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Anwering Nura!Reader comment on item: Counting Islamists Submitted by ariana (India), Oct 20, 2008 at 05:55 Tell me, If Hindu's are so inclusive, why are they killing Christians and burning churches AS WE SPEAK! Don't act brand new Plato, we had the Hindu debate before. You can not tell me that your gods are more just by inventing a cast system where people's destinies are locked into their Karma. A religion where the greatest hope for a woman is to be re-born a man. Where women are killed and burned if their dowries are not enough. A religion where a woman is expected to burn herself when her husband dies. These are aspects of the religion that you say Allah is intolerant of. I'm sure that there are changes in your country in regards to these issues, but you cannot say that it is not apart of your religion Okay, now coming to the hindu topic. Your knowlege about Hindus and hinduism is limited to the verge of nothingness. You really need to read a lot besides your Islamic books on comparitive religion. Hindu Gods is the creation of some sick minds. Hindu donot worship Gods but God in his various forms. They donot believe that God is a person siting on a Throne farway having a ball creating Virgins for hedonistic pleasure of Suicide bombers. The caste system is an invention of the fertile minds of the christian missionaries. Let me take the issue of catse system first. The word caste has is the brain child of Portugese Missionaries. The word that you want to refer to is Varna. Varana means colour and not caste. Varanas were different groups of people who lived as seperate clans and used to have different social customs. Every Varana contributed to the society in its own way. However this topic is too huge to be explained in this Forum, and the concepts will be to difficult for someone like you to understand. Hence I will limit myself to the your so called Caste system. If Hindu Society practiced social injustice on such massive scale as it is made out to be by missionary agencies then all those foreign visitors who came to India from timeto time must have noticed it and mentioned it. But what did they do? Each of them individually praised Hindu Justice. It is a matter of aplying common sense that the following two CONTRADICTIONS cannot simply exist together: one that Hindu Society practiced gross social injustice. Other that Hindu Justice and love for truth were unmatched by any civilization of which any such documentation is available. Why was this that travellers like Fa hein( chinese) and several others has praise for the Hindu system of justice and hindu society while it was only after the advent of Christian missionaries that these so called injustices came to be know. I will deal with the So called caste system part first. NOTE : I will be ferering to India as Bharatvarsh in my list of proofs Let me give you a few examples by quoting a few scholars, including Muslim scholars Evidence A: F. Max Muller (1823-1900) paid this tribute to the Hindus of ancient India:‘It is extremely strange that whenever, either in Greek, or in Chinese, or in Persian, or in Arab writings, we meet any attempts at describing the distinguishing features in the national character of the Bhaaratiyas (Hindus), regard for truth and justice should always be mentioned first'. (Source: India What can it teach us? F Max Muller, Cambridge University, 1882 page 50). Evidence B. Max Muller in the same book (page 59) cited above has said: ‘I have left to the last of the witness who might otherwise have been suspected—I mean the Hindus themselves. The whole of their literature from one end to the other is pervaded by expressions of love and reverence for truth'. Evidence C: Again Max Muller in the same book (page 67) referred to above said: ‘I doubt whether in any other of the ancient literatures of the world you will find traces of that extreme sensitiveness of conscience which despairs of our ever speaking the truth'. Evidence D: Let us hear Max Muller again giving the final verdict in favour of the Hindus: ‘So I could go on quoting from book after book, and again and again we should see how it was the love of truth that struck all the people who came in contact with Bhaaratvarsh, as the prominent feature in the national character of its inhabitants. No one ever accused them of falsehood'. (Source: India What can it teach us? Max Muller page 53) Ktesias, the famous Greek physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon (present at the battle of Cunaxa, 404 BC), the first Greek writer who tells us anything about the character of the Bhaaratiyas, such as he heard it described at the Persian court, has a special chapter ‘On the justice of the Bhaaratiyas (Hindus)'. (Source: Ktesiae Fragmenta (ed. Didot), p.81 quoted in India What can it teach us? Max Muller). Hindu Justice could not have been ‘exemplary' to the Greeks of 5th century B.C. if Hindu social structure was truly based on a system of gross social injustice (as vicious alleged by the Christian missionaries and the Church) towards the vast majority of its own people. This is nothing but plain logic though the Christian missionaries might dismiss it as the perverted logic of the paganish, heathenish Hindus Evidence E: Megasthenes, the Ambassador of Selucus Nicator at the Court of Sandrocottus (Chandragupta Maurya) in Palibothra (Pataliputra or modern Patna), who visited the Mauryan Court in Pataliputra in the 4th Century BC, noted: ‘All Bharatiyas (Hindus) are free, and none of them is a slave. Further they respect alike virtue and truth. Thefts are extremely rare and they honour truth as virtue'. (Source;quoted by R.C.Mazumdar in The Classical Accounts of India, Calcutta, 1981 page 224) It is clear from Megasthene's account that ‘no Hindu was a slave' in a society that is supposed to have practiced gross social injustice in the form of infamous caste system. Slavery and gross social injustice in one form or the other has been rampant in Christian societies for 2000 years and yet those very people have been pointing finger at our Hindu society Evidence G: Arrian (in the 2nd century, the pupil of Epictatus), when speaking of the public overseers or superintendents in (Hindu) Bharatvarsh, says: ‘They oversee what goes on in the country or towns, and report everything to the king, where the people have a king, and to the magistrates, where the people are self-governed, and it is against use and wont for these people to give a false report; but indeed no Bharatiya (Hindu) is accused of lying'. (source McCrindle in Indian Antiquary, 1876, page 92) When Greek Arrian spoke that ‘Hindus never lie' you need to understand what kind of strong character is needed for that. If you are capable of visualising the quality of that character then you will have no trace of doubt left that collectively such people could NOT have practiced for millenniums the so-called gravest social injustice on the face of this earth. Evidence F: Hiuen Tsang (602AD – 664 AD) was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who brought up a close cultural interaction between China and India in the first half of the 7th century AD during the early Tang period. He entered India and reached Jalalabad in 630 AD. Later he went to Kashmir in 632 AD. In 633 AD he found himself in Firozpur in Punjab. In 634 AD he was in Jalandar. Later he touched Kanauj the Capital of the great Emperor Harsha in 636 AD. He journeyed, through Orissa in 638 AD and recorded an interesting account of 50 Hindu temples, 100 Buddhist monasteries in Ucha (Odradesa) in his famous autobiography. Then he went to Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. According to some scholars he is said to have lived for quite some time in Kanchipuram. He wrote about more than 100 temples and 10 monasteries in and around Kanchipuram. Hiuen Tsang became famous for his seventeen year overland trip to India and back, which he recorded in detail in his autobiography. In his autobiography, he wrote as follows:‘Though the Bhaaratiyas (Hindus) are of light temperament, they are distinguished by the STRAIGHT FORWARDNESS AND HONESTY OF THEIR CHARACTER With regard to riches, they never take anything unjustly; with regard to justice, they make even excessive concession.... Straight forwardness is the distinguishing feature of their administration'. (Source: INDIA What can it teach us? Max Muller 1882). After quoting the above words of Hiuen Tsang, let me ask you asks these pertinent questions: • How is it that a society, accused by the Church and Muslims alike of practicing gross social injustice towards its own people, has been praised by Hiuen Tsang in the 7th century AD putting it on record ‘With regard to justice, Hindus make even excessive concessions'? • Think for a moment about the people who ‘Never grabbed anything unjustly' from other peoples' wealth—would they have practiced gross social injustice towards their own people by robbing them of basic human rights? • And again, think, people who made ‘excessive concessions with regard to justice' would they have practiced gross social injustice towards a very large section of their own people by robbing them of their very self-respect? Let us now turn to the testimony of El Idrisi (1100-1166). Evidence 1: El Idrisi was an Arab geographer, cartographer and traveller who lived in Sicily, at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in the North African city of Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravid Empire and died in Sicily, or maybe in Sabtah. Al-Idrisi incorporated the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East gathered by Arab merchants and explorers with the information inherited from the classical geographers to create the most accurate map of the world in pre-modern times.The Tabula Rogeriana was drawn by Al-Idrisi in 1154 for the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, after a stay of eighteen years at his court, where he worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map. The map, written in Arabic, shows the Eurasian continent in its entirety, but only shows the northern part of the African continent. Al Idrisi had this to say about the Hindus of India: ‘Hindus are naturally inclined to justice and never depart from it in their actions'. If that be so, could they have allowed ‘social injustice' of the kind that you are acussing them of. Evidence 3: In the 13th century we have the testimony of Marco Polo (1254-1324 AD), who thus speaks of Abraiman, a name by which he means the Braahmans who, though not traders by profession, were specially employed for great commercial transactions by the King. According to Marco Polo, the Kings used to consult them during times of national crisis. Praising their unimpeachable integrity, Marco Polo wrote in the last quarter of 13th century: ‘You must know that these Abraiman are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on Earth'. (Source: Marco Polo, Edited by H.Yule- page 350—quoted by Max Muller in 1882 India What can it teach us?) It was the Christian missionaries and the Church that have purposefully tarnished the image of Braahmans from 1500 AD. This game gathered further momentum in 1541 AD when St. Francis Xavier arrived in Goa. After seeing that the Braahmans of Goa 10 were unwilling to sell their souls to the Christian Church for a mess of pottage, St.Francis Xavier wrote to the Society of Jesus: ‘There are in these parts among the pagans a class of men called Braahmans. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and to whom applies the Psalm, which says: ‘From an unholy race, and wicked and crafty men, deliver me, Lord'. In another letter to the Society of Jesus, St.Francis Xavier wrote: ‘If it were not for the Braahmans, we should have al the heathens embracing our faith'. St.Francis Xavier wrote in a very disparaging manner about the Braahmans of South India. Who is right—Marco Polo or St. Francis Xavier? Or Arrian, Idrisi, Marco Polo (covering a period of 1300 years) visited the Hindus of India and spoke and wrote about their concern for equity, natural justice and truth? St. Francis Xavier had to run down the Braahmans for starting his ‘commercial conversion' work in Goa. Now ask yourself, who have been lying all around? Arrian, Idrisi, Marco Polo or St.Francis Xavier or the Church or Christian missionaries cum educators who had the hidden agenda to convert Hindus into Christianity by hook or crook? Or, the Communist/Marxist historians of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JMU) who had a hidden agenda to spread their wings so that they could keep their illegitimately acquired hold over Hindu society. Let me give you indubitable documentary evidence from various authorities/writers/thinkers starting from the 14th century to the 19th century to establish my thesis that Hindus and Hindu society were wedded to the eternal verities of Justice, Truthfulness, Equity and Honesty in all walks of life. Let us turn to the Authorities . Evidence 1: Friar Jordanus, a Catholic priest in the 14th century speaks of ‘Hindus being True in Speech and Eminent in Justice'. Who was Friar Jordanus? From the beginning of the thirteenth century the Popes of Rome and the French Kings had taken a special interest in the evangelisation of the powerful nation of the Moghals. In 1289 a papal legate, the Franciscan Friar John de Montecorvino, was commissioned by Pope Nicolas IV to negotiate with the Moghal Khans of Persia and China. It is to this Friar that the first Roman Catholic Missions in India, 200 years before the arrival of the Portuguese, owe their origin. In 1328 the Dominican Friar Jordanus was appointed Bishop of Quilon by Pope John XXII. Dominican Friar Jordanus gave the above testimonial after living amongst the Hindus in and around Quilon in Kerala in the 14th century. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (772) on this item
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