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Who is a Hindu?

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Lastly it is very much true that languages Hindi and Urdu has lot of Persian in it and vice versa, but they are not the languages of what Upanishads of Charjapads found in Libraries of Tibet written in.

There something happened Sanskritization of Hindi which was always present while Urdu has more Arabic scripts in it.
 
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I don't think there came any Aryans invading into the sub-continent.

The word Arya denoted 'noble' and not any race per se. For example the Buddha called it Arya Sathyani...the Noble path.

The Aryan invasion theory, in my opinion is a myth.

wrote new books as in upanishads which are more refined than Vedas.

Joey, the Upanishads themselves are part of the Veda's aren't they ?
 
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Yes they are part of them but they are refined thoughts, i mean deals with specific things.
Then there are Panchatantras, read about them? then there are Puranas..etc etc etc, honestly speaking too too too vast to finish reading and udnerstanding in a life.

The beauty of duality concept to others is how it shows the system of preservation and shows the need of different insertion, if you have heard about Parsuram a Avatar as per Hinduism, youll get what I mean.

anyways, Sufism has starking similarity with Adi Shankaracharyas philosophy.
 
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Well the basic reason that main stream Muslims disagree with sufism is that Islam is a spiritual as well as practical religion, applicable to a person's daily life, country, work etc. But Sufis remove the practical aspect altogether from it.
 
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Islam is a spiritual as well as practical religion,

I don't find Islam without Sufism to be spiritual.

Have you read the Upanishads ?
 
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A very mature and interesting thread man there is so much to learn niaz sahab i salute you also sri , samudra ,joey good insight i hope this thread can continue like this with ease and humbly request jot headed members to keep away from the usual uncivilized trouble making , coz i am really learning a lot from this thread and hope it continues with this smoothness.
thanks
 
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I don't think there came any Aryans invading into the sub-continent.

The word Arya denoted 'noble' and not any race per se. For example the Buddha called it Arya Sathyani...the Noble path.

The Aryan invasion theory, in my opinion is a myth.



Joey, the Upanishads themselves are part of the Veda's aren't they ?
But there are more historians that say that Aryan footprints have thier heels pointing west. This whole issue of Aryans being 'indigenous' residents of Indus valley and other parts of India, is nothing but a propaganda, taken up by Sangh parivar minds to propagate the theory that 'Hindutva' ideology is pure right from its birth. And they are but a natural choice to benefit from this land. Others are NOT allowed.
I dis-agree here.
Kashif
 
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I don't find Islam without Sufism to be spiritual.

Have you read the Upanishads ?
This is again the limited knowldge about Islam.
Islam has more solid and spiritual base than any other religion, towrds ALLAH or GOD.
1. Praying five times a day is obligatory, but Islam also asks that while praying you act like you are standing in front of your creator; It require nothing but a spiritual strength to visualize; FIVE times a day!

2. Charity in terms of Zakat and Sadqah are nothing but spiritual acts. The rewards for these acts are earned in the life here after! It is nothing but spiritualism and a belief in creator that drive people to act on it.

3. Believe in its messenger and trying to emulate the way of lives of the messengers of Allah, is nothing but spritualism. These messengers spent thier live in most spiritual manner.

4. Performing Haj and Umrah , are pure acts of spritualisms, if you have any idea of the rituals done during Haj and Umrah.



These are a very basic idea of inherent spirtualism in Islam. Reading Quran, Ahadiths (The saying of Prophet PBUH) and scholarly work done by many great writers, philosphers, intellectuals would give you a better idea about it.
Kashif
 
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Number 1, The article is very loosely written with no intellectual thoughts.

Number 2, Niaz this is very very complex thing to analyze and talk about Philosophy of Vedanta or Advaita Vedanta for that matter, What I can tell you Hinduism as a name is new concept, in the sense of its name. The 'ism' has been incorporated to keep it as a religion, It is better known as Sanatan Dharma. There are quite jumber of assertions that can be made from the name how it derived Hinduism, but proper assertion will be still Sanatana-Dharma.

There is mention about the same in some books as well, like The following verse, said to be from the Vishnu Purana, Padma Purana and the Bruhaspati Samhita,

Aaasindo Sindhu Paryantham Yasyabharatha Bhoomikah
MathruBhuh Pithrubhoochaiva sah Vai Hindurithismrithaah

himalayam samarabhya yavat bindusarovaram
hindusthanamiti qyatam hi antaraksharayogatah

Niaz, The Aryan invasion theory as niaz your saying is total wrong but here are my short view on the same, Aryans existed beyond India that is for sure, but they didnt invaded India as it is being said, When river Saraswati dried up a group of peoples moved in the banks of Ganges from Indus, assimilated with new philosophies wrote new books as in upanishads which are more refined than Vedas.

There were several parallel groups of peoples present in India at that time. From Genetics to discoveries of Archeology has proved it however lets not go there it will lenghthen the discussion hugely; On Genetics If you recall Kivisild was second author in the infamous Bamshad study of indian caste populations which had forcefed AIT once but then after the new study he has made a U turn and puted up what actually happened, however if someone says Aryans existed only in India thats a myth, Aryans are a race while what happened in India is a civilization formation which is a part of one race.

I quote Sir.John Marshall, in his book Mohenja-dara and Indus Valley Civilisation, vol-1 Page vi-viii says:

"Taken as a whole, the Indus Valley people's religion is so Charesteristicaly Indian as hardly to be distinguished from still surviving Hinduism....
One thing that stands out both at Mohenjadara and Harappa is that the Civilisation hitherto revealed at these two places is not an incipent civilisation, but one already age-old and sterotyped on Indian soil, wit many millennia of human Endeavour behind it."

Now please note that Hindusthan or Hindu is not from Sindu river, but "the Landmass between Himalyas and Indu Maga Samudram" and this place is Hindustan and people are Hindus and the book of ESTHER of Old Testament calls India as Hodu a minor variation of Hindu.

The vedas say nothing about Aryans or Dravidians and they do not mention anything about foreign invaders as well.

The topic is about Who is a Hindu, then I say the author is mxing up lots of things, in simple terms a Hindu is one who is follower of Sanatana Dharma.
In Sanskrit Arya is used to 'Give Respect'.

It is to be noted that Dravidian gene is present among Aryans in the whole subcontinent, and even Dravidians are not the Tribal peoples who existed in India and still does in many places (I used the term Aryan and Dravidian Gene to simplyfy things but in reality they shoulds not be termed as Dravidian and or Aryan gene as such), My friend Vishnu Som a editor of NDTV travelled in Andaman with Indian Navy after Tsunami, and you know there is a tribe in there called as 'Shompel' Tribe and they are one of worlds oldest living tribes! They are neither Dravidians nor Aryans.

I'll tell you a starking thing, If you know the language of 'Baloch' peoples and see the similarity it has with Tamil, it is quite starking.

You spoke about Durga riding the lion, apparently Being a Bengali it is biggest festival in Calcutta, i.e. Durga Puja, the concept behind it is far from anything Greek, She is among the mythology as goddess but the way she is worshipped is different conept altogather.

Finally Who is a Hindu? the one who worships Ram or Lakhshman? no its wrong, Hinduism is a way of life as you have very correctly put, creation-destruction-preservation and belief in re-incaration, even if I dont believe in these three I cannot be dubbed as a non-hindu.

It is merely a philosophy with elements of Dharma, but one thing is for sure any Hindu should and believes in the Hindu Cosmos.

I'll put up a nice piece of extract here later, and oh Krishna was Black and not Blue and his kingdom was Dwarka whose ruins has been found under the sea by Archeological Society of India.


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Sri I dont agree much with you on the Zoroaster theory, it is known that Persians called us Hapta Hindu from Sapta Sindu.

Hon Joey,

I welcome critism at any time. Let us discuss your assertions:

If you read my post, you will notice that I agree that Indus valley was essentially a Dravidian civilization and of indigenous Indian evolution. My point is what happened to it. There were no Harappa and Mohenjodaro when Alexander invaded circa 322 B.C. This civiliation existed around 1000 BC. Something must have happened in the intervening 700 years to destroy it. I maintain that it was destroyed by the Aryans.

I have no way proving disproving where the word 'Hindu" came from. However any Farsi speaker will tell you that one of the words used for black colour is hindu.

The language that you refer to is not "Baluchi" but Brauhi. Baluchi is an Iranian language with a lot of Farsi words. Its alphabet is based on Arabic and very similar to Pashto. Baluchis are present not only in Pakistani and Iranian Baluchistan but also in Sindh, lower Punjab and in the Seraiki belt extending upto Bahawalpur.

Brauhis on the other hand is a small group of tribles around the area of modern Kalat. As a guess I would say that those who speak Bruahi or Bravi number no more than two million. Brauhi is 'probably' a Dravidian language and would naturally have many words in common with Tamil. However, since these indigenous Indian people have been cut off from other Dravidians for thousands of years, they are now indistinguishable from other Baluchs and most Baruhi are bi-lingual, they speak Baluchi and Brauhi with equal ease; probably thru intermixing with the Baluchis.

Now back to Aryans. Dont know why you deny existence of Aryan invasion. Vedas don't speak of it because these are the story of invason itself. There is so much evidence of Aryans in north of India. For example the 'Swastika' the symbol of Nazism is found frequently in North Indian Hindu Symbols. Princes were addressed as Aryaputra in the Mahabharata. The old language around Mathura ( Birj/Virj Bhasha) and Sanskirit is part of the Indo Iranian languages. How come people as far as Germany have common words with northern Indians if
at least part of the ancestory is not common?? Actually old Iranian language ( Pahlavi) was written in Avesta script very similar to the Sanskirt.( Look at old Parsi religeous texts.)
How is it possible if the root is not the same, pointing towards infusion of a lot foreign genes in the aboriginal Dravidian Indian blood ??

Every one knows from various stories that Krishan was dark and Balaram was light skinned. No human being can be Blue!! Think Krishan is depicted as blue only to highlight his celestial links.

My mention of Durga was only to point out commonality between Artemis( Diana) and Durga. Even though all the deities of the pantheon are worshipped by all Hindus; it is well known fact that different deities have more prominence in different part of India, For exmple Kali Devi is of greater importance in the South and Ganesha more in the West and as you mention Durga in Bengal.

Regarding Upanishads and the Puranas. I have not come across any Upanishad in English even though I searched for it in Delhi Book stores in 1994 when I was there last. So I have not actually read one and only know about them from the secondary sources. My belief is the Hindu religion is not really based on Vedas which contain mostly mantaras or chants and hymns used by the priests at worship or sacrifices; but more on the Upanishads which are the commentaries/ explanations of the Vedas but in fact form the basis of most of Hindu beliefs.

Finally, I would rather not comment on Sufism in this thread, Sufism is complex enough to deserve a sepearte thread, let us leave this thread for discussion about Hindus only.
 
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Sir,

Just a question in between all these talks of religion, which might be entertaining and colourful

What is that you feel as Human is your duty to a fellow Human, who may not as rich as you are, or the same religion, or the same colour, or the same area.

The underlying aspect of all religion is about being a Human.

What you think is a good human being is?
 
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hope this thread can continue like this with ease and humbly request jot headed members to keep away from the usual uncivilized trouble making , coz i am really learning a lot from this thread and hope it continues with this smoothness.
thanks

Did u see me posting. So dont worry.
 
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This is again the limited knowldge about Islam.
Islam has more solid and spiritual base than any other religion, towrds ALLAH or GOD.

These are a very basic idea of inherent spirtualism in Islam. Reading Quran, Ahadiths (The saying of Prophet PBUH) and scholarly work done by many great writers, philosphers, intellectuals would give you a better idea about it.
Kashif

You're yet to understand what 'spiritualism' means.

I find worshipping disgustfull, obeying rules set by a cruel fiat as oppressive and doling out money because its said in the books as an obligation forced on unwilling beings. I will fight this 'God' rather than 'worship'.

Islam has more solid and spiritual base than any other religion, towrds ALLAH or GOD.

You know nothing of other religions.
 
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Islam has more solid and spiritual base than any other religion, towrds ALLAH or GOD.

Adux,

The underlying raison d'etre for all organised religions is to fool the massess for political and financial gains. Only a handfull of Eastern religions are exceptions.
 
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isnt it funny, that people measure spirituality


Samudra,

I dont believe in Organized religion, i feel a political motive behind very organized religion especially islam. if they have spiritulisim in as he says, then it has discrimination in the form of taxes on non-muslims.
 
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