India: Ancient Superpower

Infinite mentioned,


"There are countless fables about a man coming from the Holy Land, to India, as a teacher. Even stories of him surviving a crucifixion and residing in Kashmir. (Believe there is a reported tomb?)"

've never heard of thiuHi, Infinite - I'm really enjoying this thread - and have to admit I've never heard these rumours before. Could you eloborate a little?

Thanks!

John

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Millions]

reply to post by notsoperfect

I beg to differ with you about the caste system not being copied. That conquered peoples are assigned to a lower caste is still active in our culture.


[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

reply to post by Millions


There is also the account of "Doubting" Thomas who traveled to India and of the many people who are even now active Christians from the churches he planted there.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

Part 1) Aryan Invasion theory Cont.

Let us look at some of those powerful colonial scholars:

Lord Macaulay, who introduced English education in India revealed the Motives of the British East India Company - To convert and Conquer

Lord Thomas Babbington Macaulay (1800-59) was the first Law Member of the Governor-General's Legislature and is best known for introducing English education in India.
He wrote in his notorious 1835 Minute that Hinduism was based on

" a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value ...(one) that inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects ... hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality...fruitful of monstrous superstitions. " Hindus had therefore been fed for millennia with a "false history, false astronomy, false medicine ...in company of a false religion."

I doubt whether the Sanskrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors."

Macaulay advised in 1835 the creation of an Indian elite through Western style education, making them
"Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, in intellect.'

We will now look at the most important Christian scholar Max Mueller, who is responsible for the biggest distortion in Indian history: the Aryan Invasion theory.

Max Muller was a nobody and lived in poverty before he was employed by the British Empire to translate the most sacred of the Indians texts - Rig Veda - which Indian said was the source of their society - into English. Afterwards he became very rich, very famous and incredibly applauded. He is still widely respected today.

Max Muller proposed that the Indo-Europeans did not in fact originate in India, but they were White Europeans in Central Asia in the Russian Steeps who were nomadic, barbarian, war-mongering people and worshiped nature gods, the chief of whom was Indra. Around 1500BCE these militarily advanced white-skinned people(Aryans) invaded the dark-skinned people(Dasas/Dravidian) of the Indus valley civilisation and massacred them and drove them out of their cities to the South. They then imposed a caste-system based on discriminating against race and were brutal against the indigenous people. A few centuries later the Indo-Aryans, who were erstwhile barbarian, pagan, racist and brutal founded the philosophical tradition of India(The first evidence of this was the book 10 of the Rig Veda where explicit philosophical hymns appear) Almost as if overnight they became civilised, spiritual, monotheistic, democratic, scholarly and by 1000BCE India has already become a highly philosophical civilisation -by 700BCE it is performing sophisticated surgery and has scientific system of medicine(but based on metaphysical theory) By 500BCE highly intellectual religions like Buddhism and Jainism are appearing and language is standardized by Panini with a precise computer-like grammar.

This narrative that Max Muller proposed has been exploited for many political goals then and today. The British empire used it is a justification for colonial rule of India, claiming that Indians had already been invaded and civilised and Indians were actually a corrupt form of the white race(the seeds of inferiority) Racial remarks like this were common with British power elite, such as Winston Churchil:

Winston Churchill who opposed any policy giving independence to India, belligerently points out:

"We have as much right to be in India as anyone there, except perhaps for the depressed classes, who are the native stock."

The Nazi’s used it to establish the superiority of the white skinned, blue eyed and blonde haired race that they believed had civilised the world in the past. Corrupt Brahmins used it to justify their top status in the social order of India and South Indian nationalists used it to claim India and Hinduism belonged to them(which they claim was originally Shiva-worshipping) and North Indians were invaders and their gods false(Indra, Brahma etc). Thus Aryan Invasion theory has had a huge impact on the national ethos and psyche of the Indians and hence explaining why they are so self-loathing and divided and why its history is so underrepresented, even by Indians(This is changing today as Indians are becoming more confident due to their rising status in the world)

Max Muller Aryan Invasion theory was then furnished with linguistic theories which showed that most of the Indo-European language family was not found anywhere near India but in Central Asia. They proposed the theory of the linguistic centre of gravity which says that the origin of a language family has to be where we find the most members of the family.
Some interpretations in the Rig Veda of “Indra destroying forts of the Dasas” with his armies of "fair-skinned Maruts” were also used to furnish the AIT. The absence of the remains of horses which are described in the Vedas were also used as positive evidence for the foreign origins of the Indo-Aryans.


This narrative, which I am sure many of you who have studied history and who may have briefly encountered Indian history will be very familiar with. It is the one taught at universities(both Western and Indian) It is in most books and internet articles on Indian history. It is not taught as a theory, it is taught as absolute fact. What is left out is that this theory has been challenged from the very beginning as highly speculative, spurious, racist and completely unsubstantiated. These challenges have continued well up until the 21st century by various scholars, not only of Indian origin but internationally, but the theory has been still taken as fact(Today AIT is falling into disfavour in the academic community, but it is still maintained in softer forms with Aryan Migration Theory(AMT) by Harvard scholar Witzel and co.

Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) was one of the first dissenters. He was aware of the kinship in language between Sanskrit and European tongues, but found the theory of their "spread from a central point...a gratuitous assumption." In his History of India, 1841, he observed, "Neither in the Vedas, nor in any book...is there any allusion to a prior residence ....out of India...There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one

British scholar F. E. Pargiter in his Ancient Indian Historical Tradition yet his inquiry into historical data from the Puranas led him, in 1972, to conclusions opposite to the accepted theories. With a rare commonsense, he first noted that
"there is a strong presumption in favor of (Indian) tradition; if anyone contests tradition, the burden lies on him to show that it is wrong."
He also observed, with dry humor: " Indian tradition knows nothing whatever of the Aryans' invasion of India through the north-west....All this copious tradition was falsely fabricated, and the truth has been absolutely lost, if the current theory is right; is that probable? If all this tradition is false, why, how, and in whose interests was it all fabricated.?"

Pargiter went even further, for he was convinced that Indian tradition clearly recorded "an outflow of people from India before the fifteenth century BC." and thought that the Iranians may have been an offshoot from India." He pertinently observed that in the famous nadi sukta, the Rig Veda lists rivers of the subcontinent from east to west, and remarked: "If the Aryans had entered India from the north-west, and had advanced eastward through the Punjab only as far as the Saraswati or Jumna when the Rigvedic hymns were composed, it is very surprising that the hymn arranges the rivers, not according to their progress, but reversaly from the Ganges which they had hardly reached.

There is no evidence to back AIT up whatsoever and the person who proposed it did not base his theory on any evidence either, but on a highly and interpretative and selective reading of the Rig Veda which contrasted widely with all other interpretations. Moreover, Max Muller was a Christian missionary, a scholar of the most dubious credentials who revealed in his published letters his actual mission in India:

To Chevalier Bunsen, 55 St. John Street, Oxford, August 25, 1856, he wrote:

"I should like to live for 10 years quite quietly and learn the language, try to make friends, and then see whether I was fit to take part in a work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian teaching.Whatever finds root in India soon overshadows the whole of Asia."

It is due to Max Muller that the notion of an “Aryan race” even came about and Max Muller was not a scientist or a biologist, he was a nobody. Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887-1975), British biologist brings this into light:

In 1848 the young German scholar Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) settled in Oxford. ...About 1853, he introduced into English usage the unlucky term Aryan as applied to a large group of languages. ...Moreover, Max Muller threw another apple of discord. He introduced a proposition that is demonstrably false. He spoke not only of a definite Aryan language and its descendants, but also of a corresponding 'Aryan race'. The idea was rapidly taken up both in Germany and in England."

I think it maybe becoming increasingly clear to most people that the Aryan invasion theory is at best dubious and at worst a complete fabrication by colonialists to push racist and missionary agendas and propaganda and to deny the evidence that India was the origin of civilisation.

In the next post we will directly contrast the chronology of the Aryan Invasion theory with Indian chronology to show why it is absolutely necessary to revise Indian history completely and world history and place India rightfully at the origins of civilisation.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by notsoperfect
reply to post by Indigo_Child

 

I don't see anything particuarly related to the modern day Indian civilization that can be linked to Egyptian or European civilization. The author of this thread should be more specific. The notorious social Caste system of the Indians is not copied by any other civilization. The multi deity of the Hindu religion is not the same as that of the Egyptian Sun god nor the Jewish concept of one God.

The Egyptians did in fact have a caste-like system which divided society into 4 classes: Priesthood, warriors,merchants and slaves with the priesthood at the top, just like the Hindu caste system. This is one of the reason why many scholars think that Egyptians and Indians are related and Indians may have actually seeded the Egyptians. I think you will be interested in my later post where I will look at that evidence.

Hinduism is not actually a polytheistic religion. It is widely known today and acknowledged in religious studies as a henotheistic religion. It believes in one god, which has many forms. This is similar in some sense to the Egyptian religious beliefs.

What is it that the modern day Asian Indians have common with the European civilization? They say mathematics is the one. But the Mayans were calculating numbers and dates precisely without Indian mathematics like everybody elses in the world.

Not just mathematics. Philosophy, Metallurgy, literature, common myths, gods and languages. There is a lot that is common between Indians and Europeans. I will cover some of that in my next post on Aryan invasion theory.

For now I ask you to keep an open mind.

reply to post by Indigo_Child


Thank you for this excellent information Indigo.

reply to post by 13579


I am not sure of your motivations. A mis-word does not void an entire thought process painstakingly laid out to the best of ones knowledge. I am sure corrections are appreciated when they are kindly and not dripping with derision and scarcasim.
I have not read past the first few posts to this thread, and yet I see you are on the attack. When someone leaps this quickly and with your attitude in the method of "correction" I think they must have a pre-disposition against the writer and I put aside their opinion as biased.

The only religion that shares the true selfless and sacrificing spirit of Christianity, is Buddhism. I find it very easy to believe all the worlds religions are based on these humble concepts and these are prophets sent to guide our development.
These passive, peace loving prophets and messages have been disobeyed and distorted by people who continued to worshiped the unseated deities, favored violence, confrontation and war.
They did not want to know what the word humble meant and in fact they still do not want to know today.

Let's face it - India needs to be a brutal power drunk tyrant to gain the respect of the world and certainly if it ever hopes to change history. These are the countries that get the most attention, the most concessions to them after all.
Humble, peace loving countries are ridiculed and mocked, even overturned and taken over, not envied or emulated as we might hope.
It is a testament to their true strength India has remained independent for so long.

reply to post by infinite
Akbar took an Indian wife and adopted a lot of Indian culture. But were there other Muslim rulers who did that? It seems like the Muslims pretty much just killed everybody. If you want to see a beautiful story about Akbar watch Mugl e Azam. You can see the best parts of it on Youtube by typing in Pyar kiya to darna kya. It is the beautiful story of Akbar's son who fell in love with a servant girl and wanted to marry her. She 's the one that got bricked up in a wall. Pyar kiya to darna kya means "I have loved, why should I fear." Though actually she survived getting bricked up in the wall, but it was a beautiful love story I will try to link it If you are interested in the whole movie you can probably get it an erosentertainment.com probably for less than $10, Asoka as well.


www.youtube.com...


I love this because of the defiance depicted against tyranny

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

I really believe that the partition of India was the best thing, except for the thousands of deaths, but was the best thing that could have happened to India. If India had been tied to Pakistan politically it would not have been so free to flourish so well. Of course India did suffer a lot of terrorist attacks, but that was more due to the CIA involvement with Pakistan.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

Originally posted by Millions
Infinite mentioned,


"There are countless fables about a man coming from the Holy Land, to India, as a teacher. Even stories of him surviving a crucifixion and residing in Kashmir. (Believe there is a reported tomb?)"

've never heard of thiuHi, Infinite - I'm really enjoying this thread - and have to admit I've never heard these rumours before. Could you eloborate a little?

Thanks!

John

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Millions]

Sorry interrupt, I_C, but I think Millions and Infinite might enjoy this:

Jesus in India? (documentary)

back to the topic....

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
Part 1) Aryan Invasion theory Cont.

~snip~

I think it maybe becoming increasingly clear to most people that the Aryan invasion theory is at best dubious and at worst a complete fabrication by colonialists to push racist and missionary agendas and propaganda and to deny the evidence that India was the origin of civilisation.

In the next post we will directly contrast the chronology of the Aryan Invasion theory with Indian chronology to show why it is absolutely necessary to revise Indian history completely and world history and place India rightfully at the origins of civilisation.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Have to agree with you. Genetic studies and recent archeological finds discredit the Aryan Inavasion theory as well.

Genetic Affinities of India



[edit on 26-12-2009 by Anamnesis]

reply to post by m khan


I agree, although the Muslims were very cruel to the Indians on the whole, killing millions of Hindus and Buddhists over their tyrannical rule of India and destroying their universities, temples and place of learning, they did not try to wipe out its history, culture and religion like the British did. In fact the Muslim scholars did acknowledge their debt to the Indian science, philosophy, mathematics and medicine. And even called mathematics a Hindu science. There is some evidence to show that the early Pagan in pre-islamic Arabia had many Indians living amongst them and may have actually worshipped Hindu gods along with indigenous arabian gods. The relationship between India and Persia is undeniably close. There is indication of both great affinity and love between the people and rivalry as well.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child

If we look at economic history

Region / Country GDP (PPP)
mill. of International dollars GDP Share

1AD

percentage (%)
World 102 536 100

1.India 33 750 [6] 32.9%
2. Han China 26 820 26.2%
3. Roman Empire 22 000 21.5%
4. Western Europe 11 115 10.8%

10AD

World 116 790 100

1. India 33 750 [6] 28.9%
2. Song China 26 550 22.7%
3. Islamic Caliphate 21 640 [10] 18.5%
4. Africa 13 723 11.8%

en.wikipedia.org...(PPP)



[edit on 25-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Come on Seriously.

These statistics are totally bunk and worthless and YOU know it. There is NO WAY on Earth that any human alive today could gauge the economic conditions of humans two thousand years ago with any accuracy at all. This is a pipe dream.

Look if we are still arguing about who "Jesus" was, if he even really existed and all that, what makes you think you know everything about the economic conditions of that time period?

You have got to be joking, no human in their right mind would pretend to even know these statistics NOR would they attempt to pass them off as even remotely accurate.

That is, if they wanted to be taken seriously by those whom question things.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
There is some evidence to show that the early Pagan in pre-islamic Arabia had many Indians living amongst them and may have actually worshipped Hindu gods along with indigenous arabian gods. The relationship between India and Persia is undeniably close. There is indication of both great affinity and love between the people and rivalry as well.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Except for that one nagging problem.

That Arabia and Persia are two distinct separate cultures and bloodlines. Arabs and Persians are not the same. Major differences. Asking one personally would reveal this immediately.

So are we talking about Persians or Arabs? I cannot really tell.

reply to post by Indigo_Child


I am sorry to disagree with you, but the Muslims did their best to destroy Indian culture and Indian history. Most books on Indian History the first chapter apologises about the lack of documentation because the Muslims burnt everything. The British were too totally stuck on their own superiority to let any of their own "scholarship" reflect anything good about India. But of course there are probably zillions of Indian historical accounts in various Indian languages in Indian libraries disintegrating away for lack of air condidioning. But we probably won't get access to much of that.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

reply to post by m khan


I do agree with you on how destructive the Muslims were, I alluded to that myself by mentioning the genocide of the Indian people they commited, the destruction of libraries, universities and temples. However, Muslim scholars did actually acknowledge their debt to Hindu sciences and acknowledged their sources. For example the translation of Indian treatises on mathematics and medicine were actually accredited to the Indians. The British, on the other hand, did not give credit, but widely appropriated Indian traditions, made systematic efforts to distort it and even erase Indian heritage. The Muslims, were obviously no saints for the Indians, but at least they did not systematically go about trying to distort the history, heritage and culture. Instead they just ransacked buildings.


[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by muzzleflash


I am not an economic historian, I am simply producing the statistics this notable one has produced by looking at economic data in the past. I am not sure what methdology he used to collect it and how he compiled it. Some scholars consider this research accurate, some dispute it. I am merely putting it forward as evidence that there is indeed some indication that ancient India was an economic giant. I furnished this with some evidence with the Roman accounts to show the domination of Indian goods in the ancient market. There is other evidence of this domination, for example we know that Indians were semi-industralized before the common era and had many hi-tech industries(for the time) shipbuilding, mining, manufacturing various high technology goods such as zinc metals, crucible steel and exporting to the world. There is evidence of Indian goods being found as far as Babylonia in the first milenium BCE. I will try to show more evidence in later posts for the economic domination of ancient India and its production technology. At the moment I am concentrating on the Aryan invasion theory.

However, I think it would be rather dismissive and ignorant of you to dismiss this mans research just because you cannot believe it is possible to accurately compile economic data from ancient times. You are not an economic historian, am I correct?

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

I believe every race of people on this planet has had a chance to rule the world. There is nothing wrong with studying the ancient history of the humans.

I think it's a great thing to give India it's acknowledgement as a ancient super power. I believe it essential to the well-being of everyone on this planet. I know all about ancient Rome and Greece, and other European greats. So any information that can complete the puzzle to our ancient past as human race is good.

Thanks.

India is a facinating topic. We don't have much history on it because because for the last couple of hundred years they have been dominated by the British, and because there is not that much interest here in India. We are stuck on ourselves and totally bored to death.
We are not even getting our own history any more because we are being dominated by the ptb who are trying to push our children into their little socialist molds.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

Immediately after independance Indian scholars put together a history The History and Culture of the Indian People, The Vedic Age was volume one. Also immedicately after independance the above movie was produced, except it took a while to finish, Mugl-e-Azam. The purpose imo of Mugl-e-Azam was to protest the partition, reminding people that the Hindus and Moslems could get along if they wanted to.
If the Partition hadn't happened, who knows, we might not have gotten our CIA involved in Pakistan and we might not be fighting there now.
[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
In fact the Muslim scholars did acknowledge their debt to the Indian science, philosophy, mathematics and medicine. And even called mathematics a Hindu science. There is some evidence to show that the early Pagan in pre-islamic Arabia

I live in the Middle East.

Everything you say is true.

Even the numbers we use (in Arabic) are fully acknowledged and attributed to Indian origin. Only for Mathematics then to be later refined by Arab figures like Khawarsm, and AlJabr.

I have known many Indian friends, and generally speaking, they have a very high level of intellect, which clearly reflect their race's history.

Best Regards,

you can thank this man for the best gift to human civilization ever, nobody and nobody has ever done so much for the modern world like this man.

if you don't know this man by his face, then your education is horrible

what other man can save billions from the cold ? give light, i know what you will say only god can do such things !

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
reply to post by m khan

 

I do agree with you on how destructive the Muslims were, I alluded to that myself by mentioning the genocide of the Indian people they commited, the destruction of libraries, universities and temples. However, Muslim scholars did actually acknowledge their debt to Hindu sciences and acknowledged their sources. For example the translation of Indian treatises on mathematics and medicine were actually accredited to the Indians. The British, on the other hand, did not give credit, but widely appropriated Indian traditions, made systematic efforts to distort it and even erase Indian heritage. The Muslims, were obviously no saints for the Indians, but at least they did not systematically go about trying to distort the history, heritage and culture. Instead they just ransacked buildings.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

What debt does Islam exactly owe India & the Hindus in which they named as well? As we can see here the "Inventions in medieval Islam" greatly surpass those of ancient india. And we can also see here via "The Ancient Origins of Hinduism"

"The word Hindu originated, not as the name of a religion, but as a geographical marker. Hindu derives from the Sanskrit word for river, sindhu, from which the Indus River received its name. Sometime in the first millennium B.C., the Persians, who were then South Asia’s closest neighbors, mispronounced sindhu, and designated the land around the Indus River as hindu. Over a thousand years later, in A.D. 712, the Muslims invaded the Indus Valley. To distinguish themselves, they called all non-Muslims hindus" Not even the name of Hindu was created by the "hindus" themselves.

Another interesting proverb here is that. "The genesis of Hinduism is nearly as elusive as its contemporary definition. Unlike Islam, which began with Muhammad, or Judaism, which began with Moses, Hinduism has no founder, nor any traditional time or place of origin; it emerges from the jungle as a continually evolving religious system."

We should also take note that "Hinduism is the only major religion lacking an adequate explanation as to its origin. No substantial texts exist beyond 1000 B.C., and the texts after 1000 do not contain narrative."

Even the chakra system appears to be stolen by the hindus. Is it from the egyptian Hieroglyph of seven body parts in one via Osiris known as the "Eye of Horus"? in which you learn to operate all seven body parts through the pineal gland which is the throne of the mind? The pinecone of life? Or the "Lataif-e-sitta" the Islamic psychospiritual "organs" or, sometimes, faculties of sensory and suprasensory perception. Once again through the throne of the pineal.

And as far as Muslims being destructive. Prehaps you should look at how destructive the hindus are today & have been in the past via their caste system which is not a system of equality at all. "Caste-related violence in India" is absolutely horrifying