The Ancients Series | Part II: Indians

reply to post by SKUNK2


i don't think harte ever claimed to be christian. however, i am
wanna direct that anomosity in my direction? i can take it. BUT FIRST! you must read my posts in this thread and in the ancient sumerians thread by the same op. then you'll be well informed and we'll start from there.

^^ something like that? song was written by a christian guy in
1983.

i think this argument that one religion disproves the other, is old and crusty and frankly, untrue. the only thing that disproves anything in this regard, as far as i can see, is how we interpret the data locally.

reply to post by Harte


I would just like to add that I have read a few texts of Wendy Donniger as well as that of a few Indian authors and I must say that I find huge differences in translation. Unfortunately the same translations by her match with the ones in Oxford university. I must say its incorrect.

Originally posted by SKUNK2
Dude i'm sorry to say this, but you are wrong and Charismagic is correct. I'm English, i have Indian friends who i have spoken to who gave me more or less the same translation which Charismagic posted.
The fact is you are in denial and don't like the fact your christian religion is false, proven by ancient texts such as the Mahabharata etc...

Skunk,

Sorry, dude, but I proved the opposite.

Charismatic claimed to be quoting from an English translation of the Mahabharata that, in reality, doesn't even exist.

Note also that Charismatic wasn't claiming to have translated Sanskrit so I don't see where you have a point at all.

You know, I, too, could use the "I have friends that told me..." argument.

Introduce me to these so-called friends. I'll be glad to correct them as well, because they are one of the following:
1) wrong,
2) lying,
3) nonexistent

Harte

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by SKUNK2

 

i don't think harte ever claimed to be christian. however, i am

wanna direct that anomosity in my direction? i can take it.

BUT FIRST! you must read my posts in this thread and in the ancient sumerians thread by the same op. then you'll be well informed and we'll start from there.

Undo,

Skunk exhibits his inability to argue in anything approaching a logical manner, creating a straw man like my assumed Christianity.

Not to insult your faith, but I consider Christianity a cannabalistic personality cult.

Just my opinion.

Skunk's lack of imagination appears to lead him to assume Christianity of anyone that disagrees with his skewed world view.

As if my objections to posting a demostrable lie as if it were fact relied on some sort of religious philosophy!

At any rate, you (among others) know I don't chime in on this sort of junk if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only here to help people that are trying to find answers to these questions (among other questions.)

In this particular case, that involved demonstrating that others are only too willing to perpetuate falsehoods as if they were answers.

Sometimes it involves providing actual answers.

Sadly, that happens not too often.

Anyway, I hope he does "direct that animosity in (your) direction."
I'll be there again to answer questions and to point out the ridiculous falsehoods in any of that conversation.

I'm fairly certain most of these will lay on his side of the posts.

Harte

reply to post by Harte

Skunk's lack of imagination appears to lead him to assume Christianity of anyone that disagrees with his skewed world view.

funny but my world view is pretty close to his/hers, and yet i'm a christian! so there ya have it! i think these ancient gods are all on the same page of history. for example,

NORSE LOKI=SUMERIAN ENKI
AKKADIAN NIMROD=AKKADIAN ENMERKAR
EGYPTIAN ISIS=MESOPOTAMIAN INANA

and so on. and this is true for hinduism as well.
these stories are talking about the same group.

MT. MERU=MT. SUMERU=E.ABZU OR THE E.KUR.

same bat time, same bat channel!

Confused!

Can we or can we not take the sacred-texts.com site translation as a good or trustworthy translation or not ?

The whole OP stands or falls with this ?

Johan

Originally posted by VonDutch
Confused!

Can we or can we not take the sacred-texts.com site translation as a good or trustworthy translation or not ?

The whole OP stands or falls with this ?

Johan

Absolutely.

Did you read the snippet I posted concerning the history of the translation of the Mahabharata?

Ganguli faithfully translated the Mahabharata as a devout Hindu obviously would. P.C. Roy, another exteremely devout Hindu, arranged for him to do so.

Both men had nothing but evangelizing in mind. They certainly didn't set out to provide some "mainstream view" for the rest of the world to be "comfortable" with, as many conspiracy theorists are so wont to cry when facts don't support their claims.

Google Ganguli's name - you'll find it on the frontispiece of the Mahabharata at Sacred Texts.

He had nothing to gain from a faulty translation, and everything to lose, considering that he wasn't the only one in India that could read the darn thing (obviously.)

How would the West react to a Bible that had been changed so that, for example, pagans might be more "comfortable" with it?

Same with Ganguli and his Mahabharata translation.

In the future, if you're paying attention, I think you'll find that most of the wilder stuff claimed about the Mahabharata comes from "other" translations, translations which are not available online.

When you see this, stop and wonder why it must be that all the "interesting" stuff is only in the versions that you can't get.

Also, again if you're paying attention, you'll start to notice a lot of people claiming this or that about the Mahabharata, but it's only in the "P.C. Roy" translation.

I hope you remember that I showed in this thread that there exists no translation by P.C. Roy.
For example (again,) look at the top of the first page at this link:
roy's version

From this you can see that the version at Sacred Texts is the same version - both actually translated by Ganguli.

Harte

reply to post by VonDutch


i don't see how the op rises or falls on any particular translation if the point is the same regardless of translation?

Originally posted by SKUNK2
The fact is you are in denial and don't like the fact your christian religion is false, proven by ancient texts such as the Mahabharata etc...

I like the quote from Sri Yukteswar in the introduction of "The Holy Science" 1894.

"The purpose of this book is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures.

I was raised a Christian and since then I see fallacy in all religions and beliefs, not just Catholicism. They all can't be right but they can all be wrong. The idea that every religion has truth in it and combined together makes it possible that we may all be able to Understand is a very powerful statement.

Originally posted by SKUNK2

Dude i'm sorry to say this, but you are wrong and Charismagic is correct. I'm English, i have Indian friends who i have spoken to who gave me more or less the same translation which Charismagic posted.
The fact is you are in denial and don't like the fact your christian religion is false, proven by ancient texts such as the Mahabharata etc...

[edit on 16-11-2009 by SKUNK2]

Wow, the fact here is that Harte has proved that those passages ARE NOT in the translations that i have used. I have only used them from other sources and not from the sacred texts website version. Now as far as i know Charismagic has not proven their authenticity but seems to have no doubt of their existence. That really isn't good enough if you want to try and prove your point to others.

How on Earth does it prove Christianity false?

Originally posted by VonDutch
Confused!

Can we or can we not take the sacred-texts.com site translation as a good or trustworthy translation or not ?

The whole OP stands or falls with this ?

Johan

The whole OP does not fall... it is only a certain passage that is being contested, the one about the 'nuclear bomb effects'. As for the rest of them, and along with other unincluded examples, we still have a valid case here.

reply to post by serbsta


this same thing happened after sitchin's earth chronicles. they were really excellent theoretical and hypothetical pieces, with a great deal of thought provoking content, but the fact some of his ideas were demonstrably wrong, has been used to poo-poo ALL LEGITIMATE SUMERIAN LITERATURE! as i mentioned before, i see this as the second greatest conspiracy in the history of the human race. whenever you point out the REAL passages, from the original texts (or least as original as we've found so far), they are automatically brushed over with the "sitchin is wrong" brush, which, once again, manages to completely demoilsh the history of our ancestors. it stood a small chance of making some headway since it wasn't found till more recently (the buried sumerian texts, i mean), but alas, it didn't take long to relegate it to the void with the rest of the planet's ancient history.


[edit on 16-11-2009 by undo]

Well good work, although i thought we were going to do this together.

I will be puting my old threads together to show some more information about the Vedic scriptures which is not contained here.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by serbsta

 

this same thing happened after sitchin's earth chronicles. they were really excellent theoretical and hypothetical pieces, with a great deal of thought provoking content, but the fact some of his ideas were demonstrably wrong, has been used to poo-poo ALL LEGITIMATE SUMERIAN LITERATURE! as i mentioned before, i see this as the second greatest conspiracy in the history of the human race. whenever you point out the REAL passages, from the original texts (or least as original as we've found so far), they are automatically brushed over with the "sitchin is wrong" brush, which, once again, manages to completely demoilsh the history of our ancestors. it stood a small chance of making some headway since it wasn't found till more recently (the buried sumerian texts, i mean), but alas, it didn't take long to relegate it to the void with the rest of the planet's ancient history.


[edit on 16-11-2009 by undo]

Exactly. It really does get annoying sometimes, especially with Sitchin. I mean, you can't really blame him, he could have just been doing it for money and maybe started believing his own lie, but it should not bring down the whole field of Sumerian literature with him.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
Well good work, although i thought we were going to do this together.

I will be puting my old threads together to show some more information about the Vedic scriptures which is not contained here.

I asked you about a month ago and you didn't say you were interested, sorry, must have been a misunderstanding.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by VonDutch

 

i don't see how the op rises or falls on any particular translation if the point is the same regardless of translation?

I agree.

After all, I was only pointing out that a single passage, quoted as coming from the Mahabharata, is not actually in the Mahabharata.

For this, I was called "stupid" and dismissed as being "in denial" by two different posters in this thread.

Obviously, if I am wrong, either poster need only find the passage in the Mahabharata, quote it, and link us to it.

Don't hold your breath for that.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte


Obviously, if I am wrong, either poster need only find the passage in the Mahabharata, quote it, and link us to it.

Don't hold your breath for that.

Harte

I'll hold my breath. I'm willing to wait.

Who knows... maybe they have their own sources, they seem pretty convinced.

I was looking through one other translation of the Mahabharata (The Great Hindu Epic Translated by R C Dutt) from 1899.

It did NOT have the verses that were being discussed before either.

It seems the issue of translation has become quite controversial here. This is a good thing, because it forces us to question translations. More often than not, most people take English translations of Sanskrit texts as reliable without question. Although, I can understand why the layman would settle for the first translation they find online, for a scholar or intelligent critic, reading just one translation is bad scholarship and they need to consult variouos translations.

As cuteangel mentioned above she has read both Wendy Doniger's translations of the Rig Veda and translations by Indian authors, and she has found these translations are completely dissimilar. This brings English translation of Sanskrit literature into question and hence we must critically examine translations before we accept them as reliable. In my research, I have found translations of Sanskrit texts found on websites like sacredtext.com to be highly unnreliable and often distorted.

Some of these mistranslations are usually because Sanskrit words do not translate very well into English and sometimes there is no equivalent English word. For example, the classical Sanskrit physical elements known as the Mahabhutas of Vayu, Tejas, Apas, Pritvhi and Akasha are often wrongly translated as air, fire, water, earth and sky. The correct translation are forces, light, solid, plasma(apas is literally flowing or streaming) and space. This is explained in the Sanskrit texts and even the properties of the elements are described, but bad scholars still use this incorrect and misleading translation.

You can begin to spot good and bad translations the more your contextual knowledge grows. As I have been researching into Vedic stuff for almost 10 years now, I have become much better at spotting good and bad translations. If you need recommendations of good translations for various Sanskrit texts I can point you to them.

The Mahabharata passage supposedly describing the nuclear war that Childress quotes is realy not found in any of the translations. If this point is disputed, then the onus lies on the disputant to provide the translation that does support this. However, it is true that the Brahmaastra weapon is the equivalent of a modern day nuclear weapon or more accurately a WMD.

[edit on 2-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child

The Mahabharata passage supposedly describing the nuclear war that Childress quotes is realy not found in any of the translations. If this point is disputed, then the onus lies on the disputant to provide the translation that does support this. However, it is true that the Brahmaastra weapon is the equivalent of a modern day nuclear weapon or more accurately a WMD.

[edit on 2-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

We've had two 'experts' post in here claiming that those passages were indeed in the Mahabharata and that there was no question about it. I'm not going to go back and copy/paste the posts but they said that they were very familiar with the passages and that they grew up reading them

Now i wonder why this is so and why they are so convinced? Are inaccurate translations actively pushed through Hindu education?

reply to post by serbsta


There is only one critical English translation of the Mahabharata, and that is Ganguly's translation. The Mahabharata text is so massive, that very few felt the need to commision another translation, moreover the consensus is that Ganguly's translation is faithful to the original.(Fortunately, there will soon be available modern English translations, which should be more readable)

Most Hindu people cannot read or write Sanskrit, so it is unlikely they are reading the original Sanskrit text of the Mahabharata. I think the so called Hindu experts you are referencing simply want to believe in the translation that appears in Childress's book and thus accept it uncritically.

As that excerpt definitely does not appear in Ganguly's translation and it does not appear anywhere else. However, it does appear in parts taken from different sections. I think Childress has basically constructed the excerpt by taking parts from various sections from and Mahabhahta and then putting them together so that they would support his theory of ancient nuclear war. It would be safe to say then that Childress's translation is fraudulent. However, the basic theme of a weapon being deployed(iron bolt) that destroys an entire civilisation with nuclear bomb like characteristics is still present in Ganguly's translation.

I just read the various sections that Charisma referenced where we can find verses similar to Childress:

Mausala Parva, Section 1 and 2

Vaishampayana said: "When the thirty-sixth year (after the battle) was reached, the delighter of the Kurus, Yudhishthira, beheld many unusual portents. Winds, dry and strong, and showering gravels, blew from every side. Birds began to wheel, making circles from right to left. The great rivers ran in opposite directions. The horizon on every side seemed to be always covered with fog. Meteors, showering (blazing) coals, fell on the Earth from the sky. The Sun’s disc, O king, seemed to be always covered with dust. At its rise, the great luminary of day was shorn of splendour and seemed to be crossed by headless trunks (of human beings). Fierce circles of light were seen every day around both the Sun and the Moon. These circles showed three hues. Their edges seemed to be black and rough and ashy-red in colour. These and many other omens, foreshadowing fear and danger, were seen, O king, and filled the hearts of men with anxiety. A little while after, the Kuru king Yudhishthira heard of the wholesale carnage of the Vrishnis in consequence of the iron bolt. The son of Pandu, hearing that only Vasudeva and Rama had escaped with life, summoned his brothers and took counsel with them as to what they should do. Meeting with one another, they became greatly distressed upon hearing that the Vrishnis had met with destruction through the Brahmana’s rod of chastisement. The death of Vasudeva, like the drying up of the ocean, those heroes could not believe. In fact the destruction of the wielder of Saranga was incredible to them. Informed of the incident about the iron bolt, the Pandavas became filled with grief and sorrow. In fact, they sat down, utterly cheerless and penetrated with blank despair."

Janamejaya said: "Indeed, O holy one, how was it that the Andhakas along with Vrishnis, and those great car-warriors, the Bhojas, met with destruction in the very sight of Vasudeva?"

Vaishampayana continued: "When the thirty-sixth year was reached (after the great battle) a great calamity overtook the Vrishnis. Impelled by Time, they all met with destruction in consequence of the iron bolt."

The later part of this section now talks about a prophecy where some sages had prophecised the destruction of the race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas at the hands of Samva, who would deploy a weapon on them. It is interesting that this prophecy says the reason this will take place is because of the moral degeneration of these people, somewhat parallel to the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomrah.

When the next day came, Samva actually brought forth an iron bolt through which all the individuals in the race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas became consumed into ashes. Indeed, for the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas, Samva brought forth, through that curse, a fierce iron bolt that looked like a gigantic messenger of death.

Section 2 now describes either the "omens" just before the deployment of the weapon or is describing the effects of the weapon after it was deployed. It is not clear because the prose is confusing, but I would imagine it is after because section 1 describes it as already being used:

Vaishampayana said: "While the Vrishnis and the Andhakas were thus endeavouring (to avoid the impending calamity), the embodied form of Time (death) every day wandered about their houses. He looked like a man of terrible and fierce aspect. Of bald head, he was black and of tawny complexion. Sometimes he was seen by the Vrishnis as he peered into their houses. The mighty bowmen among the Vrishnis shot hundreds and thousands of shafts at him, but none of these succeeded in piercing him, for he was none else than the Destroyer of all creatures. Day by day strong winds blew, and many were the evil omens that arose, awful and foreboding the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The streets swarmed with rats and mice. Earthen pots showed cracks or broke from no apparent cause. At night, the rats and mice ate away the hair and nails of slumbering men. Sarikas chirped, sitting within the houses of the Vrishnis. The noise made by those birds ceased not for even a short while by day or by night. The Sarashas were heard to imitate the hooting of the owl, and goats imitated the cries, O Bharata, of jackals. Many birds appeared, impelled by Death, that were pale of complexion but that had legs red of hue. Pigeons were seen to always disport in the houses of the Vrishnis. Asses were born of kine, and elephants of mules.

What is unambigious here is that a weapon of mass destruction, an iron-bolt, has been deployed against the race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas and it as resulted in their total annihilation, "reducing them to ashes" After the weapon is used there is a period of unnatural darkness, the sun and the moon are covered in black-red ash hues and there is carnage everywhere.

The second part is more ambigious, but it is likely it is describing the fallout of the weapon. Food-stuff is infected; pottery is breaking without apparent cause; hair and nails are falling out within the night(it says eaten by mice, but this could be the writer attributing the fall-out to rats, because they do not know about radiation poisoning). There seems to be suggestion of mutation as well.

This is a remarkably similar description to a nuclear weapon and its fallout indeed. So it is not the case that Childress is completely fabricating this, but what Childress has appeared to done to support his theory, is fill in the description with description from other parts of the text which describe similar weapons. Such as "rose with the splendour of 10,000 suns" or "charged with the power of the universe"

Is this really describing a nuclear weapon? The description certainly seems to suggest it, but there are other descriptions in the Mahabharata which sound mythological and magical. This is why it makes it difficult to accept descriptions in the Mahabharata as actual history. It could be easily explained as the imagination of its authors, and the supposed nuclear weapons as an amazing concidence. If we want to challenge that explanation than we need to provide actual evidence that shows the Mahabharata is a real historical event.

[edit on 3-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]