The book - Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity

[MahaHrada]

We shouldn't listen to Arya Samaj, Christian or Indological propaganda about what existed in Hinduism in ancient times. The puranas are the fifth Veda as is stated in the Atharva Veda, the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, anyone who says idol worship doesn't occur in Veda, does not know what Veda is. Many instances of idol worship already occurred in the times of Prahlada, Rama and Krishna. Only nastikas will say that idol worship came later.

We don´t need to prove anything? The puranas claim that the sun circles around the earth and the moon is at a further distance from the sun, whoever claims otherwise is a nastika? a dirty kuffar, taliban style Hinduism? To consider the Puranas as the fifth veda, and therefore shruti and equal in authority, you do not mean that seriously, that can be only agitation against the vile enemies of true Hinduism, evil christians and vile western indilogostists and all the rest of the kuffars.

Vedic shrauta dharma is still practised in India and still the sacrifice is done without temples and without images by these Mimamsakas like the Somayagyam:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2RA...t?pli=1&hl=en#

So where is the proof, where are the ancient vedic idols and temples? What instances of early idol worship done by the vedic community are you talking about?

[charitra]

Bankruptcy of ideas gentlemen?

[Equinox]

Uh huh... Now I know what you are MahaHrada.

You're a Vedantist!

It's just so very obvious in your apparent dislike towards temple and image worship! And how uncivilised of you to use the word 'idol'. That's about as uncultured as you can get!

Vedic religion or shrauta dharma does not know worship of images and brahmins did not officiate in temples or worshipped images prior to the Gupta age. They worshipped and sacrificed in temporary huts that have to be burned down after use and without the use of images. That is a proven fact.

Yes, Image use is unknown in ancient vedic religion, as many other ideas that are a part of Hinduism that were accepted only at a later date by the brahmin community.
Only Puranas and Agamas prescribe image worship or temple worship, this kind of worship, combining shrauta rituals with non vedic concepts began to become widely accepted and practiced during gupta rule.

Certainly they existed but were not worshipped in temples or by the use of images, instead by means of the shrauta rites presribed in the karma kanda of the vedas. In the Dharmashastra it is even warnend that the sacrality of the vedic sacrifices can be destroyed when a temple priest is present.

The Puranas and Agamas are not part of the Vedic shrauta dharma, they are later sectarian Hindu scriptures. Vedic religion is a part of Hinduism i already wrote that, but Puranas and Agamas are not part of the ancient vedic religion, the shrauta dharma, but date from a time when Hinduism and its temple worship and image worship of vedic deities such as Vishnu was already established.

No, that is a wrong assumption it is beyond doubt that the ancient vedic religion is very different from modern Hinduism for instance as i just explainend, there was no temple worship or image worship in the vedic religion.

As is said temple worship as prescribed in the Puranas and Agamas, the worship of vedic deities in the form of images in temples happened at a later date than Buddhism and Jainism. The first larger and more important Temples were built around the 5-6th century CE. Buddha lived appx. in the 5th century BCE, so Buddha predates the nowdays widespread Hindu way of temple and image worship of vedic dieties about 1000 years.

Extensive Temple building did not exist prior to the 5th century. There is no extensive temple building that date back to an early date except some mud structures here and there there was nothing. While we find lots of Images of Buddhas and Jain Tirthankaras in Kushana age there are very few hindu deities among the sculptures and certainly temple worship was not widespread in the vedic community in Kushana age, not to speak of even earlier times, because it was objectionable to the brahmin community. Thats why i said it became widespread and it was considered more acceptable in the vedic community only at a very much later date, not until the 9th century CE, while image worship was widespread in the non vedic communities including Jains and Buddhist at a much earlier date.

One can see the subject of "temple and image worship" reccuring over and over again in every paragraph. Why do you bring up about temple worship of all things? Just because it wasn't stated clearly in the Vedas?

If you have a problem or phobia of going to temple, keep it to yourself as I am not interested to know your Vedantic view of things! I for one and many other members here enjoy going to temples.

And this thread was about a book claiming that Hinduism came from Christianity, and here we have you suddenly bringing up about the Vedic religion(which came to be known as Hinduism).

Don't preach about Vedanta stuff here. I know the character of these sort of people. A relative of mine runs a Vedanta teaching centre and invited me to his classes. He insisted that I join the moment he knew I was interested in religion. I still haven't gone and he has stopped insisting, although he occasionally brings up the subject (whereby I promptly try to change the topic). I might go one of these days just to laugh and get an idea of their ideology.

He doesn't go to temple, and doesn't even follow proper and basic Hindu rituals. But the moment something went wrong in his life, he rushed to the temple (I'm assuming the first time since his teens). This went on for some time until the problem cleared. Then he acted like nothing ever happened and forgot all about temple. Must have been a relieve to him to get back to his Vedantic ideology. What a hypocrite!

Another family friend of the same disposition never believed in the concept of Hindu priests and Vedic astrology, until it came to a point where her daughter was going through some trouble getting married and made a priest read her daughter's horoscope at the temple. Seriously disgusting.

I'm not saying all Vedantists are like this, and I respect your views too. But just don't try to shove it down my throat. I simply don't want to know and can't be bothered!


Aum Namah Shivaya