[Assam] Guru Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development - Beyond discussions
Barua25
barua25 at hotmail.com
Wed Oct 25 21:29:45 PDT 2006
Umesh:
I congratulate in your endeavor. This may give you an opportunity to acquaint yourself with the Hindu scriptures. But remember the saying, 'the devil is in the details'.One way to simplify your job is by process of elimination. I would suggest you find one single Hindu scriptures out of the myriads and try to establish the historicity. That will serve a solid purpose instead of speaking in generality. Or if you find any book which has established such historicity please let me know.
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: Barua25 ; umesh.sh05 at post.harvard.edu ; assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development - Beyond discussions
Rajen-da,
I just sawthe museum's exhibit this weekend and so takingme time to make comparisons. One thing which struck me was that even in Christianity most priests and missionaries relied on oral tradition to transmit the tales and teachings over centuries since books or even paper was nearly non-existent at the time of Christ. some used wooden boards and leafs to write on (like Indians).
Thus, the Hindu scriptures tell tales of much earlier period -so there were hardly any written material of that period .
Books developed much later -and hence Bible (which is a collection of books) and Hindu scriptures etc were gathered fromdifferent sources and much recently declared and true and officially accepted copies.
Hindu scriptures are much bigger - in more detail so cannot be compiled in a single book - unlike Christian and muslim or Jewish scriptures which are concise enough to put placed in a single book form.
Umesh
Barua25 <barua25 at hotmail.com> wrote:
Do you then have a comarable collection of scripture book in Hinduism?
Rajen da
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: Barua25 ; assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development - Beyond discussions
Bible is also a collection of hundreds of scriptures.
Umesh
Barua25 <barua25 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>Why I had gone to the museum was to see why Bible is considered real and Hindu scriptures are considered myths. After the trip they both seem to have evolved the >same way ---collections of (real) stories from many story-tellers.
Umesh:
First, you are trying to compare the historicity of the Bible, the Book, against the historicity of the Hindu scriptures. But before you do that, I think you need to narrow your focus on a particular Hindu scripture as there are literally hundreds of Hindu scriptures and all of them are not supposed to be historical, some are purely philosophical. In my opinion what makes Bible the unique is that there are some records of writing which one can put a date scientifically. Question is does any Hindu scripture have any such records of writing that one can put a date? Historicity is determined by how many people actually recorded the event after it happened. Say in case of Rama, do we have any other record of writing other than that of Valmiki? Or do we find the same story in any other recording other than the Ramayana? You must be very objective in your research. Overall I think it will be a good excercise. Please keep us in the loop.
>PS: There is more to religion than book reading --anyone can become a scholar---was Jesus a scholar -or was Krishan one or was Guru Nanak one or same for Prophet >Muhammad.
According to Bertrand Russell, religion has not served any purpose in the world. According to me, it has at least served one purpose; it has contributed to the invention of writing and to the spread of language. So be careful, if you try to take away the reading books from reliogion, you will be left with nothing as Russel says.
Rajen-da.
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: Barua25 ; assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 3:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Guru Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development - Beyond discussions
Rajen-da,
I was trying to bring out some good things about Christian faith --not denounce some negatives about Hindu faith. However, since you raise the issue I may point out that NO religion allows women priests --even now. No Pope or Shankaracharya or Imam or Chief Rabbi is a woman . No non-white guy has ever become a Pope just as no non-Brahmin has ever beome a Shankaracharya.
Why I had gone to the museum was to see why Bible is considered real and Hindu scriptures are considered myths. After the trip they both seem to have evolved the same way ---collections of (real) stories from many story-tellers.
Umesh
PS: There is more to religion than book reading --anyone can become a scholar---was Jesus a scholar -or was Krishan one or was Guru Nanak one or same for Prophet Muhammad.
Barua25 <barua25 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>HINDUS: Indians --Hindus esp were content in letting reading of scrptures be the game of a small coterie -- the so-called brahmin priests.... hence there was no thrust in >promoting faith by educating followers to become literate so that they can read scriptures.
This is correct, In fact the Hindus were trying to keep the religion of the Vedas very much secret from the public. Thus there was no incentive to evolve a writing method to record the Vedas which was handed over orally for many centuries. Even when writing was evolved, at the inspiration of the Buddhist, this written knowledge of the Vedas was kept as much secret as possible. First the Sudras and women were barred from raeding of the Vedas.
Against this Hindu conservativenessm the Christians as well as the Buddhists attitude was to propogate the Dharma to as many people as possible. Buddha's decree, like that of Jesus, was:"Go and tell the people about the Dharma". Along with Buddhism, and the Indian epic story Ramayana, the local languages were developed in many countries besides India. The Vedas on the other hand are still being recited in Sanskrit.
Rajen Barua
----- Original Message -----
From: umesh sharma
To: assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 9:16 PM
Subject: [Assam] Guru Granth.....casteism vs Bible, literacy & IndustrialRevolution; development - Beyond discussions
Hi,
Today went to see the exhibit - first of its kind --very long queue to enter--how the Bible (Christian religious book) evolved over the first 1000 years of the religion's origin.
http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/IntheBeginning.htm
How from the time of Dead Sea Scrolls (rolled paper) the book evolved into a modern style book form (evolving book technology) ...and how in the process of its propagation the missionaries even created alphabets (like for Armenian and Georgian) and helped define what books are today. Ofcourse, over time many new additions were there and some like one refering to Jesus as a teacher (Edgerton's book ?) were declared heresies.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:
Their preoccupation with the written word in book form as the most potent means of religious expansion (from onwards 5th century into Britain ..etc) perhaps helped build the western preoccupation with books and learning ---since all were expected to familiarize themselves with the text. Ofcourse it was mostly the priests who did the reading and preaching but since they could be from any class or tribe --ALL th society was energized towards book reading, literacy and education-----resulting in knowledge gathering and knowledge production later on----Industrial revolution since 1600s.
HINDUS: Indians --Hindus esp were content in letting reading of scrptures be the game of a small coterie -- the so-called brahmin priests.... hence there was no thrust in promoting faith by educating followers to become literate so that they can read scriptures.
Muslims had in later days become content with reading Arabic only --instead of translating the Quoran in other languages --so limited literacy.
LITERACY:
Literacy provides religious communication and cohesion as well -and perhaps thats whay Hindus are largely disconnected. They cannot communicate with each other --most are functionally illiterate. (So are most muslims in South Asia atleast.)
GURU & the teacher:
Yesterday I was invited by a student to go to th Sikh Gurudwara to celebrate Diwali. My Malayalee landlord went along -his first . He asked whom do Sikhs worship? Do they worship Krishna, Ram etc? I said they worship the book --the Guru Granth (book) --which is their Guru . The God they worship is the formless God (of the Yogis, Gnostics, Buddhists etc). Surprisingly, I later realized it was the first time I was in presence of the Guru - while my student was in the room. A teacher in front of the Guru!!
Sikhs have a different reason for Diwali celebration -- you know why?
Umesh
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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