Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Hindu or Non-Hindu

I have been reading about the Dravidian culture for a long time now. As I’m part of the single largest and native Indian society, I started digging the roots of Hindu religion in India.

Indus (Sindu), Hindu, Hindustan, India and Indo are all words referring a river, religion and region or the country in Asia. While all of the above sounds similar, I doubt the nativity of these words as authentic Indian words. The reason being the ones

  1. Hinduism itself a religion brought to India by Aryans (People who travelled from Middle Asia and Europe). I assume this is correct because I found through the old testimonial of Judeo-Christianity about Moses who brought down ten commandments from God in the Mount Sinai and when he got down from Mount Sinai with the commandments, he found his followers were worshiping idols looked like animals, birds and so on. With the same context reading the 2nd commandment which was brought in by Moses says “"Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..." This prohibits the construction or fashioning of "idols" in the likeness of created things (beasts, fish, birds, people) and worshipping them.” Taking this into consideration, I believe the religion followed by the people on the foot hills of Mount Sinai is none other than Hinduism. As the same people moved towards Indus valley during the later term formed the same religion with the name attached to the valley they stayed. The Ten Commandments itself made for people the religion that followed worshiping animals, birds and people etc which is common in Hinduism.
  2. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are the oldest modern civilization found in ancient India when Pakistan was part of India. This community was called Aryan which was again peoples who inhabited parts of what are now Germany, Iran and Afghanistan. This sets a clear path for my first point that the Hinduism itself a religion brought into India from middle Asia and Europe. As the Aryan community in India dominates the northern region and got lots of similarities in their body color and physiques.
  3. Dravidian is the people who were the original people of the region now called India. Once India was a part of Gondwanaland (which is a combined land mass of Africa, Antarctica, India, Austarlia, South America).According to continental drift theory India broke away from Africa(part of gondwanaland) in permian period of geological time scale and drifted northwards and joined asia(part of Laurasia)....Himalayas are formed on the boundary between India and the Laurasia.(***Plate Tectonics theory also supports this hypothesis), Hence the Dravidian people now who are living in the south of India called Tamilians, Malayales, Kannadika and Telugu people. These people share the same color as Africans; India got almost similar animals like Lions, Tigers, Peacock, and Elephants and so on. Hence this proves that Dravidian people are the original Indians

With the above three theories, looking at Hinduism and its domination in India is only seems like alien religion. If then, what was the religion in India before Aryan’s invasion?

Undoubtedly, it was the nature and king worship. This is proven as even today the south sides of India have many non-Hindu related Gods are worshiped. As per Hinduism the worship of God has been extended by a community of people called Brahmins. Where in the non Hinduism based God worshiping in South India requires no Brahmin community for their God worship. Such Gods are called

  • Karuppu Sami (also known as Sangili karuppan ) - one of the regional Tamil male deities
  • Munishswaran
  • Ayyanar
  • Kaathavarayan Mythological God figure also known as a Warrior Deity
  • Ellai amman
  • Maari
  • Kaateri amman
  • Sudalai Madan or Madan, is a regional non-Vedic Tamil male deity who is popular amongst the least Sanskritized social groups of South India, particularly Tamil Nadu. This deity is very ancient. He seems to have originated in some ancestral guardian spirit of the villages or communities in Tamil Nadu, in a similar manner as Ayyanar.
  • Madurai Veeran (lit.:Warrior of Madurai) is a regional Tamil folk male deity popular in some areas of Tamil Nadu, India. His name suggests an association with the city of Madurai and a warrior past. The deity is also popular amongst certain segments of the Tamil diaspora in Réunion and the French overseas territories in the Caribbean Sea. He is known as the son of 'Amman' amongst the South African Tamils.


This states the true side of ancient Indian religion as non idol worships and followed the warriors of various time periods.

I recalled all my collection of data after visiting a Ayyanar temple last weekend ;-)

7 comments:

sindavi said...

good post :)
I do believe the 1st point of yours,I have read the same somewhere. but wat does the word
indus mean, a bit curious as it means my name too ;)

Sivakumar said...

Hi Sindu,

Good to see you here in an article which involves your name.

Ok, Indus is nothing but a river that lives in the lands of today's pakistan. The name India is from Indus river by engilsh people, as we didn't have a collective name for this piece of land earlier.

To read more about Indus, please follow the link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River

Trails of a Traveler said...

So when do you think this "Hinduism" entered India?

Trails of a Traveler said...

http://gurumurthy.net/

Search using the text "Aryan Invasion" on this site and check the second link from BBC - Swami Vivekananda..

Trails of a Traveler said...

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_agrawal.html

Trails of a Traveler said...

Another one for you Sir,

Consequences of the Aryan Invasion Theory in Context of India

* It serves to divide artificially India into a northern Aryan and southern Dravidian culture which were made hostile to each other by various interested parties: A major source of social tension in south Indian states.
* It gave an easy excuse to the Britishers to justify their conquest over India as well as validating the various conquests and mayhems of invading armies of religious fanatics from Arab lands and central Asia. The argument goes that they were doing only what Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously done millennia ago to the indigenous population.
* As a corollary, the theory makes Vedic culture later than and possibly derived from Middle Eastern cultures, especially the Greek culture: An absurd proposition.
* Since the identification of Christianity and the Middle Eastern cultures, the Hindu religion and Indian civilization are considered as a sidelight to the development of religion and civilization in the west: A deliberate and dishonest undermining of the antiquity and the greatness of the ancient Indian culture.
* It allows the science of India to be given a Greek basis, as any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the Vedic culture: In fact the opposite is true.
* If the theory of Aryan invasion and its proposed period were true, this discredited not only the Vedas but the genealogies of the Puranas, and all the kings mentioned in these scriptures including Lord Krishna, Rama, Buddha etc. would become as fictional characters with no historical basis: Which simply means disowning and discarding the very basis and raison de'etre of the Hindu civilization.
* The Mahabharat, instead of being a civil war of global proportion in which all the main kings of India participated as is described in the epic, would be dismissed as a local skirmish among petty princes that was later exaggerated by poets.
* In other words, the Aryan Invasion Theory invalidates and discredits the most Hindu traditions and almost all its vast and rich literary and civilizational heritage. It turns its scriptures and sages into fantasies and exaggerations.
* On the basis of this theory, the propaganda by the Macaulayists was made that there was nothing great in the Hindu culture and their ancestors and sages. And most Hindus fell for this devious plan. It made Hindus feel ashamed of their culture - that its basis was neither historical nor scientific, the Vedas were the work of nomadic shepherds and not the divine revelations or eternal truth perceived by the rishis during their spiritual journey, and hence there is nothing to feel proud about India's past, nothing to be proud of being Hindu.

In short such a view and this concocted Aryan Invasion theory by a few European historians in order to prove the supremacy of Christianity and Western civilization, served (and still serving) the purpose: 'divide and conquer the Hindus'.

Anonymous said...

good points and the details are more specific than somewhere else, thanks.

- Norman