BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------Uttishthata Jagrata <uttishthataNov 17, 2005 12:06 AM

[uttishthata] BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century

 

As BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century...

- S. Gurumurthy

 

 

''Do not believe such silly things as there was a race of mankind in South India called Dravidians differing widely from another race in northern India called the Aryans. This is entirely unfounded

..'' This is not from a saffron scholar of the 21st century. But Swami Vivekananda said it before an audience in the then Madras city as the 19th century was drawing to a close.

Not knowing where the bright Aryans came from, ''of late, there was an attempt made to prove,'' he laughed and said: ''Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes.'' Yet the theory trotted out by F.Max Mueller in 1848 tracing the history of Hinduism to the invasion of indigenous people by Aryans around 1500 BC has obsessed India since then.

It is now well known that the scholarly work of Max Mueller, once considered independent, was bought by the East India Company, and was thus a colonial view. Even as Swami Vivekananda dismissed Max Mueller's theory as silly, he lauded Mueller's work on Indian scriptures as next only to that of Sayanacharya

..

Max Mueller's theory dominated the Indian academic and intellectual debate and politics of the 20th century and wrought havoc in the national psyche since then. It divided and disturbed the national mind; even threatened to sever southern India from the rest. Any dissent towards this view is even now castigated and isolated, as a sort of intellectual terrorism holds sway. But sustained and strenuous work by dedicated scholars has decimated this silly theory over the last hundred years.

 

Yet, billions of pages of instruction in schools and colleges have, since Max Mueller expounded this view, enduringly poisoned and damaged the Indian psyche

.. And here comes a confession from a source linked to the very perpetrators of this intellectual crime, the ex-colonisers, that the theory, which Swami Vivekananda dismissed as silly, seems silly after all!

 

Weeks back the BBC website came out with the startling disclosure that ''there is now ample evidence to show that Max Mueller and those who followed him were wrong.''

Answering ''why the theory is no longer accepted,'' the BBC says that ''the Aryan invasion theory was based on archaeological, linguistic and ethnological evidence' and ''later research has either discredited this evidence or provided new evidence that combined with the earlier evidence makes other explanations likely.''

 

More important, the BBC admits that ''modern historians of the area no longer believe that such invasions had such great influence on Indian history.''

Even more important, it says that ''it is generally accepted that the Indian history shows a continuity of progress from the earliest times to today.'' More, ''the changes brought to India by other cultures'' are no longer thought to be a major ingredient of the development of Hinduism.

 

The confession is an honest one. For the BBC does not only agree with Swami Vivekananda, it also points to the 'dangers' of the theory.

It says that the theory ''denies the Indian origin of India's predominant culture''; ''gives credit for the Indian culture to the invaders from elsewhere.'' It ''teaches that the most revered Hindu scriptures are not actually Indian'' and ''devalues India's culture by portraying it as less ancient than it actually is.''

It goes further and says that the 'theory was not just wrong', but 'included unacceptably racist ideas.' It suggested or asserted that Indian culture was not a culture in its own right but a synthesis of elements from other cultures; that Hinduism was not authentically Indian in origin, but the result of cultural imperialism; that Indian culture was static and only changed under outside influence; that the Dravidians were a nobody and got their faith from the Aryan invaders; that the indigenous people could acquire new ideas only from invaders or other races; that race was a biological, not a social, concept and thus rationalised ranking people in a hierarchy and the caste system; that the north Indian people descended from invaders from Europe, and so socially were closer to the British, thus rationalising colonialist presence; that the British were reforming India like the Aryans did thousands of years ago, thus justifying the role and the status of the Raj. Finally it says, ''it downgraded the intellectual status of India and its people by giving falsely a later date to the elements of Indian science and culture.'' Believe it?

 

This confession of wrong done to India and high praise for India's endogamous antiquity from an unlikely source approves of not just what Swami Vivekananda said over a century ago, but validates the 'saffron' view. This endangers the 'secular' scholarship whose bread and butter is now under threat. How will they continue to assert that India is more a khichadi than a continuity of undated antiquity?

 

How will they go on asserting that there is nothing Indian about India; that there was never anything called India at all; that there is today an India courtesy the invaders – the Aryans, Turks, Moghuls or the British; that thanks to the British we are a nation....

 

Yes, the secular scholarship is in deep trouble. But they have a solid reason to feel assured that it will take decades for this truth to overcome the billions of pages of falsehood printed and circulated so far. For the grains of truth to emerge from this mountain of falsehood will take a life's time.

 

(Courtesy: The New Indian Express; October 29, 2005)

[Guest guest]

Dear Gurumurthyji,

 

Namaste,

 

First of all thank you for an interesting info. I

want one favour from you. Can you send me an url of

this article. I am trying to circulate to as many

persons as possible and some people are asking for

url.

 

HARI OM TAT SAT,

 

Yours in Sri Ramakrishna,

 

Br. Vinayaka.

 

--- narendra sastry <narendra.sastry wrote:

 

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------

> Uttishthata Jagrata <uttishthata

> Nov 17, 2005 12:06 AM

> [uttishthata] BBC proves Vivekananda right

> after a century

> As BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century...

> - S. Gurumurthy

>

 

 

 

 

 

FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.

http://farechase.

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

Here is the link that you had requested for...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history5.shtml

 

Btw, is Gurumurthyji a part of this forum?

Vasanth.

On 11/18/05, br_vinayaka <vinayaka_ns wrote:

[Guest guest]

BBC article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history5.shtm

l

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/index.shtml

 

Gurumurthy's article

 

http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayheadlines.asp?page=c

 

(This appeared on the 'Columns' section dated 29th Oct 2005)

 

 

If the links do not work, please copy the entire line of each link

and 'paste' it in the internet explorer address window.

 

Regards

Ramasamy

 

Ramakrishna , br_vinayaka <vinayaka_ns>

wrote:

>

>

>

> Dear Gurumurthyji,

>

Can you send me an url of this article.

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Gurumurthy,

This is a nice article on Aryan's 'Invasion' theory. But the

BBC's article is yet another so-called acknowledgement of the facts.

Here goes a classic example of the Indian Psyche, the British rulers

and Max Mueller formulated a theory and the Indians absorbed it so

well that it is now part of their believes, politics, statehood's

etc. and now again we are all happy that a foreign news media has

proved us right! why should we depend so much on a somebody's

acknowledgement?

What if tomorrow Time magazine brings a front-page article stating

with 'facts' that Aryans did really invade India?

In my humble opinion these deserve the same reaction as the one that

came from Swami Vivekananda.

 

Sri Ramakrishna Saranam.

 

 

Ramakrishna , narendra sastry

<narendra.sastry@g...> wrote:

>

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------

> Uttishthata Jagrata <uttishthata>

> Nov 17, 2005 12:06 AM

> [uttishthata] BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century

> As BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century...

> - S. Gurumurthy

[Guest guest]

> On 11/18/05, br_vinayaka <vinayaka_ns

> wrote:

 

 

> Btw, is Gurumurthyji a part of this forum?

> Vasanth.

 

Dear Vasant Ji,

 

Namaste,

 

Gurumurthyji is not a part of this form. He was the

author of the article which was published in indian

express on this topic. I mistook him to be a member of

the group.

 

HARI OM TAT SAT

 

Yours in the Lord,

 

Br. Vinayaka

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Namaste Aditya ji

 

Why are we “celebrating”

such a story in the BBC?

 

Maybe the same reason as

to why Swamiji went to the west, I would think…to get the common man’s

attention.

 

Such highlighting is

necessary; not for the enlightened man of Dharma, but for the masses to which

the message has not reached yet, who are still hallucinating and remain enslaved

to the white man’s claimed superiority.

 

It is also a reflection

of a quantum change in the minds of the western thinkers and society as a

whole. They are now recognizing and acknowledging their falsification of

history.

 

And I also wanted to

mention that the Aryan Invasion Theory is now so totally discredited (disputed

as some “Aryans” will want to call it) that no respectable magazine

which does not owe allegiance to the pro-invasion school of thought will

publish anything in support of the theory.

 

With prayers,

Vasanth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ramakrishna [Ramakrishna ] On Behalf Of aditya_raj

Sunday, November 20, 2005

4:55 AM

Ramakrishna

[sri Ramakrishna] Re: BBC

proves Vivekananda right after a century

 

 

Dear Sri Gurumurthy,

This is a nice article on

Aryan's 'Invasion' theory. But the

BBC's article is yet another so-called

acknowledgement of the facts.

Here goes a classic example of the Indian Psyche,

the British rulers

and Max Mueller formulated a theory and the

Indians absorbed it so

well that it is now part of their believes,

politics, statehood's

etc. and now again we are all happy that a foreign

news media has

proved us right! why should we depend so much on a

somebody's

acknowledgement?

What if tomorrow Time magazine brings a front-page

article stating

with 'facts' that Aryans did really invade India?

In my humble opinion these deserve the same

reaction as the one that

came from Swami Vivekananda.

 

Sri Ramakrishna Saranam.

 

 

Ramakrishna , narendra

sastry

<narendra.sastry@g...> wrote:

>

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------

> Uttishthata Jagrata

<uttishthata>

> Nov 17, 2005 12:06 AM

> [uttishthata] BBC proves Vivekananda

right after a century

> As BBC proves Vivekananda right after a

century...

> - S. Gurumurthy