KNOWLEDGE DIET

THEORY of ARYAN invasion TRUTH OR MYTH?

2020-06-26T18:17:00.000+05:30

The Aryan invasion myth or history?

The Vedas are ancient Indian sacred texts which describe a warrior society of semi pastoralist nomadic tribes called Aryans who engaged in warfare, quite frequently, and cattle raiding. and it was long believed that these so-called Aryans came from outside of India but this theory is now very unpopular in India today and the word Aryan is only used to describe the high castes who come from India.

Despite being unpopular it is now agreed by scientists to be correct. The academic roots of the Aryan invasion theory are tied up with the indo-european theory which was developed by Sir William Jones, a Welsh judge who lived in India during the British Raj. and he could speak multiple languages;Latin, Greek, Welsh, English... and in his capacity as a judge in India he had to be able to learn to speak Indian languages too and what he realized is that the ancient holy language of the Vedas, Sanskrit, was undoubtedly related to Latin and Greek and also even to Germanic and Celtic languages. and this was in 1786, but after then, linguists historians and archaeologists developed a theory to realize that there were one people from whom all these languages derived and these are called indo-europeans.
Now originally a lot of European scholars believed that the indo-Europeans came from Asia and some even believed they came from India. that was until a German named Heinrich Schultz in 1826 first suggested a European origin for the indo-europeans. in 1851 the Englishman Robert Latham developed this idea and argued specifically for a southern Russian origin for the indo-europeans and this theory became the most popular and is the one that has become dominant even now, today. The European origin for indo-european languages was widely agreed by linguists because there are a greater diversity of different indo-european languages in Europe than anywhere else in the world and although there are several indo-european languages in India they're actually quite closely related.
During and since the Second World War the term aryan has also become associated with the Nazi Party in Germany because they used this term interchangeably with "indo-european"and even with "German people." The term "Aryan race" had already been used to apply, not just to these specific indo-europeans who invaded India, but also more widely to their ancestors, the indo-europeans who founded all the indo-european languages. but it's a mistake to associate the idea that the Aryan invaders were European with the Nazis because some scholars such as Herman Guntert actually argued for an Asian origin for the Aryans, and he was a Nazi affiliated scholar! so the idea of a European origin is not a Nazi invention in fact many Nazis believed in the Asian origin.
After the war, the Russian origin hypothesis was developed by scholars such as the feminist author, Marija Gimbutas who thought of the indo-europeans as a warlike people from the steppes of Russia and Ukraine and Western Kazakhstan. Her only major opponent at this time was Colin Renfrew. Sir Colin Renfrew believed that the indo-europeans originated in Anatolia, and these two theories were pretty much the only ones in play since the war. no one at that stage took seriously the idea of an Indian origin for the indo-europeans. If the early indo-europeans were from Europe then it stands to reason that the Indo-Aryans who are later descendants of these, and the ones who brought Sanskrit and Vedic religion into India, would also have been of European origin and in fact the idea that the Aryans came from outside India was a very common and popular theory in India for a very long time. This was even the prevailing view among Indian nationalists at the time of Indian independence and in fact the first Indian Prime Minister Nehru wrote a book called 'Discovery of India' in 1946 in which he said that the Aryans invaded India. This was made into a film in the 80s in which the same points are reiterated it wasn't just in India that this was an accepted historical fact. widespread belief among British academics, as well, was that the Aryans invaded India.
You can see so in this documentary from the BBC called 'Buried Treasure'. Sudden tragedy brought this ancient civilization to a violent end. I want you to imagine for a moment that you are back in 1500 BC and are looking out over the straight streets and brick houses of mohenjo-daro suddenly smoke and flames begin to rise amongst them and at one of the main streets there streams a horde of swordsmen led by a swaying figure in an outlandish chariot. Thirty four centuries after it happened, the archeologists of the 20th century dug and found these bones the massacred mute evidence of how an age-long civilization perished within the hour moreover we can relate this evidence with the earliest literature of India.
The Rig Veda, which it is agreed tells in a non traditional and symbolic way, of the Indus Valley and its invasion by the Aryans the hymns in the Rig Veda make clear that the mobile city less Aryan invaders differed at every point from the long static citizens which they invaded. but more recently a conspiracy theory has developed which states that not only is the Aryan invasion theory untrue but both that and even the indo-european linguistic theory itself, are lies invented by Europeans for colonial purposes - they want to divide and rule the people of India and they made up this lie that they could therefore distinguish between different kinds of Indians - and this is not only popular among certain left-wing subversive groups in the mid twentieth century in Europe but has become a prevailing view among Indian nationalists now in 2018.genetic studies revealed that there was an invasion into India, or you could call it a migration if you prefer, and that people migrating into India during the Bronze Age had European ancestry and brought European ancestry into India.
We can look at earlier DNA and early evidence and how this has all been mounting up to now where it becomes really very difficult to argue that it didn't happen. Nowadays DNA studies look at auto somal DNA which is looking at all of the genome and looking at bits that are held in common by different populations to see how people are related, but earlier, more basic genetic science from the 90s and the early 21st century, looked only at a few markers on the paternal line which we call a y hap lo group, and that shows your ancestry going a long way back on the male line.Now early studies already picked up on the fact that people in Eastern Europe and people in South Asia, mainly the high caste Brahmins or Aryans in India, share a Y hap lo group which is called r1a that means somewhere along the line they've got shared ancestry but it didn't tell us where that came from... meanwhile in Eastern Europe the population forms called the Yamnaya and the Yamnaya, we have data from, this is from the Far Eastern Europe, near the Urals. and they are intermediate between the northern tip of this near Eastern Group and the hunter-gatherers of Eastern Europe around 4000 or 3000 BC the DNA from a people called (by archaeologists) Yamnaya enters Europe.
This was proven conclusively in 2015 in a study by Haak and colleagues entitled'massive migration from the steppe is a source for indo-european languages in Europe'. Now the Yamnaya were a chariot riding, equestrian, pastoralist people of the Russian steppes, and these are the same people as the kurgans that Marija Gimbutas said were the indo-europeans. Her primary rival, Sir Colin Renfrew, has now admitted that his Anatolia theory was wrong, in the light of evidence from the DNA, which proves a massive migration into Europe from the steppe. what is clear however is that Marija Gimbutas showed a series of remarkable insights when she emphasized the importance of what she called the kurgan invasion, what we might now call the yamnaya invasion, which is now abundantly documented by ancient DNA. Maria's Kurgan hypothesis has been magnificently vindicated by recent works. Now if we know that the yamnaya were the ones who brought the indo-european languages into Europe, then we should expect to see yamnaya blood in modern Indians, if they are the ones who brought the indo-european languages into India. This is called a principal component analysis chart. the distance between the dots represents the genetic relationship between different skeletons (DNA) or modern people (DNA samples) ,as you can see the people in India form a Cline and those people in India who speak indo-european languages are closer to modern Europeans than those Indians who speak Dravidian languages are. This is because some Indian people have more ancestry from the yamnaya than others. when the Yamnaya entered Europe, they mixed with the people who were already there; Neolithic European farmers, and this created a new group of people called the Corded Ware culture of Germany. skeletons from the corded ware culture show that most of their DNA is the same as that of Yamnaya mixed in this population and the actual contribution from the corded ware complex people is at least 70%.it's a massive replacement of the German population and however afterward in Northern Europeans there's a large proportion of ancestry from this group,this is the single most important contributor to European populations in many places, especially in Northern Europe today, and it comes from the east.
But there is a crucial distinction while most yamnaya men carried the r1b hap lo group, most of the Corded Ware people of Germany carried the r1a hap lo group, just like the modern high caste in India do. High caste Hindus today can have as much as 30% of their DNA from yamnaya-like people of the Bronze Age steppes. So speaking a little bit more broadly to the question 'is their steppe related ancestry in India?' in 2016 we published a paper on ancient DNA from the ancient Near East and this is complicated and unresolved in particular because there's no ancient DNA from India right now (2017) because thermal conditions make DNA preservation more difficult (in India), although the progress is now being made, but if you look at the proportion of ancestry from steppe and Iranian inferred West Eurasian related ancestry,steppe ancestry is confidently inferred to exist in almost every Indian group, both indo-european speakers without exception, and the relative proportion of of steppe related compared to Iranian related ancestry as inferred by this model, which is not a perfect model,is consistently higher in groups that speak indo-european languages, is consistent with the idea that there might be a contribution from a Yamnaya related population in India. But Yamnaya DNA can't have come directly from Yamnaya going into India because the hap lo groups are different and the time frame for when this DNA entered India is after the time when the Yamnaya existed. the oldest example of r1a ever found was published in 2017 in a paper called 'the genomic history of southeastern Europe' by mathieson and colleagues. It comes from Ukraine not India! and it dates to about 5500 years ago. It was part of the proto-yamnaya Sredny Stog culture.
Yet on a principal component analysis chart it clusters close to the corded ware samples and this is approximately 1,000 years before the corded ware culture expanded. what this shows is that both r1a and r1b were ancient Eastern European hap lo groups that were spread across Europe and Asia by indo-europeans.the corded ware culture migrated east into Asia to create sintashta and Andronovo cultures and the males of both of these Bronze Age steppe cultures carried the R1a y hap lo group in the paper mentioned by Reich earlier from Lazaridis and colleagues in 2016 it says that and Andronovo couldn't havebeen the ones who brought the Yamnaya DNA into India because we don't see that Neolithic European farmer DNA in modern Indians and since andronovo were descended from the corded ware culture which was a mixture of Neolithic farmer from Europe and yamnaya, we would see both the yamnaya and that Neolithic European farmer DNA if it had been brought in by Andronovo.
However newer evidence brings the claim into question. even before DNA evidence existed, the andronovo culture were strongly argued to be the bearers of the proto-indo-iranic language due to their location and the archaeological presence of chariots. the oldest depictions of wheeled vehicles ever, which predate even the indo-europeans, come from Eastern Europe. not long after that, the indo-europeans started to spread this technology across the Eurasian steppe.the earliest fully developed spoked wheeled horse chariots are from the chariot burials of the andronovo culture dating to about 2000 BC. Chariots play an important role in the early Aryan religion in India; many of the gods ride chariots as they do in other indo-european religions such as the Nordic one or the Roman one the spoke wheel remains a very important symbol in India today and it's even on the Indian flag presence of European phenotype in South Asia has long been noted the British were very conscious of the fact that high caste Indians had a lighter complexion than low castes and presumed this was due to European admixture.
There are also higher rates of European phenotype such as tallness fair-skin and blue or green eyes found in North India and Pakistan compared to in South India and this was argued to be due tot he earlier presence of Aryans in the northwest. the highest rates of European phenotype in South Asia occur today among the Kalash people of the Chitral district of Pakistan. 18.2% of whom have the r1a hap lo group and the kalash people have on average close to 50% Yamnaya ancestry. Blue eyes evolved in Europe among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and blondism spread in and from Europe during the Bronze Age so we know that these phenotype must have come from Europeans at some point but DNA has shown that the yamnaya,although European, were brunettes and did not have blonde hair and blue eyes.the andronovo people on the other hand were very often blonde and blue-eyed.if the yamnaya DNA had reached India directly from a yamnaya invasion into India, then none of these phenotype would be present in South Asia and the male Brahmins would have the r1b hap lo group and not the r1a hap lo groups so what about this new study on ancient Indian DNA? the out of India hypothesis is impossible to defend.
In 2018 a paper was released by Narasimhan and colleagues entitled 'the genomic formation of South and Central Asia' in 2017, Reich said, in the clip earlier, that no ancient samples from South Asia had been obtained, but now they have, it has been proven that there was a migration of middle to late bronze age steppe peoples into India who carried Neolithic European DNA and likely spoke indo-aryan languages the paper included middle to late bronze age samples from a pathway leading from Central Asia into India known as the inner Asian mountain corridor and these samples were clearly Eastern European migrant populations.they labeled these as belonging to the forest-steppe middle-to-late-bronze-age complex. most of these people cluster with Bronze Age Eastern Europeans and some even cluster with Bronze Age central Europeans they're very close to modern people from Russia and Ukraine who speaks Slavic languages. using the West Siberian hunter-gatherer individuals as a reference population along with other pre Chalcolithic groups that have been previously reported in the ancient DNA literature. We document the presence of a genetically relatively homogenous population spread across a vast region of the Eastern European and trans-Ural-steppes between two thousand and fourteen hundred years before the Common Era. Many of the samples from this group are individuals buried in association with artifacts of the corded ware, srubnaya, Petrovka, Sintashta and Andronovo complexes, all of which harbored a mixture of steppe early-to middle-Bronze-Age ancestry and ancestry from European middle Neolithic agriculturists. this is consistent with previous findings showing that following westward movement of Eastern European populations and mixture with local European agriculturalists there was an eastward re-flux back beyond the Urals.
David Reich actually admits in his book 'who we are and how he got here'that he made his findings on Indian genetics more palatable to Indians after the Indian collaborators wouldn't cooperate after he shared his initial findings. he made it all seem more PC so people would swallow it but now many have misunderstood what it showed. terms like Indus periphery and ancient ancestral South Indians and ancestral North Indians are deliberately obscure terms designed to hide the facts and that what is being described is an invasion of European ancestry into India. the yamnaya-like ancestry is always described in media reports on this paper as "Central Asian" because it came via Central Asia and never mentions that yamnaya were themselves descended from prehistoric Eastern European hunter-gatherers or that the middle-Late-Bronze-Age invaders were even more like modern Europeans than yamnaya were! many used to think the Aryans were related to the Bactria-margiana archaeological complex. the people of Bactria-margiana were mostly descended from people related to Iranian Neolithic farmers with a little ancestry from Anatolian farmers and even a bit of Siberian admixture but this paper shows three things; first the BMAC people did not contribute much genetically to South Asia at all second yamnaya like step ancestry only arrives among the BMAC people around 2000 BC and third there is actually evidence of Indian migration into the BMAC rather than the reverse.
The fact that yamnaya like ancestry shows up in the BMAC region so late means the Aryan invasion of India can't have happened until after 2000 BC which is already hundreds of years after the yamnaya culture ended. Before the Aryan invasion, there was a grand civilization in the Indus Valley,this is the one Sir Mortimer wheeler was talking about in the British clip about mohenjo-daro . it is quite likely to be this source of Dravidian languages in India and it contributed to the genetics of all Indians today. it is referred to as the Indus Valley Civilisation and although we have rich archaeological findings from this culture we didn't have any DNA. if we saw an absence of steppe DNA in Indus Valley culture people then we would know an Aryan invasion brought the steppe DNA and Sanskrit language later on. in this new paper, samples from the periphery of the Indus Valley culture serve as very good proxies for the Indus Valley culture, and they don't have any Yamnaya DNA! however the samples from the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan do have yamnaya DNA and this appears there from 1200 BC and onward which is contemporary with the andronovo culture and proves the step DNA was brought in at this time by migrants. the findings from that paper were reinforced by yet more samples released later in 2018 as part of a paper by damgaard and colleagues entitled 'the first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe' expansions into Asia it said: another interesting fact that the DNA seems to indicate is that it seems likely the Dravidians were also migrants and that they arrived from Iran earlier than the Aryans. geneticist Razib Khan commented: "because the Dravidians were not primordial but expanding only somewhat ahead of indo-aryans they were part of an interactive social cultural sphere with the indo-aryans.
Very high frequency of r1a1az 93 in some non Brahmin South Indian groups even tribal ones suggest that the expansiveness of some paternal indo-aryan kin networks across the whole subcontinent".
In other words the spread of Aryan and Dravidian languages and DNA across India was not defined by just two events but by a complex combination of many mixing and migrations to form the current Indian subcontinent showed earlier (see PCA) ancient DNA has now shown that there is that y hap lo group r1a in eastern european remains dating to the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Eneolithic and the Bronze Age.
What's more all these Bronze Age peoples who carry this hap lo group do not have any South Asian admixture.conversely, South Asians who speak indo-european languages do have significant amounts of admixture from Eastern European hunter-gatherers. An invasion of people carrying European DNA into India did occur and this has changed the DNA of modern Brahmins and Aryan caste people in India today. Ancient DNA now reinforces what archaeology, linguistics, and modern DNA were already telling us: that the Aryan invasion is a historical fact, not a myth.

THANKYOU.......

Brief About BUDDHISM.

2020-06-18T00:01:00.001+05:30

NAMO BUDDHAYE

Buddhism, the mere mention of it brings to mind tranquil monks and ancient temples. It’s one of the world’s largest and oldest religions. But if you live outside of Asia you probably don’t know much about it. So what is the story of Buddhism and what do Buddhists believe. Let’ find out.

The story of the Buddha takes many different forms and you’re supposed to believe whatever version helps you the most. I’ve read many different accounts of the Buddha’s life, some portray him as a normal man while in others he’s essentially Captain Planet. I’ve condensed the different accounts together and left in all the import parts.
The future Buddha was born, painlessly from his mother’s right side, in modern day Nepal. To King Suddhodana and Queen Maya rulers of Kapilavastu. The King named him Siddhartha which means“He whose aim is accomplished”. An old hermit named Asita came to visit the child. The apparently very trusting King and Queen let him hold the baby. Asita claimed that this child would become a great emperor but if the boy ever left the confines of the palace he would instead become the spiritual leader to the whole world.
King Suddhodana, who had gone to the Disney villain school of parenting, decided to imprison his son in the palace. Never letting him see the outside world. No signs of decay were permitted. Flower petals were swept away as soon as they fell. Sick and old staff were sent away. Siddhartha was unaware that pain, ageing,and death existed. In order make sure his son would never leave the King had Siddhartha married at 16 years old to Yashodara. It was love at first sight between them. They had a son named Rahul.
They all lived happily ever after in the King's pleasure palaces. Until a musician, damn musicians ruining everything,came and sang of the wonders of the world. Siddhartha wanted to see this world and convinced his father that all future emperors need to see the world they will one day rule...right? The King, confident that he had tied his son down, decided he could trust him to go outside and not start a global religion.
So at 29 years old Siddhartha left the palace. But not before the King had all the bodies and ugly people removed from sight. Siddhartha was having a great time visiting his kingdom. Until he came across a man with a bad cough. He asked his charioteer, Chandaka, what was wrong with the man. Chandaka explained that the man was sick and that everyone gets sick. Chandaka had obviously not gotten the King’s memo. This revelation blew Siddhartha’s mind.
On the next 2 trips Siddhartha saw an old man and then a dead man. Siddhartha became depressed knowing that every one he loved would eventually grow old and die. On his fourth visit he met a homeless traveler. This man had renounced all material things and was looking for a spiritual escape to life’s suffering. Siddhartha inspired by this random homeless man decided he too needed to go on a spiritual quest. He made Chandaka take him far away. He then sent Chandaka home to tell Siddhartha's wife and child that he was doing this because he loved them.
He needed to discover an escape to life’s suffering and if he didn’t death was going to part them eventually anyway. After some wandering and studying meditation Siddhartha went to go live with 5 ascetics in the woods. The ascetics practiced extreme deprivation in order to achieve enlightenment.
Siddhartha began a 6-year fast. Sitting exposed to the elements and eating nothing but seeds that fell into his lap. This effort turned out to be pointless however. Siddhartha realised that his mind was slow and clouded... On account of the starvation. This relation taught him that the true path lay between indulgence and deprivation.
He would later develop this concept into the Middle Path. He gave up his fast by eating a bowl of rice milk. His 5 ascetics friends left in disgust thinking Siddhartha had given up. Siddhartha wandered until he came across a fig tree. He was determined to sit under this tree,meditating until he reached enlightenment.

After 49 days of intense meditating he did just that. At 35 years of age he had become the Awakened One, the Buddha. The tree he sat under became known as the Bodhi Tree. The direct descendant of this tree can still be seen at Bodh Gaya in India.

MONASTERY

After some consideration the Buddha decided he would share his knowledge with the world. He found his 5 acetic friends at Deer Park, Sarnath. And there he delivered his first teaching or Dharma. Revealing for the first time his 4 Noble Truths. The 5 ascetics became the first members of the Sangha, the Buddhist Monk Community. The Buddha would wander the Gangetic Plain for the next 45 years.. Gathering thousands of followers and accepting people of all genders, class, and castes into the Sangha. He died at 80 near Kushinagar.

BUDDHISHT MONK

His followers had him cremated and his remains were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent under monuments known as Stupas. Which continue to be important pilgrimage sights today. Buddhism would eventually spread out of the Ganges region. First down south to Sri Lanka and South East-Asia. Then north over the Silk Road route to Central and East Asia. It would spread from Tibet to Mongolia where under the Mongol Empire it then made it’s way to Russia. Later on it would be exported further West. So now that we know a little bit about the life of the Buddha let’s explore the core beliefs of Buddhism. At this point it’s important to note that the Buddha lived around 480-400BC and his teaching were recorded orally for centuries. Because of that oral tradition there are a lot of numbered categories. Which made it easier for people to memorise and recite. Numbered categories like the 4 Noble Truths which are:

Noble Truth Number 1: Life is suffering. No matter what you do in life you will suffer. Ultimately everyone grows old, gets sick,and dies. I know depressing right, it’s gets better later on.

Noble Truth Number 2: We suffer because of craving. We are attached to impermanent things and because of this we are destined to suffer. We need to change what we want rather than get what we want.

Noble Truth Number 3: We can escape for this cycle of suffering.

Noble Truth Number 4: The Noble eight fold path will help us escape suffering and reach enlightenment.

The Noble Path is the Middle Way that the Buddha discovered. It lies between the deprivation of the ascetic and the indulgences of a young prince. You don’t follow each step one after the other. It’s more of a wheel that you spin all together.

Step 1 is Right View or Understanding: It is understanding the 4 Noble Truths will help you stop suffering. You need to see that everything in the world is impermanent.

Step 2 is Right Intent: Why are you doing things? If they are done out of anger or greed they will only cause suffering. If they are done out of love and compassion they will remove suffering.

Step 3 is Right Speech: You should not hurt people with your words. You should not deceive people, obscure the truth through muddy language or take part in gossip. You should be truthful and clear.

Step 4 is Right Action: To always strive to do good in your actions. To not act in a way that is negative. Right Action covers the 5 Precepts. Which are like Buddhist commandments. They are; Do not harm living creatures ,Do not steal, Do not engage in sexual misconduct, Do not lie or harm people with words, Do not take intoxicating substances

Step 5 is Right Livelihood: You should earn your living in an ethical way. You shouldn’t be involved in arms or drug stranding or in careers that involve hurting animals or people. The Buddha spoke out against slavery in his time.

Step 6 is Right Effort: You should always go about your life with a positive attitude and enthusiasm. You should want to improve who you are.

Step 7 is Right Mindfulness: You need to pay attention. When you walk in the park you need to live in that moment. You shouldn’t be thinking of something awkward you did in school or whether you’ll be promoted next year. You should be able to live entirely in the present by being mindful.

Step 8 is Right Concentration: The ability to focus on a single object or concept. Be it a rock, Polar Bear, or Cats. Right Concentration helps you focus your mind and see things how they truly are.
Right Concentration and Right Mindfulness are important parts of meditation.

By following the 8 fold path you can reach Nirvana. The state of enlightenment the Buddha reached under that tree. You reach Nirvana when you extinguish all wants and desires.

Ok so let’s take a more bird eyes look at Buddhism. Buddhism is split between two major branches,Theravada and Mahayana.

Theravada is the older of the two. It is considered to be more orthodox as well. They think of the Buddha as a more human figure and there is a focus on using meditation as a way to reach enlightenment. Within Theravada Buddhism there is the belief in 3 things.
Nothing is permanent,
life is suffering, and
there is no self.
There is a huge emphasis on monastic life and rebirth in Theravada Buddhism. Only monks can really reach enlightenment.

Mahayana Buddhism, which means Greater Vehicle is younger and considered to be more accessible to normal people. It is called Greater Vehicle because of its inclusivity. Mahayana also contains a lot of different schools such as Zen, Tantra, and Pure Land Buddhism. They believe that enlightenment can be achieved in a single lifetime and that you don’t need to be a monk to achieve it. Mahayana is the more religious of the two and has things called Bodhisattvas, which are people that have achieved enlightenment but delay Nirvana to help others do the same. There is also more emphasis on idols and god-like beings.

Today Buddhism is the religion of around 488 million people or about 7% of the world population. Nearly all of them live in the Asia-Pacific region at 98.7%. Every other region has fewer than 1% each. Buddhists though only make up about 12% of the Asia-Pacific population. Half of all Buddhists live in China but there are large Buddhists populations across Asia especially in Thailand, Burma and Japan.
So there we have it. The life of the Buddha, the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path explained. I hope that I managed to teach you some thing new and who knows maybe some of you are one step closer to reaching Nirvana.

THIS IS AN OVERVIEW OF BUDDHISM. HOPE YOU WILL LOVE IT.....

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THANKYOU..

WHAT IS JAINISM

2020-06-14T21:48:00.002+05:30

WHAT IS JAINISM? HOW IT EVOLVED AND SPREAD?

JAINA SIGN

So for this unit we're going to look at the Jain faith, Jainism. And we might note first of all the meaning of the name. The Jains are those who follow the Jina, someone who has conquered now really, this world or samsara, the convolution we can call it. The confusing world,well, we call this world.
So we may wonder why would we study Jainism with only four to five million members in India? Because it is the oldest continuous religion on the planet. Judaism we can say maybe, well the first reference to Israel is 1100 BCE in an Egyptian manuscript. Of course many instances of stories in the Bible all go back to Babylon and Sumer so it's really a foolish contest though to determine what is the oldest continuous religion frankly, because they all trace their roots back to the same sources eventually in Africa where we all came from. Nevertheless with just a half a percent of India's population, the Jain peoples contribute 24% of the taxes of India. How did that happen? So just like Judaism,the Jain faith is very influential.
Going back to the Indus Valley, the source I'm quite convinced of yoga, the ethic of non-harming, and as well meditative practice that live on around the world today. Jainism is going back to the Indus Valley civilization of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa,and the like. We can look for my further arguments on the Aryan invasion theory that controversial topic. I should know it's not only Europeans but my Japanese advisor thought it was quite obvious that there was this event but if we look at then this map of their invasion, we can see as well also the old Indus Valley Civilization projected and the current population of modern Jain lives just about right there mostly in Northwest India. So where do we place Jainism in the history of the evolution of Indian faiths? We can go ahead and assume their legends are right.
In fact their founder, the first tirthankara invented civilization. Obviously that's a legend,but does it have a grain of truth in it? Jainism emerges approximately as a distinct faith, if not more ancient traditions behind that. Around the time of the Buddha, again in the axial age in the middle of the first millennium BCE where finally as well, we see Isaiah the prophet, see monotheism, Socrates, Confucius and the Buddha, they all emerge in this period. And the 24th tirthankara,a ford-maker, all this is– I'll explain that concept momentarily, emerges, Mahavira the great hero is what his name really literally means in Sanskrit. He merges as part of what is called the Shramadana movement that takes place again in the axial age of India, middle of the first millennium before the Common Era. And so like the Buddha,the Mahavira is an individual teacher and like the Buddha, he advocates individuals striving for salvation, and like the Buddha he opposes the pre-axial age myths of the vedas. And so neither tradition counts the vedas as authorities that makes them nastika traditions which means literally it doesn't exist except those vedas exist as cartoon fantasies for Buddhists and Jains. And we remember, India and Hinduism having its own axial age period experience through the emergence of the Upanishads and the individual historical teachers of their own individualist philosophies that we see in Hinduism.
In fact there were at least six different shramadana movements among not only the Jains and Buddhists, but we might know the materialists, charvaka sect, the lokayata as they're known. Lokayata means the world is extended. It means that there is only this world, there is no rebirth,no reincarnation of gods. And [unintelligible], India's most famous materialist atheist said, "I can go up the Ganges killing and slaying, "down the Ganges killing and slaying "and I will get no bad karma." We can imagine that in its day was as shocking as anything Karl Marx would say millennia later. So there's an implicit economic impact here as these individual thinkers,Mahavira and the Buddha said to be from the warrior caste oppose the authority of the Brahmin priests.
In essence some Protestants call it a kind of Protestant Reformation in India, but I don't know if we want to go that far. I'm not sure if I'll like the comments,if I agree with them
Nevertheless, we want to keep in mind that all these Indian religions accept karma theory, rebirth, except for the materialists, right, and the non-harming ethic that extends even to animals. India's been the first nation to recognize dolphins as non-human persons, for example. And finally like all Indian religions, the universe didn't begin some five to 7,000 years ago like those Bible proponents in my country claimed. The universe is in fact far longer than scientists have discovered actually to be. We say around 13-15 billion years ago the Big Bang occurred, but for the Indian cosmology,universes are infinite and cycles of universes might take trillions of years as it might take an individual trillions of lifetimes to become a god or to attain nirvana and the like. We can see just in these images a clear difference between Vishnu and his many avatars, as we discussed in the last unit. And then Shiva, well,the wild man of the woods meditating here is sort of in between the Vaishnava view and the Stryver [spelling] movements, we might say of the Jainand Buddhist faith and here we can see Mahavira and Sidharta of the Buddha are hardly distinguishable really in these two sculptures and they are individual teachers and they'll never be seen with consorts, wives,or children, and the like. There is a certain sense we could see this whole tumult economically and religiously and politically in the axial age of India as a return of the indigenous people's fuse. So now how does the Jain faith function,we might say to "save" people? Here we can see an example of a five-fold mantra, the namo or reverence mantra where who are the Jains reverencing?

MAHAVIRA

There is no God there. There are sadhus, adepts, teachers then of course the arihanta who have cut off passion completely. In other words Jainism, like Buddhism,is a type of humanistic religion though neither is materialistic. Again for the Jains,like all the Indian faiths, the universe is comprised of cycles but is eternal and unchanging although the Buddha himself refused to speculate on this topic. So what is the truth of things for the Jain peoples? First we can note their unique doctrine of Anekantavada. That mouthful means not one view only, but rather there is no view that sums up reality.
In the end we're talking about pure practice of non-harming. The Jain unlike the Buddhist refuses to kill root vegetables even for fear of bad karma. So what is it within us all the Jain faith can be said to be a kind of dualism in the sense that this Powell has what is known as a Jiva, a life essence, in fact literally jiva means the liver, not the organ processing your beer, but rather the thing that's alive within every living thing. And so we can say the jiva is Powell shaped here but there is an element of ajiva or nonliving matter particle over my jiva. So the reason I have this Powell shape is because my karma has led karmic particles to glue, if you will, onto my jiva and by getting rid of these karmic obscurations and ignorance the standard way to "save" yourself in the Indian religions is getting rid of ignorance means clearing the jiva of bad karma, bad thoughts,and all of that. And so who has liberated themselves from this karmic ignorance that keeps us in existence again?
A curse for those of the Indian religions, being born again and again and again. It is not immortality. It is doom. And so for the Jain the focus of veneration, we can't say worship because attinkara, a ford-builder, not the cars but rather someone who clears the way in the raging stream, the river of life,we call samsara and in our image here we can see some are drowning because they're not focused on the tirthankara. We can see some venerating the ford-maker for guidance through this raging river of life but even, and of course this is where Jains and Buddhists kind of gang up together on the Hindus, we can see even the gods themselves,the Hindu gods in the clouds are venerating the ford-maker. The ford-maker for the Jains has nothing quite literally, nothing even on his back or bottom. So as both the Buddha and Mahavira oppose again the vedas,the caste system, express a more equal view for the role of women in society, we can see those still distinctions between those two traditions. We'll find that the Buddhists express the view of no-self. There is no jiva, no pure living essence inside or trapped inside of material accretions. The self for the Buddhist is purely a projection of fiction, an illusion to be extirpated and we'll talk about that in the next unit. For the Jains however,the goal is after purifying ones jiva, one eventually can enter the siddhashila, the realm of the pure adepts who have likewise cleansed their life essence of obscuring obs-curation and ignorance. So for the Jain there's no need to convert masses of people when one has attained the pure wisdom one will be reborn in the community of the Jains so they have no need to convert anyone because wisdom can itself,they believe, extirpate bad karma and ignorance in an instant. One does not need the mediation of the Brahmin priests or live countless lifetimes as a farmer or a merchant, and the like. And so for the Jain sadhu or saint,if you will, for lack of a better translation, all things are transitory.

As Mahavira said, "Everything is in flux and flow except for your life essence "and that's why letting goof everything is the liberation "the Jain person seeks." To become kevala jnana or pure wisdom and thus part of that is doing unto others as others will do unto you. And we can find these as quotes among the sayings of Mahavira along with the idea that killing any living being is tantamount to killing your own self because all jivas are considered to be equally valuable and pure in their core. And so I would argue that Jainism and Buddhism both stressed then non harming ethic however, more than the Hindu tradition because we have in again as we saw last time, the advice of Krishna to Arjuna to kill his relatives because it's his caste duty, we'll see nothing like that in the sayings of the Buddha or Mahavira of the Jain faith.
As I say, they differ though on whether plants are sentient and I'm afraid the Buddha did not think so and then Mahavira and ford-makers all did even though now science knows plants do have ways of screaming when you pull them. So as we look at these tirthankaras, we can know they're all born of the House of the Sun, the race of Ikshwaku. Now the thing is of course,everyone who's anybody in India was born of the Ikshwaku clan, originally a legendary family from long ago. So we're told the first of the 24 famous ford-makers, the tirthankara was Rishabh Dev who legend has it invented civilization and agriculture and all the products of civilization, believe it or not. And thus we see some credence again to the Jain belief that they go back to the Indus Valley Civilization. We see further evidence in the legend of Bahubali, the second ford-maker. We're told that at a certain point his brother bought it,wanted his land. And so Bahubali who's name means strong-arms is winning the fight. He's about to smash Bharat to the ground and kill him when he stops and says I will not kill for land, power, or money. And thus he stands stillf or many months while vines grow up his legs as we can see in this image, believe it or not. And we might note that Bharat is the name the Indians give to their own country. They don't call it India,that's in fact from the times of Alexander the Great when he conquered up to the Indus River and said the rest are all Hindu. And so we find Bharatas the great hero in Indian tradition, but for the Jains, well, he's not exactly a nice guy and he wants your stuff. And so Bahubali fought war no more and stood merely in peace meditating.

PARSHVANATH

We won't see great miracles from these more humanistic ford-makers. Here we see the 23rd tirthankara ford-maker Parshvanatha merely pacifying a snake. Among the legends we're told that Parshvanatha saves a snake from being killed by hunters. The snake vows to be reincarnated because he was dying and one day to help Parshvanatha, which believe it or not he does, as he grows up to be a young prince and saves Parshvanatha from bullies. So very unlike Krishna or Shiva or the Hindu gods, the Jains don't stress miracles. And in this again, they agree with the Buddha. So here's a Jain analogy to how do we become "saved". Well, liberated in their case. The Jain tradition expresses our material physical bodies, the ajiva factor as analogous to a house. The house then is our body and the people inside the house are our jivas, the living essence. Good deeds are like a pleasant breeze through your house. Bad deeds are like dust in your house. And so if we're covered completely in dust as these individuals are, we can't see reality clearly at all. And so how do we keep the dust out of our house? We shut the windows and doors. The windows and doors are our senses to the outside world where we might be tempted to collect a lot of money, or power, or even romantic love. And so how do we clean the dust from our house? Well, we do that through the strict practice of non-harming and that extends not only to insects again, but root vegetables. And so if we're really cleaning the house, we're eating fruits and nuts, or if we believe some of the legends and even, well, some of the "scientific studies", some live on breath alone,believe it or not. When it comes to what is deemed harming, well, I think many will disagree with the Jains. They will say that even self-defense, intentional violence is of course pretty clear-cut.
We see this tiger having killed intentionally its prey and is now eating it. Then there's vocational violence. A police officer or a soldier cannot escape committing violence that would also though go for the Jain faith for the butchers. This dog digging in the ground is committing accidental violence, believe it or not. And even protecting oneself from a killer is still considered a type of violence that will slap karmic particles on your otherwise pure jiva or living essence.
As part of the Jain understanding of truth, there is this famous parable and not many know that it has Jain origins. The parable of the blind men and the elephant. The blind men are those followers of all the other religions. They feel part of the elephant for sure. One blind man feels the tusk and he might say, well, that's the truth of Christianity. Another blind man might feel the tale and say well you know ultimate reality is like a rope. We could analogize that let's say to the Hindu faith. Buddhists might say, no no,reality's more like a pillar. And the point being is that each religion or philosophy is only touching on part of the truth. And again for the Jains truth is not expressed in a view but in the pure practice of ultimate detachment and non-harming. So we do have these two more famous sects of Jain faith.

DIGAMBARA SECT

The digambara which literally means clad with the directions north, south, east, and west. Sometimes they're called sky-clad because they're clothed well with nothing from our point of view, that emperor has no clothes but from the Jain point of view these holy individuals are connected directly with the rest of the universe with no mediation. And around a couple of hundred years after again the 24th tirthankara Mahavira, we see a woman's movement emerge, the Svetambara allows women to participate and of course in the sexist way, why they're not allowed to practice the Digambara faith, but they can wear this white clothing and we can see the mouth gear like a nurse protecting the accidental breathing in of an insect or the like. And the Digambara Jains will even sweep their path as they walk to make sure they don't accidentally step on a bug. And so with many symbols,we can nevertheless see a few things pretty clearly in this symbol. One, we see the Indian hand of have no fear. For the joints, have no fear the jiva, the life essence is here. For the Hindus, have no fear Shiva or Krishna is here. For the Buddhists, no-self is here. But in the middle of the Jain hand, we can see the chariot wheel representing the circle of life and in the center of that are the Sanskrit letters that spell out the word ahimsa, which means non-harming. The goal of that faith so pacifistic and yet with such a wealth of tradition and well, literal wealth. So all this leads us to speculation.

Why is it that Buddhism and not Hinduism or Jainism spreads to Japan, Vietnam, Korea,Thailand, Sri Lanka, the list is too long to bore you out with that. And we can say Hinduism is hard to translate to other cultures because of its emphasis on the caste system and so many uniquely Indian cultural aspects. We can say the digambara or sky-clad monks of Jainism could hardly travel through the desert or over the Himalayas to China to teach and they seem to have felt little need to do so to spread their message. Then we can note the uncanny resemblance in many ways of Taoism to Buddhism, prompting the early Taoistto look at Buddhism as in fact the product of the reincarnation of Lhasa, their founder in India. And Buddhism and Taoism will essentially merge in many ways in China but that's for future units.
The Buddha as many of our axial age philosophers did again, Confucius, Socrates, and the like created a philosophy that could travel, could really be participated in by anyone really around the planet since its individual, and it is philosophically,and experimentally-based. It does not rely on sacred scriptures like the vedas. So those are the key things I think about which to be aware when thinking about the Jain faith, small but powerfully influential.

This was the overview of JAINISAM, hope you will love it,,,,,,

THANK YOU

JUDAISM

2020-06-13T13:27:00.001+05:30

Judaism, at 4000 years old is one of the oldest monotheistic religions and the granddaddy of Christianity and Islam. But even though its teachings helped create the world’s two most popular religions many people don’t know what Jews actually believe.

What is the Torah?What’s a Covenant? and why don´t people on the Middle East worship mermaid anymore? Well, let’s find out.

Judaism developed here in the eastern Mediterranean over the last 4000 years. Today there are about 15 million Jews making it the tenth most popular religion on earth. Right, let’s jump straight into their beliefs. Tanakh is the Hebrew name for the Hebrew Bible, known to most English speakers as the Old Testament. But obviously, they don’t call it that since they don’t recognize any New Testament. The Tanakh is actually a trilogy and the word Tanakh is made up of the names of the 3 sections of the Hebrew Bible. T: for Torah N: for Nevi’ im and K: for Ketuvim The first section, the Torah, is the most sacred book of the Jewish People.

The Torah consists of the five books shown here and is sometimes called the Five Books of Moses. Let's summarise this very long and very sacred book in a few paragraphs, it should be easy! In the beginning,God creates the world in six days and then has a deserved rest on the seventh. Later on, God starts talking to a guy named Abraham The Hebrew. He tells Abraham to leave his home in Mesopotamia and go to a land called Canaan, which is here. God makes a deal or covenant with Abraham, promising: "I will make of thee a great nation" and offers "the whole land of Canaan" to him and his descendants. To seal this special covenant God said unto Abraham “Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” And Abraham was like:we’re going to do what now! “ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” Circumcision was a symbol literally “cut into the flesh” of the Jewish People to show their covenant with God. And has been done by every Jewish thousands of years.

The Covenant is extremely important in Judaism. Later Abraham's grandson called Jacob literally wrestles with God or an angel of some sort for an entire night. So from then on, Jacob would be called Israel "one that struggles with God".

Jacob/Israel has twelve sons and their descendants would become known as the Children of Israel or Israelite and give their name to the land of Canaan now known as Israel. The Children of Israel would been slaved in Egypt. But then one of them called Moses would under God's guidance lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Moses and his people arrive at Mount Sinai.Here God gives Moses the entire Torah which contains 613 Mitzvah or commandments the most famous of which is the 10 Commandments written on two stone tablets. This new Covenant requires Jews to worship only this God and to follow His commandments. In return, God will bless the Jewish people and make them a holy nation living in the Promised Land, which is Israel.

The Israelites would eventually form a kingdom and one of their kings, Solomon, builds a Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which houses the Ark of the Covenant and becomes the sacred heart of Jewish worship.
Ironically enough Solomon’s kingdom would cut itself in two. Israel, populated by 10 tribes descended from the sons of Jacob in the north and Judah populated by the other 2 tribes,primarily the Judah in the south.

In 722 BCE the Assyrians conquered Israel, leaving Judah as the sole surviving Jewish kingdom. Which is this guy, Judah,a random son of Jacob, and not even the one with the dazzling coat of many colours gave the religion of Judaism and the Jews their name. In 586 BCE the Babylonians conquered Judah, demolished the Holy Temple,into exile and slavery in Babylon. The destruction of the Holy Temple and Babylonian exile is a heartbreaking historical event for Jewish people. But then in 539 BCE along came Cyrus with his big Persian army and cool hat. He wrecks the Babylonians, frees the Jews,and rebuilds the Holy Temple. And that concludes our retelling of the Tanakh. It is foundational to all Jewish belief and my summary barely scratches the surface. In 70 C.E. the Romans destroyed the Holy Temple ….again, and sent the people into another exile.
The Jews moved out across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East forming a diaspora which periodically suffered persecutions, pogroms,and genocides from their neighbors. This 2000 year exile is considered to have lasted up until 1947 with the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948. Now that was a very brief summary of 2000 years of very complex history, so please bear that in mind. God So Abraham lived in a world that believed in many, many gods. You had your Marduks, your Nergals, you even had Dagans, everyone loves Dagan, look at him the fancy merman. But Abraham believed in One God. An eternal, all-powerful,all-knowing creator of the universe, and the source of all morality. He has no children, he has no rivals, he has no equals. This is known as monotheism and Judaism would spread this concept across the ancient world acting as an origin for both Christianity and Islam.

Today, nearly everyone in this region follows a monotheistic religion and merman worship as dropped significantly. The names of God used the most in the Tanach are Elohim and the Tetragrammaton, which is honestly one of the coolest words ever. The Tetra grammatonis the letters YHWH. The actual pronunciation YHWH was lost thousands of years ago. Today it is sometimes pronounced as Yahweh. But that was just one theory. Many Orthodox Jews will not actually say the name out loud and ones said Ha-Shem, “the name”or Adonai "My Lord” instead. Many Orthodox Jews won't even write words like God down, as a sign of respect and will use something like G-D instead. The Jewish God also takes an active interest in human affairs and interacts with humans on Earth. Humans can develop a personal relationship with God. God granted humanity freewill and they,like Jacob, can “wrestle with God”, and find and relate to God in their own personal way.
The Hebrew Bible barely mentions heaven or hell. Heaven is just where God lives. It does not mentions a place called Sheol, but it’s kind just a vague underworld where souls go after death. Does not give any details. But the Bible does make it certain that the soul lives on after you die. When Abraham dies, for example,the Bible says: "he breathed his last, dying at a good, ripe age, old and content and he was gathered to his people....”.
The Bible describes a bunch of different characters being gathered to their people and sinners being cut off from their people. So while the body returns to the earth the human soul goes somewhere to live on with their ancestors. Jews accept that they do not know what the afterlife would be like or what its rewards will be, but they think it will be based on the kind of life they lived on earth. So they try to follow God's path and commandments as closely as possible because even if they don’t know what rewards they´ll receive in the afterlife they know following God´s commandments here on Earth will make this world better. Many Jews try to act with Tzedakah or Justice or charity. Tzedakah comes from the Torah which says “thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field..... neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger". Today many Jews donate 10% of their in come to the needy as part of Tzedakah. Many Jews today and in the past have hoped for the coming of a mash each or messiah. Which is prophesied in the Tanakh.
The Messiah is a Jewish leader that will bring about the Messianic Era. They will rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and bring all the Jews back into the Promised Land. Which will bring about the perfection of the world and an end to all hunger, war, and suffering. When the Messiah comes, every Jew who ever lived will be literally resurrected. They will return to Jerusalem to be present when God creates a new heaven on Earth. This is why Jewish law demands that Jews must be buried with any amputated limbs lost in life. Jewish law also forbids cremation. All to keep the physical body intact for when it is resurrected by God after the arrival of the Messiah. For Jews, the Messiah has obviously not yet arrived because there is still suffering and inequality in the world.
We already saw at the Tanakh but another book is also extremely important to the Jews. The Talmud.The Talmud is a collection of different books and is over 10 million words long and covers 38 volumes. It is a massive collection of commentary on the Torah and on itself on how the Torah or it’s commandments should be interpreted. It's filled with debate,legal interpretations, history, ethics,philosophy and legends. Within a few lines you can see rabbis that lived centuries apart debating a topic in the Talmud, it’s pretty interesting. It provides the foundation for Jewish law and is a guidebook for Jewish life. So those are some Judaism believes But Judaism is more than a religion. It is also a people, nation,culture, and civilization but not a race.There are black, Asian, and white Jews. There are people born Jewish and people convert to Judaism. There are atheist, Agnostic, and a buffet of differing levels of religious Jews.
According to Jewish law a Jewis a child born of a Jewish mother or a person who converts to Judaism. Some modern Jewish denominations also now accept descent through the father. Since the Medieval Period, there have been two major groups of the Jewish People. Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
The Ashkenazi are the Jewish community that developed in Central and Eastern Europe. They speak Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew and the languages of Central Europe. Yiddish words like bupkis, chutzpah, and klutz are familiar in English speaking pop culture because most Jewish immigrants in the United States were Ashkenazi.
The Sephardi Jews are descendants of the Jews of Spain, and those who fled from Spain to other Mediterranean countries and North Africa. They have their own language, Ladino,a combination of Hebrew and Old Spanish. But unfortunately, this language is under serious threat of the extinction
There are also communities of Jews who do not fall into these two categories such as the Jews of Iran and Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, China, and Georgia along with many, many others. All these different groups make up a diverse range of Jewish beliefs and cultures. What many Americans and Europeans think of as Jewish culture or Jewish food is really Ashkenazi culture and Central and Eastern European food, adapted to Jewish kosher laws.
An Ashkenazi will eat Schmaltz herring while a Sephardi will enjoy couscous. An Ashkenazis will celebrate with a glass of schnapps, a Sephardi will go for some Arak. Ashkenazis called Saturday, Shabbos, Sephardis called Shabbat.
Before the Second World War about 9 million Jews lived in Europe,5 million in the Americas, 800,000 in Asia, and 600,000 in Africa.Just above 15 million in total. About six million Jews were systematically murdered during the Shoah, the Hebrew term for the Holocaust. The emigration, expulsion,and extermination of Jews from their old heartlands during the 20th century has made North America and Israel home to the majority of modern Jews.
Today there are many different denominations of Jews. Ranging from Jewish atheists to Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews believe the Torah is the direct word of God and they strictly follow it'swords and commandments. The best known Orthodox Jews are the Hasidic Jews, Jews that are recognizable and distinct fashion, which has been appropriated by hipsters. There is also Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism who all cover a wide range of beliefs. From not believing in a personal or supernatural God and thinking ritual and ceremony have no place in the modern world to belief in God and the Torah but changing their interpretation as society evolves.
Shabbat or the Sabbath or Saturday is the 7th day of the Hebrew week and the most important day for Jews. Since God rested on the seventh day,Jews do the same. It is a day of physical and spiritual rejuvenation. Jewish law prohibits any work on Shabbat. Activities such as doing business,spending money, shopping, housework, driving, using electricity,or even using the phone are discouraged. While things like prayer or reading are encouraged.

The laws of Kosher regulate the Jewish Diet. What is Kosher? Well according to the Torah and Jewish law. All vegetables, fruits,grains, and nuts are kosher. When it comes to meat a kosher animal is one that both chews its cud and has a cloven hoof. Don't worry I didn't know what cud was either. Cud is a bit of food that an animal chews and then swallows and then vomits back into their mouth and then chews again. Which is why some animals can just appear to be chewing all the time. Examples of kosher animals are cattle and sheep. While non kosher animals include pigs,dogs, rabbits, and well humans actually. Kosher animals must also be killed in a certain way called shechita. This method uses a trained professional with an incredibly sharp knife to deliver quick death to the animal. Finally all blood must be drained from the animal because blood isn’t kosher. Today kosher food can be bought from kosher shops or recognised by special kosher symbols on products. All shellfish, birds of prey like eagles or owls, and fish without both fins and scales like shark, whale, and porpoise are not kosher. From the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE until today, the synagogue has been the centre of Jewish life and worship. In every synagogue, you’ll find a handwritten Torah Scroll. Which is read aloud during services. You’ll also find a rabbi. A rabbi is a trained Jewish scholar and interpreter of Jewish law. They conduct many , such as circumcisions, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs,weddings, and funerals. While there you may notice people wearing a kippah also known as yarmulka on their heads. Judaism originated in the Middle East, where a sign of respect to God is a covered one´s head. Orthodox Jews believe they are always in the presence of God, so they wear a kippah at all times. More liberal Jews wear a kippah sometimes. You might also notice that many Orthodox Jew have long curly hair on the sides of their head. These are called Payo and Orthdox Jews do not cut this hair because of a command on the Torah that says “Ye shall not roundthe corners of your heads''

this is a brief of JUDAISM, hope you will lovw it..

THANK YOU

BIRTH OF ISLAM

2020-06-09T19:04:00.000+05:30

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim

Hello friends, Islam is the 2nd largest religion of the world. it is very difficult to summarize in 1000 to 2000 word but for basic understanding i am creating this.

Here we deals with BIRTH OF ISLAM, what was the purpose to establish it, how it was

established, how it traveled across the world, and present situation of ISLAMIC WORLD.

THE WORLD OF ISLAM

The birth of ISLAM was in SAUDI ARABIA near HAZAR around ADAN PORT.
Since the trade between EUROPE and ASIA as on peak at that time and it was done through groups of people called KAFILA, they have no and well defined religion initially and also believer of IDOL WORSHIP. They followed TRIBAL life style and KINSHIP based society.There were very poor economic situations around this region At that time MECCA was called as CITY OF KAFILA, where MUHAMMAD SAHAB was born in 570 AD , in QURAISH TRIBE and CLAN was BANU HASHIM.

Father ABDULLA died before his birth and mother AMEENA passed away when he was 6 year old. his care was in the hand of his Uncle ABU TALIB, and he was not interested in life so ABU TALIB sold him to a rich family for work but there was a widow KHADIJA. She married to MUHAMMAD SAHAB. At the time of marriage he was only 25 years old and KHADIJA was 40 years old. He was not so well educated at that time so they started to learn from society.
He moved to DAMISHK (DAMASCUS) for some trade purpose, there he came with the contact of the two new religions CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. These two religions inspired him a lot and for getting the complete knowledge of both religion he went in a meditative state. He took an isolation inside HIRA cave for months, then he realised the ULTIMATE POWER, he realised that some one again and again want to connect with him in meditative stage, then he realised that this is a message of GOD form him.

CONCEPT OF ALLAH, ANGEL, AND PAIGAMBAR IN ISLAM-

ALLAH - the ultimate reality or ultimate power

ANGEL- the messenger of ALLAH, who said the wordings of ALLAH

PAIGAMBAR- the messenger of ALLAH on earth to spread the sayings of ALLAH

QURAN - the sayings of ALLAH complied in the book called QURAN, which can never be altered.

What is written in it is supreme because these are the words of ALLAH,

DECLARATION OF PROPHET-HOOD IN ISLAM -

After getting the knowledge, MUHAMMAD SAHAB declared himself as the prophet. And started a new religion where he refused the concept of idol worship. Initially he had only 50 followers but slowly and gradually number increased.

When he was preaching the message of QURAN then initially local people refused it and started to plan kill him, so MUHAMMAD SAHAB on the suggestions of his followers, moved from MECCA to MADINA nearly 280 miles in 622 AD. This escape was called as HIJRA in ARBI, so from here the start for HIJRA CALENDAR. In MADINA also there was a great refuse of his teachings, but this time he chose to fight with his 300 hundred followers and MUHAMMAD SAHAB wins this war at BADR in 623AD. From here number of followers started to increase rapidly then from here he moved to UHUD in 627 AD and gathered 3000 followers and lastly went back to mecca and reconquered it.

Here in MECCA there is a BLACK STONE called KAABA, where he took 7 round KAABA and threw all the 360 idols of previous GOD in the ocean, and started JEHAD against idol worship. In 632 AD MUHAMMAD SAHAB died.

MECCA

WHAT IS JEHAD IN ISLAM - war against crime,adharma

WHAT IS UMMAH IN ISLAM - faithful musalmaan

After the death of MUHAMMAD SAHAB his legacy continued by CALIPHS OR KHALIFA.
Initially they were PATRIARCHAL CALIPHS from 632 AD to 661 AD.

In PATRIARCHAL CALIPH there was 4 caliphs and main power was centered around MECCA.

HAZARAT ABU BAKR

HAZARAT UMAR

HAZARAT USMAN

HAZARAT ALI

Hazarat ali was son-in-law of MUHAMMAD SAHAB, so some fraction did not accepted hin as next caliph. Then governor of DAMISHK(DAMASCUS ) revolted against HAZARAT ALI and it converted into BATTLE OF KARBALA. Later supporters were called as SHIA and opponents called themselves SUNNIs The battle was faught in 661 AD, in this battle SUNNI emerged as victorious against SHIA. A huge massacre was done in this war. Son of HAZARAT ALI, HUSSEIN ALI and HASSAN ALI both were killed in this war. Sunnis make a pyramid of SHIA's heads, thats why in today's world SHIA muslims give his condolences through TAZIA, in MUHARRAM.

TAJIA during MUHARRAM

After this PATRIARCHAL CALIPH displaced by HEREDITARY CALIPHS.

these were also divided into 2 parts-

1. UMAYYAD CALIPHATE, from the governor of DAMISHK (DAMASCUS ), who revolted and made DAMASCUS as the center of caliphate. they continue from 661AD to 750 AD. They were mainly from SUNNI sect and used WHITE flag.

Due to a religious movement ABBASIDS came to power by defeating SUNNIs in the religious war.

2. ABBASID CALIPHATE, they were of SHIA origin and continued from 750AD to 1250AD. Their center of power was moved to BAGHDAD in PERSIA. They choose BLACK flag as their signs.

NOW these Abbasids from BAGHDAD moved in three directions-

1. To Asia minor ANATOLIA (TURKEY), then moved ahead and enter in to EASTERN EUROPE.
2. To North Africa and then enter into SOUTH-WEST EUROPE.
3. To the Central Asia then to south Asia where India is situated.

Means when they were coming to India at that time the power center of caliph was situated in central Asia, so they were ruling in India in 1206 AD as GULAM or MAMLUK DYNASTY in the name of Abbasid Caliph.

MAMLUKS- mostly central asian turks, well trained white slaves, slaves who take birth from free mother and father.

TURKISH were divided into two parts, TURKS of TURKMENISTAN and TURKS of TURKEY.
In India turks of TURKMENISTAN came.

Now from WESTERN ASIA, Abbasid Empire extends to CENTRAL ASIA and established the kingdom of GHAZNI, by MAHMUD GHAZNI and other Empire GHOR, established by MUHAMMAD GHURI then in SOUTH ASIA moved to DELHI, by QUTUBUDDIN AIBAK, as GULAM, MAMLUK, or ILBARI dynasty.

MANSOOR- These were the TURKS who served Abbasid. Since these TURKS are physically very strong and loyal to Abbasid so when they win the war for caliphs, caliph promoted them and started to give the land or area, which they win for the caliphs, to rule over the people in the name of Caliphs. This promotion was in the form of MANSOOR as letter of investiture. This was started because it was difficult for caliph to sit in Baghdad and rule over in a vast area.

KHILAT- honorary cloth by Caliph on the shoulder of those TURKS who got the land to rule.

SULTANAT- by the process of MANSOOR and KHILAT the new empire emerged. Which were called as SALTANAT and the ruler to that SALTANAT was called as SULTAN.

NOW caliph become the titular head of ISLAMIC realm, means caliph will be chief of both worldly and spiritual things, but SULTAN will be only the worldly chief.

HOW MONGOLIA CONNECTED TO ISLAM-

They were living in a landlocked country, with no any defined religion, little bit they were follower of SAMANISHTH branch of BUDDHISM, due to contact with CHINA and neighboring countries. But later they refused to accept any religion.

Initially they were looting in area nearby, by there clan's chief but later all the chiefs met in a meeting in 1206 AD and make a plan to loot and plunder in other countries. This meeting was known as KARUTALAI, meaning assembly. In this meeting a leader was chosen named TAMECHIN as KAGAN (king). Later he took the title of CHANGEZ KHAN. KHAN was a changed from of KAGAN. He ruled from 1206AD to 1227AD.

GENGHIS KHAN or CHANGEZ KHAN

WHY CHANGEZ KHAN WAS THE MOST POWERFUL KING OF ALL THE TIME?

Because he advanced his military with cannon, stone pelting machines and decimal system of military, which was later adopted by Akbar.

After CHANGEZ his grandson HALGU KHAN attacked on Western Asian Abbasid empire, caliph of BAGHDAD. At that time AL-MUSTASID was the caliph who lost the battle and killed by HALGU KHAN in 1258 AD. HALGU burn the whole Baghdad and killed all who came in his way.
The massacre was so cruel that it takes 500 years to build BAGHDAD again.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH OF CALIPH ?

Between 13th to 16th century-

       Now caliph divided into 3 branches-
       1. Western Asian- Abbasid
       2. Northern Asian- EGYPT- Fatima dynasty
       3. South-West Europe- Spain - Umayyad dynasty

NOTE- In India MUHAMMAD BIN TUGALAQ and FIROZ SHAH TUGALAQ got the MANSOOR by the FATIMA dynasty.

Between 16th to 20th century-

      4 new contenders of caliph-ship-

      1. Asia Minor - Turkey - Ottoman Dynasty
      2. Western Asia - Persia - Safavid Dynasty
      3. South Asia - India - Mughal Dynasty
      4. Central Asia - Uzbekistan - Uzbek Dynasty

20th century onward except Ottoman empire all the remaining 3 collapsed. In Ottoman empire the last caliph was ABDULMEJID-II from 1922 to 1924. Then MUSTAFA KEMAL PASHA ATATURK became 1st president of TURKEY from 1923 to 1938 and made a constitution and implemented it and completely finished the caliph-ship. And declare turkey as secular state.

Then till 90 years there was no caliph in between but in 2013 ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI head of ISIS declared himself the 1st caliph of ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ and THE LEVANT (ISIL). He was killed in 2019.

ISLAMIC BELIEFS -

Religious Text - QURAN

Law Book - SHARIYA

Life events of Muhammad sahab - HADITH

Ultimate Power - ALLAH

Only religion - ISLAM

Only Pure Book - QURAN

Only state - ISLAMIC STATE

Only Community - MUSSALMAN (man with firm of faith, pure from soul and work)

Jummah - Friday Prayer to ALLAH

Azaan - remembering the ALLAH

Qibla - direction towards MECCA

KAABA - most important religious place

Namaz - 5 time a day remember the ALLAH

Zakat - 2.5% of earnings in grant

Roza - fasting to feel the pain of poor.

Haj - Pilgrim

4 SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTS-

MALIKI SCHOOL
SHAFIVI SCHOOL
HANBALI SCHOOL
HANAFI SCHOOL

HANAFI were the most liberal in all the 4, who came to INDIA.

This is a overview of evolution of such a great religion. This blog is not covering all the things about ISLAM but you can get an overview about ISLAM...
It was just a try. If you love it the Please share ....

THANK YOU

AMEEN..

HINDUISM

2020-05-23T18:41:00.004+05:30

Hello friends , i am going to tell you about HINDUISM ,(SANATAN), actually the word HINDU came after the entry of Turks, Arabs because this area was start at the east side of INDUS RIVER but they called it as SINDHU later it became HINDU . How and why it survives thousands of years, why the god and goddess emerges with time, all the topics i am going to cover here.........

SO LETS START----

When Europeans came to India for trade purpose they were shocked much after seeing such great diversity, because their won history was not allowing him to think in this way. But they are smart enough to understand the reasons behind it so they followed the policy of "WHITE MEN'S BURDEN", means they were send by GOD to make you literate, but internally they were aware of India's rich culture and diversity. Most of the big scientist also adopted HINDUISM after studying the INDIAN SCRIPTURES, because the new theories are totally based on those concept which were written thousands of years earlier.

I WILL DISCUSS IT ALL BUT FIRST START WITH CORE CONCEPT OF HINDUISM

it is very difficult to describe the thousands of years heritage on paper but still we can say HINDUISM is the most liberal, most flexible, containing N number of thoughts, N number of rituals, which grown up with time and still growing up and much more.

CONCEPT OF SANATAN DHARMA-

involvement of

BRAHMAN = ultimate power or ultimate energy or ultimate soul
ATMAN = human soul, part of Brahman
MAYA = Prakriti , human body

maya is the world around us, in which we live ,survive and die.

MOKSHA = libration from worldly things. Atman back to Brahman through various process such as meditation .

GOAL OF LIFE AS PER SANATAN DHARMA OR HINDUISM

By adopting those ways which can liberate you from the cycle of life that is birth and death and finally merge in to ultimate reality .

THREE RULES TO UNDERSTAND PURPOSE OF LIFE

To know the ultimate reality directly i.e. BRAHMAN
To understand the soul with in us i.e. ATMAN
creation of GOD in the form of IDOLs , no religion in the world allow to create or destroy the image of GOD except in HINDUISM because the scriptures tells that the real power is beyond our limits, that power is everywhere.

What is BRAHMAN -

।
॥

Om Puurnnam-Adah Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Puurnnam-Udacyate |
Puurnnasya Puurnnam-Aadaaya Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate ||

meaning- infinity is BRAHMAN, and ATMAN is also infinite, infinite comes from

infinite and still remains infinite.

HOW HINDUISM reflecting the MODERN SCIENCE ?

1- GEETA SHLOK -

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः।

न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः !!

meaning- weapons neither kill the soul , nor fire can burn it up.
neither water can make it wet , nor air can dried it up

soul is determined as ENERGY in present days and EINSTEIN told the world that

"ENERGY neither be created nor be destroyed, it only changes the forms,"
same like human soul which changes the bodies

2- KARMA CONCEPT -

what you think and what you do every thing is creating your balance sheet, for every good, creation of positive karma and for every wrong, creation of negative karma.

means your every action in daily life has a reaction i.e. the concept given by NEWTON -" every action has a equal and opposite reaction''

we can understand it by the database server of GOOGLE , he count all the things we searched same as our daily acts counts in the great grand master server of karma.

3- THEORY OF RELATIVITY -

same as the VEDIC concept of time difference of BRAHMA and HUMAN

4- CONCEPT OF MULTIVERSE or PARALLEL UNIVERSE also given in scriptures.

REPRESENTATION OF BRAHMAN-

here in the above diagram MAYA or WORLD runs into 4 YUGAS named as-

Satya yuga = 17,28,000 years
Treta yoga = 12,96,000 years
Dwapar yuga = 8,64,000 years
Kali yuga = 4,32,000 years

in the ratio of 4:3:2:1

CORE CONCEPT OF HINDUISM-

1- ATMAN

BRAHMAN i.e. undivided consciousness is the source of all ATMAN
ATMAN i.e. nonmaterialself never changes , driver of the body

eg. CAR = human body , DRIVER = atman
here CARS will be come and go but DRIVER will be the same
BODY can not run without atman same as CAR can on run without DRIVER

see the image-

2- REINCARNATION AND SAMSARA-

SOUL attains new body after death based on three facts-

state of mind at death
unfulfilled desired
KARMIC records i.e. our database created as per our thoughts and tasks.

SAMSARA meaning seeking body from one to another (mentioned above in diagram 1 all the 6 forms)

CONSCIOUSNESS prasent in all forms of life but only humans can use it

3- LAW OF KARMA

HUMANS have only free choice, remaining works on their instinct.

human = life of responsibility

KARMA =ACTION + THOUGHTS

ACTION = REACTION

positive action creates positive karma

negative actions creates negative karma

records maintained in KARMIC BALANCE

+ve karma = upgradation

-ve karma = nikarma = degradation

akarma = neutral

where to move only humans have free choice by maintaining KARMIC BALANCE

emergence of concept of PAAP and PUNYA

in HINDUS there is no HELL or HEAVEN only KARMA decides your MOKSHA or

CONTINUE CYCLE of birth and death

EXAMPLES -

No one can be immune from the KARMA even GODS also

LORD KRISHNA's whole family lost due to his KARMA in MAHABHARATA war due to
the curse of GANDHARI

Curse of VRINDA toVISHNU which become the base for RAMAYANA

4- PRAKRITI, MATTER, GUNA-

ATMAN trapped in successive body made of prakriti, matter, and guna.
Matter is temporary and inert

GUNAS

SATTVA - LIKE GOD - pure
RAJAS - LIKE KING -creation, enjoyment, greed
TAMAS - IGNORANCE - bad karma, madness

It is the choice of SOUL to select SATTVA, to reach Brahman, to select RAJAS , for live in
society and TAMAS to move lower stages like plant, animal, reptile etc.

MOKSHA is for ATMAN going above to SATTVA and merge in Brahman.

EMERGENCE of GODs to control all the three GUNAS

Brahma - to control SATTVA
Vishnu - to control RAJAS
Mahesh - to control TAMAS

4- MAYA

Above three guna mislead the ATMAN and trapped in MAYA
Which results in wrong perception i.e. Atman identify BODY as Brahma

Temporary body i.e. money and family leads to Race, Gender, Nation, Caste leads to frustration leads to redoubling of efforts leads to create a deeper swamp which again fall us in to MAYA i.e. temporary body

There is no real world its a desert mirage

HINDUISM renounced the material world, it tells us to meet our need in a dignified manner not the greed.

5- LIBERATION OR MOKSHA

it is the merging of human soul in to Brahman soul

MAYA easily can misleads us in this world so with the help of a GURU or TEACHER we can attain the moksha.

Our scriptures helps to understand what is real or what in not.

Final goal of life is merge with the Ultimate truth by two ways

like when a water drop merges with ocean , here one lost its properties after merging
or like a parrot on a green tree here both will look a like but both have their different identities.

7- WHAT IS GOD

BRAHMAN = supreme spirit or ultimate reality

ANTARYAMI = GOD with in us

BHAGWAN = GODs as a person

PARAMATMAN = supreme self

ISHWAR = Controller

ISHWARI = Deity

PARAMESHWAR = Supreme controller

PRUSHOTTAM = supreme in humans

DEV = god

DEVI = goddess

GOD and GODDESS- representation and meaning of all main GODS of HINDUISM

BRAHMA god of creation , creation is not possible without KNOWLEDGE so goddess of knowledge SARASWATI came with BRAHMA
VISHNU preserver of the universe, but need of RESOURCEs to preserve the universe so LAXMI goddess of resources emerged
SHIVA the destroyer , to destroy the universe for next creation there was a need of POWER , so goddess SHAKTI (PARVATI) emerged as power.

when we praise them in human form - SAGUN

when we praise without human form - NIRGUN

MEANING OF VISHNU IMAGE

here every thing in this image has its own meaning like

OCEAN represents the world in which we are born

SNAKE with multiple heads represents the MULTIDIMENSIONAL TIME and UNIVERSE

ROUND TAIL of SNAKE on which VISHNU is sitting is representing the CYCLE of life

VISHNU the driver of your body

BRAHMA on lotus is our CONSCIOUSNESS

and in foot side LAXMI i.e. maya, money, she is sitting on the foot side, which shows never show greed, use Money only as resource, do not let it to be dominate us.

MEANING OF ARDHANRISHWAR-

Hinduism accepts all form of human life i.e. men, women and all the possible combination of men and women eg homosexuals

DASHAVATAR -

it shows the evolution of life later given by DARVIN's theory of evolution

Matsya (fish) – reprasent the first form of life which evolved in ocean
Kurma (tortoise) – then next life form which can survive both in water and land
Varaha (boar) – next life form which can only survive on land
Narasimha (half human, half lion) – the dual nature of human and animals. When humans were living like animals
Vamana (the dwarf brahman)- short hight
Parshurama (the warrior) – human nature which shows anger
Rama (the prince) – human nature which shows its discipline
Krishna (the cowherd) – human indulged in worldly affairs and still get moksha
Buddha (the Enlightened One) – human with great knowledge
Kalki (the horserider) is yet to appear

GOD SHIVA's FAMILY-

SHIVA - (the man)Adipurush, destroyer of arrogance

SHAKTI - (the lady) PARVATI - in 9 forms from MOST HUMBLE to MOST

DESTRUCTIBLE (mother KALI)

GANESH - (the child with elephant head) is source of infinite wisdom

KARTIKEYA - worrier GOD

KALI MATA - mother of destruction

when SHAKTI becomes uncontrolled then it converts herself in to KALI

unstoppable power, complete destruction, like NUCLEAR weapon

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VISHNU AND SHIVA

REQUIRED THINGS IN VISHNU WORSHIP

DHATURA FRUIT

BEL LEAVES

USED IN SHIVA's WORSHIP

VISHNU represents material growth hence HINDUS used BUTTER , GHEE, CHANDAN purchased by money means material gains.

SHIVA represents the vairagya, withdrawal from worldly affairs hence in his worship HINDUS used BEL leaves , DHATURA fruit , and ASHES, all available free of cost.

CONCLUSION-

HINDUISM offers multiple ways to reach to divinity such as by doing YOGA such as GYAN yoga (MEDITATION), HATH yoga (give unbearable pain to body for attaining moksha), KARMA yoga (by doing good WORKS in society), BHAKTI yoga (by worshiping GOD) .

HINDUISM is not a religion but it is a thought and a though can never be end it always evolved with time. So same happens with HINDUISM , its rich scriptures defines the depth of SANATAN dharma or HINDU dharma.

THANK YOU