PRINCE OF ISLAM

Dear friends, I have often been accused of being an anti-Muslim, but the fact is that I am a brought-up catholic and that before coming to India, I could not make the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. I guess reporting in Kashmir opened my eyes. Yet I saw in Kashmir what remained of Sufism, before it was snuffed out by the militants.

Great souls, vibuthis, avatars, come and go, but something of their influence & message remains. Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest and preferred son, should have become emperor of India – and then the whole history of Islam – in India and may be in the world – would have changed. But he was beheaded by his brother Aurangzeb, and the more intolerant, violent side of Islam took over. Yet, Muslims in India still have it in them to go back to the Sufi, poetic, mystic, tolerant Islam that Dara had preached and which would usher a UNITED INDIA, where Muslims feel Indians first, while keeping true to their faith.

 

Hence FACT’s latest exhibition, honors this prince of Islam.

We plan to erect a special building for it. As you know, my foundation is always struggling for funds. Thus I appeal to you again to donate generously. FACT is a registered Trust with tax exemption. You can make a donation to: FACT, Account No: 04071450000237, IFCS code: HDFC0000407. We will mail you back your tax exemption certificate. For those of you who wish to donate in Euros, Pounds or Dollars, you can make a direct transfer to: Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism (FACT) Account No: 04071170000016, Swift code:  HDFCINBB

Thanking you

#francoisgautier

http://dara-shikoh.blogspot.in/

SHIVAJI MAHARAJ MUSEUM OF (TRUE) INDIAN HISTORY, PUNE

Dear friends,

As you may know, I was a journalist and a reporter for many years (francoisgautier.com) and I felt that this was not enough. Hence I started writing books about India, such as “A New History of India” (Har Anand, New Delhi). This particular book attempts to rewrite Indian History as it happened – and not as it has been written by western historians & later adopted blindly by Indian historians. There is no doubt, for instance, that the Aryan Invasion theory, which is the foundation stone of all History books on India, western and Indian -never happened. All recent archeological, linguistic and even spatial discoveries, point in that direction. There is no doubt also that the genocide of Hindus at the hands of invaders for 1200 years has been swept under the carpet by historians (for good and bad reasons. Hence I attempted to set the record straight, however politically incorrect its is. 

 But I felt that writing books was not enough. Hence, when I got an award of journalism, I used the funds to start a foundation, FACT (Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism) & mounted an exhibition on the genocide & exodus of Hindus in Kashmir, which I witnessed firsthand, being a reporter for Le Figaro at that time: http://refugees-in-their-own-country.blogspot.in/. We showed this exhibition to the US Congress in Washington in 2008.

 Then I mounted another exhibition on the plight of minorities in Bangladesh, having also been there often:http://portrait-of-covert-genocide.blogspot.in/ 

Later, because in the process of researching for my books, I had seen how much Aurangzeb is portrayed as a stern but just ruler, we got hold of his firmans, which are still preserved in the Bikaner archives, hired a retired professor of history, V.S. Bhatnagar of the Rajasthan university, to translate them, engaged miniature painters in Jaipur and mounted a remarkable exhibition on Aurangzeb, as he was ACCORDING TO HIS OWN RECORDS:http://www.aurangzeb.info/

 And then and then, kept making exhibitions, till we have fifteen today, including one on Sikhism: http://defenders-of-dharma.blogspot.in/ Or one on Hindu genocide, which we called “HINDU TOLERANCE THROUGHOUT THE AGES:http://hindu-tolerance.blogspot.in/

 But this was not enough, I felt. Thus, 2 years ago, I started building a Museum of (TRUE) Indian history on 5 acres of land donated to FACT by HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. We have inaugurated the first phase one year ago. See the film at:http://www.youtube.com/user/FACTindia/feed

We built a small shrine dedicated to Mata Bhavani and Shivaji Maharaj at entrance of Museum (photo) and opened a beautiful permanent exhibition on the great Shivaji Maharaj, whom we elevated as a national Hero for the whole of India and a Vibhuti: http://hero-for-modern-india.blogspot.in/ 

 We then built a hall to put-up permanently our Aurangzeb exhibition. Photos: http://factmuseum.blogspot.in/

We have also built a video room where FACT’s films, such as “Brahmins have become the Dalits of India:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xgc4ljHKM , Or a film on the testimonies of survivors of the terror attacks in Mumbai of 26/11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McjeQAUxz9Y can be screened

 & we have just completed a fourth building, which will house a remarkable exhibition on the genocide of Tibetans at the hands of Chinese, and which the Dalai-lama, whom I know well, for having interviewed him seven times, will inaugurate on 28th July. 

The Museum , whose address is: Ahead of Marathwada Institute. Vadgaon Shinde road. Wadgaon. Pune 4, is OPEN every day from 9am to 6pm and entrance is FREE. Please tell your friends about it. we have daily aarti in the temple in the morning at 9.30am

 This is a noble, but VERY difficult project, for many reasons. One, there is no tradition of private museums in Indian as there is in the West. Two, as soon as you touch at Indian history, it becomes very sensitive and tricky; and three, most philanthropists in India donate to education and health care, but recoil as soon as you mention the subject of Indian History. 

 But this is a Museum for ALL Indians, particularly dedicated to the Knowledge that stands behind Hinduism & which is the foundation of Indian culture and spirituality. My wife is preparing with Dr Kireet Joshi a series of exhibitions on the Vedas, which will be the foundation of our Museum.

 

However I need YOUR help. I am building this Museum on a shoestring budget and bills keep pouring in, while donations are very scant. 

 FACT is a registered Trust with Indian & UK, US tax exemption. If you would like to help, you could make a donation to: FACT, Account No: 04071450000237, IFCS code: HDFC0000407. We will mail you back your tax exemption certificate and we will honor all our donors.

Or you could donate via FACT USA

Please pass this plea on to your friends

Francois & Namrita Gautier/Trustees FACT

Why the Muslim invasions of India ?

Nobody will ever be able to estimate the incredible damage done to Indian culture, civilisation, human population and environment, during the Muslim invasions which spanned nearly ten centuries. But it should be interesting to see why these invasions happened, for no civilisation, if its inner core is strong and dynamic, can be trampled upon so mercilessly, as the Arabs trampled India. What ever happened to that great Vedic culture, which gave birth to so many wonderful dynasties, which in turn devised illustrious democratic systems and whose Kshatriyas were supposed to protect the land of Bharat against barbarian invaders?

Since the beginning of Human History, all civilisations have gone through the same cycle: birth-rise-peak maturity-decline-death. And so many great civilisations are no more but in the memories of our text-books: Mesopotamia; Egypt; Rome; Great Africa; Greece…Yet, because of its extraordinary spirituality, because of the Dharma stored by its great Rishis, India always had the extra impetus to renew itself, to spring forward again, when it seemed she was on the brink of collapsing. It blossomed thus for at least five millenniums, more than any other civilisation before or ever after. Then India started faltering and Alexander was able to invade her sacred soil and later the Arabs raped her beloved land. Why?

Buddhists believe that each nation, like the human soul, packs karma in each of its lives or cycles. Good karma or Bad karma have one unique characteristics: they are like a tiny seed, bearing their fruits ages or cycles later, often giving the impression to the ignorant mind of total injustice done to innocent souls. Thus the individual who seems to suffer unfair circumstances in this life, may be paying for a bad karma done dozens of lives ago. In the same manner, a nation which appears to suffer inexplicable hardships: persecution, earthquakes, great natural catastrophes, dictatorships, may be amending for a karma accomplished centuries ago. The Tibetan people’s plight seems to be a good example of this phenomenon. Here is one of the most harmless, peaceful, adorable culture on earth, spiritualised on top of that, who suffered and is still suffering the worst ignominies at the hands of the Chinese communists, who have eradicated their culture, razed to the ground hundreds of ancient and marvellous temples, killed either directly or indirectly – concentration camps, torture, famine – more than one million of this adorable people! Why? WHY? The Dalai-Lama, himself, one of the last great spiritual figures of this era, admits that it was because of an ancient “black karma”, bad deeds. Was it feudalism? Was it not opening itself to the world for so long? Or misuse of Tantrism? Who knows and who can judge? But it’s a good bet to say that there is probably NO total injustice in this world. Everything springs from a mathematical, ultra-logical system, where one gets the exact reward one deserves, which bears NO moral connotation like in Christianity.

Thus for India, the Muslims invasions and later the European ones, must be the result of a bad karma. But the difference with Tibet, is that India’s soul is so strong, so old, so vibrant, that she has managed so far to survive the terrible Muslims onslaughts and later the more devious British soul-stifling occupation.
There seemed to be two reasons for the decline of Indian civilisation. The foremost is that in India, Spirit failed Matter. At some point, Her yogis started withdrawing more and more in their caves, Her gurus in their ashrams, Her sannyasins in their forests. Thus slowly, a great tamas overtook matter, an immense negligence towards the material, an intense inertia set in, which allowed for the gradual degradation of the physical, a slackening of the down to earth values, an indifference towards the worldly, which in turn permitted successive invasions, from Alexander to the Muslim and finally the European, the rape the land of the Vedas.

The second reason and the one which has been most commonly invoked, including by Muslim apologists -see beginning of this chapter – because is it so obvious, is the fossilisation of the caste system and the gradual take-over of India by an arrogant Brahmin and kshatriya society. What used to be a natural arrangement – a Kshatriya became a warrior to express heroic tendencies in him developed from countless births on earth- turned-out to be an inherited legacy, which was not merited by chivalrous deeds. A Brahmin who used to deserve his status by his scholarship and piety, and was twice-born in the spiritual sense, just inherited the charge from his father. And the shudras were relegated to a low status, doing the menial chores, when in their heyday, they fulfilled an indispensable role, which granted them recognition from the king himself. Thus Hindu religion lost its immense plasticity, which allowed her to constantly renew herself – and India became ripe for invasions.
And finally, Buddhism and its creed of non-violence, however beautiful and noble, opened India’s gates wide. Buddhists forgot the eternal principle of the Gita: « protecting one’s country from death, rape, mass slaughter, is « dharma »; and the violence you then perform is not only absolved, karma- free, but it also elevates you.
(To be continued)

“HINDI-CHINI BYE-BYE”

Once more, China has outplayed India, this time when a platoon-strength contingent of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) came 10km inside the Indian territory in Burthe in DBO sector, located at an altitude of about 17,000 feet, on the night of April 15 and established a tented post, which is still there.

How is it, that after six decades of bitter experience at the hands of the Chinese, of double talk, betrayal and contempt, – India still gets hoodwinked by the Chinese ?  The External Affairs minister says that this incursion should not be allowed to act as a dampener in relations ahead of Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India next month. Doesn’t Mr Kurshid know that China still occupies one third of Ladhak, which it took during the 62 war, still claims for itself the whole of Arunachal Pradesh and  has not only furnished Pakistan with its missiles (c/o North Korea), but has given them the know-how to manufacture nuclear
weapons ?

How can Mr Kurshid say that China is not a security menace to India ? Doesn’t he know also that according to the CIA, China has transferred one third of its nuclear arsenal to Nagchuka, 250 kms away from Lhassa, a region full of huge caves, which the Chinese have linked together by an intricate underground network and where they have installed nearly one hundred Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, many of them pointed at Indian cities ? The reason for this is that the Chinese, who are probably among the most intelligent people in the world, have always understood that India is their number one economic, military and nuclear competitor in Asia (remember how China blocks India’s accession to the UN’s Security Council, which France supports). Does not the External Affairs Minister know too that  the Chinese have killed 1,2 million Tibetans, that 6254 monasteries have been razed to the ground, that 60% of religious, historical and cultural archives have been destroyed and that one Tibetan out of ten is still in jail ? Today a quarter million Chinese troops are occupying Tibet and there are 7,5 million Chinese settlers for six million Tibetans – in fact, in many places such as the capital, Lhassa, Tibetans are outnumbered two to one…

To understand this Indian obsession for hindi-chini bhai bhai, this crave for appeasing China, whatever the cost, one has to go back to Nehru, who had decided that India and China were the natural ‘socialist’ brothers of Asia. Nehru should have had second thoughts when China showed its true face in Tibet – but he chose to ignore the warning. It is now widely known that shortly after Independence, the Indian Army Chief of Staff had drafted the first paper on the threats to India’s security by China, along with recommendations for a clear defence policy. But when Nehru read the paper, he said : “Rubbish. Total Rubbish. We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. Scrap the Army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs.” We know the results of that remark : when the Chinese invaded India in 1962, the Indian army, thanks to Nehru’s blindness and appeasement policy, was totally unprepared and was so badly routed, that the psychological scars even show today.

But  the biggest blunder that Nehru did was to betray Tibet, a peaceful spiritualized nation. For Tibet had always been a natural buffer between the two Giants of Asia (in fact, the Dalai Lama‘s repeated offer that Tibet becomes a denuclearized, demilitarised zone between India and China, makes total sense today and Indian leaders should have immediately adopted it). But unfortunately, if there is one thing which all political parties in India share, it is the policy of appeasing China in exchange for a non-interference of the Chinese in Kashmir. But what non-interference ? Not only, the Chinese delver separate visas for Kashmris, as if Kashmir was already a free country, but not only China gave Pakistan many of the weapons that it is using – or will be using against India in the future – but it also may be quite possible that Beijing knew in advance of Pakistan’s Kargil plan (in fact Pakistan’s army Chief was in the Chinese capital at the beginning of hostilities). What Mr Kurshid does not understand is that it is not China that has to appeased to contain Pakistan; but rather, ultimately, it should be Pakistan that has to be appeased (in the true sense of the term = making peace with) to contain China. Because everything – bar religion – unites India and Pakistan : customs, languages, culture, ethnic stock, history… Whereas India and China have very little in common, except Nehru’s elusive dream of a socialist brotherhood.

It should also be clear that as long as India does not stand-up up to its responsibility towards Tibet and continues to recognise China’s unjust suzerainty of it, there will be no peace in Asia. For China needs space and we have to wake-up to the fact that it has hegemonic aspirations : it got Tibet, it got Hong Kong, it got part of Ladhak; now it wants Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, the Spratly islands and what not ! Fifty years ago, during the Korean war India’s great Sage, Sri Aurobindo, had seen clearly in the Chinese game: “the first move in the Chinese Communist plan of campaign is to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent in passing Tibet as a gate opening to India”.

India should also understand that contrary to Indian political leaders, who keep making statements and not acting upon them, China keeps silent, but it ACTS  – and then denies having acted with a straight face (like it denies making cyber attacks on the US). In fact, India should take a lesson or two from the Chinese communist leadership, which first decides upon a clear, one track policy (we will keep Tibet, by all means) – and follows it, regardless of what the world says ! It does not care about a goody-goody image, like India does all the time, whether Congress or BJP governments…The story of the Panchen lama is a perfect example of that : Beijing decided that one of the ways of getting rid of the Dalai lama was to provide an alternate source of spiritual leadership to the Tibetans – hence the choice of another Panchen lama, overriding the one chosen by the Dalai lama. Now after years of indoctrination in Beijing, the counterfeit Panchen lama has surfaced in Tibet – and its very presence there is further jeopardising the possibility of a free Tibet.

One should be realistic and learn from Swami Rama Thirtha, a great sage of the beginning of the century :”The policy of appeasement is never successful. It increases the demands of the bully and encourages his unreasonableness. He will never listen to you. On the contrary, he will further insult you, by heaping imaginary allegations on you and finding baseless aberrations”.

100 years later, India has still not learnt that lesson : the need of the day is not “hindi-chini bhai-bhai”, but “hindi-chini bye-bye”.

#FRANCOISGAUTIER

The Greatest literature ?

Mr Basham feels that “much of Sanskrit literature is dry and monotonous, or can only be appreciated after a considerable effort of the imagination” (Wonder that Was India, page 401), which shows a total misunderstanding of the greatness of the genius of that « Mother of all languages ». Sri Aurobindo evidently disagrees with him: “the ancient and classical literature of the Sanskrit tongue shows both in quality and in body an abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech, and in the heightened width of the reach of their spirit which stands very evidently in the front rank among the world’s great literatures.” (Foundations of Indian Culture p. 255)

Four masterpieces seem to embody India’s genius in literature: the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata. As seen earlier, the Vedas represent “a creation of an early and intuitive and symbolic mentality” (Foundations of Indian Culture, p.260). It was only because the Vedic rishis were careful to clothe their spiritual experiences in symbols, so that only the initiated would grasp them, that their meaning has escaped us, particularly after they got translated in the last two centuries. “The Veda is the WORD discovering truth and clothing in image and symbol, the mystic significance of life”, wrote again Sri Aurobindo. (India’s Rebirth, p.95)

 As to the Upanishads, asserts the Sage from Pondichery, “they are the supreme work of the Indian mind, that of the highest self-expression of genius, its sublimest poetry, its greatest creation of the thought and word.. a large flood of spiritual revelation…” (Foundations of Indian Culture p.269). The Upanishads are Philosophy, Religion and Poetry blended together. They record high spiritual experiences, are a treaty of intuitive philosophy and show an extraordinary poetic rhythm. It is also a book of ecstasy: an ecstasy of luminous knowledge, of fulfilled experience, « a book to express the wonder and beauty of the rarest spiritual self-vision and the profoundest illumined truth of Self and God and the Universe », writes Sri Aurobindo (Found. of Indian Culture, 269). The problem is that the translations do not render the beauty of the original text, because these masterpieces have been misunderstood by foreign translators, who only strive to bring out the intellectual meaning without grasping the soul contents of it and do not perceive the ecstasy of the seer “seeing” his experiences.

But without doubt, it is the Mahabarata and the Ramayana, which are dearest to all Indians, even today. Both the Mahabarata and the Ramayana are epical, in the spirit as well as the purpose. The Mahabarata is on a vast scale, maybe unsurpassed even today, the epic of the soul and tells a story of the ethics of India of that time, its social, political and cultural life. It is, notes Sri Aurobindo, “the expression of the mind of a nation, it is the poem of itself written by a whole nation… A vast temple unfolding slowly its immense and complex idea from chamber to chamber” (Foundations of Indian Culture, p 287). More than that even, it is the HISTORY OF DHARMA, of deva against asura, the strife between divine and titanic forces. You find on one side, a civilisation founded on Dharma, and on the other, beings who are embodiments of asuric egoism and misuse of Dharma. It is cast in the mould of tales, legends, anecdotes, telling  stories of philosophical, religious, social, spiritual values: « as in Indian architecture, there is the same power to embrace great spaces in a total view and the same tendency to fill them with an abundance of minute, effective, vivid and significant detail ». (Foundations of Indian Culture, p 288).

 The Baghavad Gita must be the supreme work of spiritual revelation in the whole history of our human planet, for it is the most comprehensive, the most revealing, the highest in its intuitive reach. No religious book ever succeeded to say nearly everything that needs to be known on the mysteries of human life: why death, why life, why suffering? why fighting, why duty? Dharma, the supreme law, the duty to one’s soul, the adherence to truth, the faithfulness to the one and only divine reality which pertains all things in matter and spirit. « Such then is the divine Teacher of the Gita, the eternal Avatar, the Divine who has descended into human consciousness, the Lord seated within the heart of all beings, He who guides from behind the veil all our thought and action ». (Sri Aurobindo; Essays on the Gita, page 17)

 The Ramayana’s inner genius does not differ from the Mahabharata’s, except by a greater simplicity of plan, a finer glow of poetry maybe. It seems to have been written by a single hand, as there is no deviation from story to story… But it is, remarks Sri Aurobindo, “like a vastness of vision, an even more winged-flight of epic in the conception and sustained richness of minute execution in the detail (289). For Indians, the Ramayana embodies the highest and most cherished ideals of manhood, beauty, courage, purity, gentleness. The subject is the same as in the Mahabharata: the struggle between the forces of light and darkness; but the setting is more imaginative, supernatural and there is an intensification of the characters in both their goodness and evil. As in the Mahabharata too, we are shown the ideal man with his virtues of courage, selflessness, virtue and spiritualised mind. The asuric forces have a near cosmic dimension of super-human egoism and near divine violence, as the chased angels of the Bible possessed after them. « The poet makes us conscious of the immense forces that are behind our life and sets his action in a magnificent epic scenery, the great imperial city, the mountains and the ocean, the forest and wilderness, described with such largesse as to make us feel that the whole world were the scene of his poem and its subject the whole divine and titanic possibility of man, imagined in a few great or monstrous figures ». (Found of Indian Culture page 290)

 Does India’s literary genius end with the Ramayana? Not at all. It would take too long here  to jot down all the great figures of Indian literature and this is not a literary treatise. But we may mention Kalidasa, whose poetry was imitated by all succeeding generations of poets, who tried to copy the perfect and harmoniously designed model of his poetry. The Puranas and the Tantras, « which contain in themselves, writes Sri Aurobindo, the highest spiritual and philosophical truths, while embodying them in forms that are able to carry something of them to the popular imagination and feeling by way of legend, tale, symbols, miracles and parables » (Found of Indian Culture P.312).  The Vaishnava poetry, which sings the cry of the soul for God, as incarnated by the love stories of Radha and Krishna, which have struck forever Indian popular imagination, because they symbolise the nature in man seeking for the Divine soul through love. Valmiki, also moulded the Indian mind with his depiction of Rama and Sita, another classic of India’s love couples and one that has survived through the myth of enduring worship, in the folklore of this country, along with the popular figures of Hanuman and Laksmanan. “His diction, remarks Sri Aurobindo, is shaped in the manner of the direct intuitive mind as earlier expressed in the Upanishads”.

But Indian literature is not limited to Sanskrit or Pali. In Tamil, Tiruvalluvar, wrote the highest ever gnomic poetry, perfect in its geometry, plan and force of execution. In Hindi, Tulsidas, is a master of lyric intensity and the sublimity of epic imagination. In Marathi, Ramdas, poet, thinker, yogi, deals with the birth and awakening of a whole nation, with all the charm and the strength of a true bhakti. In Bengal, there is Kashiram, who retold in simple manner the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, accompanied by Tulsidas who did the same thing in Hindi and who managed to combine lyric intensity, romantic flight of imagination, while retaining the original sublimity of the story. One cannot end this short retrospective without mentioning Chaitanya, Nanak, Kabir, Mirabai…All these remarkable writers have often baffled the Western mind, which could never understand the greatness of Indian literature, forgetting that in India everything was centered around the spiritual.
(To be continued)

 

But Indian literature is not limited to Sanskrit or Pali. In Tamil, Tiruvalluvar, wrote  the highest ever gnomic poetry, perfect in its geometry, plan and force of execution. In Hindi, Tulsidas, is a master of lyric intensity and the sublimity of epic imagination. In Marathi,  Ramdas, poet, thinker, yogi, deals with the birth and awakening of a whole nation, with all the charm and the strength of a true bhakti. In Bengal, there is Kashiram, who retold in simple manner the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, accompanied by Tulsidas who did the same thing in Hindi and who managed to combine lyric intensity, romantic flight of imagination, while retaining the original sublimity of the story. One cannot end this short retrospective without mentioning Chaitanya, Nanak, Kabir, Mirabai…All these remarkable writers have often baffled the Western mind, which could never understand the greatness of Indian literature, forgetting that in India everything was centered around the spiritual.

THE WONDER THAT “WAS” INDIA

Like A.L. Basham, the author of the classic “The Wonder that was India”, most Europeans have often seen at best in India an exalted civilisation of « religious » and artistic achievements. But India’s greatness encompassed ALL aspects of life, from the highest to the most material, from the most mundane to the supremely spiritualised. As Sri Aurobindo emphasises: “The tendency of the West is to live from below upward and from out inward… The inner existence is thus formed and governed by external powers. India’s constant aim has been on the contrary, to find a basis of living in the higher spiritual truth and to live from the inner spirit outwards“. (India’s Rebirth, 109) The old Vedic seers said the same thing in a different form: “their divine foundation was above even while they stood below. Let its rays be settled deep within us.”

 The foundations of the Indian society were thus unique, because all the aspects of life were turned towards the spiritual. The original social system was divided in four “varnas”, or four castes, which corresponded to each one’s inner capacities. In turn the life of a man was separated in four ashramas. That of the student, the householder, the recluse and the yogi. The elders taught the student that “the true aim of life is to find your soul”. The teaching was always on the guru-chelas principle, and the teacher being considered as a representative of God, he got profound respect and obedience from his pupils. Everything was taught to the students: art, literature, polity, the science of war, the development of the body -all this far away from the cities, in an environment of nature, conducive to inner growth, which was ecological, long before it became imperative and fashionable.

 Indian society of that time was neither dry nor ascetic: it satisfied the urges, desires and needs of its ordinary people, particularly of the husband and wife -the beauty and comfort of Mohenjo-Daro is testimony to that fact. It taught them that perfection could be attained in all spheres of life, even in the art of physical love, where Indians excelled, as vouched so powerfully and artistically by Khajurao and the Kama-sutra. And when man had satisfied his external being, when he had paid his debt to society and grown into wisdom, it was time to discover the spirit and roam the width and breadth of India, which at that period was covered by forests. In time he would become a yogi, young disciples would gather around him and he would begin imparting all the knowledge, worldly and inner, gathered in a lifetime -and the cycle would thus start again. That the great majority did not go beyond the first two stages is no matter; this is the very reason why Indian society provided the system of castes, so that each one fitted in the mould his inner development warranted.

“It is on this firm and noble basis that Indian civilisation grew to maturity and became rich and splendid and unique, writes Sri Aurobindo. It lived with a noble, ample and vigorous order and freedom; it developed a great literature, sciences, arts, crafts, industries; it rose to the highest possible ideals of knowledge and culture, of arduous greatness and heroism, of kindness, philanthropy and human sympathy and oneness. It laid the inspired basis of wonderful spiritual philosophies; it examined the secret of external nature and discovered and lived the boundless and miraculous truths of the inner being; it fathomed self and understood and possessed the world”… (Foundations of Indian Culture, p.116-117) How far we are from A.L. Basham’s vision of a militant Hinduism and evil Aryans, however brilliant the social and artistic civilisation he describes! For not only did the Hindus (not the Indians, but the Hindus), demonstrate their greatness in all fields of life, social, artistic, spiritual, but they had also developed a wonderful political system.

(To be continued)

THE INFLUENCE OF INDU INDIA ON THE WESTERN WORLD

It was always thought that India was a melting pot of different influences coming from the West, either by trade or through invasions, and that she owes many of her achievements – her sciences, philosophy, or religion – to outside influences, whether it is by the way of the Aryan invasions for the Vedas, or via the Greek incursions, which are supposed to have influenced her architecture and philosophies. But more and more discoveries, both archeological and linguistic, are pointing to exactly the opposite direction: In the millenniums before Christ, it is Indian civilization which went gradually westwards (we shall not speak of its march eastwards, as there is hardly any controversy about it) and influenced the religions, the sciences and the philosophies of many of the civilizations which are considered today by the West as the cradle of its culture and thought.

The influence of the Hindus on Egypt, the Greeks and Palestine

American mathematician A. Seindenberg has demonstrated that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic mathematics, have inspired all the mathematic sciences of the antique world from Babylonia to Egypt and Greece. “Arithmetic equations from the Sulbatras were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians and the theory of contraries and of inexactitude in arithmetic methods, discovered by Hindus, inspired Pythagorean mathematics”, writes Seindenberg. In astronomy too, Indus were precursors: XVIIth century French astronomer Jean-Claude Bailly had already noticed that “the Hindu astronomic systems were much more ancient than those of the Greeks or even the Egyptians and the movement of stars which was calculated by the Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ from those used today by even one minute”. American Vedic specialist David Frawley has also demonstrated that the methods utilized in the building of Egyptian pyramids were also borrowed from the Hindus. “The funeral altars, for instance, he writes, which are also in the shape of pyramids, were known in the Vedic world under the name of smasana-cit”.

What about philosophy ? Hindu Shivaism seems to have had a tremendous influence in the indo-Mediterranean world and reincarnated itself under different names, at different places, during Antiquity. French historian Alain Danielou noted as early as 1947 that “the Egyptian myth of Osiris seemed directly inspired from a Shivaïte story of the Puranas and that at any rate, Egyptians of those times considered that Osiris had originally come from India mounted on a bull (nandi), the traditional transport of Shiva”. But it is mainly Greece that was most influenced by the myth of Shiva: many historians have noted that the cult of Dionysus (later known as Bacchus in the Roman world), definitely looks like an offshoot of Shivaism. Danielou thus remarks that “the Greeks were always speaking of India as the sacred territory of Dionysus and historians working under Alexander the Great clearly mention chronicles of the Puranas as sources of the myth of Dionysus”.

There is also no doubt that the impact of the Vedas and subsequent Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedanta and Upanishads, was tremendous on the different philosophical sects which flourished at different times in Greece, such as the eleatic, orphic, platonician, stoic, gnostic or neoplatonician movements. We know that the Greek Demetrios Galianos had translated the Bhagavad-Gita and French philosopher and historian Roger-Pol Droit writes in his classic “L’oubli de l’Inde” (India forgotten) “that there is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that the Greeks knew all about Indian philosophy”. Alain Danielou quotes Clement of Alexandria who admitted that “we the Greeks have stolen to the Barbarians their philosophy”. And even William Jones, the XVIIIth century linguist of British India, noted  that “the analogies between Greek Pythagorean philosophy and the Sankhya school, are very obvious”. German philosopher Shroeder had also remarked in his book “Pythagoras und die Inder” that nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India, particularly the Sankhya school.

It also seems very clear that Hinduism played an immense role in the making of Christianity, particularly the writings of the Gospel. Alain Danielou point outs that “quite a few events surrounding the birth of Christ as they are related in the Gospels, are strangely similar to Buddhist and Krishnaite legends”. And it is true that the resemblances existing between Buddhism and Christianity cannot be simple coincidences. Buddhism was flourishing in northern and north-east India during the times of Christ and there are many legends that he came to India to be enlightened (and supposedly died in Srinagar). Even if we discount these stories, there is no doubt that many Buddhist and Hindu teachers traveled to Palestine in the beginning of our era. Alain Danielou thus notes that the structure of the Christian church resembles that of the Buddhist Chaitya, that the rigorous asceticism of certain early Christian sects reminds one of jaïna practices, that the veneration of relics, or the usage of rosaries are all Hindu customs”. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living, which is practiced in more than eighty countries, also remarks that Jesus sometimes wore an orange robe, the Hindu symbol of renunciation in the world, which was not a usual practice in Judaism. “In the same way, he continues, the worshipping of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism is probably borrowed from the Hindu cult of Devi”. Bells too, which cannot be found today in synagogues, the temples of Judaism, are used in churches and we all know their importance in Buddhism and Hinduism for thousands of years. There are many other similarities between Hinduism and Christianity : incense, sacred bread (Prasadam), the different altars around churches (which recall the manifold deities in their niches inside Hindu temples); reciting the rosary (japamala), the Christian Trinity (the ancient Sanatana Dharma: Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh), Christian processions, the sign of the cross (Anganyasa) etc…
This Buddhist and Hindu influences started worrying later Christians: Saint Hyppolitus is know to have treated Brahmans of “heretics” and later, Saint Gregory even destroyed himself some of the pagan Gods of a colony of Hindus who had settled on the river Tigris.
(To be continued)