Understanding Sanatana Dharma

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The purpose of this article is what?

To decry `loss of tolerance` of Hindus, to urge the return of `tolerance` aka unilateral disarmament in dealing with your murderous compatriots? I suggest you forget it. Only very few romantics believe that Pakistan has any workable liberalism left that `tolerant` Indians and Hindus can work with.

Hinduism holds an unimpeachable position as the identifier of enemy to be killed, of idolators and polytheists whose influence is to be shunned or cleansed however ancient its antecedents in your land, of a people whom the father of the nation was determined could be dealt with only with two armies between. Under the pretext of holding the Hindus at bay, Pakistanis have had no compunction about killing thousands of Bengalis, Afghans, Kashmiris who were fellow MUSLIMS. What more is there to know?

It would be more to the purpose if you wrote on the Ahmedi or Jewish faiths instead or on modern salafism. Pakistanis have to actually coexist with those.

Vertex –

I do agree with you on Hellenic history and the way it is reflected upon by the western civilization. The West grew out of it, the East didn’t. Of course, a fan convinced can argue, people who lived 5000 or 3000 years ago knew a lot more than we do today. Unlike the Western, the ancient Eastern images and folklore remain very powerful going into the twentyfirst century. To each his own.

Re this article: perform a “research,” look up an encyclopedia, cut and paste, put something together and call it “an article.” Voila! The exoteric rules!

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I don`t think that the books in the karachi university library were destryed because they were written by Hindus. As a matter of fact the diuscussion on this board has reminded me of a discourse with my uncle who used to be a professor in Punjab University. Our conversation started when I told him that some of the books written by Indian authors on the subjects of mathematics and physics were so good that it was hard to find an equivalent written by Pakistani authors. He agreed and then regreted that Punjab University also had to get rid of a great number of books written by Hindus not because they were written by Hindus but because no one in Pakistan was left to read the Devnagri script. He regreted that fact and considered it a great loss. I am, however, indifferent to it.

#76 by dost-mittar on June 30, 2004 11:34am PT

[``Such hatred! such disrespect for knowledge``]

Oh cut your sanctimonious bullcrap please. You know very well that ``Ahmad Madani`` is a Hindian who spells Zia with a J and doesn`t know Tipu Sultan Road in Karachi from Hema Malini`s sagging tits. Holy cow! who doused your dhoti with kerosene? You can`t resist bashing Pakistanis even on this forum?

[``if not for their own roots is mind boggling``]

Please keep sukking on the roots and shoots of your cult. Please excuse Pakistanis if they refuse to do the same. What are you gonna do about it anyways? Send Madrasi Regiment across Sutlej?

forgive me. . .i am still trying to understand what the point of this article is.

and while i will try to avoid being as harsh as sadna was in #81, i nevertheless get the gist of what she is saying. while the interest of a pakistani ``liberal`` in `helping us to understaaand` (or trying himself or herself) what hinduism is all about is admirable, i do so wish that more efforts were made in explaining why ``non-muslims`` and ``muslims`` are being targeted and murdered in cold blood. other than the ``liberal`` tendency to blame it on the occupying army and the mad mullahs respectively. as i said your desire to reveal the kinder gentler side of hinduism is admirable. i also unfortunately find it to be rather condescending. but then such is the tone that continues to be in motion by the ``liberal heavys`` at chowk.

hopefully you will get just as much encouragement when you try to explain political islam. and i do mean try.

Dost Mittar:

I don`t understand why you are so upset about Pakistanis not giving a crap about Hinduism. It is upto them to read and learn what they have to and take pride in what they need to.

How many of us give a rat`s arse about Mughals and their Turkish/Arabic heritage. In essense we study about it in school because chronologically it happened in the midst of the existence of the Hindu nation. But how many of us take pride in the Arab/Turkish influence in India?

Outside of the Taj Mahal and a few forts, do we really care. We like Akbar because he was friendly with Hindus. How many Hindus have a good word to say about Aurangzeb whom we rightly consider a bigot and a tyrant.

What I do laugh at Pakistanis about is their penchant for glorifying the killers of Pakisani Muslims (such as ghori, Nadir Shah and Ghaznavi) as long as they killed Hindus as well. But again, their choice. What`s it to us. Our heritage exists only if we accept it. Otherwise it does not. India and Pakistan were once one but have adopted two different paths.

Today a Nazar Hayat Khan writes about Hinduism. His ilk will be gone in 200 years. In all probability, so will Urdu be gone from India in that time. Look at the number of people in India who still read and write Urdu. Outside Muslims, number is negligible. An example of us rejecting Islamic heritage because ny and large we all take the Muslim occupation of India as a bad dream that passed. Those that came from abroad and those who converted percieve it as a pinnacle of glory. Two different perceptions with equal validity.

Re. Various posts attempting to separate and compare Greek and Indic traditions and civilizations – they did not develop in complete isolation from one another. Indic influences can probably be discerned in the beliefs and practices of the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras is generally stated to have traveled to Egypt, and to Babylon; and from Babylon it would not have been too far to India, which was then in the state of religious-cultural ferment associated with the rise of the Sramanic traditions. Pythagoras propounded the doctrine of transmigration of souls – the first time this idea is recorded in ‘Western’ civilization; he also practiced and espoused strict vegetarianism and of course founded an ascetic ‘brotherhood’. These should be clearly reminiscent of Buddhism and Jainism. Incidentally there are Indian sources (the Sulvasutras) preceding Pythagoras that enunciate the Pythagorean theorem and provide a key construction identical to that in Euclid’s proof of the Pythagorean theorem.

There are extensive contacts from the Hellenistic period, of course, beginning with Alexander of Macedon.

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Nazar Khan

You are a brave, admirable, masochist. :)

Beg to disagree, Stuka,
``How many of us give a rat`s arse about Mughals and their Turkish/Arabic heritage.``

The Mughal`s themselves did not give rats ass about their Turkic (and not Turkish) hertiage and had no Arabic heritage anyway (now this displays your own ignorance and not that of most Indian`s). The real heritage of the mughal court, Persianised Urdu is still preserved in India. Pray tell me which Gazal`s does Jagjit Singh sing :-) and EMI(?) produce in expectation of mega-bucks, is it not the poetry of Asadullah Khan (``Galib``)?

btw, what do you feel like singing out after your third ``patiala-peg`` of Glenfiddich (being the erstaz westernised air force brat and all that). For me it will always be something like:

``hazaroon kwaishe aise ke kar ek kwaishe pe dum nikale,
bohot nikle mere arman lekin fir bhi kum nikle``

or

``jab chipak raha hai badan par lahu se pehrahan,
to hamari jeb ko fir hazat-e-rafu kya hai``

and not some Tukaram ``abhang``.

(sorry for the poor transaliterations :-))

Bong Dongs

You are right, I did adopt the Glen Fiddich, but after my third peg I prefer to listen to Edith Piaf but that is my own preference.

1. The Mughals did not have Arabic heritage but the Muslim rulers of India certainly did. It is not ignorance on my part but an attempt to keep the post generic. I apologize for not meeting your exacting standards.

2. Muslim rule in India, which started as Urstruly correctly points out, with the Arab conquest of Sind in the 7th century is a combination of Turkic (a bastardization of Turkish as the central asians themselves traced themselves to Turkey and by extension the Caliphs) Arabic and Persian culture.

3. Urdu is basically a combination of above languages mixed into Hindi. Though it retains the arabic script, the actual language is more from the subcontinent then not. Hhence for us to hold on to Urdu is like saying Pakistanis are holding on to Indian culture as they speak Urdu as well. Urdu has as much from India as it does from the Arabic, Turkic and Persian influences. In fact linguistically it is more like Hindi then any other language.

3. Let us therefore look at what is truly Islamic, the script of Urdu. Not the spoken word. What is the incidence of Urdu in India today? All indicators are negative.

4. Also, some socialite`s enjoyment of Urdu ghazals has the same validity as NHK writing about Hinduism.

sadna#81
Why such negativity? Why not accept this article as someone trying to understand another religion, especially one associated with the landmass of his country? As far as his reference to political hinduism, the author is not a stranger to chowk. He has frequently indicated his despair at how his country has been torn apart by faith-based politics, and that he does not wish the same thing to happen to India. Why not take him at his word?

stuka:
Indians, including hindus, do take pride in their heritage from the islamic period of India`s history, architecture, language, culture, sufi music; even the roadside dargahs` clientele is mostly hindus. But they should do more, as it is as much their heritage as the pre-islamic period. Urdu is a living language in India and is supported by the govt; even that kutter-hindu Joshi increased subsidies for the promotion of Urdu. As far as turkish or arabic heritage is concerned, I don`t see why they should take any pride in an alien culture.
Why do I care about whether Pakistanis accept their pre-islamic heritage (I prefer to call it indic rather than hindu to differentiate it from faith)? Because, I believe that this was the basis of the two nation theory; as iqbal or jinnah put it, the foundation of Pakistan was laid when the first native converted to islam; Jinnah and Iqbal both had hindu grandparents. I do it because what I say about Pakistanis applies to some extent (not completely) to Indian muslims as well. If change in one`s faith means a person rejecting his past identity, then someone could easily make a case for a ban on religious conversions, which goes against the fundamental human right of an individual to choose his faith. I also think that it is good for Pakistan to expand its identity from religion-only to one rooted in their geography.

ali1:
I will ignore the insults and deal with the substance. I too was suspicious of Mr Madani`s credentials at one time but not any more. If Mr. Madani is not a Pakistani, he must have spent an awful long time in that country or he is a great fiction writer. More importantly, if what he is saying is wrong, someone could simply call his bluff and produce a list of the books on the subject at Karachi university acquired before 1966. And if asking people to take pride in their heritage is paki-bashing, then there is a growing number of Pakistanis (e.g., Aitezaz Ahsan) in that category.

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