Authors From India

"Keep intellect above your habits, and Shari'ah above your intellect."

"Saints (Sufis) are like elder brothers and Senior scholars (Fuqaha) are like father in respect."

"People are excessively obsessed with dreams. Their concern for things which they dream is greater than their concern for things which effect them during their state of wakefulness. How confused are they!"

"Energizing one's intellect and disposition is not the way to success. The kindness of the Master cannot be achieved without humility."

"Scholars are much needed as they are the backbone of religion. Scholars are more needed than Saints otherwise no one would know the religious ordinances and limits."

"I developed enthusiasm for Dīn - of which tahajjud is one branch."

"The enthusiasm which I had for debating in my young days is now replaced by as much aversion for it because of its harms."

"“Two men stood on top of me and beat me mercilessly while the others pulled at my hair,” she said. “Other women of the house just watched as mute spectators. “They were too scared. I don’t know what would have happened if a [local leader] had not intervened. He was fond of me for my work among the sick women. The Taliban, on that occasion, could not continue and fled.”"

"In an interview she talked about her escape from death in the hands of Taliban. “The Taliban court gave its verdict. I was to be shot dead on the morning of July 22, 1995, on the charge of disorderly behaviour unbecoming of a woman… At 10.27 a.m., I was brought to the mehman-khana (guest room) where 15 Taliban soldiers, who were to be my executioners, were reading verses from the Koran.” said Sushmita."

"Mulastana—the original name of the Islamicised ‘Multan’—is a great city hailing from untold antiquity. The general region has been continuously inhabited for over five thousand years and is one of the proverbial cradles of human civilisation, now home to numerous archaeological sites dating back to the early Harappan period of the Indus Valley Civilisation. According to Hindu lore, Mulastana was founded by Rishi Kashyapa and was the capital of the Trigarta kingdom when the Great Kurukshetra War occurred. During Alexander’s raid of India, Mulastana was located on an island in the Ravi River (known as Iravati or Parushni in Vedic texts). This ancient city is now fabled for a proliferation of mosques, minarets and a vast collection of Islamic structures. It is also home to the largest collection of Sufi shrines in a single place. However, for at least three thousand years, Mulastana was one of the original homes that embodied and breathed the sanctity of the Sanatana Vedic civilisation and culture, which found its most magnificent and sublime expression in the Aditya (or Sun) Temple. According to the Bhagavata Purana, it was built by Krishna’s son Samba who performed a penance to propitiate Aditya in order to obtain a cure for his leprosy. When Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang visited the Sun Temple in 641, he described the murti of Aditya as made of ‘pure gold with eyes made from large red rubies’. Its doors, pillars and the shikhara (tower/dome) were all studded with silver, gold, rubies, gems and numerous varieties of precious metals. At a more profound level, Mulastana was one of the most sacred pilgrimage centres for Hindus, on par with Kashi, Prayagraj, Mathura and Kanchipuram."

"In the late 18th century, Tipu Sultan, one of the last Muslim rulers to command a significant kingdom in southern India, wrote frequent, anxious letters to the Caliph, inviting him to invade India and aid him in his fight against the infidel Christians, the British. The underlying significance of all such correspondences is a historical theme that has remained constant from the day the alien invading forces of Islam began their forays into Bharatavarsha, looking for favour, approval and endorsement of their authority in this country from a transnational religious imperialism."

"The Delhi Sultanate period was a time of extraordinary churning that had a far-reaching impact on the history of India that followed it. At many points, it involved critically decisive junctures which had the potential to extinguish—or at any rate, reduce—the severity, dominance and influence of Muslim rule in India. The Delhi Sultanate was endowed with a sort of inbuilt character of ephemerality unlike other Hindu empires that preceded it."

"However, the bigoted handwork of Tipu is clearly visible even today in the temples of Parampathali, Panmayanadu and Vengidangu. One look at the appalling damage done to the sanctum sanctorum of the Parampathali temple is sufficient to estimate the nature of Tipu’s iconoclasm."

"It marks the first episode of forced and panicked mass migrations of Hindus, Jains and other native non-Muslim populations from various parts of northern and western India towards the central and southern regions. Indeed, a separate volume dedicated to narrating the full history of such forced Hindu migrations within India awaits the pen of a future historian. One of the more enduring and durable features of Hindu social life since time immemorial was the remarkable continuity and attachment they had towards their immediate geographical surroundings. Muhammad’s perfidious victory shattered that sense of permanence and continuity forever. From then onwards, this age-old stability and settled generational rhythm of life would repeatedly be smashed for the next five hundred years throughout northern, eastern and western India by the same forces of religious zealotry and iconoclasm that motivated Muhammad bin Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazni and now, Muhammad of Ghori. The Jain Acharya Asadhara writes33 that when the Sapadalaksha34 region was conquered by Shihab-ud-din alias Muhammad of Ghor, he fled from his native country and migrated to the safe haven of Malwa, because he was scared of being forcibly converted and his family molested by the marauding armies."

"While Qutub-ud-din Aibak deserves credit for sundering all ties with Ghazni and thereby preventing further, destructive Muslim raids from Central Asia, he also heralded a new power structure and centre that would endure for the next six hundred years. For the first time in the long history of ancient Bharatavarsha, Delhi became the seat of a prolonged, oppressive religious despotism concentrating all power within itself. So far, the city, at various points, had at best been a principality, governorship and protectorate. With due regard to vastly changed historical and political circumstances, it can reasonably be said that a basic element in the template that Qutub-ud-din Aibak had set has continued till date, minus the religious despotism: Delhi continues to be the political centre of modern India, shorn of any traces of the native classical culture and civilisation."

"Like his predecessors, Iltutmish was also a pious Sunni Muslim and followed the dictates of his religion dutifully. He completed the construction of the Qutub Minar which Qutub-ud-din Aibak had commissioned. He never missed saying the five prayers daily and strictly observed all the prescribed Islamic rituals. He also harboured an inveterate hatred and intolerance towards the Shias and persecuted them on a significant scale, which led to an Ismaili Shia rebellion in Delhi whose declared goal was his assassination. Iltutmish suppressed it with shocking violence which resulted in their indiscriminate slaughter. Needless to mention, his policy towards Hindus was far worse. Towards the end of his life, around 1233–1234, he marched against the sacred city of Vidisha and razed its ancient Sun Temple. Next, he proceeded towards Ujjain, the beloved city of Kalidasa and of generations of poets, scholars and people of learning from the ancient times. It was the proudest and the pre-eminent centre of culture and commerce during the golden Gupta era. Ujjain was also home to the magnificent and sublime Mahakala Temple (or Mahakal) dedicated to Shiva, one of the twelve sacred Jyotirlingas. The immortal poet Kalidasa, an unparalleled devotee of Shiva, dedicates beautifully poignant verses53 in his timeless poem Meghaduta to describe the Mahakala Temple complete with the evening Nada-Aradhana, the performance of music and dance before Shiva. Quite naturally, it was one of the great hubs of idolatry. With a savage stroke, Iltutmish demolished54 this exquisite temple—a majestic, living proof and a profoundly dignified symbol of the possibilities of what innate devotion and stainless piety could accomplish when it finds unsullied expression in architecture and refined sculpture. A work of three hundred painstaking years and countless generations of dedicated, joyous, backbreaking work, an awe-inspiring system of transmitting generational knowledge, an economic framework and political stability that sustained all this tragically fell to the sword, pickaxe and the fire of a determined vandal. The Mahakala Temple is described by Firishta himself as magnificent … surrounded by a wall one hundred cubits in height. The image of Vikramaditya, who had been formerly prince of this country, and so renowned, that the Hindus have taken an era from his death, as also the image of Mahakal, both of stone, with many other figures of brass, were found in the temple. After the pious ravage was complete, Iltutmish ordered his troops to carry these broken idols and ‘many other figures’ and ‘brass statues of Vikramaditya and other notable rulers’ to Delhi where they were ‘broken at the door of the great’ Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque so that the Faithful could trample upon it."

"It was also a period of all-round sweeping changes: old systems of governance and statecraft were uprooted, the administration was Islamised, an oppressive tax regime was introduced and centuries-old native traditions, worship, manners, customs, dressing, food habits, education and language underwent a brutal and, in many cases, irreversible transformation and destruction."

"The Sultan was ambling his way towards death in one fit of helpless fury at a time. In all probability, the sultan merely suspected that the illness that had seized him this time would pass, too. He was, after all, the Shah, the Upholder of the Deen, The Only True Faith in the world, the sultan who had known no defeat, who had ‘conquered the east and protect[ed] the west’, who had been honoured by none less than the mighty Chief of the Abbasids, and more importantly, he was the One who had ‘destroyed the country of the sun-worshippers’.1 Wherever his sword had been raised, such far-flung, powerful kingdoms like those at Kara2, Ujjain, Ranthambhor, Chittorgarh, Deogiri, Dhur Samundar and Madura5 met the same fate as that of the ‘garden of Behar’, whose soil was ‘dyed with blood as red as a tulip’, and everywhere the ravaging sultan went, the ‘Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants.’"

"One significant reason, however, is the fact that the overall discipline of historical scholarship in India, especially after the 1950s, has largely been destroyed thanks to Marxist ideological manipulation. To put this in real terms, nearly three generations of first-rate scholarship has been wiped out, as a result of which the pioneering work begun by Sir Jadunath Sarkar, R.C. Majumdar, S. Srikanta Sastri, D.C. Sircar, A.D. Pusalker and Radha Kumud Mookerji has continued to languish."

"It was only after Tipu’s tyrannical regime ended that the original idol of Krishna was transported back to Guruvayoor and reinstated with due ceremony. Equally, if no signs of destruction are visible today, it is because of the intervention of an officer named Hydrose Kutty, a Hindu who had been forcibly converted to Islam by Hyder Ali. He helped repair, renovate, and restore the temple and reinstated the land grants and exemptions that had historically been given to it by various kings."

"From this point onwards, large parts of India would witness and suffer the prolonged, ruthless and oppressive domination of Turkish Muslim rule for more than four hundred years. To the native Indian tongue, the word ‘Turushka’ evoked repellent connotations of barbarism, Hindu genocide, forcible conversions, wholesale gangrape of their women, repeated and large-scale temple destructions, mindless cow slaughter and industrial-scale slave-taking."

"Tipu also didn’t spare the Krishna temple at Guruvayoor, which is one of the holiest Hindu temples in India. However, today’s Tipu-worshippers assert that it was Tipu who gave the land grant to Hindus to construct the Guruvayoor temple! An eminence named C.K. Ahmed writes with supreme confidence that “the Guruvayoor temple of today exists on the land that was granted as Inaam[gift or grant] by Tipu” but fails to give a single shred of evidence to back his assertion. However, the real story is that when the people of Guruvayoor heard of Tipu’s approach, they secretly transported its main idol to the Ambalapuzha Krishna temple then in the Travancore State. Here’s what the 2 January 1977 issue of the Illustrated Weekly of India says about the affair: The truth is that when Tipu raided the Malabar, he looted all the gold and jewelry in the Hindu temples there, pulled down the gold, silver and copper covering that placed on the roofs of these temples, looted their money, and vandalized them. Seeing the nature of his raid, the locals and Brahmins at Guruvayoor feared for the fate of the idol of Krishna in the temple, shifted it to Ambalapuzha and hid it."

"Hindus were suddenly rudely jolted awake to a wholly unfamiliar, living nightmare when Mahmud’s armies overwhelmed the sacred Indo-Gangetic plain, the nucleus of their ancient punyabhoomi, the hordes of his locust-like barbarians setting fire to its fertile, green, smiling plains, plundering, indulging in indiscriminate massacre of innocent citizens, gangraping women, enslaving boys, girls, men, women and children, destroying ancient cities and centres of learning, art and culture, razing magnificent temples sanctified by uninterrupted centuries of nationwide devotion, smashing murtis and enforcing an alien religion at the point of the sword and fire."

"The case of the Thrikkavu temple in Ponnani was no different. After smashing the idols in the temple, Tipu converted the entire temple into an ammunition depot."

"The Thirunavaya Temple, of unknown antiquity—local legends trace it back to about 5000 years but its written history dates to at least 1300 years—is today located 12 Kilometres south of Tirur in the Malappuram district. It was always renowned as one of the great centres of Vedic learning and a principal place of pilgrimage of the Vaishnava sect. Tipu’s brutal army not only plundered the temple but desecrated and destroyed it."

"Iswar Chandra Gupta, for whom Bankim had great respect, reacted sharply against the Sepoy Mutiny and wrote in his Sanghad Prahhakar that among those evil- minded people who were the main enemies of the Govern¬ ment, the Muslims were in the majority. He complained that though the Muslims had been given equal rights to sit with the Hindus in the same class rooms of schools established by the Government yet they had not been able to develop a sense of loyalty to the Crown. The editorial comments of Iswar Gupta’s Samhad Prahhakar give us a picture of the Hindu orthodox intelligentsia’s reaction to the Sepoy Mutiny. Though it may be conceded that the Mutiny was not a revolt for national emancipation and that if it had succeeded, it would have put the clock of India’s progress back, it should be noticed that the ortho^ dox Hindu literati reacted adversely to the Mutiny not because it was a retrograde step taken by the mutineers but because, if it succeeded, it would have put the Muslims back in power as, according to Iswar Gupta, the Muslims were in the majority among the mutineers. On the 20th June, 1857 Sambad Prahhakar wrote that “under the Mus¬ lim rule we did not get any freedom to practice religion, there was always tyrannical rule.” After this it wrote about the British rule."

"I certainly do not subscribe to any form of kiss and tell in my writing. Those who write such real-life confessional books are certainly not doing it for any kind of literary reasons. Sadly, that seems to be what some publishers want, and they know these books have readers and they will sell copies."

"One needs to be careful with what one decides to publish. There are things I write and don’t publish. But I certainly needed to write them for myself. My editor is my barometer who cautions me, and I rarely disagree with him. Some of my readers say I’m brave to publish what they read in my books. So maybe, now I can go a little further. Malay­­sians self-censor for many reasons. There is the fear that our work might be banned or at worse the writer gets arrested. One has to be careful with matters of race and religion. My writings do deal with race and aspects of religion, but I am very careful not to offend though I might touch on these issues."

"Malaysians write in an English which is quite distinctive. We can recognise Malaysian English both in its standard and non-standard forms. We can see the influences of the local languages on Malaysian English and it certainly enriches the language, but we need to bear in mind that it should have intelligibility for both local and international readers."

"If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow."

"India is a continent; it should be divided into a number of countries. . . . Aryan influence increases within a single country called India. Welfare of the other races is crushed under Aryan rule. Uniting different races under a single country leads to rebellions and troubles. In order to prevent such troubles and bloodshed in India, we should divide India according to racial lines now. . . . The reason one race has not choked another race to death in India so far is the British guns. When the British leave, India will become a killing field."

"There was clearly a foreign hand behind [Dravidian] agitation . . . Some Dravida leaders had been influenced with American money routed through Sri Lanka and they became, if unsuspectingly, ready instruments of destabilizations. Annadurai perhaps did not know it but he was becoming an effective plaything of America's intelligence machinery ."

"“Our people will be liberated from ignorance only on the day we are freed from the Aryan illusion.” (Barnett 1976:73)"

"Enjoy eternal peace! When the Budhi is enlightened, every man comes to know his own defects and merits. Like one's reflection in the mirror, the various desires of the mind will be visible to Budhi. (282)"

"Tulsi Amina (A devotee) recorded this when Baba (Nityananda) gave her the permission to write down his words. He spoke spontaneously in Trans like state during deep meditation over a period of 5 - 7 years from 1920 - 1927 when this was recorded. Chidakasha Gita was first published in 1927 in Kannada Language."

"Those whose minds are merged in Samadhi, are not deluded by the external jugglery. They are quite fearless. Siddhas (God realized souls) are not afraid of the world. A tiger or a cobra, when they see such a person, become calm, forgetting their ferocity. Similarly, all animals become calm at their sight. Even enemies forget their enmity and become friendly. As soon as they see a sadhu, they become stone-still. What is the cause of this? It is because of their doubting nature. At the sight of a sadhu, there is no darkness. Mind gets purified, realizing the Satwa quality. (280)"

"If you keep a light before a thousand people, it reaches all without making any distinction. Anyone may take it. Where there is light, there is no darkness. In the darkness there is no light. There can only be one thing (either light or darkness), not two at the same time. One's nature should be like the sun; one's Chitta must be cool like the moon. (271)"

"Those The heart should be free from hypocrisy, the heart of man should be perfectly pure. What the heart thinks, the tongue should talk. What one thinks, one must talk. Nobody you should deceive; nobody you should hate. You must not mix with others. Your mind must always be one pointed. (277)"

"If everyone could experience that inner Truth, if everyone could understand his real nature, there would no longer be enmity among people, but only friendliness, affection, and the feeling of universal brotherhood... When we look at ourselves with the true awareness of humanity, we will see that same humanity in everyone else, and then we will realize that everyone in this world is a child of God."

"The heart of a Mahatma is like the tamarind seed perfectly pure. These Mahatmas are ever young. For a Jnyani, there is no age-idea. (251)"

"The characteristics of Sadhuguna, Satwaguna, and peace and all such qualities, come from non-attachment. When Buddhi becomes steady, it is called Satwaguna. Sat (truth) is like letters engraved in stone. The talk of the worldly is like letters engraved on a chalk slab. (253)"

"There is light in the heart; there is no darkness in it. If a man's head be struck off, we cannot say who the man is by simply looking at his trunk. It is the heart which sees through the eye. A man must have the internal eye. (95)"

"The human body is a temple within which God dwells in the form of the Self. However, to know this, you must turn within through meditation. In your present state, you have only partial awareness."

"We know only the ordinary states of consciousness in which we live; we do not have complete knowledge of reality. When we are awake, we are totally immersed in our waking world. When we dream, our activities, our world, and our understanding are completely different from when we are awake. When we go into the state of deep sleep, we lose consciousness altogether."

"Meditation is not some strange technique that we have to learn with great effort and difficulty. There is already a strong element of meditation in our lives, but we are simply not aware of it."

"We will realize that we are nothing but Consciousness. This physical body is like the clothes we wear. Just as they are merely a covering for the body, in the same way the physical body is merely a covering for our innermost Consciousness."

"Once the well should be emptied of its water. All the mud should be removed. The water which then comes is the purest. Jnana is like this pure water. Once you burn away the thought of 'I' and 'mine', then non-attachment to the objects of the senses will result of its own accord. (254)"

"A human being has the freedom to become anything. By his own power he can make his life sublime or wretched. By his own power he can reach the heavens or descend to the depths."

"When we meditate, we pass even beyond the deep sleep state and enter the state of the Self. That state is the foundation of all the other states, and it alone is permanent and unchanging."

"It is certain... that to experience the Self we must follow a spiritual practice. Even to achieve something in daily life we have to work for it. We cannot satisfy our appetite merely by reading a description of a delicious meal."