Indian History propaganda by Hindu rightists

Since I could not put this presentation as  a video, I am showing below slides of a propaganda  piece on India that circulates from time to time on NRI email chains. 

Facts, opinions, falsehoods are all liberally mixed in this without any care or concern of how it would be perceived by other than its gullible NRI mass audience

 

 

The above presentation on India does seem a nice and slick one

But the title "Facts about India" is very misleading. There are very few facts about ancient Indian civilization in it. But there are myths, misstatements and distorted and self-serving interpretations galore of historical events of antiquity.

Many of the theories about ancient Indian scriptures contained in that

PPS are downright Hindutva propaganda and show very little regard for historical veracity and methodology

The dating of Indian scriptures and epics are all over the place. The article mentions that Ramayana is 6500 years old, the Mahabharata is 5000 years old and  that the Vedas are more than 10000 years old. Where did the authors get these dates from?. Most probably it came from thin air or from their Hindutva-crazed imagination. Many serious historians have had challenges reasonably dating these texts, but most of them concur that the Vedas were most probably composed around 1500 BCE. Of course Hindutva zealots are trying to muck up historical research to push back the dates further to 3000 BCE. So as of now that is farthest in the past that they have gone. Still that does not make Vedas 10000 years old

Also striking similarities between the Indo-Iranian sacred texts called "Avesta" and Rig-Veda throws a spanner on the grand claim of the Hindu Right that the Vedic texts  can be dated as far back as even 3000 BCE. Though the Hindu right may have had some success in discrediting the Aryan Invasion Theory, there is still some credence to the migration theory. 

There is a lot of resemblance between the major Vedic gods like Indra, Varuna,Mitra and their counterparts in "Avesta" and the Avestan term of"Deava" is strikingly similar to Deva of the Sanskrit texts

Most galling in this article is the dishonest and self-serving claims of Physical sciences, medical sciences and their discoveries and inventions of the 19th to 20th century already being discovered and enunciated by our ancient texts and epics.

These kind of preposterous claims and distortions are a classic case of modern scientific knowledge being retrofitted and read back into ancient Hindu texts by means of dubious, questionable interpretation and logical fallacies very much like the cryptic verses of Nostradamus having the ability to predict events of modern times like Nazism, WW II and even the 9/11 attacks

Here's 1.50 of the Rig Veda, which is claimed to have the calculated

the speed of light, in its English translation

"HIS bright rays bear him up aloft, the God who knoweth all that lives,

Sūrya, that all may look on him.

2 The constellations pass away, like thieves, together with their beams,

Before the all-beholding Sun.

3 His herald rays are seen afar refulgent o’er the world of men,

Like flames of fire that burn and blaze.

4 Swift and all beautiful art thou, O Sūrya, maker of the light,

Illuming all the radiant realm.

5 Thou goest to the hosts of Gods, thou comest hither to mankind,

Hither all light to be beheld.

6 With that same eye of thine wherewith thou lookest brilliant Varuṇa,

Upon the busy race of men,

7 Traversing sky and wide mid-air, thou metest with thy beams our days,

Sun, seeing all things that have birth.

8 Seven Bay Steeds harnessed to thy car bear thee, O thou farseeing One,

God, Sūrya, with the radiant hair.

9 Sūrya hath yoked the pure bright Seven, the daughters of the car;

with these,

His own dear team, he goeth forth.

10 Looking upon the loftier light above the darkness we have come

To Sūrya, God among the Gods, the light that is most excellent.

11 Rising this day, O rich in friends, ascending to the loftier heaven,

Sūrya remove my heart's disease, take from me this my yellow hue.

12 To parrots and to starlings let us give away my yellowness,

Or this my yellowness let us transfer to Haritāla trees.

13 With all his conquering vigour this Āditya hath gone up on high,

Giving my foe into mine hand: let me not be my foeman's prey."

Can anybody explain where in all this verbiage is any indication of the calculation of speed of light or any law of physics

5 Thou goest to the hosts of Gods, thou comest hither to mankind,Hither all light to be beheld.

This part of the verse above may be taken to indicate/signify sunlight traveling back to earth from the heavens/skies (hosts of Gods). But to claim that this describes the law/discovery of the speed of light is utterly ridiculous and nothing short of using most licentious interpretation to advance Hindu extremist propaganda.

Now who is this mathematical genius Madhavacharya that very few of us know about. One thought that Madhavacharya was the Dwaita Vendantic philosopher competing for fame with Advaita Vedantic scholar Adi Sankara. It is a mystery how the Hindu apologists got to his math discoveries, since his commentaries or bhasyas were about the Gita, Upanishads etc. Unless Of course poetic license with these commentaries are used to magically derive/infer math laws and theories/equations.

I don’t want get to down to dismissing all achievements of ancient India in math, science and astronomy. 

But the point most people seem to miss is what did India do with all its great accomplishments? Just build massive temples and extravagant palaces that provided no value to the masses and the society and state!!!. 

To what use was all this geometry, trigonometry, astronomy and medicine put to in ancient India? 

Why was there such a high mortality in Sushruta's India? Hindu revivalists will only have excuses and blaming of imperialists from the Mughals to the British to explain away all such inconsistencies and contradictions.

If you are inclined, you may read my dig at ancient India's plastic surgery skills here at my blog on religious bigotry:

http://variedessays.blogspot.com/2010/09/myth-of-lord-ganesha-re-examined.html

I could go on and on about the false propaganda that article is infested with, but the most untruthful and offensive statement is that about there being no slavery in India. It very conveniently forgets that casteism is a form of discrimination and oppression far worse than slavery. 

The tyranny of casteism and patriarchy  are by far the worst legacies of Vedic Brahminism, which have yet not been eradicated.

There are many reasons to be justifiably proud about Indian history and culture. But for that there is no need to dress up Hindu religious obscurantism in false interpretations and dubious history, which this article does by making a mockery of modern science and secular knowledge