Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity) by BS Murthy (epub read online books .TXT) 📖

fruit from the Tree of Conscience – for its fruit will open your eyes to make you aware of right and wrong, good and bad. If you eat its fruit, you will be doomed to die.”

And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.” So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever he called them, that was their name. But still there was no proper helper for the man. Then the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he had removed it, and made the rib into a woman, and brought her to the man.

“This is it!” Adam exclaimed. “She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is “woman” because she was taken out of a man.” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife in such a way that the two become one person. Now although the man and his wife were both naked, neither of them was embarrassed or ashamed.”

What doth the Quran aver: “He hath created man from a drop of fluid” (v4, s.16) and “And the cattle hath He created, whence ye have warm clothing and use, and whereof ye eat” (v.5, S.16). It is another matter that Muhammad would have us believe that the first revelation to him read, “In the name of thy Lord Who createth. Createth man from a clot.”

While the stress on religious belief led the Semitic people to take the Lord God’s word without demur, the Brahman inquisitiveness went on to explore the relation between the self (ātma) and the god (paramātma), besides the nature of the soul and its probable immortality. It is this essential feature of Brahmanical enquiry that was possibly carried on for centuries, which culminated in the Vedanta. However, in the end, the quintessence of the Upanishadic wisdom got crystallized in the Bhagvad-Gita, which William von Humboldt described as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue.’ What is more, Humboldt’s admiration for the Gita was such that in praise of it he is said to have written seven hundred verses, equaling its numbers.

What is it that makes the Gita so unique and fascinating to the Hindus and other seekers alike?

To start with, it is the setting: the battlefield of Kurukshetra where were assembled the armies of Paandavās and Kauravās, the estranged cousins, and the dilemma faced by Arjuna, the warrior–in- Chief of the former, about the propriety and usefulness of the fratricide that war ensues. Could the spiritual and temporal conflict in human existence go any farther than that? And the highly sophisticated philosophical discourse that endued between Krishna, the supposed incarnation of Lord Vishnu, and Arjuna his alter ego, has a universal appeal to humanity at large, irrespective of the individual’s religious orientation and belief.

After all, the Gita is not a sermon of religious conditioning of man; it is a philosophical kit for his self-enlightenment. Apart from its peerless philosophy, the Gita postulates the presence of one Universal Spirit, nursing no sectarian interests on religious lines. And one might contrast this with the unabashed partiality of the Semitic God to His protagonists, which, if only we were to go by the Quran, was prone to shifts and turns as well.

It is this concept of a universal, though uninvolved, god, as can be seen from the following verses from the Gita, which sets Hinduism apart from the Abrahamic faiths that seek to appropriate ‘the God’ all for their dogma besides prejudicing their followers towards other faiths.

 

Doctrine of Faith

Chapter 12

 

6  
Whosoever hath faith in Me
And leans on Me heart ’n soul -   

7  
Him I help to cross over 
Ocean vast of births ’n deaths.

8  
If thou develop faith in Me  
Take for granted I take thee.

9  
Were thee to fail develop faith
It’s not thou reached blind alley, 
Ever Me having in thy mind
Practice lets thee turn the bend.

10  
If thou feel that’s hard as well 
Indulge then in deeds Me please.
11  
If thou find that difficult too 
Give thyself to Me Supreme 
Act then with thy subdued mind   
With no thought for what follows. 
12  
Scores thought over mere roting 
Betters meditation awareness too 
What helps man to find moorings
Are acts his with no axe to grind. 

 

This is about the famed Hindu religious tolerance, and now for a sample of its philosophical sparkle in Lord Krishna’s postulations. 

 

All about Life

Chapter 2

13

Wise all realize

Embodies selfsame spirit all one

From birth to death, in every birth.

17

Spirit in lay us All-Pervading

Given that not to destruction,

What sense doth it make to think

That ever immutable gets destroyed!

20

Unbound being ever unborn

Ageless since it’s endless too

Goes on Spirit, beyond life-span.

22

Change as men fade if clothes

So doth Spirit as frames are worn.

47

Hold as patent on thy work

Reckon though not on royalty

With no way to ceasing work

Never mind outcome but go on.

48

It’s but yoga

If thou strive

Wants without

Emotions bereft.

49

Work well greedy with motive

Work wise not with result in mind.

50

Wise not sentiment bring to work

That’s hallmark of art of work.

51

Freed from bonds with mind even

Act wise regardless ever composed.

52

Clears if reason one’s illusion

Bothers he not to what’s over

Or for what might lie in store.

61

Rein in senses, hone thine effort

Rely on Supreme, that’s true wisdom.

 

Theory of Action

Chapter 3

 

 

36

Thus spoke Arjuna:

Why should one with right intent

Stray ever on the wayward ways!

37

Thus spoke the Lord:

Well, it’s passion, lust ’n wrath

Drag that man on path painful.

38

Flame ’n mirror as shrouded

Without let by smoke ’n dust

As well embryo in the womb

Wisdom is by wants clouded.

39

Wise all tend to cap all wants

Which like fire all burn to core.

40

Veiled off wisdom sees not man

Mind and body steeped in wants.

41

Rein in matter with thy mind

Thus thou nip thy wants in bud.

 

Art of Renunciation

Chapter 5

 

 

2

Thus spoke the Lord:

Give up all ’n thou be freed

So is the case with selfless work

But know latter scores much better.

3

Wise neither want, nor they shun

Thus they give up ever engaged.

4

Way action ’n path learning

Know not ignorant not different.

5

Work highway ’n lane freedom

Know the learned are the same.

6

What thou forego if thee quit

Deeds selfless make acts forsake.

7

Such one realized

Self-willed, dutiful

Within self remains

Without ever engaged.

15

Takes not Supreme credit or fault

Grasp none have of this uncouth.

16

He that keeps his bias at bay

Sun-like he shines being wise

17

In clear conscience ’n fairness

Faith in Him gives man freedom.

In stark contrast to the scriptural exclusivity of the Abrahamic dispensations of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that ironically are mutually skeptical and hostile as well, thus runs the all-inclusive Hindu philosophical stream of the Gita.

And yet, as if to prove that the destiny of man is but to suffer in strife, either of religious bigotry or of racial prejudice, and/or both, the Brahmanism had abused the all-inclusive Hinduism by subjecting large sections of the Indian society to In-humanism.

The above verses are excerpted from the author’s free ebook, Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of self-help, sans 110 verses interpolated in the version in vogue.

 

Chapter 4

Ascent to Descent 

 

After their remarkable progress in spirituality and rationality, the Brahmans made an acknowledged advance in astronomy as well. The exposure to the mysteries of the universe that their astronomical pursuits afforded, insensibly led them to probe the vicissitudes of life and fathom the fate of man through the astrological vision. The fascination Brahmans felt for the charms of crystal gazing, in a way, put the wheel of the Brahmanic enlightenment in the reverse gear.

As the predictions about man’s future brought the predilections of his present to the fore, and as the acceptance of the former led to the remedial need for the latter, charlatanry became a corollary of the Hindu wisdom. Thus, the imperfect science of astrology and the perfect sense of exploitation together came to dictate the Brahman ethos, and in time, the Hindu social psyche, even to this day.

Besides, it was this Brahmanic propensity for things astrological that insensibly led to superstitious practices amongst the Hindus at large, giving a go by to the Upanishadic wisdom of yore and all that goes with that. It was thus, in an ironical twist of human destiny, the unmatched intellect of the Brahmans that contributed so much to the World Bank of Knowledge and Wisdom, at first deprived their fellowmen by denying them the scope to learn, and in the end, depraved themselves as well, caught as they were in the quagmire of prejudice and superstition.

But then, what were the Brahman intellectual achievements that became legends in the annals of human learning! To start with, we have the astronomical reach of the Brahmans, depicted in his ‘Indica’ by Alberuni, written around 1,030 A.D. It may be noted that for this exercise in dissection, the implements are drawn from Alberuni’s cabinet of Indica, presented in English by Dr. Edward C. Sachau, and published in India by Rupa &Co.

“The science of astronomy is the most famous among them, since the affairs of their religion are in various ways connected with it. If a man wants to gain the title of an astronomer, he must not only know scientific or mathematical astronomy, but also astrology. The book known among Muslims as Sindhind is called by them Siddhanta, i.e. straight, not crooked nor changing. By this name they call every standard book on astronomy, even such books as, according to our opinion, do not come up to the mark of our so-called Zij, i.e. handbooks of mathematical astronomy. They have five Siddhantas:-

1. Surya-siddhanta, i.e. the Siddhanta of the sun, composed by Lata.

2. Vasishtha-Siddhanta, so called from one of the stars of the Great Bear, composed by Vishnuchandra.

3. Pulisa-Siddhanta, so called from Paulisa, the Greek, from the city of Saintra, which I suppose to be Alexandria, composed by Paulisa.

4. Romaka-Siddhanta, so called from the Rum, i.e. the subjects of the Roman Empire composed by Srishena.

5. Brahma-Siddhanta, so called from Brahman, composed by Brahmagupta, the son of Jishnu, from the town of Bhillamala between Multan and Anhilwara, 16 yojana from the latter place (?)”

The table of contents of the twenty-four chapters of the Brahma-Siddhanta listed by Alberuni indicates the extraordinary range of the Brahmanical pursuits.

1. On the nature of the globe and the figure of heaven and earth.

2. On the revolutions of the planets; on the calculation of time, i.e. how, to find the time for different longitudes and latitudes; how to find the mean places of the planets; how to find the sine of an arc

3. On the correction of the places of the planets.

4. On three problems: how to find the shadow, the bygone portion of the day and the ascendens, and how to derive one from the other.

5. On the planets becoming visible when they leave the rays of the Sun, and their becoming invisible when entering them.

6. On the first appearance of the moon, and about her two cusps.

7. On the lunar eclipse.

8. On the solar eclipse.

9. On the shadow of the moon.

10. On the meeting and conjunction of the planets.

11. On the latitudes of the planets.

12. A critical investigation for the purpose of distinguishing between correct and corrupt passages in the texts of astronomical treatises and handbooks.

13. On arithmetic: on plane measure and cognate subjects.

14. Scientific calculation of the mean places of the planets.

15. Scientific calculation of the correction of the places of the planets.

16. Scientific calculation of the three problems.

17. On the deflection of eclipses.

18. Scientific calculation of the appearance of the new moon and her two cusps.

19. On Kuttaka, i.e. the pounding of a thing. The pounding of oil producing substances is here compared with the most minute and detailed research. This chapter treats of algebra and related subjects, and besides it contains other valuable remarks of a more or less arithmetical nature.

20. On the shadow.

21. On the calculation of the measures of poetry and on metrics.

22. On cycles and instruments