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   From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com   
      
   Culture   
      
   Why Are Indian Historians In A Denial Mode?   
      
   By David Frawley   
   Swarajya, swarajyamag.com   
   Monday, June 27, 2016   
      
   The left-leaning historians of India have not understood   
   the country's vast spiritual and plural empire   
      
   Their idea of India is an accident, a disaster born out   
   of Hinduism   
      
   The role of Hindu revivalism is thus diminished by them   
   to further their own theories   
      
   India today is a strange country in that, uniquely among   
   the nations of the world, it seems to be afraid of its   
   own history.   
      
   If we study current historical accounts, particularly by   
   India's academic left, the most important fact about the   
   history of India is that there is no real history of   
   India. This is because such scholars are unable to see   
   the existence of any cohesive entity called India before   
   1947.   
      
   India as a real country in their view is attributed   
   mainly to Jawaharlal Nehru and his followers after   
   independence on a region that, though previously under   
   the umbrella of British rule, was otherwise lacking in   
   unity, continuity or perhaps even civilisational depth.   
      
   Such historians are happy to negate the history of their   
   own country. Their accounts of India's history are   
   largely denials of any enduring country, civilisation or   
   culture worthy of the name. Their history of India is one   
   of foreign invasions, temporary or vanished empires,   
   internal social divisions and conflicts, and a disparate   
   and confused cultural diversity. They regard India as a   
   melting pot or conglomeration of widely separated peoples   
   and cultures coming together by the accident of geography   
   that hardly constitutes any united country or national   
   identity.   
      
   Unfortunately, such Indian historians, particularly with   
   political alliances with left historians in UK and US,   
   are introducing their anti-India ideas into Western   
   academia, which still does not understand India's very   
   different civilisational model.   
      
   Such studies forget that national identity is cultural,   
   not simply political. India did not become a British   
   state under British rule or an Islamic state under Muslim   
   rule. The older Indian/Bharatiya culture continued.   
      
   These anti-India views are easily countered by a number   
   of historical facts.   
      
   The first is that outside people and countries have long   
   recognised a civilisation called India.   
      
   After Alexander the Great came to India in the fourth   
   century BCE, the Greek historian Megasthenes wrote a book   
   on the region called Indika, in which he noted an   
   existing tradition in the country of 153 kings going back   
   over 6,400 years. The Greeks overall lauded the   
   civilisation of India.   
      
   Buddhist pilgrims in the ancient and medieval period,   
   particularly from China, honoured India and its great   
   culture during their travels. India's cultural influence   
   spread to Indonesia and Indochina in the East and into   
   Central Asia, extending on a religious level to China and   
   Japan.   
      
   The ancient Romans lost much of their wealth in a one-   
   sided trade with India and the Europeans long sought the   
   riches of India. Columbus, of course, found America by   
   chance while looking for a more direct sea route to   
   India.   
      
   Second, India, like many countries, has more than one   
   name. The Indian Constitution says the "India that is   
   Bharat". Bharat is the main ancient name for the region   
   going back to King Bharat, an ancient ruler long before   
   Rama, Krishna or Buddha.   
      
   The Bharatas were the main people of the ancient Rig   
   Veda, who ruled from the Sarasvati region. They   
   eventually split into several groups, one of which, the   
   Kurus, became dominant in late ancient times, as the main   
   people of the Mahabharata.   
      
   Modern historians can more easily deny history to the   
   name India than to Bharat and so ignore the other name of   
   the country.   
      
   Third, India has probably the oldest, largest and most   
   continuous literature of any civilisation. The Vedas with   
   their many thousands of pages dwarf anything from the   
   Middle East, Egypt or Greece of the ancient period.   
      
   Geography is an important topic in these texts. The Vedas   
   speak of a land of seven rivers, Sapta Sindhu, extending   
   to the ocean, of which the Sarasvati River was the most   
   important. The Persians in their oldest Zend Avesta   
   remember the area as Hapta Hindu. Sindhu, Hindu and India   
   are related terms.   
      
   The Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas outline a sacred   
   geography of India/Bharat from Kailas in the north to   
   Lanka in the south, Assam in the east to beyond the Indus   
   in the west. Buddhist and Jain texts do the same, showing   
   a common culture and geography.   
      
   Around this sacred geography, Indians built numerous   
   temples and recognised numerous sacred sites, revealing   
   this vast region and its cultural unity.   
      
   Along with these sacred sites are numerous festivals and   
   pilgrimages. We see this in modern India, which has the   
   largest tradition of pilgrimage in the world, notably the   
   massive Kumbha Melas that bring in tens of millions of   
   pilgrims. Pilgrims throughout India visit these sites,   
   with South Indians commonly travelling as far as the   
   Himalayan temples of the north. Festivals like Diwali are   
   elaborately celebrated throughout the country.   
      
   Ancient Indian literature contains a calendar system   
   still widely followed, the Panchanga. Indian calendars   
   extend from historical time of thousands of years to   
   cosmic time of billions of years.   
      
   Fourth, extensive new evidence of archaeology upholds the   
   cultural continuity of the region. The Archaeological   
   Survey of India (ASI) claims that in the   
   Haryana/Kurukshetra/Sarasvati river area there is   
   evidence of a continual development of agriculture and   
   civilisation from 8000 BCE, extending through the   
   Harappan urban era. This area hosts Rakhigarhi, the   
   largest Harappan site, more extensive than Mohenjodaro or   
   Harappa.   
      
   The Harappan Civilization -- also called the Indus Valley   
   or Saraswati Civilisation -- is the largest and most   
   uniform urban civilisation of the ancient world in the   
   third millennium BCE. It ended with the drying up of the   
   Sarasvati River around 1900 BCE, which the Geological   
   Survey of India (GSI) has verified. The Vedas refer to   
   the different stages of the Sarasvati river from an   
   ocean-going stream to drying up in the desert, showing   
   they resided on the river long before its termination.   
      
   Consistent with their negative line of thought, leftist   
   historians ignore this information or accuse   
   archaeologists of political bias in their findings.   
      
   Lastly, but equally important, the independence movement   
   drew inspiration from the older history of India/Bharat,   
   with such revered figures as Swami Vivekananda, Lokmanya   
   Tilak and Sri Aurobindo seeking to revive the ancient   
   culture. Even Mahatma Gandhi's mantra was Ram and his   
   idea of India was Ram Rajya.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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