The Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity?

There are 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, collected in the nineteenth century by Georg Bühler, Franz Kielhorn and others, originating from different parts of India, including Kashmir, Gujarat, the then Rajaputana, Central Provinces etc. They were transferred to Deccan College, Pune, in the late nineteenth century. They are in the Sharada and Devanagari scripts, written on birch bark and paper. The oldest of them is dated to 1464. The 30 manuscripts were added to UNESCO's "Memory of the World" Register in 2007.[28]
Of these 30 manuscripts, nine contain the samhita text, five have the padapatha in addition. Thirteen contain Sayana's commentary. At least five manuscripts (MS. no. 1/A1879-80, 1/A1881-82, 331/1883-84 and 5/Viś I) have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda. MS no. 5/1875-76, written on birch bark in bold Sharada, was used by Max Müller for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana’s commentary.
Max Müller used 24 manuscripts, while the Pune Edition used over five dozen manuscripts, but the editors of Pune Edition could not procure many manuscripts used by Max Müller and by Bombay Edition, as well as from some other sources; hence the total number of extant manuscripts must surpass perhaps 80 at least.[29]

So these are the oldest known copies and they are not in sanskrit?

Source

Some more information about M.M. Ninan from Amazon. He has quite a body of published work. M.M. Ninan - Amazon

Prof. Madathilparampil Mammen Ninan B.Sc., B.Ed., M.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D.,
Web Site: www.oration.com...
Phone: (408) 448-3385
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Ninan was born in Kozhencheri, Kerala, India on 08/04/1934 in a Syrian Christian Family which claims descent from one of the four families to whom St.Thomas the apostle of Jesus entrusted the gospel. His father Late.M.M.Mammen, was a publisher Freedom fighter and Christian Reformer. His eldest Brother is the well known theologian Late Dr.M.M.Thomas, who was the Chairman of the World Council of Churches, the Governor of Nagaland, India and the Chairman of the Christian Institute of Study of Society and Religion. He belongs to the Malankara Mar Thoma Church, a reformed church holding the theology of the Eastern Churches which claims a 2000 year old heritage.

He is by profession a Professor of Theoretical Physics and had been a teacher in various universities around world including Ethiopia, Ghana, Jamaica, Sudan, Yemen, India and United States of America. He retired as the President of the Hindustan Academy of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Affiliated to University of Bangalore, India
He was the first Moderator of the International Christian Fellowship, Sanaa, Yemen and the Co-founder, Sudan Pentecostal Church. He has published several studies on the influence of Christianity in the formation of Hindu religion and religious scriptures.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


I always see that during discussion of Ancient India, the Tamil Language is overlooked, it is said that Tamil was the original Native language of India(south), but it has been argued by and forth between Sanskrit and Tamil scholars, but we do know both are Ancient language and Tamil being the only one alive right now.

Tamil is Dravidian group of language(south India primarily), unlike the Aryan's Sanskrit. However Earliest undestroyed document available in Tamil is 150 BC, The Sangam Literature. They also had their own gods which was integrated into Modern Hinduism.

i think Hinduism composed of multiple ancient Indian religions or philosophies, that why the religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and few others share 90% of the concept of Hinduism.

reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog


Deceptions abound.

The NT was written between 40 A.D. and finished by 100 A.D. the Revelation being the last Book, written around 96 A.D. while John was in exile on the Greek isle of Patmos.

The manuscript evidence cannot be denied, and your ideas are just simply wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

An excerpt from an article by Ninan.

Vedic Religion (13C BC)

Vedic Religion is what the Aryans brought into India from their original homelands.

Who were the Aryans? Despite the recent attempt by the Indian Hindu extremists to establish that Aryans originated from India, there is no evidence to indicate any such fact historically, linguistically or archeologically. The Aryans were nature worshippers. Zoroastrians –the sun and fire worshippers - claim themselves as Aryans. Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and other Persian Kings claimed that they were Aryans. (The Parsees of India are the descendants of these Kings who migrated to India under Islamic persecution). According to Zoroastrian Sacred book, “Zend Avesta,” the original abode of these people was the Polar Regions of Siberia. They moved to the Middle East because of increasing coldness of the region. Another group arrived in the region over the sea from Camphtor. Still another group arrived from Sub Saharan desert according to some scholars. This mixed race was known as Hittites. The Indian Aryans are the descendants of Hittites. They were warriors and had no written language. They were good at storytelling and worshipped the forces of nature. They retained there stories and ideals through songs and ballads. During the invasion of Canaan by Israel under Commander Joshua, these Hittites were forced to move out of their land. This is exactly the time (around 1300 BC) when Aryan migration to India took place. Just as Israelites massacred the Canaanites, Aryans massacred Dravidian Indians. The conquest of India must have taken several centuries. By the 7th C BC (or by 2nd C BC at least), they were even in Sri Lanka, conquering the Giant King Ravana. However, they were not able to control south India and only had a weak presence in those areas. Today the Brahmin families in Kerala can claim their descent only after sixth C. AD. Something happened to the Brahmins in Kerala between the second Century BC and sixth Century AD. The reason for their disappearance will be clear when the Thomas story unfolds.

Vedic religion was not Hinduism, as we know today. There are four Vedas (Sacred Scriptures) in Hinduism today. If which only the Rig Veda was in existence at the time Thomas entered India in written form. Additionally, the Rig Veda was not written in Sanskrit but in Vedic or Avestan, which is a form of Persian. These portions of Rig Veda were written down only by the 2nd C BC.

Chapters II and X and other three Vedas are written in Sanskrit and are of later Post Christian Period. We will deal with this later, as they are very important in our study.

The hymns of Rig Veda were simply psalms to their nature gods – 33 gods can be counted including the later Vedic gods. However, none of these gods are found among the gods of Hinduism today. It is thus evident that though in order to push the date of heritage, Hinduism claim that Vedism was the start of Hinduism, the fact remains that there is very little relation between them. This is a critical issue and the fact will emerge as we deal other areas of study. The Pre-Christian Vedic religion had absolutely no concept of a God of gods or of a supreme God.

Source

There might have been other forms of local religions in various parts of India in addition to the three major religions as well. There are evidences that indicate the Dravids who were the creators of ancient Mohen Jodero civilizations and who today occupy the Southern part of India are the descendants of Abraham through his third wife Keturah. Bible indicates that these children were send to the East when Isaac was given his inheritance. DNA evidences do concur in this regard.

Parameshwara. [Iswara is God. Param means Most High.]

The prescript Param can be replaced with Maha meaning “The Great” to give Maheshwara – The Great God.

These words Parameswara and Maheswara occur in Indian religious scenario only after the first century.

This was very new to the Indian continent. It transformed all the religions of India – Vedism, Buddhism, and even Jainism to some extent. The idea that there is a Personal God who is Omnipotent and loving changed the whole theology of Indian continent as the later religious scenario shows. The extent of this impact indicates that Thomas established churches with Jesus as center of worship as the Parameshwara throughout India.

In the first except something caught my eye. The mention of Siberia is interesting due to findings coming from that region of late.


He also mentions Mahayana Buddhism being influenced by Thomas ministry. It would sound like he is just making everything try to fit into a neat little package but If you continue reading his article he goes into some interesting detail.

I don't know much about Ninan or the Thomas Churches in India but he does appear to give logical reasoning for his beliefs in his articles.

Originally posted by godlover25
reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog

 

Deceptions abound.

The NT was written between 40 A.D. and finished by 100 A.D. the Revelation being the last Book, written around 96 A.D. while John was in exile on the Greek isle of Patmos.

The manuscript evidence cannot be denied, and your ideas are just simply wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Yep!

Our latest findings regarding the early version of Mark show that this was written at about
the time of Claudius Caesar, by the grandfather of Arrius Piso. That version was apparently
only a bare sketch and most likely did not give a name to the 'messiah'. That appears to
have been done later by the person who actually played 'Jesus' in the Gospels - Arrius Piso
The version that we are familiar with was written about the year 73 CE by Arrius Calpurnius
Piso.

Arrius Piso was a Roman on his father's side, but a descendant of King Herod on his
mother's side and therefore he knew well about the Jewish religion. He was also a close
relative to the Flavians and even though secretly he could inherit and use the Flavian name
by his mother's descent from them, he gave a story about receiving it from the emperor
Vespasian (in his other identity as Flavius Josephus).
www.angelfire.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by windword


Your source is sketchy at best on that one Windword. Here is a Refutation www.tektonics.org...

Originally posted by luciddream
reply to post by NihilistSanta

 

I always see that during discussion of Ancient India, the Tamil Language is overlooked, it is said that Tamil was the original Native language of India(south), but it has been argued by and forth between Sanskrit and Tamil scholars, but we do know both are Ancient language and Tamil being the only one alive right now.

Tamil is Dravidian group of language(south India primarily), unlike the Aryan's Sanskrit. However Earliest undestroyed document available in Tamil is 150 BC, The Sangam Literature. They also had their own gods which was integrated into Modern Hinduism.

i think Hinduism composed of multiple ancient Indian religions or philosophies, that why the religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and few others share 90% of the concept of Hinduism.

edit on 11/9/2012 by luciddream because: (no reason given)

Ninan does not overlook Tamil in his section about Sanskrit taken from the previous link articles

The main language of North India during the ministry of Thomas was Pali and Prakrit - the languages used by Buddhism and Jainism. Dravidian language of Tamil already existed in the south. Evidently, Sanskrit language was made by refining all these common languages.

One of the early exhaustive collections of languages can be found in the Buddhist edicts of Emperor Asoka. (268 -233 BC). His aim was to declare the gospel of Buddha to all his subjects and therefore, he presented this gospel in all languages spoken in the empire. It included Greek and even Aramaic (because there was a small group of Jews in the country). However, there was no Sanskrit in the group, indicating that the language Sanskrit did not exist at that time. We know that Buddhism and Jainism used only Pali and Prakrit languages. In fact, the earliest Sanskrit document ever found dates AD 150. It is evident therefore that Sanskrit came into existence during the period of AD 100 – 150 by refining the existing languages.

Linguistic Evidence

reply to post by NihilistSanta


Yeah. It's not really a pet theory or project of mine. I just wanted to interject that the sources of the gospels of the New Testament are iffy, at best.

There is, though, a lot of scholarly research on the topic of the influence of the Piso family on the New Testament, even the theory that the entire story of Jesus was a satire of the struggles of Hebrew people during the Jewish wars.

Then there's the idea that Plutarch wrote the book of Luke and Acts. www.gottnotes.com...

The point is, we don't know who wrote the gospels.

reply to post by windword



I think the main point Ninan is making is that there are no signs of "Hindu" culture before the 2nd century AD. The evidence that says contrary is based on linguistics and oral tradition but how accurate can that really be in determining a definite time table? It is his claim that Hindus have latched on to the vedic and pre-vedic material grafting it into their own thus extending their claims to authenticity among other things.

Some examples to show the complete contrast between Vedic and modern Hindu thought would be animal sacrifices which goes against ideas like Ahimsa which the jains introduced. Also you have things like bestiality and rape,incest being condoned and many other shocking details that the oh so wise Hindu tradition glosses over.

Proving the claims of any religion can be very difficult, especially with archeology.

This site claims to present scientific verification of Vedic knowledge:

There are more than 2,500 Archaeological sites, two-thirds of which are along the recently discovered dried up Sarasvati River bed. These sites show a cultural continuity with the Vedic literature from the early Harrapan civilization up to the present day India.

www.archaeologyonline.net...

They also claim increasing proof of the ancient submerged city of Dvaraka.

Well, pretty ancient "phallic" Shiva-Lingams have been found, and despite the phallic focus on circumcision in the Bible, I doubt these were symbols brought by Thomas or Christianity, and they remain symbols of devotion by many Hindus to this day.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by halfoldman


Interesting post. The Aryan Invasion theory though whether is true or not is not what Ninan's idea is based on. He is talking about a much later period than the Vedic period when Christianity was introduced to India in 52.AD by Thomas. He then says that the peoples (doesn't matter if Aryan or Dravidian) of India were converting to Christianity and that the Christ story was being taught to people in a native way. That is when he gets into the Isavasya Upanishad and the Idea of a supreme redemptive God was introduced. He goes into some cultural details like hymns and chants today that are from that time that are similar to Christian ideas/liturgy/hymns etc. He makes correlations to Thomas ministry through India and Mahayana Buddhism suggesting this was an influence from Christianity. He goes further to claim that it wasnt until gnostics from syria came in to india and were mixing these ideas with the vedic/buddhist/jain schools of thought creating the very different forms of hinduism we have today which is really not the same religion from the Vedas.

*Edited to add that he suggest this new Hinduism is a gnostic twist on the Christian story as told in a native way. He says that the Christian stories became mythologized and elements remained which is why we see similarities with Krishna/Christ etc.

reply to post by halfoldman


Thanks for the links/food for thought halfoldman. Will go through them and let you know what I find. I am just introducing Ninan's Ideas but still am withholding judgement til I learn more.

Anyone else who has links or information to contribute dont be shy. I hold no judgements towards hindu people or any people I just thought this was an interesting idea I had never encountered before.

Yes, Ninan does appear to be a supporter of the Aryan Invasion theory, so that may not lend to his credibility depending on your views there. Dont want to leave anything out. Still I dont think his idea is dependent on that one issue alone.

Originally posted by halfoldman
Proving the claims of any religion can be very difficult, especially with archeology.

This site claims to present scientific verification of Vedic knowledge:

There are more than 2,500 Archaeological sites, two-thirds of which are along the recently discovered dried up Sarasvati River bed. These sites show a cultural continuity with the Vedic literature from the early Harrapan civilization up to the present day India.

www.archaeologyonline.net...

They also claim increasing proof of the ancient submerged city of Dvaraka.

Well, pretty ancient "phallic" Shiva-Lingams have been found, and despite the phallic focus on circumcision in the Bible, I doubt these were symbols brought by Thomas or Christianity, and they remain symbols of devotion by many Hindus to this day.
en.wikipedia.org...

edit on 9-11-2012 by halfoldman because: (no reason given)

From the first site mentioned by halfoldman above.

The mighty Sarasvati River and it's civilization are referred to in the Rig Veda more than fifty times, proving that the drying up of the Sarasvati River was subsequent to the origin of the Rig Veda, pushing this date of origin back into antiquity, casting further doubt on the imaginary date for the so-called Aryan Invasion.

Just curious as to why this makes the composition of the Rig Veda older? Is it possible that the indigenous people just happened to remember times when the riverbed was not dry?

You did an excellent job in tracking down Ninan (he's quite an interesting fellow, isn't he?) As we see, he self-publishes books and I gather he made this sort of presentation at a conference on Christianity and it was not greeted with overwhelming support and approval.

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
Prof. Ninan was born in Kozhencheri, Kerala, India on 08/04/1934 in a Syrian Christian Family which claims descent from one of the four families to whom St.Thomas the apostle of Jesus entrusted the gospel.

I see bias here -- he is positioning his family as important figures who impact major religions in India.

His father Late.M.M.Mammen, was a publisher Freedom fighter and Christian Reformer. His eldest Brother is the well known theologian Late Dr.M.M.Thomas, who was the Chairman of the World Council of Churches, the Governor of Nagaland, India and the Chairman of the Christian Institute of Study of Society and Religion. He belongs to the Malankara Mar Thoma Church, a reformed church holding the theology of the Eastern Churches which claims a 2000 year old heritage.

His church is involved in the World Council of Churches (which is a group of 350 churches of various denominations (including Catholic) founded in 1948 (see Wikipedia for a quick overview) -- however, his claim about his father and brother being well-known theologians and reformers may mean "well known to the home church." I don't see much evidence that they served as president of WCC or secretary (at least, not according to Wikipedia.)

He is by profession a Professor of Theoretical Physics

The PhD is real (and he writes like a PhD. (see this section on semiotics which is well-written and shows excellent (if slightly biased) scholarship -- Forti is interesting but really not accurate.)

He was the first Moderator of the International Christian Fellowship, and the Co-founder, Sudan Pentecostal Church. He has published several studies on the influence of Christianity in the formation of Hindu religion and religious scriptures.

So he's a Pentecostal, and does have a stated bias.

No one can know everything about everything. When a PhD wanders off into a field far away from their PhD, *UNLESS* they take classes in that topic, they may not be able to distinguish good information from nonsense. We see this with Einstein recommending a very bad book on geology (Einstein knew math, but not geology.) I've seen it with a lot of other PhDs.

So the problems I see here are:
* he has an important family history to uphold
* he does not question his family history and tradition (his church says it's 2,000 years old.)
* he accepts things that he likes as hard evidence (let's be honest -- there is no real evidence of St. Thomas.
* he cherry picks research.

and I'm almost out of space, so I'll continue in a second message.

Thanks for the info Byrd. It would seem he has an interest in the view he is presenting but does that make it less truthful? The presentation I think someone else made from written material he has available from his website which I have to say is a rather strange site to navigate.

Did you have a chance to look at any of his archeological evidence presented? Ninans Archeology

I know next to nothing about archaeology other than some classes I took in an exploratory program at Western Caroline University. You are the resident expert so your opinion would bear much weight.

Great points you have made, thanks for the info.

And so, down to his arguments:

Summarizing from his book that I see on Google:

* Hinduism did not exist before the 2nd century AD

-- this is a "weasel words" argument. The major books of Hinduism date back to 500 BC and more, and there certainly was a religion that looked like modern Hinduism from that time. However, it did go through some major changes (as an example -- Christianity went from "small churches" to "The Church" to "The Catholic Church" to "the Protestant Church." Ninan's doing the equivalent of looking at the Protestants and saying "Christianity didn't exist before Martin Luther."

* Sanskrit did not exist before 200 AD
- Another "weasel words" argument. There are very old versions of Sanskrit, including a set of grammar rules written around 500 BC. Now... if he means "dates of surviving documents or "post-Vedic" Sanskrit, this may be correct. But there's plenty of evidence of it being an older language -- and in either case, Sanskrit was not essential for Hinduism. That's like saying "Christianity didn't exist because English didn't exist until the Middle Ages."

* There were no Hindu Temples before 200 AD
- "weasel words" The oldest, continually used Hindu temple dates to about 200 AD. But this argument is like saying "there aren't any Christian churches before 600 AD." (You can see his argument here) Notice he brings in his St. Thomas Church as being constructed on the ruins of an older temple and says that the tomb of St. Thomas is located in the Kapaleeshwarar Temple even though the temple was constructed in 600 AD. There are temples to Murugan and other deities that date to well before 1 AD

* The name Krishna did not exist before 300 AD
- Not supported, as far as I can tell. Krishna the cowherd is a character that dates to 1500 BC or earlier. However, I did not read the texts, so the *exact* name may not have existed. In a sense, "Jesus" as a name did not exist in 0 AD... "Jesus" is an English version of "Yeshua" which is the name of the Christian deity but there is no spelling "Jesus" before 500 AD or so (the Latin verion, "Iesu" does appear in the Vulgate Bible... but not Jesus.)

* Idols did not exist in India before 300 AD
-- Not supported. For example, in the ruins of Pompeii was an ivory statue of Lakshmi (the Hindu goddess) -- yes, it's real. Rome was trading with India back then. (it was one of several carved table legs). The oldest stone idols I see are about 300-400 AD, but this does not mean there were NO idols or that I know the age of all of them.

* St. Thomas came to India and had a successful ministry all over India and China
-- Not supported on several levels -- no direct historical evidence of there being an apostle Thomas in India and China. Christianity in China is attested in the 700's -- brought in by a Persian missionary but doesn't seem to have made any huge inroads. It comes in, stays for a bit, and then declines (so ... "successful" would hardly be a way of describing a ministry if it existed.)

His conclusions are that Christianity from St. Thomas came to Syria (remember, his family is from Syria and he claims to be descended from one of the families that received the gospel from St. Thomas) and that Gnosticism created Hinduism.

That only works if you don't know much about gnosticism and Hinduism.

Thanks Byrd for some of the great insights.

Perhaps just to add further:

From video 1 in the OP one can say the claims about Sanskrit coming about after AD (or after Christ) are totally ridiculous.

The Rigveda was transmitted orally and in writing in Sanskrit, and it can be traced back at least to 1 500 BC, although some scholars say its origins are indeed from central Asia, rather than modern India.

There's an interesting clip on Youtube tracing the Rigveda back to at least 1 500 BC (by linguists and archeologists), and linking Sanskrit to other Indo-European languages (unfortunately I can't embed it here because it briefly refers to something against the T&C).
This Wikipedia reference should however also suffice:

It is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, roughly between 1700–1100 BC[5] (the early Vedic period).

en.wikipedia.org...

Some might call this the "Aryan invasion" of India, but others might say this is how far what we would today call a major aspect of Hinduism once stretched (as far as Afghanistan), before it was replaced by other religions.

Of course "Hinduism" is an imposed term, and it was never as "monolithic" as some other faiths.

For some of the more general claims the Haindava Keralem site might be of interest.
This is a Hindu site that debunks many of the myths invented by Muslim and Christian missionaries regarding Hinduism.
Similar to the way that Christians might debunk Zeitgeist material, it compares fake verses to actual verses from the Vedas and other Hindu writings.

Here, for example, we can see how verses were falsified to claim a "Jesus" figure in Hindu scripture, when they mentioned no such deity:

www.haindavakeralam.com...

In one of many discussions on the topic, here they write that St Thomas (in India) was a myth, a view even at first substantiated by the Pope:

www.haindavakeralam.com...

For more on the St. Thomas saga:

apostlethomasindia.wordpress.com...

Some of these points are quite strong from an inter-faith perspective, but they show some anger about a long history of misrepresentation.

Buddha was born in a brahmanist family.... so he was born a Hindu.... Buddha was well before Jesus, and therefore OP's logic is fail. There is also theory that Jesus was buddhist monk, so thread should really be titled "Christianity from Hinduism?"