Puranas, the source of ancient Indian history

By V SUNDARAM
www.newstodaynet.com

Part I

The real history of a country is not the history of wars and battles, invasions and conquests, not even the record of the rise and fall of dynasties, but it is the history of the evolution of its inner national life in all its dimensions and aspects. In studying the History of Bharatvarsha, more particularly the history of ancient Bharatvarsha, most of the historians and scholars more often than not, fail to find out the real soul of India. Our present knowledge and history of ancient Bharatvarsha is derived from and mostly based on the work and writings of western historians and indologists during the last 300 years. Most of these western scholars, armed with passages from Hindu and Buddhist Scriptures, often taken out of their context and whose symbolic significance they could not understand (much less appreciate!), have helped to propagate the fallacy that the history of ancient Bharatvarsha is lost in the mists of unknown and unknowable antiquity and that it is very difficult to reconstruct the history of ancient India on the basis of our Vedas, ancient epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha and the eighteen (18) Puranas.

Increasingly the World of Science is taking recourse to the language of metaphysics and philosophy. Eminent Scientists all over the World seem to be of the view that they are not yet in contact with Ultimate Reality. Giants in the World of Quantum Physics, have written essays with titles like `The Mysterious Vision' [Sir James Jeans(1877-1946)] and `The Mystic Vision' [Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961)]. For example, Sir James Jeans has said: "The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter...we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.......Everything that has been said, and every conclusion that has been tentatively put forward, is quite frankly speculative and uncertain. We have tried to discuss whether present-day science has anything to say on certain difficult questions, which are perhaps set for ever beyond the reach of human understanding. We cannot claim to have discerned more than a very faint glimmer of light at the best; perhaps it was wholly illusory, for certainly we had to strain our eyes very hard to see anything at all. So that our main contention can hardly be that the science of to-day has a pronouncement to make, perhaps it ought rather to be that science should leave off making pronouncements: the river of knowledge has too often turned back on itself. (the closing sentences in page 188 of The Mysterious Universe, 1938 Pelican Books reprint of 1931 Second Edition).

The same view was also expressed by Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) in his path breaking book `The Structure of Scientific Revolutions': "Scientists cannot make any further headway, even given adequate resources. I am of the view that reality is ultimately unknowable and that any attempt to describe it obscures as much as it illuminates."

Today, human beings have to quietly accept the fact that we have reached a dead end in our quest to discover the ultimate reality of our existence. We have reached a stalemate because the vast potential for discerning profound truths hidden in the forgotten labyrinth of wisdom tradition of ancient Bharatvarsha History has remained untapped. These include enquiries into the mysteries of nature and the processes and forces that create, sustain and ultimately subsume us. These secrets were unravelled and some of the eternal laws of nature discovered several thousands of years ago by our Vedic Seers and Sages and handed down to us generation after generation for the well-being of all. Great minds in ancient Bharatvarsha devoted themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, particularly in regard to fundamental questions about the origin of the Universe and the Laws and Forces governing it. They were honoured as `Seers' because their vision and discernment enabled them to `See' the reality of the workings of the cosmos. These Seer-Scientists bequeathed to posterity an invaluable heritage of knowledge and insights, blending theory with carefully devised practices. This precious legacy was unfortunately later lost to us.

It is painful to observe that no organised and coordinated effort has been made to present the ancient history of Bharatvarsha against the background of authentic and trustworthy references and records made available by our Vedas, the Agamas, the Epics and the Puranas, Ancient Bharatvarsha Literature in Sanskrit and several other languages, Tamil Sangam Literature, Shilpa Shastras and other related treatises. No scientific methodology has so far been evolved by Indian Historians to analyze, interpret and present ancient history of Bharatvarsha in the light of detailed examinations, study, correlation, collation and interpretation of the records and resources made available by our Vedic Heritage going back to the dawn of history.

Purana (Sanskrit: purana), meaning "belonging to ancient or olden times", is the name of an ancient Indian genre (or a group of related genres) of Hindu or Jain literature (as distinct from oral tradition). They primarily are post-Vedic texts containing a narrative of the history of the Universe, from creation to destruction, genealogies of the kings, heroes and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy and geography. Puranas are called the Friendly Treatises or Suhrit-Sammitas, and are usually written in the form of stories related by one person to another. Vyasa Rishi is considered to be the compiler of the Puranas. As Dr Radhakrishnan beautifully puts it `The Spiritual motive dominates life in India. Indian Philosophy has its interest in the haunts of the men, and not in supra-lunar solitudes. It takes its origin in life, and enters back into life after passing through the schools. The Gita and the Upanishads are not remote from popular belief. They are the great literature of the country, and at the same time vehicles of great systems of thought. THE PURANAS CONTAIN THE TRUTH DRESSED UP IN MYTHS AND STORIES, TO SUIT THE WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF THE MAJORITY. THE HARD TASK OF INTERESTING THE MULTITUDE IN METAPHYSICS IS ACHIEVED IN India'.

The shortcomings, deficiencies, inaccuracies and the deliberate distortions in the approaches to the investigations and study of our timeless heritage by western scholars have been clearly explained and brought out by several Indian Scholars of great erudition such as Shri V.G.Ramachandran, Professor K. Srinivasaraghavan and Shri G.S.Sampath Ayyangar in their great book titled `Ancient India' published by the International Society for the Investigation of Ancient Civilization in 1998.

The continued negligence of the study of 18-Puranas simply on the wrong ground that they are dealing only with mythical events and unbelievable stories, and not the historical events should by all means be completely avoided. The systematic study of these Puranas should be encouraged and supported by all the Indian Universities.

Dr. Mahalingam, Chairman Sakthi Group of Companies, in a brilliant article titled `Puranas-A Source of Information for Historical Research', published in 1997 said that the Puranas hold an eminent rank in the religion and literature of ancient Bharatvarsha. Like the Vedas, they too possess the credit of divine origin and are no less important than the Vedas in terms of either their sanctity or moral or practical influence upon ancient Indian Society. He concluded `I have a feeling that the narratives recorded in the Puranas can be easily well sifted out and authentic and credible facts can be collected from them. That is why at various Conferences and Seminars on ancient history of Bharatvarsha, I have been emphasising the need for considering our Puranas as important sources of information on Bharatvarsha's historic past. It is necessary for the History Departments of our Universities to concentrate on searches and researches into our Puranas. When that is done, much light will be thrown on the Island Continent of Kumari'.

F.E.Pargiter (1852-1947) was an ICS Officer of British India. He was one of the pioneers who categorically said that our knowledge of the most ancient times in Bharatvarsha rests mainly on tradition. He was able to obtain correct and lasting results from a very detailed and critical examination of Puranic and Epic traditions as well as of the Rig Veda and Vedic Literature. He published his findings based on his detailed study of the 18-Puranas and the great Epics in his landmark book titled `Ancient Indian Historical Tradition' in March 1922. In his preface to this book, Pargiter stated `Nothing herein has been the outcome of preconceived ideas, speculation or haste. It began with a study of the Epics and Puranas for geographical information about ancient India 30 years ago, during the translation of the `Markandeya Purana', in order to study its geographical chapters. Geography included political divisions, and led to an examination of ancient kingdoms and so on to their dynastic genealogies and traditions—subjects that were generally regarded as of little or no historical value and were practically neglected'.

Part II

In his remarkable and primordial source book on ancient Indian historical tradition, in the very first Chapter relating to a general survey of that glorious tradition, F E Pargiter quotes the following verse in Sanskrit which occurs in Vayu Purana,Padma Purana, Siva Purana, and Mahabharatha:

The above Sanskrit verse gives this message:

‘The Brahmin, who may not know the four Vedas with the Angas and Upanishads, should not really be regarded as having attained proficiency, if he should not (does not) thoroughly know the PURANA. He should reinforce the VEDA with the ITHIHASA and PURANA. The Veda is afraid of him who is deficient in tradition, (thinking) ‘he will do me hurt’.

Most pseudo-secular Marxist and anti-Hindu (and of course anti-national) historians from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh University takes special delight in running down the sources of ancient historical tradition of Bharatvarsha. For them Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are the real sons of the Indian soil; Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajput Rai and other great nationalist leaders who pleaded for time-honoured Hinduism Sanatana Dharma do not belong to India. No wonder the traitors of the Communist Party of India fully cooperate with the repressive British Government in India during the stirring days of Quit India Movement in August 1942. In any other civilised country, such traitors would have been executed without much ado soon after Independence. Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are no longer relevant in their respective countries. But to the Communist traitors of India today, they continue to be their working Gods!

Pargiter clearly states that our knowledge of the most ancient times in India rests mainly on tradition. Let me sum up his views in this regard as follows: The Puranas, the Mahabharatha and in a minor degree the Ramayana profess to give accounts from tradition about earliest occurrences. The Vedas, the Brahmanas and other Brahmanic Literature supply detailed and exact information also. The oldest of these, the Rig Veda, contains historic allusions, of which some record contemporary events, but more refer to bygone times and persons and are wholly based on inherited tradition. Almost all the information about ancient India therefore comes from tradition. Statements of an historical kind in the Vedic Literature become serviceable, if they can be linked up with other statements from elsewhere, and that can be only from tradition. It is tradition that gives many of them a chronological position; hence the soundness and force of the Counsel given in the verse to above are manifest.

To quote the beautiful words of F.E.Pargiter

‘Tradition therefore becomes all important. It is the only source, since historical works are wanting, and is not an unworthy guide. In ancient times men knew perfectly well the difference between truth and falsehood, as abundant proverbs and sayings show. It was natural therefore that they should discriminate what was true and preserve it; and Indian historical tradition must be considered in this light’.

In ancient Bharatvarsha political supremacy fostered religious ascendancy, and Rishis and Munis, protected and favoured by royal power and prestige, spread and propagated their doctrines and observances, not only in the countries conquered, but also in the regions beyond their actual sway. Kings and Rishis therefore were the prominent figures, and it is mainly with them that ancient traditions deal.

Though historical works about ancient India are wanting, yet tradition has handed down fairly copious genealogies of the ancient dynasties. The Puranas consist largely of the Royal Genealogies and Kshtriyas Ballads and Tales. Dynastic accounts and heroic tales were the principal subjects of the Kshtriya record. These state the succession of Kings, and in that way are historical. According to Pargiter, they are almost the only historical data found in Sanskrit books as regards ancient political development; and the list of teachers in professed chronological order set out in some brahmanical books supply evidence as regards brahmanical succession. The genealogies form the basis by which the investigation of tradition for historical ends in ancient Bharatvarsha may be tested. To quote Pargiter once again:

‘They supply the best chronological clue’.

F.E.Pargiter gives a general survey of the genealogies in the Puranas and comes to many meaningful conclusions relating to the politics, culture, religion and society of ancient Bharatvarsha. Famous Kings in the Epics and Puranas were Mandhatr, Harishchandra, Sagara, Bhageeratha, Dasaratha and Rama of Ayodhya; Sasabindhu and Arjuna Karthavirya among Yadavas; Dushyanta, Bharatha, Ajamidha, Kuru and Santanu among Pauravas; Jahnu and Gadhi of Kanyakubja; Divodasa and Pratardana of Kasi; Vasu Caidya of Cedi and Magadha; Marutta Aviksita and Trnabindu of the Vaisala Kingdom; Usinara and Sibi of the Panjab Anavas. All were great monarchs, some of them were great conquerors, and many it is said were great sacrificers. All these great Kings had the moral and spiritual support and benediction of great Rishis of ancient Bharatvarsha. Let me give a few examples in this context. The Vasishtas were hereditary priests of Ayodhya, and various members of their family are mentioned in close connection with Harishchandra, Sagara and Dasaratha. Arjuna Karthavirya was favoured by Rishi Datta Atreya. Marutta Aviksita had Samvarta Angirasa for his priest.

The Vayu Purana, Bramanda Purana and Vishnu Purana give an account of how the original Purana came into existence. These three Puranas say that Krishna Dvaipayana divided the single Veda into four and arranged them, and so came to be called VYASA. He entrusted them to his four disciples, one to each, namely Paila, Vaisampayana, Jaimini and Sumantu. Then with tales, anectodes, songs and lore that had come down from the ages he compiled a Purana and taught it and the Itihasa to his fifth disciple, the Suta Romaharsana or Lomaharsana. After that SAGE VYASA composed the Mahabharatha. The Epic itself implies that the Purana preceded it. It says that Vyasa, just after he had composed it, declared that he had already made the Itihasas and Puranas manifest.

Pargiter makes this simple point clear. The Sutas had from remote times preserved the genealogies of Gods, Rishis and Kings, and traditions and Ballads about celebrated men, that is, exactly the material—tales, songs and ancient lore – out of which the Purana was constructed. Whether or not Vyasa composed the original Purana or superintended its completion, is immaterial for the purpose of understanding of ancient Bharatvarsha. What is important to note is that there was abundant tradition of various kinds, which could and would naturally have been used for its construction, and of the very kinds that went into its construction. The ancient tales were topics of real interest to Kings, people and Rishis, as both the Epics and Puranas by their very structure proclaim, and they were also matters to which men of intelligence gave their attention. Allusions in the Veda itself show the same. Therefore it is quite natural that, after the religious hymns were formed into the Veda, the ancient secular tales and lore should have been collected in a Purana.

Apart from producing his seminal work ‘Ancient Indian Historical Tradition’, Pargiter also translated the MARKANDEYA PURANA into English with detailed notes. This is a remarkable work on the society and geography of ancient Bharatvarsha. This Purana has a character different from that of the others. It is nothing of sectarial spirit. It deals little in precepts, ceremonial or moral. Its leading feature is narrative; and it presents and uninterrupted succession of legends. With regard to the question of the place of its origin, this Purana seems to have emanated from Western India, especially from the region near the mouths of the Rivers Narmada and Tapti. Markandeya says positively that Cyavana was the Rishi who first declared it. Cyavana obtained it from Bhrgu and declared it to all the Rishis and they in turn repeated it to Daksha and Markandeya learnt it from Daksha. The most important part of this Purana relates to Devi Mahatmya (popularly known as Durga Saptasathi), in which the real speaker is a Rishi named Medhas, and which is only repeated by Markandeya.

Pargiter says in his introduction that the geographical chapters in the Markandeya Purana are comprehensive with enumeration of several countries, races and tribes till then known, whether ancient or mediaeval.

Pargiter has suggested the considerations that should guide us about the way in which the Historical tradition of ancient Bharatvarsha should be treated. He says that we should not put it aside as wholly unworthy of our attention, nor should we try to explain them in a summary manner by prima facie comments. As he puts it succinctly

‘The former course is not criticism but is mere pre-judging the matter, and the latter is superficial observation.... All human testimony is liable to error, and tradition is human testimony concerning the long past: hence it is not to be discarded simply because it contains discrepancies. Ancient Indian Historical tradition must be examined and weighed with the aid of all information available and of experience and common sense.’

Part III

he most important source book for getting a total aerial view of all the Puranas is PURANIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA, A comprehensive Work with special reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature, by VETTAM MANI a great Puranic Scholar from Kerala. This work in English was first published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, Delhi in 1975. Ever since then it has run into several editions and has become a popular reference book. This encyclopaedia was a English translation of the original work of Vettam Mani in Malayalam.

Vettam Mani wrote this great work first in Malayalam under the title Puranic Nighantu. The first volume was published in February 1964 at Kottayam. Vettam Mani started this work in Malayalam on 1st of January 1955 and it took him 9 years before he could release the first volume in February 1964. The remaining four parts of Puranic Nighantu in Malayalam were published between 1964 and 1966. The second edition of this work in Malayalam was brought out in May 1967 under the original title of Puranic Nighantu. When the third edition of this work in Malayalam was printed in 1971, the name was changed to PURANIC ENCYLOPAEDIA. This very work was translated into English and published by Motilal Banarsidas, the internationally famous indological publishers in 1975.

In the preface to the English edition of this work, Vettam Mani rightly observed:

`The Puranas along with the Great Epics—the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, have for centuries, profoundly influenced Indian life and Culture. The well-known definition of a Purana as a work having five characteristic features—puranam pancalaksanam—namely, primary creation, secondary creation, the genealogies, the ages of Manu, and the dynastic account hardly does justice to the full significance of these works. They are much more than that. While their genealogies and the dynastic account form the bed-rock of the political history of ancient India, they throw a flood of light on all aspects of Indian Culture—its religion, social practices, art, literature and sciences. They serve as the key to the proper understanding of the various aspects of Hinduism-—its beliefs, its modes of worship, its mythology, its festivals, feasts, and fasts, its sacred shrines and places of pilgrimage, its philosophy and ethics and its theogony. Truly it has been said that a Brahmin was not really wise if he did not know the Puranas. The study of ancient Indian history, and culture—particularly religion-—is impossible without a proper knowledge of the Puranas. As a matter of fact, it is virtually impossible to understand not only ancient Indian culture and life, but also the literature in modern Indian languages, as it largely draws upon the ideas and ideologies as embodied in the contents of the Puranas and the epics.'

Vettam Mani has clearly explained what inspired him to undertake this gigantic task of preparing a Puranic Encyclopaedia. The literary writings in all Indian languages are indebted to the Epics and the Puranas in more than one way—their form, content, ideas and ideologies are all influenced to a greater or lesser extent by these ancient works. Direct and indirect allusions to Puranic episodes, characters, events, are frequently to be met with in the literary writings of all Indian languages. Teachers engaged in imparting instruction in literature in modern Indian languages must therefore be conversant with the contents of the Puranas and Epics in order to be able to explain these allusions wherever they occur in the writings in modern Indian languages. However, it is well nigh impossible for an average teacher to go through the whole of this vast Puranic Literature. Viewed in this light, the paramount public need for a handy work of reference like the present Encyclopaedia should become abundantly clear.

The word Purana is derived from pura which means `formerly' or `from ancient times' and na meaning `to breathe' or `live'. Purana therefore means that which lives the past or which breathes ancient times. The Puranas are regarded as Ithihas (history). Puranas are referred to as far back as the Athrva Veda, the Satapatha Brahmanas, and the ancient Upanishads. It is clear that the Puranas had attained a state of sacredness like the Vedas and were associated with Ithihas (history) even in those times the probable dates of these Puranas are between 100 A.D. and 600 A.D. We know however, from the references made to them that other Puranas were in existence at the time of Bana (early 7th century), sabara (between A.D.200 and 400), Kumarilla (7th century) and Shankaracharya (between A.D.650 and 800). We also know that their contents were similar to those in the extant Puranas as we know them today.

According to tradition, there are 18 Mahapuranas and 18 Upapuranas. Each Mahapurana lists eighteen canonical Puranas, but the contents of each list vary reflecting differences in time and place. The eighteen extant Mahapuranas are :

1. Agni Purana (15,400 verses)

2. Bhagavata Purana (18,000 verses). The most celebrated and popular of the Puranas. It is concerned with Vishnu Bhakti, telling of the exploits and deeds of Vishnu's Avataras. Its tenth canto (its longest) narrates the deeds of Krishna and, probably for the first time in Sanskrit, tells of his exploits as a child, a theme later elaborated by many Bhakti movements.

3. Bhavishya Purana (14,500 verses)

4. Brahma Purana (24,000 verses)

5. Brahmanda Purana (12,000 verses; includes Lalita Sahasranamam, a text millions of Hindus recite as prayer)

6. Brahmavaivarta Purana (18,000 verses)

7. Garuda Purana (19,000 verses)

8. Kurma Purana (17,000 verses)

9. Linga Purana (11,000 verses)

10. Markandeya Purana (9,000 verses; includes Devi Mahatmyam, an important text for Shaktas)

11. Matsya Purana (14,000 verses)

12. Narada Purana (25,000 verses)

13. Padma Purana (55,000 verses)

14. Skanda Purana (81,100 verses), probably the longest of all, containing parables, legends and stories, with multiple versions and rescensions. Many untraced quotes from a Purana are conveniently attributed to this Purana.[10]

15. Vamana Purana (10,000 verses)

16. Varaha Purana (10,000 verses)

17. Vayu Purana (24,000 verses)

18. Vishnu Purana (23,000 verses)

In addition to the above 18 Puranas, we also have the Harivamsa Purana (16000 verses) and Shiva Purana (24000 verses).

There is also another traditional approach to the classification of Puranas. They have been classified with reference to the three aspects of Trimurti _ creation, preservation and destruction. Based on this approach, Mahapuranas can be classified as follows:

Brahma Puranas: Brahma Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Markandeya Purana, Bhavishya Purana,

Vishnu Puranas: Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana, Naradeya Purana, Garuda Purana, Padma Purana, Varaha Purana,Vamana Purana,Kurma Purana, Matsya Purana, Kalki Purana

Shiva Puranas: Shiva Purana, Linga Purana, Skanda Purana, Agni Purana, Vayu Purana

Puranas have also been classified based on the gunas (qualities) of satvik(goodness), rajhasic (passion) and thamasic (ignorance). According to the Padma Purana, the 18 Puranas can be classified based on gunas in the following manner:

Sattva (`truth; purity'): Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana, Naradeya Purana, Garuda Purana, Padma Purana, Varaha Purana

Rajas (`dimness; passion'): Brahmanda Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Markandeya Purana, Bhavishya Purana, Vamana Purana, Brahma Purana

Tamas (`darkness; ignorance'): Matsya Purana, Kurma purana, Linga Purana, Shiva Purana, Skanda Purana, Agni Purana

Traditionally, the Puranas are said to have been composed by the Sage Veda Vyasa, the narrator of the Mahabharata epic. Vyasa in Sanskrit means `Divider,' and some scholars therefore take this simply as a term meaning `Editor'.

The Puranas also lay emphasis on keeping a record of genealogies. Thus the Vayu Purana says: `As seen by good people in the ancient times the suta's duty was to preserve the genealogies of gods, rishis and glorious kings and the traditions of great men.'

Apart from the 18 Mahapuranas, there are also 18 Upapuranas. They are:Sanat-kumara Purana, Narasimha Purana, Brihan-naradiya Purana, Siva-rahasya Purana, Durvasa Purana, Kapila Purana, Vamana Purana, Bhargava Purana, Varuna Purana, Kalika Purana, Samba Purana, Nandi Purana, Surya Purana, Parasara Purana, Vasishtha Purana, Devi-Bhagavata Purana, Ganesha Purana, Mudgala Purana, and Hamsa Purana. Most of these Upapuranas have not been critically edited yet and are available mostly through devotional publications, in multiple versions and recensions. The Devi-Bhagavata Purana extols the virtues of the goddess Durga as the supreme being. It has become (along with the Devi Mahatmya of the Markandeya Purana) a basic text for Devi worshipers.

Apart from Mahapuranas and Upapuranas, we also have Sthala Puranas and Kula Puranas.

The corpus of Sthala Puranas narrates the virtues and stories connected with a certain temple or shrine (the word `Sthala' means `Place' in Sanskrit). There are numerous Sthala Puranas, most written in vernaculars, some with Sanskrit versions as well. Most claim to have a Sanskrit origin, and some of the Sanskrit versions also appear in a Mahapurana or an Upapurana. Some Tamil Sthala Puranas have been researched by David Dean Shulman. Kula Puranas are mostly caste-focussed Puranas (the word `Kula' means `Family' or `Tribe' in Sanskrit). They deal with a caste's origin myth, stories and legends.

There are many Jain Puranas, dealing with Jain myths, history and legends. Studies and English translations of this particular genre are meagre. The best known of them is the Mahapurana of Acharya Jinasena. The Jain Puranas form a major part of the early Kannada literature. Swayambhu Purana, a Buddhist Purana, is major source of the history of the Kathmandu valley. Arguably, some Buddhist Mahayana Sutras seem to have some characteristics of Puranas.

Part IV

According to Hindu tradition, the Puranas were composed by Vyasa at the end of Dvapara Yuga. An early reference to Purana in its present sense can be traced to the Chandogya Upanishad (7.1.2), in which the sage Narada refers to itihâsapurânam panchamam vedânâm. Thus the Chandogya Upanishad ascribes to the Puranas, together with Itihas, the status of a fifth Veda, or Panchama Veda.

In the opinion of Gavin Flood, the Puranic corpus is a complex body of materials that advance the views of various competing cults. Although the puranic texts are related to each other, and material in one is found in another, they nevertheless each present a view of ordering of the world from a particular perspective. They must not be seen as random collections of old tales, but as highly selective and crafted expositions and presentations of worldviews compiled by particular groups of Brahmins to propagate a particular vision, whether it be focused on Vishnu, Shiva, or Devî, or, indeed, any number of deities.

According to Matsya Purana, the puranas are said to narrate five subjects, called Pancha Lakshana (pañchalakshana – ‘five distinguishing marks’):

1. Sarga - The creation of the universe.

2. Pratisarga - Secondary creations, mostly re-creations after dissolution.

3. Vamœa - Genealogy of gods and sages.

4. Manvañtara - The creation of the human race and the first human beings.

5. Vamúâanu charitam - Dynastic histories.

The Buddhist scholar Amarasimha (between the 6th and 8th centuries), who wrote that admirable lexicon the Amara-Kosa, also defined the notion of a Purana along the above lines. He said a true Purana should treat of five subjects: the creation of the world, its periodic destruction and recreation, the pedigree of the Gods and mythical sages, the periods of the life of the world, over each of which a new Manu or First Man, presides and the pedigrees of the Kings of the lines of the Sun and of the Moon.

Most Mahapuranas and Upapuranas deal with these subject matters, although the bulk of their text consists of historical and religious narratives. Some scholars have suggested that these ‘distinguishing marks’ are shared by other traditional religious scriptures of the world (e.g. the Bible). A Purana usually gives prominence to a certain deity (Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna or Durga) and depicts the other gods as subservient. Most use an abundance of religious and philosophical concepts in their narration, from Bhakti to Samkhya.

Among the Puranas, the Vishnu Purana comes closest to the definition of a Purana with regard to its contents. Most Puranas devote themselves to one God in whom is personalized the concept of the One Para Brahmma. The Vishnu Purana invokes the God Vishnu. Beginning with an invocation to Vishnu, the Vishnu Purana is in the form of questions and answers between the Sage Parasara and his disciple Maitreya.

In a conversation between Satanika and Sumanta, in the Vishnu Purana, Sumanta says that the Dharma Sastras consisting of the 18 Puranas, the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha are meant for the education and enlightenment of the common people and are for all the four Varnas.

The Puranas gave the people of ancient India a world-view, a sense of identity and a moral foundation. Though they may not appear to be history as we know it today, yet it cannot be disputed that they teach something more than mere history. The philosophical concepts were told in a manner that even the uneducated could understand.

The Vishnu Purana declares that he who is wise, balanced and kind, goes to worlds which are eternal sources of happiness. He who is intelligent, modest, devout, who respects wisdom, his superiors and the aged goes to heaven. Let me quote the words of Vishnu Purana ‘The Earth is upheld by the virtuous who have subdued their passions, behaved righteously, uncontaminated by desire, greed or wrath. A wise man should always seek to be pleasant and speak the truth. Where the truth is likely to be painful he should not speak. However, he must not utter that which may be pleasant and acceptable but is detrimental, because if so, then it is better to speak the truth, even if it were to give great offence. A considerate man will always cultivate an act, thought and speech that which is good for all living beings in the world and the next’.

These personal and social obligations of the Hindus given as above in the Vishnu Purana conform with the Institutes of Manu and many passages in the Vishnu Purana follow Manu word for word.

The Puranas are invaluable sources of religious, social and cultural history of ancient India. In his magnificent work on the history of Dharmasastras, P.V.Kane has observed ‘Puranas sound modern when they put social service and removal of suffering and distress as the highest Dharma. They at the same time also lay stress on the heart being more important than works’.

Apart from Vettam Mani’s Puranic Encyclopaedia, another equally important work on the Puranas is Encyclopaedia of Puranic Beliefs and Practices by Dr. Sadashiv A Dange, formerly R.G.Bhandarkar Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit in Bombay University. Dr.Dange’s work was published in five volumes in 1989. Dr. Dange in his preface has indicated that Vettam Mani’s Puranic Encyclopaedia is just a collection of all sorts of information and thus it cannot be strictly called as Puranic Encyclopaedia. According to Dr. Dange, Vettam Mani’s work lacks methodology in as much as the references given do not have a set system. Likewise, the earlier work Purana Index by Dr. V.R.R.Dikshithar does not deal with all the 18 Mahapuranas. Thus, in both the works of Dr.V.R.R. Dikshithar and Vettam Mani, the stress is more on personalities rather than on objects or the society. Dr.Dange’s work has tried to present information from the cultural, social and mythological angle. In Dr.Dange’s work wherever individual names do occur, they are mentioned only when they have some belief attached to them or when there is some custom, or practice associated with them. Mere dynastic or personal details are discarded by Dr.Dange.

Dr.Dange’s work is an invaluable reference work on all the 18 Mahapuranas and 18 Upapuranas. What is significant is that original passages in the Sanskrit have been presented at the end of each entry.

To quote the appropriate words of Dr.Dange ‘Purana is described as the fifth Veda, in addition to the four namely, Rig, Yajus, Sama and Atharva (Puranam panchamo Vedah). The reason is that in the Purana, the popular rituals are documented, according to which the general mass of people behave. As such, the Puranic tradition is a blend of the Vedic ritualistic and popular mythical traditions. The Purana is not inferior to the Veda. According to Skanda Purana, Purana is as steady as the Veda. Not only this, all the Vedas are firmly rooted in the Purana. It says that, whatever is not seen in the Smritis or the Veda, is seen in the Purana’.

In his great work Ancient India and Indian Civilization, Paul Masson-Oursel has brillently concluded

‘India was predestined by its geographical structure to be one of the great breeding-grounds of humanity.… It is the land of great asceticism, which seeks to enrich spiritual life by detaching the individual from his surroundings, and it owes its complex originality to its separation from the rest of our planet…. Life breaks out from rules, and does not cease to proliferate in capricious growths, just as it perpetuates ancient types, long obsolete, among other types, more highly developed. .. Theories full of fantastic conceptions, but these are classified under headings governed by analogy. Often richness is accepted as beauty and abundance as truth…. Yet India puts things together and co-ordinates them without artificially assimilating them. That is why its civilization preserves barbaric elements more than it transforms them, and mingles them with others far more refined. It loves art passionately, without ever opposing it to nature, doubtless because nature in that country is like art in its creative exuberance. Religious belief and philosophic reflection partake of the nature of art, because they claim, not to treat of a real, independent of thought, but to establish modes of existence by means of the autonomous activity of the mind….Dives and Lazarus rub shoulders, zeal for fullness and passion for emptiness stand face to face for ever. Let us make our choice without blaming India for the lack of measure in its spirit – which, indeed as I have pointed out, proceeds according to cannons of right conduct. In Greece, Ontology has its limits, those drawn by definition. But India dedicates itself to the unknown and the unlimited because it always operates, even when it seeks to know. When it succeeds in avoiding anarchy, it is because it has found, in its very action, principles of order and guarantees of objectivity’.

This is indeed eternal India of the ages—this india of geography, of history and tradition, of our minds and heart——which nothing in the world can ever change, now and forever.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at
vsundaram@newstodaynet.com

Fundamentals of Hindutva and The Concept of Hindustan

by Dr. Subramanian Swamy
The Hindu Renaissance

Hindustan, conceptually is a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept with pride that their ancestors are Hindus. The identity of an “Indian” follows as an easy corollary as one who is a Hindu or one who proudly acknowledges that his ancestors are of Hindu faith. Even today most nations abroad refer to India as Hindustan [e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic]. Only in our country we go by the English garbled variation India of Hindustan. Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustan’s religious minority, as those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt cultural customs of Hindus. All these minorities however had inter-married with Hindus over the last millennium and a half, and hence have a claim to the nation’s Hindu civilization by ancestry. From the Hindustan identity flows the fundamentals of Hindu-ness or Hindutva as the cultural parameters of the Hindustan society.

Why the need to discuss?

Why is it important after sixty years, since the British imperialists were driven out, that we need to discuss today the concept of our identity and the fundamentals of Hindutva? This need arises because of the misfortune of the almost uninterrupted rule of Jawaharlal Nehru[17 years] and Indira Gandhi[16 years], and their cheap imitators in office since 1947.

The concept of Hindutva and the ancient Hindu foundation of the nation were demeaned during their tenure, and those who dared to advocate it were ostracized by the government. The nation was not allowed by these imposters to find its feet after a thousand years of debasement of, and brutality against Hindu religion, by a vulgarization of Hindustan’s true and glorious history in textbooks that were prescribed by the Congress governments. That debasement continues today under the present government.

Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion had been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats had been met, the challenges faced and overcome sometime actively as by the Vijayanagaram and Mahratta kingdoms or passively as in the Freedom Struggle. Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been once intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology.

In South India, the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after absorbing Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to, when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence the formation of the ‘Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha’ under the guidance of Swami Dayananda Sarasvati of Arsha Vidyalaya and the Tirupati Declaration of July 2006 are of vital importance for the future renaissance of the nation.

Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India, and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society.

Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India. Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw-- Moplah in English]. That is a fundamental of Hindutva, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.

However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India, and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India. But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority. This was passive resistance of Hindus, much before Mahatma Gandhi came of the scene. Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation[e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert.

Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75 percent Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity and Hindutva ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose.

These icons are admired not because they led us to victory [in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise[they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindutva. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people. Hindutva means: resist by passive non-violent resistance if possible, otherwise by vigorous aggressive action if necessary. Hindutva means never to submit, never to compromise with evil.

In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what modern Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life.

Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But the government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, appropriated temple revenues and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by such legislation but not the Muslims and Christians. It made a mockery of Article 14 of the Constitution on equality before law.

As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and on norms valid in a pluralistic society] was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by Nehruism. Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic.

Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity has been sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists invented it, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad.

There is no such word as Aryan in Sanskrit literature [closest is ‘arya’ meaning honourable person, and not community] or Dravidian [Adi Sankara had in his shasthrath with Mandana Mishra at Varanasi, called himself as a ‘Dravida shishu’ that is a child of where three oceans meet, i.e. south India]. The racial divide theory was a deliberate distortion by British imperialists, and propagated by their witting and unwitting mental Indian slave academicians on the hapless students in educational institutions.

Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians conducted by Professor C. Panse of Newton, Mass. USA and other scholars. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] in it’s October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan—Dravidian race theory in stating that: “The theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas” [www.bbc.co.uk, religion & ethics homepage, Thursday, 6/10/05].

Modern India is portrayed by foreign interests through this curriculum, as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms.

Thus the concept of Hindustan, and India’s Hindu foundation implicit in Hindutva, are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it. Hindu patriots thus must meet this challenge by propagating the concept of Hindustan and spreading the knowledge among Hindus of the fundamentals of Hindutva. The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine the Hindu foundation of the nation, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy.

Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see, much as Lord Macaulay saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game for castrating Hindustan. Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism.

Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The need for a collective Hindu mindset, an essential fundamental of Hindutva, is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist. The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve to defend that vision.

However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective. The sacking of Somnath Temple by Ghazni should serve as a reminder of the validity of this dictum. Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela.

When I speak of Hindu unity, I am not taking of piety of Hindus as a community. I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness, which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnection with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness, has now in the name of Nehruvian secularism been distorted and dissipated over the last six decades.

Even the writings of Dr. Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized by the Nehruites. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar [and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated: “ It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of its culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity - the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and isolated him that in the end, bitterness drove him to Buddhism.

Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis [Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason. Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law.

The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus. To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity based on the fundamentals of Hindutva. Let us remember that numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.

We Hindus cannot fight against looming and creeping danger, unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious marauding entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies for camouflaging their evil purposes are multiples of that available in the past.

My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the four-dimensional siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it.


The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions

Making Hindus to lose their self-esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India, as Lord Macauley made clear on February 2, 1835 in the British Parliament.

“I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which [backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”.

That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to debunk Hindutva, thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s past.


Demographic restructuring of Indian society

People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21 percent of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44 percent. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India, which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were 30 percent in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8 percent. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20 percent in 1941, and less than 2 percent in 2001.

Such religious cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3 percent. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12 percent points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh. The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation.

We have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69 percent in 1901 to 56 percent in 2001. Muslims are now 25 percent and Christians 19 percent. But Hindus share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24 percent; while for Christians the share has risen to 40 percent. For Muslims it is 33 percent. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus share is just 19 percent, Muslims 49.5 percent and Christians 31.5 percent.

In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur, Muslims due to a much higher population growth rate are now 40 percent of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue. In northeast India, minus Assam, 45.5 percent of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal, which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7 percent.

These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. ‘Jamia Millia Islamia University’ has been reorganized as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88 percent of the faculty is Muslim. American College, Madurai’s faculty is 66 percent Christian. Its junior faculty is 95 percent Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83 percent Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists.

Differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir. Even if Muslims are in a majority at the municipality level, they begin to oppress the Hindu minority. We can witness this in Thondi in Ramanathapuram and Rasathipuram in Vellore districts, in Mau and Meerut in U.P., and in the Northeast.

We can learn from witnessing how Muslim majority treats minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. Muslims believe the world is divided as Dar-ul-Islam where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Dar-ul-Harb in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Dar-ul-Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India. That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.

Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now with the publication of Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad. Moreover, patriots concerned with the safeguarding of the Hindu foundation of the nation have to take note that religious entrepreneurs have put conversion to Christian faith on a war footing. In Dallas, Texas, USA, the Global Pastors Network [GPN] held a conference and resolved that over the next fifteen years, the organization will support financially worldwide the construction of five million churches and conversion of one billion persons to Christianity. From India alone, according the Evangelist Pat Robertson the target is 100 million persons. Hence, Hindus are not only under siege, but face a terrible pincer of Islamic fast population growth and illegal migration, in conjunction with Christian money-induced conversion activities.

Therefore, Hindus will have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India. Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before.

The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus

If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir, Manipur, and elsewhere it is apparent that only Hindus are the target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received noticed in international fora. Why?

Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government [see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu& Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17, 2005; hinduamericanfoundation. Org], and yet there is no outcry. Why?

This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after then the riots stopped. Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular are growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that it deters future attacks.

According to the well known National Counter terrorism Center, a US government body, in it’s report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004 states that: “India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004”, a damning comment. India is suffering on an average about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India’s Home Ministry in its 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India’s neighbours have become hotbeds for anti-Hindu terrorists training.

Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today these three freed terrorists direct the three most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir. And yet there is chorus today to give clemency to the terrorist Mohammed Afzal who masterminded the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001.

Then there is the case of the LTTE, which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs [of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that terrorist, and hold the assassination as justified, have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi! During the NDA rule on Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s plea, one of the LTTE conspirators ordered to be hanged by the Supreme Court viz., Nalini was given clemency!

Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing today. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination to never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, will the ultimate good emerge.

For example in the Indian Airlines hijack case in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then? Hence the Hindu political leadership must treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as a fight to the finish and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise or capitulate to terrorists. The government must safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.

The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance

The well-known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to the most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully “India was on sale for KGB bribes”. If India is the one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status.

There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan without holding office were here exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindutva value has evaporated. India is fast becoming “a banana republic” in which everything, a person or policy is available to anyone for a price.

The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society due to degeneration had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties in reckless disregard for equity and history have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal.

In such a situation the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and then rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.

In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our Dharmacharyas, many of whom are members of the newly formed Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. With the RSS and VHP, this Sabha must, just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation.

This however cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. This code and principles together constitute the fundamentals of Hindutva. The nation looks to this spiritual force today, for guidance in this hour of need. Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of Hindutva. This also requires an action plan to fight and lift the siege [see my Hindus Under Siege—The Way Out, Haranand Publishers 2006, for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:

“Faced with militant missionaries,

Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance

are not signs of disparateness or disunity.

For that, a collective voice is needed.”

Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement of recognizing and accepting that their cultural legacy is Hindu, and revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn then, the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have protected the Parsis and Jews, and take them all as part of the Hindustani parivar.

India can be only for those who swear that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst in our midst whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc, or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We have partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable a homeland for those Muslims, who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata today who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.

I have tried summarizing the above stated concept of Hindustan and the fundamentals of Hindutva in the following axioms of Hindu renaissance:

1. A Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India. That history which records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth-based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, Sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendents have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, an area called ‘Akhand Hindustan’, and did not come from outside; and that there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead, Hindus went abroad to spread learning and spiritual knowledge.

2. Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of it’s theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus expect from others that respect is two-way. If Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. Thus, by this criterion, secular attitude as defined till date is a one-way obligation for Hindus, and hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan. That is, a nation of Hindus and those whose who accept that their ancestors are Hindus. A vibrant Bharatvarsh of course cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history. But Muslims and Christians shall be part of the Hindustan parivar or family if they accept this truth and revere it.

3. Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus merely because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India.

4. The Hindu’s must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshardham Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s [Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are permitted to be central government Ministers today.

5. All Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit already.

These five axioms if followed will constitute the virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted from confused Hindus within the country. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India. This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster.

In this we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icon. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.

I urge and implore the Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas. The Tirupati Declaration of July 2006 adopted by the acharyas must be electorally translated.

Adi deo arya devata: A Max Weber of India

V SUNDARAM
newstodaynet.com

I have just finished reading are markably original, pioneering and landmark book on Indian anthropology and sociology titled Adi Deo Arya Devata: A Panoramic view of Tribal-Hindu Interface by Sandhya Jain. In this book she presents kaleidoscopic and panoramic macro view of micro Tribal-Hindu Cultural Interface. In a majestic sweep she declares in a succinct manner the main burden of her thesis in the introduction to this book:

'The Colonial Era Unleashed a Genre of Scholarship that portrayed India's adivasi or tribal population as an aggregate of primitive social groups that were separate from, and beyond the pale of mainstream Hindu society. Scholars are now looking as askance at this established orthodoxy as even the most cursory mapping of the spiritual-cultural landscape reveals a deep symbiotic relationship between tribals and non-tribals from very ancient times. The dynamic interaction between the two groups, posited as polar opposites, defies the deadening stereotype of tribals living an isolated existence in remote forests or mountain ranges. In its place, a more complex picture emerges in which tribes (gana, janajati) evolve into and actively engage with caste and Varna society, even as some opt for relative, though not complete, seclusion. Meticulous field work by anthropologists and ethnographers in the colonial period itself sheds light on the incessant nature of the exchange between the so-called tribal and so-called Hindu society. This is reinforced by glimpses from ancient literature and conventional history, particularly from the early medieval period onwards, of which records are available. It is therefore baffling that a phenomenon widely acknowledged and scrupulously documented by investigators in the field continues to be denied due recognition in mainstream academia'.

The Imperial and Colonial English administrators of British India with sinister political intentions (very much like the debauched, degraded Sonia-directed UPA Government today!) mischievously equated the VANVASIS with Adivasis or 'original inhabitants' only to show that they did not form an integral part of larger mainstream Hindu society. The British Colonial policy of divide and rule made the British rulers advance this pernicious and untenable theory. This was strongly supported by missionaries like Bishop William Carey in Bengal, Bishop Caldwell in Madras Presidency and Bishop Heber in Orissa, Chota Nagpur and Central Provinces the 19th century who enjoyed unconditional British support in their evangelical programme of divide and convert. Thus the ruling British authorities and Christian organisations formed an unholy alliance to divide the colonized Indian people. The most striking example was the imaginary, fictional and artificial Aryan-Dravidan divide created by European officials, missionaries and scholars who were quite often in the pay of colonial governments. Pseudo-secular, Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating Indian historians, Mullah historians from Aligarh and Marxist historians from Jawaharlal Nehru University would go to the end of the world to avoid facing the irrefutable fact that the famous Max Mueller was paid by the East India Company to discredit the Vedas and help the missionaries in their programme of religious conversion. This stereotyped approach of treating Vanvasis as aliens wholly outside the fold of Hindu tradition continues uncontrolled and unchallenged to the present, in one form or another. Sandhya Jain firmly establishes through incisive logic and acute analysis of facts and figures embracing all parts of India that Vanvasis have made an enormous contribution to India's civilization. We can clearly see that all the major Gods of the Hindu tradition cutting across centuries have always had Vanvasi links. Even caste, always viewed as the keynote of Hindu society, possibly originated in the Vanvasi clan or gotra.

Sandhaya Jain

The main points that emerge from Sandhya Jain's brilliant book can be summarised as follows :

a. Even in the days of our struggle for freedom, Mahatma Gandhi and great social workers in the field of tribal welfare like Thakkar Baba had strongly protested against the subterranean mischief let loose by British colonial rulers among Vanvasis and Tribes living in remote forest areas of India by deliberate attempts to delink them from the main body of Hindu society through the administrative imposition of racial classifications / categories / groups (in actual effect planned and planted subterfuges !) in Census Operations. This wicked process initiated by Herbert Risley (1851- 1911), the Census Commissioner of 1901 reached its zenith under J H Hutton, the Census Commissioner of 1931. Mahatma Gandhi never failed to assert from every available public platform that the tribals of India constituted an indivisible, inseparable and inalienable part of larger Hindu society.

b. Intimate and unbroken ties have always existed between tribal and mainstream Indian society from the dawn of Indian history, historically spanning both the socio-cultural continuum as well as the economic-political spectrum.

c. The concepts of 'Mainstream' and 'Fringe', the pernicious notion of core- fringe conflict have to be logically viewed as British Colonial constructs and artifices. To quote the pointed words of Sandhya Jain: 'Colonial rhetoric not withstanding, tribals have never been passive recipients of Hindu Upper Class (what Max Muller labeled as 'Brahminical') cultural models, but have rather contributed actively and enormously to the infinite variety of India from its primordial beginnings. This shall become evident as we examine the 'tribal' Gods of the Hindu pantheon.'

d. In accordance with their policy of 'Divide and Rule', the British colonial State always proclaimed that Brahmins, peasants, untouchables and tribals were separate groups with distinct customs and beliefs and that Brahmins always sought to subjugate all others to establish their permanent hegemony. This philosophy has become the bedrock of Jungle Vote Bank Politics of Communal Quota Raj today.

e. All our great national leaders before independence rejected the colonial contention that India was an artificial construct, a motley collection of assorted faiths, communities, and ethnic entities situated in a specific geographical area. Great Hindu nationalists like Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malvia, Sri Aurobindo and others emphasized the underlying cultural unity, social coherence and spiritual integrity of our civilization dating back to Vedic India. As Sandhya Jain puts it, 'They attributed the great variety of beliefs and practices to the unique Hindu characteristic of representing all levels of consciousness and accepting the legitimacy of all pathways to the divine'.

f. The nationalist minded anthropologists like Verrier Elwin, Sarat Chandra Roy, G.S.Ghurye, and K.Suresh Singh have scientifically explained the strong affinity between the tribal concept of divinity and Hindu Dharma (Santana Dharma), as noticed in practice, mythology and recorded history. There was and has always been a dynamic, living two way traffic and percolation between the so called the Brahminical values on the one hand and belief systems of supposedly 'lower' social strata. Only the British colonial rulers made a dastardly attempt to codify social groups in terms of a pre-conceived hierarchy.

g. McKim Marriott, Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the University of Chicago, has done extensive research on the villages, villagers, and urbanites of India, South Asia and Japan. Finding that Western conceptual constructs and categories often present obstacles to the proper understanding of the peoples of these and other areas, he has constructed a new structure of alternative social science models for studying differing cultural realities, using formal modelling and simulations. Marriot has also clearly stated that there is adequate evidence to show that the spiritual spectrum in India, through the ages, has always embraced tribal and classical Hindu dharma, with tribal elements freely entering the formal Hindu tradition even as vital elements of the latter were getting integrated, absorbed and harmonized into tribal mores of culture and modes of worship, uninterrupted and unbroken, all the time.

h. India's native culture and civilization have continuously grown upon a common bedrock substratum. Therefore it is absurd to talk of unnatural and artificial categories such as 'tribal' and 'Hindu', the way in which the British colonial administrators did for their imperial purposes before our independence and the dastardly way in which the Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating tribe of Pseudo-secular historians and politicians do today.

i. It has been the standard academic convention to refer to faith or culture or religion tribal communities as belonging to 'Little' tradition and to view faith or culture or religion of all Hindus (practices in temples according to Shastric rites) as forming part of 'Great' tradition. Sandhya Jain's cardinal and seminal finding is that in reality these two realms readily commingle and compliment each other; they solidly supplement and not supplant each other. Sometimes, as in the case of Orissa, they coalesce into well defined regional tradition of Jagannath of Puri, a Tribal God Par Excellence.

The scientifically rigorous way in which Sandhya Jain has marshaled a vast array of disparate and discordant facts into a manageable and coherent whole brings to my mind the following beautiful observations of Poincare: 'The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it; he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing and life would not be worth living'. I mean the intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts and which a pure intelligence can grasp. 'It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts; that we take delight, now in following the giant course of the stars, now in scrutinizing with a microscope that prodigious smallness which is also vastness, and, now in seeking in geological ages the traces of the past that attracts us because of its remoteness'. All in all Sandhya Jain's book is a thing of beauty and a joy forever!

For their own colonial and imperial purposes, the British rulers always claimed that tribals were the most important ancient native inhabitants of the various regions of India, who had been literally pushed to the hills and forests by incoming communities. Despite all this, the tribals had managed to preserve their social structures in splendid isolation. G.S. Ghurye rejected this view of British administrators and scholars on the ground that the chronology of the internal movements of peoples is unknown and unknowable and hence he said 'it is highly unscientific to regard some tribe or the other as the original owner of the soil'.

Sandhya Jain observes 'The word 'tribe' is alient to Hindu thought and does not exist in Indian vernaculars. There is also a genuine difficulty in determining the boundary line between 'tribe' and 'non-tribe' as both groups were porous and lived cheek by jowl for centuries. That is why the carefully constructed colonial archetype, which fixed the typical traits of a tribe as isolation, self-sufficiency and autonomy, falted on careful scrutiny. Unfortunately, Indian sociologists as a class bowed to the pressure of the dominant Western intellectual discourse and accepted castes as distinct from tribes; they failed to realize that they had fallen into the colonial trap of studying the so called different tribes from the point of view of their contemporary decline, which itself was largely due to the depredations of the colonial State'. It was G S Ghurye who clearly saw through the British colonial game and came to the conclusion that the British land revenue and legal systems, accentuated the pace of dispossession of the Chota Nagpur tribes as land became a saleable commodity that could be easily sold and transferred. Thus tribal lands fell into the hands of money-lenders and other non-cultivating classes.

Despite their own field-level observations and findings to the contrary, the British rulers continued to distinguish and differentiate tribal communities from Hindu society. This practice was by no means limited to India or even the British rule. The idea of dividing a conquered people in the name of 'race science' was a standard ploy used by colonial officials and Christian missionaries. Much of the blood-spilling in ethnic conflicts in different parts Africa today is the direct result of such colonial mischief. To quote the appropriate words of the French anthropologist Jean-Pierre Langellier on the horrific Hutu-Tutsi conflicts: 'The idea that the Hutus and the Tutsis were physically different was first aired in the 1860s by the British explorer John Speke'. The history of Rwanda [like that of much of Africa] has been distorted by Pere Blancs [White Fathers], missionaries, academics and colonial administrators. They made the Tutsis out to be a superior race, which had conquered the region and enslaved the Hutus. 'Missionaries taught the Hutus that historical fallacy, which was the result of racist European concepts being applied to an African reality. At the end of the fifties, the Hutus used that discourse to react against the Tutsis.'

This assumed and subsumed physical difference was conveniently transferred also to the cultural field in the guise of anthropology. Physiognomy became a convenient cover for racists to act as objective anthropologists. Such racists enabled Hitler and the Nazis to develop their famous Aryan Theory, thereby giving 'race science' a bad name. Long before the arrival of Hitler, Herbert Risley, the Indian Census commissioner of 1901 Census and a highly influential head of the Anthropological Survey of India, raised a whole colonial edifice based on fictional racial classifications mixed with culture and caste. To quote his own words written in 1891 in this context: 'The social position of a caste varies inversely as its nasal index'. Community of race is the real meaning of the caste system. So you have it: the more aquiline the nose, the higher the caste! At the same time, it has to be noted that when Risley was not serving his colonial masters, he did not hesitate to present the cardinal truth as he saw it with his own eyes and understanding: 'It is impossible to differentiate between Hinduism and Animism (Tribalism or Adivasism) as each merged imperceptibly into the other. Hinduism was Animism more or less transformed by philosophy'.

Modern science has completely dislodged the whole notion of 'race'. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, one of the most distinguished geneticists of the 20th century, has completely demolished scientists' attempts to classify human populations into races in the same way that they classify birds and other species into 'races'. The study of demographics had already well-established that fact, based on linguistic, cultural, and archaeological clues, but it had become overlaid with nationalist and racist ideologies. Cavalli-Sforza initiated a new field of research by combining the concrete findings of demography with a newly-available analysis of blood groups in an actual human population.

While Cavalli-Sforza is best known for his work in genetics, he also, in collaboration with Marcus Feldman, initiated the sub-discipline of cultural anthropology known alternatively as co-evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, cultural transmission theory or dual inheritance theory. The seminal publication Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach (1981) made use of models from population genetics to investigate the transmission of culturally transmitted units. This line of inquiry initiated research into the correlation of patterns of genetic and cultural dispersion.

Cavalli-Sforza has demolished the claim of British rulers and many modern day cultural anthropologists who blindly use the British colonial conceptual constructs that Vanvasis (tribals) of India are the original inhabitants while caste Hindus are later intruders. After a comprehensive study, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza has declared: 'Taken together, these results show that Indian tribal and caste populations derive largely from the same genetic heritage of Pleistocene southern and western Asians and have received limited gene flow from external regions since the Holocene.' This fully endorses the major finding of Sandhya Jain that Vanvasis and caste Hindus share a common genetic pool dating back to the primordial days of hoary Hindu antiquity. In short all the Indians share a common biological, cultural and religious origin.

Sandhya Jain's work overthrows the myths created by British Indologists and the slavish Indian Indologists who aped them and continue to ape them that janajaati populations of Bharat are people on the margins of Hindu society and establishes firmly that janajaati indeed constitute the very core of Hindu identity. She traces the roots of adi Sanskriti, Sanathana Dharma and the contributions made by janajaati to the evolution of dharma.

This book should adorn every single Hindu household and every single library of the country and be included as suggested reading for students, at all levels, of civilization, culture, history, sociological and anthropological studies.

Sandhya Jain rightly notes that there is to this day a close relationship between the Kurukba, Lambadi, Yenadi, Yerukula and Chenchu janajaati and Shri Venkateshwara of Tirupati. Lord Ayyappan in Kerala and Mata Vaishno Devi in Jammu also appear to have janajaati links. According to her, Jagannath or Vishnu, as Lord of the world, offers one of the most conspicuous instances of the transformation of a tribal God into a pre- eminent deity of the classical Hindu pantheon.

Khandoba is the God of tribal food-gatherers and hunters in the forest and hills of the Western Deccan. His sphere of influence is broadly co-terminus with the present States of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. He is generally recognized by the names Khandoba, Khanderaya (Maharashtra), Mallanna (Andhra), Mailara, Mairala, Mallaya (Karnataka). Sandhya Jain says that there are close parallels between him and Murugan who finds mentioned in the early Tamil Sangam Literature of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD as the Hill God. Early Sangam Literature also throws up interesting parallels between Khandoba, Murugan and Rudra. The Veneration of the Serpent (Naga) and the Mother Goddess (Devi) deeply permeates the psyche of tribals, villages, rural and urban folk and the classical Hindu traditions.

Redfield has beautifully described this beautiful cultural interaction which mocks at times and remains unaltered and imperishable in India:

'This is perhaps the most important conclusion of recent anthropological studies of Hinduism .the unity of Hinduism does not exclusively reside in an exemplary set of norms and scriptures, such as those defined by Sanskritic Hinduism, or in an alternative 'lower level' popular Hinduism of the uncultivated masses. The unity is to be found rather in the continuities that can be traced vin the concrete media of song, dance, play, sculpture, painting, religious story and rite that connect the rituals and beliefs of the villager with those of the townsman and urbanite, one region with another, and the educated with the uneducated.'

Sandhya Jain has produced an outstanding book on the roots of Hindu civilization and the binding unity of Hindu culture, founded on janajaati itihaas. Seeing her bold, original and patriotic work, I am reminded of the following lines of Mark Twain:

'My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing . . . to watch over . . . Institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing and clothing can wear out or become ragged . . . To be loyal to rags, that is the loyalty of un-reason. It is pure animal. The citizen who thinks he sees that his country's political clothes are worn out, and yet, holds his peace, and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway.'

Sandhya Jain truly belongs to this class of firebrand agitators.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com