India never existed as a single sovereign country until the British took over. Before the British, India was a conglomerate of small kingdoms fighting with each other all the time. So the concept that a united India ever existed in the history is a sham. And the name Hinduism is coined by the British about 300 years ago. The words Hindu or Hinduism are not of Indian origin and they are not mentioned anywhere in any ancient Indian literature (Ramayana, Gita). A Hindu (as per Arabs and Persians) is a person living along the Indus valley, and the Moguls called the non-Muslims in India Hindus. The British followed the same tradition and finally Hindu and Hinduism become a religion.
RE:RE:Same S, different day
by Mahesh Jagga on Feb 06, 2007 02:51 PM Permalink
One weird logic.
I have a family which happened to be estranged due to domestic issues this morning. If a neighbour's threat to my son brings the family closer, Shall I go and thank my neighbour for uniting us.
Ridiculous.
I agree with Madhwa on this. If British had not looted trillions from India, we just might have been rich states (with weak or strong centre). Windows might have been Khirkian and Bill Gates might have been born in India as Billu Ghate. Who knows we might have been the only super power - Indian Union of States.
Get out of this syndrome - its called Stockholm Syndrome. It forces the victim to be indebted to the tormentor.
RE:Same S, different day
by Prashant on Jan 31, 2007 02:08 AM Permalink
Rajesh,
You are correct. There was not "hindu" religion before muslims invaded the subcontinent. The religion itself is a term used by westerners.
I would call it "way of life". There were major groups who followed certain ways of life. There were people who believed in vedic rituals and sacrifices. There were some people who believed in "buddist" way of life. and some believed in "Jainist" way of life. and there were many others who had different life styles.
Even though brahmins were mainly following the vedic way fo life there were some who followed others too.
After seeing the success of buddhism some of its tradisions and practices were absorbed by other religions. The vedic people also started folliwing ahinsa etc. They also liked the way buddist people's idea of shunya or tathata. The three ways to achieve shunyata were mahayana, hinyana and vajrayana(tantric version)they Started worshiping "pradnya" and to achieve shunata started following tantrikism as this was the easiest route. In doing that either some of them lost their actual rituals described in vedas and started worshiping "Shiva" and "Vishnu". When patanjali a brahmin ruler started ruling india he wanted brahmins to rule the continent and re-wrote manusmrity and thus came to existance the caste system. Now in doing that brahmins kept their status as supreme and to happen that they wrote so many hipocritic scripts that people still believe are written by gods.
Just my observation from what I have read so far and analysed so far.
RE:Same S, different day
by Southie on Jan 31, 2007 01:16 AM Permalink
Rajesh, your comment makes total sense. There was no Hindu, India long long time ago. There was a world known to the people of the region and they called it Bharat but that included Sri Lanka, etc, etc.
I don't think the Sinhalese or Tamils who left that region said, i am leaving India for Sri Lanka. They were leaving their respective kingdoms to go to an island. In fact, the Tamils probably left one part of their Chola country to go to another part (internal migration).
Rajeev - please reply to what Rajesh says. We need to thank the British for uniting us cause they made us Indians, not Indians made us Indians.
RE:RE:Same S, different day
by vijay kumar on Feb 07, 2007 12:33 AM Permalink
so did britan, and USA for that matter Germany and USSR and even Japan had small chiefdoms, how did they all become one nations and did not split. Even Malaysia was ruled by six kings as 1900s. Why is it a one nation now and why is not singapore part of it?
RE:RE:Same S, different day
by ice tea on Feb 08, 2007 01:16 AM Permalink
British never had good thoughts for any of their colonies.They believed in divide and rule policy and if somebody says few good things have happened to india becoz of them, its due to some natural phenomenon like when you do toomuch harm to something, it also leaves some good marks.If british were not here, india could not have become a rich nation considering the mind of our people.I could say that we would have named our country "ISLAMIA".
