Correcting Indian History

The colonial British Govt shook the very fundaments of Indian culture. They gave Indians a modern look, awakened us from a limbo to international politics. But they also took away a substantial part of our soul. Our honour, our pride in Indian culture was greatly damaged. They branded us pagans, idol worshippers, unsophisticated simpletons ridden in superstition, worshipper of cows and ash smeared beggers (yogi sadhus). In the clash of foreign modernism and our spiritual wisdom, we lost our self respect... the core of our ancient magnificent culture.

My fellow Indians, feel proud, for we have the scriptures that are the oldest in the world. Our ancient language, Sanskrit is the richest and most scientific. Our languages rank among the topmost languages in the world! "Of the top 20 contemporary native spoken languages of the world, 12 are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Marathi, French, Italian, Punjabi and Urdu, having over 1.6 billion native speakers". Among the 12 greatest languages, 5 are Indian! Yet the ancient vedic scriptures are negated and denigrated by the Western Historians for political purposes. Those who defile truth and twist it are not scientists, not archeologists, not historians, but dishonest charlatans. Even the early views of Max Muller about the Vedas were not very good, "The poems of Savages"!! When he gained sufficient insight into Sayan's treatise of the Vedas, the other historians would no longer listen to his truth. The time of origin of the Vedas is the wildest guesswork in the history of the world! Each of the Vedic periods, Rik, Sam, Yajur and Atharva have been given a meagre 200 years! And the time of the Upanishads? ZERO!! They just co-existed or came after Buddha. Thank god, the Pali canons proved the date of Buddha quite firmly, otherwise this champion of ancient India would have suffered a similar fate on the hands of pseudo-historians. This is why the real Indian history with proper provable record begin with Buddha. All our events circle around Buddha. The western scholars judge any philosophy as to the number of years it can be put before or after Buddha's time.

Lord Buddha sought out Gurus who were practicing the Upanishadic Philosophies and Yogas. The Jainas and Ajivakas were contemporary to Buddha and they come after the upanishadic period. Then how could the historians put a tag of 400 BCE on the Upanishads? Logic dictates that the Upanishads came much before the 6th century BCE. Also, the Svetasvetara Upanishad is full of Yoga. Katha, Kena upanishads, Yoga Vasistha Ramayana are full of Yogic wisdom too. That connotes the antiquity of the Vedic Yoga tradition. Even in Ramayana, there is no account of Lord Buddha. Yet Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras came, 350 years after Buddha, as per the westerners! The historians have fused Patanjali the Rishi of Yoga with Patanjali the Grammarian who wrote a treatise of the works of Panini (Sanskrit Grammerian). Furthermore, Panini reconstructed Sanskrit language, while Buddha preached in Pali (Prakrit=Broken sanskrit). Which mad logic puts Panini behind Buddha? The Period of Adi Shankaracharya has been dragged down to 750 years after Christ; when the truth is, Shankara existed at least a century before Christ! The maximum amount of bluff and guesswork has been introduced through the use of linguistics in history. And the Indian Scholars are not bold enough to challenge them. So, the Indians just ape the false history set up by the British and the Germans.

Did the early Aryans migrate? Yes Indeed! From the recent satellite photographs its clear that the gigantic Saraswati river basin was located between Har-ki-Dun in the Himalayas and the Runn of Kutch, Thar desert in Gujarat. It dried up around 2600-2500BCE and the Rishis had to migrate to the Ganga basin. The early civilizations were all river based. Thats why the most ancient Vedas speak of river Saraswati and the later Vedic hymns of Ganga. Even the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas speak of Bhagirath's penance and the emergence of Ganga from Shiva's matted locks. The Indus Valley civilization was but a small part of the urban development that came much later than the early Rigveda. Majority of the Indus civilization was washed away with the movement of plates that shifted the course of the Saraswati river. This also proves unmistakably that the Aryan Rishis were ancient people of India; they originated, evolved into the highly intellectual, spiritual and philosophical civilization all by themselves in India. And there was never an Aryan Invasion from Russian Ural or, Europe as the Westerners try to imply. The Aryan Invasion Theory had been a hoax hatched to dominate politically. Are the historians blind or deaf? Now that India is free, it can easily set history straight. But giving too much importance to ancient Vedic civilization would be considered a favour to the Hindus. That would enrage the "other religions", a political disaster!! And this country is no more Bharat, or, Hindustan, but INDIA, the great secular nation. It has nothing to do with the Vedas or the Hindus. Let the old truths wither, decay and die out into oblivion.

~ Amitabha Chatterjee