Understanding Sanatana Dharma

Avkrishna # 29

Brahmanism (not Brahminism) instead Hinduism was my two pence inclusion. That would have defined the Dharma better - rather than an unrelated word with metaphyisical connotation.

Dullabhatti # 8

I had to cut out few countries with very small Hindu minority to keep article short. Nepal has Hindu majority.

Mog # 2

I had to keep about 2000 words - so all long explanations, frills etc had to be removed.

Satyamvada # 14

After continous cycles of Samsara (reincarnation), when Moksha (liberation) is achieved, eternal goal of happiness is achieved. I used the word Salvation as I felt that it conveyed the same sense as eternal happiness. It was my addition and you noticed it.

Dost-Mitter # 28

I had originally used the secondary title as ``Hinduism for Dummies`` but then I cut it out thinking that it could create some controversy.

A few more points in no specific order.

# God is a forgiving entity. There is not much by way of anger or lack of forgiveness.

# Creativity is encouraged. Even the mythology modernises and evolves with time.

# There is a clear distinction between religion and state. Which is why whenever State tries to impose, it loses out.

# There is no centralisation or father figure. Commercial aspects of religion are often localised.

Yes, many Hindus have no idea of the Vedas or the Upanishads.

At the same time, many Indians have no idea about the spread of Hinduism, in the past, way beyond what is the Indian sub-Continent today.

Urstruly is beginning to sound like Ispahani and vice-versa now, after this article.

Thanks NZ khan for your article.
You have quoted the stanza about different interpretation of truth by Kafir sages.
A parrallel composition is ``As all rains falling on earth finally go to sea ,different way you show gratitude and love expressed goes to same ``god``.( god is not proper world but i do not know better)
Jew, Christian and Islam are monist religion. Our cry is ``there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the last messenger``. I think difference of ethos you have put masterly.
I was fortunate to collect many english hindu religion, literature when was student in our oldest University in Karachi. In 1966 they decided to make way to get read of Hindu things. Being book worm assistant in library told me take all you want as we are throwing it. I was able to pick up many major works along with commentary in English by Mallinath. ( Can any body tell me some thing about Mallinath)

Only you are wrong in technical detail about Swastika. It is not same swastika as kafir hindus. It is my feeling Hitlar picked from Roman traditions . Hindu Kafir Swastika Sign is mirror image of Nazi swastika. The dirction of stands of figure in opposite direction. So jews understand difference and do not take offense of Hindu kafir Swastika.
I wonder on technical basis can hindus be called Kufr? As they have atleast five major holy books. ( But technically they can be called Kufr as old testament common to all three monist religions is not holy book to them). Problems associated with monist religions and creating a special ethos have been studied over atleast 150 years. In karachi in 70s a russian author`s 2 book was available cheaply sold by mir publication by V.Beltov ( Georgy plakhenov), if my memory is write titles were Development of Monist view of history and Anthrapological characters of human history. The book was published after American civil war,. ( Book was authered in 1860s).
I liked great poems of mahabharat and ramayan. I consider Ramayan is moral science and mahabharat is social science.
Best of all i liked the starting of both poems. I have read little poetry and novels but the start of both is great Pathos.
Mahabharat starts with start of war and human weakness of great warrier and and it descends to dialogue of two intelligent people its amazing.
Ramayan starts on very different setting. A sage is meditating and has finished that and thinking of getting up. He sees a hunter with bow about send a arrow to shoot flying bird. He calls on hunter `` Hunter stop it`` the arrow is already released and hits the mail birds fetally and he falls to ground with scream. The female ``kroch`` bird dives screaming to ground and after realiazing what has happened screms with sorrow and rises. This pathos touches Swamy Walmiki`s heart and he starts story of King Rama and story is born. That pathos of life of even idealied King Rama does not end even after all tribulations and loosing of his believed wife as Raj Dharma over rides personal happiness. That pathos is also caught in Uttar Ramcharitra by Bhavbhooti famously.

Inquiry: Recently Mr. Somebody quoted a saying by Rama about this land and mother ( land and mother is more to me than this great land of Shree lanka). It is Quotation from ``raghuvansha`` by Kalidas ?
Thanks again for this short concise article about cultural development od our blood enemies the Hindus of India. As its better to know than you enemy, ignorance is not bliss in coming wars starting with water wars.

I cannot be swayed by religions that originated in Punjab and Arab. Both are psychotic nations.

Wat d’ya say Nikki dude?

Sameerjb -- makes `some` good points.

People seem to think that somehow `Monotheism` is better then `Polytheism` ,
but that is an useless argument. Monotheism and Polytheism are all valid
words only in the context of religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Among the dharmic panths, words such as Monotheism and Polytheism do not
make any sense. In my previous post, I had pointed out that the concept of
a ``God`` as defined in religion is non-existent in the dharmic panths. So words such
as polytheism and monotheism are meaningless in the context of dharma.

Jang,
In #19 You commented about turkish invasions giving rise to bhakti etc.
All that is communist spin. Sanskrit was the link language for scholars by then.
Scholars all over India used to write the Sanskrit language but in the local script.
There are numerous (in millions) sanskrit palm-leaf manuscripts in local scripts
found all over India. There is now a program to preserve them
( Check out http://www.namami.nic.in/ http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/palm_leaf.html )
In addition, there was already tremendous amount of literature in all languages
of the time. In fact, most of the old literature in other Indian languages is based
on Sanskrit literature itself. Communists try to spin a dreadful period into something
else.

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Ahmad Madani

Legend has it that some German soldiers had noticed the Swastika in Finland during WW1. The Swastika, also known as the hakenkreuze, was used by the Freikorps as an emblem. The Freikorps were basically free lance rightwing paramilitary in 1920s Germany constituted of WW1 veterans. Hitler then took the swastika as a symbol from them. The black,red and white color combo was his own creation.

re:#40 by stuka
I think Hitler lifter the symbol from India. He called it swastika but it actually is a crooked cross, different from the Hindu symbol used so commonly in the North (it is not so common in the South).
In the south, a far more common symbol curiously resembles the star of David. It is the symbol of Kartikeya, the son of Shiva, also called Muruga or Kumara in the South. He is worshipped in this form (without a statue) in the temple of Kataragama, Srilanaka.
Sridhar

re: the name of HIndu religion
As Dost mittarji rightly says, there is no equivalent of a religion in Indic civilizations. Religion, as per the western definition, is something with a founder (usually a prophet), a holy book and followers of that prophet and the book. If this definition is followed, we have Islam, Judaism, christianity, Sikhisim, Jainism, Buddhism. But, this definition can`t be applied to hinduism as there is no single founder and no single holy book. So, we have several religions within this broad definition of hinduism. The word ``sanatana dharma`` as used by the author is apt.

re: the date of the Indus Valley Civilization, it is now known by satellite imagery that the bed of saraswati river dried up by ~ 1900 BC. Since Rig Veda (the earliest Veda) has several references to this river, it can be said that this was written at least by 1900 BC, perhaps several centuries earlier. This throws every other dates speculated by the western authors into the dustbin.
Graham Hancock (author of a very readable book ``Underworld: mysterious origin of civilizations) is a marine archeologist with active interest in the archeology of IVC, underwater findings off the coast of Gujarat, among others. This is from this website:

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=137702&t=137319
``Evidence from French SPOT satellite and the Indo-French field study have changed this conception of history. By showing that the Saraswati ceased to be a mighty river long before 3,000 BC, they showed that the Rig Vedic civilization must have begun long before the Saraswati became a seasonal trickle sometime long before 3,000 BC. If the Rig Vedic tradition began before 3,500 BC, this would date it earlier the civilizations of Egypt, Harappa, or Mesopotamia.``
It just keeps getting more and more interesting!
Sridhar

re:#26 by sattar2
I just mentioned that tale (of Ganesha) in the passing. As you know, hindus do not take these things seriously. Besides, there is a plethora of Gods with their own stories, all of which enrich that religion but when was the last time u saw 2 hindus fighting over his/her religion? It has somehow concretised into the mind of a hindu that these Gods are mere symbols behind the changeless eternity that other religions call as ``Allah`` or ``Jehova`` or just ``God``.
`` aakashat patitam toyam yatha gachchati saagaram
sarvadeva namaskarah keshavam pratigachati``
(Just like all water falling down from the clouds reach the same source viz the ocean, all the prayers go back to the same source viz one single God).
Sridhar

Although I am told to keep my anus shut, but I cannot help ask this question. I think the origin of Hinduism is based on the concept that the fire must be preserved at all costs. It is the same fire that aliens introduced to the savages thousands of years ago. The savages soon learned that fire actually preserves life like nothing else. It keeps them warm, it keeps them safe from beasts, it provided light to see in the horrific jungle at night, it cooked food and so on and so forth. In earier societies there were some people in the tribe who were designated solely to protect the fire. All they had to do was to sit near the fire and keep throwing dead wood into the fire while rest of the tribe toiled to hunt and gather. Pretty soon these fire preservers realized that they were freeloaders and may lose their jobs anytime when other people will find other ways to make fire, so they started pretending that they did more than preserve fire - they pretended to be thinkers. So in this process of thinking and a strong urge of self-preservation first they started projecting themselves as holymen who were trusted by aliens with fire. These guys thus became the Brahmins or Brahmans. It makes sense since hinduism is not a ``revealed`` religion but a ``concieved`` religion which even its adherents admit. In other words anyone who claims to be a hindu can do his own stuff as long as he is performing certain rituals as prescribed by brahmans, they are good hindus. In other words this religion has no moral values but the diktats that brahman conveys as a sage or sai baba. In Hinduism rituals are constant but values keep on changing thus. In other words, hinduism thus is not a religion but a set of rituals. The rituals define a set of belief which in turn change as the apprehension of reallity changes in the mind of brahman. Thus today what is a poisonous snake may become naag devta tomorrow and vice versa.

This is pretty amazing. The capability of human beings to create their own reality is amazing. But what is reality then? What is out there?

Read Eknath Easwaran, too, though he doesn`t explain it half as gently and easily as NHK.

Urstruly, who would have thought you would be a closet Hindu? OUTing with this article, then. The answer to your question, what`s out there, makes for the foundations for most scriptures anyways. May i suggest a commune with nature, preferably ocean borne, as help?

And never mind the anal references by those who`ve obviously been there, many of us enjoy your wit.

Though I must admit one thing - there has been a (grateful) abscence of the Pakistani shouting brigade on this board. Nor have we heard from the Protectors of Both Faiths either.

Urstruly

You are absolutely correct! Thats why Vedantic philosophy and practices has attracted the attention of many duffers in the west. Duffers such as Thoreau, Emerson, Aldous Huxley, Oppenheimer and too many others to count.

Arent we grateful to have such a genius in our midst? I bow in sheer awe.

Nikki7777 eak baat saaf hae teri behen ko kisi punjabi ne choda hae woh bhi bina paise diye
suchh na

Khamkhwa # 5

(isn`t anything sacred anymore?a maleecha teaching us about the dharma...ram ram...)

Since I knew precious little about the subject, I decided to find more.

I have no problem with the core philosophy of Dharma which pretty much has a touch of universality about it - and could form the basis of any old or new faith.

I am also OK with the complete freedom of choice of rituals - the expression of spirtuality.

The concept of different approaches, lack of a finality and the non-metaphysical concept of Brahman is also appealing.