THE 5000 YEARS OLD HINDUTVA FIXATION............ Our Foreign minister Sushama Swaraj recently attended a function celebrating the 5151st anniversary of the Bhagavad Gita. That dating belongs to Raving Loony Hindutva History, but the 5,000 year mark is commonly used to describe everything connected with Hindu culture. The Vedas? At least 5,000 years old. Ayurveda? 5,000 years old. Yoga, 5,000 years old, or a little more. Indian art? 5,000 years old. Mathematics, astronomy, grammar, you name it, it is all 5,000 years old. The 5,000-year figure plays into the hands of those who believe India once enjoyed a golden age before it was corrupted by, take your pick, the Kalyug, Muslim invaders, British imperialists, all of the above. ADD THE MACAULAYIAN LEFTIST SICKULAR TO THE LIST. In truth, almost nothing in India is 5,000 years old. The ruins of the Harappan civilisation come closest, but the artefacts that have survived, aside from a few pot shards, don’t date earlier than 2500 BC. The earliest literature we have was composed about 3,500 years ago, and there’s precious little art that’s datable to a period before 500 BC. India’s major mathematical achievements originated almost exclusively in the medieval era, while the asanas used in contemporary yoga have, in a majority of cases, an illustrated or descriptive history going back little over a century.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:42:32 +0000
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