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Believer
28 February 2011, 05:53 PM
Many sharp analytical Hindu minds try to analyze their religion in order to establish the validity of its principles and its origin. There is no shortage of people who come up with the conclusion that its ancient teachings are all man-made with no divine source/inspiration, and need to be tweaked to accommodate today’s social needs/attitudes. For that class of people here are some things to consider:

1. Events in the material realm can be measured in a controlled environment and can be validated by conducting experiments in a lab, but spirituality/religion does not lend itself to that kind of validation. God’s laws are eternal and His presence can be experienced only by a sincere devotee; not by an intellectually sharp analytical mind focused on measuring and culling and cataloging. If a person is in the analysis and measuring mode, and has not surrendered to the Lord, he has no chance of experiencing the Divine.

2. Various Acharyas/philosophers/thinkers may have some differences in the interpretation of the holy scriptures. People may have doubts about the role of certain personalities in the religious spectrum. There may be frustration with the clergy, for not pushing for a synthesis between the religion and nationalism/politics of the land; but under no circumstances must one doubt the divine source of these scriptures. That wrong notion would enable its detractors to twist it in whichever direction they choose to, and portray it in a negative light. With weakened Hinduism, conversions would accelerate even more.

3. With millions of differences dividing various ethnic/linguistic/tribal groups in India, Hinduism is the glue that binds and holds them together. Shaking its foundations would be catastrophic and may result in the disintegration of the nation that we so endearingly call ‘Bharat Mata’. Why would diverse people want to stay as one entity if the commonality between them is made non-existent?

Next time, our analytical Hindu minds get to be too big and start thinking that they are capable of improving on the divine scriptures; we must consider the above points!

sanjaya
01 March 2011, 09:15 AM
Very interesting, Believer. I think I agree with what you've said. Your point about the vast diversity of India is most elucidating. Perhaps it is Hinduism that makes India one nation instead of many. I've never really thought much about the importance of believing that Hindu Scripture is of divine origin, perhaps because I've never bothered to question this notion very much. Are there a lot of people in India who doubt this? I know many fellow Indians here in the United States who do, but I've always thought that this is due to Western, atheistic influence. Do many people in India have debates about whether Hindu Scripture truly comes from God?

sm78
01 March 2011, 11:49 PM
Scriptures in Hinduism refer to ascention of human consciousness to divine. They were revealed when Seers or Rishis, in exalted states of consciousness reached out and touched the divine within themselves.

It was not dictated by a God creature sitting in a heaven to a set of angels or his chosen prophets to be carried as books with the purpose of dictating common people's lives.

While still being of divine orgin/inspiration, the former understanding gives an entirely different appreaciation for religion and its scriptures, as also their limitations, when compared to the Abrhamic view above.

Without having read or studied a single scripture ourselves, the 2nd (Abrahamic) view of scripture and religion ofcourse gives us much ammunition to cover our ignorance, helping us tp blame & bash other sects, intellectuals for all our problems.

We are perhaves not sure of our own religious duties, haven't ever performed tri sandhya consistently, but we can strike hard at anyone on the head who appears to criticize our insecurities with a hard bound gita press copy of catur-veda samhita. Reading it and trying to understand it - how dare you?

Believer
04 March 2011, 08:21 PM
Are there a lot of people in India who doubt this? I know many fellow Indians here in the United States who do, but I've always thought that this is due to Western, atheistic influence. Do many people in India have debates about whether Hindu Scripture truly comes from God?
As should be expected, education sharpens ones analytical abilities. With the ever increasing number of educated people in the homeland, more and more people are taking the 'finding it for myself' stand. Sure one could find scientific proofs/theories about cloud formation, about the reason for the twinkling of the stars, about crazy Americans walking on the surface of the moon, about rockets and nuclear payloads, and much more. Unfortunately, the same approach is applied to religion/spirituality, which are primarily 'faith based'. And therein lies the reason for secularization - show me, else I don't believe it.

Did the Gods of heaven ever descend to the earth, or at least did they inspire some learned sages to come up with the scriptures? Man, the God's creation, inspired by God to write something, is about as close as it gets to the scriptures being the word of God. In the end, we end up splitting hair on the definition of the phrase 'word of God'. This distracts us from our real job - to seek spirituality; and also divides us on the basis of mere semantics. No, Lord Krishna did not stand there dictating the BG to someone, he merely spoke it, someone with extra-ordinary powers (gifted to him by God) heard/saw it all, from a great distance and narrated it to Dhritarashtra, and later on a sage wrote everything down for posterity. If nothing is believable, I wonder, why do we come to this forum? What binds us together? What exactly is it that we believe in? Do we aim to analyze every single holy book and sanitize it? Is anyone here capable of doing that? And if someone really can do that job, why would I trust him to be wiser than our ancient sages and believe in the 'new and improved' sanitized scriptures?
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sm78
04 March 2011, 11:40 PM
You seem to be using the word "analytical" as liberally as psuedo seculars in India use the word "fascist" and "fundamentalist" to mock opponents when they have no substantial point to discuss, but anyway want to win a verbal battle or have a last say.

If sarcasm and mocking makes your cat-tail thicker, I am happy to have assisted you in it.

jasdir
05 March 2011, 01:54 AM
Protecting Sanatan Dharma

Just want ask Question? about title of this post. :)

Who is bigger, The protector or thing which is being protected ?

Another Q: Who is protecting ? :)
Another Q: Why some take this responsibility themselves ? :)

_/\_Jasdir.

Believer
05 March 2011, 02:50 PM
You seem to be using the word "analytical" as liberally as psuedo seculars in India use the word "fascist" and "fundamentalist" to mock opponents when they have no substantial point to discuss, but anyway want to win a verbal battle or have a last say.

If sarcasm and mocking makes your cat-tail thicker, I am happy to have assisted you in it.

SM78,

My sincere apologies for touching a raw nerve.

We, the householders, mostly care about being given a moral code, and some prayers to thank/glorify/petition the Lord by the religious people. Rest of it falls in the domain of serious practitioners and the pandits/gurus/Acharyas. I have not heard any significant deviations in our main scriptures. If different versions do exist for some of the lower tier books, it will never be resolved. The reason is that there is no central authority to resolve such issues. Each Acharyas will continue to teach whatever his Guru taught him. If you have any suggestions regarding implementing changes to have everything uniformly coded, please tell us how we can help.

On a different note, there is talk about Hinduizing politics. How do we get the Acharayas from different Mutts and Ashrams to conform to our desires?

Then there is talk about not supporting a particular party, which at least on paper, has Hindutava as its core belief. The reasons given have been, 1. They also propagate caste based politics, 2. They support free market economy, 3. They use Hindutava for political gains only. Now in all seriousness, does anyone have a solution? Is anyone capable of floating a new Hindu party of clean cut saintly people and have a formula to line up enough people behind them to wrest control of the federal Govt.? Would dalits, muslims, Xitians and assorted masses mired in regional issues ever let that happen?

We bring lots of problems to the forum, but no solutions. There is lot of discussion, we rant and rave, and then the issue dies. Would it not be more productive to have some practical solutions? When pragmatism loses to idealism, there is no progress. We have to see realistically how much we can get of what we want. If my child desires to have moon next to him, and all I can do is provide moon's reflection in a bowl of water sitting next to him, then that is what I will do. The end game depends on, what is do-able, not what I wish for under ideal conditions.

Current generation of young people is the third one since independence. Believe me, each one of the three generations have complained vociferously about corruption, and yet kept Congress in power for some 60 of the 64 odd years. We get what we deserve, nothing more and nothing less. Another thread about corruption while knocking down alternate political parties on one pretext or the other is not going to get India out of the morass.

I am sorry if we are tuned to different frequencies and are talking past each other, instead of to each other. That is not my intent, nor is to cause you any mental anguish. Just looking for solutions, instead of a list of perennial problems. Anger and frustration should be channeled into something positive.

Peace!
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Sahasranama
05 March 2011, 05:11 PM
You have a valid concern about the use of such discussions, but I don't think it's useless. It promotes awareness amongst ourselves, a better millieu starts with yourself. I talked to my sister about Rahul Gandhi and that he promotes anti-Hindu propaganda. She replied, "what nonsense his name is Gandhi, how can he be anti-Hindu?" That just shows how lack of education on politic matters can cause problems, especially in a democratic society. I myself am not concerned a lot with politics in my daily life, but I learn a lot from the discussions here. Especially sm78, saidevo and Harjas Kaur have raised a lot of awareness about the problems in India on this forum.

kd gupta
06 March 2011, 03:10 AM
How many years after krsn ,sanatan dharma existed , say some thousand yrs after parikshit .

humanity is to be protected , dharma never declines . glanih...means hate and abhiutthanam means provoking .

TheOne
06 March 2011, 06:42 AM
What reason is there to "protect" Sanatana Dharma? That would be like trying to protect the law of gravity in the sense that they are both inherent parts of the universe and don't need any defending. Whether you accept gravity or not its still there and you can do nothing to change it. Sanatana Dharma, IMO needs no protection. The hindu people on the other hand do need protection from attacks from radicals in society.

Sahasranama
06 March 2011, 07:05 AM
What reason is there to "protect" Sanatana Dharma? That would be like trying to protect the law of gravity in the sense that they are both inherent parts of the universe and don't need any defending. Whether you accept gravity or not its still there and you can do nothing to change it. Sanatana Dharma, IMO needs no protection. The hindu people on the other hand do need protection from attacks from radicals in society.
The shastras say dharmo rakshati rakshitah, those who protect dharma are protected. It's true that dharma is a higher principle that can take care of itself, but it's also something very pragmatic and that is our plight. The message of the Bhagavad Gita is for Arjuna to fight a dharma yuddha, the war for dharma, not to sit around and wait for everything to fall on its place.

Believer
06 March 2011, 03:53 PM
How many years after krsn ,sanatan dharma existed , say some thousand yrs after parikshit

Guptaji, the real question to ask is how many years did it take for Muslims to eradicate Krishna's name from the lands now known as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh? And with their numbers 15% and growing in India, how much longer would it take for them to totally get rid of Hinduism? I for one, am not the one to quote some idealistic flowery prose, bury my head in the sand, and pretend that everything is okay; that 'GOD' will protect SD. When many Hindus question whether He even came down to give us our holy scriptures, or at least inspired some self-realized souls to write them; what chance do we have of Him coming down to protect what He did not originate? And with the Hindu-land (the only place where His name rules supreme) reduced to less than half of its original size, why has He chosen not to intervene so far?
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Sahasranama
06 March 2011, 04:38 PM
I don't buy the indological view that the shastras were written by some group of brahmins who wanted to controll the masses.

But if we look at the Bhagavad Gita for example, it was first spoken to Arjuna in conversation and percieved by Sanjaya who told it to Dhritarashtra and later written down by Vyasa in poetry form. I don't think Krishna and Arjuna were standing in the middle of the battlefield chanting anushtub chandas, this poetry is from vyasa. There is no reason to doubt the words of the Gita, since we take vyasa to be the all knowing sage, trikala darshi.

If we look at Ayurveda which was first given to us by Dhanvantari and the knowledge was handed down through the ages. The ayurvedic texts we have now are recordings of sages like Charaka and even the Buddhist Nagarjuna. The ayurvedic texts also tells us that a good doctors studies all systems of medicine. This means if Ayurveda says something contrary to modern medicine or even Chinese medicine, we don't have to adhere to Ayurveda persé if it's not the right upaya. Of course if Dhanvantari himself would come down and give us an upaya it would be silly to reject it.

If we look at he dharmashastras, they are not always relevent to modern times. Should we pour melted iron in the ears of the Shudra who listens to the Vedas? Is Ganesha the devata of Shudras? Some, like Swami Rampuri even say the Manu Smriti has never been an authority in Hinduism. A lot of it was written during Islamic/British rule. Some orthodox Hindus are even adhering much stronger to Islamic values even after independence. Before muslim rule Hindu women were allowed to dress as they pleased, but now Hindu swamis come on television to make a big deal out of bollywood actresses wearing skimpy clothes.

Many say they are a strict follower of the vedas, but in actuality they are trying to straightjacket one philosophy like monotheisim or universalism to the entire corpus of the vedas and subliterature which is impossible.

sm78
06 March 2011, 11:43 PM
I don't buy the indological view that the shastras were written by some group of brahmins who wanted to controll the masses.
Nobody except anti-indian vested interests buys that view - many key shastras are not of brahmin authourship, btw.

But who ever wrote these books, whether always divinely inspired or not always, is not the point here.

The key point is Shastras were meant to help humanity in their life and after life. Humans are not there to serve the shastras and devatas, but it is completely the other way round. True shastra don't need servitude as they are eternal. The sole point of their revealation is to uplift the human condition.

So starting point of discussion of any hindu shastra is the human condition, and the aim is human emancipiation.

Just pick any of the major shastras - you will find they were revealed because a protagonist asks the enlightened soul about the human condition and means of its emanation.

To some minds, this discussion may seem dull intellectual hair splitting, but if we forget this, as it seems most of here have, there is virtually nothing special left of indic religions, not just hinduism.

Religion as a tool for human oppression is well known, and there are lot of instances within Hinduism as well, but what makes it fundamentally different is this basic aspect, where religion and God is there to help the human and not the other way round. Multitudes of philosophies have been proposed, few more may be yet to come - but it is not the philopsophies themselves, but their basic purpose in our religion that is most precious.


If we look at he dharmashastras, they are not always relevent to modern times. Should we pour melted iron in the ears of the Shudra who listens to the Vedas? Is Ganesha the devata of Shudras? Some, like Swami Rampuri even say the Manu Smriti has never been an authority in Hinduism. A lot of it was written during Islamic/British rule. Some orthodox Hindus are even adhering much stronger to Islamic values even after independence. Before muslim rule Hindu women were allowed to dress as they pleased, but now Hindu swamis come on television to make a big deal out of bollywood actresses wearing skimpy clothes.

Not just the dharma shastras but many other scriptures can be corrupt or contain wrong views. This is plane common sense. While we give highest respect to the shastras it does not mean anything and everything in them is free from blemish. It is for that reason, it is frequenctly cited that the intelligent person separates the milk from water while drinking. It is for this sole reason, one must take shelter of a sampradaya to interpret shastras. We don't say shastras contain contradictory or wrong views, as it will destroy the precious knowledge stored in them - we simply ignore what is not relevant, and we do this following the path shown by enlightened masters. An intelligent person will understand this is the only possible way.

But for those who cannot live without truth to be reduced to a material object like a book or an icon, and find it necessary, without understanding, to subvert humanity to written books or imaginary gods, would find their needs much better served by the Abhrahamic fellowship.

Those religions exists because there are sado-masochistic people who revel in the human sufferning and rejoice in praise of their imaginary god and books of his authourship, and who seem to serve no purpose other than inflict suffering in present human birth with promise of candy in the afterlife, for the lifetime of servitude.


Many say they are a strict follower of the vedas, but in actuality they are trying to straightjacket one philosophy like monotheisim or universalism to the entire corpus of the vedas and subliterature which is impossible.

Strict follower of veda is a rediculous concept for there are many things in vedas which present day hindus will shiver to even think. There is not a single mention of varna in veda except in a stanze of purusha sukta which can very well be later interpolation. Most of the smartic do's and don'ts have no relevance to the vedic religion. They contain many rituals with animal sacrifices and human sacrifices. I personally am not repulsed by human or animal sacrifices, but 95% of hindus will be. We need not condemn vedas for that, for simply this means and methods may not be relevant now, and sampradaya's pick what is relevant. That's the hindu way. It is really depressing to see, that most people don't have this basic understanding and are always blaming westerns, intellectuallism for their own anti-hindu, Abhrahamic tendencies.

These guys may not be aware, but they are very much Abhrahamics in hindu bodies, and way behind the Indic souls in white skins who they criticize at slightest whim.

Their disgust for intellectualism which has been the back bone of all indic traditions (bhakti was not known untill 500 years past christ, vedas do not mention it a single time), the tendency to worship a printed book on a pedestal without ever reading it, disregarding the need for sampradaya and intuitive understanding & experience etc etc are all Abrahamic traits and are epitome of anti-hindu viewpoint. Mahahrada was right, this forum can very well be called Anti-Hindu Dharma Forums the direction it is moving towards.

sm78
07 March 2011, 01:08 AM
IShould we pour melted iron in the ears of the Shudra who listens to the Vedas? Is Ganesha the devata of Shudras? Some, like Swami Rampuri even say the Manu Smriti has never been an authority in Hinduism. A lot of it was written during Islamic/British rule. Some orthodox Hindus are even adhering much stronger to Islamic values even after independence. Before muslim rule Hindu women were allowed to dress as they pleased, but now Hindu swamis come on television to make a big deal out of bollywood actresses wearing skimpy clothes.

In this regards the case namboodri brahmins are interesting. Maybe a keralite familiar with the true traditions can shed some light. In the begining of last century, Namboodri's were strangely orthodox whose customs were very oppressive for women and the younger male brothers. The practice of untouchability (some of it even I have seen in less religious WB in my great grandmother when I was a kid) was said to be insane. Vivekanada described the Namboodri soceity as an asylum. I don't how much was real, and how much was criticism from his own post-modern vedantic viewpoint. But Namboodri's now seem to acknowledge this situation of the past, which was based on strict adherence to oppressive smartic laws which made life a living hell for some sections of the community.

Now I am told namboodri's are one of the most progressive of brahmins. They are still most orthodox when comes to ritual adherence and maintaing a strict oral tradition of srutis and performing rituals with the strictest srauta standards. But their viewpoints are very liberal (so I am told, and what I can see from personal research) and quite unlike the caste hate ridden northern india or shankara-shankara chanting advaita followers of south, who behave as if all Hindu tradition started and ended with shankara bhagavatpada.

Sahasranama
07 March 2011, 01:37 AM
The author of the nirukta, Yaska says there are three possible interpretations of the vedas: adhiyajnika (ritualistic), adhidaivika (pertaining to divine powers) and adhyatma (spiritual). Reformers often try to give the adhidaivika or adhyatmika meaning in order to refute the adhiyajnika (ritualistic) meaning. I think the deeper meaning of vedic texts were definitely there from the beginning, as is also the opinion of Yaska. Even a lot of the ritualistic meanings that we find in the medieval commentaries of Mahidhara for example are probably priestly fantasies that have never occured. I have not studied the vedas in detail, but I don't think we can find support for Mahidhara's view of Ashvamedha yajna in any of the mantra samhitas or in the Shatapata Brahmana. I don't object to the interpretation of killing the horse which in itself is an irrelevant ritual in this day and age, but the commentators Mahidhara and Uvata take it one step further in obscenity saying that the wife of the yajman should insert the penis of the dead horse in her vagina. So the criticism of the what is erroneously called "western" interpretation in this case is justified, since this interpretation cannot be derived from the vedic texts themselves as is made clear by Swami Dayananda. The problem is that because of such incidences in medieval commentaries, see Mahidhara's and Uvata's commentary on the Madhyandina Samhita of the Shukla Yajurveda, reformers put all literal or ritualistic (adhibhautik/ adhiyajnik) interpretations under criticism and rather use imagination to come up with accepted meanings which often resemble the views of abrahamic scriptures. Criticism against pseudo intellectualism is not completely unjustified, but constantly blaming westerners can go too far and become an excuse not to take a hard look in the mirror.

kd gupta
07 March 2011, 10:08 PM
Guptaji, the real question to ask is how many years did it take for Muslims to eradicate Krishna's name from the lands now known as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh? And with their numbers 15% and growing in India, how much longer would it take for them to totally get rid of Hinduism? I for one, am not the one to quote some idealistic flowery prose, bury my head in the sand, and pretend that everything is okay; that 'GOD' will protect SD. When many Hindus question whether He even came down to give us our holy scriptures, or at least inspired some self-realized souls to write them; what chance do we have of Him coming down to protect what He did not originate? And with the Hindu-land (the only place where His name rules supreme) reduced to less than half of its original size, why has He chosen not to intervene so far?
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Let me discuss the same matter I was discussing earlier . If you go thru shloka 33/3 and 3/8 of gita , you will find that the jeevatma is the root cause of all evils and due to delusion or moha of course . The example of moha is simple...living in jungle without clothes ,junk food etc is natural , but artificial living like eating drinking or exposing the body for money etc is moha . There is solution of each and every problem , you can call it dharma or the parmatma .
Hirankashipu asked prahlad ...kasmat stambhe na drashyate ..why not is HE visible in this pole and he appearred . Therefore krsn says...tadartham karm konteya..9/3 .

jasdir
08 March 2011, 12:17 AM
:) Sorry!

_/\_Jasdir

PARAM
09 March 2011, 10:32 AM
What are you talking about? Before making any wrong attempt, post proof first, and no, anything provided by anti Hindus that Hindu Granths teaches this will not be acceptable.

Hinduism Bali in Yajna is not killing any animal or anything, the word Sacrifice was made first for later used it for killing, which is wrong. Tantric sects use killing, but Vedic teachings prohibits it, Bali means 'purnahuti'
With Ashvmedha, and Narmedha you will even know Gomedha Yajna, anti Hindus often call them killing cow, but it is 'protecting' them not killing. First learn the true meaning, and then speak about it.

Same like anti Hindus always target birth caste instead Varna Karma, and do not allows forefathers either.

Adhvagat
09 March 2011, 11:35 AM
What reason is there to "protect" Sanatana Dharma? That would be like trying to protect the law of gravity in the sense that they are both inherent parts of the universe and don't need any defending. Whether you accept gravity or not its still there and you can do nothing to change it. Sanatana Dharma, IMO needs no protection. The hindu people on the other hand do need protection from attacks from radicals in society.

But Sanatana Dharma (as in our world) is not the inherent part of the universe itself that you use in your example, it's the means to achieve it.

If mad men were to burn down every physics university on the planet, the police (kshatriyas/Arjuna in Gita) had to stop them! Arguing that even if all physicists were killed gravity would still be around is not really the right approach, because people wouldn't be able to learn about it and those who stood passively would be the responsibles for it.

charitra
09 March 2011, 12:25 PM
What reason is there to "protect" Sanatana Dharma? That would be like trying to protect the law of gravity in the sense that they are both inherent parts of the universe and don't need any defending. Whether you accept gravity or not its still there and you can do nothing to change it. Sanatana Dharma, IMO needs no protection. The hindu people on the other hand do need protection from attacks from radicals in society.

Namaste The One,
Agree. As you said our own efforts or lack thereof in no way affect the SD or Brahman. Thankfully we have no capability to make or destroy gravity, solar system etc. Similarly SD (Brahman) is going to be there alright even after the human race dies (remember dinosaurs have left ?) and after earth meets its nemesis.
The overarching need for us to preserve and propagate the fund of scriptural knowledge is to ensure our future generations to savor the sweet nectar of dharmic philosophy. In the event dharmic tradition is ignored, then the life for humans will turn very Tamasic (hedonistic). Darkness rules over our golden planet earth. Shanti.

Believer
16 March 2011, 05:03 PM
I thank all the contributors to this thread for their posts and for not abandoning it despite our differences.


Scriptures in Hinduism refer to ascention of human consciousness to divine. They were revealed when Seers or Rishis, in exalted states of consciousness reached out and touched the divine within themselves.
The key point is Shastras were meant to help humanity in their life and after life. Humans are not there to serve the shastras and devtas, but it is completely the other way round. True shastra don't need servitude as they are eternal. The sole point of their revelation is to uplift the human condition.

So starting point of discussion of any hindu shastra is the human condition, and the aim is human emancipation. The scientist in me agrees with the points made above, and indeed I too carried that point of view for a good part of my life. When we say that the scriptures came about when the Rishis, in their exalted state of consciousness, reached out and touched the divine within or without....means to me, that the divinity psychographed its will/wisdom to humanity through the Rishis. And when divinity is setting up the code of conduct, why would it not be in the service of mankind, rather than to lord over it. I don't have much philosophical difference with the above quotes, except that when we remove divinity as being the direct or indirect source of the shastras, they become like cheap novels written by man, to be updated by every generation in the name of modernity, to suit the current trends. Under those conditions, SD is neither Sanatan, nor a Dharma. But I don't have any issues with others having varying attitudes towards the scriptures and Hinduism itself.

I am trying very hard to reconcile the Sanatan in SD, with the need to update the shastras. Granted that some of the fluff probably got added to some seconadry shastras through the generations by some vested interests, and should be ignored/discarded. It is to counter this fluff that many a times common sense prevails while the word takes a back seat. But the pristine core of the major shastras, which is either God spoken or God inspired (depending on how you think and believe), is untouchable/eternal/sanatan.

Forgive me, but at my age, I have very few brain cells left. So, any simplified brief explanations of contrarian views, to enable me to see the folly of my ways would be appreciated.