Excerpts from talk on “India and Indian Culture” delivered by Anbil Ramaswamy, at “Alterra Sterling House (Senior Care Facility) at 1277 S. Sawburg Rd, Alliance, OH 44601 on 22nd September 2007 (An All- American audience) – Part 4 “Revival of the faded glory” We saw that because of the subjugation and systematic plundering for nearly 1000 years by the Muslims and the “divide and rule” policy of the British combined with indoctrination of the elite into the western culture (?) An emaciation that sapped the vitality of a nation for about a millennium cannot be neutralized in the matter of a few decades (60 years as of 2007)! It is therefore not fair on the part of Westerners and the Indians disoriented by the influence of Western cultures to gleefully criticize the backwardness and poverty of present India and the painfully slow pace of Nevertheless, discreet scholars both Indian and Western never failed to read lessons from the past and predict the bright future that awaited ==============================================================================
What the Scholars say about (Note: Except where otherwise indicated, the quotes are from “Hinduism Rediscovered” by Anbil Ramaswamy) Louis Renou, Prof. of Sanskrit and Indian literature, Sorizunne, Paris, and Prof. Yale University. Pub: George Bazellier, NY, 1962. “Even the Greeks who came to Max Muller: “The Sacred Books of the East”, JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, the first Prime Minister of India “Discovery of India” (p.187) Jawaharlal Nehru, Doubleday & Co. Garden City, NY. 1960 "We can never forget the ideals that have moved our race; the dreams of the Indian people through the ages; the wisdom of the ancients; the buoyant energy and love of life and nature of our forefathers; their spirit of curiosity and mental adventure; the daring of their thought; their splendid achievement in literature, art and culture; their love of truth and beauty and freedom; the basic values that they set up; their understanding of the life's mysterious ways; their toleration of other ways than theirs; their capacity to absorb other peoples and their cultural accomplishments, synthesize them and develop a varied and mixed culture; nor can we forget the myriad HENRICH ZIMMER declares “The Philosophies of India” "We of the Occident are about to arrive at crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of TROY WILSON ORGAN Prof. of philosophy, “I am wonderstruck at the strange amalgam that India is. He observes: "Probably nowhere else do people live in so many centuries simultaneously. Sun worship and atomic research, Ox carts and jet planes, Astrology and theoretical physics, Magic and modern medicine, Ultra-modern multi-storied buildings and mud huts-- These do mix in OPPENHEIMER, the great World Scientist who was responsible for the development of the atom bomb says: - "Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries. There is no study so beneficial and as elevating as that of the Upanishads. IT HAS BEEN THE SOLACE OF MY LIFE; IT WILL BE THE SOLACE OF MY DEATH" ALBERT EINSTEIN: “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made” MARK TWAIN: “ CARL SAGAN, the famous Astro-physicist observes: - " The Hindu religion is the Only One of the World's great faiths dedicated to the idea that cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern cosmology... And, while our intelligence has recently provided us with awesome powers, it is not yet clear that we have the wisdom to avoid our own self-destruction" RABINDRANATH TAGORE, the Nobel Laureate predicted: " ROMAN ROLLAND another Nobel Laureate and Professor of History of music at the Sorbonne and thinker states "If there is one face on this earth where all the dreams of living men and women have found a home from the very earliest days when man and woman began to dream of existence, it is India... For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay" (from Hinduism Rediscovered book) He continues: “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach” (from http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk ) WILL DURANT declares " Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India...This the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilization an exclusive European thing" KLOSTERMAIER, Professor, Religious Studies at the (from http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk) OCTAVIO PAZ, Nobel laureate in 1990: “The Hindu genius is a love for abstraction and, at the same time, a passion for the concrete image. At times, it is rich, at others prolix. It has created the most lucid and the most instinctive art. It is abstract and realistic, sexual and intellectual, pedantic and sublime, lives between extremes. It embraces the extremes, rooted in the earth and drawn to invisible beyond” from http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk) JOHN WOODROFF aka ARTHUR AVALON, Advocate General and former Legal Member of the Government of India: “ An examination of the Vedic thesis shows that it is in conformity with the most advanced philosophical and scientific thoughts of the West and, where this is not so, it is the scientist who will go to the Vedantist and not the Vedantist to the Scientist” (from http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk) HU SHIH (Former Chinese Ambassador to “ N.A. PALKIWALA, the eminent jurist says, " MR. HARCHARAN SINGH JOSH, President of the Indian Council of World Affairs said in a recent seminar on "Ethical and moral values in business and professions" organized by the London borough of Croydon at Croydon College, referred to India's record of representative institutions: "India's heart still beats for justice, liberty, equality, fraternity and tolerance, even when many countries, including those in the neighborhood, have cast off democracy and assumed open or veiled dictatorship under the impact of religious fundamentalism. The West has often judged Asian nations struggling to remove poverty, hunger, and ignorance by yardsticks, which they themselves took a few centuries to evolve while they built their wealth and prosperity on ruthless exploitation of labor and enslaved nations. Their preaching of human rights, patent laws and other similar impositions on struggling developing nations, therefore sound hollow" ARNOLD TOYENBEE in his address delivered at ASHBY PHILIP of "The Hindu argument that all religions are equally valid may well sweep the world in the next 25 years. It may well be that within the foreseeable future it will be Hinduism which will be challenging Christianity not only in HEGEL, the great German philosopher agrees: " (Quotes from “Hinduism Rediscovered” by Anbil Ramaswamy) ==============================================================================
PREDICTIONS COME TRUE Let us see how these predictions have come true and 1. Vinod Khosla: Co- Founder of Sun Microsystems 2. Vinod Dahm: Creator of Pentium chip that 90% of today’s computers run on. 3. Azim Premji: Third richest man in the World. (Sultan of 4. Sabeer Bhatia: Founder and creator of Hotmail (No.1 Web based email program) 5. Arun Netravali: President of AT&T- Bell Labs and creator of C, C++, Unix etc. 6. Rajiv Gupta: GM of Hewlett Packard 7. Sanjay Tejwrika: New MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000. 8. Victor Menezes, Rajat Guta and Rana Talwar: Chief Executives of Citibank, Mckensey and Stanchart. 9. Anand: World’s Chess Champion 10. Sunita Williams: The first woman to stay in space and endure for several months. But, the most important person in India is the common man who braved the Tsunami cataclysm never before seen in human history instilling hope in our hearts that India is now ready to face any challenge and come out triumphant. BE PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN! To Continue: “INDIA AND HINDU- A Sneak preview of Hinduism” ========================================================== __._,_.___
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