Archaeology Thread

[kingkobra]

What many people do not know that Hinduism is not ancient religion as some people claim it to be...Hinduism came after Budhism and Jainism..there is no mention of the word Hindu anywhere in vedas or Geeta...and if there is any in puranas then rest assured that puranas are not ancient..


Here is interesting read for how Budhism disappeared from south India

http://truthdive.com/2011/10/28/how-...amil-nadu.html

[skganji]

Originally Posted by kingkobra

What many people do not know that Hinduism is not ancient religion as some people claim it to be...Hinduism came after Budhism and Jainism..there is no mention of the word Hindu anywhere in vedas or Geeta...and if there is any in puranas then rest assured that puranas are not ancient..


Here is interesting read for how Budhism disappeared from south India

http://truthdive.com/2011/10/28/how-...amil-nadu.html

There is no word Hindu in Puranas. Iranians for some reasons use "H" for "S" in Avestan and Old Iranian languages. The river Sindhu and the region Saptha-Sindhu in Avestan and Old Iranian became Hindu and Haptha-Hindu. The people in this region were known as Hindus gradually after Alexandar's conquest and in greek literature. The word India is also a anglicized form of greek word Indie , which more less refers to river Sindhu . Hinduism is a broader word and it includes anybody who practices ancient Sanathana dharma, shaivism, vaisnavism, shakti worship, vedic practices etc. The redaction of the Puranas seems to have happened in Gupta period but there is lot of old material in Puranas. Basically centuries old practices continue with a different name now. Sorry if there are some minor mistakes in this post.

[Marathaman]

Originally Posted by kingkobra

What many people do not know that Hinduism is not ancient religion as some people claim it to be...Hinduism came after Budhism and Jainism..there is no mention of the word Hindu anywhere in vedas or Geeta...and if there is any in puranas then rest assured that puranas are not ancient..


Here is interesting read for how Budhism disappeared from south India

http://truthdive.com/2011/10/28/how-...amil-nadu.html

Well, Buddhism was an organized religion, so naturally when the organizations collapsed, so did the religion.

Yes, Hinduism did exist in whatever form. People worshipped all sorts of gods just like they do today. Even buddhist complexes had temples to Hindu gods. There was no watershed moment when Buddhism was uprooted and everybody started going for Vishnu and Shiva. These gods were already there.

As for that blog post, it seems like an amateurish attempt to somehow establish a "Tamil" religion as opposed to "Hinduism". It's more politics than history, and I wouldn't vouch for it's accuracy.

[Licit Mortal]

This is my most favorite thread in the entire forum. Thank you for creating this thread and for sharing these discoveries.

Cheers

[Licit Mortal]

Originally Posted by kingkobra

What many people do not know that Hinduism is not ancient religion as some people claim it to be...Hinduism came after Budhism and Jainism..there is no mention of the word Hindu anywhere in vedas or Geeta...and if there is any in puranas then rest assured that puranas are not ancient..


Here is interesting read for how Budhism disappeared from south India

http://truthdive.com/2011/10/28/how-...amil-nadu.html

Interesting, but I believe this author completely lost the fact that Buddhism in Tamil Nadu and in the whole of India reduced significantly and vanished in some parts because of Kumarila Bhatta and Adi shankara. In those days there were six primary school of vedic thoughts; the samkya, Yoga, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vedanta and Vaisheshika. Similarly the Buddhist school of thought existed. Each of these different schools was headed by a scholar and scholars from these various schools had an intellectual debate over each other's philosophies and the loser had to abandon all his teachings and convert himself to the winner's philosophy.

Buddhism and Vedic philosophies were competing with each other and Kumaarilla Bhatta, the head of mimamsa philosphy took on many of the Buddhist monks and defeated them through his scholarly and dialectical success in his debates with them. Spread of Mimamsa was the main reason why Buddhism started to fall out significantly in India and it was only because of Kumaarilla Bhatta. Now mimamsa was competing with vedanta and Adi sankara was the head of vedanta. Adi Sankara wanted to stop the fast spread of mimamsa in the Southern part . Therefore he decided to take on the mimamsa scholar Kumaarilla Bhatta in a debate, who in turn directed Adi Sankara to his disciple named Mandamishra, as Bhatta was in a penance of slowly burning himself for his sins of commiting a guru droga to one of the Buddhist monks from whom he learnt the secrets of Buddhist philosophies, just for the sake of preparing better to defeat them in the future debates between mimamsa and Buddhism.

In the debate, Mandanamishra's wife Ubayabharati was made the judge and when Adi Sankara won his debate over Mandanamishra on philosophies, Ubayabharati started asking Adi Sankara about the nuances and intricate experiences of a family life, thinking that he would lose as he was a saint. Adi Sankara performed a para kaya pravesanam (soul travel) into a king's body and understood the nuances of sexual/family life. Thus he defeated Mandanamishra in the debate. In return for this loss, Mandanamishra had to abandon all mimamsa teachings in South India and he himself converted into the advaita philosophy of vedanta, becoming the first seer of Sringeri mutt.

Interestingly, it seems that the very first person to use the word "Dravida" was Adi Sankara in this famous debate with Mandanamishra. When Adi Sankara was asked who are you by Mandanamishra and his wife Ubayabharati, he introduces himself as "Mama Dravida Sishu", meaning I am the son of the place where the union of oceans take place, (Union of Dra and Vidh) meaning he is from the south. Therefore the word was used to represent the location and not a race. The Brits later used this phrase to conveniently divide people of India as Aryans and Dravidians and rule. Voila, we believe and follow it till date without any questioning.

Therefore, without any reference to Kumaarilla Bhatta and Adi Sankara, the fall out of Buddhism in Tamil Nadu and in India can never be justified.

Just my two cents and don't ask me "What nonsense!" before doing your own research.

[kingkobra]

Originally Posted by Licit Mortal

Interesting, but I believe this author completely lost the fact that Buddhism in Tamil Nadu and in the whole of India reduced significantly and vanished in some parts because of Kumarila Bhatta and Adi shankara. In those days there were six primary school of vedic thoughts; the samkya, Yoga, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vedanta and Vaisheshika. Similarly the Buddhist school of thought existed. Each of these different schools was headed by a scholar and scholars from these various schools had an intellectual debate over each other's philosophies and the loser had to abandon all his teachings and convert himself to the winner's philosophy.

Buddhism and Vedic philosophies were competing with each other and Kumaarilla Bhatta, the head of mimamsa philosphy took on many of the Buddhist monks and defeated them through his scholarly and dialectical success in his debates with them. Spread of Mimamsa was the main reason why Buddhism started to fall out significantly in India and it was only because of Kumaarilla Bhatta. Now mimamsa was competing with vedanta and Adi sankara was the head of vedanta. Adi Sankara wanted to stop the fast spread of mimamsa in the Southern part . Therefore he decided to take on the mimamsa scholar Kumaarilla Bhatta in a debate, who in turn directed Adi Sankara to his disciple named Mandamishra, as Bhatta was in a penance of slowly burning himself for his sins of commiting a guru droga to one of the Buddhist monks from whom he learnt the secrets of Buddhist philosophies, just for the sake of preparing better to defeat them in the future debates between mimamsa and Buddhism.

In the debate, Mandanamishra's wife Ubayabharati was made the judge and when Adi Sankara won his debate over Mandanamishra on philosophies, Ubayabharati started asking Adi Sankara about the nuances and intricate experiences of a family life, thinking that he would lose as he was a saint. Adi Sankara performed a para kaya pravesanam (soul travel) into a king's body and understood the nuances of sexual/family life. Thus he defeated Mandanamishra in the debate. In return for this loss, Mandanamishra had to abandon all buddhist teachings in South India and he himself converted into the advaita philosophy, becoming the first seer of Sringeri.

Interestingly, it seems that the very first person to use the word "Dravida" was Adi Sankara in this famous debate with Mandanamishra. When Adi Sankara was asked who are you by Mandanamishra and his wife Ubayabharati, he introduces himself as "Mama Dravida Sishu", meaning I am the son of the place where the union of oceans take place, (Union of Dra and Vidh) meaning he is from the south. Therefore the word was used to represent the location and not a race. The Brits later used this phrase to conveniently divide people of India as Aryans and Dravidians and rule. Voila, we believe and follow it till date without any questioning.

Therefore, without any reference to Kumaarilla Bhatta and Adi Sankara, the fall out of Buddhism in Tamil Nadu and in India can never be justified.

Just my two cents and don't ask me "What nonsense!" before doing your own research.

I completely agree with you on contribution of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa & Adi Shankara in uprooting Budhism from India...But Budhism was not completely uprooted during their lifetime...

[dayalbaba]

Originally Posted by kingkobra
What many people do not know that Hinduism is not ancient religion as some people claim it to be...Hinduism came after Budhism and Jainism..there is no mention of the word Hindu anywhere in vedas or Geeta...and if there is any in puranas then rest assured that puranas are not ancient..

this is nonsense, to put it mildly. hinduism is much older than either jainism or buddhism. it was called sanatan dharma back then. the name hinduism is not ancient, doesn't mean the religion isn't. hinduism doesn't originate from puranas (which are mostly written in the centuries leading up to gupta period) but from vedas, which are some of the oldest books known to mankind.

But Budhism was not completely uprooted during their lifetime...

buddhism was absorbed in hinduism as time went along, it was not replacement of one by another. buddha for example is considered one of the avatars of vishnu in many vaishnava schools. the concept of shiv ling itself is supposed to have originated from buddhist stupas.
to philosophers the difference might have been very important, to common people it was not.
even the Pala kings of bengal, who once ruled upto afghanistan while considered buddhist by all historians, had no problems worshipping 'dharma', a form of vishnu with equal fervour.

[GollumGollum]

People usually refer to Harsha's Empire as being the last major Buddhist kingdom of India, but actually, the Pala Dynasty, was the last major one. It was responsible for the propagation of esoteric forms of Buddhism to East Asia, perticularily Tibet. Consequrntly, many gods which were probably once popular in ancient Bihar and Bengal, have been preserved in places like Tibet and Japan. Mahakala for example, or Manjushri. Some of these deities may be older than the modern forms of Shiva, Vishnu, etc. In Tibet, people regularily chant long mantras to famous Bengali monks, such as Atisha, who propagated Pala Empire Buddhism to Tibet, when the Pala Empire declined:



Bengali literature (and thus the modern Bengali language), I once read, also seems to contain echos of Buddhist ideas, with notions of impermenance (anitya) and emptyness (shunyata) being found in thematic leanings. If the Bengali cinema of Satyajit Ray is anything to go by, I agree. The reason for this is probably that the Bengali language only seperated off into a distinct language from the old eastern Magadhi Prakrit around the time of the Pala Empire.

[kingkobra]

Originally Posted by dayalbaba

this is nonsense, to put it mildly. hinduism is much older than either jainism or buddhism. it was called sanatan dharma back then. the name hinduism is not ancient, doesn't mean the religion isn't. hinduism doesn't originate from puranas (which are mostly written in the centuries leading up to gupta period) but from vedas, which are some of the oldest books known to mankind.

buddhism was absorbed in hinduism as time went along, it was not replacement of one by another. buddha for example is considered one of the avatars of vishnu in many vaishnava schools. the concept of shiv ling itself is supposed to have originated from buddhist stupas.
to philosophers the difference might have been very important, to common people it was not.
even the Pala kings of bengal, who once ruled upto afghanistan while considered buddhist by all historians, had no problems worshipping 'dharma', a form of vishnu with equal fervour.

Santan Dharma is a completely different religion than Hinduism today...Sanatan Dharma which was a monotheistic religion had no temples or idols...Temples and Idols started with Jainism and Budhism...Budhism and Jainism were not absorbed into Hinduism....If they were then they would not have existed anywhere in India but they do...

Budhism and Jainism Influenced Sanatan Dharma and then a new religion or way of life style was born which was later named as Hindu Dharma..

About Budha being Avtar of Vishnu...It is usual crap that puranics try to feed to people but Budhists around world do not accept that neither did Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar when he took Diksha of Budhism..

So Hinduism(Do not confuse it with Sanatan Dharma) as a religion is younger than Budhism and Jainism..

[GollumGollum]

Earth has thousands of religions. They evolve and change all the time. New deities are exchanged and traded. So, when the Buddha was made into an avatar of Vishnu by some sects, it was just a natural process, not some conspiracy theory. The Buddha was seen as being a version of Lao Tsu in early Taoism, for example. On the flipside, some Buddhist stories regard Rama as being one of the Buddha's million's of previous incarnations.

[skganji]

Originally Posted by kingkobra

Santan Dharma is a completely different religion than Hinduism today...Sanatan Dharma which was a monotheistic religion had no temples or idols...Temples and Idols started with Jainism and Budhism...Budhism and Jainism were not absorbed into Hinduism....If they were then they would not have existed anywhere in India but they do...

Budhism and Jainism Influenced Sanatan Dharma and then a new religion or way of life style was born which was later named as Hindu Dharma..

About Budha being Avtar of Vishnu...It is usual crap that puranics try to feed to people but Budhists around world do not accept that neither did Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar when he took Diksha of Budhism..

So Hinduism(Do not confuse it with Sanatan Dharma) as a religion is younger than Budhism and Jainism..

Again this is Big B.S. Sanathana Dharma is the religion thought by Lord Krishna in Bhagavadgita. Bhagvadgita talks about worship of one supreme god Krishna . Sanathana means eternal it has no begining. The yadavas ( or the yadus of Rig veda) clearly worshipped Vishnu before the appearance of Krishna . You keep on repeating the same non-sense again and again without truly understanding the facts. This is the propaganda carried by pseudo-secular , communist and anti-Hindu forces . In Bhagavadgita Krishna talks about dharma and adharma. As a Khastriya he was reminded to fight in the battlefield and think of Lord Krishna while fighting. Recent excavations in Dwaraka revealed some idols of Lord Vishnu . Your repeated lies that there are no idols in Sanathana dharma has no validity. Now in Vedas , we see glorification and worship of Indra, Agni, Varuna, Mitra etc. Historians say it is greek who heavily influenced India to make their gods Idols . Modern Hinduism is nothing but continued age old practices that existed in India since the dawn of vedic civilization. Sanathan dharma is not monotheistic ( rigidity never existed) as you say but it allowed even worship of demigods like Indra mitra varuna etc.

Here is one of the visnhu idols excavated from Dwaraka way before Buddhism and Jainism started in India. Mahabharata states that people of Dwaraka were vishnu devotees.

[kingkobra]

Originally Posted by skganji

Again this is Big B.S. Sanathana Dharma is the religion thought by Lord Krishna in Bhagavadgita. Bhagvadgita talks about worship of one supreme god Krishna . Sanathana means eternal it has no begining. The yadavas ( or the yadus of Rig veda) clearly worshipped Vishnu before the appearance of Krishna . You keep on repeating the same non-sense again and again without truly understanding the facts. This is the propaganda carried by pseudo-secular , communist and anti-Hindu forces . In Bhagavadgita Krishna talks about dharma and adharma. As a Khastriya he was reminded to fight in the battlefield and think of Lord Krishna while fighting. Recent excavations in Dwaraka revealed some idols of Lord Vishnu . Your repeated lies that there are no idols in Sanathana dharma has no validity. Now in Vedas , we see glorification and worship of Indra, Agni, Varuna, Mitra etc. Historians say it is greek who heavily influenced India to make their gods Idols . Modern Hinduism is nothing but continued age old practices that existed in India since the dawn of vedic civilization. Sanathan dharma is not monotheistic ( rigidity never existed) as you say but it allowed even worship of demigods like Indra mitra varuna etc.

Here is one of the visnhu idols excavated from Dwaraka way before Buddhism and Jainism started in India. Mahabharata states that people of Dwaraka were vishnu devotees.

You have no idea of Vedas and the extent to which they promote Monotheism...western fools have made vedas a deity worshipping manual by cunningly ignoring certain verses like below.


Indram Mitram varunamagnimaahuratho divyah sa suparno garuthmaan| Yekham sadvipra bahudha vadantyagnim yamam maatarishwanamaahuh||
Rigveda 1.64.46

The real God is one, the enlightened ones, speak of Him in several ways, God is divine, the supreme protector and graceful sentient, the Universal soul. They call Him Indra, the Almighty, the universal friend [mitra]. Varuna the most acceptable and obliterator of sins, they describe Him as [agnim] the supreme guide of the Universe, {Yaman} the controller of the Universe, and {matarishvanam] the life of all lives.
------------------------------------------------------------------


Na dvitityo Na triyaschthurtho naapyuchyate|
N a panchamo Na shshtah sapthmo naapyuchyate|
Nashtamo Na navamo dashamo naapyuchyate|
Yagna yetham devamekavritham veda||
Sa sarvassai vi pashyathi yachha praanathi yachhana|
Tamidam nigatam sah sa yesha yeka yekavrideka yeva|
Ya yetham devamekavritham veda||
Atharva 13.4[2]19-20

There is no second God, nor a third, nor is even a fourth spoken of

There is no fifth God or a sixth nor is even a seventh mentioned.

There is no eighth God, nor a ninth. Nothing is spoken about a tenth even.

This unique power is in itself. That Lord is only one, the only omnipresent. It is one and the only one.

---------------------------------------

I would love it if you give me link to prove that idol is older than Budhism and Jainism...

[Marathaman]

Are you biased towards monotheism?

[kingkobra]

Originally Posted by Marathaman

Are you biased towards monotheism?

Nope i am not..I just want others to know that Sanatam Dharma was monotheistic and Hinduism which came later has influence of Sanatan dharma,Budhism as well as Jainism and not other way around..

[Marathaman]

So u want to prove that "sanathana dharma" was a pure logical monothestic religion and not always the illogical polythiestic crap that it has become?

[kingkobra]

Originally Posted by Marathaman

So u want to prove that "sanathana dharma" was a pure logical monothestic religion and not always the illogical polythiestic crap that it has become?

I want people to know that during course of History a new religion/way of life was born that was influenced by Santan Dharma,Budhism,Jainism..which was later named as Hinduism by invaders...

Hinduism-a religion whose formation possibly stopped the battle between all these three religions(sanatan dharma,budhism,jainism)..

[GollumGollum]

I dislike monotheism.

I find animism more rational, since spirits can be a metaphor for psychological phenomenon. It is more emotionally pleasing, and feels more true to nature.

European Christians always tried to kid themselves that monotheism was more rational, because Plato and other Greeks advocated it - the idea of a prime mover behind the universe. But even polytheistic religions usually had a prime-mover anyway, so it wasn't a very good justification for monotheism. And modern physics has seemingly buried the need for anything like a creator.

In anthropoligical terms, monotheism is no more or less culturally advanced than polytheism - and often ends up being little different, with secular saints or heros serving the exact same function as minor deities.

When religion is at its best, its a secular psychology, when its at its worst, it is an unprovable metaphysical dogma. Thats why demigods and hungry ghosts will always be needed in a humanistic religion - for the essential storytelling tools and psychological tools they provide.

The Vedic tradition wasn't really monotheistic, but rather 'monist' or 'pantheistic', i.e. it posited that all things, including gods, were part of a larger totality, which could be called 'god' or 'the universe' or a single spirit - devas lived on high, but even they were inferior parts of some greater reality. That's a bit different from monotheism, although in practice, what is an angel in Judaism, if not a minor deity?

Your point is right though - maybe modern Hinduism was a way of merging the conflicting traditions and uniting India - you have Advaita Vedanta, which is so Buddhist, it might as well be Buddhism - Tantric Hinduism, which is little different to Tantric Buddhism - as well as Bakti which compares with the popular devotional movements in other religions - Vedism, which resembles something akin to Greco-Roman religion - as well as various other Sramana traditions, and god-archetypes for every taste (I prefer fierce ones like Kali personally, or renunciant yogic types like Shiva).

Wonderful.

[skganji]

Originally Posted by kingkobra

YI would love it if you give me link to prove that idol is older than Budhism and Jainism...

I appreciate some of your comments above. I always thought that Agni and Indra are seperate. How about Vishnu and Rudra in Rigveda ?. Are they not seperate ?. Dr. Subash Kak does say that idea of a monotheistic god propagated from Rigveda to Egypt and it was Anaknetan who introduced the sun god Atan in and around 15th century BCE. One of the queens of Anaknetan is from the Mittani Kingdom. One of the Mittani kings writes a letter to his son-in-law which is almost identical to one of the Hymns from Rigveda.

Regarding the age of the Idol it is mentioned in several articles about the excavation carried by Dr. S.R.Rao in Dwaraka. The article says something about 1500 B.C.E. It says , By thermo-luminescence,carbon dating and other modern scientific techniques, the artifacts were found to belong to the period between 15th to 18th century BCE. In his great work, The lost city of Dwaraka, Dr Rao has given scientific details of these discoveries and artifacts.
The Inscriptions found in some of these excavations used late Indus script.

http://veda.wikidot.com/dwaraka

[GollumGollum]

You can't carbon date stone, only biological samples like wood, which have ingested Carbon-14, and incorporated it into their fibre.

Furthermore, everything we know about the history of Indian art suggests that figure is from later than the specified time - the style is post-Mauryan, at least.

[Marathaman]

That Vishnu looks like it could be from the middle ages - 10th - 11th century onwards me thinks.