Vannakkam
So the other day I was looking for some Hinduism-related ebooks to download on my phablet and Kindle tab. I love reading while travelling, and I move around a lot everyday, so it is a must to read while travelling in the car (if I'm not driving that is, LOL) or if I take the train. I enjoy reading while waiting for my food to arrive at the restaurant, as I dislike looking around blankly and bored while waiting for my food to arrive, unless I'm busy talking to someone(if I'm interested in the topic that is). In fact, I love reading practically anywhere.
I used to carry books around until Kindle and ebooks magically appeared on the scene. As such, my books are now confined to my house only, and accompany me only to hotels and on long-distance trips. There's some sort of satisfaction in holding a book, in contrast to gadgets, Kindle included.
Anyway, of the many thousands of Hinduism-related ebooks available, I happened to download one titled "Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity", along with a few others. Now the title written in the page appeared only as, "Emergence of Hinduism", so I gladly downloaded it thinking it was another good ebook on Hindu history, until I started reading it.
I was horrified.
Seriously how are such books even allowed to be sold and downloaded?
It was atrocious and complete blasphemy! Utter nonsense in other words.
The author, M. M. Ninan, a Christian from Kerala, attempts to twist and turn every single Hindu belief, principle and symbol into a Christian-origin one. And that too from his Christian sect only. Goes on to say that the realisation of this led to the First International Conference on Early Christianity in India which took place in New York, and this issue was the central theme of discussion.
The entire book was full of nonsense, you can only scan through it yourself to believe the extent this person could go to. It just doesn't make sense. I know I can just ignore it and pretend like it never existed but I can't. The confident manner in which he writes his dubious claims gets me so agitated.
Here's part of the introduction:
This book makes several claims which seem outrageous. But they are all based on sound verifiable facts of history, archealogy, architecture, linguistics and clear written documentations. These conclusions are inevitable results of the evidences. The following are essentially the facts:
1. Hinduism did not exist before the second century, A D.
2. Sanskrit did not exist before the second century AD,
3. There were no “Hindu Temples” before the second century AD.
4. The name Krishna did not even exist before the third century AD.
5. Idols (Vigrahas) did not appear in India before the third century AD and in Kerala until the eighth century AD.
6. 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 as it exists today has its origin from the Thomas Ministry and it is simply the Gnostic form of Thomas Christianity. This takeover of Historic Christianity by the Gnostics under the Persian Gnostics occurred around the third century in the Inner India and took much later (eighth century) in Kerala Coast.
LOL
He says of Hindu statements and beliefs, that "none of these claims can even remotely be supported by any objective evidence. It is one thing to claim big, and altogether different to substantiate with evidences." This line is among many other so-called sudden realisations of his.
It isn't a very popular book and gets a lot of negative comments obviously. I know most of you here might tell me to just ignore it, but it gets to me. I won't be surprised if there are other books of this nature out there. Thank you for letting me vent.
Aum Namah Shivaya
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