Swami Vivekananda Speech at Chicago – Welcome Address On11TH SEPTEMBER 1893 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxUzKoIt5aM
RAMAYANA
‘RAMA WASN’T ONLY A VIRTUOUS KING BUT ALSO SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTOOD ` THE NATURE OF EVIL AND HOW IT COULD BE CONQUERED. ONE OF THE THINGS RAMA TEACHES US IS THAT BEING A MERE BYSTANDER CANNOT VANQUISH EVIL.’—Say’s PAVAN CHOUDARY in his article The good or Evil –only righteousness prevails.
Nehru writes in Discovery of India: “In the absence of the social and political conditions then, it was an age of political conflict and social turmoil, leading to disintegration of faith and to keen intellectual inquiry and a search for some way out, satisfying to the mind. This mental turmoil and social maladjustment lead to growth of new paths taking shape of new systems of philosophy. The two great epics of ancient India- the Ramayana and the Mahabharata also belong to this period and the Bhagavad-Gita. It is difficult to build up an accurate chronology of this age. Buddha came in 6th century BC. Some of these developments preceded him, others followed, or often there was a parallel growth. They deal with the early days of the Indo – Aryans, their conquests and civil wars, when they were expanding and consolidating themselves, but they were composed and compiled later in addition to the principal texts of Hinduism ,the Vedas from an oral tradition of unwritten bardic recitation.”
As Nehru rightly observes, Brahma, one of the main characters of Ramayana, and Vishnu, who according to Bala Kanda was incarnated as Rama are not Vedic deities, and come first into prominence with the epics themselves and further during the ‘Puranic’ period of the later 1st millennium AD.

The word Ramayana means”Rama’s Journey” which is a compound word of Rāma and ayana (“going, advancing”). One of the most important literary works on ancient India, the Ramayana was composed by Valmiki in Epic Sanskrit. There is general consensus that books two to six form the oldest portion of the epic while the first book Bala Kanda and the last the Uttara Kanda are later additions. Valmiki is revered as the Adi Kavi, the First Poet, for he discovered the first śloka i.e. first verse and was an important influence on later Sanskrit. It set the base and defined the form to Sanskrit poetry.
Epic Sanskrit is an early variant of Classical Sanskrit, and so it is dated variously from 500 BC to 100 BC. Early versions of the Mahabhārata also belong to this period. Since in its current form, after hundreds of years of transmission through recitations and in manuscript form, the epic has gone thorough numerous variations, it cannot be dated by linguistic analysis as a whole, and should be considered to have emerged over a long process. According to Hindu tradition the epic belongs to the Treta Yuga . The events of the epic have also been dated to as early as 6000 BC by adherents of archaeoastronomy.# Three hundred or more versions of the Ramayana are known to exist.(click here for Versions of Ramayana).
One of the most important literary works on ancient India, the Ramayana has had a profound impact on art and culture in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia.Starting from the 8th century, the colonization of Southeast Asia by Indians began. Several large empires like the Khmers, the Majapahits, the Sailendras, the Champas and Sri Vijaya were established. Because of this, the Ramayana became popular in Southeast Asia and manifested itself in text, temple architecture and performance, particularly in Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Bali and Borneo), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam. The story of Rama also inspired a large amount of later-day literature in various languages, notable among which are the works of the sixteenth century Hindi poet Tulsidas and the Tamil poet Kambar of the 13th century.

The names of the characters, Rama, Sita, Dasharata, Janaka, Vasishta and Vishwamitra were mentioned in Vedic Literature such as Brahmanas .The Brahmanas are olderthan the Valmiki Ramayana. There is also a version of Ramayana, known as Ramopakhyana, found in the epic Mahabharata. This version, depicted as a narration to Yudhishtra, is devoid of any divine characteristics to Rama. But the story in the valmiki Ramayana is not similar to them.

The epic explores the tenets of human existence and the concept of dharma. it contains the teachings of ancient Hindu sages and presents them in narrative allegory with philosophical and the devotional elements interspersed. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India. In his Ramayana, Valmiki expresses his view of human code of conduct through Rama: life is evanescent and the hedonistic approach to it is meaningless. In addition, Ramayana also reinforces the need for thinking about the consequences before making promises, for if you make them you must keep them, no matter how hard it may be.
Although Rama himself declares “he is but a man, and never once claims to be divine, Rama is regarded by Hindus as one of the most important Avatar of the god Vishnu and as an ideal manValmiki portrays Rama not as a supernatural being, but as a human with all the attendant shortcomings, who encounters moral dilemmas but who overcomes these by simply adhering to the dharma–the righteous way.
Ref:
1.* Discovery Of India by Jawaharlal Nehru.
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana
3.# Goldman, Robert P., The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India
4. http://www.indianetzone.com/25/vedic_deities_india.htm
5.http://www.scribd.com/doc/9229393/Ramayana (For Ramayana _The_world)
See also : A different song (The Hindu. 12 August, 2005.)

While life is yours, live joyously;
None can escape Death’s searching eye:
When once this frame of ours they burn,
How shall it e’er again return? (Madhvacharya’s quote from Charvaka philosophy)

Nehru writes “the ideology of the Upanishads did not permeate to any marked extent to the masses and the intellectual separation between the creative minority and the majority became more marked. In course of time this led to new movements –a powerful wave of materialistic philosophy, agnosticism, atheism. Out of this again grew Buddhism and Jainism, and the famous Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, wherein yet another attempt was made to bring about a synthesis between rival creeds and ways of thought. The creative energy of the people, or of the creative minority, is very evident during these periods, and again there appears to be a bond between that minority and the majority. On the whole they pulled together.”
Materialism: A Question of Belief:
In Indian philosophy, three schools of thought are commonly referred to as nastika: Jainism, Buddhism and Chārvāka for rejecting the doctrine of Vedas. Here, nastika refers to the non-belief of Vedas rather than non-belief of God. However, all these schools also rejected a notion of a creationist god and so the word nastika became strongly associated with them.
Materialism is a Nastika system based on materialistic and atheist school of thought and was founded in approximately 500BC. It is also known as Lokāyata. It is named after its founder, Charvaka, author of the Bārhaspatya-sūtras. we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organised school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. Our knowledge of Indian materialism or Charvaka philosophy is fragmentary, and is based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools.
Materialism, at its simpler level, involves the focus on material “things” as opposed to that which is spiritual or intellectual in nature. We live in a world surrounded by and composed of matter. It is natural; therefore, that we may become distracted from spiritual or intellectual pursuits by material possessions, but this is frequently where problems occur. We can become obsessed by a desire to obtain them, or simply frustrated by the need to maintain them….
Materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works. But we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organised school of followers. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these.
Chanukya mentioned Lokayata in his Arthashastra as part of three logical philosophies yoga,Samakhya and Lokayata..He refers it as a logical debate and criticism in general and not to materialist doctrine in particular.Saddaniti ( a grammer of Pali Language,specially the text of Buddhist scriptures ) and Budddhghosa ( Indian Thervadin Buddhist commentator and scholar) in the 5th century connected the “Lokayatas” with the Vithandas(Sophists).
Most of the fragments are found in works dated to the Indian Middle Ages, between roughly the 8th and 12th centuries.In the 14th century Sayana and Madhvacharya (in Sarvadarshanasamgraha) gave detailed account of Charvaka.
The materialistic Chārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400 AD.
Ref:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka
2. http://www.bologi.com/hinduism/027.htm
3.Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru

The Upanishads
asato mā sadgamaya
tamaso mā jyotirgamaya
mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya
om śāṁti śāṁti śāṁti – bṛhadāraṇyaka upaniṣada 1.3.28
Translation:
Lead Us From the Unreal To the Real,
Lead Us From Darkness To Light,
Lead Us From Death To Immortality,
OM (the universal sound of God)
Let There Be Peace Peace Peace. -
Upanishad is the Sanskrit term derives from upa-ni-shad means “sitting down near “ a teacher in order to receive instruction.**Upanishad also means “setting rest to ignorance by revealing the knowledge of the supreme spirit”.Adi Shankara equates Upanishads to “knowledge of the self (Atmavidya). Or “knowledge of the Brahma”(Brahmavidya).
By the time the Upanishads were written the Aryan civilization was stabilized and grew up. This period was a mixed society of the old and the new, dominated by Aryan tought and ideals, but with a background of more primitive forms of worship. The society’s quest beyond Vedic Gods and opposition to the ritualistic priest craft led to the development of future ideas based on the old ,existing culture and thought. The Upanishads are instinct with a spirit of inquiry, of mental adventure, of a passion for finding out the truth about things. Max Muller says: `The Upanishads are the…sources of … the Vedanta philosophy, a system in which human speculation seems to me to have reached its very acme.’* The Upanishads, composed from about 800 BC, take us a step further in the development of Indo-Aryan thought.
The Upanishads are commentaries of the Vedas and form the Hindu scriptures which primarily discuss philosophy, meditation and nature of God; they form the core spiritual thought of Vedantic Hinduism. The Upanishads are mystic or spiritual contemplations of the Vedas, and are believed to be the end and essence, and so known as Vedānta (“the end/culmination of the Vedas”).
The Upanishads were composed over several centuries in Sanskrit. The oldest, such as the Brhadaranyaka (The longest)and Chandogya(The Oldest) Upanishads, have been dated to around the eighth century BC are composed in prose. Later followed a series of Upanishads composed in verse, such as the Īṣa, Māṇd.ukya, Katha, and Ṣvetāṣvatara Upanishads.The philosophical and meditative tracts of the Upanishads form the backbone of Indian religions viz., Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. Different Upanishads are affiliated with the four Vedas (Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda). The Upanishads were transmitted orally by the Vedic schools sakhas.
There are over two hundred Upanishads. Adi Shankaracharya commented on eleven Upanishads and are generally regarded as the oldest ones. The Muktika Upanishad lists 108 Upanishads.
“some thinkers and philosophers in Greece were influenced by the ancient Indian thought which penetrated through Iran. Around 242C.E. Plotinus came to the east to study Iranian and Indian Philosophy and was especially influenced by the mystic element in the Upanishads. From Plotinus many of these ideas are said to have gone to St. Augustine, and through him influenced the Christianity of the day.”*
Shah Jehan was influenced by the Emperor Akbar’s liberal religious attitude and shared his viewpoint. Shah Jehan’s eldest son, Dara Shikoh, a liberal Muslim like his father, wrote a book called Majma-ul-Bahrain meaning The Mingling of the Two Seas that attempted to reconcile Islam with Hinduism. He got the Upanishads translated into Persian in 1657known by the name Sirr-e-Akbar (The Greatest Mystery). The introduction states that the Qur’an’s “Kitab al-maknun” or hidden book is none other than the Upanishads. Two years later, in 1659, his brother Aurangzeb, had him executed under Sharia law as an apostate from Islam. This may have been a pretext, because Aurangzeb ascended the throne after Shikoh’s execution. #
Ref:
1.*Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru.
2.**Arthur Anthony Macdonell. A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary.
3.#”…the prince was put to death by his brother Aurangzeb, in reality, no doubt, because he was the eldest son and legitimate successor of Shah Jehan, but under the pretext that he was an infidel, and dangerous to the established religion of the empire.” Max Müller, The Upaniṣads, Part I, “Introduction,” p. lvii.
4.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads
For further reading:Complete translation on-line into English of all 108 Upaniṣad-s

“The enlightened and wise regards with equal mind a Brahmin endowed with learning and humility, an outcaste, a cow, an elephant, and even a dog”.—Bhagawat Gita 5.18 . Lord Krishna says that a learned man will look upon that all living beings have  a soul which is a part of God and are equal.

“I will not attempt  – it will need a separate volume – to show how the Indian thought may have filtered through Socrates and Plato; how far it may have reached Plato in his wanderings, how far through Pythagoras, how far even before the death of Socrates, a direct stream of the Eastern doctrine may have flowed through Asia Minor into Greece. But I affirm very confidently that if any one will make himself familiar with the old Indian Wisdom – Religion of the Vedas and the Upanishads, will shake himself free, for the moment, from the academic attitude and the limiting western conception of philosophy, and will then read Plato’s dialogues, he will hardly fail to realize that both are occupied with the self-same search, inspired by the same faith, drawn upwards by the same vision.” Urwick maintains that, in order to understand Plato’s Republic, we should first grasp the fundamentals of Hindu thought.

Comparing the social thought of Manu and Plato, he writes:   “Again, just asManu of ancient India instituted the caste system upon the basis of thethree principles in the individual soul, so Plato divides his state into three classics, representing the three psychical elements. The lowest caste of producers and traders, corresponding to the vaishya caste, reflects the element of ignorant desire, Epithumia. The class next above this, the Auxiliaries, corresponding to the Kshatriya caste, reflects, the passionate element, Thumos. The highest class, the Guardians, corresponding to the Brahmin caste, represents the principle of prudent reason, the Logistikon.”*

Nehru writes in Discovery of India that  the  conflict and interaction of races(migrating Aryans and native Dravidians) gave rise  to the cast system, which affected  Indian life so profoundly in the course of succeeding centuries. He opines that caste was neither Aryan nor Dravidian but it was  an attempt at the social organization of different races, a rationalization of the facts as they existed at the time.

When humans first settled down into agrarian and trading societies, many changes occurred in social relationships with this greater specialisation of labour. People got organised into structures that could be stable and accommodating diverse individuals in diverse occupations. Societies are organic wholes self-sustained by diverse groups with differing occupations that optimise that society’s well-being and growth.The varna system is a functional hierarchy system proposed by the Brahmin texts to describe their society. It is an ideal system that did not exist anywhere in reality, as the Indian society was organised according to Jatis, since time immemorial. The oldest mention of the varna system is in the Purusha sukta of Rigveda 10.90 which claims “Brahmana is the mouth of the purusha, rajanya his arms, vaishya is his thighs and shudra arose from his feet” – an obvious reference to the organic (purusha) nature of the society, sustained by the harmonious integration of functional groups (organs) working in unison. One should note here that, the Purusha sukta verse of Rigveda should not be taken literally, as it is rendered in a poetical way to compare God like a human with 1000 arms and legs to portray his immense strength and valor. As some try to convolute this concept by saying shudras arose out of feet and hence they are lower in the society, one should not overlook the fact according to Purusha sukta that everyone arose from God and Gods leg is no inferior to his mouth and vice versa and also the point that God himself is formless.Purusha Sukta is explaining the organic hierarchy.

In such organic hierarchies, it is recognised that proper functioning of each part is necessary for the stability of the whole. This led to the importance given to duties. Each one is obligated to perform their duties relevant to their position in the system. Proper functioning is of utmost necessity for the stability of the whole structure.

“It brought degradation in its train afterwards, and it is still a burden and a curse; but we can hardly judge it from subsequent standards or later developments. It was in keeping with the spirit of the times and some such grading took place in most of the ancient civilizations, though apparently China was free from it. There was a four-fold division in that other branch of the Aryans, the Iranians, during the Sassanian period, but it did not petrify into caste. Many of these old civilizations, including that of Greece, were entirely dependent on mass slavery. There was no such mass or large-scale slavery in India.”*

Manu Smriti is often quoted in reference to the Varna-caste system. The Manu Smriti is a later work that does not form a part of Hindu Scriptures, so it is of questionable relevance. In the early Vedic times, the Varna system (if at all it existed) meant classes with free mobility of jobs and intermarriage. One hymn of the Rig Veda states: कारुरहं ततो भिषगुपलप्रक्षिणी नना । (RV 9.112.3) which means “I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother’s job is to grind the corn……”  Hinduism as a religion and philosophy was against the caste system based on birth and many hindu yogis and sages have, over the centuries, constantly commented aginst caste.  Then how did it emerge and survive for so long. M V Nadkarni  in an article  “Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism? Demolishing a Myth” in Economic and Political Weekly writes: “The system survived simply because it performed certain functions that were valued by the society.These functioned had nothing to do with religion, being entirely in the ‘aihika’ sphere. The unfortunate part of the story is that caste identities have outlived these functions.” He writes that the varna systemwas not just a division of labour, it was also   a system of checks and balances (a system to avoid concentration of power),

Provided decentralized democracy, played an  ecological Role, and provided Security of Livelihood and Employment. An important feature of caste system was its localised system of production based on jatiwise division of labour for meeting local needs, rather than the needs of the larger market.

Ref:

1.* The Message of Plato – By E J Urwick (p. 14 and 28 – 29).

2.**Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru.

.3.specialisation of labour

4.wikipedia

5.Aryan-Dravidian divide a myth: Study, Times of India

6. “Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism? Demolishing a Myth”. Economic and Political Weekly. (Ref: http://www.jstor.org/pss/4414252 )

See also: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Caste_system_in_India?t=7.

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Caste_System.htm

(more…)

Nehru writes in Discovery of India: “Some of the scriptures had powerfully influenced humanity and anything that could have done so much and have some inherent power and virtue in it, some vital source of energy. Indian mythology is richer, vaster, very beautiful, and full of meaning. I have often wondered what manner of men and women they were who gave shape to these bright dreams and lovely fancies, and out of what gold mine of thought and imagination they dug them.
Many of the problems of human life have permanence and a touch of eternity about them, and hence the abiding interest in these ancient books. But they dealt with other problems also, limited to their particular age, which have no living interest for us now.”
Vedic religion evolved into the Hindu paths of Yoga and Vedanta, a religious path considering itself the ‘essence’ of the Vedas, interpreting the Vedic pantheon as a unitary view of the universe with God seen as immanent and transcendent in the forms of Ishvara and Brahman, projected into various deities in the human mind. These post-Vedic systems of thought, along with later texts like Upanishads, epics (namely Gita of Mahabharata) Brahmanas, have been fully preserved and form the basis of modern Hinduism. The ritualistic traditions of Vedic religion are most faithfully preserved in the conservative Shrauta tradition.

The later Vedic period

Emerging agriculture replaced cattle rearing from the  dominant position in the economic activity in later Vedic periods. Several large kingdoms arose because of the increasing importance of land and its protection. Several Middle Kingdoms rose in the late Vedic period from ca. 500 BCE.
Historical records set in only after the end of the Vedic period, and remain scarce throughout the Indian Middle Ages. The end of Vedic India is marked by linguistic, cultural and political changes. The grammar of Panini marks a final apex in the codification of sacred texts, and at the same time the beginning of Classical Sanskrit. The invasion of Darius I of the Indus valley in the late 6th century BC marks the beginning of outside influence, continued in the kingdoms of the Indo Greeks, new waves of immigration from 150 BCE (Abhira, Shaka), and ultimately the Islamic Sultans. The most important historical source of the geography of post-Vedic India is the 2nd century Greek historian Arrian.
Ref:1. Wikepedia (historical Vedic religion.)

2.Discovery of India.

Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829) German philosopher, critic and writer, declared in 1803: “Everything without exception is of Indian origin…Whether directly or indirectly, all nations are originally nothing but Indian colonies.”

Jean LeMee writes in his book Hymns from the Rig Veda: “The Rig Veda is a glorious song of praise to the Gods, the cosmic powers at work in Nature and in Man. Its hymns record the struggles, the battles, and victories, the wonder, the fears, the hopes, and the wisdom of the Ancient Path Makers”.

The early stages of the Rig-Veda were composed in 23000 B.C., according to the astronomical configurations mentioned in it. The literary works on ancient India provide long lists of kings, their genealogies and ancestries. From these and other records, the date when Swayambhuva Manu, the first king of this Kalpa, flourished is calculated to be roughly 29000 B.C. It was in 5500 B.C roughly that the great Ramayanic civilization appears to have flourished and the great Mahabharata War was fought in 3138 B.C. as per the calculations from literary, archaeological and astronomical examinations.

Dr. B.M. Siddhartha, director of the Birla Science Center writes(TOI, August 2, 1993): “Rig-Veda was a product of a well-settled civilization going back to 8000 B.C. and beyond on the basis of astronomical dating … and supported by archaeological excavations in south eastern Turkey… the more antique date of 10,000 B.C. proposed for Rig Veda or Vedic culture seemed more plausible in view of the epi-paleolithic agricultural and proto-agricultural civilizations going back to the same period …”. These datelines were already proposed by Tilak when he says, ” The Vedic hymns were sung in post-glacial times (8000 B.C.) by poets who had inherited their knowledge or contents thereof from their antediluvian forefathers”

Vedic Homeland

The exact location and expanse of the Vedic culture is still a matter of speculation and discussion. As of today’s theory, the span of ancient Vedic culture has primarily been limited to Punjab, the five-river region of northwest India. It is beyond any doubt that the Vedic culture existed in the land of Punjab; however, this fact does not exclude its existence elsewhere.

B.G.Tilak in his “The Arctic Home in the Vedas” has provided an incredible understanding and presentation of the Rig- Vedic geography and argues for a polar home for the Vedic Aryans before the advent of glaciations. Tilak quotes many passages from the Vedic as well as Avestan literature which show acquaintance with these polar characteristics. According to geological evidence the post-glacial epoch commenced in about 8000 B.C. The freshness of Siberian fossils also testifies to this event. (Romila Thapur Says: In the texts composed by the Vedic people such as Avesta, in Iran and the Rig-Veda in India, they refer to themselves as airiia and Arya, hence the European term, Aryan.)

The river Saraswati, (Harahwati of Avesta) is regarded as the most central and is intimately mentioned in the Rig Veda, and the text suggests that the Vedics lived on the banks of the “great goddess stream”. According to David Frawley (G, S & K, pp.73), it has now be found that Saraswati changed its course at least four times and originally flowed into the sea through what is now known as Rajasthan. The river Saraswati is also identified as the modern river Syr-Darya joining the Aral Sea to the North. For the river to change course four times must have taken at least a few thousands of years, until the river reduced to an insignificant tributary at the time of Mahabharata (3138 B.C.).
There are references of people migrating to the east of Sindhu and not the other way around. Thus the land watered by the rivers Saraswati, Sindhu, Sharayu, Rasa, Oxus, Helmand and one more river to the west of Sindhu, territory covering regions to the west of Sindhu, was perhaps the home of the Vedic people for a long time.

The Vedics appear to have migrated to Sapta-Sindhu region, which also included the present-day Iran after the mighty Saraswati began to desiccate. The incidents depicted in the Rig- Veda, and even the language, thought and expression shows a remarkable similarity with the Persian Avesta. It is of no dispute that the Zarathustra people of Iran (and also the Greeks) are closely linked or lived together with the Vedics in the past. However, another major event (Dasharadnya War), as recorded in the Rig-Veda, appears to have caused a further separation between the Vedics living in the Sapta-Sindhu region. After having established their stronghold along the Sindhu region, they moved further to the east to the Ganga-Yamuna region and later to the South. Rishi Agastya, brother of Sage Vasistha, is reputed to be the first colonizer of the South. Also, the names and customs of Mittani and Hittite (Iraq, Turkey region) peoples to the west of river Sindhu show a close affinity to the Vedics. A clay tablet found near Ankara invokes gods like Indra, Varun, etc. The landmarks occurring in the Vedic lore, customs and language extend in the east from Ganga-Yamuna to Oxus River which joins the Aral Sea in the west, which forms a considerable part of the globe. It should be realized that the Vedas are a heritage of mankind which record and preserve the human development for at least a few thousand years.

Dasharadnya War

The Dasharadnya war (War of ten kings) took place between Chayamana, king of Abhivarta, identified in south-eastern Persia (Iran) and King Sudas, son of Divodasa, who presided over a kingdom to the east of Sindhu. As far as the Vedic evidence goes, after his victory over Chayamana, Sudas founded an empire on the banks of the Ganga along with Vasistha, Vishwamitra and others, whose impact later spread eastwards and southwards. The influence of these triumphant Bharatas (Sudas) over the Persian (Iranian) (Chayamana) counterparts subsequently weakened in course of time. Thereafter, the Persians appear to have developed a particular way of life under the advice of Sage Zarathustra, improving on the Vedic sacrificial religion and yet retaining fire worship. The Vedics in Afghanistan however maintained their relations with those to their east, until a recent past, till the advent of Islam in these regions.

Therefore, based on the internal evidence from the Rig Veda and Avesta, the boundaries of Chayamana’s kingdom were: on the west, the Caspian Sea and the river Oxus – one of the sapta-sindhu rivers now named as Amu-darya (as the Greeks Herodotus and Strabo lay down, that this sea and the nearby mountain Caucasus got their names from Sage Kaspios, obviously a reference to Sage Kashyapa of the Rig-Veda and on the North the mountain ranges Pamir; on the east spreading over an area a little beyond Hindukush and the eastern most tributary of the Sindhu – the Shatudri (Sutlej) and the Ganga and on the south, the Arabian sea.

The Vedics seem to have settled in northern (and even in the South) India long before the Dasharadnya War (7000 B.C.). Divodasa, father of Sudas, had an empire in the regions of Punjab. The mountains of Himalayas and the land of Kashmir are praised in the Rig Veda. The Vedic settlements on the fertile banks of the Saraswati-Sindhu Rivers and their influence have reached to the far-east and south of India as well.

Ref:

1. Antiquity and Continuity of Indian History by Prasad Gokhale,
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. 2.http://gaurang.org/indian_phil/prasad_gokhale_indian_history.html

3.http://www.hinduwisdom.info/quotes141_160.htm#Q160

4.http://users.aristotle.net/~diogenes/meaning2.htm

5.Ancient Indian History: So mysterious

6.Is chronology possible in Indian history?

7.http://gaurang.org/blog/archives/2005/08/ancient_indian.html

“THOU, Agni, shining in thy glory through the days, art brought to life from out the waters, from the stone: From out the forest trees and herbs that grow on ground, thou, Sovran Lord of men art generated pure”.-Rig-Veda.

“Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries. The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom” Says Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967).

The Vedas (the most ancient Indian scriptures, nay, the oldest “Religious” scriptures of the whole world) deal with all branches of learning (spiritual and temporal). The very word “Veda” has this derivational meaning, i.e. the fountain-head and illimitable store-house of all knowledge.
In other words, it connotes and implies that our ancient Indian Vedic lore should be all-round complete and perfect and able to throw the fullest necessary light on all matters which any aspiring seeker after knowledge can possibly seek to be enlightened on.

It is thus in the fitness of things that the Vedas include (i) Ayurveda (anatomy, physiology, hygiene, sanitary science, medical science, surgery etc., etc.,) not for the purpose of achieving perfect health and strength in the after-death future but in order to attain them here and now in our present physical bodies; (ii) Dhanuveda (archery and other military sciences) not for fighting with one another after our transportation to heaven but in order to quell and subdue all invaders from abroad and all insurgents from within; (iii) Gandharva Veda (the science and art of music) and (iv) Sthapatya Veda (engineering, architecture etc., and all branches of mathematics in general). All these subjects, be it noted, are inherent parts of the Vedas i.e. are reckoned as “spiritual” studies and catered for as such therein.

Similar is the case with regard to the Vedangas (i.e. grammar, prosody, astronomy, lexicography etc., etc.,) which, according to the Indian cultural perceptions, are also inherent parts and subjects of Vedic (i.e. Religious) study.
Many Hindus look upon the Vedas as revealed scripture. (The rishis, the composers of the hymns of the Rigveda, were considered divinely inspired seers)

Nehru writes: “This seems to me to be peculiarly unfortunate, for thus we miss their real significance – the unfolding of the human mind in the earliest stages of thought. And what a wonderful mind it was! The Vedas (from the root vid, to know) were simply meant to be a collection of the existing knowledge of the day; they were a jumble of the many thing: hymns, prayers, ritual for sacrifice, and magic, magnificent nature of poetry. There is no idol worship in them; no temples for the gods. The vitality and affirmation of life pervading them are extraordinary. The early Vedic Aryans were so full of the zest for life that they paid little attention to the soul. In a vague way they believed in some kind of existence after death.

Gradually the conception of God grows; there are the Olympian type of gods, and then monotheism, and later, rather mixed with it, the conception of monism. Thought carries them to strange realms, and brooding on nature’s mystery comes, and the spirit of inquiry. These developments take place in the course of hundreds of years, and by time we reach the end of the Veda, the Vedanta (anta, meaning end), we have the philosophy of the Upanishads.”

1. The Rig-Veda is by far the most archaic of the Vedic texts preserved, and it retains many common Indo-Iranian elements, both in language and in content, that are not present in any other Vedic texts.

2. Mantra language: This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda, the Rig-Veda Khilani, the Samaveda Samhita, and the mantras of the Yajurveda. These texts are largely derived from the Rig-Veda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. This is the time of the early Iron Age in north-western India, corresponding to the Black and Red Ware (BRW) culture, and the kingdom of the Kurus, dating from ca. the 12th century BCE.

3. Samhita prose: This period marks the beginning of the collection and codification of a Vedic canon. An important linguistic change is the complete loss of the injunctive, of the subjunctive, and of the aorist. The commentary part of the Yajurveda belongs to this period. Archaeologically, the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture from ca. 900 BCE corresponds, and the shift of the political center from the Kurus to the Panchalas at the Ganges.

4. Brahmana prose: The Brahmanas proper of the four Vedas belong to this period, as well as the oldest of the Upanishads.

5. Sutra language: This is the last stratum of Vedic Sanskrit leading up to 500 BCE, comprising the bulk of the Shrauta and Grhya Sutras, and some Upanishads .This period saw establishment of Videha as a third political center.

6. Epic and Paninian Sanskrit: The language of the Mahabharata and Ramayana epics, and the Classical Sanskrit described by Panini is considered post-Vedic, and belongs to the time after 500 BCE. Archaeologically, the rapid spread of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBP) over all of northern India corresponds to this period. The Vedanta, the Buddha, and the Pali Prakrit dialect of Buddhist scripture belong to this period.

Ref: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas

2.Discovery of India.

Geography of the Rigveda, with river names; the extent of the Swat and Cemetery H cultures are also indicated.

Nehru writes in The Discovery of India: The Rig Veda, the first of the Vedas, is probably the earliest book that humanity possesses. In it we can find the first outpourings of the human mind, the glow of poetry, the rapture a nature’s loveliness and mystery. And in these early hymns there are, as Dr.Macnicol says, the beginnings of `the brave adventures made so long ago and recorded here, of those who seek to discover the significance of our world and of man’s life within it…India here set out on a quest which she has never ceased to follow’.

Yet behind the Rig-Veda itself lay ages of civilized existence and thought, during which the Indus Valley and the Mesopotamian and other civilizations had grown.

The Vedas were supposed to be the earliest records of Indian culture, prior to the discovery of the Indus Valley civilization. There is a strong disagreement among scholars on the dating of Rig-Veda. The Rig-Veda is far more archaic than any other Indo-Aryan text. The Rig-Veda records an early stage of Vedic religion. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta, deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times.

The Rig-Veda’s core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age. Its composition is usually dated to roughly between 1700–1100 BC. Several other evidences also pointed out 1400 BC as the most reasonable date. Some writers date Rig-Veda to 4000BC based on astronomical references traced in Rig-Veda*. Professor Winternitz thinks that the beginnings of Vedic literature go back to 2000 BC, or even 2500 BC. This brings us very near the Mohenjo Daro period. It is possible that this literature is earlier than that of either Greece or Israel that, in fact, it represents some of the earliest documents of the human mind that we possess. Max Muller has called it: `the first word spoken by the Aryan man’.

The Rig-Veda is by far the most archaic of the Vedic texts preserved, and it retains many common Indo-Iranian elements, both in language and in content, that are not present in any other Vedic texts. Its creation must have taken place over several centuries, and apart from that of the youngest books (1 and 10), would have been complete—according to mainstream scholarship—by 1500 BCE; however, this is disputed by some Hindu historians who position the earlier date of 3000 BCE. Archaeologically, this period corresponds with the Indus Valley Civilization .

Ref:1.* A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge, World Treasures of the Library of Congress Beginnings by Irene U. Chambers, Michael S. Roth, summarized by Klaus Klostermaier in a 1998 presentation

2. Rig-Veda From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna (1779 – 1847) author of Die Theogonie, Philosophie and Kosmogonie der Hindu says:

“It is there in (Aryavarta) we must seek not only for the cradle of the Brahmin religion but for the cradle of the high civilization of the Hindus, which gradually extended itself in the west to Ethiopia, to Egypt, to Phoenicia; in the East to Siam, to China and Japan; in the South to Ceylon, to Java and to Sumatra; in the North to Persia, to Chaldea, and to Colchis, whence it came to Greece and to Rome and at length to the distant abode of the Hyperboreans.”

Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word. In its present form, and even in the past, it embraces many beliefs and practices, from the highest to the lowest, often opposed to or contradicting each other.

Nehru in his Discovery of India says that the word `Hindu’ does not occur at all in our ancient literature. Origins of the term Hindu is not found in Sanskrit. Many believe that the name Hindu was developed by invading forces who could not pronounce the name of the Sindhu River properly. Hindu is derived from the Persian pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Sindhu , the ancient name of the Indus River, located in what is now Pakistan. The Persians, using the word “Hindu” for “Sindhu”, referred to the people who lived near or on the other side of the Sindhu River as “Hindus”, and their religion later became known as “Hinduism.” Prior to that time, Hindus had called their religion Sanātana Dharma, Vaidika Dharma (the religion of Vedas), Arya Dharma (The noble religion), or manava dharma (the religion of mankind). Eventually the word “Hindu” came into use among Hindus themselves.

Hinduism is a religion that originated on the Indian subcontinent. With its foundations in the Vedic civilization, it has no known founder being itself a conglomerate of diverse beliefs and traditions, and as such Hinduism is often called the “oldest living religion” or the “oldest living major tradition”.

Theologically Hinduism is based on a number of religious texts developed over many centuries that contain purported spiritual insights along with guidance concerning the practice of dharma, or religious life. Among such texts, the Vedas are the most ancient, and they along with the Upanishads are the most important and foundational texts of Hindu philosophy. Other important scriptures include the eighteen Purāṇas and the epics: Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. The Bhagavad Gita , a treatise from the Mahābhārata, spoken by Krishna, is sometimes called a summary of the spiritual teachings of the Vedas, is widely studied.

Hinduism encompasses many religious beliefs, traditions, practices, and denominations. Hinduism centres around a variety of practices that are meant to help one experience the Divinity that is everywhere and realise the true nature of the Self (atman). Most Hindus believe in a Supreme Cosmic Spirit, which may be understood in abstract terms as Brahman or which may be worshipped in personal forms such as Vishnu, Shiva or Shakti.

Who were these people of the Indus Valley civilization and whence had they come? The chronology of ancient India presents a fascinating puzzle. There are lots of theories regarding Aryan invasion.
The genysis of Aryan Invasion theories:
“In 1786 when a Calcutta High Court judge, Sir William Jones (1788), sprang a surprise by declaring in his Presidential Address to the Bengal Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin had so much in common that it was difficult to view these as mutually exclusive entities. Little did the poor judge realize that his innocuous judgement will lead to an unending cut-throat debate for centuries to come.
The observation that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin were very close to one another led to a series of formulations. Thus, it was argued that if these languages were so very similar there must have been an earlier language from which these emerged. To this hypothetical language the name given was Indo-European, since the three languages just mentioned belonged, on the one hand, to India and, on the other, to Europe. It was further argued that there must have been some common people who spoke this ancestral language, and they were called Indo-Europeans. And the final corollary was that there must have been an original home of these people, and thus began the hunt for this -Urheimat – an exercise that knows no ending in spite of sustained efforts of hundreds of scholars for over two hundred years.
Initially, some scholars opined that India, being the home of the earliest extant literature (viz. the Vedas) of the Indo-European group of languages, must have been the original homeland of these languages. However, soon the canvas got enlarged so as not to limit it to India but to include a large part of central Asia. Thereafter the scenario was taken to Europe and, not surprisingly, almost every part thereof was declared to be the homeland: Scandinavia, Finland, south-west Russia, the Baltic area, Germany, Lithuania, Hungary, the Danube valley and so on. In fact, the rat race was so much that no part of Europe was left out. In a very sarcastic comment on this race, Jean-Paul Demoule (1980:120) averred: We have seen that one primarily places the IE’s [Indo-Europeans] in the north if one is German … in the east if one is Russian, and in the middle if, being Italian or Spanish, one has no chance of competing for the privilege.”*
The David Frawley’s Paradox:
The Harappans of the Indus Valley have left profuse archaeological records over a vast region – from the borders of Iran and beyond Afghanistan to eastern UP and Tapti valley, and must have supported over 30 million people and believed to be living an advanced civilization. And yet these people have left absolutely no literary records. Sounds incredible! The Vedic Aryans and their successors on the other hand have left us a literature that is probably the largest and most profound in the world. But according to the Aryan Invasion Theory there is absolutely no archaeological record that they ever existed, either on the Indian soil or outside its boundaries. So we have concrete history and archeology of a vast civilization of ‘Dravidians’ lasting thousands of years that left no literature, and a huge literature by the Vedic Aryans who left no history and no archaeological records. The situation gets more absurd when we consider that there is profuse archaeological and literary records indicating a substantial movement of Indian Aryans out of India into Iran and West Asia around 2000 BC.**
In reality, most Dravidians or South Indians are physically not very different from the Indo-Aryans of North India. Both the Aryans and the Dravidians belong to the Mediterranean sub-branch of the Caucasoid race .( originated as one of the racial categories recognized by 19th century craniology — and is derived from the region of the Caucasus mountains.
Jim Shaffer, an American archaeologist and Professor of Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University wrote, “Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia any time in the pre- or proto historic periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments from prehistoric to historic periods” The vast majority of the professional archaeologists Bryant (2001) interviewed in India insisted that there was no convincing archaeological evidence whatsoever to support any claims of external Indo-Aryan origins. Kenoyer (as cited in Bryant 2001:231) and Shaffer (as cited in Bryant 2001:232) argue that current archaeological evidence does not support an invasion of South Asia in the pre- or proto-historic periods.
Frederick Eden Pargiter (1852-1927) in his well-known work Ancient Indian Historical Tradition says that the Aryan civilization is the civilization of the Aila or Lunar race which lived in Ilavrita in mid-Himalayas: that the Vedic culture reflects a blend of both Aryan and Dravidian and that the not Aryan civilization did come from beyond; and that it spread to Afghanistan and Persia and further west from India.
Some modern Indians believe that the British Raj exaggerated differences between northern and southern Indians beyond linguistic differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of Aryan or Dravidian ” races” remains highly controversial in India.
According to the modern single origin theory which is widely accepted, all humans evolved from a single mother Mitochondrial Eve. The racial theories are more of political and due to linguistic divisions. In linguistics, the term Aryan currently may be used to refer to the Indo-Iranian language family. To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the linguistic term is often avoided today. It has been replaced by the unambiguous terms Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian, Iranian and Indo-Aryan. The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around 2500 BC. One theory for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity dates back to 10,000-12000 years (Last Ice age).In this sense of the word Aryan, the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Avestan cultures. Candidates for an archeological identification of this Indo-Iranian culture are the Andronovo and/or Srubnaya Archeological Complexes. India and Northern Europe have also been suggested as possible homelands for this culture.
The Proto-Indo-Iranian language evolved into the family of Indo-Iranian languages, of which the oldest-known members are Vedic Sanskrit, Avestan and another Indo-Iranian language, known only from loan-words found in the Mitanni language.
There was no spontaneous invasion as such and there was a gradual immigration of people into India in the earlier times and could only have taken place some thousands of years before the date assigned to Mohenjo Daro.
Nehru writes: ‘while there is definite sense of continuity between the Indus Valley civilization and later periods, there is also a kind of break or a gap, not only to point of tie but also in the kind of civilization that came next.
In the ages that followed there came many other races: Iranians, Greeks, Parthians, Bactrians, Scythians, Huns, Turks (before Islam), early Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians; they came, made a difference, and were absorbed. India was, according to Dodwell, `infinitely absorbent like the ocean.’ It is odd to think of India, with her caste system and exclusiveness, having this astonishing inclusive capacity to absorb foreign races and cultures. Perhaps it was due to this that she retained her vitality and rejuvenated herself from time to time. The Muslims, when they came, were also powerfully affected by her. `The foreigners (Muslim Turks),’ says Vincent Smith, ` like their forerunners the Sakas and the Yueh-chi, universally yielded to the wonderful assimilative power of Hinduism, and rapidly became Hinduised.’#
Ref:
1.*Inaugural Address delivered at the 19th International Conference on South AsianArchaeology,held at University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy on July 2-6, 2007.by B.B.Lal
2.*The Homeland of Indo-European Languages And Culture: Some Thoughts
by Prof. B. B. Lal (Introduction: Paper presented at a seminar organized by the Indian Council for Historical Research on the same theme in Delhi on 7-9 January 2002)
3.**Myth of Aryan Invasion of India – Dr. David Frawley
4.#Discovery of India by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
5.Wikipedia.