What do you think?

[satay]

Namaste
Imagine the following scenario.
All Hindu sastra are destroyed.
All memories of sastra are wiped from human memory
All things related to Hindus and Hinduism are wiped out ie no knowledge of it remains in this world.
All gurus fake or otherwise have no more knowledge of Hinduism


Would that be considered the end of Hinduism?

[Sahasranama]

In this case I can only parrot the shastras, but I don't need to say more.

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत।

अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदाऽऽत्मानं सृजाम्यहम्।।4.7।।

Whenever there is a decline of Dharma, O Arjuna, and uprising of Adharma, then I incarnate Myself.

[wundermonk]

Namaste
Imagine the following scenario.
All Hindu sastra are destroyed.
All memories of sastra are wiped from human memory
All things related to Hindus and Hinduism are wiped out ie no knowledge of it remains in this world.
All gurus fake or otherwise have no more knowledge of Hinduism


Would that be considered the end of Hinduism?

Even in the absence of Shastras, Hinduism will survive for the following reasons:

(1)Sanatana Dharma [SD] is "eternal righteousness".
(2)SD is not based on historical occurrences or miracles that form the very foundation of other religions.
(3)SD is not based on any historical personality either.
(4)SD is a means of living in harmony with the oneself, others and nature.

All this information is innate to human beings and available on some reflection and introspection.

[MahaHrada]

Namaste
Imagine the following scenario.
All Hindu sastra are destroyed.
All memories of sastra are wiped from human memory
All things related to Hindus and Hinduism are wiped out ie no knowledge of it remains in this world.
All gurus fake or otherwise have no more knowledge of Hinduism


Would that be considered the end of Hinduism?

Yes, a good comparison would be ancient Egypt or Greece, while influences remain the religions themselves are completly wiped out on this planet. Except for a few neopagans who in recent times try to use the few hundred years of freedom of religion in the west, that are again endangered by the rise of fundamentalist Islam and Christianity, to revive these ancient religions. They will not suceed but even if they would be successful, the result would not resemble the original.
So much less than what you describe is enough to destroy a religion and culture, since a lot of knowledge, and also texts and treatises from these ancient cultures still exist and can be studied.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: How did it develop this time? Is it not plausible that that could reoccur? It might not be exactly as we see it today, but close. Aren't our truths eternal?

Aum Namasivaya

[Sahasranama]

It is mentioned that many times earlier the sacred knowledge was lost, but it is not something that human beings can reestablish themselves through their own discovery. When it does gets reestablished it is through a deva like Krishna, Shiva or Surya for example. Sometimes it is in the form of a boon after a rishi has performed tapas or when a devotee has taken refuge. The vedic samhitas we have now is only a small fraction of what was once available. The Vishnu Purana mentions the number of shakhas that was available at the time of Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana which was more than a thousand combined from all four vedas. Now only a handful of shakhas are available and most of the shrauta tradition has also faded away.

[maraji]

Pranam

Perish the thought, such a scenario is not possible, since knowledge is never destroyed, but there remains a possibility of it being obscured just as the sun by the cloud.
The Vedas are Apurushya, the human mind is inquisitive as soon as the mind begins to question who am I, where do I come from? The answers begins to reveal it self, no doubt it would take time and effort.

[charitra]

Kalki enters the fray.

[MahaHrada]

It is mentioned that many times earlier the sacred knowledge was lost, but it is not something that human beings themselves can reestablish. When it does gets reestablished after time it is through a deva like Krishna, Shiva or Surya for example. Sometimes it is in the form of a boon after a rishi has performed tapas. The vedic samhitas we have now is only a small fraction of what was once avaiable. The Vishnu Purana mentions the number of shakhas that was available at the time of Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana which were more than a thousand combined from all four vedas. Now only a handful of shakhas are available and most of the shrauta tradition has also faded away.

That earlier shastras had a higher number of verses and the later are digests of earlier versions, is not a historical fact but only shows that there are always limitations, distortions and degenerations to be found in whatever is written down as a shastras, and handed over to us, to prevent people from slavishly following some written words as if they are absolute truths.

The personification of the sky in ancient egypt was the hawk headed Horus one of his eyes was conceived as the sun the other as the moon, certainly there are eternal truths contained in this image which can be found also in Hinduism, but Horus is not a Hindu deity but an ancient pharaonic.

Should a similar truth to that found in Hinduism be again revealead it will be certain that this deity of the sun will not look like Surya simply because historically prior to the advent of Surya, it was the hawk headed Horus that represented the sky and the sun , so in a future revealation, the principle of the sun, when indian culture has changed, will certainly manifest in a different form if that will happen at all which is more than unlikely since in the history of mankind once a culture was destroyed and the religion forgotten it never appeared again, there is no reason to assume why, in the hypothetical fate of Hinduism being destroyed, that this should be different. Hinduism has even less political power than the ancient greek, pharaonic and babylonian empires had, which religions all vanished leaving only traces, never to appear again.

Of course it is possible to belive that the exagerated long time cycles in the puranas are to be taken literally, or that the deities are actually living on a subtle mountain , or in some other subtle planes, wearing local indian garments crowns and jewellery of a certain historical period, and if the eternal truth are revealed again they will stick to these cultural patterns, the sanskrit language, indian dresscode, and all other cultural dependent symbols, rituals and sacrifices and reveal them again in an exactly similar way.

They will again reveal themselves in that way even if not a single person on earth is still living in a similar way, dressing that way and sanskrit is unknown, and there is not a single person that lives according to any of these cultural patterns that makes Hinduism what it is today? Does that sound likely? The belief that the history of Hinduism is several millions of years long, is of course also possible and that all knowledge of human history we have is false, but to me this is as naive as beliving that the world was created in 6 days.

[satay]

namaskar,
Thank you for the replies. I was wondering.
The first Brahma Sutra is:

Athato Brahmajijnasa

Now, had I not read that or had it been wiped out of existence (the sastra that is) is not possible that this 'jijnasa' would arise in a human being by itself?

Does a human really need to read this first to have the Jijnasa? I would venture to say no.

My point is that sastra confirms what 'is' and that 'is' can be dis-covered by a person by him or herself.