

The Aryanist Journal # 02

Tourism in India

Indian Culture

Indus Valley Civilization

Aryan Invasion Theories

Sacred Cow

Kumbh Mela

India's Self Denial

Khandit Dharm ka Vilaap

Meera Bai Tribute

© Copyright, All rights reserved (Respective authors and Freelance Talents)

December 2014

1. Tourism in India

(Manish Rajkumar)

Tourism plays a vital role in the economic development of a country. Tourism is the second largest foreign exchange earner in India. The tourism industry employs a large number of people, both skilled and unskilled. It promotes national integration and international brotherhood.

India has fascinated people from all over the world with her secularism and her culture. There are historical monuments, beaches, places of religious interests, hill resorts, etc. that attract tourists. Every region is identified with its handicraft, fairs, folk dances, music and its people. The Departments of Tourism promotes international and domestic tourism in the country. The Tourism Advisory Board recommends measures for promotion of tourist traffic in India. Indian tourism is adversely affected by terrorism, tours and pollution. Sincere efforts could help to further develop the Indian tourism industry.

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries of the world. It plays vital role in the economic development of a country. India is one of the popular tourist destination in Asia. Bounded by the Himalayan ranges in the north and surrounded, on three sides by water (Arabian sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean), India offers a wide array of places to see and things to do. The enchanting backwaters, hill stations and landscapes make India a beautiful country. Historical monuments, forts etc. add to the grandeur of the country. They attract tourists from all over the world.

Tourism is the second largest foreign exchange earner in India. The tourism industry employs a large number of people, both skilled and unskilled. Hostels, travel agencies, transport including airlines benefit a lot from this industry. Tourism promotes national integration and international understanding. It generates foreign exchange. it promotes cultural activities. Tourism also promotes the traditional handicrafts sector. The tourist gets an insight into the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India.

India has a composite culture. There is a harmonious blend of art, religion and philosophy. Thought India has been subjected to a serious of invasions, she has retained her originality even after absorbing the best of external influences. Religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism etc. has co-existed in India. India has fascinated people from all over the world with her secularism and her culture.

The diverse geographical locales of India delight the tourists. The monuments, museums, forts, sanctuaries, places of religious interest, palaces, etc. offer a treat to the eyes. Every region is identified with its handicrafts, fairs, folk dances, music and its people. Some of the places that attract a huge number of tourists are Agr, Jaipur, Jhansi, Hyderabad, Nalanda, Mysore, Delhi, Mahabaleshwar, Aurangabad etc. Hardwar, Ujjain, Shirdi, Varanasi, Allahabad, Puri, Ajmer, Amritsar, Vaishno Devi, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Rameshwaram etc. are places of religious importance. Srinagar, Kullu, Manali, Dehradun, Nainital, Darjeeling, Ooty etc. are famous hill resorts.

The Department of Tourism was formed to promote international and domestic tourism in the country. It provides infrastructure and carries out publicity campaigns. It provides information aimed at promotion of tourist sites in the world market. IOt formulates policies and programmes for the promotion of tourism in India. It has officers in India and abroad. The Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management, The National Council for Hotel management and Catering technology etc. provide professionally trained personnel to the industry.

The Tourism Advisory Board recommends measures for promotion of tourist traffic in India. It reviews the tourist trends and suggests appropriate measures. Some of the places, havelis and castles have been converted into heritage hotels. In these hotels, the tourists get the experience the exotic lifestyle of the bygone era. The exotic train 'palace on wheel's which travels through Rajasthan attracts a lot of foreign tourists. The Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) organizes entertainment programmes like folk dances and songs and provides shopping facilities. today many private companies like Sita Travels, Club Mahindra etc. arrange domestic as well as foreign tours.

With the growth of urban professional middle class, the tourism in India is flourishing, Many states have taken necessary steps to promote tourism. Goa promotes water sports like sailing, scuba diving and rafting. Kashmir offers the pleasure of winter sports like skiing and mountaineering. Kerala has introduced the concept of houseboats in its lagoons. Himachal Pradesh has developed winter sports in the state.

In 2005 The Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) stared a campaign called 'Incredible India' to encourage tourism in India. For a better growth, the department divided different places in different section like 'spiritual tourism,' 'spa tourism', 'ecotourism' and 'adventure tourism'. Things have now started looking bright for the Indian tourism industry.

However the Indian tourism industry has been hit by pollution. The effluents emitted by the Mathura Refinery has led to the decolonization of the Taj Mahal in Agra. The condition of many or our monuments is deteriorating due to the negligence of the concerned authorities. On the other hand, beaches have become the dumping grounds of garbage and waste left by tourists. This nuisance should be properly monitored.

Terrorism nowadays has become a global problem. Our country is also not an exception. The terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, Maoists attacks in West Bengal and Bihar, Bodo agitations in north0eastern hill areas greatly affect the tourism in our country. Kashmir is the paradise for domestic and international tourists. The terrorism in this valley not only affects the life of the common people but also the tourism, which is very important for the economy of the sate. Necessary steps should be taken by the state government as well as central government to prevent this menace.

The tourist infrastructure in India should be strengthened. Airports and railway stations should provide information to the tourists about the tourist destination. Government owned hotels should be properly managed. The Government should also take steps for the maintenance for the tourist destination. Steps should be taken to restore the ancient splendor of the monuments. Sincere efforts could help to further develop the Indian tourism industry.

**Medical Tourism**

Today India is emerging as a favored place of medal treatment. Our country has witnessed a remarkable growth in the service of hospital and well-qualified doctors, which has not only attracted the patient population from neighbouring counties but also from the Middle East and the West.

As the concept of medical tourism continues to gain momentum in India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, with the help of the Ministry of Tourism, is taking numerous initiatives in order to maintain international standards in medical facilities. With some of the best hospitals in the world, Delhi is competing with foreign countries. Even there are countries where critical patients may have to wait for months. But in Delhi, any kind of treatment is available in the shortest possible time.

The cost of treatment is substantially less than those in developed countries. Besides personalized nursing care, Delhi is superb place to rejuvenate. Our country also integrate traditional medical concepts Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy with complimentary therapies like Yoga, Acupuncture and Aroma therapies progress the process of healing.

Tour operators are now offering attractive packages in collaboration with city hospitals for a perfect health vacation. Thus the land of nirvana becomes the favored place for medical treatment.

### 2. Akhila Mol on Indian Tourism

There are some parts of the world that once visited get into your heart and won't let go. For me India is such a place when I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land by its lush beauty and exotic architecture by its ability to overload its senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes and souls. It was as if all my life I was seeing the world in black and white and when brought face-to-face with India, experienced every thing rendered in brilliant Technicolor. - Keitlt Bellows

"It we were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow in some parts a very paradise on earth. I should point to India." -Max Mueller

The most valuable assets of India as a desirable tourist destination lies in thousands years old historical and cultural heritage. Every region, every part of lndia encompasses culture of its own, entirely distinct in traditions, language, festil'll4 beliefs and rituals with different and unique style of living and dresses.

No country in the world comprises such distinction such diversity with a unity and integration. This diversity may be attributed to the historical roots of developments of each region, due to different dynasties ruled the differed regions. The develop of different life-style, celebrations of different festivals, adopting different Ian different dressing sense, all exit as per the norms fixed by the then ruling dynasty. region has unique physical features, soil types and climatic conditions, so has distinct vegetation and wild life. When all the natural beauty is mingled with culture the resultant harmony present a unique land sparkled picture, reflecting destination in its unique and colorful way.

One finds everything in India: exotic as well as native, the snow clad Himalayas crowned the head in the north, enveloped all the beauty within itself, releases the mighty rivers, Indus, Gangas, and Yamuna and their tributaries. These rivers roll over the whole country like arteries, supplying life blood to the body of the country and its inhabitants through out the year. The complex beauty of the desert state of Rajasthan is found rarely in any part of the world. With Thar at its background and vivacious sand dunes, mirages and camels, the huge and glorified palaces, forts and Havelies, present a complex and unique beauty. The culture of Rajputs with bright Badhani colors intricate designs and the Royal background give their sharp look different from others. In their unique architectural style in the series of palaces are lake palace of Udaipur, sand colored forts' in Jaisalmer, city palace of Jaipur, the pink city of India coupled with the vibrant folk dances and folk songs make India an" Cultural ".

The Taj Mahal at Agra, symbol of Mughal romance and faith, in its architectural perfection and splendor attracts tourists from all over the world. Taj Mahal reflects the Persian cultural and their architectural eminence, today counted among the seven wonders of the world.

The caves of Ajanta-Ellora. the Sun Temple of Konark. the Temple of Khajurao and Dravidian style stone carved temples of Hoysalewara and Ranganathswamy, the medieval glory of Qutab Minar, Red fort, Fathepur Sikri and other forts and mausoleums with Persian architectural influence, the Victoria place at Kolkata, beautiful and elegant churches at Goa. each and every symbolizes the clarity of Indian culture with tremendous diversification and each has its own attraction for the tourist.

India has witnessed many eras blooming on her soil. Each era and dynasty has left incredible mark, on her different regions with uniqueness and distinction. From Harappas to Mauryas, Guptas to Sultans and Mughals to Portuguese and English, witnessed a met morph sis in each era. Different cultures with different life styles and beliefs, intermingled. Each century brought a new culture, made its impact, kept intact ~original identity and beliefs also, and thus a unique diversity with integration is the present India.

The Bhool Bholaiyan at Lucknow. the mystery of shaking Minarets in the mosque and tomb of Rajbibi in Ahmedabad, the acoustic wonders of Gol Gumbaj, the famous GoldenTemple at Amritsar, the oldest church at Palayurin Goa,the oldest synagogue at Mattancherry in Kochi and the oldest mosque in Eheraman Malik Manzil in Kodungallor, also the modern Lotus Temple, the Bahami temple of worship. the Stupa of Sanchi, Tower of Silence at Mumbai, and tallest statue of Bahubali at Kamataka, all speakofthe glorious heritage of our country and so are the of attraction for tourists throughout the world.

Nowhere in the world, can be found such multifaceted, most diversified culture with rich heritage reflecting many dynasties and regimes. India is known for its unparallel religious beliefs as well as for its vast variety of people, the animal kingdom and the rich flora. India is a miniature world, where the tourists find the best of the west and east coexisting in perfect harmony for centuries.

Another aspect of Indian culture can well be seen in its vibrant and colorful festivals. India has been the birth place of many religion. The Hinduism, The Buddhism, The Jainism, The Sikhism, The Islam and The Christianity also nourished and flourished here well. The Desert festival, the Kite festival, Boat race festival in south India, the Durga Pooja festival of Kolkata, Dussehera of My sore, Puri festival of Orissa, Ganesh Chaturthi festival of Maharashtra, all are celebrated so colorful and in such a grand manner, that reflect the wonderful observance of religious and cultural heritage of our country.

Not only the above historical festivals, the modem festivals, like the Taj Mahotsava, Khajurao Dance festival, Konark Dance festival, also give an opportunity of seeing all internationally acclaimed faces of Indian classical dance and music on one stage.

Over the years we have developed the concept of eco- friendly tourism, means that while promoting tourism in very possible manner we should not forget importance of ecological balance. Many of the places at the foothills of the Himalayas , have become the dumping ground of tourists. While promoting the tourism in wild life , it must be ensured that the tourists should not become a threat to the tranquility and ecological balance of the forests.

No doubt, India's diversified culture presents a 'paradise for tourists' but to keep it intact, a number, of judicious and prudent policies to facilitates the tourists and attract more and more tourists are to be framed and require to be implemented at a fast pace. The tourists visiting India, should be enchanted not only with the rich heritage, but they should also feel here safe, sound and welcomed.

**3. India's Self Denial**
**Introduction**

Why is it that Indians, particularly its elite \- the intelligentsia, the journalists, the writers, the top bureaucrats, the diplomats - hold an image of themselves which is often negative, and have a tendency to run down their own country? The self-perception that Indians have of themselves, is frequently detrimental to their self-confidence. This is particularly striking amongst Indian journalists, who always seem to look at India through a western prism and constantly appear to worry how the foreign press views India, how the foreign countries - particularly the United States of America - perceive India, what the Human Right agencies say about India... Thus, when one reads certain Indian magazines, one has the impression that they could be written by foreign journalists, because not only do they tend to look at India in a very critical manner, but often, there is nothing genuinely Indian in their contents, no references to India's past greatness, no attempts to put things in perspective through the prism of India's ancient wisdom. Therefore, most of the time, their editorial contents endeavour to explain the present events affecting India, such as Ayodhya, or the problem of Kashmir, or the Christian missionaries' attempts at conversion of tribal Hindus, by taking a very small portion of the subcontinent's history - usually the most recent one - without trying to put these events in a broader focus, or attempting to revert back to India's long and ancient history. In a gist, one could say - although things have been changing in the late nineties - that there is hardly any self-pride amongst India's intellectual elite, because they are usually too busy running down their own country. It is done in a very brilliantly manner, it is true - because Indian journalists, writers, artists, high bureaucrats, are often intelligent, witty and talented people - but always with that western slant, as if India was afflicted by a permanent inferiority complex. One then has to try to analyse the underlying reasons of this negative self-perception that India has of herself, probe the unconscious impulses which give many Indians - Hindus, we should say, as the majority of India's intelligentsia are born Hindus - the habit of always depreciating their own culture and traditions.

**a. The Theory of the Aryan Invasion**

The first and foremost explanation for this inferiority complex could be the theorem of the Aryan invasion, which is still taken as the foundation stone of the History of India. According to this theory, which was actually devised in the 18th and 19th century by British linguists and archaeologists, who had a vested interest to prove the supremacy of their culture over the one of the subcontinent, the first inhabitants of India were good-natured, peaceful, dark-skinned shepherds, called the Dravidians. They were supposedly remarkable builders, witness the city of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistani Sind, but had no culture to speak-off, no written texts, no proper script even. Then, around 1500 B.C., India is said to have been invaded by tribes called the Aryans : white-skinned, nomadic people, who originated somewhere in Ural, or the Caucasus. To the Aryans, are attributed Sanskrit, the Vedic - or Hindu religion, India's greatest spiritual texts, the Vedas, as well as a host of subsequent writings, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramanaya, etc...

This was indeed a masterly stroke on the part of the British : thanks to the Aryan theory, they showed on the one hand that Indian civilisation was not that ancient and that it was posterior to the cultures which influenced the western world - Mesopotamia, Sumeria, or Babylon - and on the other hand, that whatever good things India had developed - Sanskrit, literature, or even its architecture, had been influenced by the West. Thus, Sanskrit, instead of being the mother of all Indo-European languages, became just a branch of their huge family; thus, the religion of Zarathustra is said to have influenced Hinduism - as these Aryan tribes were believed to have transited through numerous countries, Persia being one, before reaching India - and not vice versa. In the same manner, many achievements were later attributed to the Greek invasion of Alexander the Great : scientific discoveries, mathematics, architecture etc. So ultimately, it was cleverly proved that nothing is Indian, nothing really great was created in India, it was always born out of different influences on the subcontinent.

To make this theory even more complicated, the British, who like other invaders before them had a tough time with the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, implied that the Aryans drove the Dravidians southwards, where they are still today; and that to mark forever their social boundaries, these Aryans had devised the despicable caste system, whereby, they the priests and princes, ruled over the merchants and labourers... And thus English missionaries and later, American preachers, were able to convert tribes and low caste Hindus by telling them : " you, the aborigines, the tribals, the Harijans, were there in India before the Aryans; you are the original inhabitants of India, and you should discard Hinduism, the religion of these arrogant Aryans and embrace, Christianity, the true religion".

Thus was born the great Aryan invasion theory, of two civilisations, that of the low caste Dravidians and the high caste Aryans, always pitted against each other - which has endured, as it is still today being used by some Indian politicians - and has been enshrined in all history books - Western, and unfortunately also Indian. Thus were born wrong "nationalistic" movements, such as the Dravidian movement against Hindi and the much-maligned Brahmins, who actually represent today a minority, which is often underprivileged.... This Aryan invasion theory has also made India look westwards, instead of taking pride in its past and present achievements. It may also unconsciously be one of the reasons why there was at one time such great fascination for Sonia Gandhi, a White-Skinned-Westerner, who may have been unconsciously perceived as a true Aryan by the downtrodden Dravidians and a certain fringe of that Indian intelligentsia which is permanently affected by an inferiority complex towards the West. It may even have given a colour fixation to this country, where women will go to extremes to look "fair".

But today, this theory is being challenged more and more by new discoveries, both archaeological and linguistic. There are many such proofs, but two stand out : the discovery of the Saraswati river and the deciphering of the Indus seals. In the Rig Veda, the Ganges, India's sacred river, is only mentioned once, but the mythic Saraswati is praised on more than fifty occasions. Yet for a long time, the Saraswati river was considered a myth, until the American satellite Landstat was able to photograph and map the bed of this magnificent river, which was nearly fourteen kilometres wide, took its source in the Himalayas, flowed through the states of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, before throwing itself in the sea near Bhrigukuccha, today called Broach. American archaeologist Mark Kenoyer was able to prove in 1991 that the majority of archaeological sites of the so-called Harappan (or Dravidian) civilisation were not situated on the ancient bed of the Indus river, as first thought, but on the Saraswati. Another archaeologist , Paul-Henri Francfort, Chief of a franco-american mission (Weiss, Courty, Weterstromm, Guichard, Senior, Meadow, Curnow), which studied the Saraswati region at the beginning of the nineties, found out why the Saraswati had 'disappeared' : " around 2200 B.C., he writes, an immense drought reduced the whole region to aridity and famine " (Evidence for Harappan irrigation system in Haryana and Rajasthan -Eastern Anthropologist 1992). Thus around this date, most inhabitants moved away from the Saraswati to settle on the banks of the Indus and Sutlej rivers.

According to official history, the Vedas were composed around 1500 BC, some even say 1200 BC. Yet, as we have seen, the Rig Veda, describes India as it was before the great drought which dried-up the Saraswati; which means in effect that the so-called Indus, or Harappan civilisation was a continuation of the Vedic epoch, which ended approximately when the Saraswati dried-up. Recently, the famous Indus seals, discovered on the site of Mohenja Daro and Harappa, may have been deciphered by Dr Rajaram, a mathematician who worked at one time for the NASA and Dr Jha, a distinguished linguist. In the biased light of the Aryan invasion theory, these seals were presumed to be written in a Harappan (read Dravidian) script, although they had never been convincingly decoded. But Rajaram and Jha, using an ancient Vedic glossary, the Nighantu, found out that the script is of Sanskrit lineage, is read from left to right and does not use vowels (which like in Arabic, are 'guessed' according to the meaning of the whole sentence). In this way, they have been able to decipher so far 1500 and 2000 seals, or about half the known corpus. As the discovery of the Saraswati river, the decipherment of the Indus scripts also goes to prove that that the Harappan Civilization, of which the seals are a product, belonged to the latter part of the Vedic Age and had close connections with Vedantic works like the Sutras and the Upanishads. In this light, it becomes evident that not only there never was an Aryan invasion of India, but, as historian Konraad Elst writes, it could very well be that it was an Indian race which went westwards : " rather than Indo-Iranians on their way from South Russia to Iran and partly to India, these may as well be the Hitites, Kassites or Mitanni, on their way from India, via the Aral Lake area, to Anatolia, or Mesopotamia, where they show up in subsequent centuries" (Indigenous Indians).

**b. An Image of Poverty**

Another reason why Indians often exhibit a negative idea of themselves, may be because India is always associated in the world with poverty : Mother Teresa, Unicef, or Calcutta. This image has been reinforced by books such as the City of Joy, an international best-seller, which takes a little part of India - the Calcutta slums - and gives the impression to the naive and ignorant western readers, that it constitutes the whole of India. Another factor which reinforces the image of poverty is the tremendous fame which Mother Theresa enjoyed in her lifetime - and even after her death, as she is in the process of being made a saint. While it is true that Mother Theresa did a tremendous job in Calcutta, she never tried to counterbalance the very negative image of India that her name was carrying, with some praise for the country which had adopted her for fifty years. She could have spoken for instance about the great hospitality of Indians, or the open-mindedness of Hindu religion, which had allowed her to practise Christianity near one of the most sacred temples of the country, or even about the near worship which most Hindus showed for her.

It is true that there is a tremendous amount of poverty in India, and that many people can only afford one meal a day. But four things should be known. Firstly, that until the 18th century, in spite of the repeated Muslim invasions, India was known as one of the richest countries of the world, the land "of milk and honey". You only have to read the numerous accounts of travellers from different countries, who all marvelled at India's prosperity. The second thing, is that all the great famines of India happened during the British time. Many historians, such as Frenchman Guy Deleury, have documented the economic rape of India by the British : "Industrially the British suffocated India , gradually strangling Indian industries whose finished products, textiles in particular, were of a quality unique in the world which has made them famous over the centuries. Instead they oriented Indian industries towards jute, cotton, tea, oil seeds, which they needed as raw materials for their home industries. They employed cheap labour for the enterprises while traditional artisans were perishing. India, which used to be a land of plenty, where milk and honey flowed started drying" (Modele Indou)... According to British records, one million Indians died of famine between 1800 and 1825, 4 million between 1825-1850, 5 million between 1850-1875 and 15 million between 1875-1900. Thus 25 million Indians died in 100 years ! The British must be proud of their bloody record. It is probably more honourable and straightforward to kill in the name of Allah, than in the guise of petty commercial interests and total disregard for the ways of a 5000 year civilisation. Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, India was bled dry and there were no resources left.

The third fact, is that after Independence, whatever poverty there still was in this country, there were no more famines, as India managed to become self-sufficient in food through the Green Revolution (whatever negative side effects it had on India's ecology - but that is another story). This is a great achievement, a tremendous task of which India can be proud off. For if you look at China, India's largest neighbour, which always invites natural comparison with India as they share many of the same problems and characteristics, it went through tremendous traumas after independence. Millions died of hunger, for instance, when Mao diverted peasants from cultivating the land, in his misguided and megalomaniac effort to increase steel production. It should also be said that later it did look as if China fared better than India in its effort to feed adequately its people. But that is because they employed coercion to control their own population, whereas India, a democracy, never tried to force its citizens to have less children - except for a short while under Indira Gandhi (who lost the elections shortly after).

The fourth thing is that there is a tremendous amount of black money in India - as much as 40 to 50% of the total economy. If that money could be tapped and channelled to the White economy, it would give a tremendous boost to the nation. But you need a government wise enough to enact laws which make people cheat less. People have been cheating since 1947, because Nehru had decided that Socialism, partly modelled after the Soviet Union, was the best tool to bridge the yawning gap between the very rich and the very poor of India. At that time, it seemed a good idea, but as years passed, it proved a disaster, spawning a huge bureaucratic system, breeding corruption, stifling free enterprise and overall making people cheat, because it had introduced one of the heaviest taxing system in the world. And the sad thing is that Indians - from the middle class to even the poorer people - are some of the greatest savers in the world. Not for them the credit card system, which is ruining the West, by artificially enhancing the economy - no, they save in land, gold, jewellery, or in cash, often stashed at home. And that is a tremendous asset for India, if it could be brought in the open. There is nowadays an economic crisis in the so-called Tiger countries of Asia - even Hong-Kong is affected by it. But so far, India's economy has remained sound. Of course there are drawbacks: the Rupee is not yet fully convertible, subsidies drain the Exchequer, import duties are still levied on many goods... However this partially insulated economy has helped India to protect her own industries, while switching gradually to a fully liberalised financial system. Thus, if that tremendous amount of black money could be tapped, it would also contribute towards changing this "poor" image sticking to India, which is harming her in her quest for foreign investments and international recognition.

China too had a very negative image until the late sixties : the Red menace, the communist Dragon, the great Backward leap... But after Nixon's visit in 1971, everything changed - that is the Western Press, which was responsible in the first place for China's negative image, started projecting a more positive picture of China. It also helped, that contrary to Indians, the Chinese are proud of themselves and possess a strong nationalistic bend - maybe because they have never been colonised, except for short periods. And today, there is not only a fascination for China in the West, but the Industrialised World has also placed many of its economic chips there. France, for instance, invests 10 times more in China than in India. Yet, India is a much more interesting country from the investment point of view : it is democratic, which China is not; people there speak more English than in China; it has laws to protect contracts, which is not the case in China; it is a stable country, in spite of the political problems and all kinds of separatist movements... But still, the world hardly takes notice of India - although things are beginning to change. And that is because of India's negative image, of course ! And nobody is more responsible about this negative image than Indians themselves. India has to stop going around with a begging bowl in her hands. For India does not have to beg : it has the material and intellectual wealth - it has even the monetary resources.

**c. The Caste System**

The caste system has been the most misunderstood, the most vilified aspect of Hindu society at the hands of Western scholars - and even today by "secular" Indians. And this has greatly contributed to India's self-depreciation, as you hardly find any Indian who is not ashamed of caste, especially if he talks to a Westerner. But ultimately, one must understand the original purpose behind the caste system, as spelt out by India's Great Sage and Avatar of the Modern Age, Sri Aurobindo : "Caste was originally an arrangement for the distribution of functions in society, just as much as class in Europe, but the principle on which this distribution was based was peculiar to India. A brahmin was a brahmin not by mere birth, but because he discharged the duty of preserving the spiritual and intellectual elevation of the race, and he had to cultivate the spiritual temperament and acquire the spiritual training which alone would qualify him for the task. The kshatriya was kshatriya not merely because he was the son of warriors and princes, but because he discharged the duty of protecting the country and preserving the high courage and manhood of action, and he had to cultivate the princely temperament and acquire the strong and lofty Samurai training which alone fitted him for his duties. So it was for the vaishya whose function was to amass wealth for the race and the shudra who discharged the humbler duties of service without which the other castes could not perform their share of labour for the common, good". (India's Rebirth, p 26).

It is true that in time the caste system has become perverted, as Sri Aurobindo also noted : "it is the nature of human institutions to degenerate; there is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated. It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate and even immaterial and is determined by the purely material tests of occupation and birth... By this change it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate the material and thus lost most of its meaning. the spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present condition...(India's Rebirth, p 27) Today, the abuses being done in the name of caste are often horrifying, specially to a Westerner brought up on more egalitarian values. Some of the backward villages of Tamil Nadu, or Bihar for instance, still segregate Harijans and the lower castes, who do not have the same access to educational facilities than the upper castes, in spite of Nehru's heavy-handed quota system, which has been badly taken advantage off.

Modern-day Indian politicians have exploited like nobody else the caste divide for their own selfish purposes. The politicians of ancient India were princes and kings belonging to the kshatriya caste; their duty was to serve the nation and high ideals were held in front of them by the brahmins and rishis who advised them. The Buddha's father for instance, was a king elected by its own people. But today we see corrupt, inefficient men, who have forgotten that they are supposed to serve the nation first, who are only interested in minting the maximum money in the minimum time. Indian politicians have often become a caricature, which is made fun of by the whole country, adding to India's self-negating image. They are frequently uneducated, gross people, elected on the strength of demagogic pledges, such as promising rice for 2 Rs a kilo, a folly which at one time was draining many state's coffers, or by playing Muslims against Hindus, Harijans against Brahmins, as in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Ministers in India are most of the time ignorant, unqualified, often having no idea about the department they are overseeing - it is the civil servants who control matters, who know their subject thoroughly. You have to work hard to become a civil servant, study, pass exams, then slowly climb up the hierarchy, hereby gaining experience. The politician just jumps from being a lowly clerk, or some uneducated zamindar to become a powerful Minister, lording over much more educated men. There should be also exams to become a minister, a minimum of knowledge and skills should be required of the man who says he wants to serve the nation. It matters not if he comes from a low caste, but he should have in his heart a little bit of the selflessness of the kshatriya and a few drops of the wisdom of the brahmin.

Nobody is saying that the caste system should be praised, for it has indeed degenerated; but it would also help in enhancing India's self-pride if Indians realised that once it constituted a unique and harmonious system. And finally, have the people who dismiss caste as an Aryan imposition on the Dravidians, or as an inhuman and nazi system, pondered the fact that it is no worse than the huge class differences you can see nowadays in South America, or even in the United States, where many Negroes live below the poverty level ? And can you really exclude it off-hand, when it still survives so much in the villages - and even in more educated circles, where one still marries in matching castes, with the help of an astrologer? Does the caste system need to be transformed, to recapture its old meaning and once more incarnate a spiritual hierarchy of beings? Or has it to be recast in a different mould, taking into account the parameters of modern Indian society? Or else, will it finally disappear altogether from India, because it has become totally irrelevant today ? At any rate, Hindus should not allow this factor to be exploited shamelessly against them, as it has been in the last two centuries, by missionaries, "secular" historians, Muslims, and by pre and post-independence Indian politicians - each for their own purpose.

**d. Muslim Invasion**

Another very important reason for the negative self-image that Indians have got of themselves, are the Muslim invasions. This is still today a very controversial subject, since Indian history books have chosen to keep quiet about this huge chunk of Indian history - nearly 10 centuries of horrors. At Independence, Nehru too, put it aside, perhaps because he thought that this was a topic which could divide India, as there was a strong Muslim minority which chose to stay and not emigrate to Pakistan. Yet, nothing has marked India's psyche - or the Hindu silent majority, if you wish - as the Muslim invasions. And whatever happens in contemporary India, is a consequence of these invasions, whether it is the creation of Pakistan, whether it is Kashmir, whether it is Ayodhya, or Kargil. There is no point in passing a moral judgment on these invasions, as they are a thing of the past. Islam is one of the world's youngest religions, whose dynamism is not in question; unfortunately it is a militant religion, as it believes that there is only one God and all the other Gods are false. And so as long as this concept is ingrained in the minds of Muslims, there will be a problem of tolerance, of tolerating other creeds. And this is what happened in India from the 7th century onwards : invaders, who believed in one God, came upon this country which had a million gods... And for them it was the symbol of all what they thought was wrong. So the genocide - and the word genocide has to be used - which was perpetrated was tremendous, because of the staunch resistance of the 4000 year old Hindu faith. Indeed, the Muslim policy vis a vis India seems to have been a conscious and systematic destruction of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined. Entire cities were burnt down and their populations massacred. Each successive campaign brought hundreds of thousands of victims and similar numbers were deported as slaves. Every new invader often made literally his hill of Hindu skulls. Thus the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000, was followed by the annihilation of the entire Hindu population there; indeed, the region is still called Hindu Kush, 'Hindu slaughter'. The Bahmani sultans in central India, made it a rule to kill 100.000 Hindus a year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100.000 Hindus in a single day, and many more on other occasions. Historian Konraad Elst, in his book "Negationism in India", quotes Professor K.S. Lal, who calculated that the Hindu population decreased by eighty million between the year 1000 and 1525, indeed, probably the biggest holocaust in the world's history, far greater than the genocide of the Incas in South America by the Spanish and the Portuguese.

Regrettably, there was a conspiracy by the British, and later by India's Marxist intelligentsia to negate this holocaust. Thus, Indian students since the early twenties, were taught that that there never was a Muslim genocide on the person of Hindus, but rather that the Moghols brought great refinement to Indian culture. In "Communalism and the writing of Indian history", for instance, Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia and Bipan Chandra, professors at the JNU in New Delhi, the Mecca of secularism and negationism in India, denied the Muslim genocide by replacing it instead with a conflict of classes : "Muslims brought the notion of egalitarianism in India", they argue. The redoubtable Romila Thapar in her "Penguin History of India", co-authored with Percival Spear, writes again : "Aurangzeb's supposed intolerance, is little more than a hostile legend based on isolated acts such as the erection of a mosque on a temple site in Benares".

What are the facts, according to Muslim records ? Aurangzeb (1658-1707) did not just build an isolated mosque on a destroyed temple, he ordered all temples destroyed an mosques to be built on their site. Among them the Kashi Vishvanath, one of the most sacred places Hindu worship, Krishna's birth temple in Mathura, the rebuilt Somnath temple on the coast of Gujurat, the Vishnu temple replaced with the Alamgir mosque now overlooking Benares and the Treta-ka-Thakur temple in Ayodhya. The number of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in 5, if not 6 figures, according to his own official court chronicles: "Aurangzeb ordered all provincial governors to destroy all schools and temples of the Pagans and to make a complete end to all pagan teachings and practices"... "Hasan Ali Khan came and said that 172 temples in the area had been destroyed"... "His majesty went to Chittor and 63 temples were destroyed"... "Abu Tarab, appointed to destroy the idol-temples of Amber, reported that 66 temples had been razed to the ground". Aurangzeb did not stop at destroying temples, their users were also wiped-out; even his own brother, Dara Shikoh, was executed for taking an interest in Hindu religion and the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded because he objected to Aurangzeb's forced conversions.

This genocide is still a reality which should not be wished away. Because what the Muslims invasions have done to India is to instil terror in the Hindu collective psyche, which still lingers many centuries later and triggers unconscious reactions. The paranoia displayed today by Indians, their indiscipline, their lack of charity for their own brethrens, the abject disregard of their environment, are a direct consequence of these invasions. What India has to do today, is to look squarely at the facts pertaining to these invasions and come to term with them, without any spirit of vengeance, so as to regain a little bit of self-pride. It would also help the Muslim community of India to acknowledge these horrors, which paradoxically, were committed against them, as they are the Hindus who were then converted by force, their women raped, their children taken into slavery - even though today they have made theirs the religion which their ancestors once hated.

**e. European Colonialism**

Obviously, one of the major causes for India's self-depreciating image are the European invasions. The paradox is that no country in the world as India has shown as much tolerance towards accepting in its fold persecuted religious minorities from all over the planet. Take the Jews, for instance, who have been persecuted and treated as second-class citizens everywhere after fleeing the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. In India, not only were they welcomed, but also they were allowed to live and practise their religion peacefully, till most of them went back to Israel after Independence... But it is not only the Jews, but also the Parsis, who fled persecution by the Muslims in Iran, or the Christian Syrians, who landed in India in the 3rd century, or the Arab merchants who from time immemorial were allowed to establish trading posts in Kerala... Or even the Jesuits, who were welcomed when they landed with Vasco de Gama in Calicut in 1495. But, as the Syrian Christians, as the Arab merchants, they quickly turned against their benefactors and set not only to exploit India commercially, but also attempted to impose their own religions on the "Heathens", the Pagans, the Infidels.

It is thus a bit of a paradox when one hears today Indian intellectuals claim that Hindus are intolerant, fanatic, or "fundamentalists". Because in the whole history of India, Hindus have not only shown that they are extremely tolerant, but Hinduism is probably the only religion in the world who never tried to convert others - forget about conquering other countries to propagate their own religion. This is not true with Christianity, it is not true with Islam - it is not even true with Buddhism, as Buddhists had missionaries who went all over Asia and converted people. This historical tolerance of Hinduism is never taken into account by foreign correspondents covering India and even by Indian journalists. If it was, Indians might at least take some pride in their country's boundless generosity towards others... Indians have a very short memory of themselves, maybe because they never cared to write down their own history.

Thus, this beautiful tolerance was taken advantage off by numerous invaders - particularly Europeans colonisers. The Portuguese for instance, were allowed to establish trading posts in the 15th century by the Zamorin of Cochin. And what did they do? Alfonso de Albuquerque started a reign of terror in Goa, razing temples to erect churches in their stead, burning "heretics", crucifying Brahmins, using false theories to forcibly convert the lower castes and encouraging his soldiers to take Indian mistresses. Later, the British missionaries in India were always supporters of colonialism; they encouraged it and their whole structure was based on "the good Western civilised world being brought to the Pagans". In the words of Claudius Buccchanan, a chaplain attached to the East India Company : "...Neither truth, nor honesty, honour, gratitude, nor charity, is to be found in the breast of a Hindoo"... What a comment about a nation that gave the world the Vedas and the Upanishads ! After the failed mutiny of 1857, the missionaries became even more militant, using the secular arm of the British Raj, who felt that the use of the sword at the service of the Gospel, was now entirely justified, so that at Independence, entire regions of the north-east were converted to Christianity. Remember how Swami Vivekananda cried in anguish at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago: "if we Hindus dig out all the dirt from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and throw it in you faces, it will be but a speck compared to what the missionaries have done to our religion and culture "".

In the late nineties, Indian Christians complained about persecutions by Hindus "zealots". It is true that there happened two or three crimes, particularly a ghastly murder against an Australian missionary and his two young sons. But the massive outcry it evoked in the Indian Press showed clearly how Indians are constantly denying themselves and consider the life of a White Man infinitely more important and dear than the lives of a hundred Indians. Or to put it differently : the life of a Christian seems to them more sacred than the lives of many Hindus, which shows how the White Man's presence in India still has such an impact. Because when Hindus were slaughtered, whether in Pendjab in the eighties, or in Kashmir in the nineties, when militants would stop buses and kill all the Hindus - men, women and children, when the few last courageous Hindus to dare remain in Kashmir, were savagely slaughtered in a village, very few voices were raised in the Indian Press - at least there never was such an outrage as provoked by the murder of the Australian missionary.

At long last, Hindus are beginning to realize the harm done by missionaries to their social and cultural fabric. Yet even today, one still hears of covert attempts at conversion by Christian missionaries. In the poor districts of Kerala for example, missionaries still use the " miracle " ploy to convert people : the naive drops a " wish " in a box placed at the entrance of church. And lo, this wish - a loan, some cloths, a boat - is miraculously granted a few days later. Needless to say that the happy innocent converts quickly, bringing along his whole family. It is also this meekness of the Hindus towards the Christians, as if the British missionaries had permanently left an imprint of inferiority in the collective psyche of Indians, which contributes towards India's self-denial. And let us not forget that Pope John Paul II proclaimed that Asia will be the target of Evangelisation in the Third Millennium.

**f. Macaulay's Children**

When they took over India, the British set upon establishing an intermediary race of Indians, whom they could entrust with their work at the middle level echelons and who could one day be convenient instruments to rule by proxy, or semi-proxy. The tool to shape these " British clones " was education. In the words of Macaulay, the " pope " of British schooling in India: " We must at present do our best to form a class, who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellects ". Macaulay had very little regard for Hindu culture and education : " all the historical information which can be collected from all the books which have been written in the Sanskrit language, is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England ". Or : " Hindus have a literature of small intrinsic value, hardly reconcilable with morality, full of monstrous superstitions "...

It seems today that India's Marxist and Muslim intelligentsia could not agree more with Macaulay, for his dream has come true: nowadays, the greatest adversaries of an " indianised and spiritualised education " are the descendants of these " Brown Shahibs " : the " secular " politicians, the journalists, the top bureaucrats, in fact the whole westernised cream of India. And what is even more paradoxical, is that most of them are Hindus ! It is they, who upon getting independence, have denied India its true identity and borrowed blindly from the British education system, without trying to adapt it to the unique Indian mentality and psychology; and it is they who are refusing to accept a change of India's education system, which is totally western-oriented and is churning out machines learning by heart boring statistics which are of little usefulness in life. And what India is getting from this education is a youth which apes the West : they go to Mac Donald's, thrive on MTV culture, wear the latest Klein jeans and Lacoste T Shirts, and in general are useless, rich parasites, in a country which has so many talented youngsters who live in poverty. They will grow-up like millions of other western clones in the developing world, who wear a tie, read the New York Times and swear by liberalism and secularism to save their countries from doom. In time, they will reach elevated positions and write books and articles which make fun of India, they will preside human-right committees, be "secular" high bureaucrats who take the wrong decisions and generally do tremendous harm to India, because it has been programmed in their genes to always run down their own country. In a gist, they will be the ones who are always looking at the West for approval and forever perceive India through the western prism. It is said that a nation has to be proud of itself to move forward - and unless there is a big change in this intellectual elite, unless it is more conscious of its heritage and of India's greatness, which has begun to happen in a small way, it is going to be very difficult for India to enter the 21st century as a real super power.

Thus the education curriculum has to be totally revised. For instance, Indian history is still taught as it was devised by western scholars and it promotes blindly theories such as the Aryan Invasion, which probably never happened. On the other hand, students learn practically nothing about the extraordinary genius of their culture. Studies of the Vedas, for example, should be made compulsory from the seventh grade upwards, because, as Sri Aurobindo remarked : "the Veda was the beginning of our spiritual knowledge, the Veda will remain its end. The recovery of the perfect truth of the Veda is therefore not merely a desideratum for our modern intellectual curiosity, but a practical necessity for the future of the human race. For I firmly believe that the secret concealed in the Veda, when entirely discovered, will be found to formulate perfectly that knowledge and practice of divine life to which the march of humanity, after long wanderings in the satisfaction of the intellect and senses, must inevitably return." (India's Rebirth, p.94). Indian children should be told about the immense human and spiritual values of their own literature, like we in Europe are brought up on the values of the Iliad and the Odyssey, or the great Greek tragedies. Therefore, education in India has to be more indianised - it is not a question of being "nationalistic", or "saffron-oriented", as Indian Marxists are fond of saying, but of knowing one's own culture : the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, which according to many western scholars stand among the greatest literary works ever written.

Of course, Indian students have to be geared-up for the competitive world, because unless you can deal on par with the West, unless you can speak fluently English, in order to do business and interact, you cannot compete, you cannot become a great nation. Therefore, the best of western education has to be imparted, as Sri Aurobindo had clearly indicated : "National education...may be described as the education which starting with the past and making full use of the present, builds up a great nation. Whoever wishes to cut of the nation from its past, is no friend of our national growth. Whoever fails to take advantage of the present, is losing us the battle of life. We must therefore save for India all that she has stored up of knowledge, character and noble thoughts in her immemorial past. We must acquire for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her and assimilate it to her own peculiar type of national temperament. We must introduce the best methods of teaching humanity has developed, whether modern or ancient. And all these we must harmonise into a system which will be impregnated with the spirit of self-reliance, so as to build up men and not machines". (India's Reb 36). Then India will produce generation after generation of children who are proud of their own countries and do not go about negating themselves.

**g. The Partition of the Subcontinent**

The first leaders of pre-independent India took some disastrous decisions, and the worst of them was to allow the division of their own country on religious lines. And today, the consequences of this partition are still felt : Kashmir is the most visible of them; but you also have Ayodhya, Kargil, the nuclear bomb, the Bombay or Coimbatore blasts - and above all, the self-negation of a nation which is not whole, which has lost some of its most precious limbs in 1947. Yes, it is true, the British used to the hilt the existing divide between Hindus and Muslims; yes, the Congress was weak : it accepted what was forced down its throat by Jinnah and Mountbatten, even though many of its leaders, and a few moderate Muslims, disagreed with the principle of partition; it was also Gandhi's policy of non-violence and gratifying the fanatical Muslim minority, in the hope that it would see the light, which did tremendous harm to India and encouraged Jinnah to harden his demands. But ultimately, one has to go back to the roots, to the beginning of it all, in order to understand Partition. One has to travel back in history to get a clear overall picture. This is why memory is essential, this is why Holocausts should never be forgotten.

For Jinnah was only the vehicle, the instrument, the avatar, the latest reincarnation of the medieval Muslims coming down to rape and loot and plunder the land of Bharat. He was the true son of Mahmud Ghaznavi, of Muhammed Ghasi, of Aurangzeb. He took up again the work left unfinished by the last Mughal two centuries earlier: 'Dar-ul-Islam', the House of Islam. The Hindu-Muslim question is an old one - but is it really a Muslim-Hindu question, or just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion? This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the Arabs in 650. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the Kafirs, the idolaters of many Gods. The Muslims invaded this country, conquered it, looted it, razed its temples, humiliated its Hindu leaders, killed its Brahmins, converted its weaker sections. True, it was all done in the name of Allah and many of its chiefs were sincere in thinking they were doing their duty by hunting down the Infidel. So how could they accept on 15th August 1947 to share power on an equal basis with those who were their subjects for thirteen centuries? "Either the sole power for ourselves, and our rule over the Hindus as it is our sovereign right, we the adorers of the one and only true God - Or we quit India and establish our own nation, a Muslim nation, of the true faith, where we will live amongst ourselves".

Thus there is no place for idolaters in this country, this great nation of Pakistan; they can at best be 'tolerated' as second-class citizens. Hence the near total exodus of Hindus from Pakistan, whereas more than half the Muslim population in India, chose to stay, knowing full well that they would get the freedom to be and to practice their own religion. In passing, the Muslims took their pound of flesh from the Hindus - once more - by indulging in terrible massacres, which were followed by retaliations from Sikhs and hard core Hindus, the ultimate horror. Partition triggered one of the most terrible exodus in the history of humanity. And this exodus has not ended: they still come by hundreds of thousand every year from Bangladesh, fleeing poverty, flooding India with problems, when the country has already so many of her own.

For French historian Alain Danielou, the division of India was on the human level as well as on the political one, a great mistake : "It added to the Middle East an unstable state, Pakistan, and burdened India which already had serious problems". And he adds: "India whose ancient borders stretched until Afghanistan, lost with the country of seven rivers (the Indus Valley), the historical centre of her civilisation. At a time when the Muslim invaders seemed to have lost some of their extremism and were ready to assimilate themselves to other populations of India, the European conquerors, before returning home, surrendered once more the cradle of Hindu civilisation to Muslim fanaticism." (Histoire de l'Inde, p.355)

Pakistanis will argue that the valley of Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority, should have gone to Pakistan \- and in the mad logic of partition they are not totally wrong. It is because Nehru and Gandhi accepted this logic, which was tremendously stupid, that India is suffering so much today. Of course, we cannot go back, History has been made : Pakistan has become an independent country and it is a "fait accompli". But if you go to Pakistan today, you will notice that its Punjabis look exactly the same as Indian Punjabis : they have the same mannerisms, eat the same food, dress similarly, speak the same language... Everything unites them, except religion. And this is what Sri Aurobindo kept saying in 1947 : " India is free, but she has not achieved unity, only a fissured and broken freedom...The whole communal division into Hindu and Muslim seems to have hardened into the figure of a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that the Congress and the Nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled, or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled; civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. The partition of the country must go...For without it the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and frustrated. That must not be." (Message of Sri Aurobindo on the 15th of August 1947). It is only when the subcontinent will be whole again and the scars on both sides have been healed, that a Greater India will regain some of the self-pride gone with Partition.

**h. The Humiliation of 1962**

The so-called Kargil war of Kashmir in June 99 has triggered two very positive phenomenons for India. For the first time in a long stretch, it gave the country a bit of nationalism, it made many Indians proud of the heroism and selflessness of their soldiers. Whatever jingoism, or chauvinism there also was, one could feel, from Tamil Nadu to Punjab, that for a time there grew a feeling of togetherness in the nation, the knowledge of one's soldiers fighting it out there, in the harshest and most dangerous conditions and defending Mother India's sacred land. And that was very positive, for unless a nation possesses a bit of nationalism, it cannot keep on growing. And the second very positive aspect is that it has revived in India a notion which has been extinct for a long time : that of the kshatriya spirit. A nation needs warriors, it needs soldiers to defend itself and protect its women, children, and its borders from hostile and asuric elements, which throughout history have negated the Good and the Holy. It is fine to be Gandhian and non-violent, but in the tough and rough world of today, one cannot be too naive : you need a strong and well-equipped army to be able to defend one's dharma. But a well equipped army is not enough - we have seen how today the United States' army, the most modern and high-tech of the world, is only capable of fighting from a distance, either bombarding from the sky, or shooting from boats off-shore, a coward's war, as its soldiers have lost the sense of kshatriya, of honour, of dying for one's country. In Kargil, India saw the selflessness of its soldiers, with all the officers in front, climbing in the cold under enemy fire and wrestling peaks in impossible conditions, with little more than blood and tears.

But not only Indians lack self-confidence in their dealings with the West, but they seem to have a permanent fear of the Chinese. Is it because in 1962, the Chinese took advantage of India's naivete, and attacked treacherously in the Himalayas, humiliating the Indian army and taking away 20.000 square kilometres of her territory, which they have not yet vacated ? India's first Prime Minister, Jawarlahal Nehru, had decided that India and China were the natural 'socialist' brothers of Asia. Shortly before China's attack, the Indian Army Chief of Staff had drafted a paper on the threats to India's security by China, along with recommendations for a clear defence policy. But whe n Nehru read the paper, he said : "Rubbish. Total Rubbish. We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats.. Scrap the Army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs." We know the results of this very foolish assessment.

But the biggest mistake that Nehru did was to betray Tibet, a peaceful spiritualised nation. For Tibet had always been a natural buffer between the two Giants of Asia - in fact, the Dalai Lama's repeated offer that Tibet becomes a denuclearised, demilitarised zone between India and China, makes total sense today and Indian leaders should have immediately adopted it. But unfortunately, if there is one thing which all political parties in India share, it is the policy of appeasing China in exchange for a non-interference of the Chinese in Kashmir. But what non-interference ? Not only did China give Pakistan the know-how to develop nuclear weapons, but it also provided missiles to deliver them ! On top of that, according to the CIA, China has transferred one third of its nuclear arsenal to Nagchuka, 250 kms away from Lhassa, a region full of huge caves, which the Chinese have linked together by an intricate underground network and where they have installed nearly one hundred Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, many of them pointed at Indian cities. The reason for this is that the Chinese, who are probably among the most intelligent people in the world, have always understood that India is their number one potential enemy in Asia - in military, nuclear and economic terms.

It should be clear that as long as India does not stand-up up to its responsibility towards Tibet and continues to recognise China's unjust suzerainty of it, there will be no peace in Asia. Indian leaders are perfectly aware that the Chinese, a span of fifty years, have killed 1,2 million Tibetans, razed to the ground 6254 monasteries, destroyed 60% of religious, historical and cultural archives and that one Tibetan out of ten is still in jail. As we enter the Third Millennium, a quarter million Chinese troops are occupying Tibet and there are 7.5 million Chinese settlers for six million Tibetans - in fact, in many places such as the capital, Lhassa, Tibetans are outnumbered two to one... India has also to wake-up to the plain fact that China needs space and has hegemonic aspirations : it got Tibet, it got Hong Kong, it got part of Ladhak; now it wants Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, the Spratly islands and what not ! Fifty years ago, during the Korean war, Sri Aurobindo, had seen clearly in the Chinese game : "the first move in the Chinese Communist plan of campaign is to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent in passing Tibet as a gate opening to India". India should overcome its awe of China and be ready to eventually face once more the Chinese army. The nuclear tests of India, which have been very criticised, because ideally you have to get rid of nuclear weapons if you want a safe world, should be seen in that light.

**i. A Westernised Framework**

It is not only the British education system, which was blindly adopted at Independence by Nehru, but also the whole judicial, constitutional, and legal set-up. The Constitution, for instance, has repeatedly shown its flaws, as the Presidents, who has no real powers, are playing more and more games and trying to impinge upon the Prime Minister's prerogatives. Democracy in India has also been perverted : we have seen how the Congress, who in the last three elections of the century made disastrous showings, has used the subtleties of the system to bring down four successive governments, thus provoking useless and expensive elections, which in turn threw no stable governments until the National Democratic Alliance won by a landslide in 1999. Therefore, it is the whole democratic system of India that has to be reshaped to suit a new, truer nation, which will manifest again its ancient wisdom.

And what is true democracy for India, but the law of Dharma ? It is this law that has to be revived, it is this law that must be the foundation of a true democratic India: "It has been said that democracy is based on the rights of man; it has been replied that it should rather take its stand on the duties of man; but both rights and duties are European ideas. Dharma is the Indian conception in which rights and duties lose the artificial antagonism created by a view of the world which makes selfishness the root of action and regain their deep and eternal unity. Dharma is the basis of democracy which Asia must recognise, for in this lies the distinction between the soul of Asia and the soul of Europe." (India's Reb p.37- March 16th 1908)

And the most wonderful thing is that, practically, India has at hand the model of a new form of democracy in the old Panchayat system of Indian villages, which has to be revived and worked up to the top. These ancient Panchayat system and their guilds were very representative and they had a living contact with the people. On the other hand, the parliamentary system has lost contact with the masses : the MP elected from Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh, sits most of his time in Delhi, an artificial, arrogant and faraway city. The palatial bungalow, the car, the servants, the sycophancy, the temptation to get corrupt he encounters there, make him forget his original aspiration to serve the people - if he ever had one...What has to be done is not only to decentralize the Government, by giving a greater autonomy to the states - which should take care of most separatist movements - but also to send back the elected politicians to their fields of work, so that they have a living contact with their people, as they did two thousand years ago : " We had a spontaneous and a free growth of communities developing on their own lines...Each such communal form of life - the village, the town, etc. - which formed the unit of national life, was left free in its own internal management. The central authority never interfered with it... because its function was not so much to legislate as to harmonise and see that everything was going all right"... (India's Rebirth 172)

The Judiciary, with its millions of backlog cases, which sometimes take decades to be decided upon, with its lawyers looking like crows in these ridiculous black dresses, would have to be reviewed too. It would be absurd to put back the Manu law into practice; but certainly the law of Dharma, of Truth, should be translated into a new Judicial system. Not to judge according to Western standards, with its so-called secular values, which have no relevance to India : " The work of the legislators attempted to take up the ordinary life of man and of the community and the life of human desire and aim and interest and ordered rule and custom and to interpret and formulate it in the same complete and decisive manner and at the same time to throw the whole in to an ordered relation to the ruling ideas of the national culture and frame and perpetuate a social system intelligently fashioned so as to provide a basis, a structure, a gradation by which there could be a secure evolution of the life from the vital and mental, to the spiritual motive.. " (Found of Indian Culture p. 283).

India has no national language, as Nehru thought that English could be the unifying language. But barely 10% of India knows English fluently and Hindi is spoken only in the North. Yet, very few seems to realise that India possesses in Sanskrit the Mother of all languages, so intricate, so subtle, so rich, that no other speech can equal it today. It could easily become the unifying language of India : "Sanskrit ought still to have a future as the language of the learned and it will not be a good day for India when the ancient tongues cease entirely to be written or spoken", admonished 50 years ago Sri Aurobindo, A dead language, you say ! Impossible to revive? But that's what they argued about Hebrew. And did not the Jewish people, when they got back their land in 1948, revive their 'dead' language, so that it is spoken today by all Jewish people and has become alive again ? The same thing ought to be done with Sanskrit, but as Sri Aurobindo points out: "it must get rid of the curse of the heavy pedantic style contracted by it in its decline, with the lumbering impossible compounds and the overweight of hair-splitting erudition". Let the scholars begin now to revive and modernise the Sanskrit language, it would be a sure sign of the dawning of the Renaissance of India. In a few years it should be taught as the second language in schools throughout the country, with the regional language as the first and English as the third. On top of that, Sanskrit would be a gift to the world, because it will boost the studies of the Vedas, whose great secrets will be unravelled. And again, this will go in enhancing India's self image.

**j. Arise Again O Ancient India**

"Arise O India, be proud once more of Thyself", one would be tempted to say in conclusion. This should be India's motto for the Third Millennium, after five centuries of self-denial. For, in spite of its poverty, in spite of the false Aryan invasion, in spite of the Muslim holocaust, in spite of European colonialism, in spite of Macaulay's children, in spite of the Partition, in spite of the Chinese threat, in spite of the westernised framework, India still has got tremendous potential. Everything is there, ready to be manifested again, ready to mould India in a new modern nation, a super power of the 21st century. Of course, India has to succeed its industrialisation, it has to liberalise, because unless you can compete economically with the West, no nation can become a super power. India has also to solve its political problems, settle its separatist troubles, get rid of corruption and bureaucracy. And lastly, it has to apply quickly its mind and genius to its ecological problems, because the environment in India is in a very bad way, near the point of no-return. Thus, if India can succeed into its industrialisation and liberalisation, become a force to be reckoned militarily, economically and socially, then the wonder that IS India could again manifest itself.

And what is this Wonder? Beyond the image of poverty, of backwardness, beyond even the wonder that is Hinduism, there is a Knowledge - spiritual, occult, esoteric, medical even - still alive today in India. This Knowledge was once roaming upon the shores of this world - in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece... - but it has now vanished to be replaced by religions, with their dogmas and rituals, do's and don't, hells and heavens. For we have lost the truth. we have lost the Great Sense, the meaning of our evolution, the meaning of why so much suffering, why dying, why getting born, why this earth, who are we, what is the soul, what is reincarnation, where is the ultimate truth about the world, the universe... But India has kept this truth, India has managed to preserve it through seven millenniums of pitfalls, of genocides and attempts at killing her santanam dharma. And this will be India's gift to this planet during the next century: to restore to the world its true sense. to recharge humanity with the real meaning and spirit of life, to gift to this dolorous Planet That which is beyond mind : the Supra-Mental. India will become the spiritual leader of the world : "It is this religion that I am raising-up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the Rishis, Saints, and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising forth this nation to send forth my word...When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Santana Dharma that shall rise, it is the Santana Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Santana Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists". (India's Reb. p. 46 -Uttara speech)

This knowledge does not necessarily reside in mystical realms, as it can be very practical. Ayurveda for instance, the oldest medical science still in practise, but which is unfortunately now being neglected. As a result, American companies are patenting medicines using the properties of neem or haldi, which were known 4000 years ago by India's forefathers. As in the case of Sanskrit, the Indian Government should put its energies and resources towards the reviving of Ayurveda, so that India is not totally swamped by allopathic medicine, which is controlled by multinationals. Or pranayama, the science of breathing. It is a very practical, down to earth knowledge and its effects have been studied for thousands of years. Indian teachers know exactly what results will this type - or that type - of exercise have on you and what kind of routine you should do to improve that particular problem, or develop this certain faculty in you. Pranayama is probably the best suited Indian yogic discipline for the West, because it is so down to earth, so scientific - there are no miracles, no levitation, no smoky mysticism and everything can be explained in a rational way. And again, the U.S.A., always prompt to experience new techniques, is using this knowledge : quite a few American companies have included exercises of pranayama in the peps sessions of their executives; sportsmen too are experimenting with it to improve their performances, as the film " the Great Blue ", has shown when the hero does a series of breathing exercises known in India as " Viloma ", to store as much air as possible in his lungs, before breaking a world record in underwater diving without oxygen. Then you have meditation, the queen all of yogic disciplines, which is being practised more and more in the West, as there have been numerous scientific studies, which have shown the positive effect of meditation on heart problems, psychological stress or blood circulation.

The irony of it all is that not only most of the Indian upper class and intellectual elite does not practise meditation and pranayama, or gets treated for its problems with Ayurveda, but that none of these things are included in the schools and universities curriculum. So you have this wonderful knowledge, which has disappeared from the rest of the world, but if you go to cities like Delhi, or Bombay, you realise that most of the youth there have no idea about meditation, or have never heard of pranayama. They are totally cut off from their ancient culture, from the greatness of their tradition, and even look down on it. So unless Indians start taking pride in their own culture, India will never be able to gift it to the world.

Famous French writer Andre Malraux had said that unless the 21 century is spiritual, then it will not be. What he meant was that the world has now come to such a stage of unhappiness, of material dryness, of conflicts within itself, that it seems doomed and there appears no way that it can redeem Itself : it is just going towards self-destruction, - ecologically, socially, spiritually. So unless the 21st century allows a new spiritual order to take over - not a religious order, because religion has been a failure, all over the world - then the world is going towards pralaya. And India holds the key to the world's future, for India is the only nation which still preserves in the darkness of Her Himalayan caves, on the luminous ghats of Benares, in the hearts of her countless yogis, or even in the minds of her ordinary folk, the key to the planetary evolution, its future and its hope.

The 21st century then, will be the era of the East; this is where the sun is going to rise again, after centuries of decadence and submission to Western colonialism; this is where the focus of the world is going to shift. And as when India used to shine and send forth Her Dharma all over the Orient: to Japan, Thailand, China, Burma, or Cambodia and influence their civilisations and religions for centuries to come, once more She will emit Her light and radiate, Queen among nations: "India of the ages is not dead nor has She spoken Her last creative word; She lives and has still something to do for Herself and the human peoples. And that which She must seek now to awake, is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the Occident's success and failure, but still the ancient immemorial Shakti recovering Her deepest self, lifting Her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and vaster form of Her Dharma".

Then, India's Self-Denial will be done with forever...

**About the Author**

Francois Gautier, born in Paris in 1950, is a French journalist and writer, who is the political correspondent in India and South Asia for "Le Figaro", France's largest circulation newspaper. He is married to an Indian and has lived in India for the past 29 years, which has helped him to see through the usual cliches and prejudices on India, (to which he subscribed for a long time), as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers and historians do. He shuttles between Delhi and the international city of Auroville near Pondichery.

**Bibliography**

* Negationism in India, by Konrad Elst. Voice of India, New Delhi.  
* Histoire de l'Inde, by Jean Danielou. Editions Fayard, Paris.  
* India's Rebirth, Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris.  
Distributed in India by Mira Aditi Center, 62 Sriranga 1st Cross, 4th Stage Kuvempunagar, Mysore 570023  
* Le Modele Indou, by Guy Deleury. Hachette, le Temps & les hommes. 1978  
* Indigenous Indians, by Konrad Elst, Voice of India, New Delhi.*  
* The Foundations of Indian Culture, by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondichery. 1988  
* Growth of Muslim population in India, by K.S. Lal. Voice of India, New Delhi.

4. सुनहरी जो मीरा

वधू से साधू फली,

लाल जोड़े में दमक पीताम्बरी,

राणा जी की विषैली जलन धुली...

सुनहरी जो मीरा स्याह कान्हा में घुली।

श्याम से रंग की आस लिये पिये विष प्याले,

भला कलियुग, भले इसके बंदे,

जोगन को दुनियादारी सिखाने चले।

सावन वो पावन कर गयी,

जिसको डुबाती नदिया दो धारा हुयी,

सजदे में अकबर की नज़रे झुक गयी,

सुनहरी जो मीरा स्याह कान्हा में घुली।

जाने कैसा मोह, जाने कौन सहारा,

एक उसकी वीणा, दूजा जग सारा।

तानो की अगन यूँ सही,

काँटो की सेज पर सोयी,

रूखी सी ऋतुओं में निश्चल वो रही,

सुनहरी जो मीरा स्याह कान्हा में घुली।

अब तक बस शहजादों - परवानो के किस्सों को लकीर माना,

फिर एक नयी दीवानी को जाना,

उसने मन की मूरत को चुना,

दुनिया जिसे भ्रम कहती रही,

उस वहम से सच्चा इश्क़ बुना।

सहस्त्रों में बाँट तुम संयत रही,

फिर प्रेम मोल दो पटरानी जी,

उस जोगन को भी अपना श्याम दो रुकमणी,

सुनहरी जो मीरा कान्हा में घुली।

\- मोहित शर्मा (ज़हन)

\------------------------------------

*) - Hindi-Urdu Experiment.

*) \- Mirabai was a great saint and devotee of Sri Krishna. Despite facing criticism and hostility from her own family, she lived an exemplary saintly life and composed many devotional bhajans. Historical information about the life of Mirabai is a matter of some scholarly debate. The oldest biographical account was Priyadas's commentary in Nabhadas' Sri Bhaktammal in 1712. Nevertheless there are many aural histories, which give an insight into this unique poet and Saint of India. More: <http://www.poetseers.org/the-poetseers/mirabai/index.html>

5. खंडित धर्म का विलाप

[मोहित शर्मा (ज़हन)]

कई सौ वर्ष पहले की बात है एक राज्य के सबसे बड़े तीर्थ स्थलों में से एक मंदिर के बाहर जमावड़ा लगा था। कुछ लोगो में बहस हो रही थी की क्या आम-चीत में भगवान, देवी-देवताओं की उपमा देना ठीक है या नहीं। पुराणों, ग्रंथो में अनगिनत वृतांत, दोहे, दृश्य एवम संवाद वर्णित थे जो अनेक प्रकार के स्वभावो वाले मनुष्यों के जीवन की लगभग हर बात को समेटे हुए थे साथ ही कैसी परिस्थिति में कैसा आचरण आदर्श है यह भी बताते थे। सभी इस विषय पर वृद्ध पुजारी जी से सलाह चाहते थे। पुजारी जी ने समझाया की भगवान या धर्म के नाम पर कभी उग्र ना हों, इष्ट जन की ग्रंथो से अलग उपमा करना ठीक है पर यह ध्यान रखा जाये की इन बातों में देवों का सम्मान हो और भक्त उलटी-सीधी चर्चा में भगवान को लाने के बजाये अपने विवेक से काम लेकर ऐसा कुछ करें।

राज्य बड़ा था जिसमे विभिन्न सूत्रों द्वारा जगह-जगह इस घटना और पुजारी जी की कही बात के वास्तविक रूप से बहुत अलग रूपों में बताया गया परिणाम स्वरुप भ्रांतियों फैलने लगी। कहीं दूर के क्षेत्र में किसी ने उपमा को तुलना सुन लिया तो वहाँ की जनता सभी की तुलना देवों से करने लगे। "तू बड़ा घुमक्कड़ है, बिलकुल नारद ऋषि की तरह।", "मेरी छोटी लड़की तो काली माई है पूरी।"

धीरे-धीरे यह आचरण आस-पास के इलाकों में पहुंचा। अपने पहले चरणों में बात गंभीर नहीं थी पर असामाजिक व् कुंठित तत्वों द्वारा फैलायीं अफवाहें बढ़ने लगी। राज्य का एक बड़ा घटक मानने लगा की किसी भी तरह की काल्पनिक कहानियों में भी भगवानो को लाया जा सकता है। जो उल्टा पूछे या सवाल किये जाने पर कोई ऐसी अफवाहों का उद्गम ना बता कर, ना उस बारे में सर खपा कर आराम से कह देता की तीर्थ के बड़े पुजारी जी ने बताया है, जबकि ऐसी बातों पर पुजारी जी का स्पष्टीकरण कुछ लोगो तक आकर ही दम तोड़ देता क्योकि चटपटी अफवाह, भ्रांति के सामने रूखे स्पष्टीकरण का क्या काम? खैर, पुजारी जी चिंतित तो हुए पर उनके जीवनकाल मे फिर भी धर्म की एक सीमा रही।

पीढ़ियां बढ़ी, सैकड़ों वर्ष निकले और यह कमज़ोर भ्रांतियाँ विकराल रूप लेती चली गयी। कल्पना की उड़ान में भगवान के अनेको रूपों का उपहास उड़ाया जाने लगा, कुछ देवी-देवताओं की छवि काल्पनिक साहित्य में इतनी नकारात्मक दिखाई गयी की वो कई लोगो की घृणा के पात्र बने और वास्तविक पुराणों, ग्रंथों से तथ्य-मिथक सत्यापित करने के बजाय उनमे से कुछ नास्तिक और धर्म के कट्टर आलोचक बन गये जो धर्म के अनुयायियों की गलती का ठीकरा भी धर्म पर फोड़ने लगे, साथ ही खुद ऐसी भ्रांतियों के चलते फिरते कारखाने बन गये। धर्म की शक्ति देख बाज़ारीकरण का दानव भी हावी हो रहा था।

समय के साथ बाहरी तत्व राज्य में घुले। कुछ धर्म सनातन की धारा से अलग होकर बने। कुछ नये धर्म, परंपरायें व्यापार या आक्रमण से यहाँ लाये गये। दूसरे तत्वों से मिलना ठीक था पर उनसे घुलकर एवम भ्रांतियों के जाल से अभिशप्त यह धर्म अपने घटक-गुण भुलाने लगा जिनकी जगह बाहरी तत्वों की सन्धि से बना परिवेश बनाने लगा। अब तक ना जाने कितनी बार अपने मतलब के लिये और जनता को शांत रखने के लिये इतिहास से खिलवाड़ किया गया, हर शासक द्वारा अपने स्वार्थ में इतिहास को बदला गया, अब तक अफवाहों की भी भरमार हो चुकी थी। एक समय समृद्ध राष्ट्र आज घिसट-घिसट कर बढ़ रहा था।

तीर्थ श्रेष्ठ के पुजारी जी की आत्मा कई जीवन और योनियों में जन्म लेकर मोक्ष को प्राप्त होने बढे, पर तीर्थ में भगवान की आराधना के तेज से अपने पुजारी जन्म की स्मृतियाँ अब भी उनमे प्रबल थी। उन्होंने देवदूतो से धरती, अपने राज्य, तीर्थ, अपने वंशजों का हाल देखने की इच्छा जतायी, उनकी इच्छा का दूतो ने सम्मान किया और उन्हें उनके इच्छित स्थानो पर भ्रमण करवाया। धरती का हाल देख पुजारी जी विचलित हो गये, मानव जैसे मानव ना होकर प्रेत योनि के नीच जन सा आचरण कर रहे थे, हर जगह त्राहि-त्राहि थी। उनके पूर्व राज्य का आधा हिस्सा किसी और राष्ट्र ने हड़प लिया, जिसकी सीमा में उनका तीर्थ सिद्ध पीठ मंदिर था जिसको अलग संप्रदाय के कट्टर अनुयायियों ने शैतान के घर की उपाधि देकर खंडित कर दिया। कभी पुजारी रही आत्मा में अब इतना रोष और शोक था जितना कभी इन्होने अपने किसी जीवन में अनुभव ना किया हो।

अपने वंशजो के बारे में जानने का कोतूहल हुआ। इनके वंशजो में से एक ने माहौल और अपने ही देश मे खिल्ली उड़ाये जाने का हवाला देकर अपना और अपने प्रियजनों का धर्मान्तरण करवा लिया था। धर्म बदलने के बाद यह चौथी पीढ़ी थी जिनमे सनातन धर्म के प्रति हीन भावना और उटपटांग अफवाहें थी जो अब बुरी तरह बदले इतिहास के अनुसार थी। जब पुजारी जी की आत्मा को अपनी इस पीढ़ी के व्यवसाय का पता चला तो मोक्ष पाने बढ़ रही पूर्ण, शांत आत्मा अशांत, अतृप्त सी हो गयी - उस पुजारी जिसने अपना एक जीवन तीर्थो मे श्रेष्ठ के चरणो में बिताया, उसके वंशज अंतः वस्त्रों, चप्पलों का दूसरे देशो में व्यापार करते है जिनपर देवी-देवताओं के चित्र अंकित होते है।

पुजारी जी की अब अतृप्त आत्मा ने सोचा सब मेरे कारण हुआ। अगर उस भगवान की आम बात-चीत में उपमा के प्रश्न पर या तुलना, काल्पनिकता आने पर किसी तरह तब सख्ती दिखायी जाती तो धीरे-धीरे इतनी विकट स्थिति ना आती की अपनी संस्कृति, देश, धर्म का लोग स्वयं ही उपहास उड़ाते, तोड़े-मरोड़े इतिहास को बिना शंकायें-विरोध किये मानते, हीन मानते, धर्म बदल लेते और आँखें मूँद कर "आज़ादी-आज़ादी" बिना उसका मतलब जाने चिल्लाकर खुद को 'दकियानूसी' लोगो से ऊपर और बेहतर मानते। हर अवसर पर सीमा लाँघने के विरोध पर भोले जवाब मिलते की देखो अब तक तो इतना हो चुका है, हमने तो बस थोड़ी सी छूट लेकर ज़रा सा प्रयोग किया है। बात तो सही थी पर वर्षो से ज़रा-ज़रा दशमलव जुड़कर अब राक्षस सा रूप ले चुके थे। बाकी धर्मो के अवलोकन में पुजारी जी ने पाया की निंदक, आलोचक तो उनके भी बहुत थे पर इस स्तर का मज़ाक कहीं और बर्दाश्त नहीं किया जाता था। कुछ धर्मो में तो उनके ईश की उपमा देना तक इस आधुनिक युग में वर्जित था, उसपर भी ईश निंदा पर मृत्यु की सज़ा जैसे कानून जिसको तोड़ने वाले ना के बराबर अनुयायी या आलोचक थे। जो पुजारी जी के धर्म में युगो से चल रहा था, यानी इस धर्म को दोहरी मार सहनी पड़ रही थी।

आत्मा ने देवदूतों से क्षमा मांगी और अपने अतृप्त हो जाने की बात बताई जिस कारण अब मुक्ति संभव नहीं थी।

"मेरी सजा यही है की मैं अपने खंडित तीर्थ के खंडरो में दिव्य अवशेषों की सेवा करता रहूँ अनंतकाल तक।"

समाप्त!

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### 6. Vastu Shastra

(Muktirajsinhji Chauhan)

Adherence to Vastu Shastra, the ancient and medieval canons on city planning and architecture, has suddenly assumed tremendous significance, particularly among the well-educated and affluent in urban India. It may be difficult to predict if this is just a fad or if it will be a way of building dwellings, offices, and factories etc. for many years to come.

Interestingly, practically none of the practitioners of Vastu Shastra has an academic background. So there is a lot of genuine practice as well as hearsay going around. In this brief introduction, the intention is to give a broad overall picture of the Vastu Shastra with some examples.

Vastu Shastras are canons dealing with the subject of vastu which means the environment. Put differently, one may regard them as codification of good practices of design of buildings and cities, which will provide settings for the conduct of human life in harmony with physical as well as metaphysical forces. These Vastu Shastra canons provide guidelines for design of buildings and planning of cities such that they will bring health, wealth and peace to the inhabitants.

Mythological beliefs are certainty at the root of the origins of these canonical texts and their discourse. The first of these relates to Vastupurusha, which appears to be the first step in ordering a part of the vast cosmic space, the brahmanda, for human habitation. According to myth, long ago there existed an unnamed, unknown and formless being which blocked the sky and the earth. The Gods forced it down on earth and pressed it face down. To ensure that it did not escape again, Lord Brahma, the supreme creator, along with other gods weighted it down and called it vastupurusha.

Lord Brahma, of course, occupied the central portion and in a hierarchic distribution along concentric rings assigned different quarters to different major and minor gods. Thus emerged a geometric configuration, which is called mandala. From one basic square, the canons have listed up to 1024 divisions of a square and given each one a name. The most popular among those have 64 and 81 divisions known as Manduka Mandala and Param Sayika Mandala, respectively, which are widely used for temple and dwelling plans.

The mandala is also given an orientation with Surya, the sun-god, occupying the central point of periphery to east; Varuna, the Lord of winds, to the west; Kubera, the Lord of Wealth, to the north; and Yama, the Lord of Death, to the south. The rest of the squares are occupied by the other minor gods. With the positions thus assigned and the beneficial or otherwise attributes of gods established through other myths, it is possible to assign the activities of living, working and support facilities over the mandala and therefore the layout of a city or a building.

The mandala is, of course, the most popular aspect of the vastushastras as it is constantly referred to for the location of the various activities in a building. The proper texts themselves, however, deal with a wide range of topics relating to built-environment. These include site selection, soil testing, building materials and techniques, design of temples separately by number of floors, palaces, dwellings, gates, image of the deity, their vehicles and seats even including the making of image of a linga for Shiva temples. All these are treated in different chapters of the canonical texts.

As an example, one may mention the matter of site selection, which is dealt with in both scientific and religious terms. The method of digging a pit and refilling it with excavated earth is given scientific treatment. If a lot of earth is left out, then the soil is compact with good load-bearing capacity.

A similar test checks the seepage of water in the soil. It if is quick, the soil is obviously not good. The religious prescription suggest that if the soil is white with ghee-like smell, it is good for Brahmins, if red with blood-like smell it is good for Kashtriyas, yellow with smell like sesamum oil, it is good for Vaishyas and black with the smell of rotten fish, it is good for Shudras. While the first two suggestions would still find the approval of a modern engineer, the third more likely betrays the caste-ridden nature of some of the Shastra's recommendations.

The Shastras also deal at length with town planning and form of towns suitable for different purposes such as administrative towns, hill towns, coastal towns or religious towns built at a sacred place. Among the most famous examples of a town planned according to these standards is the example of Old Jaipur which is based on a Prastar type town described in several texts. Built in 1727 AD, the final form and structure of the town shows a skillful manipulation, according to the Shastra's prescriptions, of the square mandala right from the whole to the smallest of the plots, the location of activities, and distribution of the caste groups.

Based on the studies carried out by scholars it is suggested that these texts were written down largely between the 7th century AD to 13th century AD following the Gupta period. They are found in all the major languages of medieval India. Of course, the earliest references are also found in the Vedas, which deal with carpentry among other subjects.

Vastusastras can be said to be companion texts to Shilpasastras and Chitrasastras dealing with sculpture, icons and painting respectively. Strangely, among all these texts, those devoted exclusively to one of the areas. i.e. vastu, chitra or shilpa are rare. This is because in the Indian artistic traditions, each was an important and integral part of the creative endeavor largely because all of these, including performing arts such as the dance and music, were based at the temple.

Among the vasthusastra texts are Mansar, Maymata, Vishwakarma and Samrangana Sutradhara which is credited to Raja Bhoja. The others are believed to have been authored by ancient saints and sages. These include Lord Vishwakarma who is architect to the gods in the Nagara or northern traditions, and Maya who is architect to the gods in the Dravida or Southern tradition. In the northern tradition Maya is regarded as architect to the danavas or demons. To give some idea about the size of the text, Masar comprises 5400 verses organized in a total of 70 chapters.

However, the nature, content and format of the texts as discussed above is in total contrast to the books that have recently been published and gone through, in some cases, half a dozen reprints in a span of one year. They share very little in common. As to what are the origins of the practitioners' texts recently published, I can only suggest that these would he more ritualistic practices broadly interpreted by the various puranic texts such as Agni Purana, Matsya Purana and their Agmic versions in the Dravidian traditions. The parallel I can draw upon is of Brigusamhita used by the palmists, which by itself has no serious pretensions to astronomy. The practitioners themselves are silent and unresponsive when questioned about these aspects.

One of the more recent texts goes so far as to suggest the location of two weighing scales in different parts of the plot in a factory. One was for weighing raw materials which would in that location weigh less than actual, and the other one of weighing finished goods which would register more weight than actual. Very neat, one may say, and very tempting for the factory owner.

As to the beneficial aspects of following these suggestions, the available experience is equally divided. There seems to be an equal number of success stories as well as failures. Here, I believe, the analogy of the typical palmist is best. Perhaps there are genuine jyotish shastris as well as frauds. Is it that human beings want to be able to put blame on some unknown forces for failures? Or that they would want to appease the unknown to ensure a success? These are more a matter of faith rather than belief.

Fortunately, Indians are not alone in this in recent times. Across Asia there is a resurgence of these beliefs and practices. Feng-shui, the Chinese version of Vastusastras, is practiced all over the Far East and South-east Asia. There, too, the situation is one of either you believe and practice or you don't believe and don't practice. Does this mean that one cannot explain this on a rational basis?

These texts (i.e. the genuine ancient and medieval canons) dealt with the classical manner of arts and architecture. This meant that irrespective of who was doing what and where, a certain quality, content and perfection would always be achieved just by following the texts. To paraphrase Einstein's observation for a similar work, "it makes good easy and bad difficult". This means that a temple made on the banks of Ganga would be as perfect as one made on shipra though patronised and designed by different persons.

Even those uninitiated can learn and practice the entire range of connected activities right from the selection of a site to the execution of all the elemental details. Then there is some reason to believe that some of the suggestions may indeed reflect more real concerns such as climatic suitability of locating the human activities in a building. An entrance front north ensures that it will always be in cool shade in India, besides allowing the wealth to flow in as it is the direction of Lord Kubera. The next alternative of entrance from east certainly brightens up the morning environment with the first rays of sun to start a great new day on a cheerful note.

Then there is a metaphysical aspect to it all. This one concerns the fears of the unknown on one hand, and attempts to intellectually grasp the nature of the world on the other hand. And between these two is the human desire to do things right, in conformity and in harmony with the unknown world and its forces. This is where particularly the mandala diagrams become very useful. These, in abstract terms, manifest or represent the cosmological conception of the world, albeit the world as conceived or interpreted by the ancient and the medieval scholars.

It is therefore natural that buildings and cities which represent a significant alteration of the terrestrial world be based on the mandala to make them harmonize with the unknown world. In other words, it, is undertaking a human act in tune with the nature as well as the unknown in the belief that these will not clash but work harmoniously to bring peace and prosperity to the builder and the inhabitants.

Architecture is a human act. It requires carving out a segment of that omnipotent, universal space of the brahmanda, the cosmic space, for the use of the human beings. It is not often that architecture truly rises to the challenges of capturing the divine character of the brahmanda in its folds. When it does happen the architectural experience exalts generations of people to come. Is this not true of Mahabalipuram, Khajuraho, Kailashnath? Or the city of Jaipur, its havelis as well those of Samod and Shekhavati region? Let us remember that these are all based on the Vasthusastras.

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### 7. Sacren Cow

(Robin Winter)

The world over, the term "sacred cow" has come to mean any stubborn loyalty to a long-standing institution which impedes natural progress. The term originates in India, where the cow is said to be literally worshiped, while thousands of humans suffer from undernourishment. The common, popular view of India in the West is that of an underdeveloped nation steeped in superstition. Overpopulated, overcrowded, undereducated, and bereft of most modern amenities, India is seen to be a backward nation in many respects by "progressive" Western civilization. "If only India would abandon her religious superstitions and kill and eat the cow!" Over several decades many attempts have been made by the "compassionate" West to alleviate unfortunate India's burden of poor logic, and to replace her superstitions with rational thinking.

Much of the religious West finds common ground with the rationalists, with whom they otherwise are usually at odds, on the issue of India's "sacred cow." Indeed, worshiping God is one thing, but to worship the cow while at the same time dying of starvation is a theological outlook much in need of reevaluation. Man is said to have dominion over the animals, but it would appear that the Indians have it backwards.

Popular opinion is not always the most informed opinion; in fact, this is usually the case. The many attempts to wean India from the nipple of her outdated pastoral culture have all failed. After 200 years of foreign occupation by the British, and after many subsequent but less overt imperialistic attempts, we find that although India has changed, the sacred cow remains as sacred as ever. In all but two Indian states, cow slaughter is strictly prohibited. If legislation were passed today to change that ruling, there would be rioting all over India. In spite of considerable exposure to Western ideas, one late Indian statesman said, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, "I think it is a good idea. When will they begin?"

An unbiased look at perhaps the longest-standing culture of the world, its roots and philosophy, may help us to see things a little more as they are — even about our own way of life. Sometimes we have to stand back to get the full picture. It is a natural tendency to consider one's own way the best, but such bull-headedness may cause us to miss seeing our own shortcomings. An honest look at the headlines of our home town newspaper may inspire us to question exactly what it is we are so eager to propound.

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of the Western technological influence on India is found in the country's few "modern" cities. Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and other cities can be most frustrating to the average Westerner. Crude attempts at modernization can be worse than none at all. Although India's technology lacks the polish and sophistication of the West, its employment in crude fashion nonetheless brings all of the adverse effects of a sophisticated form of the same amenities.

Real India is rural India. Village life accounts for the bulk of India's population of 700 million, and best illustrates the nation's ancient culture. The simplicity of India is often mistaken for ignorance, and her peacefulness mistaken for complacency. The serenity of Indian village life is overlooked or mislabeled by those who in the name of progress may really only be operating under the axiom of "misery loves company." Perhaps the people of India live as they do for a good reason: much of what goes along with Western "progress"—the mental anguish which causes us to do the most bizarre things that make many cities living hells—is relatively absent in India's rural lifestyle.

It is particularly difficult for Westerners to appreciate India's worship of the cow. After all, we live in the land of the hamburger. The "American" restaurant abroad is McDonald's. "Ole McDonald had a farm /Did it ever grow!" Western economists often contend that beef alone can solve India's food problems and lay a foundation for a lucrative export trade. This has caused cow worship and cow protection to come under attack for centuries. Cow protection has been called a "lunatic obstacle" to sensible farm management.

India's cow is called the zebu, and an investigation of the controversy surrounding her brings us to the heart of village life in India. The average landholder in India farms approximately one acre. This is nowhere near enough land to warrant the purchase of a tractor. Even if the size of the land plots were increased to make the purchase of machinery cost-effective, the unique weather, a five-season year including the monsoon, would quickly render the tractor useless. After the monsoons, the soil is too soft for planting and must be quickly and efficiently prepared before the soon-to-follow intense heat brings an end to the very short growing season. The loss of even one day will considerably affect the overall yield. The zebu bullocks are ideal in this connection for they can easily plow the soft earth without overly compacting the soil as would heavy machinery.

Farming in India is a family affair, and the labor-intensive approach to cultivation involves everyone. This helps to sustain the family unit, which is sometimes considered to be the wealth of a nation. The staples of the diet are grains: wheat and rice. Most of India is vegetarian. While the bull plows the field, helping to provide the grains, the cow supplies milk from which many dairy products are produced. Day to day, year after year, the cow and bull are the center of rural Indian life.

According to Frances Moore Lappe in her best-seller, Diet for a Small Planet, "For every sixteen pounds of grain and soy fed to beef cattle in the United States, we only get one pound back in meat on our plates. The other fifteen pounds are inaccessible to us, either used by the animal to produce energy or to make some part of its own body that we do not eat (like hair or bones), or excreted. Milk production is more efficient, with less than one pound of grain fed for every pint of milk produced. (This is partly because we don't have to grow a new cow every time we milk one.)" If India, with its already strained resources, were to allocate so much more acreage for the production of beef, it would be disastrous. Advocates of modernization maintain that with the application of the latest farming techniques, the yield per acre would gradually increase, thus making it possible for beef to be introduced over a period of time. Such advocates contend that with the introduction of beef into the Indian diet, the population's health would increase, thus furthering productivity. However, it is interesting to note that although India is far from being free of disease, its principal health problems are a result of urban overcrowding and inadequate sanitation and medical facilities. Whereas high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer constitute the greatest health threats in the West, the Indian people are practically free from these afflictions. So the "fact" that India's health would increase with the introduction of beef into the diet is not likely to overcome the "superstition" of the people's religious beliefs which prohibit them from eating meat.

The religious "superstitions" of India are based on the Vedas, which constitute the most voluminous body of literature in the world. The Vedas and their corollaries deal elaborately with theism, describing many gradations of the theistic idea. The idea that one should not eat meat, although central to Hindu philosophy, is only a secondary theme. To a large extent it amounts only to common sense and sensitivity. It is from this basis of sensitivity, an indicator of healthy consciousness, that higher spiritual principles can be appreciated. Actually, the Vedas agree with the West's contention that man has dominion over the animals; however, the West's way of dealing with its dependents is revolting to Indians. After all, we have dominion over our children and ofttimes elders as well, but would we be justified in slaughtering them for food? We become incensed if someone even abuses our dog!

The Vedas do not teach that the cow is superior to the human form of life and therefore worshipable. Rather, the she gives so much practical help to human society that she should be protected. Her assistance frees mankind from much of the struggle of life, thereby providing us with more time for spiritual pursuits. Although modern technology may be said to do the same, the fact is that it actually complicates man's life more and more and distracts him from more simple living and high spiritual thinking. We may become so mechanistic that we can fool ourselves into believing that cows or pets have no feelings.

For India, the cow represents the sacred principle of motherhood. She symbolizes charity and generosity because of the way she distributes her milk, which is essential for the nourishment of the young.

India's critics have pointed out that although Indian village life may be simple, it is a marginal existence; it is a life of little surplus. If a farmer's cow turns barren, he has lost his only chance of replacing the work team. And if she goes dry, the family loses its milk and butter. However the situation is not as bad as the technologically advanced may think. In village life, people are more interdependent. Helping one's neighbor is also considered sacred. Sharing is commonplace. All of the father's male friends are affectionately referred to by the sons and daughters as "uncle", while all of the village women are seen as mother. Often the responsibility of caring for and nursing the young is shared by several mothers.

Perhaps the heaviest criticism of the pastoral culture of India is directed at the insistence of the farmers on protecting even sick and aged cows. Westerners find this to be the height of absurdity. At least they could be killed and eaten or sold. But no. Animal hospitals or nursing homes called goshallas, provided by government agencies or wealthy individuals in search of piety, offer shelter for old and infirm cows. This is thought to be a luxury that India cannot really afford, as these "useless" cows are seen to be but competitors for the already limited croplands and precious foodstuffs. The fact is, however, that India actually spends a great deal less on their aging cattle than Americans spend on their cats and dogs. And India's cattle population is six times that of the American pet population.

The Indian farmer sees his cattle like members of the family. Since the farmers depend on the cattle for their own livelihood, it makes perfect sense both economically and emotionally to see to their well-being. In between harvests, the cattle are bathed and spruced up much like the average American polishes his automobile. Twice during the year, special festivals are held in honor of the cows. These rituals are similar to the American idea of Thanksgiving. Although in principle the same, there is a basic difference in the details of how we treat the turkey and how the more "primitive" Indians treat their cows.

India cares for over 200 million zebus. This accounts for one-fifth of the world's cattle population. Critics say that if India does not eat her cows, the cows will eat India. Exasperated critics feel that even the cow is underfed. However, in more recent years, India's critics have come to agree that she is essential to India's economy. Cattle are India's greatest natural resource. They eat only grass --which grows everywhere--and generates more power than all of India's generating plants. They also produce fuel, fertilizer, and nutrition in abundance. India runs on bullock power. Some 15 million bullock carts move approximately 15 billion tons of goods across the nation. Newer studies in energetics have shown that bullocks do two-thirds of the work on the average farm. Electricity and fossil fuels account for only 10%. Bullocks not only pull heavy loads, but also grind the sugarcane and turn the linseed oil presses. Converting from bullocks to machinery would cost an estimated $30 billion plus maintenance and replacement costs.

The biggest energy contribution from cows and bulls is their dung. India's cattle produce 800 million tons of manure every year. The Vedas explain that dung from cows is different from all other forms of excrement. Indian culture insists that if one comes in contact with the stool of any other animal, they must immediately take a bath. Even after passing stool oneself, bathing is necessary. But the cow's dung, far from being contaminating, instead possesses antiseptic qualities. This has been verified by modern science. Not only is it free from bacteria, but it also does a good job of killing them. Believe it or not, it is every bit as good an antiseptic as Lysol or Mr. Clean.

Most of the dung is used for fertilizer at no cost to the farmer or to the world's fossil fuel reserves. The remainder is used for fuel. It is odorless and burns without scorching, giving a slow, even heat. A housewife can count on leaving her pots unattended all day or return any time to a preheated griddle for short-order cooking. To replace dung with coal would cost India $1.5 billion per year.

Dung is also used for both heating and cooling. Packed on the outside walls of a house, in winter it keeps in the heat, and in summer produces a cooling effect. Also, unlike the stool of humans, it keeps flies away , and when burned, its smoke acts as a repellent for mosquitoes.

When technocrats were unable to come up with a workable alternative, they came up with a new argument for modernization. They suggested that the cattle culture be maintained, but that it should be done in a more efficient manner. Several ambitious programs were initiated using pedigree bulls and artificial insemination. But the new hybrids were not cheap nor were they able to keep up the pace with the zebus. The intense heat of India retired many of them well before old age. Although they produced more milk, this also created more problems, because there was no efficient system for distributing the surplus of milk throughout India's widespread population.

India's system of distribution is highly decentralized. Although the solution seemed simple, modernization again met its shortcomings. With bottling plants, pasteurization, and other sophisticated Western methods of distribution, it was thought that all of India could have fresh, pure milk. Behind the automats set up for the distribution of powdered milk, milk, and cream was the expectation that in time, people would begin to appreciate the abundant rewards bestowed by these new modern deities of technology, and worship of cows would gradually disappear. But in the end it was modernization that failed to prove its value.

Pasteurization proved to be a waste of time and money for Indians, who generally drink their milk hot, and thus boil it before drinking. With the absence of modern highways and the cost of milking machines and other necessities of factory dairy farming, it was seen to be impractical to impose the Western dairy system on India; the cost of refrigeration alone would make the price of milk too expensive for 95% of India's population.

Eventually, after repeated attempts to modernize India's approach to farming—and in particular its attitude toward its beloved zebus—it became clear that these technological upgrades were not very well thought out. They were not to replace a system that had endured for thousands of years; a system not only economically wise, but one that was part of a spiritually rich heritage. On the contrary, it may well be time to export the spiritual heritage of India to the West, where technology continues to threaten the tangible progress of humanity in its search for the deeper meaning of life.

### 8. Kumbh Mela

(Jack Hebner and David Osborn)

They came by the millions! Some arrived on overcrowded trains carrying five times their normal capacity. Some came by bus, by car, some by ox drawn carts, and others rode on horses, camels, and even elephants. The rich and famous chartered private planes and helicopters, while the less affluent came on foot carrying their bed rolls and camping equipment in heavy bundles on their heads. Wave after wave, they formed a veritable river of humanity that flowed onto the banks of the Ganges at Allahabad to celebrate the greatest spiritual festival ever held in the history of the world, the Kumbha Mela.

Kumbha Mela has gained international fame as "the world's most massive act of faith." Pilgrims come to this holy event with such tremendous faith and in such overwhelming numbers that it boggles the mind. Faith is the most important thing for the pilgrims at Kumbha Mela, they have an "unflinching trust in something sublime".

To understand the significance of the Kumbha Mela and the important role that it plays in the spirituality of India, it is helpful to know something about the background of the sacred Ganges River. The devout believe that simply by bathing in the Ganges one is freed from their past sins (karma), and thus one becomes eligible for liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Of course it is said that a pure lifestyle is also required after taking bath, otherwise one will again be burdened by karmic reactions .The pilgrims come from all walks of life, traveling long distances and tolerating many physical discomforts, such as sleeping in the open air in near freezing weather. They undergo these difficulties just to receive the benefit of taking a bath in the sacred river at Kumbha Mela.

This spectacle of faith has for many centuries attracted the curiosity of foreign travelers. Hiuen Tsiang of China, who lived during the seventh century, was the first to mention Kumbha Mela in his diary. He gave an eyewitness report that during the Hindu month of Magha (January-February) half a million people had gathered on the banks of the Ganges at Allahabad to observe a celebration for 75 days. The pilgrims, writes Hiuen Tsiang, assembled along with their king, his ministers, scholars, philosophers, and sages. He also reports that the king had distributed enormous quantities of gold, silver, and jewels in charity for the purpose of acquiring good merit and thus assuring his place in heaven.

In the eight century, Shankara, a prominent Indian saint, popularized the Kumbha Mela among the common people, and soon the attendance began to grow to enormous proportions. Shankara placed special importance to the opportunity of associating with saintly persons while at Kumbha Mela. Both hearing from sadhus (holy men) and sacred bathing are still the two main focus at Kumbha Mela.

By 1977, the number of pilgrims attending Kumbha Mela had to risen to 15 million! By 1989, the attendance was in the range of 29 million-nearly double that of the previous record. Photographer David Osborn and I contributed to this year's record participation by spending seven austere weeks living in a tent on the banks of the Ganges, observing the Kumbha Mela with wonder and admiration.

The ancient origin of the Kumbha Mela is described in the time honored Vedic literatures of India as having evolved from bygone days of the universe when the demigods and the demons produced the nectar of immortality. The sages of old have related this story thus: once upon a time, the demigods and demons assembled together on the shore of the milk ocean which lies in a certain region of the cosmos. The demigods and demons desired to churn the ocean to produce the nectar of immortality, and agreed to share it afterwards. The Mandara Mountain was used as a churning rod, and Vasuki, the king of serpents, became the rope for churning. With the demigods at Vasuki's tail and the demons at his head, they churned the ocean for a 1,000 years. A pot of nectar was eventually produced, and both the demigods and demons became anxious. The demigods, being fearful of what would happen if the demons drank their share of the nectar of immortality, stole away the pot and hid it in four places on the Earth: Prayag (Allahabad) Hardwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. At each of the hiding places a drop of immortal nectar spilled from the pot and landed on the earth. These four places are believed to have acquired mystical power, and festivals are regularly held at each, Allahabad being the largest and most important.

Besides the Ganges, there are also two other sacred rivers located at Allahabad, the Yamuna and the Saraswati . The Yamuna, like the Ganges has its earthly origin in the Himalayas. The Saraswati, however, is a mystical river which has no physical form. Its is believed that the Saraswati exists only on the ethereal or spiritual plane and is not visible to the human eye. This holy river is mentioned many times in India's sacred texts such as the Mahabharata and is said to be present at Allahabad where it joins the Yamuna and the Ganges.

This confluence of India's three most sacred rivers at Allahabad is called the sangam. The combined sanctity of the three holy rivers, coupled with the spiritual powers obtained from the pot of nectar of immortality, has earned Allahabad the rank of tirtharaja, the king of holy places.

The main highlight for most pilgrims during a Kumbha Mela is the observance of a sacred bath at the sangam. It is said that a bath in either of the sacred rivers has purifying effects, but where the three rivers meet, the bather's purification is increased one hundred times. Furthermore, it is said that when one takes a bath at the sangam during the Kumbha Mela, the influence is one thousand times increased.

According to astrological calculations, the Kumbha Mela is held every twelve years and begins on Makar Sankranti, the day when the sun and moon enter Capricorn and Jupiter enters Aries. The astrological configuration on Makar Sankranti is called " Kumbha snana-yoga" and is considered to be especially auspicious, as it is said that the passage from Earth to the higher planets is open at that time, thus allowing the soul to easily attain the celestial world. For such reasons it is understandable why the Kumbha Mela has become so popular among all classes of transcendentalists in India

This year Makar Sankranti fell on January 14th and the Kumbha Mela began with all the pomp and glory for which it is famous. The temperature dropped to 35 degrees Fahrenheit on the evening of the 13th, but bathers were not to be discouraged. Just past midnight, thousands began to enter the confluence of the three rivers, immersing themselves in the icy cold water. Loud chanting of "Bolo Ganga Mai ki jai (all glory to Mother Ganga)" filled the clear night air as the pilgrims washed away their bad karma. They came away from the bathing area wrapped in blankets and shivering from the cold. But as quickly as they came out of the water, thousands more came in their wake. With continual chants of " Bolo Ganga Mai ki jai" they entered the waters.

At dawn the sky reddened and the sun rose to reveal a crowd of five million enthusiasts slowly advancing towards the sangam. From the center of that mass of humanity came a marvelous procession announcing the official beginning of the Kumbha Mela. Bands played, people danced in jubilation, and colorful flags and banners flew above the crowd.

At the head of the procession were the nagas, India's famed naked holy men. These holy men engage themselves in renunciation of the world in search of equilibrium. They hope to escape the world's concomitant reactions and suffering by their austere practices such as complete celibacy and non-accumulation of material possessions. Thus they are known as liberationists. With matted locks of hair, their bodies covered in ashes, and their tridents ( the symbol of a follower of Shiva) raised high, they descended upon the bathing area. Entering the water in a tumult, blowing conchshells and singing " Shiva ki jai, Ganga ki jai," they splashed the sacred waters upon each other and played just like children. Indeed, they are said to be the very children of the Ganges.

Next came the Vaisnava vairagis, the wandering mendicants who dedicate everything to Visnu, the Sustainer. These saints live a life of service and complete dedication.Then came the innumerable other sects of ascetics dressed in saffron colored cloth and carrying their staffs of renunciation. All the centuries gone by of India's spiritual evolution were simultaneously there together in the procession. Each in turn bathed in the sangam.

Several hours passed before the procession had finished. Then began the mass bathing of the pilgrims. From the high banks of the river one could see the dark blue water of the Yamuna mixing with the silver gray water of the Ganges. Bathers, immersed up to the waist, scooped up water with folded palms and offered it to heaven in a timeless gesture. Boatmen rowed their boats full of pilgrims to a small sandbar in the middle of the sangam which soon disappeared under a cloud of bathers.

There was none to young or old for this occasion. A young mother sprinkled a few drops of the rivers' water over the head of her newborn baby, asking God to bless her child with a good life and prosperity. In another place an elderly couple eased themselves into the cold water. Some bathers made offerings of flowers, sweets, and colored dyes to the sacred waters, while others offered Vedic hymns. The chanting of OM - the supreme combination of letters - and Sanskrit mantras issued from the lips of every pilgrim.

As night fell, thousands of campfires could be seen burning along the riverbanks. In the central festival area, gaily decorated pandals (large tents) accommodated the thousands who listened to some of India's most exalted gurus lecturing on spiritual and philosophical topics.

In some pandals there were Indian drama and classical dance groups whose exotic costumes and performances attracted large audiences. In other pandals there were elaborate displays and dioramas illustrating the stories from India's ancient epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata. There was so much to see and do that there was never a dull moment.

Some pilgrims prefer to come to the Kumbha Mela on the days of the big sacred baths like Makar Sankranti and then return home, while others prefer to set up camp and stay for the duration. This year at Kumbha Mela there was six scheduled days for important baths. Those who remained for the full 41 days of the festival and observe all the important baths are called kalpvasis.

This year the Indian government spent more than 8 million dollars on preliminary organization for the Kumbha Mela. According to national newspaper reports, arrangements provided 5,000 gallons of purified drinking water every minute;8,000 buses which shuttle pilgrims in and out of the festival area that spread over 3,00- acres; 16,000 outlets and 6,000 poles which provided electrical facilities; 6,000 sweepers and sanitation employees who worked around the clock to maintain health standards; 9 pontoon bridges which spanned the Ganges at intervals; 20,000 policemen, firemen, and the Indian National Guard who kept a constant vigil at checkpoints and with closed circuit TV guarded against traffic congestion and other possible outbreaks or disturbances; and 100 doctors and nurses on call at all times at medical assistance stations.

An entire city sprang up along the banks of the river during the Kumbha Mela complete with markets, hospitals, and even a tourist camp to accommodate visitors from foreign countries. The tourist camp informed me that they had sheltered over 1,000 visitors from abroad during the festivities, most being from Europe and South America. Some of these visitors from abroad had never been to India before. Others seemed as well acquainted with what was happening as did the Indians.

In the market areas all the required necessities and luxuries of Kumbha Mela were for sale. In one place fruits and fresh vegetables were available. In another place wool blankets, which sold briskly, were piled in big stacks for easy selection. Along the main thoroughfares gypsies spread their wares which included different shapes and sizes of brass pots and bowls, beads for meditation, exotic perfumes, incense like kastori(musk) and chandan (sandalwood), and even tiger's claws set in gold.

It was also interesting to note that all the food arrangements throughout the festival were vegetarian. There was not a trace f meant, fish or eggs to be found in any camp or in any public eating place. We learned that meat is strictly taboo amongst all types of transcendentalists in India.

For the novelty seekers there was also a wide selection of oddities in the market. For a rupee or two one could employ a snake charmer who, when playing on his pungi (snake charmer's flute) would make the cobras dance, swaying to and fro. It is a long standing belief that the cobra is charmed by the sound of the pungi. Having observed several of these performances , however, it was our conclusion that the snake charmer charms his audience rather than the snake.

many palm readers and mystic soothsayers set up shop along the Ganges offering passers-by a look into the future. Astrology and palmistry are traditional sciences in India, but one could not help but think that some of these "mystics" were simply out to turn a fast rupee from a gullible public. No doubt that among the sincere and authentic spiritualists at Kumbha Mela there were also the cheaters and hence the cheated. Buyer beware.

The camel, a hardy beast of burden, used in India for centuries to transport cargo long distances and through difficult terrain, was the unsung hero of Kumbha Mela. Carrying heavy loads of firewood, tents, and foodstuffs on their raised backs these awkward creatures formed the very lifeline to the Kumbha Mela residents. In the soft sand, cars, trucks, and even horse carts often got stuck. But the camel was rugged and the goods always got through.

For everyone at Kumbha Mela, early mornings were the most austere time of day because it was always colder than at any other time. However, chilly sunrise is considered the most auspicious time of the day for spiritual practices.Every day at dawn , thousands arose early to bathe in the Ganges and return to their camps to change mantras and meditate.

At the northern end of the festival grounds, cast against the stil blue sky, stood a lone grass hut built upon sturdy stilts. This was the ashrama of Devara Baba who, according to his followers, is more than 200 years old. Devara Baba is a lifelong vegetarian and celibate yogi. His admirers believe that his exceptional longevity is due to the fact that he only drinks and bathes in the Ganges, whose waters are considered very sacred.When we asked Devara Baba about his exact age, he replied, " I have lost count of the years. It has been a very long time."

Every morning and evening tens of thousands of pilgrims walked the two mile stretch along the Ganges to the ashrama of Devara Baba with the hope that they might get a glimpse of this ancient sage. Much to their delight Devara Baba was always willing and even happy to accommodate them. Sitting on the veranda of his simple raised hut, the old sage relaxed in the warm rays of sunlight and blessed his visitors. Sometimes smiling or raising his hand in a gesture of grace Devara Baba radiated the aura of peacefulness. Some pilgrims brought offerings of fruits and flowers, while others came only with their prayers for blessings. It was our prayer to the sage that he allow us to take a few photographs, and in his usual gracious manner he consented.

As prominent as Devara Baba was, we sensed that there were many great souls who went undetected in our midst. We photographed until we ran out of film and were left only with a feeling of helplessness. Kumbha Mela was indeed a magnificent and awesome encounter.It was impossible to capture the festival. Indeed, it was the festival that captured us. Words, film, print, and paper can not do justice to the event — it is one that has to be experienced personally.

### 9. Indus Valley Civilization

By N. S. Rajaram

Extracted from a paper on Vedic Seals by N. S. Rajaram, presented at a recent conference of leading historians on Vedic history.

(Based on The Deciphered Indus Script by N.Jha and N.S. Rajaram)

**Background**

The year 1996-97, the fiftieth year of Indian independence, was important in more respects than one. In that year Natwar Jha published his monograph Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals containing a complete decipherment of the Indus script along with more than a hundred deciphered readings. Shortly after its publication, I began my collaboration with Jha leading to our soon to be published book The Deciphered Indus Script. In our book, we present deciphered readings of well over five hundred texts with Vedic references and explanations. Since many of the messages are repeated on different seals, they probably cover between 1500 and 2000 seals, or about half the known corpus. We have read more that are not included in our book for reasons mainly of logistics.

The main conclusion to follow from our work is that the Harappan Civilization, of which the seals are a product, belonged to the latter part of the Vedic Age. It has close connections with Vedantic works like the Sutras and the Upanishads. The style of writing reflects the short aphorisms found in Sutra works. The imagery and symbolism are strongly Vedic. The vocabulary depends heavily on the Vedic glossary Nighantu and its commentary by Yaska known as the Nirukta. The name of Yaska is found on at least two seals ‹ possibly three. There are references to Vedic kings and sages as well place names. Of particular interest are references to Plakshagra ‹ the birthplace of the Sarasvati River, and Sapta Apah or the Land of the Seven Rivers.

This means that the Rigveda must already have been quite ancient by the time of the Harappan Civilization. Since the Harappan Civilization was known to be flourishing in the 3100 1900 BC period, the Rigveda must have been in existence by 4000 BC. This now receives archaeological support following R.S. Bisht¹s investigation of the great Harappan city of Dholavira. Bisht (and other archaeologists) have concluded that the Vedic Aryans of the Sarasvati heartland were the people who created the Harappan cities and the civilization associated with it. Our deciphered readings tell us the same thing.

**Message of the Indus seals**

I will not present the decipherment here which both Jha and I have discussed in detail at other places. I will only note that the script is a highly complex hybrid that includes (1) an alphabetical subset; (2) a large number of composite signs; and (3) numerous pictorial symbols. The language of the Harappan texts is Vedic Sanskrit, and the script itself is heavily influenced by the rules of Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. It is clear that the later Brahmi script is a derivative of the Harappan that evolved borrowing heavily from its alphabetical subset. In fact, there exist examples of writing that combine features of both. It is therefore reasonable to call the Harappan script Old Brahmi or Proto Brahmi. Its decipherment was the result of more than twenty years of research by Jha ‹ a Vedic scholar and paleographer of considerable distinction. As previously observed, Jha and I have read close to 2000 seals; for most of these we have also found references in the Vedic literature, particularly the Nighantu and the Nirukta of Yaska. With this body of material, we are now in a position to take a broad look at what these seals have to say about the people who created them. This is particularly necessary in the light of a couple of highly publicized claims over the contents of the seals made in the last few months. One linguist (Malati Shengde) has claimed that the language of the Harappans was Akkadian, a West Asiatic language. This claim, made without being able to read the writing, is not supported by our decipherment. The language of the seals is Vedic Sanskrit, with close links to Vedantic works like the Upanishads. For instance, we have found and deciphered a seal which contains the word shadagama (shat agama) ‹ a reference to the six schools Vedantic knowledge. This shows that they must already have been in existence before 2000 BC. (Most of the seals were created in the 3100 1900 BC period.)

Another recent claim by a retired archaeologist (M.V. Krishna Rao) relates to the career of Sri Rama. According to Krishna Rao, the Harappan seals tell us that Rama was born not in Ayodhya, but in the present state of Haryana. He further claims that according to his study of the seals, Rama invaded Babylon and defeated and killed the famous Babylonian ruler Hammurabi whom he equates with Ravana! This account, if true, would call for a radical revision of both Indian and Babylonian history. Hammurabi is a well-known historical figure. He is known to have died in 1750 BC of natural causes and not killed in battle. His date therefore is too late to have found mention in the Harappan seals. We have no such sensational findings to report. Our fairly extensive readings indicate that the seals contain little in the way of history. To begin with, the writings on the seals are brief, with an average length of five to six characters. This makes them unsuitable for recording historical details. Whatever historical information we do find is incidental. There are occasional references to Vedic kings like Sudasa, Yadu and Puru, and to sages like Kutsa and Paila. We find also references to ancient places like Plaksagra (birthplace of the Sarasvati river), Sapta-Apah or the Land of the Seven Rivers referred to in the Vedic literature. But such Œhistorical¹ seals are few and far between; they probably do not exceed five percent of the total. Other historical information has to be inferred from indirect messages like the one about the six schools of Vedanta mentioned earlier.

References to Rama We do find references to Rama, but they are nowhere near as dramatic as his invasion of Babylonia and the killing of Hammurabi-Ravana. Seals speak of kanta-rama or ŒBeloved Rama¹, and kanta-atma-rama or ŒBeloved Soul Rama¹. One seal in particular speaks of samatvi sa ha rama meaning ŒRama treated all with equality¹. All this finds echo in the Valmiki Ramayana as Œarya sarva samashcaiva sadaiva priyadarshanah¹, or ŒArya to whom all were equal and was dear to everyone.¹

There is also a reference to Rama performing a successful fire ritual (or launching a fire missile) which again is mentioned in the Ramayana. There is another reference to Rama¹s successful crossing of the sea which again touches on the Ramayana. Of particular interest is the presence of ŒRama¹ in at least one West Asiatic seal from pre-Sargon layer in southern Mesopotamia. We know from Zoroastrian scripture that Rama was well known in ancient West Asia. The readings suggest that this goes back to a period long before 2500 BC. What is interesting in all this is that Rama is treated as an ideal man and ruler loved by everyone; nowhere have we found anything to suggest that he was regarded as divine. All this suggests that history books are in need of major revision. The Aryan invasion stands shattered, the Proto Dravidians are found to be a myth, and the cradle of civilization ‹ assuming there was such a thing ‹ is not Mesopotamia but Vedic India. Also, a version of the story of Rama existed five thousand years ago, and known both in India and West Asia. And the Sanskrit language ‹ at least the Vedic version of it ‹ is of untold antiquity; it was certainly not brought to India by invading nomads in the second millennium.

**Floods and maritime activity**

To return to the seals and their contents, such Œhistorical¹ seals are exceptional. A great majority of the seals are different in character and content. Often their texts can be quite mundane. We find a reference to a craftsman by name Ravi whose products last twice as long as those made by other craftsmen (dvi-ayuh). One inscription speaks of a short-tempered mother-in-law; there is even mention of relieving fever with the help of water from a saligrama (fossil stone) ‹ a remedy still followed in many Indian households. We find numerous references to rivers (apah) and Œflows¹ (retah), suggesting the existence of an extensive system of waterways. We have texts like a madra retah (flow to the Madra country), and a vatsa retah (flow to the Vatsa country) indicating their presence. The Vedic Civilization was of course largely a maritime one, as indeed was the Harappan ‹ a fact noted by David Frawley. The seals confirm it. There is recent archaeological evidence suggesting the presence of Indian cotton in Mexico and Peru dating to 2500 BC and earlier (Rajaram and Frawley 1997), which again suggests maritime activity. As noted earlier, archaeological evidence also supports the fact that the Vedic people (and the Harappans) engaged in maritime activity. References to floods are common, and can sometimes be quite vivid. There is a particularly dramatic inscription, which speaks of workers laboring all night by fire, trying to stem the floods. The readings suggest that the floods were due to the encroachment of seawater and not necessarily the rivers. These messages should be of interest to archaeologists who have noted the damage to sites due to floods and salination. The great Harappan city of Dholavira in Gujarat is a striking example.

**Vedic symbolism**

While historical references are rare, and many seals contain much mundane material, a substantial number of seals have messages reflecting Vedic symbolism. This symbolism can be quite profound, and one has to dig deep into the Vedic and Vedantic literature in trying to interpret them. But once understood, it helps to explain the symbolism of the images on the seals also. This can be illustrated with the help of the famous Pashupati seal, alongside its deciphered text.

The seal contains a meditating horned deity surrounded by five animals. The animals are ‹ elephant, musk deer, buffalo, tiger and rhinoceros. These five animals are often identified with the five senses, and the five associated elements ‹ fire, water, space, wind and earth (or soil). These elements that go to make up the material universe are known in the Vedic literature as panca maha-bhutas or the Five Great Elements. The reading on the seal is ishadyatah marah. Mara is the force opposed to creation ‹ one that causes the destruction of the universe. The seal message means: Mara is controlled by Ishvara. The seated deity is of course a representation of Ishvara.

Hindu cosmology holds that both creation and destruction of the universe result from the action of the Five Great Elements. So Mara, the destructive force, is also composed of the Five Great Elements. With this background, the deciphered message ishadyatah marah allows us to interpret the symbolism of the famous Pashupati seal. It expresses the profound idea, that, in every cosmic cycle, both the creation and the destruction of the universe are caused by the action of the panca maha-bhutas (Five Great Elements) under the control of Ishvara. This remarkable interpretation was decoded and brought to my notice by Jha.

We find numerous such seals with close links to the Vedic and Vedantic literature; our book includes several such interpretations. The written messages are brief in the form known as Œsutras¹ to Sanskrit scholars. These are short formula-like aphorisms made famous by such works as Panini¹s grammar, and Patanjali¹s celebrated Yogasutra. They invariably need elaboration. An example is the message ishadyatah marah just described. The seals are products of the same cultural, and, no doubt, historical milieu. Thus they confirm the earlier findings of Sethna and this writer that the Harappan Civilization overlapped with the Sutra period. This is what Frawley and I in our book have called the ŒSutra-Harappa- Sumeria equation¹. (We have also found mathematical formulas on a few seals.) All this provides a window on the Harappan world, and calls for a complete revision of Vedic history and chronology.

**Conclusion**

In summary, one may say that the deciphered seals, while they may not contain much in the way of history, they do provide a clear historical context for the Harappans by establishing a firm link between Harappan archaeology and the Vedic literature. Thanks to the deciphered seals, the Harappans, who until now had been left dangling like the legendary king Trishanku, find at last a place in history ‹ in Vedic India. The Harappans were the Vedic Harappans. The Rigveda therefore must go back well into the fifth millennium. If there was a cradle of civilization, it was Vedic India, not Sumeria. This recognition is bound to bring about a revolution in our understanding of history.

**Rerefences**

Jha, N. (1996) Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals. Ganga-Kaveri Publishing House, Varanasi.  
Jha, N. and N.S. Rajaram (To appear) The Deciphered Indus Script: Methodology, Readings, Interpretation.  
Rajaram, N.S. (1996) ŒJha¹s Decipherment of the Indus Script¹, in the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society (October-December 1996).  
Rajaram, N.S. and David Frawley (1997) Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization: A Literary and Scientific Perspective, 2nd edition. Voice of India, New Delhi.

10. Sanskritization – A New Model of Language Development

### (David Frawley)

The Current Indo-European Model: The Migration of the Proto-Indo-Europeans

The primary model used today for explaining the close relationships that exist between Indo-European languages is a migration theory. It proposes a Proto-Indo-European people who spread their language by a process of migration from an original primitive homeland. According to this view, as the Indo-European people moved in different directions, their language changed in predictable ways that can be traced back to their parent tongue, native culture and original environment.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans are usually defined racially as a European ethnic type, though not all scholars accept that they were of one race only. Their homeland—which is the subject of much debate—is placed in various regions including Eastern Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia and Western China, in short, at almost every point in the Indo-European world. From there, a migration is proposed over a period some centuries, if not millennia, to the parts of the world from India to Ireland where Indo-European languages came to be spoken by the first millennium BCE. The beginning of these migrations is proposed from as early as 7000-4000 BCE, reaching areas like India in 1500 BCE and Ireland as late as 500 BCE.

These migrating Indo-Europeans are often popularly called Aryans. However, we should recognize that this term does not reflect the original Sanskrit meaning of Arya, which has no racial or linguistic connotation but simply means noble or refined. These so-called Aryans were said to have taken their language with them, which explains the connections between Indo-European tongues like how the trunk of a tree creates various branches. The theory proposes that Indo-European languages share a substratum of common terms that reflect the conditions of their original homeland. Linguists have endeavored to recreate the original Indo-European language (PIE or Proto-Indo-European) spoken there. They find common words that indicate a homeland in a northern region of birch trees and salmon, far from any ocean. While it is impossible to verify such a language, even dictionaries of it have been created as if it were a real language that was spoken once.

We can call this a "migration model" of language, with the migrants at a later time militant invaders, bringing their language with them and imposing it on existing populations.

Flaws of the Existing Model

However, this migration model suffers from many flaws, of which I will mention the main ones.

Of course, many problems arise from the different opinions about the timing or place of these migrations. The original homeland is proposed for diverse places throughout the Indo-European world many thousands of miles apart. The inability to find anything like a single homeland naturally makes the entire theory questionable. The date of the proposed migrations from it are also a matter of much debate and vary by centuries, if not millennia. How linguists can be certain about a language but not about its time, place, or origin certainly casts doubts on the theory.This means that the theory, though popular, is vague in many respects and that its details are either not clear or are unconfirmed.

The attempts to connect Proto-Indo-European with a single race or ethnic group is particularly problematical given the spread of such languages through diverse ethnic groups by the first millennium BCE, particularly owing to the ethnic diversity of eastern Europe and Central Asia that are the main proposed homelands. However, I would like to raise more fundamental objections about the theory, including its linguistic basis.

First, in the primitive state of civilization, the rule is one of language diversity not of language uniformity, with languages changing quickly from region to region, often over short distances. For some examples, the languages of the Native Americans and Native Africans are quite diverse and change every few miles. This is particularly true of nomadic peoples. Such Proto-Indo-Europeans would not have been different. Their language would have changed every few miles and could not have had the consistency required of it to endure even at its place of origin.

Second, in the primitive state of language, languages change quickly over time as well, lacking a sophisticated culture or written traditions to sustain it. This process of time change would be faster for primitive groups that are migrating, whose travel exposes them to new cultural and environmental influences that require changes of vocabulary and which brings them into contact with other language groups. How such a Proto-Indo-European language could have maintained its continuity through the long time and vast migrations required is hard to explain.

This is particularly true when we consider that the Indo-Europeans are credited with spreading their language to many cultures that were both more sophisticated in civilization and larger in population, especially their spread to the subcontinent of India. Such primitive migrants usually lose their language into the existing more developed culture, under the general rule that more advanced cultures will maintain their language over primitive groups that come into contact with them. This is what occurred historically in India where many different invaders have been absorbed into the indigenous culture throughout the centuries. Why it should have been different in the second millennium BCE, the proposed time of the Aryan migration into India, after India had a long indigenous tradition and large population, does not make sense.

In fact, throughout the ancient world, whether in Europe, the Middle East or India, we naturally find considerable linguistic diversity such as the more primitive state of culture and communication would require. India was not the only region in which the Indo-European speakers existed along with those of other linguistic groups. It happened everywhere in the Indo-European world, including in the proposed Indo-European homeland in Central Asia. In Europe we find groups like the Basques, Etruscans and Finns that did not speak Indo-European tongues. In Central Asia there were many Turkish and Mongolian tribes as well as Europeans and Iranians. Mesopotamia shows Semitic, Indo-European, Caucasian and other language groups like the Sumerians. India has its Dravidian and Munda speakers. We do not find the Indo-European language groups existing alone without other language groups anywhere. We do not find a pure Indo-European region from which there was a spread to regions of different language groups. We find mixed linguistic regions everywhere and from the earliest period. With an interaction with diverse peoples and language groups, primitive Indo-Europeans would have witnessed a quick deterioration of their original pure tongue, whatever it might have been, unless they had some powerful culture to sustain it.

Specifically, the region of Central Asia and Eastern Europe of the proposed Proto-Indo-European homeland is a transitional area—a kind of way station containing various populations, races and cultures on the move and constantly interacting with one another. Historically, it has witnessed the movements of Mongols, Turks, Huns, Germans, Slavs, Celts, Scythians, Hungarians, and other peoples, both Indo-European in language and not. The development of a stable linguistic culture in such a borderless region is difficult to explain, much less maintaining its purity through its spread beyond it.

There have been various attempts to identify the Proto-Indo-Europeans with archaeological remains, like the Kurgan culture. Unfortunately, we cannot identify the language a people speak by their ruins or by their artifacts. The movement of such populations west and south has also been highlighted as a movement of the Indo-Europeans. That people move through and out of Central Asia to the west and south has occurred many times historically with different groups. This reflects the instability and difficult circumstances of life in the dry and cold region of Central Asia, as compared to the warmer and wetter climates of the south and west. To try to identify one such group as the Indo-Europeans because of such a geographical spread proves nothing.

There are many other factors against this migration theory as well, to highlight a few. There is no genetic influence of such a migration into India, the land that has the oldest continuous Indo-European language and culture. There is no real archaeological evidence of such a migration into India, where no ruins or artifacts of the migrating/invading Indo-Europeans has been found apart from the existing culture. The coming of the Indo-Europeans is also difficult to trace in Europe and the Middle East, where the date of their entry is being continually pushed back.

Another major problem with the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European language is that primitive languages are usually not specific in their terminology. For example, primitive people may have a word for 'fish' or 'tree', but it may not always mean a 'salmon' or a 'birch'. The word 'mriga', which in Sanskrit means a 'deer', in closely related Persian means a 'bird', as the original meaning of the term is a fast moving animal. Even the Vedic word 'vrika', which means a 'wolf', in other Vedic contexts means a 'plow', or something that tears things up.[1] Such an adjectival, general or descriptive use of words precedes the existence of specific nouns. The kind of specific reconstructions that are used to identify the PIE homeland reflect a later stage of language than what such primitive people would have spoken anyway!

Yet the main objection to this Proto-Indo-European model is our first point: It is contrary to the main trends of language development. Languages spread more by culture than by migration. Linguistic uniformity increases with the development of civilization, while linguistic diversity characterizes the primitive state of culture.

Cultural Elite Dominance

The main way that languages have spread historically is through a process of what I would callCultural Elite Dominanceor cultural diffusion. We can see how the English language is spreading throughout the world today, even in regions where the number of people of English ancestry is small. This 'Anglicization' of languages reflects the dominance of American and British cultural influences, particularly in science, technology and communication. It even extends to familial terms, with people all over the world calling their parents 'mommy and daddy'.

Many of the connections between Indo-European languages in Europe reflect a process of 'Latinization', the effect of the dominant Roman culture in ancient times. The Romance family of languages (French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian) arose through this Roman cultural influence, not by the migration of a primitive Roman race. Even Romania, which was only under Roman rule for a short period, had its language Latinized. This process of Latinization strongly affected English and had its influence on German as well.

In India, this process of cultural diffusion is called Sanskritization, from Sanskrit meaning what is cultured or refined. It involves new populations taking up Hindu culture mainly through the elite language of Sanskrit that is its basis. The process of Sanskritization is evident not only in the languages of North India that appear to derive from it, but also in the many Sanskrit loan words found in Dravidian languages, including Tamil.

Based on this model, I would propose an original dominant Indo-European culture and elite that spread the language more by diffusion than migration.One notes that Indo-European peoples share many cultural traits including religious and political factors. They have the same basic gods, the same basic tripartite social system and common concepts of kingship. Their connections are not simply limited to primitive traits or familial relations. There should be some dominant culture behind the Indo-European languages to explain these broader and more sophisticated connections.

Moreover, the first noticeable Indo-European groups that occur in the Middle East, like the Hittites, Mittani and Kassites appear as ruling elites, not as primitive nomads. Early Greeks, Hindus, Persians and Celts have a strong concept of nobility, often expressed as the term Arya. We could, therefore, also call this process of Sanskritization as Aryanization. Early Indo-Europeans were conscious of a great culture beyond them and an elite status for their peoples.

Such elite predominance occurs in other language families like the diffusion of Mandarin in China or Arabic in the Islamic world. An early and sustained elite dominance of an Indo-European culture is necessary to explain the Indo-European family of languages. Given the spiritual nature of ancient and of Vedic culture, it would not have simply been a military elite but more a religious elite.

A Galactic Model of Language

I would propose a model of language development like that of the formation of the galaxy, an organic development from a primal field. By this view, there was an original primordial cloud of language potentials in humanity, with different groups making expressions based upon various internal and external factors from the shape of their faces to the influences of their food or climate. This cloud of sound-expressions gradually coalesced into certain centers or islands that emerged over time as specific languages, just as the stars arose out the primordial nebula. As these language centers emerged, the stronger ones, by a kind of gravitational pull, influenced and absorbed the weaker ones, just as the Sun's gravitational pull drew planets to revolve around it. The more that culture and civilization developed the larger these centers became. This resulted in certain large islands or even continents of language being formed that over time became language families. Eventually, many of the languages that served as intermediates between these different language groups disappeared, making them appear separate or unique. This means that the linguistic uniformity that we find arose only at a later stage of language development and a later stage of history.

This is what we see in history: Linguistic uniformity is primarily a product of civilization. Civilization, along with communication, trade, urbanization and religion requires a standardization of language. This restrains the basic human tendency towards linguistic diversity and results in the formation of set languages and language families.

This is the basic point to note in history: The human tendency is towards linguistic diversity, not uniformity. A strong civilization is necessary to bring about linguistic uniformity. This uniformity is often only an upper crust as with Greek in the Eastern Roman Empire and English in India, while a multitude of vernaculars were used by the common people. Even in the Islamic world, Arabic has not succeeded in replacing existing languages from Berber in North Africa to Bengali in Bangladesh. People for the most part continue speaking the languages they always did, modified according to needs and changes.

The Indo-Europeanization of Language—Sanskritization

This process of elite dominance has occurred many times with different waves of civilization. There have been many waves of Indo-European linguistic dominance. There have been many periods in which Indo-European language groups have exerted a strong and extensive cultural sway. English, Spanish, Portuguese and French languages have done this in the colonial and modern eras. In the late ancient period and Middle Ages in Europe a process of Latinization went on, as did a diffusion of Greek through Greek culture at an earlier period. The Persians spread their language as well. An older wave of Indo-European peoples in the second millennium BC occurred with the Hittites, Kassites and Mittani. Perhaps yet earlier waves existed as well.

In some instances, Aryan groups were rearyanized. When the Celts came to Europe they already found Indo-European groups as the Thracians and Phygrians and Aryanized them further. In other instances, the Indo-European influence affected the culture but did not change the language. For example, the Finns and Hungarians in Europe, like the Dravidians in India, share a common culture with dominant Indo-European speakers but have retained their own different language on a common level.

Some scholars see the German language as an Indo-Europeanization or Aryanization of a population originally speaking a Finno-Ugrian language. This means that the Germans, thought to be a major or original Aryan group, might not have been Aryans at all originally in terms of race or ethnicity. In fact, the spread of Indo-European languages is so broad through different populations that it was probably never the expression of a single race or ethnic group, which is what the process of Sanskritization provides us.

The spread of Indo-European languages requires a sophisticated and enduring early ancient culture to promote it and to sustain it, not a group of nomadic invaders but a cultural elite. Harappan India, the world's largest urban civilization of its time, from 3300-1900 BCE, could have produced an earlier wave of cultural influence, or several such waves, which would not have required a massive movement of people to bring about.

Prakritization: The Development of Common Languages

A dominant cultural elite seeks to elevate the language through noble forms of expression such as art, religion and culture, as well as through terms of trade and politics. At the same time, there is an opposite movement to create a common language that is easier to speak, reflecting the needs of the less educated or non-elite of the culture. This process of an elite language breaking down into popular tongues can be called Prakritizationfrom Prakrit, the Sanskrit term for common languages.

One great mistake linguistics have made is to look at all languages as Prakrits or common dialects and to try to determine their rate of change accordingly. They fail to note that such refined or Sanskritic tongues are meant to exist for centuries and to stand above these changes, just as Latin endured with few changes throughout the Middle Ages.

Sanskritization aims at creating a pure but artificial language that transcends local language variations and which can endure over time, thus sustaining an enduring civilization. At the same time, local influences break down these purer but more artificial forms into simpler but less elegant forms. Common dialects develop with their own logic as well as their interaction with the elite language of the culture.

Classical Sanskrit, for example, has taken in some Prakrit words, while the Prakrits of India, north and south, have many borrowings from Sanskrit. Common dialects can enrich elite languages, which can otherwise become artificial or sterile, while the influence of elite languages can bring continuity and depth to common tongues.

The process of Sanskritization is thus not always complete. It may not always change the common language or Prakrit of the people. A Latin or Sanskrit elite, for example, existed in groups like the Hungarians or Dravidians that do not have an Indo-European language. It is also possible that a Prakritization of a language that occurred at an early period could over time lose any traceable connection with its parent. It is possible, for example, that Dravidian languages developed from Prakrits of Sanskrit or from an earlier ancestor of Sanskrit but at such an early period that their connection has been lost. As an elite language develops common forms of expression, it ceases to resemble its parent. With languages of many thousand years ago, it can be difficult to trace the connection between elite and common forms of expression.

Such Prakrits can develop their own culture or refinement, just as we now have English or German literature while in the Middle Ages such literature would have been only in Latin. Such elite Prakrits can become Sanskrits or new elite languages and have similar such influences.

Three Forms of Elite Predominance

We can propose three forms of elite predominance based upon the nature of ancient civilizations and their social stratification. These would be cultural diffusion through the priests or sages (Brahmins), the nobility or kings (Kshatriya), or the merchants and farmers (Vaishya). Let us start with the last.

Merchants traveled throughout the ancient world as a necessary part of trade. They set up trading colonies in different, sometimes far away places. The most evident example of this was the Phoenicians, mainly a sea-faring people, whose various trading communities were spread far and wide. Harappan India, as the largest civilization in the third millennium BCE, would have had the largest and most extensive set of trading influences that could have facilitated language changes.

Kings, aristocrats and armies traveled as well. Some influence was by intermarriage. We note an extensive intermarriage in the royal families of north India as recorded in ancient records like thePuranas.Some intermarriage outside this sphere, perhaps as far as Mesopotamia and Egypt, would be probable. Sometimes bands of warriors traveled. The main Indo-European groups that appear in the Near East in the second millennium BCE like the Hittites, Kassites and Mittani appear mainly as bands of warrior elites that ruled a mass of people speaking a different language and having different customs. We see strong such warrior traditions in early Indo-Europeans like the Greeks, Celts and Persians. The very term Arya among the Persians, Celts and Hindus seems to reflect primarily a warrior type of aristocracy. Such groups could have been responsible for such an elite predominance stimulating cultural and linguistic changes.

However, the third and most important group was the priests and sages, the Brahmins and rishis. Ancient India was a rishi culture, a culture dominated by the influence of various families of great sages like the Angirasas, Bhrigus, Kashyapas and their diversifications as other Vedic families. Great rishis like Vasishtha and Vishvamitra and their families had a stature and an influence that was much more important than any king or dynasty. In the struggles between kings and rishis in ancient India, it was the rishi that usually won. A king without the sanction of a great rishi was regarded as illegitimate and was often removed from power.

The Vedic rishis were something like missionaries in spreading their spiritual culture as we have noted elsewhere in the book. The rishis traveled far and wide, bringing their teachings to all types of people and setting up new cultures. In this process, their language would have spread as well.

Of course, there is an occult or fantastical side of the rishi idea, such as we find among sages and prophets in the ancient world. They were attributed with superhuman powers of body and mind and were regarded as capable of achieving great longevity. Some of this can be explained by the practice of yoga and the mastery of prana (the vital force) that was always part of the rishitradition. However, given the spiritual nature of ancient cultures, with their Gods and sense of the sacred everywhere, we can understand how religious and spiritual ideas would have the greatest impact on cultures and languages.

The rishis would have the strongest and most conscious influence on culture. They would educate and train new people in traditions of chanting, rituals and other daily customs, perhaps giving them new names. The Vedic rishi language or Proto-Sanskrit could have been the basis of many such language and cultural changes in the ancient world. The Vedic rishi was famous as a loka-krit or maker of culture.

In all three instances of elite predominance, small groups could effect major changes on cultures without requiring a major migration of people. Such an influence would be stronger on groups that did not have a large population or set traditions of their own. This explains how Indo-European languages and culture could spread through Central Asia and Europe, which was a sparsely populated area. It explains why such groups could influence Mesopotamia, which had its own larger populations and older traditions, but not become the dominant culture over time. More importantly, it explains why ancient India could not have been Aryanized the same way. Ancient India had a significant population and old traditions that could not be easily changed down to a mass level by a process of elite predominance from Iran or Central Asia.

I would propose that the ancient Europeans were gradually Aryanized by a combination of these factors of elite predominance. No doubt some peoples did migrate out of the Indian cultural domain, which in ancient times included Afghanistan, if not portions of Central Asia and Iran. These were probably mainly Kshatriya or warrior people but must have included other groups with priests, merchants and servants as part of their retinue. Merchants, of course, traveled on their own. Overland trails like the Silk Trail were probably in operation by that time.

But, most importantly, the rishis traveled. They came into new cultures and molded them along Vedic lines. Let us note that the Vedic model of religion is more culturally based and is not simply a belief or label change as is the case with missionary religion. Therefore, the rishi would have had a deeper and more sensitive impact on native cultures. As the rishis traveled, the rishi culture became modified according to local influences. New rishi cultures were produced, like the Druidic culture of the Celts that continued a process of Aryanization in a slightly different form. This process of Aryanization on different levels of merchants, aristocrats and rishi, taking new forms in new cultures, easily explains the linguistic connections between Indo-European groups as well as other cultural connections in the ancient world.

As an extension of the idea of Sanskritization, I would propose a process of Aryanization mainly based on the rishi model, but also considering the influence of the aristocracy and trade.

Limitations of Any Linguistic Model

We should, however, not push the language model of culture too far. The limitation of any linguistic model is that culture is always more than language, however important language may be. Culture also has an important place for religion, technology and commerce as well as the other aspects of civilization and cannot be reduced to language alone. The spread of culture does not always include the spread of language. Groups that share the same culture may speak diverse languages. The best example of this is Mesopotamia. There is a cultural continuity between the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians of the region, extending to Hittites and Kassites without a corresponding dominant elite language shared by all.

If we look at cultural diffusion through language alone, we can make many mistakes. It is also possible that a dominant cultural elite can impose much of its culture but not its language. Beyond the spread of language is a more general spread of culture that may not proceed through language but through religion, technology, agriculture or other factors, in which language may not be dominant. For example, Indian civilization spread to Indonesia without turning the local language into an Indo-European tongue, though many common and place names became Sanskritic.

Isolating language and looking at its development apart from the rest of culture can be misleading. A purely linguistic approach to history is dangerous. Linguistic data, particularly that surmised or reconstructed, must be brought into harmony with more solid archaeological and other forms of evidence. Otherwise, it can cause more confusion than clarification.

One main piece of evidence that is proposed is the division of Indo-European languages into kentum and shatam divisions, based upon 'sh' and 'k' pronunciation. However, in north India, traditional Vedic pronunciation (the Shukla Yajur Vedatradition) of the Vedic word Purusha, has always been Purukha, showing that such proposed divisions are not rigid at all. This 'sh' was pronounced as a 'kh'. So linguistic boundaries are often not as rigid as supposed.

Conclusions

A migration theory, particularly of a primitive people, cannot explain complex connections between languages, or the existence of language families such as the Indo-European. More diverse cultural interactions are required for this.

We cannot speak of an original Indo-European language but only of the emergence of an Indo-European language family over time through a long process of cultural development, with migration playing a secondary role. It is possible that some existing Indo-European languages were Aryanized at a later time, rather than being Indo-European at their origin.

It is probably better not to speak of language families at all but only of language affinities, not by a common ancestry but by a process of communication or interaction. Just as individuals can have various affinities without being members of the same family, so can languages.

The Indo-European group of languages does not reflect the spread of a single group of people or speakers of an original Proto-Indo-European tongue. It is a construct that arose through history by the interaction of various cultural and linguistic influences, dominated by groups that spoke mainly Indo-European tongues.

We cannot speak of an original Indo-European homeland but only of the region where an Indo-European cultural influence first arose. We cannot speak of an original Indo-European people but only of the oldest people that spoke such a type of language, and even this group may not have been uniform in its ethnicity.

We must discriminate between common dialects that change quickly over time and more enduring courtly or priestly languages that can exist for centuries with little change. We cannot apply the same rates of language change to each.

The spread of Indo-European languages requires an early dominant culture. Prior to Anglicization, Latinization and historical diffusions of Indo-European languages must have been earlier waves into the third millennium BCE and earlier.

We can at best speak of an original dominant Indo-European culture that I would identify with Vedic/Harappan India. So far, it is the oldest significant Indo-European culture that could give the basis for such a vast and enduring cultural diffusion, including language. It would also require a large population growing out of a fertile region like India to seed so many cultures in different parts of the world. This would not be easy in steppe-nomadic region, especially in ancient times, which could only support small populations leading a precarious existence. Throughout history, more Indians have migrated out of India than have come in. This is still the case today.

To explain the Indo-European connections, we need an advanced culture, with a dominant Indo-European language, before 3000 BCE, which was able to sustain its influence into the second millennium BCE. Vedic/Harappan India, which included parts of Afghanistan, alone can fit this need.

Ancient India

The RigVeda, the oldest Indian text, shows a dominant religious, political and merchant (Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya) culture that Sanskritized the region of north India and then areas beyond. This is mainly the influence of the Bharata and Ikshvaku kings and rishis. Yet earlier forms of Sanskrit probably existed that had already started the process, such as probably existed at a much earlier period like that of King Yayati. Manu himself probably represents the earliest phase of the Sanskritization process, particularly as the name of his daughter Ila means speech and probably refers to both the spiritual culture and elite language that his influence initiated. Classical India under the Mauryas and Guptas had another phase of Sanskritization when the ruling elite spoke classical Sanskrit as in the plays of Kalidasa.

The process of Sanskritization goes on today. It is most evident in Dravidian languages that have a greater percentage of Sanskrit words. We also note that South Indians have more classically Sanskrit surnames.

Perhaps there were earlier forms of language like a Proto-Sanskrit that had more commonalities with Dravidian or Semitic languages as we move more back into the primordial linguistic field.

In any case, an Aryan invasion/migration model is not necessary to explain the existence of Indo-European languages in India. Such an invasion/migration raises more questions than it answers. To replace it, we must look to a process of Sanskritization and Aryanization that is more spiritual and cultural in form, rather than a crude shift of populations.

The Place of the Sanskrit Language

This model of elite predominance means not only that there was no PIE per se behind all Indo-European languages, but also that Rig Vedic Sanskrit is not the mother of all languages either. The oldest form of Sanskrit, Vedic Sanskrit, is already a highly evolved elite language and not the first stage of language at all, much less a commonly spoken tongue. Its original name was 'chhandas', meaning meter or poetry. It possesses a complex metrical form, a sophisticated system of inflections, many synonyms, and a long sense of its own history.

The Rig Vedarepresents a synthesis of many Gods and of many rishi traditions, uniting the different modes of worship throughout the region. Similarly, it presents a synthetic poetic/religious language that has taken various elements from the different languages of the region, including those that modern linguists might not define as Indo-European. That would explain why the language has so many synonyms, particularly for religious terms, and why for more special cultural aspects, like names of different grains, it has so few terms. Rig Vedic Sanskrit was a synthetic religious language—a kind of all India religious language—that also included contributions from communities speaking Munda and Dravidian dialects, as well as those we might recognize as more Indo-European. Our modern compartmentalization of language should not be confused with a compartmentalization of culture. It may indicate more how we perceive language than how ancient cultures, which had considerable linguistic diversity, organized themselves or perceived their cultural boundaries.

Vedic Sanskrit is probably not the earliest Indo-European tongue or that responsible for the earliest diffusion of this group of languages, though it is probably the oldest Indo-European language that has survived. Vedic Sanskrit represents the elite language of the Vedic culture and was probably finalized during its later period. Earlier forms of Sanskrit and related Prakrits would have been spoken in the region previously, simpler in form, and these would have better represented the earliest diffusion of Indo-European languages. They would also probably contain elements of Dravidian and Munda languages. Their languages would have had more diversity as well as more interchanges with other languages.

The closest thing to any original language for humanity would be a language of root sounds, not inflected, and reflecting a range of meanings depending upon manner and intonation of expression. This is much like the language of bija or seed mantras.

In any case, we should look to culture to explain language and interpret language as part of culture. History can explain language, but language cannot explain history. The more dominant the language or language family, the stronger the culture needed to create and sustain it over time. This does not mean that migration and ethnicity play no role in the spread of language but that they should not be made into the prime determinative factors.

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### 11. Various Aspects - The Aryan Invasion

The Aryan Invasion theory was first propounded when linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and the major European languages were discovered by European scholars during the colonial era. In an atmosphere of raging eurocentricism, it was inevitable that any explanation of this seemingly inexplicable discovery would taken on racial and ideological overtones. (See Refs. 1)

**Colonial expositions of the Aryan Invasion Theory**

British intellectuals were particularly nonplussed by this apparent link between the languages of the conquerors and the conquered. In the earliest phases of British rule in India, the East India Company proceeded largely unconsciously - without moral dilemmas and without overt recourse to ideological or racial superiority. But as the rule of the East India Company expanded, and battles became more hard fought and the resistance to British occupation in India grew, the ideology of European racial superiority became almost essential in justifying British presence in India - not only to assuage British conscience, but also to convince the Indian people that the British were not mere colonial conquerors but a superior race on a noble civilizational mission.

After 1857, the British education system in India had been deliberately designed to assist in the development of a narrow but influential class of deeply indoctrinated and predominantly loyal agents of British colonial rule in India. British elaborations of the Aryan invasion theory became powerful and convenient ideological tools in generating legitimacy for British rule. In it's most classical and colonially tinged incarnation, it portrayed the Aryans as a highly advanced and culturally superior race in the ancient world, locating their original home in Northern Europe. It then went on to suggest that some time in antiquity, the Aryans migrated from their original home in Europe and brought with them their language and their superior culture and transcendental philosophy to civilize the primitive and materially backward Dravidian people of the subcontinent. All the greatness of Indian civilization was ascribed to the Aryans, thus implying that if India were to ever achieve greatness again, a return to Aryan rule was imperative.

And by claiming a cultural continuity between this noble race of ancient times and themselves, the British could become inheritors of the grand Aryan tradition and assert their "legitimate" civilizational right to rule over the people of the subcontinent - not to exploit them, but so as to "reinvigorate" Indian civilization by reintroducing Aryan rule that had been disfigured and corrupted by the violent and barbaric incursions of the Muslims. Preposterous and distorted as it was, this absurdly racist proposition was made palatable to a self-doubting and repressed class of upper-caste Hindus who were told that they were descendants of the Aryans, and could identify with the manifold and globally encompassing achievements of the Aryan people by accepting British authority so as to participate in this great Aryan renaissance in India. (See Ref. 2)

The theory gained rapid currency amongst upper-caste Hindus who had legitimate gripes against the Muslim nobility for having been denied equal access to power in the Muslim courts, but were too enfeebled to put up a fight on their own, and were too alienated from the mass of artisans and peasants to join in popular rebellions against the feudal dispensation. The British rulers offered the opportunity of gaining petty privileges in exchange for acquiescence to colonial rule, and the Aryan invasion theory provided the ideological justification for betraying the rest of ones nation. By placing the ancestral home of the Aryans far off in Northern Europe, the British were putting the idea in the heads of such upper-caste Hindus that they were far removed from the Indian masses and had no good reason to identify with them.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the Aryan invasion theory thus became the emotional bait for a section of the Indian population who were to aid and abet the colonial project in India. Although some of these Indians ultimately did develop national feelings, and forged a national identity that eventually came into conflict with the continuation of colonial rule, the theory continued to play an important role in confusing the psyche of the post-independence Indian intelligentsia.

Since the Aryan invasion belongs to a period of considerable antiquity, and there is little physical evidence to support any authoritative conclusion, theories affirming (or opposing) the invasion hypothesis can vary from being wildly speculative at worst, to being reasonably plausible at best. Even the most diligent and objective of historians can at best come up with informed conjectures, leaving open the possibility for uncertainty, and ideologically-driven diversionary postulations. The absence of concrete data and the ambiguity involved in interpreting surviving texts from the Aryan period makes the task of combating history-writing that has been colored by colonially influenced analysis doubly difficult.

Nevertheless, it is possible to construct the contours of what may be more plausible, and at least eliminate what is obviously fiction or fantasy.

**Arguments for and against the Invasion Theory**

Opponents of the invasion theory make a somewhat plausible case that the sacrificial rites and rituals described in some of the Vedic texts bear a resemblance to practices that may have been common during the Harappan period. The similiarity of Harappan and Vedic altars is indeed intriguing. This would bolster the argument that Brahmins of the Vedic age emerged from the Harappan priesthood, and not from any Aryan invasion. But a link between the Harappan priesthood and Vedic Brahminism does not preclude the possibility of an invasion or foreign migration. It is not inconceivable that the Vedic Brahmin developed as a composite of the Harappan priest and the priest of an invading (or migrating) tribe or clan. Animal sacrifices were common amongst many tribes in that age - and it is not entirely implausible that some kind of synthesis may have taken place.

**Philological Analysis**

Proponents of an invasion (or migration) theory feel quite strongly that the Indo-European linguistic commonality cannot be explained in any other way, and cite philological studies that appear to bolster their case.

However, opponents of the invasion theory argue that the structural commonality of the Indo-European group of languages could have been achieved without an Aryan invasion. They observe that the Harappan civilization had extensive trade and commercial ties with Babylon as well as with civilizations to the further West. There is a remarkable similarity in seals and cultural artifacts found in Harappan India, Babylon and even the early civilizations of the Mediterranean such as Crete. Hence, they argue that a linguistic commonality may have developed quite early through trade and cultural contacts and that this common linguistic structure may have subsequently moved from South to North. Since Mediterranean Europe and the Middle Eastern civilizations developed well before the civilizations of Northern Europe, such a possibility is not altogether inconceivable.

But such a hypothesis does not preclude the possibility that invading or migrating clans may have also introduced non-Indian words into the existing Indian languages - leading to a composite language stream that incorporated both Indo-European and indigenous features. (Urdu is an example of a language that was introduced as a result of a series of invasions, adding a large body of foreign words while maintaining the syntactical structure and vocabulary base of the previous language.)

Since much of the Indo-European linguistic commonality appears to correspond to the basic vocabulary of a pastoral nomadic population, intrusions by patriarchal warrior clans from Central Asia cannot be ruled out. Authors such as Gimbutas ( _The Civilization of the Goddess, the World of Old Europe_ ) present a reasonably convincing model of how the older matriarchal order in Europe was gradually broken down by migrants/conquerors who spoke a language that might account for certain common elements of the Indo-European group of languages. Although it would be inappropriate to mechanically apply the same conclusions to India, the linguistic and philological arguments are hard to ignore.

It must nevertheless be noted that there are both similarities and differences amongst the various Indo-European languages, and often, historians (and philologists) tend to downplay (or ignore) the contributions of the Adivasi and Tamil language streams in the development of the Indic languages. Philological analysis of the Indian languages points to both Indo-European links, as well as to a considerable degree of independent development. Moreover, just as South Indian languages have absorbed Sanskrit words, North Indian languages have also absorbed words from Tamil and languages related to it.

Another criticism of the inasion theory lies in the interpretation of the word "Arya" to mean race, nationality or even linguistic group. Critics suggest that the word Arya as used in the Rig Veda and other texts is better translated as one who was noble in character (or noble in deed) or perhaps hailing from a noble background. Hence, to use the term "Aryan" to describe the racial or national characteristics of an invading clan or clans would naturally be erroneous. Thus, if an invasion did take place, and if the invaders identified themselves as "Aryans", it would merely reflect their claim to noble status, and would not reflect upon their national or racial origin.

On the other hand, historians favoring the invasion theory have based many of their arguments on postulates connecting the introduction of the horse and chariot in India to invading (or migrating) "Aryans". They also point to the balladic character of some of the verses in the Rig Veda with references to armed cattle raids and warriors on horse-driven chariots who appear to portray a race or a group of clans of pastoral nomadic warriors. The imagery fits particularly well with artifacts found in Babylon and Ancient Persia (and other regions near the Caspian Sea) that depict warriors riding on horse-driven chariots. Other literary evidence from the Rig Veda also appears to connect the authors of these Rig Veda verses to the "Aryan" identified civilization of ancient Persia.

On the other hand, there is no tangible evidence of warrior clans in the numerous urban settlements that comprise the Harappan civilization. There are also few references to pastoral nomadism or cattle raids. The Harappans appear to have been a relatively urbanized people and based their existence on what seems to be primarily settled agriculture. The character of such verses in the Rig Veda texts does not fit well with a people who designed vast granaries, roads, urban bungalows, and for their time a highly sophisticated drainage system. And while there is evidence to suggest that the Harappans had a priestly class, there is almost no evidence of standing armies. There is evidence of a local police force but there is little to suggest that the police forces were as well armed or proficient in the use of archery as were the warrior tribes that find mention in the Rig Veda. Unlike the contemporaneous civilizations of Babylon and old Persia, where the institution of monarchy may have been already established, requiring the existence of standing armies and warrior clans to support the monarchy, the Harappan civilization seems to have been largely republican in character, with a much weaker and smaller police force to ensure stability. Based on a survey of surviving physical artifacts, it is possible to surmise that priests may have played a greater role in ensuring the legitimacy of the Harappan state, whereas the warriors may have begun to play a more powerful role in the civilizations of the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is therefore, not unlikely that the introduction of monarchy and standing armies (and the introduction of the _Kshatriya_ caste and the subsequent institutionalization of the caste system) may have come about, at least indirectly, as a consequence of an invasion or conquest. Another argument favoring some kind of an invasion is the evidence for Aryan-like invasions of other settled civilizations such as in Greece, and other parts of the Near East and Europe, and references in the _Manusmriti_ to ruling clans who were clearly of non-Indian origin. Considering how frequently the subcontinent has faced invasions from the North West, an "Aryan" identifying invasion would not be entirely out of character with the experience of the subcontinent. As to the physical origins of these possible invaders, it is very hard to be definitive - but in all likelihood, their origins could not have been too far from the Caspian region.

Some verses in the Rig Veda paint a picture of a people who were familiar with settled agriculture, but whose economic life was dominated by animal husbandry, and who had been exposed to a large body of water such as the Caspian Sea. Geographically, parts of Persia fit quite well with such a description as might other regions bordering on the Caspian or located in the geographical vicinity of the Caspian. These regions offered rather limited possibilities for settled agriculture and shepherding played an important role in the semi-urban civilizations that emerged around the Caspian basin.

The Aryan identifying warrior clans could have been a branch of the ruling warrior clans of early Persia, or else they may have originated in Central Asia or Southern Russia with a civilization that closely resembled the civilization of the old Persians. While some of the verses in the Rig Veda point to a Persian connection, other verses suggest that while these warrior tribes who came to India followed practices that closely resembled those of the Persians, they may not have originated in Persia. The close similarities between names for various kinship ties and familial relationships in India and Russia appears to place these Aryan identifying clans or tribes on the northern side of the Caspian. An explanation that reconciles this apparently conflicting evidence is that there was not a single invasion but a series of intrusions (or migrations) by different Aryan identifying clans - some of whom collaborated with each other while others saw each other as rivals or enemies.

Examples from more recent history might also offer us some clues of what may have occurred. Just as India was confronted by a series of invasions by Islamic rulers from different parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, it is not implausible that several Aryan identifying tribes or clans developed certain common cultural features that spanned Persia, Central Asia and the South Caucasus region and then spread South East towards India, (and also North and West into greater Russia, Europe and the Mediterranean). Of course, it is possible and likely that upon their entry into India, they also borrowed from the settled agriculture civilizations of India who may have been culturally more advanced in many ways.

Alternatively, the invaders of the Rig-Vedic period may have been like the Rajputs or Gujjars, entering India as warrior clans, conquering territories in India, but adopting the culture of India albeit with certain modifications, and enjoining their balladeers to introduce into the Rig Veda, verses that glorified their conquests, and expressed their particular world view. This would not be too dissimiliar from how the Rajputs and other ruling dynasties had local court chroniclers invent fictional noble lineages to create an impression of continuity.

**Links between Harappan and Vedic Civilization**

However, it should be noted that regardless of the geographical origin of such invaders, it is almost certain that the ruling clans of the Gangetic plain included both locals and invaders (or migrants). Later texts (such as the Manusmriti) describe a large number of ruling clans (of varied national origin, including Dravidian origin) as being "Aryan" i.e. of noble descent. Hence, it would be incorrect to argue that the ruling clans of the Vedic period were exclusively made up of "invading Aryans".

There is also compelling circumstantial evidence linking the settlers of the Gangetic plain to earlier Harappan settlements. For instance, emerging geological evidence pointing to ancient river systems drying up and changing course, and the excavation of numerous settlements along the banks of these ancient river systems (such as the Saraswati basin that ran in parallel to the Indus) lends credence to the argument that the settlers of the Gangetic plain must have been predominantly domestic migrants.

Finds of _Shatranj_ (chess) pieces, dice and terracotta animal and goddess figurines also point to connections between Harappan and later civilizations. It is also quite remarkable how the ornamentation of some temples in Rajasthan and Western Madhya Pradesh appears to derive from some of the excavated jewelry from Harappan sites in Northern India.

Some scholars also see a continuity between the _Sulva Sutras_ and the Harappan civilization which owing to it's material advance must have very likely developed a level of arithmetic and ritual and abstract philosophy concomitant with it's achievements in urban planning and agricultural management. The evidence for decimal weights and measures in the Harappan civilization, and the later perfection of a decimal numeral system in India lends further substance to such claims.

**Relevance of the Aryans**

All this suggests that there is a much greater degree of continuity in Indian civilization than previously realized, and further examination of the Indian historical record will demonstrate that the numerous developments in philosophy and culture that have taken place in India cannot be attributed to "Aryan" invaders. In fact, the main significance of the invasion theory lies not in the determination of whether such an invasion took place or not, but rather in how much of a debt Indian civilization might owe to such an invasion.

For instance, prior to the series of Islamic invasions, and long after the Aryan period of Indian history, there have been numerous other invasions that had an impact on the subcontinent. Yet it is only the "Aryan" invasion that attracts popular and scholarly attention. This is primarily because of the importance ascribed to the "Aryan" invasion by British colonial historians. Before the invention of the "exalted" Aryan by British ideologues, references to the Aryans in the Rig Veda were not treated with any particular importance, and few Indians had any conscious memory of an "Aryan" warrior past. This is not surprising, because the legacy of such invading warrior tribes or clans to Indian civilization is not especially significant.

Prior to any "Aryan" invasion, India already had a relatively advanced settled-agriculture based urban civilization. And within a few centuries after their possible introduction in India, the Aryan-identified gods described in the Rig Veda ceased to be worshipped and gradually faded from Indian consciousness. Brahmin _gotra_ (clan) names mentioned in the Rig Veda also lost their import and the vast majority of Brahmin _gotra_ (clan) names that came into common use could not have had any "Aryan"-invasion connection. As Kosambi convincingly points out in his _Introduction to Indian History_ , many of India's Brahmins rose from 'Hinduised' tribes that earlier practised animism or totem worship, or prayed to various fertility gods (and/or goddesses), or revered fertility symbols such as the _linga_ (phallus) or the _yoni_ (vagina). A majority of these Hinduised tribes retained many elements of their older forms of worship, and several Brahmin _gotra_ (clan) names are derived from pre-Aryan clan totems and other tribal associations.

For instance, one of the most popular gods in the Indian pantheon - Shiva - appears to have no connection with any Aryan invasion, and may in fact have it's prototype in the fertility god of the Harappans. Similiarly, _Hanuman, Ganesh, Kali_ , or Maharashtra's _Vithoba_ \- none could have any Aryan connection, since they don't even find any mention in the Rig Veda. Whether in matters of popular religion or in matters of high philosophy, there is little contribution of note that can be traced directly to an "Aryan invasion".

**Uniquely Indian Aspects of Vedic Literature**

It is important to note that much of the Vedic literature - both in the style and substance of it's verses, appears to be uniquely Indian, and it is not impossible that at least some of the verses may have Harappan origin. Many of the philosophical themes that are explored and developed in the _Vedic_ literature have insightful naturalist references that are consistent with Indian geography. In addition, there are certain philosophical aspects of the Vedic literature that don't appear to be replicated in quite the same way in any other civilization that was contemporaneous to the Vedic civilization.

The best of the Vedic _Shlokas_ refer to a common life-spirit that links all living creatures, to human social-interconnectedness, to the notion of unity in diversity and how different sections of society might have different prayers and different wishes. Whereas some verses point to god as being a source for wish-fulfillment, in other verses, there are doubts and queries about the nature of god, whether a god really exists, and whether such questions can every be really answered. These aspects of Vedic thought were elaborated upon by later schools of Indian philosophy, and recur frequently in Indian literature and philosophy.

While some of India's rational schools developed in parallel with the Vedas, and are included as appendices to the Vedic texts, others developed practically independently of the _Vedas_ , or even in opposition - as polemics to the _Vedas_ (such as those of the Jains and the Buddhists). (See Philosophical development from Upanishadic theism to scientific realism) The _Upanishads_ , the _Sankhya_ , and the _Nyaya-Vaisheshika_ schools, the numerous treatises on medicine, ethics, scientific method, logic and mathematics clearly developed on Indian soil as a result of Indian experiences and intellectual efforts.

India's great surviving temples and Stupas with their rich carvings and sculpture were all created with aesthetic principles and formulations that developed centuries after any invading or migrating "Aryans" would have completely melted into Indian society. And though it is possible that these foreign "Aryans" may have introduced certain technological innovations and inventions (possibly in the realm of metallurgy, metal tools or carpentry, and may have thus facilitated the spread of settled agricultural civilizations along the Gangetic plain), knowledge of textile production, tool-making, and metallurgy was already available to the Harappans.

The grammar of Sanskrit and its highly systematized alphabet also had little to do with any "Aryan" invasion. Sanskrit is a highly structured and methodical language, optimized for engaging in rational debates and expressing mathematical formulas. And its skillfully organized alphabet bears little resemblance to the rather random and arbitrary alphabet of its European "cousins". Much of its vocabulary and syntax developed long after any supposed invasion, and although the structure of the South Indian languages may differ from those of the North in some respects, the majority of India's languages (both Northern and Southern) share a large base of a common Sanskrit-derived vocabulary. In addition, what is especially significant is how the North Indian scripts share so much in common with the scripts of Southern India. The phonetic organization of consonants and vowels, phonetic spelling, and the many other commonalities that bind all of India's syllabic scripts weakens the entire linguistic premise of the Aryan invasion theory. In fact, when it comes to scripts, consonant and vowel sounds, all Indian languages are closely related, and their closest relatives are to be found in South East Asia, Ethiopia (and even Korea and Mongolia to some degree) but not in Europe. (See Ref.6)

It is thus curious, to say the least, when Indian civilization is described as synonymous with an imported "Aryan" civilization - and the self-esteem of so many Indians is tied up with trying to disprove the Aryan invasion theory. Other than perhaps accelerate the demise of republicanism in India, and possibly hasten the spread of settled agriculture along the Northern plains, there appears to be few other tangible and long-lasting effects that could be ascribed to an "Aryan" invasion.

Not only is it unclear as to how much any invading or migrant "Aryan" clan may have introduced into the Vedic literature, Vedic civilization itself is only a subset of Hindu civilization.

While the Aryans of the _Vedas_ may be credited with laying the foundations of "Hindu" civilization in the Gangetic plain, the essence of Hindu civilization emerged gradually, taking several centuries to crystallize. Undergoing both internal reform and fusion with pre-existing tribal and matriarchal cultures, the Hinduism of both the rulers and the masses kept evolving. Even as it retained certain philosophical elements from Vedic literature, it also broadened and in some ways diverged completely from the Vedas.

Beyond the Northern (Yamuna/Gangetic) plains, the influence of Aryan-identified Vedic civilization was generally more limited. Vedic influences on the civilizations in Bengal, Assam and Orissa were initially almost minimal, and these Eastern civilizations largely followed their own (and somewhat unique trajectories), as did the civilizations of South India - absorbing Vedic philosophical concepts gradually and only partially. Throughout India, Buddhism and Jainism also found converts, and in Kashmir, the North West, and in the East - Buddhism had a particularly profound influence, while in Western India (such as in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Western Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka) Jainism was very influential. In Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, West Bengal and Orissa, Tantric influences were important.

In essence, Indian civilization whether Hindu, Buddhist or Jain, or any other, developed primarily from the unique (and varied) conditions of Indian geography and the human exertion that went into modifying those conditions to advance agriculture and settled civilization. Taken in the general context of say three or four thousand years of Indian history, it is hard to ascribe to an "Aryan" invasion/s the sort of paramountcy assigned by the British. While British motives in magnifying the "Aryan" character of Indian civilization are only too apparent, this contemporary obsession with the "Aryan" question that appears to have gripped large sections of the Indian intelligentsia suggests that the ideological confusion created by the British has not yet been fully sorted out.

One consequence of this is that the debate on the Aryan question has been highly contentious, with historians adopting strident and extreme positions, not seeing that there can be both continuities and discontinuities in the development of Indian civilization. It has also diverted many of India's historians from equally (or more) important tasks - such as describing and integrating those periods of Indian history where considerable new archeological material is now available and needs to be incorporated into the presently known and documented view of Indian history.

Key aspects of Indian history remain poorly researched and documented. Many Sanskrit and vernacular texts have not been studied and assimilated by English speaking historians. Regional variations in Indian history have not been studied enough. A deeper understanding of some of the lesser known kingdoms all across India is required to correct false generalizations about Indian history. Much more effort is required in understanding social movements, gender and caste equations. Simplifications and generalizations based on antiquated documents like the _Manusmriti_ (which was mainly resurrected by British historians) provide a very incomplete and distorted picture of actual social relations and practice in India. The _Manusmriti_ also offers little in terms of understanding local and regional peculiarities in matters of social relations. (See Ref.3)

Considerable work is also required in unifying haphazard and scattered studies in the area of India's economic history and the history of philosophy, science, technology and manufacturing. It is also important that the vast body of work that has been published since independence in English be translated into the nation's many languages and regional dialects. It is tragic that so much of the best research done in Indian history is available only to English speakers. These are just some of the tasks that need greater attention from the community of Indian historians.

Intriguing as the Aryan-origin debate may be, it is in the end only one facet of Indian history, and merits further attention only if historians and archeologists can offer fresh and new insights on this subject and relate them to the broad dynamics of Indian civilization.

**Notes and References:**

1. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, famous for his work on the Indian Constitution, as well as his campaign in support of the nation's dalit community noticed the racial overtones underlying the theory and described the British espousal of the Aryan Invasion theory in the following words: " _The theory of invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-Germanic people are the purest of the modern representation of the original Aryan race. The theory is a perversion of scientific investigation. It is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point_."

b. British anthropologist, Edmund Leach also termed the Aryan invasion theory as being born out of European **racism**.

2.. " _What has taken place since the commencement of the British rule in India is only a reunion, to a certain extent, of the members of the same family,_ " John Wilson, a colonial missionary, declared with a straight face, and naturally this happy reunion had now brought India into contact " _with the most enlightened and philanthropic nation in the world._ " - quoted by Sri Aurobindo: The Origins of Aryan Speech, (The Secret of the Veda, p. 554).

3. See Madhu Kishwar: Manusmriti to Madhusmriti

4. See Marija Gimbutas: The Civilization of the Goddess, The World of Old Europe on the philological commonalities of the Indo-European languages, and how these commonalities relate to the culture and ethos of pastoral nomadic patriarchal warrior clans.

5. P.T. Srinivasa Iyengar (History of the Tamils) makes a similar case emphasizing the essentially indigenous development of Tamil language and civilization. Although some of his conclusions appear to be somewhat conjectural (such as those pertaining to Tamil Nadu possibly being the "original" homeland of the Sumerians), his assertion that Tamil language and culture arose from the very geography of the Tamil country is well substantiated. He does this by citing the anthropological observations of the ancient Tamils and demonstrating how the distinct geographical features of the Tamil country influenced the development of distinct modes of production and patterns of living, which in turn, helped shape their culture and language.

6. See, for instance, Wikipedia's on-line article on Indian and other Syllabic/Abugida scripts.

