The Krishna Key- Ashwin Sanghi(2012)

The Krishna Key- Ashwin Sanghi(2012)

His third book- ‘The Krishna Key’ by Abhishek Sanghi disappoints at so many levels. 

His narrative skills are pretty ordinary, and if he is being called ‘Dan Brown of India’, then it's a big insult to the American author. With Dan Brown himself generally panned by critics for his unimaginative style of writing, one may surmise where that leaves Abhishek Sanghi.

However in this blog, I intend to only consider various theories floated by the author on the supposed time period of Vedic civilization in India. 

The author pushes back the date of Vedic civilization by a couple of millennium to 3500 BCE, and the Indus Valley civilization is recast as the greatest Vedic community on Earth. 

Considering that the consensus date for the Vedic civilization amongst historians is 1800 BCE and the Indus Valley civilization is considered pre-Vedic, this theory is interesting. 

The various ‘evidences’  cited is certainly food for thought, all right, but to consider them as conclusive proof is stretching it a bit too far.

The Unique Alignment of Planets Theory

In the Mahabharatha, Sage Vyasa met Dhritharashtra on the eve of the battle and warned him of the terrible planetary omens that he had seen:-

- Conjunction of Saturn with Aldebaran.

- Retrograde Mars before reaching Antares.

- Lunar eclipse near Pleiadus(or the seven sisters).

Apparently all three astronomical events can occur simultaneously only in two possible years- 3067 BCE or 2183 BCE. However taking into consideration the month of death of Bhishma, (Magha, which occurs after winter solstice), the only possible year is 3067 BCE.

Account of Megasthenes

Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador in the court of Chandragupta Maurya, made the first  ever written reference to Krishna, the mythical God.      

Krishna is called Heracles in his account, the Greek usage influenced by the term Hari.

Krishna is recorded as having lived a hundred and thirty eight generations before the times of Alexander and Chandragupta Maurya.

Considering the Chandra Gupta Maurya’s reign as being around 307 BCE, the approximate period of Krishna’s existence would be 3067 BCE.

The theory is certainly interesting. However Vishnu or Krishna is very sparingly mentioned in the Vedas, the main Gods being Agni, Indra, Rudra etc. Vishnu or Krishna attains prominence only in the Puranic period (generally post 200 BCE). Vishnu is a minor deity in the Vedas.

The popular practices of Hinduism today is based on the Puranas, with the Vedic religious practices almost extinct in a way in modern day India.
 
So why does a Greek historian give so much importance to Krishna( or Heracles) whenever our own Vedas does not?

Theory 3- Surya Siddhanta Dates

Surya Siddhanta, the ancient work on astronomy that provides the foundation for all Hindu and Buddhist Calendars, provides a few timelines which are interesting. 

Kaliyuga is slated to have started on 18 Feb 3102 BCE.

The belief is that human civilization degenerates spiritually during Kaliyuga – almost a dark age – because people moved away from God.

The first event to distance mankind from God was the death of Krishna, thus pushing back the Vedic period by a couple of millennium.

To nitpick, however, one can bring out a few flaws in the dates set forth.

Firstly, the dates for Mahabharatha is given as 3067 BCE as per the planetary alignments. But if Krishna died in 3102  BCE , then Krishna could not have existed during the period of Mahabharatha as the battle occurs after his death, which is clearly not acceptable.

Secondly again, why no mention of the epics of Mahabharatha or Ramayana in the Vedas? Why is Vishnu treated as a minor deity in the Vedas?

Even in Manusmriti, which is treated as a classic treatise on Hindu social laws, written somewhere in 300 BCE, and giving valuable insights into life in India of that era,does not mention of any of the Gods of the epics. Vishnu or Krishna is not even talked about. The emphasis is on the Vedic rituals and Vedic Gods.

Also why did Kaliyug start after the death of Krishna? Of the ten Avatars of Vishnu, Krishna is the eighth, Buddha the ninth and then Kalki.

In the first place Buddha as one of the Avatars of Vishnu is not acceptable to most Buddhists. So treating the period in which Buddha was alive as a Kaliyug, which has negative connotations, would be seriously objectionable to Buddhists.

Theory 4- Archeological Evidence

The archeological evidences, according to the book, proves without any doubt  that the Indus valley Civilization was the greatest Vedic Community on Earth and it was the inhabitants who wrote the Vedas and Upanishads.

What are these archeological evidences?

In Kalibangan, fire altars were discovered here proving that this was a Vedic settlement.

In Mohanjodaro, discovery of ‘The great bath’ which was used for ritual bathing is another hallmark of Vedic settlement.

Also hundreds of seals have been recovered with images of swastika – a symbol of Vedic origin in addition to seals depicting yogic meditation.

The facts enumerated above are interesting. However there is a flip side.

The Vedas are replete with mentions of horses(there are 792 mentions of Asva or horse in Rig-Veda as per one study), but the Indus valley civilization did not have horses. 

Light horse chariots with spoke wheels are mentioned in the Vedas, but the Indus civilization had only cattle drawn solid wheel carts, as seen in numerous depictions.

The Indus Civilization script recovered from the ruins is yet to be deciphered, but the consensus is that these symbols are some form of hieroglyphics and not a script of any sophisticated language.So where did Sanskrit come from?

On the other hand however, it is a well known that the Rig Vedic Sanskrit and  the language spoken in Asia minor (modern day Turkey) in the 1^st millennium BCE( about 1500 BCE) were more or less similar, indicating common ancestors supporting the Aryan migration theory in respect to the Vedic people.

In the book, however there is a further theory suggesting that India was the cradle of civilization and not Mesopotamia as widely believed.

When Sarasvati started drying up around 3200 BCE, it split up the Indian civilization.  Some people moved eastwards towards the Ganges and some westwards in the direction of Tigris- Euphrates

The people who moved eastwards were called Devas and those who moved westwards were called Asuras. The Zoroastrians( of Persia) viewed the Ahuras( or asuras ) as good people and the Devas as the villains, the exact opposite of Vedic civilization.

Further the founder of Judaism is Abraham, and his name is similar to Brahma and is only separated by a single letter – ‘A’. Also Abraham’s consort and Brahma’s consort have almost the same names – Sara and Saraswati.

Unfortunately apart from these phonetic word play, there is no other empirical proof in the book. 

On the other hand, archaeological evidences abound with regards to the move of Indo- Europeans to India from the West.

The various attempts at reconstructing the ‘glorious past’ of India by co-opting even the Indus Valley civilization as Vedic had received a fillip with the growing Hindutva movement. 

It was difficult for the Hindutva brigade to accept foreign roots of the Vedic civilization and Sanskrit language and hence re-branding the Indus civilization as Vedic fit into their scheme of things.

For this purpose ‘archeological evidence’ was cooked up with a picture of a terracotta seal with a horse in it, cited as the final ‘proof’ that the Indus civilization was indeed Vedic. The same was published in all  BJP led states in NCERT school text books in 2000.

However the grand scheme came a cropper when it was revealed that the horse seal was a simple fraud based on computerized distortion of a seal of a unicorn bull.

It is difficult to fathom as to why the Hindutva zealots are bent upon twisting historical facts and being complicit in obvious frauds and lies, to advance the ‘indigenous theory’ of the Vedic civilization.

Why this insecurity? How does it matter where the Vedic people came from -  the fact that they flourished in India is what is important. 

And there are many important mathematical and science treatises between 800 BCE to 500 CE of which Indians can be justifiably proud of. 

For instance The Baudhayana Sulbasutra had worked out the Pythagoran theorem in 800 BCE, 400 years before Pythagorus. 

But in the book, the author is not happy with such mundane achievements. He alludes to the depth of  ‘scientific knowledge ‘ by claiming that the ancient Vedic people knew among other things, the making of a nuclear bomb, Stem cell research, cloning, nuclear transmutation and that the lost city of Atlantis is Dwaraka, Mount Kailash is actually a man made pyramid......


It would have been really funny if it wasn’t so sad.

The USA is less than 300 years old, but it doesn’t stop them from believing that they are the best.

We need to stop sinking to lame attempts at reinventing history. We were a great civilization. Period.

Of course the present state is somewhat less than glorious. And we should probably we focusing on getting that right.

 

Indian Ideology - Perry anderson

INDIAN IDEOLOGY - PERRY ANDERSON (OCT 2012)

Perry Anderson has a few things to say about India which might not be palatable for most Indians.

I remember the buzz around the book when it was about to be released- the constant chatter by the twitterati and the interviews by the author to various print and social media.

But come October 2012 - post the book release - there was hardly a murmur. There were a few strong reviews all right, but they picked the book on technicalities and, to my mind, did not attempt to address the issues raised by the author.

The contentious issues raised are essentially as follows:-

-  The idea that a sub continental unity existed in India extending back to 5000 years is a myth.

-  Partition was essentially the handiwork of the Congress and not the Raj or Jinnah, with Nehru and Gandhi being the main culprits.

As Indians, we have all lapped up this great story of the grand Indian civilization – images of Kumbh Mela being performed  2500 years ago and still continuing flashes before us .We devoured Nehru’s ‘Discovery of India’, Amartya Sen’s ‘Argumentative Indian’ and other such ‘feel good’ books on the same vein.

But Perry Anderson says that the story of the ‘Grand Indian civilization‘  is all wrong- it’s a myth.

Sample a few passages from the book:-

“The subcontinent as we know it today never formed a single political or cultural unit in pre-modern times. For much the longest stretches of its history, its lands were divided between a varying assortment of middle-sized kingdoms, of different stripes. Of the three larger empires it witnessed, none covered the territory of Nehru’s Discovery of India. Maurya and Mughal control extended to contemporary Afghanistan, ceased below the Deccan, and never came near Manipur. The area of Gupta control was considerably less. Separated by intervals of five hundred and a thousand years, there was no remembered political or cultural connection between these orders, or even common religious affiliation: at its height, the first of these Buddhist, the second Hindu, the third Muslim.

…The ‘idea of India’ was essentially a European, not a local invention, as the name itself makes clear. No such term, or equivalent, as India existed in any indigenous language. A Greek coinage, taken from the Indus river, it was so exogenous to the subcontinent that as late as the 16^th century, Europeans would define Indians simply as ‘all natives of an unknown country’...”

The British created India:

‘The British had taken over the subcontinent with such relative ease because it was politically and socially so tangled and fractured, but in imposing a common infrastructural, juridical and cultural grid on it, they unified it as an administrative and ideological reality for the first time in its history. The idea of India was theirs.’

And he takes Nehru and his ‘Discovery of India’ to the cleaners:

‘Nehru, on the other hand, had enjoyed a higher education Gandhi lacked, and an intellectual development not arrested by intense religious belief. But these advantages yielded less than might be thought. He seems to have learnt very little at Cambridge, scrapping a mediocre degree in natural sciences that left no trace thereafter, did poorly in his bar exams, and was not much of a success when he returned to practice law in the footsteps of his father. The contrast with Bose, a brilliant student of philosophy at Cambridge, who was the first native to pass the exams into the elite ranks of the Indian Civil Service and decline entry to it on patriotic grounds, is striking.

But an indifferent beginning is no obstacle to subsequent flowering, and in due course Nehru became a competent orator and prolific writer. What he never acquired, however, was a modicum of literary taste or mental discipline. His most ambitious work, ‘The Discovery of India’, which appeared in 1946, is a steam-bath of Schwarmerei with few equals in the period.

But ‘The Discovery of India’ – not to speak of its predecessor ‘The Unity of India’ – illustrates not just Nehru’s lack of formal scholarship and addiction to romantic myth, but something deeper, not so much an intellectual but a psychological limitation – a capacity for self-deception with far-reaching political consequences.

            ‘India was in my blood and there was much in her that instinctively thrilled me’, he told his readers. ‘She is very lovable and none of her children can forget her wherever they go or whatever strange fate befalls them. For she is part of them in her greatness as well as her failings, and they are mirrored in those deep eyes of hers that have seen so much of life’s passion and joy and folly and looked down into wisdom’s well.’

Not all of  ‘The Discovery of India’ is of similar quality. But the Barbara Cartland streak was never far from the surface: ‘Perhaps we may still sense the mystery of nature, listen to her song of life and beauty, and draw vitality from her. That song is not sung in the chosen spots only, and we can hear it, if we have ears for it, almost everywhere. But there are some places where it charms even those who are unprepared for it and comes like the deep notes of a distant and powerful organ. Among those favoured spots is Kashmir, where loveliness dwells and an enchantment steals over the senses.’ A mind capable of prose like this was unlikely to show much realism about the difficulties facing the national movement.

The author highlights the fissiparous tendencies that almost fractured India during the time of partition, as India was ‘never a political union’:

Bengal …had a stronger common identity, a richer cultural-intellectual tradition and more advanced politics under the Raj. …In the Hindu community a movement led by Bose’s brother Sarat, and in the Muslim community by the the local head of the League, Suhrawardy, joined forces to call for United Bengal as an independent state, adhering neither to India nor to Pakistan. Mountbatten wanted only two Dominions in the sub-continent, though if it was difficult to avoid, did not rule out a third. Jinnah, to his credit, said he would not oppose a unitary Bengal.

             ….When the question was put to the Bengal Assembly, the vote was 126 to 90 in favour of unity.

….densely forested mountainous uplands inhabited by tribal peoples of Tibeto-Mongoloid origin untouched by Hinduism, with no historical connection to any subcontinental polity. In the valleys, three Hindu kingdoms had long existed, the oldest in Manipur, the largest in Assam. The region had lain outside the Maurya and Gupta empires, and had resisted Mughal annexation….

…. So remote were these from anything to do with India, even as constituted by the Victorian Empire, that when Burma was detached from the Raj in 1935, officials came close to allocating them to Rangoon rather than Delhi.

The basic point the author is making is that India was never a political union throughout its history. Period.

But, isn’t that a given? Isn’t it obvious that India was never really a political union? Why waste reams of paper on such an obvious fact?

The basic ‘idea of India’ for the present modern state, I would like to believe, does not hint at a ‘political unity’ though the ages. But rather, a ‘civilizational unity’.

If the basis of a modern nation should only be a ‘historical political unity’, then of course, India, immediately after partition, should have split up into 600 plus principalities. There were too many Maharajas, Nawabs and Princely states floating around.

To my understanding, there was never any suggestion of a ‘political unity’; but it was always the idea of a ‘civilizational unity’, that Nehru and his ilk were sold upon, and that is the foundation on which they wanted to build this brand new country called India.

Is the idea of ‘civilisational unity’ good enough to build a nation? Who decides if it is so?

Is the ‘American way’ the ‘right’ way to build a nation?
Is it ok that you systematically obliterate the indigenous ‘Red Indians’ and usurp their lands?

What about the Latin American countries? Where are the Mayans and the Incas? Is that the way to build a nation?

I would like to believe that a ‘continual civilizational and cultural unity’ is not a bad start point to build a brand new nation.

But is this enough to sustain a fledgling nation?

Well that is an existential query facing India today, that only time will answer conclusively. But one may daresay that there are fewer naysayer’s in 2013, as compared to 1947, on whether India can survive or not.

But there are a few aspects that Indians have got right in building a brand new nation.

One of them is a canon called ‘unity in diversity’. One may scoff at this, but evidence suggests that this actually works in India. 
Consider this:-

It is a fact that in India there is no subversion of any Indigenous culture. There are insurgencies, yes - folks wanting to break away from the Republic. But the point remains- there is no subversion of any indigenous culture.

So,  the Monpa’s of Tawang, the Meitei’s  in Manipur, the Ladakhi’s, the Thambi’s of Tamil Nadu all have a distinct, strong, vibrant identity of their own, within the union of India. 

The proof of the same is that you will never hear of any ‘refugees’ from India due to persecution by the state.

Which country did Dalai Lama pack his bags and come to?

When Quaid-e- Azam, Jinnah, proclaimed Urdu to be the common language of Pakistan, thereby sparking the seed of Bengali insurgency, which country did the Bangladeshi’s take refuge in?

Look at Tibet or Xinjiang in China. The indigenous population in these areas, are a shrinking minority every day, due to the Han sinicization process of China. Does this happen in India?

Things are definitely bad here in India. Lots of poverty and corruption. But one thing  no one can blame us for, is of  subversion of any indigenous culture in India, unlike say  in China.

The fact of the matter is that today, in all states including Kashmir, there have been free and fair elections and there is stability and progress.

I had attended a cultural festival in Tawang in October 2012. The crowd- all local- about 5000 strong, were dancing to their local rock stars numbers, as well as to Bollywood numbers. They even loved the crass jokes by the special guests from Bollywood  - Ehsan Qureshi and Shakti Kapoor. It was a simple depiction of how different cultural strains can co-exist together – ‘Unity in diversity’.

More damning however is the author’s take on the Congress being the main culprit behind partition and not Jinnah or the Raj.

He squarely blames Gandhi’s evocation of Hindu spirituality and invocation of Lord Ram into the political discourse that drove away Muslims -including Jinnah- from the Congress.

‘The official view in Delhi, shared across the political spectrum, has always been that it was Jinnah’s personal ambition that fired Muslim separatism, destroying the unit of the national liberation struggle ……

…Like most politicians, Jinnah was certainly ambitious. But he was also an early architect of Hindu-Muslim unity; had little mass following down to the end of the thirties; and even when he acquired one, probably aimed at a confederation rather than complete separation.

………but it was not Jinnah who injected religion into the vocabulary and imagery of the national movement, it was Gandhi. That he did not do so in any sectarian spirit, calling on Muslims to defend the Caliph in the same breath as Hindus to restore the golden age of Rama, was of little consequence once he jettisoned mobilization against the British without regard for his allies in the common struggle.

…..What remained was Gandhi’s transformation of Congress from an elite into a mass organization by saturating its appeal with a Hindu imagery. Here, unambiguously, was the origin of the political process that would eventually lead to Partition.’

Gandhi’s statements: ‘I yield to none in my reverence for the cow’..

… warning his son against marrying a Muslim on grounds that it was ‘contrary to dharma’ and – a telling simile – ‘like putting two swords in one sheath’… (did not make things better either.)

The author also blames Nehru, for being unwilling to accept the ‘cabinet mission plan’ for devolution of powers between Congress and Muslim league, which might have prevented partition.

‘..But for Nehru,.... (cabinet mission plan) was worse than partition, since it would deprive his party of the powerful centralized state to which it had always aspired, and he believed essential to preserve Indian unity. Congress had always insisted on its monopoly of national legitimacy. That claim could no longer be sustained.

But if the worst came to the worst, it was better to enjoy an unimpeded monopoly of power in the larger part of India than to shackled by having to share it in an undivided one.

So while the League talked of partition, Jinnah contemplated confederation; while Congress spoke of union, Nehru prepared for scission. The Cabinet Mission Plan was duly scuppered. Everything then turned on how the spoils were to be distributed.

There are further telling passages in the book. 

The author paints both Gandhi and Nehru as ‘black’- devious and unscrupulous characters, whereas the popular Indian discourse deifies them.

The opinions expressed by the author , are however  a matter of conjecture and ascribes intentions to Gandhi and Nehru which might not be wholly true.

The truth, of course, would probably be somewhere in between.

WHEN CHINA RULES THE WORLD : MARTIN JACQUES (2009)

A book on China by Martin Jacques, who feels that China will one day, rule the world.

He sets forth his arguments nicely and thereafter tries to speculate as to how the world will look like - ‘When’ China rules the world.

So will it? It’s a big ‘Maybe’, I think.

Some commentators like Nitin Pai (@acorn on twitter) do not think so. In his ‘Business Standard’  column Nitin says the title should have been “if’ and not ‘When’.

China is a freak of nature.

Else how is it that a nation, the size of a continent, can have so much of puke-worthy uniformity?

How is it that 90% of its citizens call themselves ‘Han Chinese’ and speak the same language?

How do you get 1.2 billion people to think alike?

Like I said, China is a freak of nature. Nowhere in the world will you find conformity of culture in such a large scale. Look at India or Europe and you will know what I mean.

And the secret behind this puke-worthy conformity?

It’s geography. I think.  At least partially.

Terrain friction does not permit an easy land route to China, unlike India.

To the South and South West you have the Himalayas;

To the East and South East you have the South China Sea;

To the North and North West, you have the Steppe’s and Gobi Desert.

So folks in China were left in relative isolation to develop their culture and traditions in peace till the 19^th  century .

The Mongols and Manchus who were the only invaders got sinicized in due course.

In contrast, look at India.

We had friendly neighborhood migrations/invasions throughout our known history.

Nobody’s got a clue as to who the Indus Valley folks were. Dravidians are also migrants. So are the Aryans. Then came the Persians, Greeks, Mohammedans and finally of course the ‘White man’.

We have had a ‘cultural shock treatment’ every other century. Never been left alone. Hence in India we have a mash up of everything.

Not so in China. Such uniformity is rare.

So will China rule the world?

The Chinese say “ Who can stop me?”

As a race who believe in their inherent superiority over other ‘barbarians’ of the world, they think it is just a matter of time.

With a 5000 year history, blessed with oodles of patience, Chinese are waiting in the wings.

 Deng’s comment brings out their world view:

‘Observe developments soberly, maintain our position, meet challenges calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, remain free of ambition, never claim leadership.’

Chinese conceptions of time are also slightly different. Note former Chinese premier Zhou En Lai’s reported response to Henry Kissinger’s question in 1972 about the consequences of the French Revolution: ‘It is too early to say.’

What if they do rule the world? Should it be a cause of concern?

Some of the Chinese attitudes can be considered to be a  ‘grey’ area.

Handling of ethnic minorities by Chinese is a big negative. Treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs of Xingjiang is well documented.

Oft-repeated process of Han settlement in these areas have changed  the ethnic balance.

In  Xingjiang, Hans are about 50% now, compared with 6 per cent in a 1950s census. A similar process is on in Tibet also.

Root problem is the ingrained sense of racial superiority of Chinese.

Sun Yat Sen of 1911 Revolution fame, amplifies the Chinese racial worldview:

“Mankind is divided into five races. The yellow and white races are relatively strong and intelligent. Because the other races are feeble and stupid, they are being exterminated by the white race. Only the yellow race competes with the white race. This is so-called evolution …. Among the contemporary races that could be called superior, there are only the yellow and white races. China belongs to the yellow races.”

Tibetans, to Chinese, are seen as  backward and primitive, and  should be grateful to Chinese for bringing them civilization and development.

Zhang Qingli, Communist Party secretary of the Tibet, confirms the ‘benevolent’ role of Chinese:

‘The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is always considerate about what the children need …. The central party committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans.’

Yuan Qinghai, a Lhasa taxi driver: ‘We don’t have a good impression of them, as they are lazy and they hate us. In their mind taking a bath once or twice in their life is sacred, but to a Han it is filthy and unacceptable.’

Lack of Democracy and a vibrant free press in China is of course another big negative.

So will China change once they get to rule the world? Or will they also mouth pious platitudes like US about freedom and democracy, while carrying on doing what they want with the world?

There are however huge positives also.

In his cult song ‘ Imagine’, John Lennon crooned:

“Imagine there’s no country, and no religion too”

China, being the freak that it is, is the one country in the world where religion is almost a non-issue.

Folks there do have some form of ancestral worship, but it is strictly a private affair.

Imagine such a world!

Where religion is actually a non-issue.

Where religion is relegated to its rightful place in society, i.e confined to one’s four walls, something private and personal.

A world where no one cares about what kind of faith you practice at home.

For this reason alone, I fervently wish China does get to rule the world and tell those religious hate mongers to lump it and just shut up.

In China today people are simply left free to get on with the business of transforming their living standards.

Folks do not talk of politics or religion. They have retreated into a private world of consumption.

Money-making, is the most valued and respected form of social activity.

Is that such a bad thing? I think not. I think it’s perfect.

With just over 20 million plus folks below poverty line, of a population of 1.2 Billion, I think the Chinese have got their priorities right.

And to think that in 1978 they had close to 300 million under poverty line.

Another aspect is the importance given to Confucian precept of filial piety and the central role of family, in contrast to  ‘Individualism’  propagated by Western Societies.

“The individualistic system, with  emphasis on the nuclear family, is in stark contrast to the traditional extended-household, arranged-marriage, kinship-based systems to be found in societies like China and India, whose values and distinctive characteristics persist to this day, notwithstanding urbanization and a dramatic fall in the size of the nuclear family.

Thus, while marriage in the West is essentially a union of two individuals, in Chinese and Indian culture it involves the conjoining of two families.”

Which system is better? The jury is out.

One thing is certain. We live in interesting times. And like the Author, I too also believe that the face of the world will change ‘If’ and ‘When’ China does get to rule the world.