Al-Beruni, was a Muslim scholar and historian who was hired by Mahmud of Ghazni (One of the initial and prominent Islamic invaders of India) to write the biography of his times, when he invaded and plundered India many times.
The historical setting to the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni could be argued to be an India already weakened by a few centuries of pacifist Buddhism and the revival of a confusingly monastic Hinduism (Advaita) popularized by the Brahminical misinterpretations of an already bloated and corrupted Bhagavad Gita by Adi Sankara and his abstract ( vague and almost nonsensical) commentaries on Upanishads and other ancient Hindu texts
Below is his comment on Hindus:
“There are other causes, the mentioning of which sounds like a satire -peculiarities of their national character, deeply rooted in them, but manifest to everybody. We can only say, folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. According to their belief, there is no other country on earth but theirs, no other race of man but theirs, and no created beings besides them have any knowledge or science whatsoever. Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khurasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they travelled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is…. Now such is the state of things in India.”
The emphasis in bold is mine of course.
This is so uncannily similar to the delusions of grandeur that the Hindu intelligentsia of the 21st century also have about their antiquity and relics of a ‘hoary’ past (Kings, astronomers, religion, scriptures, sages, saints et al)
It does not seem like we have changed very much over more than a millennium
In fact the current apologists and evangelists of Hindu glory are probably worse than their ancestors of the 11th century. This form of intellectual vanity is most conspicuous in peddlers of Hindu spirituality (Leaders of many Hindu religious cults) and New-Age pretenders like Deepak Chopra, some of whom are spinning crazy theories about the Vedic age being the primordial civilization of this world and being the cradle of all civilizations including Egyptian, Assyrian, Mesopotamian and even Greek.
It is of no concern to them that this is all in defiance of known and emerging knowledge of anthropology, archeology and history. At this rate Hindu Cosmology and ancestor worship is sounding worse than Christian creationism.
I am sure many Indians and Hindus would tend to dismiss comments of Al-Beruni as the rant of a foreigner who by his religious affiliation would be predisposed to a prejudicial view of our country and culture. But it should be noted that the reputation of Al-Beruni has been largely that of an objective historian and scholar.
Other thinkers like VS Naipaul, who is often labeled as an India-hater have also held our age-old misguided obsession with religion and spirituality to be the central cause of our many centuries of failure as an enlightened and progressive society and civilization
It is a trait of critical thinking and inquiry to listen to and respect the voice of reasoned criticism and learn from it. If India is to really emerge from over 2 millennium of civilizational decay, we must overcome all this unwarranted arrogance and false pride of our past heritage.
The historical setting to the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni could be argued to be an India already weakened by a few centuries of pacifist Buddhism and the revival of a confusingly monastic Hinduism (Advaita) popularized by the Brahminical misinterpretations of an already bloated and corrupted Bhagavad Gita by Adi Sankara and his abstract ( vague and almost nonsensical) commentaries on Upanishads and other ancient Hindu texts
Below is his comment on Hindus:
“There are other causes, the mentioning of which sounds like a satire -peculiarities of their national character, deeply rooted in them, but manifest to everybody. We can only say, folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. According to their belief, there is no other country on earth but theirs, no other race of man but theirs, and no created beings besides them have any knowledge or science whatsoever. Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khurasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they travelled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is…. Now such is the state of things in India.”
The emphasis in bold is mine of course.
This is so uncannily similar to the delusions of grandeur that the Hindu intelligentsia of the 21st century also have about their antiquity and relics of a ‘hoary’ past (Kings, astronomers, religion, scriptures, sages, saints et al)
It does not seem like we have changed very much over more than a millennium
In fact the current apologists and evangelists of Hindu glory are probably worse than their ancestors of the 11th century. This form of intellectual vanity is most conspicuous in peddlers of Hindu spirituality (Leaders of many Hindu religious cults) and New-Age pretenders like Deepak Chopra, some of whom are spinning crazy theories about the Vedic age being the primordial civilization of this world and being the cradle of all civilizations including Egyptian, Assyrian, Mesopotamian and even Greek.
It is of no concern to them that this is all in defiance of known and emerging knowledge of anthropology, archeology and history. At this rate Hindu Cosmology and ancestor worship is sounding worse than Christian creationism.
I am sure many Indians and Hindus would tend to dismiss comments of Al-Beruni as the rant of a foreigner who by his religious affiliation would be predisposed to a prejudicial view of our country and culture. But it should be noted that the reputation of Al-Beruni has been largely that of an objective historian and scholar.
Other thinkers like VS Naipaul, who is often labeled as an India-hater have also held our age-old misguided obsession with religion and spirituality to be the central cause of our many centuries of failure as an enlightened and progressive society and civilization
It is a trait of critical thinking and inquiry to listen to and respect the voice of reasoned criticism and learn from it. If India is to really emerge from over 2 millennium of civilizational decay, we must overcome all this unwarranted arrogance and false pride of our past heritage.
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