In several recent exchanges with Shri Rajiv Malhotra, it became clear to me that The H-Source to the Bible(or what he calls Bible from Purana) was seen as possibly going against the more isolationist position taken by Shri Malhotra notably in books like Being Different and Indra's Net. This also extends to positions on Yoga which are again at loggerheads with other Hindu leadership including Sadhguru, Sri Sri RaviShankar and the general position of International Yoga Day, on the beneficial effects of Yoga to all Human Beings.
Before I go forward though, I want to be sure that I do not want to dissuade Rajivji from his Seva toward the Dharma, and want to encourage his continued and tireless efforts. I do thank him for his life's work.
To parse Rajivji's note, " The same digestion is also going on with Puranas. There are people spreading jesus purana, bible purana, etc.". "The flier with example of gayatri mantra is an example of the same syndrome as whats going on about digesting Hindu pujas into jesus/mary pujas, etc.So its not about vedas versus Purana."
This note needs substantial explanation and even if Intellectual Kshatriya's finally don't agree with me, I hope that they walk away with greater understanding of the discussion.
The thesis that there is a substantial co-opting of Hinduism by Christians starting from the times of Fr. Roberto De Nobili. Nobili arrived in South India and dressed and behaved as South Indians do in order to spread Christianity in India. It is fair to say that he was successful, but success is a matter of gradation. There were several others who arrived in the pre-colonial era, between 1600 and 1770 to Indian shores. Many first came to Goa and then went East or North or South. Another priest was the Jesuit Fr. Thomas Stephens.
A third person associated with this phase, I would be remiss if I don't mention is VeeramaMunivar or Fr. Constanzo Beschi. There may be more as well.
Three books that emerged from this phase of Evangelism are Ezourvedam and Krista Purana and Thembavani.
Krista Purana was written in Konkani-Marathi and describes the whole history of Mankind from Creation to Jesus (see Wikipedia) in Puranic Verse form. The Ezourvedam once attributed to de Nobili but later represented as anonymously authored was more controversial and represented as a Veda but actually was a Gospel of Jesus. De Nobili himself also referred to the Bible as Vedam and this also was seen as inappropriate, given that there was no sacred station given to Veda. The famous thinker Voltaire though respected EzourVedam because as a thinker he respected the Vedas.
Voltaire is said to have remarked, "The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East." (see Wikipedia) . It should be said here de Nobili was a very sincere human being and a true priest. When people go to a different culture they do sometimes modify their own religion to be palatable to the indigenous peoples. We do see that also in Srila Prabhupada our own great Bhakti Vedantist. De Nobili referred to Mass as Pujai to make it more palatable to Hindus.
The Thembavani is different in some sense as it is about the life of St. Joseph and its Tamil is respected by all great poets in Tamil Nadu and is often compared with great works, even at times with the Kamba Ramayanam.
The final piece two pieces of this equation are the book "Jesus in the Ancient Vedas" which was published in the late 1890s, which makes a case of how the idea of the Eucharist originates in Vedic texts like the Purusha Sukta and the Shatapatha Brahmana. More recently, the Kaivalya Upanishad has been used in relationship to the teachings in the Bible. Among the Christians who have taken
this forward in Modern Times is Sadhu Chellappa and Joseph Padinjarekara.
The position Rajivji takes is that these efforts aim to use Hindu Vedic texts and concepts and absorb and digest them into Christianity. They are wholly aimed at conversion and offered as bait to Hindus. There is no official acceptance of Vedas as holding any Sacred Value from inside the Vatican or any of the official Churches of Christianity. They are mainly for consumption in the "De Nobili" evangelism in India.
Given the history of how Evangelism evolved in India, it was felt that anything that discusses the two religions as having commonality should be Red Flagged and viewed with Great Suspicion.
There are important distinctions between how the early Evangelists pursued their goals of Conversion notably in the Indian Context and how they aimed to grow their flock by distance and cultural bridging techniques and what "The H-Source of the Bible" promulgates is that there is no Evangelistic intent in the argument and the Goal of the maker of the argument is diametrically opposite or orthogonal to the idea. In addition, HH Wilson produced the idea at a time when Christianity was aggressively pursued for India, and the East India Company actively abandoned the idea. In addition, as we shall note next they chose alter the Puranic Timeline to build distance from this theory. So, let us first understand some of this.
Post-Colonialism we saw a more aggressive inculturation experiment which was part of the East India Company's efforts but by then, there was less respect for Hinduism per se notably amongst the elite who ruled India. This aggressive effort to convert Hindus eventually backfired with the Sepoy Rebellion or what we should rightfully call "The First War of Indian Independence". After realizing that Religion could easily destabilize the Empire, the Crown following its take over decided to take a
policy of expedient appeasement and avoided any official mandate of conversion. Yet, in some circles the quest continued. This is best explained in the fight over the Boden Chair at Oxford in 1860.
The Boden Chair was fought by Max Muller and Monier Williams. The Chair had been established by a Colonel Boden on Sanskrit to help convert Hindus to Christianity. HH Wilson, who had translated the Vishnu Purana and was a surgeon by trade, managed to win in 1832 by a close margin, and became the first chair, but in 1860, the fight was much fiercer. Max Muller had by then become famous through his efforts at translations of various texts and his now infamous book, "A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature So Far as it Illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans"
HH. Wilson's books were also read in the US by Henry David Thoreau and he was extremely impressed by both Purana and Upanishad. The fight over the Boden Chair got more political as the decades wore on and the East India Company got stronger and gained more wealth from the Indian
Subcontinent. A key player in redefining Sanskrit works Purana, Veda, Upanishad, Sutra etc in ways
that most suited the Company was Max Muller. Muller's efforts at reorienting the timeline of the Hindu Puranas some of them well into periods after the birth of Christ would prove most harmful in helping Hindus understand exactly what HH Wilson had started studying, - namely how Puranas were linked to the Old Testament. It is this timeline that has to be fundamentally challenged, and the best proof against it comes from the Old Testament itself (and the Related Ras Shamra texts) and from the Works of Homer. Muller would lose to Monier Williams. Monier Williams would continue
to emphasize the move away from Puranas and turn towards Advaita Vedanta. The Wilson efforts at Puranic linkage were suppressed and then lost forever.
When the Ras Shamra texts were first found, there was at least some realization that there is some amount of "Hurro" linkage in them, but they were never rightly passed on to Indological Studies from the Middle East Dept. The Weapons of Ba'al , for instance, discussed in my book, made by Kothar Wa Khasis (the equivalent of Vishwakarma) are called "Ayyamarri and YaagRishi"!
The idea that the story of Noah originated in Hindu texts is boldly hinted at in the 2014 movie Noah, where Shem's wife(unnamed in the Bible) is named Ila and played by Emma Watson. This idea is continuously and deliberately ignored by the academics in the West. As important is level of effort made to build distance between the Ras Shamra texts and the overtly present concepts and words from Hindu Purana there. Why are modern Academics who we believe to be mostly anti-Hindu avoiding this linkage?
In my book, I explain how the tales of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who represent a certain "Mortal Trinity" in the Old Testament and the Bible, are closely derived from parallels in the Puranas notably the Matsya Purana. Shaivo-Vaishnavite Puranas were overtly carried by the Mitanni Kings. They were readapted by the Aryan Priesthood in the Middle East to be part of local lore and legend. One part of this effort became the basis of the Old Testament as well. The texts were lost forever till they were rediscovered in Ras Shamra in the language Ugarith.
In my effort to reach out to anyone and everyone who would here this truth, i tried reaching various Christian Academics including Prof Francis Clooney, and even Sadhu Chellappa. Not one Christian seemed to want to provide the thesis the support I thought they should provide. Prof. Clooney was worried also by the idea of "indebtedness" which I felt was not pertinent as the Hurrians and the early Canaanites were in fact at a faultline and were quite polytheist and Hindu.
What is important is to note the obscuring of pre-Biblical peoples and who they prayed to El and Ba'al and Anat, and who they represent. Ba'al is the Equivalent of the Lord Shiva.
Even as late as the 7th and 6th Century BC, we find a strong
Ba'alistic Presence in Canaan and Israel. The king Manasseh of the Tribe Manasseh was seen as a known Polytheist and his northern neighbor, Baal of Tyre was a close ally of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the son of Sennacherib and his Semitic Wife Nachhiya(Nachhiya's sister's name was Abirami). In my book, I theorize that the name Manasseh relates in some ways to the Goddess.
The prophet Hosea, was against the use of the name Ba'ali as a name for God.
"It will come about in that day," declares the Lord, "That you will call Me Ishi[n 7] And will no longer call Me Baali."
#########################
To me it is very clear that there is a key relationship between the Old Testament and Purana that needs significant exploration. Intellectual Kshatriyas should not run away from this idea, rather they should treat it with a careful caution and explore it with an open mind.
Indra's Net is a broad and tremendous Agency. The fear that the entire Indra's Net might be separated and absorbed in parts, Yoga as Indra Devi's Net, something else as Cognitive Science, etc. needs to be very carefully looked at. Intellectual Kshatriyas need to understand that if a truth would serve an interest, it would be coopted. The Purano-Biblical Relationship as yet, has no intrinsic value to Evangelism.
It is a fact though. It is an important knowledge that Swami Vivekananda, the Great Hindu Visionary saw, when he opened his first Historic speech on September 11th 1893 as follows,
"Sisters and Brothers of America,
Intellectual Kshatriyas, please also read my Speaking Tree Blog. You are the true heirs to a spiritual Legacy some of which we understand, and some of which is dynamic and come about even as we explore our own Tapasya and gain from our own legitimate interest in "redeeming our pledge". The true heirs of the Legacy of Yayati, Puru and Bharata need to capture that great heritage of Hindu Purana, of Veda and Upanishad.
No citadel is too high or too closed for the All-Knowing Creator. If you claim your legacy and relationship to the Divine, nothing will stand in your quest for righteous claims. The body can be eaten, but the Soul cannot. So too, the true Religious Heritage will not die with one Body, it will outlive, this Creation itself as it rests Solely on THAT. THAT which cannot be destroyed. THAT which will forever and ever EXIST, even when All Matter ceases to.
Before I go forward though, I want to be sure that I do not want to dissuade Rajivji from his Seva toward the Dharma, and want to encourage his continued and tireless efforts. I do thank him for his life's work.
Purva Paksa
To parse Rajivji's note, " The same digestion is also going on with Puranas. There are people spreading jesus purana, bible purana, etc.". "The flier with example of gayatri mantra is an example of the same syndrome as whats going on about digesting Hindu pujas into jesus/mary pujas, etc.So its not about vedas versus Purana."
This note needs substantial explanation and even if Intellectual Kshatriya's finally don't agree with me, I hope that they walk away with greater understanding of the discussion.
The thesis that there is a substantial co-opting of Hinduism by Christians starting from the times of Fr. Roberto De Nobili. Nobili arrived in South India and dressed and behaved as South Indians do in order to spread Christianity in India. It is fair to say that he was successful, but success is a matter of gradation. There were several others who arrived in the pre-colonial era, between 1600 and 1770 to Indian shores. Many first came to Goa and then went East or North or South. Another priest was the Jesuit Fr. Thomas Stephens.
A third person associated with this phase, I would be remiss if I don't mention is VeeramaMunivar or Fr. Constanzo Beschi. There may be more as well.
Three books that emerged from this phase of Evangelism are Ezourvedam and Krista Purana and Thembavani.
Krista Purana was written in Konkani-Marathi and describes the whole history of Mankind from Creation to Jesus (see Wikipedia) in Puranic Verse form. The Ezourvedam once attributed to de Nobili but later represented as anonymously authored was more controversial and represented as a Veda but actually was a Gospel of Jesus. De Nobili himself also referred to the Bible as Vedam and this also was seen as inappropriate, given that there was no sacred station given to Veda. The famous thinker Voltaire though respected EzourVedam because as a thinker he respected the Vedas.
Voltaire is said to have remarked, "The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East." (see Wikipedia) . It should be said here de Nobili was a very sincere human being and a true priest. When people go to a different culture they do sometimes modify their own religion to be palatable to the indigenous peoples. We do see that also in Srila Prabhupada our own great Bhakti Vedantist. De Nobili referred to Mass as Pujai to make it more palatable to Hindus.
The Thembavani is different in some sense as it is about the life of St. Joseph and its Tamil is respected by all great poets in Tamil Nadu and is often compared with great works, even at times with the Kamba Ramayanam.
The final piece two pieces of this equation are the book "Jesus in the Ancient Vedas" which was published in the late 1890s, which makes a case of how the idea of the Eucharist originates in Vedic texts like the Purusha Sukta and the Shatapatha Brahmana. More recently, the Kaivalya Upanishad has been used in relationship to the teachings in the Bible. Among the Christians who have taken
this forward in Modern Times is Sadhu Chellappa and Joseph Padinjarekara.
The position Rajivji takes is that these efforts aim to use Hindu Vedic texts and concepts and absorb and digest them into Christianity. They are wholly aimed at conversion and offered as bait to Hindus. There is no official acceptance of Vedas as holding any Sacred Value from inside the Vatican or any of the official Churches of Christianity. They are mainly for consumption in the "De Nobili" evangelism in India.
Given the history of how Evangelism evolved in India, it was felt that anything that discusses the two religions as having commonality should be Red Flagged and viewed with Great Suspicion.
Uttara Paksha
(My Reply to the position)There are important distinctions between how the early Evangelists pursued their goals of Conversion notably in the Indian Context and how they aimed to grow their flock by distance and cultural bridging techniques and what "The H-Source of the Bible" promulgates is that there is no Evangelistic intent in the argument and the Goal of the maker of the argument is diametrically opposite or orthogonal to the idea. In addition, HH Wilson produced the idea at a time when Christianity was aggressively pursued for India, and the East India Company actively abandoned the idea. In addition, as we shall note next they chose alter the Puranic Timeline to build distance from this theory. So, let us first understand some of this.
Post-Colonialism we saw a more aggressive inculturation experiment which was part of the East India Company's efforts but by then, there was less respect for Hinduism per se notably amongst the elite who ruled India. This aggressive effort to convert Hindus eventually backfired with the Sepoy Rebellion or what we should rightfully call "The First War of Indian Independence". After realizing that Religion could easily destabilize the Empire, the Crown following its take over decided to take a
policy of expedient appeasement and avoided any official mandate of conversion. Yet, in some circles the quest continued. This is best explained in the fight over the Boden Chair at Oxford in 1860.
The Boden Chair was fought by Max Muller and Monier Williams. The Chair had been established by a Colonel Boden on Sanskrit to help convert Hindus to Christianity. HH Wilson, who had translated the Vishnu Purana and was a surgeon by trade, managed to win in 1832 by a close margin, and became the first chair, but in 1860, the fight was much fiercer. Max Muller had by then become famous through his efforts at translations of various texts and his now infamous book, "A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature So Far as it Illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans"
HH. Wilson's books were also read in the US by Henry David Thoreau and he was extremely impressed by both Purana and Upanishad. The fight over the Boden Chair got more political as the decades wore on and the East India Company got stronger and gained more wealth from the Indian
Subcontinent. A key player in redefining Sanskrit works Purana, Veda, Upanishad, Sutra etc in ways
that most suited the Company was Max Muller. Muller's efforts at reorienting the timeline of the Hindu Puranas some of them well into periods after the birth of Christ would prove most harmful in helping Hindus understand exactly what HH Wilson had started studying, - namely how Puranas were linked to the Old Testament. It is this timeline that has to be fundamentally challenged, and the best proof against it comes from the Old Testament itself (and the Related Ras Shamra texts) and from the Works of Homer. Muller would lose to Monier Williams. Monier Williams would continue
to emphasize the move away from Puranas and turn towards Advaita Vedanta. The Wilson efforts at Puranic linkage were suppressed and then lost forever.
When the Ras Shamra texts were first found, there was at least some realization that there is some amount of "Hurro" linkage in them, but they were never rightly passed on to Indological Studies from the Middle East Dept. The Weapons of Ba'al , for instance, discussed in my book, made by Kothar Wa Khasis (the equivalent of Vishwakarma) are called "Ayyamarri and YaagRishi"!
The idea that the story of Noah originated in Hindu texts is boldly hinted at in the 2014 movie Noah, where Shem's wife(unnamed in the Bible) is named Ila and played by Emma Watson. This idea is continuously and deliberately ignored by the academics in the West. As important is level of effort made to build distance between the Ras Shamra texts and the overtly present concepts and words from Hindu Purana there. Why are modern Academics who we believe to be mostly anti-Hindu avoiding this linkage?
In my book, I explain how the tales of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who represent a certain "Mortal Trinity" in the Old Testament and the Bible, are closely derived from parallels in the Puranas notably the Matsya Purana. Shaivo-Vaishnavite Puranas were overtly carried by the Mitanni Kings. They were readapted by the Aryan Priesthood in the Middle East to be part of local lore and legend. One part of this effort became the basis of the Old Testament as well. The texts were lost forever till they were rediscovered in Ras Shamra in the language Ugarith.
In my effort to reach out to anyone and everyone who would here this truth, i tried reaching various Christian Academics including Prof Francis Clooney, and even Sadhu Chellappa. Not one Christian seemed to want to provide the thesis the support I thought they should provide. Prof. Clooney was worried also by the idea of "indebtedness" which I felt was not pertinent as the Hurrians and the early Canaanites were in fact at a faultline and were quite polytheist and Hindu.
What is important is to note the obscuring of pre-Biblical peoples and who they prayed to El and Ba'al and Anat, and who they represent. Ba'al is the Equivalent of the Lord Shiva.
Even as late as the 7th and 6th Century BC, we find a strong
Ba'alistic Presence in Canaan and Israel. The king Manasseh of the Tribe Manasseh was seen as a known Polytheist and his northern neighbor, Baal of Tyre was a close ally of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the son of Sennacherib and his Semitic Wife Nachhiya(Nachhiya's sister's name was Abirami). In my book, I theorize that the name Manasseh relates in some ways to the Goddess.
The prophet Hosea, was against the use of the name Ba'ali as a name for God.
"It will come about in that day," declares the Lord, "That you will call Me Ishi[n 7] And will no longer call Me Baali."
#########################
To me it is very clear that there is a key relationship between the Old Testament and Purana that needs significant exploration. Intellectual Kshatriyas should not run away from this idea, rather they should treat it with a careful caution and explore it with an open mind.
Indra's Net is a broad and tremendous Agency. The fear that the entire Indra's Net might be separated and absorbed in parts, Yoga as Indra Devi's Net, something else as Cognitive Science, etc. needs to be very carefully looked at. Intellectual Kshatriyas need to understand that if a truth would serve an interest, it would be coopted. The Purano-Biblical Relationship as yet, has no intrinsic value to Evangelism.
It is a fact though. It is an important knowledge that Swami Vivekananda, the Great Hindu Visionary saw, when he opened his first Historic speech on September 11th 1893 as follows,
"Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects."
Intellectual Kshatriyas, please also read my Speaking Tree Blog. You are the true heirs to a spiritual Legacy some of which we understand, and some of which is dynamic and come about even as we explore our own Tapasya and gain from our own legitimate interest in "redeeming our pledge". The true heirs of the Legacy of Yayati, Puru and Bharata need to capture that great heritage of Hindu Purana, of Veda and Upanishad.
No citadel is too high or too closed for the All-Knowing Creator. If you claim your legacy and relationship to the Divine, nothing will stand in your quest for righteous claims. The body can be eaten, but the Soul cannot. So too, the true Religious Heritage will not die with one Body, it will outlive, this Creation itself as it rests Solely on THAT. THAT which cannot be destroyed. THAT which will forever and ever EXIST, even when All Matter ceases to.
No comments:
Post a Comment