dwai

The fact that you're raising the very bogeys that I've already highlighted speaks volumes. PN Oak is not the same as Nilesh Oak. They are not related -- kind of like Joseph Smith and Huston Smith are not related either. Yes, there are kooks out there -- that doesn't mean every independent researcher is one. As to why someone might be qualified to research their own history and civilization? Do I need to say any more? I'd venture to say that my Sanskrit professor in highschool knew more/better Sanskrit than most of the Sanskrit PhDs in Harvard and Oxford. Just as emic scholars might be accused of (in many cases, falsely) of not being unbiased in their work, etic scholars (such as has been seen right from the beginning of western Indology studies) have deliberately and maliciously distorted their own studies -- due to imperialist agendas. This is a proven fact. Also what happens consequently is an entire chain of erroneous studies being churned out, based on very wrong data to start with. Take AIT for example -- the fact is, that until recently, AIT was very aggressively defended by the "etic" group -- and only after new evidence came out which they couldn't possibly deny, they grudgingly changed their tune to AMT. Now, with newer discoveries happening in the field of archaeology, Geology, etc, they will have to either change their theory again -- there's now "not a mass migration, but many gradual migrations. The proof is there for anyone with an open mind to see that even AMT doesn't hold water. Yes, so there are all kinds of revisionists -- to simply cast aside all researchers, as a result, is kind of silly. In any case, many of these researchers are being recognized by the Indian government for valuable work -- to simply reject revision because it threatens to put the entrenched group of academics out of business, is not logic or science, it is a basic survival instinct. The field of Indology has been extremely vitiated due to the very interferences I've mentioned earlier in other posts. This is indeed a political battle, as much as it is an ideological one.

Very interesting idea. Master Liao tells that even daoist martial arts, qigong etc came from students observing the effects of certain manifestation of spirit and energy in the old masters (during/after deep meditation). The theory is that students who were with the masters were in essence reverse-engineering the process they observed in the old masters.

I think this proposed model for discourse meets the requirements --

I've been following one YouTube channel named "Karate TV" (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCevnL1_oC_oAEmBnuk-789A) -- its run by a family of martial artists -- the young man is an excellent martial artist and his teacher is his father. The Father is a Karate and Kalari Payyatu exponent from it's native Kerala, and they share very many interesting traditional Indian workout methods and interview Kalari teachers on their programs. He does the program in "Hingish" *Hindi and English mixed*, though he speaks in English for the most part. Thought some of you bums might be interested in watching these. Here's the first part of a multi-part series they're doing on a 700 year old Kalari (Traditional Indian Martial Arts temple) --

I stopped external martial arts about 20 years ago, I progressed from Goju Ryu Karate to Aikido, and then exclusively focused on Taijiquan. I do play with my FMA brothers, but more in the sense of applying Taijiquan than anything else.

What do you think happens in discussions? A says something, B infers something about A's position vis-a-vis the subject based on it. I didn't suggest that such was your state of mind, but rather, what I inferred/understood/what seemed to me, from your statements. Just as likely possible that my statements might have made you (and others) think that I was supporting "woo woo" history, or worse. Such labels have often been applied to Native indic scholars by members of the academia, just as a way to dismiss them. Again, I'm not suggesting that you did actually think that way...but I understand that such a scenario is quite plausible. Happy to learn that I was wrong in my inference -- hence, my previous post clarifying the matter.

Agreed. That doesn't automatically imply that as a rule of thumb

I did think you were kidding around initially. And then you equated the Indian history & colonialism issue with the Roman invasions from 2000 years ago, and your perspective on this matter (colonial impact) comes across (to me) as a denial of colonial impact. Glad you clarified that you were only joking, and that you do agree that colonial forces distorted Indian history, especially ancient Indian history. We are on the same page then... So with that in mind, perhaps we can also agree that new ideas and hypotheses need to be introduced in the world of indology, and perhaps ancient world history in its entirety?

Agreed on the woo woo part. I don’t think Oak qualifies as woo woo. As such I don’t have any issues with his theory being disproved. I’m not invested in it. I only found it interesting as a theory. He’s not a kook — has solid credentials with a graduate degree in engineering and an MBA. Subhash Kak (another guy I shared a video of) is Regents Professor of computer science in oklahoma state university. Many of these guys were maliciously labeled as kooks because they didn’t belong to the “in” group of academics who control indology. Similarly there are many such researchers who are multi-disciplinarians and I dare say, genius level intellectuals. They do serious research, don’t need a degree in Sanskrit or indology studies from Harvard or Oxford, as they are natives with solid background in Sanskrit and traditional texts, astronomy etc. These guys are leagues above the Wendy Donigers of this world in sheer intellectual ability, as well as native “information”. These are the native experts, the Emic scholars, so to speak.

Maybe it is because india has a big problem at hand. The fact that people jump through such hoops to deny Indians the control of their own narrative, and deny them a place at the table which they should rightfully be at, is indicative of it. No, it is not revisionism for the sake of revisionism. It is done so because our internal narrative (and yes, there are more than one) say something different from the European one. Also, looking at the difficulty you and others have in acknowledging the impact of colonialism on Indian history — that speaks volumes. For many Indians, this is not about winning an argument with some random people, but about our heritage and our own story. I think what is distasteful is the way in which it is contested with such vehemence. Let there be proper research and let the chips fall where they do. And FYI, I do think that the history of the world needs serious reconsideration— most of it is from an Eurocentric perspective. For instance, “America had to be discovered”, “Africa had to be civilized”, and so on. The list of distasteful things go on and on. But no, let us get back to the OP instead when it gets “uncomfortable”, right? As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing more to discuss about History with people who don’t acknowledge/recognize the impact of colonialism on how said history was manipulated to conform to the colonizers’ benefit. Show me how this is being reconciled in the post-colonial world — I don’t see any change on the ground. Just tap dancing around the subject. I agree with you, but not with “x” - rather with “y”... X doesn’t have the credentials to tell us something new and worthy of consideration.

It was implied in your posts — “get over the colonial impact because there is no longer a British Empire”. I was just showing you how distasteful it is for Indians to hear that - and so used the Holocaust as an example. The colonial impact on the colonized nations and people was no less reprehensible than the Holocaust.

There cannot be a reasonable discussion of ancient Indian history without putting to rest the issue of colonial impact on ancient Indian history. The topic of colonialism comes up because people don’t know/understand/acknowledge that colonial narratives from 18th and 19th centuries still inform the “modern” narratives of ancient Indian history.

You’ve had 2000 years. India has barely had 72. By that token the Jewish people should get over the Holocaust too?

I don’t know 🤷‍♂️ so what if he did? He’s not a historian. The video I posted actually points to something more insidious. Doesn’t require a genius to understand the motivations of conquering parasitic entities like the European colonizers - what they did for the economy and industry, they also did with history and the education system. So are you saying that there was no such malicious activity done during the colonial period? And that it’s effects are just a figment of the Indian collective imagination?

I don’t deny that. But people like yourself can do something about the quiescence once it arrives, because you have grounding in the meditation arts (broadly categorizing all of our internal arts under than label for the sake of convenience) — imho. Most people can’t handle the silence/stillness of meditation without proper background instruction. I don’t know if that is very prevalent in most asana classes.

IMHO, it is ridiculous, and mostly what passes off as “yoga” is really physical postural practice, which has a tendency to create self-indulgent narcissism. To elaborate further, what passes off as “yoga” in the popular imagination in the west is not yoga per se.

And before we go down the rabbit hole of “Hindu nationalism” deflection, let’s go back to the impact of colonialism —

No, because she is ignorant in the field she claims to have scholarship on. The basic requirement to be able to study Vedas is a knowledge of Sanskrit, which she doesn’t. Most of these academics rehash translations done in the 18th and 19th centuries.

For that one has to be knowledgeable and aware of Indian politics. So india today was a very vocal critic of the current government for its first term. When they won in 2019 with an even larger mandate than in 2014, many of these journalists decided to really investigate what the reason was. What they found was that the government was actually doing real work on the ground, and the poor were suddenly not so poor anymore — millions got bank accounts, access to the digital economy, universal healthcare and insurance, cooking gas in their homes. Prior to 2019, mainstream media in India almost unanimously rained vitriol and hatred on the government, the ruling party and of course the Prime Minister (like the ridiculous caricatures like in that video). After 2019, many a hardcore critic finally accepted that they had missed what was happening on the ground, because they didn’t step out of their ivory towers to actually realize why this government got a clear mandate again. (and I daresay they will do so at least another term in 2024). So we find them to be far more reasonable now, than they were before 2019. The phenomenon of hating on this government and the Prime Minister is another symptom of the colonized mentality of many of the English educated people in India - especially until my generation (pre-internet) - a very terrible kind of chauvinism that masks itself as an intellectual position vis-a-vis society. There is a conditioning that’s been built in that, everything naturally Indian/traditional is also less worthy than the “imported” stuff — things, ideas, personalities even. That is the same phenomenon which is responsible for the way in which Indian history has been treated by Indian academics (as discussed in that video session by Prof. Kak).

Because she’s doesn’t really know Sanskrit, and yet claims to be a Vedic scholar 🤷‍♂️

The India today group was tamed

The Big Scandal of Indology — this covers all the major issues I’ve raised. enjoy

I didn’t see that awareness come across in your posts. Maybe we can drill down into it. That is certainly possible, or maybe because of the fact that I straddle both “worlds”, I am aware of the subtle inherent conditioning I referred to.

But you see, these are not unrelated. Indian history narrative was manufactured/manipulated by the European colonizers to justify the “nasty stuff” they did to India.

I wanted to quickly respond to this. The reason this was not meant as an accusation is because I consider this conditioning to be inherent in a particular world view. You’re not the first person I’ve had such discussions with. Most are unaware of this subtle conditioning. I will elaborate further in a subsequent post.