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A Massive Hinduism Timeline

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  Quote PakistaniShield Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: A Massive Hinduism Timeline
    Posted: 02-Jul-2010 at 17:12
"Hinduism" itself is not a religion but a British concept of all the various religions in Asia being "one"

Only 2 centuries ago this concept came into being and here are some pretending such a religion exists and that it started thousand of years ago


Edited by PakistaniShield - 02-Jul-2010 at 17:14
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2010 at 07:07
Originally posted by PakistaniShield

"Hinduism" itself is not a religion but a British concept of all the various religions in Asia being "one"

Only 2 centuries ago this concept came into being and here are some pretending such a religion exists and that it started thousand of years ago
 
Maybe the truth is in between.  Despite what Hindu nationalists claim, "Hinduism" is not 5,000 years old and there was never an ancient Hindu super state.
 
Hinduism was exported to Cambodia (2nd century), Malaysia and Indonesia.  Did these peoples, especially the later converts, see themselves as Hindus or followers of various Vedic religions?  In either case, by the time of the conversion of Malaysias and Indonesians to Islam (13th century), the people seem to have converted from orgainized Hinduism to Islam, and not "converted from various vedic religions to Islam". 
 
The tolerant 16th century Islamic Mughal ruler Akbar seems to have viewed Hinduism as a unified religous system.  Would a closer study of his writings or the writings of other Mughal rulers confirm this?
 
So.... my guess is that Hinduism as a unified religion is possibly 1800 years old and at least say, 1,000 years old.
 
 


Edited by Cryptic - 04-Jul-2010 at 07:15
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  Quote PakistaniShield Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2010 at 12:19
I think the best way to put it is how we refer to Native American religion. It's a set of various unrelated religions.

As for Vedic peoples, they were not said to be vegetarians and often ate meat including cows. Some sources claimed that they actually buried their dead as opposed to cremating them .

Actually the term Hindu might have started under Muslim rule to refer to non-Muslims/Christians/Jains/Bhuddists and others but later used by the British to refer to a religion.


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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2010 at 06:52
Indus-Saraswati valley people followed vedic religion recent archaeological excavations at the western borders of Rajasthan had exposed many pre-harappan fortified towns which were well planned with pathways and streets and drainages for even individual houses which is connected to common drainage and finally led out of the town.They had many fire altars which were used for vedic fire worship.
The sites are Kalibangan,Lothal,Surkotada,Ganheriwala,Rakhigarhi,Dholavira,Kot diji etc.

About 414 sites were found out on the banks of Gaggar-hakra river.Which is now identified as the rigvedic Saraswathi river after satellite photography and related studies.This river dried up in 1900BC resulting in the gradual death of the civilization.Only less than 4 dozen sites are on the banks of Indus or Sindhu River and hence the name Indus-Saraswathi civilization.

The Indus-saraswathi people worshipped Mother goddess,Rudra or shiva(phallic symbols)& fertility.They performed fire rituals and worshipped forces of nature which is even done by  present day Hindus 


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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2010 at 07:18
The 4000 year old practice of Agnicayana and Agnistoma are still being practiced by Hindus of India.(you can google and find out about the agnicayana & agnistoma)
The archaeological sites of Kalibangan,Surkotada and Lothal has many fire altars which were used for sacrificial fire rituals dating back to 3100BC-2300BC
The name Hindu is also not given by British.It is given by pre-islamic fire-worshipping Iranians.Their religious booksAvesta & Vendidad has referances of Hapta Hendu(Sapta Sindhu).And they called the inhabitants Hindu.
And as you told Hindu is not a religion but culture.
But all Hindus accept and respect Vedas,Vedantas & Upanishads and they  believe in Atma & Paramatma accept Brahman(paramatma) as the supreme being.
And also believes that the holy trinity(Brahma[creator],Vishnu[sustainer],Shiva[destroyer] ,Shakti[mother or fertility] ,nature ,other natural forces and phenomenas(they are linked to various demigods) are different manifestations of Supreme being. 
If you want to know more about what is hindu..You should read the Upanishads.There are more than 108 upanishads but the most important of them are 10.They are
1) Isavasya Upanishad
2) Kena Upanishad
3) Prasna Upanishad
4) Kata Upanishad
5)Thaithiriya Upanishad
6) Eithareya Upanishad
7) Mandukya upanishad
8) Mundaka Upanishad
9)Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
10) Chandogya Upanishad.
The astronomical referances given in Thaithiriya Brahmanam a pre-curser of Thaithiriya upanishad is located to be around 8000BC by using 'Planetarium software'.A widely accepted scientific tool for locating planetary position and their age.
The last of the Upanishads were bellieved to be complete before 600BC.
Because the language used in Upanishad is Vedic sanskrit and in 600BC Panini had formulated a thorough grammatic structure for Sanskrit and then on vedic sanskrit was not used.Instead classic sanskrit was used.
Upanishads are the basis of religio-philosophical & spiritual thoughts of all Hindus.
So reading the upanishads will help you to know more about Hinduism & Hindus
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2010 at 07:29
Mughals werent so tolerant as they are being picturised.
Millions of Hindu temples were destroyed by the so called secular mughals.The most tolerant among the mughals were Akbar who himself had ordered the slaughtering of 40000 innocent peasants during the seige of Chitodgadh fort.He repealed Jaziya ig 1562 and re-instated it in 1575.He  was the one who cahnged the name of Prayag into Allahabad.The Prayag a confluence of 3 Holyrivers  was a pilgrimage place for Hindus.He had destroyed several Hindu Temples which is mentioned in 'Akbar nama'.
To become a Ghazi he had chpped of the head of Unconcious Hemu.He was known to have 63 wives most of whom were Rajput girls who were forcefully married & converted before marriage.

This canot be considered as secularismWink
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2010 at 07:48


As for Vedic peoples, they were not said to be vegetarians and often ate meat including cows. Some sources claimed that they actually buried their dead as opposed to cremating them .

Ya vedic people were not vegetarians.Todays hindus too are not vegetarians.
There is no specific proof or mention of vedic people having cow meat anywhere.Today also there are several sects of Hindus who buries their dead and there are sects who cremate them.
Another thing Cremation will not leave you any fossil.
So whether vedic people followed cremation or not is a question which will remain till we find some scientific tool for identifying such acts in prehistory
And in mahabharatha,manusmriti and even in Bhagavatha there are referances of eating meat.
Even Lord Krishna used to eat meat while he was in Gokulam & Vrindavanam.
And the nearest the meat came to cow is of 'Gaura' or Gaur(indian bison meat).
bhishma tells Yudhishtira that if you offer Gaura meat to 'pitars' ancestors it will satisfy them for 12 years.He also mentions that best alternative for this is 'Payasam with Ghee' ie 'Khir with Ghee'.
Hindus have a practice of giving offerings to dead ancestors once in a year.Above mentioned point is for that.Every sacrificial meat offering had a equivalent vegetarian offering.
There is  and was no forceful restriction on having nonvegetarian food among Hindus.Today also it is so.Some rfrain from having it some dont.There are several caste hindus who even eat beef.Some Brahmins refrain from taking any kind of non-vegetarian food.many brahmins of Konkan belt eat fish and brahmins of North east eat fish and meat including mutton.
Cow milk is considered second to mother's milk by hindus.It can be even fed to infants directly without causing any digestional problems .milk of buffalo,goat or any other animal is not like that.It causes indigestion to infants.This is why cow is revered.




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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2010 at 07:49
Originally posted by PakistaniShield

I think the best way to put it is how we refer to Native American religion. It's a set of various unrelated religions.

As for Vedic peoples, they were not said to be vegetarians and often ate meat including cows. Some sources claimed that they actually buried their dead as opposed to cremating them .

Actually the term Hindu might have started under Muslim rule to refer to non-Muslims/Christians/Jains/Bhuddists and others but later used by the British to refer to a religion.


a vedic people were not vegetarians.Todays hindus too are not vegetarians.
There is no specific proof or mention of vedic people having cow meat anywhere.Today also there are several sects of Hindus who buries their dead and there are sects who cremate them.
Another thing Cremation will not leave you any fossil.
So whether vedic people followed cremation or not is a question which will remain till we find some scientific tool for identifying such acts in prehistory
And in mahabharatha,manusmriti and even in Bhagavatha there are referances of eating meat.
Even Lord Krishna used to eat meat while he was in Gokulam & Vrindavanam.
And the nearest the meat came to cow is of 'Gaura' or Gaur(indian bison meat).
bhishma tells Yudhishtira that if you offer Gaura meat to 'pitars' ancestors it will satisfy them for 12 years.He also mentions that best alternative for this is 'Payasam with Ghee' ie 'Khir with Ghee'.
Hindus have a practice of giving offerings to dead ancestors once in a year.Above mentioned point is for that.Every sacrificial meat offering had a equivalent vegetarian offering.
There is  and was no forceful restriction on having nonvegetarian food among Hindus.Today also it is so.Some rfrain from having it some dont.There are several caste hindus who even eat beef.Some Brahmins refrain from taking any kind of non-vegetarian food.many brahmins of Konkan belt eat fish and brahmins of North east eat fish and meat including mutton.
Cow milk is considered second to mother's milk by hindus.It can be even fed to infants directly without causing any digestional problems .milk of buffalo,goat or any other animal is not like that.It causes indigestion to infants.This is why cow is revered.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jul-2010 at 17:43
Originally posted by ranjithvnambiar

The 4000 year old practice of Agnicayana and Agnistoma are still being practiced by Hindus of India.(you can google and find out about the agnicayana & agnistoma)
The archaeological sites of Kalibangan,Surkotada and Lothal has many fire altars which were used for sacrificial fire rituals dating back to 3100BC-2300BC
 
So when do you think Hinduism developed from many related vedic religion and into a single unified religion?  Is it 4,000 years old as the references to the rituals suggest? 


Edited by Cryptic - 10-Jul-2010 at 19:23
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jul-2010 at 03:11
There is no many related vedic religions there is only one...
And in the mentioned fire rituals also recitations of all the vedas and Brahmanams are carried out .If you want to know more about the religio-philosophical thoughts of Hinduism please read the Upanishads which I have mentioned in the earlier post.
Based on several interpretations of the vedas there originated many seperate schools of thoughts in Hinduism and they were finally unified by SriSankara(Propogator of Advaita Siddhanta) in 800AD.
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jul-2010 at 08:15
Many pre-harappan sites like Kalibangan,Lothal ,Surktada dating back from 2300BC tp 3100BC had vedic fire altars constructed with kiln fired bricks  indicating a very early presence of fire rituals similar to Agnicayana & Agnishtoma.
You can google and find out more about Agnicayana.
The Agni cayana which I have posted on this forum was the one which was performed at Panjal in Kerala in 1975 it was organised by famous indologist Frits Staal.
After this Agnicayana was performed twice in kerala 1996 & 2005 if I am not wrong and Agnishtoma was performed recently(2009) in Alwaye near Cochin in Kerala South India.
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  Quote PakistaniShield Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jul-2010 at 12:58
This thread is getting really boring. Somebody please close it.....
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jul-2010 at 22:05
We we are preaching to others we are expected to have patience to listen to what others say...Smile
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Nov-2010 at 08:58
The Chronology & Timeline of Mahabharatha & other puranic events through Archaeo-astronomy


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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Nov-2010 at 09:01
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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Dec-2010 at 05:34

The Concept of time in Hindu Mythology

With the sunrise the day starts and with the sunset the day ends. Actually, these eternal truth of the Universe counts the most amazing 'Time' factor. Perhaps the biggest wonder of the Universe is the concept of 'Time'. From morning to night, what we care for is 'Time'. We care for it. Sometimes we pass our time thinking how time passes. But how the concept of 'Time' first came to our mind? How the human being started thinking about the 'Time' so seriously? Let us have some information on how the concept of 'Time' came and what is the concept of 'Time' in Hindu mythology.

Beliefs and Legends

Generally, festivals celebrate the passage of time. Celebration of a new Gregorian year is just that. It is an acknowledgement of the passage of 12 months and the commencement of another. In terms of time frames, our existence on this planet is a speck in the grand scheme of creation.

It was a good 400 years ago that the emperors of Vijayanagar created magnificent monuments all over south India. It was about 1000 years ago that the Thanjavur Periya Koyil, the Hoysala monuments and other towering temples came into existence all over India. The Ellora temple even predates these. It was 1400 years ago when the Bhakti movement of south India saw the documentation of the existence of temples. It was about 2000 years ago when the Tamil Sangam literature documented the existence of places of worship such as Tiruvenkaadu. The excavated remains of Indus valley are 5000 years old.

That is a 5000 year timeline - history as we may call it. How does Hindu, i.e., Indian mythology view time? M. H. Krishnaswamy of Chennai authors this Templenet feature on 'Time - as viewed in Indian mythology'.

The smallest unit of time is a kaashta, which is 18 times the amount of time it takes to blink an eyelid. 10 kaashtas make a kshanam and 12 kshanams constitute a muhoortam. 60 of these muhoortams constitute a day. 30 days constitute a month and 3 months make up a ritu. 12 months of course constitute a human year.

We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed souls - the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day. The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the pitru's day time and the darker half their night.

In the realm of the Devas or the Gods, a human year constitutes a single day. The brighter half of the year Uttarayanam makes up the day time hours of the Devas while the darker half Dakshinayanam makes up the night time hours.

A yuga or an epoch is the next higher level of measurement. 1200 Deva years constitute the Kaliyuga or the present epoch that we are believed to be living in; 2400 deva years make up the Dwapara yuga that preceded kali yuga; 3600 years made up the Treta yuga and 4800 the Krita yuga respectively.

Thus, the length of the Kaliyuga is 1200 X 360 i.e. 432,000 human years. A cycle of 4 yugas is referred to as the catur yugas. A cycle of catur yugas lasts for 12,000 deva years or 12,000 X 360 i.e. 4,320,000 human years.

How do these time measurements correlate with the process of creation?

Brahma in Hindu mythology is referred to as the creator. A thousand catur yugas are said to make up the daylight hours of a single day of Brahma's life. Another thousand make up the night time of a single day of Brahma. Thus, a single day in Brahma's life spans 2000 X 4,320,000 i.e. 8,640,000,000 human years. 360 such days, each lasting 8.6 billion years constitute a year in Brahma's life, which lasts for a 100 Brahma years. At the end of one Brahma's life, another starts. This cycle goes on and on.

A Brahma's life is also known as a Para. Each half param is referred to as a parardham. It is believed that we are currently living in the 2nd half of the life of the present Brahma.

It is to be noted that in the performance of Vedic rituals, the frame of time in which the ritual is being performed is specified both in macro and in micro terms, the term 'dviteeya paraardhe' (the second half of Brahma's term) is stated. The reference point here is the moment of commencement of creation of the Universe by Brahma.

When we say 'dviteeya paraardhe', which Brahma are we referring to? How many Brahmas have preceded the current one? This specification is non existent in Vedic mantras. Since the whole process is cyclical, with one Brahma commencing when another completes, and with this process repeating forever, there may not be any significance in stating the position of Brahma.

In a cyclical concept of time every starting point will have to be an ending point. If time is postulated as being linear and unidirectional there will have to be an absolute starting point for time. This cyclical nature of time as believed in Indian mythology refers to time as 'anaadi' or that without a beginning.

Yet another measure of time is Kalpa. The puranas are named after kalpas; thus we have the matsya kalpa, koorma kalpa, lakshmi kalpa, sweta varaaha kalpa, shiva kalpa, bhrahma kalpa, vishnu kalpa and so on. Each Bhrahma's term lasts for a period of 7 kalpas. The current period in time is said to belong to the sweta varaaha kalpam, which is in the second half of the life of Bhrahma.

A kalpam or an epoch is made up of 14 manvantaras and each manvantara spans 71 caturyugas. The fourteen manvantaras are respectively swayambhuva, sawosisha, audhama, thaamasa, raivatha, sakshusha, vaivasvata, savarni, daaksha savarni, bhramha savarni, dharma savarni, rudra savarni, rouchya and bowdhya. The present kaliyuga is the 28th in the present Vaivaswata manvantara.

Sankalpam: Thus, Vedic mantras pin point the time of performance of a ritual - by narrowing down from dwiteeya paraardhe (in the 2nd half of the term of Brahma), Sweta varaaha kalpe (in the kalpa sweta varaaha), Vaivasvata manvantare (in the 7th manvantaram), Kaliyuge (in the kali epoch) - through the finer details such as the name of the current year, month etc.


http://www.internationalreporter.com/News-688/the-concept-of-time-in-hindu-mythology.html

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