Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

Budaya2 PRA-Islam, apa, siapa dan betulkah jahiliyah ? Bgm pengaruh budaya2 purba itu pada Islam ?
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Jarum_Kudus
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Re: Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

Post by Jarum_Kudus »

muslim_netral wrote:coba baca-baca juga komentar orang-orang Hindu di sana, selain Hindu adalah sesat.
Yang lo kutip itu komentar dari Muslim, stupid. Mana mungkin Hindu ngomong begini:
muslim wrote:I am sure that Krishna will be reincarnated as a COW because all hindus are COW. You now why…!? Because you do not use your hindus empty brain … you only speak and write what demon said.
coba baca-baca juga komentar orang-orang Hindu di sana, selain Hindu adalah sesat.
EGP, masa bodo, agama mereka bukan urusan gw. Selama umat Hindu tidak membom atau meneror umat lain, mereka tetap sesama manusia waras berakhlak sehat bagiku. Tempat favorit gw adalah Bali, tempat masyarakat Hindu yang sangat gw hormati.
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pyro
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Re: Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

Post by pyro »

muslim_netral wrote:Tapi di situs tersebut ada komentar yang cukup menarik, bahwa Bhavishya Purana juga tidak hanya menuduh Muhammad, tetapi juga Yesus, Musa dan Sulaiman, hehehehe kita kena semua, jadi siapa yang jadi setannya? coba baca-baca juga komentar orang-orang Hindu di sana, selain Hindu adalah sesat.
"hehehehe kita kena semua..."

Memangnya Yahudi 'n Kristen ngaku2 juga kl Mesias mereka dinubuatkan/diramalkan di kitab HIndu...?
Setau saya cuma muslim, termasuk anda yg butuh pengakuan dari kitab2 agama lain, sementara di sisi lain para muslim tak henti2nya mengatakan kitab agama lain sudah korup oleh tangan2 jahil....

mana anda ngutip ngga dibaca dengan teliti, asal kutip!! (terlalu nafsu apa terlanjur malu...?)
..... sampe2 komentar orang muslim anda akui sebagai komentar orang Hindu....
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bocor
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Re: Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

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Sang Nabi besar kita memilih cara2 ibadah dari seluruh agama besar di jamannya sehingga semua Muslim dapat menerima anugrah dari Tuhan masing2 agama. Karena dia lahir sebagai pagan (Hindu), maka sudah jelas agama Hindulah yang terdekat di hatinya. Karena itulah dia tidak dapat tidak memilih Dewa Bulan Allah agama Hindu sebagai Tuhan dalam Islam dan bulan sebagai simbol Islam.

“Umat Hindu menyebut Dewi Bulan Durga sebagai “Allah” bagil lafal ibadah dalam bahasa Sankrit sejak jaman awal Hinduisme.”; referensi: Kaaba adalah Kuil Hindu. http://www.hinduism.co.za/kaabaa.htm
Baca dulu info tentang penulisnya kawan,

Purushottam Nagesh Oak (March 2, 1917 - December 4, 2007), commonly referred to as P. N. Oak, was an Indian writer, notable for his historical revisionism. Oak's "Institute for Rewriting Indian History" issued a quarterly periodical called Itihas Patrika in the 1980s.
Oak's claims, e.g. that Christianity and Islam are both derivatives of Hinduism, or that the Kaaba and the Taj Mahal were once Hindu temples to Shiva,[1] and their reception in Indian popular culture have been noted by observers of contemporary Indian society, who variously characterized Oak as a "mythistorian"[2] or more directly as a "crackpot".[3].

P. N. Oak (1917-2007): The lone fighter, etymologist, and historian


Shrinivas Tilak

Introduction

I landed in Mumbai in the night of Tuesday, Dec 4, 2007. When I opened the papers on Wednesday morning (Dec 5) there were reports of passing away of Purushottam Nagesh Oak on Tuesday at the age of 91. I was looking forward to meet with Mr Oak (hereafter Oak) to discuss a write-up I had prepared about him in response to a number of messages about him and his writings that had recently appeared on one Yahoo-based discussion group. I had known Oak for many decades and had last met him in February 2007 at his residence in Goodwill Society (an upscale neighborhood of metro Pune) to present him my latest book Understanding karma in light of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics. He then looked as he always did: tall, trim, and ramrod straight (thanks to his daily performance of several dozen Suryanamaskaras, see photo at the end of blog). He was sharp, alert, and moved his ninety-year old frame gracefully with the agility of a leopard. As usual, he alternated between etymologies of proper names and place names from all over the world and their Sanskrit equivalents and the history of India. After an hour or so I got up to say adieu and told him I would be back in December. The granddaughter of my sister had accompanied me. She requested Oak to pose with me for a photo which he did gladly (see photo at the end of blog).

My first memories of meeting Oak go back fifty years to May 1957. I had just graduated from a high school in Pune and had gone to Delhi with my three sisters to spend the summer with our father who worked in the Railway Board. Our mother had passed away in 1946 and we therefore attended a boarding school for boys and girls in Pune. A lonely widower, my father took to studying astrology as a hobby when he met Oak who used to supplement his income by writing astrology columns for a variety of magazines and newspapers. Since he had no secure government job (the dream of most middle-class Maharashtrians in those days) and a large family to feed, Oak was forced to try his hand at a variety of jobs including that as a reporter for the Statesman and the Hindustan Times (1947-74). For many years he was employed as information officer with the United States Information Service (USIS) at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. I remember my meeting with Oak on May 10, 1957 particularly because that evening Veer Vinayak D. Savarkar, a legendary hero and freedom fighter, was to address a public meeting in Delhi to mark one hundred years of India’s first “war of independence” in 1857. I remember my father introducing me to Oak then. During the 1960s Oak often used to come to meet my father to discuss issues in astrology over a morning cup of tea. We used to take that opportunity to pump him about another legendary war hero Subhas Chandra Bose and the exploits of his Indian National Army (INA).

Making of the lone fighter

Born in 1917 in Indore (Madhya Pradesh, India), Purushottam Nagesh Oak was second of the three sons who all grew up becoming fluent in four languages: Their father spoke to them only in Sanskrit, mother in English, other close relations in Marathi, and the medium of instruction at school was Hindi. Young Purushottam went to college in Indore (BA. Holkar College, 1937) and Pune (M.A. Fergusson College, 1939, LL B., Indian Law Society College, 1940). For a short while he worked as a tutor in Fergusson College but soon found a job as a trainee storekeeper in the government ordinance factory at Khadaki near Pune. World War II began just as Oak completed the eight-month training period after which he was posted first in Madras (now Chennai) and then in Malaya.

In 1941 when Subhas Chandra Bose gave a call to rise against the British raj, Oak threw himself (body and soul) into the Azad Hind Sena (Indian National Army) started by Bose. For some time he acted as a private assistant (PA) to Bose and then as an ADC to General Jagannath Bhosale, the chief of the INA. Later he was stationed in Saigon where he worked on the Azad Hind Radio as a commentator. When Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 Bose left Singapore immediately for Taipei via Saigon (according to Oak when the Assam initiative began to falter, Bose and his group (it included Oak) decided to return to Singapore making their way on foot in the night to avoid the frequent allied raids during the day). On August 18, Bose flew out of Taipei (it is not clear where he was headed) but the plane crashed upon take-off killing Bose and other occupants of the plane. The stranded INA soldiers were left to their own devices all across South-East Asia. To avoid being arrested for desertion and the subsequent court martial and a possible prison term, Oak walked back to India alone across the hostile and inaccessible mountainous terrain between Burma (Myanmar) and India.

When India became free in 1947, all charges against the INA personnel were dropped. But the lone fighter in Oak, however, was soon to get involved in a much more sinister and deadly fight. Having done his part in the struggle for India's political independence, he was to became a one-man brigade of an independent historian who had taken upon himself the thankless task of rescuing India's history which, he insisted, was hijacked by invaders from medieval times on. Oak began his historical odyssey with the hypothesis that there are no final answers to our questions about humanity's past. In world history, all ‘conclusions’ must be tentative. Yet, accounts of the past construed by Western historians usually come neatly packed in western religious, cultural and sociological paradigms. Consider the following ‘gem’ from Friedrich Max Műller, the Germany born professor of philology at Oxford, who is said to be the father of comparative religion [and Indology]:

History seems to teach that the whole human race required a gradual education before, in the fullness of time, it could be admitted to the truths of Christianity. All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted, before the light of a high truth could meet with ready acceptance. The ancient religions of the world were but the milk of nature, which was in due time to be succeeded by the bread of life.... 'The religion of Buddha has spread far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, and to our limited vision, it may seem to have retarded the advent of Christianity among a large portion of the human race. But in the sight of Him with whom a thousand years are but as one day, that religion, like the ancient religions of the world, may have but served to prepare the way of Christ, by helping through its very errors to strengthen and to deepen the ineradicable yearning of the human heart after the truth of God (Max Műller 1860: 32).

Notwithstanding Max Műller’s chauvinistic claim on behalf of Christianity, the nagging question diligent seekers of truth about the past ask remained, “Is world history written from a Christian or Islamic perspective alone credible?” The fact is; world's distant past is pre-Christian and pre-Islamic. Though it may remain unfathomable there was sufficient evidence available (according to Oak) of an older world (that is periodically reported in world media) whose origins go back to the Vedic heritage. Oak’s thesis accordingly was (1) India's [and the world’s] Vedic heritage and history has been thoroughly distorted by invaders to such an extent that Indians today suffer from cultural amnesia; (2) Indians have forgotten their own glorious tradition preserved in the epics and purāņas which are as good a source of history as modern historical documents; (3) In post-independence India missionary, Muslim, and Marxist historians have drained Indian history of its Aryan and Vedic content and context; (4) The emphasis in today’s historiography is on secularism and on appeasement of minorities of all sorts: cultural, linguistic, regional or religious; (5) In producing "idealized versions" of the past, India's Vedic heritage has been distorted beyond recognition; and (6) In fabricating history to serve contemporary goals of a secular society, historians of modern India have robbed India of its authentic past.

Unified field theory of Sanskrit language

Oak understood the Veda to be a compendium of knowledge: mundane and transcendent. He compared the entire Vedic canon to an encyclopedia, a guidebook or a manual that explains the working of the cosmic order and how humanity should live in harmony with that order. The Veda therefore is a world heritage that is not India’s alone. “The Veda is infinite and endless” says the tradition (anantā vai vedāh) containing the strands of the sixteen types of knowledge and sixty-four types of arts and technologies. Hinduism, for Oak, is a modern residual, territorial synonym of primeval, ancient worldwide Vedic culture implying the people of India whose goal is to lead a life of world peace and harmony. Hinduism therefore should not be regarded as being coeval with other world religions: Buddhism, Christianity or Islam, which are individual-centred faiths. Hinduism (alias Vedic culture), on the other hand, is a primordial mother-faith uniting all creeds in a common bond of cultural fraternity and in a common language, Sanskrit. It governed all human social relations and spiritual development from the beginning of time until the rise of ‘missionary’ religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

Religionists agree that despite diverse manifestations the immanent divinity is one. Likewise physicists agree that the seemingly diverse elements of the physical world emanate from a single source. For Oak, this indicated a certain common starting point for everything. Naturally, history is no exception and it too had a single source and a one- point beginning. Oak located his unified field theory of language and history in this fact, which he applied in order to reunite humanity once again in Vedic culture and in the universal teaching, speaking, and learning of Sanskrit. In this Oak was following the lead provided by Friedrich Schlegel (father of Indo-Germanic or Indo-European thesis) in the 19th century. In his On the Language and the Wisdom of the Indians (1808) Schlegel made more than 150 comparisons of noun and verb roots, prepositions, pronouns, numbers, and names of animals in five European (German, French, Latin, Greek, and English) and two Asian (Persian and Sanskrit) languages. After comparing the grammar of these languages, he concluded that the similarity among these languages is not accidental and the essential agreement among them indicates a common descent from Sanskrit. The ‘inner structure’ of these languages attested to their common genetic origin in Sanskrit. Like William Jones, Schlegel believed that a unitary human race originated somewhere in Asia. Before his fall, this primordial man was a creature who knew God perfectly, for he spoke God’s language, quite possibly Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a living, organic language because its grammatical structure is based on the inflection of roots. Indian civilization spread to all corners of the world through emigration and colonization—to the Germans, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans and even to China and Japan (see Tzoref-Ashkenazi 2004: 119-126). Once people recognize their common Vedic heritage, the world will then abandon (he hoped) all religious and ideological labels and treat the whole globe as one realm where people may move across continents without inhibitions.

A world history of histories

Oak was concerned to provide an altogether new framework for the study, comprehension, and research in Sanskrit and in Vedic culture as the fountain of world history. After many years of reflection and research Oak put his thoughts in a work that was later published as World Vedic Heritage: A History of Histories (New Delhi: Hindi Sahitya Sadan 2003; 3rd edition) (hereafter WVH). A huge tome comprised of 1394 pages with more than 150 pictures and illustrations, Oak's magnum opus is now available in a paper back edition in two volumes. In 1964 Oak established an Institute for Rewriting Indian History in Delhi to provide corrections to what he insisted were the biased versions of India's history commissioned or written by its invaders, colonizers, and modern secular historians. It also publishes The Annual Research Journal, which includes articles by Oak and others as well as a compilation in each issue of items of Indological interest culled from all over the world. The institute made no pretence at writing history in the sense implied in the works of western (or westernized) historians of India. The academic historian and the professional scholar claim to be bound by firm rules of evidence. Assertions must be supported by verifiable facts. Speculation can go only so far. Though historical writing may be a part of literature, its professional practitioners avoid anything that might be exposed as mere fiction.

Oak therefore presented WVH as a ‘history of histories’ and the ‘ultimate in world history’ by positing a unitary start for humanity and by concluding that Sanskrit was the first language to humanity. Vedic culture and Sanskrit constituted the eternal thread that ran through all human life, speech, and activity (WVH 19). But after the cataclysmic Mahābhārata war that took place in 5561 BCE administrative, social, cultural, political, and linguistic unity of the world was shattered and humanity got divided into different regional units such as Scythia, Parthia, Syria, Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, and China. As centuries rolled by, there were more subdivisions and estrangement as people began speaking different varieties of broken Sanskrit, adopting different and competing deities, professing strange ideologies and swearing allegiances to strange creeds (WVH 20). Every world language, religion, cult, creed or country finds itself related to the Veda and to Sanskrit in the ultimate analysis. Since that twin heritage is India’s preserve in modern times, every country and culture feels the need of Indological research for a deeper understanding of its own socio-cultural and ethical background.

Oak, the etymologist

Oak claimed that the mother civilization, from which all world civilizations grew, was centred in Bhāratavarşa (ancient name for metropolitan India). When Europe converted to Christianity Bhāratavarşa came to signify the non-Christian regions of the world. With the rise of Islam, Bhāratavarşa came to be recognized as the non-Muslim and non-Christian areas of the world i.e. modern India. Oak compares this process of attrition to the Japanese Bonsai technique whereby even a giant banyan tree is stunted into a miniature, bottled exhibit. With such a shrinking theatre the scene of ancient Vedic legends too has been getting progressively confined in the public mind to the territory of contemporary India. The field of action of heroes like Rāma and Kŗşņa is restricted to space between Amritsar and Rameshwar. Whereas in ancient times they were worshipped as Bhagawan all across the world ((WVH 1323-1324, see below). If in our times communities like the Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and Parsees appear different that is because in the ups and downs of history they have been cut off by time and distance from Vedic culture. Therefore, more we delve into the remote past we see those differences narrowing down and pointing to the common Vedic culture (WVH 917).

In support of his claim Oak cited the works of Orientalist Horatio H. Wilson (Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford) who observed, “the affinities of the Sanskrit language prove the common origin of the now widely scattered nations amongst whose dialects they are traceable, and render it unquestionable that they must all have spread abroad from some central spot in that part of the globe first inhabited by mankind according to the inspired record” (preface to Vişņupurāņa Oxford ciii) (WVH 146). Oak also pointed out that the people of Poland, too, consider Sanskrit as the mother of the Polish language and India as their cultural mother. This comes out in a Polish expression, “Kto poznal India, poznal coly Swiat” (He who sees India has seen the whole world) (WVH 771). Music is the soul of most civilizations and the Vedic culture was no exception. Oak pointed out that in his The Indian Empire Sir William Hunter remarked that a regular system of notation had been worked out in India before the age of Pāņini and the seven notes were designated by their initial letters. This mode of notation was passed on to the Persians who transmitted to the Arabs and through them into the European music by Guido d’Arezzo at the beginning of the 11th century (WVH 27).

Today, ask any Christian or Muslim about the culture of his/her pre-Christian or pre-Muslim forefathers and he/she will look perplexed not knowing anything about their respective past. In fact, Christians and Muslims have never imagined that they should have had some family history and heritage in the pre-Christian or pre-Islamic millennia too. Not surprisingly, their concept and notion of culture go back only two thousand years. Since the Christians and Muslims dominated the world history through military or missionary conquests over the last two millennia, they have nothing coherent to say about the world’s Vedic heritage before the arrival of Christianity and Islam on the world stage. WVH seeks to fill that void by making all humanity, especially those who segregate and barricade themselves as Christians and Muslims, aware of their common pre-historic link with their Vedic cultural and spiritual past.

Oak pointed out that describing the pre-Christian worlds, the Bible admits (Genesis 11:1): “And the whole earth was of one language and one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the East…And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one and they have all one language…The Lord scattered them abroad from thence…” (WVH 107). The world today needs to realize and recognize that the ancestry of all humans is neither Christian nor Muslim but Vedic. Suppressing or stamping out that truth is an act of theological and academic tyranny. To correct all such aberrations that bedevil human history through deliberate design, negligence, and ignorance and present a cogent, continuous, and convincing account so that humanity reawakens to its pristine Vedic heritage was mission of Oak’s life.

At the end of the Mahābhārata war, humanity came to be divided into two major groups: devas (progeny of Aditi, wife of Kaśyapa) and dānavas/daityas (progeny of Diti, another wife of Kaśyapa). While Indians trace their origin to Aditi and devas, populations of Europe and Egypt are the descendants of Diti and therefore are called daityas. The Greeks accordingly were known as Danao in Latin. Denmark, Danube, and Don are clearly derivatives of dānava. Iranians and Mesopotamians, too, are daityas. Russia is derived from ŗşīya (Rushiya = land of the ŗşīs--sages). The Mayas of Central and South America are the followers of demon Maya who escaped to Pātāla (the land beneath India) by the western seas. The Caspian Sea takes its name from the sage Kaśyapa and the Samarkanda region from the sage Śrī Mārkaņdeya. Palestine is derived from Pulastin, another Vedic sage. Cyprus is a mal pronunciation of the Sanskrit term Śivaprastha signifying a centre of Śaiva worship.

Yāska's Nirukta: The science of etymology

Oak argued that the so-called Indo-European groups of languages are local variations and/or mal pronunciations of Sanskrit. In support of the claim he advanced, Oak made liberal use of the discipline of etymology, which goes back to Yāska’s Nirukta, (ca.500 BCE) a compilation of etymological and biographical data. The origin of the method of the Nairukta school of Vedic interpretation (etymology) is to be found in the Brāhmaņa texts which attempt derivation of a number of Vedic words. Nighaņţu, a later and more systematic work of etymology, is in three Kāņdas: the first Naighaņţukakāņda, lists the synonyms (ekārthapadas) with some words having more than one hundred synonyms. Naigamakāņda, the second, lists the words that act as homonyms (bhinnārthakāni samānapadāni). The third, Daivatakāņda, lists the various deities that are worshipped, praised, or invoked in the Veda. Yāska’s Nirukta is a commentary on the Nighaņţu explaining the words from the Veda in terms of similar words from classical Sanskrit. Yāska explains nearly six hundred verses from the Ŗgveda providing etymology of nearly 1300 words. In the process he also undertakes a theoretical discussion of etymology, phonetics, origin of language, parts of speech, semantics, and the five major theories of interpretation of key Vedic words. Professor Lakshman Swarup (Department of Sanskrit, Punjab University), critically edited the text from original Sanskrit manuscripts and translated it into English providing a detailed introduction, exegetical and critical notes, and appendices (1967).

The Nirukta represents the very early (possibly pre-Pāņini) basis of the tradition of semantic analysis (nirvacana), which is an intellectual practice omnipresent throughout Sanskrit systematic thought. Unfortunately, it has often been denigrated by contemporary scholarship as merely a form of naïve folk etymology. The classic example of Yāska’s approach to semantic analysis, which can shed some light on Oak’s preoccupation with etymology, is the Vedic etymology of the noun ‘water’: “then Indra got hold [āpnod] of you as you flowed, hence you are Waters [āpo] thereafter” (Atharvaveda 3:13.2). A key concern in the Vedic texts (including the Upanişads) is to uncover the hidden correspondences that obtain among the sacrificial ritual (yajña), the cosmos, the social world, and the microcosm of the human body. These correspondences (also known as counterparts = bandhu; equivalences = sampad or secret connections = upanişads) have cognitive value: they reveal knowledge that is not directly evident. A striking example of the knowledge that one can recover through meditation is to be found in the bandhus stated directly in propositional form in the five great statements (mahāvākyas) in the Upanişads: I am brahman (creating a bond [bandhu] between I and brahman); that thou are (creating a bond [bandhu] between that and thou) etc.

Yāska outlines five ways of doing etymology arguing that one should etymologize on the basis of a similarity of common usage, a syllable, or even a letter if the need be. One must never give up the attempt to etymologize taking into account (as required) syncope, metathesis, anaptyxis, haplology, and assimilation. However, Yāska’s insistence that each and every word must be made meaningful by etymology often led to preposterous etymologies (Ram Gopal 1983: 70-73). (1) Varņāgama: the proper meaning of a word may be explained by adding one or more letters to the word. In the expression tattvāyāmi, for instance, the component yāmi can be better explained by adding the letter ‘ca.’ Yācāmi then is explained as ‘I praise or plead’ (2) Varņaviparyaya: letters in a word may be interchanged to make a word more meaningful. Thus gabhe is changed to bhage and then explained as a vocative form of Bhaga (praise); (3) Varņavikāra: a letter in a word under study may be substituted by another to make the word more meaningful. For instance, sthūra is explained as sthūla (big, great) by substituting the ‘ra’ with ‘la’; (4) Varņalopa: a letter from a word may be dropped to render it meaningful. Thus, pāyanāya is explained as pānāya (for drinking) after dropping the letter ‘ya;’ (5) Dhātorarthānugama: The meaning of a word may be made more explicit by referring to its root or core meaning. The literal meaning of a statement giro juhomi (I offer speech to fire) is not sensible because speech cannot be offered in sacrifice. A more sensible meaning is ‘I utter speech.’

It is not clear if Oak was consciously aware of the five-fold method of etymology developed by Yāska. Yet, one finds in WVH Oak closely following Yāska. Oak finds fault, for example, with the etymology of the English word ‘widower’ which is explained as widow + er. If labour + er signifies a person doing labour, the widower would be a person who makes a woman ‘widow.’ Carried to its logical etymological meaning, argues Oak, widower would be a murderer of a woman’s husband. The correct etymology of widower, claims Oak, is from the Sanskrit word ‘vidhavā,’ i.e. one who is without (vi) her husband ‘dhava’ i.e. husband (WVH 926). This is an instance of varņaviparyaya. Oak traces the words truth and untruth to Sanskrit ŗta and anŗta by dropping the letter ‘t’ from the English word following Yāska’s principle of varņalopa (WVH 926). Africa is known in Sanskrit as Śankhadvīpa, i.e. the Conch-shell land because its shape resembles that of a conch. Oak argues that the English word conch is derived from śankha. This can be shown if the letter ‘c’ is allowed to retain its alphabetical pronunciation ‘si.’ Conch then could be written as ‘sonch,’ i.e. śankha. Oak derives the word baptism (the ritual of confirmation to Christianity by sprinkling holy water) from the Sanskrit bāşpitasma (sprinkled upon) by the process of varņaviparyaya whereby the positions of ‘sa’ and ‘pa’ are interchanged (WVH 1019).

In WVH Oak supplies hundreds of instances of tracing a given non-Sanskrit term or word to its presumed Sanskrit origin. Take for instance the terms genesis and nemesis signifying respectively the beginning and end of the cosmos. Standard European languages dictionaries, he argued, offer a haphazard, roundabout etymology ending in the verb gen meaning ‘to become.’ But it is the Sanskrit word janma (meaning birth) that provides a more satisfactory etymological explanation. Nemesis is routinely explained from the Greek verb ‘nemo’ meaning ‘to give what is due’ (as per the Oxford Dictionary). But the Sanskrit expression nāmaśeşa (becoming so thoroughly extinct that only the name remains) provides a more meaningful and satisfactory explanation (WVH 33).

Oak based his etymologies on the phonetic similarities or resemblance (bandhu) between Sanskrit words and the things they designate. Resemblances between words are evidence of a direct connection between the ‘word’ and the ‘world’ it represents. Sanskritist Patrick Olivelle cautions us in this context that Yāska, Sāyaņa, and others in that long line should not be dismissed as 'folk' etymologists. They were sophisticated enough to know the true etymologies of the words they explain (1998: 25). Like Yāska and Sāyaņa Oak proceeded on the assumption that the surface forms of words or names provide clues to the ‘deeper and hidden connections’ between Sanskrit and non-Sanskrit words and worlds they represent. For instance, he argued that English ‘anger’ is based on Sanskrit ‘angāra’ i.e. burning coal. The expression ‘Burning with anger’ correctly carries over into English the sense of anger provided by the equivalent Sanskrit term. The word ‘underling’ in English language is traceable to the Sanskrit ‘antaralinga’ meaning smaller, junior. A typical Śiva temple has two lingas installed in it. The bigger one is prominently displayed on the main floor. The smaller one is less conspicuous and is located in the inner sanctum (garbhagŗha)(WVH 873). ‘Prophylactic’ is the Sanskrit equivalent of 'pra-phalaktika’ i.e. that which induces expected or beneficial results (WVH 945).

Following Swiss Sanskritist Johannes Bronkhorst (2001: 147-203) it is possible to argue that though etymologies supplied by Oak may not be historical or truly etymological, like poetry (which does not necessarily expresses reality but rhetoric and builds on appearances of similarities or resemblances between words), Oak’s ‘fictitious’ etymologies nevertheless substitute for what Oak believed now lost connections between Sanskrit, other world languages, and reality. Victor Turner's discussion of fictitious etymologies used by Ndembu to explain their rituals as an important part of the 'inside view' or 'emic explanation' would also be relevant in trying to understand Oak’s heavy reliance on etymology. Following Turner I would like to counsel non-Indian Indologists to pause and reflect before using their etic (from outside the Indian/Hindu tradition) arguments to dismiss Oak’s etymological use that is developed and deployed emically (from within the Hindu tradition).

It was K. L. Pike who coined the terms etic and emic in his Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior (1954). While etic refers to a detached, trained observer's perception of the un-interpreted ‘raw’ data; emic refers to how that data is interpreted by an "insider" to the system. The detached observer's view is one window on the world. The view of the local scene through the eyes of a native participant in that scene is a different window. Either view by itself is restricted in scope and may lead to distortion. The first ignores the concept of relevance, purpose, and meaning. The second may distort or mould vision or experience so that one interprets what one sees or hears or understands, only through the colored glasses of one's own experiential structure. Both etic and emic views therefore must be brought to the fore if Oak’s etymological work is to be understood and appreciated. One can get a deeper appreciation of the universe of his researches by consciously approaching his etymologies [and historiography] from these two directions.

Like homonymy, etymology (whether true or even fictitious), argued Turner, acts as a device whereby the semantic wealth of a word or symbol may be augmented (Turner 1975). It seems that Oak was also concerned to maximize the similarities between the Vedic heritage and its metamorphosis expressed differently (linguistically and culturally) throughout the world and minimize the differences between them (see above reference to WVH 917). Consider, for instance, his analysis of the relationship between the Vatican centred institution of papacy and the Vedic understanding of sin (pāpa). He begins by arguing that the office of the Pope is similar to the ancient Vedic pontiff. The French term for the Pope, le pape (Spanish papa) is significantly closer to the Sanskrit term ‘pāpa meaning sin. When the suffix ‘ha’ is added to it, we get pāpaha i.e. the remover of sin. Christianity revolves around the concept of sin, namely that we all are born out of sin and everybody’s sole concern in life should be to atone for one’s sins with the help of divine grace mediated through Jesus and his representative on the earth, the Pope. This formulation is to be found already, argued Oak, in the Vedic tradition. Every orthodox Hindu begins the day with the acknowledgment: I am sin incarnate; I was born of sin (pāpo’ham, pāpa sambhavah)(WVH 1003). Pāpaha, according to Oak, was the title as well as a function (removing of sin) of the supreme pontiff attached to the Vedic administration of Europe. Over the centuries, the original term ‘Pāpaha’ was modified and turned into ‘Pope’ or ‘Papa’ in various European languages (WVH 1003).

The semantic wealth that Oak was interested in making explicit through etymological and historical analysis pertained to the civilization and the language (Sanskrit) of India that (he believed) were the soul of the world. By making explicit the close nexus between etymology and history he thought he could recapitulate the lost, forgotten, or suppressed common heritage and history of the world (WVH 33). Accordingly, WVH is conceived as an informal etymology and history-based discourse (more like a fire-side chat really) that is devoid of technical jargon, on matters pertaining to world history and culture addressed both to the layperson and professionals. Occasionally, there is discussion pertaining only to Indian history (e.g. the Taj Mahal) to illustrate how methods of historical analysis can be applied to specific situations. Even though many of the etymologies suggested by Oak will not stand academic scrutiny, each must be examined carefully before rejecting it. Those ‘whole ones’ who called him a ‘cracked pot’ should heed E.B. White’s admonition: Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. Oak’s etymological effort therefore should not be summarily dismissed as ‘Oakisms’ as many scholars tend to do.

Oak, the historian

In writing WVH Oak was concerned with recreating (what he strongly believed) the vanished history of the world, which began with the Aryans: their successes, failures, and ultimate fate. It is a spellbinding history of the world narrated by a master storyteller. Though general Indian reader will be enchanted by it, most professional historians will be greatly annoyed. True, physical evidence of Aryan origins in India and their migration beyond India is scarce but relevant archaeological finds uncovered in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere have baffled historians and archaeologists. In the course of more than fifty years of research and on-site inspections Oak connected them to existing structures and constructions usually associated with (and restricted to) the Indus Valley Civilization. WVH relies on this germ of ancient history that most academics and scholars will not touch with a ten-foot pole because they dread being laughed at by their peers. Oak could not prove his thesis with a body of solid evidence, but he did tell his fascinating tale persuasively. He cleverly made logical use of the scraps of evidence that do exist, such that the reader begins to feel that something like what Oak described could have happened (consider, for instance, his argument that the Rāmāyaņa, the ancient Hindu epic, was sung, studied, and revered in ancient Europe also in much the same way it is reverently quoted and recited in contemporary India WVH 446-475). In this, Oak drew on a living tradition of speculative and imaginative historiography going back to Vyāsa and Vālmiki where myth, fact, and fiction imperceptibly flow together. Yet he was graceful enough to acknowledge that some of his conclusions or accounts were founded on conjecture and analogy. Like Vyāsa and other purāņa writers he often deviated from the conditional into the indicative mood when hard evidence was lacking.

Muharram’s Vedic/Hindu connection

Oak’s account of the Vedic connection with pre-Islamic Arabia is generally dismissed as conjecture. But now evidence is mounting to suggest that it may not be all conjecture. On the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of Islamic calendar, Shia Muslims across the world spend the day in mourning to commemorate the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain, his family, and followers. In an article “Hindus participate in Moharram here” Times of India, January 22, 2008; Pune edition ) correspondent Falzan Ahmad wrote that on Sunday, January 19, 2007 in Muzaffarpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, a group of Hindus participated in the Muharram procession with equal veneration. Claiming their lineage to Hussaini Brahmin sect, this year they revived the centuries-old tradition of shedding of tears in the memory of the martyrs of Karbala, which their ancestors used to do. Mostly Bhumihars, the group marched barefoot from Bara Imambara in Brahmapur locality of Muzafarpur beating the chest and chanting “Ya Hussain.” “Our ancestors also fought in support of Imam Hussain and sacrificed their lives in Karbala and we are equally pained at the historical martyrdom,” said Arun Kumar Sharma, convener of the Bhumihar-Brahmin Mahasabha.

Ahmad further notes that references in several books and records confirm that some Hindus did join Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, when he was through a bloody battle with Yezid at Karbala (in Irak) on October 10, 680. The members of the sect, also known as the Hussaini Brahmin, had settled near river Euphrates. Subsequently, they returned to India and assumed family names like Datts, Mohiyals, Tyagis, and many others. They also practiced an intriguing blend of Islamic and Hindu traditions. The late Sunil Dutt, who belonged to the Husaini Samaj sect, used to attend Muharram processions. Marching in the procession ahead of the band of young Shia youths, Upendra Prasad Shahi said, “The battle of Karbala was a war to save humanity and faith and we are proud that our ancestors, too, sacrificed their lives.

Legend has it that Rahab Sidh Datt had fought on behalf of Imam Hussain in the battle of Karbala, sacrificing his seven sons in the process. Rahab was the leader of a small band of career-soldiers living near Baghdad at the time of the battle of Karbala. In his novel “Karbala,” Munshi Prem Chand mentions about Hindus fighting for Imam Hussain and referred to them as descendants of Ashwastthama, son of Dronacharya. Today, the Hussain Brahmin sect is a rapidly vanishing community in India. Younger generation is abandoning its ancestral heritage. “We should, rather, feel proud of this tradition,” said Sharma. “Before the advent of Islam, we had blood relations with the people of the Arab world,” Sharma claimed (“Hindus participate in Moharram here” Falzan Ahmad, Pune, Times of India, January 22, 2008).

Ahmad’s report goes some way in providing credibility to Oak’s claims that (1) since very ancient times Indians had found work abroad in the military and administrative services and (2) until about two thousand years ago Vedic culture had prevailed all over the world (WVH 637-640). Ancient Africa and Arabia formed part of the empire of Kuśa, the son of Śrī Rāma. Subsequently, King Vasumitra Śunga ruled over that region (WVH 500). Like other regions of the ancient world, Arabia was previously known by its Sanskrit name: Arvasthāna (i.e. land of horses). Several Brahmins and Jats held important posts in Arab lands from pre-Islamic times (cf Arun Sharma’s claim above that before the advent of Islam, “we had blood relations with the people of the Arab world”). Ali, the fourth Caliph, had entrusted the treasury to a Hindu jat on the eve of the battle of Jabal (WVH 640,649). With the rise of Islam in Arabia and its rapid spread through West Asia and parts of Europe within one hundred years of the founding of Islam, however, the Vedic past from these parts of the world was blotted out. During the same period, Islam as a faith split into two contesting streams: the dominant Sunni and the minority Shia.

Hungary born Arminicus Vambery extensively traveled through several Muslim countries in the nineteenth century, provided a compact account of the traditional Iranian understanding of the rise of its Shi’a faith and its differences with the dominant Sunni stream. When Muhammad died without formally designating any one as his successor, his faithful followers broke into two rival camps. The larger group considered Abubaker (the oldest companion of the prophet) to be most worthy as Muhammad’s successor, while the minority group backed Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law. In the struggle that ensued, Ali’s party was vanquished. After Abubaker, Usman became the Caliph who was succeeded by Umar. But Ali’s partisans did not despair of their cause and after several attempts managed to install Ali on the throne as Caliph. Ali had two sons Hassan and Hussain from Fatima, the prophet’s daughter. When Ali was assassinated, Hussain claimed the right of succession. On one occasion when Hussain was going from Mecca to Kufa his group was attacked by the men of Yezid and everyone was killed in the ambush. This catastrophe is commemorated in Iran and elsewhere where the Shias are in sizeable numbers by mournful and plaintive songs and theatrical exhibitions called Tazias

Oak subjected this traditional account of the genesis of Muharram to historical scrutiny and analysis. The first point he noted in the received account is that the succession to Muhammad as the head of the burgeoning Islamic faith was an all-Arab affair. The choice was between Abubaker and Ali. How should Iranians as a nation be interested in taking sides one way or another? If it was a matter of personal/group preference, Iranians should have been split (perhaps equally) in opting for Abubaker or Ali as the Caliph. Only if Ali or Hussain had been an Iranian would they side with one of them as a leader of the fledgling Muslim faith (it was only a hundred years old then) rather than with Abubaker.

The real reason for Iranian dissent, suggests Oak, therefore must be found elsewhere. Iranians were still chafed by their conquest at the hands of the Arabs. The memory of their military loss to an alien culture and political philosophy just a hundred years previously must have weighed heavily on the collective Iranian psyche. When the Arab majority strongly supported the claim of Abubaker, the Iranians therefore went with Ali (cf. Munshi Prem Chand’s remark above that some Hindus [descendants of Aśvatthāmā] fought for Imam Hussain). Had the Arabs opted for Ali, the Iranians would have gone for Abubaker. The main point was that the Iranians had needed an issue to register a protest against their recent defeat and domination by the Arabs (cf the intriguing comment above of young Upendra Prasad Shahi, “The battle of Karbala was a war to save humanity and faith and we are proud that our ancestors, too, sacrificed their lives”).

Vambery’s description of the Muharram ceremony he witnessed during his journey through Iran supports Oak and Shahi. Just before the Tazia commenced (observed Vambery) a ragged and rickety looking dervish stepped upon the platform lauding the perfection and brave deeds of some great Shias and mentioning the names of some distinguished Sunni, he exclaimed with a fury, “Brethren, ought we not to curse them, ought we not to call down damnation upon their heads?” There he paused, waiting for the effect of his words on the assembled multitude, which expressed their approval of his curses by loud cries of “Bishbad, bishbad” (more even than that, more even than that).

Why do Iranians call their protest, funeral-rally Muharram? Why do they carry in that rally seven or ten-storied replicas of huge decorated mansions? Why those towering structures are called Tazias or Tabuts? Oak found the standard explanation that the Tazias represented the bodies or biers of Hussain and his followers not convincing. A bier cannot be seven or ten storied embellished structure capped with a dome. Moreover, there is no effigy either of Hussain or his followers on display in the bier. Nobody seemed to have inquired why. Oak rather speculated that the Tazias or Tabuts represented towering structures of the ancient temples erected in honour of Śiva. After converting Iranians to Islam, the invading Arabs forced them to make a clean break with their past by destroying the temples and to carry and dump the debris away from their villages. A Muharram procession is, argued Oak, a ritual re-enactment of that dreadful event from the past (WVH 608-609). That the structures that the Shi’as carry in the procession are not biers but replicas of temples is apparent from the size, shape, and the structure of a Tazia. It is a multi-storied edifice with arched windows, doorways, and domes decorated with variegated silver and gold tinsel. They are known as Tazias because Śiva is known as Tejaji, i.e. the lustrous one. They are called a Tabut (i.e. a structure sheltering a divine image) because ‘but’ signifies a divine image (WVH 610). The term Muharram, too, has no direct connection with the Abubaker vs Ali dispute. In support Oak draws our attention to the standard Islamic dictionary, which explains Muharram as “literally that which is forbidden and anything that is sacred.” According to Oak, this meaning indicates that Muharram commemorates the sorrowful forbidding of ancient Vedic worship that Iranians had engaged in and had held sacred. It is a poignant funeral ritual commemorating the end of Vedic culture in Iran and elsewhere (WVH 610-611).

Oak surmised that Vedic culture and Sanskrit (its medium of expression) were spread over vast areas of the ancient world--particularly Europe and Asia. Vedic culture only insisted that every person be a good, peaceful, and helpful member of society. It did not interfere in the personal belief system of individuals whether theist or atheist. A theist was free to choose whatever mode and form of worship. Religions of Egypt, Israel, and Iran, therefore, have several points of resemblance to the rites, beliefs, and mythology of the Vedic people (i.e. Aryans). European archaeologists and historians begin their theories with an untested and childlike hypothesis (based principally on Biblical accounts of genesis) that human habitation began only a few thousands years ago. Modern archaeological finds are forcing them to push back their estimates of the antiquity of human habitation by millions of years.

With this founding presupposition Oak built what he believed to be an alternative and more credible account of genesis of the ancient world using etymology and history. In an article published in his institute's Annual Research Journal (1997) he referred to the Scandinavian scholar Sten Konow who had argued (citing the famous French Indologist Sylvain Lévi) that in the remote past there existed a widespread civilization comprising India and other continents and islands bordering on the seas around India's coasts. This may explain the existence of parallels in Europe to the Durgā Pūjā, which "takes us back to the times when Indian and European tribes were one people with a common language and common religious conceptions" (Oak 1997: 25). Yayāti was one of the mightiest kings of ancient India whose progeny eventually peopled many western regions. Pharaohs of Egypt, for instance, are the Pauravas, i.e. descendants of Puru, the youngest son of Yayāti. Jews are Yudus, the progeny of Yadu who was Yayāti's eldest son. Modern Druids are descendants of Yayāti's third son--Druhyu. Yayāti's two other sons--Anu and Turvasu, respectively settled Anatolia and the area north of the Black Sea (this is also stated in the Mahābhārata).

According to Oak, India served as the nucleus of the Vedic culture from where it spread across the world. This would not be possible unless Indians were good navigators and had the necessary resources to travel across the oceans. In his Indian shipping: A history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1957) by the well known cultural historian Radha Kumud Mookerji affirmed that Indians initiated the art of navigation on the Sindhu River six thousand years ago. The very word navigation is derived from Sanskrit navagati (speed of a boat or ship). Yuktikalpataru of King Bhoja is a renowned treatise on the art and science of shipbuilding. Bhoja refers to two classes of ships: river-going (sāmānya) and ocean-going (viśeşa) each subdivided into ten sub-classes. With cabin as the criterion, ships were divided into three types: the Sarvamandirā type had the largest cabin and was used to transport royal treasury, women, and horses; the Madhyamandirā type had cabins specially fitted for the rainy season; the Agramandirā type had cabins equipped for the dry seasons used for long voyages and naval warfare. Classical Sanskrit literature, Jain scriptures, Buddhist Jātaka and Avadāna texts abound in references to sea voyages undertaken by all kinds of Indians. They inform us with many interesting details as to the sizes, shapes, furniture and decorations, articles destined for export and import, names of seaports and islands from different parts of India and elsewhere in the world. In Rājavaliya, the ship in which King Simhala of Bengal sent Prince Vijaya and his retinue was large enough to accommodate seven hundred passengers (Mookerji 1957).

Oak quotes G. Phillips who wrote: The maritime intercourse of India and China dates from a much earlier period, from about 600 B.C. when the sea-traders of the Indian ocean whose chiefs were Hindus founded a colony called Lang-ga, after the Indian name Lanka of Ceylon about the present gulf of Kias-Tehoa. They arrived there in vessels built after the patterns specified in Yukti Kalpataru (an ancient Indian technological text) (WVH 559, G. Phillips, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1895: 525, see also Mookerji 1957). In medieval times Indians were cautioned against venturing abroad because country after country was falling to the resurgent power of Islam. Oak argues that misguided scholars misinterpreted this temporary warning (comparable to the warning issued to citizens to keep off riot-torn areas) to spread the belief that Hindus were not seafarers (WVH 295). Pending more credible and corroborating evidence, Oak's thesis of the global existence of the Vedic culture and his books based on it may be construed as a hypothesis, but it is a hypothesis with a ring of truth. John Hobson, a Cambridge historian, for instance, has gathered more solid evidence to suggest that ancient Indians were excellent seafarers and traveled far more widely than European and Muslim historians of India had led us to believe (see Hobson 2004).

Oak's work is comparable in many respects to Canadian writer Farley Mowat who has put forth a theory (developed in his latest book The Farfarers) that Albans (ancient inhabitants of northern British Isles) explored and even settled North America fifteen centuries ago. Formidable seafarers and traders in walrus tusks and hides, Albans reached, according to Mowat, western Newfoundland in search of their hunt centuries ago. Some of them settled there and were eventually absorbed by the indigenous people of North America. Like Mowat, Oak made good and sensible use of the odd clues and the evidence that fifty years of personal investigation and study gave him. His World Vedic Heritage will no doubt provoke controversy (Oak's works always do) but academic historians must not simply ignore him. They must take up his challenge and engage him [his writings now] in a scholarly debate.

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Re: Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

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Vedic roots of paganism (pre-Christian/pre-Islamic universal religion)

Missionary, Muslim, and Marxist sources summarily dismiss religious and spiritual precepts and practices prevailing in the world (before they nearly totally suppressed and dominated the latter) as mere ‘Paganism.’ According to Oak, it was Bhagawan (chief manifestation of supreme Vedic Lord), in one or more forms, that was worshipped until about two thousand years ago everywhere: from America to Australia. Since B is often pronounced as P, the term Bhagawan was later articulated as Pagawan from which the modern terms pagan and Paganism arose (WVH 1323).

Two international conferences held in Vilnius (capital of Lithuania) on June 22-23, 1998 broadly supported Oak's basic thesis that in the ancient world Sanskrit was an important link language that promoted exchange of ideas and harmony among the people of the ancient world. World Pagan Conference and World Congress of Ethnic Religions were held simultaneously in Vilnius and coincided with the annual summer solstice festival locally known as Rasa. The dominant themes of these conferences (one universal religion underlying a variety of religious expressions and tolerance of religious plurality) have been, as Oak ceaselessly points out, the hallmark of the Vedic culture.

India has had close linguistic and cultural ties with Lithuanian (and perhaps other European) language, history, and tradition. These two conferences were testimony to growing awareness in the world that (1) India is the homeland of one universal and eternal religion (sanātana dharma) and (2) Sanskrit and sanskŗti (through which sanātana dharma is expressed) have served (and can do so now) a bridge to world cultures and religions. Formerly a Baltic republic of the Soviet Union, Lithuania today is an independent country. The people of Lithuania speak the oldest surviving Indo-European language, which closely resembles ancient Sanskrit. It continues to have, for instance, seven declensions (vibhaktis). The words for god, day, and son in Lithuanian are dieva, diena, sunus (deva, dina, sunu in Sanskrit). Lithuanian language has preserved until the present day the complex phonetic system of the Indo-European speech (1980 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Curiously though, the 1992 edition has dropped any reference to this similarity of Lithuanian with Sanskrit.

Scholars now recognize that Sanskrit can be employed as a tool of research in the comparative study of the past history and mythology of Europe and Asia. It can also contribute significantly to the cross-cultural study of world religions and cultures. Not surprisingly, the University of Vilnius has a large Department of Sanskrit. Lithuania was the last stronghold in Europe of nature religion and a syncretistic, tolerant cultural tradition before being Christianized in the fourteenth century. Subsequently, as indeed elsewhere, Lithuanians were divided into Christians (saved ones) and Pagans (doomed ones). Over the centuries vigorous efforts were made to obliterate all pre-Christian religious traditions in Europe and elsewhere where Christianity came to prevail. The fact nevertheless remains that Pagan religions did foster harmony between the natural and human. Paganism discounted the artificial division of our world into ‘believers’ of this or that organized religion and those others who are pejoratively dismissed as non-believers (pagans, kafirs, mleccha etc). Pagan worldview rejects those military and political authorities that subjugate and enslave those who profess natural spiritual practices in the name of organized religions,.

Such an outlook shares much in common with modern liberal trends sweeping across the world. It is therefore not surprising that there is renewed interest in and revival of Pagan religion in the world today. Particularly in Europe people are eager to rediscover their lost cultures and traditions. They are thirsty and hungry for the spiritual lore that disappeared with the advent of monotheistic religions. In modern Lithuania it has given rise to the Romuva Movement. This mood of optimism and perspective was also evident at the World Congress of Ethnic Religions held in London in 1998. Representatives of different ethnic religions (i.e. non-missionary religions that have no ambition to reduce local religions to one dominant world religion) endorsed the pagan worldviews that there is not just the absolute one God and the absolutely profane plural world, as in monotheism. There is both sacredness and profaneness within the world, as there is both oneness and plurality within the divine. Like Paganism, ethnic religions see themselves as a culture of truth, an exploration, and an experience, not as a belief in a fixed set of dogmas or creed.

Delegates expressed opposition to monotheism and to the worship of a ‘jealous and wrathful god’ who exhorts his followers to force or induce non-believers to give up their ways of worship. God cannot be partisan or jealous because such a depiction sows discord and violence amongst different groups and factions. Truth is, god and nature are not jealous. Is the sun jealous? Does the moon betray jealousy? The rivers, stars, forests, fields, lakes, oceans are all manifestations of god who showers beneficence upon all. God/Goddess is absolutely free of jealousy or favour. Thus interpreted, the polytheistic, ‘pagan’ worldview shares much in common with Vedic culture in general and with sanātana dharma in particular. This claim received some support in the papers read by Rajinder Singh, Surinder Paul Attri, and Arwind Ghosh who represented India at Vilnius explaining the Hindu perspective on the central theme of the conference ‘unity in diversity.’ They shared with other delegates at the two conference the thoughts and points of views of the religions of India on the means of restoring in the modern world sacredness of all life and divinity of nature.

The theme of ‘unity in diversity’ can best be expressed in a polytheist milieu. If monotheism represents the human intuition for unity, polytheism represents the human urge for differentiation. Though spiritual life is one, it is nonetheless polyvalent in expression. The human mind, accordingly, conceives variously. If all men and women were the same and if they all had a similar mind, then perhaps the concept of one God would do. But the human mind is not a fixed quantity and men and women and their ways of expressing the divine are manifold. So are their needs. Under the circumstances only polytheism can do justice to the human variety and its richness. The spiritual reality, in turn, is so vast, immense, and inscrutable that the human reason fails to fathom it and as such it cannot be expressed by one name, one formula or description. No single idea or system of ideas could convey it adequately. It therefore has to be expressed in glimpses from many angles. This explains the human need for polytheism (based on Swarup 1980: 128). Polytheism bred the spirit of tolerance and freedom everywhere in the ancient world. The major civilizations of the ancient world: India, China, Rome, Greece, and Egypt all were relatively free from religious persecution and wars. When Paul visited Athens he was invited to speak about his new doctrine. But he did not avail himself of that opportunity. Unfortunately, the glorious tradition of polytheism disappeared from everywhere else except India with the appearance of Christianity and Islam. The predicament of one God or many is born of a theological preoccupation not of a mystical consciousness. The Sage Vena declares in the Atharvaveda, “He sees the one ultimate reality in that secret station of the heart wherein the manifoldness of the world becomes one-form. But in another station where one’s mind rules there is a counter play of the One and many, God and matter, and Gods and gods (Swarup 1980: 129-130).

A new mode in historiography

Oak rejected the standard argument that because history is a science and a curricular subject like physics and chemistry, it should be taught as dispassionately and ‘objectively’ as possible. This argument is not as innocent and fair as it sounds on the surface because unlike physics or chemistry, history is vulnerable to pressure coming from the state and society to suit their changing needs and moods. Study and research in history therefore becomes a perilous undertaking, which calls for forensic skill in finding out the truth from piles of motivated falsehood (WVH 1110). Indeed, a nation’s history loses all meaning and relevance if it is not narrated or written patriotically, emotionally, and subjectively. When dealing with Anglo-French wars, for instance, a history of England would invariably identify France as the enemy while the history of France would cite England as its arch enemy (WVH 1115-1116). But the Missionary-Muslim-Marxist historians impose a ‘secular’ interpretation on India’s history while retaining their respective theolologized versions for the benefit of their own clientele. Thus, Christian theology has put all modern historical research (whether it pertains to the Indus Valley Civilization, ancient Egypt, China or the Middle East) under a five thousand year barrier because the world began, according to it, five thousand years ago. Oak rather proposed a new mode of historiography that is akin to the more traditional Indian way of recording history (itihāsa) where the line between myth and history is not clearly drawn or maintained.

Oak’s writings accordingly have a two-fold objective: firstly, his historiography is securely rooted in the cultural and hermeneutical tradition of India. This step is warranted because even today, in independent India, historiography continues to be dictated by orientations to history that are essentially discontinuous with the culture and tradition of India. The central paradox of human existence according to the Indian tradition is this: on the cosmic scale the duration of life is insignificant. Yet this brief passage of time marked by human existence is the source of all reflection of any significance. The disparity between the lived time and cosmic time is the source of all human pain and suffering. Yet, it is also the very foundation of all religious and philosophical thought that seeks relief from pain and suffering. It would seem that for Oak the solution to this paradox is offered in the Indian tradition's view of history and the role it is expected to play in the affairs of humans. The task of itihāsa is to divest cosmic time of its terror and tyranny and thereby redeem and humanize it.

Oak lamented that as a conquered and colonized civilization, India and Indians have had to acquiesce to the invader's sense and meaning of history which was essentially centred on power relations between the victor and the vanquished which are carefully preserved in official documents. It narrated what took place on the battlefield and in the succession of dynasties that occupied the throne at Delhi or elsewhere. These documents signaled a dividing line between history and fiction. The record of what Indians themselves thought or felt to have taken place was deemed to be fiction or an ornate narrative in much the same way that metaphor is regarded as an ornament of poetic discourse. The ways in which the feelings, perceptions and narratives of Indians influenced or were influenced by the catastrophic events they experienced are largely absent from extant versions of Indian history. Thus, Oak takes issue with contemporary depiction of fighting in the Rāmāyaņa: whether in painting or enacting it on the stage or rendering an audio-video version of it for the screen. Instead of treating Rāma, Lakşmaņa, or Sugrīva as generals leading an army they are shown engaged in one on one, hand-to-hand combat (for instance, Sugrīva fighting with Vālin or Rāma with Rāvaņa).

Secondly, Oak’s writings reveal a hermeneutics (albeit incipient) that is based on indigenous cognitive categories with a view to facilitate Indianization and humanization of history by re-contextualizing it to the culture and tradition of India so that itihāsa can fulfill its traditionally assigned role: an instrument of dharma. Oak’s historiography, however, need not preclude us from seeking common ground on which the traditional Indian and contemporary views of history can be understood as commensurable, even though their cultural contexts are different. A Russian proverb quoted by Solzhenitsyn in his Gulag Archipelago would be useful to remember in this context:

Dwell on the past and you will lose one eye . . . forget the past and you'll lose both eyes.

There is thus an urgent need to determine and recover whatever is worthwhile in India's own cultural heritage so that vision in at least one eye is saved. Second, the vision to the other eye can be restored by selectively incorporating insights from non-Indian sources to foster a composite tradition that is free from distortions (deliberate or accidental) and meaninglessness (see Tilak 2006).

Practical applications of historiography

While the Russians would summarily reject a history of Russia by a Hitler and the British would never tolerate a history of Great Britain written by a Napoleon; in the matter of Hindu or Indian history, art, architecture (and even scriptures) missionary, Muslim, and Marxist writings are naturally considered to be authoritative without any caveat. A missionary, Muslim or a Marxist is unable to visualize any period of history or region of the world in a non-missionary, -Muslim or –Marxist context. To them anything pre-Christian, pre-Muslim or pre-Marx must be bundled up as heathen or pagan. When Oak wrote to the Head, Department of French civilization at the Harvard University in the USA asking for information about pre-Christian France, the Head confessed that he knew precious little about France before it became Christian (WVH 47-48). Reading or writing history of such a ‘secular’ history of India only for the sake of entertainment or for academic curiosity or pursuit is futile. The goal of itihāsa is to elucidate the meaning of the Veda and the knowledge gained from history must promote Vedic culture and heritage and heal the wounds inflicted by the past. A historian cannot be a mere academician but also the healer of a culture’s wounds and scars (WVH 1250). Accordingly, section II of WVH is concerned with developing a new methodology of writing history and carrying out research in history, employing history as a tool of nation building and uniting humanity.

Since childhood, Oak had an irresistible urge to visit historical sights, forts, palaces, temples, and towers. He used to roam and wander around those surroundings enchanted and engrossed, studying the massive masonry and musing over the stirring events that occurred therein. As his research progressed the following disturbing questions arose in his mind again and again: how come most extant historic buildings have been ascribed only to Muslim rulers whose reign began only in the 12th century? Where did the seven thousand years old line of Hindu monarchs starting from the Pandavas to Prithviraj live if they had no worthy mansions or palaces? If they had no stately mansions or other assets why did the Turks and Mughals invade India? If the invading Muslim nobles could build impregnable forts and stately mansions in a short period of uncertain times of wars and expeditions how is it that native Hindu kings had not built any royal palaces for themselves on their own native soil during peace times? The alien invaders seem to have built a large number of tombs and mausoleums? Where are the textbooks and manuals of architecture and engineering if they were such master builders?

The Taj Mahal: What it is not; what it may be

In 1965 Oak sought to provide answers to the questions that had preoccupied him with reference to one particular case: the world famous Taj Mahal at Agra, that is reckoned today among the seven wonders of the world. Oak put forward a theory that the Taj Mahal was not a mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shahjahan but a former Rajput palace that was later turned into a memorial for the emperor’s beloved wife. In 1968 Oak found supporting evidence to that effect in Shahjahan's official chronicle the Badshahnama and in 1974 he came across a letter by Aurangzeb written in 1652 (the year when the Taj Mahal is supposed to have been just completed) complaining that the Taj Mahal was leaking all over. Over time, Oak compiled 118 such instances that raised doubts about the real purpose of the building that is now known as the Taj Mahal. On page 1235 of WVH Oak provided an aerial view of the Taj Mahal complex with two flanking buildings that are identical in shape and size. Today, one of them is being used as a mosque (being to the West) while its twin in the background is explained away as a mere symmetrical adjunct. Any unbiased historian (or a layperson) would conclude, claimed Oak, “If two buildings are identical they are likely to be used for similar purposes.” Oak argued that the two flanking buildings were used as reception halls of a temple-palace. Shahajahan took over this existing complex and turned into a mausoleum. In 1978 he came out with a book The Taj Mahal is a Temple Palace.

Vasudev S. Godbole, an engineer working for the London Underground [the subway system that is!] in UK, read Oak’s book and found it thought provoking. However, he felt that though a trained lawyer, Oak had made a tactical mistake in speculating on what the Taj Mahal was really meant to be in the absence of a proper archaeological survey of the edifice. It would be more realistic and rewarding, Godbole thought, to concentrate on demonstrating why the Taj Mahal cannot be what it is claimed to be today. Over the next several years Mr Godbole (hereafter Godbole) went through the relevant references provided by Oak and raised the following questions: "Were the British scholars just a neutral third party who were either (1) misled by the prolonged misuse of Hindu buildings as Mosques and Tombs or (2) were not cunning enough to see through chauvinistic Muslim claims? Or (3) did they know the truth about the Taj Mahal and other monuments all along but had, for political reasons, hid the truth?"

By the end of 1981 Godbole had prepared an eighty-page dossier on the subject and placed his findings in a chronological order. He was surprised at the findings. There was indeed a British conspiracy of suppression of truth about Taj Mahal and other monuments over the last two hundred years. The main personalities involved either knew each other and/or referred to works of each other. With time new information came to light which confirmed Godbole's findings. In his painstakingly done research now published as a book Taj Mahal: The Great British Conspiracy, Godbole makes the following points (admirably summarized in B. Shantanu's Blog Hindu Dharma News Letter # 5; in a personal communication Satish Mishra informs me that he has collected evidence indicating that the Taj Mahal was built according to the conventions established in traditional works on architecture):

(1) Architect: On the question of who planned the Taj Mahal, there is very little agreement amongst various writers and travelers. Even the origin of the person (whether he was Persian, Indian or Italian) is disputed. The name that comes up most frequently though is that of Ustad Isa. For Godbole, it is certainly a fabrication because there is no mention of any Isa prior to the 19th century.

(2) Time taken and people involved: Almost all the accounts quote Tavernier who says that the building took twenty thousand people and was twenty-two years in the making. This account differs considerably from Sebastian Manrique's (a Portuguese preacher) who was in India during the same time. He only noticed one thousand people working there. Although Manrique's testimony is not completely reliable either, the difference in numbers is too stark to ignore. One way of resolving the contradiction would be to say that twenty-two years were taken and twenty thousand people were employed to build the original Taj Mahal; not by Shahjahan but by Raja Mansingh or someone else. Manrique saw one thousand people engaged in the ‘embellishment’ and other suitable changes that were ordered by Shahjahan to (i) formally complete the acquisition of the property and (ii) to change the character of the building by including Islamic motifs and style (inscribing verses from the Qu’ran on it).

(3) The Badshahnama: There are scant references to this official chronicle of Shah Jahan's reign in most accounts by historians and Indologists. It makes no mention of any grand building newly constructed by Shahjahan during his reign. The mainstream scholars ignore one important passage in Badshahnama presumably because they are unable to verify the authenticity of the actual document itself. The passage in question clearly states that Shahjahan acquired Raja Mansingh's ‘manzil’ (building) not zamin (i.e. plot or tract of land as quoted by some scholars).

(4) Architecture: The architecture of the building, when examined in detail and without bias, clearly reveals a number of features that are unmistakably ‘Hindu.’

(5) Unexplained structures and underground chambers: Other than long corridors and rooms at several levels (actually, there are seven of them!), the Taj complex includes moorings for pleasure boats (what purpose could they conceivably have in a mausoleum?). Several photographs, drawings and reports about the Taj Mahal are either still classified or are untraceable. No one quite knows when was the last time (or indeed at all that the monument was "surveyed" by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) (In February 2007 I attended a lecture on the Taj Mahal by Godbole in Pune where he emphatically asserted that to date the Taj Mahal has not been properly surveyed).

(6) Missing evidence: No extant blueprints or scale models of the building have been found to date. There is no mention about these at all except for a ‘legend’ of a wooden model that was supposedly built.

(7) Missing credits: The only signature on the tomb is that of the calligrapher. Was he the only person of note or the only important contributor to the structure? How is it that there is no mention of the designer or the architect or indeed even of Shahjahan? Is that realistic if a building of such grandeur was constructed from the scratch? Continued silence by the ASI and the Government of India does not inspire confidence.

What can inspire comfidence and vindicate Oak the lone fighter, who single-handedly fought the academic establishment, is the kind of research work currently being carried out by scholars like Michael Danino and Professor Balasubramaniam. Ramamurthy Balasubramaniam, a professor of materials and metallurgical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, India, who also takes avid interest in researching designs of historical buildings and monuments, has shown that the basic unit of length used by Indian builders through the ages (angulam) has surprisingly remained the same for over four thousand years. From the Harappan settlements of 2000 B. C. E. and the Delhi Iron Pillar of Gupta period (320–600 C.E.) to the 17th century Taj Mahal, the unit of angulam has remained the standard of measurement in engineering plans. Angulam and its multiples vitasti (12 angulam) and dhanus (108 angulams) find mention in the Arthaśāstra by Kautilya who codified the metrology that was prevalent around 300 B.C.

The exact value of angulam with reference to measurements used in modern times, however, was derived only recently by Michel Danino, a French scholar/author who has made India his home. Danino, who studied the Dholavira settlement in Kathiawad, Gujarat (the largest Harappan civilization site in India), found that the dimensions used were exact multiples of 1.904 metre, a unit that he assumed to be the dhanus mentioned in Arthaśāstra. Further, taking dhanus to be 108 angulams, Danino derived the value of angulam to be 1.763 cm (Danino 2008). Applying Danino’s findings to the Taj Mahal, Balasubramaniam found that the modular plan of the Taj complex is based on use of grids of sides measuring 60 and 90 vitasti. The mausoleum was designed on a master square of 270 vitasti to the side: a number that allows the area to be divided into nine smaller squares of side 90 vitasti. Further subdivision of the 90-vitasti length in thirds is evident in the length of the large arched doors (60 vitasti) and the small arched doors (30 vitasti) on each (outer) face of the Taj Mahal.

According to Balasubramaniam, “We now know that the modular design and architecture of the Taj is based on Indian principles and there is nothing foreign in the design plan.” The important outcome of his research is that it has established the continuity of metrological tradition from the Harappan civilization down to pre-modern India indicated by the fact that the unit of angulam matches so well the dimensions of important monuments.

The Washington Times (May 21, 2005) carried a report “Hindus, Muslims in Taj Mahal Tussle” on how Subramanian Swamy, once Head of the Janata Party recalled that he was not allowed to see the basement when he visited the Taj Mahal in 1978. “I was later called by Moraraji Desai (then Prime Minster) who said I should not press the matter as it was in the national interest that the basement be kept sealed.” The report also quoted Ghulam Ali Qamar, the custodian in charge of the Taj Mahal 1958-1976 as saying, “no one knows what is in the basement. We once tried to drill a hole to see what’s inside but the walls are so thick we couldn’t even make a dent” (The Annual Research Journal 2006: 50). Many historians and academics are fearful of a backlash if the building that has been proudly trumpeted as representing the best of Islamic art may turn out to be Hindu. The challenge before us is how to balance historical truth and academic integrity with public peace and ‘communal harmony.’ As an article in the Organizer (April 15, 1992) put it, “History cannot be kept in the cold storage because it is unpalatable to a particular religion.” To the question “Will not a Hindu claim to the taj Mahal disrupt Hindu-Muslim relation?” Oak’s answer is, “ Truth is neither Hindu nor Muslim. Since we insist on children inculcating the habit of telling the truth should not the same rule apply to adults! Amity based on falsehood is illusory and unstable no matter what the proximate consequences are” (Oak 2003: 264).

Missionary, Muslim, and Marxist distortions of the Vedic heritage

Missionary, Muslim, and Marxist factions and their underlings chauvinistically regard only their particular versions of world history as accurate. Oak proposes an analogy to make his point. A person hit hard on the head would suffer from a memory loss forgetting his/her identity. Countries that are today Christian or Muslim are similarly victims of violent Christian and Muslim armies, while countries that were under the communist system were victims of the ideology perpetrated by Karl Marx. People under such regimes have completely forgotten about their Vedic past (WVH 1229-1230).

A conglomeration of priests, preceptors, tutors, astrologers, judges, executives, and mathematicians administered Vedic culture, which pervaded the entire ancient world. That class was collectively known as ‘dravids’ in India and ‘druids’ in Europe. They included people belonging to all four classes including the Brahmins. The term dravid is comprised of two Sanskrit roots viz. dra (to see) and vid (to learn)(WVH 204,207,220). Oak explains that the ancient Vedic writings were divided into two streams: āgama and nigama and the Druids of Europe preserved their writings in those very categories. In The Celtic Druids Godfrey Higgins was concerned to show that the Druids were the priests of Oriental colonies who emigrated from India (London: St Paul’s, 1929: frontispiece). After the introduction of Christianity their writings (Ogam) not being understood by the priests [i.e. missionaries] were believed to be magical and were destroyed. St. Patrick is said to have burned three hundred books. Ogam as a term is still preserved in the Welsh language where it means today augury and divination. Missionaries also distorted the tradition of the Rāmāyaņa and other aspects of Vedic culture in Europe. They dismissed the entire pre-Christian history of Europe with one contemptible term ‘heathen’ (WVH 225-227). Lt. Gen Charles Vallancey notes in the preface of his book that “the Irish and the Welsh complain of the devastation of their manuscripts by the first Christian missionaries, by the Danes, Norwegians and others (1804: Preface VIII)(WVH 918).

Muslim historians and academics similarly wrote off all pre-Islamic history as that of Kaffirs and therefore unworthy of mention or study. The way in which all pre-Muhammad history of Arabia was written off may be judged from B. Philby’s observation, “Arabs have nothing to tell of ancient kingdoms…Arabian history began for them with the notorious Dhu Huwas and the affair of Uhud, while the real historical material of the preceding two centuries has been sprayed out in a fantasy of Methuselah to bridge the gap between the age immediately preceding the birth of Islam and the days of Sheba’s queen (1947: 123)(WVH 653).

The Archaeological Survey of India was set up over 130 years ago by the East India Company administration. General Alexander Cunningham, its first director, conceived a plan to misuse and distort archaeology to consolidate the newly won British domain in India, and later to facilitate conversion of Indians to Christianity. In a letter dated September 15, 1842 and addressed to Colonel Sykes, a Director of the British East India Company, Cunningham wrote that archaeological exploration in India “would be an undertaking of vast importance to the [British] Indian Government politically and to the British public religiously [and that] the establishment of the Christian religion in Indian must ultimately succeed (WVH 1179).

Contemporary Indology is securely lodged in the Orientalist foundations of the classical theories of Karl Marx and Max Weber. Marx assumed that the West was unique and enjoyed a developmental history that had been absent in the East. Western proletariat is humanity’s ‘Chosen People’ no less than the Western bourgeoisie is global capitalism’s ‘Chosen People’ (Hobson 2004: 14). Weber’s whole approach was founded on the most poignant Orientalist presupposition: what was it about the West that made its path to modern capitalism inevitable? And why was the East predestined for economic backwardness? Weber transposed the Eurocentric categories into his central social scientific concepts: The West was blessed with a unique set of rational institutions, which were both liberal and facilitated growth. This has remained absent in the East (Hobson 2004: 15). Hobson provides documentary evidence to controvert this line of argument and proposes that the Easterners created a global economy and global communications network after 500 CE along which the more advanced Eastern resource portfolios (e.g. Eastern ideas, institutions, and technologies) diffused across to the West. After 1492, Western imperialism and European colonialists appropriated Eastern economic resources of Africa and Asia that enabled the rise of modern West (Hobson 2004: 2).

Oak criticized the ideal and the doctrine of secularism as it is instituted in contemporary India on the following grounds: (1) this version of secularism is unsuited to the conditions in India by virtue of its profoundly Christian and western character. A creed with its own dogmas, secularism is incompatible and sits uneasily with indigenous worldviews of India; (2) secularism is insensitive to the religious feelings of Hindus forcing them alone to think of their religion as a matter of private preference. By uncoupling the link between religion and community, it has deprived Hindus of their self-identity; and (3) a secular state pretends to be neutral but is partial to the minority communities (see also Tilak 2002).

By way of illustration Oak documented one instance of a twisted logic behind a secularist interpretation of history by an agency of a state ruled by a Marxist government. In 1970, an issue of a magazine published by the Directorate of Information and Publicity of the West Bengal government carried a photo of a ‘mosque’ in Murshidabad showing on its front verandah a long line of massive images of Gaņeśa all badly mutilated. The caption underneath the photo explains that the Muslim Sultan who commissioned the ‘mosque’ was so secular that to satisfy sentiments of his Hindu subjects he had the ‘mosque’ decorated with the images of Gaņeśa. At the same time, to respect the dicta of Islam, he had them badly mutilated (WVH 1163)!

Oak’s legacy

An article in a recent issue of Liberty (a humanist magazine published from Wales) maintains that the Bhūmisūkta from chapter XII of the Atharvaveda reveals Hinduism to be an enriched form of humanism. As a way of life, Hinduism does not admit narrow nationalism. Hindus have no wish to rule the world but seek a position compatible with the dignity of a guide because they are destined to lead the world with the light of the Veda. According to Liberty, since Hinduism is based on reason and does not pretend to be the beneficiary of divine dictation, it is free from intrinsic aggression making it a natural way of life, free from perversion, prejudice and passivity. This raises Hinduism to a message of hope and humanity.

As if in continuation of the theme alluded to in Liberty, Oak resolutely challenged the familiar but deceptively seductive thesis that the West and East were, always have been (and are today), separate and different entities. West alone has pioneered the creation of the modern world; it emerged at the top of the world by 1492 owing to its uniquely ingenious scientific rationality, and inherently democratic, progressive attitudes. The East has always been a passive opposite of the West and that only the West was capable of independently pioneering intellectual revolution on the world stage. Oak energetically refuted this Eurocentric perspective (or Orientalized text) and the claim that the West properly deserves to occupy the center stage of progressive, global history and civilization.

Toward that objective Oak proposed to reawaken and reacquaint the world to its primordial Vedic heritage of the times when human beings were not divided and packed into mutually hating and hitting religious, ideological, or nationalistic compartments. He provided a way to restructure the disintegrated Vedic heritage of the world and the suppressed history of humanity. He pointed out the way back to world unity, integration, and peace. Vedic heritage regards the whole globe as a common home and all beings (including animal and plant life) as one family. Oak advised his readers to work for the establishment of a world Vedic Heritage University with branches in all countries to disseminate and teach the Vedic heritage to the world of today.

A beginning in that direction was made with the establishment of the Academy of Vedic Heritage (19 Spencer Road, Harrow, Middlesex in the United Kingdom). It is part of the Vedic Heritage International of New York, Mumbai, and Kolkata (WVH 1101). Proof of Vedic Culture’s Global Existence by Stephen Knapp is a welcome addition that marshals and documents new evidence on India’s great past and its original contribution to the world culture. It is because of the manipulation of India’s history by invaders that the true greatness of India and Vedic culture argues Knapp, has been stifled or hidden. Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan Gidwani is another in which Gidwani (like Oak) has recreated the vanished history of the world, which began with the Aryans: their successes, failures, and their ultimate return to India but using the medium of novel. But what is still lacking is the use of audio-visual medium to propagate Oak’s effort.

Oak’s legacy I: Linking Europe to its Vedic past

In 2007 the BBC broadcast a 90-minute documentary “An Islamic History of Europe” made by Rageh Omaar a (North-African Muslim) correspondent working for the BBC. It narrated in very positive and favorable terms the 'original' contribution made by Islam to medieval Europe in the fields of art, architecture, literature and science. The narrator very passionately recorded how Islamic rule in parts of Europe (Spain and Sicily) helped in the launching of a golden age when Islamic learning enriched European civilization. The documentary showed Rageh traveling across Europe to reveal what he claimed a medieval Muslim Europe that once was vibrant with a civilization that Muslims brought to the West. Rageh hoped that this documentary would reveal the debt Europe owes to Islam for its vital contribution to the European Renaissance.

As I was watched the documentary, I became increasingly aware of the need to produce a documentary that would go further back in Europe's (Islamic) past and reveal its Vedic spirit. As the works of Stephen Knapp and P. N. Oak reveal, it was the Vedic civilization that served the fount for the world's variegated cultures. Arabs and Muslims only ‘re-introduced’ the ancient Vedic values and norms into Europe. There is sufficient evidence to show, for instance, that the knowledge of mathematics and medicine that the Arabs introduced into Europe was based on the Sanskrit texts that the Arabs had been familiar with for centuries. Rageh pointed out that the Western Medieval doctrine of the double-truth (two incompatible assertions may be true at the same time) prefigures in the writings of Ibn Rushd (also known as Averroes, Spanish–Muslim physician and philosopher 1126–1198). Ibn Rushd sought to accommodate reason and revelation by maintaining that the same proposition could have different truth values in philosophy and theology. Though there was but one truth, there were many modes of access to it. What needs to be pointed out is that Ibn Rushd’s own line of interpretation prefigures in the writings of many Indian thinkers whose intellectual heritage eventually goes back to the Veda.

In the composite Indian tradition (Buddhist, Hindu, Jain) what appears contradictory on surface is explained epistemologically as truth operating on two (or more levels) as provisional truth (neyārtha in Buddhist terms) and definitive truth (nītārtha). Vedantins who are equally interested in the ontological dimension of truth explain truth employing both ‘realist’ epistemology and ‘idealist’ ontology because in Vedanta to know is at once to be and to become. Positive initial responses to this blog from across the world suggest that there is sufficient support worldwide from all those who are inspired by the Vedic worldview and sincerely wish well of it. I am convinced that they will enthusiastically support efforts to ‘reawaken’ the world to its Vedic past.

Producing a documentary outlining Vedic contribution to European renaissance past would also be an essential aspect of such effort. While the works of Stephen Knapp and P.N.Oak have generated substantial data about world’s Vedic heritage textually, the audio-visual medium will bring it to the attention of millions worldwide overnight. What is needed immediately therefore is someone with a strong institutional base to co-ordinate a team of volunteers who will bring expertize in (i) Indology and Vedic scholarship: to advise and provide relevant source material for making the documentary; (ii) Finance: to underwrite the expenses involved. If no one is forthcoming, we can always float an outfit solely for this purpose inviting sponsors to put in $ 100 each as the starting capital (you can count me in); (iii) Production: to get the script written and narrated, produce and direct the documentary; (iv) Distribution and public relations: the documentary must be taken up by the ‘mainstream’ news media so that it reaches the millions who are not aware of their Vedic heritage. We will need NRI community leaders and workers to contact the media personnel to persuade them to publicize the documentary. I hope all those who are proud of world's Vedic heritage will help in the production of such a documentary, which would be a fitting tribute to Oak’s life and mission. It could be shown first at the next WAVES conference in 2010.

Oak’s legacy II: Reclaiming divinities

As his legacy, Oak left compelling arguments why people everywhere ought to make an active effort to re-establish links to their ancient gods and goddesses that have been driven away by one Semitic God. Oak argued that there is no conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the one dominant God of today is in any way superior to the ancient divinities that until about three thousand years ago inspired men and women everywhere to acts of greatness, love, nobility, sacrifice, and heroism. As it is ordinarily understood, pilgrimage involves wayfaring to visit a shrine or a holy place. It would therefore be appropriate to return to them and pay them our homage. If, however, no ancient relics of their places of worship now remain, the homage may still be paid to one’s ancient deities in thought and spirit. What is more, unlike the present One God, they will not insist that we abrogate our present commitment to One God! Such a pilgrimage in space and time will enable us to reconnect with those names, forms, and forces that once incarnated and expressed humanity’s higher life. Restoration of links with their spiritual past will reanimate among the people concerned a renewed respect for their now vanished past filling up gaps in their cultural history.

The present generations of Africa, America, Europe, and the Middle East regard their past as blighted period in their history (Sarup 1980: 132). Refusioning of the horizon with that of deities with whom all contacts had been broken for millennia will be comparable to finding one’s birth mother as it were. It would be returning home as German philosopher Martin Heidegger had advocated. In this process of homecoming, humans would be able to open themselves to others while at the same time preserving their self-identity as Heidegger had argued. The peoples and cultures of Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East are no less ancient than the people and civilization of India. Unfortunately, their links with their respective pasts have been disrupted until now. But now is the time ripe to re-forge those links. The people of India can help in recovering and re-establishing that sense of historical continuity and identity with old divinities that are not dead; they were forced to withdraw themselves from the horizon. If there is sincere invoking and soliciting, they will undoubtedly come back and manifest themselves in response to summon.

Oak’s legacy III: Learning to speak Sanskrit

As his legacy Oak also left compelling arguments why Indians ought to learn conversational Sanskrit. Oak himself could speak and converse in Sanskrit fluently because his father spoke with his three sons in Sanskrit from their childhood. The exact extent to which Sanskrit was a ‘spoken’ language or the ‘mother tongue’ of certain regional or social groups in traditional India has long been a matter of debate. There is nevertheless some evidence for the existence of a kind of vernacular or spoken Sanskrit was widely prevalent in many parts of India though it differed from the strict rules of grammarians. Bilhaņa for instance observes in his Vikramankadevacarita (18:6) that in Gujarat even the women speak Sanskrit and Prakrit as fluently as their mother tongue. During the times of Sri Harşha (1100-1200), when vernacular languages were becoming popular among the masses, Sanskrit became the language of communication among them. This comes out in his Naişadhīyam which narrates the romance of King Nala and Damayantī (10: 34):

Recognizing that their respective mother tongues would not be mutually understood, kings who had assembled from the different parts of India to attend the wedding of Princess Damayantīi conversed in Sanskrit.

Modern vernacular languages bear witness to the general prevalence of Sanskrit in a comparatively recent time. The presence of ‘manuals’ for the instruction of spoken or conversational Sanskrit traditionally produced in India suggests that at various points in pre-colonial India there was a perceived need to revive or reform Sanskrit as a spoken language (see Deshpande 1993: 38). In modern times many scholars have advocated a similar role for Sanskrit as the national language of India including Dr C.D. Deshmukh, former minister of finance, Dr R.C. Majumdar, the eminent historian, and the "Mother" of Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Like Persian in the past and English today, Sanskrit can become a lingua franca in modern India. As a national language Sanskrit will be impartial and neutral in the sense that it will not prove advantageous to one part of the country and a handicap in others. It will therefore not generate resentment or jealousies from any particular group of Indians.

It would therefore be a fitting tribute to Oak if Indians the world over learn to speak Sanskrit. With that goal in mind an organization has been established in India (with centres in different parts of the world) that holds periodic seminars to train participants to speak and converse in Sanskrit. Many Indologists, however, are against this organization and its efforts to popularize Sanskrit as a spoken language. In August 2008 a very animated debate took place on the Indology list (owned and operated by Dr Dominik Wujastyk) in which academics put forth views both attacking and supporting efforts to promote spoken Sanskrit. To justify her opposition Stella Sandahl (a professor at University of Toronto) argued, “…It is one thing when for example a Bengali pandit speaks to Telugu pandit in Sanskrit in order to debate finer points in a text, or a philosophical issue, a literary allusion and so forth. Sanskrit is then their common language, a language of learning, of elegance and wit. And this is quite wonderful. It is an entirely different matter to try to revive and ‘modernize’ Sanskrit by introducing new-fangled ‘Sanskrit’ words for money order, check-out counter, bus station, bank draft--as if one finds these things in classical Sanskrit texts!... It is very sad to see how the ignorant Hindutva forces demean and make the wonderful classical language into something trivial and ridiculous. How do we stop them? How can we rescue Sanskrit from these vandals?

Repudiating this charge, Phillip Maas asked academics not to be discriminatory against those who use Sanskrit in a creative, modernist fashion. The use of Sanskrit as a spoken language, whether as standard Sanskrit or as a vulgarized idiom, is not per se a political statement and it does not per se reveal a tendency to approve of or even to commit political violence. In spite of everything that Sanskrit may symbolize, it remains a language that serves the purpose of expressing thoughts. And the freedom of thought includes, of course, the freedom to choose one's language. Adheesh Sathaye (a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver) pointed out that it is not at all uncommon to see vernacular words or forms used within medieval Sanskrit manuscripts, and particularly when the concept does not occur in classical Sanskrit. Moreover, contemporary spoken Sanskrit is quite obviously and self-consciously a simplification of classical Sanskrit, and this has been done in order for the language to be more accessible and appealing to young, twenty-first century students, who would like to express their thoughts about riding the bus, eating apples, using computers, and other modern-day activities. The idea that the ancientness of Sanskrit somehow debilitates this language from accepting neologisms, or makes it useless for expressing modern ideas, itself might be construed as an act of intellectual violence.

Reconnecting Europe with its Vedic past, re-establishing links with divinities that have been marginalized, and promoting Sanskrit as a global link language will contribute to Oak’s mission: (1) creation of a world that would be free of all forms of terror, torture, tyranny, treachery, and trickery perpetrated by various religions and ideologies and (2) welding of humanity into a common harmonious, homogenous, and helpful fraternity (see his dedication to WVH). Every time Oak sought to elaborate his life’s mission, Western academics, Indologists, and Indian secularists immediately paraded counter measures to demolish his arguments and to retain the Eurocentric vision and superiority. I have always found the mainstream Indologists’ verdict on Purushottam N. Oak that he was a lunatic and his writings worthless (without seriously examining his arguments) very troubling because it is uncivil, un-academic, and counterproductive to Indology. In this they seem to follow the counsel of Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), the noted American writer and editorialist, “If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost, you can still call him vile names.”

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OAK=HOAX ?

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nagabonar
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Re: Muhammad Susah Lepas dari Agama Asalnya

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Adadeh wrote:Muhammad Susah Melepaskan Diri dari Agama Asalnya
by Ayesha Ahmed
01 May, 2007

Orang *******...........berlagak jadi ahli sejarah......Alay....lu anak jablay...omongannya jijay.....gayanya lebay.....kkkkkkkkkk :rofl: :rofl:
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