last updated 26th September 2009
 
 

Kazakhstani online petition

Kazakhstani online petition

By Radha Mohan Dasa

Please visit http://www.krishnatemple.com NOW and click the link to the new petition, or go straight to the petition webpage:

http://harekrishna.epetitions.net

Please sign it soon as you can, and please tell as many people as you can about it.

Background: Workers and police arrived on 15th June at the village near Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the embattled Hare Krishna commune is based to demolish twelve more Hare Krishna-owned homes. “The houses were literally crushed into dust. By ten o’clock it was all over,” said ISKCON spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev.

The temple, which the devotees have been ordered to destroy, has not been touched but the devotees fear it could be the next target. Human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis is outraged at the continuing destruction. “The authorities are showing that they will do what they want, despite the international outrage at the earlier demolitions of Hare Krishna-owned homes.” He believes the local administration chief “doesn’t care about the political damage to Kazakhstan’s reputation – or to its desire to chair the OSCE.”

ys Radha Mohan das

ISKCON Kazakhstan Appeals to Keep Original Plot of Land
http://news.iskcon.com/node/2287/2009-09-19/iskcon_kazakhstan_appeals_keep_original_plot_land

By ISKCON News Weekly Staff for ferghana.ru on 17 Sep 2009

On September 16, 2009 the Krishna Society appealed to the Almaty Oblast deputy Hakim, S. Mukanov to allot the Society the 15-hectare land plot that the society has occupied and developed for the past ten years.

The Kazakhstan government destroyed 26 homes of Hindu practitioners of the community. Their land plots were confiscated. The owners of the destroyed houses were left homeless and never offered compensation or humanitarian aid. All of the land plots have been resold by the Kazakh government.

The Kazakh government also confiscated the 47.7 hectares (116 acres) legally registered property of the Krishna Society. This is the property where the only Krishna Temple in Kazakhstan exists. The claim for the confiscation is forgery but this point has never been proved in court. In both cases there are more than 40 examples of violation of due process and rule of law.

The Kazakh government has been requested by numerous organizations to address the issue of the Krishna Society. In response the Krishna Society has been offered a garbage dump and other unusable land plots. The Society refused to accept these offers.

As a result, in October 2008 the government began a case demanding the demolition of the Krishna Temple and the cowshed of the society. During the trial the Kazakh government failed to support it’s arguments and had to withdraw the claim.

In 2009 the Kazakh government instructed the Krishna Society to independently search for land plots with the assurance that district authorities would assist the Society in exchanging the suitable plots for the garbage dump. During the past 5 months the Krishna Society has located 13 suitable land plots but the Kazakh government has not approved any of these plots.

The government now demands the Krishna Society to accept 5-hectares of an abandoned agriculture field. The field has no access road, is on the other side of a creek, and has no public water or electrical supply. The Kazakh officials have suggested the Krishna Society build a bridge to access the property.

This particular plot was a portion of the original 47.7-hectare farm of the Krishna Society. The government is offering 5 hectares of inaccessible wasteland within one kilometer of the property that the society has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop over the past ten years.

The Kazakh authorities persist in their attempts to banish the Krishna Society from the property that it has occupied, cultivated, developed, and worshipped at, for the past ten years.

2010 is a notable year for the Republic of Kazakhstan. It commemorates acceptance of the chairmanship of OSCE. It also commemorates the sixth year since the Kazakh government began the campaign to destroy the farm community of the Society for Krishna Consciousness in Kazakhstan.

In light of the 2010 Kazakhstan Chairmanship of OSCE the resolve of the Krishna Society issue would be a practical step in demonstrating Kazakhstan's positive will in the human dimension.

By ISKCON News Weekly Staff on 11 Apr 2009

In a positive development for ISKCON in Kazakhstan, the government there has just closed its deportation case against Bhakti Bhringa Govinda Swami.

The case began on January 27, when the ISKCON leader was held without explanation at Almaty airport for twelve hours and denied entry into Kazakhstan, despite carrying a valid passport and visa.

Airport Officials told him that he was on the entry blacklist and refused to explain the denial of entry, claiming it was a “state secret.” They later said Govinda Swami had been deported because he had been found guilty of “illegal missionary activity” by Aktobe Regional court in 2008. This was despite the facts that such a case had never been heard, and that the supposed “illegal missionary activity” was simply a private talk Govinda Swami gave to devotees in Almaty, a registered religious community. Such harassment was typical of the Kazakh government since it raided the Hare Krishna community outside Almaty in 2006.

But when the director of ISKCON’s Almaty Society requested the General Prosecutor’s office to investigate Govinda Swami’s deportation, things began to take an upward turn. The Aktobe prosecutor agreed, and following the investigation withdrew the previous ruling.

Govinda Swami was then requested by the National Religious Committee to come to Kazakhstan to complete any formalities to assure that his name be removed from the blacklist.

On March 26, 2009, at 3:30 AM, Kairat Tulesov, Deputy Head of the National Religious Committee, accompanied by officers of the KNB and the General Prosecutor's Office received Govinda Swami in the Almaty airport. Mr. Tulesov welcomed him, escorted him through immigration, and assured him that the issue of his immigration was a closed case.

“With the amendments to the religious law having been rejected, religious persons being released from prison, and my deportation case being resolved, it appears that the Kazakhstan government is beginning to exhibit the will to have relationship through civil dialogue,” Govinda Swami said.

He added: “My deepest thanks to all the devotees around the world for your prayers and support. I humbly request that you continue to pray that the crisis of our society in Kazakhstan will soon be resolved.”

By Madhava Smullen for Friends of the BBT on 28 Mar 2009

With the collapse of communism in 1989, ISKCON devotees in Kazakhstan began to raise their heads out of hiding and students across the country found their interest in Krishna consciousness piqued. Radheshyama Dasa—whose parents had instilled in him a love of esoteric books since childhood—was one of these. When he saw a friend of his lost in a Russian copy of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, he sought out devotees at Karaganda University, where he was a student of biology, and bought himself a stack of Srila Prabhupada’s books.

By 1991, he had joined the ISKCON temple in Moscow, and by the end of that year he was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and distributing the same books back to his native people.

In 1992, the first BBT book in Kazakh—Easy Journey to Other Planets—was released after being translated by a volunteer. The North European BBT wanted to strike while the iron was hot. They needed someone more full-time. And who better than their enthusiastic new book distributor in Almaty?

“I started with Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers, and between 1992 and 1994 we printed six of the most important small books,” Radheshyama recalls. He’s being generous with the word ‘we’—apart from some help from a few non-devotee translators, the Kazakh BBT was a veritable one-man show, with Radheshyama serving as translator, typesetter, proofreader, and editor.

By 1997, the demand for a Kazakh Bhagavad-gita was strong—the BBT, book distributors, general public, congregation, and ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission were all asking for it. When GBC member B. B. Govinda Swami addressed the Kazakh devotees, requesting that they translate the Bhagavad-gita, it came as no surprise that Radheshyama was nominated for the job.

It was a monumental task. Starting in late 1997 at the North European BBT’s Russian translation department in Sochi City, and finishing back in the Almaty temple when that branch was shut down, Radheshyama completed translation in 2001. It took another four years to proofread the manuscript, and two more to collect the funds needed for printing. But in January 2008, after generous contributions from well-wishers, 3,000 copies of the beautiful new Kazakh Bhagavad-gita were finally printed.

“Thanks to the many devotees who helped, the Kazakh Gita became a reality, just as many more books will become a reality in the future,” Radheshyama says. “Bhakta Kalkoz, a professional journalist who proofread the Bhagavad-gita and Beyond Birth and Death from his own home, deserves a special mention. His work is completely selfless—he never accepts pay. The same for Bhaktin Ulpan, a student who assisted with proofreading, for which she had to read the Kazakh Bhagavad-gita eight to ten times.”

While its network is growing, the Kazakh BBT remains a part of the North European BBT, with no offices or printing facilities—Kazakh books are printed at the Moscow CIS branch. “Of course, I still dream that one day we will have our own regional Kazakh BBT office and printing house,” Radheshyama says. “It would be a good step towards having a more focused work environment and saving money on transportation and printer fees.”

ISKCON’s growth in Kazakhstan in general has been stunted by government persecution. In November 2006 and June 2007, local authorities bulldozed 26 of the original 66 homes owned by devotees at the Sri Vrindavan Dham community in Almaty. They also stripped the community of ownership of the separate 118-acre farm, and continue to disrupt worship at the site. Book distribution has also been a victim—in recent years, local religion leaders have worked through the government to stop devotees distributing books at universities and colleges. And distribution on the streets can be dangerous.

“Kazakh-speaking people are somewhat aggressive towards other religions, because they think they are Muslim,” Radheshyama explains. “Once in 1999, Ksirodakasayi Dasa, who has distributed thousands of Kazakh books, was attacked and beaten up by one Kazakh man. Since Ksirodakasayi is very tough himself, devotees were a little surprised—until they learned that the man was a wrestling champion.”

Krishna Nayaka Dasi, who began distributing books in 1990 at the age of fifteen, has her own unique method of self-defense—she pretends she’s Japanese. “If fanatics know you’re Kazakh, they’re more likely to harm you, but if they think you’re a foreigner, they’ll leave you alone or may even buy books from you,” Radheshyama explains.

For those times when fanatics see through her guise, Krishna Nayaka relies on the Lord’s protection. “Recently one old man attacked her, ordering her not to preach to the Kazakh children,” Radheshyama says. “Suddenly, by Prabhupada’s mercy, she realized that the fear had left her. With a lovely smile on her face, she said: ‘I will preach to your children.’ The man’s heart melted, and he left her alone.”

Despite all the difficulty, book distribution in Kazakhstan remains healthy. And the BBT continues to produce new books there—Radheshyama is currently translating Science of Self-Realization, and many more are on the way.

For Radheshyama, life is simple. “Prabhupada’s books have done so much for me, and in return I want to fulfill his instructions. My long term goal in life is simply to translate, print, distribute, and teach all of Prabhupada’s books.”

Hare Krishna in Kazakstan:
http://servantoftheservant-ananda.blogspot.com/2008/11/hare-krishnas-in-kazakhstan.html
Kazak Edition of Bhagavad-gita presented to Srila Prabhupada.
This is now the 55th language in which Bhagavad-gita has been printed.

Read HERE how the original issue began in Kazakstan

Read HERE what the previous articles from November 2006 were

Iskcon Kazakstan
http://www.palaceofthesoul.com/news/index.php

PLEASE VISIT THIS PAGE
http://kazakhkrishna.com/en-main/

Kazakh
http://vedabase.net/kazakhstan/

NEW YORK, USA, August 8, 2009: [HPI note: This is relevant to the Hindu Community in the US. It is going to completely change the context of Hindu history teaching in US schools and make it much easier to get improved material into use -- with a proper portrayal of Hinduism.]

Many educators say it will not be long before traditional textbooks are replaced by digital versions ­ or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web. “Kids are wired differently these days,” said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La. “They think of knowledge as infinite. They don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote. Teachers need digital resources that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced an initiative that would replace some high school science and math texts with free, “open source” digital versions. This initiative–the first such statewide effort–has attracted widespread attention, since California, together with Texas, dominates the nation’s textbook market. Many superintendents are enthusiastic. “In five years, I think the majority of students will be using digital textbooks,” said William M. Habermehl, superintendent of the 500,000-student Orange County schools. Instead of today’s small classes, he envisions “200 or 300 kids taking courses online, at night, 24/7, whenever they want: brilliant $200 courses by the best teachers in the world.”

Around the world, hundreds of universities, including M.I.T., now use and share open-source courses. But the K-12 digital revolution may be further off. Not every student has access to the technology, and few districts are wealthy enough to provide it–so there are concerns that digital textbooks could widen the gap between rich and poor.

Digital textbooks are only the start of the revolution in educational technology. Most of the digital texts submitted for review in California came from a nonprofit group, CK-12 Foundation, that develops free “flexbooks” that can be customized to meet state standards, and added to by teachers. “The good part of our flexbooks is that they can be anything you want,” said Neeru Khosla, a founder of the group. “You can use them online, you can download them onto a disk, you can print them, you can customize them, you can embed video. There’s no reason to pay $100 a pop for a textbook, when you can have the content you want free.”

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

NEW DELHI, INDIA, August 10, 2009: An ancient Indian epic about princes, demigods and a cataclysmic war is getting a makeover on Twitter ­ 140 characters at a time.

Chindu Sreedharan, a U.K.-based lecturer, is retelling the Mahabharata using the micro-blogging service, hoping to lure readers with creative snippets posted in chronological order.

“This is not quite about capturing the philosophical richness of the original Mahabharata ­ but presenting a version that will, hopefully, suit the medium,” Sreedharan, 36, told Reuters in an e-mail interview.

“My hunch was, to keep the follower hooked, you needed a tale that provided for plenty of dramatic tension. Mahabharata does that,” he added.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

USA, August 24, 2009: Drug developers say the placebo effect seems to be getting stronger: half of all drugs that fail in late-stage trials could not even outperform sugar pills. Despite historic levels of industry investment in R&D, the US Food and Drug Administration approved only 19 first-of-their-kind remedies in 2007–the fewest since 1983–and just 24 last year.

In a 2008 study of the placebo effect, volunteers were placed randomly in one of three groups. One group was simply put on a waiting list; researchers know that some patients get better just because they sign up for a trial. Another group received placebo treatment from a clinician who declined to engage in small talk. The third group also received placebos, but their clinician asked them questions about symptoms, outlined the causes of their illness, and displayed optimism about their condition. Not surprisingly, the health of those in the third group improved most. In fact, just by participating in the trial, volunteers in this high-interaction group got as much relief as did people taking the two leading prescription drugs. Furthermore, the benefits of their bogus treatment persisted for weeks afterward, despite a common belief that the placebo response is short-lived.

Drugmakers are realizing they need to fully understand the mechanisms behind the placebo effect so they can design trials that differentiate more clearly between the beneficial effects of their products and the body’s innate ability to heal itself.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

INDIA, July 24, 2009: Modern science has substantiated the extraordinary healing power of turmeric. A team of scientists led by Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy , an IIT Kanpur alumnus and a professor of chemistry and biophysics at the University of Michigan, has deciphered the exact functioning of curcumin, a major ingredient of turmeric powder, in curing wounds, infections and other health problems.

“In our recent research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, we found that curcumin molecules insert themselves into the cell membrane and sit quite comfortably in its greasy layer. This makes curcumin behave like cholesterol and stabilize the membrane such that invaders like bacteria, virus and other micro-organisms find it very difficult to destabilize the cell membrane structure, thereby increasing the cells’ resistance to infection by disease-causing microbes,” says Ramamoorthy.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

SAN DIEGO, CA, USA, July 14, 2009: Stephen Huyler loves India. His car, the Ganeshmobile, is a 2008 Prius decorated with the design of a nineteenth century Indian paisley shawl, with images of the Remover of All Obstacles, Lord Ganesha. The hood ornament is a bronze sculpture of Ganesha dancing.

Stephen Huyler, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist, art historian, photographer, author and contributor to Hinduism Today, who has spent much of the past 33 years traveling in Indian villages documenting craftsmanship and contemporary traditions.

Dr. Huyler is the Curator of SONABAI - Another Way of Seeing, an exhibition opening at Mingei International in Balboa Park on July 26.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

NEW YORK, USA, July 16, 2009: SHORTLY after Steven Odnoha lost his job at Intel, he drove three days from Rio Rancho, N.M., to the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pa. For months, Mr. Odnoha had been wondering how he could get the time off to join a yearlong meditation program at the nonprofit yoga retreat. His pink slip, in September 2007, provided the answer.

The Himalayan Institute is one of many retreats where cash-strapped spiritual seekers can participate in work-study programs in which they pay typically $300 to $900 a month in exchange for a few hours a day of service, like washing dishes, cleaning rooms or weeding gardens.

As the unemployment rate has risen and people have sought refuge from the harsh economy, these work-exchanges have become a hot commodity. The Himalayan Institute received twice as many applications for its summer work-study programs this year as last ­ its August session is full, with 22 people, compared with 11 last year ­ and so did similar retreats.

At the Himalayan Institute’s 28-day self-transformation program, the day begins with a 6 a.m. meditation and continues with a full roster of hatha yoga classes, breathing and relaxation practicums and about four hours of light chores, like making beds and chopping vegetables. The program costs $825, and participants receive a private room and three vegetarian meals a day. “It’s designed for individuals who are between jobs, on leave or sabbatical, or just burned out and have the ability to take time out,” Mr. Wolfenberg said.

Yehnemsah Oneha, work-study coordinator at Ananda Ashram, says that the ashram’s monthlong immersion program is intended for deep spiritual study and contemplation, not hiding out from the world. “If you’re applying because you can’t deal with life, that’s not a good motivation,” she said.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

MUMBAI, INDIA, July 20, 2009: Like many Indians who came of age in the 1980s, Samir Patil grew up on the comic books published by Amar Chitra Katha. Made up of Indian-style religious parables and biographies of historical figures, they taught him about the great, and lesser-known, stories of India in a didactic format meant for young audiences. It is common for the average Hindus to know the Puranic stories of Hinduism, or the life of famous saints, through these comic books.

Now, Mr. Patil, a 38-year-old who acquired the publisher two years ago, is betting that he can do the same for a new generation of Indian children who have been raised watching TV, sending text messages and surfing the Web. He plans to broadcast animated versions of his comics on Indian television starting early next year. He expects the shows to appear first on the Cartoon Network in India, and he is negotiating deals with the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

In 1999 Satya devi dasi, of Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir in Brooklyn, New York, twice catered prasadam for the late Michael Jackson at private dinners for two with a man we know in New York City.

When she offered the singer a copy of the Bhagavad-gita he said he already had the book. The host then asked if the book Jackson had was Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita As It Is; Jackson confirmed that it was. When presented with a first-edition Krishna Art book, he looked through the illustrations and said he liked the paintings. He took that Krishna Art book home.

He was one of the fortunate persons in this world to honor Sri Sri Radha Govindadeva's Maha-prasdam, enjoying Radha Govinda Temple's world famous Burfi and other Mangal-arati sweets. He got Satya's gourmet prasadam cooking for dinner on two consecutive evenings, discussing reincarnation and karma at the dinner table with the host.

Satya reported that Jackson was very nice, soft-spoken and friendly. At that time he was staying in a luxury suite at the Waldorf Astoria with his daughter Paris Katherine and first son Prince Michael; his third child was not yet born. Jackson had been in New York to receive the Bollywood Outstanding Humanitarian Award.
 

SRI LANKA, June 17, 2009: The Ramayana Trail of Sri Lanka revolves round the Ramayana, the great epic of Asia. Over 50 sites associated with the Ramayana, are located within Sri Lanka, with around 12 of them being sites with archeological evidence. The rest of the sites are largely based on unwavering faith and traditional beliefs.

A dedicated team from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) and the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Bureau (SLTPB), is handling the promotion and development of the Ramayana sites, and have created interest among local travel agents and hoteliers on the subject. Nearly 30 guides have been trained and a brochure, a DVD, and a travel planner have been published.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

NEW DELHI, INDIA, July 5, 2009: Politicians may have achieved little consensus on stopping global warming, but religious leaders are moving quickly.

Some proposals make religious texts available on recycled paper, food in gurudwaras will be cooked in solar-powered kitchens, and places of worship around the world will install waste recycling and water-harvesting systems. Islamic leaders are expected to announce that the Haj pilgrimage will be green starting next year and environment studies will be taught in religious schools, and Pope Benedict XVI has just released an encyclical ­ a statement ­ that mentions the environment.

Some measures have already been taken. Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati, Sai Baba Temple in Shirdi, and the Golden Temple in Amritsar already use solar-powered kitchens ­ apparently the world’s largest ­ to prepare lunch for devotees, and churches in England and southern India have developed seven-year plans to save the environment.

Olav Kjorven, head of the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) international policy division on the environment, points out, “Religious bodies are the world’s biggest civil society and they can make a huge impact on the fight against climate change.”

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

CHANDIGARH, INDIA, July 12, 2009: 1.4 million pilgrims from various parts of the country and abroad are expected to take a holy dip in the Sarovar waters at Kurukshetra during the solar eclipse fair on July 22.

“This will be the longest duration eclipse of the 21st century. We are expecting more than a million pilgrims to visit Kurukshetra and we have made all arrangements so that people can take the holy dip there from 5:30 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. on that day,” Haryana’s Tourism Minister Kiran Choudhry said at a press conference here today.

“It’s going to be a rare event, second in the series of three eclipses one after the other. First there was lunar eclipse on July 6, and there will be another lunar eclipse on August 6,” she said.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

How to Be Anxiety-Free
http://www.aweber.com/z/article/?usr_course&ID=AEwMDJy0DOy0jOwEjIxcrBxcDAy0DCwA

--uploaded from Bhaktivedanta Ashram--Austin, Texas  USA

The key to being anxiety-free is this: The more we channel our energy into helping others become free of anxiety, the more we automatically become free of anxiety. In other words if we simply focus on freeing ourselves from anxiety, it will not be as effective as living our lives in such a way as to free others from anxiety. The reason it works like this is that the more we are selfish, the more we are in anxiety, and the more that we are selfless, the more more we are anxiety-free.

The ultimate relief from all anxiety is to live one's life in such a way that at every minute in all situations one is always fully absorbed in liberating all the living entities in this material world from their countless anxieties. How can we do this?  By always cultivating and spreading Krishna consciousness to the fullest possible extent. The more we share Krishna consciousness, the more we will taste it, and the happier and happier we will be.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Read more on Chanting Hare Krishna HERE:

LONDON, ENGLAND, June 10, 2009: A report released Wednesday claims the melting of the glaciers, also known as ‘Water Towers of Asia’ will bring perils to poor section of the populations dependent on the river systems in India, China, Pakistan and other Asian countries by the year 2050.

Titled ‘In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement’, the report announced in Bonn, Germany, says ongoing melting of the glaciers will devastate heavily irrigated farmlands of Asia by increasing floods and decreasing long-term water supplies.

The glacier-fed basins of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irawaddy, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers now support over 1.4 billion people in India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and other neighboring countries.

Changes in the rivers and livelihoods dependent on them could bring profound economic, cultural and demographic impacts, the report warns.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

INDIA, July 2, 2009: Especially in urban areas, India’s young are rediscovering the lure of the Sanskrit language. As many as 30,000 people have enrolled for countrywide Sanskrit classes that are starting this July under the aegis of the Gita Shiksha Kendra; 60 per cent of these are in the 18-28 age group. At the Delhi Samvadshala, students from 37 countries come down in winters to learn spoken Sanskrit. And in 2008, 2,000 Delhiites, mostly in their 20s, enrolled for spoken Sanskrit crash courses that were held across the city

These students include young techies, MBAs, civil servants, students of history and philosophy, as well as those interested in ayurveda or yoga. They are attracted by Sanskrit’s highly logical grammatical structure; the access it gives them to classics and texts on ayurveda, yoga; and the guidance on ethics, leadership and strategy in texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Arthashastra. The fact that Sanskrit is a scoring subject in CBSE, UPSC exams has also fueled interest. Recently, according to this report , an orthodox Muslim girl called Rahmath, 21, won the first rank in the Sanskrit Vedanta degree course conducted by the University of Kerala.

But for Hindus, it’s all about claiming one’s heritage. “We’re going back to our roots,” smiles Krishna Shastry, who helped to initiate the Sanskrita Sambhashanam (Speak Sanskrit) movement in 1981.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

By Robert Allan for The New York Times on 25 Jun 2009

Not long ago, a cardiac patient in a cardiac support group I was leading told of his response to a recent incident: He and a female friend were on the plaza at Lincoln Center after seeing a performance of Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” when a car nearly hit the woman. She ran after the vehicle, which was slowly moving away, and slammed the trunk with her rolled up program. The driver emerged from the car hurling expletives in her direction. The patient then hit the driver with his cane. The driver shoved the patient into a fender, at which point, the patient insisted, he had no choice … It was no ordinary cane he was carrying, but a beautiful 19th-century model with a sleek, sharp sword concealed within. He then insisted that the driver “apologize at swordpoint” in front of a small crowd that had gathered. The characters in “Il Trovatore,” he added, proudly brandished swords.

The patient shared this story at his first — and only — session of the support group. (He terminated treatment, insisting that the others needed my help with their anger far more than he did.) Even after deliberating for several weeks, the patient felt justified and vindicated, totally satisfied by his actions.

Many of us harbor the “make my day” fantasy, emblazoned into the American psyche by Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. Americans get mad — and get even. However, when people pursue such satisfaction they run the risk of triggering someone else’s thirst for revenge, and so begins a recurring, sometimes escalating, cycle. Soon, one always has to look behind his or her back in fear that a former adversary will find an opportunity for the proverbial knifing.

Not many people on earth can claim regular, deep, long-lasting satisfaction. Satisfaction is fleeting, and often whittled away by recorded telephone menus, rude waiters and any number of other indignities of contemporary society. And of course, this has particular currency today. Many of us are justifiably angry at our former employers for loss of jobs or at the financial service industry’s inability to protect our life savings.

Challenging times certainly increase the tendency for negative moods and aggressive behavior (this dynamic was described in the “frustration-aggression hypothesis” first put forth in the 1940s.[1] However, giving way to an angry impulse makes nearly any situation worse.

The aforementioned patient’s life, in spite of considerable intelligence, advanced degrees, and a personable demeanor, was one of mere survival in a cramped studio apartment. When we met, he was selling some of his few remaining valuables to make the next month’s rent. This patient’s career was marked with disappointments ­ in others who disappointed him. Moreover, he was a cardiac patient with a bad family history and suffered a heart attack at a young age. The swordsman was keenly aware of the link between chronic anger and heart disease. Indeed, a recent meta-analysis of 44 prospective studies in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology[2] confirms a strong relationship between anger and both the onset and outcome from coronary heart disease; moreover, approximately 1.5 percent of heart attacks are “triggered” by intense anger.

While it is not possible to make a definitive causal connection between the swordsman’s actions and unfortunate life circumstances, the experience of a 35-year practice as a clinical psychologist and abundant literature on the subject all inform me that the sort of satisfaction of which he was so fond ultimately did him in, both in health and life. Expressing his anger didn’t benefit him at all.

People often challenge this view with the idea that unexpressed anger “builds up,” leading to resentment, high blood pressure, a heart attack or stroke. Many of us conceive of anger just as we fill a balloon with (hot) air. We get angry, the balloon expands. An injustice befalls us, we get angrier — the balloon gets larger. Something else “bad” happens and the balloon gets so big that it … bursts! The comedian Jonathan Katz described a moment like this in a joke about having dinner with his father: “I meant to say, ‘Can you pass me the salt, please?’ But it comes out, You creep, you ruined my childhood!”

Jokes aside, anger is not a measurable substance. There is no organ, gland, or other repository in our bodies for anger. Yet, we have myriad terms that make reference to anger as an accumulating substance. Anger “builds up,” “leaks out,” and is sometimes transformed into “explosive rage.” The idea that anger accumulates is a myth that can sometimes lead to the sort of “satisfaction” achieved by my patient. He didn’t “bottle-up” his anger; he “released” it (“it,” in his thinking, transformed into a substance). My patient obtained “real satisfaction” by drawing his sword — but ultimately slashed his existence to a sliver of what he might have become.

When faced with frustrating disappointments, we may all secretly wish to advise our money managers, as well those with whom we are close, about their expanding waistline, receding hairline, or the pimple that has suddenly sprung up in the middle of their forehead. But such “satisfaction” inevitably comes back to haunt us as others are even more likely to remember our insult than we are to relish getting the best of them. To quote another patient, “life is very lonely when you are always right.”

Turkey’s Reality TV Show About Religious Conversion
http://www.religionclause.blogspot.com

ISTANBUL, TURKEY, July 7, 2009: Istanbul-based television station Kanal T. Reuters last Friday reported that a planned show, “Penitents Compete,” will feature a rabbi, an imam, a priest and a Buddhist monk, each of whom will try, on camera, to convert ten atheists.

Each convert will win a trip to his or her new religion’s holy site– Mecca, the Vatican, Jerusalem or Tibet.

Hamza Aktan, chairman of Turkey’s High Board of Religious Affairs, said: “Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs.”

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

 By Stephen Knapp

      With only a small amount of research, a person can discover that each area of the world has its own ancient culture that includes its own gods and legends about the origins of various cosmological realities, and that many of these are very similar. But where did all these stories and gods come from? Did they all spread around the world from one particular source, only to change according to differences in language and customs? If not, then why are some of these gods and goddesses of various areas of the world so alike?

      Unfortunately, information about prehistoric religion is usually gathered through whatever remnants of earlier cultures we can find, such as bones in tombs and caves, or ancient sculptures, writings, engravings, wall paintings, and other relics. From these we are left to speculate about the rituals, ceremonies, and beliefs of the people and the purposes of the items found. Often we can only paint a crude picture of how simple and backwards these ancient people were while not thinking that more advanced civilizations may have left us next to nothing in terms of physical remains. They may have built houses out of wood or materials other than stone that have since faded with the seasons, or were simply replaced with other buildings over the years, rather than buried by the sands of time for archeologists to unearth. They also may have cremated their dead, as some societies did, leaving no bones to discover. Thus, without ancient museums or historical records from the past, there would be no way of really knowing what the prehistoric cultures were like.

      If a few thousand years in the future people could uncover our own houses after being buried for so long and find television antennas on top of each house wired to a television inside, who knows what they would think. Without a recorded history of our times they might speculate that the antennas, being pointed toward the heavens, were used for us to commune with our gods who would appear, by mystic power, on the screen of the television box inside our homes. They might also think that we were very much devoted to our gods since some houses might have two, three, or more televisions, making it possible for us to never be without contact with our gods through the day. And since the television was usually found in a prominent area, with special couches and reclining chairs, this must surely be the prayer room where we would get the proper inspiration for living life. Or they might even think that the television was itself the god, the idol of our times. This, of course, would not be a very accurate picture, but it reflects the difficulty we have in understanding ancient religion by means of analyzing the remnants we find. However, when we begin comparing all the religions of the world, we can see how they are all interrelated and have a source from which most of them seem to have originated. And most of them can be traced to the East.

      Most scholars agree that the earliest of religions seems to have arisen from the most ancient of organized cultures, which are either the Sumerians along the Euphrates, or the Aryans located in the region of the Indus Valley. In fact, these two cultures were related. C. L. Woolley, one of the world’s foremost archeologists, establishes in his book, The Sumerians, that the facial characteristics of the Sumerian people can be traced to Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and on to the Indus region. The early Indus civilization, which was remarkably developed, has many similarities with Sumer over 1500 miles away, especially in regard to the rectangular seals that have identical subjects on them, and are similar in the style of engraving and inscriptions. There are also similarities in the methods used in the ground plans and construction of buildings. Woolley suggests that, rather than concluding too quickly that the Sumerians and Indus civilization shared the same race or political culture, which may actually have been the case, or that such similarities were merely from trade connections, the evidence at least indicates that the two societies shared a common source.

      The researcher and scholar L. A. Waddell offers more evidence to show the relation between the Aryans and the Sumerians. He states in his book, The Indo Sumerian Seals Deciphered, that the discovery and translation of the Sumerian seals along the Indus Valley give evidence that the Aryan society existed there from as long ago as 3100 B.C. Several Sumerian seals found along the Indus bore the names of famous Vedic Aryan seers and princes familiar in the Vedic hymns. Therefore, these Aryan personalities were not merely part of an elaborate myth, like some people seem to proclaim, but actually lived five thousand years ago as related in the Vedic epics and Puranas.

      Waddell also says that the language and religion of the Indo-Aryans were radically similar to that of the Sumerians and Phoenicians, and that the early Aryan kings of the Indian Vedas are identical with well-known historical kings of the Sumerians. He believes that the decipherment of these seals from the Indus Valley confirms that the Sumerians were actually the early Aryans and authors of Indian civilization. He concludes that the Sumerians were Aryans in physique, culture, religion, language, and writing. He also feels that the early Sumerians on the Persian Gulf near 3100 B.C. were Phoenicians who were Aryans in race and speech, and were the introducers of Aryan civilization in ancient India. Thus, he concludes that it was the Aryans who were the bearers of high civilization and who spread throughout the Mediterranean, Northwest Europe, and Britain, as well as India. However, he states that the early Aryan Sumero-Phoenicians did not become a part of the Aryan Invasion of India until the seventh century B.C. after their defeat by the Assyrian Sargon II in 718 B.C. at Carchemish in Upper Mesopotamia. Though the Sumerians indeed may have been Aryan people, some researchers feel that rather than being the originators of Vedic Aryan culture, or part of an invasion into India, they were an extension of the Vedic culture that originated in India and spread through Persia and into Europe.

THEORIES ON THE ARYAN ORIGINS
      This brings us to the different theories that scholars have about the origins of the Aryan society. Though it seems evident that an Aryan society was in existence in the Indus Valley by 3100 B.C., not everyone agrees with the dates that Waddell has presented for the Aryan Invasion into India, and whether the Aryans were actually invaders is doubtful. Obviously, different views on the Aryanization of India are held by different historians. Some scholars say that it was about 1000 B.C. when Aryans entered Iran from the north and then occupied the Indus region by 800 B.C. In this scenario, the Aryans had to have entered India sometime after this. But others say that it was between 1500 and 1200 B.C. that the Aryans entered India and composed hymns that make up the Rig-veda. So some people calculate that the Rig-veda must have been composed around 1400 B.C.

      Mr. Pargiter, another noted scholar, contends that Aryan influence in India was felt long before the composition of the Vedic hymns. He states that the Aryans entered India near 2000 B.C. over the Central Himalayas and later spread into the Punjab. Brunnhofer and others argue that the composition of the Rig-veda took place not in the Punjab, but in Afghanistan or Iran. This theory assumes that Aryan entrance into India was much later.

      Even Max Muller, the great orientalist and translator of Eastern texts, was also a great proponent of speculating on the dates of the compilations of the Vedas. He admitted that his ideas on the dates of the Vedas could not be dependable. He had originally estimated that the Rig-veda had been written around 1000 B.C. However, he was greatly criticized for that date, and he later wrote in his book, Physical Religion (p.91, 1891), “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000, 1500 or 2000 BCE, no power on earth will ever determine.”

      So, as we can see from the above examples, which are just a few of the many ideas on the Aryan origins, analyzing these theories can get rather confusing. In fact, so many theories on the location of the original Aryans or Indo-Europeans have been presented by archeologists and researchers that for a time they felt the location could change from minute to minute, depending on the latest evidence that was presented. In many cases over the years, archeologists presumed they had located the home of the Sumerians or Aryans any time they found certain types of metal tools or painted pottery that resembled what had been found at the Sumerian or Indus Valley sites. Though such findings may have been of some significance, further study proved that they were of considerably less importance than had been originally thought, and, thus, the quest for locating the original Aryan home could not be concluded.

WAS THERE EVER AN ARYAN INVASION?
      One of the major reasons why a consideration of the idea of an Aryan invasion into India is prevalent among some Western researchers is because of their misinterpretation of the Vedas, deliberate or otherwise, that suggests the Aryans were a nomadic people. One such misinterpretation is from the Rig-veda, which describes the battle between Sudas and the ten kings. The battle of the ten kings included the Pakthas, Bhalanas, Alinas, Shivas, Vishanins, Shimyus, Bhrigus, Druhyas, Prithus, and Parshus, who fought against the Tritsus. The Prithus or Parthavas became the Parthians of latter-day Iran (247 B.C.­224 A.D.). The Parshus or Pashavas became the latter-day Persians. These kings, though some are described as Aryans, were actually fallen Aryans, or rebellious and materialistic kings who had given up the spiritual path and were conquered by Sudas. Occasionally, there was a degeneration of the spiritual kingdom in areas of India, and wars had to be fought in order to reestablish the spiritual Aryan culture in these areas. Western scholars could and did easily misinterpret this to mean an invasion of nomadic people called Aryans rather than simply a war in which the superior Aryan kings reestablished the spiritual values and the Vedic Aryan way of life.

      Let us also remember that the Aryan invasion theory was hypothesized in the nineteenth century to explain the similarities found in Sanskrit and the languages of Europe. One person who reported about this is Deen Chandora in his article, Distorted Historical Events and Discredited Hindu Chronology, as it appeared in Revisiting Indus-Sarasvati Age and Ancient India (p. 383). He explains that the idea of the Aryan invasion was certainly not a matter of misguided research, but was a conspiracy to distribute deliberate misinformation that was formulated on April 10, 1866 in London at a secret meeting held in the Royal Asiatic Society. This was “to induct the theory of the Aryan invasion of India, so that no Indian may say that English are foreigners. . . India was ruled all along by outsiders and so the country must remain a slave under the benign Christian rule.” This was a political move and this theory was put to solid use in all schools and colleges.

      So it was basically a linguistic theory adopted by the British colonial authorities to keep themselves in power. This theory suggested, more or less, that there was a race of superior, white Aryans who came in from the Caucasus Mountains and invaded the Indus region, and then established their culture, compiled their literature, and then proceeded to invade the rest of India.

      As can be expected, most of those who were great proponents of the Aryan invasion theory were often ardent English and German nationalists, or Christians, ready and willing to bring about the desecration of anything that was non-Christian or non-European. Even Max Muller believed in the Christian chronology, that the world was created at 9:00 AM on October 23, 4004 B.C. and the great flood occurred in 2500 B.C. Thus, it was impossible to give a date for the Aryan invasion earlier than 1500 B.C. After all, accepting the Christian time frame would force them to eliminate all other evidence and possibilities, so what else could they do? So, even this date for the Aryan invasion was based on speculation.

      In this way, the Aryan invasion theory was created to make it appear that Indian culture and philosophy was dependent on the previous developments in Europe, thereby justifying the need for colonial rule and Christian expansion in India. This was also the purpose of the study of Sanskrit, such as at Oxford University in England, as indicated by Colonel Boden who sponsored the program. He stated that they should “promote Sanskrit learning among the English, so as ‘to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion.’”

      Unfortunately, this was also Max Muller’s ultimate goal. In a letter to his wife in 1866, he wrote about his translation of the Rig-veda: “This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last three thousand years.” (The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Muller, Vol. I. p.346)

      So, in essence, the British used the theory of the Aryan invasion to further their “divide and conquer” policy. With civil unrest and regional cultural tensions created by the British through designations and divisions among the Indian society, it gave a reason and purpose for the British to continue and increase their control over India.

      However, under scrutiny, the Aryan invasion theory lacks justification. For example, Sir John Marshall, one of the chief excavators at Mohenjo-Daro, offers evidence that India may have been following the Vedic religion long before any so-called “invaders” ever arrived. He points out that it is known that India possessed a highly advanced and organized urban civilization dating back to at least 2300 B.C., if not much earlier. In fact, some researchers suggest that evidence makes it clear that the Indus Valley civilization was quite developed by at least 3100 B.C. The known cities of this civilization cover an area along the Indus river and extend from the coast to Rajasthan and the Punjab over to the Yamuna and Upper Ganges. At its height, the Indus culture spread over 300,000 square miles, an area larger than Western Europe. Cities that were a part of the Indus culture include Mohenjo-Daro, Kot Diji east of Mohenjo-Daro, Amri on the lower Indus, Lothal south of Ahmedabad, Malwan farther south, Harappa 350 miles upstream from Mohenjo-Daro, Kalibangan and Alamgirpur farther east, Rupar near the Himalayas, Sutkagen Dor to the west along the coast, Mehrgarh 150 miles north of Mohenjo-Daro, and Mundigak much farther north. Evidence at Mehrgarh shows a civilization that dates back to 6500 B.C. It had been connected with the Indus culture but was deserted in the third millennium B.C. around the time the city of Mohenjo-Daro became prominent.

      The arrangement of these cities and the knowledge of the residents was much superior to that of any immigrating nomads, except for military abilities at the time. A lack of weapons, except for thin spears, at these cities indicates they were not very well equipped militarily. Thus, one theory is that if there were invaders, whoever they may have been, rather than encouraging the advancement of Vedic society when they came into the Indus Valley region, they may have helped stifle it or even caused its demise in certain areas. The Indus Valley locations may have been one area where the Vedic society disappeared after the arrival of these invaders. Many of these cities seemed to have been abandoned quickly, while others were not. However, some geologists suggest that the cities were left because of environmental changes. Evidence of floods in the plains is seen in the thick layers of silt which are now thirty-nine feet above the river in the upper strata of Mohenjo-Daro. Others say that the ecological needs of the community forced the people to move on, since research shows there was a great reduction in rainfall from that period to the present.

      We also have to remember that many of the Indus sites, like Kalibangan, were close to the region of the old Sarasvati River. Some Hindu scholars are actually preferring to rename the Indus Valley culture as the Indus-Sarasvati culture because the Sarasvati was a prominent river and very important at the time. For example, the Sarasvati River is glowingly praised in the Rig-veda. However, the Sarasvati River stopped flowing and later dried up. Recent scientific studies calculate that the river stopped flowing as early as around 8000 B.C. It dried up near the end of the Indus Valley civilization, at least by 1900 B.C. This was no doubt one reason why these cities were abandoned. This also means that if the Vedic people came after the Indus Valley culture, they could not have known of the Sarasvati River. This is further evidence that the Vedas were from many years before the time of the Indus Valley society and were not brought into the region by some invasion.

      As a result of the latest studies, evidence points in the direction that the Indus sites were wiped out not by acts of war or an invasion, but by the drought that is known to have taken place and continued for 300 years. Whatever skeletons that have been found in the region may indicate deaths not by war but by starvation or lack of water. Deaths of the weak by starvation are normal before the whole society finally moves away for better lands and more abundant resources. This is the same drought that wiped out the Akkadians of Sumeria, and caused a sudden abandonment of cities in Mesopotamia, such as at Tell Leilan and Tell Brock. The beginning of the end of these civilizations had to have been near 2500 B.C. This drought no doubt contributed to the final drying up of the Sarasvati River.

      Regarding Mohenjo-Daro, archeologists have discovered no sign of attack, such as extensive burning, or remains of armor-clad warriors, and no foreign weapons. This leaves us to believe that the enemy of the people in this region was nature, such as earthquakes, flooding, or the severe drought, or even a change in the course of rivers, and not warrior invaders. So again, the invasion theory does not stand up to scrutiny from the anthropological point of view.

      The best known archeological sites of the Indus cities are Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Excavation work at Mohenjo-Daro was done from 1922 to 1931 and 1935 to 1936. Excavation at Harappa took place from 1920 to 1921 and 1933 to 1934. Evidence has shown that temples played an important part in the life of the residents of these cities. The citadel at Mohenjo-Daro contains a 39-by-23 foot bath. This seems to have been used for ceremonial purposes similar in the manner that many large temple complexes in India also have central pools for bathing and rituals. Though deities have not been found in the ruins, no doubt because they were too important to abandon, images of a Mother goddess and a Male god similar to Lord Shiva sitting in a yoga posture have been found. Some of the Shiva seals show a man with three heads and an erect phallus, sitting in meditation and surrounded by animals. This would be Shiva as Pashupati, lord or friend of the animals. Representations of the lingam of Shiva and yoni of his spouse have also been easily located, as well as non-phallic stones such as the shalagram-shila stone of Lord Vishnu. Thus, the religions of Shiva and Vishnu, which are directly Vedic, had been very much a part of this society long ago and were not brought to the area by any invaders who may have arrived later.

      Another point that helps convince that the Vedic religion and culture had to have been there in India and pre-Harappan times is the sacrificial altars that have been discovered at the Harappan sites. These are all of similar design and found from Baluchistan to Uttar Pradesh, and down into Gujarat. This shows that the whole of this area must have been a part of one specific culture, the Vedic culture, which had to have been there before these sites were abandoned.

      More information in this regard is found in an article by J. F. Jarrige and R. H. Meadow in the August, 1980 issue of Scientific American called “The Antecedents of Civilization in the Indus Valley.” In the article they mention that recent excavations at Mehrgarh show that the antecedents of the Indus Valley culture go back earlier than 6000 B.C. in India. An outside influence did not affect its development. Astronomical references established in the Vedas do indeed concur with the date of Mehrgarh. Therefore, sites such as Mehrgarh reflect the earlier Vedic age of India. Thus, we have a theory of an Aryan invasion which is not remembered by the people of the area that were supposed to have been conquered by the Aryans.

      Furthermore, Dr. S. R. Rao has deciphered the Harappan script to be of an Indo-Aryan base. In fact, he has shown how the South Arabic, Old Aramic, and the ancient Indian Brahmi scripts are all derivatives of the Indus Valley script. This new evidence confirms that the Harappan civilization could not have been Dravidians that were overwhelmed by an Aryan invasion, but they were followers of the Vedic religion. The irony is that the invasion theory suggests that the Vedic Aryans destroyed the Dravidian Indus townships which had to have been previously built according to the mathematical instructions that are found in the Vedic literature of the Aryans, such as the Shulbasutras. This point helps void the invasion theory. After all, if the people of these cities used the Vedic styles of religious altars and town planning, it would mean they were already Aryans.

      In a similar line of thought in another recent book, Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals, Dr. Natwar Jha has provided an interpretation of the ancient script of the numerous recovered seals of the Indus Valley civilization. He has concluded that the Indus Valley seals, which are small soapstone, one-inch squares, exhibit a relation to the ancient form of Brahmi. He found words on the seals that come from the ancient Nighantu text, which is a glossary of Sanskrit compiled by the sage Yaksa that deals with words of subordinate Vedic texts. An account of Yaksa’s search for older Sanskrit words is found in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata. This may have been in relation to the Indus Valley seals and certainly shows its ancient Vedic connection.

      The point of all this is that the entire Rig-veda had to have been existing for thousands of years by the time the Indus Valley seals were produced. Therefore, the seals were of Vedic Sanskrit origin or a derivative of it, and the Indus Valley sites were part of the Vedic culture. This is further evidence that there was no Aryan invasion. No Aryan invasion means that the area and its residents were already a part of the Vedic empire. This also means that the so-called Indo-Aryan or Indo-European civilization was nothing but the worldwide Vedic culture. From this we can also conclude, therefore, that the so-called Indo-Aryan group of languages is nothing but the various local mispronunciations of Sanskrit which has pervaded the civilized world for thousands of years.

      Another interesting point is that skeletal remains found in the Harappan sites that date back to 4000 years ago show the same basic racial types in the Punjab and Gujarat as found today. This verifies that no outside race invaded and took over the area. The only west to east movement that took place was after the Sarasvati went dry, and that was involving the people who were already there. In this regard, Sir John Marshall, in charge of the excavations at the Harappan sites, said that the Indus civilization was the oldest to be unearthed, even older than the Sumerian culture, which is believed to be but a branch of the former, and, thus, an outgrowth of the Vedic society.

      One more point about skeletal remains at the Harappan sites is that bones of horses are found at all levels of these locations. Thus, the horse was well known to these people. The horse was mentioned in the Rig-veda, and was one of the main animals of Vedic culture in India. However, according to records in Mesopotamia, the horse was unknown to that region until only about 2100 B.C. So this provides further proof that the direction of movement by the people was from India to the west, not the other way around as the invasion theory suggests.

      Professor Lal has written a book, The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, in which he also has concluded that the theory of an Aryan invasion has no basis. An invasion is not the reason for the destruction of the Harappan civilization. It was caused by climactic changes. He says the Harappan society was a melting pot made up of people from the Mediterranean, Armenia, the Alpine area, and even China. They engaged in typical Vedic fire worship, ashwamedha rituals. Such fire altars have been found in the Indus Valley cities of Banawali, Lothal, and Kalibangan.

      He also explains that the city of Kalibangan came to ruin when the Saraswati River dried up, caused by severe climactic changes around 1900 B.C. Thus, the mention of the Sarasvati River also helps date the Vedas, which had to have existed before this. This would put the origin of Sanskrit writing and the earliest portions of Vedic literature at least sometime before 4000 B.C., 6000 years ago.

      In conclusion, V. Gordon Childe states in his book, The Aryans, that though the idea of an Asiatic origin of the Aryans, who then migrated into India, is the most widely accepted idea, it is still the least well documented. And this idea is only one of the unfounded generalizations with which for over seventy years anthropology and archeology have been in conflict. In fact, today the northern Asiatic origin of the Aryans is a hypothesis which has been abandoned by most linguists and archeologists.

THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION WAS A PART OF THE ADVANCED VEDIC CULTURE
      Besides what we have already discussed, more light is shed on the advanced civilization of the Indus Valley and how it influenced areas beyond its region when we consider the subject of Vedic mathematics. E. J. H. Mackay explains in his book, Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, that the whole basis of Vedic mathematics is geometry, and geometrical instruments have been found in the Indus Valley which date back to at least 2800 B.C. The Vedic form of mathematics was much more advanced than that found in early Greek and Egyptian societies. This can be seen in the Shulbasutras, supplements of the Kalpasutras, which also show the earliest forms of algebra which were used by the Vedic priests in their geometry for the construction of altars and arenas for religious purposes. In fact, the geometrical formula known as the Pythagorean theorem can be traced to the Baudhayans, the earliest forms of the Shulbasutras dated prior to the eighth century B.C.

      The Shulbasutras are the earliest forms of mathematical knowledge, and certainly the earliest for any religious purpose. They basically appear as a supplement to the ritual (Shrauta) aspect of the Kalpasutras. They essentially contain the mathematical formulas for the design of various altars for the Vedic rituals of worship, which are evident in the Indus Valley sites.

      The date of the Shulbasutras, after comparing the Baudhayana, Apastamba and Katyayana Shulbas with the early mathematics of ancient Egypt and Babylonia, as described by N. S. Rajaram in Vedic Aryans and The Origins of Civilization (p.139), is near 2000 B.C. However, after including astronomical data from the Ashvalayana Grihyasutra, Shatapantha Brahmana, etc., the date can be brought farther back to near 3000 B.C., near the time of the Mahabharata War and the compilation of the other Vedic texts by Srila Vyasadeva.

      With this view in mind, Vedic mathematics can no longer be considered as a derivative from ancient Babylon, which dates to 1700 B.C., but must be the source of it as well as the Greek or Pythagorean mathematics. Therefore, the advanced nature of the geometry found in the Shulbasutras indicates that it provided the knowledge that had to have been known during the construction of the Indus sites, such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, as well as that used in ancient Greece and Babylon.

      It is Vedic mathematics that originated the decimal system of tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on, and in which the remainder of one column of numbers is carried over to the next column. The Indian number system was used in Arabia after 700 A.D. and was called Al-Arqan-Al-Hindu. This spread into Europe and became known as the Arabic numerals. This, of course, has developed into the number system we use today, which is significantly easier than the Egyptian, Roman, or Chinese symbols for numbers that made mathematics much more difficult. It was the Indians who devised the methods of dividing fractions and the use of equations and letters to signify unknown factors. They also made discoveries in calculus and other systems of math several hundred years before these same principles were understood in Europe. Thus, it becomes obvious that if the Europeans had not changed from the Roman numeral system to the form of mathematics that originated in India, many of the developments that took place in Europe would not have been possible. In this way, all evidence indicates that it was not any northern invaders into India who brought or originated this advanced form of mathematics, but it was from the Vedic Aryan civilization that had already been existing in India and the Indus Valley region. Thus, we can see that such intellectual influence did not descend from the north into India, but rather traveled from India up into Europe.

      Additional evidence that it was not any invaders who originated the highly advanced Vedic culture in the Indus Valley is the fact that various seals that Waddell calls Sumerian and dates back to 2800 B.C. have been found bearing the image of the water buffalo or Brahma bull. Modern zoologists believe that the water buffalo was known only to the Ganges and Brahmaputra valleys and did not exist in Western India or the Indus Valley. This would suggest a few possibilities. One is that the Sumerians had traveled to Central and Eastern India for reasons of trade and for finding precious stones since Harappa was a trading center connected by way of the Indus river with the gold and turquoise industry of Tibet. Thus, they learned about the water buffalo and used images of them on their seals. The second and most likely possibility is that the Aryan civilization at the time extended from Eastern India to the Indus region and farther west to Mesopotamia and beyond, and included the Sumerians as a branch. So, trade and its Vedic connections with India naturally brought the image of the water buffalo to the Indus Valley region and beyond.

      Further evidence showing the Vedic influence on the region of Mohenjo-Daro is a tablet dating back to 2600 B.C. It depicts an image of Lord Krishna as a child. This positively shows that the Indus Valley culture was connected with the ancient Vedic system, which was prevalent along the banks of the Rivers Sarasvati and Sindhu thousands of years ago.

THE VEDIC LITERATURE SUPPLIES NO EVIDENCE OF AN ARYAN INVASION
      As we can see from the above information, the presence of the Vedic Aryans in the Indus region is undeniable, but the evidence indicates they had been there long before any invaders or immigrating nomads ever arrived, and, thus, the Vedic texts must have been in existence there for quite some time as well. In fact, the Vedic literature establishes that they were written many years before the above mentioned date of 1400 B.C. The age of Kali is said to have begun in 3102 B.C. with the disappearance of Lord Krishna, which is the time when Srila Vyasadeva is said to have begun composing the Vedic knowledge into written form. Thus, the Rig-veda could not have been written or brought into the area by the so-called “invaders” because they are not supposed to have come through the area until 1600 years later.

      One of the problems with dating the Vedic literature has been the use of linguistic analysis, which has not been dependable. It can be safe to say, as pointed out by K. C. Verma in his Mahabharata: Myth and Reality­Differing Views (p.99), “All attempts to date the Vedic literature on linguistic grounds have failed miserably for the simple reason that (a) the conclusions of comparative philology are often speculative and (b) no one has yet succeeded in showing how much change should take place in a language in a given period. The only safe method is astronomical.”

      With this suggestion, instead of using the error prone method of linguistics, we can look at the conclusion a few others have drawn by using astronomical records for dating the Vedas. With the use of astronomical calculations, some scholars date the earliest hymns of the Rig-veda to before 4500 B.C. Others, such as Lokmanya Tilak and Hermann Jacobi, agree that the major portion of the hymns of the Rig-veda were composed from 4500 to 3500 B.C., when the vernal equinox was in the Orion constellation. These calculations had to have been actual sightings, according to K. C. Verma, who states, “it has been proved beyond doubt that before the discoveries of Newton, Liebnitz, La Place, La Grange, etc., back calculations could not have been made; they are based on observational astronomy.” (Mahabharata: Myth and Reality­Differing Views, p.124)

      In his book called The Celestial Key to the Vedas: Discovering the Origins of the World’s Oldest Civilization, B. G. Sidharth provides astronomical evidence that the earliest portions of the Rig-veda can be dated to 10,000 B.C. He is the director of the B. M. Birla Science Center and has 30 years of experience in astronomy and science. He also confirms that India had a thriving civilization capable of sophisticated astronomy long before Greece, Egypt, or any other culture in the world.

      In his commentary on Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.7.8), A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, one of the most distinguished Vedic scholars of modern times, also discusses the estimated date of when the Vedic literature was written based on astronomical evidence. He writes that there is some diversity amongst mundane scholars as to the date when Srimad-Bhagavatam was compiled, the latest of Vedic scriptures. But from the text it is certain that it was compiled after Lord Krishna disappeared from the planet and before the disappearance of King Pariksit. We are presently in the five thousandth year of the age of Kali according to astronomical calculation and evidence in the revealed scriptures. Therefore, he concludes, Srimad-Bhagavatam had to have been compiled at least five thousand years ago. The Mahabharata was compiled before Srimad-Bhagavatam, and the major Puranas were compiled before Mahabharata.

      Furthermore, we know that the Upanishads and the four primary Vedas, including the Rig-veda, were compiled years before Mahabharata. This would indicate that the Vedic literature was already existing before any so-called invasion, which is said to have happened around 1400 B.C. In fact, this indicates that the real Aryans were the Vedic kings and sages who were already prevalent in this region, and not any uncertain tribe of nomadic people that some historians inappropriately call “invading Aryans” who came into India and then wrote their Vedic texts after their arrival. So this confirms the Vedic version.

       Another point of consideration is the Sarasvati River. Some people feel that the Sarasvati is simply a mythical river, but through research and the use of aerial photography they have rediscovered parts of what once was its river bed. As the Vedas describe, and as research has shown, it had once been a very prominent river. Many hundreds of years ago it flowed from the Himalayan mountains southwest to the Arabian Sea at the Rann of Kutch, which is north of Mumbai (Bombay) in the area of Dwaraka. However, it is known to have changed course several times, flowing in a more westerly direction, and dried up near 1900 B.C.

      Since the Rig-veda (7.95.1) describes the course of the river from the mountains to the sea, as well as (10.75.5) locates the river between the Yamuna and the Shutudri (Sutlej), it becomes obvious that the Vedic Aryans had to have been in India before this river dried up, or long before 2000 B.C. The Atharva-veda (6.30.1) also mentions growing barley along the Sarasvati. And the Vajasaneya Samhita of the Yajur-veda (Shuklayajur-veda 34.11) relates that five rivers flow into the Sarasvati, after which she becomes a vast river. This is confirmed by satellite photography, archeology, and hydrological surveys that the Sarasvati was a huge river, up to five miles wide. Not only does this verify the antiquity of the Aryan civilization in India, but also of the Vedic literature, which had to have been in existence many hundreds of years before 1900 B.C. So this helps confirm the above date of 3102 B.C. when the Vedic texts were compiled.

      Furthermore, the ancient Rig-veda (10.75.5; 6.45.31; 3.59.6) mentions the Ganges, sometimes called the Jahnavi, along with the Yamuna, Sarasvati, and Sindhu (Indus) rivers (Rig-veda, 10.75.1-9). So the rivers and settlements in the Ganges region did have significance in the Vedic literature, which shows that the Vedas were written in India and not brought into the Ganges area after they had been written at some other location.

      The Manu-samhita (2.21-22) also describes Madhyadesa, the central region of India, as being where the Aryans were located between the Himavat and Vindhya mountains, east of Prayaga and west of Vinasana where the Sarasvati River disappears. It also says the land that extends as far as the eastern and western oceans is called Aryavata (place of the Aryans) by the wise. This means that the center of Vedic civilization at the time was near the Sarasvati River.

      The point of this is that here is more evidence that the Vedic Aryans could not have invaded India or written the Rig-veda after 1800 B.C. and known about the Sarasvati River. In fact, for the river to have been as great as it is described in the Vedas and Puranas, the Aryans had to have been existing in the area for several thousand years, at least before the river began to dry up. And if the Aryans were not the first people in this area, then why are there no pre-Aryan names for these rivers? Or why has no one discovered the pre-Indus Valley language if it had been inhabited by a different people before the Aryans arrived? And why is there no record of any Aryan invasion in any of the Vedic literature?

      In this regard, Mr. K. D. Sethna points out on page 67 of his book, The Problem of Aryan Origins From an Indian Point of View, that even scholars who believe in an Aryan invasion of India around 1500 B.C. admit that the Rig-veda supplies no sign of an entry into the Indian subcontinent from anywhere. There is no mention of any such invasion. From our research and evidence, the Rig-veda can be dated to at least around 3000 B.C. or much earlier. Thus, for all practical purposes, there is little reason to discuss any other origination of the Vedic Aryans than the area of Northern India.

      This is corroborated in The Cultural Heritage of India (pp. 182-3) wherein it explains that Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aryan invasion from the northwest or outside of India. In fact, the Rig-veda (Book Ten, Chapter 75) lists the rivers in the order from the east to the northwest, in accordance with the expansion of the Aryan outflow from India to the northwest. This would concur with the history in the Puranas that India was the home of the Aryans, from where they expanded to outside countries in various directions, spreading the Vedic culture. The Manu-samhita (2.17-18) specifically points out that the region of the Vedic Aryans is between the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati Rivers, as similarly found in the Rig-veda (3.24.4).

      Any wars mentioned in the Vedic literature are those that have taken place between people of the same culture, or between the demigods and demons, or the forces of light and darkness. The idea that the term “Aryan” or “Arya” refers to those of a particular race is misleading. It is a term that means anyone of any race that is noble and of righteous and gentle conduct. To instill the idea of an Aryan invasion into the Vedic texts is merely an exercise of taking isolated verses out of context and changing the meaning of the terms. Even the oldest written Vedic book, the Rig-veda, contains no mention of a wandering tribe of people coming from some original holy land or any mountainous regions from outside India. In fact, it describes the Indian subcontinent in recognizable terms of rivers and climate. The Sarasvati River is often mentioned in the Rig-veda, which makes it clear that the region of the Sarasvati was a prime area of the Vedic people. Furthermore, it describes no wars with outsiders, no capturing of cities, and no incoming culture of any kind that would indicate an invasion from a foreign tribe. Only much later after the Vedic period do we have the invasion of India by the Muslims and the British, for which there is so much recorded evidence.

      The Vedic literature is massive, and no other culture has produced anything like it in regard to ancient history. Not the Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, or Chinese. So if it was produced outside of India, how could there not be some reference to its land of origination? For that matter, how could these so-called primitive nomads who came invading the Indus region invent such a sophisticated language and produce such a distinguished record of their customs in spite of their migrations and numerous battles? This is hardly likely. Only a people who are well established and advanced in their knowledge and culture can do such a thing. In this way, we can see that the Vedic texts give every indication that the Vedic Aryans originated in India.

      Therefore, we are left with much evidence in literary records and archeological findings, as we shall see, that flies in the face of the Aryan invasion theory. It shows how the Vedic Aryans went from India to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and on toward Europe in a westward direction rather than toward the east. The invasion theory is but a product of the imagination.

MORE EVIDENCE FOR THE ORIGINAL HOMEOF THE VEDIC ARYANS
      The Brahmin priests and Indian scholars believe that the Sarasvati and Ganges valley region are the origin of Indian civilization and the Aryan society. This can be given some credence when we look at the cities in this region. For example, North of Delhi is the town of Kuruksetra where the great battle of the Mahabharata took place when Sri Krishna was still on the planet over 5,000 years ago. There is also the old city of Hastinapura that was once situated along the Ganges until the river changed its course and swept the city away in 800 B.C. This is the old capital of the Kuru dynasty in the Mahabharata. Pottery remains have been found near this location that are traced back to at least 1200 B.C. In New Delhi we find the Purana Qila site, which is known to have been part of the ancient city of Indraprastha. An interesting quote can be found in the ancient Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.72.13) which can give us some idea of how prominent Indraprastha had been. It states that during the time when Sri Krishna was on this planet 5,000 years ago, King Yudhisthira sent his brothers, the Pandavas, to conquer the world in all directions. This was for bringing all countries to participate in the great Rajasuya ceremony that was being held in ancient Indraprastha. All countries were to pay a tax to help the performance of the ceremony, and to send representatives to participate. If they did not wish to cooperate, then they would have to engage in battle with the Pandavas. Thus, the whole world came under the jurisdiction of the Vedic Aryan administration.

      South of New Delhi are the holy towns of Vrindavan and Mathura along the Yamuna River. Both of these towns are known for being places of Krishna’s pastimes and Vedic legends that go back thousands of years, which are also described in the Vedic literature. Farther south, located on the Yamuna, is the ancient city of Kaushambi. This city still has the remains of massive defense structures from the tenth century B.C. that are very similar to buildings in Harrappa and the Indus region that use baked brick for construction. The Yajur-veda (Vajasaneyi Samhita 23.18) also mentions the town of Kampila, which is located about halfway between Hastinapur and Kaushambi. The next city is Allahabad (Prayag) where we find the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges. This location abounds with importance and Vedic legends that are so remote in antiquity that no one can say when they originated. Then there is Varanasi along the Ganges that is another city filled with ancient Vedic legends of importance. A short distance north of Varanasi is Sarnath, where Buddha gave his first sermon after being enlightened. A four-hour train ride north of Varanasi is the town of Ayodhya, where Lord Ramachandra had His capital, as fully described in the ancient Ramayana. And, of course, there are the Himalayan mountains that have many Vedic stories connected with them. Furthermore, there are numerous other places that could be mentioned that are connected with the Vedic legends throughout the area. (Most of these have already been described in the Seeing Spiritual India sections in my previous books.)

      Though some archeologists claim they have discovered no evidence for the ancient existence of the Vedic Aryan culture in this Gangetic region, even a casual tour through this area, as mentioned above, makes it obvious that these towns and holy sites did not gain importance overnight, nor simply by an immigration of people who are said to have brought the Vedas with them. These places could not have become incorporated into the Vedic legends so quickly if the Vedic culture came from another location. Therefore, the argument that the early Vedic literature was brought from another region or describes a geographical location other than India cannot so easily be accepted. The fact is that the whole of India and up through the Indus region was the original home of the Vedic Aryan culture from which it spread its influence over much of the rest of the world.
 
THE VEDIC EXPLANATION OF THE ORIGINAL ARYANS
AND HOW THEIR INFLUENCE SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
      How the Aryan name was given to those who are said to have invaded the Indus region is regarded as uncertain, and, as I have shown, whether there really was any invasion is no longer a legitimate consideration. Nonetheless, the term aryan has been applied to those people who occupied the plains between the Caspian and Black Seas. The hypothesis is that they began to migrate around the beginning of the second millennium B.C. Some went north and northwest, some went westward settling in parts of the Middle East, while others traveled to India through the Indus Valley. Those that are said to have come into India were the “invading Aryans.”

      The Vedic literature establishes a different scenario. They present evidence that ancient, pre-historical India covered a much broader area, and that the real Aryans were not invaders from the north into the Indus region, but were the original residents who were descendants of Vedic society that had spread over the world from the area of India. Let us remember that the term aryan has been confused with meaning light or light complexion. However, Aryan refers to Arya, or a clear consciousness toward God, not white or white people. In the Vedic sutras, the word aryan is used to refer to those who are spiritually oriented and of noble character. The Sanskrit word aryan is linguistically related to the word harijana (pronounced hariyana), meaning one related to God, Hari. Therefore, the real meaning of the name aryan refers to those people related to the spiritual Vedic culture. It has little to do with those immigrants that some researchers have speculated to be the so-called “invading Aryans.” Aryan refers to those who practice the Vedic teachings and does not mean a particular race of people. Therefore, anyone can be an Aryan by following the clear, light, Vedic philosophy, while those who do not follow it are non-Aryan. Thus, the name Aryan, as is generally accepted today, has been misapplied to a group of people who are said to have migrated from the north into India.

      Some call these people Sumerians, but L. A. Waddell, even though he uses the name, explains that the name Sumerian does not exist as an ethnic title and was fabricated by the modern Assyriologists and used to label the Aryan people. And Dr. Hall, in his book Ancient History of the Near East, says that there is an anthropological resemblance between the Dravidians of India and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, which suggests that the group of people called the Sumerians actually were of Indian descendants. With this information in mind, it is clear that the real Aryans were the Vedic followers who were already existing throughout India and to the north beyond the Indus region.

      To help understand how the Aryan influence spread through the world, L. A. Waddell explains that the Aryans established the pre-historic trade routes over land and sea from at least the beginning of the third millennium B.C., if not much earlier. Wherever the Aryans went, whether in Egypt, France, England, or elsewhere, they imposed their authority and culture, much to the betterment of the previous culture of the area. They brought together scattered tribes and clans into national unity that became increasingly bright in their systems of social organization, trade, and art. In seeking new sources of metal, such as tin, copper, gold, and lead, the Aryans established ports and colonies among the local tribes that later developed into separate nations which took many of their traditions and cultural traits from the ruling Aryans. Of course, as trade with the Aryans diminished, especially after the Mahabharata War in India, variations in the legends and cultures became prominent. This accounts for the many similarities between the different ancient civilizations of the world, as well as those resemblances that still exist today.

      Another consideration is that since the Aryans were centralized in the Gangetic plains and the Himalayan mountains, from there they could have spread east along the Brahmaputra River and over the plain of Tibet. The Chinese, in the form of the Cina tribe, also are likely to have originated here since they have the legend of the sacred mountain in the west with four rivers. The ancient Puranas explain that Manu and his sons ruled over the area, over as many lands north of Mount Meru and Kailas as south. Other Aryans could have easily gone down the Sarasvati and Sarayu into north India. Others went from the Indus into Kashmir and Afghanistan, and into Central Asia. Others went into the areas of Gujarat and Sind, and over through Persia and the Gulf region. This is how the Sumerian civilization was founded, along with Babylonia. From there they went farther into Turkey and Europe.

      After spreading throughout South India, they continued down the Ganges by sea east into Malaysia and Indonesia, founding the ancient Vedic cultures there. By sea they continued to China, meeting the Aryans that were probably already there. From China and the orient, they sailed over the Pacific Ocean and finally reached and colonized the Americas. Plenty of evidence of this is presented in the following chapters.

      We can see some of the affect of this spread out of India in regard to the term aryan. The name Harijana or Aryan evolved into Syriana or Syrians in Syria, and Hurrians in Hurri, and Arianna or Iranians in Iran. This shows that they were once part of Vedic society. A similar case is the name Parthians in Partha, another old country in Persia. Partha was the name of Krishna’s friend Arjuna, a Vedic Aryan, and means the son of King Prithu. So the name Parthian indicates those who are the descendants of King Prithu. Parthians also had a good relationship with the early Jews since the Jews used to buy grains from the Parthians. The Greeks referred to the Jews as Judeos, or Jah deos or Yadavas, meaning people of Ya or descendants of Yadu, one of the sons of Yayati. It is also regarded that the basis of the Kabbalah, the book of Jewish mystical concepts, as described in The Holy Kabbalah by Arthur Edward Waite, is linked with Kapila Muni, the Indian sage and incarnation of Krishna who established the analytical sankhya-yoga philosophy. Therefore, a connection between the early Jews and ancient Vedic culture is evident.

      Another aspect of the connection between these various regions and the Vedic culture is explained in the Vedic literature. In the Rig-veda (10.63.1) Manu is the foremost of kings and seers. Manu and his family were survivors of the world flood, as mentioned in the Shatapatha Brahmana (1.8.1). Thus, a new beginning for the human race came from him, and all of humanity are descendants from Manu. The Atharva-veda (19.39.8) mentions where his ship descended in the Himalayas. One temple that signifies the location of where the ship of Manu first touched land after the flood is in Northern India in the hills of Manali. His important descendants are the Pauravas, Ayu, Nahusha, and Yayati. From Yayati came the five Vedic clans; the Purus, Anus, Druhyus, Turvashas, and Yadus. The Turvashas are related to India’s southeast, Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and are the ancestors of the Dravidians and the Yavanas. Yadu is related to the south or southwest, Gujarat and Rajasthan, from Mathura to Dwaraka and Somnath. The Anus are related to the north, to Punjab, as well as Bengal and Bihar. The Druhyus are related to the west and northwest, such as Gandhara and Afghanistan. Puru is connected with the central Yamuna/Ganges region. All but Puru were known for having intermittently fallen from the Vedic dharma, and various wars in the Puranas were with these groups.

      As explained by Shrikant Talageri in his book, The Aryan Invasion Theory: A Reappraisal (pp. 304-5, 315, 367-368), from these descendants, the Purus were the Rigvedic people and developed Vedic culture in north central India and the Punjab along the Sarasvati (Rig-veda 7.96.2). The Anus of southern Kashmir along the Parushni or modern Ravi River (Rig-veda 7.18.13) spread over western Asia and developed the various Iranian cultures. The Druhyus northwest of the area of the Punjab and Kashmir spread into Europe and became the western Indo-Europeans, or the Druids and ancient Celts. A first group went northwest and developed the proto-Germanic dialect, and another group traveled farther south and developed the proto-Hellenic and Itallic-Celtic dialects. Other tribes included the Pramshus in western Bihar, and Ikshvakus of northern Uttar Pradesh.

      Incidentally, according to legend, thousands of years ago Kashmir was a large lake surrounded by beautiful mountain peaks. It was here where the goddess Parvati stayed in her boat. One day she went to see Lord Shiva in the mountains. Then a great demon took possession of the lake. Kashyapa Muni, who was present at the time, called for the goddess to return. Together they chased the demon away and created an immense valley. It was called Kashyapa-Mira, and later shortened to Kashmir. This again shows the Vedic connection of this region.

      Other tribes mentioned in the Vedic texts include the Kiratas, who are the mountain people of Tibet and Nepal, often considered impure for not practicing the Vedic dharma. The Vishnu Purana (4.3.18-21) also mentions the Shakas who are the Scythians of ancient Central Asia, the Pahlavas who are the Persians, and the Cinas who are the Chinese. They are all considered as fallen nobility or Kshatriyas who had been driven out of India during the reign of King Sagara.

      To explain further, Yadu was the eldest of the five sons of Yayati. Yayati was a great emperor of the world and one of the original forefathers of those of Aryan and Indo-European heritage. Yayati divided his kingdom amongst his sons, who then started their own dynasties. Yayati had two wives, Devayani and Sharmistha. Yayati had two sons from Devayani: Yadu and Turvasu. Yadu was the originator of the Yadu dynasty called the Yadavas, later known as the Lunar Dynasty. From Turvasu came the Yavana or Turk dynasty. From Sharmistha, Yayati had three sons: Druhya, who started the Bhoja dynasty; Anu, who began the Mleccha or Greek dynasty; and Puru who started the Paurava dynasty, which is said to have settled along the Ravi River and later along the Sarasvati. Some say that this clan later went on to Egypt who became the Pharaohs and rulers of the area. These Aryan tribes, originating in India by King Yayati and mentioned in the Rig-veda and Vishnu and Bhagavat Puranas, spread all over the world.

      The Yadava kingdom later became divided among the four sons of Bhima Satvata. From Vrishni, the youngest, descended Vasudeva, the father of Krishna and Balarama and their sister Pritha or Kunti. Kunti married the Yadava prince Pandu, whose descendants became the Pandavas. Kunti became the mother of Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Arjuna (Partha), the three elder Pandavas. The younger Pandavas were Nakula and Sahadeva, born from Pandu’s second wife Madri. After moving to the west coast of India, they lived at Dwaraka under the protection of Lord Krishna. Near the time of Krishna’s disappearance from earth, a fratricidal war broke out and most of the Pandavas were killed, who had grown to become a huge clan. Those that survived may have gone on to the Indus Valley where they joined or started another part of the advanced Vedic society. Others may have continued farther west into Egypt and some on to Europe, as previously explained.

      This is further substantiated in the Mahabharata which mentions several provinces of southern Europe and Persia that were once connected with the Vedic culture. The Adi-parva (174.38) of the Mahabharata describes the province of Pulinda (Greece) as having been conquered by Bhimasena and Sahadeva, two of the Pandava brothers. Thus, the ancient Greeks were once a part of Bharata-varsa (India) and the Vedic civilization. But later the people gave up their affiliation with Vedic society and were, therefore, classified as Mlecchas. However, in the Vana-parva section of the Mahabharata it is predicted that this non-Vedic society would one day rule much of the world, including India. Alexander the Great conquered India for the Pulinda or Greek civilization in 326 B.C., fulfilling the prophecy.

      The Sabha-parva and Bhisma-parva sections of the Mahabharata mention the province of Abhira, situated near what once was the Sarasvati River in ancient Sind. The Abhiras are said to have been warriors who had left India out of fear of Lord Parashurama and hid themselves in the Caucasion hills between the Black and Caspian Seas. Later, for a period of time, they were ruled by Maharaja Yudhisthira. However, the sage Markandaya predicted that these Abhiras, after they gave up their link with Vedic society, would one day rule India.

      Another province mentioned in Mahabharata (Adi-parva 85.34) is that of the Yavanas (Turks) who were so named for being descendants of Maharaja Yavana (Turvasu), one of the sons of Maharaja Yayati, as previously explained. They also gave up Vedic culture and became Mlecchas. They fought in the battle of Kuruksetra against the Pandavas on behalf of Duryodhana and lost. However, it was predicted that they would one day return to conquer Bharata-varsa (India) and, indeed, this came to pass. Muhammad Ghori later attacked and conquered parts of India on behalf of Islam from the Abhira and Yavana or Turkish countries. Thus, we can see that these provinces in the area of Greece and Turkey (and the countries in between there and India) were once part of the Vedic civilization and had at one time not only political and cultural ties, but also ancestral connections. This is the Vedic version, of the origin of Aryan civilization and how its influence spread in various degrees throughout the world.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

IN THE SPREAD OF VEDIC CULTURE
      Now I will piece together the basic chronological order of the spread of Vedic culture from India. According to the Vedic tradition, the original spiritual and Vedic knowledge was given to mankind by God at the beginning of creation. Thus, there would have been a highly advanced Vedic and spiritual civilization in the world. However, through various earth changes, such as ice ages, earthquakes, droughts, etc., the structure of the global cultures changed. Some of these events, such as the great flood, are recorded by most cultures throughout the world.

      Many scholars feel that the global deluge happened around 13,000 years ago. Some think that it could have been a meteorite impact that triggered the end of the Ice Age and caused a giant meltdown that produced the water that flooded the planet. Much land disappeared, and the global flood swept away most of the world’s population. Great lakes were formed, all lowlands disappeared, and lands like Egypt became moist with water. This means that the advanced civilization that had once populated the earth was now gone, and would be replaced by the survivors. It was the mariners, such as the Vedic Manu and his family, who survived the flood and colonized other parts of the world.

      Further information of the last ice age and global deluge is briefly explained by Dr. Venu Gopalacharya. In a personal letter to me (July 22, 1998), he explained that, “There are eighteen Puranas and sub-Puranas in Sanskrit. According to them, only those who settled on the high mountains of Central Asia and around the Caspian Sea, after the end of the fourth ice age, survived from the glaciers and deluge. During the period from the end of the fourth ice age and the great deluge, there were 12 great wars for the mastery over the globe. They divided the global regions into two parts. The worshipers of the beneficial forces of nature, or Devas, settled from the Caspian Sea to the eastern ocean, and the worshipers of the evil forces of nature occupied the land to the west of the Caspian Sea. These became known as the Assyrians (Asuras), Daityas (Dutch), Daiteyas (Deutch or German), Danavas (Danes), and Danutusahs (Celts). Some of them migrated to the American continent. The Mayans, Toltecs, and the rulers of Palanque (Patalalanke), are considered to be the Asuras who migrated to the Patala (land below), or the land of immortals, Amaraka. [This is the original Sanskrit from which the name of America is derived. Mara in Sanskrit means death, amara means no death or beyond it.] In the deluge, most of these lands were submerged. Noah (Manu) and his subjects became known as Manavas, ruled by the monarchs of the globe. They were successors of his [Manu’s] nine sons and one daughter.”

      Dr. Venu Gopalacharya continues this line of thought in his book, World-Wide Hindu Culture and Vaishnava Bhakti (pages 117-18). He explains further how this Vedic culture continued to spread after the great deluge. It was under the leadership of the Solar dynasty princes that a branch of Indians marched west of the Indus River and occupied the area of Abyssinia and its surrounding regions around the rivers Nile, Gambia, and Senagal. The names of Abyssinia and Ethiopia are derived from words that mean colonies of the people of the Sindhu and the Aditya or Solar dynasty. You can recognize many names of places in and around Ethiopia that are derived from the original Sanskrit. So after the great deluge, Vaivasvata Manu’s nine sons [some references say ten sons] were ruling over the various parts of the globe. They and their successors were very concerned about establishing the Vedic principles of Sanatana-dharma, the uplifting way of life for regaining and maintaining one’s spiritual identity and connection with the Supreme. This was the essence of Vaivasvata Manu’s teachings. This was especially taught and strictly followed by the great rulers of the Solar dynasty who governed from Ayodhya. These principles included the practice of truth, nonviolence, celibacy, cleanliness, non-covetousness, firmness of mind, peace, righteousness, and self-control as exemplified by Lord Sri Rama and His ancestors like Sagara, Ambarisha, Dilipa, Raghu, and Dasaratha. This is explained in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsha as well as other Puranas and Itihasas. This standard became more popular with the ancient Indians than people in other parts of the world, and, thus, India became the center of this Vedic way of life since time immemorial.

       The unfortunate thing is that many of the most ancient records, in which we may very well have been able to find more exact information about this sort of early history, were destroyed by the revolutionary fanatics at places like Alexandria, Pusa, Takshashila, and others in Central Asia, and Central and South America. They did so while declaring that such knowledge and records were unnecessary if they contained what was already in their own religious books, but should be destroyed if they contained anything different. This is why the mythologies of Egypt, Babylonia, the Jews, the Old Testament, and the holy Koran contain only brief accounts of the pre-historical facts beyond 2500 years ago, unlike those histories that hold much greater detail as found in the ancient Vedic and Puranic literature.

      In any case, we can begin to see that the Vedic Aryans had been living in the region of India since the last deluge, from about 13,000 to 10,000 B.C. Thus, there could not have been any pre-Aryan civilization in this area that had been conquered by so-called “invading Aryans” in 1500 B.C.

      Using the many types of evidence previously provided in this chapter, it is clear that the height of the Vedic Age was certainly long before 3100 B.C., even as early as 4000 to 5000 B.C. as some scholars feel. Bal Gangadhar Tilak estimates that the Vedas were in existence as early as 6000 B.C., based on historical data, while others say it was as far back as 7000-8000 B.C. Since the Vedic culture during this time was practicing an oral tradition, and the literature had still not been put into written form, the basic hymns of the Rig-veda, and even the Atharva-veda and others, could have been in existence for many thousands of years. These Vedas were used in everyday life for society’s philosophy, worship, and rituals. Therefore, they were a highly sophisticated product of a greatly developed society, and must date back to the remotest antiquity. Or, as the tradition itself explains, the essence of Vedic knowledge had been given to humanity by God at the time of the universal creation and has always been in existence.

      By 3700, all of the principal books of the Rig-veda were in place and known. Of course, this was still an oral tradition and additional books could still have been added. One point in this regard is that the father of the great Bishma was Shantanu whose brother, Devapi, is credited with several hymns of the Rig-veda. This could not have been much earlier than 3200 B.C. since Bishma played a prominent role in the Mahabharata War at Kuruksetra, which is calculated to have been around 3137 B.C. Further calculations can be accorded with the dynastic list as found in the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata. With the help of the list, from 3100 B.C. we get nearly an additional 630 years or longer going back to Sudas and the Battle of the Ten Kings, as described in the Rig-veda. This takes us back to about 3730 B.C. Therefore, the height of the Vedic Age can be dated no later than 3700 B.C.

      From the Vedic literature, we can also see that the Sarasvati River had to have been at its prime around 4000 to 5000 B.C. or earlier. This is when it was recorded in the Rig and Atharva-vedas. This was also when the Vedic culture was spreading throughout the world, either because of reasons of trade, migration, or because some of the degenerated tribes were driven out of the Indian region. Some of the first tribes to have left India may include the Prithu-Parthavas (who later became the Parthians), the Druhyus (who became the Druids), the Alinas (Hellenes or ancient Greeks), the Simyus (Sirmios or ancient Albanians), the Cinas (Chinese), and others. This could have been around 4500 B.C., as explained by N. S. Rajaram in The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (p. 210). These were some of the earliest of Aryans who created the most ancient form of Indo-European society. They took with them their Vedic customs, language, rituals, etc., all of which gradually changed with time due to their lack of seriously following the Vedic traditions, or because of their loss of close contact with the orthodox homeland. This would certainly help explain the many similarities in languages and culture that we find today between numerous regions of the world, many of which we will explain later in this book.

      During the fourth millennium, near 3800 B.C., North India had plenty of water, with such great rivers as the Indus to the north, the Ganga to the east, and the central Sarasvati-Drishadvati river system, which was fed by the Sutlej and the Yamuna. The great Thar desert did not yet create a division between North India and the western areas. So it was all one cultural entity. Thus, the central Vedic society covered a much wider area and had greater influence than the mere country of India today.

      However, before the time of the Mahabharata War, the Yamuna had changed its course and was no longer flowing into the Sarasvati, but emptied into the Ganga. By the time of the Mahabharata, around 3100 B.C., the Sarasvati is described in relation to Balarama’s pilgrimage (Shalya Parva, 36-55) as still being significant in its holiness, but from its origin it flowed only for a forty-day journey by horse into the desert where it disappeared. All that was left were the holy places that used to be on its banks (as also mentioned in 3.80.84; 3.88.2; & 9.34.15-8). The Mahabharata also describes the geographical location of the river, saying that it flows near Kurukshetra (3.81.125). Similar information along with the place where the Sarasvati disappears, Vinasana, is found in the Manu-samhita (2.21). Gradually, the desert expanded and the people of the western region continued to migrate farther west, losing touch with their Vedic roots. This is what helped further the development of the Sumerian and Egyptian communities.

      The next major time period of 3100 B.C. or earlier not only marks the era of the Mahabharata War, the disappearance of Lord Krishna, and the beginning of the Kali-yuga, but it also marks the beginning of the end of the Vedic Age. The war at Kurukshetra was the beginning of the breakdown of the Vedic culture and its global contacts. It is also the time when the remaining major portions of the Vedic literature were compiled, which was accomplished by Srila Vyasadeva, for which He had appeared in this world. And since there were no Aryan invasions coming into India or the Indus Sarasvati region, as we have already established, then this is also the time when the Harappan civilization began to form, or reach its prime if it was already in existence. Furthermore, this was also the time of the first and second dynasties of Egypt, which is corroborated by the fact that many scholars feel that the pyramids of Egypt were built at this time. Some scholars feel that the Step pyramid in Sakkara, 30 miles south of Giza, was built about 5,000 years ago (around 3000 B.C.), while others consider it dates back to 2650 B.C. This also suggests that the Sumerian civilization was entering its prime during this period as well. It was also when the Egyptians and Sumerians were depending on the mathematical systems and formulas of the Shulbasutras from India for their own architecture, altars, and town planning, as were the sites of the Harappan civilization.

      From 3000 to 2000 B.C., as the people continued to spread out from India to the west, there was still much contact between India and such areas as Egypt, Sumeria, Mesopotamia, and others. However, the great 300 year drought in the area created intense difficulties for all of these civilizations. Many agree that the Harappan civilization ended around 2500-2200 B.C. This 300 year drought, not any invaders, caused the beginning of the end of the Harappan sites, as well as that of the Akkadian society. The ancient Egyptian civilization also could have met its end because of this drought, leaving us only with the remnants of its monuments and writings that we are still trying to fully understand today. Its people probably migrated in the search for better resources. Furthermore, 3000 to 2500 B.C. is also the period, according to British archeological estimates, that is believed to be when the Druids and their priests arrived in Britain. However, the English Druids claim their origin is from the east from as far back as 3900 B.C., which follows more closely to the Vedic version.

      By 2000 B.C. the Sutlej had also changed its course and flowed into the Indus, while the desert relentlessly grew. This left the Sarasvati with few resources to continue being the great river it once was. Near 1900 B.C., the Sarasvati River finally ceased to flow altogether and completely dried up, contributing to the disbanding of the people of northwestern India to other places, and making the Gangetic region the most important for the remaining Vedic society. Once the Sarasvati disappeared, the Ganga replaced it as the holiest of rivers.

      After 2000 B.C. was a time of much migration of the Indian Aryans into West Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, and further. There was the founding of the Kassites, Hittites, and Mittani, along with the Celts, Scythians, etc., who all participated in their own migrations.

      The reason why the populace of Europe gradually forgot their connection with India was because contacts between India were reduced to the Greeks and Romans. Then when Alexander and the Greeks invaded India, contacts were reduced to almost nothing for centuries. Thereafter, the Romans became Christians, forcing the rest of Europe to follow. This left the Arabs as the primary traders between India and Europe, until the wars developed between the Christians and the growing Muslims. Once the Muslims captured Constantinople in Turkey, they controlled all trade routes between Europe and India, and forced Europeans to find a sea route to India. This lead to the “discovery” of America, Australia, and parts of Africa. Later, as the trade routes with India were opened, missionaries, new invaders, and so-called scholars became the new conquerors. With them also came the new versions of history brought about to diminish the real heritage and legacy of India.

CONCLUSION
      This chapter provides evidence of the real origination of the Vedic Aryans. It also makes it clear that it is to the East, specifically the area of India, where the origins of advanced civilization and the essence of religion and spiritual philosophy can be traced. From there, the Aryan influence had spread to many other regions and can still be recognized in numerous cultures. Only a few open-minded people who look at the whole picture of this kind of religious development will understand the inherent unity the world and its history contains. Such unity is disturbed only by mankind’s immature, dogmatic, and self-centered feelings for regional and cultural superiority. We have seen this in the propaganda that was effectively used by the Nazis and is presently used by neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups who now employ the modern myth that the original location of the Aryan race was in northern Europe. Thus, they imply that members of this race are superior over all other races in physique, language, mental capabilities, and culture. This myth must be seen for what it is because there is no doubt that the real Aryan people originated and spread from the region of India and the Indus Valley, not Europe.

      As N. S. Rajaram so nicely explains in Vedic Aryans and The Origins of Civilization (pp. 247-8), “To conclude: on the basis of archeology, satellite photography, metallurgy and ancient mathematics, it is now clear that there existed a great civilization­a mainly spiritual civilization perhaps­before the rise of Egypt, Sumeria and the Indus Valley. The heartland of this ancient world was the region from the Indus to the Ganga­the land of the Vedic Aryans.

      “This conclusion, stemming from scientific findings of the past three decades, demolishes the theory that nomadic Aryans from Central Asia swooped down on the plains of India in the second millennium BCE and established their civilization and composed the Rig-veda. The picture presented by science therefore is far removed from the one found in history books that place the ‘Cradle of Civilization’ in the river valleys of Mesopotamia. Modern science and ancient records provide us also a clue to a long standing historical puzzle: why since time immemorial, people from India and Sri Lanka, to England and Ireland have spoken languages clearly related to one another, and possess mythologies and beliefs that are so strikingly similar.

      “The simple answer is: they were part of a great civilization that flourished before the rise of Egypt, Sumeria and the Indus Valley. This was a civilization before the dawn of civilizations.”

      May I also say that this corroborates the history as we find it in the Vedic literature, especially the Rig-veda and the Puranas. It therefore helps prove the authenticity of the Vedic culture and our premise that it was the original ancient civilization, a spiritual society, using the knowledge as had been given by God since the time of creation, and established further by the sages that followed. According to a recent racial study (The History and Geography of Human Genes), it has been confirmed that all people of Europe, the Middle East, and India belong to a single Caucasian type race. This means that they had to have come from the same source. Thus, we are all descendants of this great Vedic culture, the center of which is India. As more evidence comes forth, it will only prove how the testimony of the Rig-veda and the Puranas is confirmed, and will point to the area of northern India as the original homeland of the Vedic Aryans.

      The point of all this is that even if Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., all keep their own ideology, legends, and traditions, we should realize that all of these legends and conceptions of God and forms of worship ultimately refer to the same Supreme God and lesser demigods, although they may be called by different names according to present day variations in region and culture. In other words, all these doctrines and faiths are simply outgrowths of the original religion and worship of the one Supreme Deity that spread throughout the world many thousands of years ago from the same basic source, and which is now expressed through the many various cultural differences in the world. Therefore, no matter what religion we may consider ourselves, we are all a part of the same family. We are merely another branch of the same tree which can be traced to the original pre-historic roots of spiritual thought that are found in the Vedic culture, the oldest and most developed philosophical and spiritual tradition in the world.

      In the following chapters this will become more apparent as we begin to take a closer look at each individual culture and religion, and various locations throughout the world, and recognize the numerous connections and similarities they have with the Vedic traditions and knowledge.

Vedic World Heritage links:

See our pages supporting these views HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/VWH.html (Vedik World Heritage)
Western Indologists been exposed page:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/WesternIndologists-page.htm
How British Misguided the World on Vedic History
http://www.hknet.org.nz/MotiveBritishRajMissionaries.html

By Maneka Gandhi for The Bihar Times [1] on 18 July 2009

(Bihar, India) Some years ago it was discovered that owners of Vanaspathi oils were putting cow and pig lard into the oil. There was a furor which died down after a few months and no one knows till today what happened to the Jains who owned the enterprise ? but I have little doubt that they got off and a few bureaucrats and policemen are richer.

Ghee (from Sanskrit gh?ta meaning "sprinkled") is clarified butter, sacred to the gods. On June 13, a ghee manufacturing unit was raided by the health officers and police of Agra . Hundreds of tins of ghee were found in the Jharna nullah locality . The so called ghee was being manufactured from animal fat boiled in huge iron pans. "25 big drums, 150 tins and four furnaces, knives and country pistols were recovered from the site" a police official said. "Animal hides of cows, monkeys, donkeys, horses and dogs hanging by the trees and bones littered showed the scale of manufacturing being carried out clandestinely for years."

Now comes the standard Indian part ? "Police said at least 50 people must have been working there in the sheds but none could be caught, probably because the information about the raid was leaked to them."

Agra Municipal corporation?s animal husbandry department Chief B.S. Verma said that residents of the locality had complained for years about the spurious manufacturing unit but the department could not find the unit.

TV channels aired footage filmed at ghee manufacturing plants. The footage confirmed that across India animals were being rendered and their fat added to ghee. The ghee plants had dead animals all around, animal fat boiling in big drums and slabs of fat hanging from the ceilings.

Members of ISKCON collected samples of commercial ghee in Pune and sent them to be tested at the Anatech Laboratory and research centre in Bangalore. The tests based on the Fancier-Transbraned Infrared spectrum Replication showed beyond a doubt that the ghee contained animal fat. This laboratory which has analyzed hundreds of ghees said that of all the brands in India, Amul was the best brand for ghee and butter, with even Nestle adulterated with about 5% vegetable oil fats. They said that most ghee, including Amul, was a mixture of cow and buffalo milk

Unfortunately most labs in India do not have the equipment to test. They can simply say that the ghee is adulterated. Why is ghee being adulterated? Firstly, because there is no milk. India prides itself on being the world?s largest producer of leather so all the cows are being killed off rapidly to service the hundreds of leather units in Chennai, Kanpur and Kolkata ? which kill lakhs of cows and calves. Recent raids have found that only 30% of the "milk" we drink, is milk. The rest is a mixture of soap, urea, earthworm fat, oil and whiteners. So if there is no milk, how does one get the ghee? 450,000 tonnes of ghee are supposedly made every year, 80% of which is eaten and the rest offered to the gods in rituals that include marriage and death. This is an impossible figure ? the actual ghee would be less than a quarter.

The second reason is that milk products like ghee only have a 5% profit margin so the only way to be profitable is to use animal fat.

If you insist on ghee make your own. Boil milk. Keep taking the cream off. When the cream is cold, take a wooden stick and churn it. The water separates and the rest becomes unsalted butter. Melt the butter over low heat gradually in a heavy-bottomed pot. Do not stir. Cook until it is a clear golden liquid. It may bubble and foam may form on top which you?ll need to skim off and discard. Remove from heat while the liquid is a clear gold. Any darker and it?s overcooked. Take a large sieve and line it with 4 sheets of cheesecloth or muslin. Place it over a clean dry pot. While still hot, carefully strain the ghee through the cheesecloth-lined sieve into the pot. Transfer the strained ghee carefully into a clean glass jar and shut tightly. Ghee at room temperature looks semi-solid. Ghee can be stored for extended periods without refrigeration, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation. Always use a clean utensil to scoop out ghee.

Some rights reserved. Source URL: http://news.iskcon.com/node/2148

UK, July 1, 2009: Vegetarians are generally less likely than meat eaters to develop cancer, but this does not apply to all forms of the disease, according to a major study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Vegetarians developed notably fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach cancer.

The study followed 61,566 British men and women, categorizing them as meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish. Vegetarians were approximately half as likely as meat-eaters to develop cancers of the lymph or the blood, about 1/3 as likely to develop stomach cancers, and 75% less likely to develop multiple myeloma, a relatively rare cancer of the bone marrow. Vegetarians also got notably fewer cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and cancers of the stomach or bladder. Fish eaters fell somewhere between those two groups. But cancer of the bowel, one of the commonest forms, did not show this reduction for vegetarians.

Professor Tim Key, the lead author, said it was impossible to draw strong conclusions from this one single study. Researchers stress that more studies are needed and that people should continue to eat a healthy, balanced diet high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat, salt and red and processed meat.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

WASHINGTON, DC, USA, July 11, 2009: Burger King, a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants in more than 70 countries, has apologized for running an advertisement in Spain that offended Hindus. “We are apologizing because it wasn’t our intent to offend anyone,” Denise T Wilson, spokesman of Burger King said.

The print advertisement in Spain that depicts an image of the Hindu Goddess, Lakshmi, seated atop a meat sandwich, other foodstuffs with a catch phrase, ‘The snack is sacred’, in Spanish. It can be seen here

“Out of respect for the Hindu community, the limited-time advertisement has been removed from the restaurants,” Wilson said a day after the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in a statement asked Burger King to remove the offensive advertisement. According to the website http://www.AdFreak.com, specialized in media and advertising, the intervention from HAF had a pivotal role.

HAF in its letter to Burger King did allude to the company’s positive track record of quickly removing and apologizing for previous offensive ad campaigns. “Of course we would hope that such misjudgment did not occur in the first place, but we are indeed pleased to hear of Burger King’s move,” HAF’s representative said.
•
courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

By Gemma Jones for news.com.au on 3 Jul 2009

One animal in NSW [New South Wales, Australia] is killed every hour during testing for new medicines and cosmetic products.

The Daily Telegraph has revealed 8813 animals - including birds, guinea pigs and endangered marsupials - were killed during 12 months of trials.

Another 16,000 were kept conscious and subjected to a "a moderate or large degree of pain/distress that is not effectively alleviated".

The details are contained in the State Government's latest Animal Research Review Panel report, with critics claiming the findings prove federal and state measures to replace animals in research were failing.

Despite a three-year campaign pushing for animal testing alternatives, deaths during tests of how lethal drugs are were up by 1087 between 2006 and 2007.

The dead animals included eight of 14 native stripe faced dunnart - classified as vulnerable by the NSW Department of Environment - which were bombarded with pesticides to see how it would affect their immune function.

A justification provided for the immunity test said there was a "lack of toxicity data for endemic Australian species".

Thousands of mice died during mandated tests on vaccines for pets while 40 were killed with lethal doses of streptococcus pyogenes in a bid to develop a vaccine for humans.

University of Wollongong researcher Dr Denise Russell said the tests were cruel and had continued even when alternatives were available and in spite of government appeals.

"What hasn't been addressed is replacing animals with alternatives like computer simulation and the use of tissue samples which don't require that we take the animal and house them in a prison and just kill them in cruel ways," Dr Russell said yesterday.

NSW review panel chair Professor Margaret Rose said that the 16,000 animals being subjected to category 7 testing, the most painful test while the animal remains awake, was cause for concern.

Among the thousands of animals were 14 horses, almost 3000 fish which had their water poisoned for environmental testing, almost 1000 chickens, 379 sheep and 59 cows.

Professor Rose said laws in place forced many government laboratories, pharmaceutical companies and other private firms to kill animals during required tests.

"It is important actually that the community is concerned about the number of animals (being used in testing)," Professor Rose said.

"If that (pain) is not being relieved, that is something we need to try to hone in on and try to see how it can be reduced."

She said work was under way to prevent animals used to test how lethal drugs are being allowed to suffer before their deaths.

Scientists were trying to work out an "endpoint" where they could prove their experiment but euthanase the animal before their suffering was severe.

Professor Rose said the streptococcus experiment was one example of testing that was of great benefit to humans because the bacteria had caused infections in hospital patients.

Animal rights groups were outraged so many animals had died during testing. "It is terrible ... I certainly think the community needs to know more about what the experiments are for," Animals Australia executive director Glenys Oogjes said.

The Stepping Stones to Real Cow Protection (Part 1)
http://nvclub108.blogspot.com/2009/01/stepping-stones-to-real-cow-protection.html

The Stepping Stones to Real Cow Protection (Part 2)
http://nvclub108.blogspot.com/2009/01/stepping-stones-to-real-cow-protection_30.html
 

See our World Vegetarian Day Newsletters 2004 - 2005 - World Vege Day

See similar articles at Vegetarianism & beyond:
http://turn.to/Vegetarianism

THE YOGI'S WAGER

A servant of a very rich man came before his master one day and told him of an interesting yogi he had seen in the river.  The servant said that this yogi claimed he could stay in the water all night in the middle of the river without any outside heat.  The yogi was willing t take a wager with anyone to prove that he could do it.  When the rich man heard this, he decided to wager against the yogi.  So the bet was made to see whether the yogi could stay in the water all night.  The yogi went into the water, and the rich man and his servant went home.  The next day word came that the yogi had successfully stayed in the water all night.  The rich man went out to see the yogi, and indeed he was still standing in the water.  Therefore by all rights the rich man had lost the wager.  But then a friend of the rich man said, "Wait!  See that light?"  He pointed to a small flame far away in a temple.  The rich man's friend said, "By his mystic power, this yogi has been using the heat of that light to keep warm in the water.  So he shouldn't be paid, because the bet was that he would stay in the water without taking any heat."  Taking advantage of this word jugglery, the rich man said, "Yes I'm not going to pay you.  You've tricked me."  Then the rich man and his servant went back to the house.  The rich man asked his servant to quickly cook him a nice breakfast, but after waiting for some time, the servant had not produced anything.  The rich man expressed his impatience, but the servant replied, "Please wait.  I'm cooking."  The rich man waited, but it got later and later and no food was brought.  When he demanded food from his servant, the servant only replied, "I'm cooking.  It's going to be ready soon."  Finally the rich man became angry and walked into the kitchen.  "What is this cooking?" he demanded.  And there he saw that the servant had a very strange arrangement for cooking.  He had a very small fire on the ground an a tall bamboo tripod to hold the pot he was supposed to be heating high near the ceiling.  Obviously, the small flame would never be able to reach the pot to heat it.  "What do you think you're doing?" demanded the rich man.  "Well," said the servant, if you claim that the yogi was keeping warm in
the water by that light, then I am also cooking."  The man could understand that his servant was dissatisfied with the outcome of the wager with the yogi.  And so he went and paid the yogi the wager.

MORAL: If you want to get a result, you have to follow the process.  What is the use of trying to chant God's name but at the same time doing all nonsense.

See similar inspirational snippets HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/parables.htm

The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig!
Mybae the I can sotp slpel ckchenig?

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Myth of the Aryan invasion by Dr. David Frawley: - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Aryan-invasion-mythDF.html

The Peace Formula - (By HDG Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceFormula.html

.........many other articles - http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-articles.htm

and from there go to the Main Index http://www.hknet.org.nz/index.htm

Iskcon News Articles now available - many topical insights
http://www.iskcon.com/new/index.html

Paradigms - where things are not all they seem

 The Peace Formula
http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceFormula.html

The Real Peace Formula
http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceRealF.html

See more on Yoga and Meditation HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-yoga.html

World Vegetarian Day October 1st yearly &
World Vegetarian Awareness Month of October yearly
...please visit our links and see what you can do to help

World Smoke Free Day
31st May Every Year 

http://www.be-free.org/b-media/market-bfree03/cinema.php

yeah kick the butt
...and remember from 10th December 2004 no more smoking in public places in New Zealand by law