Yuva Bharati - June 2008
YUVA BHARATI
Voice of Youth
Rs.10/4
Vol.35 No.11
Editorial
Vaisakh-Jyeshta 5110
CONTENTS
June 2008
Religion and Its Universality -K.Subramanian Yoga of the Religions -Satish Chowkulkar Personality Development - A Yogic View -Sumant Chandwadkar Our Heroes The Narmada Parikrama--3 --K.K.Venkatraman The Whitewashing of History -Nithin Sridhar
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Aayur yajnena kalpataam Praano yajnena kalpataam Cakshur yajnena kalpataam Srotram yajnena kalpataam
May we gain all power to our life through sacrifice, all power to our life-breath through sacrifice, all power to our eyes through sacrifice and all power to our ears through sacrifice. - Yajurveda 9-21.
Editorial
AGHAST For the umpteenth Time
There is a foreign hand in it…. This is an attempt to sabotage the peace talks…… This is an attempt to create a wedge between the communities…… There is a complete failure of Intelligence agencies….. Feeling like having a déjà vu? No. These are rhetoric to which we are used to. Jaipur 'joins' the list of unfortunate cities struck by Terror. I said déjà vu because it is the same thing which happens with seldom any change in the statements or pattern of events whether it is Kasi, or Akshardham or Coimbatore or Mumbai or any other place. The youth of India, is not bothered whether there is any foreign hand in this. It may be any one or many or all of these reasons. The question which lingers in everybody's mind is whether there is any method to stem the rot? But the doubt which looms large is whether these rhetoric are intended to benumb our society from treading in the right direction? It seems so. And unfortunately our society is falling prey to this design. Any gory incident will occupy our mind as long as our Media talks about it. The moment they shift their focus to another issue, we also tend to forget that incident. Now in the aftermath of Jaipur blasts our Media is busy investigating about a double murder happened in Noida. It has occupied more Telecast time than even the Blast. Don't be surprised if they launch a campaign similar to Justice for Jessica. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin our Media is also bent on driving our society into an
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unfathomable pit of self destruction. A visionary and vigilant leadership and a responsible media to guide are what our society needs now. Perhaps this need was understood correctly by our great leaders of the past, that they didn't leave a chance and ran their own newspapers and magazines. Sri Bala Gangadara Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Subramania Bharati all were tried for sedition as they energized our populace with their inspiring writings and talks. To stand for Truth, that too against adverse circumstances, requires lot of inner strength. They were opposing not merely a political party, but an empire which had a major part of the globe under its crushing toe. Today the people of India are facing a tougher and a more monstrous problem that of terrorism which strikes at will and spares not even innocent women and children. And the terrorism we see today is a virulent form of an enemy, centuries old and who has vivisected Mother India creating history's largest and bloodiest mass exodus of Hindus uprooted from their own homes. And now the old enemy is rewriting the script again with the blood of our brothers, mothers and children. And our media is providing the Indian masses that opiate of intelligentsia pseudo secularism. So what is the antidote? A media that places the interest of Indian people and safety of Indian society above other considerations including that of political correctness is the media that India needs today. Here are the words of fire that aptly describe the media need of today, the kind that shall “teach the Hindus mutual help and appreciation …We must have a press, and papers printed in English and vernaculars. When this is done, then I shall know that you have accomplished something. Let the nation show that we are ready to do.” The alternative? Given the fact that these words were written by Swami Vivekananda in his letter to Alasinga Perumal, his friend in Chennai, more than hundred years ago on 12th of January 1895, the alternative is chillingly prophetic and as it is realistic. “…You do not deserve to live if you cannot help yourselves.”
Aravindan Neelakandan and Balasubramanian For YUVA BHARATI Editorial Team
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RELIGION AND ITS UNIVERSALITY
K.Subramanian
'Of all the forces that have worked and are still working to mould the destinies of the human race, none certainly, is more potent than that, the manifestation of which we call religion' Swamiji on the necessity of religion. The concept and connotation of the term religion is quite comprehensive in that it encompasses such virtues as Truth, Justice, Equality and Love. Each has its relative contribution to the philosophy of one's existence. It has been and continues to be a potent force through the history of mankind. It has influenced culture, politics, economics, ethics and in turn influenced by them. This has been its reciprocal character on a universal basis. It is the greatest motive power that moves the human mind for reaching that infinite energy, for building up character, for bringing peace to others as also for oneself and elevates human level to the level of a metaphysical experience. It provides ample anchorage to life's stability and teaches us to master the hard consonants of life. It plays a vital and significant role in the design of human existence. Are all the religions existing in the world identical in all respects? Evidently not by any logical analysis. Every religion has certain basic and well defined characteristics that are peculiar to the culture, time and historical circumstances of its birth. The various mythologies, rituals and theological beliefs of each religion would reflect its unique character and potential and hence bound to differ in its own way. Religion prescribes a severely graced discipline of the mind and feeds us on the nectar of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. What is the core and content of each religion? God as the Supreme Being is the answer in the affirmative. With His triple Cosmic functions as the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer, He rules over every thing that goes on in the universe prescribing a rigid charter of Dos and Donts in our life. In times of trouble, He is our only Saviour Immortal at all times. One of the fundamentals of religion is to nurture and nourish the concept of universal brotherhood and given it an all-pervasive character. This could, definitely, be achieved by preaching the greatest ideals and ideologies of religionLove, Sacrifice, Peace and Goodwill.
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Hinduism has always taken the lead in this direction. Swamiji has highlighted these virtues in all his lectures and speeches abroad. Eminent savants of the West have expressed this idea that, if the world is to survive, the Indian ideal is to be adopted in letter and spirit. Thus religion gained strength and stability with passage of time and slowly moved on to play its key-role in national regeneration and universal integration. Further, in a world torn by differences, dissensions and conflicts, religion is expected to take on the onerous role of a unifying force and not a divisive force. This, in essence, implies that religion has the dual role of an arbitrator and a peacemaker on crucial occasions. The parameters of our perception about the role religion is expected to play in our individual and national life should necessarily have a logical base and background tempered by historical reasons and realities over the centuries. The strength of every race lies in its spirituality and once that spirituality shows signs of waning, that race virtually races towards its doom and eventually falls into the grip of materialism that gathers such gradual momentum even to the extent of bringing spirituality to a moribund state. Considering incidentally, the aspect of correlation between culture and religion, it should be categorically averred that both have to co-exist as interrelated factors in the context of national progress and development. On broader analysis, no distinct differences seem to exist between the two as both aim at perfection as their culminating point. Whether culture is a product of religion or religion has its genesis in culture is not of so much importance so long as the synthetic role of both is ipso facto clear. However, their individual roles have been clearly defined with their lines of demarcation
despite their contributory character. Both culture and religion highlight the need for selflessness as then only the ideals and ideologies enshrined in both could be translated into action. Religion without culture and culture without religion are like gigantic shells without power. Is a comparative study of religions essential in the context of religious pluralism? Yes and a Must. Each religion has its beliefs, values, symbols, cults etc. and moves on its chartered course with its own authority. If only one religion were to exist in the world, the need for diversity is practically rules out and diversity is an important and indispensable factor to be reckoned with in the interest of universal religious progress. Besides, a comparative study of religions enables one to evaluate the worth of one's own religion and its comparable standard with others. It should, as a rule, be conceded that every religion contributes its due share to national and universal integration without creating any communal disharmony. The essence of the underlying objectives of all religions has its appeal to the respective rungs of humanity and what is considered good in one may be imbibed by others without any reservations. This reinforces the sense of oneness among the various religions and brings them closer on the plane of understanding. Despite their characteristic diversity, all religions lead to the same path of God realisation. In Bharat which is a secular country, each religion is constitutionally assured of its freedom within defined limits. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has authenticated the veracity of this statement through his personal experiences with almost all the religions without any bias. Religion is not a matter of any ostentatious
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In essence, all the religions of the world have their significant contributions to the overall With the rapid advances in science and technology, transport and communication, the welfare of mankind, towards building up a better world of humanity is shrinking fast and the social structure on a universal basis enlarging the needs of trade, commerce, education etc. are horizon of inter-religious understanding and bringing together people of diverse cultures, goodwill denuded of hatred and hostility. There faiths and religions encouraging co-operation is no gainsaying the fact that effective interaction and mutual help at the social, national and between the various religious groups sinking all international levels. However, it should be their differences and petty squabbles and coming ensured that inter-religious rivalry, communal closer on the plank of co-operation and disharmony, violence and the like are avoided understanding is sure to go a long way in as far as possible. Further, comparative religions hammering out all the polemical issues provide several alternative spiritual paths and concerning religions in general and paving the techniques other than one's own facilitating way for better international harmony and individual choices of worship, enabling better universal integration. All religions have their understanding of the same in all its dimensions divine character and hence occupy an honourable place in the philosophy of mankind.
display; but 'one of feeling; of being and becoming'. If love towards God is real and genuine, it should express itself in love and regard for others in spite of differences, if any, the resultant being 'harmony' which is in the attitude of mind, in mutual understanding, love and goodwill. All religions should strive in all earnest, for the attainment of this universal goal without any reservation or religious complex.
and enlarging one's own religious consciousness. Comparative religion in its entirety is, by itself, an interesting field of study providing ample scope for exploration and discovery that could feed any interested research scholar with its incessant flow of hidden facts and figures that might have, probably, beguiled earlier researchers.
BHARAT QUIZ
1. What does 'Upanishad' mean? 2. Which Rishi took the whole Ganga in his palm and sipped? 3. The episodes of Ramayana were separated by 'Kandams'. How were the episodes of Mahabharata separated? 4. What does Arjuna mean? 5. Who was known as the father of Revolutionary thought in Bengal? 6. Where is the Research Centre for Rice in India? 7. Among the Kaurava brothers, one left the Kauravas, joined Pandavas and fought against Kauravas. Who was he? 8. What are the 3 texts that are referred to as Prasthana Trayam? 9. What is the meaning of Narada? 10.There are only 6 Submarine communications Centres (SMCC) in the World. One is in India. Where is it located in India? (See Answers on Page 34 )
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YOGA OF THE RELIGIONS
Satish Chowkulkar
Shiva Swarupananda and Naadpriyananda were amidst a discussion on Yoga. “Today the 21st March 2008 is a unique day according to some people” said Naadpriyananda, “they told the reason as some Muslims observed the day as Milad-Ul-Nabi, birthday of their prophet-Mohammed, Christens observed it as Good Friday the day of crucification of their prophetJesus and for the Hindus it was the day of Holi the festival to mark burning of Madan by Shiva-symbolising a triumph of the Yogishwar Shiva over lust and desire”. I joined their discussion and said, “Shiva is an ideal for all The Yogis -Yogishwar and Sri Krishna, an ideal preceptor of Yoga Sastra, is Yogeshwar. Shiva Swarupananda looked up at me, smiled and said “So! You are linking Yoga Sastra to Hindu Gods; you are strengthening the view of a British Christen Preacher, who says Yoga is a philosophy of Hindu religion. So, devout Christen should keep away from it.” All of us merged ourselves in laughter. “The devout British Christen Preacher says yoga is a philosophy of Hindu Religion stemming from their scripture Vedas and propounded by their Gods and SagesSri Krishna, Patanjali, Vasistha and Vyasa. So non-Hindus (read Christens) should not practise it.” Shiva Swarupananda said and looked at us for response. Naadpriyananda came forward and said, “we need to look at few keywords in this statement. First the word Yoga itself, secondly the “Hindu Religion” and thirdly the Scripture “Vedas”. I said, “The Yoga is a philosophy of life based on the values enshrined in the Vedas. It is a 'Darshan' a perception. Yoga Sutras are a scientific presentation of the philosophy. Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga is a technique or technology to enable one to adopt it in life. However only the two angas (Portions) of the Ashtanga (Eight Portions) namely Asana and Pranayama are understood by the people at large as Yoga. Therefore focus of practitioner of Yoga is only on physical fitness and on building efficient body. Now-a-days, however, these is a talk of Meditation. But again the focus is on getting rid of the psychosomatic ailments. The answer of the question Yoga is for what? is nowhere near the propoundersPatanjali's original idea”. “You are correct” said Shiva Swarupananda and continued, “Patanjali Maharshi has very clearly enunciated, at the outset, in the first 3 Sutras of the 1st portion Samadhi Paad. Yoga is an Anushasan, an Anushasan to control, regulate and manage the Vrittis in the Chitta and the purpose being Self-Realisation Tadaa Drushtu Swarupa Avsthanam. So the purpose of Yoga Shastra is spiritual and not secularlimiting to building physical
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fitness and curing psychosomatic ailments-like materia medica”. Naadpriyananda smiled and said “Perhaps this is the problem of the British Christen Preacher. The Christianity preaches that Man is a born sinner product of original sin. If a sinner is the Atma Swarupa of the Man; no one will be comfortable to realise this type of identity. In fact one will get deeply depressed. But according to Vedas and Upanishads, we are Amrutasya Putra. Swami Vivekananda proclaimed this from the platform of World Parliament of Religions in 1893, quoting Shrunwantu Vishwe Amrutasya Putrah from Shvetashwatara Upanishad. Our this original nature gets realised and affirmed by practising the value-based life as per Yoga Philosophy.” “Naturally preacher of a faith, whose survival is essentially on the putting” the fear of “hell-fire for the sinner” idea in the gulliable persons will feel threatened and see “red” in spread of Yoga,” said Shiva Swarupananda. Naadpriyananda smiled and said, “in the modern language more and more people adopting Yoga will lead to slow-down on the business of conversion and its salesmen will be jobless.” All of us laughed. Shiva Swarupananda came forward and said, “But this will be the case of only bigots and exclusives in the faith. For open-minded and genuine lovers of God, irrespective of their religion, Yoga Philosophy will be strengthening them in their faith.” He took out a magazine from his table “Self-Realisation” (founded by Late Paramahamsa Yogananda) Spring 2008 issue. He referred to an article by Mr.George Feuerstein “Is Yoga a Religion?”. Naadpriyananda took the magazine and started reading: Some Westerners who are practising Christians or Jews are concerned about
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yoga being an Eastern Religion. They fear that by taking up the practice of yoga, they might undermine their own religious faith. Are their fears warranted? Is yoga a religion? The quick answer to both questions is: Instead of undermining their personal faith, yoga can actually deepen it. Yoga has historically been associated with India's three great religious-cultural traditionsHinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Thus the teachings of yoga are infused with many concepts that have a Hindu, Buddhist, or Jaina flavor….
…..At the heart of all forms of yoga is the assumption that we have not yet tapped into our full potential as a human being. In particular, yoga seeks to put us in touch with our spiritual coreour innermost naturethat which or who we truly are. That nature is described differently by the various schools of yoga. Rather than being expected to believe in any of the traditional explanations, we are free to allow our personal experience and realization to shape our understanding. Over the millennia, yoga has become associated with various philosophic and theological systemsnone of which can be said to define yoga itself. For yoga is a first and foremost a practical spiritual discipline that emphasizes personal experimentation and verification. In other words, direct personal experience or spiritual realization is considered senior to any theory or conceptual system. For this reason, yoga can and in fact has been practised by people with widely differing philosophies and beliefs. Some
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yoga practitioners believe in a personal God who created the universe, others favour a metaphysics that regards the world as illusory and the ultimate Reality as singular and formless. Yet others (notably the practitioners of Theravada Buddhism) refuse to speculate about metaphysical matters. Accordingly, some yoga practitioners are more religious than others. But yoga itself is primarily a tool for exploring the depth of our human nature, of plumbing the mysteries of the body and the mind. Of course, as we delve into the practice of yoga, we will find that certain ideas about the world and human nature are more useful than others. So, possibly, the notions of karma and rebirth might resurface, because they have a certain explanatory force. Or we might have experiences that lend credence to the ageold teaching that “all is one” (sarvam ekam). How can yoga enrich the religious or spiritual life of a practising Christian or Jew? The answer is the same as for a practising Hindu, Buddhist, or Jaina. Yoga aids all who practise religion, regardless of their persuasion, by balancing the nervous system and stilling the mind through its various exercises. Yoga's heritage is comprehensive enough so that anyone can find just the right techniques that will not conflict with his or her personal beliefs. More than that, religious-minded folk will find in yoga many ideas and sentiments, especially about moral life, with which they will easily resonate. Who could find fault, for instance, with the yogic recommendation to pursue a virtuous life dedicated to non-harming, truthfulness, compassion, charity, tolerance, and freedom from greed, anger, jealousy, and
so forth? So, practising Christians or Jews (or practising of any other religious tradition), should take from yoga what makes sense to them and deepen their own faith and spiritual commitment. But they also should keep an open mind about their spiritual experience and insights arising from the practice of yoga. After all, all theories, explanations, and beliefs are merely conceptual frameworks superimposed on reality. We ought not to cling to them too tenaciously lest they should prevent us from seeing what is really the case. All the great religious traditions of the world have their spiritual explorers. Yoga is India's gift to those wishing to become psychonautstravellers in the inner space of consciousness. If we genuinely desire to know ourselves more profoundly and make sense of the world in which we live, yoga is a reliable, well-tested vehicle. We all nodded with satisfaction.
Naadpriyananda paused for a while and said, “Let us look at the word religion. Religion is determined mostly on the way of worship. All the prominent religions around base their faith on One God, one prophet and one book. Exclusive faiths do not accept other people's God, prophet and book-scripture. Going further they say their God alone is the God, their prophet only is genuine and also the last prophet and their scripture alone tells Truth. They further sport an ambition to convert people of other faiths to their faith. They also imagine that it is their God's ordained command. Going from these definitions Yoga and for that matter Hindu faith can never become a Religion”. Shiva
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Swarupananda interrupted and added “In fact there is nothing like Hindu Religionbecause there is no founder, no one God and no one scripture. The mass of people whom world calls Hindu are the inheritors of the 'Sanatana Dharma' which is explained not defined, in the time immemorial scripture the Vedas. Philosophies elucidated in the Vedas are not opposed to any of the Religions being followed today, as this philosophy predates advent of these Religions.”
“Well!” I said, “some of these religions may oppose the universal principles of the Vedas for their own needs. But then, it is these needs which need to be given a second look and not the universally applicable, time immemorial Principles.” Shiva Swarupananda pointing at the article in the “Self-Realisation” said, “Yes! And the wiser counsels in these religions are evidently doing this”.
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PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
- A YOGIC VIEW
Sumant Chandwadkar
Swami Vivekananda on Personality Development:
This vision of oneness with all is being taught by only Sanatana Dharma i.e. Hindu Dharma. Hence Swami Vivekananda said that if India dies, the whole world will die. If India lives, the whole world will live. Further, he said all the scattered spiritual forces should be integrated into powerful national sentiments. Only a materially strong and spiritually enlightened India could aspire to be a force to reckon with and be in a position to be the spiritual guru of the world. To bring Swami Vivekananda's vision in action every individual has to work very hard. Every individual of this land, irrespective of any caste, creed, sect or religion, has to see oneness everywhere and inspire himself/herself by spiritual values and create their personality. While speaking about personality, Swami Vivekananda has emphasized more on physical, mental and spiritual personality. He said, 'be strong, my friends, you will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Bhagavad Gita.' This should not be misunderstood that he was against the studying of any religious scripture. But he was against the nature of socalled religious practitioners. He was against the nature of people who were sleeping in lethargy under the name of Satvik (pious and balanced) nature and wearing the garb of religion and proclaiming themselves as the sole defenders of Dharma. In another place he said, 'Strength is life and weakness is death. Strength is felicity and immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery.' The strength which Swami Vivekananda was expecting is physical as well as mental. Speaking about mental personality Swami Vivekananda strongly said about mental freedom. He said, 'Free! We, who
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This is what Swami Vivekananda, the patriotic and cyclonic monk of India envisaged in the human personality. He inspired hundreds and thousands of young minds in India before independence and still his thoughts have not reduced their intensity even by an ounce to attract the people all over the India and rest of the world. And this is the reason why Govt. of India has declared his birthday i.e. 12th January as a 'National Youth Day'. To know more about The efforts for creating our personality have it read his lectures given in India from Colombo to continue for a long time without any lethargy to Almora and also the lectures he delivered in or frustration. It is just like this to avoid any stain America and European countries. on a brass vessel one has to clean it everyday. It is Sri Aurobindo on Yoga and Personality: also like this if we want to dig a well and get water, then we have to dig at one place 'Yoga is complete god-realisation, a complete constantly and deeply and not by shallow self-realisation, a complete fulfilment of our digging at several places. being and consciousness, a complete 'Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work or worship or psychic control or philosophyby one or more or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines and dogmas, rituals, books, temples or forms are but secondary details.' This means unfolding of spiritual personality neither ends at temples transformation of our nature - and this implies a complete perfection of life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection elsewhere.' This is the view of Sri Aurobindo on yoga. If we try to understand this closely, then it is nothing
cannot, for a moment, govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject and focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else, for a moment! Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it…..The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down for everrend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us.' This simply means everybody has to strive hard to gain mastery over mind and better the power of concentration. Further he added that difference between animal and man is the difference in their power of concentration and the difference between a man and another is in the degree of concentration. Along with concentration, will power is another important facet of mental personality. About it he said, 'What work do you expect from men of little heart? Nothing in the world! You must have iron will if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains'. The remedy to shatter weakness of anything is not by brooding over it but by thinking of strength and through positive and constructive activities.
(places of prayer) nor it ends in reading any religious books. It is not confined to any form of god or different styles of prayer and it is not the rules and regulations written in religious holy books. But these are means to unfold our spiritual personality and not the goal in itself. The spirituality means manifestation of the potential divinity within us by work (Karma yoga) or worship (Bhakti yoga) or philosophy (Jnana yoga) or psychic control (Raja yoga). The characteristic of this manifestation is the mastery over the inner and external personality and the result of it is total freedom.
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but total personality development of a human being. As per Sri Aurobindo, this personality of man starts with the physical body and ends with spiritual and national education. The purpose of personality development is god-realisation and self-realisation. Self-realisation is nothing but to understand and to experience inner integrity and god-realisation means to understand and experience outer integrity, and ultimately both: Jivatma (inner self) and Parmatma (outer selfthe God) are one and the same. The whole process starts from self-education and it starts from the physical body. In this regard Sri Aurobindo said, 'I put a value on the body first as an instrument, Dharma Sadhana, or, more fully, as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth,
but else because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the divine whole, a form of the spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use.' To put this in practice one has to start working on one's physical and mental existence of personality. We have to treat our body and mind with dignity, worship them as gods and honour them as guests. Let us close this chapter by resolving within ourselves to develop our personality more carefully and consciously so that none of us will ever feel disgraced or frustrated in life. May the Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and all good forces shower their love and blessings on all of us, so that we all will become the worthy sons and daughters of the great Bharat Mata. (Concluded)
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Our Heroes
HER NAME IS SO SACRED WE SING IT ONLY IN THE EARLY HOURS OF DAWN
Originally named Manikarnikka at birth, she was born to a Maharashtrian Karhade family sometime around 1828 in the Hindu city of Varanasi. She grew up in the house of Baji Rao II and contrary to the popular belief that women were not educated or were educated only in cooking and managing household affairs, Manu, as she was then called, underwent extensive and thorough martial training, including riding, fencing and shooting, when she was still a child. She married Raja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar in 1842 and gave birth to a child in 1851 and unfortunately the child died. In 1853 Gangadhar Rao fell very ill and he was persuaded to adopt a child. He relented only a day before his death, and adopted a distant relative, a boy named Damodar Rao. Maharaja Gangadhar Rao died the following day, 21 November 1853. Then British started their attempt to take over Jhansi which she resisted with all her ability. She even fought against them through their own legal games. But British legal system was not in her favour. So Rani started fighting back, strengthening her army and at the same time she also provided welfare schemes to her people far ahead of her times. She developed libraries and improved road facilities and erected street lamps. Even her British adversaries marveled at her administrative capabilities. Major John Malcolm who opposed Rani's claim to throne in a letter to GovernorGeneral James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, wrote of Rani as 'a woman highly respected and esteemed, and I believe fully capable of doing justice to such a charge.' Such was the efficiency of Rani of Jhansi. Equally important is her love for humanity that she showed compassion to the very British who tried to usurp her throne. The 1857 war of Indian Independence when it erupted was initially a rebellion by Indian soldiers. When the soldiers stationed near Jhansi rebelled and British women and children feared their lives Rani arranged their safe housing inside her fort. The rebelling soldiers could not touch them. It was only when they decided to leave the Rani's fort under the direction of Captain Skene that they were massacred by angry soldiers.Rani had raised an army of 18000 soldiers. The British describe watching the women of Jhansi firing batteries, carrying ammunition and relieving men on the battlements. And in the midst of it all, the Rani, her banner proudly flying from the highest turret, fought along the walls with her troops. When Jhansi fell to a numerically and ammunitionally superior British force, Rani fled to Gwalior to continue her fight there. She was chased by British and Lieutenant Bowker engaged Rani Lakshmibai in a one to one sword fight.
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Rani defeated the British Lieutenant in the sword fight. She travelled at a stretch one hundred kilometres on horse back. Later when Rani was mortally wounded by a British bullet piercing her back, she was immediately taken to a safe place where she distributed all her jewellery to the soldiers. Then she asked the soldiers to light the pyre so that she would die rather as a Hindu warrior woman than being killed by a British bullet. Perhaps British heaved a sigh of relief and Sir Hugh Rose wrote in his memoirs, "The Rani was remarkable for her bravery, cleverness and perseverance; her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities combined with her rank rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders." Perhaps the British felt a relief a bit too early, for when INA charged against the British Rani of Jhansi became again the nightmare of the aggressors of the nation, for the war cry of Rani Jhansi Regiment of Azad Hind Fauj of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose was 'Live, Fight and Die like Rani of Jhansi'. Her spirit shall continue to protect the freedom of India and fight for it even as the so-called leaders may fall into slumber of inaction. And as the common folk of Jhansi sing--Her name is so sacred we sing it only in the early hours of dawn. References: · . Lakshmi Bai: Rani of Jhansi : Historynet article · David E. Jones, women warriors: A History, Brassey's 2000 pp.47-8 · Bhawan Singh Rana, Rani of Jhansi, Diamond Publishers, 2005
RANA PRATAP SINGH, MAHARANA OF MEWAR
One of the greatest banes of Hindu society throughout history is its quick satisfaction with initial successes and forgetting the longer perspective of history and goals. This has resulted in the failure of a generation of sustained Hindu movement for liberation. This also explains why leaders of Hindu society often become complacent with little victories and comforts of life and often yield the larger battle field to enemy and the Hindu society itself gripped with defeatism sinks into social stagnation. Of course Shivaji and Guru Govind Singh were exceptions. One man stands different amidst such depressing narrative of medieval Hindu history. His name is Rana Pratap Singh. After the decisive Battle of Haldighati on June 21 1576, Rana suffered a heavy loss as well as had to flee. He lived amidst tribals in the caves of Aravali hills. His family suffered and he saw his daughter's Chappathai taken by a stray dog. He even thought of surrendering to Akbar. But then something unprecedented happened. The tribal Bhil leader offered Rana his soldiers. He too was worried about alien occupation of the motherland. Rana Pratap Singh should be credited with the consolidation of Hindu society across all community differences to fight
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against the common enemy. Soon a Bhil army was formed and trained. Seeing this Bhil youths, Hindu merchants started pouring in financial aid. A well coordinated Hindu network of all communities was formed by Rana Pratap Singh. Even to this day the Mewar coat of arms display Bhil soldier side by side with Rajput and he was also a typical Hindu in that he always showed greatness of character even to his enemies. Thus when the womenfolk of Abdur Rahim Khankhana, a mughal officer who had vowed to crush Rana, fell into the hands of Pratap's son Amar Singh, Pratap commanded his son Amar Singh to arrange for the safe conveyance of the Mughal ladies to their camp. Rana almost completely freed Rajastan from the grips of Mughals. Yet owing to an oath he had taken that he would not take food with salt and would sleep only in the floor of the hut he never slept in the royal bed as Chittor was still in the hands of Mughals. He was not satisfied unless the complete freedom was to be won for his Hindu society. One wishes such leaders unflinching in the mission for ultimate freedom and strengthening of Hindu society bridging all divides- now.
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THE NARMADA PARIKRAMA - 3
(Clockwise Circumambulation of the River Narmada )
K.K.VENKATRAMAN
Forest Route South Bank:
From M.P., Narmada enters Maharashtra, then flows through Gujarat before joining the Arabian Sea. The river flows through forest area known as Shoolpani for about 90 kms. Of this stretch of forest, 30 kms lie in M.P., and 60 kms in Maharashtra. Gujarat State begins where the forest ends. This forest is inhabited by people belonging to Bhil Tribe. They take away all the items including the dhoti from the parikramavasis and leave them in their undergarments. Women are spared of their dress being taken away. They do not harm the parikramavasis if they part with the items demanded by the tribals. Normally the parikramavasis part with their items. This is considered as a test. A parikramavasi should not have any attachment to possessions. At the last village, before entering the forest, facility for safe keeping of luggage is available. This service is provided free of cost. Parikramavasis leave their belongings, i.e. vessels, bed sheets, extra dhotis and other items at this village. A tag with the name and address is tied to the belongings. On their return through the other (North) bank when one reaches the point on the North Bank of the river just opposite to this village on the South Bank, he/she can collect his/her belongings by sending a slip through the boatmen who are operating boat service from one bank to the other bank. The boatmen also render free service. I reached this last village in the evening and went to the temple where the parikramavasis halt for the night. 12 parikramavasis were already there. I left my two bags containing the extra dhoti, a towel, bedsheet, aluminum watercan, mat, notebook in which I was recording the details, with the person who offers this safe keeping service. When the other parikramavasis learnt that I was alone, they advised that I join them during the journey through the forest. One flourmill owner in that village offers empty gunny bags, which the parikramavasis use when the dhoti is taken away in the forest. All the male parikramavasis collected a gunny bag each from the flourmill owner next morning. All of us left the village together. After walking about 10 kms we entered the forest around noon. We ate our lunch, which we were carrying with us. In the afternoon 2 persons stopped us. They told all of us to sit down and started checking the items. After checking the items they took away the blade (which I was carrying for sharpening the pencil as I had left the pen with my bags for safe custody) and the matchbox (which I was carrying to light incense sticks). They told all the males except me to remove their dhoti and handover to them. They did not ask me for dhoti. After giving their dhotis the parikramavasis wore the gunny bags to cover them. The tribals went away with the
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dhotis and the items they had taken from parikramavasis. After the tribals left other parikramavasis surrounded me and commented that only because of the grace of the Mother I was spared. They were very happy that I was a member of their group. We resumed our walking. By dusk we covered about 10 kms. As the area is hilly, the river flows in the valley and the slopes of the hills form the banks on both the sides of the river. We saw a hut on the slopes and decided to halt for the night. We had a wash in the river, climbed the slope and reached the hut. Two people were in the hut. They told us to spend the night in the hut. We went round and collected firewood. It was the month of December and the nights were very cold. After lunch we had not eaten anything. We were tired. We laid down to rest. After a few hours, we started shivering because of cold. (No bedsheet to take cover). We lighted the fire and burnt the firewood collected by us. We sat the whole night singing bhajans. Next morning we left the place. We walked down to the river. It was very cold. So we decided to walk and take bath after the sunlight falls on the river. We covered about 5 kms, and then took bath in the river. We resumed walking. We walked another 10 kms. It was past noon and 24 hrs. since we had eaten anything or had even a cup of tea. Although, we were very hungry, the journey was continuing. During the war, the warriors come across situations when food and water may not be available. Hence, troops are trained to withstand hunger and thirst. Long distance marches are undertaken with very limited supply of food and water. As the troops advance into enemy territory, cooked food is brought from behind in vehicles to ensure that the troops are fed in time and they do not fight empty stomach. Ammunition is also replenished in time. However, the enemy would make all efforts to stop the supply of ammunition and food by targeting the supply vehicles. No Army will be able to fight for long without the replenishment of ammunition and on empty stomach. While survival ration (dry items like cashewnuts, beaten rice, sugar) is provided to everyone and is carried on person, the same cannot be consumed without order, however hungry one may be. Generally order for consuming the survival ration is given only when food had not been supplied to the troops for 24 hrs. While advancing into the enemy territory, the troops may find food items and water (well) in the camps abandoned by the enemy or in the houses deserted by the civilians. But, these items are not consumed, as the enemy may have poisoned the same before leaving. So, one should be able to withstand hunger and thirst till the supply of food and water or the food items available in the enemy territory are tested and found fit for consumption. Having undergone this training in the army, I was now able to withstand my hunger. As we were walking, we saw a boat with two men waiting on the other (North) bank. They waved at us and said loudly that they would bring ration from Dongre Maharaj Ashram and also provide cooking vessels. They asked for the number of parikramavasis. We shouted the number from our bank. On hearing this, one person went away. We were very happy. It was more than 24 hours since we had taken anything. Not even a cup of tea. We went round collecting firewood. As this is the usual place where parikramavasis cook their food, arrangements for keeping
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the vessel over fire (three stones on which the vessel could be placed) were there. We were eagerly awaiting the person who had gone to bring ration for us. After about an hour we saw the person coming towards the river carrying two bags. As soon as he reached the riverbank, he got into the boat and crossed the river and reached the point where we were waiting. They gave four vessels and the bags containing ration. They told us to use the vessels for cooking, eat our food and return the vessels to them. We were surprised to find that, even tea leaves, milk and sugar were also sent along with rice, dhal, salt, oil, some vegetables, chillies and other items, used to make food. Tea was prepared immediately. All of us had the same and felt energetic. Everyone was helping in one way or the other in preparing the food. I told them frankly that I did not know cooking but would wash the utensils after the job was over. As I had no work when the cooking was going on, the boatman told me to write the name and address of each parikramavasi in a notebook, which they had brought with them. I wrote the names and addresses of all of us (of course in Hindi). These particulars are entered in the official register in the Ashram and kept on record for accounting purpose. When the food was ready all of us ate to our hearts' content. We knew that our next meal would not be before 24 hours. I took the vessels for washing. Others also joined me. We returned the utensils to the boatman and took leave of them. We walked about 5 kms and crossed Jalkhand River, a tributary of Narmada. It was nearing dusk. We saw few huts and decided to halt for the night. As we reached the hut, a person was about to leave the hut. He said that, we had entered Maharashtra, after crossing Jalkhand River. He was going to his house, which was about 1 km away. He said that we could halt in his hut for the night. As we had experienced biting cold the previous night, we collected firewood and kept ready for burning during the night. We laid down to rest. As the night advanced, it was getting very cold. We had to get up and light the fire. We sat round the fire the whole of night singing bhajans. Next morning we left the place, walked about 10 kms and then took bath in the river. We walked 5 kms and crossed Udayi River, a tributary of Narmada and reached a village. There was one Narmada Ashram, which distributes ration and provides utensils for cooking food. We collected the ration items, prepared the food, and ate our lunch. After returning the washed vessels, we resumed our walking around 4 pm. We walked about 5 kms. It was nearing dusk and we spotted an abandoned hut. We decided to spend the night there. We collected firewood, lit fire and sat around the fire whole night singing bhajans. Next morning, we left the place, had bath on the way, and walked for about 15 kms. On the other (North) bank of the river was Hapeshwar Mahadev temple. Ration items are distributed to the parikramavasis passing through the south bank also. The boat on the other side came to our side and the boatman took our identification certificates and told us to wait for the ration. After about an hour, he brought the ration items, tea leaves, milk, sugar and utensils for cooking. Tea was immediately prepared and served to all. Food was cooked. We ate and returned the washed utensils. We collected our identification certificates in which the seal of the Hapeshwar temple had been affixed as a token of issuing the ration. We left the place and resumed walking. There were very big boulders along the bank; there was also gap in-between the boulders.
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So we had to jump from one boulder to the other and experienced difficulty in doing so. The two women in our group did not lag behind and kept pace with us. We would have covered 5 kms. It was nearing dusk and we decided to halt. We could not see any shelter (hut) in the vicinity. We had no other option but to stay in the open. We went round and collected lot of firewood. We had to light the fire early as we were in the open. As the night advanced, it became severely cold. We were closing in towards the fire. When the front side of the body was facing the fire the back would become very cold. So to keep the back warm, we had to turn round. This exercise was going on the whole night. We kept awake the whole night singing bhajans. Next morning we resumed our walking. After walking about 10 kms we took bath. We walked about 10 kms and came out of the forest area and reached Shoolpaneshwar temple around 4 p.m.. We collected ration, prepared and ate our food. We attended evening Arati in the temple and thanked the Lord for protecting us through our forest journey. We halted in the temple for the night and had a sound sleep. As we had come out of the forest, I decided to go alone. I sought the permission of the group. They said that they would be happy to have me in their group. However, realizing my necessity to complete the parikrama as early as possible, they acceded to my request. Next morning I resumed walking alone as usual. Eat sweets here and now By tradition, a family in Gujarat has been distributing laddus to the parikramavasis when they pass through the town on the south bank of the river. As soon as a parikramavasi enters that town, a local person would tell him to go to the house of this family and collect the laddu. This practice has been going on for generations. The laddus are of big size with cashewnuts and raisins and cannot be consumed at one go. The parikramavasis used to collect the laddu and eat whenever they felt like. Of late, some non-genuine people pose as parikramavasis, collect the laddu and sell it and use the money to buy cheap liquor, beedis and other intolerable. When the family came to know of this, they reduced the size of the laddu and started insisting that the laddu should be consumed in their presence. One may take more than one laddu, but should eat the same in their presence. Of course, it is difficult to eat more than one laddu at a time. I was also directed to this place, when I reached the town. When I went to the house of this family, an elderly person (seemed to be the head of the family) was there and he told me to sit down. He sent a word inside and a laddu was brought on a plate. Meanwhile, he started enquiring about me. It was going on for sometime. He called for one more laddu and offered two laddus to me. As I had already been informed by the local people, I knew that the laddus are to be eaten in his presence. So I told that I would accept one laddu as I could eat only one at that time. He said, “Please take both the laddus and eat whenever you feel like”. I went to a temple in the town for night halt. The poojari of the temple enquired whether I ate the laddu at the house of the family. I narrated what had happened. Then the poojari said that the person I had met was the Head of the family who was wise and could judge people correctly.
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Going forward the only choice On day 60, I reached the last point on the south bank. One has to go on a boat into the sea for some distance and then cross over to north bank. The boat service is operated free. The boat operators wait for about 20 parikramavasis to gather at the place. Sometimes people may have to wait for even three days. Fortunately when I reached the place in the evening 15 parikramavasis were already waiting to go over to the north bank. All parikramavasis have to visit Vimaleshwar Temple, which is about 5 Kms. away from the place of halt and is considered as the land's end on the south bank. Charles Lindberg was the first Pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. While narrating his experiences during that historic flight in his book "The Spirit of St. Louis" (that was the name of the aircraft in which he flew), he records that after the aircraft started flying over the Atlantic ocean, land had disappeared and there was only water everywhere. He was cruising towards a distant destination which was not in sight even after hours of flying. He felt whether he should turn and fly back to the place from where he had taken off. Although, this thought came in his mind again and again, he brushed aside the thought and with great determination continued flying towards his destination. When he crossed half the distance he says "The last bridge behind me has been burnt and I have no choice but to fly towards my destination". When I reached the land's end on the South Bank, I had the same feeling as that of Charles Lindberg. Dog, the Silent Teacher Next morning (Day 61) I visited the temple and returned to the place of halt. These parikramavasis as usual prepare their food. In the morning before I left for Vimaleshwar Temple, I had given the dry rations with me to a group of parikramavasis who were cooking their food. When I returned around noon, they had already taken their food. They gave me my share of four rotis and dal. I went to a corner to eat. A dog came and sat in front of me at a distance. I kept the rotis on the lid of my water can on the floor, took one roti on the hand and started eating. As I was eating the second roti (two more rotis were on the lid kept on the floor) the dog suddenly took away one roti. I became very angry because, even these four rotis were not sufficient to satisfy my hunger. But immediately I remembered that one has to be kind to all including animals and plants (this is one of the rules of the parikrama). I cooled down realizing that the dog must have been hungry. I felt ashamed of my selfishness. I should have voluntarily offered a roti to the dog before I started eating. There is a saying "Each foodgrain bears the name of the consumer". The dog took away its legitimate share. Sailing by boat I reached the end of the south bank on the 60th day after covering 1,170 Kms. From this place one has to reach the north bank by sailing into the sea for some distance and then to the north bank. It is said that as a parikramavasi should not cross Narmada waters, one should not enter directly into the
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river by boat. This boat service is run by a Trust and the parikramavasis are taken free. Parikramavasis may have to wait for 2-3 days at this place, till the group becomes at least 30, so that the full capacity of the boat is utilized. Fortunately, I did not have to wait, as there were already about 30 parikramavasis. After reaching this place, one has to go about 5 kms to visit the Shiva Temple at Vimaleshwar, which is considered as the last point on the south bank. As no boat service is operated from there, one has to come back 5 kms to the place from where boat service is operated for the parikramavasis. On the 61st day, I went to Vimaleshwar temple and returned. I went to sleep that night with the thought " I have been walking all these days towards the West, hereafter I will be walking towards the East, to the source of the river at Amarkantak". Next morning, we, the group of Parikramavasis waiting to cross over to the North bank, were served black tea(tea without milk). After offering prayers in the temple, we walked 2 kms and reached the point from where the ferry service is operated. Narmada has lost her identity as a river, forming an estuary. There was an anchored boat. Two boatmen arrived and prepared for the sailing. The boat is a catamaran which moves in the direction of the wind. One of the boatmen informed that if the wind is favourable, the sailing will take about 5 hrs. We sat in the boat and started sailing around 9.00 AM. The sand and the trees on the land slowly started disappearing. North bank was not visible, there was only water all around. Except perhaps for the boatmen, none of us could make out in which direction the boat was moving. Sometimes the boat could not move forward and at times the it started moving backward due to the change in the direction of the wind. The velocity of the wind was increasing and our boat started rocking from side to side due to strong wind and giant waves. All of us were praying to the almighty for a safe sailing to the North bank. ( to be continued)
ANSWERS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. To 'sit near' (the Guru). Janu. 'Parvas'. White. Bipin Chandra Pal. Cuttack. Yuyutsu. Bhagavad Gita, Brahma Sutra, Upanishads. That which gives knowledge is Narada. Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu (INS Kattabomman SMCC).
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THE WHITEWASHING OF HISTORY
Nithin Sridhar
The history of India has been whitewashed and distorted, first by European rulers, and after independence by eminent historians of India and their supporters the Leftists, Seculars and selfclaimed Progressives of India to meet their own ends. They have painted the pre-Islamic invasion period as a Dark Age and have glorified the Islamic period to be very peaceful and prosperous. Ram Swarup says, "Marxists have taken to rewriting Indian history on a large scale and it has meant its systematic falsification. They have a dogmatic view of history and for them the use of any history is to prove their dogma. Their very approach is hurtful to truth…. The Marxists' contempt for India, particularly the India of religion, culture and philosophy, is deep and theoretically fortified. It 1 exceeds the contempt ever shown by the most die-hard imperialists." Some of the common claims of these eminent historians are: 1] The Aryan Invasion Theory is true . 2] Large scale destruction of Buddhists and Jain temples was done by Hindus in pre-Islamic India . 3] The Muslim rulers were religiously tolerant and Islamic rule was prosperous. The eminent historians deny the destruction of Hindu temples or the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers. They also deny the religious motive behind the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim 4 rulers . Let us examine the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). The AIT was introduced to justify the presence of the British among their Aryan cousins in India as being merely the second wave of Aryan settlement there. It supported the British view of India as merely a geographical region without historical unity, a legitimate prey for any invader capable of imposing himself. It provided the master illustration to the rising racialist worldview: "The dynamic whites entered the land of the indolent dark natives and established their dominance and imparted their language to the natives; they established the caste system to preserve their racial separateness; some miscegenation with the natives took place anyway, making the Indian Aryans darker than their European cousins and correspondingly less intelligent; hence, for their own benefit they were susceptible to an uplifting intervention by a new 5 wave of purer Aryan colonizers.” Dr. Koenraad Elst, in "The Vedic Evidence," after examining the Vedic corpus for any evidence of Aryan invasion theory proposed by the Marxist school, concludes, "The status question is still, more
6 3 2
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than ever, that the Vedic corpus provides no reference to an immigration of the so-called Vedic Aryans from Central Asia…." He further provides astronomical and literary evidence against the AIT in his other essays.
nor archaeological but political and religious, 9 that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice." Archaeological evidence in no way contradicts Indian tradition, rather it broadly agrees with it (except for its chronology). Whether from North or South India, tradition never mentioned anything remotely resembling an Aryan invasion into India. Sanskrit scriptures make it clear that they regard the Vedic homeland to be the Saptasindhu, which is precisely the core of the Harappan territory. As for the Sangam tradition, it is equally silent about any northern origin of the Tamil people. These show that AIT which Marxists have been propagating is based on assumptions and pre-conceived notion, rather than hard evidences.
Jim Shaffer in "The Indo-Aryan Invasions: Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality," wrote, "Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia any time in the pre- or protohistoric periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments from prehistoric to 7 historic periods…" Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a U.S. expert who has extensively studied such skeletal remains, observes, "Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend support About the alleged destruction of Buddhist and to any of the theories concerning an Aryan Jain temples by Hindus, Sita Ram Goel 10 8 b i o l o g i c a l o r d e m o g r a p h i c e n t i t y . " observes, "It is intriguing indeed that whenever archaeological evidence points David Frawley, while commenting on the towards a mosque as standing on the site of a political and social ramifications, asserts, "First Hindu temple, our Marxist professors start it served to divide India into a northern Aryan s e e i n g a B u d d h i s t m o n a s t e r y b u r i e d and southern Dravidian culture which were underneath. They also invent some Saiva king made hostile to each other… Second, it gave the asi destroying Buddhist and Jain shrines British an excuse for their conquest of India. whenever the large-scale destruction of Hindu They could claim to be doing only what the temples by Islamic invaders is mentioned. They Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously never mention the destruction of big Buddhist done millennia ago. This same justification and Jain complexes which dotted the length and could be used by the Muslims or any other breadth of India, Khurasan, and Sinkiang on the invaders of India. Third, it served to make Vedic eve of the Islamic invasion, as testified by Hüen culture later than and possibly derived from the Tsang." He asks the historians to produce Middle Eastern… Fourth, it allowed the sciences epigraphic and literary evidences to suggest the of India to be given a Greek basis… Fifth, it gave destruction of Buddhists and Jain places by the Marxists a good basis for projecting their Hindus, the names and places of Hindu class struggle model of society on to India, with monuments which stand on the sites occupied the invading Brahmins oppressing the earlier by Buddhist or Jain monuments. Yet, till indigenous Shudras (lower castes)." He further today no concrete evidence has been given by concludes, "In short, the compelling reasons for historians to substantiate their claim. the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary But, there is enough evidence to show that
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Buddhist and Jain temples and monasteries at Bukhara, Samarqand, Khotan, Balkh, Bamian, Kabul, Ghazni, Qandhar, Begram, Jalalabad, Peshawar, Charsadda, Ohind, Taxila, Multan, Mirpurkhas, Nagar-Parkar, Sialkot, Srinagar, Jalandhar, Jagadhari, Sugh, Tobra, Agroha, Delhi, Mathura, Hastinapur, Kanauj, Sravasti, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Sarnath, Nalanda, Vikramasila,Vaishali, Rajgir, Odantapuri, Bharhut, Champa, Paharpur, Jagaddal, Jajnagar, Nagarjunikonda, Amravati, Kanchi, Dwarasamudra, Devagiri, Bharuch, Valabhi, Girnar, Khambhat Patan, Jalor, Chandravati, Bhinmal, Didwana, Nagaur, Osian, Ajmer, Bairat, Gwalior, Chanderi, Mandu, Dhar etc 11 were destroyed by the sword of Islam. It should be noted that though Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain sects and sub-sects had heated discussions among themselves, and used even strong language for their adversaries, the occasions when they exchanged physical blows were few and far between. The recent spurt of accusations that Hindus were bigots and vandals like Christians and Muslims seems to be an after-thought. Apologists, who find it impossible to whitewash Christianity and Islam, are out to redress the balance by blackening Hinduism. The Islamic conquest has been described as the 12 "Bloodiest," "monotonous series of murders, 13 massacres, spoliations, and destructions," as well as "bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and 14 Portuguese." Irfan Husain in his article "Demons from the Past" observes, "While historical events should
be judged in the context of their times, it cannot be denied that even in that bloody period of history, no mercy was shown to the Hindus unfortunate enough to be in the path of either the Arab conquerors of Sindh and South Punjab, or the Central Asians who swept in from Afghanistan…The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed some dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed..Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster. Their temples were razed, their idols smashed, their women raped, their men killed or taken slaves. When Mahmud of Ghazni entered Somnath on one of his annual raids, he slaughtered all 50,000 inhabitants. Aibak killed and enslaved hundreds of thousands. The list of horrors is long and painful. These conquerors justified their deeds by claiming it was their religious duty to smite non-believers. Cloaking themselves in the banner of Islam, they claimed they were fighting for their faith when, in reality, they were indulging in straightforward slaughter and pillage…” Dr. Koenraad Elst, while summarizing the Hindu losses at the hands of Muslim invaders, 15 concludes, "There is no official estimate of the total death toll of Hindus at the hands of Islam. A first glance at important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers suggests that over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the Subcontinent, Muslim Holy Warriors easily killed more Hindus than the 6 million of the Holocaust. Ferishtha lists several occasions when the Bahmani sultans in Central India (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum
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goal whenever they felt like "punishing" the Hindus; and they were only a third-rank provincial dynasty. The biggest slaughters took place during the raids of Mahmud Ghaznavi (ca.1000 CE); during the actual conquest of North India by Mohammed Ghori and his lieutenants (1192 ff.); and under the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526). The Moghuls (1526-1857), even Babar and Aurangzeb, were fairly restrained tyrants by comparison. Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate, but that would be hard to substantiate; research into the magnitude of the damage Islam did to India is yet to start in right earnest.” From Mohamud Quasim to Tipu Sultan, every Mohammedan invader killed, converted, took as slave or put Jiziya on Hindus. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. While describing the conquest of Kanauj, Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud Gahzni, sums up the situation thus: "The Sultan [Ghazni] levelled to the ground every fort, and the inhabitants of them either accepted Islam, or took up arms against him. In short, those who submitted were also converted to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted including the Raja". The conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter. The Bahmani sultans (1347-1480) in Central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 captives in a single day, and many more on other occasions. The conquest of the Vijayanagar empire in 1564 left the capital plus large areas of Karnataka depopulated.
About the conversion of Hindus to Islam, K.S.Lal observes, "The process of their conversion was hurried. All of a sudden the invader appeared in a city or a region, and in the midst of loot and murder, a dazed, shocked and enslaved people were given the choice between Islam and death. Those who were converted were deprived of their scalp-lock or choti and, if they happened to be caste people, also their sacred thread. Some were also circumcised. Their names were changed, although some might have retained their old names with new affixes. They were taught to recite the kalima 16 and learnt to say the prescribed prayers". When Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked Waihind in 1001-02, he took 500,000 persons of both sexes as captive [This figure is given by Abu Nasr Muhammad Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud Gahzni]. Next year from Thanesar, according to Farishtah, the Muhammadan army brought to Ghaznin 200,000 captives [Tarikh-iFarishtah, I, 28]. When Mahmud returned to Ghazni in 1019, the booty was found to consist of (besides huge wealth) 53,000 captives. The Tarikh-i-Alfi adds that the fifth share due to the Saiyyads was 150,000 slaves, therefore the total number of captives comes to 750,000. In 1195, when Raja Bhim was attacked by Aibak, 20,000 slaves were captured, and 50,000 at Kalinjar in 1202. Sultan Alauddin Khalji had 50,000 slave boys in his personal service and 70,000 slaves who worked continuously on his buildings. In the words of Wassaf, the Muslim army in the sack of Somnath took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes. Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India. To the Chinese emperor Muhammad Tughlaq sent, besides other presents, 100 Hindu slaves, 100 slave girls, accomplished in song and
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dance and another 15 young slaves. Firoz 17 Tughlaq collected 180,000 slaves. About the destruction of Hindu Temples, Sita Ram Goel writes -"Mahmûd of Ghazni robbed and burnt down 1,000 temples at Mathura, and 10,000 in and around Kanauj. One of his successors, Ibrãhîm, demolished 1,000 temples each in Ganga-Yamuna Doab and Malwa. Muhammad Ghûrî destroyed another 1,000 at Varanasi. Qutbu'd-Dîn Aibak employed elephants for pulling down 1,000 temples in Delhi. "Alî I 'Ãdil Shãh of Bijapur destroyed 200 to 300 temples in Karnataka. A sufi, Qãyim Shãh, destroyed 12 temples at Tiruchirapalli. Such exact or approximate counts, however, are available only in a few cases. Most of the time we are informed that "many strong temples which would have remained unshaken even by the trumpets blown on the Day of Judgment, werelevelled with the ground when swept by 18 the wind of Islãm". Some of the Temples converted into Mosques 19 are: Epigraphic evidences: 1. Quwwat al-Islam Masjid, Qutb Minar, Delhi by Qutbud-Din Aibak in 1192 A.D. 2. Masjid at Manvi in the Raichur District of Karnataka, Firuz Shah Bahmani, 1406-07 A.D. 3. Jami Masjid at Malan, Palanpur Taluka, Banaskantha District of Gujarat: The Jami Masjid was built by Khan-I-Azam Ulugh Khan, the date of construction is mentioned as 1462 A.D. in the reign of Mahmud Shah I (Begada) of Gujarat. 4. Hammam Darwaza Masjid at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, its chronogram yields the year 1567
A.D. in the reign of Akbar, the Great Mughal. 5. Jami Masjid at Ghoda in the Poona District of Maharashtra, the inscription is dated 1586 A.D. when the Poona region was ruled by the Nizam Shahi sultans of Ahmednagar. 6. Gachinala Masjid at Cumbum in the Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh, the date of construction is mentioned as 1729-30 A.D. in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah. Literary evidences: 7. Jhain[name of the place], Jalalud-Din Firuz Khalji went to the place and ordered destruction of temples, mentioned in Miftah-ul-Futuh. 8. Devagiri, Alaud-Din Khalji destroyed the temples of the idolaters, mentioned in Miftahul-Futuh. 9. Somanath, Ulugh Khan, mentioned in Tarikhi-Alai. 10. Delhi, , Alaud-Din Khalji , Tarikh-i-Alai. 11. Ranthambhor, mentioned in Tarikh-i-Alai. 12. Brahmastpuri (Chidambaram), Malik Kafur, Tarikh-i-Alai. 13. Madura, mentioned in Tarikh-i-Alai. 14. Fatan: (Pattan), mentioned in Ashiqa. 15. Malabar: (Parts of South India), Tarikh-iAlai. 16 The Mosque at Jaunpur. This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi. 17 The Mosque at Qanauj it was built by Ibrahim Sharqi. 18 Jami (Masjid) at Etawah. it is one of the
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monuments of the Sharqi Sultans. 19 Babri Masjid at Ayodhya . This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya. 20 Mosques of Alamgir (Aurangzeb). According to the reports of Archeological Survey of India: 21 Tordi (Rajasthan)- early or middle part of the 15th century . 22 Naraina (Rajasthan)- The mosque appears to have been built when Mujahid Khan, son of Shams Khan, took possession of Naraina in 1436 A.D. 23 Chatsu (Rajasthan)- At Chatsu there is a Muhammadan tomb erected on the eastern embankment of the Golerava tank. The tomb which is knownas Gurg Ali Shah's chhatri is built out of the spoils of Hindu buildings. The inscription mention saint Gurg Ali (wolf of Ali) died a martyr on the first of Ramzan in 979 A.H. corresponding to Thursday,the 17th January, 1572 A.D. 24 SaheTh-MaheTh (Uttar Pradesh). 25 Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh)- the inscriptions found there extending tothe twelfth century A.D. 26 Vaishali (Bihar). 27 Gaur and Pandua (Bengal)- The oldest and the best known building at Gaur and Pandua is the Ãdîna Masjid at Pandua built by Sikandar Shãh, the son of Ilyãs Shãh. The date of its inscription may be read as either 776 or 770, which corresponds with 1374 or 1369 A.D. The materials employed consisted largely of the spoils of Hindu temples and many of the carvings from the temples have been used as
facings of doors, arches and pillars. 28 Devikot (Bengal)- The Dargah of Sultan Pir, The Dargah of Shah Ata are the Muhammadan shrines built on the site of an old Hindu temple. 29 Tribeni (Bengal). This whitewashing of history, the policy of "Suppresio Veri, Suggestio Falsi" followed by 'eminent historians' of India is not only dangerous to national integration but also the future of the entire nation. It is time that the self interests are kept aside and the facts of history is made known to the masses.
Footnotes: 1 Indian Express, January 15, 1989, quoted in the book "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 1" by Sita Ram Goel. 2 For example, JNU historian Romilla Thapar.[Article titled "Romilla Thapar Defends the Aryan Invasion Theory!" by Vishal Agarwal published here- http://www.india-forum.com/articles/60/1 ]. 3 In a letter published in The Times of India dated October 2, 1986,Romilla Thapar had stated that handing over of Sri Rama's and Sri Krishna's birthplaces to the Hindus, and of disused mosques to the Muslims raises the question of the limits to the logic of restoration of religious sites. How far back do we go? Can we push this to the restoration of Buddhist and Jain monuments destroyed by Hindus? Or of the pre-Hindu animist shrines? [ Quoted in the book- Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2 The Islamic Evidence by Sita Ram Goel]. 4 In his book Medieval India [NCERT 2000], Satish Chandra writes- "The raid into India (by Timur) was a plundering raid, and its motive was to seize the wealth accumulated by the sultans of Delhi over the last 200 years… Timur then entered Delhi and sacked
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it without mercy, large number of people, both Hindu culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by and Muslim, as well as women and children losing barbarians invading from without or multiplying their lives.", but Timur repeatedly states in his within.” memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Timuri, that he had a two-fold objective in invading Hindustan. "The first was to war 13 "Histoire de l' Inde" - By Alain Danielou; he noteswith the infidels," and thereby acquire, "some claim to ""From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 reward in the life to come." The second motive was AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous "that the army of Islam might gain something by series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and plundering the wealth and valuables of the infidels." destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' He further says "Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians the ulema and other Musulmans, the whole city was have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races." Mahmoud Ghazni, continues Danielou, "was an early sacked.” example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 of 5 Koenraad Elst, in "The Politics of the Aryan Invasion the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground Debate". and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred 6 "The Vedic Evidence - The Vedic Corpus Provides No Evidence for the so-called Aryan Invasion of India" by Koenraad Elst. to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked."
7 Jim G. Shaffer, "The Indo-Aryan Invasions :Cultural Indeed, the Muslim policy vis a vis India, concludes Myth and Archaeological Reality," in Michel Danino Danielou, seems to have been a conscious systematic "The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and its Bearing on destruction of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined.” the Aryan Question". 8 Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, "Have Aryans been 14 Francois Gautier. identified in the prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia ?" in Michel Danino "The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and its Bearing on the Aryan Question". 9 David Frawley, in "Myth of Aryan Invasion Theory of India". 10 Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence. 11 Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence. 12 Will Durant in "Story of Civilization" observes"The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, 17 K.S. Lal in "Muslim Slave System in Medieval India". 18 Sita Ram Goel, in "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence". 19 It is taken from the large list of places documented by Sita Ram Goel in his magnum Opus "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them,Vol. 1-The Preliminary Survey". 15 Dr. Koenraad Elst in "Was There an Islamic "Genocide" of Hindus?”
16 K.S. Lal in "Indian Muslims Who Are They".
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V
ANANDA KEND EK RA V I
SAMACHAR
CHENNAI
Sri J.Chandrakanthan, Asst. Manager, retired from service on 31st March 2008. After 3 decades of service, he bid adieu to Vivekananda Kendra. In a function organized to mark his farewell, Shri D.Bhanudas, General Secretary, presided over. Smt.Chandrakanthan also graced the occasion. Sri Bhanudas presented them mementoes. Sri Satish Chowkulkar and Sri V.V.Balasubramanian, In-Charge Administration of Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust, spoke on the occasion. The coworkers honoured them with presentations and extended benedictions. In his address, Sri J.Chandrakanthan expressed satisfaction to have served the Kendra for long years.
BANGALORE (R.T. Nagar) * A 6-day Residential PDC was held for 37 Students. * A 15-day Yoga Camp was conducted for the Students of Lal Bahadur Shastri College. * A one-day awareness programme was conducted for the 26 Karyakarthas. PORT BLAIR
Ma. Balakrishnanji, Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra, paid a 9-day visit here from 24th April. During his stay, he addressed the staff and the senior level students of VKV. He spoke on Ideal Hindu Family at the public programme. He also participated in the farewell function of the Principal, Sri P.R.Prasad, who retired from service. Shri Balakrishnanji also took part in the Grihapravesham of VKZPV on 29th. He gave a talk on Indian National Education System at the public function held at Rangat.
KANGRA (Himachal)
A 6-day Yoga Shibir was held in April for men and women separately. About 40 men and 35 women attended. Dr.S.K.Sharma, HoD in Hindi, MCM DAV College and Dr.Neena Pawa, Vice-Chairperson of GAV chain of schools expressed their views about the Shibirs and stressed for holding such Shibirs in future too.
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YOGA CAMP AT HIMACHAL PRADESH
FAREWELL TO SRI J.CHANDRAKANTHAN
Smt. and Sri J.Chandrakanthan with Sri Bhanudas.
Sri Balasubramanian presenting Memento to Sri J.Chandrakanthan.
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Voice of Youth
Rs.10/4
Vol.35 No.11
Editorial
Vaisakh-Jyeshta 5110
CONTENTS
June 2008
Religion and Its Universality -K.Subramanian Yoga of the Religions -Satish Chowkulkar Personality Development - A Yogic View -Sumant Chandwadkar Our Heroes The Narmada Parikrama--3 --K.K.Venkatraman The Whitewashing of History -Nithin Sridhar
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11
17 21
29
36
Founder Editor Mananeeya Eknathji Ranade Editor Mananeeya P Parameswaran . Editorial Office 5, Singarachari Street Triplicane, Chennai - 600 005 Ph: (044) 28440042 Email:[email protected] Web:www.vkendra.org
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Rs. 10/Rs. 100/Rs. 275/Rs. 900/-
Foreign Subscription Annual - $25US Dollar Life 10 Yrs - $250US Dollar (Plus Rs. 50/- for outstation Cheques) Published and printed by L.Madhavan on behalf of Vivekananda Kendra from 5, Singarachari Street, Triplicane, Chennai5. at M/s. RNR Printers and Publishers, 8, Thandavarayan Street, Triplicane, Chennai-5. Editor: P Parameswaran.
YUVA BHARATI - June 2008
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Aayur yajnena kalpataam Praano yajnena kalpataam Cakshur yajnena kalpataam Srotram yajnena kalpataam
May we gain all power to our life through sacrifice, all power to our life-breath through sacrifice, all power to our eyes through sacrifice and all power to our ears through sacrifice. - Yajurveda 9-21.
Editorial
AGHAST For the umpteenth Time
There is a foreign hand in it…. This is an attempt to sabotage the peace talks…… This is an attempt to create a wedge between the communities…… There is a complete failure of Intelligence agencies….. Feeling like having a déjà vu? No. These are rhetoric to which we are used to. Jaipur 'joins' the list of unfortunate cities struck by Terror. I said déjà vu because it is the same thing which happens with seldom any change in the statements or pattern of events whether it is Kasi, or Akshardham or Coimbatore or Mumbai or any other place. The youth of India, is not bothered whether there is any foreign hand in this. It may be any one or many or all of these reasons. The question which lingers in everybody's mind is whether there is any method to stem the rot? But the doubt which looms large is whether these rhetoric are intended to benumb our society from treading in the right direction? It seems so. And unfortunately our society is falling prey to this design. Any gory incident will occupy our mind as long as our Media talks about it. The moment they shift their focus to another issue, we also tend to forget that incident. Now in the aftermath of Jaipur blasts our Media is busy investigating about a double murder happened in Noida. It has occupied more Telecast time than even the Blast. Don't be surprised if they launch a campaign similar to Justice for Jessica. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin our Media is also bent on driving our society into an
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unfathomable pit of self destruction. A visionary and vigilant leadership and a responsible media to guide are what our society needs now. Perhaps this need was understood correctly by our great leaders of the past, that they didn't leave a chance and ran their own newspapers and magazines. Sri Bala Gangadara Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Subramania Bharati all were tried for sedition as they energized our populace with their inspiring writings and talks. To stand for Truth, that too against adverse circumstances, requires lot of inner strength. They were opposing not merely a political party, but an empire which had a major part of the globe under its crushing toe. Today the people of India are facing a tougher and a more monstrous problem that of terrorism which strikes at will and spares not even innocent women and children. And the terrorism we see today is a virulent form of an enemy, centuries old and who has vivisected Mother India creating history's largest and bloodiest mass exodus of Hindus uprooted from their own homes. And now the old enemy is rewriting the script again with the blood of our brothers, mothers and children. And our media is providing the Indian masses that opiate of intelligentsia pseudo secularism. So what is the antidote? A media that places the interest of Indian people and safety of Indian society above other considerations including that of political correctness is the media that India needs today. Here are the words of fire that aptly describe the media need of today, the kind that shall “teach the Hindus mutual help and appreciation …We must have a press, and papers printed in English and vernaculars. When this is done, then I shall know that you have accomplished something. Let the nation show that we are ready to do.” The alternative? Given the fact that these words were written by Swami Vivekananda in his letter to Alasinga Perumal, his friend in Chennai, more than hundred years ago on 12th of January 1895, the alternative is chillingly prophetic and as it is realistic. “…You do not deserve to live if you cannot help yourselves.”
Aravindan Neelakandan and Balasubramanian For YUVA BHARATI Editorial Team
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RELIGION AND ITS UNIVERSALITY
K.Subramanian
'Of all the forces that have worked and are still working to mould the destinies of the human race, none certainly, is more potent than that, the manifestation of which we call religion' Swamiji on the necessity of religion. The concept and connotation of the term religion is quite comprehensive in that it encompasses such virtues as Truth, Justice, Equality and Love. Each has its relative contribution to the philosophy of one's existence. It has been and continues to be a potent force through the history of mankind. It has influenced culture, politics, economics, ethics and in turn influenced by them. This has been its reciprocal character on a universal basis. It is the greatest motive power that moves the human mind for reaching that infinite energy, for building up character, for bringing peace to others as also for oneself and elevates human level to the level of a metaphysical experience. It provides ample anchorage to life's stability and teaches us to master the hard consonants of life. It plays a vital and significant role in the design of human existence. Are all the religions existing in the world identical in all respects? Evidently not by any logical analysis. Every religion has certain basic and well defined characteristics that are peculiar to the culture, time and historical circumstances of its birth. The various mythologies, rituals and theological beliefs of each religion would reflect its unique character and potential and hence bound to differ in its own way. Religion prescribes a severely graced discipline of the mind and feeds us on the nectar of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. What is the core and content of each religion? God as the Supreme Being is the answer in the affirmative. With His triple Cosmic functions as the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer, He rules over every thing that goes on in the universe prescribing a rigid charter of Dos and Donts in our life. In times of trouble, He is our only Saviour Immortal at all times. One of the fundamentals of religion is to nurture and nourish the concept of universal brotherhood and given it an all-pervasive character. This could, definitely, be achieved by preaching the greatest ideals and ideologies of religionLove, Sacrifice, Peace and Goodwill.
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Hinduism has always taken the lead in this direction. Swamiji has highlighted these virtues in all his lectures and speeches abroad. Eminent savants of the West have expressed this idea that, if the world is to survive, the Indian ideal is to be adopted in letter and spirit. Thus religion gained strength and stability with passage of time and slowly moved on to play its key-role in national regeneration and universal integration. Further, in a world torn by differences, dissensions and conflicts, religion is expected to take on the onerous role of a unifying force and not a divisive force. This, in essence, implies that religion has the dual role of an arbitrator and a peacemaker on crucial occasions. The parameters of our perception about the role religion is expected to play in our individual and national life should necessarily have a logical base and background tempered by historical reasons and realities over the centuries. The strength of every race lies in its spirituality and once that spirituality shows signs of waning, that race virtually races towards its doom and eventually falls into the grip of materialism that gathers such gradual momentum even to the extent of bringing spirituality to a moribund state. Considering incidentally, the aspect of correlation between culture and religion, it should be categorically averred that both have to co-exist as interrelated factors in the context of national progress and development. On broader analysis, no distinct differences seem to exist between the two as both aim at perfection as their culminating point. Whether culture is a product of religion or religion has its genesis in culture is not of so much importance so long as the synthetic role of both is ipso facto clear. However, their individual roles have been clearly defined with their lines of demarcation
despite their contributory character. Both culture and religion highlight the need for selflessness as then only the ideals and ideologies enshrined in both could be translated into action. Religion without culture and culture without religion are like gigantic shells without power. Is a comparative study of religions essential in the context of religious pluralism? Yes and a Must. Each religion has its beliefs, values, symbols, cults etc. and moves on its chartered course with its own authority. If only one religion were to exist in the world, the need for diversity is practically rules out and diversity is an important and indispensable factor to be reckoned with in the interest of universal religious progress. Besides, a comparative study of religions enables one to evaluate the worth of one's own religion and its comparable standard with others. It should, as a rule, be conceded that every religion contributes its due share to national and universal integration without creating any communal disharmony. The essence of the underlying objectives of all religions has its appeal to the respective rungs of humanity and what is considered good in one may be imbibed by others without any reservations. This reinforces the sense of oneness among the various religions and brings them closer on the plane of understanding. Despite their characteristic diversity, all religions lead to the same path of God realisation. In Bharat which is a secular country, each religion is constitutionally assured of its freedom within defined limits. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has authenticated the veracity of this statement through his personal experiences with almost all the religions without any bias. Religion is not a matter of any ostentatious
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In essence, all the religions of the world have their significant contributions to the overall With the rapid advances in science and technology, transport and communication, the welfare of mankind, towards building up a better world of humanity is shrinking fast and the social structure on a universal basis enlarging the needs of trade, commerce, education etc. are horizon of inter-religious understanding and bringing together people of diverse cultures, goodwill denuded of hatred and hostility. There faiths and religions encouraging co-operation is no gainsaying the fact that effective interaction and mutual help at the social, national and between the various religious groups sinking all international levels. However, it should be their differences and petty squabbles and coming ensured that inter-religious rivalry, communal closer on the plank of co-operation and disharmony, violence and the like are avoided understanding is sure to go a long way in as far as possible. Further, comparative religions hammering out all the polemical issues provide several alternative spiritual paths and concerning religions in general and paving the techniques other than one's own facilitating way for better international harmony and individual choices of worship, enabling better universal integration. All religions have their understanding of the same in all its dimensions divine character and hence occupy an honourable place in the philosophy of mankind.
display; but 'one of feeling; of being and becoming'. If love towards God is real and genuine, it should express itself in love and regard for others in spite of differences, if any, the resultant being 'harmony' which is in the attitude of mind, in mutual understanding, love and goodwill. All religions should strive in all earnest, for the attainment of this universal goal without any reservation or religious complex.
and enlarging one's own religious consciousness. Comparative religion in its entirety is, by itself, an interesting field of study providing ample scope for exploration and discovery that could feed any interested research scholar with its incessant flow of hidden facts and figures that might have, probably, beguiled earlier researchers.
BHARAT QUIZ
1. What does 'Upanishad' mean? 2. Which Rishi took the whole Ganga in his palm and sipped? 3. The episodes of Ramayana were separated by 'Kandams'. How were the episodes of Mahabharata separated? 4. What does Arjuna mean? 5. Who was known as the father of Revolutionary thought in Bengal? 6. Where is the Research Centre for Rice in India? 7. Among the Kaurava brothers, one left the Kauravas, joined Pandavas and fought against Kauravas. Who was he? 8. What are the 3 texts that are referred to as Prasthana Trayam? 9. What is the meaning of Narada? 10.There are only 6 Submarine communications Centres (SMCC) in the World. One is in India. Where is it located in India? (See Answers on Page 34 )
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YOGA OF THE RELIGIONS
Satish Chowkulkar
Shiva Swarupananda and Naadpriyananda were amidst a discussion on Yoga. “Today the 21st March 2008 is a unique day according to some people” said Naadpriyananda, “they told the reason as some Muslims observed the day as Milad-Ul-Nabi, birthday of their prophet-Mohammed, Christens observed it as Good Friday the day of crucification of their prophetJesus and for the Hindus it was the day of Holi the festival to mark burning of Madan by Shiva-symbolising a triumph of the Yogishwar Shiva over lust and desire”. I joined their discussion and said, “Shiva is an ideal for all The Yogis -Yogishwar and Sri Krishna, an ideal preceptor of Yoga Sastra, is Yogeshwar. Shiva Swarupananda looked up at me, smiled and said “So! You are linking Yoga Sastra to Hindu Gods; you are strengthening the view of a British Christen Preacher, who says Yoga is a philosophy of Hindu religion. So, devout Christen should keep away from it.” All of us merged ourselves in laughter. “The devout British Christen Preacher says yoga is a philosophy of Hindu Religion stemming from their scripture Vedas and propounded by their Gods and SagesSri Krishna, Patanjali, Vasistha and Vyasa. So non-Hindus (read Christens) should not practise it.” Shiva Swarupananda said and looked at us for response. Naadpriyananda came forward and said, “we need to look at few keywords in this statement. First the word Yoga itself, secondly the “Hindu Religion” and thirdly the Scripture “Vedas”. I said, “The Yoga is a philosophy of life based on the values enshrined in the Vedas. It is a 'Darshan' a perception. Yoga Sutras are a scientific presentation of the philosophy. Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga is a technique or technology to enable one to adopt it in life. However only the two angas (Portions) of the Ashtanga (Eight Portions) namely Asana and Pranayama are understood by the people at large as Yoga. Therefore focus of practitioner of Yoga is only on physical fitness and on building efficient body. Now-a-days, however, these is a talk of Meditation. But again the focus is on getting rid of the psychosomatic ailments. The answer of the question Yoga is for what? is nowhere near the propoundersPatanjali's original idea”. “You are correct” said Shiva Swarupananda and continued, “Patanjali Maharshi has very clearly enunciated, at the outset, in the first 3 Sutras of the 1st portion Samadhi Paad. Yoga is an Anushasan, an Anushasan to control, regulate and manage the Vrittis in the Chitta and the purpose being Self-Realisation Tadaa Drushtu Swarupa Avsthanam. So the purpose of Yoga Shastra is spiritual and not secularlimiting to building physical
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fitness and curing psychosomatic ailments-like materia medica”. Naadpriyananda smiled and said “Perhaps this is the problem of the British Christen Preacher. The Christianity preaches that Man is a born sinner product of original sin. If a sinner is the Atma Swarupa of the Man; no one will be comfortable to realise this type of identity. In fact one will get deeply depressed. But according to Vedas and Upanishads, we are Amrutasya Putra. Swami Vivekananda proclaimed this from the platform of World Parliament of Religions in 1893, quoting Shrunwantu Vishwe Amrutasya Putrah from Shvetashwatara Upanishad. Our this original nature gets realised and affirmed by practising the value-based life as per Yoga Philosophy.” “Naturally preacher of a faith, whose survival is essentially on the putting” the fear of “hell-fire for the sinner” idea in the gulliable persons will feel threatened and see “red” in spread of Yoga,” said Shiva Swarupananda. Naadpriyananda smiled and said, “in the modern language more and more people adopting Yoga will lead to slow-down on the business of conversion and its salesmen will be jobless.” All of us laughed. Shiva Swarupananda came forward and said, “But this will be the case of only bigots and exclusives in the faith. For open-minded and genuine lovers of God, irrespective of their religion, Yoga Philosophy will be strengthening them in their faith.” He took out a magazine from his table “Self-Realisation” (founded by Late Paramahamsa Yogananda) Spring 2008 issue. He referred to an article by Mr.George Feuerstein “Is Yoga a Religion?”. Naadpriyananda took the magazine and started reading: Some Westerners who are practising Christians or Jews are concerned about
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yoga being an Eastern Religion. They fear that by taking up the practice of yoga, they might undermine their own religious faith. Are their fears warranted? Is yoga a religion? The quick answer to both questions is: Instead of undermining their personal faith, yoga can actually deepen it. Yoga has historically been associated with India's three great religious-cultural traditionsHinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Thus the teachings of yoga are infused with many concepts that have a Hindu, Buddhist, or Jaina flavor….
…..At the heart of all forms of yoga is the assumption that we have not yet tapped into our full potential as a human being. In particular, yoga seeks to put us in touch with our spiritual coreour innermost naturethat which or who we truly are. That nature is described differently by the various schools of yoga. Rather than being expected to believe in any of the traditional explanations, we are free to allow our personal experience and realization to shape our understanding. Over the millennia, yoga has become associated with various philosophic and theological systemsnone of which can be said to define yoga itself. For yoga is a first and foremost a practical spiritual discipline that emphasizes personal experimentation and verification. In other words, direct personal experience or spiritual realization is considered senior to any theory or conceptual system. For this reason, yoga can and in fact has been practised by people with widely differing philosophies and beliefs. Some
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yoga practitioners believe in a personal God who created the universe, others favour a metaphysics that regards the world as illusory and the ultimate Reality as singular and formless. Yet others (notably the practitioners of Theravada Buddhism) refuse to speculate about metaphysical matters. Accordingly, some yoga practitioners are more religious than others. But yoga itself is primarily a tool for exploring the depth of our human nature, of plumbing the mysteries of the body and the mind. Of course, as we delve into the practice of yoga, we will find that certain ideas about the world and human nature are more useful than others. So, possibly, the notions of karma and rebirth might resurface, because they have a certain explanatory force. Or we might have experiences that lend credence to the ageold teaching that “all is one” (sarvam ekam). How can yoga enrich the religious or spiritual life of a practising Christian or Jew? The answer is the same as for a practising Hindu, Buddhist, or Jaina. Yoga aids all who practise religion, regardless of their persuasion, by balancing the nervous system and stilling the mind through its various exercises. Yoga's heritage is comprehensive enough so that anyone can find just the right techniques that will not conflict with his or her personal beliefs. More than that, religious-minded folk will find in yoga many ideas and sentiments, especially about moral life, with which they will easily resonate. Who could find fault, for instance, with the yogic recommendation to pursue a virtuous life dedicated to non-harming, truthfulness, compassion, charity, tolerance, and freedom from greed, anger, jealousy, and
so forth? So, practising Christians or Jews (or practising of any other religious tradition), should take from yoga what makes sense to them and deepen their own faith and spiritual commitment. But they also should keep an open mind about their spiritual experience and insights arising from the practice of yoga. After all, all theories, explanations, and beliefs are merely conceptual frameworks superimposed on reality. We ought not to cling to them too tenaciously lest they should prevent us from seeing what is really the case. All the great religious traditions of the world have their spiritual explorers. Yoga is India's gift to those wishing to become psychonautstravellers in the inner space of consciousness. If we genuinely desire to know ourselves more profoundly and make sense of the world in which we live, yoga is a reliable, well-tested vehicle. We all nodded with satisfaction.
Naadpriyananda paused for a while and said, “Let us look at the word religion. Religion is determined mostly on the way of worship. All the prominent religions around base their faith on One God, one prophet and one book. Exclusive faiths do not accept other people's God, prophet and book-scripture. Going further they say their God alone is the God, their prophet only is genuine and also the last prophet and their scripture alone tells Truth. They further sport an ambition to convert people of other faiths to their faith. They also imagine that it is their God's ordained command. Going from these definitions Yoga and for that matter Hindu faith can never become a Religion”. Shiva
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Swarupananda interrupted and added “In fact there is nothing like Hindu Religionbecause there is no founder, no one God and no one scripture. The mass of people whom world calls Hindu are the inheritors of the 'Sanatana Dharma' which is explained not defined, in the time immemorial scripture the Vedas. Philosophies elucidated in the Vedas are not opposed to any of the Religions being followed today, as this philosophy predates advent of these Religions.”
“Well!” I said, “some of these religions may oppose the universal principles of the Vedas for their own needs. But then, it is these needs which need to be given a second look and not the universally applicable, time immemorial Principles.” Shiva Swarupananda pointing at the article in the “Self-Realisation” said, “Yes! And the wiser counsels in these religions are evidently doing this”.
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PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
- A YOGIC VIEW
Sumant Chandwadkar
Swami Vivekananda on Personality Development:
This vision of oneness with all is being taught by only Sanatana Dharma i.e. Hindu Dharma. Hence Swami Vivekananda said that if India dies, the whole world will die. If India lives, the whole world will live. Further, he said all the scattered spiritual forces should be integrated into powerful national sentiments. Only a materially strong and spiritually enlightened India could aspire to be a force to reckon with and be in a position to be the spiritual guru of the world. To bring Swami Vivekananda's vision in action every individual has to work very hard. Every individual of this land, irrespective of any caste, creed, sect or religion, has to see oneness everywhere and inspire himself/herself by spiritual values and create their personality. While speaking about personality, Swami Vivekananda has emphasized more on physical, mental and spiritual personality. He said, 'be strong, my friends, you will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Bhagavad Gita.' This should not be misunderstood that he was against the studying of any religious scripture. But he was against the nature of socalled religious practitioners. He was against the nature of people who were sleeping in lethargy under the name of Satvik (pious and balanced) nature and wearing the garb of religion and proclaiming themselves as the sole defenders of Dharma. In another place he said, 'Strength is life and weakness is death. Strength is felicity and immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery.' The strength which Swami Vivekananda was expecting is physical as well as mental. Speaking about mental personality Swami Vivekananda strongly said about mental freedom. He said, 'Free! We, who
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This is what Swami Vivekananda, the patriotic and cyclonic monk of India envisaged in the human personality. He inspired hundreds and thousands of young minds in India before independence and still his thoughts have not reduced their intensity even by an ounce to attract the people all over the India and rest of the world. And this is the reason why Govt. of India has declared his birthday i.e. 12th January as a 'National Youth Day'. To know more about The efforts for creating our personality have it read his lectures given in India from Colombo to continue for a long time without any lethargy to Almora and also the lectures he delivered in or frustration. It is just like this to avoid any stain America and European countries. on a brass vessel one has to clean it everyday. It is Sri Aurobindo on Yoga and Personality: also like this if we want to dig a well and get water, then we have to dig at one place 'Yoga is complete god-realisation, a complete constantly and deeply and not by shallow self-realisation, a complete fulfilment of our digging at several places. being and consciousness, a complete 'Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work or worship or psychic control or philosophyby one or more or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines and dogmas, rituals, books, temples or forms are but secondary details.' This means unfolding of spiritual personality neither ends at temples transformation of our nature - and this implies a complete perfection of life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection elsewhere.' This is the view of Sri Aurobindo on yoga. If we try to understand this closely, then it is nothing
cannot, for a moment, govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject and focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else, for a moment! Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it…..The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down for everrend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us.' This simply means everybody has to strive hard to gain mastery over mind and better the power of concentration. Further he added that difference between animal and man is the difference in their power of concentration and the difference between a man and another is in the degree of concentration. Along with concentration, will power is another important facet of mental personality. About it he said, 'What work do you expect from men of little heart? Nothing in the world! You must have iron will if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains'. The remedy to shatter weakness of anything is not by brooding over it but by thinking of strength and through positive and constructive activities.
(places of prayer) nor it ends in reading any religious books. It is not confined to any form of god or different styles of prayer and it is not the rules and regulations written in religious holy books. But these are means to unfold our spiritual personality and not the goal in itself. The spirituality means manifestation of the potential divinity within us by work (Karma yoga) or worship (Bhakti yoga) or philosophy (Jnana yoga) or psychic control (Raja yoga). The characteristic of this manifestation is the mastery over the inner and external personality and the result of it is total freedom.
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but total personality development of a human being. As per Sri Aurobindo, this personality of man starts with the physical body and ends with spiritual and national education. The purpose of personality development is god-realisation and self-realisation. Self-realisation is nothing but to understand and to experience inner integrity and god-realisation means to understand and experience outer integrity, and ultimately both: Jivatma (inner self) and Parmatma (outer selfthe God) are one and the same. The whole process starts from self-education and it starts from the physical body. In this regard Sri Aurobindo said, 'I put a value on the body first as an instrument, Dharma Sadhana, or, more fully, as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth,
but else because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the divine whole, a form of the spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use.' To put this in practice one has to start working on one's physical and mental existence of personality. We have to treat our body and mind with dignity, worship them as gods and honour them as guests. Let us close this chapter by resolving within ourselves to develop our personality more carefully and consciously so that none of us will ever feel disgraced or frustrated in life. May the Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and all good forces shower their love and blessings on all of us, so that we all will become the worthy sons and daughters of the great Bharat Mata. (Concluded)
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Our Heroes
HER NAME IS SO SACRED WE SING IT ONLY IN THE EARLY HOURS OF DAWN
Originally named Manikarnikka at birth, she was born to a Maharashtrian Karhade family sometime around 1828 in the Hindu city of Varanasi. She grew up in the house of Baji Rao II and contrary to the popular belief that women were not educated or were educated only in cooking and managing household affairs, Manu, as she was then called, underwent extensive and thorough martial training, including riding, fencing and shooting, when she was still a child. She married Raja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar in 1842 and gave birth to a child in 1851 and unfortunately the child died. In 1853 Gangadhar Rao fell very ill and he was persuaded to adopt a child. He relented only a day before his death, and adopted a distant relative, a boy named Damodar Rao. Maharaja Gangadhar Rao died the following day, 21 November 1853. Then British started their attempt to take over Jhansi which she resisted with all her ability. She even fought against them through their own legal games. But British legal system was not in her favour. So Rani started fighting back, strengthening her army and at the same time she also provided welfare schemes to her people far ahead of her times. She developed libraries and improved road facilities and erected street lamps. Even her British adversaries marveled at her administrative capabilities. Major John Malcolm who opposed Rani's claim to throne in a letter to GovernorGeneral James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, wrote of Rani as 'a woman highly respected and esteemed, and I believe fully capable of doing justice to such a charge.' Such was the efficiency of Rani of Jhansi. Equally important is her love for humanity that she showed compassion to the very British who tried to usurp her throne. The 1857 war of Indian Independence when it erupted was initially a rebellion by Indian soldiers. When the soldiers stationed near Jhansi rebelled and British women and children feared their lives Rani arranged their safe housing inside her fort. The rebelling soldiers could not touch them. It was only when they decided to leave the Rani's fort under the direction of Captain Skene that they were massacred by angry soldiers.Rani had raised an army of 18000 soldiers. The British describe watching the women of Jhansi firing batteries, carrying ammunition and relieving men on the battlements. And in the midst of it all, the Rani, her banner proudly flying from the highest turret, fought along the walls with her troops. When Jhansi fell to a numerically and ammunitionally superior British force, Rani fled to Gwalior to continue her fight there. She was chased by British and Lieutenant Bowker engaged Rani Lakshmibai in a one to one sword fight.
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Rani defeated the British Lieutenant in the sword fight. She travelled at a stretch one hundred kilometres on horse back. Later when Rani was mortally wounded by a British bullet piercing her back, she was immediately taken to a safe place where she distributed all her jewellery to the soldiers. Then she asked the soldiers to light the pyre so that she would die rather as a Hindu warrior woman than being killed by a British bullet. Perhaps British heaved a sigh of relief and Sir Hugh Rose wrote in his memoirs, "The Rani was remarkable for her bravery, cleverness and perseverance; her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities combined with her rank rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders." Perhaps the British felt a relief a bit too early, for when INA charged against the British Rani of Jhansi became again the nightmare of the aggressors of the nation, for the war cry of Rani Jhansi Regiment of Azad Hind Fauj of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose was 'Live, Fight and Die like Rani of Jhansi'. Her spirit shall continue to protect the freedom of India and fight for it even as the so-called leaders may fall into slumber of inaction. And as the common folk of Jhansi sing--Her name is so sacred we sing it only in the early hours of dawn. References: · . Lakshmi Bai: Rani of Jhansi : Historynet article · David E. Jones, women warriors: A History, Brassey's 2000 pp.47-8 · Bhawan Singh Rana, Rani of Jhansi, Diamond Publishers, 2005
RANA PRATAP SINGH, MAHARANA OF MEWAR
One of the greatest banes of Hindu society throughout history is its quick satisfaction with initial successes and forgetting the longer perspective of history and goals. This has resulted in the failure of a generation of sustained Hindu movement for liberation. This also explains why leaders of Hindu society often become complacent with little victories and comforts of life and often yield the larger battle field to enemy and the Hindu society itself gripped with defeatism sinks into social stagnation. Of course Shivaji and Guru Govind Singh were exceptions. One man stands different amidst such depressing narrative of medieval Hindu history. His name is Rana Pratap Singh. After the decisive Battle of Haldighati on June 21 1576, Rana suffered a heavy loss as well as had to flee. He lived amidst tribals in the caves of Aravali hills. His family suffered and he saw his daughter's Chappathai taken by a stray dog. He even thought of surrendering to Akbar. But then something unprecedented happened. The tribal Bhil leader offered Rana his soldiers. He too was worried about alien occupation of the motherland. Rana Pratap Singh should be credited with the consolidation of Hindu society across all community differences to fight
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against the common enemy. Soon a Bhil army was formed and trained. Seeing this Bhil youths, Hindu merchants started pouring in financial aid. A well coordinated Hindu network of all communities was formed by Rana Pratap Singh. Even to this day the Mewar coat of arms display Bhil soldier side by side with Rajput and he was also a typical Hindu in that he always showed greatness of character even to his enemies. Thus when the womenfolk of Abdur Rahim Khankhana, a mughal officer who had vowed to crush Rana, fell into the hands of Pratap's son Amar Singh, Pratap commanded his son Amar Singh to arrange for the safe conveyance of the Mughal ladies to their camp. Rana almost completely freed Rajastan from the grips of Mughals. Yet owing to an oath he had taken that he would not take food with salt and would sleep only in the floor of the hut he never slept in the royal bed as Chittor was still in the hands of Mughals. He was not satisfied unless the complete freedom was to be won for his Hindu society. One wishes such leaders unflinching in the mission for ultimate freedom and strengthening of Hindu society bridging all divides- now.
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THE NARMADA PARIKRAMA - 3
(Clockwise Circumambulation of the River Narmada )
K.K.VENKATRAMAN
Forest Route South Bank:
From M.P., Narmada enters Maharashtra, then flows through Gujarat before joining the Arabian Sea. The river flows through forest area known as Shoolpani for about 90 kms. Of this stretch of forest, 30 kms lie in M.P., and 60 kms in Maharashtra. Gujarat State begins where the forest ends. This forest is inhabited by people belonging to Bhil Tribe. They take away all the items including the dhoti from the parikramavasis and leave them in their undergarments. Women are spared of their dress being taken away. They do not harm the parikramavasis if they part with the items demanded by the tribals. Normally the parikramavasis part with their items. This is considered as a test. A parikramavasi should not have any attachment to possessions. At the last village, before entering the forest, facility for safe keeping of luggage is available. This service is provided free of cost. Parikramavasis leave their belongings, i.e. vessels, bed sheets, extra dhotis and other items at this village. A tag with the name and address is tied to the belongings. On their return through the other (North) bank when one reaches the point on the North Bank of the river just opposite to this village on the South Bank, he/she can collect his/her belongings by sending a slip through the boatmen who are operating boat service from one bank to the other bank. The boatmen also render free service. I reached this last village in the evening and went to the temple where the parikramavasis halt for the night. 12 parikramavasis were already there. I left my two bags containing the extra dhoti, a towel, bedsheet, aluminum watercan, mat, notebook in which I was recording the details, with the person who offers this safe keeping service. When the other parikramavasis learnt that I was alone, they advised that I join them during the journey through the forest. One flourmill owner in that village offers empty gunny bags, which the parikramavasis use when the dhoti is taken away in the forest. All the male parikramavasis collected a gunny bag each from the flourmill owner next morning. All of us left the village together. After walking about 10 kms we entered the forest around noon. We ate our lunch, which we were carrying with us. In the afternoon 2 persons stopped us. They told all of us to sit down and started checking the items. After checking the items they took away the blade (which I was carrying for sharpening the pencil as I had left the pen with my bags for safe custody) and the matchbox (which I was carrying to light incense sticks). They told all the males except me to remove their dhoti and handover to them. They did not ask me for dhoti. After giving their dhotis the parikramavasis wore the gunny bags to cover them. The tribals went away with the
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dhotis and the items they had taken from parikramavasis. After the tribals left other parikramavasis surrounded me and commented that only because of the grace of the Mother I was spared. They were very happy that I was a member of their group. We resumed our walking. By dusk we covered about 10 kms. As the area is hilly, the river flows in the valley and the slopes of the hills form the banks on both the sides of the river. We saw a hut on the slopes and decided to halt for the night. We had a wash in the river, climbed the slope and reached the hut. Two people were in the hut. They told us to spend the night in the hut. We went round and collected firewood. It was the month of December and the nights were very cold. After lunch we had not eaten anything. We were tired. We laid down to rest. After a few hours, we started shivering because of cold. (No bedsheet to take cover). We lighted the fire and burnt the firewood collected by us. We sat the whole night singing bhajans. Next morning we left the place. We walked down to the river. It was very cold. So we decided to walk and take bath after the sunlight falls on the river. We covered about 5 kms, and then took bath in the river. We resumed walking. We walked another 10 kms. It was past noon and 24 hrs. since we had eaten anything or had even a cup of tea. Although, we were very hungry, the journey was continuing. During the war, the warriors come across situations when food and water may not be available. Hence, troops are trained to withstand hunger and thirst. Long distance marches are undertaken with very limited supply of food and water. As the troops advance into enemy territory, cooked food is brought from behind in vehicles to ensure that the troops are fed in time and they do not fight empty stomach. Ammunition is also replenished in time. However, the enemy would make all efforts to stop the supply of ammunition and food by targeting the supply vehicles. No Army will be able to fight for long without the replenishment of ammunition and on empty stomach. While survival ration (dry items like cashewnuts, beaten rice, sugar) is provided to everyone and is carried on person, the same cannot be consumed without order, however hungry one may be. Generally order for consuming the survival ration is given only when food had not been supplied to the troops for 24 hrs. While advancing into the enemy territory, the troops may find food items and water (well) in the camps abandoned by the enemy or in the houses deserted by the civilians. But, these items are not consumed, as the enemy may have poisoned the same before leaving. So, one should be able to withstand hunger and thirst till the supply of food and water or the food items available in the enemy territory are tested and found fit for consumption. Having undergone this training in the army, I was now able to withstand my hunger. As we were walking, we saw a boat with two men waiting on the other (North) bank. They waved at us and said loudly that they would bring ration from Dongre Maharaj Ashram and also provide cooking vessels. They asked for the number of parikramavasis. We shouted the number from our bank. On hearing this, one person went away. We were very happy. It was more than 24 hours since we had taken anything. Not even a cup of tea. We went round collecting firewood. As this is the usual place where parikramavasis cook their food, arrangements for keeping
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the vessel over fire (three stones on which the vessel could be placed) were there. We were eagerly awaiting the person who had gone to bring ration for us. After about an hour we saw the person coming towards the river carrying two bags. As soon as he reached the riverbank, he got into the boat and crossed the river and reached the point where we were waiting. They gave four vessels and the bags containing ration. They told us to use the vessels for cooking, eat our food and return the vessels to them. We were surprised to find that, even tea leaves, milk and sugar were also sent along with rice, dhal, salt, oil, some vegetables, chillies and other items, used to make food. Tea was prepared immediately. All of us had the same and felt energetic. Everyone was helping in one way or the other in preparing the food. I told them frankly that I did not know cooking but would wash the utensils after the job was over. As I had no work when the cooking was going on, the boatman told me to write the name and address of each parikramavasi in a notebook, which they had brought with them. I wrote the names and addresses of all of us (of course in Hindi). These particulars are entered in the official register in the Ashram and kept on record for accounting purpose. When the food was ready all of us ate to our hearts' content. We knew that our next meal would not be before 24 hours. I took the vessels for washing. Others also joined me. We returned the utensils to the boatman and took leave of them. We walked about 5 kms and crossed Jalkhand River, a tributary of Narmada. It was nearing dusk. We saw few huts and decided to halt for the night. As we reached the hut, a person was about to leave the hut. He said that, we had entered Maharashtra, after crossing Jalkhand River. He was going to his house, which was about 1 km away. He said that we could halt in his hut for the night. As we had experienced biting cold the previous night, we collected firewood and kept ready for burning during the night. We laid down to rest. As the night advanced, it was getting very cold. We had to get up and light the fire. We sat round the fire the whole of night singing bhajans. Next morning we left the place, walked about 10 kms and then took bath in the river. We walked 5 kms and crossed Udayi River, a tributary of Narmada and reached a village. There was one Narmada Ashram, which distributes ration and provides utensils for cooking food. We collected the ration items, prepared the food, and ate our lunch. After returning the washed vessels, we resumed our walking around 4 pm. We walked about 5 kms. It was nearing dusk and we spotted an abandoned hut. We decided to spend the night there. We collected firewood, lit fire and sat around the fire whole night singing bhajans. Next morning, we left the place, had bath on the way, and walked for about 15 kms. On the other (North) bank of the river was Hapeshwar Mahadev temple. Ration items are distributed to the parikramavasis passing through the south bank also. The boat on the other side came to our side and the boatman took our identification certificates and told us to wait for the ration. After about an hour, he brought the ration items, tea leaves, milk, sugar and utensils for cooking. Tea was immediately prepared and served to all. Food was cooked. We ate and returned the washed utensils. We collected our identification certificates in which the seal of the Hapeshwar temple had been affixed as a token of issuing the ration. We left the place and resumed walking. There were very big boulders along the bank; there was also gap in-between the boulders.
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So we had to jump from one boulder to the other and experienced difficulty in doing so. The two women in our group did not lag behind and kept pace with us. We would have covered 5 kms. It was nearing dusk and we decided to halt. We could not see any shelter (hut) in the vicinity. We had no other option but to stay in the open. We went round and collected lot of firewood. We had to light the fire early as we were in the open. As the night advanced, it became severely cold. We were closing in towards the fire. When the front side of the body was facing the fire the back would become very cold. So to keep the back warm, we had to turn round. This exercise was going on the whole night. We kept awake the whole night singing bhajans. Next morning we resumed our walking. After walking about 10 kms we took bath. We walked about 10 kms and came out of the forest area and reached Shoolpaneshwar temple around 4 p.m.. We collected ration, prepared and ate our food. We attended evening Arati in the temple and thanked the Lord for protecting us through our forest journey. We halted in the temple for the night and had a sound sleep. As we had come out of the forest, I decided to go alone. I sought the permission of the group. They said that they would be happy to have me in their group. However, realizing my necessity to complete the parikrama as early as possible, they acceded to my request. Next morning I resumed walking alone as usual. Eat sweets here and now By tradition, a family in Gujarat has been distributing laddus to the parikramavasis when they pass through the town on the south bank of the river. As soon as a parikramavasi enters that town, a local person would tell him to go to the house of this family and collect the laddu. This practice has been going on for generations. The laddus are of big size with cashewnuts and raisins and cannot be consumed at one go. The parikramavasis used to collect the laddu and eat whenever they felt like. Of late, some non-genuine people pose as parikramavasis, collect the laddu and sell it and use the money to buy cheap liquor, beedis and other intolerable. When the family came to know of this, they reduced the size of the laddu and started insisting that the laddu should be consumed in their presence. One may take more than one laddu, but should eat the same in their presence. Of course, it is difficult to eat more than one laddu at a time. I was also directed to this place, when I reached the town. When I went to the house of this family, an elderly person (seemed to be the head of the family) was there and he told me to sit down. He sent a word inside and a laddu was brought on a plate. Meanwhile, he started enquiring about me. It was going on for sometime. He called for one more laddu and offered two laddus to me. As I had already been informed by the local people, I knew that the laddus are to be eaten in his presence. So I told that I would accept one laddu as I could eat only one at that time. He said, “Please take both the laddus and eat whenever you feel like”. I went to a temple in the town for night halt. The poojari of the temple enquired whether I ate the laddu at the house of the family. I narrated what had happened. Then the poojari said that the person I had met was the Head of the family who was wise and could judge people correctly.
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Going forward the only choice On day 60, I reached the last point on the south bank. One has to go on a boat into the sea for some distance and then cross over to north bank. The boat service is operated free. The boat operators wait for about 20 parikramavasis to gather at the place. Sometimes people may have to wait for even three days. Fortunately when I reached the place in the evening 15 parikramavasis were already waiting to go over to the north bank. All parikramavasis have to visit Vimaleshwar Temple, which is about 5 Kms. away from the place of halt and is considered as the land's end on the south bank. Charles Lindberg was the first Pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. While narrating his experiences during that historic flight in his book "The Spirit of St. Louis" (that was the name of the aircraft in which he flew), he records that after the aircraft started flying over the Atlantic ocean, land had disappeared and there was only water everywhere. He was cruising towards a distant destination which was not in sight even after hours of flying. He felt whether he should turn and fly back to the place from where he had taken off. Although, this thought came in his mind again and again, he brushed aside the thought and with great determination continued flying towards his destination. When he crossed half the distance he says "The last bridge behind me has been burnt and I have no choice but to fly towards my destination". When I reached the land's end on the South Bank, I had the same feeling as that of Charles Lindberg. Dog, the Silent Teacher Next morning (Day 61) I visited the temple and returned to the place of halt. These parikramavasis as usual prepare their food. In the morning before I left for Vimaleshwar Temple, I had given the dry rations with me to a group of parikramavasis who were cooking their food. When I returned around noon, they had already taken their food. They gave me my share of four rotis and dal. I went to a corner to eat. A dog came and sat in front of me at a distance. I kept the rotis on the lid of my water can on the floor, took one roti on the hand and started eating. As I was eating the second roti (two more rotis were on the lid kept on the floor) the dog suddenly took away one roti. I became very angry because, even these four rotis were not sufficient to satisfy my hunger. But immediately I remembered that one has to be kind to all including animals and plants (this is one of the rules of the parikrama). I cooled down realizing that the dog must have been hungry. I felt ashamed of my selfishness. I should have voluntarily offered a roti to the dog before I started eating. There is a saying "Each foodgrain bears the name of the consumer". The dog took away its legitimate share. Sailing by boat I reached the end of the south bank on the 60th day after covering 1,170 Kms. From this place one has to reach the north bank by sailing into the sea for some distance and then to the north bank. It is said that as a parikramavasi should not cross Narmada waters, one should not enter directly into the
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river by boat. This boat service is run by a Trust and the parikramavasis are taken free. Parikramavasis may have to wait for 2-3 days at this place, till the group becomes at least 30, so that the full capacity of the boat is utilized. Fortunately, I did not have to wait, as there were already about 30 parikramavasis. After reaching this place, one has to go about 5 kms to visit the Shiva Temple at Vimaleshwar, which is considered as the last point on the south bank. As no boat service is operated from there, one has to come back 5 kms to the place from where boat service is operated for the parikramavasis. On the 61st day, I went to Vimaleshwar temple and returned. I went to sleep that night with the thought " I have been walking all these days towards the West, hereafter I will be walking towards the East, to the source of the river at Amarkantak". Next morning, we, the group of Parikramavasis waiting to cross over to the North bank, were served black tea(tea without milk). After offering prayers in the temple, we walked 2 kms and reached the point from where the ferry service is operated. Narmada has lost her identity as a river, forming an estuary. There was an anchored boat. Two boatmen arrived and prepared for the sailing. The boat is a catamaran which moves in the direction of the wind. One of the boatmen informed that if the wind is favourable, the sailing will take about 5 hrs. We sat in the boat and started sailing around 9.00 AM. The sand and the trees on the land slowly started disappearing. North bank was not visible, there was only water all around. Except perhaps for the boatmen, none of us could make out in which direction the boat was moving. Sometimes the boat could not move forward and at times the it started moving backward due to the change in the direction of the wind. The velocity of the wind was increasing and our boat started rocking from side to side due to strong wind and giant waves. All of us were praying to the almighty for a safe sailing to the North bank. ( to be continued)
ANSWERS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. To 'sit near' (the Guru). Janu. 'Parvas'. White. Bipin Chandra Pal. Cuttack. Yuyutsu. Bhagavad Gita, Brahma Sutra, Upanishads. That which gives knowledge is Narada. Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu (INS Kattabomman SMCC).
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THE WHITEWASHING OF HISTORY
Nithin Sridhar
The history of India has been whitewashed and distorted, first by European rulers, and after independence by eminent historians of India and their supporters the Leftists, Seculars and selfclaimed Progressives of India to meet their own ends. They have painted the pre-Islamic invasion period as a Dark Age and have glorified the Islamic period to be very peaceful and prosperous. Ram Swarup says, "Marxists have taken to rewriting Indian history on a large scale and it has meant its systematic falsification. They have a dogmatic view of history and for them the use of any history is to prove their dogma. Their very approach is hurtful to truth…. The Marxists' contempt for India, particularly the India of religion, culture and philosophy, is deep and theoretically fortified. It 1 exceeds the contempt ever shown by the most die-hard imperialists." Some of the common claims of these eminent historians are: 1] The Aryan Invasion Theory is true . 2] Large scale destruction of Buddhists and Jain temples was done by Hindus in pre-Islamic India . 3] The Muslim rulers were religiously tolerant and Islamic rule was prosperous. The eminent historians deny the destruction of Hindu temples or the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers. They also deny the religious motive behind the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim 4 rulers . Let us examine the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). The AIT was introduced to justify the presence of the British among their Aryan cousins in India as being merely the second wave of Aryan settlement there. It supported the British view of India as merely a geographical region without historical unity, a legitimate prey for any invader capable of imposing himself. It provided the master illustration to the rising racialist worldview: "The dynamic whites entered the land of the indolent dark natives and established their dominance and imparted their language to the natives; they established the caste system to preserve their racial separateness; some miscegenation with the natives took place anyway, making the Indian Aryans darker than their European cousins and correspondingly less intelligent; hence, for their own benefit they were susceptible to an uplifting intervention by a new 5 wave of purer Aryan colonizers.” Dr. Koenraad Elst, in "The Vedic Evidence," after examining the Vedic corpus for any evidence of Aryan invasion theory proposed by the Marxist school, concludes, "The status question is still, more
6 3 2
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than ever, that the Vedic corpus provides no reference to an immigration of the so-called Vedic Aryans from Central Asia…." He further provides astronomical and literary evidence against the AIT in his other essays.
nor archaeological but political and religious, 9 that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice." Archaeological evidence in no way contradicts Indian tradition, rather it broadly agrees with it (except for its chronology). Whether from North or South India, tradition never mentioned anything remotely resembling an Aryan invasion into India. Sanskrit scriptures make it clear that they regard the Vedic homeland to be the Saptasindhu, which is precisely the core of the Harappan territory. As for the Sangam tradition, it is equally silent about any northern origin of the Tamil people. These show that AIT which Marxists have been propagating is based on assumptions and pre-conceived notion, rather than hard evidences.
Jim Shaffer in "The Indo-Aryan Invasions: Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality," wrote, "Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia any time in the pre- or protohistoric periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments from prehistoric to 7 historic periods…" Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a U.S. expert who has extensively studied such skeletal remains, observes, "Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend support About the alleged destruction of Buddhist and to any of the theories concerning an Aryan Jain temples by Hindus, Sita Ram Goel 10 8 b i o l o g i c a l o r d e m o g r a p h i c e n t i t y . " observes, "It is intriguing indeed that whenever archaeological evidence points David Frawley, while commenting on the towards a mosque as standing on the site of a political and social ramifications, asserts, "First Hindu temple, our Marxist professors start it served to divide India into a northern Aryan s e e i n g a B u d d h i s t m o n a s t e r y b u r i e d and southern Dravidian culture which were underneath. They also invent some Saiva king made hostile to each other… Second, it gave the asi destroying Buddhist and Jain shrines British an excuse for their conquest of India. whenever the large-scale destruction of Hindu They could claim to be doing only what the temples by Islamic invaders is mentioned. They Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously never mention the destruction of big Buddhist done millennia ago. This same justification and Jain complexes which dotted the length and could be used by the Muslims or any other breadth of India, Khurasan, and Sinkiang on the invaders of India. Third, it served to make Vedic eve of the Islamic invasion, as testified by Hüen culture later than and possibly derived from the Tsang." He asks the historians to produce Middle Eastern… Fourth, it allowed the sciences epigraphic and literary evidences to suggest the of India to be given a Greek basis… Fifth, it gave destruction of Buddhists and Jain places by the Marxists a good basis for projecting their Hindus, the names and places of Hindu class struggle model of society on to India, with monuments which stand on the sites occupied the invading Brahmins oppressing the earlier by Buddhist or Jain monuments. Yet, till indigenous Shudras (lower castes)." He further today no concrete evidence has been given by concludes, "In short, the compelling reasons for historians to substantiate their claim. the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary But, there is enough evidence to show that
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Buddhist and Jain temples and monasteries at Bukhara, Samarqand, Khotan, Balkh, Bamian, Kabul, Ghazni, Qandhar, Begram, Jalalabad, Peshawar, Charsadda, Ohind, Taxila, Multan, Mirpurkhas, Nagar-Parkar, Sialkot, Srinagar, Jalandhar, Jagadhari, Sugh, Tobra, Agroha, Delhi, Mathura, Hastinapur, Kanauj, Sravasti, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Sarnath, Nalanda, Vikramasila,Vaishali, Rajgir, Odantapuri, Bharhut, Champa, Paharpur, Jagaddal, Jajnagar, Nagarjunikonda, Amravati, Kanchi, Dwarasamudra, Devagiri, Bharuch, Valabhi, Girnar, Khambhat Patan, Jalor, Chandravati, Bhinmal, Didwana, Nagaur, Osian, Ajmer, Bairat, Gwalior, Chanderi, Mandu, Dhar etc 11 were destroyed by the sword of Islam. It should be noted that though Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain sects and sub-sects had heated discussions among themselves, and used even strong language for their adversaries, the occasions when they exchanged physical blows were few and far between. The recent spurt of accusations that Hindus were bigots and vandals like Christians and Muslims seems to be an after-thought. Apologists, who find it impossible to whitewash Christianity and Islam, are out to redress the balance by blackening Hinduism. The Islamic conquest has been described as the 12 "Bloodiest," "monotonous series of murders, 13 massacres, spoliations, and destructions," as well as "bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and 14 Portuguese." Irfan Husain in his article "Demons from the Past" observes, "While historical events should
be judged in the context of their times, it cannot be denied that even in that bloody period of history, no mercy was shown to the Hindus unfortunate enough to be in the path of either the Arab conquerors of Sindh and South Punjab, or the Central Asians who swept in from Afghanistan…The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed some dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed..Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster. Their temples were razed, their idols smashed, their women raped, their men killed or taken slaves. When Mahmud of Ghazni entered Somnath on one of his annual raids, he slaughtered all 50,000 inhabitants. Aibak killed and enslaved hundreds of thousands. The list of horrors is long and painful. These conquerors justified their deeds by claiming it was their religious duty to smite non-believers. Cloaking themselves in the banner of Islam, they claimed they were fighting for their faith when, in reality, they were indulging in straightforward slaughter and pillage…” Dr. Koenraad Elst, while summarizing the Hindu losses at the hands of Muslim invaders, 15 concludes, "There is no official estimate of the total death toll of Hindus at the hands of Islam. A first glance at important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers suggests that over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the Subcontinent, Muslim Holy Warriors easily killed more Hindus than the 6 million of the Holocaust. Ferishtha lists several occasions when the Bahmani sultans in Central India (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum
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goal whenever they felt like "punishing" the Hindus; and they were only a third-rank provincial dynasty. The biggest slaughters took place during the raids of Mahmud Ghaznavi (ca.1000 CE); during the actual conquest of North India by Mohammed Ghori and his lieutenants (1192 ff.); and under the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526). The Moghuls (1526-1857), even Babar and Aurangzeb, were fairly restrained tyrants by comparison. Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate, but that would be hard to substantiate; research into the magnitude of the damage Islam did to India is yet to start in right earnest.” From Mohamud Quasim to Tipu Sultan, every Mohammedan invader killed, converted, took as slave or put Jiziya on Hindus. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. While describing the conquest of Kanauj, Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud Gahzni, sums up the situation thus: "The Sultan [Ghazni] levelled to the ground every fort, and the inhabitants of them either accepted Islam, or took up arms against him. In short, those who submitted were also converted to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted including the Raja". The conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter. The Bahmani sultans (1347-1480) in Central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 captives in a single day, and many more on other occasions. The conquest of the Vijayanagar empire in 1564 left the capital plus large areas of Karnataka depopulated.
About the conversion of Hindus to Islam, K.S.Lal observes, "The process of their conversion was hurried. All of a sudden the invader appeared in a city or a region, and in the midst of loot and murder, a dazed, shocked and enslaved people were given the choice between Islam and death. Those who were converted were deprived of their scalp-lock or choti and, if they happened to be caste people, also their sacred thread. Some were also circumcised. Their names were changed, although some might have retained their old names with new affixes. They were taught to recite the kalima 16 and learnt to say the prescribed prayers". When Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked Waihind in 1001-02, he took 500,000 persons of both sexes as captive [This figure is given by Abu Nasr Muhammad Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud Gahzni]. Next year from Thanesar, according to Farishtah, the Muhammadan army brought to Ghaznin 200,000 captives [Tarikh-iFarishtah, I, 28]. When Mahmud returned to Ghazni in 1019, the booty was found to consist of (besides huge wealth) 53,000 captives. The Tarikh-i-Alfi adds that the fifth share due to the Saiyyads was 150,000 slaves, therefore the total number of captives comes to 750,000. In 1195, when Raja Bhim was attacked by Aibak, 20,000 slaves were captured, and 50,000 at Kalinjar in 1202. Sultan Alauddin Khalji had 50,000 slave boys in his personal service and 70,000 slaves who worked continuously on his buildings. In the words of Wassaf, the Muslim army in the sack of Somnath took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes. Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India. To the Chinese emperor Muhammad Tughlaq sent, besides other presents, 100 Hindu slaves, 100 slave girls, accomplished in song and
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dance and another 15 young slaves. Firoz 17 Tughlaq collected 180,000 slaves. About the destruction of Hindu Temples, Sita Ram Goel writes -"Mahmûd of Ghazni robbed and burnt down 1,000 temples at Mathura, and 10,000 in and around Kanauj. One of his successors, Ibrãhîm, demolished 1,000 temples each in Ganga-Yamuna Doab and Malwa. Muhammad Ghûrî destroyed another 1,000 at Varanasi. Qutbu'd-Dîn Aibak employed elephants for pulling down 1,000 temples in Delhi. "Alî I 'Ãdil Shãh of Bijapur destroyed 200 to 300 temples in Karnataka. A sufi, Qãyim Shãh, destroyed 12 temples at Tiruchirapalli. Such exact or approximate counts, however, are available only in a few cases. Most of the time we are informed that "many strong temples which would have remained unshaken even by the trumpets blown on the Day of Judgment, werelevelled with the ground when swept by 18 the wind of Islãm". Some of the Temples converted into Mosques 19 are: Epigraphic evidences: 1. Quwwat al-Islam Masjid, Qutb Minar, Delhi by Qutbud-Din Aibak in 1192 A.D. 2. Masjid at Manvi in the Raichur District of Karnataka, Firuz Shah Bahmani, 1406-07 A.D. 3. Jami Masjid at Malan, Palanpur Taluka, Banaskantha District of Gujarat: The Jami Masjid was built by Khan-I-Azam Ulugh Khan, the date of construction is mentioned as 1462 A.D. in the reign of Mahmud Shah I (Begada) of Gujarat. 4. Hammam Darwaza Masjid at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, its chronogram yields the year 1567
A.D. in the reign of Akbar, the Great Mughal. 5. Jami Masjid at Ghoda in the Poona District of Maharashtra, the inscription is dated 1586 A.D. when the Poona region was ruled by the Nizam Shahi sultans of Ahmednagar. 6. Gachinala Masjid at Cumbum in the Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh, the date of construction is mentioned as 1729-30 A.D. in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah. Literary evidences: 7. Jhain[name of the place], Jalalud-Din Firuz Khalji went to the place and ordered destruction of temples, mentioned in Miftah-ul-Futuh. 8. Devagiri, Alaud-Din Khalji destroyed the temples of the idolaters, mentioned in Miftahul-Futuh. 9. Somanath, Ulugh Khan, mentioned in Tarikhi-Alai. 10. Delhi, , Alaud-Din Khalji , Tarikh-i-Alai. 11. Ranthambhor, mentioned in Tarikh-i-Alai. 12. Brahmastpuri (Chidambaram), Malik Kafur, Tarikh-i-Alai. 13. Madura, mentioned in Tarikh-i-Alai. 14. Fatan: (Pattan), mentioned in Ashiqa. 15. Malabar: (Parts of South India), Tarikh-iAlai. 16 The Mosque at Jaunpur. This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi. 17 The Mosque at Qanauj it was built by Ibrahim Sharqi. 18 Jami (Masjid) at Etawah. it is one of the
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monuments of the Sharqi Sultans. 19 Babri Masjid at Ayodhya . This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya. 20 Mosques of Alamgir (Aurangzeb). According to the reports of Archeological Survey of India: 21 Tordi (Rajasthan)- early or middle part of the 15th century . 22 Naraina (Rajasthan)- The mosque appears to have been built when Mujahid Khan, son of Shams Khan, took possession of Naraina in 1436 A.D. 23 Chatsu (Rajasthan)- At Chatsu there is a Muhammadan tomb erected on the eastern embankment of the Golerava tank. The tomb which is knownas Gurg Ali Shah's chhatri is built out of the spoils of Hindu buildings. The inscription mention saint Gurg Ali (wolf of Ali) died a martyr on the first of Ramzan in 979 A.H. corresponding to Thursday,the 17th January, 1572 A.D. 24 SaheTh-MaheTh (Uttar Pradesh). 25 Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh)- the inscriptions found there extending tothe twelfth century A.D. 26 Vaishali (Bihar). 27 Gaur and Pandua (Bengal)- The oldest and the best known building at Gaur and Pandua is the Ãdîna Masjid at Pandua built by Sikandar Shãh, the son of Ilyãs Shãh. The date of its inscription may be read as either 776 or 770, which corresponds with 1374 or 1369 A.D. The materials employed consisted largely of the spoils of Hindu temples and many of the carvings from the temples have been used as
facings of doors, arches and pillars. 28 Devikot (Bengal)- The Dargah of Sultan Pir, The Dargah of Shah Ata are the Muhammadan shrines built on the site of an old Hindu temple. 29 Tribeni (Bengal). This whitewashing of history, the policy of "Suppresio Veri, Suggestio Falsi" followed by 'eminent historians' of India is not only dangerous to national integration but also the future of the entire nation. It is time that the self interests are kept aside and the facts of history is made known to the masses.
Footnotes: 1 Indian Express, January 15, 1989, quoted in the book "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 1" by Sita Ram Goel. 2 For example, JNU historian Romilla Thapar.[Article titled "Romilla Thapar Defends the Aryan Invasion Theory!" by Vishal Agarwal published here- http://www.india-forum.com/articles/60/1 ]. 3 In a letter published in The Times of India dated October 2, 1986,Romilla Thapar had stated that handing over of Sri Rama's and Sri Krishna's birthplaces to the Hindus, and of disused mosques to the Muslims raises the question of the limits to the logic of restoration of religious sites. How far back do we go? Can we push this to the restoration of Buddhist and Jain monuments destroyed by Hindus? Or of the pre-Hindu animist shrines? [ Quoted in the book- Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2 The Islamic Evidence by Sita Ram Goel]. 4 In his book Medieval India [NCERT 2000], Satish Chandra writes- "The raid into India (by Timur) was a plundering raid, and its motive was to seize the wealth accumulated by the sultans of Delhi over the last 200 years… Timur then entered Delhi and sacked
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it without mercy, large number of people, both Hindu culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by and Muslim, as well as women and children losing barbarians invading from without or multiplying their lives.", but Timur repeatedly states in his within.” memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Timuri, that he had a two-fold objective in invading Hindustan. "The first was to war 13 "Histoire de l' Inde" - By Alain Danielou; he noteswith the infidels," and thereby acquire, "some claim to ""From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 reward in the life to come." The second motive was AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous "that the army of Islam might gain something by series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and plundering the wealth and valuables of the infidels." destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' He further says "Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians the ulema and other Musulmans, the whole city was have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races." Mahmoud Ghazni, continues Danielou, "was an early sacked.” example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 of 5 Koenraad Elst, in "The Politics of the Aryan Invasion the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground Debate". and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred 6 "The Vedic Evidence - The Vedic Corpus Provides No Evidence for the so-called Aryan Invasion of India" by Koenraad Elst. to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked."
7 Jim G. Shaffer, "The Indo-Aryan Invasions :Cultural Indeed, the Muslim policy vis a vis India, concludes Myth and Archaeological Reality," in Michel Danino Danielou, seems to have been a conscious systematic "The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and its Bearing on destruction of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined.” the Aryan Question". 8 Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, "Have Aryans been 14 Francois Gautier. identified in the prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia ?" in Michel Danino "The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and its Bearing on the Aryan Question". 9 David Frawley, in "Myth of Aryan Invasion Theory of India". 10 Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence. 11 Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence. 12 Will Durant in "Story of Civilization" observes"The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, 17 K.S. Lal in "Muslim Slave System in Medieval India". 18 Sita Ram Goel, in "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vol. 2--The Islamic Evidence". 19 It is taken from the large list of places documented by Sita Ram Goel in his magnum Opus "Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them,Vol. 1-The Preliminary Survey". 15 Dr. Koenraad Elst in "Was There an Islamic "Genocide" of Hindus?”
16 K.S. Lal in "Indian Muslims Who Are They".
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V
ANANDA KEND EK RA V I
SAMACHAR
CHENNAI
Sri J.Chandrakanthan, Asst. Manager, retired from service on 31st March 2008. After 3 decades of service, he bid adieu to Vivekananda Kendra. In a function organized to mark his farewell, Shri D.Bhanudas, General Secretary, presided over. Smt.Chandrakanthan also graced the occasion. Sri Bhanudas presented them mementoes. Sri Satish Chowkulkar and Sri V.V.Balasubramanian, In-Charge Administration of Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust, spoke on the occasion. The coworkers honoured them with presentations and extended benedictions. In his address, Sri J.Chandrakanthan expressed satisfaction to have served the Kendra for long years.
BANGALORE (R.T. Nagar) * A 6-day Residential PDC was held for 37 Students. * A 15-day Yoga Camp was conducted for the Students of Lal Bahadur Shastri College. * A one-day awareness programme was conducted for the 26 Karyakarthas. PORT BLAIR
Ma. Balakrishnanji, Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra, paid a 9-day visit here from 24th April. During his stay, he addressed the staff and the senior level students of VKV. He spoke on Ideal Hindu Family at the public programme. He also participated in the farewell function of the Principal, Sri P.R.Prasad, who retired from service. Shri Balakrishnanji also took part in the Grihapravesham of VKZPV on 29th. He gave a talk on Indian National Education System at the public function held at Rangat.
KANGRA (Himachal)
A 6-day Yoga Shibir was held in April for men and women separately. About 40 men and 35 women attended. Dr.S.K.Sharma, HoD in Hindi, MCM DAV College and Dr.Neena Pawa, Vice-Chairperson of GAV chain of schools expressed their views about the Shibirs and stressed for holding such Shibirs in future too.
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YOGA CAMP AT HIMACHAL PRADESH
FAREWELL TO SRI J.CHANDRAKANTHAN
Smt. and Sri J.Chandrakanthan with Sri Bhanudas.
Sri Balasubramanian presenting Memento to Sri J.Chandrakanthan.
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