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Mantras of Mayhemi
Brij Mohan*
Abstract
Through fear of thee, O Indra, all the regions of earth, though naught may
move them, shake and tremble. All that is firm is frightened at thy coming, the earth, the heaven, the mountain, and the forest.2
Keywords: Vedas, Aryan culture, Human evolution, Civilization.
The history of human race and culture is
shrouded in the labyrinths of time and space
mythologized by prehistoric pundits of
scriptures. Thousands years ago, the Vedas
were written in Sanskrit by sages (rishis) in the
Himalayan hermitages. In quest of certain
universal truth and search for meanings of life
and death, these men and women sought
enlightenment. Holy scriptures reflect that
metaphysical awakening. Rishi Vyasa compiled
a thousand hymns and texts in four volumesRig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva-known as Vedas.
These scriptures and books proffer invaluable
insights into the cradle of a (lost) civilization.
While historical evidence is in abundance, no
systemic record of cultural evolution is found.
As famously said, absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence. Myths, fantasies, and
legends are not history. History itself is an
interpretation of events by humans. The
discovery of Indus Valley civilization-more
recently Dwarika-is an evidence of a past laid
buried under the unfathomable layers of time.
As scholars and scientists unraveled facts,
interpretations became reality. Sanskrit, a
i
moribund classic imprint of immeasurable
depth, is an embodiment of the remains of an
ancient culture. Saraswati, India’s prehistoric
holy river where sages meditated and wrote
the hymns of wisdom is no more a mythical
fiction.i
This brief article is both a critique (of an
important book) and appraisal of the Vedic
culture. Harsh Mahaan Cairae, a student of
history from Allahabad University now serving
at the highest echelons of India’s most coveted
administrative services in the Assam cadre, has
scholarly uncovered the mystic journey of the
Aryan culture. The history of Aryan culture is
almost the history of human evolution and
civilization. The author has offered a copious
account of ‘Aryan journey’ as a cultural
anthropologist rather than a Hindu
fundamentalist. This book also is a tribute to
the author’s intellectual ingenuity and his
search for mythologized discovery. The mystic
of Indo-Aryan culture--its poetic-aesthetics,
foreknowledge of science (mathematics,
Ayurveda, astrology, aeronautics) and artifactsis shrouded in the mist of antiquity and
Saraswati: While ONGC will soon start drilling in six different locations in the state of Haryana, India,
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has collected samples of the water from Mugalwali village. Available from:
http://economictimes. indiatimes.com /news/politics-and-nation/haryana-sweet-water-pools-fire-up-saraswatirevival/ articleshow/47229565.cms. Accessed on: May 19, 2015.
*
Editor-in-Chief, Environment and Social Psychology, Dean Emeritus, School of Social Work, Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA. E-mail Id: [email protected]; [email protected]
© ADR Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved.
Int. J. Adv. Res. Peace Harm. Edu. 2016; 1(1)
mythology. Decoding, interpretation and
analysis of Vedic literature mark Cairae’s
evidence-based account of their journey.
Before colonially scripted balkanization, India
laid as a graveyard of one of the most
advanced civilizations on this planet. The
excavated ruins of fallen people mock at the
arrogance of modernity that has lost its
evolutionary force. This book brings to fore the
salience of history’s forgotten lessons that can
slow down, if not prevent, the dissolution.
Between the two polarities of religio-Aryan
faith and Freudo-Marxian paradigms, we have
seen dogmas of beliefs and notions of reason.
As Cairae unfolds, Aryans have walked through
the evolutionary struggles through the
ambiguous peaks and valleys with triumph and
defeat in the world’s two most ancient
religions: Vedic and Zoroastrian. They both left
behind stories of war between gods and
demons. The reality is humans have been
killing each other over differences amongst
themselves as a closer examination reveals that
“both religions have scriptures telling the same
story of the same people, who at once
followed the same religious practices and lived
in perfect harmony as one group, but at some
stage they fought each other as enemies over
them. With both sides telling the same story,
the fights between gods and demons emerge
out of mythology and knock at the door of
history” (Ch. I: 1).The flow of book is like a
stream of musings punctuated by excerpted
quotes from Vedic literature substantiated by
authorial observations, interpretations, and
comments classified under 12 chapters without
any titles.
First, we learn that Aryans lived in the Arctic
Circle and, having survived the Ice Age for
about fifteen thousand years, they did not
come in contact with any other human race
until they touched the Arabian Sea. Caspian
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Mohan B
Sea must have been the seashore where they
watched the sunrise. They had knowledge of
astrology.
Devs and Asurs used fire, sacrificed animals and
consumed libation until they grew rice and
barley in the agricultural stage. Perhaps private
property, as Rousseau held, emerged
subsequently and the owners of pieces of land
became rivals. “Dev Asur Sangram” (Ch. III, 61)
is perhaps the first piece of recorded history.
This “Sangram” (battle), Harsh contends, is the
fulcrum of Indian mythology. The perpetuity of
the Vedic lexicon is reflected in the rites and
rituals of most Hindus. Their vocabulary is filled
with expressions-Ashwin, Surya, Usha, Swaha,
Pahlavi, Kavi, Agni, yup-that define the
continuity of a hoary antiquity.
The Gathas aka Avestah, the older scriptures,
was similar to Rig Veda’s Sanskrit. The gods of
Rig Veda were demons of contemporaneous
Zoroastrians. “The Vedic religion, in some form,
was present in the Mesopotamian region
during the times of the Mitanni, the Hittite, the
Kassites (c 1750 BC) who worshiped Surya”
(http://creative.sulekha.com/rig-veda-andgathas-revisited_ 227630_blog; 5/24/15).
The cow was a symbol of prosperity and not
just a 4-legged animal that provided milk.
Indeed the agricultural economy was based on
the mystified utility of such a domesticated
animal. The Vedic cow was like the horse in the
Wild West.
Expressions and practices of Vedic libido are
reflected in ancient hymns and temples that
demonstrate the art, aesthetics of what may be
called obscene in pseudo modern world
(https://truthabouthinduism.wordpress.com/
2014/05/15/there-is-indeed-obscenity-in-ved
as/).
Mohan B
Khujraho, the Sun temple, and Vātsyāyana’s
Kama sutra are evidence-based manifestations
of mystified sex. The book does not offer
deeper insights into the psyche of the sexual
Aryan that many Hindu fundamentalists seem
to repress. Cairae could have delved deeper in
this regard.
It’s widely believed that George Lucas’s Star
Wars classic is abstractly based on the Hindu
philosophy. It’s galactic saga cinematically
manifested by the perpetual struggle between
virtues and evil, Devas (gods) and Asurs
(demons) evident through out the Aryan
history. Hitler gave a bad name to the Aryan
values by using Swastika as a symbol of racial
superiority that culminated into holocaust.
Many fundamentalist scholars continue to use
this pernicious view to perpetuate their
nefarious interests. Much of contemporary
world’s continued violence, bigotry and terror
are driven by those evil belief systems, which
have no room in civil discourse.
The trajectory of human evolution is
embedded in perpetual greed, gloom and gore,
which are rationalized by ideological
predilections and territorial trappings driven by
the lust for hegemonic power. Watch HBO’s
Game of Thrones. It’s all about mayhem, sex,
and slavery. Aryans were not angels. They were
humans. Demonization and deification of Asurs
and Devas, is the ethos of Vedic mythology.
May be Rousseau was close to truth: it’s the
rise of property that eventually led to the
emergence of civility at the expense of innate
human innocence. Genesis is a story of human
evolution and devolution at the same time.
Harsh’s book is a study of the Indus valley
culture, its rise and fall. It also is a window to
study the Vedic society.
Int. J. Adv. Res. Peace Harm. Edu. 2016; 1(1)
Chanting of mantras of mayhem in mindless
ritualistic settings amounts to obfuscation of
wisdom.
I have argued elsewhere that Buddha and his
teachings represented a protest against the
Vedic decadence manifested by ritualistic
violence and unmitigated human sufferings.
Since there is neither any God, nor any war in
Buddhism, it’s reasonable to believe that the
Vedic establishment of Varanasi was
threatened by Buddha’s discourses. He had to
move to Sarnath to offer his wisdom. Buddhist
impact on Niezshetan dictum--‘god is dead’-is
my old conclusion.
The book is heavily based on selected excerpts
from and constructs of Vedic literature. The
book contains 12 headless-without any titlechapters. There is no table of contents and
index. This would have immensely enhanced
the impact of its contents. However, editorial
simplicity, or its lack of, does not minimize the
significance of this important contribution.
We are on the cusp of a new era of ambiguous
hope: Faith and reason are entangled in a
mongoose and cobra fight. ISIS threatens the
state, the very foundation of a civil society.
Even the wisdom of rehistoric scholars on the
banks of Saraswati cannot regain the lost
innocence. A self-introspective realization will
amply signify how the past shapes the future.ii
References
1. Cairae HM.A Critique of: An Aryan Journey.
New Delhi: Rupa, 2014: 451.
2. Bhadravaja S. In Rig Veda 6.031.02.
Available from: https://rigvedaan alysis.
wordpress.com/the-rig-veda-a-historicalperspective/. Accessed on: May 24, 2015.
ii.
An abbreviated version of this article appeared in The Hindustan Times, HT City, Lucknow, May 30, 2015. The
author gratefully appreciates HT’s courtesies. June 4, 2015.
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