TURNING POINT IN THE HISTORY OF INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

[ishaqzaade]

But that, as I explained above, is the crux of the matter. How do you claim something as indigenous if there was no political unity, and only a lowest common denominator at a cultural level. By what stretch of the imagination is the IVC indigenous to an Assamese or a Keralite?

Once you accept that these influences were, indeed, foreign at the time of introduction, then it becomes problematic to exclude Islam as a legitimate member of Indian culture.

for me islam is foreign religion and culture i never accept their arab culture in india .by the way muslim take their land name of islam .

 

[Joe Shearer]

1. If Hinduism was a religion of the so called Indo-Aryan speaking tribes from Central Asia, why is it that there has never been any substantial historic evidence of Hinduism in Central Asia itself?

First, it was not Hinduism as we know it that the central Asians followed, it was an archaic version that is depicted in the Rg Veda.

Second, there was a religious revolution among the bulk of those associated with the Indo-Aryan speaking tribes who chose to enter the mountain passes leading to India, and the split occurred there. They split dramatically, and revered Ahura Mazda, while they despised the Daiva; the rest of the pantheon had mixed fortunes, which information is widely available.

Third, this was a common theogony, shared by people as far away as the Hittites, who at the (presently) Turkish location of Boghaz Koi, inscribed a treaty on stone and invoked the familiar Indo-Iranian, perhaps even the Indo-European gods to witness it. Incidentally, some of the names of the Rg Veda are reflected in other mythologies; for instance, our Dyaus Pitar appears as Jupiter to the Italian branch of the Europeans, and as Zeus to the Greek branch.

How much more substantive do you expect for a period of proto-history, when no written records existed?

2. If Hinduism was the by-product of Central Asian Aryan Speaking tribes, why do these Central Asians make references to various locations in India and South Asia geographically, such as rivers like Yamuna, Ganga, Sindhu, etc?

Because their references to these geographic features were from a work that was substantially composed while they were actually in these locations themselves. Composing a work does not mean that the worship on which that work was based was cotemporal. The religion would logically come before the religious work.

 

[KingMamba]

for me islam is foreign religion and culture i never accept their arab culture in india .by the way muslim take their land name of islam .

The version of Islam that was practiced in the subcontinent for a long time was never Arab in culture.

 

[Developereo]

The point is the leaders of modern India (Nehru and his ilk) named their part of the subcontinent India in order to try and emphasize Pakistan leading to the partition of India.

The basic issue is that both sides interpreted the 1947 event differently. Pakistan claims that 1947 created two new entities from a now-defunct old. India claims that it is a continuation of the old entity, and Pakistan is a breakaway splinter group.

 

[Rig Vedic]

The basic issue is that both sides interpreted the 1947 event differently. Pakistan claims that 1947 created two new entities from a now-defunct old. India claims that it is a continuation of the old entity, and Pakistan is a breakaway splinter group.

Well, Pakistan was created on the basis of motivations that had nothing to do with pre-Islamic India.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Nope, maybe you forget history but Western history says there were two successor states to the former British India, the Dominion of Pakistan and the Dominion of India. Did I say you guys had no right to name yourselves Indian?? Please highlight where I specifically said you guys had no right I merely asked a rhetorical question. However I did say what was the purpose for the naming as such when most people thought you were going to name yourselves Bharat or Hindustan. Did Jinnah not assume the same, why would he do so if there was not a possibility?? Why was he opposed when Nehru chose India, it was not the name itself but insinuation behind the name that irked Jinnah.

I am sorry, but 'Western history' says no such thing. Please look up the record of Pakistan's application for ipso facto UN membership, and the UN Secretariat ruling on the subject, as well as the British and Indian submissions on that subject. There was one, and only one successor state, and it was not Pakistan.

It was for precisely this reason that the successor state chose to retain the name of the predecessor state.

Certainly the retention might have irked Jinnah, but international law was not decided by that admirable man's likes and dislikes.

A personal word: I tend to be blunt and unforgiving in my selection of words and phrases. Do not take it as personal rancour. I note in your last post a somewhat defensive note; please do not worry, I am thick of skin and will take a robust reply in the same manner as I expect you to do, to engage with the argument rather than with the tone.

The basic issue is that both sides interpreted the 1947 event differently. Pakistan claims that 1947 created two new entities from a now-defunct old. India claims that it is a continuation of the old entity, and Pakistan is a breakaway splinter group.

Where is the question of claims when the matter was decided by a quasi-judicial body subjected to no external pressures?

 

[ishaqzaade]

The version of Islam that was practiced in the subcontinent for a long time was never Arab in culture.

wahabism is growing is very fast in south asia and their islamic ummah is danger for south asia peace .

 

[Joe Shearer]

for me islam is foreign religion and culture i never accept their arab culture in india .by the way muslim take their land name of islam .

What did your second sentence mean? what land name of Islam? are you under the impression that Islam was the name of some country?

 

[KingMamba]

I am sorry, but 'Western history' says no such thing. Please look up the record of Pakistan's application for ipso facto UN membership, and the UN Secretariat ruling on the subject, as well as the British and Indian submissions on that subject. There was one, and only one successor state, and it was not Pakistan.

It was for precisely this reason that the successor state chose to retain the name of the predecessor state.

Certainly the retention might have irked Jinnah, but international law was not decided by that admirable man's likes and dislikes.

A personal word: I tend to be blunt and unforgiving in my selection of words and phrases. Do not take it as personal rancour. I note in your last post a somewhat defensive note; please do not worry, I am thick of skin and will take a robust reply in the same manner as I expect you to do, to engage with the argument rather than with the tone.



Where is the question of claims when the matter was decided by a quasi-judicial body subjected to no external pressures?

Well I have been raised and educated here in the most influential Western country on the planet and the history books say just what I stated. That must be Pakistani madarsa brainwashing on Western education system though right??

I did not take anything personal from the psychiatrist comment, I have read a lot of your posts on this forum and actually respect you as one of the few Indian members who can have a genuine conversation. I hope you do not take my sarcasm offensively as well.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I fully accept that the place of Vedic culture in the broader Indian cultural context is debated. However, I was conceding the most extreme position for arguments' sake that Vedic culture is 100% indigenous to the IVC and that it forms the bedrock of Indian culture. Even with that concession, my point was to posit the irrelevance of a large scale physical "Aryan" migration (genetics) and to focus on the core question of what is "indigenous" and what is "foreign", since that is supposedly the big difference between Vedic and Islamic influences within modern Indian culture.



That goes to the heart of the indigenous v/s foreign debate. I wrote "Indian" as a sloppy shorthand for the subcontinent; we could substitute the cultural, not political, entity Bharat instead and it wouldn't change anything.

I suggest that the only way to claim indigenous status for anything is if it occurred within the same political unit at the time it happened. Not centuries later. Germans can not claim Zola and Voltaire as indigenous, even though they share some level of common culture with France; less so with Poles and Greeks. Going forward, one could arguably call future artifacts indigenous to the EU, but you can't apply this label retroactively to previous centuries.

By that logic, the claim that Vedic influences were wholly indigenous makes no sense when viewed from a East/South Indian perspective, since the IVC was not a part of a common political entity until several centuries later. These were foreign influences absorbed into their own culture over time, just as Islamic influence was absorbed. Now one can claim that Islamic influences came on the back of a military conquest, but there were military conquests within the subcontinent throughout history. When kingdoms ruled over each other, it is unrealistic to expect that there was no cultural transfer.

My aim is not to discredit Indian claims on the IVC or Vedic culture, since cultural India is a shared heritage between us all, but only to draw a parallel between the spread of Vedic and Islamic influences from a political point of view.

This is an exciting post, and I would like to do it justice in responding. Not that the response will be directly contradictory; it is just that i feel it needs a couple of reads to absorb the whole. Would you mind awfully if I replied after breakfast, in about an hour from now? The discussion would inevitably have drifted far away by then.

 

[KingMamba]

wahabism is growing is very fast in south asia and their islamic ummah is danger for south asia peace .

I know and we Muslims fear its rise as well. Sufism however was the main Islam practiced in our region how is that not a part of our collective culture when it was never in abundance in any other part of the world??

 

[Joe Shearer]

Well I have been raised and educated here in the most influential Western country on the planet and the history books say just what I stated. That must be Pakistani madarsa brainwashing on Western education system though right??

I did not take anything personal from the psychiatrist comment, I have read a lot of your posts on this forum and actually respect you as one of the few Indian members who can have a genuine conversation. I hope you do not take my sarcasm offensively as well.

Not in the least. Not when it couches arguments which hold some water. Not when it originates from a well-schooled Madrasah boy with whom I can cross swords without losing caste.

 

[Developereo]

It depends on to what extent the IVC was Vedic. The Vedic settlements on the banks of the Saraswati were certainly contemporaries of the IVC.

I am prepared to believe that as the Vedic peoples expanded westwards, there was a certain degree of cultural mingling. Thus the IVC may have had Vedic influences as well as Elamite influences. The units of measurement used in the buildings do suggest a Vedic influence.

The Vedas are studied and chanted in Assam and Kerala even today (maybe more in Kerala than Assam) - so it could be said that there is an indirect link. But it's not that we are excessively obsessed with the issue.

So your belief is that the Vedic culture originated in the Saraswati River region and radiated outwards?

P.S. But, even so, given the lack of a unifying political entity, would you not agree that the spread of Vedic influence throughout the rest of the subcontinent was a foreign imposition at the time it occurred? The "we are all one" unification came much, much later.

 

[KingMamba]

The basic issue is that both sides interpreted the 1947 event differently. Pakistan claims that 1947 created two new entities from a now-defunct old. India claims that it is a continuation of the old entity, and Pakistan is a breakaway splinter group.

This is what I am trying to get at. That is what Nehru was insinuating when he decided upon the name for modern India and that is what irked Jinnah. However is it not true that this is what Nehru has achieved?? Do not the Hindutva advocates scream that Islam fractured India?? That is what I am trying to point out.

 

[ishaqzaade]

What did your second sentence mean? what land name of Islam? are you under the impression that Islam was the name of some country?

islamic super power(islam ka qila)=pakistan .