The male axis of Hindi cinema runs through the Indus, not the Gangetic plain. The Khans, Aamir (Afghan UP-origin), Salman (Hindu, Pathan), Shah Rukh (Delhi, Hindko-Deccani stock), are Musulman. Their anointed successors, Ranbir (Kapoor lineage from Peshawar) and Ranveer (Bhavnani, Sindhi), are Hindu but Indus-blooded all the same (Hindus of the Indus are 99.9% genetically identical to Pakistanis apparently). The geography of stardom in Bollywood is the geography of Partition.

A Kashmiri nationalist once told me, Srinagar-bred, Ivy-educated, who sang Pakistani ghazals with more feeling than most Lahoris, that Ranbir and Ranveer were being aggressively promoted to eclipse the Khans.

Of course the connective tissue of the Ranbir-Ranveer rivalry is Sonam Kapoor. She is third cousin to Ranbir through the Punjabi mafia, and second cousin to Ranveer through their Sindhi mothers. The Sindhi presence in Bollywood runs deeper than most realise; Karan Johar, Kareena Kapoor, Kiara Advani all carry it. The two men being positioned as Bollywood’s future are bound into a single pre-Partition Hindu kinship network. The contestation isn’t just cultural. It’s familial.

The man cast as Maryada Purushottam, the ideal Hindu man, the conscience-keeper of a civilisation, descends from Prithviraj Kapoor of Peshawar; a Hindu Pathan (his kinsman Anil Kapoor states on record that he is the son and grandson of a Pathan). Bollywood’s Ram comes from the other side of the Wagah.

Ranbir versus Ranveer is the wrong frame. The real question is what it means that Hindu epic cinema, ₹4,000 crore, Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman, DNEG VFX, global IMAX release, chose a Kapoor. The answer is that Bollywood has always understood something the BJP perhaps never quite has: the cultural power of the Subcontinent flows from its Mleccha western rivers, not its sacred eastern ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF7H-tDf5Nk

P.S. A note on the phenomenal aesthetic. This has Game of Thrones and The Crown written all over it; the visual grammar is unmistakably Western prestige television, with a touch of Greek mythology in the costuming and scale. That is not a criticism. It is the evolution of Indian mythology into the global cinematic idiom, and Bollywood is almost certainly the first non-Western culture to make this translation successfully at this budget level.

This defies economics entirely. China’s film industry, backed by the second-largest economy on earth, has never come close to Bollywood’s global cultural footprint. India, by contrast, punches so far above its GDP that it forces a rethink of what drives soft power. It is not money. It is civilisational depth. The Ramayana has been retold across 300 versions in dozens of languages over three millennia. No amount of Chinese state investment can manufacture that inheritance.

BB used to say economics is everything. The Kapoors of Peshawar making Ramayan for a global IMAX audience suggests otherwise.

The Ramayana is not just literature,  it is scripture, memory, and civilization encoded in verse. It has shaped the moral and cultural landscape of over a billion people for millennia. To compare it, then downplay it and to do so so glibly reveals less about the text and more about one’s own civilizational estrangement.

Let’s be honest: that kind of language would never be used for the Quran or Islamic texts. And the fact that it is used for Hindu epics by brown intellectuals raised in the shadows of colonial categories says everything about how deeply colonized the Pakistani mind remains. Pakistan is, in truth, an Urdufied Punjab insufficiently imagined, a fragment that lost its civilizational compass in the act of imagining itself apart. The fact that the Ramayan being Pakistani heritage is such a novelty speaks volumes.

Today I sat at Stratford Westfield, eating Dubai Hot Chocolate ice cream, and the man next to me clearly Pakistani asked me, in Urdu, “if I was in the queue?” His wife spoke Punjabi-inflected Urdu. It struck me how London has become the real unifying Punjab. Ten percent of Britain is now Desi. And outside of the subcontinent, the fractures of 1947 heal in ways that remain impossible back home.

We speak of South Asia. But the term is bureaucratic; no one identifies with it. India is real. Bharat is civilizational. Aryavarta stretches from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean — just as France is the Hexagon, Bharat is the Triangle. Partition clipped its wings, but its soul remains intact.

And look at the reality today: Indian Muslims are thriving in the mainstream. The title song of the upcoming film Sarai — written, composed, and directed by three Muslims: Ishaq, Fahim, and Arsalan. The leading lyricist is Javed Akhtar. This is a country that refused bitterness. A country whose largest minority chose Partition, and yet was never cast out, a unique precedent and testament the pluralism of Dharma.

Bharat needs no validation. It doesn’t need the approval of its neighbours or the heirs of partitioned imagination. It only needs to walk — and it is flying. Toward its own authenticity, on its own terms. And the world is watching.

Extremely surprised to see this bit of news.

views ?

This Pakistani theatre group brought Ram and Sita to the stage. ‘It’s our Ramayana too’

“You don’t have to explain it to me. Something that has lasted thousands of years clearly has meaning. Let’s just do our best. It’s beyond us.”

Malhotra took this as reverence. In fact, it was erasure.

No serious Western artist would score The Ten Commandments or Schindler’s List without knowing the story. Imagine a composer saying, “Don’t explain the Illiad to me, it’s beyond me.” They’d be fired. But when it comes to Indian epics? The bar is subterranean. That’s not reverence.

That’s: I’m Western, I’m famous, I’m here for the cheque; not the history. The tragedy isn’t Zimmer’s line. It’s Malhotra’s awe. A Westerner shrugs off our most sacred text, and we call it wisdom. That’s not cultural pride. That’s civilizational confusion. It’s a pattern. Many elite Indians are fluent in the language of Islamic grievance; but tone-deaf to Western condescension.

Divide and rule still works:

• Hindus thank the British for “freeing” them from Muslim rule

• Muslims thank the British for “protecting” them from Hindu majoritarianism

Meanwhile, the West shrugs at our stories and we applaud.

Shravan Monday at the New England Temple

This Monday, I attended Shravan Puja at the New England temple. I was unprepared for how deeply it would move me; I had attended it on behalf of Dr. Lalchand, for whom Lord Shiva is her favourite Deity.

The Vedic chants echoed with the same solemnity as the Gregorian chants. But this wasn’t performance. It was something older, deeper; a Divine transmission, not a show. The Lingam was adorned with exquisitely adorned.

The Mandir radiated care. And yet I couldn’t shake the thought:

What discount does this tradition suffer because it is Indian?

Because it belongs to a civilization colonized, reframed, and underestimated? Shravan doesn’t demand recognition. It doesn’t explain itself. Unlike Hans Zimmer, Shravan doesn’t say “don’t explain it to me.” It says: “Be still. And listen.”

There’s a strange dissonance here, of grandeur that doesn’t announce itself. Of beauty that expects no acknowledgment. And I feel fortunate to have received even a fragment of the immense Blessing.

Om Namah Shivaya,

A Hindu friend clued me into the fact that this was Lord Rama’s birthday. Since I’m not Hindu or from a Hindu background I had no clue (to be fair, Google calendar is how I know when Ramadan starts). I don’t know much about Rama as I have not read the Ramayana (after all these years I’m only 2/3rd of the way through an English translation of the Mahabharata), but, I’m pretty sure I know which Y haplogroup he was, so much respect!

For eons, ascetics and wanderers would journey to the sacred snow-clad Himalayas to test the fires of their belief. Where the skies met the earth and the heavens met the material world, humans met enlightenment; and their discoveries would cascade down the subcontinent. These beliefs would be ossified by ritual and rite, and a culture would engulf the land between the great Himalayas and an endless ocean – India, that is Bhārata.

And it is this legendary journey from the foothills of the Himalayas to the tip of the subcontinent that a civilizational epic takes place – the Rāmāyana. On August 5th, 2020, the ancient song of Valmiki will echo in the villages, in the cities, in the deserts, the fields, the jungles, the mountains, the waters, and especially in the minds of those who believe. A civilization will enact its long-awaited reclamation.

Itihāsa

“So indeed it was” is the literal Sanskrit translation of the word, itihāsa, but today we can call it history. It is near impossible to prove whether Ram was a historical figure, a divine incarnation (avatār) of the Supreme God (Paramātma). However, the ancients have designated the Rāmāyana in the category of itihāsa, a term clearly designated to separate history from allegory amongst ancient Hindu scriptures and poetry.

Yet it is precisely this belief in Ram that has animated so much of India’s literature, architecture, music, culture, and a few episodes that are more close to our present. The belief that a certain site was the birthplace of Ram caused devotees to build a temple on it. The belief that a certain site was the birthplace of Ram caused the Mughal, Babur, to viciously destroy that same temple and build a mosque on top of it – a message of humiliation and malice towards the Hindus. The belief that a certain site was the birthplace of Ram caused a crowd to demolish that same monument of hatred in 1992. Truly, human history teaches us that belief conquers doubt.

Lament

It is hard to capture the anguish that Hindus felt for centuries seeing a mosque on the site where their literal God was born. From the pain of poets to the march of militaries aiming at reclamation, the scar of Ayodhya cut deep into the Hindu psyche. No esoteric explanations of karma or pinning it on the will of the gods could cover the humiliation that the Mughals brought to the indigenous people of India and the purest embodiment of that humiliation in Babri Masjid or Masjid-e-Janmasthan (the mosque of the birthplace) as it was known to many locals.

By the time an independent India was born, Nehru’s administration fought with all of its might against the temple after an unsuccessful attempt to thwart another temple reconstruction (again destroyed by Islamic rulers prior) in Somnath, Gujarat. “Eminent” historians would lie through their teeth for decades to stop the inevitable tsunami. Successive administrations and the infinitely obtuse Supreme Court kept up the delay for decades until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi opened the gates of Babri Masjid for worship to Hindu devotees in 1989. Soon after, Kashmiri Hindus were cleansed from Kashmir and political headwinds aligned with the BJP leading a march to the site, which eventually descended into a demolition of the mosque. For some, this was an injustice. For others, it was pure justice.

Regardless, this was the moment that Indian society realized it is stronger than the Indian government. And for Hindus, this was the saffron spark that ignited a new political Hinduism to push back against the excesses of secularization and minority appeasement that had become rife in India since independence. Just as Confederate and colonial monuments are toppled today, Hindus conducted a similar shattering of history that day, and very much for similar reasons.

The Turn

When Nathuram Godse committed the heinous act of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi, he also handicapped a movement which he found many sympathies with. Godse destroyed the political capital of Hindutva with a single bullet and gave absolute power to his adversaries as Jawaharlal Nehru further crushed pro-Hindu parties in a nascent India. An overcompensating correction ensued as “Indianness” was shown as uncouth and primitive while salvation could only be achieved through the ways of the West, no matter how out of context or ineffective. Western ideologies such as socialism and marxism not only destroyed India’s economy but also its self-image.

In Ram Mandir, India embraces autonomy and self-belief, instead of looking for approval from the gaze of champagne-sipping “intellectuals”, from NGOs whose MO is to protect terrorists, from homogenous nations who don’t possess even 10% of the diversity India contains. India now looks within for its approval – to the average Indian. Democracy in action. Self-confidence in practice.

India’s beliefs have profoundly changed yet returned to the ways of old. Now this isn’t a blanket endorsement of past evils such as casteism and the condition of women. India is recognizing that it needs to parse the positive from the past and cast aside the negatives, rather than having a shameful disgust of its culture as Indian elites did and as many still do. The people now seek to emulate their ancestors’ heroes rather than their conquerors. India’s neighbors should take the hint.

The Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Bhoomi Pujan will be an exorcism of the demons of the past, and the fire of the yajna will breathe a new life into a civilization. Let all Indians throw doubt, inferiority, and fear into the fire, and pray for success, courage, and compassion.

Ram Rajya

Mahatma Gandhi’s vision for India was summed up as “Ram Rajya,” an allusion to the legendary period of Ram’s rule in Ayodhya upon his return from exile. Yet today, it seems that India’s self-belief has finally returned after so many years in exile. But what to do with this newfound belief?

In the bhoomi pujan itself, the government and temple trust are setting a magnanimous tone for the future. Throwing aside enmity and grudges, the trust has invited people from across India including those who fought tooth and nail against the establishment of the temple itself. The trust has even invited Iqbal Ansari, the son of a main Muslim litigant who argued against the construction of the temple. Caste barriers are being broken as people from so-called “lower castes” are being placed at the forefront of many of the organizational and religious functions.

It is in this joyous moment that we are seeing a type of unity rarely seen not only in India but across the world. Different ethnicities, castes, sects, and even religions are converging onto a single temple, a symbol of unity and progress for Indian civilization. These events are truly in the line with the spirit and compassion of Ram and represent a path forward for Indian society.

However, a more honest approach to history must be embraced for India’s long-term future, and it very well will bring up ugly episodes relevant to today. The mosques standing on top of holy sites in Kashi and Mathura will now be under the gaze of justice and precedent. While the All India Muslim Personal Law Board puts out inflammatory and communal messages, Hindus and Muslims should not take the bait to match ugliness with ugliness and instead work together to find compromises similar to the one the Supreme Court gave – shifting these mosques standing on top of destroyed temples to allotted lands and allowing Hindus to be able to worship at their most sacred and indigenous sites. The openings of both the temples and mosques should be attended by the other religious groups. India cannot fasten itself into a perpetual communal war on its journey to greatness.

To truly achieve Ram Rajya requires peace and prosperity, spirituality and science, and above all, an India that has accepted its past and looks forward to the future. Let this Ram Mandir bring India into an age of truth, compassion, and courage as the lotus of Dharma blooms into a new era.

This is a repost from The Emissary. Please visit the blog for more content and thanks to Brown Pundits!

As India has gone into lockdown due to Covid19, Doordarshan has announced that it is going to rebroadcast these serials. This step has revived the complaints about these serials being the first step in the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, exemplified by tweets like this one from “engaged historian” Audrey Truschke:

To me, as an outsider, this is quite fascinating. It seems that there is a significant segment of the Indian intelligentsia (which hapens to be the dominant faction in terms of foreign coverage of India; Western news organizations almost all pick up their own view of India via these “native informants”) that believes that:

1. Pre-BJP India (“Nehruvian India”?) did not create too much popular entertainment based on “Hindu themes” (and that was a good thing). (I do think this view is not really true; so-called “Hindu Devotional” films were a well established feature of Indian cinema as far as I can remember). Or at least, these themes were restricted to a small subset of movies (just as there were “Muslim socials” and other niche genres) and were not a nationwide phenomenon.
2. The production of these serials was an unwelcome act. They stimulated a certain vision of Hindu identity and that vision has been very bad for India.

The point of this post is not to discuss whether these serials were good or bad. I am just fascinated by the fact that this view exists and is (or was) fairly mainstream (or at least, very respectable and prominent). I really think this is a relatively unique aspect of Indian intellectual life, which does not have exact parallels in most other cultures. In my more-leftist days I would have regarded this state of affairs as an uncomplicated good thing (i.e there is a country where the majority religion and its major mythological themes are NOT considered desirable material for popular entertainment, or at least, are considered “problematic”, and not just by some tiny “woke” academic consituency, but by people who are considered mainstream arbiters of culture and national identity).

Even then, I knew that this is not at all the case in Islamicate culture (in which Islamic themes, stories, mythological material, historical dramas, etc. are perfectly mainstream), but when I think about it, it is not the case in Western culture either. Biblical serials, movies etc are completely mainstream, albeit with full artistic freedom and willingness to experiment and play with them as desired. In addition, certain epics (the Iliad and the Odyssey foremost among them) are considered foundational elements of Western culture and no one (outside the tiny wokesphere) would think twice about making a serial about them or admiring them in any shape or form. But in India there is a strong (perhaps no longer dominant, but still, prominent) constituency that can and does reject both Hindu religious themes and specifically, TV serials based on the two greatest Indian epics. It seems that the objection to these serials is NOT based on any notion of the presentation of these serials themselves being excessively “right wing” in some way. I don’t recall seeing any pieces that analyze the serials and notes how their portrayal of these well known epics was especially slanted or propagandistic. In fact, one of the two (Mahabharat) had a Muslim Bollywood screenplay writer (Rahi Masoom Raza) writing the serial and both serials are sometimes the target of actual Right wing complaints that they were too “secular” (“secular” has some idiosyncratic and peculiar meaning in Right wing Indian discourse, but more on that some other day). Just the fact that the serials were based on Hindu themes and became wildly popular seems to be the complaint.

My own view now is that even as a liberal/leftist, this is overkill. More to the point, it is not a realistic option. There is no such thing as “Hinduism-mukt” Bharat on the horizon; a small elite may have imagined this was actually possible in a weak sense (ie they did not imagine an India without H induism, but imagined one where traditional Hinduism is mostly an embarrassment and a modern “Leftist” Hinduism takes its place). And perhaps a subset of leftist Christians or Muslims also felt the tug of  “improving” the religious character of the country by getting rid of “superstitious, casteist” Hinduism and replacing it with more modern religions. Whatever the case, this whole discussion is somewhat unique. Leftists (and modernist liberals) look down on (and actively criticize) traditional religion in almost all countries, so this is obviously a matter of degree, not of kind..but it is an interesting extreme nonetheless. On general principles, I would consider it an unrealistic dream.

I am wondering how this will evolve in the future? Share your thoughts in comments.

Incidentally the original serials were made in long ago times, with very limited technology. The production values are quite primitive by today’s standards and in fact (as someone commented on twitter), the entire look and the acting style is lifted straight from “nautanki” (folk theater) and doesnt work as well on TV. The standard for mythological movies is now “Bahubali“, not the 1980s TV serial, so it remains to be seen if the new generation will take to it as avidly as the 1980s audience did (the new generation also has MANY more entertainment options). Still, in a lockdown, and given the theme, it may be a hit again. We shall see.

I will also take the opportunity to plug my favorite version: Peter Brooks film version of his theatrical production of the Mahabharata. The full version is availabe for free on youtube. It takes occasional liberties with the classical text, but it is artistically VERY well done, worth watching.

An example of more contemporary production values:

I’m really glad to know that the Greeks (read white people) were responsible for the Ramayan. That’s a huge weight off my mind.

The author apologised in the following tweets but I’m posting it that we may remember. There is a very subtle historical bias that constantly pumps up the Greco-Romans at the expense of other civilisations. It’s a way to justify not only colonialism and a linkage that there has always been something exceptional (and outward looking) about Western Civ.

• Historical Proof that Lord Shiva Resides in Kailash
• The mystery and secret of Mount Kailash
• Does fear of Lord Shiva residing on Mount Kailash
• Valmiki Ramayana Kishkindha Kanda [Book IV] Sarga XLIII
• Afghanistan’s History
• Ancient Egyptian Arya and Greek history part 2

Is the famous Mount Soma another name for Mount Narodnaya? I don’t know. Many have been trying to identify the famous Mountain Soma–which appears in so much of ancient Arya literature and is one of the most important sources of Arya culture. Mount Soma is in Uttara Kuru. Soma, also called Chandra, is synonymous with the moon. Which means that the moon, and Monday (Moon Day or Selene Day or Luna Day), are very closely connected with this mountain. The famous Chandra vamsha or Soma vamsha (or Jati of Moon and Monday) originates from Mount Soma.

Long ago the seventh Manu (Vaivasvata Manu or progenitor of hominids) had a son called Ishvaku, father of the Surya Vamsha (or Jati). For tens of thousands of years hominids came from the Ishvaku dynasty, including during the time of the Ramayana. Then, based on my interpretation of the texts, tens of thousands of years later a new hominid came called Illa. Illa, another daughter of Vaivasvatu Manu, lived for many, many generations of normal humans (which suggests that she is a different species, or alien, or had some type of advanced medical technology to avoid aging, or was born multiple times the way the Dalai Lama is.) She was a great proponent and practitioner of daily gender fluidity, changing gender hundreds of times. At times she was androgynous with no gender or parts of both genders. There are many Ardhanarishvara class beings in the east. In fact the goal of spiritual practice in the eastern philosophy is to transform ourselves into an Ardhanarishvara. To be a perfect man and perfect woman at once. Eventually transcending all philosophies, all genders,  all concepts, all forms and all qualities.

This gender fluid Illa is the progenitor of the Chandra Vamsha. She married Budha (Mercury or Hermes or Woden [Odin]), and had a son called Pururavas. Budha is a personification of the planet Mercury and Wednesday (day of the week). In the eastern system Mercury is the de facto son of the Moon and the de jure son of Jupitor (Zeus or Thor). The legal consort of Jupitor (Brihaspati), mother of Mercury (Budha) and combination Guru/mentor/friend/lover of the Moon is Tara.

Illa had many children, both as a mother, father and androgynous being. Her son Pururavas was also from Mount Soma (associated with the Moon). He married the Apsara (or different branch of hominid or non hominid or alien) Urvaśi. As an aside Illa answered some of the most asked questions of all time:

1. Is it better to be a man or a woman?
2. Who enjoys life better?
3. Who enjoys reproduction more?

For readers slow on the uptick, the obvious answer to these much asked questions is very simple . . . woman. This is yet another reason woman are considered far superior to men in the east. [Krishna said that woman have seven divine qualities versus men having only three divine qualities.]

Let me posit a hypothesis for consideration and testing. Might the Surya Vamsha be an allegorical reference to the south east Asian branch of humans from 50,000 to 75,000? Might Chandra Vamsha be a reference to the the Iranian or Turan farmer from around 9,000 years ago? How can these hypothesis be tested?

What is Mount Soma, which along with Mount Kailash is central to Eastern and Arya philosophy? Other than Mount Narodnaya what other tall mountains west or north of South Asia could it be? Note that Sugreeva says not to go north of Mount Soma. Could this be because of the northern Polar ice cap? Are the areas north of Mount Soma a reference to Aurora Borealis?

“On passing beyond that mountain in Uttara Kuru, there is a treasure trove of waters, namely vast of Northern Ocean, in the mid of which there is gigantic golden mountain named Mt. Soma. Those who have gone to the sphere of Indra, and those who have gone to the sphere of Brahma can clearly see that lordly Mt. Soma, situated in the vast of ocean from the vast of heavens. Even though that place is sunless it is comprehensible as if with sunshine, since it is illuminated with the resplendence of Mt. Soma itself, which will be irradiating that place as if with the resplendence of the Sun. The God and Cosmic-Souled Vishnu and Shambhu or Shiva, an embodiment of eleven selfsame Souls, called ekaadasha rudra-s , and the god of gods Brahma who is surrounded by Brahma-Sages, will be sojourning on that Mt. Soma.”

This suggests that Mount Soma is also a reference to deep personal mystical experience. Note that the eleven Rudras are a reference to Shiva. In the ancient Vedic Samhitas 33 gods are repeatedly referenced [12 Adityas + 8 Vasus + 11 Rudras + two others]. This has many layers of meaning which can only be understood through deep meditation. One layer of meaning is 33 sections of the spine. From a certain perspective the 33 Gods are when someone enters Samyama or Samadhi with respect to 33 different parts of the nervous system. This might also be linked to a common theory among  neuroscientists that the human brain has 33 senses instead of 5 senses. Mount Soma is linked to Monday, the Moon, and the 8 Vasus (one of which is the moon). 

To summarize, traditional Arya thought posits that Mount Soma and Mount Kailash are two of the most important mountains in the world because:

• They are closely linked to scientific properties of the earth
• They are closely linked to objects in the Solar system, other stars, other galaxies via:
  • the 8 Vasus
    • including Dyeus {also called Zeus also called Akasha} the Nakshatras, Moon [Soma], five elements, Sun [Aditya],
  • 12 Adityas {including the Sun}
  • 11 Rudras
  • 2 others (one of which is Prajapati)
• They are closely linked to parts of the brain and nervous system
  • They are linked to mystical meditative spiritual experience
    • It is my view that meditation simulates the effect of brain electro therapy [which Dr. Richard Haier thinks can significantly affect IQ, mental health and cognitive functioning]

• They are closely linked to sounds [including the sound of their names]
  • They are linked to the effect of said sound on the brain and nervous system
    • This is similar to the research of neuroscientists on brain sound therapy to boost IQ, improve mental health and otherwise effect the brain and nervous system
• They are closely related to the sounds of poetry associated with them [poems about them] [the “feel” of words and sequences of words as experienced by a meditator observer or the brain is different]
  • They are closely related to narrative stories about them
    • They are related to the allegories of said stories
• They are closely related to musical ragas or sequences of melodies
• They are related to certain endorphins produced by the human body which are similar to ausadhi or chemicals that produce psychedelic type experiences.

And believe me, this is a deep oversimplification. I voraciously consumed eastern poetry [almost all ancient Arya literature is art, poetry and music, including question and answer dialogue] as a child and found all these levels of meaning frustrating at times. Why couldn’t it be more straightforward and easier to understand?

Let me end with some videos on the importance of Kailash for Arya peoples (Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Bon). The Bon [who I consider to be part of Sanathana Dharma . . . they also value the Swastika symbol] believe that their founder Shenrab came to earth on Mount Kailash. Sadhguru believes that Shiva visited Mount Kailash 15,000 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hikmVx6Ce_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIx8Sb30jBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhHQT0HYWq0

Note that the Tibetan Shiva artifact is carbon dated from 28,000 years ago. [It would be nice if this could be verified with a second carbon dating test.]

To some extent, this is a religiously fraught topic. People from Abrahamic backgrounds are wont to dismiss Dharmic tradition as pagan, heathen, and yes, mythological. In many Abrahamic traditions pagan gods, a class into which Hindu deities are often bracketed, are emanations of true supernatural powers, but demonic ones. In the West, this tendency within Christianity has been pushed to the background. But it still exists in more conservative denominations and traditions.

Therefore, those who adhere to false and marginal religions have “myths.” Those who adhere to true and cultural dominant religions have “stories” or “narratives.” That is the cultural context which we must admit. Even in places where non-Abrahamic religions or traditions are dominant, the past few centuries of European cultural and imperial hegemony have imposed certain interpretive frameworks which are Abrahamic.

And yet that being said, as someone who believes all religious supernatural claims come from the realm of our minds, as opposed to reality, there is a qualitative difference between Jesus, Muhammad, and Ram and Krishna. If Ram and Krishna did exist, they are individuals who lived in “prehistory.” That is, from a period not accessible to us even at some remove through non-religious text. In this way, they are like Abraham or Zoroaster. In contrast, the Buddha, Confucius, Mahavira, and various figures in Hebrew legend and myth such as David, Solomon, and Jeremiah are liminal figures. The world in which they lived was stepping out of prehistory and archaeology, and into the written word, but it was not a fully-fleshed world.

Finally, you have the prophets and religious leaders who are “of history.” Jesus, along with Muhammed and Mani are generally agreed to be figures of history. But we don’t have contemporaneous records of their lives outside of religious traditions, and even in that case only from texts dated to later periods from when they flourished. This means that the context and the details of who these figures were may not align with what current religious tradition suggests and argues for their significance (though since Manichaeanism is dead as a living religion that is a separate case).

A common revisionist case for the nature of the “historical Jesus,” is that he was a Jewish reformer in the tradition of Rabbi Hillel. The emergence of a religion of universal salvation, as opposed to a different form of Judaism, was a process which then developed in the generations after the death of the historical Jesus, the Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef. Roman Christianity as a sect cannot be understood without appreciating its birth in an Empire where syncretistic “mystery cults” were revolutionizing popular religious life (e.g., Mithraism). The elite Roman Christianity of the 3th to 6th centuries cannot be understood without the cultural priors brought to the religion by converts from aristocratic or educated backgrounds steeped in Greek philosophy (e.g., Origen, Athanasius, and in the West Augustine).

In short, a person around whom the legend and myth of Jesus grew almost certainly existed. But the Jesus of myth is to a great extent the creation of a Christianity which developed long after he died.*

Much the same can be said of Islam. A certain legend exists of Muhammad the warlord within Islamic traditions. But outside of these records, in the contemporaneous ones of the Byzantines, he is not noted (little remains of the records of the Persians and Ethiopians). This would not be surprising, because outside of modern Yemen, and the liminal zones of the Levant and the fringe of the desert on the western shore of the Euphrates, Arabia was of little consequence. So long as the spice flowed (e.g., frankincense), the goings on of the Arabs were not of note unless they impinged upon the civilized world.

And yet that did happen indeed, with the defeat of the Byzantines at Yarmouk and the Persians at al-Qādisiyyah. But as highlighted by revisionist scholars, the Byzantines took many decades to perceive in the Arab armies as anything but heretics and schismatics. This is also echoed in some ways in particular Islamic traditions which emphasize the relative impiety of the Umayyad Caliphate, denigrated in some sources as the “Arab Kingdom” due to its ethnocentric nature.

Compared to the later Abbasid period we don’t know much about the Umayyads. Part of the reason is that the winners write the histories, and the Abbasids won. In Hugh Kennedy’s The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, he argues that Muawiyah was clearly a far more influential and important figure in Islamic history than one might think from the attention he receives from classical scholars and thinkers. But that’s because the Shia detest him, while the Abbasids and the Sunni Islam which evolved under their aegis minimized him.

But there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that compared to the Abbasids the Umayyads were very much a skeletal barracks-state where Arabs imposed an ethnic dominion, rather than a religious one. Even in the Islamic histories, there are attestations of Christian Arab tribes who were exempt from the jizya tax, while mawlā individuals of Persian origin were subject to the same indignities of non-Muslim Persians.

In fact, archaeological evidence shows that Umayyads in Syria patronized the creation of mosaics which continued the Late Antique Hellenic visual tradition, depicting both humans and animals. And, Greek was the administrative language of the Umayyads for the first few generations. The last of the Church Fathers, John of Damascus, was a Greek-speaker of Syrian background who served as a civil official under the Umayyads in the years around 700 A.D.  In contrast, the elite Barmakid family which was so prominent under the early Abbasids were of Buddhist background, but had to convert to Islam to become part of administrative apparatus which was becoming distinctively Muslim by this period.

All this is to set up the contention that Islam as we understand it, just like Christianity as we understand it, may actually not be the product of the first few decades of its flourishing as commonly understood, but of a later period when certain orthodoxies were understood and internalized, and grand narratives were later retroactively imposed. This aligns with the arguments in Lost Enlightenment and Warriors of the Cloisters that Islam, as we understand it today, was fundamentally shaped by the shift to the east initiated by the early Abbasids.

Which brings me to Mormonism, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Unlike Jesus or Muhammad, there is no great debate about the details about the life of the Joseph Smith, the prophet of the religion that became Mormonism. Smith was born in Greater New England, and the Mormon church emerged as a sect in the Restorationist Protestant tradition. Its cultural context was among the Yankees of the American North. Smith’s family had been involved in radical Christianity, in particular, the Universalist Church.

Over the decades of Smith’s life as leader of the church, and later after his death, his sect became a new religion, fundamentally different from the Protestant milieu in which it emerged. Mormon religion early on took a jaundiced view of Nicene Christianity, holding to the Restorationist perspective that all other Christian churches were fallen and corrupt. But Mormonism deviated by innovating and transforming its theology, away from the dominant orthodoxy as articulated by early thinkers such as Bishop Irenaeus.

Due to secret revelations late in Joseph Smith’s life, Mormon leaders developed a Christology which was fundamentally different from that of other Christian traditions. Rejecting Trinitarianism and much of Greek metaphysics, Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was God the Heavenly Father’s bodily son, with Lucifer being his rebellious brother. Additionally, God the Heavenly Father has a Heavenly Mother, who is his wife. Father and Mother live on a planet in this universe in physical bodies.

There is much more which is exotic and strange to non-Mormons, whether Christian or not, in their theology. But, because Mormonism has existed in the light of history non-Mormons can look upon its claims with a much more critical eye. It is obvious, to many, that early Mormonism was just another Restorationist Christian church. Why did Mormonism deviate so far from mainstream American Christianity in its beliefs and practices?

It is important to remember that Mormonism is simply the westernmost and most successful offshoot of Joseph Smith’s religion. The Community of Christ, previously known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, remained located in Missouri when most of the community migrated west. Under the leadership of the descendants of Joseph Smith, the midwestern Mormons eventually merged back into the mainstream of liberal Protestant Christianity. Why?

I suspect one of the reasons that this occurred is simply the fact that the western Mormons became a very distinct ethno-cultural community, geographically separated from other Americans. In contrast, the Midwestern Mormons remained just another church among churches, albeit with a peculiar origin. And, like many “independent churches” in Africa founded in the 20th century, as it matured and stabilized, it slowly moves back into the mainstream of the dominant tendency of American Protestantism (with a few doctrinal quirks).

Since I began talking about Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions, to Hinduism we come back. A lot of the discussion online (and on this weblog) is difficult to follow because there is Hinduism, and then there is Hinduism. Hinduism as the religion of the people of India is an old concept, and a generic one. But elite philosophical schools of Hinduism, such as Advaita Vedanta, crystallized much later, even down into the period when Muslims began to first make incursions into India.

I have alluded to here to the book The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. The focus on Greeks and Indians is due to the fact that aside from the Chinese these were the two ancient cultures which developed a fully elaborated philosophy that we in the modern world would understand, from metaphysics to ethics (Jewish and Persian philosophy in a distinctive sense tended toward religion).

Though they exhibited different biases and emphases, but it is clear that the Greeks saw in Indian “gymnosophists” kindred souls. The great Neoplatonist, Plotinus, reputedly inquired into the nature of Indian philosophy through meetings with scholars in Persia according to his classical biographers. The correspondence between Advaita Vedanta and Neoplatonism is rather clear, and probably due to a common set of monistic ideas which were in currency across the trading network between Alexandria and southern India, as well as through Persia, which spanned the edge of Roman Syria and into modern Pakistan, as well as ruling substantial Buddhist domains in Turan.

One of the generalizations often made about the development of Hinduism in the subcontinent over the past 1,000 years is that it is as if Islam did not even exist. That is, the indigenous religious traditions persisted and maintained themselves at such a remove that their evolutionary development was unperturbed by the exogenous cultural intrusion.

Crossing the Threshold: Understanding Religious Identities in South Asia, presents the argument that both Muslims and Hindus exhibited much more religious fluidity until the past few centuries. This is often argued in the context of peasant folk religion, where this is obviously true. But the author makes the case that groups like Hussaini Brahmins were much more numerous in earlier periods, especially before the emergence of a later Mughal orthodoxy under the aegis of Naqshbandi Sufis. Not only did this mean the forced conversion of many Ismailis to Sunni Islam, but also the shift of some liminal groups away from Islam and toward adherence to a Sanskritized Hindu identity. The reason for this is obvious: heretical or ghulat sects of Islam are viewed far more negatively by Sunni enforces of orthodoxy than Hindus, who were outside of the pale of Islamic writ in any case. This is analogous to the early decades of the Christian Roman Empire, when persecutions were directed primarily to heretical sects, rather than the pagan majority, which was neglected.

As must be clear by this point: Christians, Muslims, and though I have not addressed it, Jews, seem to have “cleaned” up their history.** In fact, one might even say they “retconned” their history so that present beliefs naturally lead from ancient beliefs, even though that is hard to see logically and empirically quite often where the ancient leads to the modern (e.g., reading the Synoptic Gospels, and then the Athanasian Creed, is confusing without any historical context).  I believe that many modernist Hindus, living in a world of explicit and demarcated confessions, and formal beliefs and portable and digestible holy texts, have attempted to do something similar.

First, Hinduism becomes a religion of deep antiquity, despite its historical development over the past 2,000 years. Just as modern Muslims, Jews, and Christians look to the legendary Abraham, who lived 4,000 years ago, outside of the gaze of history, so modern Hindus look to the mythos of Ram, Krishna, and the Vedas, and built their house upon those rocks. This, despite the detachment of multitudinous folk Hinduisms from this ancient foundation, as well as the relatively tenuous connections of highly intellectualized philosophical Hinduism to the concrete and corporeal character of the early Vedas (Vedas venerated by vegetarian “Hindu fundamentalists” which clearly depict vigorous beef-eating warriors!).

Second, the localized diversity of Hinduism becomes flattened in an atomized world characterized by anomie. Just as ‘traditional’ Javanese Hinduism tends to flourish in the village, but not in the urban centers, so ‘traditional’ Hinduism of locality is not portable or plausible in the great fleshpots of modern India. Urban Hindus need something that gives them religious succor and is also in keeping with their understanding of their traditional origins. Something that is not a rupture from the past, but an extension and evolution. A “perfection” as Christians would say of Judaism and Salafi Muslims of traditional Islam.

Just as urban Indonesian Muslims who shift from abangan Islam to a more “orthodox” world-normative santri Islam view themselves as reclaiming a more pure and primal Islam, so it strikes me that modern Indians who adhere to a “Vedic religion,” stripped of locality and universalized and extended, create a mythos and narrative of reclamation, not innovation.

Over the 21st century, India will urbanize, and the villages will fade away in memory and with time. It is plausible that as this occurs modern urban Hinduism will produce a relatively standardized, and yes, deracinated, a spirituality which is more amenable to a people who move from one end of the country to another, as their professions take them on peregrinations over their lifetime.

To some extent the Abrahamic religions, and Buddhism, have already been through this. Torn away from a specific soil that nurtures them in a distinct local culture, these religious traditions have developed portable variants, which eventually become normative, uniting disparate peoples with distinct folkways. As India becomes its own world, and different cultures within it synthesize and merge, a need will develop for a more portable and flexible Hinduism. Both secular Hinduism and Hindu fundamentalism are faces of this transition, and both are likely the seeds of sectarian traditions which will wax and elaborate over the coming decades.

* Reading the Gospels, this is most clear in the writings of “John.” A grand and conceited figure, in contrast with the modest Jewish prophet of Mark.

** Orthodox Judaism as we understand really congealed in the 6th century with the Babylonian Talmud. Therefore, I argue it is a sister religion to Christianity, with both deriving from sects of Classical Judaism. Some scholars have in fact argued that Christianity is an extreme derivative of a form of Hellenistic Judaism!