Macaulayan mythology denies Bhārat through a false Aryan Invasion Theory and a false Aryan-Dravidian “racial” divide[10]; through false distinctions of “religion”[11]; a false history of caste and tribe[12]; a false claim of foreigners as our civilizers, saviours and educators[13]; and a  grotesquely false interpretation of secularism[14].

Jayasree’s research is an attempt to set the record straight…Below, excerpts from Fish signs of IVC resemble Vaastu and Jalanaadi signs of astrology:

…The entire IVC presents a different picture when seen through the eye of an Indian. The structures remind one of the Vaastu principles of construction.

First take a look at the sites excavated. They show perfect town planning and architecture.

The drainage system in accordance with the slopes is the primary issue decided in town planning and house construction even today as per Vaastu principles. The square and rectangular shaped houses are first-rate Vaastu compliant ones. This immediately reminds me of the Graama Vaastu (of townships) and the graha Vaastu (of houses) principles.

The circular structures found in the excavations are supposed to be platforms for drying crops according to the researchers. But from Vaastu point of view, circular shapes known as Vrittakaara is ideal for education. Until recently education was imparted under tree shades in our country. A circular platform was constructed around or under a big and shady tree or a banyan tree where discussions and teachings were done.

According to Vaastu texts circular platforms were also meant for commanders. The local panchayats would be held in circular platforms under the shade of a tree. The circular plots and circular constructions were also suitable for temples, educational institutions and marriage halls. Houses in circular shapes were constructed in the extension of the villages while the houses in the villages used to be square or rectangular shaped ones. The pictures available on the internet on Harappan excavations show a similarity to Vaastu guidelines.

Vaastu is a not a new concept to India. It is an Upaveda of Atharvan veda. If we say that Vedas are the oldest texts, it also means that the Vaastu-upavada was as old as Vedas. Think of a habitation, construction or architecture, there can no other guide than Vaastu sastra in this country. The architectural methods are a continuing tradition in this country, devised by two noted schools of Vaastu – of Vishwakarma and Maya. No one knows their origins. The presently available books attributed to them, Vishwakarma Prakaashika and Mayamata, are revised editions done from time to time.
The very first job of the researchers on the Harappan excavations must have been to check whether the 3-way architecture of Vaastu of this country was found in the excavations. The 3 way are about the basis of measurements (angula pramana) used for

(1) houses, buildings, mansions, palaces, temples, townships, villages, roads etc

(2) water bodies such as wells, tanks, drainages, ponds etc and

(3) figurines, idols, dolls furniture etc.

There are a number of finer calculations of determining the ‘aya’ and the pada vaastu which can be applied in the excavated sites to know whether they comply with the rules of vaastu.

Researches done by the IIT Professor R. Balasubramanian established that the measurement scale continues to be the same in this country from Harappan times till today. He did the research in the Harappan structures and also in the Iron Pillar (the Vijay Sthupi of Chandragupta Vikramadhitya dated at 912 BCE) and the Taj mahal. He found out that the measurement and the engineering tradition had been the same in all these. Earlier posts on this topic can be read here :-

Continuing civilization from Harappa to Iron pillar and Taj Mahal was built with ancient Indian engineering

This structural similarity must have formed the backdrop of any further research in the Indus Valley. Instead of going in these lines, the researchers had proceeded from a hypothetical notion of Dravidian pre-presence and a subsequent Aryan invasion and gone to establish the same by trying to fit the words from Tamil texts to derive a connection between the words and the Indus symbols. I may sound rude by this comment, but I can not help it because as a Tamilian I don’t find any connection to the words, particularly the Tamil word for Fish (meen) with the fish symbols that form nearly half of the depictions.

…It must be remembered that the so-called Indus civilization is detected all along the river Saraswathy. From scientific images it is known that this river had sunk in the sands. The civilization weaned off due to scarcity of water. During the period that the people existed in the banks of sunken Saraswathy, they must have managed by identifying more places of water sources on the basis of natural factors given above. One can not ignore the Vaastu concepts fitting with the architecture of the sites.

In this back drop, connecting it to Tamil’s culture is something far fetched. Any interpretation of Tamil’s past can not be done independently of the textual information on Tamil’s past. We will see the textual information in the upcoming posts.

Given below are 2 articles on what Dr Parpola has said on Dravidian connection. In the first write-up it is shown that he has agreed that his interpretation is not final. Mr Karunanidhi has misused his research for political ends.

The 2^nd article is about Mr Parpola’s admission that the habitants of IVC might have moved towards the South much before the “Aryans arrived”.

At a time when the Aryan Invasion theory is finding a natural death, this opinion from him by disconnecting Dravidian problem from the Aryans is welcome. Before embarking on when “Aryans arrived”, it is better to take a look at what underwater archeology says on civilization that existed around Gujarat 9,500 years ago. (click this link to read http://www.hermetics.org/cambay.html

*** End of Excerpts ***

Related Posts: Revising the “Aryan Invasion of India” Theory,  W’end Links: Saraswati, a 27-year war & spin doctors (outlining some of the links between Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation and the Vedic texts and references) and The Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilisation – More Distortions, More Un-Tru

…My question: what was newly created on 15August 1947? A new ‘State’ or a new ‘Nation’?…So, then, what is a ‘nation’?

I quote French thinker Ernest Renan: ‘It is not soil any more than the race which makes a nation…A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which are really only one go to make this principle. One of these things lies in the past, the other in the present. The one is the possession in common of a rich heritage of memories, the other is actual agreement; the desire to live together, and the will to continue to make the most of the joint inheritance. Man cannot be improvised. The Nation, like the individual, is the fruit of a long past, spent in toil, sacrifice and devotion.’ (Ernest Renan: What Is a Nation, quoted in Modern Political Thought by William Ebenstein.)

In short, a nation is not a system. People are the nation. What sort of people constitute a nation? There are three major requirements. One is their sentiment about the country in which they live, the country that has been the substratum for their struggle and labour. Any piece of land is simple matter, and therefore inert; it becomes a living entity when it becomes a motherland, as adorable and sacred as one’s birth-giving mother. And, therefore, revered Bankimchandra can say ‘Vande Mataram’, which inspired the millions who fought for our Independence. True, it is a notion, but it is a valued notion, required to hold together people of different hues, perceptions, faiths and persuasions.

The second condition is a shared history. Is it a drawback that it is a millennium old? And the third is a shared value system, i.e., culture. The third requirement is the most important of all the three. We adopted a value system that appreciates plurality, tolerates differences of opinion, and values different modes of worship. These are our national values and they are enshrined in our Constitution.

Ram is one such historical personality that embodied these values. I said people are the Nation. Who are the people who fulfill these three conditions? They are Hindus; therefore, this is a Hindu nation. It has nothing to do with whether you are an idol-worshipper or not, whether you believe in the ultimate authority of the Vedas or not, whether you put a mark on your forehead or not. In pre-Independence India, the word Hindu had no notoriety attached to it.

Look at the writings of Vivekananda or Mahatma Gandhi. A nationalist paper, started 125 years ago, was named The Hindu. Hindustan was a common name for our country. It is post-Independence vote-bank politics that has showered abuses on ‘Hindu’. Let us be proud of our nation, our value-system, our name Hindu, whose cultural heritage was instrumental in determining the character of our Constitution.

As many of you would know,  Sh M G Vaidya is a leading RSS ideologue and its former spokerperson. Comments, thoughts and counter-points welcome, as always.

P.S. Interestingly, Andrew C McCarthy, writing in a very different context, makes a very similar point:

A nation is a big, bumptious thing. It needn’t agree on everything. It can even bitterly disagree on major things. But to be a nation, a People, it has to agree that it has a shared destiny: that its unique culture, core principles, and independence are worth preserving, protecting, and defending.

From “Ayodhya – Deciding Battle for the Hindu Nation“:

Nations, nation-states, religions and civilizations in their entirety have been irretrievably wiped off the face of the earth by Islam and the Church; while there is no vestige of pre-Islamic and pre-Christian religions in Rome, Greece, America and Africa, the Hindu nation, even after the combined onslaught of Islam, the Church and Nehruvian secularism, has emerged with its civilization, religion and culture intact.

…one Indian court while acknowledging that the Ramjanmabhumi belongs to Hindus, however delivered a fork-tongued judgment on September 30, 2010. Even as they allowed the Janmabhumi to be returned to the Hindus, two of the three judges, one Muslim and one Hindu handed over one-third of ownership rights to Muslims, sure proof of the persistent floundering Hindu consciousness, palpable fear of standing up to Muslim violence and our propensity to grandstand to the international community, our commitment to secularism.

The territory of Ayodhya, land of the Ikshvakus and far older than Srirama, was not for the judges of Allahabad High Court to divide and distribute; juxtaposed against Hindu right to the Janmabhumi in Ayodhya, the Muslim claim to the site of ‘Babur’s mosque’ is bizarre to be polite.Just as surreal and untenable would be Christian claims to Al Aqsa, Muslim claims to Bethlehem and Jewish claims to the kabah in Mecca. Our lawyers, judges and politicians who play God as a matter of right with the destiny of the Hindu nation, must travel to Rome, Greece and Egypt for a better understanding of their own responsibility to preserve the timeless Hindu religion and civilization on its territory.

At the heart of Athens stands the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This majestic temple, which was repeatedly razed to the ground in numerous wars, was ordered to be rebuilt by Antiochos IV, the king of Syria in 2nd century BC. However, Antiochos died soon thereafter and the temple was completed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 131 AD. Of the 104 columns which adorned the temple, each one standing loftily at 17 meters, only 16 remain as ruins of an ancient religion and civilization, now forever dead.

The Temple of Poseidon, the god of the seas, standing on a promontory in Sounion, the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, has fared no better. …Of the 42 magnificent marble columns in the temple, only 18 remain today. It is the same wretched story across Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens and Delphi. Temples to Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Saturn, Mars, Mercury and Venus, all made of Parian and Pentelic marble, have been reduced to rubble, to broken stones, desolate pillars and lonely columns, disfigured deities and empty prayer halls, all standing accusingly under the open sky. Of the once all-powerful Delphi Oracle, there is no sign.

The Propylaea, Parthenon, the Erectheion on the Acropolis, temples to Athena Nike and Apollo in Athens and Delphi, the Roman Forum, Caesar’s grave and the Roman Pantheon with its temples to several gods and goddesses, have been destroyed, plundered, looted, mutilated not only by Persians, Goths, Visigoths and Vandals but also by early Christians, medieval and post-medieval Popes and by Turkish Islamic hordes; and of course the accursed Lord Elgin. Now we know the etymology for ‘vandalism’.

…All of this has a bearing on the judgment on Ramjanmabhumi and its significance for this nation. The passionate desire of the people of Rome and Greece to preserve the wretched ruins, their relentless battle to reclaim the priceless items of their pre-Christian heritage now housed in museums outside their countries…is rooted in the primordial need of man and nations to root their self-identities in an illustrious past, to root national self-identity to an ancient civilization

…The Greeks and Romans today are seeking to live in a past they have rendered illegitimate and soulless. The tragedy of the people of Rome and Greece is that they want to re-connect with the same gods whom they and the religion to which they owe allegiance today, have damned as ‘pagan’ and unfit for worship. They want the body without the soul…The Romans and Greeks want their past in disconnected pieces.

Image courtesy: Vivek Joshi, via Wikimedia

The lesson that our lawyers, judges and politicians need to learn from the tragedy of Rome, Greece and Egypt is that while pre-Islamic and pre-Christian kings destroyed the temples of their enemies in wars, the same temples would be re-built again and again and yet again and the gods re-installed for worship. But that which Islam and Christianity have destroyed over 2000 years has not been rebuilt and revived. The destruction is final and the past irretrievable. And that is why reclaiming Ayodhya is an important battle in the war of the Hindu nation. Reclaiming, not just the Ramjanmabhumi but Ayodhya, will signal the beginning of the Hindu nation’s war to correct gross injustices perpetrated in the name of the Abrahamic religions.

I welcome a debate and discussion on this…As always, please keep your tone civil, your language polite…no sweeping generalisations please and no personal abuse.  Thank you.

Related Posts: Revisiting Ram Janmabhoomi – Part III and extracts from Radha Rajan’s “Eclipse of the Hindu Nation“: Introduction and excerpts from Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 6

Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult, indeed, in some places impossible, to provide instruction for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly fourteen hundred boys are learning English.

The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious.

No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as matter of policy;but many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity.

It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence.

And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise; without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect.

Image Courtesy: Wikimedia.org

From a letter written by T B Macaulay to his father in October 1836. Source:  The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay

Somewhat Related Posts: Clearing the dust off Macaulay’s “famous quote”

The idea of India and  Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj”

This thread was triggered by a startling report in the Daily Mail published on Sunday. Titled “Britain goes halal…“, it mentioned how famous British institutions were regularly serving Halal meat without informing patrons, customers or the general public. Excerpts:

A Mail on Sunday investigation – which will alarm anyone concerned about animal cruelty – has revealed that schools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public.

All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos’, is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them.

Even Britain’s biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.
…
Animal welfare campaigners have long called for a ban on the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat – which involves killing animals by drawing a knife across their throats, without stunning them first – saying it is cruel and causes unnecessary pain.

Sharia law expressly forbids knocking the animal out with a bolt gun, as is usual in British slaughter­houses. Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited.

Even more surprising than the fact of serving Halal was the lame excuse offered by some.

A spokesman for Twickenham, which sells only halal chicken despite not advertising the fact, insisted that the lack of transparency ‘had never been an issue’ and said: ‘Our consideration is more for those who want halal, to ensure they get it.’

Other institutions secretly serving up meat that is halal…include Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and one of London’s ­biggest NHS Trusts, Guy’s and St ­Thomas’.

…Whitbread, which also owns Table Table restaurants, Costa Coffee shops and Premier Inn hotels, admitted last night that 80 per cent of the chicken it served comes from halal poultry ­suppliers…

A Whitbread spokesman said: ‘…It just turns out that we source that amount of chicken from suppliers that happen to be halal..It is not mentioned on any of our menus because we don’t think there is customer demand for that information.’

Ascot racecourse said it was easier to store and cook only one type of meat. ‘All our chicken is halal. This is not advertised as the menus are kept as simple as possible,’ said a spokesman.

Just in case, you thought that Halal was simply a ritual recitation of a verse while the animal is being killed,

…In 2003, (UK) Government advisory body the Farm Animal Welfare Council published a report declaring that the halal method of killing ‘would inevit­ably trigger a barrage of sensory information to the brain in a sensible (conscious) animal’.

Experts who contributed to the report concluded that ‘such a massive injury would result in very significant pain and distress in the period before insensibility supervenes’.

But wait, there is more...Last week I was alerted to another stunning news-item that mentioned plans by Harrow Council (home to the well known private, boarding school of the same name) in London to provide halal-only meat to primary schools under its jurisdication.  As ever, the reason offered was disingenuous:

A statement put out by the authority on Friday, August 6, insisted: “The use of halal meat is common practice across London in many schools, public organisations and indeed restaurants, because of the need to provide segregated meat preparation.

“However, there is a choice of menu every day and frequently there is a fish, as well as a vegetarian choice.”

By the way, Harrow Council is not alone although Muslims reportedly constitute just 7% of the population of Harrow.

Image: Screenshot of Halal Monitoring Committee (UK) website

Separately, I don’t know how many of you have noticed that the Kaati Zone kiosk just outside Bengaluru international airport only serves Halal meat (- or at least used to serve until early this year; to be fair, it was mentioned clearly on the menu board). Personally, I have long been choosing “Hindu meals” on my travels (it is an option when you book a flight) and where the source is not clear (or I am uncertain), I stick to vegetarian. I now wonder whether the practice of stealth Halal is more widespread than I thought before. I would welcome readers thoughts, comments and experiences regarding this.

P.S. As for stealth Islamization in India, I would simply reproduce the comment left by Indian (#41) on this thread (Thanks Indian):

More than 100 Hindu girl students of Stree Adhyapan Mandir, Opposite Gandhi Ashram, offered namaz on September 9 after a day long roza. However, the girls were denied permission for celebrating Ganesh ustav. The girls aged between 16 and 17 are students of Primary Teacher Course (PTC) and were living at Somnath Girls Hostel of the institute. All girls were invited for the namaz, but many refused to join them.

Though the girls were not used to Muslim religious practice, one of students Swati Patel claimed that she had learned how to offer namaz from her Muslim teacher and the clerk Anees. The girls of the institute wanted to celebrate Ganesh Utsav. But, principal outrightly denied them the permission saying that it was a waste of time and the girls may lose focus on their studies. [link; also here ]

Somewhat Related: The Increasing Talibanization of South India

Bonus Link: Ritually slaughtered meat? Not on my damn plate!