India: Ancient Superpower

Originally posted by Kokatsi
the Indian story of Jesus...

I recall, correct me if I am wrong, there is a Buddhist temple (located in the himalayas) that has artwork of Christ alongside icons of Buddha? As I said in my previous post, missionaries were surprised of the Christian influence already in India. Prayer beads are rather similar to Rosemary, as documented by the missionaries.

Others have commented on the words of Buddha, his philosophy and those of Christ. Some, maybe not rather accurately, depict Buddha and Christ being the same individual. (I'd rather doubt that)

There are countless fables about a man coming from the Holy Land, to India, as a teacher. Even stories of him surviving a crucifixion and residing in Kashmir. (Believe there is a reported tomb?)

Holy mother of pearl... its CIVILIZATION... that's where I stopped becuase you clearly didn't.

Originally posted by infinite

Originally posted by Kokatsi
the Indian story of Jesus...

I recall, correct me if I am wrong, there is a Buddhist temple (located in the himalayas) that has artwork of Christ alongside icons of Buddha? As I said in my previous post, missionaries were surprised of the Christian influence already in India. Prayer beads are rather similar to Rosemary, as documented by the missionaries.

Others have commented on the words of Buddha, his philosophy and those of Christ. Some, maybe not rather accurately, depict Buddha and Christ being the same individual. (I'd rather doubt that)

There are countless fables about a man coming from the Holy Land, to India, as a teacher. Even stories of him surviving a crucifixion and residing in Kashmir. (Believe there is a reported tomb?)

Good post. I wish that others here would contribute meaningful info to this thread instead of using it as a forum to bicker with one another.

Some scholars believe that Christ spent 17 years in India and Tibet. As you stated above there are temples and manuscripts which may indicate this.

With respect to the OP, I believe it is true that ancient India was an advanced culture both technologically and spiritually. There is an obelisk in India (I have been trying to locate but having difficulty) that was made of iron disks and welded together, it is thought to be thousands of years old.

Anyway... great thread OP. Too bad there is so much bickering that has clutered it up.



[edit on 26-12-2009 by Anamnesis]

Originally posted by Anamnesis
Some scholars believe that Christ spent 17 years in India and Tibet. As you stated above there are temples and manuscripts which may indicate this.

Indeed. The Gospel itself had a significant period of Jesus's life that is literally unaccounted for.

It has even been stated the architectural theme of ancient India might of even influenced Rome. Was highly advanced and used some sophisticated technology for the period.

reply to post by infinite


There's an article in this months Archeology Today magazine which claims that modern humans may have arrived in India much earlier than previously thought, as early as 74,000 years ago. They are finding stone tools and evidence of cattle herding underneath the Toba ash layer. That eruption occured about 74,000 yrs ago.

Toba - Wiki

Just goes to show that we have much to discover about the ancients.

One of the things I find fascinating about Inida is the Hindu religion, there seems to be no seperation between what we call Science and Religion. In other words Science and religion to the Hindus (my estimation... please forgive if it is not accurate) is the same thing. There is evidence that the ancient Indian's knew of the expanding Universe and Sub-Atomic particles as well.

All very cool and interesting stuff... India is one of my favorite topics and Indian food is one of my favorites as well... lol....

S+F for this. I only discovered Indias grandness a few years ago. Before that I was an arrogant and ignorant westerner.

Especially ancient scripture from India is very rich, intellectually and spiritually highly advanced.

I do oppose caste-racism, but I also oppose far-left/marxist "scholars" who define all of Indias History as a "class war" - at the expense of Indias true Heritage and Beauty.

I found the Pillar (Obelisk)

The Pillar of Delhi:

Located in the Qutb complex -

The pillar is almost seven meters or 22 feet (6.7 m) high and weighing more than six tons. It was allegedly erected at the times of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (375-413); the dating of it as given by various authorities appeared to be as early as 912 BCE. The pillar is made up of 98% wrought iron of pure quality, and is a testament to the high level of skill achieved by ancient Indian iron smiths in the extraction and processing of iron. It has attracted the attention of archeologists and metallurgists as it has withstood corrosion for the last 1600 years, despite harsh weather.

Link to Full Article

Why doesn't it rust?


BTW - I just realized that this thread was started by Indigo-Child. (Changed your Avi )Anyway... I want to give props to this gentlman. I thouroghly enjoy his posts about the ancients. He obviously is passionate about hhis research and puts in a ton of effort. If you are not familiar, please check out his series of threads on the ancients and mythologies. Indigo-Child is a great asset ATS.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Anamnesis]

Originally posted by Skyfloating
S+F for this. I only discovered Indias grandness a few years ago. Before that I was an arrogant and ignorant westerner.

Especially ancient scripture from India is very rich, intellectually and spiritually highly advanced.

I do oppose caste-racism, but I also oppose far-left/marxist "scholars" who define all of Indias History as a "class war" - at the expense of Indias true Heritage and Beauty.

Yeh, you should definitely go tell modern Indians that capitalism is good and they're simply not working hard enough and that they should focus on their heritage.

Wow! very interesting stuff! India was the richest kingdom in the world and the lead exporter of silver an tin.
even though your first repliers did take it off topic I enjoyed it. S + F

What a trainwreck of a thread!

This has to be the most uncivilized discussion of civilization ever.

There is no true west or east on a globe anyway, so why cling to arbitrary barriers and boundaries as somehow dividing humanity in any significant way?

So-called western civilization is far east of me.

reply to post by Anamnesis


The Pillar of Delhi is fascinating. Reminds me of how some of Ancient Rome structures are still standing, yet some of our concentrate buildings are frail. We seriously do live in ignorance of antiquity.

The Pillar does not even seem to have glimpse of rust or any sign of damaged. Truly remarkable.

Interesting stuff that I've read so far.
Disregard this post though, I'm just putting it here (and starring and flagging the thread) so I can read it all later.

One more xmas run to make first though.

Good work OP.

reply to post by 13579


Man, you just aren't very smart, are you? Your grammar is atrocious for starters and then to make matters worse you come in here and disrespect the OP AND make a fool out of yourself by contesting the OP's word usage. That would be bad enough IF you were right, but you are very, very wrong. What. The. Heck.

A civilization (or civilisation) is a complex society or culture group characterized by dependence upon agriculture, long-distance trade, state form of government, occupational specialization, urbanism, and class stratification. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards of measurement (currency, etc.), formal legal system, great art style, monumental architecture, mathematics, sophisticated metallurgy, and astronomy.

en.wikipedia.org...

There's the link to the rest of the definition, "homes". The entirety of humanity isn't a civilisation unto itself. Why don't you read that and think about it very, very slowly.

Part 1) Aryan Invasion Theory

This is my first major posting in this thread, which I hope will be to scholarly standards. I will produce a lot of evidence. The bulk of my citations will come from this website. This is because this web site, which is also been published as a book, is a vast archive of India-specific information which has been compiled from hundreds of scholars from around the world. It also gives citations and books and article from where the information has been compiled. It is therefore an invaluable resource on India, and I encourage you all to check it out. Also if you cannot wait for my post on India and Egypt, check it out on this site. (Note: This does not mean I endorse absolutely everything posted on that site)

In this post we will look at the Aryan Invasion theory(AIT). You wil learn the origins of where the notion of the "Aryan race" comes from, and the highly political, religious and racist discourse it emerged from. I will attempt to show that it is a complete fabrication by elite and powerful colonial scholars to deny Indian civilisation its claim to the origins of civilisation and to denigrate it and to Anglocize it.

I agree it is unfortunate that the bulk of this thread is off-topic but nonetheless an interesting discussion has come out of that on defining what civilisation is and what India is. In fact it is not uncommon for a discussion on India/Indians to turn into a controversy in defining what India/Indians are. Some Indians think they are Indo-Aryan, some think they are Dravidians. Some think they are Western. Some think they are Hindu. Some think they have no identity at all, because there is no such thing as India.

You will seldom find similar controversy when we talk about Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese because they have a sense of identity, place, history and civilisation and mainly because we remember them as civilisations in world history. Indian civilisation on the other hand is much less remembered, even denigrated, and divided ruthlessly into religions, castes, races, so that a national and civilisational ethos becomes much less tenable. This is why many Indians, especially in the educated upper strata of Indian society do not identify themselves as Indians. Many of them believe India did not exist until the British. Others, usually in the South, believe that the North Indians are invaders and India really belongs to them. It is indeed a very sad situation and it stil plays out today.

But there is a reason for this very corrupted sense of national self and self-loathing. It did not exist in India prior to the British colonialists. In fact it did not even exist in British scholarship when they first arrived in India. As Infinite points out, British and European scholars were very fascinated with India and India became a sort of craze back home. Hence if you look at 18th-19th century Europe you will find a lot of Indophilia. This even lead to massive appreciation of Indian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism amongst the Western intelligentsia, who were convinced that India was an ancient superpower and much of civilisation could be traced to India. They were also convinced that the Greeks had learned their philosophy from the Indians, Egyptians had descended from Indians, and Christianity was of Buddhist origins. They were especially amazed by the similarities between Indian culture and Indo-European culture found all over Europe.

Let us look at what some of them said:

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer:

"There is no religion or philosophy so sublime and elevating as Vedanta."

We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out of nothing, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. "In India, our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought."

Victor Cousin (1792-1867) eminent French philosopher


When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East--above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe--we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy."

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1774) (One of) France's greatest writers and philosophers:

Voltaire concluded, " I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga (Ganges), - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc."

" It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganga (Ganges) to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe..."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) an author, essayist, lecturer, philosopher, Unitarian minister who lectured on theology at Harvard University

The Indian teaching, through its clouds of legends, has yet a simple and grand religion, like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak truth, love others, and to dispose trifles. The East is grand - and makes Europe appear the land of trifles. ...all is soul and the soul is Vishnu ...cheerful and noble is the genius of this cosmogony. Hari is always gentle and serene - he translates to heaven the hunter who has accidentally shot him in his human form, he pursues his sport with boors and milkmaids at the cow pens; all his games are benevolent and he enters into flesh to relieve the burdens of the world."

Source


There are hundreds of quotes from various notable Western intellectuals on the above site, do check them out. Anyway you probably get the idea. Western intellectuals had fallen in love with India. The impact India had on the West was massive and lasting as well. It influenced the American Transcendentalist movement through Henry David Thoreau and Emerson, the birthing of Psychology through Schopenhauer who had a huge influence on Freud and William James, the Theosophy society in England which in turn was highly instrumental in the the birth of the 60’s counter culture and the new age movement. In other words India has had a huge impact on modern civilisation, and many are unconscious of it.

One of the biggest, and later uncomfortable conclusions of these Western intellectual giants was that India was the cradle of civilisation. It was the home of the Indo-Europeans. It was the home of all religion, philosophies, science, mathematics. The notion that the home of the Proto-Indo-Europeans was India and Proto-Indo-European language was Sanskrit came to be known as Indian Urheimat Theory which is today known as Out of India theory(OIT). This was heavily supported by Enlightenment philosophers:

Enlightenment pioneers Voltaire,[10] Immanuel Kant,[10] and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel[11] had a firm belief in this and essentially created the idea that India was the Urheimat of all Indo-European languages. In a 1775 letter, Voltaire expressed his belief in that the "dynasty of the Brahmins" taught the rest of the world: "I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges."[10] The idea intrigued Kant who "suggested that mankind together with all science must have originated on the roof of the world [the Himalayas ]."[10]

Source

Now you can imagine if you were there at the time the contradictions this wave of Indian appreciation would have produced in the elite and powerful group of Western society - that we know were very racist to dark-skinned people and elitist as well as their anxieties that the leading intellectuals are heralding non-Western darker-skinned people as the origins of civilisation. Not to mention the impact on the Church of Hinduism-Buddhism - Pagan religions in their view - being trumpeted over Christianity. It must have been an absolute headache for them.

This India-wave of appreciation was quickly suppressed and almost as if overnight Western scholarship turned against India, discarding its claims to being the home of the Indo-Europeans. Actively demonizing its culture, especially targeting its lesser salient features such as the caste system. A vestige of this still continues today in elite Western scholarship. Interestingly, many of these Western scholars that actively engaged in demonizing Indian culture were Christians and they commanded very powerful positions.

Continued in next post.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

One of the biggest problems with Indian history was the lack of written documents, there were some copper land grants that gave a clue to aspects of the culture. The rock inscriptions are fantastic. There is a remarkable Hindi movie Asoka available at Blockbuster that while very entertaining gives an eyeopening look into early India.Asoka may have been part Greek. According to the story his mother was not one of the popular wives, and his grandfather might have arranged a marriage partner for his son from Selucis. Alexander's general, at least he was a friend of Alexander. Also Asoka's twin sons travelled to Masadonia. There was a lot more movement between India and Europe then our historians acknowledge, and a lot of the "great" Moslem advances like algebra and numbers and a lot of astronomy were borrowed from India.
That many artifacts including historical documentation from early India didn't survive is partially a result of the Muslim conquest's slash and burn policies and the arrogance of the British. There was one pillar with inscriptions from Asoka that the British used for compacting roads and many of the early temples were deconstructed to make early mosques.
For a good account of Indian history read The Vedic Age by R.C. Majumdar et al and India A History by John Keay
I want to clarify that really amazing temples survived in southern India but the Moslems destroyed pretty much everything that they controlled, and the British did not encourage much study of history except in a very patronizing demeaning treatment.

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]


[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

[edit on 26-12-2009 by m khan]

This is a VERY interesting thread. Please just ignore this 13579 guy - that kind of pedantic quibbling is just unhelpful and petty and its not even worth responding to such small-minded nonsense. As someone else mentioned, he's merely making himself look foolish.

John

reply to post by Indigo_Child


I don't see anything particuarly related to the modern day Indian civilization that can be linked to Egyptian or European civilization. The author of this thread should be more specific. The notorious social Caste system of the Indians is not copied by any other civilization. The multi deity of the Hindu religion is not the same as that of the Egyptian Sun god nor the Jewish concept of one God.

What is it that the modern day Asian Indians have common with the European civilization? They say mathematics is the one. But the Mayans were calculating numbers and dates precisely without Indian mathematics like everybody elses in the world.

Claims without substance are BSs.

Yeah the indians defiantely had advanced technology back then, but so did all the other civilisations like Lemuria and Atlantis. India was one of many and happened to be the focul point.
Just read:

en.wikipedia.org...

In it there's a massive battle between two factions in India but they each have armies and allies join them from across the world...