Didn't Megasthenes know Buddha?
Why did not Megasthanes write about Gautama Buddha when he wrote about Madurai Meenakshi 2300 years ago? Was Gautama Buddha was unknown figure during his times? Only Emperor Ashoka boosted The Buddha? (Fragments of Megasthanes’ book Indica are only available).
Do the Vedic Seers know Salt? Why did not Vedic seers mention salt when they gave the world ‘sugar’? (Please read my post THE SUGARCANE MYSTERY: Indus Valley and Ikshvaku Dynasty).
Why did not Marco Polo mention the Great Wall of China, Porcelain plates and drinking tea? He had not visited China at all? Did he write whatever he heard from other prisoners in Genoa prison? (Please read Frances Wood’s book-Did Marco Polo go to China?).
Why did not the great Tamil saint Manikka Vasagar mention Appar, Sambandhar and Sundarar in his works?
Why did not the Thevaram Greats mention Manikka vasagar, if he lived before them?
Why did not the Indus Valley people portray the holy cow anywhere when thousands of seals have the bull? Don’t they know cows!!!!
Why was Rig Veda silent about Banyan trees? Don’t they know Banyan trees?
Why did not the world’s greatest grammarian Panini mention South India? There were no people in the South at his times! Or was he that ignorant?
Tamils don’t know the word ‘SHIVA’ until the seventh century! Tamils don’t know about ‘Lord Ganesh’ until seventh century! Were they imported Gods?
2000 year old Sangam Tamil literature never knew Indus River or North West India. They praised holy Ganges and holy Himalayas sky high! How come scholars associate Tamils with the Indus? Is it bogus scholarship?
If Tamil or Sanskrit literature doesn’t say anything about urinating, can we write a thesis for Ph.D that Indians never urinated?
Absolute absurdity!!!!!
I can keep on quoting hundreds of such things from all the ancient works.
Scholars have been debating all these for years. I myself took several years to collect all the above details. For the past forty years I have been collecting interesting titbits like this from various books just to say “Negative Evidence is not enough to prove something”.
A lot of Ph.D.wallahs and Ph.D.vallhis jump to certain conclusions on negative evidence. Negative evidence is not enough to support a new theory. You need more proof in the form of secondary evidence. But a lot of false things about Hinduism and India are said about without much proof. “Aryans came from Iran and the Tamils came from the Mediterranean”, “Caste system came from Indus Valley”, “Brahmins migrated to the South in 1000BC with Agastya”, “Tamils have a separate culture”, “Indus valley people spoke Dravidian Languages”, “Aryan Shiva is different from Dravidian Shiva”, “Shiva is Phallus Symbol, Yoni is genital Symbol”, “Manu was against women”, “Vedic people were illiterate nomads”, “All Hindu Women were burnt alive when their husbands die”--- all such rubbish things have been written by foreign ‘scholars’ just to divide the country and the people. Most of the things are said on one or two references or negative evidence. I have been writing in this blog to prove them wrong and how and where they went wrong.
A Buddhist scholar wrote that rivers of blood were flowing due to animal sacrifice on the banks of river Charmanvadhi. If we take all exaggerated versions of poets as facts, a lot of bad things can be said about any culture, community or religion with one or two quotes from their books! Poets have a different way of presenting anything. One must look for more evidence before saying anything on a particular topic.
One third of ancient Tamil poems refer to prostitutes. It is not a true reflection on the Tamil community. Just to emphasize Tamil’s concern for chastity, the poets exaggerate such things. Tamils’ morality was on a higher level. Any one will get a better picture if one takes all the available facts.
A mention about meat eating by Kalidasa’s Brahmin jester (Vidushaka) in one of his dramas and Brahmin Tamil poet Kapila’s verse in Sangam literature sent wrong messages to Indian ‘scholars’!
Foreign scholars had double standards in interpreting anything Hindu, anything Indian. When they wanted to date all Indian materials they took the latest reference in the particular work (Eg. Valmiki Ramayana). When they wanted to belittle anything they showed all good things as interpolations! When they wanted to take the whole work and criticize them, they never talked about interpolations! (Eg. Manu Dharma Shastra’s juicy bits about women and Shudras!). They wrote that all good things were imported in to India from Egypt, Babylonia and Greece! No exports from India!! To discredit Indians they even named Indian numerals as Arabic numerals!
Maha Bharata and Vedas are compilations. Vyasa, the greatest literary figure the world has ever seen, did this monumental work. He gathered all the materials available in his time, divided Vedas in to four parts and entrusted the work to four of his disciples to preserve and pass it on to generations to come. He gathered all the available stories and customs and inserted them or woven them in the great Maha Bharata, the longest epic in the world. So we will definitely see contradictions. They are apparent and not real. The overall picture one gets about Indian culture is the same. But for writing Ph.D. thesis and debating in scholarly circles, the apparent contradictions come very handy!
Picture of salt pan in Kutch area of Gujarat.
The moral lesson is:
Don’t take anybody’s word for it.
Don’t jump to conclusions by reading one bit from a volume of materials. Read the original in full and arrive at a conclusion.
PLEASE READ MY EARLIER POSTS:
1/ The Sugarcane Mystery: Indus Valley and the Ikshvaku Dynasty
2/ Biggest Brain wash in The World
3/ How Old Is Indian civilisation?
6.தமிழ் இனத்தின் வயது என்ன?
7.தமிழன் காதுல பூ
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