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Proving the historicity of Ram-Part 1
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08-24-2012, 02:43 AM
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Paul Bunyan
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Let us also know the fact that McCaulay did not know even one Indian language but he commented on all Eastern wisdom, James Mill never visited India but he wrote on Indian history. None of the foreign Indologists like Max Muller, Winternitz and Griffith had any knowledge of Vedic grammar , astronomy, metre (
chhand
) etc but they all translated Vedas and assumed the status of authorities.
As per Vedic time computation and tradition, the age of creation is 4.32 billion years, and the sankalp mantra '
Om tatsat adhay bharamano dutya parardhey swetvarahakalpe saptmein vaivasvat manvantare astahvinsatitame kaliyuge kaliprathme charne _____ gatabde
'. They have kept intact the history of the time of creation and the advent of man on earth till today. Man arrived on earth exactly 1,97,29,49,108 years ago (approximately two billion years ago). Some Vedic scholars also believe that man was created on earth only in the seventh
manmantar
of Vaivasvat Manu. The sun, planets, stars, earth, sea, vegetation, flora and fauna were created in the earlier six
manmantar
s in a very scientific manner. If we accept this theory, then man was born about 12,05,33,108 years ago. At least this much is certain, that the history of mankind is indeed very long.
Indians always knew the art of writing. The Rig Veda (10.71.4) says speech has two forms -- one which can be heard (
shravya
) and one which can be seen (
drishya
). Script was in vogue since ancient times in India.
Bhojpatra
and
tadpatra
(papyrus) were abundantly available in nature before man walked the earth. Like paper, even these forms of recording scripts was not permanent. Manuscripts were copied onto new papyrus if they got damaged due to climatic conditions. How else would we find thousands of ancient manuscripts in India? How else would we remember the Vedas, epics, scriptures, and other astronomical subjects?
Yes, there were definitely a few people who felt pride in memorising one or more of the Vedas. If we believe that at that point in time the intellect and memory of the people were very sharp and elephantine compared to the modern man, then this logic also goes against the evolutionary principles of Darwin. The truth is that Indians knew how to write -- and wrote a lot! No other country in the world has such a rich and vast literary treasure. What other proof can be asked for to say that the Indians could write?
Darwin's unnatural and unscientific theory is now also being rejected by many scientists and scholars world-wide. Because of their religious faith some Western scholars who earlier believed that the age of the earth was approximately 6,000 years, now agree that the earth is aged between 3.96 and 4.3 billion years. If earth is so old then how can man inhabited it after such a gigantic time gap?
American scholar Michael Cremo's recent books
Forbidden Archaeology
and
Devolution of Man
based on scientific discoveries prove that the Darwin theory has hardly any truth and that man came on earth at least two billion years ago. Cremo and his co-author Richard Thompson have quoted a lot of archeological evidences which undoubtedly prove that scientists in the last 150 years have collected so many facts which disprove many fundamental theories in history, linguistics and science. Many scientific journals had also published these discoveries but the mental block created by the evolution theory of Darwin and the limit of 5,000 years of human history did not pay due attention to the new discoveries. These scientific discoveries and facts prove that the history of mankind is billions of years old
.
Ignorance in faith
The foreign scholars and their Indian followers who have spread the mythological canard that Ram and Ramayana are historically untrue, figments of imagination and only a fable are no more responsible than some of our Indian poets and writers. The preachers and exponents of Ram Katha and the directors and actors of Ramlila have inadvertently and ignorantly further contributed to the doubts about the genuineness of Ram. Devoid of true faith and unaware of the true glory of God, we have turned Ram into God and God-incarnate.
Like the fables of Panchtantra we have metamorphosed the erudite scholar of Vedas and a guru of grammar, Hanuman, into an ape; the architect of Ram Setu, Jambavan, into a bear; the famous doctor-surgeon Sushen and his colleagues Angad, Bali, etc into monkeys; the brave Jatayu who was the former king of Gridhkoot who fought Ravan in the sky after the abduction of Sita, into a vulture. The most shocking belief is that the most beautiful scholar lady Tara was married to the monkey Bali. Sita was believed to be born of the earth and ultimately returned to Mother Earth. Our imagination knew no bounds.
Valmiki knew Ram to be a human, a noble man, the best of his era and in his time wrote Ramayana as both were contemporary. He has also shown Ram to possess human traits and emotions, just like any ordinary person. We, in our blind faith, have accentuated the question marks on the historicity of Ram and Ramayana by treating Ramayana like a fable and depicting its noble characters as birds and animals.
Our foolish beliefs did not end here. We spin strange new stories which ultimately maligned the noble character of Ram. Ram never disowned Sita or exiled her to the forest in a pregnant state. Valmiki never wrote this. We got the Seer Shambook executed by Ram, calling him a shudra. Valmiki never mentioned this. No intellectual scholar or tapasvi could be a shudra, at least in Vedic times. But through interpolations and additions in the modern day Ramayana we have made Maryada Purshottam Ram into a person inflicting injuries and harassment on women and low-borns. Valmiki's Ram was the bravest among the brave, the noblest among the noble, but not God.
Analysis and conclusions
1. Can our saints and seers, who have from birth till death spoke the truth, acted with truth and preached only the truth, become the liars today and their writings unbelievable and false, whereas the foreign scholars and their native modern followers are truthful? Were our ancient visionaries and authors like Rishi Valmiki, Muni Vyas, Kalidas, Bhas, Bhavbhooti, Ashvaghosh, Samarth Guru Ramdas, Guru Govind Singh, Swami Dayanand, Swami Vivekanand, the leading lights of Buddhist and Jain traditions, etc were liars, selfish and believed in the imaginary, whereas today's professors and scholars of our colleges and universities, writing about history and culture are more learned, committed to truth and missionaries of humanism?
2. Man first wrote true stories and history, and later learnt how to write fiction. India never had a tradition of writing about imaginary characters, as our country was never short of real-life heroes.
3. Are our history,
puranas
,
smritis
and Upanishadic parables fables and fairy tales, and Western legends and mythologies all true?
4. Has any community in the world ever celebrated the birth or death anniversaries of any fictitious person? If this is true, then how can the birth anniversary of Ram, Ram Navmi, be celebrated since thousands of years, year after year, in many countries of the world?
5. Has any fictitious character been written about repeatedly even by 10 to 20 writers? The story of Ram has been told and retold since time immemorial by thousands of seers, poets, writers and authors in different languages and in different countries of the world.
6. Even if by default we accept that Ram and Ramayana are the imagination of a poet, then at least we accept that the poet was real and lived on this earth, and was not imaginary. No one has ever doubted that Valmiki lived. His life has been chronicled in detail in
Skand Puran
,
Bhavishya Puran
and
Adhyatma Ramayana
. When Valmiki meets Ram for the first time, he says, as given in Valmiki Ramayana (7.96.19):
Prachetsoahem dasmey putroh raghavnandany |
Ne ismarahmeanritam vakyamimo tu tav putroko
||
Valmiki proudly says to Ram, 'I am the 10th son of Pracheta, and I never remember speaking even one untrue sentence'. How can such a missionary and follower of truth could have written an imaginary story of Ram?
7. Has anyone given a detailed description of generation after generation of a fictitious, imaginary person? Kalidas has described 19 generations of Raghuvansh, Ram's ancestors and descendants, in his book
Raghuvansh
.
Shabdakalpdrum
has mentioned the 11 names of Ram's lineage as Bahuk, Sarg, Anshuman, Asamjas, Dilip, Bhagirath, Aja, Dashratha, Ramchandra, Kush and Luv and has mentioned these kings were the world rulers in that era. Even after all this if we don't accept Ram as a historical figure it is beyond the realm of wisdom.
8. Has anyone ever questioned the character of any writer when the hero and writer were contemporary? Rishi Valmiki was a contemporary of Ram and has used the present tense in the Ramayana, not the past and future tense. Then how can we question the historicity of Ram and other characters of the Ramayana?
9. Even in modern times if we want to know the age of any person, we first look for his/her school or college certificates or his horoscope. If someone has no papers or documents to know his age then he is subjected to an ossification medical test. But when the question is of any ancient historical person, why do we ignore the writings and literary evidences and instead search for archeological evidences in buildings, statues, seals and bones found buried in earth?
10. When the foreign Indologists and historians and their blind Indian followers want to search for history in the divine revelation the Vedas, they quote the Rig Veda (10.60.4.4) where there is a mention of Iksvaku, the ancestor of Ram and the founder of Ayodhya. The Atharva Veda mentions Ayodhya as having nine gates. The Atharva Veda (18.3.16) mentions the name of Vishwamitra, Vashista the preceptor of Ram, and Bhardwaj. But when it comes to Ram and Ramayana, they claim it is all mythological and fictitious. Is it not hypocritical?
11. Even today, some of the Asian countries believe in Ram, Ravan, Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. Sri Lanka believes in the Ramayana and therefore till date has proudly shown the coronation of Vibhishan in its parliament; Ashok Vatika has been converted into a famous tourist attraction and not only that, the Sri Lankan government is still paying pension to the descendents of Ravan. Thailand has a place Ayodhya, and the king there is still called Ram, even though a Buddhist. The most important event took place in the history of Indonesia. In November 1949, the Dutch government agreed to give independence and sovereignty to the Indonesian Islands, except Erian (New Guinea). The Indonesian public launched an agitation, asking also for the inclusion of New Guinea, but the Dutch government asked for any irrefutable proof to prove that New Guinea was an integral part of Indonesia.
Then the people of Indonesia, who have a tradition of reciting the Valmiki Ramayana quoted the following verse '
Yatanvanto yavdweepam ______ shishiro naam parvat'
(Kiskindha Khand, Sarg 40, Verse 30-31), which meant that 'Sughreev had advised the leaders in his army to visit the eastern frontiers, in search of Sita, to go to Yavadwipa (Java) -- the conglomeration of seven kingdoms, and from there to visit Swarnadeep (Sumatra) and after Sumatra to visit Shishir mountain (New Guinea) inhabited by gods and demons, which kisses the sky with its summit'. After reading this ancient irrefutable evidence, the Dutch handed over New Guinea also to Indonesia. New history was created in Indonesia just because of the Ramayana.
In conclusion, it would not be wrong to say that not believing in the historicity of Ram and Ramayana would be obstinacy and an act of scholastic arrogance. Whether someone has faith or not, history is history. We might not have faith in Ayodhya, Saryu, Ganga, Sri Lanka, Ram, Sita, Hanuman, but how can we doubt their historical existence? I would like to recall the words of Swami Vivekanand to Indian writers of history and every scholar of our soil: 'When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors and his past, the end has come'. The birth anniversary of Ram, Ram Navmi, may awaken in us a true faith, which is devoid of ignorance and myopia. And let us inculcate the richness of character and righteousness of Ram in our midst.
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