Fwd: Krishna berates the Vedas in the Geetha

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 10:57 AM
Subject: Krishna berates the Vedas in the Geetha
To:


There is so much literature available on the web on dogmatic controversies in Christianity including the violence perpetrated by Christianity in the name of religion. There is also a considerable records reg the controversies and violence in Islam though not to the extend that Christianity has. In comparison there is next to nothing of objective records on Hinduism, probably due to the fact that the oral tradition was in vogue in India whereas the written tradition prevailed in the environments which nurtured Christianity and Islam. The small amount of literature available on Hindu culture is mostly by interested groups wanting to promote yoga, meditation, ayurveda and other stuff connected with Indian culture. It was then that I came across some facts reg Hindu history and controversies by DN Jha who was the professor of Indian history at Delhi university. He supports his contentions with profuse citations - chapter and verse - on the controversies in ancient Hindu culture, controversies that arose before the Muslim/Christians invaders came to india. Consequently the blame for these controversies cannot be laid at the invaders' doors. (I had mailed as an attachment a lecture by Mr.Jha which I think has been largely ignored by the recipients. I know devout Christians who have not read the Bible and devout Muslims who do not even know the meaning of Salaam Aleikkum. Similarly I think people who swear by the Vedas do not take the trouble to read the Vedas but have no problem rushing into debates and berating their opponents in debate with personal insults rather than with intellectual give and take.

The Vedas and the Geetha have been exalted as the epitome of Indian culture and philosophy. However Mr.Jha points out with chapter-and-verse citations from ancient Indian scriptures itself that the Vedas were not without their detractors and the detractors of the vedas include Krishna, the incarnation. Here are the citations:

1. ... Anti-Vedic  ideas,  in  fact,  began   to  find  expression   in  the Rigveda itself. The famous  Ngvedic passage (in the Rigveda)  which equated brāhmans with  croaking  frogs was an early  attempt to ridicule  the  Vedas and their   reciters. In  addition to  the  satirisation  of  the  brāhmans, there   is  also   evidence   of  the   questioning  of  Vedic   knowledge: "Whence this creation developed is known  only by him who witnesses this world  in the  highest  heaven—or perhaps even he does  not know."   

2.At several  places  in the  Rgveda,  Indra  is  abused  and  his very existence  is questioned.  Thus  in a hymn  to  Indra  it is said: "to  Indra,   if  Indra   exists"  (RV  VIII.100.3),   and   in  another  the question is  asked  (RV II.12.5): "about  whom  they  ask,  where   is he? ... And they say about  him, 'he is not' …" (RV II.12).

3.The  Upanisads  contain   several  passages   which deprecate the  Vedas. The Mundaka  Upaniad, for example,  regards the  four  Vedas as "lower  knowledge"  (aparāvidyā). Similarly,  in the  Nirukta,  Yāska  (sixth–fifth  centuries B.C.)  describes   Kautsa  as saying  that  "the  Vedic stanzas   have  no  meaning"   

4. In the  Bhagavadgītā,  which  has been the  most  popular Hindu  religious  text  through the  centuries, Krsna tells Arjuna  in unambiguous terms  that  those  who  delight  in the  eulogistic  statements of the  Vedas  (vedavādaratāh) are  full  of worldly    desires    (kāmātmānah),  and    that    the   desire-ridden followers  (kāmakāmāh) of the  Vedic sacrificial  rites stagnate in the world. 

5.The Purānas often  undermine the supremacy of the Vedas despite  their general  allegiance to them. While one Purānic text tells us  that   God  thought of  the  Purānas  before  he  spoke  the  Vedas, others   state   that   the  Vedas  are  "established"  on  the  Purānas. "There is no higher  essence  or truth than  this", the Agnipurāna tells us, and  "… there  is no better  book,  … there  is no better  śāstra,  or śruti  or  …  smrti  …  for  this  Purāna  is  supreme." 

6.Mahānirvānatantra, an eighteenth- century  work,  states  that  the  Vedas, Purānas and Śāstras are  of no use  in  the  kaliyuga

There is much more on the questionable authority of the Vedas in the attachment from Jha which I am re sending for those who are interested in an objective view of things rather than an emotional and partisan view.

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Regards

Xavier William

www.eitctours.com - tours to Kerala and Lakshadweep