Indian Heritage - An Inquiry 1.
Introduction
Given the state of the researches now, none can say the final word about
Indian antiquity and the chronology. We can only make certain
surmises and those surmises shall be nearer to truth when our study is
perfect. Attempts to give testimony without study do not conform to
Indian heritage and the effort here is –
(1) To stress the need for deeper studies to understand the real facets of
Indian heritage.
(2) Physics modern or ultramodern or medieval stands for empirical
knowledge whose form and substance is ever changing. Any attempt
to seek the validity for scriptural wisdom (eternal =sanātanam) by
comparing it with or drawing parallels is ridiculous.
Indian heritage can be rightly understood and appreciated only through
collective efforts. Anyone attempting to give a one-man interpretation
to meet his personal bias and heredity shall end up giving descriptions
like that of the blinds who attempted to describe the elephant. Agastya
could drink all the oceans but even such a great Sage could not have
drunk the ocean that the Indian heritage is.
None can deny the Vedic borrowing from the Dravidian sources of
Harappā as is universally acknowledged. Pūja that describes the Indian
worship today is not a word found in the Rgveda. Those who make out
everything Vedic as science conveniently forgets the Manusmrti i.e.
institutes of the Vedic law giver for safeguarding the Dharma. One of
which is quite interesting and Parpola has quoted it as illustration of the
unscientific notions that ruled the Vedic mind. Manu had prohibited
marriage between an Aryan and a woman 'named after a constellation, a
tree or a river or mountain or named after a bird or snake or a salve...'.
What does this mean? Can any science be delved out?
Bias generates bias, parochialism breeds parochialism, if someone is
smart enough to make India 'Aryan' by parochial notions, it is bound to
meet with a Dravidian reaction. So let us look forward to in-depth
studies devoid of bias....
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India is a subcontinent ethnically and linguistically diverse in which we
seek a cultural unity, an element of life and nature that India bequeathed
to all. This element that integrates India's innumerable Janapadas or
Indutva is its ability to welcome all and share the 'riches' to benefit
mutually, graceful co-existence furthering each other in man's ultimate
quest for the purpose of life. When we think of Indian heritage, it is not
just the great cultural flow like the Ganges in which we live today and
describe as India. It also includes all those smaller tributaries and little
streams which contributed during the millenniums of our great
civilization. No tribe or race or caste or creed can be arrogant as to
claim that they constitute India's heritage. None can afford to distort
Indian history and chronology to spread chauvinistic or Nazi notions.
Given the long timeline of Indian civilization it is easy to present a
partial picture or one side of the multifaceted Indian culture by
neglecting the evidences available or by diverting the attention of the
people with a propaganda designed for deception by anyone seeking
misrepresentation of Indian heritage.
Misrepresentation of the Indian heritage is sought today towards
political gains. Politics seeks to exploit the emotions of the people not
only with economic agenda but also with issues of national or regional
pride. We have many examples before us as to how the parochial
identities conveyed of caste, creed and religion can be successful
strategies for tapping the vote bank in an infant democracy like India.
Casteism had many beneficiaries in our democratic India, demigods
have their empires in democratic India, priests have successfully
maintained their bastion in democratic India – our democracy is yet to
grow into a stage where the politicians are incapacitated to exploit the
people through ulterior agendas. Misrepresentation of Indian heritage is
another symptom of this disease of democracy – dubious campaign is
taking place under camouflaging banners like Indian scientific heritage
to put the garb of Vedic on Indian antiquity through a distorted
presentation of our heritage. Deceptive pseudo-scholastic jargon – mix
of Sanskrit verses and modern scientific terms – is being distributed
among the new generation having little background of the tradition and
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handicapped by their professional involvement to know about the real
findings of researches in the relevant fields. Loopholes available
because of the subtle character of India's mix of diverse cultural streams
and the millenniums old civilization is getting exploited to present
distortions about Indian chronology vis-à-vis cultural history as truths.
This is accompanied by pseudo-Hindu indoctrination so that
independent rational inquiry of the individual is prevented.
Present paper attempts to expose the different faces of the nefarious and
parochial efforts of an Institution supposedly based at Trivandrum
which attempts to make Indian antiquity Vedic and Brahmnical with its
pseudoscientific jargon. Indian heritage dating back to 3rd millennium
BC of the Paśupati of Harappā is founded on the secular wisdom of
Yoga. It is apt to be described as human heritage in view of the
prevalence of different sects which pursued Siddha traditions in the
region between the Middle-East and India. It was the barbaric Āryan
invasion that shattered the colonies of peace loving people, most of
them warrior tribes following the Saiva religion. In the 3rd millennium
BC and later till the fall of Harappā, India was inhabited by the
Dravidian or Nāga tribes and Austro-asian tribes like Mundas in their
peaceful settlements. No evidence of any war effort could be seen in the
excavated ruins of the Indus civilization.
Indus heritage of humanity based on Yoga was absolutely secular and
non-parochial and till the pouncing of nomadic Āryans from the ice-
cold Siberian regions, the colonies were untouched by any kind of
chauvinism or politics. Heritage of Yoga found expression in their
conduct and not in preaching quite contrary to what we see nowadays.
Yoga canons regard as sources of Jnāna, Pratyaksam, Anumānam and
Āgama – here Āgama refers to testimony from honest individual.
Anyone who gives false testimony is bound to loose his merits and shall
reap the sin he has sown by such deeds. Many young people are today
getting misled by the falsehood campaign authoritatively presented as
from a senior CSIR scientist which needs to be corrected if we are to be
in possession of our human heritage – the heritage of Yoga – instead of
priestly falsehood.
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2. Denying Āryan Invasion to render Indian antiquity
Brahmnical and Vedic
Multiethnic and multi-linguistic character of the Indian society and
Indian antiquity is downplayed to cast an exclusive Vedic garb on
Indian antiquity. Well researched aspects of India's linguistic diversity,
Munda, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Indo-European dialects find no
mention in the heritage literature to facilitate the denial of Aryan
invasion. My aim here is not to advocate any particular theory. I myself
have been a believer of Vedic heritage till I understood the fraud played
on the so called 'Horse Seal' from Harappā by men who claimed
Brahmnical heritage and spiritualist notions. It was an eye opener to me
as regards Brahmnical agenda to portray the Indian antiquity as
exclusively Vedic. The truth of Indian antiquity vis-a-vis the Dravidian-
Āryan debate may become clear to anyone who is willing to sat down
and reflect upon the apparent contradictions in Indian history which
may be summarized as given below. My effort is not to give pseudo-
scientific rhetoric to mesmerize a laymen audience and also I may not
be able to explain the things in details due to constraints of time and
space. This writing is intended to serve as a reference for people who
are proud of their heritage and desirous of knowing the truth. If any
concept is unfamiliar additional effort may be made to understand the
same.
1. The Āryan Connection
The evolution of versification and formation of the Indo-Aryan dialects
is well attested by studies on the similarities between Zend Avesta and
the Rgveda. Differences between Zend Avesta and Rgveda reflect the
contributions of Indian soil on the hymns or the art of language with
which the nomadic Āryans crossed the Himālayas. In the course of this
discussion we need to arm ourselves with some important questions to
make ourselves immune to the one-sided mesmerizing jargon under
distribution.
(a) What is the reason for the extra-ordinary similarity of the Iranian
text of Zend Avesta with the Rgveda?
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(b) How the Vedic Gods came to be extinct in India while Agni and his
fraternity could survive somehow with the Iranian Pārsi religion?
(c) If Vedas were the epitome of all wisdom, then the same applies to
Zend Avesta as well. While the cultural tradition in India grew with
such additions as the Upanisads and the Darśanas like Yoga why the
Iranian Vedas failed to emulate the same development?
(d) According to established notions of Greek history, some branch of
Aryans did invade the Greece as well with their art of language and
got assimilated into the original civilization.
(e) Nomadic Aryans remained nomadic in Europe as Europe lacked any
civilization worth the name to enrich the Aryans and so the art of
language remained useless there. It is apparent that the original
wisdom of the Aryans we see in the Barbaric Europeans who
became cultured by their contacts with the Greeks.
2. Origin of the Vedas in India
When the nomadic Aryans came on horsebacks to India, there was a
thriving civilization founded on various Darśanas, an India that received
praise then all over the world for its wisdom. Western frontier was
famous for its great University at Taksakaśila, the Nāga kingdom which
made the term Nāga or serpent synonymous with wisdom. We can find
great Siddhas like Kalanos described by the Greeks even in 325 BC,
almost 1500 years after the Aryan onslaught on Taksaśila. India then
had a civilization thriving on the spiritual attainments of Siddhas like
Kapila and the Nagas whose mention we find later described in the
Mahābhārata and Purānas. Because of Brahmnical distortions little
information today we are able to have about the various tribes of India
in the epic and purānic literature. But the great cultural stream of India
that we see today minus the Brahminism we owe to that distant past.
3. Conflict of the Aryans and Nagas
We can see the success of the Nagas reflected even in the Vedas and
later epic and purānic literature. One of the centers of resistance to the
Aryans was Bhrgukacham where Varuna had his Nāga Empire on the
banks of Revatī (Narmadā) at the West coast. Nāga-Bhārgavas
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destroyed the Ārya-Ksatriyas 21 times and prevented the advance of the
Arya-Brahmins to the South. Aryan onslaught took place over various
centuries by streams of invaders and in due course of time the Āryans
may have dropped the policy of confrontation and started rechristening
Naga Kings as Kshatriyas and priestly families as Brahmins. Resistance
may have still continued and many branches of Nāgas migrated south
and east as may be noted from the names of cities like many
Nagapurams, Ananthapurams, Nagapattanam etc we have towards
south. To cite specific examples, the Rāmeśvaram temple in fact is the
reinstalled Viśvanātha of Kāśi by the Nāgas who migrated from
Ahicchatram. Nāgas and other republican tribes migrated in different
phases and so today we are unable to frame a coherent historical
picture. But the common factor that we see in the cultural life of India is
the contribution of the Nāgas, with custodians of the 64 sciences for
which Lord Siva or Nāgarāja is the Ādiguru.
4. Aryan Language in the hands of the Nagas and other
republican tribes like Yaudheyas, Arjunas etc
It was the assimilation of the Aryans and their lingo with the Nāgas, the
hymns that we see in the Vedas of astronomical and darsana content
had their origin. Varuna, the Nāga King became a God in the Vedas and
his clan became an Rsikulam and in the same way Bhārgava-Rāma was
made into a Brahmin warrior in just the same way Keralolpatti got
written. Even in this evolution of the Vedas, we can see two distinct
stages:
(a) Period of Pūrvamīmāmsa or Karmakāndam
Ritualistic religion of the fire and ghee brought from ice-cold Siberia
with which the priests fooled the rulers and the elite of ascent to heaven
– the fallacy of which soon got exposed and was abandoned in due
course of time. Jain and Budha doctrines based on Siddha wisdom
emerged to save the country.
(b) Uttaramīmāmsa or the Upanisads
Original Indian wisdom of the Nagas found expression through Sanskrit
and superceded the Vedic sacrificial wisdom as Vedānta – Vedas got
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buried, as the philosophy of the Upanisads came into being and
exhorted the people to take the path of Siddhas. Nāgas who were made
into Ksatriyas were the leaders of this tradition as may be understood
from the Brhadāranyakopanisad.
5. Evidence for Brahmnical Distortions
It is well attested in the tradition that Pāninī, Patanjalī, Piňgalā etc
names that we see as the great Preceptors of the Vedic sciences were all
Nagas. In later times, when we come to Mahāvīra and Buddha too, we
can see that they are portrayed by Brahmnical literature as Ārya-
Ksatriyas, a clear example of distortion of falsehood under perpetuation.
It is recorded in Jain and Buddhist canons that both these Siddhas had
married their cousins as per the prevalent practices in martial tribes like
Nagas. We can see also the legends created in Kerala, Bhārgava Rama
as a Brahmin leader of the priestly settlers who fought with the Nagas, a
classic example of distortions. Nāga converts to Brahminism portrayed
Bhārgava Rama as a Brahmin to legitimize their new priesthood under
the umbrella of his frightening name.
6. Indian Scientific Heritage is the Dravidian Siddha Wisdom
Look at the Indian society today.
(a) Howthe Brāhmnical Gods got doomed? Indra, Agni... all perished
and only hymn today that the senior scientist can sing in praise of a
Hindu God is about Ganapati. A hymn that accidentally came to
speak of some Gananam pati is taken out to show that there is a
reference to Ganapati in the Vedas.
(b) If Ganapati is in the Vedas then the whole of Tantrik worship must
be there in the Vedas. What is the place then the priestly class gives
to Swami Dayananda Sarasvati among the galaxy of Sages?
(c) If India is Āryavarttam of the Vedas in which Indra is the Supreme
God, how the Lingam and Yoni came to be worshipped across
Kailasam to Kanyakumari? Even in 2nd century AD, Kumāra
Kārttikeya was the greatest God of north India and his popularity
may be judged from the fact the names of the Gupta emperors of the
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5th and 6th century AD and also from Kumārasambhavam of
Kālidasa.
(d) How the Pūja replaced Agnihotram in India? Can the word Pūja be
found in the Vedas? What a contradiction that Ganapati is praised in
the Vedas but pūja is not mentioned? So the Vedic Gods and mode
of worship got extinct in India under the impact of the local religion
and spiritual traditions but still some scholars speaking jargon to
deny the Aryan invasion?
(e) What is the Indian heritage that stood the test of time? Is it the
Vedic heritage or the Dravidian Siddha wisdom? If India's scientific
heritage is in the Vedas, then we must resurrect the Karmakandham
immediately and the idols must be thrown into the sea. How can
Purvamimsa, Uttaramimamsa and the Tantrik worship be scientific
heritage at the same time and Āryan invasion is false?
(f) It is the biggest lie if anyone says that Vedas contain all knowledge.
Nothing except for the random collection of hymns and the purpose
of the compilation was to fool the Kings who wanted to go to
heavens. To have the rituals in such manner as to fool the public
and the Kings, the sciences then available with the tribes got
compiled and used and thus the Vedāňgas emerged.
(g) Vedas entered India only in 1500 BC but India has a heritage
extending back by thousands of years. Just because the pre-Vedic
wisdom got sanskritized we cannot say that whole of Indian
tradition is Vedic. Under such a situation what is the duty of a
scholar if his intentions are to represent the Indian heritage in its
right perspective? Is it not binding upon him to study the relevant
aspects of Indian history to avoid misrepresentation of our multi-
ethnic, multilinguistic heritage in India and abroad?
(h) Is it whole of India's heritage to have the shodasa samskaras? How
much of injustice was perpetrated upon the great majority of Indian
population by closing the doors of wisdom and religious practices
to them? By taking the name of Valmiki or Vyasa and interpreting
them today as of lower castes, can Indian heritage be interpreted as
exclusively Vedic?
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 7. Insult to the Indian Wisdom
I am thankful to those who have communicated to me about the erratic
course that the IISH has taken. I have spent some time in hearing the
discourses that are available on the net and it conveys the picture of a
one-man show aimed at entertaining laymen audiences and probably the
US market opened up for spiritual entertainment. Audio spiritualism is a
fashion and a mix up of graduation level Physics and few Sanskrit
verses may go down well with an otherwise 'spiritually starved'
populace. As I mentioned in the introductory part Āgama-vāni, the
testimony, is knowledge only when it is not distorted. But when we
look at the IISH contents, we can see that –
(a) No organizational functioning is apparent in the contents of the
lectures
(b) Collective efforts could have helped in auditing and correcting the
substandard materials like articulated erratic explanations.
(c) Elderly wisdom could have prevented lopsided functioning.
Graduation or pos-tgraduation or a so called Ph.D or some
designations mixed with few verses in Sanskrit is not the pinnacle of
wisdom with which explanation can be attempted for everything.
(d) Childish nonsense is found to be shared with audience when the
learned scholar speaks of the Indian concept of God I and II,
Symbolism of Gods I, II etc. Iconography of Siva and Ganapathi
about which clear tantrik precepts are available are given a complete
misrepresentation using the scholar's erroneous perspective.
(e) Ancient Indian wisdom and Ultra-modern Physics are entirely
different things like 'katal' and 'kataladi'. Any effort to find
justifying parallels and ludicrous assertions like ultramodern science
has found out the ancient Indian wisdom are nonsense that can be
marketed only before a laymen audience.
(f) Taking the terminology of IISH, let me ask: Can the Ārsha wisdom
be recreated in a US laboratory?
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(g) Can the empirical science be equated with the eternal wisdom of the
Vedas just because some similarity is found in the verbal
expression?
(h) If the Empirical Science of the 20th century can be equated to
Sanātana satyams of the scriptures, what will be the fate of the
scriptures as the empirical science changes in the 21st century?
(i) Learned scholar at some point in his discussion has expressed his
notion that the Physics has reached its end. The spirit of empirical
inquiry can never end – Physics has no end and that is why the
scriptural truths cannot be tested on the touchstone of Physics.
(j) Breed of the IISH scholar, had been claiming glory for Vedic
wisdom in 19th century using the physics terms of those days. Later
they began claiming glory for the scriptural wisdom using the
scientific terminology of the early 20th century. Then the Atomic
age came and Big Bang – the whole of Vedas stood verified with a
different terminology.
(k) Now see for example what the scholar says about the 4 faces of
Brahma. Poor guy says that the four faces are the four dimensions
that constitute space-time. He does not understand how ludicrous is
such a claim? What if tomorrow Physics shows the world to be of
11 dimensions? Is there any 11 faced God? Yes, he can quote
Rudras as symbolism of Creation forgetting that they are associated
with destruction. Physics I think has moved much ahead of the 4-
dimensions and the senior scientist is unaware of it. At this point of
time the empirical science and its 4 dimensions adds more
credibility to his scientific heritage and his aim is limited to
encashing the jargon that he can sell before an ignorant audience.
(l) Nauseating nonsense is spoken about Ganeśa describing him as a
deity whose mention is available in the Rgveda and his trunk as a
special limb. Why only his trunk is special? Elephant is famous in
Sastras for its sex and perhaps that is one reason why it became a
symbol of Mūlādhāram. Not because of the spring energy of the
trunk or symbol of Nature. Ridiculous chanting of verse can be
found interwoven in the account to mesmerize the audience and
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 imaginations based on primary Physics constitute his account of the
symbolism of Ganapati.
About Gita, Darsanas, Tantras, Deities etc phenomenal accounts are
available in the works of early Ācharyas. Without caring to read or
understand the same, imaginative notions are getting shared as 'ultra-
modern science' combined with Ārsha wisdom. Motives find ample
demonstration in the plagiarist commentaries published in his name
without the authorization of any organization by the name of IISH. In
some pamphlets Dr. Sambasivan's name is given but I am sure that such
publications could not have received his consent. In toto, the one-man
show is more an unscientific program in the name of Indian science....
8. Conclusions
This discussion is just a beginning. This is just a story line that exposes
the fragile foundations of the Brahmnical heritage campaign that Dr. N.
Gopalakrishnan is doing. He is playing a game to fool the non-
Brahmins and to perpetuate his name through fraudulent works like
commentaries on Indian astronomical works in which he has not
contributed a single line. If we try to know India through Dr. N.
Gopalakrishnan then there cannot be a greater blunder. Knowing India
and Indian heritage is an arduous task and the contradictions cited
above call for an in-depth study of India's past to understand its history
and heritage. As for example, in the context of evolution of the Indo-
Aryan languages the following conclusion from a study of the dialects
of Bastar may be noted:
"The brightest part of Bastar is the ease with which the integration of speech forms has
been accomplished. However, we have failed to study in depth these processes of
communication. I believe that the processes now found in Bastar mirror the processes
that helped the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages to evolve more or less common
over-all syntactic structures. The dominant subject-object-verb and various other
common syntactic structures we find in both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, and to some
extent in Munda languages, were all achieved through processes similar to the ones we
find in Bastar. There is a lot we need to learn from Bastar"
We know little about India's antiquity even today. It is easy to run
around with a distorted campaign aimed at sowing/reaping a hidden
agenda. But it is very difficult to fathom the great depths of India's
history and to fetch to the surface some pearls of truths.
K. Chandra Hari: chandra_hari18@yahoo.com 11
Let's not forget that more than science, the Vedic past had shown a
display of barbaric nonsense in India in the form of Smrtis. See the
1000 years after the Ādisankaracharya – despite the so called Advaitam
and legends of his realization of ekam sat, most of the Vipras in the
country had been showing casteism and discrimination in its ugliest
form. No science of the scriptures ever helped any higher caste man to
realize that all humans are equal. Even now see the kind of priestly
frauds taking place in Kerala the most literate state of India. Prophet of
scientific heritage is silent when it comes to such tantri frauds and
hereditary claims based on 16 samskaras. We saw the display of 16
scientific samskaras in the one of the holiest of our shrines and so must
be vigilant about the false claims.
See the contradictions between Sabarimala and Guruvayur where the
same Brahmin tradition wields authority. See the kind of 'ābhāsam'
mockery that is being made of Jyotihśāstram in the name of
Devaprasnam. Science is being made into instruments of fraud to
exploit and thrive on the ignorance of Public. Have they not studied the
science that Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan is claiming to be there in the Vedas?
What must be the duty of a Brahmin who has studied the Rgveda
scientifically? Why the senior scientist is unable to pinpoint a discovery
that will be made in future by modern science? Rgvedic science can be
understood only when modern science brings out something new.
Even though Āryabhata had spoken of Earth's rotation 100 years ago,
the great Vedic Scholar and mathematician Brahmagupta, the son of
Jisnu had asked – "If the earth rotates how can the birds return to the
cages in the evening?". Lalla too repeated it after another 100 years.
These great men of Brahmnical ancestry were unaware of the great
wisdom of ultramodern Physics enshrined in the Vedas? How strange
are the notions men create for himself to feel comfortable? 100 years
back the science in the Vedas was Chāturvarnyam and Asprsyatā
(ayittam) and accosted Sri Nārayana Guru with the question: How dare
you install the Siva? That was the science known then. Now with the
winds of change Vedās have come to show the apparitions of Māta
Amritanandamayi that now all the Vedic Brahmins are at Her feet...
Tail piece: Udaranimittam bahukrtaveshā: = Vedic Science
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