Educators From India

"Romila Thapar is a remarkable scholar whose oeuvre is extensive and beyond reproach, [Thapar] does not bow to political pressures but rather is a model of what it means to be an ethical historian."

"Hindutva claims to represent indigenous Indian thought opposed to western interpretations of Indian religion, traditions and culture. The claim is that colonial scholarship used its understanding of Indian culture for political purposes to justify colonialism. Yet Hindutva is doing precisely the same by reformulating Hinduism along the lines suggested by colonial interpretations in order to facilitate its use in political mobilization. It uses colonial constructions of the Indian past such as the theories of James Mill and Max Mueller to further its programme of political control. The exploitation of history becomes a significant dimension of its attempt to appropriate the understanding of the past."

"Rajendra I ruled jointly with his father for two years, succeeding him in 1014. The policy of expansion continued with the annexation of the southern provinces of the Chalukyas, the rich Raichur doab and Vengi. Campaigns against Sri Lanka and Kerala were also renewed. But Rajendra’s ambitions had turned northwards. An expedition set out, marching through Orissa to reach the banks of the Ganges. From there, it is said, holy water from the river was carried back to the Chola capital. Bringing back the water through conquest symbolized ascendancy over the north. But Rajendra did not hold the northern regions for long, a situation parallel to that of Samudra Gupta’s campaign in the south almost 700 years earlier."

"The destruction of temples even by Hindu rulers was not unknown, but Mahmud’s was a regulated activity and inaugurated an increase in temple destruction compared to earlier times"

"Nations are not easily forged since many identities have to be coalesced."

"Some forms of Indian asceticism, although not all, have a socio-political dimension and these cannot be marginalized as merely the wish to negate life."

"Strangely, Indians travelling outside the subcontinent do not seem to have left itineraries of where they went or descriptions of what they saw. Distant places enter the narratives of storytelling only very occasionally."

"The late arrival of the horse in India is not surprising since the horse is not an animal indigenous to India. Even on the west Asian scene, its presence is not registered until the second millennium BC. The horse was unimportant, ritually and functionally, to the Indus civilization."

"In the questioning of existing explanations the validity of periodizing Indian history as Hindu, Muslim and British was increasingly doubted. It had projected two thousand years of a golden age for the first, eight hundred years of despotic tyranny for the second, and a supposed modernization under the British."

"Epic literature is not history but is again a way of looking at the past."

"To categorize some people as indigenous and others as alien, to argue about the identity of the first inhabitants of the subcontinent, and to try and sort out these categories for the remote past, is to attempt the impossible."

"That every civilization emerges out of interactions with others, but nevertheless creates its own miracle, was not yet recognized by either European or Indian historians."

"Nationalism seeks legitimacy from the past and history therefore becomes a sensitive subject."

"(The Srauta Sutra of Baudhayana) "refers to the Parasus and the arattas who stayed behind and others who moved eastwards to the middle Ganges valley and the places equivalent such as the Kasi, the Videhas and the Kuru Pancalas, and so on. In fact, when one looks for them, there are evidence for migration."

"Pre-modern Hinduism had its warts—big and small—as do all religions, but its subtleties were richer than what is now being thrust on its believers. Hindutva is in many ways the antithesis of Hinduism, and aims to create a society that is narrow, bigoted and inward looking, in which the co-existence with those that differ, such as the minority communities of various kinds, is becoming increasingly impossible, as demonstrated by the frequency of communal riots."

"Intolerance of the views of others and anti-intellectualism are on the rise. In this confrontation, universities and the educational system are, and will continue to be, obvious targets. Education can easily be converted into indoctrination."

"Some have argued that as language is the medium of knowledge, that which comes in the form of language constitutes a text; since language is interpreted by the individual, the reading by the individual gives meaning to the text; therefore each time a text is read by a different individual it acquires a fresh meaning. Taken to its logical conclusion, this denies any generally accepted meaning of a text and is implicitly a denial of attempts at historical representation or claims to relative objectivity, since the meaning would change with each reading. However, the prevalent views are more subtle."

"Communal interpretation is based on the notion that for the last thousand years Indian history has been dominated by a society which consists of a monolithic Muslim community and a monolithic Hindu community. And that these two communities have always been in a state of conflict. Therefore every historical event that takes place is to be explained by this conflict. This I think is absolutely primitive history. This is worse than colonial history. Because historical interpretation has now moved on to a position where we analyse an event in a multi-causal way."

"Another curious agenda is that of what is described as 'a critical mass' of Indians and a few others in America and Canada who refer to themselves as the Indo-American school (as against what they call the Indo-European school of scholars who work within the earlier Indian and European scholarship). The Indo-American school, according to one of its prominent spokesmen, consists of predominantly American-trained professional scientists researching on ancient India (presumably as a hobby), and using the resources of modern science and technology. Obviously well-endowed, they run their own journal from their main office in Canada. They too are committed to proving that the Vedic and the Harappan cultures are the same and that their antiquity goes back to the fifth millennium bc and therefore the Aryans are indigenous to India and took the Aryan mission westwards from India. Much of their writing contributes to the invention of yet more methodologies about a complex subject. What is striking about their publications is their evident unfamiliarity with the methods of analysing archaeological, linguistic and historical data. Consequently their writings read rather like nineteenth century tracts but peppered with references to using the computer so as to suggest scientific objectivity since they claim that it is value-free. Those that question their theories are dismissed as Marxists! That Indian scientists in America should take upon themselves the task of proving the Harappan to be Vedic, to having influenced other civilisations such as the Egyptian, and to proving that the Aryans proceeded on a civilising mission issuing out of India and going westwards, can only suggest that the 'Indo-American school' is in the midst of an identity crisis in its new environment. It is anxious to demarcate itself from other immigrants and to proclaim that the Indian identity is superior to the others who have also fallen into the 'great melting-pot'."

"We know from the Qur'an that Lat, Uzza and Manat were the three pre-Islamic goddesses widely worshipped, and the destruction of their shrines and images, it was said, had been ordered by the Prophet Mohammad. Two were destroyed, but Manat was believed to have been secreted away to Gujarat and installed in a place of worship. According to some descriptions, Manat was an aniconic block of black stone, so the form could be similar to a lingam. This story hovers over many of the Turko-Persian accounts, some taking it seriously, others being less emphatic and insisting instead that the icon was of a Hindu deity. The identification of the Somanatha idol with that of Manat has little historical credibility. There is no evidence to suggest that the temple housed an image of Manat. Nevertheless, the story is significant to the reconstruction of the aftermath of the event since it is closely tied to the kind of legitimation which was being projected for Mahmud. The link with Manat added to the acclaim for Mahmud. Not only was he the prize iconoclast in breaking Hindu idols, but in destroying Manat he had carried out what were said to be the very orders of the Prophet. He was therefore doubly a champion of Islam."

"The discovery of Harappan sites on the Indian side of the border between India and Pakistan is viewed as compensating for the loss of the cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa which are located in Pakistan."

"Dayananda Sarasvati, seeking to return to the social and religious life of the Vedas, used the Vedic corpus as the blueprint of his vision of Indian society. But he argued that the Vedas are the source of all knowledge including modern science, a view with which Max Mueller disagreed. He underlined the linguistic and racial purity of the Aryans and the organisation which he founded, the Arya Samaj, was described by its followers as 'the society of the Aryan race'. The Aryas were the upper castes and the untouchables were excluded."

"The Hindutva version of the theory became a mechanism for excluding some sections of Indian society, specifically Indian Muslims and Christians, by insisting that they are alien."

"Elliot and Dowson state that religious bigotry was characteristic of the Indian past. They do confess that in presenting the translations from Persian and Arabic sources, their intention is to highlight the oppressive rule of Muslim kings. They state that the intolerance of the Mohammedans led to idols being mutilated, temples destroyed, forced conversions, confiscations, murders and massacres, not to mention the sensuality and drunkenness of tyrants. Such descriptions were intended to convince the Hindu subjects that British rule was far superior and to their advantage. This was not an isolated attitude and is reflected in many British writings on Indian history. Religious bigotry was frequently read into the texts translated in the nineteenth century, which coloured the reading of the Turko-Persian texts. For example, where Utbi says, ‘He (Mahmud) made it obligatory on himself to undertake every year an expedition to Hind,’ the translation of this passage in Elliot and Dowson’s work reads, ‘the Sultan vowed to undertake a holy war to Hind every year’."

"If it can be argued that the Harappan culture is in fact Vedic or that the Rigveda is earlier even than the Harappan, then the Vedas continue to be foundational to the subcontinental civilisation of South Asia and also attract the encomium of representing an advanced civilization, superior even to the pastoral-agrarian culture actually described in Vedic texts."

"All history is contemporary history; you can't get away from the politics around you."

"Capitalism is often believed to thrive among Semitic religions such as Christianity and Islam. The argument would then run that if capitalism is to succeed in India, then Hinduism would also have to be moulded in a Semitic form. ... Characteristic of the Semitic religions are features such as a historically attested teacher or prophet, a sacred book, a geographically identifiable location for its beginnings, an ecclesiastical infrastructure and the conversion of large numbers of people to the religion—all characteristics which are largely irrelevant to the various manifestations of Hinduism until recent times. Thus instead of emphasizing the fact that the religious experience of Indian civilization and of religious sects which are bunched together under the label of ‘Hindu’ are distinctively different from that of the Semitic, attempts are being made to find paralle!s with the Semitic religions as if these parallels are necessary to the future of Hinduism."

"The parallel can be seen for example in the recent resurgence of the worship of Rama, where the control of this religious articulation is politically motivated. The characteristics of the Semitic religions are introduced into this tradition. The teacher or prophet is replaced by the avatâra of Vishnu, Rama; the sacred book is the Râmâyana; the geographical identity or the beginnings of the cult and the historicity of Rama are being sought in the insistence that the precise birthplace of Rama in Ayodhya was marked by a temple, which was destroyed by Babur and replaced by the Babri Masjid; an ecclesiastical infrastructure is implied by inducting into the movement the support of Mahants and the Shankaracharyas or what the Vishwa Hindu Parishad calls a Dharma Sansad; the support of large numbers of people, far surpassing the figures of earlier followers of Rama-bhakti, was organized through the worship of bricks destined for the building of a temple on the location of the mosque. There has been an only too apparent exploitation of belief. The current Babri Masjid dispute is therefore symbolic of an articulation of a new form of Hinduism, militant, aggressive and crusading, which I have elsewhere referred to as Syndicated Hinduism."

"[In India’s case] what one can foresee, perhaps, for the end of the next century [i.e. the twenty-first], is a series of small states federated within a more viable single economic space on the scale of the subcontinent."

"The invention of an Aryan race in nineteenth century Europe was to have, as we all know, far-reaching consequences on world history. Its application to European societies culminated in the ideology of Nazi Germany. Another sequel was that it became foundational to the interpretation of early Indian history and there have been attempts at a literal application of the theory to Indian society. Some European scholars now describe it as a nineteenth century myth. But some contemporary Indian political ideologies seem determined to renew its life. In this they are assisted by those who still carry the imprint of this nineteenth century theory and treat it as central to the question of Indian identity. With the widespread discussion on 'Aryan origins' in the print media and the controversy over its treatment in school textbooks, it has become the subject of a larger debate in terms of its ideological underpinnings rather than merely the differing readings among archaeologists and historians."

"The fundamental sanity in Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan."

"Secularism is the curtailment of religious control over social institutions, not the absence of religion from society. It is when our primary identity is of equal citizens of the nation, not as belonging to a particular religion or caste. But the Indian definition of secularism is limited to the coexistence of many religions which is incomplete because some religions can still be marginalised as they are."

"Not surprisingly, nationalism was replaced by a form of militant Hinduism, and the communal atmosphere in Indian politics in the late 1930s and the 1940s tended to vitiate the study of ancient and medieval history. The Gupta period became the ‘Golden Age’ largely because it was the period of renascent Hinduism. Many of the ills of India were ascribed to ‘the Muslim invasions and rule’. It was maintained that Hinduism in its Sanskritic form was the essential culture of India, and other forces were in a sense an intrusion."

"The majority of current politicians are characterised by little, if any, vision of the kind of society they wish to construct, barring those that come with the limited concept of extreme religious nationalism."

"Shariputra said, "Why don't you change out of this ?" (Shariputra assumes that any woman would naturally want to change into a man if she had the power to do so.) The goddess replied, "For the past twelve years I have been trying to take on female form, but in the end with no success. What is there to change? If a sorcerer were to conjure up a phantom woman and then someone asked her why she didn't change out of her female body, would that be any kind of reasonable question?" "No," said Shariputra. "Phantoms have no fixed form, so what would there be to change?" The goddess said, "All things are just the same-they have no fixed form. So why ask why I don't change out of my female form?" At that time the goddess employed her supernatural powers to change Shariputra into a goddess like herself, while she took on Shariputra's form. Then she asked, "Why don't you change out of this female body?" Shariputra, now in the form of a goddess, replied, "I don't know why I have suddenly changed and taken on a female body! " The goddess said, "Shariputra, if you can change out of this female body, then all women can change likewise. Shariputra, who is not a woman, appears in a woman's body. And the same is true of all women-though they appear in women's bodies, they are not women. Therefore the Buddha teaches that all phenomena are neither male nor female." Then the goddess withdrew her supernatural powers, and Shariputra returned to his original form. The goddess said to Shariputra, "Where now is the form and shape of your female body?" Shariputra said, "The form and shape of my female body does not exist, yet does not not exist." The goddess said, "All things are just like that-they do not exist, yet do not not exist. And that they do not exist, yet do not not exist, is exactly what the Buddha teaches.""

"Śroṇa, whatever ascetics or brahmins conceive "I am superior" or "I am equal" or "I am inferior" based on form … feeling … perception … volitional activities … consciousness that is impermanent, not lasting, not gratifying, of the nature to decay; this, Śroṇa, is nothing but those ascetics or brahmins not seeing in accordance with reality."

"I do not seek for death, I do not seek for birth; I abide my time, when my time comes, I shall go."

"Deep in wisdom, intelligent, expert in the variety of paths; Sāriputta, so greatly wise, teaches Dhamma to the mendicants. He teaches in brief, or he speaks at length. His call, like a myna bird, overflows with inspiration. While he teaches the mendicants listen to his sweet voice, sounding attractive, clear and graceful. They listen joyfully, their hearts uplifted."

"Just as the eldest son of a wheel-turning monarch properly keeps in motion the wheel of sovereignty set in motion by his father, so do you, Sāriputta, properly keep in motion the Wheel of Dhamma set in motion by me."

"Venerable sir, this is the entire holy life (brahmacariya), that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship."

"Sir, the factors of stream-entry are associating with good people, listening to the true teaching, proper attention, and practicing in line with the teaching. ...the stream is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion. ...anyone who possesses this noble eightfold path is called a stream-enterer, the venerable of such and such name and clan."

"One perception arose and another perception ceased in me: "The cessation of existence is nibbāna; the cessation of existence is nibbāna." Just as, when a fire of twigs is burning, one flame arises and another flame ceases, so one perception arose and another perception ceased in me: "The cessation of existence is nibbāna; the cessation of existence is nibbāna." On that occasion, friend, I was percipient: "The cessation of existence is nibbāna.""

"Something I have never seen before, and never even heard of-now all the marvelous purity of the Buddha land is visible before me!"

"Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One is not to blame. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it."

"A man may steal and be punished as a thief, or perform good deeds and be commended, but the power of Consciousness, which remains only a witness, is neither thief nor good man."

"Don’t fight with your desires; don’t try to push them out; don’t try to settle them. But just be carefree about them; get the ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude. Just lose them, neglect them, and they will go away one by one. Don’t struggle with them. I tell you that it is the only way it can be done."

"In meditation one is just One. One becomes the Self. The method of meditation is only a process by which this is made possible."

"The moving mind looks for happiness in getting and experiencing things. These do not suffice, for, when the mind has one thing it immediately rushes after another. The still mind finds happiness in everything."

"If you begin to be what you are, you will realise everything, but to begin to be what you are, you must first come out of what you are not. You are not those thoughts which are turning, turning in your mind. You are not those changing feelings. You are not the different decisions you make and the different wills you have. You are not that separate ego. Well then, what are you? You will find that when you have come out of what you are not, that the ripple on the water is whispering to you “I am That”, that the birds in the trees are singing to you “I am That”, the moon and the stars are shining beacons to you “I am That”. You are in everything in the world and everything in the world is reflected in you. And at the same time you are That—everything."

"The creation is for bliss. It is a play, and the play is only for enjoyment."