the hindu vs dr joshi

8/14/2019 The Hindu vs Dr Joshi

1/16

www.tamiltalk.org - 1 - zzzz

On its 03-May-2009 dated Sunday edition The Hindu Newspaper has made a study of

the preamble of the Manifesto of the Bharathiya Janata Party (Indian Peoples Party

BJP).

In the preamble of the manifesto drafted by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, some claims have

been made about the greatness of India in pre-British period. The Hindu claims to have

employed a team of eminent historians who have analyzed each of these claims and

have negated each of them as either false or as exaggerations.

Here we at www.tamiltalk.org a Tamil forum for the discussion of culture, society,

science, history etc. try to study the factual basis of the evaluation of the historians as

presented by The Hindu and also the veracity of the claims of Dr. Joshi. And we presentyou with Dr. Joshis claims, The Hindus response to the claims and the facts as we

discovered them.

Yours in the interest of truth,

www.tamiltalk.org team.


2/16


I

India is notChina is older

Joshi: Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India

has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater

wisdom.

The Hindu response: India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally defined

as having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Nor is it the

only continuous culture since China has a continuous culture that is older.

The facts: Harappan civilization or Saraswathi-Sindhu civilization did not emerge in vacuum, but

was the result of long drawn socio-economic processes

that included cultural dimensions. French archeologist

Jean-Franois Jarrige had traced the antecedents of

Harappan culture to the site in Mergarh north of

Mohenjo-Daro and has established an unbroken cultural

continuity from that early date to Harappan civilization.1

Similarly Harappan roots have been discovered from

within the geographical area of modern India as well. In

an International seminar on Indus Civilisation, director of

Archaeological Survey of India BR Mani revealed that

there were pockets where urbanisation would have

started before the well-developed urban civilisation of

the Harappans.2

Even as we trace the evolution of Harappan civilization which pushes the advent

of Indian civilization further back in timeline, historians have accepted the fact that Indian society

today has many of its cultural roots in Harappan civilization. Even Iravatham Mahadevan a

scholar who holds on to the Aryan-Dravidian binary, has stated that he would not be surprised to

find that the greater part of modern Hinduism has a Harappan lineage.3

Of course Egypt and

Mesopotamian civilizations do have hoary past but their descendents have abandoned these

ancient cultures for new jealous sky gods. Hence when Joshi says that Indian civilization is

perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilization he is definitely and technically

right.

The Hindu has shown its Chinese loyalty by calling China as having a continuous culture how

can China today can be called the most ancient and continuous culture when the Red Guards of

the Communist China during the Cultural Revolution vandalized Buddhist statues labeling them

part of the four olds to be destroyed: old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking. The

definite break with cultural continuity came for China when young Red Guards in 1966 smashed

the Buddhist images at the Biyun Monastery, the Wofo Monastery, the Summer Palace and the

other shrines, temples and parks around Beijing and replaced them with portraits of MaoZedong.

4To call the present China a cultural continuity is a joke - absurd, sick and cruel.

1Jarrige,J.F. and M.Santoni, The Antecedents of Civilization in the Indus Valley, Scientific American, 243.8 (1980),

pp.102-102Grain of rice points to pre-Harappan culture, Time of India, 5-Jan-2006

3http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html

4John Kieschnick, The impact of Buddhism on Chinese material culture, Princeton University Press, 2003 p.70

Harappan seal to the currentcalendar art in popular Hinduism thecontinuit is self-evident


3/16


II

Famines Pre-British vs. British

Joshi: According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best

agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early-19th Century

speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjavur (900-

1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramanathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per

hectare production of paddy.

The Hindu response: Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have

to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors. References are made to anavrishtiand

ativrishtiand locusts as the cause. Famine is referred to in the Ramayana [1.8.12 ff] and the

Mahabharata[12.139] and in the latter it led to people eating all kinds of unsavoury things. The

frequency of references to the 12-year famine is found in many texts. Manu in his Dharma-

shastra, states that in times of famine social codes can be dispensed with. [102 ff] The Jatakas

refer to famines. [1.75, etc;]

Facts: In his 1917 book England's debt to India; a historical narrative ofBritain's fiscal policy in India, the great Indian freedom fighter and martyr, Lala

Lajpath Rai speaks of a paper titled "Some Plain Facts about Famines in India"

which was read before and then published by the East India Association of

London. In that paper, Hindu legends, and the great epics, the Mahabharata

and the Ramayana were requisitioned to prove that severe famines occurred in

pre-British India.5

Of course Lajpath Rai proceeds to prove the hollowness of

the argument. But it is dj vu British colonial propaganda in

The Hindu 2009.That a colonial British propaganda line is being

rehashed by the eminent historians of The Hindu makes one

feel the symbolic irony of it all.

Now let us see the facts. Dr. W.B.Rahudkar one of the eminent agricultural scientists of India

provides extensive documentary evidence for the general state of Indian agriculture during the

advent of colonial period. He provides the testimony of Luke Scrafton (1770) a member of Clive's

council, that of Dr. Wallick (1832) the Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens in India,

Augustus Voelcker report on the improvement of Indian Agriculture (1897) each testifying to the

efficacy of Indian agriculture. (This is not seeking certificates of merits from foreigners rather

showcasing the documentary evidence for the health state of Indian agriculture as recorded by

the observers of that time.) Dr. Rahudkar goes on to analyze the reason for the downfall of Indian

agriculture. He states:

This excellent picture of Indian agriculture got radically changed after the British

started ruling the country through their imported system of ownership of land,land tenure, land revenue, laws, education, imposition of western knowledge of

agriculture and establishment of the Department of Agriculture.6

5Lajpat Rai, England's Debt to India: A Historical Narrative of Britain's Fiscal Policy in India, Original 1917, re-published

by BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008, p.2646W.B.Rahudkar, Traditions, Beliefs and Supersitions in Agricultural Production, in Productivity Of Land And Water, (Ed. J.

H. Patil, M A Chitale, S B Varade, Shankar Raoji Chavan), Taylor & Francis, 1997, pp.285-6

Ironically nearly a century agoIndian freedom fighters faced thesame arguments from Britishpropaganda that The Hindu isrehashing today.


4/16


This may seem a harsher indictment by a Gandhian agricultural scientist. However voluminous

evidence exists to show that the pre-British famines were highly localized; originated more due to

local natural causes and hence people often moved

over to other areas and thus were not drastically

affected. On the other hand the famines during the

British period were the result of mismanagement or

callous disregard for human suffering and extended

over vast areas. Thus the British famines were

literally holocausts.

Historian Kaushik Chakraborthy explains the

difference between pre-British and British famines.

The pre-British traditional resource management in

India allowed local control and this resulted in food

security and virtual absence of all India famines. As against this the British colonial rule led to

the gradual establishment of state control over resource use which in turn displaced and

marginalized indigenous population, indigenous knowledge and tried to over determine natural or

ecological balance leading directly to water and food scarcity, environmental degradation, andfamine, which took millions of lives.

7Economic historians of the famine also point out that pre-

British traditional famine relief measures effective in ameliorating the human sufferings like

dignified relief and tax forgiveness were more humanitarian.8

In fact as early as 7th

century CE

Saivaite monks effectively offered humanitarian relief to famine affected areas in South India

using the temple wealth.

Further the eminent historians of The Hindu while

speaking about the famines in Indic literature are silent

about the rich tradition in India of feeding the hungry

people. From Vedic dictum to produce food and give it to

others, Thirumoolars injunction to feed everyone with no

discrimination, Buddhist altruism the Indic tradition of

food sharing has been a highly effective decentralized

famine relief mechanism. Given the fact that pre-British

famines were often the result of natural failures and

mostly localized, the value system of food sharing was

an effective counter to such famines.

Of course The Hindu group of historians simply missed

such little facts. After all Thirumoolar is no Confucius and

Manimekalai is no Maoist, for these eminent historians

employed by pro-Chinese newspaper to take notice of.

So what Joshi claims is factually correct. There was over all food security. A localized regional

scarcity was organically balanced by localized prosperity. Further famine relief measures were

benevolent, decentralized and effective.

7Kaushik Chakraborthy , Economy Of Eastern India From Pre-Colonial To The British Empire: abstract, presented at

panel on the British Empire and Famines in South Asia, Fifth International Convention of Asia Scholars8Mike Davis, Late Victorian holocausts: El Nio famines and the making of the th ird world, Verso 2001, p.167

Scholars opine that British disruption oftraditional Indian resource management was oneof the reasons for severe famines during Britishrule.

ThirugnanaSambanthar 7

th

century SaivaiteSaint obtainedfinancial help fromtemple and offeredhumanitarian relief tofamine afflictedpeople. The faminewas localized.

Thirumoolar instructshumanity to sharefood with the needywithout anydiscrimination. Suchcivilizational valueshave helped India tocontain localizedfamines of pre-Britishtimes.


5/16


III

Was education universal in pre-British India?

Joshi: It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the

18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning

indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the

system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges

proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as

well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support

provided from private and public sources. Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending

school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls.

The Hindu response: There were no schools or colleges as we know them today in ancient

India. Upper caste children were educated in mathas, agraharas and sometimes monasteries.

Children following a profession were apprentices in that profession. Lower castes and women

were not educated generally. In Sanskrit plays they are the ones who speak the vernacular

language Prakrit whilst the upper caste, educated persons speak Sanskrit.

The Facts: Of course there were no schools or colleges in ancient

India as we know them today. Nor were there universities and

libraries, as we know them today. But then why do we call the

University of Nalanda a university and the Library of Alexandria a

library? It is because we are able to recognize their general nature

and purpose beyond the modern features of their present age

counterparts. In the same way the Thinnai schools of the yester-

centuries were schools. The British form of education destroyed

these de-centralized and cost-effective structures, rather than

improving and evolving upon them so that mass education could be

provided in a more egalitarian way.

It is understandable that an alien

colonial government destroyed and

demonized the Indian system. But what

is incomprehensible is the way newspapers like The Hindu are

perpetuating these colonial myths.

Gandhian historian Dharampal shows that the students from so-

called low caste studied in the pre-British traditional schools of 19th

century India. In the Malabar area the proportion of the so-called

twice born in the schools was below 19 percent that of Shudras and

other castes was 54 percent. In the Kannada speaking Bellarydistrict the twice-born was 33 percent while the Shudras and other

castes was 63 percent and in the Oriya speaking Ganjam the twice-

born was 35.6 percent while Shudras and other caste was 63.5 percent.9

In Burdwan region of

West Bengal it was found that though missionaries ran 13 mission schools, W.Adam's report on

9Dharampal, A Beautiful Tree: Indigenous India Education in the Eighteenth Century, Biblia Impex, 1983. pp .22-23

Traditional mythology states

that Krishna and his brotherboth cowherds studied inancient Gurukul along withBrahmins with nodiscrimination.

Gandhian historian ofscience Dharampal bustedmany colonial myths about

traditional Indian educationthrough his well documentedbook A beautiful tree.


6/16


Sri Narayana Guru Vedantin and socialreformer studiedSanskrit in traditionalsystem from a non-Brahmin teacher.

A 19th

century French drawing of a Hindooschool

the state of education in Bengal 1835-38 revealed

that, of the 760 scholars from 16 of the "lowest

castes" 674 scholars were from the native schools

while only 86 were from mission schools.10

Let us compare this situation with England, which

was not under any colonial drainage of its wealth.

Even then in 19th

century the education for laborers

was severely opposed on religious grounds. For

example, in 1807 Davies Gilbert who was an

eminent scientist and citizen spoke in the Commons

that giving education to the laboring classes of the

poorwould render them factious and refractory

would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books and publications against

Christianity render them insolent and indolent to their superiors11

Sanskrit was not an exclusive language of a particular caste or region in India. The Adi Kaviof

Sanskrit Valmikiwas a tribal and the greatest Sanskrit dramatist Kalidasawas a Sudra. In latterperiods, even in Kerala which was considered as lunatic asylum by Swami Vivekananda

because of casteist degradation of fellow human beings by so-called upper castes, Sri Narayana

Guru was able to study Sanskrit in the traditional school system. His Sanskrit teacher was also a

non-Brahmin.12

It is a historical fact that the caste system is an undemocratic system. The

evils of caste system should be undone. It is the duty of every educated

Indian to eliminate the demeaning imprints of caste system from the

society. But that need not blind us to the merits of our traditional institutions

which we lost during the colonial regime. These traditional institutions are

not the same as caste and they also provide us the way to mitigate the

evils of casteism. However while the British destroyed these traditional

egalitarian institutions, they also preserved the caste and transformed it

into a frozen hierarchical system.

So here also Joshi is right in that we need to find our egalitarian

traditional institutions and their strengths. And the twist that the

eminent historians are trying to give to the claims of merits to indigenous

system by mapping it to casteism is typical of their line, their fraud as Arun Shourie pointed out

in his famous book on the so-called eminent historians. .

10Dharampal:1983

11John Rule, The labouring classes in early industrial England 1750-1850, Longman 1986, p.235.

12Nataraja Guru, The word of the Guru, Paico Publishers, 1968, p.256


7/16


IV

Technological advancements in ancient India: Fact or fiction

Joshi: Old British documents established that India was far advanced in the technical and

educational fields than Britain of 18th and early-19th Century. Its agriculture technically and

productively was far superior; it produced a much higher grade of iron and steel. The Iron Pillar at

Mehrauli in Delhi has withstood the ravages of time for 1,500 years or more without any sign of

rusting or decay.

The Hindu response: The iron-pillar at the Qutab has rusted but the rust cannot be seen as it

is in the socket at the top. Astronomy, mathematics and medicine were at a premium from the

Seventh century onwards when there was close interaction between scholars from Alexandria,

Baghdad, India and China.

The Facts: As far as the iron-pillar, The Hindu indulges in petty word

play. The point is that ancient India had a technology for producing

highly corrosion resistant iron. In fact the eminent metallurgist

Professor T.R.Anatharaman who brought the first book entirelydevoted to the technical and scientific aspects of the Delhi iron pillar

titled it "The Rustless Wonder - A study of the iron pillar at Delhi". This

was published by Vigyan Prasar of New Delhi in

1996. Here the term rustless by the eminent

metallurgist is used to denote the high resistance

to atmospheric corrosion by the iron pillar which is

definitely a wonder of ancient technology of India.

It is unfortunate that a newspaper which once

prided itself as a national newspaper has fallen

so much in ethics that it is indulging in word

jugglery just to deny the due achievements of ancient India because of

ideological vested interests that have infiltrated this once respected

institution.

As far as the flow of knowledge is concerned, while it is true that in ancient

times synthesis of knowledge from various civilizations often happened at

knowledge centers of the world like Kanchi or Alexandria, the Euro-centric

history writing has often emphasized only West to East transmission of

knowledge. Hence it is necessary that Indo-centric writing of history is needed which should

document the flow of knowledge from East to West not only in spiritual philosophy but also

material sciences. For example historian of science, Donald F Lach says:

Certain of the algebraic conceptions of Pythagoras, such as irrational numbersand the theorem named for him may have been derived from Indian

mathematics. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Hindu-Arabic

numerical and computational system as well as elements of Indian astronomy

certainly passed through the Islamic world into Europe, possibly by means of

Spanish intermediaries...The sine of trigonometry, which had first appeared in

Pythagoras: WillIndic influence onhim, ever betaught to Indianstudents?


8/16


Indian astronomical works was introduced into Europe through the translations of

the Arabic works.13

Euro-centric bias and subsequent marginalization of Indias contribution to sciences is today

acknowledged as a problem in teaching the history of science by scholars. Even where the

contributions of other civilizations are taught the grand narrative tends to be Euro-centric. Clearly

the eminent historians who hold that astronomy and mathematics were at a premium from the

Seventh century onwards when there was close interaction between scholars from Alexandria,

Baghdad, India and China, seem to be insensitive to the flaw in this kind of discourse which a

philosopher of mathematics identifies:

Another distortion is Eurocentrism in the history of mathematics and that the

images of mathematics in society and throughout education. Many histories of

mathematics such as Eves (1953), promote a simplified Eurocentric view of its

development. Typically such accounts identify Mesopotamia and Egypt as the

sites of preliminary work that provided the raw materials for mathematics. Based

on this the flame of "real" mathematics was lit by the Ancient Greeks, kept alight

by the Arabs during the Dark Ages, until it was passed on like an Olympian torch,and blazed anew in modern Europe and her cultural dependencies. ... There are

at least two ways of in which such accounts are wrong. First, all civilizations have

had a sophisticated mathematical basis and culturally embedded mathematics

(ethnomathematics) is to be found in all cultures covering every condition of the

globe. Second major contributions have been made that do not fit into the

Eurocentric scheme. For example, what is probably the single most important

conceptual innovation in the history of India was made in India with the invention

of the decimal place value system with zero. Less well known is the ground-

breaking work on infinite series conducted in Kerala in Southern India. Over a

hundred years before Europe caught up many of the key results attributed to and

named after the great mathematicians Gregory, Maclaurin, Taylor, Wallis,

Newton , Leibniz and Euler had already been discovered (Almedia & Joseph,

2004; Joseph, 1991; Pearce, n.d.).14

Every student of history learns the unproved thesis that the Alexandrian invasions brought zodiac

to India but how many Indian students even know the facts about knowledge transfusion from

East to West in not just ancient world even during the early decades of colonization which along

with capital drainage from colonized societies helped in the building of the western institutions of

science which we marvel today as an exclusively western phenomenon? Once again Joshis

attempt to reemphasize the technological achievements of ancient India as an inspiration

to move forward into the future stands fully vindicated by facts.

13Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century of Wonder : Book Three : The Scholarly Disciplines,

University of Chicago Press, 1994, p.40714

Paul Ernest, New Philosophy of Mathematics, in Culturally Responsive Mathematics Education, Ed.Brian Greer,Greer/Mukhopadhyay, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p.60


9/16


V

Ancient Indians: Hospitals to Plastic surgery Did they have it or not?

Joshi:India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basisof modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox

centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner.

The Hindu response: India had no practice of plastic surgery until modern times. Nor did India

know about vaccines.

The Facts: Perhaps here the eminent historians of the newspaper from

Madras can join issue equally with the Congress candidate from

Trivandrum as they do with Joshi. Sashi Tharoor writes:

Nor do scholars contest India's claim to have produced the first

surgeon, Susruta, whose methods (and tools) of surgery,

including plastic surgery and prostheses for amputees,

pioneered the field.15

Let us go for more scholarly view on the subject. The authors of the

authoritative book, Great Ideas in the History of Surgery state thus with

regard to this question:

The most outstanding achievements of Indian

surgery, however , are recorded in the chapters of

lithotomy, laparotomy and plastic surgery...Although

the question of reciprocal influence of Indian and

Western medicine in general has never been

completely answered, it is an established fact that

Indian plastic surgery provided the basic pattern for Western effortsin this direction.

16

In the case of vaccination, we do know that ancient Indians practiced a form

of small pox inoculation. The practice of band of medical men moving along

the villages of India during the spring and inoculating persons diagnosed

susceptible to smallpox has been documented in the eighteenth century.

They are considered by modern medical researchers as worlds first mobile

inoculation teams.17

It should also be stated that the British banned the

indigenous inoculation against smallpox in favor of vaccination.18

The

celebrated vaccination of Jenner (inoculation through cowpox) is definitely an

improvement and more effective than the indigenous method. But theprinciple is the same for both. Further the indigenous system was also decentralized.

15Shashi Tharoor, India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, Arcade publishing, 2006 p.300

16 Leo M. Zimmerman, Ilza Veith, Great Ideas in the History of Surgery, Norman Publishing 1993, p.63

17Donald R Hopkins, The greatest killer: smallpox in history, with a new introduction, University of Chicago Press, 2002

p.1718

Darshan Shankar & Ram Manohar, Ayurveda Today - Ayurveda at the Crossroads, in Oriental Medicine: An IllustratedGuide to the Asian Arts of Healing, (Ed. Jan Van Alphen, Jan Alphen, Anthony Aris, Mark De Fraeye, Fernand Meyer),Serindia Publications, Inc., 1995, p.100

This Indian method ofnose reconstructionillustrated in theGentlemanMagazine1794, was responsiblefor renewed interest inplastic surgery inEurope.

A 19th

centuryengraving of Indianmendicant: suchwandering mendicantsalso served todisseminate medicalknowledge throughoutpre-British India.


10/16


So if anything here Joshi should be accused of understating the achievements and the

humanitarian nature of the institution of medicine in pre-British India. However The Hindu

critique of past-Indias achievements does not stop here. They also claim that Indians never had

an institution for health care. This was the claim they made next which we shall see in detail.

There were no hospitals in ancient India

Joshi: Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health

care system existed in India.

The Hindu response: The Chinese pilgrims visiting India Fa Hien and Hsuan Tsang

make a brief mention of sick persons being treated by having to fast for seven days and being

given some medicine. This was probably the treatment given to sick monks in monasteries. There

were no hospitals.

The Facts: The eminent historians as usual shove away the testimony of Chinese pilgrims andspeculate that the caring of sick by giving medicines were probably treatmentin

monasteries and then authoritatively declare that there were no hospitals.

First let us see the brief mention of one of these Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hian who visited Indian

during the Gupta period and see for ourselves if there is anything that makes one thing if the

hospitals mentioned here were actually hospitals or treatment given to sick monks in

monasteries as claimed by the eminent historians:

People repair thither from all the provinces, and

the delegates whom the chiefs of the kingdoms

maintain in the town have each established

there a Medicine-house of happiness and virtue.The poor, the orphans, the lame, in short all the

sock of the provinces repair to these houses,

where they receive all that is necessary for their

wants. Physicians examine their complaints;

they are supplied with meat and drink according

to expedience, and medicines are administered

to them. Everything contributes to soothe them:

those that are cured go away of themselves.19

Clearly the eminent historians have trusted their readers not to verify the original passages.

Now let us look at the literary and Epigraphical evidence to see how the hospital services evolvedover a period of thousand years from before the Common Era. The second rock edict of Asoka

(272-232 BCE) claims the establishment of two kinds of healings one for humans and another

for animals. Though many scholars interpret this to mean hospitals some dispute it.20

The Tamil

epic Chilapathikaram dated between 200-300 CE speaks of a Tamil society that honored Vedic

19The Pilgrimage of Fa Hian, Published by Baptist Mission Press, 1848, p.255

20Charles M. Leslie, Asian medical systems: a comparative study, Motilal Banarsidass, 1998, p.34

This is thedescription by Fa-

Hian: Could he havemisidentified sickmonks gettingtreatment inmonasteries forhospitals as claimedby the eminenthistorians of TheHindu?


11/16


Deities and built separate houses for diseased persons called "Ilanchi Mantram" where the

afflicted stayed and got healed of their diseases.21

Supporting of health institutions evolved into a great virtue in South Indian culture.

Dr.Gurumurthy, archeologist from University of Madras points out that Chola records as old as

thousand years refer to the dispensary as Atulasalaior vaidya salai, (Atulaor Vaidyameaning

medicine and salai meaning institution of charitable nature). He further points out that large

number of inscriptions speak of the establishment of such dispensaries in villages.22

The Thirumukkudal inscription (1067 CE) gives details

about a Chola hospital that had fifteen beds for the

treatment of patients. The inscription gives details

about the staff which include chief physician, surgeon,

two persons looking after the fetching and preparation

of medicinal herbs, two nurses for attending the

patients, a barber and a waterman and their salaries.

Apart from staff, provisions were also made for thehospital infrastructure which included supply of food

for in-house patients, burning of lamps at night and

storing the prepared medicines.23

Kundavai the

legendary sister of Rajaraja- I established a hospital

(Sundara Chola Vinnagar Athula Salai) at Thanjavur.24

According to Malkapuram inscription (Andhra Pradesh) dated 1261 CE a Kakatiya king made

land donation for a maternity hospital.25

Yet in the face of such evidence the eminent historians asserted that there were no hospitals in

India prior to British.

21Chilapathikaram, Puhar kanTam: Description of how the city celebrated Indra festival, 1:5:121

22S. Gurumurthy, Medical Science and Dispensaries in ancient South India as gleaned from epigraphy, Indian Journal of

History of Sciences, Vol.5, No.1, 1970, p.7723

Epigraphica Indica, Vol. XXI, No.38, p.22024

T. Sundaramurthi, Varalarril Maruthuvam(Tamil), Chennai, 1978, pp.9-1825

Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society, Vol. IV, pp. 147-64

According to the inscriptions in thistemple, thousand years beforeattached to this temple was a 15-bedhospital.


12/16


VI

Questioning the spread of Indian worldview to champion the cause of China?

Joshi: Indias worldview is known to have extended from Bamiyan/

Kandahar to Borobudur/ Indonesia on the one hand, and Sri Lanka

to Japan on the other. Imprints of Indian culture are found in some

other parts of the world as well.

The Hindu response: Indias world view did not extend from

Afghanistan to Indonesia. Hindus in south India knew nothing about

Bamiyan and those in north-western India knew nothing about

Borobudur. Nor was there any knowledge of Japan. There was some

knowledge of central Asia in the north-west of India, some

knowledge of south-east Asia in eastern and southern India and the

Cholas had contacts with Canton.

The Facts: One is astonished to find the way the eminent

historians of The Hindu have confused the term worldview withgeographical knowledge. The American Heritage Dictionary of the

English Languages entry for Worldview (translation of German

Weltanschauung) defines the term thus:

The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world./A

collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

In this issue the verbal diatribe of the eminent historians flows from this

flawed understanding of the term.

Now let us take the case of Japan. Did the Indic world view reach

Japan? Zen the world famous Japanese Buddhism owes much to India

that in the authoritative volume Complete Book of Zen Wong Kiew Kit

dedicates a complete chapter to the title The Spread of Zen from Indiawhere Wong lists 28 Buddhist patriarchs starting from Buddha to

Mahakasyapa through Nagarjuna to Bodhidharma.26

And as any pop-

spiritual Guru may say to you, Zen derives from Dhyan very much an

Indian word.

Now let us see the validity of some knowledge of south-east Asia of the

eminent historians team of The Hindu. Scholar Milo Kearney in the book

The Indian Ocean in World History gives an exhaustive extent of Hindu

influence in South East Asia:

The trading development had started in the pre-Gupta period, when Indianmerchants had crossed to South east Asia to obtain its gold. New cultural blends

resulted from mixture of Indian with indigenous influences. In the first century AD,

Kaundinya planted a Hindu settlement in Cambodia. His descendents were the

kings of the Khmer kingdom. Hindu civilization spread to Thailand in the second

century AD, where it was reinforced via India and Burma when in the fourteenth

century the Thai came to rule Thailand and Laos (from their capital Ayutthia,

26Wong Kiew Kit, Complete Book of Zen, Tuttle Publishing, 2002, pp.63-75

Worldview is not a term aboutgeography. But the eminenthistorians team of The Hindu

seems to have some problemin comprehending such terms.

Bodhidharma wasfrom Kanchi.


13/16


named after Rama's capital, Ayodhya). A Shiva-and Buddha worshipping Hindu

dynasty was implanted in Champa (south Vietnam) in the late second century

AD. The Hindus colonized Borneo about AD 400 and dominated its society for

sometime. ...As late as the ninth century, East Indian merchant dynasties were

still ruling Java, Sumatra, Malaya and Cambodia. The cultural development

based on Gupta influence in Cambodia reached their height long after the Gupta

empire had ended. The island of Bali is still Hindu, a continuing tribute to the

strength of Indian commerce and cultural influence in this period.27

The reason this passage has been quoted at length here is because

one has to suspect ulterior motives in The Hindu minimizing the

historic cultural ties that India has with South East Asia.

As everyone knows, The Hindu has darkly transformed itself into a

strong pro-Chinese magazine and stands for the interests of China,

even at the expense of the interests of India. Today China has an

ambitious plan to dominate the Indian Ocean region by forming

strategic tie up with South East Asian countries (including Thailandand Indonesia) and also with Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

28For China to

get a firm an emotional foothold in these nations Indian cultural

influence has to be minimized. So it is no wonder that The Hindu is

serving the Chinese interests in India itself by minimizing or belittling

Indias historical ties with South East Asia.

Further the extent of Indian

influence on South East Asia

was not a one time

colonization or missionary

influence. Rather it was

continuous, organic and pan-Indian. Amara Srisuchat,

director of Thailands national

museum points out the

following: the early image of

Vishnu from Chaiya, (5th

century CE) reflects influence

of South Indian tradition and

another 8th

century Vishnu

from Thailand shows South

Indian influence of 7th

century.

A 10

th

century four-facedBrahma from Thailand reflects

the same tradition as the 9th

century Kashmiri Brahma sculpture from Avantipura. Nalanda served

as a model for Buddhist art in the 10-11th

century. The triple-flexion (tribanga) image of Buddha in

27Milo Kearney, The Indian Ocean in World History, Routledge, 2004, p.50

28Gurpreet S. Khurana, China's 'String of Pearls' in the Indian Ocean and Its Security Implications, Strategic Analysis,

Volume 32, Issue 1 January 2008 , pp 1-39

Shiva: Vietnam 11th

to 12th

century.

Chinese strategy to contain India in the Indian Ocean:Notice how this touches all South East Asian countriesthat have historic and cultural association with India.Both China and The Hindu want to minimize or belittlethese ties to facilitate China to have a stranglehold on

these nations and Indian Ocean.


14/16


Nagapattinam29

served as a model for Sukhothai artisans in Thailand. Another important pinnacle

of Indian cosmological vision the Dance of Siva which gained strong prominence during the

Chola period in the 12th

century almost instantaneously has appeared in the sculptural scene of

Thailand.30

Yet the eminent historians of The Hindu claim that there was only some knowledge of south-

east Asia. It is some knowledge and lot of ignorance indeedin the worldview of The Hindu

team that is.

VII

The secular Humanism of Hindu civilization

Joshi: The belief in essential unity of mankind is a unique feature of Hindu thought. The Vedic

Rishi had also declared that Ekam Sad Viprah Bahudha Vadanti(truth or reality is one but wise

men describe it in different ways). This is essentially a secular thought in the real sense of the

term because it accepts that one can follow his own path to reach the ultimate. Hindus are well

known for their belief in harmony of religions.

The Hindu response: The notion of the secular was not known to the Hindus, as the secular

requires giving priority to the human being irrespective of his/her beliefs. Hindus were concerned

with establishing caste and sect. Only the Buddhists expounded a view that might be called

secular since they emphasised social ethics irrespective of other links. And Buddhists were

ousted by Hindus.

The Facts: That Buddhists were expounded secular view while Hindus were concerned only with

establishing caste and sect is a

falsifiable myopic view of Indian history.

The studies by none other than

R.S.Sharma on the fourth caste

category (the Shudras) in ancient India

showed that the Buddhist philosophy of

Ahimsa and Buddha's injunction to

monks to refrain from cultivation

resulted in peasants being relegated to

the Shudra Varna or the lowest caste.31

Asoka pillar edicts also speak of

restrictions on hunters and fishermen

who were forced to give up their

professions by the state authority

because of the religious belief of the king. This could hardly be construed as secular.32

As against

such state sponsored religious restriction, Hindu savants embraced the Dalits and elevated them

29Incidentally the Buddha Vihara at Nagapattinam was patronized by Pallava and Chola kings who subscribed to Vedic

religion. The Vihara was pulled down by Jesuits with British support in 1867.30

Amara Srisuchat, Art Objects and Architectures reflecting Indo-Thai cultural linkages. In Mapping connections Indo-Thaihistorical and cultural linkages, Ed. Sachchidanand Sahai and Neeru Misra, Mantra 2006, pp.42-331

Debjani Ganguly , Caste, colonialism and counter-modernity: notes on a postcolonial hermeneutics of caste,Routledge, 2005, p.9432

Paul Williams, Buddhism: Buddhist origins and the early h istory of Buddhism in South and Southeast As ia, Taylor &Francis, 2005,p.59

Two of the greatest Buddhist achievements in IndiaNalanda University and Ajanta cave paintings hadHindu patronage.


15/16


to the rank of Divine.33

The caste system and untouchability were the result of state-building and

socio-economic exploitation as well as ritual-power group formation. Hence they are universal

social phenomena, in resource-scarce societies with restricted mobility. But the earliest

opposition to marginalization of people in society based on their birth or profession has been

voiced consistently by Hindu savants from Sankara to Swami Vivekananda to Sri Narayana

Guru and Mahatma Gandhi. Atheism is also recognized by Hinduism as a valid path in quest of

truth. Hence seeing Hinduism as a civilizational basis of India and its secular nature is not wrong.

Further it is historically wrong to

say that Hinduism ousted

Buddhism. In fact the greatest

civilizational achievements of

Buddhism in India were achieved

under the patronage of Hindu

kings. Nalanda was patronized by

Gupta kings. Jesuit Indologist

Heras in his famous paper on the

royal patrons of NalandaUniversity, while commenting on

Kumara Gupta a Vaishnava

patron of the Buddhist university,

informs his English audience that

such respect and esteem for Buddhism is not a strange thing in a Hindu monarch.34

And

the famous Ajanta paintings were created under the patronage of the Ministers of Hindu Vakataka

dynasty.35Perhaps the eminent historians would do well to read Ambedkar to discover who

ousted Buddhism from India. Dr. Ambedkar said that there could be no doubt that the fall of

Buddhism was due to the Arab invasions.36

He also condemned Chinese aggression over Tibet.

There is no need to shy away from the word Hindu. And there is no need to give away secular-

humanist ideals as enshrined in our constitution either. In fact there is no conflict between these

two stands. This is brought out wonderfully by none other than Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam along with

the Jain seer Acharya Mahapragya:

The underlying tenets of Indian civilization, which is termed as a Hindu society

cannot be easily definedThe Vedas and Smritisspeak highly of equality and

brotherhood Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (One World One Family). The entire

world is one family is the motto of Vedic civilization. What is the unique feature

of Indian civilization? Perhaps an emotional open heart and a tolerant mindset!

The essential pluralism of Indian ethos explains the existence of many faiths in

Hindu religion as well as multiple indigenous versions of other major religions.

Not that there have not been lapses, deviations and even refusals, both in earlierrimes and less forgivably, in recent times. But these are only aberrations. In the

33Thirunavuckarasar Thevaram,6.95.10

34Fr. Heras, The Royal Patrons of the University of Nalanda, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XIV

1928 pp. 1-2335

K.D.Bajpai, Five phases of Indian art,Rajasthan-Vidya Prakashan, 1991 p.7336

B.R. Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol.3, p.229

Two of the greatest destructions against Buddhism in recenthistory were perpetrated by Maoism and pan-Islam: curiouslyboth the forces are supported by The Hindu


16/16


words of the sociologist Leela DSouza the real enduring Indian is syncretic,

pluralistic and tolerant.37

Today the indigenous versions of all religions are threatened by virulent foreign versions

supported by alien funding and vote bank politics. So wishing that every faith living in India the

secular state, ancient civilization and pluralistic society, must take a leaf out of the eternal spiritual

ethos of India for a harmonious living, is not a sectarian or supremacist wish as The Hindu tries

to depict. Far from that it is the need of the hour.

Thus an objective analysis of The Hindu and its team of eminent historians make Joshis stand

vindicated.

We know we cannot expect even the bare minimum honesty from The Hindu as to apologize to

its readers for publishing such a non-factual rhetoric. But the least that The Hindu can do is

refrain from peddling its own prejudiced ignorance for scholarly perspective and thus not insult

the intelligence of its readers.

A Hope for The Hindu

We were once daily readers of The Hindu; we grew with it. But today we have painfully eschewed

it. The reason is that we perceive in The Hindu a bias against India and a disregard for basic

humanity. We see it tow a Marxist party-line towards China and we see it support genocidal

regimes.

Nevertheless we sincerely hope that this is a passing phase of perversion for the newspaper.

We also hope that The Hindu an age old institution, would redeem itself from the abyss of the

ethics-less journalism and anti-national treason into which it has fallen. May The Hindu like the

phoenix once again rise from this present state of degeneracy and function again as a trulynational newspaper as envisioned by the original founders of the newspaper.

Jai Hind

Indic Vision for Truth

37Acharya Mahapragya and APJ Abdul Kalam, The Family and the Nation, Harper Collins India 2008, p.77 & pp.85-6

the hindu vs dr joshi

Documents