was called as a unicorn. But the Sanskrit epithet, eka shrngah, one with a single horn, is a common epithet for Lord Shiva in the Veda Samhitas [RV 7.19.1] and the bull is always associated with Shiva. There is a seal of a meditating person in a sitting lotus pose in the Harappa seals. On the Harappan seals, there are inscriptions in a script which was not deciphered for a long time. Recently N.K. Jha has suggested a deciphering approach which is very promising. The language is syllabic like all Indian languages, the script seems to be close to old Brahmi. The researcher Jha has identified the inscriptions on several seals, which appear to be words from the lexicon of Vedas, nighantu published by Yaska, the first commentator on Rigveda and a lexicographer. So Harappa civilisation presents the end of the Vedic period.

• Again Rigveda does not mention either silver or cotton. Since the date of cotton is well established (7000 to 5000 BCE), again we get a lower bound on the Rig Vedic date.

• Now the evidence can be summed up and some range of dates can be given. Rigveda repeatedly refers to ancient sages and modern sages as in (1.1.2). The age associated with these ancient sages can be called as the high Rig Vedic period which is declared to be 3100 BCE or early. This period 3700-3800 BCE is the closing of the Rig Vedic age, especially the Mandalas seven and third associated with the sages Vasishta and Vishvamitra. The Shulba Sutra texts of Baudhayana, Ashvalayana etc., can be dated 3100-2000 BCE; 1900 BCE is the drying up of Sarasvati and the end of Vedic age. The Vedic civilisation ended, as indicated by the Harappa ruins, due to ecological causes, draughts and desertification. There was no invasion by any one.

(Ref: http://www.vedah.com/org/literature/rigVeda/wrrv/date.asp)

saidevo
27 March 2008, 06:55 AM
Bible in Sanskrit

It seems the New Testament was first published in Sanskrit in the year 1808. Later in 1822 the complete Bible was translated in Sanskrit. Here are a few links:

World Scriptures
http://www.worldscriptures.org/pages/sanskrit.html

The Holy Bible in Sanskrit - Indian Bible Society
http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Holy-Bible-in-Sanskrit---Indian-Bible-Society_W0QQitemZ270222631508QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0803250851a20767

The Bible in Sanskrit
Rare Bible gives insight into Christian missionaries in India during the early 1900’s. (10/8/04)
http://www.biblenetworknews.com/media/index.html

Unknown Works In Music And Allied Arts In The Oriental Manuscript Library, Trivandrum, Kerala (English)
http://www.leelaomchery.com/books.html

Canadian Bible Society, Bible Network News.
http://www.biblenetworknews.com/media/100804_sanskrit/audio_28k.wax

sarabhanga
27 March 2008, 08:18 PM
Namaste Saidevo,

Thanks for this information. I knew that at least one Sanskrit translation had been made, and the fact that such translations are counted as “rare books” confirms that they are not readily available.

Abbe Dubois, who lived in India from 1792 to 1823, questioned the wisdom of translating the Bible (especially the Old Testament), because he considered that the translations were not only imperfect (and thus likely to cause confusion and derision) but Hindus would not find anything there which might convince them to give up their own Dharma for Christianity.

If anyone has access to a Sanskrit translation of the Old Testament, I would be most interested to see the first chapter of Genesis.

sarabhanga
28 March 2008, 04:23 AM
The date between 1500 BCE and 500 BCE for Vedas, specially the Rig Veda was assigned by Max Mueller in order that it fell within the creation date of 4000 BCE of the Bible; however, Max Mueller recanted his earlier assignment near the end of his life, since he felt that the evidence was flimsy.

Namaste Saidevo,

Can you please provide evidence that Max Mueller ever recanted his estimated dating of the Rgveda, which has been generally supported by subsequent investigations (?)

The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Rgveda date from about 1000 AD.
The present form of the Rgveda is a redaction from 900 to 600 BC.
Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rgveda was composed between 1700 and 1100 BC, with the oldest elements reaching back to around 2000 BC.

The sarasvatI river had stopped flowing continuously by 1800 BC, and there are Rgveda mantras clearly referring to a time before that ~ thus the academic consensus that the oldest parts of the Rgveda date from before that time, with 2000 BC suggested. Personally, I am convinced that some elements are actually much older (perhaps as early as 3000 BC).

Throughout the 3rd millennium BC, there was continuous contact between the civilizations of the Nile, the Euphrates, and Indus, and it is difficult to determine exactly from which place the various elements of their shared wisdom originated.

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script, the Sarasvati logosyllabic script, and the Sumerian pictographic script, were all developed between 3400 and 3200 BC ~ just after the simultaneous development of urban settlement in all three locations (c. 3600 BC) and the invention of the wheel (c. 3500 BC).

There had been agricultural settlements across the region since the 7th millennium BC, and irrigation systems were established by 5000 BC, and the increased production around fixed locations allowed the development of urban civilization and great cities, which became centers for both material and intellectual commerce.

The star Thuban was the perfect pole-star in 2700 BC, and it was the effective guide for navigators and the fixed reference point for astrologers throughout the 3rd millennium BC. And the vaidika star-calendar seems to have been compiled in about 2300 BC.

The brAhmaNAs record the vernal equinox in conjunction with rohinI, which points to a date around 3100 BC. And 3102 BC was taken by AryabhaTTa as an epoch making date. And, interestingly, the first Egyptian dynasty of king Narmer or Menes (the root consonants are important here, cf. nemi, mIna, manu) was apparently founded at the same time.

And there are various indications that tantalizingly point to even more remote astronomical conditions. And perhaps these truly are fragments of very ancient wisdom, but the mention of some historical event does not necessarily mean that the whole text was composed at that time. The veda describes the very dawn of creation, but that does not mean that the description was noted by any earthly RSi as it was actually happening.

The veda, just as the saMskRtam from which it is composed, descended with the very fabric of creation, and the whole is intricately woven with the harmony of all the spheres. But the full revelation to man has occurred gradually over a very long period.

satay
28 March 2008, 09:16 AM
namaskar,

I am a little annoyed at this discussion on the putting a 'date' on the vedas. From one end of the mouth we hindus say that vedas are eternal and from the other we are too eager to accept the dates put on the eternal and that too by max mueller's of the world.

This putting a date on the eternal is a western tendency (sarabhanga no offence to you).

We should get our story straight, if vedas are eternal there is no need to put dates on it. In comparison to christianity or islam, Hinduism has no requirement to 'prove' that vedas are historic documents for them to be accepted as the truth by the hindus.

yajvan
28 March 2008, 09:22 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~
namaskar,

I am a little annoyed at this discussion on the putting a 'date' on the vedas. From one end of the mouth we hindus say that vedas are eternal and from the other we are too eager to accept the dates put on the eternal and that too by max mueller's of the world.



Namate satay,
there is no doubt that the vedas are eternal... The dates offered are an estimate of when they were put to paper. Before paper the oral tradition from teacher-to-student prevailed.

hope this helps.

pranams

saidevo
28 March 2008, 09:59 AM
Namaste everyone.



there is no doubt that the vedas are eternal... The dates offered are an estimate of when they were put to paper. Before paper the oral tradition from teacher-to-student prevailed.


It seems to me that to a western mind it is difficult (almost impossible) to believe that such a large volume of knowledge as Vedas could have been kept up orally from teacher-to-student and with such accuracy. This might be due to the inadequacies of the western languages that lack the distinctive vowels and consonants of Sanskrit, which makes accurate remembrance an uphill task.

Though the Jews had an oral tradition (as Bhagavan Das has observed in his book The Essential Unity of All Religions), serious western philosophical and religious thought was recognized only after they were committed to writing.

Once 'the word' came out of God, the western men could perhaps understand it only after it was written down!

saidevo
28 March 2008, 10:51 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



Can you please provide evidence that Max Mueller ever recanted his estimated dating of the Rgveda, which has been generally supported by subsequent investigations (?)




Inaugural Address delivered by B.B.Lal, the well-known Indian archaeologist, at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology, held at University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy on July 2-6, 2007.
(http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html)

As is well known, it was the renowned German scholar Max Muller who, in the 19th century, attempted for the first time to date the Vedas. Accepting that the Sutra literature was datable to the 6th century BCE, he gave a block-period of 200 years to the preceding three parts of the Vedic literature, namely the Aranyakas, Brahmanas and Vedas. Thus, he arrived at 1200 BCE as the date of the Vedas. However, when his contemporaries, like Goldstucker, Whitney and Wilson, objected to his ad-hocism, he toned down, and finally surrendered by saying (Max Muller 1890, reprint 1979): “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.” But the great pity is that, in spite of such a candid confession by the savant himself, many of his followers continue to swear by his initial dating, viz. 1200 BCE.

satay
28 March 2008, 11:57 AM
Namaskar,

It is my understanding that the christians do this i.e. put dates on their scriptures in an effort to prove that those scriptures are historic documents.

Is it necessary to put dates on dharmic scriptures? The answer in mind is 'NO'.

What if we say that vedas were written only 8 years ago, 2 years ago, yesterday...does that in anyway invalidate the content of these scriptures? Its meaningless to put a date on the vedas.

yajvan
28 March 2008, 12:36 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Namaste everyone.
It seems to me that to a western mind it is difficult (almost impossible) to believe that such a large volume of knowledge as Vedas could have been kept up orally from teacher-to-student and with such accuracy. This might be due to the inadequacies of the western languages that lack the distinctive vowels and consonants of Sanskrit, which makes accurate remembrance an uphill task.

Namaste saidevo,
Yes I can see your point. Think of the westerner's view of Yajnavalkya, one of the great munis of the veda. He was an ekasandhigrahi, meaning he learnt anything with just one teaching.

With my last trip to India, it was a joy to listen to the pundits recite various slokas that took the better part of 2 hours to complete, all embedded in consciousness.

One pundit in training was 15 years of age. He has been recognized for his chanting/memory/ accuracy abilities. A contest was held at the school (some call Sringeri). A coin is randomly tossed onto a Rig Veda page (or Sama Ved) and the young pundit would have to recite the next 100 slokas. This young pundit did it without fail.


http://bp3.blogger.com/_poozp2TeXhg/R-0uuipGNrI/AAAAAAAAA-c/ZFluUsHwQOE/s320/pundits+in+training-4-1.jpg (http://bp3.blogger.com/_poozp2TeXhg/R-0uuipGNrI/AAAAAAAAA-c/ZFluUsHwQOE/s1600-h/pundits+in+training-4-1.jpg)



Also with sama veda, there are checks and balances to insure the proper chandas (meter) is being recited, and the slokas have not been missed.

pranams

saidevo
28 March 2008, 01:45 PM
Namaste everyone.

Colonnial Interpolators of Hindu Dharma and History, Whose Real Agenda was Christian Proselytism

While we Hindus seek to extrapolate Christianity for their own good and our better understanding of the religion, here is how the colonnial missionaries interpolated Hindu Dharma and History, masquerading as oriental scholars and admirers.

Sir William Jones, Fredrich Max Mueller, Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Rudolph Roth, Albrecht Weber, et al.--many popular, formidable names still adored for their 19th century paradigm of the Hindu History. What were their true colors? Here is a glimpse:

Sir William Jones

The ultimate aim of all his scholarship and oriental study was clear in this pronouncement of his, as we have already noted in this thread:

"We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other Church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the prophets, particularly of Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages[/u], in which tne predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by sts natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason."

Fredrich Max Mueller

Adored as perhaps the greatest oriental scholar, credited with the AIT, and specially noted for his Sanskrit scholarship that he employed in translating the Rig Veda. First about his Sanskrit prowess:

However, not everyone was taken in by the academic prowess of the man who was known as "Moksamula Bhatta". Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaja, was so disgusted with the level of Mueller's knowledge of Sanskrit that he likened him to a "toddler learning to walk". He wrote:

"Prof. Max Mueller has been able to scribble out something by the help of the so called 'tikas' or paraphrases of the Vedas current in India." (Satyartha Prakash, Third Edition, p. 278)

Another revealing incident of Mueller's glaring ignorance was when a brahmana came from India to meet the famous Sanskrit scholar. When he came face to face with Mueller and spoke to him in chaste Sanskrit, Mueller admitted that he couldn't understand what the gentleman was saying!

No wonder Schopenhauer acerbically said, "I cannot resist a certain suspicion that our Sanskrit scholars do not understand their texts any better than the higher class of school boys their Greek and Latin."

And then about his Christian missionary agenda, as part of which Mueller was first commissioned by the East India Company to translate the Rg Veda into English. The company agreed to pay the young Mueller 4 Shillings for each page that was ready to print.

In 1876, while writing to a friend, Mueller said that he would not like to go to India as a missionary since that would make him dependent upon the government. His preference was this:

"I would like to live for ten years quite quietly and learn the language, try to make friends, and then see if I was fit to take part in this work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian teaching…India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the time of Saint Paul."

"The rotten tree for some time had artificial supports ...but if the English man comes to see that the tree must fall...he will mind no sacrifice either of blood or of land...I would like to lay down my life, or at least lend my hand to bring about this struggle." (Life and letters of Max Mueller Vol.I, pp.190-92)

"I do not claim for the ancient Indian literature any more that I should willingly concede to the fables and traditions and songs of savage nations. I simply say that in the Veda we have a nearer approach to a beginning, and an intelligent beginning, than in the wild invocations of the Hottentotes and Bushmen." (The Hindu world, an encyclopedic survey of Hinduism - By George Benjamin Walker, New York: Praeger, 1968. 2v.)

"This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent... the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years." (The Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Fredrich Max Mueller, Longmans, London, 1902, Volume I, p. 328)

In another letter, Mueller wrote to his son:

"Would you say that any one sacred book is superior to all others in the world? ....I say the New Testament, after that, I should place the Koran, which in its moral teachings, is hardly more than a later edition of the New Testament. Then would follow according to my opinion the Old Testament, the Southern Buddhist Tripitaka, the Tao-te-king of Lao-tze, the Kings of Confucius, the Veda and the Avesta." (Life and letters of Max Mueller Vol. II, Ch. XXXII., page 339)

In an audacious letter to N.K. Majumdar, Mueller wrote:

"Tell me some of your chief difficulties that prevent you and your countrymen from openly following Christ, and when I write to you I shall do my best to explain how I and many who agree with me have met them and solved them...From my point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to Christianity. You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ. Then make up your mind to work for yourself. Unite your flock - to hold them together and prevent them from straying. The bridge has been built for you by those who came before you. STEP BOLDLY FORWARD, it will break under you, and you will find many friends to welcome you on the other shore and among them none more delighted that you old friend and fellow labourer F. Max-Muller." (Life and letters of Max Mueller Vol. II., Ch. XXXIV., pages 415-416)

Mueller harshly criticised the view of the German scholar, Dr. Spiegel, who claimed that the Biblical theory of the creation of the world is borrowed from the ancient religion of the Persians or Iranians. Stung by this statement Max Mueller writes:

"A writer like Dr. Spiegel should know that he can expect no money; nay, he should himself wish for no mercy, but invite the heaviest artillery against the floating battery which he has launched in the troubled waters of Biblical criticism."

Dr. Spiegel was not the only target of Mueller's bigotry. In 1926 the French scholar Louis Jacolliot, Chief Judge in Chandranagar, wrote a book called 'La Bible dans l'Inde'. Within that book, Jacolliot theorised that all the main philosophies of the western world originated from India, which he glorified thus:

"Land of ancient India! Cradle of Humanity. hail! Hail revered motherland whom centuries of brutal invasions have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion. Hail, Fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry and of science, may we hail a revival of thy past in our Western future."

Mueller said while reviewing Jacolliot's book that, "The author seems to have been taken in by the Brahmins of India."

Sir Monier Monier-Williams and the Boden Chair

Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819-1899) was born in Bombay, attending the East India Company's college and later teaching there. He is known mostly for his "Sanskrit-English Dictionary" and for spending twenty-five years to founding an institution in Oxford disseminating information on Indian religion, philosophy and culture. After the death of H.H. Wilson, Monier-Williams became Boden Professor of Sanskrit in Oxford University where he delivered an address wherein he stated:

"I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant of the Boden Chair, and that its Founder, Colonel Boden, stated most explicitly in his will (dated August 15, 1811 A.D.) that the special object of his munificent bequest was to promote the translation of Scriptures into Sanskrit; so as to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion."

"Brahmanism, therefore, must die out. In point of fact, false ideas on the most ordinary scientific subjects are so mixed up with its doctrines that the commonest education - the simplest lesson in geography--without the aid of Christianity must inevitably in the end sap its foundations."

"When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahmanism are encircled, undermined, and finally stormed by the solders of the cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete."

Rudolph Roth

A fellow student of Mueller's was the German indologist, Rudolph Roth. Roth wrote a thesis on the Vedic literatures called, Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda, and in 1909 he published his edition of Yaksa's Nirukta dictionary. However, Roth's works were peppered with German ultra-nationalism and he asserted that by means of the German science of philology, Vedic mantras could be interpreted much better than with the help of Nirukta. Roth wrote many other things in this haughty vein. One such disdainful statement he made was:

"A qualified European is better off to arrive at the true meaning of the Rg Veda than a brahmana's interpretation."

Weber, Boehtlingk, Kuhn and Goldstucker

The famous German indologist Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) was a notorious racist whose German nationalistic tendencies were thinly veiled as works on Indian philosophy and culture.

When Humbolt lauded praise upon the Bhagavad-gita, Weber became disgusted. His immediate response was to speculate that the Mahabharata and Gita were influenced by Christian theology -

"The peculiar colouring of the Krishna sect, which pervades the whole book, is noteworthy: Christian legendry matter and other Western influences are unmistakably present..."

Two Sanskrit scholars, Franz Lorinser and E. Washburn Hopkin, were quick to support Weber's postulation. However, their theory lacked any hard evidence and was considered so ludicrous that most scholars in European universities rejected it, despite their Christian leanings. Nevertheless, the propagation of this eroneous hypothesis played its mischief and was mainly responsible for the hesitation of the Western scholars to assign to the Mahabharata a date, earlier than that of the Christian era.

In Chapter 4 of his book Krishnacharita, the famous Bengali writer, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya, spoke about Weber as follows:

"The celebrated Weber was no doubt a scholar but I am inclined to think that it was an unfortunate moment for India when he began the study of Sanskrit. The descendants of the German savages of yesterday could not reconcile themselves to the ancient glory of India. It was therefore, their earnest effort to prove that the civilization of India was comparatively of recent origin. They could not persuade themselves to believe that the Mahabharata was composed centuries before Christ was born."

Weber and his collegue Otto Boehtlingk prepared the famous Sanskrit dictionary called the 'Sanskrit Worterbuch'. Prof. Ernst Kuhn was also one of their assistants. Being mainly based on speculative and incorrect principles of philology, the work was unreliable and misleading. The dictionary was subject to severe criticism by Theodore Goldstucker (1821-1872), who was professor of Sanskrit at the University College in London. Weber was so disturbed by Goldstucker's criticism that he resorted to abusing the Professor with the coarsest words possible.

Replying to their undignified attacks, Goldstucker exposed the "scholarship" of the likes of Roth, Boehtlingk, Weber and Kuhn and wrote:

"It will, of course, be my duty to show, at the earliest opportunity, that Dr. Boehtlingk is incapable of understanding even easy rules of Panini, much less those of Katyayana and still less is he capable of making use of them in the understanding of Classical texts. The errors in his department of the Dictionary are so numerous... that it will fill every serious Sanskritist with dismay, when he calculates the mischievous influence which they must exercise on the study of Sanskrit philology."

Refering to Prof. Kuhn, Goldstucker was positively venomous:

"(Professor Kuhn) was 'an individual whose sole connection with Sanskrit studies consisted in handing Sanskrit books to those who could read them, a literary naught, wholly unknown, but assuming the airs of a quantity, because it had figures before it that prompted it on, a personage who, according to his own friends, was perfectly ignorant of Sanskrit."

However, we should not make the mistake that Herr Goldstucker was championing the cause of the Vedic literatures. Goldstucker"s skirmish with his fellow indologists was purely on an academic basis. Goldstucker was of the opinion that the people of India were burdened by Vedic religion which had simply brought them world-wide "contempt and ridicule".

In his book, Inspired Writings of Hinduism Goldstucker attacked the validity of the Vedas, stating that his aim was to inspire the new generation of Indians that their religious superstitions were backwards. This could only be achieved by scholastically destroying their sastras. The only recourse for the new generation would be to adopt European values in order to improve their character.

(Source: http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vedic-upanisads/india-indology_2.html)

sarabhanga
29 March 2008, 02:13 AM
I am a little annoyed at this discussion on the putting a 'date' on the vedas. From one end of the mouth we hindus say that vedas are eternal and from the other we are too eager to accept the dates put on the eternal and that too by max mueller's of the world.

This putting a date on the eternal is a western tendency (sarabhanga no offence to you).

Namaste Satay,

Throughout this thread I have repeatedly mentioned that, in considering the historical and scriptural connexions between Hinduism and western religions, it is completely unnecessary to pursue exact dates in vedic or “pre-vedic” history. And I have repeatedly stressed the veritable eternity of both saMskRtam and the veda.

Any digression into “dating the veda” has certainly not been my intention, only following the lead of others who apparently consider that such controversial matters are important to this discussion.




We should get our story straight, if vedas are eternal there is no need to put dates on it. In comparison to christianity or islam, Hinduism has no requirement to 'prove' that vedas are historic documents for them to be accepted as the truth by the hindus.

It is my understanding that the christians do this i.e. put dates on their scriptures in an effort to prove that those scriptures are historic documents.

Is it necessary to put dates on dharmic scriptures? The answer in mind is 'NO'.

What if we say that vedas were written only 8 years ago, 2 years ago, yesterday...does that in anyway invalidate the content of these scriptures? Its meaningless to put a date on the vedas.




There is no doubt that the vedas are eternal... The dates offered are an estimate of when they were put to paper. Before paper the oral tradition from teacher-to-student prevailed.

I am in full agreement with these remarks.

However, any discussion of historical relations between Hinduism and Christianity MUST provide some reasonable historical context for both sides of the story to be convincingly related.

If we simply claim that Hinduism today is exactly the same as it has been from the dawn of creation (and beyond) and everything else is simply a corrupted branch mistakenly sprouted from the eternal pool of Hindu wisdom, which (unlike other philosophies and religions) requires no proof of anything by virtue of its own eternity, then only an avowed Hindu would even consider the argument ~ which defeats the point of this whole discussion (but perhaps stamping out the whole possibility of discussing cross-cultural relationships is actually what other correspondents would prefer).

Reviewing the discussion of historical context:



Since I have read and I believe that Sanatana Dharma was the prevailing dharma in the ancient times throughout the world, I am happy with and wholeheartedly support your contention that the teachings of Jesus Christ are from the original Sanskrit texts and that he was aware of them. I am also happy with your efforts at revealing this truth.




This God, that God, with any number of Gods, there is only one God. God is one but is manifested in different forms to different persons. So it is important to keep that in mind and pray to God with the aim of attaining God. When was this said? This was said before the Muslim and Christian religions commenced. This is not a new saying. Lord Sri Krishna has said it in Dwapara Yuga. These concepts have been there for so many thousands of years. These have been taught to us very long ago, in the Gita, about attaining God, etc.

And so, worship God, a God of your personal preference, or the God being worshipped in your family, or by your ancestors. Worship any God, but perform your worship with full faith in God. Never fight in the name of God. It is the same God who manifests in different forms and blesses us all.




I have often mentioned non-Hindu traditions, but such considerations are peripheral to my overall intention (important to notice, but only to bring the focus back to the main aim, which has always been Hindu).

To my mind, the whole story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before the supposed historical events.

There are a few stumbling blocks to comprehension here, and anyone unfamiliar with saMskRta (vocabulary and grammar) or denying the natural principle of evolution (which applies equally to memes as it does to genes) will surely have difficulty grasping the explanation.

And if it is your fixed opinion that there can be no useful comparison made between Sanskrit and any other language, then I can completely understand why you might find my argument difficult to grasp.

The essence of dharma is surely linguistic.

The authentic Word was anciently revealed, and it is the sacred duty of all religious communities to keep that Word true ~ in their hearts and their minds, in thought, word, and deed, and faithfully into the next generation. Both from parent to child and from guru to shiSya ~ indeed, the two relationships are identical.

If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of “pre-vedic” Sanskrit will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

saMskRtam is the form of sarasvatI, who is brAhmI, the vAc of brahmA.

Religion was originally a personal matter of correct “selection” or “perception” of Truth. Over time, however, the various selections made by some inspired members of different cultural groups have become “set in stone” for those groups, and subsequently their particular cultural version of “religion” or dharma has been presented more dogmatically.

The vedAs were originally passed by learned brAhmaNAs from generation to generation only by direct speech, and were never actually written down, and this process has been continuous over millennia.

At some point, the written code of brAhmI (and later saMskRtam) was established, and the vedAs were fixed in writing for the first time.

The production of actual scripture (the written word as opposed to the spoken word) is perhaps the main reason for the historical change in the perceived nature of religion (from wise choice to veritable bondage) which has tended to occur in all the established faiths.

The major upaniSadas were composed in the first half of the first millennium BC, and it was during this time that the Brahmi, Phoenician, and Aramaic, scripts were developed. And by recording the oral traditions in an easily translatable script, they were effectively released for broad publication.

And I believe that a major factor in the philosophical revolution around 600 BC was actually the codification of the shruti (which had previously only been heard and remember by heart) in written form, which created for the first time what we now consider as “scripture” and spawned various “new” religions, which are in truth only different translations of exactly the same eternal truths. And in the absence of the original oral traditions, the various dispensations have continued to diverge under their own cultural influences, with their original identities masked by the general veil of non-comprehension between different languages and scripts. And, for the purpose of this discussion, there is actually no need to consider the exact details of the absolutely primal spoken language, since all of this has occurred more than 2,000 years after Vedic Sanskrit was already well established ~ more than 2,000 years after the hypothetical (but well-justified) “proto-Aryan” had already disappeared (not by extinction, but by its gradual incorporation into all of the Indo-European languages).

The speciation of dharma has occurred along the lines of biological species, and originally identical paths have become different paths only when their previously regular intercourse becomes interrupted by some isolating cause (such as geography and language).

The veda was revealed to various RSayas over a long period of time, but they are songs which have been sung for thousands of years, learned by heart as a sacred tradition and passed over countless generations from father to son (with no mistakes allowed). And the songs are virtually self-composed from the very nature of saMskRta language and the natural history of reality itself (the two are intimately bound).

Of course, the interpretations are subtly revised and represented for new generations and new situations, and that is why the corpus of Hindu texts is so vast, with layers and layers of coherent reinterpretation of exactly the same theme.

There were agricultural settlements using sun-dried clay bricks (iSTakA) in Balochistan (western Pakistan) from about 7,000 BC. And the first agricultural irrigation systems were developed in Mesopotamia in about 5,500 BC. But similar methods were very successfully applied in the Sarasvati-Sindhu region, skillfully controlling the life-giving waters with dams and channels, greatly increasing the harvest and enabling the establishment of urban civilization (c. 3,600 BC) which was flourishing over a wide area by 3,000 BC. Sails and wheels seem to have been invented in the Middle East (c. 3,500 BC), and by 3,000 BC the maritime trade between India and the Middle East was well established (with the Sarasvati navigable all the way to Ropar, near Chandigarh). And around 2,350 BC the major revenue-source for Harappa was its export trade to Sumer and Akkad. And the sea route to the ports of Dwarka (Gujarat) and Sopara (Sofale, just north of Mumbai) was known from very ancient times.




There has never been any kind, class or nature of change in the science of the Sanskrit grammar as it is seen in other languages of the world as they passed through one stage to another.




The Sanskrit of the Puranas is slightly different from that of the Vedas, and there are various terms and grammatical quirks found only in the Rig Veda, which is clearly the most ancient text.

So it cannot be denied that Sanskrit has evolved over the last 5,000 years. But it has never ceased to be Sanskrit. And it is wrong to suggest that Sanskrit has absolutely no comparison to any other language.




The perfect form of the Vedic Sanskrit language had already existed thousands of years earlier even before the infancy of the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew and Latin etc.

This begs the question, how many thousands of years?




It was not my idea to bring Swami Prakashananda’s opinions into this discussion. And the only reason I entered into a discussion of William Jones was to stop false accusations and personal attacks on a remarkable individual who was highly respected by everyone that knew him (Christian, Muslim, and Hindu).




Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and studied Sanskrit. Captivated by the beauty and perfection of that language, he wrote his following famous lines in admiration:

"The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."
However, no western scholar of his times would give a date earlier than 1500 BCE to the Vedas.

What exactly is the relationship between the PIE and Sanskrit? Which is earlier in time?

Bharata-varsha in the beginning of Kali Yuga (3102 BCE) …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas

I would like to end the topic of Jones and his PIE, which is considered as a digression from the purpose of the thread by Sarabhanga (though I differ in that opinion).




The “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas. And the expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”.

Of course there cannot be direct evidence of pre-Vedic Sanskrit, because the Rig Veda is the most ancient exemplar of all “Indo-European”, but of course the language itself must have already been perfected before any mantras could have been revealed.

Sanskrit has always existed, implicit in (or as) the very matrix of Creation, but the code had to be discovered and established in the minds of the sages before any sage could speak the original Vedic mantras.

Surely the Rishis did not speak in tongues that they themselves did not fully comprehend, and then have to re-examine their words to first discover the inherent language and its grammar and then come up with an interpretation of what it was that they had unwittingly uttered previously!

saMskRtam is the perfect template from which the various prAkRtika dialects have diverged.

The Rgveda was apparently compiled after 1500 BC, but the mantras themselves are generally much older.

The perfect conception of saMskRtam has always existed, but the language in practice remained somewhat variable until the grammar was codified by pANini.

While the perfect saMskRtam is a single language, there is a range of slight variations included under that title. And saMskRtam is grouped with its related dialects as “Indo-Aryan”.

The Indo-Aryan (“Indic”) language group is closely related to Old Iranian, and the ancient “Dardic” language of the first wave of Aryans who settled in the Pamir mountains, and all are assumed to have arisen from a “Proto-Indo-Aryan” precursor.

Proto-Indo-Aryan (and Anatolian) existed around 2000 BC, and their common ancestor (before 3000 BC) includes the precursor of all European languages.

And the presumed progenitor of both “Proto-Indo-Aryan” and “Proto-European” is termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

In each case, a group of languages or dialects is assumed, but the various “proto” languages are theoretical constructs, presented as an ideal.

We speak of Sanskrit, but beyond Panini’s ideal there are historical variations on the theme, so that “Sanskrit” refers to a (narrow) range of language. And likewise, the ideal of PIE is presented as the archetype of the supposed common language group that gave rise to all subsequent languages.

Sanskrit may be traced from post-Vedic, back to the Vedic, and the (assumed) pre-Vedic language. And, in the context of Sanskrit alone, there is no reason to consider the variations as anything other than Sanskrit (“modern”, “classical”, “old”, “very old”, etc.).

And equally, if we were considering another lineage in isolation, the same name could be applied to all of its historical variations (e.g. “Iranian”, “Old Iranian”, “Proto-Iranian”).

When the whole range of different lineages are considered simultaneously, however, a more generally applicable terminology is required ~ thus the suggestion of “Proto-Indo-European”, rather than “Proto-Sanskrit” or “Proto-Indic” or “Proto-Dardic” or “Proto-Iranian” or “Proto-European”, etc.




The Vedas are arguably the oldest sacred texts that are still used. Most Indologists agree that an oral tradition existed long before a literary tradition gradually sets in from about the 2nd century BCE. Due to the ephemeral nature of the manuscript material (birch bark or palm leaves), surviving manuscripts rarely surpass an age of a few hundred years. The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Rigveda are dated to the 11th century CE. The Benares Sanskrit University has a manuscript of the mid-14th century.

The Vedic period lasts for at least a millennium, spanning the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Gavin Flood sums up mainstream estimates, according to which the Rigveda was compiled from as early as 1500 BCE over a period of several centuries. The Vedic period reaches its peak only after the composition of the mantra texts, with the establishment of the various shakhas all over Northern India which annotated the mantra samhitas with Brahmana discussions of their meaning, and reaches its end in the age of Buddha and Panini and the rise of the Mahajanapadas (archaeologically, Northern Black Polished Ware). Michael Witzel gives a time span of c. 1500 BCE to c. 500-400 BCE. Witzel makes special reference to the Mitanni material of ca. 1400 BCE as the only epigraphic record of Indo-Aryan that may date to the Rigvedic period. However Mitanni Indo-Aryan is linguistically slightly older than the language of the Rigveda, and the comparison thus still does not allow for an absolute dating of any Vedic text. He gives 150 BCE (Patanjali) as a terminus ante quem for all Vedic Sanskrit literature, and 1200 BCE (the early Iron Age) as terminus post quem for the Atharvaveda.

The Rig-Veda Samhita is the oldest significant existent Indian text.

The books were composed by poets from different priestly groups over a period of some 500 years, which Avari dates as 1400 BCE to 900 BCE, if not earlier. According to Max Müller, based on internal evidence (philological and linguistic), the Rigveda was composed roughly between 1700–1100 BCE (the early Vedic period) in the Punjab (Sapta Sindhu) region of the Indian subcontinent. Michael Witzel believes that the Rig Veda must have been composed more or less in the period 1450-1350 BCE, in the Greater Panjab, before the onset of the Iron Age.

There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities between the Rigveda and the early Iranian Avesta, deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, often associated with the Andronovo culture; the earliest horse-drawn chariots were found at Andronovo sites in the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural area near the Ural mountains and date to ca. 2000 BCE.




Again, if whatever we know of Sanskrit comes from the original Rig Veda mantras that were first written down 'more than 5,000 years ago' …

If we agree that all dates relate only to this Kali Yuga that started in 3102 BCE …




I have certainly not intended to suggest that the Vedas were first written down more than 5,000 years ago! Some mantras may have been encoded in the ancient Indus script, but there is no unequivocal evidence.

Whatever we know of ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, which were compiled between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, but never written down until after 500 BC, and including mantras that were themselves composed before 2000 BC, perhaps as early as 3000 BC, which is around the time that the very first writing systems were developed.

And it is not necessary to accept AryabhaTTa’s date of 3102 BC ~ see http://www.vpmthane.org/news/news155.htm for a clear explanation of the confusion.




You thought that Kali Yuga has a span of 432,000 solar years with corresponding time-scales for other Yugas? YOU ARE WRONG! … Swami Yukteswar Giri downsized the total span of the Chatur Yuga to 12,000 solar years with his own findings … Now we have a new and budding young historian of Bharatam: Niraj Mohanka, a genius who has compiled his "Royal Chronology of India" timeline, after 4 months of hard work, in his spare time amidst his professional activities as a high tech engineer. He has already earned the name 'Amatur Historian and Indologist' and it seems we have another Sir William Jones in the offing, an enthusiast scholar who pursues research on the history of this great nation Bharat in his leisure time … The traditional time scale proportions of the Yugas are all wrong and old-thinking! The Kali Yuga started in 1275 BCE …

If you still think that Arya Bhatta and the astronomical dating of Kali Yuga and the war of Mahabharata have their values, check this link …

Niraj Mohanka explains his historical quest:



It is a common refrain that India lacks any history. Although the antiquity of the civilization is well-known …

The attempts to decipher the true history of India have been too few and too often undertaken under unfavorable conditions.

Today we have a world-view of India as a land of mystery that was populated by an ancient civilization of gentle, black-complexioned illiterates.

The truth however is that these colonial theories about the history of India were an honest guess based upon inadequate data.

The general public is forced to believe a highly illogical and quite racist view of India’s ancient past. This view then taints their general opinion of this civilization and what it can contribute to the world and what it is worth in and of itself.

Many in the public cling to views of ancient history that are based on religious beliefs or based upon misunderstandings without a proper analysis of the facts. The mythological version of Indian history that is often propped up as a counter-balance to the AIT-version of Indian history is that India’s past is millions of years old with each yuga (eon, age) representing hundreds of thousands of years. Therefore events described in Indian literature were composed so long ago that they cannot be dated. Events involving monsters and monkey-people are simply ancient people’s portrayal of hominids that had not yet evolved into homo-sapiens. The only event in India’s ancient past that can be reasonably dated according to this view is the Mahabharata War occurring in 3100 BCE. The other epic, the Ramayana is supposed to have taken place in Treta Yuga and, depending on who you talk to, that can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. The problem with this position is that it totally destroys the credibility of Indians themselves as a source of testimony or opinion about India’s own ancient past. Although these people may mean well, they will be ignored by any audience with a sincere interest in India’s ancient past and as a result, they will achieve the opposite of their goal – to undo the incorrect view of India’s history and to replace it with a more acceptable one.

The rules of India’s history are not substantially different than that of other equally ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia or Egypt. All the phases of human development from hunter-gatherer to agrarian to urban to imperial all flowed in a measurable pattern and there was sufficient evidence today to see the approximate timeframes of all these developmental transitions.

The peoples of Egypt may have traditions that date back to the Pharoah’s time and we have a well-organized list of these kings and when they ruled. It provides a linkage of the literature, beliefs with other evidence such as archaeology. It greatly disturbed me that this linkage seems to never be made in India. There doesn’t appear to be a serious effort on the behalf of the Indian government or even its people to demand to know more about their past. Political issues aside, I felt a desire to do what I could to remedy this situation.

I vowed to combine all that I had learned into one document that could be viewed by the general public. This document would combine all the excellent literary and scriptural analysis I read from numerous Indian historians (such as G.P. Singh, Shrikant Talageri, P.L. Bhargava, Thaneswar Sarmah, Dharampal, David Frawley, etc.) with the data I’ve compiled from archaeologists (B.B. Lal, S.P.Gupta, S.R. Rao, M.R. Mughal, etc.) and add the anthropological and numismatic evidence to that. In addition, I added in the strong geologic evidence for the events in India’s past. The desiccation of the Sarasvati River in 1900 BCE and the Drsadvati River in 2600 BCE provide “sheet anchors” to delineate certain events in India’s past. For example, if a war took place along the flowing Drshadvati River, it must have occurred before 2600 BCE, and if we have the lists of kings in the dynasties involved in that war before and afterwards, we can date those kings too. We can then line up their timeframes with kings from other dynasties and locate the cities and kingdoms each was from. Expanding this process over dozens of dynasties and hundreds of kings reveals something amazing. India not only has a history, but that history is better documented than that of any other comparable ancient civilization. For any given timeframe in India’s past (all the way back to the beginnings of its recorded history around approximately 4000 BCE) there is some literary evidence shedding light on dozens of names of kings and priests for that given slice of time. Adding up all these slices produces a history that spans approximately six thousand years with nearly ten thousand names (and growing). My combined document is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet called the ‘Royal Chronology of India’ with over 325 generations (rows) and dozens of columns producing nearly 10,000 cells of data. Many of these cells have comments in them that are over one page in length and nearly all the sources I used to construct the timeline have been listed. I presented an early version of this timeline to my son’s school classroom and they were shocked to hear that India actually had ancient dynasties and kings and lineages of priests from the hoary past that continue even today. I am constantly updating this timeline and a current version is always freely available for download at: http://www.newdharma.org/royal_chron.htm. This spreadsheet is so full of data that it may be overwhelming, but the idea is not to read the document as if it were a novel, but rather to treat it as a reference. Just as you would search for a particular word in a dictionary, you can search for any name in India’s past and chances are it is in the Royal Chronology timeline where it should be surrounded by people associated with that person and potentially with a comment describing some aspect of their life or work.

The reason why I am writing a trilogy (i.e., why there are three epics) is because the earliest major event in Indian history happened so long ago that it has been nearly forgotten. That event is the astounding victory of King Sudas (of the Puru-Bharata Dynasty) against a confederation of over ten of his enemies. The major war is referred to in numerous places in the Rg Veda as the Dasharajnya War or War of 10 Kings (“Dasha”-Rajna). The approximate timeframe of this war is roughly 2900 BCE according to my Royal Chronology timeline. The timeframes of the other, better known epics the Ramayana and Mahabharata are approximately 2100 and 1400 BCE respectively. The fascinating observation you can make by looking at the timeline is how neatly these three epics divide Ancient Indian history into phases. There was over 1000 years of development leading to the time of King Sudas, 800 years of the Ikshvaku Dynasty from there down to Price Rama, 700 years down from there to the Yadava Prince Krsna and then another 800 years down to the time of Mahavira and Buddha. With this new view of India’s ancient past, hopefully much of the mystery is removed. These people were probably not much different from you and me. They lived, breathed, ate food, worked, recreated, dreamed, hoped, fought, etc. in much the way people still do today. We would be doing a great disservice to them if we relegated them to some unknown magical past where nothing followed any rules of logic and all the events they’ve described to us (in detail in many cases) must be ignored in favor of worshipping them as opposed to the literary and cultural legacy they’ve left us. We should be honored to inherit such an unbelievably long and noble (‘Arya’) tradition.

It is a pleasant surprise and yet a predictable result that all my years of research has only shown what most people would know instinctively. That is, that the flow of India’s history followed normal patterns and that all phases of India’s past have been recorded.




AryabhaTTa’s date of 3102 BC marks the beginning of the present astronomical era. But it is not necessary to assume that the historical eras refer to exactly the same time-scale.




Aryabhatta started his astronomical Kaliyuga at 6 A.M. on Friday, 18 February 3102 BC (Julian) at Lanka, which is hypothetically placed at the intersection of the equator with the meridian of Ujjain. In astronomical parlance, this choice of epoch defines the Aryapaksa, “the Arya school” of Siddhantic astronomy.

Aryabhatta also propounded another system, in which the Kaliyuga began six hours earlier, that is on the midnight of 17/18 February 3102 BC (Julian) at Ujjain. This is known as the ardha-ratri-ka-paksa “the midnight school”. Since planets move, their configuration cannot be the same at midnight and at sunrise.

In particular, the sun and moon cannot remain aligned at two points in time, six hours apart. It is thus clear that Aryabhatta’s Kaliyuga is a theoretical artifact, and not the epoch of an actual astronomical observation.

The Puranas do not recognize Aryabhatta’s date at all. They provide their own information on the subject.

It is possible to calculate the Bharata battle’s date from statements within the Puranas. Unfortunately, one can derive not one but many dates. The Puranas contain a bland statement that 1,015 (or 1,050) years elapsed between Pariksit’s birth (shortly after the battle) and the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda. Nanda’s coronation was a singular event from the Puranic point of view because he was a son of a Sudra mother, and exterminated all blue-blooded Ksatriyas.

The Jain Parisistaparvan calls Nanda the son of a courtesan by a barber. The Greek historian Quintas Curtius also says that Nanda was a barber who being handsome gained the affection of the queen. Through her influence he obtained a position of royal confidence which he treacherously used to murder the king.

The Matsya Purana assigns 88 years to the reign of the first Nanda. The figure is unreasonably high; 88 (astasiti) appears to be a mistake for 28 (astavimsati), which the Vayu Purana quotes. The first Nanda was succeeded by his eight sons who, all Puranas agree, ruled for 12 years, giving a total of 40 years for the Nanda rule. (Ancient Sri Lankan chronicles reduce the figure to 22 years).

A hoard of coins discovered from the Bhir mound at Taxila in 1924 contains 1,059 punch-marked coins from Magadha. These coins belong to three successive dynasties: Sisunaga, Nanda and the Maurya. Significantly, while one can distinguish between coins issued by different kings in the case of the Sisunagas and the Mauryas, the Nanda coins all belong to a single ruler. This is consistent with the brevity of the Nanda rule.

The Nandas were dethroned by Candragupta Maurya whose date of coronation is known from independent sources to be about 320 BC.

Thus the Puranas themselves suggest about 1400 BC for the Bharata battle.




According to Dr Balakrishna’s excellent analysis:

The Lunar-Solar eclipse pair from Julian year 1397 BC meets the "thirteen day" period requirement. The season is right. The two retrograde planets Brihaspati and Sani are very near declared positions. This eclipse pair is a good candidate for the Mahabharata war.

And this convincing proof of the appropriate astronomical conditions in 1397 BC fits very well with Niraj Mohanka’s suggestion (based on evidences from the Puranas themselves) of “about 1400 BC”, as the date of the Mahabharata war.

And dating the Vedas according to Sri Aurobindo kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture:



Before we discuss the probable range of dates for the Rigveda based on the massive multi disciplinary evidence collected in the last twenty years, we will give the dates given in text books of Indian history authored by Indians and others.

Max Muller assigned the period 1500 BCE to 500 BCE for Rigveda Samhita …

Now we will discuss the date of Rigveda from all the available multidisciplinary evidence, some of which were collected in the last decade, some others known earlier.

Let us first consider the satellite photography studies of the Indus Valley. The Sarasvati described in Rigveda is a massive river, located between Yamuna and Shutadrī (Sutlej) flowing into the ocean. The satellite studies indicate this river as completely dried up by the date 1750 BCE …

Next let us consider the astronomical evidence. Rigveda and all other ancient books contain several statements of astronomical significance like the position of Sun in the Zodiac on the two equinoxes, vernal or spring equinox and autumn equinox. Indian Astronomy is based on sidereal Zodiac. The Zodiac is divided into 27 roughly equal segments, all are measuring 130 20' of arc. The seventh mandala of the Rigveda records the vernal equinox in Mrigashira Constellation pointing to a date around 4000 BCE - a fact noted by Jacobi and Tilak. Again several Shulba Sūtrās declare that a pole star is visible. Since a visible pole star occurs only at certain epochs, such a citation gives a normal range of dates for that event.

Next we consider the Harappa culture. Findings tested with calibrated C-14 methods show that, “the Harappa culture should be dated to the period 2700-2000 BCE with a terminal date not lower than 1900 BCE, a date suggestively close to the drying up of Sarasvati” …

Now the evidence can be summed up and some range of dates can be given. Rigveda repeatedly refers to ancient sages and modern sages as in (1.1.2). The age associated with these ancient sages can be called as the high Rig Vedic period which is declared to be 3100 BCE or early. This period 3700-3800 BCE is the closing of the Rig Vedic age, especially the Mandalas seven and third associated with the sages Vasişhţa and Vishvāmitra. The Shulba Sūtrā texts of Baudhāyana, Ashvalāyana etc., can be dated 3100-2000 BCE; 1900 BCE is the drying up of Sarasvati and the end of Vedic age. The Vedic civilisation ended, as indicated by the Harappa ruins, due to ecological causes, draughts and desertification. There was no invasion by any one.

According to Wikipedia ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda

The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Rgveda date from about 1000 AD.
The present form of the Rgveda is a redaction from 900 to 600 BC.
Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rgveda was composed between 1700 and 1100 BC, with the oldest elements reaching back to around 2000 BC.



The sarasvatI river had stopped flowing continuously by 1800 BC, and there are Rgveda mantras clearly referring to a time before that ~ thus the academic consensus that the oldest parts of the Rgveda date from before that time, with 2000 BC suggested. Personally, I am convinced that some elements are actually much older (perhaps as early as 3000 BC).

Throughout the 3rd millennium BC, there was continuous contact between the civilizations of the Nile, the Euphrates, and Indus, and it is difficult to determine exactly from which place the various elements of their shared wisdom originated.

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script, the Sarasvati logosyllabic script, and the Sumerian pictographic script, were all developed between 3400 and 3200 BC ~ just after the simultaneous development of urban settlement in all three locations (c. 3600 BC) and the invention of the wheel (c. 3500 BC).

There had been agricultural settlements across the region since the 7th millennium BC, and irrigation systems were established by 5000 BC, and the increased production around fixed locations allowed the development of urban civilization and great cities, which became centers for both material and intellectual commerce.

The star Thuban was the perfect pole-star in 2700 BC, and it was the effective guide for navigators and the fixed reference point for astrologers throughout the 3rd millennium BC. And the vaidika star-calendar seems to have been compiled in about 2300 BC.

The brAhmaNAs record the vernal equinox in conjunction with rohinI, which points to a date around 3100 BC. And 3102 BC was taken by AryabhaTTa as an epoch making date. And, interestingly, the first Egyptian dynasty of king Narmer or Menes (the root consonants are important here, cf. nemi, mIna, manu) was apparently founded at the same time.

And there are various indications that tantalizingly point to even more remote astronomical conditions. And perhaps these truly are fragments of very ancient wisdom, but the mention of some historical event does not necessarily mean that the whole text was composed at that time. The veda describes the very dawn of creation, but that does not mean that the description was noted by any earthly RSi as it was actually happening.

The veda, just as the saMskRtam from which it is composed, descended with the very fabric of creation, and the whole is intricately woven with the harmony of all the spheres. But the full revelation to man has occurred gradually over a very long period.

Addendum in recapitulation:




The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet being to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists : there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

When features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.

From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world.

It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.

And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.

A perfect language would be that, in which every idea, capable of entering the human mind, might be neatly and emphatically expressed by one specific word, simple if the idea were simple, complex, if complex; and on the same principle a perfect system of letters ought to contain one specific symbol for every sound used in pronouncing the language to which they belonged : in this respect the old Persian or Zend approaches to perfection … and the same may indubitably be said of the Devanagari system; which, as it is more naturally arranged than any other, shall here be the standard of my particular observations on Asiatick letters.

As far as Etymology can help us, we may safely derive Nilus from the Sansrit word nila, or blue; since Dionysius expressly calls the waters of that river “an azure stream” … and the name Nila is given to a lofty a sacred mountain with a summit of pure gold, from which flowed a river of clear, sweet, and fresh water. M. Sonnerat refers to a dissertation by Mr. Schmit, which gained a prize at the Academy of Inscriptions, “On an Egyptian Colony established in India”: it would be worth while to examine his authorities, and either to overturn or verify them by such higher authorities, as are now accessible in these provinces. I strongly incline to think him right, and to believe that Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna, which the Brahmans most assuredly would never have left: they might, indeed, have come either to be instructed or to instruct; but it seems more probable, that they visited the Surmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge; nor is it likely, that the self-sufficient Brahmans would have received them as their preceptors.

The former branch, the most powerful and adventurous of whom were the progeny of Cush, Misr, and Rama (names remaining unchanged in Sanskrit, and highly revered by the Hindus), were, in all probability, the race, which I call Indian, and to which we may now give any other name, that may seem more proper and comprehensive.

Now these primeval events are described as having happened between the Oxus and the Euphrates, the mountains of Caucasus and the borders of India.

When we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin: and not to depart from the example before us, when we see Cush or Cus (for the Sanskrit name is variously pronounced) among the sons of Brahma, that is, among the progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree preserved in the Ramayan; when we meet with his name again in the family of Rama; when we know, that the name is venerated in the highest degree, and given to a sacred grass, described as a Poa by Koenig, which is used with a thousand ceremonies in the oblations to fire, ordained by Menu to form the sacrificial zone of the Brahmans, and solemnly declared in the Veda to have sprung up soon after the deluge, whence the Pauranicks consider it as the bristly hair of the boar which supported the globe; when we add, that one of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas of this earth, has the same appellation, we can hardly doubt that the Cush of Moses and Valmic was the same personage and an ancestor of the Indian race.

The Hindus … would readily admit the truth of the Gospel; but they contend, that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras: the deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God, to whom several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church.




I find this thread to be excellent and of high standard.

The truth is beyond National Boundaries. The truth is beyond any Vadas (theories). The truth is that which alone conceptualises the Vadas and all other things. And the truth is ONE.

Shri Jones’ “It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.” is good.

Znanna
29 March 2008, 02:54 PM
Namaste,

Many thanks to all ... indeed, this is a most interesting and stimulating thread.


ZN

sarabhanga
29 March 2008, 09:31 PM
A brief (unclouded) review of Max Müller and his contribution, from Wikipedia:

Müller’s Sanskrit studies came at a time when scholars had started to see language development in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European (IE) language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples. In particular the Vedic culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures, and scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages in order to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language. The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages. Müller therefore devoted himself to the study of this language, becoming one of the major Sanskrit scholars of his day. Müller believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied in order to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the most ancient of Vedic scriptures, the Rig-Veda.

Müller was greatly impressed by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, and authored several essays and books on him.

For Müller, the study of the language had to relate to the study of the culture in which it had been used. He came to the view that the development of languages should be tied to that of belief-systems. At that time the Vedic scriptures were little-known in the West, though there was increasing interest in the philosophy of the Upanishads.

He had to travel to London in order to look at documents held in the collection of the British East India Company. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued doggedly over many years (1849 - 1874), and which resulted in the critical edition for which he is most remembered.

Müller’s work contributed to the developing interest in Aryan culture which set Indo-European (‘Aryan’) traditions in opposition to Semitic religions. He was deeply saddened by the fact that these later came to be expressed in racist terms. This was far from Müller’s own intention. For Müller the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism.

Müller’s comparative religion was criticized as subversive of the Christian faith. According to Monsignor Munro, the Roman Catholic bishop of St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow, his 1888 Gifford Lectures on the “science of religion” represented nothing less than “a crusade against divine revelation, against Jesus Christ and Christianity”. Similar accusations had already led to Müller’s exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the uncontroversial Monier Monier-Williams.

By the 1880s Müller was being courted by Charles Godfrey Leland, Helena Blavatsky and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of “Pagan” religious traditions over Christianity.

Müller distanced himself from these developments, and remained within the Lutheran faith in which he had been brought up. He several times expressed the view that a “reformation” within Hinduism needed to occur comparable to the Christian Reformation. In his view, “if there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed … Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states”. He used his links with the Brahmo Samaj in order to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by Ram Mohan Roy.

And from Müller himself:

If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow ~ in some parts a very paradise on earth ~ I should point to India.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant ~ I should point to India.

And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact, more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life ~ again I should point to India.

I believe much of the excellence of the ancient Sanskrit philosophers is due to their having been undisturbed by the thought of there being a public to please or critics to appease. They thought of nothing but the work they had determined to do; their one idea was to make it as perfect as it could be made. There was no applause they valued unless it came from their equals or their betters; publishers, editors and logrollers did not yet exist. Need we wonder then that their work was done as well as it could be done, and that it has lasted for thousands of years?

There seems to be some misunderstanding of scientific method. In abstract mathematical or pure philosophical argument, an inviolable conclusion is possible, but science generally assumes that all conclusions are simply the most likely answer based on available information. And if subsequent investigation supports an alternative view, then the previously held “truth” is modified or rejected.

Whether Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Linnaeus, Darwin, Einstein, Jones, or Müller, if a better, more comprehensive truth was sufficiently proven, all would have willingly accepted it (without anyone heaping scorn or derision on anyone else).

As often repeated in this thread, William Jones has perfectly expressed the attitude of all true scientists:

It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.

And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.

And regarding the necessarily tentative conclusions resulting from a philological investigation of unwritten ancient languages (just like the arguments of ancestral relationships and estimated dates of divergence resulting from genetic analysis of presently existing species):



There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of “pre-vedic” Sanskrit will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

The speciation of dharma has occurred along the lines of biological species, and originally identical paths have become different paths only when their previously regular intercourse becomes interrupted by some isolating cause (such as geography and language).

Of course there cannot be direct evidence of pre-Vedic Sanskrit, because the Rig Veda is the most ancient exemplar of all “Indo-European”, but of course the language itself must have already been perfected before any mantras could have been revealed.

Sanskrit has always existed, implicit in (or as) the very matrix of Creation, but the code had to be discovered and established in the minds of the sages before any sage could speak the original Vedic mantras.

The Rgveda was apparently compiled after 1500 BC, but the mantras themselves are generally much older.

The perfect conception of saMskRtam has always existed, but the language in practice remained somewhat variable until the grammar was codified by pANini.

While the perfect saMskRtam is a single language, there is a range of slight variations included under that title. And saMskRtam is grouped with its related dialects as “Indo-Aryan”.

The Indo-Aryan (“Indic”) language group is closely related to Old Iranian, and the ancient “Dardic” language of the first wave of Aryans who settled in the Pamir mountains, and all are assumed to have arisen from a “Proto-Indo-Aryan” precursor.

Proto-Indo-Aryan (and Anatolian) existed around 2000 BC, and their common ancestor (before 3000 BC) includes the precursor of all European languages.

And the presumed progenitor of both “Proto-Indo-Aryan” and “Proto-European” is termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

In each case, a group of languages or dialects is assumed, but the various “proto” languages are theoretical constructs, presented as an ideal.

We speak of Sanskrit, but beyond Panini’s ideal there are historical variations on the theme, so that “Sanskrit” refers to a (narrow) range of language. And likewise, the ideal of PIE is presented as the archetype of the supposed common language group that gave rise to all subsequent languages.

Sanskrit may be traced from post-Vedic, back to the Vedic, and the (assumed) pre-Vedic language. And, in the context of Sanskrit alone, there is no reason to consider the variations as anything other than Sanskrit (“modern”, “classical”, “old”, “very old”, etc.).

The Rgveda mantras were composed by different priestly groups over a period of some 500 years, and according to Max Müller, based on internal evidence (philological and linguistic), the Rigveda was composed roughly between 1700 and 1100 BCE in the Sapta Sindhu region.

Some mantras may have been encoded in the ancient Indus script, but there is no unequivocal evidence.

Whatever we know of ancient Sanskrit comes from the Vedas, which were apparently compiled between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, but never written down until after 500 BC, and including mantras that were themselves composed before 2000 BC, perhaps as early as 3000 BC, which is around the time that the very first writing systems were developed.


And Müller’s supposed recantation is only a dose of realism for those who may have missed the true nature of his considered estimations:

I have repeatedly dwelt on the merely hypothetical character of the dates, which I have ventured to assign to first periods of Vedic literature. All I have claimed for them has been that they are minimum dates, and that the literary productions of each period which either still exist or which formerly existed could hardly be accounted for within shorter limits of time than those suggested.

If now we ask as to how we can fix the dates of these periods, it is quite clear that we cannot hope to fix a terminus a quo. Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine.
Subsequent investigation in a variety of disciplines, however, has continued to support Müller’s general view.

When speaking of “the Veda”, we must be careful to distinguish the intended meaning. Some may understand it as referring to the whole body of revealed wisdom, or to the saMhitA, brAhmaNa, AraNyaka, and upaniSad, or to just the saMhitA and related brAhmaNAs, or to just the saMhitA, and including all four vedAs or only the trayI, or only the Rgveda itself as a compilation of ten chapters, or just the specific gotram chapters, or the individual hymns of those chapters, each of which provides a complete revelation (or even the individual mantrAs, which on close inspection are again complete revelations in themselves).

How old is the intrinsic grammar? How old is the vocabulary? How old is an individual mantra? How old is the hymn? How old is the compiled chapter? How old is the particular compilation of chapters? How old are the vedAs as a coordinated three-fold or four-fold compendium? How old are the particular redactions that exist today, in oral tradition or in manuscript? And how old is a particular manuscript?

There are different answers for all of these questions, but when all of this is confounded in the minds of those without any historical or scientific perspective, and who are either ignorant of (or simply deny) the possible range of intended meaning in the simple question “how old is the veda?”, very much confusion is bound to result.

Most chapters of the Rgveda represent the accumulated wisdom of just one RSi and his gotram, and those individual compilations were at some point compiled and perfectly arranged as a whole (which had long existed in all its parts, only the parts had not previously been collected together in a unified form ~ which is the most important aspect of the dAsharAjñam and its solution).

And I would add that my own views in this thread need to be understood in light of the understanding previously presented in another long (and apparently controversial) thread ~ http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=297

atanu
30 March 2008, 01:06 AM
Namaste Satay,


Namaste Friends,



[quote]
From Muller

If now we ask as to how we can fix the dates of these periods, it is quite clear that we cannot hope to fix a terminus a quo. Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine.


That is it. And engaging in such so-called historical fact finding mission is actually forgetting the whole fact. Historical facts come and go with coming and going of particular consciousness.

Does any history hold any water in absence of a particular consciousness? And how permanent is a particular consciousness? Does it last for more than a mere flash? That the same history continues outside that flash of time can never be proven. It is said that in a moment of conceptualisation of Rudra are many epochs.



From ZN

Many thanks to all ... indeed, this is a most interesting and stimulating thread.


Indeed. Speculations are always stimulating, since there is no way to prove this or that way. One must accept whatever is speculated. Or, if someone dares to differ -----? Well. Better not differ.


Om Namah Shivaya

sarabhanga
30 March 2008, 02:59 AM
Colonnial Interpolators of Hindu Dharma and History, Whose Real Agenda was Christian Proselytism

While we Hindus seek to extrapolate Christianity for their own good and our better understanding of the religion, here is how the colonnial missionaries interpolated Hindu Dharma and History, masquerading as oriental scholars and admirers.

And thus anything constructive that any nominal “christian” has ever said or done in the field of Indian History or Sanskrit Language is invalidated as an insidious masquerade.




nothing more than a deliberate attempt to generate scorn and derision regarding the author so that anything he might have said becomes tainted with the same impression of corruption and the whole work and all of its implications can be simply dismissed.

And this childish method of argument is growing rather tiresome.




I really didn’t think you would be satisfied with a simple “all Christians are idiots, end of story” …

But I now realize that such a simplistic bigoted answer would have made you quite happy. I am not sure that there is any value in continuing such a pointless ‘debate’.




When we discuss the seemingly endless adharma done to our religion, culture and nation by the mlecchas, it is natural that emotions run high, judgments are clouded and opinions are biased.

It is impossible to conduct a rational discussion when only high emotions, clouded judgments and biased opinions prevail.

As repeatedly noted, it would be more useful (if one disagrees) to consider where the message is actually in error, rather than simply poking a stick at the messenger (and all his relatives).

And I still don’t see why any such discussion is actually required in a rational consideration of the likely origins of the story and teachings of Jesus!




There are a few stumbling blocks to comprehension here, and anyone unfamiliar with saMskRta (vocabulary and grammar) or denying the natural principle of evolution (which applies equally to memes as it does to genes) will surely have difficulty grasping the explanation.

How can discussion proceed when the most important details of what anyone has to say are completely ignored and the argument goes in leaps and bounds from one irrelevant detail to another in ever expanding circles from the original theme ?





Sir William Jones ~ the ultimate aim of all his scholarship and oriental study was clear in this pronouncement of his, as we have already noted in this thread …


“It is not the truth of our national religion, as such, that I have at heart; it is truth itself.”

“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”




Jones does consider the evangelical Christian urge for conversion and “saving souls”, not in any hidden agenda, but openly published (presumably in response to questions from his colleagues, rather than as a declaration of the secret aim of his life’s work).




The Hindus … would readily admit the truth of the Gospel; but they contend, that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras: the deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God, to whom several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may assure ourselves, that neither Muselmans nor Hindus will ever be converted by any mission from the Church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution will be to translate into Sanskrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the divine person predicted, were severally made publick; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by its natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason.




His suggestion was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit. But after two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable!

It has perhaps been missed that his suggestion (submitted with some doubt) was to translate the Bible into Sanskrit. But after two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable!

After two centuries such a Sanskrit translation remains unavailable ~ for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.

And Abbe Dubois, who lived in India from 1792 to 1823, questioned the wisdom of translating the Bible (especially the Old Testament), because he considered that the translations were not only imperfect (and thus likely to cause confusion and derision) but Hindus would not find anything there which might convince them to give up their own Dharma for Christianity.





Fredrich Max Mueller ~ specially noted for his Sanskrit scholarship that he employed in translating the Rig Veda.

This is a gross misunderstanding of Max Müller’s major contribution, which was not any particular translation of the Rgveda (although his work has provided an essential basis for all subsequent transcriptions and translations).

So Max Müller was “a toddler learning to walk” with “glaring ignorance” and “a christian missionary agenda”. And while we are tainting reputations by association, his friend Helena Blavatsky, and even the Raja of Vijayanagara (who considered the need for Müller’s critical edition of the Rgveda so great that he subsidized the publication after the East India Company withdrew its support) must also deserve our opprobrium.

He had to travel to London in order to look at documents held in the collection of the British East India Company. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued doggedly over many years (1849 - 1874), and which resulted in the critical edition for which he is most remembered.

Müller’s work contributed to the developing interest in Aryan culture which set Indo-European (‘Aryan’) traditions in opposition to Semitic religions. He was deeply saddened by the fact that these later came to be expressed in racist terms. This was far from Müller’s own intention. For Müller the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism.

Müller’s comparative religion was criticized as subversive of the Christian faith.

According to Monsignor Munro, the Roman Catholic bishop of St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow, his 1888 Gifford Lectures on the “science of religion” represented nothing less than “a crusade against divine revelation, against Jesus Christ and Christianity”.

And similar accusations had already led to Müller’s exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the less controversial Monier Monier-Williams.

And now, having already defamed Megasthenes, Franz Bopp, William Jones, Max Müller, Yukteswar Giri, and Niraj Mohanka, we can add a few more names to the black-list, including Monier Monier-Williams, the “haughty and disdainful” Rudolph Roth, the “notorious racist” Albrecht Weber who (along with Otto Boehtlingk and Ernst Kuhn) produced an “unreliable” dictionary, Franz Lorinser and Washburn Hopkin who proposed a “ludicrous theory”, and Theodore Goldstucker who “venomously attacked” all of the above while simultaneously attacking “the validity of the Vedas”.

SO WHAT ??? All of this nonsense is entirely beside the point! And if rehashing Nazi misconceptions and Christian conspiracies is your only intention, then I withdraw from further discussion.

saidevo
30 March 2008, 03:11 AM
Max Mueller and Sir William Jones were not unique in their commendations of India. Several Europeans before and after them, many of whom had little or less avowed Christian agenda, have praised India, its religion and culture as you can find in the works of Dharampal and other sources.

The criticism heaped on Max Mueller is as valid as the praises about his oriental scholarship.

• If Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arya Samaj finds Mueller lacking in his knowledge of spoken and written Sanskrit, it is not scorn or derision, only truth. The truth is that no western scholar, however formidable, could acquire or possess in equal measure, the proficiency and knowledge of Sanskrit and Hinduism the Hindu scholars and Brahmins of those times acquired and possessed. And they had a reason and right to question and evaluate the scholarship of a western counterpart.

• It is a fact that Mueller was part and parcel of the colonnial British Administration and the Christian Missionary agenda in Hindustan. He helped the Administration in their divide-and-rule policy by his speculation of the AIT. He was also a missionary as his avowed pronouncements I have quoted in another post amply prove. I would not therefore hesitate to say that he did subject his scholarship to suit his employers and his faith, though I might be termed arrogant or ignorant.



And from Müller himself:
...

I believe much of the excellence of the ancient Sanskrit philosophers is due to their having been undisturbed by the thought of there being a public to please or critics to appease. They thought of nothing but the work they had determined to do; their one idea was to make it as perfect as it could be made. There was no applause they valued unless it came from their equals or their betters; publishers, editors and logrollers did not yet exist. Need we wonder then that their work was done as well as it could be done, and that it has lasted for thousands of years?


Max Mueller indirectly implies here that his work and scholarship was 'disturbed' by his being a public figure who had 'to appease' his critics (and employers); that he could not thing of 'nothing but the work' which therefore could not be 'perfect as it could be made'. If this is a prick of conscience, his faith prevented the expansion of his consciousness.



How old is the intrinsic grammar? How old is the vocabulary? How old is an individual mantra? How old is the hymn? How old is the compiled chapter? How old is the particular compilation of chapters? How old are the vedAs as a coordinated three-fold or four-fold compendium? How old are the particular redactions that exist today, in oral tradition or in manuscript? And how old is a particular manuscript?


If you seek to prove that the roots of Christianity exist in the Vedas, the dates of the above details of the Vedas are not important. As I have said earlier (which was acknowledged by Yajvan by an elegant illustration), the western mind finds it difficult to grasp the antiquity and perfection of the oral tradition of the Vedas, which is why they repeatedly seek to establish a date with the first written manuscript while at the same time either ignoring or refusing to acknowledge the oral traditions, and this is precisely what a discerning Hindu takes objection to.

On the same lines you have spelt out for the Vedas, it would be interesting and perhaps more relevant to the discussion if you could say something about the date of the Bible, its Gospels, the OT, the earlier oral traditions of the Jews, how and why the currently reigning Gospels were selected among all the Gospels that were submitted for inclusion, if Jesus had little or no historicity then who could have taught the teachings attributed to Jesus and so on.

The discussion in this thread is two-folded: one is to find and establish the roots of Christianity in Sanatana Dharma; the other is to explore the ways in which the Christian notables could abuse that knowledge for their own vested interests (as I have pointed out in your dissection of the name Rama) by showcasing the adharma done in the past.

Since we don't know of much of what you know about the first fold, we discuss the second, even while waiting for your explanations about the first. Since you choose to take exception to each and every little statement from anyone on the second fold, you end up contributing more to the second than to the first fold. The relative truths in the second fold are less important than the Absolute Truth you seek to establish in the first.

sarabhanga
30 March 2008, 04:28 AM
इमाम्मे अग्ने समिधं जुषस्वेळस्पदे प्रति हर्या घृताचीम् ।
वर्ष्मन्पृथिव्याः सुदिनत्वे अह्नामूर्ध्वो भव सुक्रतो देवयज्या ॥
आ देवानामग्रयावेह यातु नराशंसो विश्वरूपेभिरश्वैः ।
ऋतस्य पथा नमसा मियेधो देवेभ्यो देवतमः सुषूदत् ॥
शश्वत्तममीळते दूत्याय हविष्मन्तो मनुष्यासो अग्निम् ।
वहिष्ठैरश्वैः सुवृता रथेना देवान्वक्षि नि षदेह होता ॥
वि प्रथतां देवजुष्टं तिरश्चा दीर्घं द्राघ्मा सुरभि भूत्वस्मे ।
अहेळता मनसा देव बर्हिरिन्द्रज्येष्ठां उशतो यक्षि देवान् ॥
दिवो वा सानु स्पृशता वरीयः पृथिव्या वा मात्रया वि श्रयध्वम् ।
उशतीर्द्वारो महिना महद्भिर्देवं रथं रथयुर्धारयध्वम् ॥
देवी दिवो दुहितरा सुशिल्पे उषासानक्ता सदतां नि योनौ ।
आ वां देवास उशती उशन्त उरौ सीदन्तु सुभगे उपस्थे ॥
ऊर्ध्वो ग्रावा बृहदग्निः समिद्धः प्रिया धामान्यदितेरुपस्थे ।
पुरोहितावृत्विजा यज्ञे अस्मिन्विदुष्टरा द्रविणमा यजेथाम् ॥
तिस्रो देवीर्बर्हिरिदं वरीय आ सीदत चकृमा वः स्योनम् ।
मनुष्वद्यज्ञं सुधिता हवींषीळा देवी घृतपदी जुषन्त ॥
देव त्वष्टर्यद्ध चारुत्वमानड्यदङ्गिरसामभवः सचाभूः ।
स देवानाम्पाथ उप प्र विद्वां उशन्यक्षि द्रविणोदः सुरत्नः ॥
वनस्पते रशनया नियूया देवानाम्पाथ उप वक्षि विद्वान् ।
स्वदाति देवः कृणवद्धवींष्यवतां द्यावापृथिवी हवम्मे ॥
आग्ने वह वरुणमिष्टये न इन्द्रं दिवो मरुतो अन्तरिक्षात् ।
सीदन्तु बर्हिर्विश्व आ यजत्राः स्वाहा देवा अमृता मादयन्ताम् ॥

saidevo
30 March 2008, 10:16 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

I will not be intimidated by the textual bold-facing, fontal up-sizing, emotical face-showing (:( :po: :headscratch: :o ;)), accusing tone and fault-finding attitude of your posts or by the voluminous repetitions that make the thread less and less readable!

In reply to my question "Extrapolating Christianity--to What End?" in the OP, you sought to explore and expose its original roots saying that they were firmly embedded in Vedas and Sanatana Dharma. And then you followed it up with your voluminous quotes from Rig Veda and the root-level dissections of Sanskrit key words that in your opinion have bearing on the origin and growth of Christianity. These quotes and dissections were not very intelligible to me and my friends here. I pointed it out and said we were waiting for your explanations of the connections.

Just as any discussion of Adolf Hitler automatically brings in the Holocaust he committed on millions of Jews in the name of 'racial hygiene', so also a discussion on the Christian religion is bound to bring in its proselytism in the name of 'religious exclusivity', which also involves destruction of millions of people, their family, religion and culture, and continues with more and more agression even in this modern, civilized and democratic world of the 21st century.

As I said in my last post, extrapolation of Christianity has two distinct phases, both being discussed in this thread:

• one is to establish its roots in Sanatana Dharma and
• the other is to expose how, why and by whom were these roots camouflaged and corrupted in the name of dogma and doctrine.

If you seek to establish the Advaitic unity of Christianity with Sanatana Dharma, you need to look at these two, Dvadic sides of the same coin.

Therefore, the discussions in this thread involve the Christian missionary work with special reference to India and Hinduism, which automatically brings in the 'works and services' of the colonnial scholars like William Jones, Max Mueller and Monier Williams.

The fact remains that with all their scholarship and Sanskrit proficiency had they really sought the Absolute Truth come what might have, they could have easily found and exposed the original roots of Christianity that you have been trying to drive home for the last decade!

They did not do this because their purpose was the Christian agenda that was camouflaged under voluble declarations of seeking the One Truth and their admiration for India.

I don't understand how and why you are angered when I or others point out their actual purpose that actually marred rather than made all their work, study and scholarship. When the PIE or AIT or any other 19th century paradigm of Hindu History is not much relevant to your work, why not simply let others discuss what they may and proceed with what you have explored about the roots of Christianity? Instead, you seek to find fault with each and every little statement from anyone and end up defending Jones and Mueller and other colonnial scholars as if they are your next-door and neighbourhood buddies--and our archenemies! And in addition, you accuse me of being ignorant, childish, happy with "a simplistic bigoted answer" that "all Christians are idiots, end of story" and having intentions of "rehashing Nazi misconceptions and Christian conspiracies"--all contrary opinions being nonsense in your considered, scholarly and Advaitic opinion!

In Tamilnadu there is a custom of holding scholarly discussions in the name of 'Patti Manram' where pundits take sides and thrash out a debate such as "Who is the most excelling character in Kamba Ramayanam: Hanuman or Vibhishana?" There will be a moderator who will finally give his/her verdict, usually decisive but sometimes indecisive. In the debate of this thread my friends and I have taken up the side of 'what Christianity has been all along' and you have taken up the side of 'what and how it actually was when it started'. We have not taken up the other side because, unlike the Tamil pundits, we don't know much about it. The difference between a 'Patti Manram' and this debate is that there is no moderator here; and there are no final, decided answers that are the right ones to the exclusion of other answers.

I have made all the above points only for the sake of academic discussion of exposing both sides of the coin. I respect your knowledge and scholarship, Sarabhanga, and belive as Satay said, you "always mean well." Therefore, please proceed with your work with as little fanfare as you can make, on the second phase of the debate while you concentrate on the first.

sarabhanga
30 March 2008, 10:27 PM
इमाम्मे अग्ने समिधं जुषस्वेळस्पदे प्रति हर्या घृताचीम् ।
वर्ष्मन्पृथिव्याः सुदिनत्वे अह्नामूर्ध्वो भव सुक्रतो देवयज्या ॥
आ देवानामग्रयावेह यातु नराशंसो विश्वरूपेभिरश्वैः ।
ऋतस्य पथा नमसा मियेधो देवेभ्यो देवतमः सुषूदत् ॥
शश्वत्तममीळते दूत्याय हविष्मन्तो मनुष्यासो अग्निम् ।
वहिष्ठैरश्वैः सुवृता रथेना देवान्वक्षि नि षदेह होता ॥
वि प्रथतां देवजुष्टं तिरश्चा दीर्घं द्राघ्मा सुरभि भूत्वस्मे ।
अहेळता मनसा देव बर्हिरिन्द्रज्येष्ठां उशतो यक्षि देवान् ॥
दिवो वा सानु स्पृशता वरीयः पृथिव्या वा मात्रया वि श्रयध्वम् ।
उशतीर्द्वारो महिना महद्भिर्देवं रथं रथयुर्धारयध्वम् ॥
देवी दिवो दुहितरा सुशिल्पे उषासानक्ता सदतां नि योनौ ।
आ वां देवास उशती उशन्त उरौ सीदन्तु सुभगे उपस्थे ॥
ऊर्ध्वो ग्रावा बृहदग्निः समिद्धः प्रिया धामान्यदितेरुपस्थे ।
पुरोहितावृत्विजा यज्ञे अस्मिन्विदुष्टरा द्रविणमा यजेथाम् ॥
तिस्रो देवीर्बर्हिरिदं वरीय आ सीदत चकृमा वः स्योनम् ।
मनुष्वद्यज्ञं सुधिता हवींषीळा देवी घृतपदी जुषन्त ॥
देव त्वष्टर्यद्ध चारुत्वमानड्यदङ्गिरसामभवः सचाभूः ।
स देवानाम्पाथ उप प्र विद्वां उशन्यक्षि द्रविणोदः सुरत्नः ॥
वनस्पते रशनया नियूया देवानाम्पाथ उप वक्षि विद्वान् ।
स्वदाति देवः कृणवद्धवींष्यवतां द्यावापृथिवी हवम्मे ॥
आग्ने वह वरुणमिष्टये न इन्द्रं दिवो मरुतो अन्तरिक्षात् ।
सीदन्तु बर्हिर्विश्व आ यजत्राः स्वाहा देवा अमृता मादयन्ताम् ॥

Sir William Jones (1746-1794) and Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836) founded the Asiatic Society in 1784, and their study of Sanskrit provided the first consistent method (based on the perfect vehicle of Sanskrit itself) for transcribing Indic languages into the Roman characters familiar to Europeans, which for the first time allowed useful linguistic comparisons to be made.

But if we accept that Jones (along with the whole Asiatic Society) was merely an instrument of the British East India Company and the Church of England, a missionary masquerading as a scholar, whose life’s ambition was to destroy Hindu Dharma, we cannot trust the validity of any of his works (especially not this first step, which allowed all else to follow).

In which case, there is no valid means for transcribing the above text in Roman characters, and only those familiar with Devanagari script will have any chance of understanding. And perhaps that is the way some would have preferred things to have remained ~ with anyone who does not already comprehend Sanskrit having no business in reading the Veda.

saidevo
31 March 2008, 12:10 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



But if we accept that Jones (along with the whole Asiatic Society) was merely an instrument of the British East India Company and the Church of England, a missionary masquerading as a scholar, whose life’s ambition was to destroy Hindu Dharma, we cannot trust the validity of any of his works (especially not this first step, which allowed all else to follow).

In which case, there is no valid means for transcribing the above text in Roman characters, and only those familiar with Devanagari script will have any chance of understanding. And perhaps that is the way some would have preferred things to have remained ~ with anyone who does not already comprehend Sanskrit having no business in reading the Veda.


Come on Sarabhanga, you're kidding, and this statement makes us laugh! So that's is the purpose of your quote of the Rig Vedic Hymn 10.70! Thank God, I thought you implied by your quote something like casting our misconceptions, prejudices and ignorance into Agni; I even scratched my head for any connection of Agni with Jones and Mueller!

Nothing is newly discovered or invented by individuals in God's grand scheme for the world. People who say that they or others did what they were destined to do in the divine scheme, are either ignorant or do not actually mean what they say, depending on their levels of spiritual advancement.

Jones, Wilkins and others never said that their transliteration scheme of Devanagari text was to facilitate native Sanskrit-illiterate Hindus to read and understand their own scriptures! They invented the scheme only to facilitate the Europeans understand India and Hinduism. For that matter, almost all Hindu texts including Vedas have been published in Hindi, Tamil* and possibly many other vernacular languages which are closer to Sanskrit, and native Hindus do happily read, recite and understand them!

Therefore, your claim "perhaps that is the way some would have preferred things to have remained ~ with anyone who does not already comprehend Sanskrit having no business in reading the Veda" is far-fetched, to say the least.

Moreover, today we have the ITRANS (of Avinash Chopde) and the Baraha schemes that are better in many ways than the old transliteration schemes involving cumbersome diacritics.

If Thomas Babington Macaulay did not introduce English in the Indian curriculum to bring the whole of British India under the rule of English--both the language and the ruling people--Sanskrit would have perhaps remained the national language of India and been known and studied at the grass roots level. And the Hindu Brahmins would have remained Brahmins in the true spirit of Sanatana Dharma, following their dharma of 'aRuthzhil' (of six kinds) that TiruvaLLuvar talks of and also explained in Tamil Sangam Literature: read and research Vedas, teach Vedas, recite and perform Vedic yajnas for self, perform them for others, take alms that are given for these tasks for daily sustenance, and give in charity what they can to others.

Note: *I understand that Vedas have been translated in Tamil too:

Works by Dravidians on Vedas – Dr. T.N. Ramachandran

The speaker enthralled the audience with his stomping authority and grand style on the various Dravidian works on Vedas. He explained the work of Shri Jambunahtha Iyer who translated Vedas to Tamil and who worked for the welfare of depressed people. He also explained the Tamil translation of Krishna Yajur Veda & Sama Veda by Shivadhyananda Maharishi. Then the work of Shri Kapali Shastri on Rig Veda was explained. (http://webolim.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html)

satay
31 March 2008, 09:13 AM
namaskar,

So could we take the discussion back to the following points (one word added my me):



• one is to establish its (christianity's) roots in Sanatana Dharma and
• the other is to expose how, why and by whom were these roots camouflaged and corrupted in the name of dogma and doctrine.



I still don't know how we can say with proof that christianity had its roots in Sanatana Dharama though there are very many obvious similarities in Jesus' teachings to dharmic teachings. I know that his thread contains many quotes from the rig veda in an effort to try to prove this point, however, is it enough to simply quote our scriptures?

If I were a christian I would be looking for something more that has the possibility of being scrutnized and accepted by christian scholars.

To that end, why didn't the scholars of england and germany accept the truth of the vedas and made the assertion that bible was simply a very poor copy of hindu scriptures or atleast that jesus teachings are linked to dharmic scriptures somehow?

I have been thinking about this for a few days...



If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting?


Doesn't the above statement also work in reverse? If christian is a 'version' of hinduism albeit corrupted, why not accept it if not for any other reason but for simplicity of its offering? Why not accept the simple direct path shown by jesus?

My another problem, God in the bible quite boldly and arrogantly declares that he is the only god and his devotees should not 'bring any gods before him'. Yet, if he is the same god then why does he tell the hindus earlier that all paths lead to me, and that all worship even of the 'other gods' leads to him only. Why would God be giving confusing messages?

And last but not least, I don't know many christians that actually believe in christianity being part of the 'dharma chakram', however, that shouldn't stop this discussion as it is in our best interest to understand and prove once and for all that 'christianity did at some point at least have its root in the dharmic teachings'.

And finally,



Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.


Is it possible to consider the original christian scriptures (e.g. sarabhanga you said your focus is on some key gospels, sermon of the mount etc.) in their original language and then compare them to original hindu scriptures?

How is this possible? Who would compare them? I don't see how without a proper comparison we can make the case that 'hindu scriptures tell the whole story of christianity'.

For example, a very common response from a christian or a hindu would be:
a) show us how that the original teachings of jesus are from hindu text
b) prove that the corruptions to his original teachings were made
c) who made these corruptions

The answer to b) and c) is that due to translation (many translations) the teachings have been corrupted.

But what is the simplistic answer to a). Simply quoting rig veda won't do, will it? It doesn't seem to be 'doing it' (as far as proof) for me.

The conncections, imho, need more refinement...

satay
31 March 2008, 03:15 PM
Namaskar,





Indeed. Speculations are always stimulating, since there is no way to prove this or that way. One must accept whatever is speculated. Or, if someone dares to differ -----? Well. Better not differ.
Om Namah Shivaya

Perhaps a better word is 'assumptions' or 'hypothesis'. Is this a common technique to prove anything i.e. by making the hypothesis and/or assuming the final result but then working to provide and refine the exact steps to leading back to the original hypothesis.

We have made the hypotesis that 'christianity is a version of hinduism' and now we are trying to find and refine the steps that will lead us to the proof of this hypothesis.

Why not join the conversation and offer your point of view, atanu?

sarabhanga
01 April 2008, 06:03 AM
The criticism heaped on Max Mueller is as valid as the praises about his oriental scholarship.

If Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arya Samaj finds Mueller lacking in his knowledge of spoken and written Sanskrit, it is not scorn or derision, only truth. The truth is that no western scholar, however formidable, could acquire or possess in equal measure, the proficiency and knowledge of Sanskrit and Hinduism the Hindu scholars and Brahmins of those times acquired and possessed. And they had a reason and right to question and evaluate the scholarship of a western counterpart.

Namaste Saidevo,

Max Müller’s most important contribution really has nothing to do with his ability in spoken Sanskrit, and his critical text of the Rgveda was established by comparing numerous manuscripts of the Rgveda and sAyaNa’s commentary (each manuscript having its own peculiarities) to arrive at a presumed base text from which all variations seem to have arisen.

Müller took 24 years to produce his first edition, which was not concerned with any translation, simply presenting the Sanskrit text in as close to its pure and original condition as he could make it.

And, just as Jones’ phonetic “discoveries” represent first grade knowledge for a Brahmin, much of this task really required only a basic working knowledge of Sanskrit ~ indeed, with a modern computer programmed with the rules of Sanskrit grammar and some good character-recognition tools, the scanned manuscripts could be checked and the most likely base text determined. But in the 19th century, no such tools were available, and no Indian scholar was particularly interested in doing the work, which would seem quite unnecessary for anyone who had learned the Vedas by heart from their Guru’s tradition. But when the job was done, most learned Indians were very pleased with the result, and the ready availability of a clearly printed critical text of the Rgveda was so much appreciated in India that the first editions sold out quickly.

Müller’s work was at first supported by the East India Company, but when the job was done its value (for Christian purposes) was found to be equivocal ~ it was actually stimulating interest (both in India and abroad) in traditional Hindu Dharma ~ and Müller’s findings seemed to undermine the primacy of Christianity.

And after many years of dedicated effort, Müller was effectively sacked for not supporting the prevailing Christian view, and any funding for further editions of his Rgveda was refused! So it is no wonder that he warned others to avoid certain views (which he himself had entertained) lest they lose the patronage of their benefactors (i.e. the Christian Church and the British Empire), whose own intentions regarding India and Hinduism were not so benign.



Müller’s Sanskrit studies came at a time when scholars had started to see language development in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European (IE) language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples.

In particular the Vedic culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures, and scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages in order to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language. The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages.

Müller therefore devoted himself to the study of this language, becoming one of the major Sanskrit scholars of his day. Müller believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied in order to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the most ancient of Vedic scriptures, the Rig-Veda.

Müller was greatly impressed by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, and authored several essays and books on him.

For Müller, the study of the language had to relate to the study of the culture in which it had been used. He came to the view that the development of languages should be tied to that of belief-systems. At that time the Vedic scriptures were little-known in the West, though there was increasing interest in the philosophy of the Upanishads.

He had to travel to London in order to look at documents held in the collection of the British East India Company. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued doggedly over many years (1849 - 1874), and which resulted in the critical edition for which he is most remembered.

For Müller the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism.

Müller’s comparative religion was criticized as subversive of the Christian faith.

According to Monsignor Munro, the Roman Catholic bishop of St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow, his 1888 Gifford Lectures on the “science of religion” represented nothing less than “a crusade against divine revelation, against Jesus Christ and Christianity”.

Similar accusations had already led to Müller’s exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the uncontroversial Monier Monier-Williams.

By the 1880s Müller was being courted by Charles Godfrey Leland, Helena Blavatsky and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of “Pagan” religious traditions over Christianity.

Müller distanced himself from these developments, and remained within the Lutheran faith in which he had been brought up.

He several times expressed the view that a “reformation” within Hinduism needed to occur comparable to the Christian Reformation.

In his view, “if there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed … Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states”. He used his links with the Brahmo Samaj in order to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by Ram Mohan Roy.

Müller was a Lutheran, and the revolution in Hinduism he hoped for was no different to the Lutheran reformation of Christianity, which arose not to destroy Christianity (although that is how the Church of Rome considered it) but to return the faith to its purest roots ~ just as Jesus himself had done with the highly ritualized dogma and priestly control that he saw in the Judaism of his time, and just as the rise of Upanishadic thought had overturned the predominance of Vedic ritual sacrifice in favor of a more personal method of virtual self-sacrifice.

So Max Müller was condemned by both the Church of England and the Church of Rome, and now he stands condemned by many Hindus, who use the arguments of both sides to beat him, while completely ignoring any positive contribution he may have made. And with some of his ideas taken up and twisted by the “Aryan” movement in Germany and thus implicated in the Nazi persecution of Jews and Gypsies (and likely most Hindus would also have been included on the Nazi agenda for extermination, if there were any living in Germany at the time), the name of Max Müller has become a very easy target for (largely unwarranted) abuse.

Whatever the personal convictions of a scientist, there should be no distortion of evidence, and any conclusions are open for discussion. And any errors or distortions will soon be discovered by the general scientific community.

Whatever Müller may have translated from the Sanskrit text is completely irrelevant for Hindus, who should be relying on the Sanskrit itself rather than on anyone else’s translation. And we could argue forever about divergent interpretations and translated texts, but is there any particular error in Max Müller’s Sanskrit text of the Rgveda? If so, we could perhaps discuss how Müller’s choice of one version over another was inappropriate and perhaps even argue that his choice was driven by his missionary zeal ~ but where is the evidence? The only objections given so far simply berate him for being a Lutheran Christian, and belittle his understanding of spoken Sanskrit, which as I have tried to explain is really beside the point.




The western mind finds it difficult to grasp the antiquity and perfection of the oral tradition of the Vedas, which is why they repeatedly seek to establish a date with the first written manuscript while at the same time either ignoring or refusing to acknowledge the oral traditions, and this is precisely what a discerning Hindu takes objection to.

What reputable academic has tried to limit the age of the Vedas based on existing manuscripts? The oldest manuscript that Müller examined was less than 1,000 years old, but he considered that the verses must have been composed and compiled, in the same form as we know it today, more than 2,000 years before even the oldest known manuscript was written down.

It seems that none of the western academic views you have presented actually believes that the Veda is limited by the age of its manuscript form, and none denies the very ancient tradition of oral transmission of the Vedic mantras. So the “discerning Hindu” seems to be objecting in the wrong direction.




On the same lines you have spelt out for the Vedas, it would be interesting and perhaps more relevant to the discussion if you could say something about the date of the Bible, its Gospels, the OT, the earlier oral traditions of the Jews …

The oldest chapters of the Old Testament were composed after 1000 BC, the oldest known manuscript of the Old Testament was written after 200 BC, and the oldest known manuscript of any part of the New Testament was written after 100 AD. And the Dead Sea Scrolls, representing the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, date from around the time Christ himself (c. 100 BC - 100 AD), and there are fragments of the Old Testament in Greek dating from the second century BC.

The first glimmer of Yahweh worship in the Middle East seems to date from about 1230 BC, around the time when Moses is thought to have led the Hebrew tribes out of Egypt. King David united Israel and Judah around 1000 BC. The Prophecies of Amos (the first Prophet of Israel) were made about 750 BC. Sargon II deported the Israelites in 722 BC. Necho of Egypt defeated Judah in 608 BC. And the Jews were returned to rebuild Jerusalem in 539 BC.

So the verifiable history of Judaism and all of its scripture comes after about 1200 BC, which is the absolute minimum age suggested for the Rgveda.

And the entire history of Christianity and the New Testament comes after the first century AD, by which time the main corpus of Hindu scripture (excluding the Tantras and Puranas) had already been fixed in writing for several centuries.

And so, in every comparison involving the Veda and the Bible, there is no contest over historical precedence, with the Veda winning first place every time. And in comparison with the New Testament, all of the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Sutras, and Smriti texts, and the majority of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, were already committed to writing and well known in oral traditions over the whole of India before one jot of the New Testament was composed.




How and why the currently reigning Gospels were selected among all the Gospels that were submitted for inclusion …

Surely this is unnecessary in the present discussion, and anyone who wants to go into the details of the New Testament’s construction and its centuries of editing can easily look up the information for themselves.




The discussion in this thread is two-folded: one is to find and establish the roots of Christianity in Sanatana Dharma; the other is to explore the ways in which the Christian notables could abuse that knowledge for their own vested interests (as I have pointed out in your dissection of the name Rama) by showcasing the adharma done in the past.

Partial truths will always be misapplied by fools, but the Truth itself should have nothing to fear. Are you suggesting that the whole of Hinduism should remain a closely guarded secret, lest someone takes a fragment and uses it against us? If so, this is a perfect example of the supposedly Christian dictum:

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

As explained for William Jones, the Christian position on all scriptural correlations is that anything found in scripture composed later than Biblical texts must be borrowed from the Bible, and anything found in earlier scriptures must be considered as a prophecy of Biblical events. Most modern Christians understand that an argument of prophesies, specially placed in “heathen” scriptures by divine intervention as preemptive messages intended to lead the faithless back to the true faith (just as the Three Sages were supposedly convinced by their own ancient wisdom to seek out Jesus Christ and confirm his coming as the fulfillment of their own religious expectations), is impossible to prove scientifically, and they would rather focus on assigning the latest possible dates to other scriptures, to get as many correspondences as possible safely over the “AD” hurdle and within reach of the simple “borrowing” defense.

And it seems to me that any correspondences found only in the Puranas are difficult to defend against a charge of borrowing, and correspondences found in the Epics could perhaps be argued as borrowings either way (depending on the particular case). But correspondences found in almost any other Hindu scripture can safely be assumed to pre-date any Biblical equivalent, and the core of the Mahabharata (including the Gita) is surely pre-Christian, with the story harking back to a time before the beginnings of Judaism (which may itself have arisen from a westward dispersion resulting from the Mahabharata conflict, c. 1400 BC).

The Exodus is traditionally thought to have occurred in 1446 BC, and Abraham is traditionally thought to have been born in 2166 BC, but there is much diversity of opinion among Christians and academic historians as to the exact dates and locations of almost everything mentioned in the Bible, and almost no hard evidence from archaeology. Perhaps Abraham lived before 2000 BC, but there is no evidence of Yahweh worship until around 1200 BC, and certainly no evidence of any scripture composed before 1000 BC.

saidevo
02 April 2008, 08:25 AM
Origins of Judeo-Christian Theology and Scripture

The route (root) to today's Christianity was through Judaism which was transformed into its present form by Zorastrianism, and Zorastrianism in turn originated from Hinduism. Here is a brief compilation of the origins of Judeo-Christianity.

• Jesus was a Jew and he came into this world to fulfill the Jewish law. [Matthew 5:17-19]. Jesus taught his twelve disciples who were also Jews.

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

• Then came Paul [CE 3-67], a Jew and a Roman citizen. Paul is where Christianity begins. Paul became the first Christian as distinguished from the twelve Jewish disciples of Jesus, by his rejection of the laws of Moses. For his heresy Paul is also considered by many to be the first anti-Christ.

• Paul ignored the basic laws of Moses--the laws that Jesus came to uphold. For example Jesus taught that one should follow the laws for circumcision and dietary [kosher] regulations. But that was ignored in Paul's interpolations of the teachings of Jesus.

• The Torah was the only Jewish scripture in the time of Jesus. Even the Kabala, an important book in Judaism, did not exist at that time. The Jewish people believe the Torah [the Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or law] to be the literal word of God and apparently Jesus also considered it so. In the Torah, God is Yahweh, the 'God of Abraham,' and this too Jesus apparently accepted.

• The Torah consists of five books; Bereishith [Genesis], Shemoth [Exodus], Vayigra [Leviticus], Bamidbar [Numbers] and Devarim [Deuteronomy]. These five books are also known as the Five Books of Moses or the Pentateuch.

• However, when the Old Testament for Christians was compiled after the First Council of Nicea [325 CE] in addition to the Five Books of Moses another thirty-four books were added. The Council of Nicea also gave Christiandom the New Testament containing twenty-seven books, written in Greek.

• If Christianity could have separated itself from Judaism it would have done so long ago by rejecting the Torah/Old Testament. But Christianity cannot do that and still has a foundation to the claim that Jesus is the Messiah. The prophecies of the coming of the Messiah are found in the Torah. Thus the marriage of Christianity to Judaism is forever.

Origin of the Torah and the Influence of Zoroastrianism

What actually is the Torah and where did it come from? Jewish tradition tells us that the Torah is the primary document of Judaism, and is the source of all Biblical commandments, in an ethical framework.

• According to Jewish tradition God himself revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai in 1280 BCE [this has been disputed by scholars]. Classical rabbinic writings offer various ideas on when the entire Torah was revealed--all at once; every word including the text "And God spoke to Moses..." is God-given; over many years and finished at only when Moses died; Moses wrote most of it and parts were written by Joshua, another prophet after Moses died.

• However, there is no historical support to Moses, the key figure in the Torah and Judaism.

• Nor is there any historical evidence to support the claim that the Jews were slaves in Egypt. Scholars have determined that there is no evidence whatsoever in Egyptian history to indicate that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt.

• There is also no evidence [such as independent literature, or archaeological findings] to prove that King Solomon, or the 'First Temple' in Jerusalem ever existed.

• That the Jews were taken into captivity from Judea to Babylon, however, is a verifiable historical fact and the history of the Jews after that point in time is also verifiable.

• The Babylonians invaded Judea in 587 BCE and took as many as 10,000 Jews back to Babylon. This is known as the Exile. Up to this time the Torah as a book had not yet been compiled. That parts of the Torah may have existed in any form other than oral tradition is questionable, for written evidence of such has not been found.

• Approximately 100 years later the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon [537 BCE] and many Jews in Babylon returned to Judea. During this period the 'Temple' at Jerusalem was started by the order of King Cyrus and completed in 515 BCE during the reign of King Darius I [see Ezra 5:6-17 & 6:1-15].

• Why was Cyrus, a Persian, interested in building a temple for the Jews? This is where Zoroastrianism comes in, which Cyrus declared as Persia's official religion. Zoroastrianism talks about the Universe is dualistic in nature, being made of two parts: one was good and light and the other was evil and dark. Cosmic history was simply the epic battle between these two divine forces; at the end of time, a climactic battle would decide once and for all which of the two would dominate the universe. Human beings, in everything they do, participated in this struggle; all the gods and all the religions were part of this epic.

• Cyrus believed that the final battle was approaching, and that Persia would bring about the triumph of good. To this end, he sought to conquer all peoples and create the stage for the final triumph of good. Cyrus believed the Jew's god Yahweh was one of the good gods as opposed to the Jew's god of human child sacrifice, Moloch who was clearly evil. Incidentally, the term mleccha comes from Moloch.

• Therefore Cyrus built 'the second temple' for the Jews at Jerusalem [2 Chronicles 36: 22-23], but appointed only Persians as the priests of the temple. These priests were called Pharisees. The Pharisees regulated the worship in the temple and over time they gave Judaism key elements of Zoroastrianism to form important parts of Jewish theology such as, the belief in an evil force that opposes God and the belief in an eternal afterlife.

• The temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans under Emperor Titus. A portion of that temple stands today in Jerusalem and is known as the 'Wailing Wall'.

• The main influence of Zorastrianism on Judaism was regarding eschatology (the doctrines of death and after). This influence changed the Jews' earlier belief that the soul, after death, went to a house of dust they called "Sheol," to abide for a brief time before fading completely from existence.

In Zoroastrian thought, three days after death, the soul of a decreased person was resurrected up to a high bridge called Chinvat Bridge, which was where judgment occurred. The scales of Rashn judged the soul, and two separate events would occur based on the moral character of the soul. If the soul was evil, Vizarsh would take the soul “and [would] beat and torment it scornfully and wrathfully” (Boyce 83). In contrast, those who had lived a good life and passed Rashn’s test of morality, were taken to a world that was “free from peril and adversity [… and they would] know peace for a long while” (Boyce 86).

Post-exilic Judaism that developed into the Rabbinical Judaism that is seen today, quickly adopted Zoroastrian-like concepts of judgment, resurrection, and afterlife. In post-exilic Judaism, Sheol became a place synonymous with hell where the wicked were sent, and a new place named Pardes, meaning paradise, was created and reserved for the righteous (Eliade 458).

• At the time of the Pharisees there existed a parallel group of Jews called Sadducees. The Sadducees [Pagan and Shaman in practice] were members of the older priesthood among Jews. The Sadducees among other things did not like or agree with the Zoroastrian influence, especially the Zoroastrian views of an afterlife.

How it all played out is left to conjecture, but in the end the Sadducees vanished from Jewish society. Under the Zoroastrian influence, however, Judaism received its first book of written law, Torah.

Jews themselves eventually took the position of the Pharisees, particularly after Alexander the Great defeated Persia, but the Torah had already been written by that time.

Sources:
Origins of Judeo-Christian Theology and Scripture
http://www.burningcross.net/crusades/origins-old-testament.html

The Role of Zoroastrianism and Cyrus on Judaic Eschatology
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:cuOoW4nxpOkJ:celtickane.com/school/eng_Zoroa.doc+%22Zoroastrianism%22cyrus&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=opera

sarabhanga
02 April 2008, 11:01 PM
I will not be intimidated by the textual bold-facing, fontal up-sizing, emotical face-showing (:( :po: :headscratch: :o ;)), accusing tone and fault-finding attitude of your posts or by the voluminous repetitions that make the thread less and less readable!

Intimidation??

Re: textual bold-facing

The only reason I have used bold type is to mark Sanskrit words, to emphasize important lines, and to specially mark lines that have apparently been missed.

And I will not be intimidated by your own use of textual underlining!

Nor by any bold print, for example:




Isn't it laughable, and at the same time a big black hole in the history of linguistics? Why did they do so, and create such a monstrous lie that confused and misled the sincere intelligentsia of the whole world?


Re: fontal up-sizing

I have used this device once in this thread, simply increasing the font size by one step to mark a few important lines that had been deliberately omitted, but which were required to complete the sense of what I was trying to say. And I would normally have used simple bolding (for the reasons mentioned above), but the particular indication of certain words within the repeated lines would have been lost, so I decided to “up-size”.

But it seems that any textual device is simply taken as aggression or intimidation and the importance of the words themselves is even more likely to be ignored.

sarabhanga
02 April 2008, 11:27 PM
And my accusing tone and fault-finding attitude?





As I said in my last post, extrapolation of Christianity has two distinct phases, both being discussed in this thread:

• one is to establish its roots in Sanatana Dharma and
• the other is to expose how, why and by whom were these roots camouflaged and corrupted in the name of dogma and doctrine.

If you seek to establish the Advaitic unity of Christianity with Sanatana Dharma, you need to look at these two, Dvadic sides of the same coin.

Therefore, the discussions in this thread involve the Christian missionary work with special reference to India and Hinduism, which automatically brings in the 'works and services' of the colonnial scholars like William Jones, Max Mueller and Monier Williams.

I agree that there are two sides to the coin, but both sides must remain equally rational and factual or they will detract from each others value.

I agree that the Christian Church, the East India Company, and the British Empire, have all had unreasonable designs on Hindustan, and some academics may have agreed with their plans, but simply quoting a line from here and there from their personal correspondence, without proving any actual fault in their work, seems pointless and unfair.

For instance, you claimed that William Jones never mentioned any connexions between Christ and Krishna, but in fact he did mention them.

And the often repeated statement from Jones, shows exactly the argument I have been suggesting. The exact nature of the “Egyptian conduits” requires clarification, but the essential notion of transmission from “the primeval fountains of Indian literature” was acceptable to Jones, if only it could be proved.


“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”
I have not objected to anything in your earlier post ~ http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=21446&postcount=45 ~ and I am not sure what more really needs to be said along those lines.

And considering the Christian suggestion of “borrowing” from their scripture, the testimony of Megasthenes was effectively used as a defense, but in Swami Prakashananda’s tirade against William Jones, Megasthenes is discredited, leaving the previous justification in now in doubt.




Everyone who has read Megasthenes knows that his writings are most unreliable. But Jones found an excuse to quote the writings of Megasthenes.

Jones, deliberately overlooking these facts and taking an excuse of the unfounded writings of a worldly disdained gossiper, Megasthenes, fabricated the story of matching Chandragupt Maurya with Sandracottus.


From archaeologyonline (http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/heliodorus-column.html)


A reproduction of the inscription, along with the transliteration and translation of the ancient Brahmi text, is given here as it appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.


Devadevasu Va[sude]vasa Garudadhvajo ayam


Karito ia Heliodorena bhaga


Vatena Diyasa putrena Takhasilakena


Yonadatena agatena maharajasa


Amtalikitasa upa[m]ta samkasam-rano


Kasiput[r]asa [Bh]agabhadrasa tratarasa


Vasena [chatu]dasena rajena vadhamanasa



This Garuda-column of Vasudeva (Visnu), the god of gods, was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of Vishnu, the son of Dion, and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as Greek ambassador from the Great King Antialkidas to King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the Savior, then reigning prosperously in the fourteenth year of his kingship.



Trini amutapadani-[su] anuthitani


nayamti svaga damo chago apramado



Three immortal precepts (footsteps) when practiced lead to heaven: self restraint, charity, conscientiousness.
From the inscriptions it is seems clear Heliodorus was influenced by Vedic principles that he could be considered to be a Vaisnava, a follower or worshipper of Visnu. Professor Kunja Govinda Goswami of Calcutta University concludes that Heliodorus “was well acquainted with the texts dealing with the Bhagavat [Vaisnava] religion”.

To our knowledge, Heliodorus is the earliest Westerner on record to adopt Vedic principles. But some scholars, most notably A.L. Basham and Thomas Hopkins, are of the opinion that Heliodorus was not the only Greek to adopt such principles. Hopkins, chairman of the department of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College, has said “Heliodorus was presumably not the only foreigner who converted to Vaisnava devotional practices ~ although he might have been the only one who erected a column, at least one that is still extant. Certainly there must have been many others”.

It is also interesting to note that the Heliodorus column has other historical merits. Around the turn of the century, a number of Indologists (Weber, Macnicol, and others) had noted “points of similarity” between the Vaisnava philosophy of unalloyed devotion and Christian doctrine. They had argued that Vaishnavism (worship of Visnu and Krsna) must have been an offshoot of Christianity, and cited the similarity between stories about Krsna and about Christ to further support their claim. But the discovery of the inscription on the Heliodorus column laid their speculations to rest. Here was conclusive archaeological proof that the Vaisnava tradition antedated Christianity by at least two hundred years.

The column also struck down another popular notion. For centuries it was a common belief among scholars that India's orthodox tradition did not accept converts. An Islamic historian, Abu Raihan Alberuni, who went to India in A.D. 1017, tried to explain in his book Indica why the Indian orthodoxy did not admit foreigners. Alberuni suggested that the practice developed only after the Moslem incursion into India, sometime after A.D. 674. Antagonism between the Moslems and Hindus seems to be the main reason behind the non conversion practice. For many centuries prior to Moslem presence, however, there had been no bar to conversion into the orthodox fold, as attested by the Heliodorus column.

And from vedic-archeology (http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vedic-upanisads/vedic-archeology.html)


In 1762 in Rome, P. Georgi was the first Western scholar to propound this theory. In his Alphabetum Tibetanum he wrote that “Krishnu” is only a “corruption of the name of the Saviour; the deeds correspond wonderfully with the name, though they have been impiously and cunningly polluted by most wicked imposters”. The extreme fanaticism of Georgi’s position was soon repudiated by other Western scholars. Even pro-Christian researchers admitted that the name Krishna existed before the birth of Jesus, but they still maintained that the life of Krishna and the philosophy of Vaisnavism had undergone major transformations because of Christian influence.

In his monograph Uber die Krishnajanmasthami, Albrecht Weber pointed out the many and striking similarities between the birth stories of Krishna and Jesus.

Dr. F. Lorinser translated the Bhagavad-gita and compared it scrupulously to the New Testament. He concluded, writes Raychaudhari, “that the author of the Hindu poem knew and used the Gospels and Christian Fathers”. According to Lorinser, continues Raychaudhari, the similarities were “not single and obscure, but numerous and clear”. There was no doubt in Lorinser’s mind that the Bhagavat-gita had been largely “borrowed” from the New Testament.

Other Western scholars disputed the borrowing theory. Sir William Jones’ studies found Krishna to be one of the more ancient gods of India, who Vaisnavas asserted was “distinct from all the Avatars, who had only [a]…portion of his divinity” In his fascinating and provocative work, On the Gods Of Greece, Italy, And India, Sir William Jones writes that “in the principal Sanskrit dictionary, compiled about two thousand years ago, Krishna, Vasudeva, Govinda, and other names of the Shepherd God, are intermixed with epithets of Narayana, or the Divine Spirit”. Following in the direction of Sir Jones’ research, Edward Moore even went so far as to say that the popular Greek myths had some basis in real life and could be traced ultimately to India. However, solid proof for either side escaped their grasp, and the scholars theorized and debated the issue back and forth. Literary evidence did exist in India to prove that Vaisnavism predated Christianity, but this evidence was brushed under the rug and given little credence until a Western literary source decided the issue once and for all.

The most important and earliest non-Indian literary record of ancient India is found in the book, Indica, written by Megasthenes. Sometime in the third century BC, Meghastenes journeyed to India. The King of Taxila had appointed him ambassador to the royal court at Pataliputra of the great Vaisnava monarch, Chandragupta. Evidently while there, Megasthenes wrote extensively on what he heard and saw. Unfortunately, none of Megasthenes’ original book survived the ravages of time. However, through Megasthenes’ early Greek and Roman commentators, like Arrian, Diodorus, and Strabo, fragments of his original work are available to us today, as well as Megasthenes’ general message. Dr. Hein reports that Megasthenes “described Mathura as a place of great regional importance and suggested that it was then, as now, a center of Krishna worship”.

Christian Lassen was the first Western scholar to bring Megasthenes into the debate on the “borrowing theory”. He noted that Megasthenes wrote of Krishna under the pseudonym of Heracles and that “Heracles”, or Krishna, was worshipped as God in the area through which the Yamuna River flows.

A respected Indologist, Richard Garbe, agreed with Lassen’s analysis and called the testimony of Megasthenes indisputable. Soon, scholars like Alan Dahlquist, who had formerly supported the “borrowing theory”," changed their minds and admitted, in Dahlquist’s words, that Garbe had “exploded Weber’s theory once and for all”. The life of Krishna and the religion of Vaisnavism had not been influenced by Christianity, but had appeared autonomously on Indian soil and was already well-established by at least the third century BC.

With Megasthenes’ proof in hand, the credibility of Indian literary sources became enhanced. The great grammarian and author of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali, who lived in the second century BC, wrote that Krishna had slain the tyrant Kamsa in the far distant past. Raychaudhari tells us the exact words were “chirahate Kamse, which means that Kamsa’s death occurred at a very remote time”. In the fifth century BC, the greatest Sanskrit grammarian, Panini, mentions that Vaisnavism “was even in the fifth century BC a religion of Bhakti”, writes Raychaudhari. The Artha-shastra of Kautila, from the fourth century BC, also refers several times to Krishna, while the Baudhayana Dharma Sutra of the same century gives twelve different names for Krishna, including popular ones like Keshava, Govinda, and Damodara.

Since Krishna is mentioned in the pre-Buddhistic Chandogya Upanishad we must conclude that Krishna lived before Gautama Buddha (563?-?483 BC). The scriptures of the Jains push Krishna’s life back farther still. Raychaudhari writes, “Jaina tradition makes Krishna a contemporary of Arishtanemi… who is the immediate predecessor of Parsvanatha… As Parsvanatha flourished about 817 B.C., Krishna must have lived long before the closing years of the ninth Century B.C.”





The fact remains that with all their scholarship and Sanskrit proficiency had they really sought the Absolute Truth come what might have, they could have easily found and exposed the original roots of Christianity that you have been trying to drive home for the last decade!

Willam Jones, Max Muller, Edward Moore, Christian Lassen, Richard Garbe, and many other western scholars have done exactly that, but it seems that some have not noticed, perhaps blinded by their one-eyed support of their own religion (whether Christian or Hindu)!




I don't understand how and why you are angered when I or others point out their actual purpose that actually marred rather than made all their work, study and scholarship.

The idea of “their actual purpose that marred ALL their work, study and scholarship”, is exactly the over-reaction to which I have objected. Which, if taken as truth, must extend to such apparently trivial cases as the use of Roman transcriptions in explaining Sanskrit, and even the use of printing for Devanagari characters!

And it was Charles Wilkins (“the Caxton of India”) who devised the first typeface for printing Indian scripts, without which no texts could subsequently have been printed ~ with the Veda only transmitted by spoken word or hand-written manuscript (which, once again, is perhaps the traditional situation that some would prefer).

And so, with both Wilkins and Jones confirmed as meddling imposters with only one aim, neither the Sanskrit text printed above nor any Roman transliteration should have been used, which renders all internet discussion of Hindu scripture problematic.




When the PIE or AIT or any other 19th century paradigm of Hindu History is not much relevant to your work, why not simply let others discuss what they may and proceed with what you have explored about the roots of Christianity?

I entered this discussion after prompting in a PM from you, which was followed up by your establishment of this thread. But why should you put limits on the subjects I am permitted to discuss?




Instead, you seek to find fault with each and every little statement from anyone and end up defending Jones and Mueller and other colonnial scholars as if they are your next-door and neighbourhood buddies--and our archenemies!

I do not seek to find fault, but I have noted and tried to clarify any faults that I happen to have seen.

It is not possible to have a reasonable discussion of relationships when it is interwoven with an emotion-charged sweep of every confusion or injustice that the past misunderstandings of such relationships might have caused. Like the thread you started for a combined video selection of the very best of Hinduism vs. the very worst of Christianity and Islam, which is surely not a fair or balanced comparison, and which is clearly designed to stir up hatred and fear. Equally, we could have a thread for videos of the very worst of Hindu behaviour, set against the very best offerings from Christian Saints, which would clearly be unacceptable. In the context of finding true relationships however, the sayings of Hindu Saints could be pitted against the sayings of Christian Saints, in which case I suspect that very little difference would be found (beyond the language and particular cultural allusions).




And in addition, you accuse me of being ignorant, childish, …





What I can't understand is that while you have merely said that Dionysos is more like rudra, and hinted at Swamiji's ignorance about "God’s dinner party", you have not said anything about Jone's comparison of Rama to a Greek wine god (which comparison only smacks of ignorance and idiocy to me).

I am convinced that Jones had extensive scholarship and am inclined to change my opinion about suggesting his 'idiocy' (by which I actually meant ignorance, 'avidyA').






the reason for his undermining the divinity of Hindu gods by finding all sorts of correspondences of their origin and function with the Greek and Roman pagan gods; the hidden agenda here was to prove that the Hindu Gods were also extinct like the Greek and Roman gods, so can never be equated with the Christian Gods--the Father or the Son;

How does finding correspondences in any way undermine the divinity of Hindu Gods?

And what makes you so sure that the Grecian and Roman deities, and I presume the whole of the Celtic and Gothic pantheon, is extinct? This is the most arrogant presumption of all. Based on nothing but ignorance !!

“Based on nothing but ignorance” of the present existence of Celtic and Gothic religious practices.






Colonnial Interpolators of Hindu Dharma and History, Whose Real Agenda was Christian Proselytism

While we Hindus seek to extrapolate Christianity for their own good and our better understanding of the religion, here is how the colonnial missionaries interpolated Hindu Dharma and History, masquerading as oriental scholars and admirers.

And thus anything constructive that any nominal “christian” has ever said or done in the field of Indian History or Sanskrit Language is invalidated as an insidious masquerade.

[Once again, this seems to be] nothing more than a deliberate attempt to generate scorn and derision regarding the author so that anything he might have said becomes tainted with the same impression of corruption and the whole work and all of its implications can be simply dismissed.

And this childish method of argument is growing rather tiresome.

And the above mentioned method of argument certainly is childish and tiresome.




having intentions of "rehashing Nazi misconceptions and Christian conspiracies"

Isn’t that exactly what you have been doing?




It perpetuates the "us" versus "them" mentality by continuous differentiation of the "saved" versus the "damned."

Please beware the insidious tentacles of this mindset.


And regarding repetition, sometimes the technique works, for example the recent post to Satay which was entirely composed from repeated fragments of previous posts in this thread, and the response was positive.




Your above post is a good summary and answers some of my own questions. Thanks.

sarabhanga
03 April 2008, 03:14 AM
But if we accept that Jones (along with the whole Asiatic Society) was merely an instrument of the British East India Company and the Church of England, a missionary masquerading as a scholar, whose life’s ambition was to destroy Hindu Dharma, we cannot trust the validity of any of his works (especially not this first step, which allowed all else to follow).

In which case, there is no valid means for transcribing the above text in Roman characters, and only those familiar with Devanagari script will have any chance of understanding. And perhaps that is the way some would have preferred things to have remained ~ with anyone who does not already comprehend Sanskrit having no business in reading the Veda.




Come on Sarabhanga, you're kidding, and this statement makes us laugh!

I am not kidding, only following the implications of your expressed views.




When I or others point out their actual purpose that actually marred rather than made ALL their work, study and scholarship.

The idea of “their actual purpose that marred ALL their work, study and scholarship”, is exactly the over-reaction to which I have objected. Which, if taken as truth, must extend to such apparently trivial cases as the use of Roman transcriptions in explaining Sanskrit, and even the use of printing for Devanagari characters!

And it was Charles Wilkins (“the Caxton of India”) who devised the first typeface for printing Indian scripts, without which no texts could subsequently have been printed ~ with the Veda only transmitted by spoken word or hand-written manuscript (which, once again, is perhaps the traditional situation that some would prefer).

And so, with both Wilkins and Jones confirmed as meddling imposters with only one aim, neither the Sanskrit text printed above nor any Roman transliteration should have been used, which renders all internet discussion of Hindu scripture problematic.




So that's is the purpose of your quote of the Rig Vedic Hymn 10.70! Thank God, I thought you implied by your quote something like casting our misconceptions, prejudices and ignorance into Agni; I even scratched my head for any connection of Agni with Jones and Mueller!

The hymn was not randomly chosen, being yet another Rgveda passage with some bearing on the scriptural origins of Christianity, and also with implications in a PM conversation with Ayurchat (although I have not yet had a chance to point out its relevance in either discussion). But yes, by omitting any Roman transliteration or translation I was making a point about the practical utility of such transliterated script in effective communication to a broad audience.




Nothing is newly discovered or invented by individuals in God's grand scheme for the world. People who say that they or others did what they were destined to do in the divine scheme, are either ignorant or do not actually mean what they say, depending on their levels of spiritual advancement.

Which means that William Jones and Max Mueller should not be tarred as the originators of any later developments, which would have naturally occurred anyway without their preliminary ideas. Which is exactly what I have being trying to say!




Jones, Wilkins and others never said that their transliteration scheme of Devanagari text was to facilitate native Sanskrit-illiterate Hindus to read and understand their own scriptures! They invented the scheme only to facilitate the Europeans understand India and Hinduism. For that matter, almost all Hindu texts including Vedas have been published in Hindi, Tamil and possibly many other vernacular languages which are closer to Sanskrit, and native Hindus do happily read, recite and understand them!

Absolutely true. But equally they did not do it for the deliberate purpose of destroying Hinduism, which is what you would have us believe was the ambition of their life’s work, with any pretence of scholarship being just that, merely a cunning masquerade.




Therefore, your claim "perhaps that is the way some would have preferred things to have remained ~ with anyone who does not already comprehend Sanskrit having no business in reading the Veda" is far-fetched, to say the least.

Not so far-fetched. There are many orthodox Hindus who are of the opinion that the Vedas should not be read by anyone who is not a Brahmin, which assumes Sanskrit knowledge.




Moreover, today we have the ITRANS (of Avinash Chopde) and the Baraha schemes that are better in many ways than the old transliteration schemes involving cumbersome diacritics.

The ITRANS code is simply an extension of the well known Harvard-Kyoto transliteration scheme.




If Thomas Babington Macaulay did not introduce English in the Indian curriculum to bring the whole of British India under the rule of English--both the language and the ruling people--Sanskrit would have perhaps remained the national language of India and been known and studied at the grass roots level.

Sanskrit has long been the language of India’s elite, but the majority of Indians have always used their own Prakritic dialect.




I understand that Vedas have been translated in Tamil too

No doubt they have. Do you mean transliterated into Tamil characters or translated into Tamil language (or perhaps both)?

saidevo
03 April 2008, 06:28 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga.



I agree that the Christian Church, the East India Company, and the British Empire, have all had unreasonable designs on Hindustan, and some academics may have agreed with their plans, but simply quoting a line from here and there from their personal correspondence, without proving any actual fault in their work, seems pointless and unfair.


The lines I have quoted from the personal correspondece of Jones and Mueller are indeed highly damaging to their personal and academic reputation. This is not just my opinion but the considered opinion of many of the Hindu indologists and scholars of the day. We don't see eye to eye on these scholars because, to me their aggressive missionary attitude (though you say it was personal) mars the honesty of their scholarship whereas to you it is not worth any consideration whatsoever. The truth, as Bhagavan Das would say, probably lies in the summation of these two extreme approaches. Let us leave it at that and proceed further.

I can concede one point, however: had Jones and Mueller lived in today's liberated atmosphere of Christianity and democracy, they would have achieved much more and won recognition from Hindus like me!

From what you have said/implied:

• If Jones had not given the Roman transliteration scheme, there would have been "no valid means for transcribing the above text in Roman characters, and only those familiar with Devanagari script will have any chance of understanding."

• If Charles Wilkins ("the Caxton of India") had not "devised the first typeface for printing Indian scripts", Vedas and other Hindu scritpures would have remained only in their oral tradition and in hand-written manuscripts.

• And if Jones and Wilkins who gave these things are perceived as "meddling imposters with only one aim", there would be little justification in using their textual aids and that would have rendered "all internet discussion of Hindu scripture problematic."

Shall we say, using the same logic, that

• Had not the British given us the railroads, India would still be using only bullock carts for travel?

• Had not the British given us the English language, India would have been a primitive country like some in the African continent?

• Had not the British given us the modern civilization and dress codes, Indian males would still be sporting tufts of hair and wearing only dhoties?

• Just because the British gave all these to India, if the British Raj is perceived as having done more evil than good to India, there is no justification in using what they gave us?

I have heard that jnAnis can sometimes be childlike (I am not saying 'childish' which please note). I now have some proof of that truth! Childlikeness is a desirable quality to emulate, but what to do? At my level some of my sayings are perceived only as childish!





When the PIE or AIT or any other 19th century paradigm of Hindu History is not much relevant to your work, why not simply let others discuss what they may and proceed with what you have explored about the roots of Christianity?


I entered this discussion after prompting in a PM from you, which was followed up by your establishment of this thread. But why should you put limits on the subjects I am permitted to discuss?


My PM to you was about the Christianity-related writings of Swami Nirmalananda, of the Atma Jyoti Ashram (http://www.atmajyoti.org/index.html), with the idea that you were in a better position to evaluate his writings.

Please, I don't put any limit on the subjects for you! I only meant that you may need to concentrate on the unique work you have undertaken since I felt that your contributions to the second phase take up much of your time and research.



It is not possible to have a reasonable discussion of relationships when it is interwoven with an emotion-charged sweep of every confusion or injustice that the past misunderstandings of such relationships might have caused.


The journey to the Absolute Truth is through the turbulent and capricious waters of the ocean, which in this Kali Yuga is all salty, with only rare retrievals of the riches of the sea that lie many fathoms deep under. While some can dive deep enough, most can only sail, not even swim.



Like the thread you started for a combined video selection of the very best of Hinduism vs. the very worst of Christianity and Islam, which is surely not a fair or balanced comparison, and which is clearly designed to stir up hatred and fear.


This is a Hindu Forum run by Hindus for the Hindus, so how can it be my 'design' to stir up hatred and fear? If Satay agrees with you that it is so, you are at liberty to remove the thread.





I understand that Vedas have been translated in Tamil too.


No doubt they have. Do you mean transliterated into Tamil characters or translated into Tamil language (or perhaps both)?


I am not sure; nor have I come across any transliterated work of Vedas in Tamil. We have a good system of indicating Sanskrit pronouncition by superscripting the equivalent Tamil letters with numbers though (for example, the number 2 for 'kha', 3 for 'ga' and 4 for 'gha'). Sanskrit letters 'sha, Sha, sa, ha' have their own equivalent Tamil letters, so no problem there.

Important Vedic and Upanishadic mantras are quoted in Tamil religious publications using the above transliteration scheme. I haven't checked about entire publications of Vedas, Upanishads or Puranas with transliterations and meanings.

sarabhanga
03 April 2008, 09:25 PM
I still don't know how we can say with proof that christianity had its roots in Sanatana Dharma though there are very many obvious similarities in Jesus' teachings to dharmic teachings. I know that his thread contains many quotes from the rig veda in an effort to try to prove this point, however, is it enough to simply quote our scriptures?

Namaste Satay,

Can we say with any proof that Christianity did not have its origins in Sanatana Dharma?

All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

But there seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure. The only evidence is the Christian gospel and comments made long after the supposed events. The teachings were made public in the Middle East at a certain time, and someone must have been responsible for that release, but the exact circumstances are unrecorded. From an historical perspective, the bible stories alone cannot be taken as solid evidence of historical truth. How do we know that the character really existed? Because the book tells us so! And those with unshakeable faith in the literal truth of the book will never be swayed, while those without faith will never be convinced.

And, to my mind, the essential elements of the story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before any supposed historical events, so no particular person or true historical events are actually required to explain it. But a Christian who denies the possibility of such connexions is left searching in vain for imagined archaeological remnants ~ either that or they would be forced to admit that their religion was prophesied by (or simply translated from) the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma.

The Bible itself gives the perfect clue to the historical “birth” of Christ in the Middle East, by the simultaneous arrival of both Jesus and the “three sages” from the Orient (surely the trayI-vidyA), which implies that the story began when a wise Brahmin arrived, following the course of the sun and navigating by the stars from somewhere far to the east (surely bhArata).

The historical Jesus was apparently an Essene Jew, whose strict monastic codes were considered essential for salvation/liberation. Essene thought was substantially that of Nivritti-Marga, and their renunciate monks lived in Jordan, in a secluded community on the shores of the Dead Sea. Their disciplined purification of body, speech, and mind, considered necessary for union with the Divine (i.e. Yoga), and their development of true perception and insight through Jnana, and also their view that these aims might best be achieved in communal renunciate hermitage, are all directly linked with earlier oriental Dharmas.

The original (forgotten) diaspora of bRMhan became abRMham in the west, and the subsequent diaspora has become what appears today as a range of separate religions.

Each spoke in the wheel of dharma has its own guided path, and while the language remains the same the sign posts on another path remain familiar instructions, but if the language is translated then the similarities soon become invisible to anyone unfamiliar with both tongues (which clash impossibly for the ignorant, but sing in harmony for the wise).

The philosophies of Jainism and Taoism seem to be distinguished only by the language used. And the original separations of Vedanta and Jaina and the Tao, and also the teaching of Christ, are fundamentally due to translation of the one dharma into different tongues.

Sanskrit is the oldest living language, and Hindu scripture traces an unbroken line back to the source of language itself, with only slight changes along the way. And Sanskrit is well-recorded in mantras and shlokas from every stage.

Just as different monistic religions are like spokes in the wheel of Hindu dharma, each language of the Indo-European family represents a part of the whole, and resting at the hub is surely Sanskrit.

The verifiable history of Judaism and all of its scripture comes after about 1200 BC, which is the absolute minimum age suggested for the Rgveda.

And the entire history of Christianity and the New Testament comes after the first century AD, by which time the main corpus of Hindu scripture (excluding the Tantras and Puranas) had already been fixed in writing for several centuries.

In every comparison involving the Veda and the Bible, there is no contest over historical precedence, with the Veda winning first place every time. And in comparison with the New Testament, all of the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Sutras, and Smriti texts, and the majority of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, were already committed to writing and well known in oral traditions over the whole of India before one jot of the New Testament was composed.

From Sri Jayendra Saraswati:

Those people should understand the shloka "Ekam desha" so that in all countries, about the Vedanta philosophy, about the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, (it is acknowledged that) for many generations, they only had one Dharma, which was the Sanatana Vedic Dharma. This is why the shloka implies that there is a lot to be learnt here in our country. But nowadays, even the learning of our Dharma within the country is on the decrease. Therefore, in the entire country, Sanatana Dharma was prevalent all over, which kept on reducing and now the current situation is what we were left with. Even when one sees in the Bible, idol worship has been condemned. Even the Koran has condemned idol worship. It has condemned it because it existed before then, which is why they condemned it. At those times, they did have the custom of idol worship and other elements of our culture. That is why it is condemned in the Bible and in the Koran. If idol worship had not been existing, then they would not have mentioned it. Therefore, our culture was prevalent everywhere in the world before the advent of the Bible and Koran. And when these two religions formed, they suppressed idol worship, etc. They spread everywhere and the result is also evident here (in India). Our culture was prevalent in all countries.

This God, that God, with any number of Gods, there is only one God. (Sanskrit shloka). God is one but is manifested in different forms to differnt persons. So it is important to keep that in mind and pray to God with the aim of attaining God. When was this said? This was said before the Muslim and Christian religions commenced. This is not a new saying. Lord Sri Krishna has said it in Dwapara Yuga. These concepts have been there for so many thousands of years. These have been taught to us very long ago, in the Gita, about attaining God, etc. Which is why these new things that have come, are not right. And so, worship God, a God of your personal preference, or the God being worshipped in your family, or by your ancestors. Worship any God, but perform your worship with full faith in God. Never fight in the name of God. It is the same God who manifests in different forms and blesses us all.

From Gandhi Ji:

The message of Jesus, as I understand it, is contained in the Sermon on the Mount, unadulterated and taken as a whole ... If then I had to face only the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, ‘Oh, yes, I am a Christian.’ But negatively I can tell you that, in my humble opinion, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount ... I am speaking of Christianity as it is understood in the west.

From William Jones:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet being to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists : there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

When features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.

We may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world.

Meros is said by the Greeks to have been a mountain of India, on which their Dionysos was born.

When we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin: and not to depart from the example before us, when we see Cush or Cus (for the Sanskrit name is variously pronounced) among the sons of Brahma, that is, among the progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree preserved in the Ramayan; when we meet with his name again in the family of Rama; when we know, that the name is venerated in the highest degree, and given to a sacred grass, described as a Poa by Koenig, which is used with a thousand ceremonies in the oblations to fire, ordained by Menu to form the sacrificial zone of the Brahmans, and solemnly declared in the Veda to have sprung up soon after the deluge, whence the Pauranicks consider it as the bristly hair of the boar which supported the globe; when we add, that one of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas of this earth, has the same appellation, we can hardly doubt that the Cush of Moses and Valmic was the same personage and an ancestor of the Indian race.

The names of the planets and Zodiacal stars, which the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldest Indian records, were originally devised by the same ingenious and enterprising race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled; the race, who, as Dionysius describes them,

“first assayed the deep, and wafted merchandize to coasts unknown, those, who digested first the starry choir, their motions marked, and called them by their names.”
We see five races of men peculiarly distinguished … but we have reduced them to three, because we can discover no more, that essentially differ in language, religion, manners, and other known characteristicks : now those three races, how variously soever they may at present be dispersed and intermixed, must (if the preceding conclusions be justly drawn) have migrated originally from a central country, to find which is the problem proposed for solution. Suppose it solved; and give any arbitrary name to that centre.

From Genesis:

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language.

From Wikipedia:

In particular the Vedic culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures … The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages … Müller believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied in order to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general.

From Max Müller:

If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow ~ in some parts a very paradise on earth ~ I should point to India.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant ~ I should point to India.

And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact, more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life ~ again I should point to India.

sarabhanga
05 April 2008, 09:38 AM
narAH = iLAH = yahvIH
nArAyaNa = ila = yeSu

atanu
08 April 2008, 09:30 AM
Namaste Satay,



From Sri Jayendra Saraswati:

Those people should understand the shloka "Ekam desha" so that in all countries, about the Vedanta philosophy, about the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, (it is acknowledged that) for many generations, they only had one Dharma, which was the Sanatana Vedic Dharma. This is why the shloka implies that there is a lot to be learnt here in our country. But nowadays, even the learning of our Dharma within the country is on the decrease. Therefore, in the entire country, Sanatana Dharma was prevalent all over, which kept on reducing and now the current situation is what we were left with. Even when one sees in the Bible, idol worship has been condemned. Even the Koran has condemned idol worship. It has condemned it because it existed before then, which is why they condemned it. At those times, they did have the custom of idol worship and other elements of our culture. That is why it is condemned in the Bible and in the Koran. If idol worship had not been existing, then they would not have mentioned it. Therefore, our culture was prevalent everywhere in the world before the advent of the Bible and Koran. And when these two religions formed, they suppressed idol worship, etc. They spread everywhere and the result is also evident here (in India). Our culture was prevalent in all countries.
This God, that God, with any number of Gods, there is only one God. (Sanskrit shloka). God is one but is manifested in different forms to differnt persons. So it is important to keep that in mind and pray to God with the aim of attaining God. When was this said? This was said before the Muslim and Christian religions commenced. This is not a new saying. Lord Sri Krishna has said it in Dwapara Yuga. These concepts have been there for so many thousands of years. These have been taught to us very long ago, in the Gita, about attaining God, etc. Which is why these new things that have come, are not right. And so, worship God, a God of your personal preference, or the God being worshipped in your family, or by your ancestors. Worship any God, but perform your worship with full faith in God. Never fight in the name of God. It is the same God who manifests in different forms and blesses us all.




Namaste Sarabhanga,


So that yahvaH or yahvIH (yahweh) and iLAH (allah) are almost identical terms ~ with the Rgveda as the primary source for all monotheistic religions. ;)

The above connection between yahweh and yahvaH is essence of what you are saying. And that is all. Yet this is known and it does not predict coming of Christ etc. I do not understand what voluminous Rig Veda verses are doing here. Do they predict coming of Christ? Rig Veda is the oldest scripture and that it is the root is acceptable to most. Even myIslam has created several posts claiming that Mohammed is predicted in Rig Veda (so all should follow Islam now).

You have ignored what Shri Jayendra says, which saidevo has been maintaining since beginning. The root is not different. Voluminous citations are not required at all. The pertinent point is that the divergence is due to predominance of rajasic gunas in West where suppression of diversity and despotic dictatorial tendencies domiinate. Interventionism rules. Whereas Jayendra says: "Never fight in the name of God".

There is one primeval Purusha and it is not at all surprising that in every culture a born infant cries with the sound 'Bhan' on coming out of the womb. Agni also cried like that. Every language has very similar sound for "I am" or "Me".

But both Christian and Islam religions in general are very far removed from Nivritti today and this has to do with Gunas (and possibly due to preponderance of Dvaitic leaning of their original gurus). A Hindu, who has full faith in Isha Upanishad's teaching "Do not covet", is put at a great disadvantageous position and is taken as a fool (even by Hindus).



Om

sarabhanga
08 April 2008, 08:31 PM
YHV appears 41 times in 33 of the Rgveda’s 1028 hymns ~
In maNDalam I (5x), II (2x), III (9x), IV (5x), V (5x), VI (1x), VII (4x), VIII (2x), IX (3x), and X (5x).

Forms of the masculine (yahva) appear 21 times, with the feminine (yahvI) appearing 20 times.
And there are 16 hymns with yahva, 16 with yahvI, and only one with both (RV 3.1) ~ making 33 hymns altogether.

See: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=23533#post23533 and http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=3125

atanu
09 April 2008, 04:50 AM
From Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon

yahva
n. restless , swift , active (applied to Agni , Indra and Soma) RV. ; continually moving or flowing (applied to the waters) (= {mahat}; m. = %{yajamAna} , a sacrificer Un2. i , 134 Sch. ; (%{I}) f. du. heaven and earth RV. ; pl. the flowing waters (with %{sapta} , `" the seven great rivers "') ib. (cf. Naigh. i , 15).

yahvat
n. ever-flowing (waters) RV.

and

yahu
mfn. (prob.) `" restless , swift "' , or `" mighty , strong "' RV. (= %{mahat} Sa1y.) ; m. offspring , a child (= %{apatya}) Naigh. ii , 2 (%{sa4haso@yahu4H} RV. viii , 60 , 13 = %{sahaso@putraH} Sa1y.)

--------------------

Also one can dig for lI, lIna lelya, or lelihAna or LelyamAna, indicating the basis for Linga, El-Elion and Shiva. lelihAna (indicating directly or indirectly serpent/one who constantly licks honey/in which everything dissolves/tightly adhering/mildly flickering/tongue of fire/un-moving) is a name of Shiva.


So?

sarabhanga
09 April 2008, 07:19 PM
So that yahvaH or yahvIH (yahweh) and iLAH (allah) are almost identical terms ~ with the Rgveda as the primary source for all monotheistic religions.

The above connection between yahweh and yahvaH is essence of what you are saying. And that is all.

Namaste Atanu,

That is the essence, but certainly not the whole, of what I have been saying throughout this thread.




Yet this is known and it does not predict coming of Christ etc. I do not understand what voluminous Rig Veda verses are doing here. Do they predict coming of Christ?

Have I suggested that any verses predict the coming of Christ?




It could be said that a translation is “prophesied” by the original material, or that a devotee is “prophesied” by the guru, or that a reflected image is “prophesied” by the thing that is reflected. But a limited literal understanding of such words may be misleading.

And where is the origin of YHV from vedic Sanskrit previously known? I have searched for explanations of the term and can find no published suggestion of a Sanskrit origin ~ which, as mentioned, provides the same syllables, used with the same meanings, recurring in multiple hymns composed before the advent of Judaism.

The term yahva disappears from regular use in Sanskrit after the Rgveda, which presumably relates to the establishment of Judaism, which fixed the principle name of its conception of God as yahvIH or ‘yahweh’, making later use of the term in its original context as a familiar appellation for agni, soma, or indra, and as an alternative for mahat (“greatness”, “the almighty”), problematic.

There are many proper names in the Old Testament affixed with yhv (yeho- or -yahu), and yhvh is the very name of God, which is known from inscriptions dated c. 830 BC.

The Hebrew derivation of yhv is unclear, and scholars have suggested that it may have a non-Israelite origin, with some seeking meanings in Aramaic or Arabic or Egyptian ~ although it appears that no one has considered Sanskrit sources, where the same term is found with exactly the connotations appropriate to the biblical usage.

ya is “a goer or mover”, “the wind”, “joining, restraining, or abandoning”, “fame or light”.

yA is “going, restraining, and attaining”, indicating “a carriage, religious meditation, or the yoniliÑgam”.

yad is “who, which, what, whichever, whatever, or that”, indicating “the puruSa”.

And yeSu is the locative plural case.

yahu is “restless or swift” or “mighty or strong” (synonymous with mahat); also indicating “an offspring or child”, as an equivalent of putra ~ e.g. sahasoyahuH = sahasoputraH (“son of strength”), both used in reference to agni.

yahva is “restless, swift, active (as agni, indra, soma), or continually moving or flowing (as the waters)”, and likewise it is synonymous with mahat; also indicating “the sacrificer” (yajamAna).

yahvI is “heaven and earth” or “the flowing waters” (often as sapta yahvI).

And yahvat is “the ever-flowing (waters)”.

narAH = iLAH = yahvIH
nArAyaNa = ila = yeSu




There is one primeval Purusha and it is not at all surprising that in every culture a born infant cries with the sound 'Bhan' on coming out of the womb. Agni also cried like that. Every language has very similar sound for "I am" or "Me".

But why did the followers of Abraham and Moses refer to their god as YHV ? The evidence from Hebrew language seems rather slight.


From ‘The Oxford Companion to the Bible’:
The name yahweh looks like the third-person singular of the verb hāwā, a rare alternative to the usual hāyā, “to be”. The “a” vowel suggests a causative theme of the verb (“he causes” or “will cause to be”), but that theme is not used with this verb in the Bible.



If, however, the name is archaic or of non-Israelite origin, then another meaning is possible, and some have sought a meaning found in Aramaic (“to fall” as well as “to be”) or in Arabic (“to fall, blow,” etc.), but firm evidence is lacking.



More plausible ~ though still uncertain ~ is a connection with yhw (perhaps yahweh) in Egyptian texts from ca. 1400-1200 BC, which may be a place (the site of a shrine?) associated with pastoral nomads in or near the Sinai peninsula.



What is important, however, is not the origin of the name but the nature of the God who bore that name in the Bible.And both the name and the nature of the God are easily taken straight from ancient Sanskrit usage.

If you do not understand the reasons for my particular selections from the Rgveda, then I can only suggest that either you have not read them with due consideration (in both transliteration and literal translation) or you have not read the Bible. But, given the repetitive objections and frequent diversions, I have still not had much opportunity to focus on particular cases, simply collecting together the most likely “source material for the literal life of Christ”, and in the most recent selection focusing on the basic “source material” for the very origin of the Judeo-Christian God YHV (“Yaweh” or “Jehovah”) from the Rgveda, which was surely composed before the supposed Exodus from “Egypt”.

And note that yahvIH is an essential component of the Atreya, bhArgava, and AÑgirasa Apryas ~ the AprI hymns being some of the most ancient of all vaidika mantrAs, fundamental to the traditions of every vaidika RSi and indicative of their particular gotram.




Rig Veda is the oldest scripture and that it is the root is acceptable to most. Even myIslam has created several posts claiming that Mohammed is predicted in Rig Veda (so all should follow Islam now).

I have dealt with Islam and the supposed prophecy of Mohammed from the Sanskrit term mahAmada (“great pride or intoxication”, “fever”, or “the excessive or violent rut of an elephant”, which to me seems like a rather offensive suggestion for a Muslim to make about the origin of their own Prophet’s name!) and I have not had the time or the inclination to go through the same argument again with myIslam. But just because Hindu scripture has occasionally mentioned “the excessive or violent rut of an elephant”, why should that convince anyone to follow Islam?




You have ignored what Shri Jayendra says, which saidevo has been maintaining since beginning. The root is not different.

Having just repeated Saidevo’s quotation of Shri Jayendra Saraswati’s comments on the unity at the root of all religions, and repeatedly stressed that fact in very many posts, I cannot understand how you can suggest that I have ignored the general proposition of such unity!

I know it, but Saidevo and Satay have both expressed doubts, which I was (once again) attempting to satisfy.




So could we take the discussion back to the following points …

I still don't know how we can say with proof that christianity had its roots in Sanatana Dharama though there are very many obvious similarities in Jesus' teachings to dharmic teachings. I know that his thread contains many quotes from the rig veda in an effort to try to prove this point, however, is it enough to simply quote our scriptures?

If I were a christian I would be looking for something more that has the possibility of being scrutnized and accepted by christian scholars.

I don't know many christians that actually believe in christianity being part of the 'dharma chakram', however, that shouldn't stop this discussion as it is in our best interest to understand and prove once and for all that ‘christianity did at some point at least have its root in the dharmic teachings’.

A very common response from a christian or a hindu would be: show us how that the original teachings of jesus are from hindu text.






The fact remains that with all their scholarship and Sanskrit proficiency had they really sought the Absolute Truth come what might have, they could have easily found and exposed the original roots of Christianity that you have been trying to drive home for the last decade!

Willam Jones, Max Muller, Edward Moore, Christian Lassen, Richard Garbe, and many other western scholars have done exactly that, but it seems that some have not noticed, perhaps blinded by their one-eyed support of their own religion (whether Christian or Hindu)!






I still don't know how we can say with proof that christianity had its roots in Sanatana Dharma though there are very many obvious similarities in Jesus' teachings to dharmic teachings. I know that his thread contains many quotes from the rig veda in an effort to try to prove this point, however, is it enough to simply quote our scriptures?

Namaste Satay,

Can we say with any proof that Christianity did not have its origins in Sanatana Dharma?

Here we go again … http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=21821&postcount=108

sarabhanga
09 April 2008, 08:02 PM
Also one can dig for lI, lIna lelya, or lelihAna or LelyamAna, indicating the basis for Linga, El-Elion and Shiva. lelihAna (indicating directly or indirectly serpent/one who constantly licks honey/in which everything dissolves/tightly adhering/mildly flickering/tongue of fire/un-moving) is a name of Shiva.

So?

So? Why ask me? It is your example! Do any of the words, lIna, lelya, lelihAna, or lelAyamAna, occur either in the Rgveda or in the Bible?

devI lelAyamAnA iti sapta jihvAH

devI lelAyamAnA refers to the seven tongues of agni (i.e. sapta yahvIH), which is quite appropriate to the theme.

And Abram said: “I have lift up mine hand to the Lord, the most high God (ēl ‘elyōn), the possessor of heaven and earth (i.e. yahvIH)”.

But when the root lI means “to melt, liquefy, cling or press closely, stick or adhere, lie, recline, settle, hide or cower down, disappear or vanish”, I have no idea how you might be relating this to the Hebrew El ‘elyon, which contrarily indicates “the most high God” (and which is likely borrowed from the Phoenician elon, a name of the Sun, related to the Greek helios).

sarabhanga
09 April 2008, 11:21 PM
yahva = jihva

“the tongue, especially the tongue or tongues of agni (saptajihva) or the seven winds, the tongue of a balance, or speech”
jihvA = juhU

“a tongue (especially of agni), a flame, personified as the goddess of speech” or “a curved wooden ladle for pouring ghee into the sacrificial fire”

And there is one hymn composed by RSi juhU brahmajAyA ~ also known as UrdhvanAbhAbrAhmA ~ to the vishvedevA:


Rigveda 10.109

te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilo mAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapa ugro mayobhUrApo devIH prathamajA Rtena || 1 ||

These first, the boundless sea, and mAtarishvA, fierce-glowing fire, the strong, the bliss-bestower.
And heavenly floods, first-born by holy order, exclaimed against the outrage on a brAhmaNa.

somo rAjA prathamo brahmajAyAmpunaH prAyachadahRNIyamAnaH |
anvartitA varuNo mitra AsIdagnirhotA hastagRhyA ninAya || 2 ||

King soma first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of the brAhmaNa’s consort.
Mitra and varuNa were the inviters: agni as hotA; took her hand and led her.

hastenaiva grAhya AdhirasyAbrahmajAyeyamiti cedavocan |
na dUtAya prahye tastha eSA tathA rASTraM gupitaM kshatriyasya || 3 ||

The man, her pledge, must by her hand be taken when they have cried, she is a brAhmaNa’s consort.
She stayed not for a herald to conduct her: thus is the kingdom of a ruler guarded.

devA etasyAmavadanta pUrve saptaRSayastapase ye niSeduH |
bhImA jAyAbrAhmaNasyopanItA durdhAM dadhAti parame vyoman || 4 ||

Thus spake of her those gods of old, seven RSayas who sate them down to their austere devotion:
Dire is a brAhmaNa’s wife led home by others: in the supremest heaven she plants confusion.

brahmacArI carati veviSadviSaH sa devAnAmbhavatyekamaÑgam |
tena jAyAmanvavindadbRhaspatiH somena nItAM juhvaM na devAH || 5 ||

The brahmacArI goes engaged in duty: he is a member of the gods’ own body.
Through him bRhaspati obtained his consort, as the gods gained the ladle brought by soma.

punarvai devA adaduH punar manuSyA uta |
rAjAnaH satyaM kRNvAnAbrahmajAyAmpunardaduH || 6 ||

So then the gods restored her, so men gave the woman back again.
The kings who kept their promises restored the brAhmaNa’s wedded wife,

punardAyabrahmajAyAM kRtvI devairnikilbiSam |
UrjampRthivyA bhaktvAyorugAyamupAsate || 7 ||

Having restored the brAhmaNa’s wife, and freed them, with gods’ aid, from sin,
They shared the fullness of the earth, and won themselves extended sway.

atanu
10 April 2008, 03:05 AM
So? Why ask me? It is your example! Do any of the words, lIna, lelya, lelihAna, or lelAyamAna, occur either in the Rgveda or in the Bible?

devI lelAyamAnA iti sapta jihvAH
devI lelAyamAnA refers to the seven tongues of agni (i.e. sapta yahvIH), which is quite appropriate to the theme.
And Abram said: “I have lift up mine hand to the Lord, the most high God (ēl ‘elyōn), the possessor of heaven and earth (i.e. yahvIH)”.
But when the root lI means “to melt, liquefy, cling or press closely, stick or adhere, lie, recline, settle, hide or cower down, disappear or vanish”, I have no idea how you might be relating this to the Hebrew El ‘elyon, which contrarily indicates “the most high God” (and which is likely borrowed from the Phoenician elon, a name of the Sun, related to the Greek helios).


Helion is Pra Aditya. lelihAna is a name of Shiva. lelihAna and el-elion can be easily related as you relate many words. lIna (rather Para lIna) is the highest, wherein everything resolves. Relation between YHV and Shiva and between el-elion and Shiva have been noted in "I am Shiva" thread earlier, though without noting the roots. lelihAna becoming el-elion (l-elihAna) in another tongue and assuming a different identity (as if) is perfectly plausible. This has been my point. Beyond vak is the unchanging one.

But all this has nothing to do with the original post of Saidevo, wherein the unquestioning acceptance of Christian teaching being equivalent of Advaita Vedanta has been questioned (and I personally believe very validly). Below is given the original question:



Does Christianity really teach Advaita? How far has such teachings, if any, percolated into the Christian psyche? What is the position of the Christian notables--priests, scholars, politicians, media men and others who are prominent? Are the Christian commons aware of such 'findings'? Would they agree with them and implement them in life, and respect the Hindu (pagan) gods and the Hindu culture? Would they raise in unison against the evangelical and conversioin efforts of the Christian Churches that is going on a 24x7x365-basis?

wrt to above I commented of Rajasic predilections. What is the difficulty in accepting this?

Om

sarabhanga
10 April 2008, 05:30 AM
From the Rgveda:


A svamadma yuvamAno ajarastRSvaviSyannataseSu tiSThati |
atyo na pRSThampruSitasya rocate divo na sAnu stanayannacikradat || 1.58.2 ||

Never decaying, seizing his appropriate food, rapidly, eagerly through the dry wood he spreads.
His back, as he is sprinkled, glistens like a horse: loud hath he roared and shouted like the heights of heaven.

krANA rudrebhirvasubhiH purohito hotA niSatto rayiSALamartyaH |
ratho na vikshvRñjasAna AyuSu vyAnuSagvAryA deva RNvati || 1.58.3 ||

Set high in place over all that vasavas, rudrAs do, immortal, lord of riches, seated as high priest;
Hastening like a car to men, to those who live, the god without delay gives boons to be desired.

vi vAtajUto ataseSu tiSThate vRthA juhUbhiH sRNyA tuviSvaNiH |
tRSu yadagne vanino vRSAyase kRSNaM ta ema rushadUrme ajara || 1.58.4 ||

Urged by the wind he spreads through dry wood as he lists, armed with his tongues for sickles, with a mighty roar.
Black is thy path, agni, changeless, with glittering waves, when like a bull thou rushest eager to the trees.

dadhuSTvA bhRgavo mAnuSeSvA rayiM na cAruM suhavaM janebhyaH |
hotAramagne atithiM vareNyammitraM na shevaM divyAya janmane || 1.58.6 ||

The bhRgavas established thee among mankind for men, like as a treasure, beauteous, easy to invoke;
Thee, agni, as a herald and choice-worthy guest, as an auspicious friend to the celestial race.

hotAraM sapta juhvo yajiSThaM yaM vAghato vRNate adhvareSu |
agniM vishveSAmaratiM vasUnAM saparyAmi prayasA yAmi ratnam || 1.58.7 ||

Agni, the seven tongues’ deftest sacrificer, him whom the priests elect at solemn worship,
The herald, messenger of all the vasavas, I serve with dainty food, I ask for riches.

pratvakshasaH pratavaso virapshino’nAnatA avithurA RjISiNaH |
juSTatamAso nRtamAso añjibhirvyAnajre ke cidusrA iva stRbhiH || 1.87.1 ||

Loud singers, never humbled, active, full of strength, immovable, impetuous, manliest, best-beloved,
They have displayed themselves with glittering ornaments, a few in number only, like the heavens with stars.

upahvareSu yadacidhvaM yayiM vaya iva marutaH kena citpathA |
shcotanti koshA upa vo ratheSvA ghRtamukshatA madhuvarNamarcate || 1.87.2 ||

When, marutas, on the steeps ye pile the moving cloud, ye are like birds on whatsoever path it be.
Clouds everywhere shed forth the rain upon your cars: drop fatness, honey-hued, for him who sings your praise.

praiSAmajmeSu vithureva rejate bhUmiryAmeSu yaddha yuñjate shubhe |
te krILayo dhunayo bhrAjadRSTayaH svayammahitvampanayanta dhUtayaH || 1.87.3 ||

Earth at their racings trembles as if weak and worn, when on their ways they yoke their cars for victory.
They, sportive, loudly roaring, armed with glittering spears, shakers of all, themselves admire their mightiness.

sa hi svasRtpRSadashvo yuvA gaNo’yA IshAnastaviSIbhirAvRtaH |
asi satya RNayAvAnedyo’syA dhiyaH prAvitAthA vRSA gaNaH || 1.87.4 ||

Self-moving is that youthful band, with spotted steeds; thus it hath lordly sway, endued with power and might.
Truthful art thou, and blameless, searcher out of sin: so thou, strong host, wilt be protector of this prayer.

pituH pratnasya janmanA vadAmasi somasya jihvA pra jigAti cakshasA |
yadImindraM shamyRkvANa AshatAdinnAmAni yajñiyAni dadhire || 1.87.5 ||

We speak by our descent from our primeval sire; our tongue, when we behold the soma, stirs itself.
When, shouting, they had joined indra in toil of fight, then only they obtained their sacrificial names.

shriyase kambhAnubhiH sammimikshire te rashmibhista RkvabhiH sukhAdayaH |
te vAshImanta iSmiNo abhIravo vidre priyasya mArutasya dhAmnaH || 1.87.6 ||

Splendours they gained for glory, they who wear bright rings; rays they obtained, and men to celebrate their praise.
Armed with their swords, impetuous and fearing naught, they have possessed the marutas’ own beloved home.

tampRchatA sa jagAmA sa veda sa cikitvAM Iyate sA nvIyate |
tasminsanti prashiSastasminniSTayaH sa vAjasya shavasaH shuSmiNaspatiH || 1.145.1 ||

Ask ye of him for he is come, he knoweth it; he, full of wisdom, is implored, is now implored.
With him are admonitions and with him commands: he is the lord of strength, the lord of power and might.

tamitpRchanti na simo vi pRchati sveneva dhIro manasA yadagrabhIt
na mRSyate prathamaM nAparaM vaco’sya kratvA sacate apradRpitaH || 1.145.2 ||

They ask of him: not all learn by their questioning what he, the sage, hath grasped, as it were, with his own mind.
Forgetting not the former nor the later word, he goeth on, not careless, in his mental power.

tamidgachanti juhvastamarvatIrvishvAnyekaH shRNavadvacAMsi me |
purupraiSastaturiryajñasAdhano’chidrotiH shishurAdatta saM rabhaH || 1.145.3 ||

To him these ladles go, to him these racing mares: he only will give ear to all the words I speak.
All-speeding, victor, perfecter of sacrifice, the babe with flawless help hath mustered vigorous might.

upasthAyaM carati yatsamArata sadyo jAtastatsAra yujyebhiH |
abhi shvAntammRshate nAndye mude yadIM gachantyushatIrapiSThitam || 1.145.4 ||

Whatever he meets he grasps and then runs farther on, and straightway, newly born, creeps forward with his kin.
He stirs the wearied man to pleasure and great joy, what time the longing gifts approach him as he comes.

sa ImmRgo apyo vanargurupa tvacyupamasyAM ni dhAyi |
vyabravIdvayunA martyebhyo’gnirvidvAM Rtaciddhi satyaH || 1.145.5 ||

He is a wild thing of the flood and forest, he hath been laid upon the highest surface.
He hath declared the lore of works to mortals, agni the wise, for he knows law, the truthful.

tvamagne dyubhistvamAshushukshaNistvamadbhyastvamashmanaspari |
tvaM vanebhyastvamoSadhIbhyastvaM nRNAM nRpate jAyase shuciH || 2.1.1 ||

Thou, agni, shining in thy glory through the days, art brought to life from out the waters, from the stone;
From out the forest trees and herbs that grow on ground, thou, sovran lord of men art generated pure.

tavAgne hotraM tava potramRtviyaM tava neSTraM tvamagnidRtAyataH |
tava prashAstraM tvamadhvarIyasi brahmA cAsi gRhapatishca no dame || 2.1.2 ||

Thine is the herald’s task and cleanser’s duly timed; leader art thou, and kindler for the pious man.
Thou art director, thou the ministering priest: thou art the brahmA, lord and master in our home.

tvamagna indro vRSabhaH satAmasi tvaM viSNururugAyo namasyaH |
tvambrahmA rayividbrahmaNaspate tvaM vidhartaH sacase puraMdhyA || 2.1.3 ||

Hero of heroes, agni, thou art indra, thou art viSNu of the mighty stride, adorable;
Thou, brahmaNaspati, the brahmA finding wealth: thou, O sustainer, with thy wisdom tends us.

tvamagne rAjA varuNo dhRtavratastvammitro bhavasi dasma IDyaH |
tvamaryamA satpatiryasya sambhujaM tvamaMsho vidathe deva bhAjayuH || 2.1.4 ||

Agni, thou art king varuNa whose laws stand fast; as mitra, wonder-worker, thou must be implored.
AryamA, heroes’ lord, art thou, enriching all, and liberal aMsha in the synod, O thou god.

tvamagne tvaSTA vidhate suvIryaM tava gnAvo mitramahaH sajAtyam |
tvamAshuhemA rariSe svashvyaM tvaM narAM shardho asi purUvasuH || 2.1.5 ||

Thou givest strength, as tvaSTA, to the worshipper; thou wielding mitra’s power hast kinship with the dames.
Thou, urging thy fleet coursers, givest noble steeds; a host of heroes art thou with great store of wealth.

tvamagne rudro asuro maho divastvaM shardho mArutampRksha IshiSe |
tvaM vAtairaruNairyAsi shaMgayastvampUSA vidhataH pAsi nu tmanA || 2.1.6 ||

Rudra art thou, the asura of mighty heaven; thou art the marutas’ host, thou art the lord of food,
Thou goest with red winds; bliss hast thou in thine home; as pUSA thou thyself protectest worshippers.

tvamagne draviNodA araMkRte tvaM devaH savitA ratnadhA asi |
tvambhago nRpate vasva IshiSe tvampAyurdame yaste’vidhat || 2.1.7 ||

Giver of wealth art thou to him who honours thee; thou art god savitA, granter of precious things.
As bhaga, lord of men, thou rulest over wealth, and guardest in his house him who hath served thee well.

tvAmagne pitaramiSTibhirnarastvAmbhrAtrAya shamyA tanUrucam |
tvamputro bhavasi yaste’vidhattvaM sakhA sushevaH pAsyAdhRSaH || 2.1.9 ||

Agni, men seek thee as a father with their prayers, win thee, bright-formed, to brotherhood with holy act.
Thou art a son to him who duly worships thee, and as a trusty friend thou guardest from attack.

tvamagna RbhurAke namasyastvaM vAjasya kshumato rAya IshiSe |
tvaM vi bhAsyanu dakshi dAvane tvaM vishikshurasi yajñamAtaniH || 2.1.10 ||

A Rbhu art thou, agni, near to be adored thou art the sovran lord of foodful spoil and wealth.
Thou shinest brightly forth, thou burnest to bestow; pervading sacrifice, thou lendest us thine help.

tvAmagna AdityAsa AsyaM tvAM jihvAM shucayashcakrire kave |
tvAM rAtiSAco adhvareSu sashcire tve devA haviradantyAhutam || 2.1.13 ||

Thee, agni, have the AdityAs taken as their mouth; the bright ones have made thee, O sage, to be their tongue.
They who love offerings cling to thee at solemn rites; by thee the gods devour the duly offered food.

tve agne vishve amRtAso adruha AsA devA haviradantyAhutam |
tvayA martAsaH svadanta AsutiM tvaM garbho vIrudhAM jajñiSe shuciH || 2.1.14 ||

By thee, O agni, all the immortal guileless gods cat with thy mouth the oblation that is offered them.
By thee do mortal men give sweetness to their drink; bright art thou born, the embryo of the plants of earth.

tvaM tAnsaM ca prati cAsi majmanAgne sujAta pra ca deva ricyase |
pRksho yadatra mahinA vi te bhuvadanu dyAvApRthivI rodasI ubhe || 2.1.15 ||

With these thou art united, agni; yea thou, god of noble birth, surpassest them in majesty,
Which, through the power of good, here spreads abroad from thee, diffused through both the worlds, throughout the earth and heaven.

ye stotRbhyo goagrAmashvapeshasamagne rAtimupasRjanti sUrayaH |
asmAñca tAMshca pra hi neSi vasya A bRhadvadema vidathe suvIrAH || 2.1.16 ||

The princely worshippers who send to those who sing thy praise, O agni, guerdon graced with kine and steeds,
Lead thou both these and us forward to higher bliss ~ with brave men in the assembly may we speak aloud.

imaM vidhanto apAM sadhasthe dvitAdadhurbhRgavo vikSvAyoH |
eSa vishvAnyabhyastu bhUmA devAnAmagniraratirjIrAshvaH || 2.4.2 ||

BhRgavas who served him in the home of waters set him of old in houses of the living.
Over all worlds let agni be the sovran, the messenger of gods with rapid coursers.

agniM devAso mAnuSISu vikshu priyaM dhuH ksheSyanto na mitram |
sa dIdayadushatIrUrmyA A dakshAyyo yo dAsvate dama A || 2.4.3 ||

Among the tribes of men the gods placed agni as a dear friend when they would dwell among them.
Against the longing nights may he shine brightly, and show the offerer in the house his vigour.

asya raNvA svasyeva puSTiH saMdRSTirasya hiyAnasya dakshoH |
vi yo bharibhradoSadhISu jihvAmatyo na rathyo dodhavIti vArAn || 2.4.4 ||

Sweet is his growth as of one’s own possessions; his look when rushing fain to burn is lovely.
He darts his tongue forth, like a harnessed courser who shakes his flowing tail, among the bushes.

A yanme abhvaM vanadaH panantoshigbhyo nAmimIta varNam |
sa citreNa cikite raMsu bhAsA jujurvAM yo muhurA yuvA bhUt || 2.4.5 ||

Since they who honour me have praised my greatness ~ he gave, as it were, his hue to those who love him.
Known is he by his bright delightful splendour, and waxing old renews his youth for ever.

A yo vanA tAtRSANo na bhAti vArNa pathA rathyeva svAnIt |
kRSNAdhvA tapU raNvashciketa dyauriva smayamAno nabhobhiH || 2.4.6 ||

Like one athirst, he lighteth up the forests; like water down the chariot ways he roareth.
On his black path he shines in burning beauty, marked as it were the heaven that smiles through vapour.

sa yo vyasthAdabhi dakshadurvImpashurnaiti svayuragopAH |
agniH shociSmAM atasAnyuSNankRSNavyathirasvadayanna bhUma || 2.4.7 ||

Around, consuming the broad earth, he wanders, free roaming like an ox without a herdsman:
Agni refulgent, burning up the bushes, with blackened lines, as though the earth he seasoned.

agnim uSasamashvinA dadhikrAM vyuSTiSu havate vahnirukthaiH |
sujyotiSo naH shRNvantu devAH sajoSaso adhvaraM vAvashAnAH || 3.20.1 ||

With lauds at break of morn the priest invokes agni, dawn, dadhikrAs, and both the ashvinas.
With one consent the gods whose light is splendid, longing to taste our sacrifice, shall hear us.

agne trI te vAjinA trISadhasthA tisraste jihvA RtajAta pUrvIH |
tisra u te tanvo devavAtAstAbhirnaH pAhi giro aprayuchan || 3.20.2 ||

Three are thy powers, O agni, three thy stations, three are thy tongues, yea, many, child of order.
Three bodies hast thou which the gods delight in: with these protect our hymns with care unceasing.

achA vivakmi rodasI sumeke grAvNo yujAno adhvare manISA |
imA u te manave bhUrivArA UrdhvA bhavanti darshatA yajatrAH || 3.57.4 ||

Fixing with thought, at sacrifice, the press-stones, I bid the well-formed heaven and earth come hither;
For these thy flames, which give men boons in plenty, rise up on high, the beautiful, the holy.

yA te jihvA madhumatI sumedhA agne deveSUcyata urUcI |
tayeha vishvAM avase yajatrAnA sAdaya pAyayA cA madhUni || 3.57.5 ||

Agni, thy meath-sweet tongue that tastes fair viands, which among gods is called the far-extended,
Therewith make all the holy odes be seated here for our help, and feed them with sweet juices.

sarabhanga
10 April 2008, 08:20 AM
From the Rgveda:


samudrAdUrmirmadhumAM udAradupAMshunA samamRtatvamAnaT |
ghRtasya nAma guhyaM yadasti jihvA devAnAmamRtasya nAbhiH || 4.58.1 ||

Forth from the ocean sprang the wave of sweetness: together with the stalk it turned to amRta,
That which is holy oil’s mysterious title: but the Gods’ tongue is truly amRta’s centre.

vayaM nAma pra bravAmA ghRtasyAsminyajñe dhArayAmA namobhiH |
upabrahmA shRNavacchasyamAnaM catuHshRÑgo’vamIdgaura etát || 4.58.2 ||

Let us declare aloud the name of ghRta, and at this sacrifice hold it up with homage.
So let the brahmA hear the praise we utter: this hath the four-horned buffalo emitted.

catvAri shRÑgA trayo asya pAdA dve shIrSe sapta hastAso asya |
tridhA baddho vRSabho roravIti maho devo martyAM A vivesha || 4.58.3 ||

Four are his horns, three are the feet that bear him; his heads are two, his hands are seven in number.
Bound with a triple bond the steer roars loudly: the mighty god hath entered in to mortals.

tridhA hitampaNibhirguhyamAnaM gavi devAso ghRtamanvavindan |
indra ekaM sUrya ekaM jajAna venAdekaM svadhayA niSTatakshuH || 4.58.4 ||

That oil in triple shape the gods discovered laid down within the cow, concealed by paNayas.
Indra produced one shape, sUrya another: by their own power they formed the third from vena.

sindhoriva prAdhvane shUghanAso vAtapramiyaH patayanti yahvAH |
ghRtasya dhArA aruSo na vAjI kASThA bhindannUrmibhiH pinvamAnaH || 4.58.7 ||

As rushing down the rapids of a river, flow swifter than the wind the vigorous currents,
The streams of oil in swelling fluctuation like a red courser bursting through the fences.

abhi pravanta samaneva yoSAH kalyANyaH smayamAnAso agnim |
ghRtasya dhArAH samidho nasanta tA juSANo haryati jAtavedAH || 4.58.8 ||

Like women at a gathering, fair to look on and gently smiling, they incline to agni.
The streams of holy oil attain the fuel, and jAtavedas joyfully receives them.

abodhyagniH samidhA janAnAmprati dhenumivAyatImuSAsam |
yahvA iva pra vayAmujjihAnAH pra bhAnavaH sisrate nAkamacha || 5.1.1 ||

Agni is wakened by the people’s fuel to meet the dawn who cometh like a milk-cow.
Like young trees shooting up on high their branches, his flames are rising to the vault of heaven.

yadIM gaNasya rashanAmajIgaH shuciraÑkte shucibhirgobhiragníH |
AddakshiNA yujyate vAjayantyuttAnAmUrdhvo adhayajjuhUbhiH || 5.1.3 ||

When he hath stirred the line of his attendants, with the pure milk pure agni is anointed.
The strength-bestowing gift is then made ready, which spread in front, with tongues, erect, he drinketh.

janiSTa hi jenyo agre ahnAM hito hiteSvaruSo vaneSu |
damedame sapta ratnA dadhAno’gnirhotA niSasAdA yajIyAn || 5.1.5 ||

The noble one was born at days’ beginning, laid red in colour mid the well-laid fuel.
Yielding in every house his seven rich treasures, agni is seated, priest most skilled in worship.

agnirhotA nyasIdadyajIyAnupasthe mAtuH surabhA uloke |
yuvA kaviH puruniSTha RtAvA dhartA kRSTInAmuta madhya iddhaH || 5.1.6 ||

Agni hath sat him down, a priest most skilful, on a sweet-smelling place, his mother’s bosom.
Young, faithful, sage, preeminent over many, kindled among the folk whom he sustaineth.

praNu tyaM vipramadhvareSu sAdhumagniM hotAramILate namobhiH |
A yastatAna rodasI Rtena nityammRjanti vAjinaM ghRtena || 5.1.7 ||

This singer excellent at sacrifices, agni the priest, they glorify with homage.
Him who spread out both worlds by law eternal, they balm with oil, strong steed who never faileth.

mArjAlyo mRjyate sve damUnAH kaviprashasto atithiH shivo naH |
sahasrashRÑgo vRSabhastadojA vishvAM agne sahasA prAsyanyAn || 5.1.8 ||

He, worshipful house-friend, in his home is worshipped, our own auspicious guest, lauded by sages.
That strength the bull with thousand horns possesses: in might, O agni, thou excellest others.

pra sadyo agne atyeSyanyAnAviryasmai cArutamo babhUtha |
ILenyo vapuSyo vibhAvA priyo vishAmatithirmAnuSINAm || 5.1.9 ||

Thou quickly passest by all others, agni, for him to whom thou hast appeared most lovely,
Wondrously fair, adorable, effulgent, the guest of men, the darling of the people.

tubhyambharanti kshitayo yaviSTha balimagne antita ota dUrAt |
A bhandiSThasya sumatiM cikiddhi bRhatte agne mahi sharma bhadram || 5.1.10 ||

To thee, most youthful god, to thee, O agni, from near and far the people bring their tribute.
Mark well the prayer of him who best extols thee; great, high, auspicious, agni, is thy shelter.

Ije yajñebhiH shashame shamIbhirRdhadvArAyAgnaye dadAsha |
evA cana taM yashasAmajuSTirnAMho martaM nashate na pradRptiH || 6.3.2 ||

He hath paid sacrifices, toiled in worship, and offered gifts to wealth-increasing agni.
Him the displeasure of the famous moves not, outrage and scorn affect not such a mortal.

tigmaM cidema mahi varpo asya bhasadashvo na yamasAna AsA |
vijehamAnaH parashurna jihvAM dravirna drAvayati dAru dhakshat || 6.3.4 ||

Fierce is his gait and vast his wondrous body: he champeth like a horse with bit and bridle,
And, darting forth his tongue, as it were a hatchet, burning the woods, smelteth them like a smelter.

sa IM rebho na prati vasta usrAH shociSA rArapIti mitramahAH |
naktaM ya ImaruSo yo divA nRRnamartyo aruSo yo divA nRRn || 6.3.6 ||

In beams of morn he clothes him like the singer, and bright as mitra with his splendour crackles.
Red in the night, by day the men’s possession: red, he belongs to men by day, immortal.

divo na yasya vidhato navInodvRSA ruksha oSadhISu nUnot |
ghRNA na yo dhrajasA patmanA yannA rodasI vasunA daM supatnI || 6.3.7 ||

Like heaven’s when scattering beams his voice was uttered: among the plants the radiant hero shouted,
Who with his glow in rapid course came hither to fill both worlds, well-wedded dames, with treasure.

dhAyobhirvA yo yujyebhirarkairvidyunna davidyotsvebhiH shuSmaiH |
shardho vA yo marutAM tataksha Rbhurna tveSo rabhasAno adyaut || 6.3.8 ||

Who, with supporting streams and rays that suit him, hath flashed like lightning with his native vigour.
Like the deft maker of the band of marutas, the bright impetuous one hath shone refulgent.

pra navyasA sahasaH sUnumachA yajñena gAtumava ichamAnaH |
vRshcadvanaM kRSNayAmaM rushantaM vItI hotAraM divyaM jigAti || 6.6.1 ||

He who seeks furtherance and grace to help him goes to the son of strength with newest worship,
Calling the heavenly priest to share the banquet, who rends the wood, bright, with his blackened pathway.

sa shvitAnastanyatU rocanasthA ajarebhirnAnadadbhiryaviSThaH |
yaH pAvakaH purutamaH purUNi pRthUnyagniranuyAti bharvan || 6.6.2 ||

White-hued and thundering he dwells in splendour, most youthful, with the loud-voiced and eternal,
Agni, most variform, the purifier, who follows crunching many ample forests.

ye te shukrAsaH shucayaH shuciSmaH kshAM vapanti viSitAso ashvAH |
adhabhramasta urviyA vi bhAti yAtayamAno adhi sAnu pRshneH || 6.6.4 ||

Thy pure white horses from their bonds are loosened: O radiant one, they shear the ground beneath them,
And far and wide shines out thy flame, and flickers rapidly moving over earth’s high ridges.

adha jihvA pApatIti pra vRSNo goSuyudho nAshaniH sRjAnA |
shUrasyeva prasitiH kshAtiragnerdurvarturbhImo dayate vanAni || 6.6.5 ||

Forth darts the bull’s tongue like the sharp stone weapon discharged by him who fights to win the cattle.
Agni’s fierce flame is like a hero’s onset: dread and resistless he destroys the forests.

sa citra citraM citayantamasme citrakshatra citratamaM vayodhAm |
candraM rayimpuruvIrambRhantaM candra candrAbhirgRNate yuvasva || 6.6.7 ||

Wondrous, of wondrous power, give to the singer wealth wondrous, marked, most wonderful, life-giving.
Wealth bright, O bright one, vast, with many heroes, give with thy bright flames to the man who lauds thee.

nirotu
10 April 2008, 04:49 PM
namaskar nirotu,

Have you read the http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2696 (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2696) thread? What are your thoughts?

Now that you have asked me to provide my thoughts, I have taken the liberty to do so. Again, these are my personal thoughts not intended to denigrate any one.

First of all, the topic started by Saidevo with an urge to derive roots of Christianity in Vedas is well founded and, in response, Sarabhanga has done just that. In fact, in many of my posts, that is exactly what I have done also. However, the uncharacteristic divergence between them is saddening, though.

Dear Sarabhanga:

“If the crucifixion is properly understood as an allegory of yoga samAdhi, and not simply as an unjust but politically expedient execution of a dissident preacher, then all of the above is not a correct impression of the understanding of Jesus himself.

“narAH = iLAH = yahvIH
nArAyaNa = ila = yeSu”
In a world of deceit, an attempt to tell the truth should be considered noble indeed!!!!! Your efforts to establish a systematic concordance between the two is greatly appreciated.

That said, however, I am puzzled by your self-contradicting statement, such as:


“There seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure. “

“From an historical perspective, the Bible stories alone cannot be taken as solid evidence of historical truth. How do we know that the character really existed? Because the book tells us so!”
Then you go on to say:

“The historical Jesus was apparently an Essene Jew, whose strict monastic codes were considered essential for salvation/liberation.”
” And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.”
The Gospel according to non-Christians:

Josephus Flavius (ca.37 – ca.100) was a greatest Jewish historian of his time. In his “Antiquities of the Jews”, which finished in A.D. 93, Josephus who was not a Christian writes in book 18, chapter 3, section 3, “ . . . At this time (the time of Pilate) there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous and many people from among Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned hi to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. . .”

There are at least ten known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life. Some of those ten writers – Celsus, Tacitus and the Jewish Talmud – could be considered anti-Christian sources. With such a close proximity to the actual event, there is less of a chance for legendary development!

[Ref: Norman L. Geisler. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker 1999), pages 381-385. and Gary Habermas, The historical Jesus (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996), Chapter 9].

In light of these non-Christian references, the theory that Jesus never existed is clearly unreasonable. How could non-Christian writers collectively reveal a storyline congruent with the New Testament if Jesus never existed? If the new-Testament events are fictional, then why do the non-Christian writers record some of them as though they actually occurred; common amongst all non-Christian writers including the fact that He was crucified in the time of Pontious Pilate’s term in Judea, and that His followers worshipped Him as God?

Some one said it the best, “The best evidence outside the Bible is the history of the spread of Christianity through the existence of the testimony of many non-Christians whose lives were “genuinely” transformed for over 2000 years. A relatively obscure figure born 2000 years ago who started a movement over a short span of 3 years in a backwater area of the Roman Empire and was killed by the hands of Romans. The movement itself recorded words that seem like nonsense - love your enemies, turn the other cheek, to be a leader you must serve others. Yet, shortly after the one who started the movement was killed - and despite the crazy-sounding words on which it was built- the movement started growing rapidly worldwide with people willing to give up their lives before they gave up their faith.”

To that end, if I may paraphrase what has already been said, “Jesus Christ has given enough evidence to convince open-minded, not enough to overwhelm the free will of those wishing to cling to their close minded views. That, I believe, is the truth because the determined will can ignore best of evidences.

Perhaps, by far the most important non-Christian source of Jesus and His sayings can be found in revered Vedas as prophecy, if one knows where to look for. If I understand correctly, it is the intent of Sarabhanga to bring this to light. To a serious student of scriptures you truly are a source of wisdom.

Beginning with the understanding of the mystery of sacrifice, I believe, God could not have hidden the mystery of Christ from other nations because it was three wise men from the east (not from west!) came to worship Him at his birth. “They saw His star in the east” and began following it until it pointed to the right location worthy to receive glory and honor and worship!

Mystery of sacrifice:

My personal view is that, if one can grasp the true meaning behind the “sacrifice”, the whole mystery can be unraveled. Sacrifice plays very important role in Vedic literature. The Vedas proclaim that sacrifice is the way to attain heaven as in Kathopanishad 1:13,” the sacrifice which leads to heaven is how the heaven seekers attain eternal life”. A passage from the Maitrayana Samhita often repeated in Sutras say,” Rtam eva paramesthi...” or Rta (sacrifice) alone is the highest (form of worship); no one goes beyond Rta”.

Rigveda says the following about this Purusha (Prajapati), the creator and sustainer:

“Purusha evedam sarvam
Yadbhutham Yachabhavyam
Uthaamruthathwasya eesaana
Yadaannenathirohathi” (Rigveda X; 90:2)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/index.htm

Purport: It is definitely this very same male who exists now, who has gone by and who is expected to come. Not only that, it is this same male who controls the state of eternity (immortality).

Upon closer look at the scripture, in particular, Tandyamahabrahmana (Chap 7, 2nd Khanda) one finds a verse describing a supreme sacrifice of the supreme Purusha (Prajapati):
“ Prajapatirddevebhyam atmanam
Yajnam krtva prayacchat”.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/index.htm

Purport: Having done self-sacrifice, Prajapati offered Himself for the gods. Supreme God is also known as Prajapati in Vedic literature. Literally, Prajapati means Lord of all creation. Usually, He receives offerings and sacrifices. But here we find that the victim of sacrifice is God Himself.

What is the mode of divine sacrifice?

In the Purushasookta, there is a mention of a divine sacrifice for the deliverance and salvation of mankind.

“Thaam yajnam barhishi proukshan
Purusham jaathamagratha
Thena deva ayajantha
Saadhya rushayaschaye”
Purport: Devas of heaven and the ruling fraternity along with the hermits offered the first born male in sacrifice by consecrating him as the animal of offering by tying him on a wooden sacrificial post.

Truly, I find in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sake of humanity, there is nothing new to learn under ordinary reading of scriptures! It has been said that the Lord Shiva drank poison for the redemption of the mankind. It is also believed among people of Mahayana faith, Buddha refused to attain nirvana for the sake of man. What stands out explicitly clear on these sacrifices is that the suffering and sacrifice for the world out of love is the price even God had to pay for the redemption of mankind. In that context, Jesus sacrifice has a deeper meaning!

In addition, upon reading both scriptures one finds nearly ten characteristics and the results of the Prajapati-sacrifice appear to be fulfilled in Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, which can be shown. It is hard to ignore them as mere coincidences. Therefore, I believe that the crucifixion of Christ should not be seen as a punishment for a mere revolutionary ideas implied as treason. It is a sacrifice for the redemption of humanity as whole.

Since the theological truth of Christian faith is based in historical truth, the “Jesus of History” and the “Christ of Faith” are one and the same for a true Christian. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the object of their faith is Jesus the Christ and the Bible is the faithful witness to that account.

In the end, I agree Sarabhanga’s statement with some truth, “And those with unshakeable faith in the literal truth of the book will never be swayed, while those without faith will never be convinced.”

The most difficult thing about “faith” is that there is no adequate way of explaining it. The concept is impossible for any human being to fully understand, let alone explain. It can perhaps be appreciated in the context of why some one is willing give up life for Christ before giving up “faith” and that can only be explained by the individual whose life has undergone dramatic transformation.

Coming back to OP, it was a sincere request by Saidevo to which Sarabhanga diligently complied. The uncharacteristic divergence into non-essentials is regrettable. It is in the best interest of others that I do not participate any more as it will only sidetrack and distract the important work undertaken by Sarabhanga, which is to find the roots of Jesus sayings in Vedas and the relationship of Hinduism and Christianity. My participation was purely in response to Satay’s request. There is a lot more for all of us to learn from Sarabhanga’s wisdom.

To that end, I would echo Saidevo, “Kindly proceed now on with your noble work of exposing the Sanatana Dharmic roots of the Christian scriptures and teachings. On that score, we are all ears for you.”

Blessings,

sarabhanga
11 April 2008, 01:29 AM
From Rgveda VIII:


kRSNA rajAMsi patsutaH prayANe jAtavedasaH |
agniryadrodhati kshami || 8.43.6 ||

As jAtavedas speeds along, the dust is black beneath his feet,
When agni spreads upon the earth.

jihvAbhiraha nannamadarciSA jañjaNAbhavan |
agnirvaneSu rocate || 8.43.8 ||

Bending him down with all his tongues, he flickers with his fiery glow,
Splendid is agni in the woods.

apsvagne sadhiSTava sauSadhIranu rudhyase |
garbhe sañjAyase punaH || 8.43.9 ||

Agni, thine home is in the floods: into the plants thou forcest way,
And as their child art born anew.

udagne tava tadghRtAdarcI rocata Ahutam |
niMsAnaM juhvo mukhe || 8.43.10 ||

Worshipped with offerings shines thy flame, O agni, from the sacred oil,
With kisses on the ladle’s mouth.

ukshAnnAya vashAnnAya somapRSThAya vedhase |
stomairvidhemAgnaye || 8.43.11 ||

Let us serve agni with our hymns, disposer, fed on ox and cow,
Who bears the soma on his back.

uta tvA namasA vayaM hotarvareNyakrato |
agne samidbhirImahe || 8.43.12 ||

Yea, thee, O agni, do we seek with homage and with fuel, priest
Whose wisdom is most excellent.

sa tvaM viprAya dAshuSe rayiM dehi sahasriNam |
agne vIravatImiSam || 8.43.15 ||

So wealth in thousands, food with store of heroes give thou to the sage,
O agni, to the worshipper.

agne bhrAtaH sahaskRta rohidashva shucivrata |
imaM stomaM juSasva me || 8.43.16 ||

O agni, brother, made by strength, lord of red steeds and brilliant sway,
Take pleasure in this laud of mine.

uta tvAgne mama stuto vAshrAya pratiharyate |
goSThaM gAva ivAshata || 8.43.17 ||

My praises, agni, go to thee, as the cows seek the stall to meet,
The lowing calf that longs for milk.

agniM dhIbhirmanISiNo medhirAso vipashcitaH |
admasadyAya hinvire || 8.43.19 ||

The sages skilled in holy song and thinkers with their thoughts have urged
Agni to share the sacred feast.

taM tvAmajmeSu vAjinaM tanvAnA agne adhvaram |
vahniM hotAramILate || 8.43.20 ||

So, agni, unto thee the priest, invoker, strong in forays, pray
Those who spin out the sacrifice.

agniM vishvAyuvepasammaryaM na vAjinaM hitam |
saptiM na vAjayAmasi || 8.43.25 ||

Him like a bridegroom, him who stirs all people, like a noble horse,
Like a fleet steed, we instigate.

samidhAgniM duvasyata ghRtairbodhayatAtithim |
AsminhavyA juhotana || 8.44.1 ||

Pay service unto agni with your fuel, rouse your guest with oil:
In him present your offerings.

agne stomaM juSasva me vardhasvAnena manmanA |
prati sUktAni harya naH || 8.44.2 ||

Agni, do thou accept my laud, be magnified by this my song:
Welcome my sweetly-spoken words.

utte bRhanto arcayaH samidhAnasya dIdivaH |
agne shukrAsa Irate || 8.44.4 ||

Agni, the lofty flames of thee enkindled have gone up on high,
Thy bright flames, thou refulgent one.

upa tvA juhvo mama ghRtAcIryantu haryata |
agne havyA juSasva naH || 8.44.5 ||

Beloved, let my ladles full of sacred oil come near to thee:
Agni, accept our offerings.

mandraM hotAramRtvijaM citrabhAnuM vibhAvasum |
agnimILe sa u shravat || 8.44.6 ||

I worship agni ~ may he hear ~ the cheerful, the invoker, priest,
Of varied splendour, rich in light.

pratnaM hotAramIDyaM juSTamagniM kavikratum |
adhvarANAmabhishriyam || 8.44.7 ||

Ancient invoker, meet for praise, beloved agni, wise and strong,
The visitant of solemn rites.

juSANo aÑgirastamemA havyAnyAnuSak |
agne yajñaM naya RtuthA || 8.44.8 ||

Agni, best aÑgiras, accept straightway these offerings, and guide
The seasonable sacrifice.

Urjo napAtamA huve’gnimpAvakashociSam |
asminyajñe svadhvare || 8.44.13 ||

I invocate the child of strength, agni with purifying flame,
At this well-ordered sacrifice.

sa no mitramahastvamagne shukreNa shociSA |
devairA satsi barhiSi || 8.44.14 ||

So agni, rich in many friends, with fiery splendour, seat thyself
With gods upon our sacred grass.

yo agniM tanvo dame devammartaH saparyati |
tasmA iddIdayadvasu || 8.44.15 ||

The mortal man who serves the god agni within his own abode,
For him he causes wealth to shine.

IshiSe vAryasya hi dAtrasyAgne svarpatiH |
stotA syAM tava sharmaNi || 8.44.18 ||

For, agni, thou as lord of light rulest over choicest gifts: may I,
Thy singer, find defence in thee.

tvAmagne manISiNastvAM hinvanti cittibhiH |
tvAM vardhantu no giraH || 8.44.19 ||

O agni, they who understand stir thee to action with their thoughts:
So let our songs enhance thy might.

yadagne syAmahaM tvaM tvaM vA ghA syA aham |
syuSTe satyA ihAshiSaH || 8.44.23 ||

If I were thou and thou wert I, O agni, every prayer of thine
Should have its due fulfilment here.

yuvAnaM vishpatiM kaviM vishvAdampuruvepasam |
agniM shumbhAmi manmabhiH || 8.44.26 ||

Agni, the youthful lord of men, who stirreth much and eateth all,
The sage, I glorify with hymns.

yajñAnAM rathye vayaM tigmajambhAya vILave |
stomairiSemAgnaye || 8.44.27 ||

To agni let us haste with lauds, the guide of sacrificial rites,
Armed with sharp teeth, the mighty one.

ayamagne tve api jaritA bhUtu santya |
tasmai pAvaka mRLaya || 8.44.28 ||

And let this man, good agni, be with thee the singer of thy praise:
Be gracious, holy one, to him.

sarabhanga
11 April 2008, 01:42 AM
From Rgveda X:


pra ketunA bRhatA yAtyagnirA rodasI vRSabho roravIti |
divashcidantAM upamAM udAnaLapAmupasthe mahiSo vavardha || 10.8.1 ||

Agni advances with his lofty banner: the bull is bellowing to the earth and heavens.
He hath attained the sky’s supremest limits: the steer hath waxen in the lap of waters.

mumoda garbho vRSabhaH kakudmAnasremA vatsaH shimIvAM arAvIt |
sa devatAtyudyatAni kRNvansveSu kshayeSu prathamo jigAti || 10.8.2 ||

The bull, the youngling with the hump, hath frolicked, the strong and never-ceasing calf hath bellowed.
Bringing our offerings to the god’s assembly, he moves as chief in his own dwelling-places.

A yo mUrdhAnampitrorarabdha nyadhvare dadhire sUro arNaH |
asya patmannaruSIrashvabudhnA Rtasya yonau tanvo juSanta || 10.8.3 ||

Him who hath grasped his parents’ head, they stablished at sacrifice a wave of heavenly lustre.
In his swift flight the red dawns borne by horses refresh their bodies in the home of order.

uSauSo hi vaso agrameSi tvaM yamayorabhavo vibhAvA |
RtAya sapta dadhiSe padAni janayanmitraM tanve svAyai || 10.8.4 ||

For, vasu thou precedest every morning, and still hast been the twins’ illuminator.
For sacrifice, seven places thou retainest, while for thine own self thou engenderest mitra.

bhuvashcakshurmaha Rtasya gopA bhuvo varuNo yadRtAya veSi |
bhuvo apAM napAjjAtavedo bhuvo dUto yasya havyaM jujoSaH || 10.8.5 ||

Thou art the eye and guard of mighty order, and varuNa when to sacrifice thou comest.
Thou art the waters’ child O jAtavedas, envoy of him whose offering thou acceptest.

bhuvo yajñasya rajasashca netA yatrA niyudbhiH sacase shivAbhiH |
divi mUrdhAnaM dadhiSe svarSAM jihvAmagne cakRSe havyavAham || 10.8.6 ||

Thou art the leader of the rite and region, to which with thine auspicious teams thou leadest,
Thy light-bestowing head to heaven thou liftest, making thy tongue the oblation-bearer, agni.

asya tritaH kratunA vavre antarichandhItimpiturevaiH parasya |
sacasyamAnaH pitrorupasthe jAmi bruvANa AyudhAni veti || 10.8.7 ||

Through his wise insight trita in the cavern, seeking as ever the chief sire’s intention,
Carefully tended in his parents’ bosom, calling the weapons kin, goes forth to combat.

sa pitryANyAyudhAni vidvAnindreSita Aptyo abhyayudhyat |
trishIrSANaM saptarashmiM jaghanvAntvASTrasya cinniH sasRje trito gAH || 10.8.8 ||

Well-skilled to use the weapons of his father, Aptya, urged on by indra, fought the battle.
Then trita slew the foe seven-rayed, three-headed, and freed the cattle of the son of tvaSTar.

bhUrIdindra udinakshantamojo’vAbhinatsatpatirmanyamAnam |
tvASTrasya cidvishvarUpasya gonAmAcakrANastrINi shIrSA parA vark || 10.8.9 ||

Lord of the brave, indra cleft him in pieces who sought to gain much strength and deemed him mighty.
He smote his three heads from his body, seizing the cattle of the omniform son of tvaSTar.

bhadraM no api vAtaya manaH || 10.20.1 ||

Send unto us a good and happy mind.

agnimILe bhujAM yaviSThaM shAsA mitraM durdharItum |
yasya dharmansvarenIH saparyanti mAturUdhaH || 10.20.2 ||

I worship agni, youthfullest of gods, resistless, friend of laws;
Under whose guard and heavenly light the spotted seek the mother’s breast:

yamAsA kRpanILambhAsAketuM vardhayanti |
bhrAjate shreNidan || 10.20.3 ||

Whom with their mouth they magnify, bannered with flame and homed in light.
He glitters with his row of teeth.

aryo vishAM gAtureti pra yadAnaDdivo antAn |
kavirabhraM dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||

Kind, furtherer of men, he comes, when he hath reached the ends of heaven,
Sage, giving splendour to the clouds.

juSaddhavyA mAnuSasyordhvastasthAvRbhvA yajñe |
minvansadma pura eti || 10.20.5 ||

To taste man’s offerings, he, the strong, hath risen erect at sacrifice:
Fixing his dwelling he proceeds.

sa hi kshemo haviryajñaH shruSTIdasya gAtureti |
agniM devA vAshImantam || 10.20.6 ||

Here are oblation, worship, rest: rapidly comes his furtherance.
To sword-armed agni come the gods.

yajñAsAhaM duva iSe’gnimpUrvasya shevasya |
adreH sUnumAyumAhuH || 10.20.7 ||

With service for chief bliss I seek the lord of sacrifice, agni, whom
They call the living, son of cloud.

naro ye ke cAsmadA vishvette vAma A syuH |
agniM haviSA vardhantaH || 10.20.8 ||

Blest evermore be all the men who come from us, who magnify
Agni with sacrificial gifts.

kRSNaH shveto’ruSo yAmo asya bradhna Rjra uta shoNo yashasvAn |
hiraNyarUpaM janitA jajAna || 10.20.9 ||

The path he treads is black and white and red, and striped, and brown, crimson, and glorious.
His sire begat him bright with hues of gold.

evA te agne vimado manISAmUrjo napAdamRtebhiH sajoSaaH |
gira A vakshatsumatIriyAna iSamUrjaM sukshitiM vishvamAbhAH || 10.20.10 ||

Thus with his thoughts, O son of strength, O agni, hath vimada, accordant with the immortals,
Offered thee hymns, soliciting thy favour ~ thou hast brought all food, strength, a prosperous dwelling.

sAdhvImakardevavItiM no adya yajñasya jihvAmavidAma guhyAm |
sa AyurAgAtsurabhirvasAno bhadrAmakardevahUtiM no adya || 10.53.3 ||

Now hath he made the feast of gods effective: now have we found the secret tongue of worship.
Now hath he come, sweet, robed in vital vigour, and made our calling on the gods effective.

tadadya vAcaH prathamammasIya yenAsurAM abhi devA asAma |
UrjAda uta yajñiyAsaH pañca janA mama hotraM juSadhvam || 10.53.4 ||

This prelude of my speech I now will utter, whereby we gods may quell our asura foemen.
Eaters of strengthening food who merit worship, O ye five tribes, be pleased with mine oblation.

pañca janA mama hotraM juSantAM gojAtA uta ye yajñiyAsaH |
pRthivI naH pArthivAtpAtvaMhaso’ntarikshaM divyAtpAtvasmAn || 10.53.5 ||

May the five tribes be pleased with mine oblation, and the cow’s sons and all who merit worship.
From earthly trouble may the earth protect us, and air’s mid realm from woe that comes from heaven.

tantuM tanvanrajaso bhAnumanvihi jyotiSmataH patho raksha dhiyA kRtAn |
anulbaNaM vayata joguvAmapo manurbhava janayA daivyaM janam || 10.53.6 ||

Spinning the thread, follow the region’s splendid light: guard thou the pathways well which wisdom hath prepared.
Weave ye the knotless labour of the bards who sing: be manu thou, and bring the heavenly people forth.

akshAnaho nahyatanota somyA iSkRNudhvaM rashanA ota piMshata |
aSTAvandhuraM vahatAbhito rathaM yena devAso anayannabhi priyam || 10.53.7 ||

Lovers of soma, bind the chariot traces fast: set ye the reins in order and embellish them.
Bring hitherward the car with seats where eight may sit, whereon the gods have brought the treasure that we love.

ashmanvatI rIyate saM rabhadhvamuttiSThata pra taratA sakhAyaH |
atrA jahAma ye asannashevAH shivAnvayamuttaremAbhi vAjAn || 10.53.8 ||

Here flows ashmanvatI: hold fast each other, keep yourselves up, and pass, my friends, the river.
There let us leave the powers that brought no profit, and cross the flood to powers that are auspicious.

tvaSTA mAyA vedapasAmapastamo bibhratpAtrA devapAnAni shaMtamA |
shishIte nUnamparashuM svAyasaM yena vRshcAdetasho brahmaNaspatiH || 10.53.9 ||

TvaSTA, most deft of workmen, knew each magic art, bringing most blessed bowls that hold the drink of gods.
His axe, wrought of good metal, he is sharpening now, wherewith the radiant brahmaNaspati will cut.

sato nUnaM kavayaH saM shishIta vAshIbhiryAbhiramRtAya takshatha |
vidvAMsaH padA guhyAni kartana yena devAso amRtatvamAnashuH || 10.53.10 ||

Now, O ye sapient ones, make ye the axes sharp wherewith ye fashion bowls to hold the amRta.
Knowing the secret places make ye ready that whereby the gods have gotten immortality.

garbhe yoSAmadadhurvatsamAsanyapIcyena manasota jihvayA |
sa vishvAhA sumanA yogyA abhi siSAsanirvanate kAra ijjitim || 10.53.11 ||

Ye with a secret tongue and dark intention laid the maiden deep within, the calf within the mouth.
They evermore are near us with their gracious help: successful is the song that strives for victory.

saM gobhirAÑgiraso nakshamANo bhaga ivedaryamaNaM ninAya |
jane mitro na dampatI anakti bRhaspate vAjayAshUMrivAjau || 10.68.2 ||

The son of aÑgirasas, meeting the cattle, as bhaga, brought in aryaman among us.
As friend of men he decks the wife and husband: as for the race, bRhaspati, nerve our coursers.

sAdhvaryA atithinIriSirA spArhAH suvarNA anavadyarUpAH |
bRhaspatiH parvatebhyo vitUryA nirgA Upe yavamiva sthivibhyaH || 10.68.3 ||

bRhaspati, having won them from the mountains, strewed down, like barley out of winnowing- baskets,
The vigorous, wandering cows who aid the pious, desired of all, of blameless form, well-coloured.

ApruSAyanmadhuna Rtasya yonimavakshipannarka ulkAmiva dyoH |
bRhaspatiruddharannashmano gA bhUmyA udneva vi tvacambibheda || 10.68.4 ||

As the sun dews with meath the seat of order, and casts a flaming meteor down from heaven.
So from the rock bRhaspati forced the cattle, and cleft the earth’s skin as it were with water.

apa jyotiSA tamo antarikshAdudnaH shIpAlamiva vAta Ajat |
bRhaspatiranumRshyA valasyAbhramiva vAta A cakra A gAH || 10.68.5 ||

Forth from mid air with light he drove the darkness, as the gale blows a lily from the water.
Like the wind grasping at the cloud of vala, bRhaspati gathered to himself the cattle,

yadA valasya pIyato jasumbhadbRhaspatiragnitapobhirarkaiH |
dadbhirna jihvA pariviSTamAdadAvirnidhIMrakRNodusriyANAm || 10.68.6 ||

BRhaspati, when he with fiery lightnings cleft through the weapon of reviling vala,
Consumed him as tongues cat what teeth have compassed: he threw the prisons of the red cows open.

bRhaspatiramata hi tyadAsAM nAma svarINAM sadane guhA yat |
ANDeva bhittvA shakunasya garbhamudusriyAH parvatasya tmanAjat || 10.68.7 ||

That secret name borne by the lowing cattle within the cave bRhaspati discovered,
And drove, himself, the bright kine from the mountain, like a bird’s young after the egg’s disclosure.

ashnApinaddhammadhu paryapashyanmatsyaM na dIna udani kshiyantam |
niSTajjabhAra camasaM na vRkshAdbRhaspatirviraveNA vikRtya || 10.68.8 ||

He looked around on rock-imprisoned sweetness, as one who eyes a fish in scanty water.
BRhaspati, cleaving through with varied clamour, brought it forth like a bowl from out the timber.

soSAmavindatsa svaH so agniM so arkeNa vi babAdhe tamAMsi
bRhaspatirgovapuSo valasya nirmajjAnaM na parvaNo jabhAra || 10.68.9 ||

He found the light of heaven, and fire, and morning: with lucid rays he forced apart the darkness.
As from a joint, bRhaspati took the marrow of vala as he gloried in his cattle.

himeva parNA muSitA vanAni bRhaspatinAkRpayadvalo gAH |
anAnukRtyamapunashcakAra yAtsUryAmAsA mitha uccarAtaH || 10.68.10 ||

As trees for foliage robbed by winter, vala mourned for the cows bRhaspati had taken.
He did a deed never done, never to be equalled, whereby the sun and moon ascend alternate.

abhi shyAvaM na kRshanebhirashvaM nakshatrebhiH pitaro dyAmapiMshan |
rAtryAM tamo adadhurjyotirahanbRhaspatirbhinadadriM vidadgAH || 10.68.11 ||

Like a dark steed adorned with pearl, the fathers have decorated heaven with constellations.
They set the light in day, in night the darkness ~ bRhaspati cleft the rock and found the cattle.

idamakarma namo abhriyAya yaH pUrvIranvAnonavIti |
bRhaspatiH sa hi gobhiH so ashvaiH sa vIrebhiH sa nRbhirno vayo dhAt || 10.68.12 ||

This homage have we offered to the cloud god who thunders out to many in succession.
May this bRhaspati vouchsafe us fullness of life with kine and horses, men, and heroes.

viprAso na manmabhiH svAdhyo devAvyo na yajñaiH svapnasaH |
rAjAno na citrAH susaMdRshaH kshitInAM na maryA arepasaH || 10.78.1 ||

Ye by your hymns are like high-minded singers, skilful, inviting gods with sacrifices;
Fair to behold, like kings, with bright adornment, like spotless gallants, leaders of the people:

agnirna ye bhrAjasA rukmavakshaso vAtAso na svayujaH sadyaUtayaH |
prajñAtAro na jyeSThAH sunItayaH susharmANo na somA RtaM yate || 10.78.2 ||

Like fire with flashing flame, breast-bound with chains of gold, like tempest-blasts, self-moving, swift to lend your aid;
As best of all foreknowers, excellent to guide, like somAs, good to guard the man who follows law.

vAtAso na ye dhunayo jigatnavo’gnInAM na jihvA virokiNaH |
varmaNvanto na yodhAH shimIvantaH pitRRNAM na shaMsAH surAtayaH || 10.78.3 ||

Shakers of all, like gales of wind they travel, like tongues of burning fires in their effulgence.
Mighty are they as warriors clad in armour, and, like the fathers’ prayers, most bounteous givers.

rathAnAM na ye’rAH sanAbhayo jigIvAMso na shUrA abhidyavaH |
vareyavo na maryA ghRtapruSo’bhisvartAro arkaM na suSTubhaH || 10.78.4 ||

Like spokes of car-wheels in one nave united, ever victorious like heavenly heroes,
Shedding their precious balm like youthful suitors, they raise their voice and chant their psalm as singers.

ashvAso na ye jyeSThAsa Ashavo didhiSavo na rathyaH sudAnavaH |
Apo na nimnairudabhirjigatnavo vishvarUpA aÑgiraso na sAmabhiH || 10.78.5 ||

They who are fleet to travel like the noblest steeds, long to obtain the prize like bounteous charioteers,
Like waters speeding on with their precipitous floods, like omniform aÑgirasas with sAma-hymns.

grAvANo na sUrayaH sindhumAtara AdardirAso adrayo na vishvahA |
shishUlA na krILayaH sumAtaro mahAgrAmo na yAmannuta tviSA || 10.78.6 ||

Born from the stream, like press-stones are the princes, forever like the stones that crush in pieces;
Sons of a beauteous dame, like playful children, like a great host upon the march with splendour.

uta devA avahitaM devA unnayathA punaH |
utAgashcakruSaM devA devA jIvayathA punaH || 10.137.1 ||

Ye gods, raise up once more the man whom ye have humbled and brought low.
O gods, restore to life again the man who hath committed sin.

dvAvimau vAtau vAta A sindhorA parAvataH
dakshaM te anya A vAtu parAnyo vAtu yadrapaH || 10.137.2 ||

Two several winds are blowing here, from sindhu, from a distant land.
May one breathe energy to thee, the other blow disease away.

A vAta vAhi bheSajaM vi vAta vAhi yadrapaH |
tvaM hi vishvabheSajo devAnAM dUta Iyase || 10.137.3 ||

Hither, O wind, blow healing balm, blow all disease away, thou wind;
For thou who hast all medicine comest as envoy of the gods.

A tvAgamaM shaMtAtibhiratho ariSTatAtibhiH |
dakshaM te bhadramAbhArSamparA yakshmaM suvAmi te || 10.137.4 ||

I am come nigh to thee with balms to give thee rest and keep thee safe.
I bring thee blessed strength, I drive thy weakening malady away.

trAyantAmiha devAstrAyatAmmarutAM gaNaH |
trAyantAM vishvA bhUtAni yathAyamarapA asat || 10.137.5 ||

Here let the gods deliver him, the marutas’ band deliver him:
All things that be deliver him that he be freed from his disease.

Apa idvA u bheSajIrApo amIvacAtanIH |
ApaH sarvasya bheSajIstAste kRNvantu bheSajam || 10.137.6 ||

The waters have their healing power, the waters drive disease away.
The waters have a balm for all: let them make medicine for thee.

hastAbhyAM dashashAkhAbhyAM jihvA vAcaH purogavI |
anAmayitnubhyAM tvA tAbhyAM tvopa spRshAmasi || 10.137.7 ||

The tongue that leads the voice precedes, then with our ten-fold branching hands,
With these two chasers of disease, we stroke thee with a gentle touch.

atanu
11 April 2008, 09:48 AM
--
Perhaps, by far the most important non-Christian source of Jesus and His sayings can be found in revered Vedas as prophecy, if one knows where to look for. If I understand correctly, it is the intent of Sarabhanga to bring this to light. To a serious student of scriptures you truly are a source of wisdom.


Namaste Nirotu,

Your post is noble.

However, the above assertion of yours exactly I tried to find out for myself: Where is the prophecy on Jesus in Veda? I would like to be enlightened genuinely. I agree that I do not know where to look for it. Sarabhanga has said that he is not showing us the prophecy as below:


By Sarabhanga
Have I suggested that any verses predict the coming of Christ?

--------------------
Yahvat is a general term for the constantly flowing. And Jeshua may have root in a sanskrit term meaning the son. But that way, who is not a son? I sincerely feel that there are very many commonalities in every language in the world. For example, Adi (primeval) and Adam? And I can go on and on. Any thing can be proven this way. When Veda teaches of ONE Brahman, I personally do not have the need to look for roots, except for intellectual purpose (which is also good). When Shiva Mahiman Strotam says: "Lord all Paths are yours and you are the leader of those --", I personally do not have any doubt on ONE root of every path.


The root question of saidevo ji is not answered (as far as I see):



By saidevo,
Do we need to convince the Christian people in HDFpuri so they can see the Ultimate Truth or make those who have recently embraced Hinduism feel comfortable by pointing out remote agreements in concepts and teachings between the two religions? Can we post this 'new knowledge' in the Internet's popular Christian forums so those Christians too can see and realize the Truth?

If majority of Christians saw Vedas as the root, then why the endeavour to reform followers of Veda?




and despite the crazy-sounding words on which it was built- the movement started growing rapidly worldwide with people willing to give up their lives before they gave up their faith.”



Truly. But does it not apply more truly to Moslems and terrorists?


Regards,


Om Namah Shivaya

atanu
11 April 2008, 11:51 AM
From the Rgveda:samudrAdUrmirmadhumAM udAradupAMshunA samamRtatvamAnaT |
ghRtasya nAma guhyaM yadasti jihvA devAnAmamRtasya nAbhiH || 4.58.1 ||

Forth from the ocean sprang the wave of sweetness: together with the stalk it turned to amRta,
That which is holy oil’s mysterious title: but the Gods’ tongue is truly amRta’s centre.

vayaM nAma pra bravAmA ghRtasyAsminyajñe dhArayAmA namobhiH |
upabrahmA shRNavacchasyamAnaM catuHshRÑgo’vamIdgaura etát || 4.58.2 ||

Let us declare aloud the name of ghRta, and at this sacrifice hold it up with homage.
So let the brahmA hear the praise we utter: this hath the four-horned buffalo emitted.

catvAri shRÑgA trayo asya pAdA dve shIrSe sapta hastAso asya |
tridhA baddho vRSabho roravIti maho devo martyAM A vivesha || 4.58.3 ||

Four are his horns, three are the feet that bear him; his heads are two, his hands are seven in number.
Bound with a triple bond the steer roars loudly: the mighty god hath entered in to mortals.

tridhA hitampaNibhirguhyamAnaM gavi devAso ghRtamanvavindan |
indra ekaM sUrya ekaM jajAna venAdekaM svadhayA niSTatakshuH || 4.58.4 ||

That oil in triple shape the gods discovered laid down within the cow, concealed by paNayas.
Indra produced one shape, sUrya another: by their own power they formed the third from vena.



AUM. Four horned, three footed, two headed. Advaita Om.




sa pitryANyAyudhAni vidvAnindreSita Aptyo abhyayudhyat |
trishIrSANaM saptarashmiM jaghanvAntvASTrasya cinniH sasRje trito gAH || 10.8.8 ||

Well-skilled to use the weapons of his father, Aptya, urged on by indra, fought the battle.
Then trita slew the foe seven-rayed, three-headed, and freed the cattle of the son of tvaSTar.

bhUrIdindra udinakshantamojo’vAbhinatsatpatirmanyamAnam |
tvASTrasya cidvishvarUpasya gonAmAcakrANastrINi shIrSA parA vark || 10.8.9 ||

Lord of the brave, indra cleft him in pieces who sought to gain much strength and deemed him mighty.
He smote his three heads from his body, seizing the cattle of the omniform son of tvaSTar.



Visvarupa killed. The son of Tvastar-visvakarman (the externalised Savita -- the creator -- the Mind), is killed. But as a result Indra himself loses all his powers till Saraswati and Aswins rejuvenate him. Thereafter only Indra could kill Vritta.



ashmanvatI rIyate saM rabhadhvamuttiSThata pra taratA sakhAyaH |
atrA jahAma ye asannashevAH shivAnvayamuttaremAbhi vAjAn || 10.53.8 ||

Here flows ashmanvatI: hold fast each other, keep yourselves up, and pass, my friends, the river.
There let us leave the powers that brought no profit, and cross the flood to powers that are auspicious.


Om Namah Shivaya.

Hold fast to Sanatana Dharma. Hold fast to Shiva.


Om

atanu
11 April 2008, 01:47 PM
And my accusing tone and fault-finding attitude?
:rolleyes:

And the often repeated statement from Jones, shows exactly the argument I have been suggesting. The exact nature of the “Egyptian conduits” requires clarification, but the essential notion of transmission from “the primeval fountains of Indian literature” was acceptable to Jones, if only it could be proved.


“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”


Well. William Jones is waiting for a proof that primeval fountains of Indian Scripture was transmitted to Moses.




Originally Posted by Saidevo

The fact remains that with all their scholarship and Sanskrit proficiency had they really sought the Absolute Truth come what might have, they could have easily found and exposed the original roots of Christianity that you have been trying to drive home for the last decade!




Reply by Sarabhanga

Willam Jones, Max Muller, Edward Moore, Christian Lassen, Richard Garbe, and many other western scholars have done exactly that, but it seems that some have not noticed, perhaps blinded by their one-eyed support of their own religion (whether Christian or Hindu)!



Here William Jones has done exactly that.

:rolleyes:

Ganeshprasad
11 April 2008, 01:51 PM
Pranam Atanu ji




The root question of saidevo ji is not answered (as far as I see):



If majority of Christians saw Vedas as the root, then why the endeavour to reform followers of Veda?



Om Namah Shivaya

Even Ravan has root in Vedas in fact he knew Vedas inside out but we dont follow Him.

There is no doubt Chirst tought certain truth, at a time and place, but his followers today and in their past, by their actions does not resemble any thing that Vedas teach.

Jai Shree Krishna

sarabhanga
12 April 2008, 09:24 PM
I am puzzled by your self-contradicting statement, such as:



There seems to be no evidence of Jesus Christ as an historical figure.

From an historical perspective, the Bible stories alone cannot be taken as solid evidence of historical truth. How do we know that the character really existed? Because the book tells us so!”

Then you go on to say:



The historical Jesus was apparently an Essene Jew, whose strict monastic codes were considered essential for salvation/liberation.

And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.


Namaste Nirotu,

The story of Jesus Christ is woven from various elements. There is the supposed historical truth of “Jesus Christ”, and there is the eternal truth embodied by the appellation “yeSu (‘among those’) kRSTInAm (‘of the Arya tribes’)” ~ the former having no convincing evidence beyond Christian scripture and conviction, and being entirely accountable from an amalgam of pre-existing traditions, and especially in the vaidika conception of the divine child (nArAyaNa, ila, agni, yeSu, skanda, soma, brahmabIja, etc.) of the celestial waters (narAH, iLAH, yahvIH, brahmayoni, etc.) conjured by the sacrificing priest’s own sacrifice.

The wisdom of the pañca kRSTayas, embodied in saMskRtam and the vedatrayI, is certainly true, but the identification of any particular historical individual with the sacrificial exemplar of rAjA kRSTInAm (i.e. agnideva), two thousand years after the event and without corroborating evidence other than recurrent themes found in scriptures composed two thousand years before the supposed event, remains doubtful.

In the mysterious first case of God’s creation, the progenitor and the progeny are identical, with the father prajApati brahmA (vishvakarman or tvaSTR ~ the “all-creator” or “carpenter”, identified with the sun) and his own son rAjA kRSTInAm (agni, soma, indra) the tvASTrayahva (“the carpenter’s son”, identified with the light of the sun, a beam from the first sacrificial hearth) being one and the same. And subsequent vaidika sacrifice follows the same archetype, with the sacrificing priest (in the perfect invocation) having fully identified his own self with the offering.

And any mention of such wisdom among early juhvas (followers of the kavi abhram dIdyuhvA or RSi UrdhvanAbha abhram ~ regarded as a personification of vAc, “the word”) in the middle east was naturally attributed to “yeSu kRSTInAm” (personified as tvASTrayahva).

The earliest known manuscript of Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews dates from about 1000 AD, and the authenticity of the “Testimonium Flavianum” (Antiquities of the Jews xviii 3.3) is uncertain, with the whole passage disputed as a later Christian interpolation.

[3.2] So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.

[3.3] Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
[3.4] About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome.




There are at least ten known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life. Some of those ten writers – Celsus, Tacitus and the Jewish Talmud – could be considered anti-Christian sources. With such a close proximity to the actual event, there is less of a chance for legendary development!

According to Celsus (c. 180 AD), Jesus was a bastard child and a sorcerer. :rolleyes:

And Tacitus (c. 116 AD) wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [kRSTayas] by the populace. Christus [kR-iSTi], from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

And from the Talmud:

The Tosefta was composed in about 200 AD, compiling earlier oral traditions, and the name yeSu is mentioned just once, in relation to someone called Jacob, who healed “in the name of Yeshu ben Pandera”.

And the Babylonian Talmud (c. 500 AD) gives some additional details, noting that Jacob quoted Deuteronomy 23:19, “You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow” saying that this was taught to him by Yeshu. Jacob then asked Rabbi Eliezer if it was lawful to use a whore’s money to build a toilet for the high priest, and when the Rabbi did not reply, he quoted Micah 1:7, “For they were amassed from whores’ fees and they shall become whores’ fees again”.

In another passage, Onkelos invokes the spirit of a Yeshu who sought to harm Israel, and whose punishment in the afterlife was boiling in excrement. In another, a Yeshu is executed, at the time of Passover, for sorcery, and leading others to apostasy. And Yeshu is mentioned as having five disciples (Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah ~ the pañca kRSTayas) who were executed. And others speak of a Yeshu who burns his food in public. And Yeshu is also named as a student of Joshua ben Perachiah, who was sent away from his teacher for judging a woman by her physical appearance, and finally turned to “worshipping a brick”.




In light of these non-Christian references, the theory that Jesus never existed is clearly unreasonable.

I am afraid that none of this sheds any light on an actual person named yeSu, only suggesting what second century Christians believed about yeSu kRSTInAm, and what their Jewish and Roman contemporaries had to say in opposition to such views.

The Talmud’s remarks about burning food in public and worshipping bricks, however, give us details of the yeSus’ sacrificial method ~ i.e. the iSTi sacrifice, offering grains, fruits, ghee, etc. instead of the traditional animal sacrifice ~ and it is a priestly argument over sacrificial methods, and the public performance of the iSTi by an eSiNa juhotR, that is recalled as the historical basis for the “easter” story (and the basis for hot cross buns as the iSTikA prasAdAnam :)).




Perhaps, by far the most important non-Christian source of Jesus and His sayings can be found in revered Vedas as prophecy, if one knows where to look for. If I understand correctly, it is the intent of Sarabhanga to bring this to light.

I have been seeking the Sanskrit roots of “yeSu kRSTinAm”, not to reveal prophesies of later historical events, but rather to show that the most important elements of the story require no particular events, being suggested by the ancient hymns to agni, soma, indra, (etc.) and being generally applicable to any scenario of vaidika sacrifice or yoga samAdhi.




My personal view is that, if one can grasp the true meaning behind the “sacrifice”, the whole mystery can be unraveled.

And I agree :)




Rigveda says the following about this Purusha (Prajapati), the creator and sustainer:

“Purusha evedam sarvam
Yadbhutham Yachabhavyam
Uthaamruthathwasya eesaana
Yadaannenathirohathi” (Rigveda X; 90:2)

Purport: It is definitely this very same male who exists now, who has gone by and who is expected to come. Not only that, it is this same male who controls the state of eternity (immortality).

In the Purushasookta, there is a mention of a divine sacrifice for the deliverance and salvation of mankind.

“Thaam yajnam barhishi proukshan
Purusham jaathamagratha
Thena deva ayajantha
Saadhya rushayaschaye”

Purport: Devas of heaven and the ruling fraternity along with the hermits offered the first born male in sacrifice by consecrating him as the animal of offering by tying him on a wooden sacrificial post.



puruSa sUktam ~ Rgveda 10.90


sahasrashIrSA puruSaH sahasrAkshaH sahasrapAt |
sa bhUmiM vishvato vRtvAtyatiSThaddashAÑgulam || 1 ||

A thousand heads hath puruSa, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet.
On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.

puruSa evedaM sarvaM yadbhUtaM yacca bhavyam |
utAmRtatvasyeshAno yadannenAtirohati || 2 ||

This puruSa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;
The lord of immortality which waxes greater still by food.

etAvAnasya mahimAto jyAyAMshca pUruSaH |
pAdo’sya vishvA bhUtAni tripAdasyAmRtaM divi || 3 ||

So mighty is his greatness; yea, greater than this is puruSa.
All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths eternal life in heaven.

tripAdUrdhva udaitpuruSaH pAdo’syehAbhavatpunaH |
tato viSvaÑvyakrAmatsAshanAnashane abhi || 4 ||

With three-fourths puruSa went up: one-fourth of him again was here.
Thence he strode out to every side over what cats not and what cats.

tasmAdvirALajAyata virAjo adhi pUruSaH |
sa jAto atyaricyata pashcAdbhUmimatho puraH || 5 ||

From him virAj was born; again puruSa from virAj was born.
As soon as he was born he spread eastward and westward over the earth.

yatpuruSeNa haviSA devA yajñamatanvata |
vasanto asyAsIdAjyaM grISma idhmaH sharaddhaviH || 6 ||

When gods prepared the sacrifice with puruSa as their offering,
Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood.

taM yajñambarhiSi praukshanpuruSaM jAtamagrataH |
tena devA ayajanta sAdhyA RSayashca ye || 7 ||

They balmed as victim on the grass puruSa born in earliest time.
With him the deities and all sAdhyAs and RSayas sacrificed.

tasmAdyajñAtsarvahutaH sambhRtampRSadAjyam |
pashUntAMshcakre vAyavyAnAraNyAngrAmyAshca ye || 8 ||

From that great general sacrifice the dripping fat was gathered up.
He formed the creatures of the air, and animals both wild and tame.

tasmAdyajñAtsarvahuta RcaH sAmAni jajñire |
chandAMsi jajñire tasmAdyajustasmAdajAyata || 9 ||

From that great general sacrifice Rcas and sAma hymns were born:
Therefrom were spells and charms produced; the yajus had its birth from it.

tasmAdashvA ajAyanta ye ke cobhayAdataH |
gAvo ha jajñire tasmAttasmAjjAtA ajAvayaH || 10 ||

From it were horses born, from it all cattle with two rows of teeth:
From it were generated kine, from it the goats and sheep were born.

yatpuruSaM vyadadhuH katidhA vyakalpayan |
mukhaM kimasya kau bAhU kA UrU pAdA ucyete || 11 ||

When they divided puruSa how many portions did they make?
What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?

brAhmaNo’sya mukhamAsIdbAhU rAjanyaH kRtaH |
UrU tadasya yadvaishyaH padbhyAM shUdro ajAyata || 12 ||

The brAhmaNa was his mouth, of both his arms was the rAjanya made.
His thighs became the vaishya, from his feet the shUdra was produced.

candramA manaso jAtashcakshoH sUryo ajAyata |
mukhAdindrashcAgnishca prANAdvAyurajAyata || 13 ||

The moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the sun had birth;
Indra and agni from his mouth were born, and vAyu from his breath.

nAbhyA AsIdantarikshaM shIrSNo dyauH samavartata |
padbhyAmbhUmirdishaH shrotrAttathA lokAM akalpayan || 14 ||

Forth from his navel came mid-air, the sky was fashioned from his head,
Earth from his feet, and from his car the regions ~ thus they formed the worlds.

saptAsyAsanparidhayastriH saptasamidhaH kRtAH |
devA yadyajñaM tanvAnA abadhnanpuruSam pashum || 15 ||

Seven fencing-sticks had he, thrice seven layers of fuel were prepared,
When the gods, offering sacrifice, bound, as their victim, puruSa.

yajñena yajñamayajanta devAstAni dharmANi prathamAnyAsan |
te ha nAkammahimAnaH sacanta yatra pUrve sAdhyAH santi devAH || 16 ||

Gods, sacrificing, sacrificed the victim, these were the earliest holy ordinances.
The mighty ones attained the height of heaven, there where the sAdhyAs, gods of old, are dwelling.


Your purports (extrapolations) given to lines from the puruSa sUktam diverge substantially from the basic meaning and diminish the grand context of the hymn.

This puruSa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;
The lord of immortality which waxes greater still by food.

It is definitely this very same male who exists now, who has gone by and who is expected to come. Not only that, it is this same male who controls the state of eternity.

They balmed as victim on the grass puruSa born in earliest time.
With him the deities and all sAdhyAs and RSayas sacrificed.

Devas of heaven and the ruling fraternity along with the hermits offered the first born male in sacrifice by consecrating him as the animal of offering by tying him on a wooden sacrificial post.

Are you suggesting that the vaidika RSayas actually sacrificed their own first-born sons as an animal tied to a wooden post??? So far in this thread we have heard allegations that Dionysians were cannibals, and that the Jews originally sacrificed children, and now you claim that the ancient Hindu sages would actually sacrifice their own first-born sons!!! :(

atanu
13 April 2008, 12:34 AM
Namaste Nirotu,

I have been seeking the Sanskrit roots of “yeSu kRSTinAm”, not to reveal prophesies of later historical events, but rather to show that the most important elements of the story require no particular events, being suggested by the ancient hymns to agni, soma, indra, (etc.) and being generally applicable to any scenario of vaidika sacrifice or yoga samAdhi.
:(

Namaste

This is most reasonable.

Om

sarabhanga
13 April 2008, 05:03 AM
abbhra is “the water-bearer”.

And abhram indicates “a cloud (especially a thunder-cloud), the sky or atmosphere”, also referring to “a cipher, dust, gold, camphor, or reeds”.

abhrama is “steady or clear”, indicating “not erring, steadiness, or composure” ~ cf. yudhi-sthira (“steady in battle”), synonymous with yudhi abhrama.

The mysterious RSi UrdhvanAbhAbhrAmA (juhU brahmajAyA) composed one sUkta (RV: 10.109), and abhram appears only twice in the Rgveda (also in the 10th maNDalam).

In a hymn to agni, composed by RSi vimada aindra:

aryaH vishAm gAtuH eti pra yat AnaT divaH antAn |
kaviH abhram dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||
juSat havyA mAnuSasya UrdhvaH tasthau RbhvA yajñe |
minvan sadma puraH eti || 10.20.5 ||
And in a hymn to bRhaspati, by RSi ayAsya aÑgirasa:

apa jyotiSA tamaH antarikshAt udnaH shIpAlam iva vAtaH Ajat |
bRhaspatiH anumRshya valasya abhram iva vAtaH A cakre A gAH || 10.68.5 ||
yadA valasya pIyataH jasum bhet bRhaspatiH agnitapobhiH arkaiH
dadbhiH na jihvA pariviSTam A adat AviH nidhIn akRNot usriyANAm || 10.68.6 ||

Now, it is clear that yahvIH (‘yahweh’) was an important vaidika conception, known to all ancient RSayas, and especially favored by the Atreya and AÑgirasa clans.

And kavi abhram was surely a vaidika sage (most likely an AÑgirasa).

According to Genesis 11, “the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai (cf. sarasvatI, vAc, abhrAmA) … but Sarai was barren” (cf. the historical drying up of the sarasvatI, after c. 1,800 BC), so abhram and his wife abhrAmA (Sarai), along with his father Terah and nephew Lot, “went forth … to the land of Canaan” (cf. kaNam ~ “grain”).

So it would appear that, compelled by the drying of the sarasvatI river, kavi abhram and his family migrated to a more fertile district. And the bible names that place as Haran (cf. hiraNa ~ “semen” or “gold”).

And thus, at least until the time of abhram, there was no particular divergence of judaic dharma from traditional hindu dharma. And it was presumably “Moses” who first led his followers astray with seriously divergent teachings (e.g. his revision/corruption of the “ten commandments” of yama-niyama).

sarabhanga
14 April 2008, 01:20 AM
If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting?

Doesn't the above statement also work in reverse? If christian is a 'version' of hinduism albeit corrupted, why not accept it if not for any other reason but for simplicity of its offering? Why not accept the simple direct path shown by jesus?

Namaste Satay,

Why would any serious seeker follow a teaching which they knew to be corrupt?

If a Hindu guru suggested, based on whatever misguided interpretation of the veda, that the most direct path to God was simply to jump off a cliff, why would anyone (knowing that the teaching was misguided) willingly follow that guru’s teaching only because it was stupidly simple and apparently very quick?

Perhaps there was someone who claimed to have jumped from that very cliff and then risen back up to guide others over the same precipice, but without any evidence (indeed, knowing that the whole story is a twisted fabrication) why would anyone leave their own dharma for such a dubious course?




God in the bible quite boldly and arrogantly declares that he is the only god and his devotees should not 'bring any gods before him'. Yet, if he is the same god then why does he tell the hindus earlier that all paths lead to me, and that all worship even of the 'other gods' leads to him only. Why would God be giving confusing messages?

The first message is the practical truth, offered to devotees, who should remain exclusively devoted to just one path until they reach the destination. While the second message is the ultimate truth, known by sages who have already completed the journey.






Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.

Is it possible to consider the original christian scriptures in their original language and then compare them to original hindu scriptures? How is this possible? Who would compare them? I don't see how without a proper comparison we can make the case that 'hindu scriptures tell the whole story of christianity'.

Christian scholars have done much of the work already, with the New Testament translated from Greek texts back into Sanskrit. And the Old Testament has also been translated (presumably from Hebrew and Greek rather than simply from the English, which was rendered from the earlier manuscripts in the first place) into Sanskrit and, although it is a rather rare edition, there should be copies available in some major libraries.

And if you look through the list of related terms found in Sanskrit literature, very much of the story is simply gleaned from the various connotations associated with those words. And I assume that the story of Jesus Christ was cobbled together by scholars following the same kind of process I have been attempting to demonstrate, simply scouring the ancient texts (of whatever language, for they all originate from the same source) for any mention of yeSu, kRSTi, yahvIH, and other familiar terms, and collecting the recurrent themes they perceived into a new version of what is in fact a very old (and intrinsically Hindu) story.

For example, the (thunder) bolts in the hands of indra, who resides at the crossing point of heaven (the celestial pole) having conquered vRtra (the constellation Draco), became iron bolts driven into the hands of Jesus, raised up in self-sacrificial imitation of indra’s world-conquering feat.




For example, a very common response from a christian or a hindu would be: show us how that the original teachings of jesus are from hindu text. But simply quoting rig veda won't do, will it? It doesn't seem to be 'doing it' for me. The conncections, imho, need more refinement.

What aspect of the proposed connection requires further clarification?




We have made the hypothesis that 'christianity is a version of hinduism' and now we are trying to find and refine the steps that will lead us to the proof of this hypothesis.

Are we yet convinced?

sarabhanga
14 April 2008, 07:02 AM
Namaste Saidevo,




Jesus was a Jew and he came into this world to fulfill the Jewish law.

Paul is where Christianity begins.




The nivRtti-mArga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire Essene community.

Modern Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul, and its chief focus is distinctly pravRtti-mArga.




In the Torah, God is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, and this Jesus apparently accepted.

The marriage of Christianity to Judaism is forever.

In the Rgveda, God is yahvIH (among other names), the God of abhram (among other sages), and this was accepted by yeSu of the kRSTayas, whose destiny was to become rAjA kRSTinAm (i.e. agni or soma or indra).

And the marriage of Judaism and Christianity to Hinduism must equally be forever.




… the Jew’s god of human child sacrifice, Moloch who was clearly evil. Incidentally, the term mleccha comes from Moloch.

The term mleccha (“you speak unintelligibly!”) is a normal form of the verb mlech, which means “to speak indistinctly (like a foreigner or barbarian who does not speak saMskRta)”. A mleccha is simply “any person who does not speak saMskRta and does not conform to the usual Hindu institutions” ~ which does not necessarily indicate the sacrifice of children!



This is where Zoroastrianism comes in …

Do any key terms, such as yahva, yeSu, kRSTi, or abhram, actually appear in the AveSTa?

ya (“who, which, that”) + hva (“own self”) would be an appropriate compound from Avestan roots, but I have no idea whether that combination appears in the scripture itself.

Exactly the same compound is possible in Sanskrit ~ ya (“who, which, that”) + hvA (“name”) = yahvA (“named after who”, and thus “whose name”, or the implied name of “that” unnamable one). And yahvAyAm would be “in whose name”.

And a cognate term is derived from tad (“he, she, it, that”) + tvam (“the being or abode of”) = tattvam (“truth or essence”, “the being of that”, “his being or abode”, etc.).

sarabhanga
14 April 2008, 07:54 AM
From what you have said/implied:

• If Jones had not given the Roman transliteration scheme, there would have been "no valid means for transcribing the above text in Roman characters, and only those familiar with Devanagari script will have any chance of understanding."

• If Charles Wilkins ("the Caxton of India") had not "devised the first typeface for printing Indian scripts", Vedas and other Hindu scriptures would have remained only in their oral tradition and in hand-written manuscripts.

• And if Jones and Wilkins who gave these things are perceived as "meddling imposters with only one aim", there would be little justification in using their textual aids and that would have rendered "all internet discussion of Hindu scripture problematic."

Shall we say, using the same logic, that

• Had not the British given us the railroads, India would still be using only bullock carts for travel?

• Had not the British given us the English language, India would have been a primitive country like some in the African continent?

• Had not the British given us the modern civilization and dress codes, Indian males would still be sporting tufts of hair and wearing only dhoties?

• Just because the British gave all these to India, if the British Raj is perceived as having done more evil than good to India, there is no justification in using what they gave us?

I have heard that jnAnis can sometimes be childlike (I am not saying 'childish' which please note). I now have some proof of that truth! Childlikeness is a desirable quality to emulate, but what to do? At my level some of my sayings are perceived only as childish!

Namaste Saidevo,

You have omitted one very important point, which is that all of this depends on your preceding assertion that ALL of their scholarship was marred (and when we are seeking the truth, a tainted truth or likely falsehood is no use at all!).



When I or others point out their actual purpose that actually marred rather than made all their work, study and scholarship.




The idea of “their actual purpose that marred ALL their work, study and scholarship”, is exactly the over-reaction to which I have objected. Which, if taken as truth, must extend to such apparently trivial cases as the use of Roman transcriptions in explaining Sanskrit, and even the use of printing for Devanagari characters!

sarabhanga
14 April 2008, 09:25 AM
Helion is Pra Aditya. lelihAna is a name of Shiva. lelihAna and el-elion can be easily related as you relate many words. lIna (rather Para lIna) is the highest, wherein everything resolves. Relation between YHV and Shiva and between el-elion and Shiva have been noted in "I am Shiva" thread earlier, though without noting the roots. lelihAna becoming el-elion (l-elihAna) in another tongue and assuming a different identity (as if) is perfectly plausible. This has been my point.



From Sir William Jones

I beg leave, as a philologer, to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches, and principally against the licentiousness of etymologists in transposing and inserting letters, in substituting at pleasure any consonant for another of the same order, and in totally disregarding the vowels.

No consideration should induce me to assist by my silence in the diffusion of error; and I contend, that almost any word or nation might be derived from any other, if such licences as I am opposing were permitted in etymological histories.

[But] when we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin.





But all this has nothing to do with the original post of Saidevo, wherein the unquestioning acceptance of Christian teaching being equivalent of Advaita Vedanta has been questioned (and I personally believe very validly).




Does Christianity really teach Advaita? How far has such teachings, if any, percolated into the Christian psyche? What is the position of the Christian notables--priests, scholars, politicians, media men and others who are prominent? Are the Christian commons aware of such 'findings'? Would they agree with them and implement them in life, and respect the Hindu (pagan) gods and the Hindu culture? Would they raise in unison against the evangelical and conversion efforts of the Christian Churches that is going on a 24x7x365-basis?






Does Christianity really teach Advaita?

Namaste Saidevo,

Similarly, one could ask whether Hinduism really teaches Advaita. And the answer would depend on the particular texts selected for consideration, and on the particular philosophical viewpoint one adopted while interpreting those texts.

When you say “Christianity”, do you mean the English interpretation propagated by Protestant Christianity (which itself comes in very many shades), or the Latin interpretation of Catholic Christianity, or the Greek and Aramaic interpretations of the various Orthodox Churches, or the Essene interpretation, or an interpretation based only on the Gospels, or an interpretation based on the surviving words attributed to Jesus himself ?

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

Every translation gives plenty of scope for corruption of the original meaning, and my contention is that the bulk of Judaic and Christian scripture actually stems from originally Sanskrit texts and teachings. And it is notable that a Sanskrit translation (so far as I know, only once attempted) is not available, for it would be in such a properly considered reverse translation (back into Sanskrit, from the original Aramaic, Hebraic, and Greek texts) that all manner of obvious similarities would appear, including long passages quoted almost verbatim from the original Hindu texts.




How far has such teachings, if any, percolated into the Christian psyche? What is the position of the Christian notables--priests, scholars, politicians, media men and others who are prominent? Are the Christian commons aware of such 'findings'?

I am sure that there are notable Christians well aware of these “findings”, but the Church has tried very hard over 2,000 years to cover up the very connexions that I have been revealing here on HDF.

Any Christian who does not at least obey the ‘Ten Commandments’ is technically not a Christian. Just as an Arya without adherence to law of Yama is technically not an Arya.




Would they agree with them and implement them in life, and respect the Hindu (pagan) gods and the Hindu culture? Would they raise in unison against the evangelical and conversion efforts of the Christian Churches that is going on a 24x7x365-basis?

If the Sermon on the Mount (for example) was properly understood, then all conversion efforts would cease. And so, despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.

If all Hindus understood that Christianity was largely a corrupted version of Hinduism, why would anyone think of converting?

If the crucifixion is properly understood as an allegory of yoga samAdhi, and not simply as an unjust but politically expedient execution of a dissident preacher, then all of the above is not a correct impression of the understanding of Jesus himself. And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints ~ the understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things!




Namaste Sarabhanga.

There, you have started a healthy discussion, on this important subject! I hope Satay and the other members will also participate and exchange views.

Surely the initial questions have been answered and the conversation has moved on.

sarabhanga
14 April 2008, 08:17 PM
And the often repeated statement from Jones, shows exactly the argument I have been suggesting. The exact nature of the “Egyptian conduits” requires clarification, but the essential notion of transmission from “the primeval fountains of Indian literature” was acceptable to Jones, if only it could be proved.


“And if any cool unbiased reasoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as friend for having weaned my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand among the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth, which he has ascertained.”




Well. William Jones is waiting for a proof that primeval fountains of Indian Scripture was transmitted to Moses.

Well, is William Jones now satisfied?






Willam Jones, Max Muller, Edward Moore, Christian Lassen, Richard Garbe, and many other western scholars have done exactly that, but it seems that some have not noticed, perhaps blinded by their one-eyed support of their own religion (whether Christian or Hindu)!

Here William Jones has done exactly that.

Exactly as it has already been repeatedly stated. :rolleyes:


Jones did find clear correspondences ~ but he explained them away as borrowings from Christianity when found in more recent Hindu texts, or veritable prophesies of Christianity when found in more ancient Hindu texts.



As explained for William Jones, the Christian position on all scriptural correlations is that anything found in scripture composed later than Biblical texts must be borrowed from the Bible, and anything found in earlier scriptures must be considered as a prophecy of Biblical events.

saidevo
14 April 2008, 10:32 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga.

You have done some excellent work in the goal you set for yourself! Specially, the following two passages from your findings have a refreshingly new look at the Christian mythology/history:



And kavi abhram was surely a vaidika sage (most likely an AÑgirasa).

According to Genesis 11, “the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai (cf. sarasvatI, vAc, abhrAmA) … but Sarai was barren” (cf. the historical drying up of the sarasvatI, after c. 1,800 BC), so abhram and his wife abhrAmA (Sarai), along with his father Terah and nephew Lot, “went forth … to the land of Canaan” (cf. kaNam ~ “grain”).


If this is what happened, then the entire line of Christian nobles from Adam to Abraham, (viz. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech, Nova, Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan, Sala, Eber, Peleg, Ragau, Saruch, Nahor, Terah, Abraham) would have been residents of ancient Bharat, with corresponding references in Hindu texts, specially the Vedas. I wonder what those correspondences might be!



And if you look through the list of related terms found in Sanskrit literature, very much of the story is simply gleaned from the various connotations associated with those words. And I assume that the story of Jesus Christ was cobbled together by scholars following the same kind of process I have been attempting to demonstrate, simply scouring the ancient texts (of whatever language, for they all originate from the same source) for any mention of yeSu, kRSTi, yahvIH, and other familiar terms, and collecting the recurrent themes they perceived into a new version of what is in fact a very old (and intrinsically Hindu) story.

For example, the (thunder) bolts in the hands of indra, who resides at the crossing point of heaven (the celestial pole) having conquered vRtra (the constellation Draco), became iron bolts driven into the hands of Jesus, raised up in self-sacrificial imitation of indra’s world-conquering feat.


But then this story of Jesus Christ "cobbled together by scholars", "simply scouring the ancient texts" and the "bolts of Indra" that "became iron bolts driven into the hands of Jesus", makes a scarecrow of the image of Jesus on the cross! I rather expected a team of 'gurus' that disseminated the teachings that are today ascribed to Jesus Christ.

If that be the case, the level of nescience is really amazing: that the bubble spun with this apparant 'scarecrow' at the centre holds today 2.14 billion people (a third of the global population) under its dome, and the bubble is dynamically expanding! Will reality ever dawn on people so the bubble would be pricked and burst?

You might perhaps build up further by studying the entire family-tree from Adam to Jesus, matching each noble member of the genealogy to any actual gurus of Vedic and post Vedic times and exposing any fictitious members in the nodes. This can perhaps throw more light and strengthen your findings (in my opinion).

For your ready reference, here is a three-part image of the family tree from Adam to Jesus, at the link http://wespatterson.com/biblical/adam_to_jesus.html.

Here are some links that might be of help in your work:

http://www.bible-codes.org/
http://www.originofnations.org/index.htm
http://www.behindthename.com/
http://www.666blacksun.com/ (?!)
http://www.exposingchristianity.com/
http://www.burningcross.net/
http://bessel.org/
http://yahovah.org/
http://jesus-messiah.com/
http://www.themystica.com/
http://protectreligions.org/

Thanks for all your efforts and please keep elaborating on your findings so we might get the big picture.

atanu
15 April 2008, 09:04 AM
Namaste sarabhanga and friends,


Surely the initial questions have been answered and the conversation has moved on.



From Sir William Jones
I beg leave, as a philologer, to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches, and principally against the licentiousness of etymologists in transposing and inserting letters, in substituting at pleasure any consonant for another of the same order, and in totally disregarding the vowels.

Indeed, exactly what I feel. One with a a-priori set conclusion can prove anything, "through conjectural etymology". Saraswati can become Sarah. Canan can be derived from kanam etc etc. I like this scientific streak of Jones. However, Jones is not spiritual as he did not understand that what has been transmitted through some conduit is not revelation. Shruti is from immersion in the Supreme Self, which is everywhere and at all times, and no other conduit is required.

If Jesus (or Moses or anyone) was revealing any revelation that would be from his own samadhi and not merely from borrowed literature.



Well, is William Jones now satisfied?

Why ask me? You can go back and see that at same breath you say that Jones is waiting for a proof that vedic truth was transmitted through some conduit to west. And then you say that Jones and others have exactly proven that.

Why obfuscate?

I do not know whether Jones is satisfied or you are satisfied/elated or whether others are satified?

Juhu Brahmajaayaa is a Rishika and not a Rishi.

Juhu Brahmajaayaa is a Rishika and not a Rishi.

Juhu Brahmajaayaa is a Rishika and not a Rishi.


Sarasvati (Sarah as per you) being wife of this Rishika is an interesting thought.
--------------

abhram is derived from a-bhram. bhram is mistake-delusion. abhram is delusion free.

whereas abhra is Mica/Gold/cloud etc. etc.

abrham as used in the Agni hymns (which you have cited from RV 10th Chapter) relate to adjectives for agni. Kavi abhram is the seer/sage agni and not Juhu Brahmajaayaa (which you have extrapolated).

AbhrAm and abhram may not be having same meaning at all. especially as the name is: UrdhvanAbhA bhrAmA. Which means above the clouds.

-------------------

Anyway congratulations. Be very very happy.

For me and for many others this thread proves only the suitability of the original post "EXTRAPOLATION----". For me again, the Asya Vamiya sukta's teaching that all this is Gauri who is one infinite in Param Vyom, is sufficient knowledge. And fortunately, Bible also says the same.There is no need to prove or dis-prove anything.


Om Namah Shivaya

atanu
15 April 2008, 09:19 AM
-
The mysterious RSi UrdhvanAbhAbhrAmA (juhU brahmajAyA) composed one sUkta (RV: 10.109), and abhram appears only twice in the Rgveda (also in the 10th maNDalam).



In a hymn to agni, composed by RSi vimada aindra:
aryaH vishAm gAtuH eti pra yat AnaT divaH antAn |
kaviH abhram dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||
juSat havyA mAnuSasya UrdhvaH tasthau RbhvA yajñe |
minvan sadma puraH eti || 10.20.5 ||And in a hymn to bRhaspati, by RSi ayAsya aÑgirasa:
apa jyotiSA tamaH antarikshAt udnaH shIpAlam iva vAtaH Ajat |
bRhaspatiH anumRshya valasya abhram iva vAtaH A cakre A gAH || 10.68.5 ||
yadA valasya pIyataH jasum bhet bRhaspatiH agnitapobhiH arkaiH
dadbhiH na jihvA pariviSTam A adat AviH nidhIn akRNot usriyANAm || 10.68.6 ||-
And kavi abhram was surely a vaidika sage (most likely an AÑgirasa).

According to Genesis 11, “the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai (cf. sarasvatI, vAc, abhrAmA) … but Sarai was barren” (cf. the historical drying up of the sarasvatI, after c. 1,800 BC), so abhram and his wife abhrAmA (Sarai), along with his father Terah and nephew Lot, “went forth … to the land of Canaan” (cf. kaNam ~ “grain”).

So it would appear that, compelled by the drying of the sarasvatI river, kavi abhram and his family migrated to a more fertile district. And the bible names that place as Haran (cf. hiraNa ~ “semen” or “gold”).



And kavi abhram is surely sage/seer agni. And this kavi does not migrate; He is everywhere penetrating the highest clouds and heavens.

Rishika Juhu was never husband of Sarah.
----------------------


Om

saidevo
16 April 2008, 12:52 AM
What happens when some 'clever' Christian scholars attempt to find correspondences of their scriptural texts to Hindu texts, in much the same way we are doing here in this thread?

Some HDF members have already cautioned us that our sincere and devoted efforts of establishing that Christianity is founded on Sanatana Dharma, is fruaght with the danger of getting 'tables turned' against us.



Znanna, post dated 27 Feb 2008

Modern "Christianity" is about seeking converts to "Christianity".

IMO, modern "Christianity" is about the most perverse "religion" in that it perpetuates the "us" versus "them" mentality by continuous differentiation of the "saved" versus the "damned."

Please beware the insidious tentacles of this mindset.

Ganeshprasad, post dated 01 Mar 2008

Scriptural considerations not withstanding, to give any credence to
Christianity, is shooting ourself in foot, we make their job of 'harvesting souls' the lost souls, that much easier.

Suresh, post dated 02 Mar 2008

Christians can ... say, "While we attack your gods as demons, we have your hindu gurus to defend the divinity of our Jesus. While we call Hinduism a devil-worshipping pagan faith, we have your hindu gurus praising Christianity as an authentic religion. While we never fail to mention sati, caste etc. while describing hinduism, your hindu gurus do us a huge favor by NEVER mentioning crusades, witch hunting, and inquisitions.

In short, we'll attack Hindus and Hinduism relentlessly, safe in the knowledge that your hindus gurus will continue to praise our religion and savior to the extreme. Your Hindu gurus are our defense counsel, god bless them!":)

Suresh also concluded, in a post that was deleted: "It's therefore prudent to conclude that differences are more important than similarities."

TatTvamAsi said in another deleted post:

... however what I find stomach-churning is the notion of putting Hinduism at the same level of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, which is most definitely abhorrent. This is certainly what you have alluded to in your posts. Our discussion here was not merely about scriptural similarities and the like but about philsophical ones; now that is sinful! The reason for this is because there is a fundamental difference between the Judeo-Christian religions and the Eastern religions. In the former, God is external to you, space & time are real, you as an entity exist even after death eternally. And you can be with God but not God. All of this is antithetical to the core of Sanathana Dharma. The essential teachings of the sages of India is: TAT TVAM ASI! This phrase puts the whole philosophy in a nutshell. There is only one entity, Brahman, that has absolute reality. End of story.

Satay, post dated 07 Mar 2008
Though my own personal feelings about today's christianity are close to TTA's and Suresh's, I would like to understand the proof once and for all that original christian teachings were actually from the Vedas.


Christian Mischief by Misappropriation of Hindu Texts and Concepts

One of the resolutions passed by the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, the apex unifying body of Hindu Acharyas, in their third conference held in Sri Adichunchanagiri (near Bangalore) on February 9-11, 2008 states:

"5. More and more subtle attempts are underway outside the country to ‘appropriate’ Hindu philosophy and practices (such as Yoga, meditation, Sanskrit language and even sacred scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita), detaching them from their Hindu identity;"
(http://www.acharyasabha.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=41)

Here is a glimpse at the scenario wherein some clever Christian scholars authoratively albeit dubiously seek the roots of Hinduism in Christianity.

Prof. Madathilparampil Mammen Ninan

Here comes Prof. Ninan, a staunch Syrian 'Thomas' Christian, one of the cleverest and most dogged Christian scholars who have published works tracing Hinduism to Christian roots. His Website http://www.oration.com/~mm9n/ has many articles and voluminous books that attempt to translate Hindu scriptures in terms of Christian Theology.

Ninan's approach is dogged, although he hangs on the discredited myth of Saint Thomas having visited Kerala in 52 CE (which was denied by none other than the Pope himself) and established Christianity in South India, and the Aryan Invasion Theory. His main contention is that the modern day Hinduism was derived from the Christianity founded by St. Thomas and that the Vedic Religion that existed with the Aryans who invaded India was not Hinduism at all. In addition, he chooses to deny any hidden or deeper meanings in the Vedas that spawned the Upanishads.

Prominent works by Ninan include (some of them published recently in 2006-07):

• Translation of Isavasya Upanishad, where he considers Jesus to be the Isa.

• The Development of Hinduism, a voluminous book where he holds that the major forces in shaping the modern day Hinduism were the coming of Christianity and of Persian Gnostics which molded it into the present form.

• The Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity, a book which "establishes that Hinduism is really of very recent origin", and that modern Hinduism "is an outgrowth of Thomas Christianity under the influecne of Syrian Gnositicism. The myths of Mahabali and Parasurama refers to the defeat of Christians at the hands of the Vaishnavite gnostics."

• Hinduism, where he shows that "The religion known today as Hinduism is the Thomas Churches of Inner India established by St.Thomas which was high jacked by the Gnostics and Theosophists."

• Purusha Suktham, a 700-page translation where he says that the text has three layers: "The first innermost layer was the Thomasian layer following the teachings of St.Thomas followed by the Judao-Christian mysticism of Kaballa. This is followed by Gnostic layer, and the Vaishanavite layer."

Ninan has also commented on the translation of Rig Veda by Ralph Griffith, and on the translations of other Vedas.

Ninan's articles are published in his Websitea:
http://www.oration.com/~mm9n/articles/index.htm

Many of his books can be downloaded here:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=ninan

Ninan's 'arguments and findings'

Ninan's argument is wholly based on the Myth of St.Thomas. Even while he says that St.Thomas is 'said to have visited' Kerala in 52 CE, he spuns the myth of his own findings of the supposed ministry of Thomas.

• St.Thomas, - Judas Thomas – one of the disciples of Jesus known commonly as the doubting Thomas came down to India and had a successful ministy all over India and China.

Hinduism did not exist before the second century, AD.

• There were no "Hindu Temples" before the second century AD. The Earliest Hindu Temple dates only to 350–650 AD.

• In the early period the Christian churches of Kerala had the same model as of Hindu temples.

• Parameshwara. The prescript Param can be replaced with Maha meaning "The Great" to give Maheshwara – The Great God. These words Parameswara and Maheswara occur in Indian religious scenario only after the first century.

• The name Krishna did not even exist before the third century AD.

• Idols (Vigrahas) did not appear in India before the third century AD and in Kerala until the eighth century AD.

• There are documents indicating powerful Christian Kingdoms in Kerala, particularly in Ayr (referred to in Greek documents- Ayroor) and Ranni and Vel (Velnad). There must have been other major churches all over India other than in Kerala. However, the problem is "Where are they?"

Sanskrit did not exist before the second century AD

• Sanskrit was developed out of Prakrit and other existing languages during the interal of 100 AD to 150 AD. Sanskrit probably evolved as the liturgical language of Thomas Christians just as Latin evolved in the Greco-Roman world.

Vedic Religion is not Hinduism.

• There is an asymptotic discontinuity between Vedic and Upanishadic religions. Vedic religion is ritualistic with 33 nature gods. As opposed to the Vedic religion, Modern Hinduism is defined as a Theistic religion with Monotheistic Trinitarian content allowing for an infinite number of lesser gods.

• Vedic religion was not Hinduism, as we know today. There are four Vedas (Sacred Scriptures) in Hinduism today. If which only the Rig Veda was in existence at the time Thomas entered India in written form. Additionally, the Rig Veda was not written in Sanskrit but in Vedic or Avestan, which is a form of Persian.

• "Vedic Hinduism" is a contradiction in terminis since Vedic religion is very different from what we generally call "Hindu religion", - at least as much Old Hebrew religion is from medieval and modern Christian religion." S.W.Jamison and M.Witzel Vedic Hinduism 1992 Sanskrit Department, Cambridge University

• Thomas must have established culturally relevant forms of worship and liturgy and structures. These were truly Indian, translated "Hindu." Similar to the Roman Catholic Church or the Antiochian Universal (Catholic) Church, Indian church would be Indian Universal (Catholic) Way, which in Indian language will be "Hindu Sanadhana Dharma.

• New forms of worship appeared all of a sudden soon er the Ministry of Thomas. These are still found in modern Hinduism.

• Vedic Religion underwent a drastic change during the period following 1st C which culminated into the various Vedantic teachings. None of the 33 gods of Vedas are gods in the modern Hinduism.

• Aryan Vedas came to be written down only in the Second Century BC (and this is not Hinduism according to Ninan). The rest of the Indian Scriptures – the Puranas and the Upanishads and Brahmanas came into existence only after Sanskrit became the language of Gods – the liturgical language and the language of theological studies. This took place after a century of Thomas’ ministry.

• All the references to God in the Naamavaly sung in Tamil temples applies only to Jesus and extols him! For example, Ninan has this translation for the Hindu Namavali:

Om Sri Brahmaputra, Namaha
O God, Son of God, We worship you.

Om Sri Umathaya, Namaha
O God, the Holy Spirit, We worship you.

Om Sri Kannisuthaya, Namaha
O God, born of a virgin, We worship you.

Om Sri Vrishtaya, Namaha
O God, who is circumcised, We worship you.

Om Sri Panchakaya, Namaha
O God, who has five wounds, We worship you.

Om Shri Vritchsula Arul Daya, Namaha
O God, who was crucified to provide mercy, We worship you.

Om Sri Mritumjaya, Namaha
Oh God, who overcame death, We worship you.

Om Sri Dakshinamurthy, Namaha
O God, who sits on the right hand, We worship you.

OM:Sri Yesuvey Namaha

Purusha Prajapathy – The Person of the Lord of Hosts

Now let us take the Rig Vedic chapters II and X, which I have mentioned earlier, were written in Sanskrit after 150 AD. In these chapters, the Veda presents the Person (Purusha) of Prajapathy. Prajapathi literally means The Lord of Hosts. (Praja = subjects, host Pathi = Lord.) However, the striking thing about Prajapathi is his characteristics. I will quote the texts that describe Prajapathi with striking resemblance to the person of Jesus.

"Hiranyagarbha: samavarthaagre
Bhuuthasya jaatha: pathireka aaseeth
Sadaadhaara Prudhwivim dyaamuthemam
Kasmai devaaya havisha vidhemam"
(Rig Veda X: 121:1)

This translates as follows:
In the beginning, God and his supreme spirit alone existed.
From the supreme Spirit of God proceeded Hiranya Garbha, alias
Prajapathy, the first born of God in the form of light.
As soon as he was born, he became the savior of all the worlds.

"Thasmaad virraada jaayatha
viraajo adhi purusha:
Sajaatho athyarichyatha
Paschaad bhoomim adho pura:"
(Rig Veda X:90:5)

This translates as follows:
From that first being, the universe came into being. From that body of the universe came the omnipresent Person. That Person thus became manifest, adopted various forms and character, and created the earth and other planets along with the creatures to live in them.

This is the same idea that Paul Preached.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together." Col 1:15-17

The Adi Purusha idea is very similar to the concept of the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. Here he is definitely identified with Jesus.

"Purusha evedam sarvam
Yadbhutham yacha bhavyam
Uthaamruthathwasya esaana
Ya daannenathirohathi"
(Rig Veda X:90:2)

This man, the first-born of God is all that was, all that is, and all that will be. And he comes to this world to give recompense to everybody as per his deeds.

Rev 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done.

"Tham yajnam barhishi proukshan
Purusham jaathamagratha
Thena deva ayajantha
Sadhya rushayaschaye"
‘Purushasookta’
(Rig Veda X:90:7)

This man, the first born of the God, was tied to a wooden sacrificial post and the gods and the Kings along the Seers performed the sacrifice.

"Thamevam Vidwanamruthaiha bhavathy
Nanya pandha ayanaya vidyathe"
(Rig Veda X:90:16. Repeated Yajur Veda XXXI:18)

This (sacrifice) is the only way for redemption and liberation of mankind. Those who meditate and attain this man, believe in heart and chant with the lips, get liberated in this world itself and there is no other way for salvation.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

And Ninan goes on to quote famous passages from the Upanishads to prove that they were not only similar but created after Thomas' ministry came into existence.

Ninan also 'establishes' that Bhaviahya Purana was written by a scholar in Old Testament.

Conceptual Evidences

• AUM is not found in the ancient Rig-Veda. Or in any of the Vedas.

Even the early Upanishads written in Sanskrit, there are references to udgîtha ("up sound") and as pranava ("pronouncing"). This may be thought of as referring to the Sound Om. But it is a stretching the imagination.

The first direct reference to AUM found in Prashna-Upanishad, where the threefold constituents of AUM is mentioned and explained. It is also found in Mândûkya- Upanishad. Brihad-Âranyaka, Chândogya, and Taittirîya, Aum is mentioned many times both as Aum and as Om-kâr. In the Yoga- Sûtra (1.27), it is called the Word (vâcaka) of God (îshvara).

• The concept of AUM is identical with the Greco-Roman concept of Logos.

If one looks even deeper, the whole of Kabala and the threefold tree reaching into the unknown darkness encased in the ineffable name of YHVH can be seen in the Upanishadic teachings.

The symbol and mantra AUM emerged in Indian scene soon after the mission of St.Thomas the Apostle and were seen only after that time. All early churches in Kerala had used this as the Christian symbol and they appear at the entrance of the seven original churches established by Thomas.

You can see them even today over the main entrance of many of the churches.

AUM was clearly part of the Malankara (Malabar – Kerala) Christian tradition from the first century. They however associate it with the Christian Trinity and to Christ – the word who became flesh. An objective conclusion would be that Aum was indeed the original Christian concept as introduced by Thomas.

Concept of God

• This figure of Jagnath, which is celebrated as the Lord of the Universe, is really an epitome of the theology, which is essentially the theology of Eastern Churches and that of the Hebrew Kabala. It developed in India soon after the advent of Thomas.

• Notice again the usual three lines representing the Trinity with the middle line marked with a red spot (in the Shiva Lingam). Father, Son and the Holy Spirit with the Son with as the sacrifice before the creation of the world.

• The concept of Parameshwara originally comes from the concept of El Elyon which is translated as The Most High God as in Gen 14:18 where Melchiz’edek king of Salem was called the priest of God Most High, maker of heaven and earth. He blessed Abraham in the name of the God Most High and then onwards Abraham himself swore in that name in Gen 14:22.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that the Dravidians who can at least partially claim to be the children of Abraham through Keturah received the teachings of Thomas and assimilated it easily. Thus the roots of the Saivism are deeply rooted in the Thomas traditions.

• The Hebrew name of the person whom we refer as Jesus was Yehoshua which is rendered in English as Joshua. A shortened form of the name is Yeshua from which we get the Dravidian translation through St.Thomas as Yesu, Easow, Isa, Iswara.

• The name given in Greco-Roman culture is derived from their context as follows:

When the good news of the gospel was translated into to the Greco- Roman culture by Paul and his group it was rendered in Greek as Iesous Pronounced as Yesous.

Y in some languages is pronounced as J (ya as ja) rendering it as JESUS.

Fish was the early Christian symbol. Jesus said, "I shall make you fishers of men" The Greek word for fish is ichthus, spelled: Iota Chi Theta Upsilon
Sigma.

This is used as an acronym for Iesous (Jesus) CHristos (Christ) THeou (God) Uiou (Son) Soter (Savior). = Jesus Christ, God, Son, Savior.

• The elephant faced Ganapathy (The Lord of Host), the son of Siva came out of the symbolism of Word becoming Flesh – the Incarnation.

Ganapathy is the most important deity in the life of every Hindu. This is because no one can enter the presence of Shiva unless it is through the Son. (Seen the implication here?)

• Vishnu means Lord of the Heaven, The Omnipresent. Vishnu is seated on the Cherubims.

• The modern Hindu Trinity is Siva, Vishnu and Brahma. While Siva is till the father figure and Brahma the creator the emanated son figure, Vishnu the Energy and Power is now a male. Incidently Vishnu often played the female to achieve things in the Purana stories. We should expect this to be a much later development. The Thomas tradition was Hebrew Kabalistic tradition, where Wisdom and Power was female.

The creator is given here with four heads. These developments must have come under Gnostic influence, where creation of cosmos was done by a fallen god. – Brahma. Brahma is seldom worshipped in any of the temples even though He is one of the Trinity in the Vaishnavite tradition..

Doctrines

• Five Basic Doctines of Christianity

Doctrine of Trinity
Doctrine of Incarnation
Doctrine of Fulfillment of Sacrifice
Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sin
Doctrine of Salvation through Faith.

Five Basic Doctines of both Saivism and Vaishnavism

Doctrine of Trinity
Doctrine of Incarnation (Avtar)
Doctrine of Fulfillment of Sacrifice
Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sin
Doctrine of Salvation through Faith (Bhakthi Marga)

All these five doctrines which are common to both Saivite and Vaishanavites were never known in pre-Christian era and are definite indications of the form of Early Christianity in India. Hindu Sanadhana Dharma of first century AD was indeed the form of Christianity that St.Thomas established and central doctrines were indeed Christian.

Ninan concludes his work cryptically thus:

1. It means that Hinduism as an Indian Christian Church.
2. Hindu Sanatana Dharma evolved out of Indian Catholic Church through the Kerala Nasranees into the South Indian Saivites and Vaishnavites.

There are other Christian scholars in Tamil Nadu who are identified in the Website http://www.hamsa.org, which also explodes the myth of St. Thomas:

• Dr. K. Sadasivan in the Journal of Indian History and Culture follows in Archbishop Arulappa's footsteps with his unsubstantiated claim for a Christian Tirukkural and a St. Thomas in India sojourn.

• The book titled [i]Viviliyam, Tirukkural, Shaiva Siddhantam Oppu Ayvu, written by one Deivanayakam, 2 was published in 1985-86. It attempted to compare Bible, Tirukkural and Shaiva philosophy and concluded that Tiruvalluvar was a disciple of St. Thomas and that his sayings were only sayings from Bible. The writer had attempted to distort and misinterpret the Shaiva Siddhanta to suit his conclusions that all these works emanated from the preachings of St. Thomas who is said to have visited India in the first century A.D.

It was given to the Dharmapuram Math to issue a refutation. In spite of refutations from scholars through personal letters, Deivanayakam was unrelenting. Hence the Dharmapuram Shaiva Math had a book of refutation prepared by its very able Tamil and Shaiva scholar, Arunai Vadivel Mudaliar, and released it at a function.

My take on a cursory glance at the works of Prof. Ninan is this:

It is said of Oliver Goldsmith, the famous English literary all-rounder, that "he did not touch anything that he did not adorn." We may perhaps say of Nian that "he did not touch anything in Hinduism that he did not desecrate."

The big question that looms large before us is:
How do we deal with the pseudo scholars such as Prof.Ninan?

If the myth of Jesus Christ was "cobbled together by scholars", "simply scouring the ancient texts" as stated by the learned Sarabhanga, Ninan has cobbled a myth out of St.Thomas who never visited South Indian in 52 CE or martyred at Mylapore at the hands of Hindu brahmins, and made St.Thomas the 'sole' and Jesus the 'soul' of Hinduism!

Unless we effectively and actively refute scholars like Ninan whose tribe is increasing by the numbers today, Hindus would be loosing their grass roots. Works by scholars like Ninan are published and promoted by the money-power of the Christian missionary and percolate down to our grass roots, whereas whatever we Hindus refute to establish the Reality only in the academic discussions on the Internet. A sad state of affairs indeed!

sm78
16 April 2008, 02:35 AM
I have long resisted posting in this thread, primarily because I didn’t want to raise objections based on personal opinions against objective research of Sarabhanga Giri Ji. If anything, this thread has made it more clear, that greatest danger to our culture comes from being ignorant about it and its language. Not that I am not trying to be more knowledgeable but circumstances make it quite a steep task.

However I have a few points which I thought share without per haves cluttering the thread with junk.

Overall, I can comment little on the sarabhanga’s posts where he has found roots of some “Christian” words in samakritam and some apparent similarities between some of the “Christian” beliefs (eg 10 commandments) and Yama-Niyama of Yoga. His assertions seemed somewhat logical to my naïve mind, though I am not at all sure of all the word-interpolations that have been used for the purpose.

My objection is however in using the word Christian or Christianity in all of this! What his posts “proves”, if at all they prove something, is that culture of the middle east from where the twin faiths of Judaism and Christianity evolved could have been distinctly vedic. This is not a new claim and not a new attempt to set this record straight. Many of our saints have held the same opinion, not just about middle eastern dogma that we know today but many other lost civilizations of the west and the new world. Some Tantras prophesize the story of the abhrahamic people as vedic people who were made outcast in the dim past. However, Sarabhanga’s attempt has been more objective than mere opinion which should be appreciated.

However more often than not, I felt that attempt here was aimed at justification of Christianity and Bible before Hindus, to which I feel strong resentment. Christianity is a word which cannonades with a present dogma as practiced by 6 major denominations and innumerable minor ones, whose foundation lies is supposed historical events and the bible, most of whose core beliefs are quite contrary to what hindus consider as dharma. If we are attempting at another propaganda at sarva-dharma sama bhava, I would request the people to consider the core beliefs of the major Christian denominations (not just the 10 commandments.) with sruti. I would love to see how one can tackle Good Vs Evil, Karma Vs Judgement Day, Rebirth Vs Eternal Damnation, Self Realization Vs Saved by One & Only Prophet, Ahimsa Vs Himsa, Saucha Vs Mlecchachara.

We don’t need to discredit Christianity as a religion for our mental pleasure, nor is there any need to justify the same for our own self destruction which quite feels like stab in the back.

atanu
16 April 2008, 02:41 AM
What happens when some 'clever' Christian scholars attempt to find correspondences of their scriptural texts to Hindu texts, in much the same way we are doing here in this thread?

Some HDF members have already cautioned us that our sincere and devoted efforts of establishing that Christianity is founded on Sanatana Dharma, is fruaght with the danger of getting 'tables turned' against us.



Namaste Saidevoji,

I allign perfectly with what TTA, Ganeshprasad Ji, Bhagwan Das Ji have noted.

When one tries to prove common root through common names etc., it is a double edged sword. It is very possible that a few words have shuttled from here to there and back and so on. Whereas, there is no doubt that Christianity, as practised, represents arambhavada -- the very beginning of Dvaita Vada. Equivalent of the five Maha Vakyas and specially: "Thou Art That" are not seen or not at least acknowledged. Hindus have never indulged in crusades. Equivalent of Mandukya Upanishad is not known in any other scripture.

Hindus are unfortunately seen as passive because of ingrained understanding of Isha Upanishad teaching: Do not covet. There is a story in Satapatha Brahmana. It says that Asuras initially prosper due to their attachment to ego and resultant extraordinary efforts. Yet everything comes undone. Maitraya Brahmaya Upanishad also teaches that only the Vedas contain the truth; Asuras are never taught the Vedas. But appropriate knowledge is imparted by BrahmA as per the Guna mixture of the recipeints (Maitraya Brahmaya Upanishad). This teaching is also present in Satapataha Brahmana.

I believe that we must have faith in scripture and the truth. Satyameva Jayate. Perception of weakness in Sanatana Dharma's teaching of "Do not Covet" is a transitory passing doubtful state in every sadhaka, owing to transient attachment to objects and values. Brahman being the root of everything is unquestionable.

Regards,

Om Namah Shivaya

sarabhanga
17 April 2008, 09:54 AM
I beg leave to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches

Namaste Atanu,

If you have nothing but protest against all conjectural etymology in historical researches, then there is nothing much you can add to this discussion beyond protest and objection. But if you had not been so keen to take Jones’ own words and turn them against him and to rend the very possibility of historical philology, you might not have ignored his essential provision, that:

when we find the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin.
And my general argument here has adhered this basic rule, only considering such terms as have the same letters AND the same sense in both languages.

A few key terms have been particularly considered ~ such as yeSu, kRSTi, abhram, and (most importantly, as the ultimate root of all Judeo-Christian religion) yahva.

And yahva (which is doubtfully explained from Hebrew grammar) is found in vedic Sanskrit, with exactly the same connotations as apply to the biblical term (yhv, yhvh, or ‘yahweh’).

yahva appears in only 3% of the Rgveda’s hymns, virtually disappearing altogether in post-vedic scripture.

yahvI itself appears just five times in the Rgveda, with three of those repeating the same phrase ~ yahvI Rtasya mAtarA in two of the AprI hymns, and mAtarA yahvI Rtasya in bharadvAja bArhaspatya’s hymn to lord indra (6.17, which resolves to five, i.e. pañca).

The Atreya AprI is sUkta 5.5 (resolving as 5 + 5 = 10 = 1), with yahvI appearing in the mantra 5.5.6 (and thus 5 + 5 + 6 = 16 = 7).

In atri bhauma’s hymn to the vishvedevA (5.41, which again resolves as 5 + 5 = 10 = 1), the formula is pra yahvI divaH.

And in tAnva pArtha’s hymn to the vishvedevA, yahvI appears in the very first line (10.93.1, which again resolves back to pañca) as urvI nArI yahvI ~ cf. Urdhvanabha-yahvI or Urdhva-nAbha-AbrAhmA.

RSi vasushruta Atreya

supratIke vayovRdhA yahvI Rtasya mAtarA |
doSAm uSAsam Imahe || 5.5.6 ||
RSi dIrghatamA aucathya

A bhandamAne upAke naktoSAsA supeshasA |
yahvI Rtasya mAtarA sIdatAm barhiH A sumat || 1.142.7 ||
RSi bharadvAja bArhaspatya

paprAtha kshAm mahi daMsaH vi urvIm upa dyAm RSvaH bRhAt indra stabhAyaH |
adhArayaH rodasI devaputre pratne mAtarA yahvI Rtasya || 6.17.7 ||
RSi atri bhauma

upa vaH eSe vandyebhiH shUSaiH pra yahvI divaH citayadbhiH arkaiH |
uSAsAnaktA viduSI iva vishvam A ha vahataH martyAya yajñam || 5.41.7 ||
RSi tAnva pArtha

mahi dyAvApRthivI bhUtam urvI nArI yahvI narodasI sadam naH |
tebhiH naH pAtam sahyasaH ebhiH naH pAtam shUSaNi || 10.93.1 ||

And yahvIH appears eleven times, in eight hymns, but only once as yahvIH Rtasya mAtaraH, in trita Aptya’s hymn to soma (9.33).

The compound sapta yahvIH appears five times, in four hymns (three to agni and one to soma).

And there are single instances of five other combinations ~ apaH yahvIH (to indra), divaH yahvIH and (to agni), pariyanti yahvIH and paridIyanti yahvIH (to agni apAMnapAt, “grandson of the waters”), and vaishvAnarAyanRtamAya yahvIH (to agni vaishvAnara).

RSi trita Aptya

abhi brahmIH anUSata yahvIH Rtasya mAtaraH |
marmRjyante divaH shishum || 9.33.5 ||
RSi parAshara shAktya

agnim vishvAH abhi pRkshaH sacante samudram na sravataH sapta yahvIH |
na jAmibhiH vi cikite vayaH naH vidAH deveSu pramatim cikitvAn || 1.71.7 ||
svAdhyaH divaH A sapta yahvIH rAyaH duraH vi RtajñAH ajAnan |
vidat gavyam saramA dRLham Urvam yena nu kam mAnuSI bhojate viT || 1.72.8 ||
RSi vishvAmitra

avardhayan subhagam sapta yahvIH shvetam jajñAnam aruSam mahitvA |
shishum na jAtam abhi AruH ashvAH devAsaH agnim janiman vapuSyan || 3.1.4 ||
vavrAja sIm anadatIH adabdhAH divaH yahvIH avasAnAH anagnAH |
sanAH atra yuvatayaH sayonIH ekam garbham dadhire sapta vANIH || 3.1.6 ||
pituH cit Udhar januSA viveda vi asya dhArAH asRjat vi dhenAH |
guhA carantam sakhibhiH shivebhiH divaH yahvIbhiH na guhA babhUva || 3.1.9 ||
RSi vAmadeva gautama

yam sIm akRNvan tamase vipRce dhruvakshemAH anavasyantaH artham |
tam sUryam haritaH sapta yahvIH spasham vishvasya jagataH vahanti || 4.13.3 ||
RSi kashyapa mArIca

tava tye soma pavamAna niNye vishve devAH trayaH ekAdashAsaH |
dasha svadhAbhiH adhi sAno avye mRjanti tvA nadyaH sapta yahvIH || 9.92.4 ||
RSi gaurivIti shAktya

anu yat Im marutaH mandasAnam Arcan indram papivAMsam sutasya |
A adatta vajram abhi yat ahim han apaH yahvIH asRjat sartavai u || 5.29.2 ||
RSi nodhA gautama

bRhatI iva sUnave rodasI giraH hotA manuSyaH na dakshaH |
svarvate satyashuSmAya pUrvIH vaishvAnarAya nRtamAya yahvIH || 1.59.4 ||
RSi gRtsamada bhArgava

apAm napAt A hi asthAt upastham jihmAnAm UrdhvaH vidyutam vasAnaH |
tasya jyeSTham mahimAnam vahantIH hiraNyavarNAH pari yanti yahvIH || 2.35.9 ||
asmin pade parame tasthivAMsam adhvasmabhiH vishvahA dIdivAMsam |
ApaH naptre ghRtam annam vahantIH svayam atkaiH pari dIyanti yahvIH || 2.35.14 ||

yahvAH occurs only twice (in hymns to agni):

RSi vAmadeva gautama

sindhoH iva prAdhvane shUghanAsaH vAtapramiyaH patayanti yahvAH |
ghRtasya dhArAH aruSaH na vAjI kASThAH bhindanUrmibhiH pinvamAnaH || 4.58.7 ||
RSi budha Atreya

abodhi agniH samidhA janAnAm prati dhenum iva AyatIm uSAsam
yahvAH iva pra vayAm ujjihAnAH pra bhAnavaH sisrate nAkam acha || 5.1.1 ||

yahvasya occurs twice, in RSi vishvAmitra’s hymns to agni:

RSi vishvAmitra

tisraH yahvasya samidhaH parijmanaH agneH apunan ushijaH amRtyavaH |
tAsAm ekAm adadhuH martye bhujam ulokam u dve upa jAmim IyatuH || 3.2.9 ||

mAdhyaMdine savane jAtavedaH puroLAsham iha kave juSasva |
agne yahvasya tava bhAgadheyam na pra minanti vidatheSu dhIrAH || 3.28.4 ||

And yahvyaH appears just once, in vamra vaikhAnasa’s hymn to indra (10.99, which resolves back to one) in the fourth mantra (10.99.4, which resolves to five).

RSi vamra vaikhAnasa

sa yahvyaH avanIH goSu arvA A juhoti pradhanyAsu sasriH |
apAdaH yatra yujyAsaH arathAH droNyashvAsaH Irate ghRtam vAr || 10.99.4 ||

yahvam appears seven times, in six hymns (four to agni, one to indra, and one to the vishvedevA)

RSi kaNva ghaura

pra vaH yahvam purUNAm vishAm devayatInAm |
agnim sUktebhiH vacobhiH Imahe yam sIm it anye ILate || 1.36.1 ||
RSi vishvAmitra gAthina

vishpatim yahvam atithim naraH sadA yantAram dhInAm ushijam ca vAghatAm |
adhvarANAm cetanam jAtavedasam pra shaMsanti namasA jUtibhiH vRdhe || 3.3.8 ||
RSi vAmadeva gautama

idam me agne kiyate pAvaka aminate gurum bhAram na manma |
bRhat dadhAtha dhRSatA gabhIram yahvam pRSTham prayasA saptadhAtu || 4.5.6 ||
RSi pUru Atreya

adha hi agne eSAm suvIryasya maMhanA |
tam it yahvam na rodasI pari shravaH babhUvatuH || 5.16.4 ||
RSi nArada kANva

tat it rudrasya cetati yahvam pratneSu dhAmasu |
manaH yatra vi tat dadhuH vicetasaH || 8.13.20 ||
tam Imahe puruSTutam yahvam pratnAbhiH UtibhiH |
ni barhiSi priye sadat adha dvitA || 8.13.24 ||
RSi shAryAta mAnava

imam añjaspAm ubhaye akRNvata dharmANam agnim vidathasya sAdhanam |
aktum na yahvam uSasaH purohitam tanUnapAtam aruSasya niMsate || 10.92.2 ||

And yahvaH appears nine times, in eight hymns (seven to agni, and one to soma), with the combination yahvaH agniH appearing five times ~ twice as nRtamaH yahvaH agniH, and once each as kRNute yahvaH agniH, nahuSaH yahvaH agniH, and manuSaH yahvaH agniH.

pAti yahvaH, samidhA yahvaH, and yahvaH aditeH, appear in the remaing two hymns to agni, and in the one hymn to soma we find the notable phrase yahvaH adhi yeSu.

RSi vishvAmitra

akraH na babhriH samithe mahInAm didRksheyaH sUnave bhARjIkaH |
ut usriyAH janitA yaH jajAna apAm garbhaH nRtamaH yahvaH agniH || 3.1.12 ||
RSi vAmadeva gautama

mA nindata yaH imAm mahyam rAtim devaH dadau martyAya svadhAvAn |
pAkAya gRtsaH amRtaH vicetAH vaishvAnaraH nRtamaH yahvaH agniH || 4.5.2 ||
tRSu yat annA tRSuNA vavaksha tRSum dUtam kRNute yahvaH agniH |
vAtasya meLim sacate nijUrvan Ashum na vAjayate hinve arvA || 4.7.11 ||
RSi vasiSTha maitrAvaruNi

yaH dehyaH anamayat vadhasnaiH yaH aryapatnIH uSasaH cakAra |
sa nirudhya nahuSaH yahvaH agniH vishaH cakre balihRtaH sahobhiH || 7.6.5 ||
ayam u sya sumahAn avedi hotA mandraH manuSaH yahvaH agniH |
vi bhAH akar sasRjAnaH pRthivyAm kRSNapaviH oSadhIbhiH vavakshe || 7.8.2 ||
RSi vishvAmitra gAthina

pAti priyam ripaH agram padam veH pAti yahvaH caraNam sUryasya |
pAti nAbhA saptashIrSANam agniH pAti devAnAm upamAdam RSvaH || 3.5.5 ||
ut u stutaH samidhA yahvaH adyaut varSman divaH adhi nAbhA pRthivyAH |
mitraH agniH IDyaH mAtarishvA A dUtaH vakshat yajathAya devAn || 3.5.9 ||
RSi havirdhAna AÑgi

vRSA vRSNe duduhe dahasA divaH payAMsi yahvaH aditeH adAbhyaH |
vishvam sa veda varuNaH yathA dhiyA sa yajñiyaH yajatu yajñiyAn RtUn || 10.11.1 ||
RSi kavi bhArgava

abhi priyANi pavate canohitaH nAmAni yahvaH adhi yeSu vardhate |
A sUryasya bRhataH bRhan adhi ratham viSvañcam aruhat vicakshaNaH || 9.75.1 ||

Since kavi bhArgava’s soma pAvamAna particularly associates yahvaH and yeSu in the very first line (along with Rtasya jihva in the second line), we might expect to find some important elements of the yahvaH-yeSu story, and simply considering Griffith’s translation of the hymn, the basic script for the crucifixion story does indeed appear.

Graciously-minded, he is flowing on his way to win dear names over which the youthful one grows great.
The mighty and far-seeing one hath mounted now the mighty sUrya’s car which moves to every side.
The speaker, unassailable master of this hymn, the tongue of sacrifice pours forth the pleasant meath.
Within the lustrous region of the heavens the son makes the third secret name of mother and of sire.
Sending forth flashes, he hath bellowed to the jars, led by the men into the golden reservoir.
The milky streams of sacrifice have sung to him: he of the triple height shines brightly through the morns.
Pressed by the stones, with hymns, and graciously inclined, illuminating both the parents, heaven and earth,
He flows in ordered season onward through the fleece, a current of sweet juice, still swelling day by day.

There are two occurrences of yahva in the locative plural form, in RSi vasiSTha maitrAvaruNi’s hymns to the host of marutas and to the ashvinas’ son ~ and in each case the formula is yahvISu oSadhISu vikshu.

To the marudgaNa:

sam yat hananta manyubhiH janAsaH shUrAH yahvISu oSadhISu vikshu |
adha sma naH marutaH rudriyAsaH trAtAraH bhUta pRtanAsu aryaH || 7.56.22 ||
And to ashvinIkumAra:

yAni sthAnAni ashvinA dadhAthe divaH yahvISu oSadhISu vikshu |
ni parvatasya mUrdhani sadantA iSam janAya dAshuSe vahantA || 7.70.3 ||

First considering the literal translation (again following Griffith) of these two hymns, which one might expect to find even more details.

oSadhi is “light-containing” indicating a medicinal herb or an annual plant (which dies after becoming ripe). And oSadhIsha is “lord of herbs”, indicating the soma.

First considering the literal translation of Rgveda sUkta 7.56 (again following Griffith):

Who are these radiant men in serried rank, rudra’s young heroes borne by noble steeds?
Verily no one knoweth whence they sprang: they, and they only, know each other’s birth.
They strew each other with their blasts, these hawks: they strove together, roaring like the wind.
A sage was he who knew these mysteries, what in her udder mighty pRshni bore.
Ever victorious, through the marutas, be this band of heroes, nursing manly strength,
Most bright in splendour, fleetest on their way, close-knit to glory, strong with varied power.
Yea, mighty is your power and firm your strength: so, potent, with the marutas, be the band.
Bright is your spirit, wrathful are your minds: your bold troop’s minstrel is like one inspired.
Ever avert your blazing shaft from us, and let not your displeasure reach us here.
Your dear names, conquering marutas, we invoke, calling aloud till we are satisfied.
Well-armed, impetuous in their haste, they deck themselves, their forms, with oblations: to you, the pure, ornaments made of gold.
Pure, marutas, pure yourselves, are your oblations: to you, the pure, pure sacrifice I offer.
By law they came to truth, the law’s observers, bright by their birth, and pure, and sanctifying.
Your rings, O marutas, rest upon your shoulders, and chains of gold are twined upon your bosoms.
Gleaming with drops of rain, like lightning-flashes, after your wont ye whirl about your weapons.
Wide in the depth of air spread forth your glories, far, most adorable, ye bear your titles.
Marutas, accept this thousand-fold allotment of household sacrifice and household treasure.
If, marutas, ye regard the praise recited here at this mighty singer invocation,
Vouchsafe us quickly wealth with noble heroes, wealth which no man who hateth us may injure.
The marutas, fleet as coursers, while they deck them like youths spectators of a festal meeting,
Linger, like beauteous colts, about the dwelling, like frisking calves, these who pour down the water.
So may the marutas help us and be gracious, bringing free room to lovely earth and heaven.
Far be your bolt that slayeth men and cattle: ye vasavas, turn yourselves to us with blessings.
The priest, when seated, loudly calls you, marutas, praising in song your universal bounty.
He, bulls, who hath so much in his possession, free from duplicity, with hymns invokes you.
These marutas bring the swift man to a stand-still, and strength with mightier strength they break and humble;
These guard the singer from the man who hates him, and lay their sore displeasure on the wicked.
These marutas rouse even the poor and needy: the vasavas love him as an active champion.
Drive to a distance, O ye bulls, the darkness: give us full store of children and descendants.
Never, O marutas, may we lose your bounty, nor, car-borne lords, be hindmost when ye deal it.
Give us a share in that delightful treasure, the genuine wealth that, bulls, is your possession.
What time the men in fury rush together for running streams, for pastures, and for houses.
Then, O ye marutas, ye who spring from rudra, be our protectors in the strife with foemen.
Full many a deed ye did for our forefathers, worthy of lauds which, even of old, they sang you.
The strong man, with the marutas, wins in battle; the charger, with the marutas, gains the booty.
Ours, O ye marutas, be the vigorous hero, the lord divine of men, the strong sustainer,
With whom to fair lands we may cross the waters, and dwell in our own home with you beside us.
May indra, mitra, varuNa and agni, waters, and plants, and trees accept our praises.
May we find shelter in the marutas’ bosom ~ preserve us evermore, ye gods, with blessings.
And in the saMskRta, there is apparent mention of both ‘Mary’ and ‘John the Baptist’.

ka IM vyaktA naraH sanILA rudrasya maryA adha svashvAH || 56.1 ||
makshU rAyaH suvIryasya dAta nU cidyamanya AdabhadarAvA || 56.15 ||
atyAso na ye marutaH svañco yakshadRsho na shubhayanta maryAH |
te harmyeSThAH shishavo na shubhrA vatsAso na prakrILinaH payodhAH || 56.16 ||
A vo hotA johavIti sattaH satrAcIM rAtimmaruto gRNAnaH |
ya Ivato vRSaNo asti gopAH so advayAvI havate va ukthaiH || 56.18 ||
saM yad dhananta manyubhirjanAsaH shUrA yahvISvoSadhISu vikshu |
adha smA no maruto rudriyAsastrAtAro bhUta pRtanAsvaryaH || 56.22 ||

And likewise regarding sUkta 7.70 (which resolves as 7 + 7 = 14 = 5), where vishvAmitra’s call to the sacrificial physicians seems to provide some hint of the virgin conception of yeSu, and perhaps the name of his father (juSethAm).

Rich in all blessings, ashvinas come ye hither: this place on earth is called your own possession,
Like a strong horse with a fair back it standeth, whereon, as in a lap, ye seat you firmly.
This most delightful eulogy awaits you in the man’s house, drink-offering hath been heated,
Which bringeth you over the seas and rivers, yoking as it were two well-matched shining horses.
Whatever dwellings ye possess, O ashvinas, in fields of men or in the streams of heaven,
Resting upon the summit of the mountain, or bringing food to him who gives oblation,
Delight yourselves, ye gods, in plants and waters, when RSayas give them and ye find they suit you.
Enriching us with treasures in abundance, ye have looked back to former generations.
Ashvinas, though ye have heard them oft aforetime, regard the many prayers which RSayas offer.
Come to the man even as his heart desireth: may we enjoy your most delightful favour.
Come to the sacrifice offered you, nAsatyAs, with men, oblations, and prayer duly uttered.
Come to vasiSTha as his heart desireth, for unto you these holy hymns are chanted.
This is the thought, this is the song, O asvinas: accept this hymn of ours, ye steers, with favour.
May these our prayers addressed to you come nigh you: preserve us evermore, ye gods, with blessings.
May indra, mitra, varuNa and agni, waters, and plants, and trees accept our praises.
May we find shelter in the maruts’ bosom ~ preserve us evermore, ye gods, with blessings.


A vishvavArAshvinA gataM naH pra tatsthAnamavAci vAmpRthivyAm |
ashvo na vAjI shunapRSTho asthAdA yatsedathurdhruvase na yonim || 70.1 ||
siSakti sA vAM sumatishcaniSThAtApi gharmo manuSo duroNe |
yo vAM samudrAnsaritaH pipartyetagvA cinna suyujAyujAnaH || 70.2 ||
yAni sthAnAnyashvinA dadhAthe divo yahvISvoSadhISu vikshu |
ni parvatasya mUrdhani sadanteSaM janAya dAshuSe vahantA || 70.3 ||
yo vAM yajño nAsatyA haviSmAn kRtabrahmAsamaryo bhavAti |
upa pra yAtaM varamA vasiSTham imAbrahmANyRcyante yuvabhyAm || 70.6 ||
iyammanISA iyamashvinA gIrimAM suvRktiM vRSaNA juSethAm |
imAbrahmANi yuvayUnyagmanyUyam pAta svastibhiH sadA naH || 70.7 ||

maya is “the artificer of the daityas, versed in magic, astronomy, and military science”. And mayA indicates “medical treatment”.

mayI is “a mare”, and mAyA is “creating illusions”, indicating “supernatural power or wisdom”.

marya indicates “a man (especially a young man)”, “a lover or a suitor”, and maryA is the feminine form of the same.

The feminine maryA, the betrothed woman, also indicating “a mark or limit”, is simultaneously the masculine plural, indicating “the people”.

And yeSu was born of maryA and maryAdA ~ “giving clear marks or signs”, indicating “the limit, mark, end, extreme point, or goal”, “the bounds of morality, and propriety, law, rule or custom”, “a covenant, agreement, or bond”, and “continuance in the right way”.

juSethAm appears six times, in five hymns, and hotA johavIti appears just once (although johavIti itself likewise appears in a total of five hymns)

Personified as a singular nominative form, the plural locative yeSu becomes “the one who is amid the many”, and thus maryA (= narAH) becomes automatically impregnated with yeSu (= nArAyaNa) .

And johavIti (the presumed guru of yeSu) is a form of the verb hve, which means “to call or invoke”, giving us terms such as homa, juhUmasi, juhAva, juhuvuH, juhve, juhuve, johavIti, johuvanta, johuvat, johuvAna, and johoti, directly from its various grammatical cases.

juSethAm (the presumed father of yeSu) is a form of the verb juS, which means “to be pleased or satisfied”. And, appropriately, juSethAm is the second-person dual imperative case ~ “ye two be satisfied!”


And the final example is yahva itself, in the vocative singular case (“O yahva”), which occurs in the bhArgava AprI hymn (10.110, which resolves to three), in the third verse (10.110.3, or 3 + 3 = 6).

RSi rAma jAmadagnya

AjuhvAnaH IDyaH vandyaH ca A yAhi agne vasubhiH sajoSAH |
tvam devAnAm asi yahva hotA saH enAn yakshi iSitaH yajIyAn || 10.110.3 ||

With yahva in 33 hymns, there are 995 (of 1028) hymns remaining, in which yahva remains undisclosed ~ with 995 resolving to five (as 9 + 9 + 5 = 23 = 5) and 33 (as 3 + 3) resolving to six.





If Jesus (or Moses or anyone) was revealing any revelation that would be from his own samadhi and not merely from borrowed literature.

If Jesus, from his own independent meditation, knew anything of yahvI, which (although rarely mentioned) is intrinsic to the whole Rgveda, then he must truly have been in touch with the source!

But perhaps the idea has simply been transmitted over centuries by sages who knew the Rgveda (and who were philosophers, theologians and grammarians, simultaneously) and generation after generation has learned the famous tetragrammaton from their gurus’ traditions ~ which all must go back to the original source of the vidyA, and that is surely the ancient Rgveda.

atanu
17 April 2008, 01:43 PM
Namaste Atanu,


If you have nothing but protest -----I-

Namaste,

Any one who opposes your post has nothing but protest? Eh?


Why should I protest? On the contrary, I commended your efforts herein as of high quality, and most reasonable. But when you begin to fly, someone must stop you. Thank god that you are protected from a future discomfiture when you would show Juhu Brahmajaayaa as husband of Saraswati. (By the way, not a word about Saraswati becoming Sarah and 'Jaayaa' becoming husband of Saraswati? Very typical: Difficulty in saying a simple "I erred".)

One more thing. Other people have also shown the correspondence between yahva and yawveh:

http://subhash-kak.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/yahvah-and-yahweh/comments.htm

Please take cognizance.


----------------

Om Namah Shivaya

Shiva
· Yahweh

· Yahveh

· Yahvih

· Jabe

· Jehovah

· Yehu

· Deus

· Zeus

· Jesus

· Yeshua

· Yehoshua

· Shiva

----------------------

Yet, who will not agree that Sanatana dharma and Jew-Christian ways are very different?

atanu
17 April 2008, 02:40 PM
Subhash-Kak.sulekha.com (http://subhash-kak.sulekha.com/) (about 5 year old article)
Yahvah and Yahweh (http://subhash-kak.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/yahvah-and-yahweh.htm)

http://www.sulekha.com/

It would be foolish to deduce that if Yahvah and Yahweh are identical names then the Vedas become the source of the Abrahamic traditions or Christianity the fulfillment of the Vedas. The Indic gloss on the matter is that names in themselves are mere sequence of syllables and they mean nothing; it is not names but the way of seeing reality that matters. The Western and Indian spiritual traditions as they exist now are... Expand

History can be a great friend in times of crisis. Consider the ongoing sexual molestation and homosexuality crisis of the Catholic Church. Looking back into the Church history one finds that celibacy was adopted only a few centuries ago. The medieval popes were lprinces. Anyone fond of Italian history would recall the Medicis and the Borgias, in particular, Pope Alexander VI and his beautiful daughter Lucrezia. Many bishops in early Christianity were married, as were 39 Popes. Celibacy was introduced to ensure that the organization of the Church did not lose power to any one family. It was sold wrapped in the theological formula that each priest was to be married to the Church and each nun to Christ. The Church can easily abrogate this theology, claiming connection to an older tradition.

History helps in understanding current religious questions by explaining the original meaning of words and lending perspective. It is essential for regeneration and renewal because it lets one see the context in which certain ideas and practices arose.
Consider the general belief that East and West are forever apart because their religions originated in different circumstances. Is there no commonality between the two? I have argued elsewhere (http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf (http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf)) that perhaps the idea of monotheism for Akhenaten was derived from his Mitanni (Indic) queen, Tadukhipa. But can we go any further than speculation and speak of textual reference in support of the idea?


El and Yahweh

The Abrahamic religions trace their lineage to El and Yahweh. The Jewish and Christian God is called YHWH in Hebrew and spelt as Yehweh or Yahvah. According the Huston Smith's book The World's Religions (p. 222): “Allah is formed by joining the definite article "al" meaning "the" with "Ilah" (God). Literally, Allah means "The God." ... When the masculine plural ending im is dropped from the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, the two words sound much alike.” Eloah (Hebrew feminine) is similar to Ilah (God).

What is the origin of the Ila and Yahweh? El was the chief god of the Phoenicians and the Ugarits. Yet El is also the name used in many Psalms for Yahweh. In 2 Kings 22:19-22 we read of Yahweh meeting with his heavenly council. The Ugaritic texts have a similar account, with the difference that the “sons of god" are the sons of El. Other deities worshipped at Ugarit were El Shaddai, El Elyon, and El Berith. Since the writers of the Old Testament apply all these names to Yahweh, we can be sure that the Hebrew theologians assimilated the earlier mythology into their system.

Besides the chief god at Ugarit there were also lesser gods and goddesses. The most important of the lesser gods were Baal, the goddess Asherah, Yam (the god of the sea) and Mot (the god of death); Yam and Mot are the Hebrew words for sea and death, respectively. Asherah, a very important character in the Old Testament, is called the wife of Baal, although she is also known as the consort of Yahweh. Inscriptions dated between 850 and 750 BC say: “I bless you through Yahweh of Samaria, and through his Asherah!” And at `El Qom (from the same period) this inscription: “Uriyahu, the king, has written this. Blessed be Uriyahu through Yahweh, and his enemies have been conquered through Yahweh's Asherah.” The Elephantine Papyri tells us that the Hebrews worshiped Asherah until the 3rd century BC.

Baal's name occurs frequently in the Old Testament. Some Israelites viewed Yahweh as a God of the desert and so when they arrived in Phoenicia they thought it only proper to adopt Baal, the god of fertility. One of the central Ugaritic myths is the story of Baal's enthronement as king. In the story, Baal is killed by Mot and he remains dead until the new year. His victory over death was celebrated as his enthronement over the other gods.

The idea of an annual ritual death was widespread in the ancient world and it had a solar basis. The death and regeneration was taken to occur on the winter solstice, to celebrate the beginning of the new year. The Old Testament also celebrates the enthronement of Yahweh. As in the Ugaritic myth, the purpose of Yahweh's enthronement is to re-enact creation. Yahweh overcomes death by his recurring creative acts.

The major difference between the Ugaritic myth and the Biblical hymns is that Yahweh's kingship is eternal and uninterrupted while Baal's is interrupted every year by his death. Since Baal is the god of fertility the meaning of this myth is quite easy to understand. As he dies, so the vegetation dies; and when he is reborn so is the world. Not so with Yahweh; since he is always alive he is always powerful. When one reads the Psalms of the Old Testament and the Ugaritic texts one finds that Yahweh is acclaimed for things previously associated with El. These Psalms appear to have been originally Ugaritic or Phoenician hymns to El which were adopted by the Jews. El is called the “father of men” “creator,” and “creator of the creation,” attributes also granted Yahweh by the Old Testament.

Ila and Yahvah

The different Semitic gods have cognates in the Vedic pantheon. Yam may be connected to the Vedic Yama who in RV 10.10.4 is seen as being born from the waters, and Mot to the Vedic Mrityu, death. But more to the point, Ila represents Agni as in Yajurveda (VS) 2.3, whereas Ilaa represents Earth, speech, and flow. There is also the Vedic Yahvah. As an epithet it is associated with movement, activity, heaven and earth; it means the sacrificer and Agni, the chief terrestrial god. It is associated with energy like the Yahwah of the Semites. The name Yahvah occurs 21 times in the Rigveda [i] (http://subhash-kak.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/yahvah-and-yahweh/comments.htm#1). It may be compared to Shivah, an epithet for auspiciousness in the Rigveda, that later is applied regularly to Rudra.

Are Ila and Yahvah like El and Yahweh just by coincidence? We don't know, but we certainly do know of the Vedic-god worshiping Mitanni of North Syria who could have served as the intermediaries in connecting the Indians and the Semites.

Ila and Yahvah are not better known in India because names in themselves are not central to the Indic system. The essence of the Vedas is that God is a category beyond words and one may describes its aspects by a variety of names. This is the reason there are 3 names (the triplicity arising from the three-fold division of the inner and the outer universes), or 33 names, or 330 million names of God. It is remarkable that the god lists of the Ugarits also contain 33 names.

It would be foolish to deduce that if Yahvah and Yahweh are identical names then the Vedas become the source of the Abrahamic traditions or Christianity the fulfillment of the Vedas. The Indic gloss on the matter is that names in themselves are mere sequence of syllables and they mean nothing; it is not names but the way of seeing reality that matters. The Western and Indian spiritual traditions as they exist now are quite different and they represent the unique genius of each region. But perhaps the commonality of origin could help people see the universality of the spiritual quest and help build bridges across cultures in these difficult times.
Notes
1: For a brief history of the early connections between India and West Asia, see
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf (http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf) 2: For further connections between India and the West, see
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0301078 (http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0301078)


Om


My comment:
In fact Yahvah is not a name at all as abhram is not a name.

saidevo
17 April 2008, 08:59 PM
"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet"!
--Rudyard Kipling

"East or West, (to seek) Home is the Best!"
--An English proverb ('to seek' added by me for Home that also means Mukti).

nirotu
17 April 2008, 09:11 PM
Namaste Nirotu,

Your post is noble.

However, the above assertion of yours exactly I tried to find out for myself: Where is the prophecy on Jesus in Veda? I would like to be enlightened genuinely. I agree that I do not know where to look for it. Sarabhanga has said that he is not showing us the prophecy as below
Dear Atanu:
Thank you!

If you are asking me to show the exact mention of name “Jesus” in Vedas, I admit there is none.

If you were to ask me to show the exact word “Advaita” in the entire Vedas, I admit there is none. Yet, great Sage like Shankara was able to assimilate various thoughts within Vedas and bring it together to a conclusion that is known as “Advaita Vedanta”. Similarly, if you were to ask me regarding exact reference to “Dvaita”, I am sorry the answer is the same. The point I am making here is that, although, there are no explicit mention of names, sages were able to interpret them, albeit, different from each other

For example, I would refer you to: The Bhavishya Purana: Pratisarga Parva, Chaturyuga Khanda Dvitiyadhyayah, 19th Chapter, Texts 17 to 32.

For the story narration, I would suggest reading from the following links:
http://mysticson.blogspot.com/2007/05/sanskrit-text-referring-to-jesus.html (http://mysticson.blogspot.com/2007/05/sanskrit-text-referring-to-jesus.html)
http://www.lebensplan.com/puranas/jesus.html (http://www.lebensplan.com/puranas/jesus.html)


In particular, may I draw your attention to verse 30:


Text 30


"isha muurtirt-dradi praptaa

nityashuddha sivamkari

ishamasihah iti ca
mama nama pratishthitam"






Purport: Having placed the eternally pure and auspicious form of the Supreme Lord in my heart, O protector of the earth planet, I preached these principles through the Mlecchas' own faith and thus my name became 'isha-masiha' (Jesus the Messiah).

Again, one could interpret this to mean something different altogether and establish absolutely no connection what so ever between these two faiths based systems. I leave that to individuals to do their own investigation. While I am no expert in establishing authenticity of copies of Bhavishya Purana that is being circulated, I find the same verses quoted in several books. Since, it was written thousands of years BC, it is easy for someone like me to draw a connection between what was foretold and the event that took place.

If an author has certain convictions or presuppositions, he can't accurately recount history and I do not think writers here had any personal agenda. For example, some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain… That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely. When examined closely, specific event described in above scriptures came to be fulfilled exactly.

In addition, in the epic “Prathisargaparvam” Chapter 4, Part 1 and verse 28:

“Indriyani damithwa
Yehyaathmadhyaana parayana
Thasmad aadama naamaasou
Pathnee Havyavathee Smritha”

I am interested in knowing the correct interpretation of this.

Even if the scholars on both sides of the issue were to debate on this until hell freezes over, you will not find any agreement. Many centuries have gone by but the debate goes on. My participation is not going to change it one way or the other. Therefore, let us leave it at that in peace.

If majority of Christians saw Vedas as the root, then why the endeavour to reform followers of Veda?
A better yet polite question would have been, “why cannot Christians unite with non-Christians who share our moral standards as described in root of all scriptures - Vedas?”

This is a reasonable question. I respect your inquiry.

Again, let me say that these are my understandings. First of all, when it comes to moral laws, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that has not been said already in Vedas. There is nothing in terms of “morality” that uniquely defines Christianity among all other faiths. In fact, the Bible does not pretend to contain all that is worthwhile in the area of morals.

Given that, what makes it necessary is not the presence or absence of moral laws but the failure of people to keep these standards. The righteousness and moral standards were known to man since the time immemorial but his failure to keep that standard is what makes the man an utter failure in the eyes of God. This is where I think there is a tremendous theological divide between the two faiths.

On one hand, Christianity knows that man is inherently “sinful” and therefore, on his own he will never be able to reach God. In that sense, he absolutely cries out for the “savior”. Hinduism, on the other hand, does not ascribe “sinful” nature to man but considers divinity (Brahman) among all, except that there is a veiling of matter that shrouds the pure “atman” from being recognized. The only way to recognize its true nature is to get rid of the false impositions of the matter. If he fails to achieve that in this life, his hope is to return in another life to finish it, so long as there is another chance.

It is this difference that has caused great divisions among believers on both sides. I have reasoned with it and find myself comfortable with the idea of “savior” because neither I have been able to reach a state where atman truly realizes it is Brahman nor I have seen any one come back after becoming one to describe the experience to the mankind! Because, those who proclaim to know this on earth have never truly become one!


I do believe that God works in all men/woman in the whole world. I also believe that the life of Jesus that brought out the aspect of redeeming love in the nature of God, which was practically ignored by the people of every other faith, has the highest ethical and moral significance for us in the present condition of the world. I am merely attempting to combine the best elements of Hinduism with the good points of Christianity and the success of it can only be realized when the spiritual life of the world will increase!

Truly. But does it not apply more truly to Moslems and terrorists?
When faith is un-tempered with reason, the results are dangerous!

Blessings,

atanu
17 April 2008, 11:35 PM
Dear Atanu:
Thank you!
--
A better yet polite question would have been, “why cannot Christians unite with non-Christians who share our moral standards as described in root of all scriptures - Vedas?”
This is a reasonable question. I respect your inquiry.
----
When faith is un-tempered with reason, the results are dangerous!

Namaste,

I respect these two questions as good.

Regards

Om

atanu
18 April 2008, 02:09 AM
On one hand, Christianity knows that man is inherently “sinful” and therefore, on his own he will never be able to reach God. In that sense, he absolutely cries out for the “savior”. Hinduism, on the other hand, does not ascribe “sinful” nature to man but considers divinity (Brahman) among all, except that there is a veiling of matter that shrouds the pure “atman” from being recognized. The only way to recognize its true nature is to get rid of the false impositions of the matter. If he fails to achieve that in this life, his hope is to return in another life to finish it, so long as there is another chance.

It is this difference that has caused great divisions among believers on both sides.
----
When faith is un-tempered with reason, the results are dangerous!

Blessings,

Namaste Nirotu,

Please take cognizance of your last line:
When faith is un-tempered with reason, the results are dangerous!

First, do Hindu gurus aggressively condemn other faiths? Generally no. So, I cannot accept fully the statement: It is this difference that has caused great divisions among believers on both sides.

Second, if Man is sinful then no other but God (as One and all) should be the reason. This is not even thinkable. To give credence to such thought is itself sin.

Rig Veda says: Soma moves. Soma purifies itself.

What is pure, beyond time, is without change.

Om

atanu
18 April 2008, 02:40 AM
My comment:
In fact Yahvah is not a name at all as abhram is not a name.

Thoughts return from Him. Words return from Him.

He has no indicatory name (Svet.).

The closest manifestation is "I am" in everyone. All names and all forms are also That. I am that. You are that. That is called Shiva (Mandukya Up., Maha Up.) because That is advaita, bliss, knowledge, existence, fearless and requires no support.

He guides Indra, Agni, Soma. He is beyond time yet He makes happen everything and provides everything 'JUST IN TIME'.

Om Namah Shivaya

atanu
18 April 2008, 03:32 AM
Dear Atanu:
Thank you!
If you were to ask me to show the exact word “Advaita” in the entire Vedas, I admit there is none.


Namaste Nirotu,

Why? What is Aditi then? (Moreover, not as prophesy but in general indicating various aspects of God and His son, words like Isha, Iila, Yahvah, Yesu, Ya, etc. occur abundantly in Veda -- just as Sarabhanga has shown).



I have reasoned with it and find myself comfortable with the idea of “savior” because neither I have been able to reach a state where atman truly realizes it is Brahman nor I have seen any one come back after becoming one to describe the experience to the mankind!

I have also reasoned so. Prappati, Sarangati, Surrender, Islam (surrender) is inbuilt in Sanatana Dharma as Bhakti Marga. Yet Sanatana Dharma goes beyond and says: "I am that" and does not stop there. It says "You are That".



Because, those who proclaim to know this on earth have never truly become one!

That simply means that Jesus did not truly become one.

Whereas Veda says: Shiva comes from heaven -- Rudra, with Marut band, to guide mankind. We believe that Guru is none other but God.

Om

sarabhanga
18 April 2008, 11:57 AM
Juhu Brahmajaya is a Rishika and not a Rishi.

Juhu Brahmajaya is a Rishika and not a Rishi.

Juhu Brahmajaya is a Rishika and not a Rishi.

Rishika Juhu was never husband of Sarah.

You would show Juhu Brahmajaayaa as husband of Saraswati.




Not a word about Saraswati becoming Sarah and 'Jaayaa' becoming husband of Saraswati?

Very typical: Difficulty in saying a simple "I erred".


I had thought it quite clear that juhU brahmajAyA was a feminine name, equivalent with sarasvatI or sarayu, and I have NOT suggested that juhU brahmajAyA (named from the sUkta whose RSi is more correctly named UrdhvanAbhAbhrAmA) was the husband of sarasvatI or sarayu, but rather I have suggested that UrdhvanAbhAbhrAmA was born among the sapta sarasvatI, and that she was the personification of kavi abhram’s spiritual bride.

And since the only error seems to be in your own understanding of what I have actually been saying , I have not been particularly interested in answering your non-existent point, and certainly not about to say that I have erred on this matter.

It seems that you have some difficulty in grasping the intention of my words, but let us go over what has actually been said:

ya is “a goer or mover”, naming “the wind” or “the light”, and the act of “joining, restraining, or abandoning”.

yA is “going, restraining, and attaining”, indicating (as a noun) “a carriage, religious meditation, or the yoniliÑgam”.

yad is “who, which, what, whichever, whatever, or that”, indicating “the puruSa”.

And yeSu is the locative plural case.

yad (including yeSu) is a fundamental pronoun, which applies as an abstract noun to the abstract conception of the puruSa.

yahu is “restless or swift” or “mighty or strong” (synonymous with mahat); also indicating “an offspring or child”, as an equivalent of putra ~ e.g. sahasoyahuH = sahasoputraH (“son of strength”), both used in reference to agni.

yahva is “restless, swift, active (as agni, indra, soma), or continually moving or flowing (as the waters)”, and likewise it is synonymous with mahat; also indicating “the sacrificer” (yajamAna).

And thus yahva is both an adjective and a masculine noun (i.e. a name) indicating “the mighty one” or “the sacrificer”.

yahvI is “heaven and earth” or “the flowing waters” (often as sapta yahvI).

And yahvat is “the ever-flowing (waters)”.

And yahvI is certainly a feminine noun and a veritable name of the Goddess.

ya (“who, which, that”) + hvA (“name”) = yahvA (“named after who”, or the implied name of “that” unnamable one).

And a cognate term is derived from tad (“he, she, it, that”) + tvam (“the being or abode of”) = tattvam (“truth or essence”, “the being of that”, “his/her being or abode”, etc.).

In the Rgveda, God is yahvIH (among other names), the God of abhram (among other sages), and this was accepted by yeSu of the kRSTayas, whose destiny was to become rAjA kRSTinAm (i.e. agni or soma or indra).


yahva = jihva
“the tongue, especially the tongue or tongues of agni (saptajihva) or the seven winds, the tongue of a balance, or speech”jihvA = juhU
“a tongue (especially of agni), a flame, personified as the goddess of speech” or “a curved wooden ladle for pouring ghee into the sacrificial fire”
The feminine terms jihvA and juhU are both names of the Goddess of speech, who is more commonly known as vAc or brAhmI or sarasvatI.

And all of the above are proper names.

There is one hymn composed by RSi juhU brahmajAyA ~ also known as UrdhvanAbhAbrAhmA ~ to the vishvedevA (Rigveda 10.109).

Among the RSayas there is no particular recognition of gender, and the term RSi is equally applicable to both male and female sages, but the word itself is of masculine gender.

A RSika is an inferior RSi, and a RSikA is his wife.

juhU brahmajAyA and UrdhvanAbhAbrAhmA are both feminine terms, and I had not thought it necessary to use the specific title of RSikA.

The RSi known as ‘kavi abhram’ and the RSikA known as ‘juhU brahmajAyA’ or ‘UrdhvanAbhAbrAhmA’ (i.e. vAc or sarasvatI) are surely cognate with the lineage of Abram and Sarai, before the separation of Judaism ~ i.e. before the covenant of circumcision, and before their names were changed (by Yahweh) to Abraham and Sarah.


Genesis 17:1-11
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.



And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.



And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,


As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.



Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.



And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.



And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.



And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.



And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.



This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.



And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.Until this time, the language and practices of kavi abhram’s family were presumably identical with vaidika saMskRtam and sanAtana dharma, and the biblical story recalls the moment of divergence.

kavi abhram (“the water bearer” or “thunder cloud”) and his wife sarayu (“the wind”, specifically naming a sister of sarasvatI) and his father todaH (“the sun”) and his nephew lota (“a mark or sign”, and thus a liÑgam) were surely Hindu, from the time they began to wander, striving for the garbha of hiraNa, until abhram was 99 years old (i.e. having already had a full lifetime) and a new covenant was made, by the writ of yahvI and for the satisfaction of the mothers ~ both the trayI (mahI, iLA, and sarasvatI) and the sapta yahvIH.


yahvI Rtasya mAtarA !
And abhram (“the cloud”) piled up his spiritual thunder-head so high that (after 99 years of devotion to yahvaH) he became Abrahma (“up to or including brahman”).



Rgveda 10.109
te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilomAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapaugromayobhUrApodevIH prathamajARtena || 1 ||

somorAjAprathamobrahmajAyAmpunaH prAyachadahRNIyamAnaH |
anvartitAvaruNomitrAsIdagnirhotAhastagRhyAninAya || 2 ||

hastenaivagrAhyAdhirasyAbrahmajAyeyamiticedavocan |
nadUtAyaprahyetastha eSA tathArASTraM gupitaM kshatriyasya || 3 ||

devA etasyAmavadantapUrvesaptaRSayastapaseyeniSeduH |
bhImAjAyAbrAhmaNasyopanItAdurdhAM dadhAtiparamevyoman || 4 ||

brahmacArIcarativeviSadviSaH sadevAnAmbhavatyekamaÑgam |
tenajAyAmanvavindadbRhaspatiH somenanItAM juhvaM nadevAH || 5 ||

punarvaidevAdaduH punarmanuSyA uta |
rAjAnaH satyaM kRNvAnAbrahmajAyAmpunardaduH || 6 ||

punardAyabrahmajAyAM kRtvIdevairnikilbiSam |
UrjampRthivyAbhaktvAyorugAyamupAsate || 7 ||




abhram is derived from a-bhram.
bhram is mistake-delusion.
abhram is delusion free.

whereas abhra is Mica/Gold/cloud etc. etc.

The term is neuter, and it is surely abhram not abhra. And in the Rgveda, abhram refers to the clouds.

While abhrama (masculine), abhramA (feminine), or abhramam (neuter), all indicate “correct perception” ~ but NOT abhram, which indicates “a cloud” (from abbhra, “water-bearer”).

abhram (in the Rgveda) generally indicates “a cloud (especially a thunder-cloud), the sky or atmosphere”, also (in later texts) referring to “a cipher, dust, gold, camphor, or reeds”.

abhrama is “steady or clear”, indicating “not erring, steadiness, or composure” ~ cf. yudhi-sthira (“steady in battle”), synonymous with yudhi abhrama.

In the mysterious first case of God’s creation, the progenitor and the progeny are identical, with the father prajApati brahmA (vishvakarman or tvaSTR ~ the “all-creator” or “carpenter”, identified with the sun) and his own son rAjA kRSTInAm (agni, soma, indra) the tvASTrayahva (“the carpenter’s son”, identified with the light of the sun, a beam from the first sacrificial hearth) being one and the same. And subsequent vaidika sacrifice follows the same archetype, with the sacrificing priest (in the perfect invocation) having fully identified his own self with the offering.

And any mention of such wisdom among early juhvas (followers of the ‘kavi abhram dIdyuhvA’ or ‘RSi UrdhvanAbha abhram’ ~ whose shakti is personified as vAc (“the word”) ~ in the middle east was naturally attributed to ‘yeSu kRSTInAm’ (personified as tvASTrayahva).

The Talmud’s remarks about burning food in public and worshipping bricks give us details of the yeSus’ sacrificial method ~ i.e. the iSTi sacrifice, offering grains, fruits, ghee, etc. instead of the traditional animal sacrifice ~ and it is a priestly argument over sacrificial methods, and the public performance of the iSTi by an eSiNa juhotR, that is recalled as the historical basis for the “easter” story (and the basis for hot cross buns as the iSTikA prasAdAnam).

It is clear that yahvIH (‘yahweh’) was an important vaidika conception, known to all ancient RSayas, and especially favored by the Atreya and AÑgirasa clans. And kavi abhram was surely a vaidika sage (most likely an AÑgirasa), all of whom were veritable incarnations of agni.

According to Genesis 11, “the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai (cf. sarayu, sarasvatI, vAc, abhrAmA, all of which are feminine terms) … but Sarai was barren” (cf. the historical drying up of the sarasvatI, after c. 1,800 BC), so abhram and his wife abhrAmA (Sarai), along with his father Terah (todaH) and nephew Lot (lota), “went forth … to the land of Canaan” (cf. kaNam ~ “grain”).

So it would appear that, compelled by the drying of the sarasvatI river, kavi abhramand his family migrated to a more fertile district. And the bible names that place as Haran (cf. hiraNa ~ “semen” or “gold”), which is the name of abhram’s own deceased brother (who died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity).

It is clear that Haran ~ i.e. hiraNa or hiraNyagarbha (“the golden foetus”) ~ is abhram’s lost fertility, which he sought to regain. And hiraNa-garbha would indicate “seed offspring of the sky” or “the full flood of gold or semen” or “prosperous sacred earth” (marked out by the extent of the flood).



narAH = iLAH = yahvIH
nArAyaNa = ila = yeSu



bRMhan = brahma = yahvI = nara
abRMham = Abrahma = yeSu = nArAyaNa



yahva = agni
sapta juhU = sapta jihva



nArAyaNa = rAjA kRSTInAm
nAra = pañca kRSTayas

atanu
18 April 2008, 04:45 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga,


I had thought it quite clear that juhU bhramajAyA was a feminine name

Surely, you had thought so.


The term is neuter, and it is surely abhram not abhra. And in the Rgveda, abhram refers to the clouds

While abhrama (masculine), abhramA (feminine), or abhramam (neuter), all indicate “correct perception” ~ but NOT abhram, which indicates “a cloud” (from abbhra, “water-bearer”).


Yes, I erred in understanding because putting Sanskrit fonts into English causes some confusion. abhra (sometimes spelt abbhra, according to the derivation ab-bhra, 'water-bearer' , cloud, thunder-cloud, rainy weather RV. abhrama not blundering, steady, clear, not erring, steadiness, composure


And any mention of such wisdom among early juhvas (followers of the ‘kavi abhram dIdyuhvA’ or ‘RSi UrdhvanAbha abhram’ ~ whose shakti is personified as vAc (“the word”) ~ in the middle east was naturally attributed to ‘yeSu kRSTInAm’ (personified as tvASTrayahva).
dIdyuhvA? haha.



And kavi abhram was surely a vaidika sage (most likely an AÑgirasa), all of whom were veritable incarnations of agni.

According to Genesis 11, “the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai (cf. sarayu, sarasvatI, vAc, abhrAmA, all of which are feminine terms) … but Sarai was barren” (cf. the historical drying up of the sarasvatI, after c. 1,800 BC), so abhram and his wife abhrAmA (Sarai), along with his father Terah (todaH) and nephew Lot (lota), “went forth … to the land of Canaan” (cf. kaNam ~ “grain”).

So it would appear that, compelled by the drying of the sarasvatI river, kavi abhramand his family migrated to a more fertile district. And the bible names that place as Haran (cf. hiraNa ~ “semen” or “gold-----

It is clear that Haran ~ i.e. hiraNa or hiraNyagarbha (“the golden foetus”) ~ is abhram’s lost fertility,

A/yaˆR iv/za< ga/turœ @?it/ &#224; ydœ Aan?fœ id/vae ANta?n! ,
k/ivrœ A/&#230;< dI*a?n> . 10 -020 -04
ju/;dœ x/Vya manu?;Syae/XvRs! t?Swa/v! \_va? y/}e ,
im/Nvn! s&#210;? pu/r @?it . 10 -020 -05

4. He comes to us as a noble path for men when he travels to the ends of heaven; he is the seer and he lights up the sky. [[Or, the cloud.]] (Aurobindo)

10.020.04 The refuge of the people, the mover, who, when he moves, penetrates to the ends of the sky; the sage illumining the firmament. (Saraswati project).
----------------------
kavi is Noun of several gods, (esp.) of Agni RV. ii, 23, 1 ; x, 5, 4, 3 ; iii, 5, 1 ; i, 31, 2 ; 76, 5 . Kavi abhram is surely Agni himself (no interpolation of incarnation please as there is no such connotation in the verse). It is as clear as mud, unless one is drugged, as to how this one verse of Rig Veda leads to this extended fabulous story. Agni Vaisvanara is all pervasive Visnu and He does not migrate to Canan – at least not in Rig Veda. Sarayu has been freshly introduced to rhyme with Sarah and give the story more an appearance of credence.


And thus yahva is both an adjective and a masculine noun (i.e. a name) indicating “the mighty one” or “the sacrificer”
Yes, only if one considers ‘swift’ as a masculine noun. It’s up to the interpreter. Jews will definitely say that it is a name only. Same is with AbrAham, which you magically derive from abhram, as below.



And abhram (“the cloud”) piled up his spiritual thunder-head so high that (after 99 years of devotion to yahvaH) he became Abrahma (“up to or including brahman”).
Rgveda 10.109
te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilomAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapaugromayobhUrApodevIH prathamajARtena || 1 ||
somorAjAprathamobrahmajAyAmpunaH prAyachadahRNIyamAnaH |
anvartitAvaruNomitrAsIdagnirhotAhastagRhyAninAya || 2 ||
hastenaivagrAhyAdhirasyAbrahmajAyeyamiticedavocan |
nadUtAyaprahyetastha eSA tathArASTraM gupitaM kshatriyasya || 3 ||
devA etasyAmavadantapUrvesaptaRSayastapaseyeniSeduH |
bhImAjAyAbrAhmaNasyopanItAdurdhAM dadhAtiparamevyoman || 4 ||
brahmacArIcarativeviSadviSaH sadevAnAmbhavatyekama&#209;gam |
tenajAyAmanvavindadbRhaspatiH somenanItAM juhvaM nadevAH || 5 ||
punarvaidevAdaduH punarmanuSyA uta |
rAjAnaH satyaM kRNvAnAbrahmajAyAmpunardaduH || 6 ||
punardAyabrahmajAyAM kRtvIdevairnikilbiSam |
UrjampRthivyAbhaktvAyorugAyamupAsate || 7 ||


Funny that you do not give the purports. Marking Abrahma in unparsed sentences with red fonts serves what purpose, if not to mis-lead? Veda does not contain your story that Agni (who himself is abhram and yahvaH) became AbrhAm by grace of yahvaH (elsewhere you have shown yahvaH as Agni, Soma, Indra). In unparsed sentences, by showing a lot of Abrahma, brahmajAyA, juhva, you cannot prove your hypothesis “And abhram ---became Abrahma (“up to or including brahman”).” The above verses are parsed below.

te =vdn! &#224;w/ma &#228;?&#252;ikiLb/;e =?k&#170;par> sil/lae ma?t/ir&#241;a? ,
vI/&#166;uh?ra/s! tp? &#37;/&#162;ae m?yae/-Urœ Aapae? de/vI> &#224;?wm/ja \/ten? . 10- 109- 01
saemae/ raja? &#224;w/mae &#228;?&#252;ja/yam! pun>/ &#224;ay?CD/dœ A&#249;?[Iyman> ,
A/Nv/itR/ta v&#233;?[ae im/&#199; Aa?sIdœ A/i&#182;rœ haeta? hSt/g&&#253;a in?nay . 10- 109- 02
hSte?nE/v &#162;a/&#253; Aa/ixrœ A?Sya &#228;&#252;ja/yeym! #it/ cedœ Avae?cn! ,
n &#203;/tay? &#224;/&#253;e tSw @/;a twa? ra/&#242;+< gu?ip/t< ]/i&#199;y?Sy . 10 -109 -03
de/va @/tSya?m! AvdNt/ pUvˆR? s&#221;\/;y/s! tp?se/ ye in?;e/&#202;> ,
-I/ma ja/ya &#228;a?&#252;/[Syaep?nIta &#202;/xa&#161; d?xait pr/me Vyaemn! . 10- 109- 04
&#228;/&#252;/ca/rI c?rit/ veiv?;/dœ iv;>/ s de/vana?m! -v/Ty! @k/m! A&#188;?m! ,
ten? ja/yam! ANv! A?ivNd/dœ b&h/Spit>/ saeme?n nI/ta< ju/&#254;< n de?va> . 10 -109 -05
pun/rœ vE de/va A?d&#202;>/ pun?rœ mnu/:ya %/t ,
raja?n> s/Ty< k&#171;?{va/na &#228;?&#252;ja/yam! pun?rœ d&#202;> . 10- 109- 06
pu/n/daRy? &#228;&#252;ja/ya< k&#171;/TvI de/vErœ in?ikiLb/;m! ,
^jR?m! p&iw/Vya -/&#174;vayae?&#233;ga/ym! %pa?ste . 10 -109 -07

10.109.01 These spoke first about Brahma_'s sin, the boundless (sun), the water-god (Varun.a), the wind-god (Va_yu), the fierce, wide-consuming fire, the source of happiness, (Soma), the divine waters, the first-born sons of the truthful (Brahma_). [Legend: Juhu_ is va_c, speech, the wife of Brahma_. Va_caspati, the lord of speech, who is Br.haspati, is also said to be the husband of Juhu_ or Va_c. On some occasion, Br.haspati's sin resulted in her losing her husband's affections, and he deserted her. Afterwards the gods consulted together as to the means of expiation of Br.haspati's sin, and restored her to her husband].
10.109.02 First, the royal Soma, without being ashamed, restored Brahma_'s wife (to Br.haspati), Varun.a was the inviter, and Mitra, Agni as the ministrant priest taking her by the hand, led her (to her husband). [Varun.a was the inviter: he was the rejoicer of the Soma: somam anumodayita_; or, he showed pity, saying, always take her to wife].
10.109.03 And (the gods) said (to Br.haspati), "This pledge of hers is to be taken by the hand, this is the wife of Brahma_; she has not made herself known to the messenger sent (to seek her), so is the kingdom of a ks.atriya protected".
10.109.04 The ancient deities spoke about her, the seven R.s.is who were engaged in penance. The terrible wife of Brahma has been brought back (to her husband); (penance) elevates into the highest heaven.
10.109.05 He leads the life of a Brahmaca_rin, even adoring all the gods; he becomes a portion of the gods; therefore, Br.haspati obtained his wife (formerly) brought him by Soma, as the gods receive an offering. [Brahmaca_rin: i.e., being without a wife].
10.109.06 The gods gave her back again, men also gave her back, and kings confirming (the gift) gave Brahma_'s wife back again.
10.109.07 The gods having given back Brahma_'s wife, and made her free from sin, having partaken of the food of the earth, sat down to (the sacrifice of) the widely hymned Br.haspati.
-------------------------------

There is no support for your SURE and VERITABLE assertion that Kavi abhram (who himself is Yahvah) became Abrahma by worshipping Yahvah. Moreover Abram (or AbrahAm) and Abrahma have no relation, howsoever much you try to cognate these two.

Truly a fascinating story, starting from abhram.

Om

Note: I hope the fonts will be correctly visible to all.

sarabhanga
19 April 2008, 10:34 AM
“I bless you through Yahweh of Samaria, and through his Asherah!”

I bless you through yahva sAmara (“yahweh accompanied by the gods”), and through his AshAra (“refuge”) or Ashara (“fire”).

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. [Genesis 14:19]

So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. [Genesis 12:4]

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. [12:5]
After hiraNa, abhram and his lota moved on to kaNam, and there they separated.

Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. [Genesis 13:11]

Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. [13:12]

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. [13:13]

And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: [13:14]

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. [13:15]

And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. [13:16]

Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. [13:17]

Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. [13:18]
The “plain of Mamre” is the mortal (mamri) plane, and “Hebron” is likely a contraction of mahivaram (“earth-gift” or “boon of mahI”).

And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. [Genesis 14:12]
And abhram (the neuter cloud) departed, along with loT (the imperative mood) and lota (the liÑgam) and lotam (“booty or plunder”, i.e. goods which are taken).

And later, when lota’s wife looked back, she revealed herself as AbhramedhI ~ “a pillar of salt”, or of any bright powdery substance (talc, mica, etc.).

yahvI and rodasI are equivalent terms, invoking the three mothers, the triple goddess, comprised of mahI (the earthly waters), iLA (the celestial waters), and sarasvatI (the flux between them).

And for sacrifice, all three must be bound together on the circumscribed vedi.

The vedi is the sacrificial altar, strewn with kusha grass, but the vedi is also the sage himself.

Each mother has her own AshAra (her refuge, shelter, dome, Akhara, or yoni), and the RSi circumscribes all three ~ the dome of the rock (mahI), the dome of heaven (iLA), and the seven domes of sarasvatI (the sapta jihva or sapta juhU), making nine immaculate havens altogether, difficult of access, and remembered collectively as shrI durgA.

And yahvI unites the three worlds of dyaus (as iLA) and pRthivI (as mahI) and soma (as sarasvatI).

And the vaidika requirement of circumscribing the sacred ground, which becomes (by the vedi’s invocation) the one dome of all domes, eventually became the judaic requirement of circumcising the priest (and all his sons).

Verily no one knoweth whence they sprang: they, and they only, know each other’s birth. A sage was he who knew these mysteries, what in her udder mighty pRshni bore.

Ours be the vigorous hero, the lord divine of men, the strong sustainer, with whom to fair lands we may cross the waters, and dwell in our own home with you beside us.

atanu
19 April 2008, 01:40 PM
Yahweh Guru.



If you have nothing but protest against all conjectural etymology in historical researches, then there is nothing much you can add to this discussion beyond protest and objection. But if you had not been so keen to take Jones’ own words and turn them against him and to rend the very possibility of historical philology, you might not have ignored his essential provision, that:
when we find the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin.
And my general argument here has adhered this basic rule, only considering such terms as have the same letters AND the same sense in both languages.



Namaste Sarabhanga,

No, I did not ignore anything. I just wanted to reduce the voluminous written material. I will re-iterate that Jones observation applies better with the last part kept.



From Sir William Jones

I beg leave, as a philologer, to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches, and principally against the licentiousness of etymologists in transposing and inserting letters, in substituting at pleasure any consonant for another of the same order, and in totally disregarding the vowels.

No consideration should induce me to assist by my silence in the diffusion of error; and I contend, that almost any word or nation might be derived from any other, if such licences as I am opposing were permitted in etymological histories.

when we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin.


YHWH does not contain any vowel and anything can be inserted to derive any sound. There are many varieties of pronunciations ascribed to YHWH that you cannot deny. Yahweh, YeHoWaH and YeHoWiH, EHYEH, Jahweh, Jabe, Jehovah etc etc. Whether it is derived from, haya or hawa is not known for certainty. haya and hawa are both Sanskrit words also but the meanings from their Hebrew equivalents may not be same.

Christians are abused because they use Jehovah. So it is not that you are comparing two exactly same things. And surely the vowels are not known that you can claim correspondence in vowels.

But more important is the meaning behind the words. You cannot say that mouse that is used with PC is same as the mouse on which Ganesha rides. Can you tell us what is the meaning ascribed to YHWH (in Hebrew) and what is the meaning ascribed to yahvI (in Veda)? (yahvIh as you use is not correct as far as I know).

Third point relates to the absence of either yahvI or yahva from satarudriya as name of God. Would you say that vedic sages forgot to put Yahweh in there?

I reiterate that conjectural etymology can prove anything.



The RSi known as ‘kavi abhram’ -------


So it would appear that, compelled by the drying of the [B]sarasvatI river, kavi abhramand his family migrated to a more fertile district.


10.020.04 The refuge of the people, the mover, who, when he moves, penetrates to the ends of the sky; the sage illumining the firmament. (Saraswati project).

Kavi abhram is surely not a Rsi in the sense of a man here. Kavi is the Seer agni to whom other Rsis pray. I do not think that this kavi abhram, who himself is the mover will be compelled to move home.



And thus yahva is both an adjective and a masculine noun (i.e. a name) indicating “the mighty one” or “the sacrificer”.
yahvI is “heaven and earth” or “the flowing waters”
And yahvI is certainly a feminine noun and a veritable name of the Goddess.
In the Rgveda, God is yahvIH (among other names).
narAH = iLAH = yahvIH


à vae? y/þm! pu?ê/[a< iv/za< de?vy/tIna?m! ,
A/i¶< sU/­ei-/rœ vcae?i-rœ $mhe/, y< sI/m! #dœ A/Ny $¦?te . 1-036-01

1.036.01 We implore with sacred hymns the mighty Agni, whom other (r.s.is) also praise, -------.

A/³ae n b/iæ> s?im/we m/hIna<? id†/]ey>? sU/nve/ -a\?jIk> ,
%dœ %/iöya/ jin?ta/ yae j/jana/pa< g-aˆR/ n&t?mae y/þae A/i¶> . 3- 001- 12

3.001.12 The invincible Agni, the cherisher of the valiant in battle, the seen of all, shining by his own lustre, the generator (of the world), the embryo of the waters, the chief of leaders, the mighty, is he who has begotton the waters for (the benefit of) the offerer of the libation.

pait? ià/y< ir/pae A¢?m! p/d< ve> pait? y/þz! cr?[</ sUyR?Sy ,
pait/ na-a? s/ÝzI?;aR[m! A/i¶> pait? de/vana?m! %p/mad?m! \/:v> . 3- 005- 05

3.005.05 The graceful (Agni) protects the primary station of the moving earth; mighty, he protects the path of the sun; he protects the seven-headed (troop of the Maruts) in the centre between heaven and earth; he protects the exhilarating (oblations) of the gods.

b&/h/tI #?v sU/nve/ raed?sI/ igrae/ haeta? mnu/:yae n d]>? ,
SvvRte s/Tyzu?:may pU/vIrœ vE?ñan/ray/ n&t?may y/þI> . 1-059-04

1.059.04. Heaven and earth expanded as it were for their son. The experienced sacrificer recites, like a bard, many ancient and copious praises addressed to the graceful-moving, truly-vigorous, and all-guiding Vais'va_nara..


I think there is no problem to agree that the terms
y/þm!, y/þ, y/þae, y/þz!, y/þI> appear abundantly in Rig Veda indicating various gods (mainly Agni) and these terms appear to cognate with yahvaH or yahweh. Western authors would claim genesis of yahweh in the west and we would claim the authorship and this tussle (I think) has continued and will continue.

In fact your hints that Sarasvati (Vac) dried up and thus Abhram was compelled to move has grave implications – Sarasvati will now perhaps be found in Old and New Testaments and that the Vedas are incomplete after the 10th Book? Ha.

It was indicated in a previous post that this correspondence is known to various Hindu writers. That does not mean that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are indicated as supportable from corpus of Vedic literature (particularly the Vedanta) and the implication that these violent religious denominations represent the culmination of the Vedic teaching, hold no water. Same words may be understood in different ways. It is the understanding that is Veda and not the Vac itself.

Why the understanding varies so much in East and West? Why only discontented marauders predominate wherever Judea-Christianity-Islam predominate? And they fight among themselves though they all claim to have a common master called Abraham-Ibrahim?

To me Abraham cognates with Abrahmavid (ignorant of Brahman) and not to abhram-agni. Very little of teaching of Isha Upanishad can be found to have seeped in Judea-Christianity-Islam. That can be due to general rajasic guna or due inadequate teaching. I find that in none of these exoteric religious denominations, enquiry is encouraged. No one is encouraged to enquire into the nature of Jiva and nature of self.

In fact Yahweh is not God to us but only an indication that the sthanu unchangeable Brahman-Atman is also the most swift. Your assertion: “In the Rgveda, God is yahvIH (among other names)”, would imply that sages of Yajur Veda forgot to put yahvIH and yahvAh as God’s name.

Why Satarudriya ignores various forms of yahva? Only the following verse of Satarudriya goes somewhat near to yahva.
Namah sikatya ya cha pravahyaya cha. (Salutations to Him who is in the form of the sands and flowing water.)



From Sarabhanga
So that yahvaH or yahvIH (yahweh) and iLAH (allah) are almost identical terms ~.


Already answered and repeated below:



From Subhas Kak
It would be foolish to deduce that if Yahvah and Yahweh are identical names then the Vedas become the source of the Abrahamic traditions or Christianity the fulfillment of the Vedas. The Indic gloss on the matter is that names in themselves are mere sequence of syllables and they mean nothing; it is not names but the way of seeing reality that matters. The Western and Indian spiritual traditions as they exist now are quite different


The Fact is that YHWH lacks any vowel. You can insert anything you wish; on this point, Christians and Jews fight, because Christians have changed YHWH to Jehovah. On the other hand, I think that the Hebrew sages were wise in leaving it un-nameble and unspeakable. But common people see YHWH as a mere man who can be named.

The whole story here hinges only on the assumption that kavi abhram is a man abram who was compelled to move. This cannot be a valid assumption as this has no evidence in Rig Veda itself.

However, even if that be so, then:



By Saidevo

If this is what happened, then the entire line of Christian nobles from Adam to Abraham, (viz. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech, Nova, Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan, Sala, Eber, Peleg, Ragau, Saruch, Nahor, Terah, Abraham) would have been residents of ancient Bharat, with corresponding references in Hindu texts, specially the Vedas. I wonder what those correspondences might be!

I am sure that many coerced similarities will be found (as already Terah has been indicated).


Om is All. What has been; what is; and what will be.
ओम्

Znanna
19 April 2008, 07:44 PM
Namaste,

The title of this thread is taking on an ironic aspect, with all due respect.



ZN/just saying

saidevo
19 April 2008, 08:28 PM
Namaste Znanna.


Namaste,

The title of this thread is taking on an ironic aspect, with all due respect.

ZN/just saying

Yes, I can agree with you on that. The title could now be "Extrapolated Christianity--from What Ends?"

All religions pollute the Absolute Truth, the Abrahamic religions contributing the most. Therefore the title could as well be: "Extra-polluted Christianity--from What Ends?"

saidevo
20 April 2008, 12:37 AM
The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold

Acharya S is the pen name of D.M.Murdock, a proponent of the Jesus myth hypothesis. In 1999, she published her first book having the above title. In her Website http://truthbeknown.com/, she has given a six-part digest of the book under the title The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ. The digest is studded with extensive footnotes counting up to 120.

Acharya S quotes several Christian scholars in support of her findings on how the myth of Jesus Christ was woven, scripted and "cobbled up" from the religious, spiritual and astronomical legends all around the world. Here is a compilation of the six-part digest in her Website that throws fresh light on the discussions about Jesus, Christ and the origins of Christianity here.

Hindus need to remember here that her views on Krishna and other Hindu gods, Hindu texts and legends is typically that of the western scholars--more flawed than correct, and tailored to suit their purpose on hand. Whatever the accuracy of her other views, the digest does give solid pointers to the sources of the Myth of Jesus Christ.

After disproving the historicity of Jesus in the first two parts, the author starts with the myth of Jesus from the third part. My take on some of the presentations I have given in italics. I have also underlined key points in the digest and boldfaced key names. In addition, I have broken up long paragraphs into shorter ones for easier reading.

The Characters

It is evident that there was no single historical person upon whom the Christian religion was founded, and that "Jesus Christ" is a compilation of legends, heroes, gods and godmen. There is not adequate room here to go into detail about each god or godman that contributed to the formation of the Jewish Jesus character; suffice it to say that there is plenty of documentation to show that this issue is not a question of "faith" or "belief."

The truth is that during the era this character supposedly lived there was an extensive library at Alexandria and an incredibly nimble brotherhood network that stretched from Europe to China, and this information network had access to numerous manuscripts that told the same narrative portrayed in the New Testament with different place names and ethnicity for the characters.

A typical strain in the writings of a Christian Aplolgist is: if something is favourable to their line of argument, it is the work of God through his Son Jesus. In all other cases, it is the Devil is at work, scheming to overthrow man from the Kingdom of God that can be had only through the Son of God.--sd

Justin Martyr (c.100-165), one of the earliest Christian Apologists says in his First Apology (incidentally he knew nothing of the four cannonical gospels of NT--sd):

"ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST. And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.

"For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus.

"For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre?"

In his endless apologizing, Justin reiterates the similarities between his godman and the gods of other cultures:

"As to the objection of our Jesus's being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter]... As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius."

And here comes the typical Christian strain, 'the-devil-got-there-first' syndrome!--sd

"It having reached the Devil’s ears that the prophets had foretold the coming of Christ, the Son of God, he set the heathen Poets to bring forward a great many who should be called the sons of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get men to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same characters the prodigious fables related of the sons of Jove."

In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Martyr again admits the pre-existence of the Christian tale and then uses his standard, irrational and self-serving apology, i.e., "the devil got there first":

"Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah’s days.

"For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses?

"And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, "strong as a giant to run his race," has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Aesculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ?... And when I hear, Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this."

The Jesus story incorporated elements from the tales of other deities recorded in this widespread area, such as many of the following world saviors and "sons of God," most or all of whom predate the Christian myth, and a number of whom were crucified or executed.

• Adad of Assyria
• Adonis, Apollo, Heracles ("Hercules") and Zeus of Greece
• Alcides of Thebes
• Attis of Phrygia
• Baal of Phoenicia
• Bali of Afghanistan
• Beddu of Japan
• Buddha of India
• Crite of Chaldea
• Deva Tat of Siam
• Hesus of the Druids

• Horus, Osiris, and Serapis of Egypt, whose long-haired, bearded appearance was adopted for the Christ character

Taylor quotes the letter of Emperor Hadrian (134 C.E.): "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the God Serapis, who (I find) call themselves the bishops of Christ."

• Indra of Tibet/India
• Jao of Nepal
• Krishna of India
• Mikado of the Sintoos
• Mithra of Persia
• Odin of the Scandinavians
• Prometheus of Caucasus/Greece
• Quetzalcoatl of Mexico
• Salivahana of Bermuda

• Tammuz of Syria (who was, in a typical mythmaking move, later turned into the disciple Thomas)

Walker: "... Later, an unknown Gospel writer inserted the story of doubting Thomas, who insisted on touching Jesus. This was to combat the heretical idea that there was no resurrection in the flesh, and also to subordinate Jerusalem's municipal god Tammuz (Thomas) to the new savior. Actually, the most likely source of primary Christian mythology was the Tammuz cult in Jerusalem." The "doubting Thomas" character also finds its place in the Mythos, as the "genius" of the time when the sun is at its weakest (winter solstice). (Taylor)

• Thor of the Gauls
• Universal Monarch of the Sibyls

The Sibylline Oracles, books produced over time allegedly by a number of pagan prophetesses called Sibyls, were widely regarded in the ancient world prior to the advent of the Christian era. "The Sibyls are quoted frequently by the early Fathers and Christian writers, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, etc." (Catholic Encyclopedia, cited by Wheless) These books or Oracles were often cited by Christians as proof of their religion.

For instance, the following is considered a Sibylline Oracle: "With five loaves at the same time, and with two fishes, He shall satisfy five thousand men in the wilderness; And afterwards taking all the fragments that remain, He shall fill twelve baskets to the hope of many. . . .He shall still the winds by His word, and calm the sea as it rages, treading with feet of peace and faith. ... He shall walk on the waves, He shall release men from disease. He shall raise the dead, and drive away many pains. ..." (Wheless)

Although the Christians interpreted this as a prophecy of Christ becoming fulfilled, it is in fact an aspect of the ubiquitous Mythos and was already said of Horus, for one, hundreds of years earlier. It has never referred to an actual man but, once again, is astrotheological. The fact that it purportedly existed prior to the Christian era constitutes proof to those who use logic that the Christians utilized it in creating their Christ character, rather than it acting as a prophecy of their godman.

As they did with other texts, the Christians forged and interpolated many passages into the well-known Oracles in order to cement their fiction and convert followers. It is also amusing to note that the Christians had to resort to despised "pagan" documents for their enterprise, especially since they spent their lives attempting to demonstrate that everything that preceded them was "of the devil." This then implies that Christianity was also a work of the devil.

• Wittoba of the Bilingonese
• Xamolxis of Thrace
• Zarathustra/Zoroaster of Persia
• Zoar of the Bonzes

The Major Players
Buddha and Krishna of India

Although most people think of Buddha as being one person who lived around 500 B.C.E., like Jesus the character commonly portrayed as Buddha can also be demonstrated to be a compilation of godmen, legends and sayings of various holy men both preceding and succeeding the period attributed to the Buddha.
(http://truthbeknown.com/buddha.htm)



It seems that in many of the Western and Christian scholars' view, Buddha and Krishna were mythical characters 'cobbled up' (to use Sarabhanga's phrase) from several earlier legends. These scholars often simply ignore the version in Hindu texts and dismissing them as 'orthodox or traditional view'. However, they fail to provide any solid evidence for their arguments here, often stating that they heard the story from Brahmanas and other learned Hindu scholars.

Acharya S, the author of the website (http://truthbeknown.com/) has stated as above in Buddha's case. In the case of Krishna, she simply cites the version of the French 'scholar and Indianist' Jacolliot who 'recounts the death of Christna' as a case of crucifixion.

Acharya S, citing Jacolliot says "After thrice plunging into the sacred river, Krishna knelt and prayed as he awaited death, which was ultimately caused by multiple arrows shot by a criminal whose offenses had been exposed by Krishna. The executioner, named Angada, was thereafter condemned to wander the banks of the Ganges for eternity, subsisting off the dead."--sd
(http://truthbeknown.com/kcrucified.htm , http://truthbeknown.com/virgin.htm)


Regarding the Buddhist influence on the gospel story, in 2003 Buddhist and Sanskrit scholar Dr.Christian Lindtner wrote the following:

"The Sanskrit manuscripts prove without a shadow of doubt: Everything that Jesus says or does was already said or done by the Buddha. Jesus, therefore, is a mere literary fiction." And the scholar cites these cases of Buddha as adopted for the Christ character: 'Last Supper, Baptism, miracles, twelve disciples, Kind Gautama crucifixion (?--sd).

Concerning the "crucifixion" of Buddha, as related in a Buddhist text dating to the first century BCE (Samghabhedavastu/ Mahâparinirvâna sûtra), Ken Humphreys states:

"In this story of 'Gautama, a holy man' our hero is wrongfully condemned to die on the cross for murdering the courtesan Bhadra. Gautama is impaled on a cross, and his mentor Krishna Dvapayana visits him and enters into a long dialogue, at the end of which Gautama dies at the place of skulls after engendering two offspring - the progenitors of the Ikshavaku Dynasty."

Humphreys further relates that "the dead Buddha is burned and it is the smoke of his corpse which rises - the true 'resurrection.'"

Horus of Egypt

The stories of Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once-and-future Father, Osiris, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos ("I and my Father are one"). The legends of Horus go back thousands of years, and he shares the following in common with Jesus:

virgin birth--child teacher--"Anup the Baptizer," becomes "John the Baptist"--12 disciples--miracles, raising El-Azar-us from dead--walking on water--transfigured on the Mount--killed, buried in tomb and resurrected--The Messiah, God's Anointed Son--'The Fisher' associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys")--Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."--Horus (or Osiris) was called "the KRST," long before the Christians duplicated the story.

In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being held by the virgin mother Isis--the original "Madonna and Child"--and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra, who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced. Virtually all of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to water to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery religions.

Mithra, Sungod of Persia

The story of Mithra precedes the Christian fable by at least 600 years. According to Wheless, the cult of Mithra was, shortly before the Christian era, "the most popular and widely spread 'Pagan' religion of the times." Mithra has the following in common with the Christ character:

Birthdate Dec 25--great travelling teacher and master--12 companions or disciples--performed miracles--buried in a tomb--rose again after three days--resurrection celebrated every year--called "The Good Shepherd"--considered "the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah"--identified with both the Lion and the Lamb--His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.--his principal festival was what later became Easter, at which time he was resurrected.--His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper."

Prometheus of Greece

The Greek god Prometheus has been claimed to have come from Egypt, but his drama took place in the Caucasus mountains. Prometheus shares a number of striking similarities with the Christ character.

• Prometheus descended from heaven as God incarnate as man, to save mankind.
• He was crucified, suffered and rose from the dead.
• He was called the Logos or Word.

Five centuries before the Christian era, esteemed Greek poet Aeschylus wrote Prometheus Bound, which, according to Taylor, was presented in the theater in Athens. Taylor claims that in the play Prometheus is crucified "on a fatal tree" and the sky goes dark.

Tradition holds that Prometheus was crucified on a rock, yet some sources have opined that legend also held he was crucified on a tree. ... In any case, the sun hiding in darkness parallels the Christian fable of the darkness descending when Jesus was crucified. This remarkable occurrence is not recorded in history but is only explainable within the Mythos and as part of a recurring play.

The Creation of a Myth

The Christians went on a censorship rampage that led to the virtual illiteracy of the ancient world and ensured that their secret would be hidden from the masses, but the scholars of other schools/sects never gave up their arguments against the historicizing of a very ancient mythological creature. We have lost the arguments of these learned dissenters because the Christians destroyed any traces of their works. Nonetheless, the Christians preserved the contentions of their detractors through the Christians' own refutations.

For example, early Church Father Tertullian (@ 160-220 C.E.), an "ex-Pagan" and Bishop of Carthage, ironically admits the true origins of the Christ story and of all other such godmen by stating in refutation of his critics, "You say we worship the sun; so do you." Interestingly, a previously strident believer and defender of the faith, Tertullian later renounced Christianity.

The "Son" of God is the "Sun" of God

The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who is crucified and resurrected, who does miracles and has 12 disciples, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe.

In other words, Jesus Christ and all the others upon whom this character is predicated are personifications of the sun, and the Gospel fable is merely a rehash of a mythological formula (the "Mythos," as mentioned above) revolving around the movements of the sun through the heavens.

For instance, many of the world's crucified godmen have their traditional birthday on December 25th ("Christmas"). This is because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December 21st or 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again.

During this time, the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and was "born again" on December 25th. The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "sun of God's" birthday on December 25th. The following are the characteristics of the "sun of God":

The sun "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.

In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin." Thus:

• The sun is the "Light of the World."
• The sun "cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him."
• The sun rising in the morning is the "Savior of mankind."
• The sun wears a corona, "crown of thorns" or halo.71
• The sun "walks on water."

• The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.

• The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the "Most High"; thus, "he" begins "his Father's work" at "age" 12.

• The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the "Sun of God" begins his ministry at "age" 30.

• The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.

Contrary to popular belief, the ancients were not an ignorant and superstitious lot who actually believed their deities to be literal characters. Indeed, this slanderous propaganda has been part of the conspiracy to make the ancients appear as if they were truly the dark and dumb rabble that was in need of the "light of Jesus".

The reality is that the ancients were no less advanced in their morals and spiritual practices, and in many cases were far more advanced, than the Christians in their own supposed morality and ideology, which, in its very attempt at historicity, is in actuality a degradation of the ancient Mythos.

Indeed, unlike the "superior" Christians, the true intelligentsia amongst the ancients were well aware that their gods were astronomical and atmospheric in nature. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle surely knew that Zeus, the sky god father figure who migrated to Greece from India and/or Egypt, was never a real person, despite the fact that the Greeks have designated on Crete both a birth cave and a death cave of Zeus. In addition, all over the world are to be found sites where this god or that allegedly was born, walked, suffered, died, etc., a common and unremarkable occurrence that is not monopolized by, and did not originate with, Christianity.

Etymology Tells the Story

Zeus, aka "Zeus Pateras," who we now automatically believe to be a myth and not a historical figure, takes his name from the Indian version, "Dyaus Pitar." Dyaus Pitar in turn is related to the Egyptian "Ptah," and from both Pitar and Ptah comes the word "pater," or "father."

"Zeus" equals "Dyaus," which became "Deos," "Deus" and "Dios"--"God." "Zeus Pateras," like Dyaus Pitar, means, "God the Father," a very ancient concept that in no way originated with "Jesus" and Christianity. There is no question of Zeus being a historical character.

Dyaus Pitar becomes "Jupiter" in Roman mythology, and likewise is not representative of an actual, historical character. In Egyptian mythology, Ptah, the Father, is the unseen god-force, and the sun was viewed as Ptah's visible proxy who brings everlasting life to the earth; hence, the "son of God" is really the "sun of God."

Indeed, according to Hotema, the very name "Christ" comes from the Hindi word "Kris" (as in Krishna), which is a name for the sun.

Furthermore, since Horus was called "Iusa/Iao/Iesu" the "KRST," and Krishna/Christna was called "Jezeus," (?--sd) centuries before any Jewish character similarly named, it would be safe to assume that Jesus Christ is just a repeat of Horus and Krishna, among the rest.

According to Rev.Taylor, the title "Christ" in its Hebraic form meaning "Anointed" ("Masiah") was held by all kings of Israel, as well as being "so commonly assumed by all sorts of impostors, conjurers, and pretenders to supernatural communications, that the very claim to it is in the gospel itself considered as an indication of imposture..."

Hotema states that the name "Jesus Christ" was not formally adopted in its present form until after the first Council of Nicea, i.e., in 325 C.E.

In actuality, even the place names and the appellations of many other characters in the New Testament can be revealed to be Hebraicized renderings of the Egyptian texts.

As an example, in the fable of "Lazarus," the mummy raised from the dead by Jesus, the Christian copyists did not change his name much, "El-Azar-us" being the Egyptian mummy raised from the dead by Horus possibly 1,000 years or more before the Jewish version.80 This story is allegory for the sun reviving its old, dying self, or father, as in "El-Osiris." It is not a true story.

Horus's principal enemy--originally Horus's other face or "dark" aspect - was "Set" or "Sata," whence comes "Satan." Horus struggles with Set in the exact manner that Jesus battles with Satan, with 40 days in the wilderness, among other similarities. This is because this myth represents the triumph of light over dark, or the sun's return to relieve the terror of the night.

"Jerusalem" simply means "City of Peace," and the actual city in Israel was named after the holy city of peace in the Egyptian sacred texts that already existed at the time the city was founded. Likewise, "Bethany," site of the famous multiplying of the loaves, means "House of God," and is allegory for the "multiplication of the many out of the One." Any town of that designation was named for the allegorical place in the texts that existed before the town's foundation. The Egyptian predecessor and counterpart is "Bethanu."

The Book of Revelation is Egyptian and Zoroastrian

One can find certain allegorical place names such as "Jerusalem" and "Israel" in the Book of Revelation. Massey has stated that Revelation, rather than having been written by any apostle called John during the 1st Century C.E., is a very ancient text that dates to the beginning of this era of history, i.e. possibly as early as 4,000 years ago. Massey asserts that Revelation relates the Mithraic legend of Zarathustra/Zoroaster.

Hotema says of this mysterious book, which has baffled mankind for centuries: "It is expressed in terms of creative phenomena; its hero is not Jesus but the Sun of the Universe, its heroine is the Moon; and all its other characters are Planets, Stars and Constellations; while its stage-setting comprises the Sky, the Earth, the Rivers and the Sea." The common form of this text has been attributed by Churchward to Horus's scribe, Aan, whose name has been passed down to us as "John."

The word Israel itself, far from being a Jewish appellation, probably comes from the combination of three different reigning deities: Isis, the Earth Mother Goddess revered throughout the ancient world; Ra, the Egyptian sungod; and El, the Semitic deity passed down in form as Saturn. El was one of the earliest names for the god of the ancient Hebrews (whence Emmanu-El, Micha-El, Gabri-El, Samu-El, etc., and his worship is reflected in the fact that the Jews still consider Saturday as "God's Day."

Indeed, that the Christians worship on Sunday betrays the genuine origins of their god and godman. Their "savior" is actually the sun, which is the "Light of the world that every eye can see." The sun has been viewed consistently throughout history as the savior of mankind for reasons that are obvious. Without the sun, the planet would scarcely last one day. So important was the sun to the ancients that they composed a "Sun Book," or "Helio Biblia," which became the "Holy Bible."

The "Patriarchs" and "Saints" are the Gods of Other Cultures

When one studies mythmaking, one can readily discern and delineate a pattern that is repeated throughout history. Whenever an invading culture takes over its predecessors, it either vilifies the preceding deities or makes them into lesser gods, "patriarchs" or, in the case of Christianity, "saints."

This process is exemplified in the adoption of the Hindu god Brahma as the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. Another school of thought proposes that the patriarch Joshua was based on Horus as "Iusa," since the cult of Horus had migrated by this period to the Levant. In this theory, the cult of Joshua, which was situated in exactly the area where the Christ drama allegedly took place, then mutated into the Christian story, with Joshua becoming Jesus. As Robertson says, "The Book of Joshua leads us to think that he had several attributes of the Sun-god, and that, like Samson and Moses, he was an ancient deity reduced to human status."

Indeed, the legend of Moses, rather than being that of a historical Hebrew character, is found around the ancient Middle and Far East, with the character having different names and races, depending on the locale:

"Manou" is the Indian legislator; "Nemo the lawgiver," who brought down the tablets from the Mountain of God, hails from Babylon; "Mises" is found in Syria and Egypt, where also "Manes the lawgiver" takes the stage; "Minos" is the Cretan reformer; and the Ten Commandments are simply a repetition of the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and the Hindu Vedas, among others.

Like Moses, Krishna was placed by his mother in a reed boat and set adrift in a river to be discovered by another woman. (the author cites the story Mahabharata in her footnote, obviously mistaking Karna for Krishna. Incidentally, Karna was also the 'son of the Sun god'.--sd)

A century ago, Massey outlined, and Graham recently reiterated, that even the Exodus itself is not a historical event. That the historicity of the Exodus has been questioned is echoed by the lack of any archaeological record, as is reported in Biblical Archaeology Review ("BAR"), September/October 1994

Like many biblical characters, Noah is also a myth, long ago appropriated from the Egyptians, the Sumerians and others, as any sophisticated scholar could demonstrate, and yet we find all sorts of books--some even presumably "channeling" the "ultimate truth" from a mystical, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal being such as Jesus himself - prattling on about a genuine, historical Noah, his extraordinary adventures, and the "Great Flood!"

Additionally, the "Esther" of the Old Testament Book of Esther is a remake of the Goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Astoreth or Isis, from whom comes "Easter" and about whose long and ubiquitous reign little is said in "God's infallible Word."

Per Harwood (Mythology's Last Gods, 230), "Esther" is best transliterated "Ishtar" and "Mordechai" is "Mardukay." The Virgin Mother/Goddess/Queen of Heaven motif is found around the globe, long before the Christian era, with Isis, for instance, also being called "Mata-Meri" ("Mother Mary").

As Walker says, "Mari" was the "basic name of the Goddess known to the Chaldeans as Marratu, to the Jews as Marah, to the Persians as Mariham, to the Christians as Mary... Semites worshipped an androgynous combination of Goddess and God called Mari-El (Mary-God), corresponding to the Egyptian Meri-Ra, which combined the feminine principle of water with the masculine principle of the sun."

Even the Hebraic name of God, "Yahweh," was taken from the Egyptian "IAO."

In one of the most notorious of Christian deceptions, in order to convert followers of "Lord Buddha," the Church canonized him as "St. Josaphat," which represented a Christian corruption of the buddhistic title, "Bodhisat."

The "Disciples" are the Signs of the Zodiac

Moreover, it is no accident that there are 12 patriarchs and 12 disciples, 12 being the number of the astrological signs, or months. Indeed, like the 12 Herculean tasks and the 12 "helpers" of Horus, Jesus's 12 disciples are symbolic for the zodiacal signs and do not depict any literal figures who played out a drama upon the earth circa 30 C.E.

The disciples can be shown to have been an earlier deity/folkloric hero/constellation.

• Peter is easily revealed to be a mythological character,

• while Judas has been said to represent Scorpio, "the backbiter," the time of year when the sun's rays are weakening and the sun appears to be dying.

• James, "brother of Jesus" and "brother of the Lord," is equivalent to Amset, brother of Osiris and brother of the Lord.

• Massey says "Taht-Matiu was the scribe of the gods, and in Christian art Matthew is depicted as the scribe of the gods, with an angel standing near him, to dictate the gospel."

• Even the apostle Paul is a compilation of several characters: The Old Testament Saul, Apollonius of Tyana and the Greek demigod Orpheus.

Was Jesus an Essene Master?

As regards Jesus being an Essene according to "secret" Dead Sea Scrolls, even before the discovery of the scrolls, over the centuries there has been much speculation to this effect, but Massey skillfully argued that many of Jesus's presumed teachings were either in contradiction to or were non-existent in Essene philosophy.

The Essenes did not believe in corporeal resurrection, nor did they believe in a carnalized messiah. They did not accept the historicity of Jesus. They were not followers of the Hebrew Bible, or its prophets, or the concept of the original fall that must produce a savior. Massey further points out that the Essenes were teetotalers and ate to live rather than the other way around.

Compared to this, the assumed Essene Jesus appears to be a glutton and drunkard. Also, whereas according to Josephus the Essenes abhorred the swearing of oaths, Jesus was fond of "swearing unto" his disciples. While many Essenic doctrines are included in the New Testament, the list of disparities between the Dead Sea Scroll Essenes and their alleged great master Jesus goes on.

Qumran is Not an Essene Community

It should also be noted that there is another debate as to whether or not Qumran, the site traditionally associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, was an Essene community. In BAR, previously cited, it is reported that archaeological finds indicate Qumran was not an Essene community but was possibly a waystation for travelers and merchants crossing the Dead Sea. In BAR, it has also been hypothesized that the fervent tone and warrior-stance of some of the scrolls unearthed near Qumran belie any Essene origin and indicate a possible attribution to Jewish Zealots instead.

In 'Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls', Norman Golb makes a very good case that the Dead Sea Scrolls were not written by any Essene scribes but were a collection of tomes from various libraries that were secreted in caves throughout eastern Israel by Jews fleeing the Roman armies during the First Revolt of 70 A.D. Golb also hypothesizes that Qumran itself was a fortress, not a monastery. In any case, it is impossible to equate the "Teacher of Righteousness" found in any scrolls with Jesus Christ.

Was the New Testament Composed by Therapeuts?

In 1829 Rev.Taylor adeptly made the case that the entire Gospel story was already in existence long before the beginning of the Common Era and was probably composed by the monks at Alexandria called "Therapeuts" in Greek and "Essenes" in Egyptian, both names meaning "healers."

• This theory has stemmed in part from the statement of early church father Eusebius, who, in a rare moment of seeming honesty, "admitted...that the canonical Christian gospels and epistles were the ancient writings of the Essenes or Therapeutae reproduced in the name of Jesus."

• Taylor also opines that "the travelling Egyptian Therapeuts brought the whole story from India to their monasteries in Egypt, where, some time after the commencement of the Roman monarchy, it was transmuted in Christianity."

• In addition, Wheless evinces that one can find much of the fable of "Jesus Christ" in the Book of Enoch, which predated the supposed advent of the Jewish master by hundreds of years.

• According to Massey, it was the "pagan" Gnostics--who included members of the Essene/Therapeut and Nazarene brotherhoods, among others--who actually carried to Rome the esoteric (gnostic) texts containing the Mythos, upon which the numerous gospels, including the canonical four, were based.

• Wheless says, "Obviously, the Gospels and other New Testament booklets, written in Greek and quoting 300 times the Greek Septuagint, and several Greek Pagan authors, as Aratus, and Cleanthes, were written, not by illiterate Jewish peasants, but by Greek-speaking ex-Pagan Fathers and priests far from the Holy Land of the Jews."

• Mead averred, "We thus conclude that the autographs of our four Gospels were most probably written in Egypt, in the reign of Hadrian."

Conclusion

As Walker said, "Scholars' efforts to eliminate paganism from the Gospels in order to find a historical Jesus have proved as hopeless as searching for a core in an onion." The "gospel" story of Jesus is not a factual portrayal of a historical "master" who walked the earth 2,000 years ago. It is a myth built upon other myths and godmen, who in turn were personifications of the ubiquitous sungod mythos.

"The Christ of the gospels is in no sense an historical personage or a supreme model of humanity, a hero who strove, and suffered, and failed to save the world by his death. It is impossible to establish the existence of an historical character even as an impostor. For such an one the two witnesses, astronomical mythology and gnosticism, completely prove an alibi. The Christ is a popular lay-figure that never lived, and a lay-figure of Pagan origin; a lay-figure that was once the Ram and afterwards the Fish; a lay-figure that in human form was the portrait and image of a dozen different gods." --Gerald Massey

atanu
20 April 2008, 12:57 AM
Namaste,

The title of this thread is taking on an ironic aspect, with all due respect.

ZN/just saying

Namaste ZN,

Refuge of people and sages, the shining agni is made a man who is compelled to move home to canaan and he prostrates to yawheh (who himself he is) and assumes the name AbhrAm and then rules the world.

Many pages to reveal this story.

Regards

Om

sarabhanga
20 April 2008, 09:52 AM
Who will not agree that Sanatana dharma and Jew-Christian ways are very different?




The Western and Indian spiritual traditions as they exist now are quite different.




The Western and Indian spiritual traditions as they exist now are quite different.

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

All correspondences noted by me here on HDF have been based on scriptural considerations, and certainly not on the actions and views of European and American Christians two thousand years after their first and last fully enlightened guru passed away, and after his words have been translated, from Aramaic, into Greek, then into Latin, and then into old German and old English, and then into modern English, and then into all the languages of the world, in an elaborate, politically motivated game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

The nivRtti-mArga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire eSina community.

And modern Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul.

The nivRtti-mArga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire eSina community.

And modern Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul.

The nivRtti-mArga foundations of Christianity were substantially lost after the Roman destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and massacre of the entire eSina community.

And modern Christianity has developed from the lay teachings and apocalyptic visions of Saint Paul.




But perhaps the commonality of origin could help people see the universality of the spiritual quest and help build bridges across cultures in these difficult times.




But perhaps the commonality of origin could help people see the universality of the spiritual quest and help build bridges across cultures in these difficult times.


All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

All names and forms are taken by that indefinable essence of immortal existence, yet no name or form is sufficient for the unborn advaitam. That unnamed rudra is know only in samAdhi (not by name or form, but only by the indescribable experience of absolute identity), but its apparently diverse rudrAs are followed by the various theologies, each adhering to its own expression of the one name that is truly beyond all names.

All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

All names and forms are taken by that indefinable essence of immortal existence, yet no name or form is sufficient for the unborn advaitam. That unnamed rudra is know only in samAdhi (not by name or form, but only by the indescribable experience of absolute identity), but its apparently diverse rudrAs are followed by the various theologies, each adhering to its own expression of the one name that is truly beyond all names.

All monotheistic religions must be considering exactly the same ultimate deity. And all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all Hindus, understand that in truth there is only one God-head, which in each case must be one and the same. Some see further than others, into finer levels of abstraction, but all are looking towards exactly the same aim (as various spokes leading back to the same hub that drives them all).

All names and forms are taken by that indefinable essence of immortal existence, yet no name or form is sufficient for the unborn advaitam. That unnamed rudra is know only in samAdhi (not by name or form, but only by the indescribable experience of absolute identity), but its apparently diverse rudrAs are followed by the various theologies, each adhering to its own expression of the one name that is truly beyond all names.

Despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.

Despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.

Despite the fact that no Evangelical Christian might currently agree, I don’t see any harm in providing some reasoned alternative views.

In true advaitam, no separation is accepted and all differences are logically reconciled without emotional attachment. In the realm of dvaitam, however, divisions and differences are taken personally, and that is indeed the source of all suffering in the world.


Thanks for providing this reference, which essentially confirms my suggestion and satisfies William Jones’ request for a convincing argument in favor of transmission from India via Egyptian conduits. :)

From Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rgveda by Subhash Kak (17 July, 2003) ~ http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf


To see the continuity with the Rgveda it may be noted that Yahvah is a Vedic epithet associated with movement, activity, heaven and earth; it means the sacrificer and Agni, the chief terrestrial god. Yahvah as an epithet occurs 21 times in the Rgveda. It may be compared to Sivah, an epithet for auspiciousness in the Rgveda that later is applied regularly to Rudra.

Note that Biblical Yahweh is also spelt Yehweh or Yahvah; in Hebrew [script] only the consonants YHWH are used. For its Indic usage: yahva occurs in RV 10.110; yahvah in RV 3.1, 3.5, 4.5, 4.7, 4.58, 5.1, 7.6, 7.8, 9.75, and 10.11; yahvam in RV 1.36; 3.3; 4.5; 5.16; 8.13; 10.92; yahvasya in RV 3.2 and 3.28.

Scholars see in Akhenaten the beginning of the Judaic monotheistic tradition. Our examination of the facts shows that it might, equally plausibly, be a retelling of the improperly understood ideas, or ideas modified by the prevailing ones in their new land, in the journey toWest Asia by the Mitannis. We are basing our conclusions not only on the connection to the Mitanni through Akhenaten’s wife but also on the pervasiveness of the Vedic concepts in West Asia as in the notion of 33 gods, the use of the disk to represent the sun exactly as is done in Vedic ritual, and the conception of the sun who superintends personal destiny which is perhaps the central idea of Vedic thought. We have also alluded to the similarity between the Vedic Yahvah and the Hebrew Yahweh and between other gods. These parallels are significant enough to demand a thorough investigation of the 2nd millennium BC connections between India and the West. The interaction between the Indic (Mitanni and other groups) and the Egyptian and West Asian can help us in understanding the evolution of the Western religions. It may also help us understand the parallels between Indic and Babylonian and Greek sciences.

Within the Indo-Iranian world, the memory of India’s interaction with Egypt persisted. In Chapter 48 of his book on India written in 1030, al-Biruni, speaking of chariots of war, mentions the Greek claim that they were the first to use them and insists they are wrong because “they were already invented by Aphrodisios the Hindu, when he ruled over Egypt, about 900 years after the deluge”. This reference cannot be taken to be literally true but it is, nevertheless, significant. It preserves the memory of a “Hindu” (Indic-inspired) king of Egypt prior to the Greek state. The reference to the chariots of war of this king (Akhenaten) seems to remember the foreigner warlords Hyskos who ruled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period just before the New Kingdom to which Akhenaten belonged.

Following the suggestion that kavi abhram was an A&#209;girasa, the most likely candidate is surely yavakrIta (“purchased with barley”) bhAradvAja, whose story is recorded in the mahAbhAratam (here related, after Thaneswar Sarmah’s summary of the legend):

The tapasvin bharavAja and the vedi raibhya (kAshyapa) were friends, although, while raibhya and his sons were honored by the people, the bhAradvAja and his son yavakrIta were not.

yavakrIta was distressed by this, and began to perform severe austerities in order to attain the wisdom of the vedAs. He tormented his body sitting beside a blazing fire, and lord indra came to yavakrIta to ask him why he did so.

yavakrIta explained that it takes a long time to learn the veda from a guru, and indra advised him that he should nevertheless study the veda properly, with the instruction of a guru.

But yavakrIta carried on regardless, and indra returned to insist that he stop, advising that the veda could not be gained by such methods, and that a true understanding of the veda could only be attained by the effort of actually learning the veda from a guru, in which case the wisdom would surely dawn.

But yavakrIta stubbornly determined that he would continue with even more extreme austerities, and that if his wish was not granted he would sacrifice himself into the fire.

So indra disguised himself as a hundred year old brahmin, and busied his wasted frame in constructing a bridge of sand over the river. yavakrIta laughed at his efforts, asking why he was exerting himself so much at his age. indra replied that the people needed a bridge, without which it was difficult to cross the river, and yavakrIta told him that his task was an impossibility and that he should therefore give it up as a fruitless pursuit.

indra suggested that his futile bridge-building was hardly different from yavakrIta’s own activities, and yavakrIta immediately recognized the old man as lord indra in disguise, and prayed for his wish to be granted. indra fulfilled his request, granting that the vedAs would be revealed to both yavakrIta and his father, and yavakrIta went home to inform his father of the boon.

bharadvAja, however, warned yavakrIta that the gift would make him conceited, and eventually lead to his death, and also that he should have no contact with the raibhya family. But yavakrIta did go to raibhya’s hermitage, having intercourse with raibhya’s daughter, which angered raibhya so much that he cut off a portion of his matted lock and burnt it in the fire.

A rAkshasa was born from the fire, and raibhya commanded it to slay yavakrIta. The demon chased yavakrIta, who ran to a pond, which dried up before his eyes. He ran along the river and it also dried up. So he then ran to his father’s hall of sacrifice, where the blind shUdra gatekeeper blocked his way. And yavakrIta, finding no shelter, was instantly slain by the rAkshasa, who then returned to raibhya.

When bharadvAja heard what had happened to his son yavakrIta, he cursed raibhya that he would killed by own his elder son; then he cremated his son’s body, and committed himself into the fire.

It came to pass, that raibhya was accidentally slain by his own son, parAvasu. The younger son, arvAvasu, won the favor of the gods, and the elder parAvasu was discarded.

arvAvasu was granted a boon, and he asked that his father raibhya and bharadvAja and yavakrIta would all be resurrected, and that his brother’s sin of killing a brahmin be removed.

The resurrected yavakrIta, however, immediately complained to the gods: “I read the brAhmaNa, and observed vows according to prescribed rules. How could raibhya do harm to me, a scholar of the veda?”

The gods replied: “O yavakrIta, do not repeat what you have just now said. You have studied the veda without the help of a guru. Because of this, you have undergone great unhappiness. It is best to get the knowledge of the brahman in due course, with great effort.” And the gods departed.

atanu
20 April 2008, 11:30 AM
=
Thanks for providing this reference, which essentially confirms my suggestion and satisfies William Jones’ request for a convincing argument in favor of transmission from India via Egyptian conduits. :)

From Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rgveda by Subhash Kak (17 July, 2003) ~ http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf

Following the suggestion that kavi abhram was an A&#209;girasa, --

Namaste Sarabhanga,

You are welcome. Continue with your exposition and please acknowledge what is already known. Since I am not personally interested in speculations, I will not interfere at all, except when something appears to go against sanatana dharma ideals as when your conclusions imply that Sarasvati dried up and thus Kavi (agni) was compelled to move. Kavi Agni-Rudra is Shiv from heaven, come here to protect and teach and He is the refuge of all. He is not the one who will be compelled. What I understand of the matter, I have recorded in the Shiva thread.


If you are inclined you may wish to consider the following:

A/yaˆR iv/za< ga/turœ @?it/ &#224; ydœ Aan?fœ id/vae ANta?n! ,
k/ivrœ A/&#230;< dI*a?n> . 10 -020 -04

4. He comes to us as a noble path for men when he travels to the ends of heaven; he is the seer and he lights up the sky. [[Or, the cloud.]] (Aurobindo)

10.020.04 The refuge of the people, the mover, who, when he moves, penetrates to the ends of the sky; the sage illumining the firmament. (Saraswati project).

Kavi is Noun, name of Seer Agni. He lights up the sky or the cloud (water bearer A/&#230; <).

Kavi is one and A/&#230; <another. And not a man possibly.
In this verse atleast.
Om

sarabhanga
21 April 2008, 09:37 PM
I erred in understanding because putting Sanskrit fonts into English causes some confusion.

After numerous discussions with you about the transliteration system that I have been following in almost every post, and whole threads dedicated to explaining the same, which is quite generally used in all electronic media, I am surprised that this standard transcription method still causes confusion.




kavi is one and abhram another.

When the kavi is truly illuminating the cloud, there is no difference between the one and the other, for the sage has become Self-enlightened.

kavi is “gifted with insight, intelligent, knowing, enlightened, wise, sensible, prudent, skilful, or cunning”.

And a kavi is “a thinker, an intelligent man, a man of understanding, a leader, a wise man, a sage, a seer, a singer, a bard, a poet, or a prophet”.

agni especially claims the title of kavi, but it is also a name for indra, for soma, and for the soma priest.

kavi indicates “the ancient patriarchs (as spirits surrounding the sun), the Rbhavas (as skilful in contrivance), or pUSan (as leader or guide)”.

And, dwelling in the solar sphere, the Rbhavas are “clever, skilful, inventive, or prudent”, being “artists, smiths, carriage-builders, etc.”, and “performing wonderful works”. They are supposed to remain idle for the twelve intercalary days of the winter solstice every year, and they are rivals of tvaSTR (“the divine carpenter”), who set them the task of making four cups from the one perfect cup he offered them. And on the successful completion of their quest, the Rbhavas were received into heaven by the gods.

And Rbhus is “an arrow” (cf. iSus ~ “an arrow or ray of light”)

kavi is another name for shukrAcArya, and the kavi is “the gates of the sacrificial enclosure” (cf. the death of yavakrIta, at his father’s kavi)

And vAlmIki is perhaps the most famous kavi.

And a kavI is “the reins” or “a ladle” (cf. the sacrificial juhU)

So kavi abhram, in an equivalent feminine form, is the juhU abhrAmA, whose sole contribution to the Rgveda repeatedly praises “Abrahma”.

abhram actually appears just twice in the whole Rgveda (in maNDala X, also which includes juhU brahmajAyA’s hymn).

And, if there is a relationship between the vaidika abhram and the biblical Abram, one would expect to find connections with the biblical story in the context of those rare indications in the Rgveda.

And so, sUkta X.xx was considered, both in the saMhitApATha and in an English translation:



bhadraM no api vAtaya manaH || 10.20.1 ||

Send unto us a good and happy mind.

agnimILe bhujAM yaviSThaM shAsA mitraM durdharItum |
yasya dharmansvarenIH saparyanti mAturUdhaH || 10.20.2 ||

I worship agni, youthfullest of gods, resistless, friend of laws;
Under whose guard and heavenly light the spotted seek the mother’s breast:

yamAsA kRpanILambhAsAketuM vardhayanti |
bhrAjate shreNidan || 10.20.3 ||

Whom with their mouth they magnify, bannered with flame and homed in light.
He glitters with his row of teeth.

aryo vishAM gAtureti pra yadAnaDdivo antAn |
kavirabhraM dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||

Kind, furtherer of men, he comes, when he hath reached the ends of heaven,
Sage, giving splendour to the clouds.

juSaddhavyA mAnuSasyordhvastasthAvRbhvA yaj&#241;e |
minvansadma pura eti || 10.20.5 ||

To taste man’s offerings, he, the strong, hath risen erect at sacrifice:
Fixing his dwelling he proceeds.

sa hi kshemo haviryaj&#241;aH shruSTIdasya gAtureti |
agniM devA vAshImantam || 10.20.6 ||

Here are oblation, worship, rest: rapidly comes his furtherance.
To sword-armed agni come the gods.

yaj&#241;AsAhaM duva iSe’gnimpUrvasya shevasya |
adreH sUnumAyumAhuH || 10.20.7 ||

With service for chief bliss I seek the lord of sacrifice, agni, whom
They call the living, son of cloud.

naro ye ke cAsmadA vishvette vAma A syuH |
agniM haviSA vardhantaH || 10.20.8 ||

Blest evermore be all the men who come from us, who magnify
Agni with sacrificial gifts.

kRSNaH shveto’ruSo yAmo asya bradhna Rjra uta shoNo yashasvAn |
hiraNyarUpaM janitA jajAna || 10.20.9 ||

The path he treads is black and white and red, and striped, and brown, crimson, and glorious.
His sire begat him bright with hues of gold.

evA te agne vimado manISAmUrjo napAdamRtebhiH sajoSaaH |
gira A vakshatsumatIriyAna iSamUrjaM sukshitiM vishvamAbhAH || 10.20.10 ||

Thus with his thoughts, O son of strength, O agni, hath vimada, accordant with the immortals,
Offered thee hymns, soliciting thy favour ~ thou hast brought all food, strength, a prosperous dwelling.

And then the line explicitly mentioning abhram was repeated in padapATha:

aryaH vishAm gAtuH eti pra yat AnaT divaH antAn |
kaviH abhram dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||
juSat havyA mAnuSasya UrdhvaH tasthau RbhvA yaj&#241;e |
minvan sadma puraH eti || 10.20.5 ||
And the “coincidence” of abhram (which appears only twice in all of the Rgveda’s 1028 hymns) being found in direct connection with the title kavi (which specifically indicates a prophet), and also associated with clear indications of biblical themes, is surely significant.

The saMhitApATha

aryovishAM gAturetiprayadAnaDdivo antAn |
kavirabhraM dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||

is derived from the padapATha

aryaH vishAm gAtuH eti pra yat AnaT divaH antAn |
kaviH abhram dIdyAnaH || 10.20.4 ||
Aurobindo’s translation ~ “he is the seer and he lights up the sky”

Saraswati Project’s translation ~ “the sage illumining the firmament”.

Griffith’s translation ~ “sage giving splendour to the clouds”




AbrAham, which you magically derive from abhram …




And abhram (“the cloud”) piled up his spiritual thunder-head so high that (after 99 years of devotion to yahvaH) he became Abrahma (“up to or including brahman”).

… your story that Agni (who himself is abhram and yahvaH) became AbrhAm by grace of yahvaH

Abram (or AbrahAm) and Abrahma have no relation.

I have not used any of the terms ‘AbrAham’ or ‘AbrhAm’ or ‘AbrahAm’, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

And, as previously explained, it was ‘Yahweh’ who decreed that ‘Abram’ (abhram) be known as ‘Abraham’ (Abrahma).




Funny that you do not give the purports.

Marking Abrahma in unparsed sentences with red fonts serves what purpose, if not to mis-lead?

An English translation has already been given, along with the saMhitApATha and the correspondences that led me to quote sUkta 10.109 in the first place!

And it is not at all funny that you have neglected to notice, but it is very typical.



yahva = jihva

“the tongue, especially the tongue or tongues of agni (saptajihva) or the seven winds, the tongue of a balance, or speech”
jihvA = juhU

“a tongue (especially of agni), a flame, personified as the goddess of speech” or “a curved wooden ladle for pouring ghee into the sacrificial fire”
And there is one hymn composed by RSi juhU brahmajAyA ~ also known as UrdhvanAbhAbrAhmA ~ to the vishvedevA:


Rigveda 10.109
te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilo mAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapa ugro mayobhUrApo devIH prathamajA Rtena || 1 ||

These first, the boundless sea, and mAtarishvA, fierce-glowing fire, the strong, the bliss-bestower.
And heavenly floods, first-born by holy order, exclaimed against the outrage on a brAhmaNa.

somo rAjA prathamo brahmajAyAmpunaH prAyachadahRNIyamAnaH |
anvartitA varuNo mitra AsIdagnirhotA hastagRhyA ninAya || 2 ||

King soma first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of the brAhmaNa’s consort.
Mitra and varuNa were the inviters: agni as hotA; took her hand and led her.

hastenaiva grAhya AdhirasyAbrahmajAyeyamiti cedavocan |
na dUtAya prahye tastha eSA tathA rASTraM gupitaM kshatriyasya || 3 ||

The man, her pledge, must by her hand be taken when they have cried, she is a brAhmaNa’s consort.
She stayed not for a herald to conduct her: thus is the kingdom of a ruler guarded.

devA etasyAmavadanta pUrve saptaRSayastapase ye niSeduH |
bhImA jAyAbrAhmaNasyopanItA durdhAM dadhAti parame vyoman || 4 ||

Thus spake of her those gods of old, seven RSayas who sate them down to their austere devotion:
Dire is a brAhmaNa’s wife led home by others: in the supremest heaven she plants confusion.

brahmacArI carati veviSadviSaH sa devAnAmbhavatyekama&#209;gam |
tena jAyAmanvavindadbRhaspatiH somena nItAM juhvaM na devAH || 5 ||

The brahmacArI goes engaged in duty: he is a member of the gods’ own body.
Through him bRhaspati obtained his consort, as the gods gained the ladle brought by soma.

punarvai devA adaduH punar manuSyA uta |
rAjAnaH satyaM kRNvAnAbrahmajAyAmpunardaduH || 6 ||

So then the gods restored her, so men gave the woman back again.
The kings who kept their promises restored the brAhmaNa’s wedded wife,

punardAyabrahmajAyAM kRtvI devairnikilbiSam |
UrjampRthivyA bhaktvAyorugAyamupAsate || 7 ||

Having restored the brAhmaNa’s wife, and freed them, with gods’ aid, from sin,
They shared the fullness of the earth, and won themselves extended sway.

And then I repeated the saMhitApATha, without any translation (since it had already been given, and it was superfluous to the particular point I was making), this time to emphasize the repetitive invocation of Abrahma (‘Abraham’) that easily arises from the hymn, which was fitting composed by a juhU.

There has been NO attempt to mislead, but only repeated attempts to explain the divergence of yudhika dharma from sanAtana dharma.




Sarayu has been freshly introduced to rhyme with Sarah and give the story more an appearance of credence.

Not at all! From the very first mention of Sarai (later Sarah) in association the flow and region of sarasvatI, the fact of sarayu’s sisterhood among the sapta sarasvatI was assumed.




You cannot prove your hypothesis “And abhram ---became Abrahma (“up to or including brahman”).”

The hypothesis that abhram became Abrahma comes directly from Genesis, and the passage has already been given. And the meanings come straight from saMskRtam.

What is so difficult to understand in the idea of a wandering wisp of cloud (abhram, as ‘Abram’) rising up to the heavens and becoming a fertile rain-bearing cloud (Abrahma, as ‘Abraham’), which accounts for the significant legend of ‘Abram’ becoming ‘Abraham’, and which (as previously explained) represents the dramatic moment of Judaism’s deviation from the vaidika Hindu fold?




I did not ignore anything. I just wanted to reduce the voluminous written material.

Ha!




YHWH does not contain any vowel and anything can be inserted to derive any sound.
Surely the vowels are not known that you can claim correspondence in vowels.
The Fact is that YHWH lacks any vowel. You can insert anything you wish.

Whatever speculations Christians may have about a myriad of possible pronunciations, they have no bearing on the original usage.

The tetragrammaton has four consonants and two vowels, and any suggested third vowel is hypothetical. The Hebrew pronunciation is “yahweh” (or perhaps “yehwah”), and yahva is surely the equivalent saMskRta term (yahvaH in the masculine nominative singular case, and yahvIH in the feminine nominative plural case). Although the cognate term jihvaH provides additional possibilities ~ and importantly the verb hve, which means “to call or invoke”, giving juhUmasi, juhAva, juhuvuH, juhve, juhuve, johavIti, johuvanta, johuvat, and johuvAna, directly from its various grammatical cases.

The root elements are ya and hva, which have already been discussed.




yahvIh as you use is not correct as far as I know.

I have not used yahvIh at all, but rather yahvIH, which you will find in the Rgveda exactly as I have repeatedly quoted in this thread.



yahvIH appears eleven times, in eight hymns, but only once as yahvIH Rtasya mAtaraH, in trita Aptya’s hymn to soma (9.33).

The compound sapta yahvIH appears five times, in four hymns (three to agni and one to soma).

And there are single instances of five other combinations ~ apaH yahvIH (to indra), divaH yahvIH (to agni), and pariyanti yahvIH and paridIyanti yahvIH (to agni apAMnapAt, “grandson of the waters”), and vaishvAnarAyanRtamAya yahvIH (to agni vaishvAnara).

abhi brahmIH anUSata yahvIH Rtasya mAtaraH |
marmRjyante divaH shishum || 9.33.5 ||

agnim vishvAH abhi pRkshaH sacante samudram na sravataH sapta yahvIH |
na jAmibhiH vi cikite vayaH naH vidAH deveSu pramatim cikitvAn || 1.71.7 ||
svAdhyaH divaH A sapta yahvIH rAyaH duraH vi Rtaj&#241;AH ajAnan |
vidat gavyam saramA dRLham Urvam yena nu kam mAnuSI bhojate viT || 1.72.8 ||

avardhayan subhagam sapta yahvIH shvetam jaj&#241;Anam aruSam mahitvA |
shishum na jAtam abhi AruH ashvAH devAsaH agnim janiman vapuSyan || 3.1.4 ||
vavrAja sIm anadatIH adabdhAH divaH yahvIH avasAnAH anagnAH |
sanAH atra yuvatayaH sayonIH ekam garbham dadhire sapta vANIH || 3.1.6 ||
pituH cit Udhar januSA viveda vi asya dhArAH asRjat vi dhenAH |
guhA carantam sakhibhiH shivebhiH divaH yahvIbhiH na guhA babhUva || 3.1.9 ||

yam sIm akRNvan tamase vipRce dhruvakshemAH anavasyantaH artham |
tam sUryam haritaH sapta yahvIH spasham vishvasya jagataH vahanti || 4.13.3 ||

tava tye soma pavamAna niNye vishve devAH trayaH ekAdashAsaH |
dasha svadhAbhiH adhi sAno avye mRjanti tvA nadyaH sapta yahvIH || 9.92.4 ||

anu yat Im marutaH mandasAnam Arcan indram papivAMsam sutasya |
A adatta vajram abhi yat ahim han apaH yahvIH asRjat sartavai u || 5.29.2 ||

bRhatI iva sUnave rodasI giraH hotA manuSyaH na dakshaH |
svarvate satyashuSmAya pUrvIH vaishvAnarAya nRtamAya yahvIH || 1.59.4 ||

apAm napAt A hi asthAt upastham jihmAnAm UrdhvaH vidyutam vasAnaH |
tasya jyeSTham mahimAnam vahantIH hiraNyavarNAH pari yanti yahvIH || 2.35.9 ||
asmin pade parame tasthivAMsam adhvasmabhiH vishvahA dIdivAMsam |
ApaH naptre ghRtam annam vahantIH svayam atkaiH pari dIyanti yahvIH || 2.35.14 ||





In fact your hints that Sarasvati (Vac) dried up and thus Abhram was compelled to move has grave implications – Sarasvati will now perhaps be found in Old and New Testaments and that the Vedas are incomplete after the 10th Book? Ha.

I will not interfere at all, except when something appears to go against sanatana dharma ideals as when your conclusions imply that Sarasvati dried up.

The Rgveda’s ideal kavi abhram is lord indra, but simply because one RSi’s family (bhAradvAja yavakrIta), whose patriarch was (for them) indra personified, departed from the sarasvatI region (which certainly did dry up, with the sarasvatI river disappearing altogether after about 1800 BC) with their prajApati’s shakti dried up, and (as recalled in the legend of yavakrIta) conjured up their own interpretation of the veda without the aid of a guru’s instruction, that does not mean that sarasvatI herself was ever lost. Grave implications? Ha.




To me Abraham cognates with Abrahmavid (ignorant of Brahman) and not to abhram-agni. Very little of teaching of Isha Upanishad can be found to have seeped in Judea-Christianity-Islam. That can be due to general rajasic guna or due inadequate teaching. I find that in none of these exoteric religious denominations, enquiry is encouraged. No one is encouraged to enquire into the nature of Jiva and nature of self.

This shows nothing more than your own ignorance of the esoteric traditions of the Kabbalah, and the Gnostics, and the Sufis, etc. etc.




The absence of either yahvI or yahva from satarudriya as name of God. Would you say that vedic sages forgot to put Yahweh in there?

Your assertion: “In the Rgveda, God is yahvIH (among other names)”, would imply that sages of Yajur Veda forgot to put yahvIH and yahvAh as God’s name.

Why Satarudriya ignores various forms of yahva?


yahva appears in only 3&#37; of the Rgveda’s hymns, virtually disappearing altogether in post-vedic scripture. And while yahva is applied as an adjective to agni or indra, the feminine yahvI is appropriate to the shakti of rudra (rodasI).

narAH = iLAH = yahvIH
nArAyaNa = ila = yeSu

bRMhan = brahma = yahvI = nara
abRMham = Abrahma = yeSu = nArAyaNa

yahva = agni
sapta juhU = sapta jihva

nArAyaNa = rAjA kRSTInAm
nAra = pa&#241;ca kRSTayas




The whole story here hinges only on the assumption that kavi abhram is a man abram who was compelled to move. This cannot be a valid assumption as this has no evidence in Rig Veda itself.

Since the supposed migration happened long after the Rgveda was composed, why should there necessarily be an explicit prophesy of the event? But since abhram is “a cloud” and his consort sarayu is “the wind”, migration is only to be expected!




Many coerced similarities will be found (as already Terah has been indicated).

When the other wanderers are named “cloud” and “wind”, surely their patriarch (who wanders with them) is very likely to be a personification of the sun.




Please acknowledge what is already known.

Such as ? :headscratch:

sarabhanga
22 April 2008, 05:38 AM
From Bal Gangadhar Tilak ~ “Vedic chronology and Vedanga Jyotish” (1925)

Jehovah is undoubtedly the same as the Chaldean Yahve.

The word Yahu, Yahva, Yahvat, and the feminine form Yahvi, Yahvati occur several times in the Rigveda: and Grassmann derives them from the root Yah = to hasten, or to drive quickly. The Nighantu also tells us that the word Yaha means water, or strength; while the adjective Yahva means ‘great’. Yahva in this sense is applied in the Rigveda to Soma, to Agni, and to Indra.

Moses may have borrowed it from the Chaldeans, yet the Chaldean tongue, in which various other cognate forms of the word are wanting, cannot claim it to be originally its own.
And from Thomas Tyler ~ “Religious Systems of the World” (1902)

[Jehovah] most probably came to the Hebrews through traffic with the Indians by way of Chaldea and the Persian Gulf.

atanu
22 April 2008, 07:30 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga,

I thought mistakenly that I was into a serious discussion.



kavi is “gifted with insight, intelligent, knowing, enlightened, wise, sensible, prudent, skilful, or cunning”.
--So kavi abhram, in an equivalent feminine form, is the juhU abhrAmA, whose sole contribution to the Rgveda repeatedly praises “Abrahma”.

Aurobindo’s translation ~ “he is the seer and he lights up the sky”

Saraswati Project’s translation ~ “the sage illumining the firmament”.

Griffith’s translation ~ “sage giving splendour to the clouds”

It is clear that Kavi is Agni who illuminates the firmament. Kavi abhram is not one person.





An English translation has already been given, along with the saMhitApATha and the correspondences that led me to quote sUkta 10.109 in the first place!

And it is not at all funny that you have neglected to notice, but it is very typical.
And then I repeated the saMhitApATha, without any translation (since it had already been given, and it was superfluous to the particular point I was making), this time to emphasize the repetitive invocation of Abrahma (‘Abraham’) that easily arises from the hymn, which was fitting composed by a juhU.



That is true. And you highlighted Abrahma in red as below (with what purpose I do not know):

Rgveda 10.109
te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilomAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapaugromayobhUrApodevIH prathamajARtena || 1 ||


whereas the verse says 'prathamA brahma' as below.

te =vdn! àw/ma ä?üikiLb/;e =?kªpar> sil/lae ma?t/irña? ,
vI/¦uh?ra/s! tp? %/¢ae m?yae/-Urœ Aapae? de/vI> à?wm/ja \/ten? . 10- 109- 01

-------------------------

I do not know whether आब्रह्म Abrahma can be derived from abhram. (h and a get interchanged). I do not know whether AbrAhAm and Abrahma (meaning upto or including Brahma) can be related? Rest is fine, your stories are nice. Carry on please.



By Saidevo
Namaste Znanna.



Originally Posted by Znanna http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=22093#post22093)
Namaste,

The title of this thread is taking on an ironic aspect, with all due respect.

ZN/just saying

Yes, I can agree with you on that. The title could now be "Extrapolated Christianity--from What Ends?"

All religions pollute the Absolute Truth, the Abrahamic religions contributing the most. Therefore the title could as well be: "Extra-polluted Christianity--from What Ends?"



Pranam and Bye.

atanu
22 April 2008, 07:55 AM
From Sarabhanga


Originally Posted by Atanu

Please acknowledge what is already known.
Such as ? http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/mhtml:file://C:\Users\Atanu\Desktop\yahvah\Extrapolating Christianity--to What End - Page 4 - Hindu Dharma Forums.mht!http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/images/smilies/headscratch.gif



Namaste Atanu,
---
And where is the origin of YHV from vedic Sanskrit previously known? I have searched for explanations of the term and can find no published suggestion of a Sanskrit origin ~ which, as mentioned, provides the same syllables, used with the same meanings, recurring in multiple hymns composed before the advent of Judaism.
---

Subhas Kak's reference has been shown. Bye.

Om

sarabhanga
23 April 2008, 04:47 AM
Engaging in such so-called historical fact finding mission is actually forgetting the whole fact.
Historical facts come and go with coming and going of particular consciousness.

I am not personally interested in speculations.

There is no need to prove or dis-prove anything.

“I beg leave to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches.”
Indeed, exactly what I feel.

One with a a-priori set conclusion can prove anything, through “conjectural etymology”.

Names in themselves are mere sequence of syllables and they mean nothing.

In fact Yahvah is not a name at all as abhram is not a name.

The Fact is that YHWH lacks any vowel. You can insert anything you wish.

I am sure that many coerced similarities will be found.

Names in themselves are mere sequence of syllables and they mean nothing.

Abram and Abrahma have no relation, howsoever much you try to cognate these two.

The pertinent point is that the divergence is due to predominance of rajasic gunas in West where suppression of diversity and despotic dictatorial tendencies domiinate.

Only discontented marauders predominate wherever Judea-Christianity-Islam predominate.

Thank god that you are protected from a future discomfiture when you would show Juhu Brahmajaayaa as husband of Saraswati.

Very typical: Difficulty in saying a simple “I erred”.

yahvIh as you use is not correct.

And there is another story in the cooking.




I thought mistakenly that I was into a serious discussion.

Namaste Atanu,

If your comments so far in this thread are to be taken seriously, then there is little possibility of a serious discussion on this subject.






I repeated the saMhitApATha, without any translation (since it had already been given, and it was superfluous to the particular point I was making), this time to emphasize the repetitive invocation of Abrahma (‘Abraham’) that easily arises from the hymn, which was fitting composed by a juhU.

And you highlighted Abrahma in red as below (with what purpose I do not know):

Rgveda 10.109
te’vadanprathamAbrahmakilbiSe’kUpAraH salilomAtarishvA |
vILuharAstapaugromayobhUrApodevIH prathamajARtena || 1 ||

whereas the verse says ‘prathamA brahma’.

I have just explained the purpose, and you have just quoted it back me, so I cannot fathom how the purpose of my highlighting of Abrahma remains unknown to you.



A kavI is “the reins” or “a ladle” (cf. the sacrificial juhU).

So kavi abhram, in an equivalent feminine form, is the juhU abhrAmA, whose sole contribution to the Rgveda repeatedly praises “Abrahma”.

abhram actually appears just twice in the whole Rgveda (in maNDala X, also which includes juhU brahmajAyA’s hymn).

And, if there is a relationship between the vaidika abhram and the biblical Abram, one would expect to find connections with the biblical story in the context of those rare indications in the Rgveda.

And so, sUkta X.xx was considered.

The “coincidence” of abhram (which appears only twice in all of the Rgveda’s 1028 hymns) being found in direct connection with the title kavi (which specifically indicates a prophet), and also associated with clear indications of biblical themes, is surely significant.

I repeated the saMhitApATha, without any translation (since it had already been given, and it was superfluous to the particular point I was making), this time to emphasize the repetitive invocation of Abrahma (‘Abraham’) that easily arises from the hymn, which was fitting composed by a juhU.

There has been NO attempt to mislead, but only repeated attempts to explain the divergence of yudhika dharma from sanAtana dharma.

Perhaps you do not understand that the saMhitApATha runs in a continuous flow, and the actual word elements are only known from the padapATha, which was traditionally learned only from a guru.

So for one such as ya(h)vakrI(S)t, who received the veda without proper instruction from a guru (i.e. without knowing the padapATha and the process of saMdhi that relates the two), the true meaning remains unknown ~ and the original saMskRtam may then be reinterpreted in a variety of yudhika (“contending”) apabhraMsha (“ungrammatical”) ways. But there is of course a grain of truth in the subsequent “revelations”, since they arise directly from the absolute truth of the original saMhitApATha (which represents the uninterrupted flow of sarasvatI herself ~ the sapta yahvIH exactly as recalled by the sapta RSayaH).

sarabhanga
23 April 2008, 10:41 AM
So that yahvaH or yahvIH (yahweh) and iLAH (allah) are almost identical terms ~ with the Rgveda as the primary source for all monotheistic religions.

The above connection between Yahweh and yahvaH is essence of what you are saying. And that is all. Yet this is known and it does not predict coming of Christ etc.

Namaste Atanu,

Having spent very much time trying to explain (apparently without much success) that the Bible is essentially derived from Hindu scriptural sources, I had assumed that the identity of the Hebrew God Yahweh (which Christians generally regard as identical with their own Christ, and which Jesus himself certainly worshipped) with the vaidika Hindu yahvaH (masculine singular) and yahvIH (feminine plural) was not widely known ~ for if it was known then I am sure that the proposition of an intrinsic relationship between the Bible and the Veda would not have caused so much disagreement.

And, since I have been concentrating on explaining my own understanding, I had not bothered to check what others might have said on the same matter. But your comment prompted me to check in some standard references and to try an internet search for a few terms. And in this brief search, I saw no mention of a Sanskrit origin for Yahweh.

So I simply questioned whereabouts this knowledge was known ~ perhaps you (or someone else) already knew the answer. And I left it at that, assuming that the correlation was to striking not to have been previously noticed, but having no idea where it might have been published (very likely first mentioned by some 19th century academic).



9th April

The term yahva disappears from regular use in Sanskrit after the Rgveda, which presumably relates to the establishment of Judaism, which fixed the principle name of its conception of God as yahvIH or yahweh, making later use of the term in its original context as a familiar appellation for agni, soma, or indra, and as an alternative for mahat (“greatness”, “the almighty”), problematic.

There are many proper names in the Old Testament affixed with yhv (yeho- or -yahu), and yhvh is the very name of God, which is known from inscriptions dated c. 830 BC.

The Hebrew derivation of yhv is unclear, and scholars have suggested that it may have a non-Israelite origin, with some seeking meanings in Aramaic or Arabic or Egyptian ~ although it appears that no one has considered Sanskrit sources, where the same term is found with exactly the connotations appropriate to the biblical usage.

From ‘The Oxford Companion to the Bible’:

The name yahweh looks like the third-person singular of the verb hāwā, a rare alternative to the usual hāyā, “to be”. The “a” vowel suggests a causative theme of the verb (“he causes” or “will cause to be”), but that theme is not used with this verb in the Bible.

If, however, the name is archaic or of non-Israelite origin, then another meaning is possible, and some have sought a meaning found in Aramaic (“to fall” as well as “to be”) or in Arabic (“to fall, blow,” etc.), but firm evidence is lacking.

More plausible ~ though still uncertain ~ is a connection with yhw (perhaps yahweh) in Egyptian texts from ca. 1400-1200 BC, which may be a place (the site of a shrine?) associated with pastoral nomads in or near the Sinai peninsula.

What is important, however, is not the origin of the name but the nature of the God who bore that name in the Bible.
And both the name and the nature of the God are easily taken straight from ancient Sanskrit usage.

And then (after a week) you provided a reference from Subash Kak:




Other people have also shown the correspondence between yahva and yawveh:

http://subhash-kak.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/yahvah-and-yahweh/comments.htm

Please take cognizance.

And then (a couple of days later) I thanked you for the link to sulekha.com and quoted some relevant details from Subash Kak’s more formal publication:




Thanks for providing this reference, which essentially confirms my suggestion and satisfies William Jones’ request for a convincing argument in favor of transmission from India via Egyptian conduits.



From Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rgveda by Subhash Kak (17 July, 2003) ~ http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf

To see the continuity with the Rgveda it may be noted that Yahvah is a Vedic epithet associated with movement, activity, heaven and earth; it means the sacrificer and Agni, the chief terrestrial god. Yahvah as an epithet occurs 21 times in the Rgveda. It may be compared to Sivah, an epithet for auspiciousness in the Rgveda that later is applied regularly to Rudra.

Note that Biblical Yahweh is also spelt Yehweh or Yahvah; in Hebrew [script] only the consonants YHWH are used. For its Indic usage: yahva occurs in RV 10.110; yahvah in RV 3.1, 3.5, 4.5, 4.7, 4.58, 5.1, 7.6, 7.8, 9.75, and 10.11; yahvam in RV 1.36; 3.3; 4.5; 5.16; 8.13; 10.92; yahvasya in RV 3.2 and 3.28.

Scholars see in Akhenaten the beginning of the Judaic monotheistic tradition. Our examination of the facts shows that it might, equally plausibly, be a retelling of the improperly understood ideas, or ideas modified by the prevailing ones in their new land, in the journey toWest Asia by the Mitannis. We are basing our conclusions not only on the connection to the Mitanni through Akhenaten’s wife but also on the pervasiveness of the Vedic concepts in West Asia as in the notion of 33 gods, the use of the disk to represent the sun exactly as is done in Vedic ritual, and the conception of the sun who superintends personal destiny which is perhaps the central idea of Vedic thought. We have also alluded to the similarity between the Vedic Yahvah and the Hebrew Yahweh and between other gods. These parallels are significant enough to demand a thorough investigation of the 2nd millennium BC connections between India and the West. The interaction between the Indic (Mitanni and other groups) and the Egyptian and West Asian can help us in understanding the evolution of the Western religions. It may also help us understand the parallels between Indic and Babylonian and Greek sciences.

Within the Indo-Iranian world, the memory of India’s interaction with Egypt persisted. In Chapter 48 of his book on India written in 1030, al-Biruni, speaking of chariots of war, mentions the Greek claim that they were the first to use them and insists they are wrong because “they were already invented by Aphrodisios the Hindu, when he ruled over Egypt, about 900 years after the deluge”. This reference cannot be taken to be literally true but it is, nevertheless, significant. It preserves the memory of a “Hindu” (Indic-inspired) king of Egypt prior to the Greek state. The reference to the chariots of war of this king (Akhenaten) seems to remember the foreigner warlords Hyskos who ruled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period just before the New Kingdom to which Akhenaten belonged.


And you promptly responded:




You are welcome. Continue with your exposition and please acknowledge what is already known.

Since the particular point of Yahweh being derived from the Rgveda had already been covered, I wondered what else required an acknowledgement ~ perhaps a summary of related ideas from others, such as Saidevo has already provided (?) It was not, however, my intention to search out a review of the related literature, simply gathering my own thoughts and confirming them directly from primary sources.

So I simply enquired, “such as?” ~ admittedly poor grammar, but I didn’t expect my previous casual question (now clarified) to simply be shouted back to me.





And where is the origin of YHV from vedic Sanskrit previously known?


If mentioning Subash Kak is all you wanted, surely that has already been done. But if you expect me to search out previous references for every point, I really don’t have the time. If I knowingly repeat the words or the novel ideas of another, then of course there will always be a reference. But I have no inclination to search for possible prior references to every idea that springs (independently) to mind.

sarabhanga
23 April 2008, 10:49 AM
If you are asking me to show the exact mention of name “Jesus” in Vedas, I admit there is none.

Namaste Nirotu,

jeSus does appear (along with yahva and kRSTa) in Rgveda 1.36.

pravo yahvampurUNAM vishAM devayatInAm |
agniM sUktebhirvacobhirImahe yaM sImidanya ILate || 1 ||
janAso agniM dadhiresahovRdhaM haviSmanto vidhemate |
satvaM no adyasumanA ihAvitA bhavAvAjeSusantya || 2 ||
nitvAmagnemanurdadhe jyotirjanAyashashvate |
dIdethakaNvaRtajAta ukshito yaM namasyantikRSTayaH || 19 ||

nirotu
23 April 2008, 04:33 PM
Namaste Nirotu,

jeSus does appear (along with yahva and kRSTa) in Rgveda 1.36.

pravo yahvampurUNAM vishAM devayatInAm |
agniM sUktebhirvacobhirImahe yaM sImidanya ILate || 1 ||
janAso agniM dadhiresahovRdhaM haviSmanto vidhemate |
satvaM no adyasumanA ihAvitA bhavAvAjeSusantya || 2 ||
nitvAmagnemanurdadhe jyotirjanAyashashvate |
dIdethakaNvaRtajAta ukshito yaM namasyantikRSTayaH || 19 ||

Thank you, Sarabhanga. But, I am not sure if it truly is explictly representing "Jesus". The way I read it from the 1:36 is as following:

जनासो अग्निं दधिरे सहोव्र्धं हविष्मन्तो विधेम ते |
स तवं नो अद्य सुमना इहाविता भवा वाजेषु सन्त्य ||


janAso agniM dadhiresahovRdhaM haviSmanto vidhemate |
satvaM no adyasumanA ihAvitA bhavA vAjeSu santya || 2 ||

And the meaning as given by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1896], is:

2 Men have won Agni, him who makes their strength abound: we, with oblations, worship thee.
Our gracious-minded Helper in our deeds of might, be thou, O Excellent, this day.

Correct me if I am mistaken in its meaning. I could only find the word explictly stated in "Puranas" as I had indicated in my previous mail. If you think this is correct as shown by you in Veda, I stand corrected.

Blessings,

atanu
24 April 2008, 01:42 AM
Namaste Atanu,

-----that the Bible is essentially derived from Hindu scriptural sources, -.

Namaste Sarabhanga,

This is most reasonable as I had earlier said. Isha is also common. Yahva as in Veda is predominantly an adjective (please see the citation of Tilak you provided).

That is all. Best wishes.

Om

sarabhanga
24 April 2008, 09:15 AM
I am not sure if it truly is explictly representing "Jesus".

Namaste Nirotu,



jeSus does appear (along with yahva and kRSTa) in Rgveda 1.36.

pravo yahvampurUNAM vishAM devayatInAm |
agniM sUktebhirvacobhirImahe yaM sImidanya ILate || 1 ||
janAso agniM dadhiresahovRdhaM haviSmanto vidhemate |
satvaM no adyasumanA ihAvitA bhavAvAjeSusantya || 2 ||
nitvAmagnemanurdadhe jyotirjanAyashashvate |
dIdethakaNvaRtajAta ukshito yaM namasyantikRSTayaH || 19 ||

The term yahva (in all its forms) is rare in the Rgveda, and the coincidence of kRSTi in the same hymn is significant, and the simultaneous appearance of ‘jeSus’ in this hymn makes it more so.

As previously noted, the saMhitApATha runs in a continuous flow, and the individual words are only fixed by knowing the padapATha.


saMhitApATha:
जनासोऽग्निंदधिरेसहोवृधंहविष्मन्तोविधेमते ।
सत्वंनोऽद्यसुमना इहाविताभवावाजेषुसन्त्य ।२।

janAso’gniMdadhiresahovRdhaMhaviSmantovidhemate |
satvaMno’dyasumanA ihAvitAbhavAvAjeSusantya | 2 |


padapATha:
जनासः अग्निम् दधिरे सहोवृधम् हविष्मन्तः विधेम ते ।
स त्वम् नः अद्य सुमनाः इह अविता भव वाजेषु सन्त्य ।२।

janAsaH agnim dadhire sahovRdham haviSmantaH vidhema te |
sa tvam naH adya sumanAH iha avitA bhava vAjeSu santya | 2 |


yeSu (“among men” or “in beings”) is nArAyaNa (the “son of man” or “son of the waters”).

vAjeSu is the locative plural form of vAja or vAjam.

And vAja is “spirit or speed” (thus cognate with yahva “swift”), indicating “reward, sacrificial food, the feathers on an arrow, a wing, or one of the Rbhavas”.

And the plural form particularly indicates “the three Rbhavas”.

And vAjam is “an oblation of rice offered at a shrAddham, water, a vinegar fermented from ground meal and water, or a prayer concluding a sacrifice”.

vAjeSu is “in the yahvAH” (i.e. yeSu).

vAjeSu is “among the Rbhavas”.

vAjeSu is “in the sacrificial foods”.

vAjeSu is “at the concluding prayers of the sacrifice”.

vAjeSu is “in the oblations of rice offered at a shrAddham”.

vAjeSu is “on the feathers of an arrow” (cf. iSus ~ “an arrow” or “ray of light”).

vAjeSu is “on wings”.

The vocative santya generally appeals to agni ~ as “O beneficent or gracious (one)”.

From the turIya (“fourth”) pAda of this verse ~ bhavAvAjeSusantya (bhava vAjeSu santya) ~
Griffith reads, “be thou, in our deeds of might, O Excellent”. The same line, however, could be translated in various ways:

“Abide thou, among the Rbhavas, O gracious one.”

“Arise thou, at the conclusion of the sacrifice, O gracious one.”

“Arise thou, on wings, O gracious one.”

“Be thou, in the sacrificial foods, O gracious one.”
All of these impressions arise from the same three words. And, disregarding the traditional padapATha, other yudhika (“contending”) interpretations are possible, such as:

bhavA vA jeSu santya

“Be thou, indeed, jeSu the gracious.”
bhavA vA jeSus antya

“Be thou, indeed, jeSus coming after.”

nirotu
25 April 2008, 09:45 PM
Namaste Nirotu,


The term yahva (in all its forms) is rare in the Rgveda, and the coincidence of kRSTi in the same hymn is significant, and the simultaneous appearance of ‘jeSus’ in this hymn makes it more so.

As previously noted, the saMhitApATha runs in a continuous flow, and the individual words are only fixed by knowing the padapATha.


saMhitApATha:
जनासोऽग्निंदधिरेसहोवृधंहविष्मन्तोविधेमते ।
सत्वंनोऽद्यसुमना इहाविताभवावाजेषुसन्त्य ।२।

janAso’gniMdadhiresahovRdhaMhaviSmantovidhemate |
satvaMno’dyasumanA ihAvitAbhavAvAjeSusantya | 2 |


padapATha:
जनासः अग्निम् दधिरे सहोवृधम् हविष्मन्तः विधेम ते ।
स त्वम् नः अद्य सुमनाः इह अविता भव वाजेषु सन्त्य ।२।

janAsaH agnim dadhire sahovRdham haviSmantaH vidhema te |
sa tvam naH adya sumanAH iha avitA bhava vAjeSu santya | 2 |


yeSu (“among men” or “in beings”) is nArAyaNa (the “son of man” or “son of the waters”).

vAjeSu is the locative plural form of vAja or vAjam.

And vAja is “spirit or speed” (thus cognate with yahva “swift”), indicating “reward, sacrificial food, the feathers on an arrow, a wing, or one of the Rbhavas”.

And the plural form particularly indicates “the three Rbhavas”.

And vAjam is “an oblation of rice offered at a shrAddham, water, a vinegar fermented from ground meal and water, or a prayer concluding a sacrifice”.

vAjeSu is “in the yahvAH” (i.e. yeSu).

vAjeSu is “among the Rbhavas”.

vAjeSu is “in the sacrificial foods”.

vAjeSu is “at the concluding prayers of the sacrifice”.

vAjeSu is “in the oblations of rice offered at a shrAddham”.

vAjeSu is “on the feathers of an arrow” (cf. iSus ~ “an arrow” or “ray of light”).

vAjeSu is “on wings”.

The vocative santya generally appeals to agni ~ as “O beneficent or gracious (one)”.

From the turIya (“fourth”) pAda of this verse ~ bhavAvAjeSusantya (bhava vAjeSu santya) ~
Griffith reads, “be thou, in our deeds of might, O Excellent”. The same line, however, could be translated in various ways:

“Abide thou, among the Rbhavas, O gracious one.”

“Arise thou, at the conclusion of the sacrifice, O gracious one.”

“Arise thou, on wings, O gracious one.”

“Be thou, in the sacrificial foods, O gracious one.”
All of these impressions arise from the same three words. And, disregarding the traditional padapATha, other yudhika (“contending”) interpretations are possible, such as:

bhavA vA jeSu santya

“Be thou, indeed, jeSu the gracious.”
bhavA vA jeSus antya

“Be thou, indeed, jeSus coming after.”

Thank you, Sarabhanga.

That is beautiful. Please continue . . .

Blessings,

sarabhanga
26 April 2008, 03:31 AM
Verily no one knoweth whence they sprang: they, and they only, know each other’s birth. A sage was he who knew these mysteries, what in her udder mighty pRshni bore.

Ours be the vigorous hero, the lord divine of men, the strong sustainer, with whom to fair lands we may cross the waters, and dwell in our own home with you beside us.


Genesis 11:26
And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

And todaH (“sun”) lived seventy years, and begat abhram (“cloud”), nahus (“man”), and hiraNa (“seed”) or haraNam (“division”).

nahuSa was a son of manu (“man”) and a son of Ayus (“life”).


Genesis 11:27
… and Haran begat Lot.

… and hiraNa (“the seed”) begat lota (“a sign”).

… and haraNam (“taking away”) begat lotam (“booty”).


Genesis 11:28
And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity …

And “the seed” died before “the sun”, in the hiraNa-garbha (“the vale of sarasvat”) …


Genesis 11:29
And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.

And abhram (“cloud”) and nahus (“man”) took them wives: the name of abhram’s wife was sarayu (“the air”); and the name of nahus’ wife, melaka (“conjunction” or “assemblage”) ~ nAhuSa-melaka (“kindred society” or “humanity”) ~ the daughter of hiraNa, the father of iSkR (“to arrange or set in order”).


Genesis 11.30
But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

But sarayu (“the wind” or sarasvatI) was barren, she had no child (neither rain-bearing clouds nor a crop).



And the juhU’s song of “Abrahma” (Rgveda 10.109) is recalled in Genesis 12.

From Rgveda 10.109
And heavenly Floods, first-born by holy Order, exclaimed against the outrage on a Brahman.
King Soma first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of the Brahman’s consort.
Dire is a Brahman’s wife led home by others: in the supremest heaven she plants confusion.
So then the Gods restored her, so men gave the woman back again.
The Kings who kept their promises restored the Brahman’s wedded wife,
Having restored the Brahman’s wife, and freed them, with Gods’ aid, from sin,
They shared the fullness of the earth, and won themselves extended sway.

And from Genesis 12
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.
And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.
[And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.]

Thus spake of her those Gods of old :)

sarabhanga
26 April 2008, 08:11 AM
The story so far ~

Abram was a wayward vaidika priest (cf. yavakrIt), later revered by his followers as the kavi abhram, but from the time he (or one of his descendents) took the name of Abraham (cf. Abrahma), the yudhika dharma became divorced from the fold of sanAtana dharma.

At first, the traditions of Abraham were kept secret (gupta), but eventually they were publicly revealed (agupta). And the one who released the yudhika transmission, from gupta (“kept secret”) into agupta (“not keeping a secret”) ~ not from long captivity and out of Egypt, but rather released from the long held condition of a closely guarded secret with restricted access and into the public domain of the agupta state ~ is remembered as muSi (“a robber”) or mUSe (“unto a thief”) or mUSa (“mouse”) or moSIs (“you have stolen”).

muS means “to steal, rob, plunder, carry off, ravish, captivate, enrapture, bedazzle, cloud, or obscure (the light or the intellect), and to break, cut into pieces, or destroy”.

And it was this mUSa who began the serious deconstruction and reinterpretation, creating the Torah (after todaH), the yudhika apabhraMsa veda, and establishing Judaism as we know it today.

sarabhanga
27 April 2008, 12:35 AM
And it was this mUSa who began the serious deconstruction and reinterpretation, creating the yudhika apabhraMsa veda, and establishing Judaism as we know it today.

And the process of rending the perfect saMskRta transmission into an apabhraMsa padapATha translation is recorded in the biblical account of the Exodus (“the going out”).

Exodus 24.12
And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.

Exodus 24.15
And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount.

Exodus 31.18
And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

Exodus 32.7
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

Exodus 32.15
And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

Exodus 32.16
And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

Exodus 32.19
And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

Exodus 34.27
And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

Exodus 34.28
And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he [Moses] wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Exodus 34.29
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand …

TatTvamAsi
27 April 2008, 03:06 AM
...Bible is essentially derived from Hindu scriptural sources...

Namaste Sarabhanga,

So if I went to a rabid fundamentalist Christian website and stated the above, how would one defend that statement?? I prefer to say that Jesus learnt Vedanta from India and expounded those principles in the ME which were later written down. Therefore essentially being similar to the teachings of the Vedas... Christians don't take that lightly though...

Subham.

yajvan
27 April 2008, 09:48 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Namaste Sarabhanga,

So if I went to a rabid fundamentalist Christian website and stated the above, how would one defend that statement??
Subham.

Namaste tattvamasi,
I am sure you would discuss this knoweldge with good intent, yet if one took this approach (of entering with this knowledge) it would be like having kerosene on ones clothes, then choosing to sit and sing next to a bonfire...

Ganeshprasad
27 April 2008, 11:51 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~


Namaste tattvamasi,
I am sure you would discuss this knoweldge with good intent, yet if one took this approach (of entering with this knowledge) it would be like having kerosene on ones clothes, then choosing to sit and sing next to a bonfire...

Pranam

We can all sing in unison

Om idam agneya idam na mam. Om idam vA jeSu santya idam na mam. ...
swaaha

om Shanti...


Jai Shree Krishna

yajvan
27 April 2008, 03:56 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Pranam

We can all sing in unison


Jai Shree Krishna

:)

satay
28 April 2008, 09:09 AM
namaskar,

This thread is given a lot of material to the missionaries who will now try to fool people into conversion by showing them verses from the vedas that contain 'je sus'.

:rolleyes: I think that we have enough of this je sus discussion on Hindu Forums for this year.

Don't you guys agree?

saidevo
28 April 2008, 09:36 AM
Namaste Satay.



This thread is given a lot of material to the missionaries who will now try to fool people into conversion by showing them verses from the vedas that contain 'je sus'.

:rolleyes: I think that we have enough of this je sus discussion on Hindu Forums for this year.

Don't you guys agree?


I fully agree with you, specially when it might take ages for this knowledge to reach the Hindu commons and grass roots to arm them with the necessary knowledge against conversion.

Can you make the thread private so it opens 'only to the members', for both reading and writing? Also prevent it/hide it from being copied in the Archives?

sarabhanga
28 April 2008, 10:50 AM
Yahva as in Veda is predominantly an adjective (please see the citation of Tilak you provided).

Namaste Atanu,

It seems to me that the terms yahva and yahvI appear as nouns almost as often as they do otherwise.

In the Rgveda, the masculine yahva occurs 9 (out of 21) times as a noun, while the feminine yahvI occurs 8 (out of 20) times as a noun.


tvam devAnAm asi yahva hotA (10.110.3)

ut u stutaH samidhA yahvaH adyaut (3.5.9)

nAmAni yahvaH adhi yeSu vardhate (9.75.1)

payAMsi yahvaH aditeH adAbhyaH (10.11.1)

vishpatim yahvam atithim naraH sadA (3.3.8)

tam it yahvam na rodasI (5.16.4)

yahvam pratnAbhiH UtibhiH (8.13.24)

agne yahvasya tava bhAgadheyam (3.28.4)

vAtapramiyaH patayanti yahvAH (4.58.7)


pra yahvI divaH citayadbhiH arkaiH (5.41.7)

hiraNyavarNAH pari yanti yahvIH (2.35.9)

svayam atkaiH pari dIyanti yahvIH (2.35.14)

avardhayan subhagam sapta yahvIH (3.1.4)

divaH yahvIH avasAnAH anagnAH (3.1.6)

divaH yahvIbhiH na guhA babhUva (3.1.9)

shUrAH yahvISu oSadhISu vikSu (7.56.22)

divaH yahvISu oSadhISu vikSu (7.70.3)

sarabhanga
28 April 2008, 11:09 AM
Can you make the thread private so it opens 'only to the members', for both reading and writing? Also prevent it/hide it from being copied in the Archives?
Namaste Saidevo and Satay,

In my opinion this information is very important, in many ways (and that is why I have devoted so much attention to the subject). And I certainly do not think that this thread should be censored or hidden away just because someone might misunderstand.

The name of Jesus (for example) only appears as such if the Veda is INCORRECTLY read ~ but I have been trying to show how the Bible was created by mistranslating the original Sanskrit.

Earlier in this thread it was suggested that I publish a book on this subject, and now there are calls for the discussion to be buried !?

satay
28 April 2008, 02:27 PM
Namaskar sarabhanga,




The name of Jesus (for example) only appears as such if the Veda is INCORRECTLY read ~ but I have been trying to show how the Bible was created by mistranslating the original Sanskrit.


In the post http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=22206&postcount=178 it doesn't say that name of jesus appears if Veda is read Incorrectly.

My fear is (and yes, you can call it paranoia if you wish) that any missionary reading this thread will ignore what you are trying to do and (mis)use this information to yet convert more souls from hinduism using the 'incorrect' reading of the veda where jesus appears.

Who is going to be responsible for this misuse of information? Obviously, you or I don't control how people are going to use or misuse this information but I wanted to raise a point that this information will most likely be misused. I am almost certain of that.

Regarding jesus, he never spoke of the vedas. His message/sayings seem to be based on old testament only. Christian world view is that a man needs redemption. Christianity and Jesus teach the need of redemption. I don't know where he said anything about the need of enlightenment. But then again I am just a student and not a scholar...

Ganeshprasad
28 April 2008, 03:09 PM
Pranam Satay ji


.

My fear is (and yes, you can call it paranoia if you wish) that any missionary reading this thread will ignore what you are trying to do and (mis)use this information to yet convert more souls from hinduism using the 'incorrect' reading of the veda where jesus appears.



I am glad you are waking up even if a bit late, i said this very early on and i quote again



Scriptural considerations not withstanding, to give any credence to
Christianity, is shooting ourself in foot, we make their job of 'harvesting souls' the lost souls, that much easier.


Who is going to be responsible for this misuse of information? Obviously, you or I don't control how people are going to use or misuse this information but I wanted to raise a point that this information will most likely be misused. I am almost certain of that.

Well that is the danger we got to live with.

Ja Shree Krishna

Znanna
28 April 2008, 07:54 PM
Namaste, Satay,

While I understand your concern, and agree that ANY debate relative to Christianity is prone towards a dualistic meme, IMO, it is just as likely (and perhaps already has been done, hehe) that some sections have been put forth towards evangelical Christians to add perspective towards unity :)



ZN/
self proclaimed "devil's advocate" lol

sarabhanga
29 April 2008, 11:12 PM
In the post http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=22206&postcount=178 it doesn't say that name of jesus appears if Veda is read Incorrectly.

Namaste Satay,

In the subsequent post http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=22242&postcount=181 the matter is explained.



jeSus does appear (along with yahva and kRSTa) in Rgveda 1.36.

Please note that, while yahva and kRSTa and yeSu are true saMskRta words, the exact term jeSus is merely an apparition with no reality in saMskRtam.


The term yahva (in all its forms) is rare in the Rgveda, and the coincidence of kRSTi in the same hymn is significant, and the simultaneous appearance of ‘jeSus’ in this hymn makes it more so.

Please note that jeSus is given in inverted commas, because the word jeSus does not actually exist in saMskRtam.


As previously noted, the saMhitApATha runs in a continuous flow, and the individual words are only fixed by knowing the padapATha.

And without the padapATha, all manner of divergent interpretations are possible (especially when context and grammar are also ignored and one has free rein to invent new words based on coincidental resemblances with apabhraMsa words and philosophies that were originally borrowed from same source in which they are now claimed to exist as veritable prophesies of things to come).
When something is copied from an original, of course there will be many similarities, but it would be ridiculous for the plagiarist to insist that his version was “prophesied” (and thus automatically sanctioned by and even more veritable than the original) rather than simply copied and re-presented in the medium of another language.


saMhitApATha:

janAso’gniMdadhiresahovRdhaMhaviSmantovidhemate |
satvaMno’dyasumanA ihAvitAbhavAvAjeSusantya | 2 |
padapATha:

janAsaH agnim dadhire sahovRdham haviSmantaH vidhema te |
sa tvam naH adya sumanAH iha avitA bhava vAjeSu santya | 2 |

yeSu (“among men” or “in beings”) is nArAyaNa (the “son of man” or “son of the waters”).

vAjeSu is the locative plural form of vAja or vAjam.

Note that vAjeSu is a locative plural, and the masculine nominative singular is vAja, which bears no resemblance to the man’s name “jesus”.


And vAja is “spirit or speed” (thus cognate with yahva “swift”), indicating “reward, sacrificial food, the feathers on an arrow, a wing, or one of the Rbhavas”.

And the plural form particularly indicates “the three Rbhavas”.

And vAjam is “an oblation of rice offered at a shrAddham, water, a vinegar fermented from ground meal and water, or a prayer concluding a sacrifice”.

vAjeSu is “in the yahvAH” (i.e. yeSu).
vAjeSu is “among the Rbhavas”.
vAjeSu is “in the sacrificial foods”.
vAjeSu is “at the concluding prayers of the sacrifice”.
vAjeSu is “in the oblations of rice offered at a shrAddham”.
vAjeSu is “on the feathers of an arrow” (cf. iSus ~ “an arrow” or “ray of light”).
vAjeSu is “on wings”.

From the turIya (“fourth”) pAda of this verse ~ bhavAvAjeSusantya (bhava vAjeSu santya) ~
Griffith reads, “be thou, in our deeds of might, O Excellent”.
The same line, however, could be translated in various ways:

“Abide thou, among the Rbhavas, O gracious one.”
“Arise thou, at the conclusion of the sacrifice, O gracious one.”
“Arise thou, on wings, O gracious one.”
“Be thou, in the sacrificial foods, O gracious one.”
All of these impressions arise from the same three words.

And the gracious one in every case is agni (not vAjeSu).


And, disregarding the traditional padapATha, other yudhika (“contending”) interpretations are possible

Please understand that it is NOT CORRECT to ignore the padapATha when considering the veda.


bhavA vA jeSu santya ~ “Be thou, indeed, jeSu the gracious.”
bhavA vA jeSus antya ~ “Be thou, indeed, jeSus coming after.”

Please note that neither jeSu nor jeSus are true saMskRta words.

However,

jeS means “to move”, jeSa indicates “gaining”, ujjeSa is “victorious”, vijeSa is “victory”, kshetrajeSa is “the acquisition of land”, and svarjeSa is “the winning of light”.



From the Rgveda:

upedahaM dhanadAmapratItaM juSTAM na shyeno vasatimpatAmi |
indraM namasyannupamebhirarkairya stotRbhyo havyo asti yAman || 1.33.2 ||

I fly to him invisible wealth-giver, as flies the falcon to his cherished eyrie,
With fairest hymns of praise adoring indra, whom those who laud him must invoke in battle.

ni sarvasena iSudhIMrasakta samaryo gA ajati yasya vaSTi |
coSkUyamANa indra bhUri vAmammA paNirbhUrasmadadhi pravRddha || 1.33.3 ||

Mid all his host, he binds on the quiver, he drives cattle from what foe he pleases:
Gathering up great store of riches, indra, be thou no trafficker with us, most mighty.

AvaH kutsamindra yasmiñcAkanprAvo yudhyantaM vRSabhaM dashadyum |
shaphacyuto reNurnakshata dyAmucchvaitreyo nRSAhyAya tasthau || 1.33.14 ||

Indra, thou helpest kutsa whom thou lovedst, and guardedst brave dashadyu when he battled,
The dust of trampling horses rose to heaven, and shvitri’s son stood up again for conquest.

AvaH shamaM vRSabhaM tugryAsu kshetrajeSe maghavañchvitryaM gAm |
jyokcidatra tasthivAMso akrañchatrUyatAmadharA vedanAkaH || 1.33.15 ||

Shvitra’s mild steer, O maghavan thou helpest in combat for the land, mid tugra’s houses.
Long stood they there before the task was ended: thou wast the master of the foemen’s treasure.

sa yo vRSA vRSNyebhiH samokA maho divaH pRthivyAshca samrAT |
satInasatvA havyo bhareSu marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.1 ||

May he who hath his home with strength, the mighty, the king supreme of earth and spacious heaven,
Lord of true power, to he invoked in battles: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

divo na yasya retaso dughAnAH panthAso yanti shavasAparItAH |
taraddveSAH sAsahiH pauMsyebhirmarutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.3 ||

Whose paths go forth in their great might resistless, milking forth, as it were, heaven’s genial moisture.
With manly strength triumphant, foe-subduer: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

so aÑgirobhiraÑgirastamo bhUdvRSA vRSabhiH sakhibhiH sakhA san |
RgmibhirRgmI gAtubhirjyeSTho marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.4 ||

Among aÑgirasas he was the greatest, a friend with friends, mighty amid the mighty,
Praiser mid praisers, honoured most of singers: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

sa sUnubhirna rudrebhirRbhvA nRSAhye sAsahvAM amitrAn |
sanILebhiH shravasyAni tUrvanmarutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.5 ||

Strong with the rudrAs as with his own children, in manly battle conquering his foemen,
With his close comrades doing deeds of glory: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

tamUtayo raNayañchUrasAtau taM kshemasya kshitayaH kRNvata tram |
sa vishvasya karuNasyesha eko marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.7 ||

His help hath made him cheerer in the battle, the folk have made him guardian of their comfort.
Sole lord is he of every holy service: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

tamapsanta shavasa utsaveSu naro naramavase taM dhanAya |
so andhe cittamasi jyotirvidanmarutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.8 ||

To him the hero, on high days of prowess, heroes for help and booty shall betake them.
He hath found light even in the blinding darkness: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

sa savyena yamati vrAdhatashcitsa dakshiNe saMgRbhItA kRtAni |
sa kIriNA citsanitA dhanAni marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 1.100.9 ||

He with his left hand checks even the mighty, and with his right hand gathers up the booty.
Even with the humble he acquires riches: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

sa grAmebhiH sanitA sa rathebhirvide vishvAbhiH kRSTibhirnvadya |
sa pauMsyebhirabhibhUrashastIrmarutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.10 ||

With hosts on foot and cars he wins treasures: well is he known this day by all the people.
With manly might he conquers those who hate him: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

sa jAmibhiryatsamajAti mILhe’jAmibhirvA puruhUta evaiH |
apAM tokasya tanayasya jeSe marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.11 ||

When in his ways, with kinsmen or with strangers, he speeds to the fight, invoked of many,
For gain of waters, and of sons and grandsons: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

sa vajrabhRddasyuhA bhIma ugraH sahasracetAH shatanItha RbhvA |
camrISo na shavasA pAñcajanyo marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.12 ||

Awful and fierce, fiend-slayer, thunder-wielder, with boundless knowledge, hymned by hundreds, mighty,
In strength like soma, guard of the five peoples, may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

tasya vajraH krandati smatsvarSA divo na tveSo ravathaH shimIvAn |
taM sacante sanayastaM dhanAni marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.13 ||

Winning the light, hitherward roars his thunder like the terrific mighty voice of heaven.
Rich gifts and treasures evermore attend him: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

yasyAjasraM shavasA mAnamukthamparibhujadrodasI vishvataH sIm |
sa pAriSatkratubhirmandasAno marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.14 ||

Whose home eternal through his strength surrounds him on every side, his laud, the earth and heaven,
May he, delighted with our service, save us: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

na yasya devA devatA na martA Apashcana shavaso antamApuH |
sa prarikvA tvakshasA kshmo divashca marutvAnno bhavatvindra UtI || 10.100.15 ||

The limit of whose power not gods by godhead, nor mortal men have reached, nor yet the waters.
Both earth and heaven in vigour he surpasses: may indra, girt by marutas, be our succour.

rohicchyAvA sumadaMshurlalAmIrdyukshA rAya RjrAshvasya |
vRSaNvantambibhratI dhUrSu rathammandrA ciketa nAhuSISu vikSu || 10.100.16 ||

The red and tawny mare, blaze-marked, high standing, celestial who, to bring RjrAshva riches,
Drew at the pole, the chariot yoked with stallions, joyous, among the hosts of men was noted.

etattyatta indra vRSNa ukthaM vArSAgirA abhi gRNanti rAdhaH |
RjrAshvaH praSTibhirambarISaH sahadevo bhayamAnaH surAdhAH || 10.100.17 ||

The vArSAgirAs unto thee, O indra, the mighty one, sing forth this laud to please thee,
RjrAshva with his fellows, ambarISa, surAdhAs, sahadeva, bhayamAna.

dasyUñchimyUMshca puruhUta evairhatvA pRthivyAM sharvA ni barhIt |
sanatkshetraM sakhibhiH shvitnyebhiH sanatsUryaM sanadapaH suvajraH || 10.100.18 ||

He, much invoked, hath slain dasyUs and simyUs, after his wont, and laid them low with arrows.
The mighty thunderer, with his fair-complexioned friends, won the land, the sunlight, and the waters.

tyamu vo aprahaNaM gRNISe shavasaspatim |
indraM vishvAsAhaM narammaMhiSThaM vishvacarSaNim || 6.44.4 ||

Him for your sake I glorify as lord of strength who wrongs none,
The hero indra, conquering all, most bounteous, god of all the tribes.

indra tubhyaminmaghavannabhUma vayaM dAtre harivo mA vi venaH |
nakirApirdadRshe martyatrA kimaÑga radhracodanaM tvAhuH || 6.44.10 ||

We turn to thee as giver, liberal indra, lord of the bay steeds, be not thou ungracious.
No friend among mankind have we to look to: why have men called thee him who spurs the niggard?

mA jasvane vRSabha no rarIthA mA te revataH sakhye riSAma |
pUrvISTa indra niSSidho janeSu jahyasuSvInpra vRhApRNataH || 6.44.11 ||

Give us not up, strong hero, to the hungry; unharmed be we whom thou, so rich, befriendest.
Full many a boon hast thou for men; demolish those who present no gifts nor pour oblations.

udabhrANIva stanayanniyartIndro rAdhAMsyashvyAni gavyA |
tvamasi pradivaH kArudhAyA mA tvAdAmAna A dabhanmaghonaH || 6.44.12 ||

As indra thundering impels the rain-clouds, so doth he send us store of kine and horses.
Thou art of old the cherisher of singers, let not the rich who bring no gifts deceive thee.

idaM tyatpAtramindrapAnamindrasya priyamamRtamapAyi |
matsadyathA saumanasAya devaM vyasmaddveSo yuyavadvyaMhaH || 6.44.16 ||

The cup whence indra drinks the draught is present: the amRtam dear to indra hath been drunken,
That it may cheer the god to gracious favour, and keep far from us hatred and affliction.

enA mandAno jahi shUra shatrUñjAmimajAmimmaghavannamitrAn |
abhiSeNAM abhyAdedishAnAnparAca indra pra mRNA jahI ca || 6.44.17 ||

Therewith enraptured, hero, slay our foemen, the unfriendly, maghavan, be they kin or strangers,
Those who still aim their hostile darts to smite us, turn them to flight, O indra, crush and kill them.

AsuSmANo maghavannindra pRtsvasmabhyammahi varivaH sugaM kaH |
apAM tokasya tanayasya jeSa indra sUrInkRNuhi smA no ardham || 6.44.18 ||

O indra maghavan, in these our battles win easy paths for us and ample freedom.
That we may gain waters and seed and offspring, set thou our princes on thy side, O indra.

ayaM devaH sahasA jAyamAna indreNa yujA paNim astabhAyat |
ayaM svasya piturAyudhAnInduramuSNAdashivasya mAyAH || 6.44.22 ||

This god, with might, when first he had his being, with indra for ally, held fast the paNi.
This indu stole away the warlike weapons, and foiled the arts of his malignant father.

ayamakRNoduSasaH supatnIrayaM sUrye adadhAjjyotirantaH |
ayaM tridhAtu divi rocaneSu triteSu vindadamRtaM nigULham || 6.44.23 ||

The dawns he wedded to a glorious consort, and set within the sun the light that lights him.
He found in heaven, in the third lucid regions, the threefold amRtam in its close concealment.

ayaM dyAvApRthivI viSkabhAyadayaM rathamayunaksaptarashmim |
ayaM goSu shacyA pakvamantaH somo dAdhAra dashayantramutsam || 6.44.24 ||

He stayed and held the heaven and earth asunder; the chariot with the sevenfold reins he harnessed.
This soma set with power within the milch-kine, a spring whose ripe contents ten fingers empty.





Who is going to be responsible for this misuse of information? Obviously, you or I don't control how people are going to use or misuse this information but I wanted to raise a point that this information will most likely be misused. I am almost certain of that.

The same problem exists with EVERYTHING that is recorded. Even within this thread there are examples of liberties taken with the published words of others, with selective quotes and deliberate omissions made to create false impressions.




Regarding jesus, he never spoke of the vedas. His message/sayings seem to be based on old testament only.

But have you not noticed the repeated assertion, supported by various examples, that the Old Testament (especially the Pentateuch) was created by translation from the ancient Rgveda saMhitA and other preexisting saMskRta texts?

If this is accepted, any message based on the OT must be ultimately based on the RV.

And I still have no idea of how any of Jesus’ sayings are supposed to differ from a traditional Hindu understanding ??
The imagined insurmountable divergence has often been mentioned, but no evidence has been provided.




Christianity and Jesus teach the need of redemption. I don't know where he said anything about the need of enlightenment.

For thou wilt light my candle: the lord my god will enlighten my darkness. [Psalm 18]

The statutes of the lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. [Psalm 19]

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. [Ephesians 1]

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost, and have tasted the good word of god, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the son of god afresh, and put him to an open shame. [Hebrews 6]

And redemption is from the Latin redemptio (“a buying back, releasing, or ransoming”), from redimere (“to redeem or buy back”, from re- “back” + emere “to take, buy, gain, or procure”).

Redemption, as “deliverance from sin” (redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life), is the same idea as moksha (release from the bondage of reincarnation), which equally involves the extinguishing of all personal karma and the absolute submission of one’s mortal life to the one divine essence of immortal Life.

atanu
30 April 2008, 03:24 AM
Namaskar sarabhanga,

In the post http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=22206&postcount=178 it doesn't say that name of jesus appears if Veda is read Incorrectly.

My fear is (and yes, you can call it paranoia if you wish) that any missionary reading this thread will ignore what you are trying to do and (mis)use this information to yet convert more souls from hinduism using the 'incorrect' reading of the veda where jesus appears.

Who is going to be responsible for this misuse of information? Obviously, you or I don't control how people are going to use or misuse this information but I wanted to raise a point that this information will most likely be misused. I am almost certain of that.

Regarding jesus, he never spoke of the vedas. His message/sayings seem to be based on old testament only. Christian world view is that a man needs redemption. Christianity and Jesus teach the need of redemption. I don't know where he said anything about the need of enlightenment. But then again I am just a student and not a scholar...

Namaste All,

I think it should be clear that commonalities stop with sounds of words like yahva etc. Yahva is ever moving/flowing/Mahat in Veda. This is not a name of God in satarudriya or later saharsanamas. The meaning of ever unchanging Atman does not become evident from any of the exoteric scriptures (as far as I know), though there might be a small group of Gnostics out there.

In the film 'Seven years in Tibet' (a true story mostly), a lady tailor tells to the protagonist (who was destined to be with Dalai Lama for some purpose) that there is a fundamental difference between western and eastern minds. She said "You aim for higher and higher while in Tibet one who has successfully cast away the ego is esteemed".

With that kind of religious knowledge in the substratum, we easterners are easily over-run by marauders, at least in the short term. I sometimes fall prey to this doubt. Though, it seems that the turbulence in India and Tibet due to Asuric forces was already known. It is there in the film and this is the subject of a discussion between HH Dalai Lama and Mother of Aurobindo Ashrama.

Om

sarabhanga
30 April 2008, 07:45 AM
Now, where is that cunning muSa hiding in the Rgveda?

Considering only the 33 YHV hymns, the prophet “Moses” appears in three hymns, which provide (among other biblical hints) the basic ingredients for the story of Exodus.


sarocayajjanuSArodasI ubhe samAtrorabhavatputra IDyaH |
havyavALagnirajarashcanohito dULabhovishAmatithirvibhAvasuH || 3.2.2 ||

He made the heaven and earth resplendent by his birth: child of two mothers he was meet to be implored,
Agni, oblation-bearer, gracious, ever-young, infallible, rich in radiant light, the guest of men.

AmandrasyasaniSyantovareNyaM vRNImahe ahrayaM vAjamRgmiyam |
rAtimbhRgUNAmushijaM kavikratumagniM rAjantaM divyenashociSA || 3.2.4 ||

Eager to gain, we crave from him the friendly god, strength confident, choice-worthy, meet to be extolled:
The bhRgavas’ bounty, willing, strong with sages’ lore, even agni shining forth with light that comes from heaven.

agniM sumnAyadadhirepurojanA vAjashravasamihavRktabarhiSaH |
yatasrucaH surucaM vishvadevyaM rudraM yaj&#241;AnAM sAdhadiSTimapasAm || 3.2.5 ||

For happiness, men, having trimmed the sacred grass, set agni glorious for his strength before them here;
Yea, with raised ladles, him bright, dear to all the gods, perfecting aims of works, rudra of solemn rites.

pAvakashocetavahikshayampari hotaryaj&#241;eSuvRktabarhiSonaraH |
agneduva ichamAnAsa ApyamupAsatedraviNaM dhehitebhyaH || 3.2.6 ||

Around thy dwelling-place, O brightly-shining priest, are men at sacrifice, whose sacred grass is trimmed.
Wishing to do thee service, agni, they are there, desirous of thy friendship, grant them store of wealth.

ArodasI apRNadAsvarmahajjAtaM yadenamapaso adhArayan |
so adhvarAyapariNIyatekaviratyonavAjasAtayecanohitaH || 3.2.7 ||

He hath filled heaven and earth and the great realm of light, when at his birth the skilful held him in their hold.
He like a horse is led forth to the sacrifice, sage, graciously inclined, that he may win us strength.

namasyatahavyadAtiM svadhvaraM duvasyatadamyaM jAtavedasam |
rathIrRtasyabRhatovicarSaNiragnirdevAnAmabhavatpurohitaH || 3.2.8 ||

Honour the oblation-bearer, him who knows fair rites, serve ye the household friend who knows all things that be.
He drives the chariot of the lofty ordinance: agni most active, is the great high priest of gods.

tisroyahvasyasamidhaH parijmano’gnerapunannushijo amRtyavaH |
tAsAmekAmadadhurmartyebhujamulokamudve upajAmimIyatuH || 3.2.9 ||

They who are free from death, fain for him, purified three splendours of the mighty agni, circling all.
To man, for his enjoyment, one of these they gave; the other two have passed into the sister sphere.

vishAM kaviM vishpatimmAnuSIriSaH saM sImakRNvansvadhitiM natejase |
sa udvatonivatoyAtiveviSatsagarbhameSubhuvaneSudIdharat || 3.2.10 ||

Man’s sacrificial food hath sharpened like an axe, for brightness, him the sage of men, the people’s lord,
Busied with sacred rites, he mounts and he descends: he hath laid down his vital germ within these worlds.

abodhyagniH samidhAjanAnAmpratidhenumivAyatImuSAsam |
yahvA ivapravayAmujjihAnAH prabhAnavaH sisratenAkamacha || 5.1.1 ||

Agni is wakened by the people’s fuel, to meet the dawn who cometh like a milk-cow.
Like young trees shooting up on high their branches, his flames are rising to the vault of heaven.

abodhihotAyajathAyadevAnUrdhvo agniH sumanAH prAtarasthAt |
samiddhasyarushadadarshipAjo mahAndevastamasoniramoci || 5.1.2 ||

For worship of the gods the priest was wakened: at morning gracious agni hath arisen.
Kindled, his radiant might is made apparent, and the great deity set free from darkness.

yadIM gaNasyarashanAmajIgaH shucira&#209;kteshucibhirgobhiragniH |
AddakshiNAyujyatevAjayantyuttAnAmUrdhvo adhayajjuhUbhiH || 5.1.3 ||

When he hath stirred the line of his attendants, with the pure milk pure agni is anointed.
The strength-bestowing gift is then made ready, which spread in front, with tongues, erect, he drinketh.

janiSTahijenyo agre ahnAM hitohiteSvaruSovaneSu |
damedamesaptaratnAdadhAno’gnirhotAniSasAdAyajIyAn || 5.1.5 ||

The noble one was born at days’ beginning, laid red in colour mid the well-laid fuel.
Yielding in every house his seven rich treasures, agni is seated, priest most skilled in worship.

agnirhotAnyasIdadyajIyAnupasthemAtuH surabhA uloke |
yuvAkaviH puruniSThaRtAvA dhartAkRSTInAmutamadhya iddhaH || 5.1.6 ||

Agni hath sat him down, a priest most skilful, on a sweet-smelling place, his mother’s bosom.
Young, faithful, sage, preeminent over many, kindled among the folk whom he sustaineth.

praNutyaM vipramadhvareSusAdhumagniM hotAramILatenamobhiH |
AyastatAnarodasIRtena nityammRjantivAjinaM ghRtena || 5.1.7 ||

This singer excellent at sacrifices, agni the priest, they glorify with homage.
Him who spread out both worlds by law eternal they balm with oil, strong steed who never faileth.

prasadyo agne atyeSyanyAnAviryasmaicArutamobabhUtha |
ILenyovapuSyovibhAvA priyovishAmatithirmAnuSINAm || 5.1.9 ||

Thou quickly passest by all others, agni, for him to whom thou hast appeared most lovely,
Wondrously fair, adorable, effulgent, the guest of men, the darling of the people.

tubhyambharantikshitayoyaviSTha balimagne antita ota dUrAt |
AbhandiSThasyasumatiM cikiddhi bRhatte agnemahisharmabhadram || 5.1.10 ||

To thee, most youthful god, to thee, O agni from near and far the people bring their tribute.
Mark well the prayer of him who best extols thee; great, high, auspicious, agni, is thy shelter.

AdyarathambhAnumobhAnumantamagnetiSThayajatebhiH samantam |
vidvAnpathInAmurvantarikshamehadevAnhaviradyAyavakshi || 5.1.11 ||

Ascend today thy splendid car, O agni, in splendour, with the holy ones around it.
Knowing the paths by mid-air’s spacious region, bring hither gods to feast on our oblation.

yaj&#241;asyavorathyaM vishpatiM vishAM hotAramaktoratithiM vibhAvasum |
shoca&#241;chuSkAsuhariNISujarbhuradvRSAketuryajatadyAmashAyata || 10.92.1 ||

I praise your charioteer of sacrifice, the lord of men, priest of the tribes, refulgent, guest of night.
Blazing amid dry plants, snatching amid the green, the strong, the holy herald hath attained to heaven.

imama&#241;jaspAmubhaye akRNvata dharmANamagniM vidathasyasAdhanam |
aktuM nayahvamuSasaH purohitaM tanUnapAtamaruSasyaniMsate || 10.92.2 ||

Him, agni, gods and men have made their chief support, who drinks the fatness and completes the sacrifice.
With kisses they caress the grandson of the red, like the swift ray of light, the household priest of dawn.

baLasyanIthAvipaNeshcamanmahe vayA asyaprahutA Asurattave |
yadAghorAso amRtatvamAshatAdijjanasyadaivyasyacarkiran || 10.92.3 ||

Yea, we discriminate his and the niggard’s ways: his branches evermore are sent forth to consume.
When his terrific flames have reached the immortal’s world, then men remember and extol the heavenly folk.

prarudreNayayinAyantisindhavastiromahImaramatiM dadhanvire |
yebhiH parijmApariyannurujrayo viroruvajjaTharevishvamukshate || 10.92.5 ||

Onward, with ever-roaming rudra, speed the floods: over aramati the mighty have they run.
With them parijmA, moving round his vast domain, loud bellowing, bedews all things that are within.

krANArudrAmarutovishvakRSTayo divaH shyenAso asurasyanILayaH |
tebhishcaSTevaruNomitro aryamendrodevebhirarvashebhirarvashaH || 10.92.6 ||

Straightway the rudrAs, marutas visiting all men, falcons of dyaus, home-dwellers with the asura;
VaruNa, mitra, aryaman look on with these, and the swift-moving indra with swift-moving gods.

indrebhujaM shashamAnAsa Ashata sUrodRshIkevRSaNashcapauMsye |
prayenvasyArhaNAtatakshire yujaM vajraM nRSadaneSukAravaH || 10.92.7 ||

With indra have they found enjoyment, they who toil, in the light’s beauty, in the very strong one’s strength;
The singers who in men’s assemblies forged for him, according to his due, his friend the thunderbolt.

sUrashcidAharito asyarIramadindrAdAkashcidbhayatetavIyasaH |
bhImasyavRSNojaTharAdabhishvaso divedivesahuristannabAdhitaH || 10.92.8 ||

Even the sun’s bay coursers hath lie, held in check: each one fears indra as the mightiest of all.
Unhindered, from the air’s vault thunders, day by day, the loud triumphant breathing of the fearful bull.

stomaM vo adyarudrAyashikvase kshayadvIrAyanamasAdidiSTana |
yebhiH shivaH svavAM evayAvabhirdivaH siSaktisvayashAnikAmabhiH || 10.92.9 ||

With humble adoration show this day your song of praise to mighty rudra, ruler of the brave:
With whom, the eager ones, going their ordered course, he comes from heaven self-bright, auspicious, strong to guard.

tehiprajAyA abharantavishravo bRhaspatirvRSabhaH somajAmayaH |
yaj&#241;airatharvAprathamovidhArayaddevAdakshairbhRgavaH saM cikitrire || 10.92.10 ||

For these have spread abroad the fame of human kind, the bull bRhaspati and soma’s brotherhood.
Atharvan first by sacrifices made men sure: through skill the bhRgavas were esteemed of all as gods.

tehidyAvApRthivIbhUriretasA narAshaMsashcatura&#209;goyamo’ditiH |
devastvaSTAdraviNodARbhukshaNaH prarodasImarutoviSNurarhire || 10.92.11 ||

For these, the earth and heaven with their abundant seed, four-bodied narAshaMsa, yama, aditi,
God tvaSTA, wealth-bestower, the RbhukshaNas, rodasI, marutas, viSNu, claim and merit praise.

pranaH pUSAcarathaM vishvadevyo’pAM napAdavatuvAyuriSTaye |
AtmAnaM vasyo abhivAtamarcata tadashvinAsuhavAyAmanishrutam || 10.92.13 ||

Dear to all gods, may pUSA guard the ways we go, the waters’ child and vAyu help us to success.
Sing lauds for your great bliss to wind, the breath of all: ye ashvinas prompt to hear, hear this upon your way.

vishAmAsAmabhayAnAmadhikshitaM gIrbhirusvayashasaM gRNImasi |
gnAbhirvishvAbhiraditimanarvaNamaktoryuvAnaM nRmaNA adhApatim || 10.92.14 ||

With hymns of praise we sing him who is throned as lord over these fearless tribes, the self-resplendent one.
We praise night’s youthful lord benevolent to men, the foeless one, the free, with all celestial dames.

rebhadatrajanuSApUrvo a&#209;girA grAvANa UrdhvA abhicakshuradhvaram |
yebhirvihAyA abhavadvicakshaNaH pAthaH sumekaM svadhitirvananvati || 10.92.15 ||

By reason of his birth here a&#209;giras first sang: the pressing-stones upraised beheld the sacrifice,
The stones through which the sage became exceeding vast, and the sharp axe obtains in fight the beauteous place.

sarabhanga
30 April 2008, 11:14 PM
Now, where is that cunning muSa hiding in the Rgveda?

Considering only the 33 YHV hymns, the prophet “Moses” appears in three hymns, which provide (among other biblical hints) the basic ingredients for the story of Exodus.

And the themes of moSIs and Exodus are elaborated in a few other hymns, especially in the first maNDalam.



From Rgveda I:

kasya nUnaM katamasyAmRtAnAmmanAmahe cAru devasya nAma |
ko no mahyA aditaye punardAtpitaraM ca dRsheyammAtaraM ca || 24.1 ||

Who now is he, what god among immortals, of whose auspicious name we may bethink us?
Who shall to mighty aditi restore us, that I may see my father and my mother?

agnervayamprathamasyAmRtAnAmmanAmahe cAru devasya nAma |
sa no mahyA aditaye punardAtpitaraM ca dRsheyammAtaraM ca || 24.2 ||

Agni the god, the first among the immortals, of his auspicious name let us bethink us.
He shall to mighty aditi restore us, that I may see my father and my mother.

abhi tvA deva savitarIshAnaM vAryANAm |
sadAvanbhAgamImahe || 24.3 ||

To thee, O savitar, the lord of precious things, who helpest us
Continually, for our share we come,

yashciddhi ta itthA bhagaH shashamAnaH purA nidaH |
adveSo hastayordadhe || 24.4 ||

Wealth, highly lauded ere reproach hath fallen on it, which is laid,
Free from all hatred, in thy hands

bhagabhaktasya te vayamudashema tavAvasA |
mUrdhAnaM rAya Arabhe || 24.5 ||

Through thy protection may we come to even the height of affluence,
Which bhaga hath dealt out to us.

nahi te kshatraM na saho na manyuM vayashcanAmI patayanta ApuH |
nemA Apo animiSaM carantIrna ye vAtasya praminantyabhvam || 24.6 ||

Never have those birds that fly through air attained to thy high dominion or thy might or spirit;
Nor these the waters that flow on for ever, nor hills, abaters of the wind’s wild fury.

abudhne rAjA varuNo vanasyordhvaM stUpaM dadate pUtadakshaH |
nIcInA sthurupari budhna eSAmasme antarnihitAH ketavaH syuH || 24.7 ||

VaruNa, king, of hallowed might, sustains erect the tree’s stem in the baseless region.
Its rays, whose root is high above, stream downward: deep may they sink within us, and be hidden.

uruM hi rAjA varuNashcakAra sUryAya panthAmanvetavA u |
apade pAdA pratidhAtave’karutApavaktA hRdayAvidhashcit || 24.8 ||

King varuNa hath made a spacious pathway, a pathway for the sun wherein to travel.
Where no way was he made him set his footstep, and warned afar whatever afflicts the spirit.

shataM te rAjanbhiSajaH sahasramurvI gabhIrA sumatiSTe astu |
bAdhasva dUre nirRtimparAcaiH kRtaM cidenaH pra mumugdhyasmat || 24.9 ||

A hundred balms are thine, O king, a thousand; deep and wide-reaching also be thy favours.
Far from us, far away drive thou destruction; put from us even the sin we have committed.

amI ya RkshA nihitAsa uccA naktaM dadRshre kuha ciddiveyuH |
adabdhAni varuNasya vratAni vicAkashaccandramA naktameti || 24.10 ||

Whither by day depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven above us?
VaruNa’s holy laws remain unweakened, and through the night the moon moves on in splendor.

tattvA yAmi brahmaNA vandamAnastadA shAste yajamAno havirbhiH |
aheLamAno varuNeha bodhyurushaMsa mAna AyuH pra moSIH || 24.11 ||

I ask this of thee with my prayer adoring; thy worshipper craves this with his oblation.
VaruNa, stay thou here and be not angry; steal not our life from us, O thou wide-ruler.

tadinnaktaM taddivA mahyamAhustadayaM keto hRda A vi caSTe |
shunaHshepo yamahvadgRbhItaH so asmAnrAjA varuNo mumoktu || 24.12 ||

Nightly and daily this one thing they tell me, this too the thought of mine own heart repeateth.
May he to whom prayed fettered shunaHshepa, may he the sovran varuNa release us.

shunaHshepo hyahvadgRbhItastriSvAdityaM drupadeSu baddhaH |
avainaM rAjA varuNaH sasRjyAdvidvAM adabdho vi mumoktu pAshAn || 24.13 ||

Bound to three pillars captured shunaHshepa thus to the Aditya made his supplication.
Him may the sovran varuNa deliver, wise, never deceived, loosen the bonds that bind him.

ava te heLo varuNa namobhirava yaj&#241;ebhirImahe havirbhiH |
kshayannasmabhyamasura pracetA rAjannenAMsi shishrathaH kRtAni || 24.14 ||

With bending down, oblations, sacrifices, O varuNa, we deprecate thine anger:
Wise asura, thou king of wide dominion, loosen the bonds of sins by us committed.

uduttamaM varuNa pAshamasmadavAdhamaM vi madhyamaM shrathAya |
athA vayamAditya vrate tavAnAgaso aditaye syAma || 24.15 ||

Loosen the bonds, O varuNa, that hold me, loosen the bonds above, between, and under,
So in thy holy law may we, made sinless, belong to aditi, O thou Aditya.

asmA idu pra tavase turAya prayo na harmi stomammAhinAya |
RcISamAyAdhrigava ohamindrAya brahmANi rAtatamA || 61.1 ||

Even to him, swift, strong and high, exalted, I bring my song of praise as dainty viands,
My thought to him resistless, praise-deserving, prayers offered most especially to indra.

asmA idu praya iva pra yaMsi bharAmyA&#209;gUSambAdhe suvRkt&#237; |
indrAya hRdA manasA manISA pratnAya patye dhiyo marjayanta || 61.2 ||

Praise, like oblation, I present, and utter aloud my song, my fair hymn to the victor.
For indra, who is lord of old, the singers have decked their lauds with heart and mind and spirit.

asmA idu tyamupamaM svarSAmbharAmyA&#209;gUSamAsyena |
maMhiSThamachoktibhirmatInAM suvRktibhiH sUriM vAvRdhadhyai || 61.3 ||

To him then with my lips mine adoration, winning heaven’s light, most excellent, I offer,
To magnify with songs of invocation and with fair hymns the lord, most bounteous giver.

asmA idu stomaM saM hinomi rathaM na taSTeva tatsinAya |
girashca girvAhase suvRktIndrAya vishvaminvammedhirAya || 61.4 ||

Even for him I frame a laud, as fashions the wright a chariot for the man who needs it,
Praises to him who gladly hears our praises, a hymn well-formed, all-moving, to wise indra.

asmA idu saptimiva shravasyendrAyArkaM juhvA sama&#241;je |
vIraM dAnaukasaM vandadhyai purAM gUrtashravasaM darmANam || 61.5 ||

So with my tongue I deck, to please that indra, my hymn, as it were a horse, through love of glory,
To reverence the hero, bounteous giver, famed far and wide, destroyer of the castles.

asmA idu tvaSTA takshadvajraM svapastamaM svaryaM raNAya |
vRtrasya cidvidadyena marma tujannIshAnastujatA kiyedhAH || 61.6 ||

Even for him hath tvaSTA forged the thunder, most deftly wrought, celestial, for the battle,
Wherewith he reached the vital parts of vRtra, striking the vast, the mighty with the striker.

asyedu mAtuH savaneSu sadyo mahaH pitumpapivA&#241;cArvannA |
muSAyadviSNuH pacataM sahIyAnvidhyadvarAhaM tiro adrimastA || 61.7 ||

As soon as, at libations of his mother, great viSNu had drunk up the draught, he plundered,
The dainty foods, the cooked food; but one stronger transfixed the wild boar, shooting through the mountain.

asmA idu gnAshciddevapatnIrindrAyArkamahihatya UvuH |
pari dyAvApRthivI jabhra urvI nAsya te mahimAnampariSTaH || 61.8 ||

To him, to indra, when he slew the dragon, the dames, too, consorts of the gods, wove praises.
The mighty heaven and earth hath he encompassed: thy greatness heaven and earth, combined, exceed not.

asyedeva shavasA shuSantaM vi vRshcadvajreNa vRtramindraH |
gA na vrANA avanIramu&#241;cadabhi shravo dAvane sacetAH || 61.10 ||

Through his own strength, indra with bolt of thunder cut piece-meal vRtra, drier up of waters.
He let the floods go free, like cows imprisoned, for glory, with a heart inclined to bounty.

asyedu tveSasA ranta sindhavaH pari yadvajreNa sImayachat |
IshAnakRddAshuSe dashasyanturvItaye gAdhaM turvaNiH kaH || 61.11 ||

The rivers played, through his impetuous splendour, since with his bolt he compassed them on all sides.
Using his might and favouring him who worshipped, he made a ford, victorious, for turvIti.

asmA idu pra bharA tUtujAno vRtrAya vajramIshAnaH kiyedhAH |
gorna parva vi radA tirashceSyannarNAMsyapAM caradhyai || 61.12 ||

Vast, with thine ample power, with eager movement, against this vRtra cast thy bolt of thunder.
Rend thou his joints, as of an ox, dissevered, with bolt oblique, that floods of rain may follow.

asyedu pra brUhi pUrvyANi turasya karmANi navya ukthaiH |
yudhe yadiSNAna AyudhAnyRghAyamANo niriNAti shatrUn || 61.13 ||

Sing with new lauds his exploits wrought aforetime, the deeds of him, yea, him who moves swiftly,
When, hurling forth his weapons in the battle, he with impetuous wrath lays low the foemen.

asyedu bhiyA girayashca dRLhA dyAvA ca bhUmA januSastujete |
upo venasya joguvAna oNiM sadyo bhuvadvIryAya nodhAH || 61.14 ||

When he, yea, he, comes forth the firm: set mountains and the whole heaven and earth, tremble for terror.
May nodhAs, ever praising the protection of that dear friend, gain quickly strength heroic.

asmA idu tyadanu dAyyeSAmeko yadvavne bhUrerIshAnaH |
praitashaM sUrye paspRdhAnaM sauvashvye suSvimAvadindraH || 61.15 ||

Now unto him of these things hath been given what he who rules alone over much, electeth.
Indra hath helped etasha, soma-presser, contending in the race of steeds with sUrya.

evA te hAriyojanA suvRktIndra brahmANi gotamAso akran |
aiSu vishvapeshasaM dhiyaM dhAH prAtarmakshU dhiyAvasurjagamyAt || 61.16 ||

Thus to thee, indra, yoker of bay coursers, the gotamAs have brought their prayers to please thee.
Bestow upon them thought, decked with all beauty ~ may he, enriched with prayer, come soon and early.

yoniSTa indra niSade akAri tamA niSIda svAno nArvA |
vimucyA vayo’vasAyAshvAndoSA vastorvahIyasaH prapitve || 104.1 ||

The altar hath been made for thee to rest on: come like a panting courser and be seated.
Loosen thy flying steeds, set free thy horses who bear thee swiftly nigh at eve and morning.

o tye nara indramUtaye gurnU cittAnsadyo adhvano jagamyAt |
devAso manyuM dAsasya shcamnante na A vakshansuvitAya varNam || 104.2 ||

These men have come to indra for assistance: shall he not quickly come upon these pathways?
May the gods quell the fury of the dAsa, and may they lead our folk to happy fortune.

ava tmanA bharate ketavedA ava tmanA bharate phenamudan |
kshIreNa snAtaH kuyavasya yoSe hate te syAtAmpravaNe shiphAyAH || 104.3 ||

He who hath only wish as his possession casts on himself, casts foam amid the waters.
Both wives of kuyava in milk have bathed them: may they be drowned within the depth of shiphA.

yuyopa nAbhiruparasyAyoH pra pUrvAbhistirate rASTi shUraH |
a&#241;jasI kulishI vIrapatnI payo hinvAnA udabhirbharante || 104.4 ||

This hath his kinship checked who lives beside us: with ancient streams forth speeds and rules the hero,
a&#241;jasI, kulishI, and vIrapatnI, delighting him, bear milk upon their waters.

prati yatsyA nIthAdarshi dasyoroko nAchA sadanaM jAnatI gAt |
adha smA no maghava&#241;carkRtAdinmA no magheva niSSapI parA dAH || 104.5 ||

Soon as this dasyu’s traces were discovered, as she who knows her home, he sought the dwelling.
Now think thou of us, maghavan, nor cast us away as doth a profligate his treasure.

sa tvaM na indra sUrye so apsvanAgAstva A bhaja jIvashaMse |
mAntarAmbhujamA rIriSo naH shraddhitaM te mahata indriyAya || 104.6 ||

Indra, as such, give us a share of sunlight, of waters, sinlessness, and reputation.
Do thou no harm to our yet unborn offspring: our trust is in thy mighty indra-power.

adhA manye shratte asmA adhAyi vRSA codasva mahate dhanAya |
mA no akRte puruhUta yonAvindra kshudhyadbhyo vaya AsutiM dAH || 104.7 ||

Now we, I think, in thee as such have trusted: lead us on, mighty one, to ample riches.
In no unready house give us, O indra invoked of many, food and drink when hungry.

mA no vadhIrindra mA parA dA mAnaH priyA bhojanAni pra moSIH |
ANDA mA no maghava&#241;chakra nirbhenmA naH pAtrA bhetsahajAnuSANi || 104.8 ||

Slay us not, indra; do not thou forsake us: steal not away the joys which we delight in.
Rend not our unborn brood, strong lord of bounty, our vessels with the life that is within them.

arvA&#209;ehi somakAmaM tvAhurayaM sutastasya pibA madAya |
uruvyacA jaThara A vRSasva piteva naH shRNuhi hUyamAnaH || 104.9 ||

Come to us; they have called thee soma-lover: here is the pressed juice; drink thereof for rapture.
Widely-capacious, pour it down within thee, and, invocated, hear us like a father.

matsyapAyi te mahaH pAtrasyeva harivo matsaro madaH |
vRSA te vRSNa indurvAjI sahasrasAtamaH || 175.1 ||

Glad thee: thy glory hath been quaffed, lord of bay steeds, as it were the bowl’s enlivening mead.
For thee the strong there is strong drink, mighty, omnipotent to win.

A naste gantu matsaro vRSA mado vareNyaH |
sahAvAM indra sAnasiH pRtanASALamartyaH || 175.2 ||

Let our strong drink, most excellent, exhilarating, come to thee,
Victorious, indra, bringing gain, immortal conquering in fight,

tvaM hi shUraH sanitA codayo manuSo ratham |
sahAvAndasyumavratamoSaH pAtraM na shociSA || 175.3 ||

Thou, hero, winner of the spoil, urgest to speed the car of man.
Burn, like a vessel with the flame, the lawless dasyu, conqueror.

muSAya sUryaM kave cakramIshAna ojasA |
vaha shuSNAya vadhaM kutsaM vAtasyAshvaiH || 175.4 ||

Empowered by thine own might, O sage, thou stolest sUrya’s chariot wheel.
Thou barest kutsa with the steeds of wind, to shuSNa as his death.

shuSmintamo hi te mado dyumnintama uta kratuH |
vRtraghnA varivovidA maMsISThA ashvasAtamaH || 175.5 ||

Most mighty is thy rapturous joy, most splendid is thine active power,
Wherewith, foe-slaying, sending bliss, thou art supreme in gaining steeds.

yathA pUrvebhyo jaritRbhya indra maya ivApo na tRSyate babhUtha |
tAmanu tvA nividaM johavImi vidyAmeSaM vRjanaM jIradAnum || 175.6 ||

As thou, O indra, to the ancient singers wast ever joy, as water to the thirsty,
So unto thee I sing this invocation: may we find strengthening food in full abundance.

sarabhanga
01 May 2008, 01:05 AM
And from the Rgveda:


satrAte anukRSTayo vishvAcakrevavAvRtuH |
satrAmahAM asishrutaH || 4.30.2 ||

Like chariot-wheels these people all together follow after thee:
Thou ever art renowned as great.

vishvecanedanAtvA devAsa indrayuyudhuH |
yadahAnaktamAtiraH || 4.30.3 ||

Not even all the gathered gods conquered thee, indra, in the war,
When thou didst lengthen days by night.

yatrotabAdhitebhyashcakraM kutsAyayudhyate |
muSAya indrasUryam || 4.30.4 ||

When for the sake of those oppressed, and kutsa as he battled,
Thou stolest away the sun’s car-wheel.

yatradevAM RghAyato vishvAM ayudhya eka it |
tvamindravanUMrahan || 4.30.5 ||

When, fighting singly, indra, thou overcame all the furious gods,
Thou slewest those who strove with thee.

yatrotamartyAyakamariNA indrasUryam |
prAvaH shacIbhiretasham || 4.30.6 ||

When also for a mortal man, indra, thou sped forth the sun,
And helped etasha with might.

kimAdutAsivRtrahanmaghavanmanyumattamaH |
atrAhadAnumAtiraH || 4.30.7 ||

What? vRtra-slayer, art not thou, maghavan, fiercest in thy wrath?
So hast thou quelled the demon too.

utasindhuM vibAlyaM vitasthAnAmadhikshami |
pariSThA indramAyayA || 4.30.12 ||

Thou, indra, didst with magic power resist the overflowing stream
Who spread her waters over the land.

utatyAturvashAyadU asnAtArAshacIpatiH |
indrovidvAM apArayat || 4.30.17 ||

So sapient indra, lord of might, brought turvasha and yadu, those
Who feared the flood, in safety over.

utatyAsadya AryA sarayorindra pArataH |
arNAcitrarathAvadhIH || 4.30.18 ||

ArNa and citraratha, both AryAs, thou, indra, slewest swift,
On yonder side of sarayu,

anudvAjahitAnayo’ndhaM shroNaM cavRtrahan |
natattesumnamaSTave || 4.30.19 ||

Thou, vRtra-slayer, didst conduct those two forlorn, the blind, the lame.
None may attain this bliss of thine.

abhUrekorayipaterayINAmAhastayoradhithA indrakRSTIH |
vitoke apsutanayecasUre’vocantacarSaNayovivAcaH || 6.31.1 ||

Sole lord of wealth art thou, O lord of riches: thou in thine hands hast held the people, indra.
Men have invoked thee, with contending voices, for seed and waters, progeny and sunlight.

tvadbhiyendrapArthivAnivishvAcyutAciccyAvayanterajAMsi |
dyAvAkshAmAparvatAsovanAni vishvaM dRLhambhayate ajmannAte || 6.31.2 ||

Through fear of thee, O indra, all the regions of earth, though naught may move them, shake and tremble.
All that is firm is frightened at thy coming: the earth, the heaven, the mountain, and the forest.

tvaM kutsenAbhishuSNamindrAshuSaM yudhyakuyavaM gaviSTau |
dashaprapitve adhasUryasya muSAyashcakramaviverapAMsi || 6.31.3 ||

With kutsa, indra, thou didst conquer shuSNa, voracious, bane of crops, in fight for cattle.
In the close fray thou rentest him: thou stolest the sun’s wheel and didst drive away misfortunes.

srivijaya
01 May 2008, 03:51 AM
In reading this thread I am sadly reminded of how vulnerable and poorly educated people are cynically manipulated by religious missionaries. Some of the spurious claims they use (based on out of context words and so on) are truly lamentable. Never forget that the deepest and most spiritual interpreters of Christianity (The Gnostics) were denounced as heretics. What remains is a very superficial, dualistic and legalistic religion lacking any path to attain higher states and God Consciousness. It is, therefore, focussed on 'quantity, rather than quality' seeking as many converts as possible.

Even here in the UK I have such missionaries knocking on my door in a hope to save my soul for their version of Christianity.

The irony is that in investigating Shaivism, I have come to understand the coded message of the Genesis story within the Old Testament - the parallels are strikingly obvious for anyone who bothers to look. I would even go as far as to say that the Genesis story only makes sense within a Shaivite (or at least higher Hindu) context. The only problem is that no Christian will ever accept this. There are many pseudo-historians who churn out re-interpretations of biblical lore and any attempt to explain my 'evidence' to Christians would be dismissed as similar nonsense.

At the end of the day all Indian Hindus can do is educate their lesser-informed brethren - to demonstrate the obvious superiority of their system.

Namaste

satay
01 May 2008, 01:43 PM
Namaskar!





For thou wilt light my candle: the lord my god will enlighten my darkness. [Psalm 18]

The statutes of the lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. [Psalm 19]

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. [Ephesians 1]

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost, and have tasted the good word of god, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the son of god afresh, and put him to an open shame. [Hebrews 6]



Could you please share with us the context of these quotes?

For example, Psalm 18.28 For thou wilt light my candle: the lord my god will enlighten my darkness

Is David taking about 'enlightenment' the same way hindus talk abou 'enlightenment'?

I read the whole psalm 18 several times and to me it only confirms the christian understanding of God as a separate entity than the sinful man.

David quite clearly is 'praying' to God implying that God is a separate entity. The closest thing in Hinduism for this is us praying to God for guidance and forgiveness etc.

The 'darkness' David is talking about is the 'evil forces' as understood by christians i.e. forces that are not 'good' or are 'against' God and 'resist' God.

By the way my understanding is that 'hinduism' is one such EVIL force in the context of christinaity as it tempts the man away from GOD by saying, "man you yourself are GOD but have forgotten your real nature due to maya'.


I don't see how this quote means David is asking for 'enlightenment' i.e. the realization that 'he is GOD'!

Same logic applies to other quotes you mentioned...

I would like to understand how in your mind David's quote of 'my god will enlighten my darkness' is same as a hindu sage seeking enlightenment.

I don't get it...




And redemption is from the Latin redemptio (“a buying back, releasing, or ransoming”), from redimere (“to redeem or buy back”, from re- “back” + emere “to take, buy, gain, or procure”).

Redemption, as “deliverance from sin” (redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life), is the same idea as moksha (release from the bondage of reincarnation), which equally involves the extinguishing of all personal karma and the absolute submission of one’s mortal life to the one divine essence of immortal Life.


'redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life'...yes, I get that...
But what's the purpose in the Christian context of this 'immortal' life?

The purpose of the 'immortal life' as I understand is to be 'in service' to God, to 'spend' this immortal life in the 'presence of God' or 'at his feet'
NOT to 'be GOD' as in moksha...merging back to the source!

Please correct my understanding...

atanu
01 May 2008, 08:46 PM
Namaskar!

'redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life'...yes, I get that...
But what's the purpose in the Christian context of this 'immortal' life?
-
Please correct my understanding...


I am sorry. I do not get 'redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life' at all. It is an interpolation just as 99 &#37; of this thread is.


1. improving of something: the saving or improving of something that has declined into a poor state 2. redeemed state: the improved state of somebody or something saved from apparently irreversible decline 3. buying back of something: the buying back of something given, for example, to a pawnbroker, as security for a loan 4. finance ending of financial obligation: the removal of a financial obligation, for example, the repayment of a loan or promissory note 5. christianity: atonement for human sin: deliverance from the sins of humanity by the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross

[14th century. Via French r&#233;demption from, ultimately, Latin redempt- , the past participle stem of redimere (see redeem).]


-----------------------------

atonement for human sin

And all humans except christians are embodied SIN. Even revered hindu Gurus, who we know as Jivan Muktas need redemption -- many of them do not and/or did not follow proper procedures.


Redeeming itself has a connotation of Debt, which Shri Sarabhanga has alluded to many times as similar to Yama and Niyama. Whose debt it is? Does anyone know why one has taken a body? Creating the mystery of debt is a trap for further bondage, just as creating fear of Rahu.

Consciousness alone is. Rahu is there and debt is there. Who is indebted to whom?



Om

sarabhanga
02 May 2008, 10:08 AM
Could you please share with us the context of these quotes?

Namaste Satay,

The context of the whole Bible is the relation of ‘yahva’ and ‘yeSu’.

The context of Psalms 18 and 19 is the singer dAva (agni) or dAvat (“giving”) offering praise to the chief musician (yahvI or rodasI or iLA ~ i.e. vAc ~ or to yahvaH, who is agni himself).




I don’t see how this quote means David is asking for ‘enlightenment’ i.e. the realization that ‘he is GOD’!

It is not possible to realize identity with God by asking for anything.

David composed Psalm 18 on the day of his deliverance from all his enemies, and the greatest ‘enemy’ of every mortal being is the consuming darkness of death.

From Psalm 18:

I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.

They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay.

He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.

As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.

It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.

He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.

Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.

I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.

He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man.

Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.
From Psalm 19 (the jihva of dAva praising the vAc of yahva):

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
The nature of this enlightenment is more explicitly revealed as the Bible unfolds.

Psalm 18 ~ “the lord my god will enlighten my darkness”
What darkness will be enlightened?

Psalm 19 ~ “the commandment of the lord is pure, enlightening the eyes”
The darkness of my eyes?

Ephesians 1 ~ “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened”
The darkness of the eyes of my understanding.

The nature of the darkness is clear, but what is the nature of the enlightenment?

Ephesians 1 ~ “that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”
So enlightenment involves knowledge of “the glory of his inheritance in the saints”.


And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.

The understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things.


Ephesians 1 ~ “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him”
“The glory of his inheritance in the saints” is “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (i.e. of God).

And, the “spirit of wisdom” and “revelation of knowledge” is described:


Ephesians 1 ~ “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
And Hebrews 6 provides more details of the enlightened ones, who “have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost, and have tasted the good word of god, and the powers of the world to come”.

The Rgveda includes more than a thousand hymns, and every one is (at least figuratively) spoken by a RSi to a devatA, and the process of sacrifice operates (and can only be spoken of) in such a dualistic frame, but the ultimate aim is a spiritual union and a successful conclusion cannot be attained without unity ~ and the unifying process is a spiritual communion, which demands (and simultaneously confers) an absolute unity of spirit.

The path of bhakti (“division or sharing” or “worship or devotion”) is inevitably divided, but in the end it merges with the path of jñAna, which itself began amid the mAyA of dvaitam and only ends when the satyam of advaitam is actually attained (not merely held as a theory, but truly experienced as a fact).




‘Hinduism’ is one such EVIL force in the context of christianity, as it tempts the man away from GOD by saying, “man you yourself are GOD but have forgotten your real nature due to maya”.



And Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his proven way to the Father, but very few have actually done that, and those who have are now counted as Saints.

The understanding of the Saint and the understanding of those who worship (but not imitate) the Saint are very different things.

If ‘Hinduism’ is ‘EVIL’ for this reason, then ‘Jesus’ must equally be regarded as ‘EVIL’, having remembered his true nature as nArAyaNa, the son of nara, and the veritable right hand of nara-nArAyaNa (the twin yahvyau, uniting heaven and earth).






Does Christianity really teach Advaita?

Similarly, one could ask whether Hinduism really teaches Advaita. And the answer would depend on the particular texts selected for consideration, and on the particular philosophical viewpoint one adopted while interpreting those texts.

When you say “Christianity”, do you mean the English interpretation propagated by Protestant Christianity (which itself comes in very many shades), or the Latin interpretation of Catholic Christianity, or the Greek and Aramaic interpretations of the various Orthodox Churches, or the Essene interpretation, or an interpretation based only on the Gospels, or an interpretation based on the surviving words attributed to Jesus himself ?





Redemption, as “deliverance from sin” (redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life), is the same idea as moksha (release from the bondage of reincarnation), which equally involves the extinguishing of all personal karma and the absolute submission of one’s mortal life to the one divine essence of immortal Life.

‘redeeming immortal life by the submission of mortal life’ ... yes, I get that ... But what’s the purpose in the Christian context of this ‘immortal’ life?

The purpose of the ‘immortal life’ as I understand is to be ‘in service’ to God, to ‘spend’ this immortal life in the ‘presence of God’ or ‘at his feet’ ~ NOT to ‘be GOD’ as in moksha ... merging back to the source!

While yet possessed of a mortal body, the spiritual ‘purpose’ of life is in the service of God and regular communion with God, dwelling always in his presence, so to speak.

The exact degree of distinction maintained by a disembodied jIva in the presence of brahma has always been a matter of great debate, and the various schools of Hindu philosophy would all offering differing opinions.

And likewise in Christianity, but if the path of yeSu is taken as the archetype of kRSTaya dharma, then surely the conclusion of his path is an eternally restful and blissful existence in absolute unity with God (or at least equivalence with the “hand” of God, who, being ultimately ekapAt, is entirely known by identity with just one limb).

If a myriad of separate eternal spirits are imagined, forever separated both from one another and from the one eternal spirit of God, all resting in a heaven that is distinct from their various selves, then we have innumerable rivals for God-head ~ and dvaitavAda par excellence.

But what do the words of Jesus tell us of such an eternal separation from God, and what does his own example teach us? I can see no evidence for dvaitavAda in the teaching of Jesus Christ, but throughout this thread I have not particularly considered the exact nature of Jesus’ advaitavAda (which includes various streams, from ajAtivAda to vishiSTAdvaitavAda).



To my mind, the whole story already appeared in Hindu scripture long before the supposed historical events, so no particular person or true historical events are actually required to explain it.




I have some doubts and questions about this text of yours. If you don't mind, you might add more clarity to them:

1. Which Hindu scripture gives ‘the whole story’ about the birth of Christianity?

Since the very beginning of this thread, I have been trying to show that the story of Christianity (which includes both the Old and New Testaments, related in a similar manner to the veda and vedAnta of Hinduism) is largely repeated from saMskRta themes, but in an independently elaborated apabhraMsa ‘translation’. And whether nArAyaNa (yeSu), in heaven, is considered as absolutely identical with nara (yahva), or sitting on the right hand of nara, or running in circles with nara on his head, it makes little difference to the overall story.

satay
02 May 2008, 10:38 AM
Namaste Satay,

The context of the whole Bible is the relation of ‘yahva’ and ‘yeSu’.

The context of Psalms 18 and 19 is the singer dAva (agni) or dAvat (“giving”) offering praise to the chief musician (yahvI or rodasI or iLA ~ i.e. vAc ~ or to yahvaH, who is agni himself).


It is not possible to realize identity with God by asking for anything.

David composed Psalm 18 on the day of his deliverance from all his enemies, and the greatest ‘enemy’ of every mortal being is the consuming darkness of death.


From Psalm 18:
I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. From Psalm 19 (the jihva of dAva praising the vAc of yahva):

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.The nature of this enlightenment is more explicitly revealed as the Bible unfolds.
Psalm 18 ~ “the lord my god will enlighten my darkness”What darkness will be enlightened?
Psalm 19 ~ “the commandment of the lord is pure, enlightening the eyes”The darkness of my eyes?
Ephesians 1 ~ “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened”The darkness of the eyes of my understanding.


The nature of the darkness is clear, but what is the nature of the enlightenment?
Ephesians 1 ~ “that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”So enlightenment involves knowledge of “the glory of his inheritance in the saints”.


Ephesians 1 ~ “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him”“The glory of his inheritance in the saints” is “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (i.e. of God).

And, the “spirit of wisdom” and “revelation of knowledge” is described:


Ephesians 1 ~ “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.And Hebrews 6 provides more details of the enlightened ones, who “have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost, and have tasted the good word of god, and the powers of the world to come”.




Most excellent analysis !

If I may borrow Yajvan's words, I am starting to see the 'sameness'...

Znanna
02 May 2008, 08:46 PM
Since the very beginning of this thread, I have been trying to show that the story of Christianity (which includes both the Old and New Testaments, related in a similar manner to the veda and vedAnta of Hinduism) is largely repeated from saMskRta themes, but in an independently elaborated apabhraMsa ‘translation’. And whether nArAyaNa (yeSu), in heaven, is considered as absolutely identical with nara (yahva), or sitting on the right hand of nara, or running in circles with nara on his head, it makes little difference to the overall story.



Namaste,

(Edited)

The many and the ONE and the intersection and reunion of same.

Plus la change, plus le meme chose.



ZN

atanu
03 May 2008, 02:40 AM
Most excellent analysis !

If I may borrow Yajvan's words, I am starting to see the 'sameness'...

Namaste Satay,

It is good that you can now see the sameness which most Hindu Gurus teach and to which many Hindus concur. At least 5-10&#37; Hindus understand the Atman as one (Advaita) and most others agree that the Atman is the highest Lord. My only problem is this: can you show this sameness to a christian and convince him? Will he not teach you back "No my Lord Jesus is the only Lord and only light"?

The original question remains: If Mohammed, Yahva, Jesus all are in Veda then what need a Hindu should have to follow Jesus, discarding Sanatana dharma? Conversely, what need a christian missionary has of preaching and trying to redeem others, especially Hindus?

Another question has remained unanswered. Who will counter the rational factual argument that Veda itself is not indigenous, since there is no paelentological evidence of horses in India in Harrappan time. Thus Yahva, Jesu etc. etc. are our words and not your words.

I wished to show this much. Our words -Your words. This argument has no scope to stop. Whereas, the Veda is the silent experience of Self as knowledge (Veda), which illumines the objective knowledge of non-Self. Getting lost in objective knowledge is distraction and ignorance. The whole matter, I think, is clouded by misguided knowledge that Veda is external to oneself and that it can be copied from here and there. That Veda is in audible and readable words and in similarity of sounds.

Om

saidevo
03 May 2008, 11:27 AM
Namaste everyone.

Some excellent and connotative explanations by Sarabhanga, although much laboured and somewhat extrapolated for the commons, specially when different books of the Bible are related, treating one is a bhAShya for another.

Correct me if I am wrong: with my limited exposure to them, my impression of the books of the Bible is that we cannot exactly relate the Old and New Testaments in the way we relate Vedas and Upanishads, specially when the New Testament books talk chiefly about the (mythical) Jesus Christ and how everyone should submit to him as the only Supreme Personality of Godhood, much on the lines of Srila Prabhupada's commentary on the Bhagavatam. The submission would fetch the heaven under the kingdom of God where the faithful would for ever serve as a subject, with no entitlement of further aspirations.

Even the sort of 'enlightenment' the Bible books talk of, as Sarabhanga has shown, has to be garnered by relating phrases from one or more of the books to one or many of the other books and presuming this is how it should have been intended, so this is how it should be read.

I am reminded of the movie Die Hard 4.0 starring Bruce Willis, in which Infotech terrorists take total control over the American social and financial systems. First they take over the traffic control, then the stock market and start the third stage of obtaining control of the public utilities. They also drive the FBI staff out of their offices by a fraudulently simulated Anthrax alarm! As the FBI remains clueless, the terrorists take over the TV network and telecast their message, by taking words and phrases from the speeches of American Presidents and stringing them together, thus:

- My fellow Americans... -..it is time to... strike... fear... into... the hearts of... citizenry. - Ask not... ..what your country can do... to avert... this... crisis. - The answer is... -..nothing whatsoever. Our military... strength... is... in this case... ..useless. Read my Iips. The... great... confident... roar... of... American... progress... and... growth... has come to... an end. All the... vital... technology... that... this nation... holds dear... all... communications... transportation... the internet... connectivity... electrical... power... critical... utilities... their... fate... now... rests... in... our... hands. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. I don't know how they're getting in. Thank you. And a... happy Independence Day... to everyone.

I do not mean to underestimate the great work Sarabhanga is doing, but this might be how it may all sound to the Christian commons and the Church nobles and scholars; and then there is the question of the Hindu commons getting this knowledge to heart, so they might be armed with knowledge against conversions.

Moreover, the Pauline Ephesians are addressed to saints, not to the common people, whereas the Hindu scriptures have always focussed on the Jivatma and say that it is not different from the Paramatma in essence. Do we find the equivalent of clear-cut messages such as in the Mahavakhyas (tat tvam asi, aham brahmAsmi, ayam AtmA brahma, prajnyAnam brahma) in the Books of the Bible?

atanu
04 May 2008, 06:09 PM
Namaste Atanu,
----
So I simply enquired, “such as?” ~ admittedly poor grammar, but I didn’t expect my previous casual question (now clarified) to simply be shouted back to me.

If mentioning Subash Kak is all you wanted, surely that has already been done. But if you expect me to search out previous references for every point, I really don’t have the time. If I knowingly repeat the words or the novel ideas of another, then of course there will always be a reference. But I have no inclination to search for possible prior references to every idea that springs (independently) to mind.

Namaste Sarabhanga,


It is natural that one will not know everything and one will not be able to search for all references (and you are after all a man). But then one will not emphatically say 'And where is the origin of YHV from vedic Sanskrit previously known?' without caring to check (Even Shri Kak has not cared to mention the original references).


I have full freedom to point out the far fetched nature of your conclusions.


I do not understand how a religion based on wrongly parsed verses (as per you) lead to the same ultimate truth as of the Vedas?

I do not understand how a scripture (Bible), which you time and again say is teaching exactly the same knowledge as Veda/Vedanta, gives rise to missionaries?

By no amount of imagination, Kavi (Agni who illumines abhram) and abhram can be considered a single sage. That verse is about Agni. Similarly why should Bible writers particularly mis-parse a term which is very close to Brahman? The meaning of Moses to Jews and Egyptians is also just opposite of what you indicate.

Though what you say may be plausible, I do not agree to your hypothesis at all (and for that you should not act personal). Because there is no science in it. Out of the many thousand words a few matches will be found always and creating a big hypothesis (and pushing the hypothesis as the only possible truth seen by you only) is unscientific, which I did not expect of you. Such unscientific claim and counter claims add fuel to wars.

http://www.voi.org/books/ait/ch45.htm
http://www.logon.org/english/s/b1.html

Contradictory inferences based on linguistics (as shown in above two references) will never cease.

When we talk of wrong parsing etc., I wonder who did it and what God was doing?


Why cannot we simply say that Shakti Putra Agni is vaisvanara -- ONE GOD, who illumines everywhere and everytime. Some grasp the Dvaita more and some grasp Advaita more? And it is God who alone has charted the prescriptions -- such as Da-Da-Da.



Om

Znanna
04 May 2008, 06:46 PM
Namaste,

YHV(H) IMO is the formula which most succinctly describes the quantum effect of creation, where unity is defined by its observed duality, complimented by its reflective image.

The implied "second" H is analgous to the charmed particle in quantum physics.

None of the above is scientific, I am no physicist and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

YMMV



ZN
/"It's all the same ****, man" - Janis Joplin

saidevo
04 May 2008, 08:32 PM
Namaste Satay and Sarabhanga.



I have full freedom to point out the far fetched nature of your conclusions (and Satay and you as owners have full freedom to slash 'repu' of anyone who disagrees with you).


Atanu is very right in his above statement. I am sorry to note that points of discussion and debate, specially in this thread, where they disagree with the hypothesis of Sarabhanga, are taken as personal references, resulting in censure such as slashing of 'repu', and that for a senior member like Atanu, who is possibly the most Advaitic among us here.

Satay has always been for full freedom of expression and transparency. Where such freedom is not abused as in the present case of Atanu, the transparency should also assert itself: in other words, the reasons for any censure must be made public, because I think HDF members have a right to know them.

If there be any censure that should result in reduction of 'repu', then I have disagreed the most with Sarabhanga in this thread!

satay
05 May 2008, 11:03 AM
Namaskar,

May I request all other members to stop contributing to this thread untill after the final presentation of the analysis by sarabhanga so as not to disrupt the flow of the information being presented.

Once the analysis is presented we may then ask questions about some points that may need further clarification.


Please consider my request.

satay
05 May 2008, 11:30 AM
Namaskar,

Using the admin panel, I can't see any reduction in anyone's reputation due to their comments against sarabhanga's hypothesis.

i.e. No one has reduced atanu's reputation points.




If there be any censure that should result in reduction of 'repu', then I have disagreed the most with Sarabhanga in this thread!

yajvan
05 May 2008, 09:54 PM
Hari om
~~~~~


I am no physicist and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night.



Namaste Z,

finally some comic relief....

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/Photography/Images/POD/l/laughing-club-508680-sw.jpg

saidevo
06 May 2008, 03:58 AM
Namaste Satay.


Namaskar,

Using the admin panel, I can't see any reduction in anyone's reputation due to their comments against sarabhanga's hypothesis.

i.e. No one has reduced atanu's reputation points.

"No one has reduced atanu's reputation points"(?)

Atanu's reputation points stood at 1185 until his post dated 03 May 2008 that now is at #208. It dropped to 1048 or so, after he commented on my post dated 03 May 2008, that now stands at #209. I was impressed with his approach to Sarabhanga's findings that he spelled out in his post dated 05 May 2008, so I awarded him some 'repu' that raised his points to 1092, the present level at which it stands.

Editing posts and all other sorts of dharmic censure are the prerogative of the administrators, and I have no objection in any censure resulting in negative 'repu' points, thus reducing its level. My only point is that in the spirit of Hindu Dharma (Forum), the reason should be made public, specially when it concerns a member with a long-standing.

satay
06 May 2008, 09:54 AM
Hello and Namaskar sai,

Please allow me some time to look into it in more detail. So far I haven't been able to find the reason for atanu's repu points decrease.

In the meantime, I have manually changed his points to what it was before (as shown in the picture you sent me Atanu).




Namaste Satay.



"No one has reduced atanu's reputation points"(?)

Atanu's reputation points stood at 1185 until his post dated 03 May 2008 that now is at #208. It dropped to 1048 or so, after he commented on my post dated 03 May 2008, that now stands at #209. I was impressed with his approach to Sarabhanga's findings that he spelled out in his post dated 05 May 2008, so I awarded him some 'repu' that raised his points to 1092, the present level at which it stands.

Editing posts and all other sorts of dharmic censure are the prerogative of the administrators, and I have no objection in any censure resulting in negative 'repu' points, thus reducing its level. My only point is that in the spirit of Hindu Dharma (Forum), the reason should be made public, specially when it concerns a member with a long-standing.

saidevo
06 May 2008, 11:46 AM
Namaste Satay.



Please allow me some time to look into it in more detail. So far I haven't been able to find the reason for atanu's repu points decrease.

In the meantime, I have manually changed his points to what it was before (as shown in the picture you sent me Atanu).


Thank you for your prompt action of restoring the status quo. While I appreciate your dharmic action as an admin, I hope the members will understand that it was not a question of hankering after 'repu' points, though they sure motivate a poster--new and experienced.

I shall abide by your suggestion and desist from posting or commenting until Sarabhanga gives a final shape to his findings. I would also like to assure him that any comments or points of disagreement that I have posted are certainly not against his personality or his work; one overwhelming thought that keeps me bothering is what the missionaries like Prof. Ninan are capable of doing with the findings, and this was the main thought behind my comments and points of disagreement. However, we can wait until Sarabhanga finishes with his work and then we can discuss about these points, so I shall wait.

satay
12 May 2008, 12:02 PM
The hypothesis made in this thread starts fresh here
http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2954

Please let the flow of text take its course before commenting. There is a supporting thread to collect all comments on it.