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India's past Glory

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RVR

RVR

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rvr,

very very interesting thread. i would like to dispute the statement offright about india being the wealthiest country ever. prosperous? yes. but not uniformly. i think historically we had our inherited poor, the dispossed and the dalits, who hovered around 25% of the population.

during the time of the mughals and other islamic rulers, the hindus paid jizya as a rule. only rare was this forgiven. even in the time of gautama there was poverty and sickness.

ofcourse there were merchants who were rich. artisans who made jewellery, muslin and cotton, all of which were deliberately closed or destroyed by the british for their own ends resulting from the need for markets as a result of industrial revolution.

more later...
 
Sri Praveen,

I am not the author of this power point presentation and I just got it from one my relative.

I tried to load it directly in our website but it was not accepted due to larger size.

Please help me in loading the same in our website itself so that all our members can see this.

I have uploaded in powershow but it is appearing in small size and is difficult to read. I request our members to press the big screen button on the bottom right to make it full screen so that reading is easy.

All the best
 
Folks, this is a telling example of the exaggerated sense of non-existent past glory that I, and some others, have been talking about.

The whole presentation starts out with two blatantly and patently false claims.

Claim #1: "It is the only society in the world which has never known slavery"
Fact: The most revered of Dharmasahsthras, Manu Dharmashashtra, is replete with references to slavery. Some particularly telling verses are VIII. 412 - 417.
​
Claim #2: India never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history
Fact: India was never a unified country until after independence. India was made up of many smaller countries and they were at each others throats all along. Some sided with invading armies in the hope of wiping out their opponents. Leaving that aside, Chola Kingdom ventured out of the good old land of Bharatha, both by land and through the seas, on an expedition of conquest. Click here for details. The territories they invaded and conquered include present day Malaysia, Indonesia, not to mention Sri Lanka. Click here for a map.
​
This presentation looks and sounds like VHP propaganda. Too bad, these pesky facts come in the way of pumping up the dwindling self-esteem.

Cheers!
 
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Nara said:
Folks, this is a telling example of the exaggerated sense of non-existent past glory that I, and some others, have been talking about.

The whole presentation starts out with two blatantly and patently false claims.

Claim #1: "It is the only society in the world which has never known slavery"
Fact: The most revered of Dharmasahsthras, Manu Dharmashashtra, is replete with references to slavery. Some particularly telling verses are VIII. 412 - 417.
​
Claim #2: India never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history
Fact: India was never a unified country until after independence. India was made up of many smaller countries and they were at each others throats all along. Some sided with invading armies in the hope of wiping out their opponents. Leaving that aside, Chola Kingdom ventured out of the good old land of Bharatha, both by land and through the seas, on an expedition of conquest. Click here for details. The territories the invaded and conquered include present day Malaysia, Indonesia, not to mention Sri Lanka. Click here for a map.
​
This presentation looks and sounds like VHP propaganda. Too bad, these pesky facts come in the way of pumping up the dwindling self-esteem.

Cheers!
Click to expand...


I don't think it is a VHP propaganda since Jesus christ appears in the presentation. There are lot of information in the presentation and there may be some mistakes also. But looking at the whole, all Indians have to be proud of their past. Let us look the whole thing objectively without any prejudice.

All the best
 
This is one of the popular topics on the internet.

Most of us in India do not feel the necessity of proving known facts. But for Indians who are staying outside India, it is often necessary to talk about India's past greatness because of the abysmal ignorance of the average westerner about history.

"As Rich as the Inde". This is a famous and ancient quote. India has been known for its riches for thousands of years. It is Legendary.It is only because of India's riches that the European countries like Spain and Portugal were interested in finding a sea route to India. I do not think they ever send explorers to find a route to a poor and impoverished country. India was known for its trade with the Romans and others.

Though the Brahmins became famous later because of Hinduism, India's riches were brought in by the unremembered, forgotten traders. One of the not so well known fact is that India has the largest horde of Silver in the world in private hands. But in the thousands of years of India's history we have never had a Silver mine. We got it all through trade.

I can go on. But most of us know. But what is surprising is that there are many Indians who refuse to accept this.

The response to this topic is also typical. The often repeated argument about how the people were poor. Liberty, equality, fraternity came to be known only after the French revolution. Till then Kings ruled the world. Kings ruled in India till we became independent. Income distribution was an unthought and heretical idea. People have been hanged for expressing such sentiments.

In England even at the time when "The Sun never sets on the Empire" there was dire poverty. The poor, the criminal, and the downtrodden were shipped to the colonies. Especially to Australia.

As someone said in the fifties "India is a rich country, but the people are poor." Our GDP has always been more than the GDP of most of the European countries.

List of countries by GDP (nominal) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About Slavery. Yes there was slavery in India for thousands of years like the rest of the world. Also Indians were sold as slaves by the British in Mauratius, Fuji and West Indies. The Dutch sold Indian slaves in Surinam and other African countries. Slavery is mentioned in the Sasthras. Laws regarding slaves were laid down in Smiritis.

Again the response is typical. Why do we go into a Denial Mode whenever an unpalatable fact is mentioned.

There are many interesting facts about Sri lanka which the average Indian is not aware. But what is surprising is the ignorance of Tamilians. Sri Lanka was an ally of the Pandyas. Thus they came into conflict with the Cholas who were fighting the Pandiyans. The Tamilians were in Sri Lanka thusands of years before the invasion by the Cholas. And again it never became a part of the Chola kingdom.

Parakrama Bahu the greatest of the Sinhalese Kings built the Rameswaram temple. Rameswaram and Madurai also was for a brief period occupied by The Sinhalese soldiers who had come to the rescue of the Pandian kings.

The map of the Chola Kingdom in Wikipedia is wishful thinking of some Tamil historians.
 
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sankara_sharmah said:
"As Rich as the Inde". This is a famous and ancient quote. India has been known for its riches for thousands of years. It is Legendary.It is only because of India's riches that the European countries like Spain and Portugal were interested in finding a sea route to India. I do not think they ever send explorers to find a route to a poor and impoverished country. India was known for its trade with the Romans and others.
Click to expand...
We have been taught in school, and history books also support the view, that Vasco Da Gama and others explored the sea route, circling Africa, in order to have monopoly over the spice trade, more importantly, black pepper. Such a monopoly would have given the emerging kingdoms greater strength to dominate Europe, that was the reason. The hidden silver hoard in India (whoever has estimated it and on what basis, has not been spelt out by Shri Sharmah) and its other riches, if any, did not play any role, it would seem.
 
As I said earlier it is sad that some Indians do not want to accept that their country was rich. President Marcos of Philippines even sold pieces from the national museum to enrich himself. But the average Philippino was still proud of him. Proud of his country.

Indians are the only people who shout from rooftops that India is the most corrupt and worst country.

Indians have portrayed a poorer view of their country than any foreign observer. I have seen Indians arguing with foreigners on a visit to India about how bad India is. Even when the foreigner tries to portray a Good image, they contradict him.

This has been commented about in many articles.

Something to do with the Indian psyche.

This does not happen in the case of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They are proud of their countries.

I am not going to prove that India was and is a rich country. That is not my job. If some Indians want to believe the worst of their country, let it be. They are entitled to their beliefs.
 
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Greetings to all,

If India was a poor country, there was no need for the Muslims to invade and live in India for centuries together, Britishers conquered India and made Indians their slaves. We use our present scientifically corrupted nature as a yard stick to measure the dead people. The evidences of India's past glory is systematically ignored and destroyed. We are good at spoiling the evidences. May be a few generations later, people may view India as the poorest country and worst civilization in the world.
 
sankar, janam, rvr,

not sure what the purpose of this thread is. is it to beat our breasts at the thought of a virgin india bedecked with jewellery marauded by the muslims first and then the british?

india, since times immemorial, has always been on the receiving end of invasion. kanishka, harsha vardhana, and many many lines of emperors, were not born within what can be termed as akhand bharat of today ie india, pakistan & bangladesh.

invasions through the khyber & bolan passes continued till the seaborne invasions of the portuguese and other europeans.

all this in the north.

we of the south country busily spread our wings meanwhile to south east asia and this is something we all agree, i hope.

a country, which is strong armywise will deter invasion from abroad. to an extent, india is like europe in that, we have a billion folks who resemble each other racial wise, but have different languages and religions. united india is itself an anomaly - much like an united europe.

i cannot honestly say that the interests of tamil nadu, punjab or west bengal are identical. if these three happen to be stand alone sovereign states - punjab would look westwards trying to cement the bond with its erswhile western portion, bengal would look eastwards mending fences with bangladesh.

tamil nadu, would probably look towards a priority of relation with sri lanka and across the water towards malaysia & singapore.

each of our states have different orientations and avenues of interests. so to talk of a sitting duck india, at the mercy of invaders, does not take into consideration of the military might of the indian erstwhile ruling cliques or the norms of those times - ie to resolve all disputes, vagaries and covetuosness through the power of the sword.

after the 2nd world war, i thought, there would be no more dividing of countries of europe. surprise of surprise! the ussr folded as an entity and spurred the birth of 30 or so independent nation states from the northern tip of the baltic sea to the southern tip of the caspian sea.

will india break up in the future? i do not wish it. but if you look at some of the happenings of the country, especially the lawlessness instigated by the maoists, i begin to wonder. a violent maoist wrest of power, let us say, in chhatisgarh or orissa, would follow an equally violent and ruthless suppression by the indian army - a la kashmir or punjab. if a few more uprisings occur at the same time, what would be the net result? can't say. but worth giving some thought.
 
what a strange coincidence,pnly yesterday morning,someone elderly quppied to me,that India will disintegrate Like ussr.i just laughed at him becoz its a joke for me.nothing like that will ever happen instead Pakistan and Bangladesh,Afghanistan,Sri Lanka ..will be brought back as akhand bharath and money from oil sales will go up in smoke in just a decade.The middle east turmoil will be gigantic in the 20 years.
 
kunjuppu said:
...a country, which is strong armywise will deter invasion from abroad. to an extent, india is like europe in that, we have a billion folks who resemble each other racial wise, but have different languages and religions. united india is itself an anomaly - much like an united europe.
Click to expand...
Dear kunjuppu,

Many in India today will not accept the fact that there was no united, single Bharat till the Britishers colonized the whole country. Your statement is like anathema for them.

i cannot honestly say that the interests of tamil nadu, punjab or west bengal are identical. if these three happen to be stand alone sovereign states - punjab would look westwards trying to cement the bond with its erswhile western portion, bengal would look eastwards mending fences with bangladesh.

tamil nadu, would probably look towards a priority of relation with sri lanka and across the water towards malaysia & singapore.
Click to expand...
Hope you have knowledge of the current realities here. Punjab will definitely yearn for the undivided Punjab but not for the people on the other side of the border. On the contrary there are sizeable number of families (Muslims, of course) in Gujarat who still have marital alliances with people in Pakistan. For the Assamese in general, Bengali is a very hated enemy, while the Bodos of Assam cannot get along with Ahoms and others and so are clamouring for their independent Bodoland. Bengal will look to E. Bengal because our Bengalis have a strong attachment to Banga Bhasha but I am not sure the Bangladesis have any liking for their language speakers on this side of the border. Srilanka will not even like to look at T.Nadu. In Malaysia and Singapore also the Tamils are not liked by the other majority groups. So while T. Nadu may be free to look to these, no useful results will follow.

will india break up in the future? i do not wish it. but if you look at some of the happenings of the country, especially the lawlessness instigated by the maoists, i begin to wonder. a violent maoist wrest of power, let us say, in chhatisgarh or orissa, would follow an equally violent and ruthless suppression by the indian army - a la kashmir or punjab. if a few more uprisings occur at the same time, what would be the net result? can't say. but worth giving some thought.
Click to expand...
All available indications makes me guess that China and Pakistan have joined hands and have also roped in Srilanka and this trio,with the silent blessing of US and others, cause very great efforts at fragmentation to happen from within. How and whether GOI will be able to withstand these is not known.

Being a believer in astrology, I think by 2025 some significant events are likely to occur. If GOI continues to function in the present listless fashion, these events could happen earlier as well.
 
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nachi naga said:
what a strange coincidence,pnly yesterday morning,someone elderly quppied to me,that India will disintegrate Like ussr.i just laughed at him becoz its a joke for me.nothing like that will ever happen instead Pakistan and Bangladesh,Afghanistan,Sri Lanka ..will be brought back as akhand bharath and money from oil sales will go up in smoke in just a decade.The middle east turmoil will be gigantic in the 20 years.
Click to expand...

nachi i do not wish, for the breakup of india either. there is immense strength in our unity.

but as per my note, and per nara's note, there are fissiporous tendencies. one can either ignore these elephants in the room, or deal with them.

there is no use blindly saying that india will be united forever etc. etc. what we all need to do, is to address the issues of today and how these issues could be turned around to maximize the growth potential.

the maoists are estimated to control about 40% of land mass, all rural in the bimaru, orissa, chhatisgarh & west bengal, western mahrashtra, parts of kerala and increasingly southern tamil nadu. if we close our eyes, do these people go away? do the problems that cause these people to turn towards guns go away?

can we wish away kashimir insurgency? would we wish our own brother or son to die in kashmir? yet we are asking thousands of our troops and bsf personnel to do the same. can we stop an insurgency by brute force alone? how did the punjab insurgency was brought under control? could similar stuff be done in kashmir?

i think it is better to open our minds and eyes to the problems, and figure out solutions. to keep them taboo from discussing, may not be the best way of dealing with such.

hope this explains..
 
politicians are deliberately not doing enuff to solve matters.if thy do,what job will be there to make money and become trillionaires and sash it in swiss banks.so,within society first enemy for indians is poliitcians,spout one thing and go and do just the opposite.china will create chaos,as its the boss of asians.how else can their arms industry grow,so pakistan is ready customer.already pakistan is best customer of usa,now that india has given stiff competetion,so china is arms dealing.actually all 'un' 5 honchos are arms dealers,their inteligence units will create chaos,so that leaders ,langoti is seen by all.so,unless indians produce their own weapon systems,using iit dmit cit kite ttt inidans are sitting chicks not even ducks.
 
sankara_sharmah said:
....Indians are the only people who shout from rooftops that India is the most corrupt and worst country.

[..]

This does not happen in the case of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They are proud of their countries.
Click to expand...

Folks,

I don't know about Paksitan or Bangaladesh, but I find this desire for self-congratulation expressed often both in India and in the U.S., by the right-wing.

In the U.S. many right-wing opinion-makers and commentators demand all Americans to proclaim what is known as American Exceptionalism. When a reporter asked Obama whether he believed in this notion of American Exceptionalism, he replied, in part,
"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
​
This was woefully inadequate for the American right-wing. How dare Obama equate U.S. to the Brits and lo and behlod, Greeks of all nations? That too in foreign soil!!! Obama was severely criticized. Also, during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the lead up to the Iraqi war, any criticism of the U.S. administration was considered ipso facto subversive. To be sufficiently American, one had to tread the narrow line defined by the right-wing. If not, you are a terrorist sympathizer.

A similar trend can be seen among Indian right-wing as well. To be sufficiently proud of Indian heritage, every cockamamie claim of past glory must be accepted and trumpeted. If not, something wrong with your psyche. Calling out outright falsehoods like there was no slavery in India, or India did not invade a foreign country in 10,000 years, means you are not sufficiently proud of Indian past, and, you are putting down India.

Whether India was the wealthiest country in the past or not is a totally silly question, if you ask me. There is no doubt ancient Indian civilization was one of the greatest the world has seen. It has its own warts, as do all other civilizations.

Other civilizations also achieved great feats, the Greeks excelled in logic, politics, and philosophy, the Egyptians built the great pyramids with such accurate mathematical precision and knew the value of pi, the Chinese knew how to make paper, had developed advanced agricultural technology, etc.

Yes, our civilization was also great, it gave zero, place value based representation of numbers, great religions like both Vedic and non-Vedic, they even developed advanced treatise on Atheism. The contributions made by our civilization are great indeed, who can doubt that. But, as an informed citizen, we owe it to ourselves to develop a sober and accurate view of our past glory.

Whether it is Pakistan or Philippines, this "my country, right or wrong" attitude is what stops us from reaching reasonable solutions to a host of problems that plague nation states all around the world. A little less jingoism is a good thing for all of us.

Cheers!
 
kunjuppu said:
sankar, janam, rvr,

not sure what the purpose of this thread is. is it to beat our breasts at the thought of a virgin india bedecked with jewellery marauded by the muslims first and then the british?

india, since times immemorial, has always been on the receiving end of invasion. kanishka, harsha vardhana, and many many lines of emperors, were not born within what can be termed as akhand bharat of today ie india, pakistan & bangladesh.

invasions through the khyber & bolan passes continued till the seaborne invasions of the portuguese and other europeans.

all this in the north.

we of the south country busily spread our wings meanwhile to south east asia and this is something we all agree, i hope.

a country, which is strong armywise will deter invasion from abroad. to an extent, india is like europe in that, we have a billion folks who resemble each other racial wise, but have different languages and religions. united india is itself an anomaly - much like an united europe.

i cannot honestly say that the interests of tamil nadu, punjab or west bengal are identical. if these three happen to be stand alone sovereign states - punjab would look westwards trying to cement the bond with its erswhile western portion, bengal would look eastwards mending fences with bangladesh.

tamil nadu, would probably look towards a priority of relation with sri lanka and across the water towards malaysia & singapore.

each of our states have different orientations and avenues of interests. so to talk of a sitting duck india, at the mercy of invaders, does not take into consideration of the military might of the indian erstwhile ruling cliques or the norms of those times - ie to resolve all disputes, vagaries and covetuosness through the power of the sword.

after the 2nd world war, i thought, there would be no more dividing of countries of europe. surprise of surprise! the ussr folded as an entity and spurred the birth of 30 or so independent nation states from the northern tip of the baltic sea to the southern tip of the caspian sea.

will india break up in the future? i do not wish it. but if you look at some of the happenings of the country, especially the lawlessness instigated by the maoists, i begin to wonder. a violent maoist wrest of power, let us say, in chhatisgarh or orissa, would follow an equally violent and ruthless suppression by the indian army - a la kashmir or punjab. if a few more uprisings occur at the same time, what would be the net result? can't say. but worth giving some thought.
Click to expand...

I just got a ppt through email which I put it in our forum. Definitely we have a glorious past which is captured fairly accurately in the ppt . May be some of the claims are not correct but overall it is a good exercise.

Cholas were the only invaders in the past. They invaded Malaysia and Sumatra . There is a place called `கடாரம் கொண்டான் ' Kadaaram Kondan near Tiruvarur. கடாரம் kadaaram is refered as Malay in the Tamil Literature. After conquering Malay, the place is named as கடாரம் கொண்டான்.

However there is not much invasion by other Kings of India.


Bible says world is flat.

http://www.answering-christianity.com/earth_flat.htm

But Yosodha saw a round world in Lord Krishna's mouth.

Let some of our historians here correct the mistakes and put up a new ppt.

All the best
 
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RVR said:
I just got a ppt through email which I put it in our forum. Definitely we have a glorious past which is captured fairly accurately in the ppt . May be some of the claims are not correct but overall it is a good exercise.

Cholas were the only invaders in the past. They invaded Malaysia and Sumatra . There is a place called `கடாரம் கொண்டான் ' Kadaaram Kondan near Tiruvarur. கடாரம் kadaaram is refered as Malay in the Tamil Literature. After conquering Malay, the place is named as கடாரம் கொண்டான்.

However there is not much invasion by other Kings of India.

Let some of our historians here correct the mistakes and put up a new ppt.

All the best
Click to expand...

RVR. Please do go by the titles of the Kings. Often it was done by someone out to please the King. A poet in most cases. Sending an expeditionary force does not mean occupation or conquest. The Wikipedia map includes the Pala kingdom of Bengal. There is no mention of their having been conquered or paying tributes to Cholas. Yes. Yes. The Cholas did defeat the last Pala King in a battle.

The inscriptions found often gave an exaggerated account of the King's conquest. One of the problems of history. It has to be confirmed by other sources.

இமயவரம்பன் நெடுந்சேரலாதன் is again a misnomer. He led an expeditionary force which reached Bengal.

This is not a serious discussion about history.:o
 
RVR said:
I just got a ppt through email which I put it in our forum. Definitely we have a glorious past which is captured fairly accurately in the ppt . May be some of the claims are not correct but overall it is a good exercise.

Let some of our historians here correct the mistakes and put up a new ppt.
Click to expand...
I think the suggestion that our members with special knowledge of subjects may kindly let us know how much of the ppt is true and which is an exaggerated claim. I also will try to do my best.
 
I suggest everyone to buy and read this book called A Tribute to Hinduism published by the lady who runs this website Hindu Wisdom. It is available in India as well as on Amazon. It is a big fat book and makes you mighty proud as it contains quotes from a variety of Western Indologists over a period of time. Quotes in length about the glory of ancient India. I do agree that the Greeks, Egyptians and the Sumerians (not to forget Atlantis) were great civilizations in their own right. While Egypt was overrun by the Islamists and Greeks by the Romans, India still exists as one piece (thank god but only god will know for how long) in spite of foreign invasions. So let us celebrate the past while it lasts. :popcorn:
 
If we talk about the past, we cannot have any relationship with Britain.

They used force against our Freedom fighters, dumped British made factory goods and also taken away most of the resources from our country.

More than anything else, they divided our nation on religious lines and created Kashmir problem for perpetual enmity with Pakistan.

Britain Needs India | British Media | Britain PM Cameron - Oneindia News

Today Britain needs India more than the other way.

I wish our rulers develop friendship with Britain as well all other countries without affecting our national interest.

If we keep the past in mind, we cannot move forward.

Here in our forum also, some people go on digging the past and doesn't want us to move forward.

We want to help the oppressed classes to come up in life through better education, vocational training etc and are doing some concrete action at field level.

I wish all our community members to support the movement to help the deprived communities so that we can create right atmosphere now as well as future.

All the best
 
RVR said:
If we talk about the past, we cannot have any relationship with Britain.

They used force against our Freedom fighters, dumped British made factory goods and also taken away most of the resources from our country.

More than anything else, they divided our nation on religious lines and created Kashmir problem for perpetual enmity with Pakistan.

Britain Needs India | British Media | Britain PM Cameron - Oneindia News

Today Britain needs India more than the other way.

I wish our rulers develop friendship with Britain as well all other countries without affecting our national interest.

If we keep the past in mind, we cannot move forward.

Here in our forum also, some people go on digging the past and doesn't want us to move forward.

We want to help the oppressed classes to come up in life through better education, vocational training etc and are doing some concrete action at field level.

I wish all our community members to support the movement to help the deprived communities so that we can create right atmosphere now as well as future.

All the best
Click to expand...

Shri RVR,

I think there is something amiss in the way things are communicated or understood; both by the posters (that is me and other history buffs) as well as the reader (such as yourself).

Cud you please clarify why you think digging past means not "not wanting us to move forward" ?

And btw, am speaking of the present not the past in this: http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/genera...low-some-norms-ethics-forum-19.html#post52576
 
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