Sanskrit language Professor or a mischief maker?

[Believer]

It is generally assumed that anyone with love for the Sanskrit language, and specially a learned professor of Sanskrit, would have adequate reverence for the Hindu culture/history - not so always. The attached link details the trails and tribulations of American Hindus in the face of an American Sanskrit professor trying to out smart them in defining what Hindu related facts go into the California school text books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califor..._Hindu_history

Moderator: If this information has been posted before, please feel free to delete this thread.

[TheOne]

I agree with the non-Hindus on this. Much of what I just read on the Wikipedia is Hindus trying to juxtapose history which has no backing to it. Objecting to the Aryan Invasion theory is a very commendable effort. Trying to rewrite history to try to show that the caste system wasn't barbaric and that women enjoined full rights alongside men are completely laughable propositions by various Hindu groups.

I applaud their attempt to correct the misguided pseudo history that were in the Californian textbooks but I condemn their efforts to install their own pseudo history

Until the facts are shown that there was a "peaceful" caste system and until they show that that women were equal I wholeheartedly support California's decision.


Considering members of the untouchable caste were very up in arms about this shows that this isn't some "Western attack on Hinduism" it's an exposition of the truth that Hinduism too, along with all other religions has a marred past, albeit a less gruesome one than Islam / Christianity. The topics that the committee rejected approving are mentioned below and anyone who isn't blinded by cultural pride or psuedo history will know full well that what they didn't modify reflects their best efforts.

"The subcommittee approved some 70 changes but it rejected proposed major revisions from VF and HEF on monotheism, women's rights, the caste system and migration theories.[20]"

[Eastern Mind]

It is generally assumed that anyone with love for the Sanskrit language, and specially a learned professor of Sanskrit, would have adequate reverence for the Hindu culture/history - not so always. The attached link details the trails and tribulations of American Hindus in the face of an American Sanskrit professor trying to out smart them in defining what Hindu related facts go into the California school text books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califor..._Hindu_history

Moderator: If this information has been posted before, please feel free to delete this thread.

Vannakkam Believer et al:

The person in question has a history of interpretation based on preconceived false notions, just like most westerners. I still can't believe why a Hindu portion of a textbook should be written by non-Hindus. it makes no sense at all. If we turn the argument around, and you or I volunteered to write our version of Christian History, based on some 'research', I'm sure there would be an uproar. For starters, I would call the whole Bible a myth. That would go over really well. But that's the American academia ego for you. I'm a scholar so it has to be right.

I remember a very long tome ago in my youth during the two year period of listening to rock music, when Rolling Stone magazine presented awards for various stuff. They gave the 'alternative instrument' award to George Harrison for the sitar. If that wasn't demonstrative of cultural bias, I don't know what is.

Encyclopedias to this day focus on ridiculous or obscure aspects of Sanatana Dharma. So what is the average kid in the west supposed to make of it?

Aum Namasivaya

[Ganeshprasad]

Pranam
Whatever the status of women was, is subject to debate depending what eyes you are looking at, my problem is why just concentrate on Hindus, does Christianity or Islam afford equal status to women ? Do they highlight such issue with them, is it ok to bash Hindus but appease the rest.

We Hindus are supposed to honour nari, the highest status, all women are looked upon as either daughter sister (or wife if you married to one) or mother, manu smriti says

3.55. Women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers-in-law, who desire (their own) welfare.

3.56. Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards.

Dharma is quite clear on this if men fails one can not blame dharma for it.

If anyone wants a proof that Varnashram is perfect or not should question wisdom of Krishna to establishing it. I would also ask what society is classless and devoid of exploitation?
Varnashram has nothing to do with that, when the head, hands , stomach and legs works in harmony the body is balanced and work perfectly similarly when society function in that manner then there is perfect harmony only this is Kali yug everyman for themselves, the jungle law.

EM is right the focus in the west from the onset has been to obscure SD, it is the biggest challenge for them in more ways then not.

Jai Shree Krishna

[TheOne]

From I gather there were just as many complaints in the textbook from Muslims and christians some of them were justifiable complaints and some were trying to impose a pseudo history.

"let the Hindus write the text books"

Certainly not! If that happened for all the religions there would be a heavily biased portion of the textbook on religions and would leave the kids who read it confused and the parents upset. I agree that Hindus should advise the authors(who themselves should be unbiased as much as possible) but it's not the textbooks purpose to defend Hinduism anymore than it is to attack it.

[Eastern Mind]

"let the Hindus write the text books"

Certainly not!

Vannakkam theOne: I'm not sure what you mean by this. Certainly Hindus should have more influence over the Hindu portion of any multi-religious text. After all, they're the ones who know more about it. Western Academia has been doing an injustice to many many cultures besides Hinduism for years. Just as news is mostly negative sensationalism, so are academics. Look at the portrayal of the 'savages' of North America'. Trying to wipe out a whole group of people using germ warfare (the well documented purposeful spread of the smallpox virus) isn't savagery? So we Hindus have every right to be upset when our religion is not portrayed properly, and take steps to correct it.

Aum Namasivaya

[Sahasranama]

It's unfortunate how much the British propaganda has succeeded. One cannot mention India or Hinduism anymore before people start objecting to the caste system. The caste system as described in the Hindu shastras is not barbaric, in fact any form of civilised society had some form of caste system. Most civilisations had caste systems that gave the highest prestige to the warriors or the aristocrats. India on the other hand gave the highest prestige to the scholars and priests. That says something about the values of Hinduism. Anyone who calls that barbaric is not right in their mind.

That the brahmins were the highest caste, doesn't mean that they were rich or in power. On the contrary, they were dependend on donations and often living on the line of poverty. The purpose of the varnashrama dharma was to prevent power to accumulate in one source, like we see in today's society where a certain class of people has all the power. In the varnashrama dharma this was prevented through decentralisation of knowledge, arms, wealth and land. Varnashrama made sure that the entire society was running smoothly. Students could focus on their duties, householders on their own etc. Not like modern society where students have to get jobs while at school or put themselves in major debt in order to get an education, unless they have rich parents. Today's society is much more ridden with caste system than ancient India. Vyasa was the son of a fisherwoman. Valmiki was a hunter. Vishvamitra became a brahmarishi although he was a king. While Ravana was born a brahmin, he is not worshiped by Hindus. That is because his deeds were dispicable. Even though Rama and Krishna were from kshatriya birth, they are worshipped by Brahmins.

People who romanticize Buddhism say that the Buddha was against caste system. There's not a single event where the Buddha objected to the caste system or was even concerned about the railing and sailing of life in society, since he was an ascetic. Most of Buddha's disciples were kshatriyas and brahmanas. The Buddhists themselves glorified the kshatriya caste. There were some later Buddhists like Dharmakirti (4th century) who made fun of caste system as something superstitious, not as something barbaric though. Buddhist monks have always been supported by the Hindu grihastas, that's the sole reason they could spend their time meditating and philosophising. While Hindu sannyasins were not alowed to stay for long at one place and accumulate wealth, Buddhist monks were. That often made them corrupt. Anyone who is mentally sound can see that Hinduism did not offer the most favourable conditions to the people they gave the most prestige (the sannyasins/ brahmins). People from higher caste had to live a very disciplined live.

Westerners have tried to obscure Hinduism by pointing out the caste system. In high school textbooks nothing is said about the philosophy of Hinduism. The information one finds there is: "Sometime in history some nomads invaded India, brought civilasation, Indians started worshipping cows and 330 million gods, sacrificed animals although most of them were vegetarian and people are born into a caste." Westerners deliberately try to obscure Hinduism, because they know that Hinduism is far superior to their desert cults and they don't want people to get interested, because they are afraid they will convert. It's ironic though that a lot of the backward practices in India were enforced by the Muslims and Christians and are now used to throw dirt at Hinduism. On the other hand all the wisdom from Hinduism, including mathematics, medicine, linguistics and psychology, is appropiated and turned into "western science." If it wasn't for the varnashrama dharma that kept Indian society running so smoothly for millenia, none of this would be available to us.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam:

Welcome back Sahasranama!

I would strongly encourage people interested in this topic to watch this video, and the Part 2 that follows. Simple and sensible in pointing out the problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zieLiapxHo

Aum Namasivaya

[Arjuni]

Namast�, all.

Sahasranama, very good points, and your post ties into something I was going to say anyway: that the use of any given textbook is limited by the knowledge, interest, time constraints, and intellectual courage of the teacher assigning the textbook. All of the well-edited knowledge on earth between those covers might not make a darn bit of difference - partly because, as you pointed out, the Western treatment of India is as a red-hot coal, with a dread of discussions about caste and other controversial topics - and partly because there are other biases, so blatant that nobody notices them, which influence school curricula.

When I was in school - wow I sound old - the Asiatic countries always came at the end of the textbook for social studies/world history/whatever. If the teacher ran out of time during the school year, we simply didn't cover those sections, and this happened precisely 100% of the time. That's not even counting the incredible euro-centricity of the material that was taught. World poetry was apparently dominated by Yeats and Whitman, world art reached a peak with Caravaggio and Botticelli, and there was nothing really worth noting that came from anywhere except Europe and North America.

I learned about the caste system from Huxley's novel Brave New World, found out that something called "Veda" existed from a hymn to Ushas that we read once, and otherwise never saw India except as an occasional news broadcast about some awful thing happening somewhere else. In the end, I took a university degree, with honours, as an anthropologist, safely sheltered from any knowledge about south Asia in general or India in particular. I might as well use my B.A. to kindle a homa fire so that the paper will actually be useful and meaningful. :P

When your education system devalues an entire area of the world, then educators are going to continue teaching future educators about its relative unimportance - or not bother to teach it at all, and let the silence speak volumes.

I hope that I am describing the situation as it existed ten years ago, and I hope that things are changing, because the issue - and what's at stake - is far greater than the content of a single textbook. Based on this fairly recent controversy, though, I'm not hopeful.

Indraneela
===
Oṁ Indrāya Namaḥ.
Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya.

[wundermonk]

@Sahasranama:

Welcome back! And a great way to make a reentrance with a hard-hitting accurate on the money post. Dont get urself banned now as I will then miss such posts