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The Brown Pandit's brown cast. Hello, everyone, welcome to the Brown pundit's broadcast and this week we have with Mr. Conrad Elst. Mr. Elst studied genealogy in Belgium in the form of the book Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, which is a pretty comprehensive survey of Hindu revivalism. He is a very staunch proponent of the Out of India hypothesis, which argues for an Indian origin for the Indo-European languages. And I think what distinguishes him as he combines a keen interest in biology and Hindu religion with an equally keen interest in politics and Hindu nationalism in the political sphere.

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Right. So let's move to briefly introduce himself and briefly tell us how he got interested in India and Hindu studies growing up in Belgium. Well, you have since childhood. Of course, my interest was aroused in a number of ways. You see, of course, the spirit of the Times was very pro India with the nose and mouth you see my experience on at that time, they were quite popular. Then my father, who was a staunch Roman Catholic, nevertheless practiced how tell you about.

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And, you know, there were a number of entities like this, you see small coins that did that oriented my interest, not so much to in the in the culture. Those are two different things, like, for instance, Indian influence. You can see in the hotkeys those who were dhoti societies and Killock and everything, and they practice Indian cuisine and so on. And so this is all very, very interesting and good memories of of those people going to their places.

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And so nevertheless, that's marginal, whereas the influence of Hinduism as a thought system, you see that's pervasive, that's going quite deep in our society. And that's also what interests me more. And so my interest never has been so much in the other country as in Hinduism, the solar system. In fact, by the time I had finished my in the logic of studies, which were and it's important to say this was taught in conjunction with studies of psychology and Western philosophy, so it's important to have the comparative perspective.

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To me at least, it's important now. By the time I finish those studies, I did not plan to go to India at any time. You see someone who studies Western philosophy, you know, someone, let's say, back in America who studies about the Greek and the German philosophers need not go visit Greece or Germany. And, you know, that's that's like, you know, there is a practice, a difference between people's lives and people's philosophies.

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And so in that sense, I had more or less agreed with myself, well, OK, you know, at that time I've had a long term disease from which I was just getting getting better.

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And I thought, oh, my God, you see in the land of diseases of malaria and cholera. So so I thought, well, that's that's for Gaudette, you know. I mean, the 19th century Orientalists never went to the Orient. They stayed in there studying Heidelberg or Oxford. And still they did sometimes good work. And so I thought, well, let's settle for that. But, you know, through circumstances, I ended up going to India anyway.

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And then it was love at first sight. So it's interesting you say that because a lot of the great 19th century knowledge, starting with James Miller, who wrote the first history of India back in early 19th century, I don't think he ever set foot on India. I'm not sure if even Max Müller visited India.

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I didn't think so either. Yeah.

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So on that note, I would like to ask you, what is your understanding of the term Hindu? Right. Well, of course, it's not an Indian term. It's funny. It was introduced to India by the Muslims. And how would you go about defining a Hindu? Is there a case to regard all non-Muslim non Christian Indians as Hindu? Is that how. Yes, there is a very good case for defining it that way. You could say.

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Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could you could regret that this is a negative definition. Nevertheless, it is historically correct to distinguish. You see, at first, the term he knew was a geographical. So many, many wisecracks today, you find him a lot in secularist circles who try to settle difficult issues with a mere talk. And you'll find them also in RSS circles. In fact, at the moment, it is especially there that you find them, you know, who try to reduce the term, Haendel, to a merely geographical term synonymous of India Indian.

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That's not correct. You see, for about three thousand years, the term wasn't used to deal graphic, namely inversion. Between like four thousand, you know, two thousand or four thousand years ago and the onset of the Middle Ages with the start of the Muslim invasions, so about three thousand years in between, he knew it was a purely geographical term, referring to the Sindhu River and meaning the people who live. In into single river basin or beyond, look at look at from Barisha.

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So it effectively meant Indian. And in that form, it was also adopted in Arabic. He knew Arabic became what else, but he knew. But the Arabs used the sound as the ending of their nominative case. Similarly, the sound and the sound for their accusative and genitive case is. And so they mistook Hindoo for being composed of a rude word, Hinde and an ending to. And then in colloquial Arabic, usually the ending is dropped or in many contexts it is dropped, in other contexts it reappears.

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But so effectively the name became Hinde. It became the name of the country, India. It also was used as a girl's name, in fact, in the life story of Muhammad, his principal opponent, the first lady of Mecca, is called Hinde. Now, this is interesting because later the term was adopted in Indian languages and Natasja, so last time that I was introduced, the slogan Chai Hindi. You don't mean victory to India. And how long Nero like that slogan because he wanted absolutely to get rid of the mouth, which sounded to him to to him, so he promoted the slogan Change.

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Had he known that in Arabic, this is just a colloquial form of Hindu and that the right slogan should have been Jai Hindu, then I'm not so sure he would have chosen. Because, you know, in reality today, he is not a mere geographical ever since the Muslim invasions, you see, it was introduced in the first of all, before that, the world was not known. It existed in Persia and in Arabia, but not in India.

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So they introduced it in India, but with the religious bias that other. Namely, a Hindu is an Indian who is not a Muslim. So sad to say that Muslims are Mohammedi Hindus as samaris as people do, you know, that's that's nonsense by definition. He knew from the beginning is precisely an Indian who is not a Muslim. And so later, when when Christians came inside the Muslims horizon and so on, they knew about Christianity already since long before.

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So that was a special case. So they were not included in the Hindu category. And so ultimately, Hindu means an Indian thing and a pagan meaning, quite literally, a lone Christian, and then went from the Christian angle. Muslims appeared on the scene. Then it came to mean non Christian and Muslim. So you see, everything converges on the simple meaning. A Hindu is a Indian pagan. And that's the definitive definition. You see people who want to say that something else is the definition, they have the burden of proof of showing why the definition should be different.

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Right.

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I mean, today. Yeah, go ahead.

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No, I was just going to say, isn't it the case that things obviously evolve over time, that your description of how things were before eleven hundred eighty or whatever sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But in time, as you said, the religion was sort of given, it was a name given to non-Muslim and then later and maybe at the same time non Christian natives of India. But within those natives of India, religious traditions like Buddhism and Sikhism, their self identity seems to be or at least they have moved in that direction or that they would like to identify themselves as a separate religion.

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Has that ever said that he's a non Hindu? No, he may not have said it, I am quite sure he never said it, actually. The question wouldn't have come up right. It's as you said, it was just the first of all, there is no such sharp division in what you may call a pagan civilization. It's a it's a relatively fluid concept anyway. The but there were 100 different teachers with different ideas. That doesn't mean they all had different religions.

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Right. It wasn't that would be a strange notion for them. But his followers have sort of self-identified or developed certain traditions that they do consider separate. Or do you not think that? I don't think so. The idea that Buddhists are not Hindus is certainly not golden in the 19th century. Of course, Buddhists are not Brahmins, Buddhists are not Sivas. And they are, of course, different from the newer sects. The Buddhists are not fierce.

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Rivals are not Sikhs, and they're not rivals. But when the Muslims entered India, then defied Buddhists, Zeno's, they call them the Clean-shaven Brahmins. That's what they call them. So they thought that their role was also something to do with religion. And physically, they were clean shaven. So that's what they were called. And so so from from the theological angle, which is the basis of it, you know, the colloquial usage is often imprecise.

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The theological basis is very, very clear. Namely, a pagan is someone who goes to hell. You know, he's a nonbeliever in the case of Muslims. It is someone who doesn't believe in the revolution through Muhammad in the Christian case. To someone who doesn't believe in Jesus. But at any rate, they go to hell. So you people you are going to hell. You see all your friends, you see the Buddhists, the tribals, the Sikhs, the zero Sivas, the sort of people who have just been given a special status in country.

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They are all going to hell. The passes are going to hell. And, you know, that's the big difference. And so so that's very simple. You see all these people, whatever they may now fancy calling themselves, they are all together in this and they are all together going to find each other back in help. Some of the rest on that note, right, if you talk to traditionalists and they bring up this after gone to divide debate, whether you conform to the way those or not.

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And on that note, they do consider both this and James, the movement to be not non-basic in one sense. Right. And what's your take on that? And unrelated to that, the second question. So you've argued in the past that Buddhism in its origins was primarily a movement among the elites. It was never anti Vidic in a very explicit way and probably not even anti or not. Right. But of course, in modern times and 20th century, within the reinvention of Buddhism, particularly under the wing of.

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Right. Something much of which has a subaltern orientation. Right. So do you see this is purely political or is there any inspiration for that amid great Buddhism that we see at all in Buddhism?

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Yeah, I hope I can remember the second question. So maybe you'll have to ask it again in a minute, because the first one is already quite complicated. These are quite a complex treatment. Now, the on the Hindu side, you have this this talk about Arctica Gnostic. Now, first of all, they can't agree on the meaning of Ostergaard Gnostic. And some people nowadays use this in the sense of Ostergaard is a believer in God knows the guy is an atheist or an agnostic.

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And in that sense, Orthodox Buddhists are very different. You Gnostic. But, you know, that's not very sorry to the demeaning. In fact, within the very spectrum within the US spectrum, there are quite a few atheists origin like the Disney Maunsell school, was atheist in this sense that it said the Gulf's only heaven an existence. Because it will give them existence, because people feed them. And you see, essentially, they are names of wild nametags of the different phases of the mechanic.

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Uniting or linking the Zigic sacrifice with its effect? You see, I make a fire sacrifice with teams and everything, and the intention expressed in the song called The Resolution is that, you know, because of this sacrifice, you know, I implore the the boon of the gods to give me tomorrow on the battlefield victory. Right. Or to give me success in business or restoration of health or the heart of this woman or something. But so there is a desire for a certain result.

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And the God of my Palla, the ritualize of karma and the fruit of it is the pulla. Now, the mechanic that links these two is analyzed by the Mimoun So school that says ultimately the girls are nametags for the different phases of this process of action or the distance. You have the sankyo school, which is totally atheistic. It says very explicitly that both Spirit Barouch up in nature, Prakriti are eternal. The two are eternal. The one does not come easy separating out of the other as idealist's or materialists say.

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No, the two both exist in our eternal for the same reason that back in Greece, Aristotle declared the word world eternal, namely, you should take the concept of causality seriously. Then the world has to be Darnel, because every earlier situation stems from an even earlier situation is the logical consequence of it. And that earlier situation still has earlier situations, and so you have regressed up to infinitum. And there are no points where you can say up now here it starts here we have a zero point where there's nothing before.

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Even in physics, the notion of the big bang, as already understood by its discoverer, was from my home, University of Manchester. He already said and he wrote a letter to this effect of the pope being Catholic himself, you know, he has said, OK, you know, the universe starts with the big bang. And the pope tried to say, OK, modern science is confirming the Christian concept of creation. And so he warned the pope, you can't say that because you see, all I can show with physics is that the present situation goes back to a zero point, you know, which which sort of explodes with the big bang.

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But that doesn't mean that this is the beginning. We don't know what went before is maybe it is only a zero point in an eternal process which is prefigured by the plutonic cosmology of an eternal, you know, what they call inbreeding and outbreeding of the drama. And so maybe the universe goes through a cycle of expansion and contraction and again, expansion and again, contraction. And probably the reality is something like this. Right. So that's eternal. No creator.

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And so, you know, you shouldn't mix up two different concepts, gold and the gods. You see, the gods are creations of the human mind. Projection, so to speak, are personifications of the forces of nature. There are by nature, many of them. Whereas gold is using the sense of a creator God, one who stands outside the universe and who creates the universe, and you see in the beginning in the Bible, there was still a bit of confusion.

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But by now, theologians in Christianity and very especially in Islam are very particular about this. The world is a creation of God. First it didn't exist. Then God created it. Now, you see that type of gold has been argued against by Buddhist philosophers, but it's also very much nonexistent, totally absent in a number of so-called Hindu, let's say, but medical philosophies. And so so to say Asika means believing in God. That's a very crude and historically speaking, very Christianized view of the world.

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So let's drop that. That's not the meaning of USCA. Probably closer is whether you respect the Vados. But there again, you have a big problem. You see quite a few believers and traditionalists. All the figures were revealed by God. Well, you see, I can't help noticing that that is very much a Christian or Islamic view. All scripture you see to them, especially in Islam, the Koran is revealed. Their idea is that the Koran existed in the bosom of God since eternity.

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And then at one moment in the history of creation, he revealed it through Mohammed in Christianity. It's a bit more complex. The whole Bible is not seen as revealed. But certain statements in the Bible are like the Ten Commandments. You see, there is explicitly God speaking, God giving his commandments to mankind and. So that notion of divine revelation is simply not there, individuals. And for that, you see, I may have very many Indian philosophers against me, certainly those today, but I admit that this idea of eternal or God given, if does goes back to before the influx of Christianity and Islam in India.

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So Hindus have that from their own inspiration. Nevertheless, it's wrong.

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And it's very certainly unseemly, even among traditionalists, derivative, given between those who believe in an apology, Russia, whether to believe that it is not a share.

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But both those camps sort of agree that there are gnostic us who actually don't regard the Vedas in a sacred light at all, and they don't regard that as something special that they should revere and include Buddhist among them. Now, what do you think about this?

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Yes, yes, yes. OK, OK, let's let's first go to the heart of the matter. Is this idea about the Vagos true or not? Now, the issues are very clear about having created the Vedas themselves. And you see, they systematically address the goals, not the other way around in the Koran, it is God speaking and men listening, men being addressed. You see individuals is the other way around. It's the very poets who address, who speak, who often use words like I or me.

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And the girls who are being addressed. And see, I like comparing it to the situation of a young boy to Texas, his DA or whatever instrument to the two down below the balcony of the beloved lady, and he sings a serenade for her. You know, praising her beauty and her profonde eyes and I don't know all about her, and so similarly, the girls, you know, I mean, the very poets take their guitar or whatever instrument they're up and go praise the gods.

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And say to the girls, you know, how powerful they are and I was shining and blah, blah, blah. And that's essentially what it is. It's human beings speaking to the gods and the victims are totally clear about this. You see, you take the very first and Rigveda at one point. One point one. What does it say? We worship the fire or I worship the fire. It's not a fire saying, come on, worship me, no, no, no, no, I decide that I am going to worship the fire.

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Go. You know, they take the Gayatri mantra. You see, it is being said that the sun, God, the rising sun, salvator, that he should enlighten or awaken our minds dō you're not you know, he's up there. You know, he should awaken our minds. We are singing we are praising the Rising Sun or Degerman to enjoy a month from the real Malcolm Ujamaa. Hey, you know we are worse is the three Yambuk our goals Sachigo.

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So the videos are completely clear about this. There are even certain names where they did votes embossing praise themselves after the battle of the Tintin's, which is won by both the states ranking Sudan's. You know, the system braces himself for having devised such good poetry that upon hearing it, the God Indra. Couldn't resist the temptation of helping King Soudas. Right. So it's so obvious and you see, imagine the alternative you mentioned that this came from the gods.

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You see all the hymns are full of praise of the gods. So are you telling me that the gods are so narcissistic that they dictate to their worshipful boards? OK, you know, phrase me. You keep flattering me. Come on. That's nonsense. That's not how you think of the gods. So, you know, so this whole idea of, you know, it's the culture dictated the the the video games, that's such nonsense. If you just think about it, you know, people keep repeating this.

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But, you know, if you think about it, you see that that can't be the meaning. OK, anyway, so the DNA comes with a tradition of a very particular people, not of all Indians, but of the power of a tribe in northwest India in the present day, Haryana, Yamuna, up to the Ganga in Singapore, Meerut.

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So that's the part of a tribe they develop this tradition, especially Kingborough, to patronize the very first Vedic hymns by his priest, Bharadwaj, and then several other families took it over. And so he became a very important tradition in its own right, created by human beings. Why is it sacred? Well, I don't know if it's sacred, but it is certainly very special. And so it became the intellectual backbone of the first sciences, you see astronomy, mathematics grew up around it.

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Grammar especially, you see in grammar. India has been the world leader till the 19th century. When European scholars started to take the lead of Bonini and the other grammarians and started to create the science of linguistics, started then expanding it to comparative and historical linguistics and so on. So this whole field of linguistics and all its its sciences ultimately are adapted to Vedic science. And so so started a very important tradition. Which when it encountered other traditions in the rest of India because through its prestige, the Vedic tradition started expanding.

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Initially there was an element of military conquest. The exodus was very successful. And so that whole area of western Punjab, the eastern Punjab, Floriana, Western, you be at some point, this must have been politically united in the power of the state of which you see the end in the Mahabharata of. Now, that's already quite sizable. Nevertheless, that's not in the eye by far. And so in the rest of India, this very tradition was copied very voluntarily, eagerly.

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And so you had kings in the south and east of India who invited Brahmins or new diffidence, gave them all kinds of advantages, gave them their own religious orders, and made sure you see that they gave more shine to their own dynasties because they wanted to be part of this clearly superior Vedic tradition. And so that's where the video production came in contact with all the other traditions and so all the other traditions started getting defined and described as far you see US sideshows as new elements within the Vedic tradition.

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Like, for example, a very again, a very touchy example, reincarnation in the family, books of the regrade, no concept of reincarnation. And this is going to have to discuss many times with Hindus who don't believe me and everything they bring up to prove reincarnation in the Rigveda proves precisely the concept. But yes, you see in the tense book of the result of this, the last of it, maybe some have argued that there already reincarnation of this guy.

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I'm willing to discuss that, but it doesn't change my basic food. It originally wasn't there. But doesn't matter because you see as different regions of India exchange ideas with each other, they come in contact with reincarnation. In fact, it is cited as an innovation, as a novelty that is being imported in the. Now, whether whether that is historic or not, that's another debate. But anyway, it encapsulates the basic fact that this tradition probably coming from the other area from which the were at the port of Engelbach, it is a volunteer who, like, unites the very tradition with these ideas on medication and so on, that probably come from Greater Morgado.

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So this idea is introduced and it is then codified using the already existing Zadig intellectual culture. And so it's put in these terms, it's put into slow definitions are given and so on. And so that way other Indian traditions like the modern codes in the Northeast or like the Dakotas through idol worship and temples and so on, that all becomes part of the expanding Xabi culture. So it not only expands geographically, it also expands thematically. And so in that way, you could say that the Vedic tradition becomes the backbone of the entirety of all the traditions that together make of Hinduism.

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Great.

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And those are very interesting points. And maybe we can skip the earlier Buddhist question in the Buddhist question.

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The Buddhist question automatically follows it. And it is important today. I would like to go into that. You see, of course, Buddhism, as well as giantism and Sikhism and tribals and stuff automatically fall under the definition of him. So they are already Hindu, regardless of what I'm going to say now. They are at any rate. But you see, not everything Hindu is very. Because a Hindu is in India is a big place, you know, and the Vedic tradition is only part of it.

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Moreover, you should see that there was an age when the Vegas' didn't exist in previous decades, like the villagers themselves raised their ancestor, Monu, their ancestor Ilha, their ancestor for all of us. So they were all in the present age, according to the Vatican issues themselves. I am not so, so long comprehending Western atheist, you know, trying to impose these ideas on them. No, not the Vedic sears. Say it themselves. OK.

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So there was a prevaricates. So there exists a Hinduism without the Zetas, the Zetas are not necessary for Hinduism. I mean, I read the phrase all the time that, oh yeah, everything in Hinduism issues from the Vegas. That's not true. Nevertheless, everything has been gradually incorporated in the Vedic tradition. That is true. But that's something else. So in the case of Buddhism. I could have said, yeah, of course, Buddhism is against invaders, as everybody nowadays claims, Buddhism is against invaders, yet it is still Hindu.

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But that's not what I'm saying. You see, in the case of some tribal codes, you could say, well, there there is no reference to the evidence or only in the modern age and see as a new ZAMEEN and so on started colonizing the tribal areas. Then some Hindu ideas seeped into the thinking of the tribals. But that's also not what I mean. You see, this is all there. But in the case of Buddhism, there is not just this general Hindu connection.

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There is very specifically Izadi connection. You can't understand Buddhism without a very clear history. Now, what exactly the relation with the tradition is, that is to some extent still a matter for scholarly debate, you could say that is society in greater that was outside of the US and originally it certainly was. But you is speaking of well, maybe a thousand years after the Mahabharata war, more than a thousand years after the absolute end of the Vedic song.

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He does. And so by that time, the Northeast had become quite zaidee sized up, partly because of an enormous migration that took place that was triggered by the desecration of the Sarasvati area. Which we can scientifically document to about nineteen hundred B.C., so after that and then you find in scripture, this is confirmed that many of the tribes that first existed in the northwest appear in the northeast. So so there was certainly a very presence in this society, probably the financial system was also known.

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Like it is written and again, I don't think this is all in Buddhist scriptures. There was some kind of. But in modern terms, you would say a democracy is, of course, not a modern democracy, but something that comes close is Chakales state was a republic, not a kingdom, though the difference is not very big. There was a sort of collective kinship in the sense that the Buddha's father was president for life. He was elected ruler.

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But then there were no, you know, every five years new elections or something. So he was the ruler for life. And then the next one was not automatically his son, although the Buddha, because of his political experience and so on, was in a very good position to become the successor. But nevertheless, what there was, in fact, was a sort of Senate that took the decisions, but that was restricted to the three class of which the Buddha was a member.

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And so all people could attend, but only the US could speak up and make decisions. And. So you already have a system to that extent, and there were Brahmins, of course, there's a lot of talk of the Buddha with Brahmins, though sometimes he himself is called the Brahmin and so Brahmin still often, like in the late, that literature has a general meaning of a priest, of Wiseman teacher. So in that sense, you can, for instance, say, as the Buddha Buddha said, you know, Pandit Rama.

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You know, the drama of the Ramayana, it was a prince, it was a thriller. Nevertheless, it's called Bondi Beach is a drowning. And so a learned men. And so in that sense, see, a caste system was clearly not given its classical, very stiff, very hard, very sharp form, but some ideas of the value system we're circling in the air already. There was a notion of we are the elite. And so in Buddhism, often the Chatrier cost is the highest before the human cost.

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But at any rate, those two are on top. And then you have the common people who make a living by starting their own company and so on, the entrepreneurial class, that's the. And then there are those who don't have any anything created for themselves, who work for others. They are the children's. Now, you see, there was no yet, not yet the system of this being a matter of and over me. In this house, of course, you have great examples of teachers of the year who say that they are the son of, you know, let's say in biblical terms, a carpenter, a craftsman or a wagon maker, for example, I think is mentioned.

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So there you clearly see that not yet an idea of how the theory goes. You know, originally, for instance, you do not have the idea of endocast and no one like, for instance, Vaida Viarsa, who is the Brahmin par excellence, the final editor of the Vedi Corpus. You see, he is the son of but setout, who is also, of course, a very senior. With a Fisher girl. You know, of course, then that six year old girl turns out to be shot three times, but still not the Brahmin.

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So there's no Brahmin and no one. And in the Buddha's life, there is a famous and important that is of consequence of that system on going into it for a moment where there's a conflict about the definition of cost. You see his friend. For instance, childhood king was an object of Kosala finds out that his wife, whom he thinks that we accept like himself, is in fact not accepting who is the illegitimate child on the side of some king who has had an affair with his cleaning lady or some other servant?

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And so so he's very indignant and he even wants to repudiate his wife and the son that they have together. The Buddha tells them not to do this. On this occasion, if it were true, what Ambegaokar and so on say that the Buddha was against caste, then this would be the moment for the Buddha to say, ha ha ha, this caste system is all ridiculous. And what are you worrying about? Drop caste? No, he doesn't say that at all.

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The Buddha says, but you see, why repudiate them? OK, maybe maybe your wife was the Chatrier, but so what? Your son, whom you want to succeed yourself, is worthy to become the king because he too is exactly why. Because his father is a charity. So here you see the caste system in Stata, not Scandi, as they said in the state of being born. So what you have here is costing the paternal line, you know, Viarsa, Viarsa, Brahmin, because parasitize of whatever his mother is the same way you do that the son of an object is going to be acceptable.

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According to the Buddha, he's going to be a child. Three, because his father was regardless of what his mother. OK, and but the Buddha's view, and it conflicts with brass and objects on view because the Buddha living in his monastery and so on, is not up today to changing laws, whereas the king said no, no, tacitly and openly, both the parents have to be different from the same caste. So that's the new wave.

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That's the new wave which has gone through, as we know, the idea of, of course, and open. So a full court system is the one which which comes about around the time of the Buddha for the masses, for the common people, probably still a bit later, which is confirmed by the genetic data that cost and over. He is only about 2000 years old. But so it's very important to see just like the Vedas, you see, Ghast is not part of the definition of Hinduism.

[00:44:49]

You see those who want to define Hinduism as essentially caste. Their mistake caste is something that has existed in Hinduism for two or three thousand years, and that's like an accident in the history of Hinduism. It need not have been there. It was not there in the beginning. Today it is there less and less like in the Hindu community in Holland, which I know pretty well. You know, they have left India through Surinam in South America about one hundred and fifty years ago.

[00:45:22]

Well, they don't have caste and yet they are still practicing Hindus. You see, they still speak of Bhojpuri. A dialect of Hindi, they are the ram, their families. They also have an audio samaj movement within this community with as much news, with signs and everything. And yet you see, they are Hindus without caste. So, you know, these two things are separate anyway. So what I wanted to say, just in one sentence, the Buddha is very much part of the tradition.

[00:46:01]

He uses very concepts. At one point he even quotes from the Upanishads, though he doesn't mention where he got it from. But you see that you're funny shaddick ideas in the Buddha's own circles. We're very much in the air, you know, so it was part of it, both socially and philosophically. And so both issues from the Zaidi tradition. Yeah, those are excellent points.

[00:46:28]

So towards the end, you mentioned Hindu unity that I have a related question. So traditionally Hindus have approached the religion not as Hindus, but through the medium of family community, some podiatric. So but today we have something called Hindu corporate identity, which emphasizes the unity. And this has mostly picked up in the last couple of hundred years. So some might argue that it goes back to the Hindu swaraj concept that came up during the Renaissance resurgence in the 16, 17 centuries.

[00:47:00]

Now, how do you feel?

[00:47:02]

Do you feel this is a good thing, the move away from the traditional sympathique orientation of Hindu? Is it going to make Hindus more Abrahamic in one sense? Right, bringing about greater uniformity in religious practice and belief? Because traditionally the podia approach is sort of ensure diversity in practice, diversity and philosophy and thought. But will that go away with this development of corporate Hindu identity?

[00:47:30]

Well, because of the modern age, there is more and more interaction between different groups. That is inevitable. You can't say that that's good or bad. It's just there and it's inevitable. And so there is more and more search for commonness within Hinduism. That need don't make anyone more Abrahamic, you know, sorry for using the word Abrahamic, I mean, it's it's in use. I don't like the term, but so it need not make them more prophetic, monotheist unless they want to.

[00:48:07]

And so Hindus themselves are bringing in Christian or Islamic elements who they need not do, but they do so because they think this is more prestigious, more with the time and in the British period, especially in the Muslim period. This also counted, but the difference is the Muslims didn't interfere in society. OK, they killed Hindus, they smashed Hindu temples, but they didn't penetrate into society. Whereas the British, they meddled with Hinduism, you know, they wrote their own version of the Ottomans METI.

[00:48:47]

They started translating into scripture. They started dialoging with Rathmines to know more about the tradition and so on. And so that purposely or even unconsciously influenced the Hindus themselves and how they saw themselves. And so you get these reform movements that could be the reigning British ideas, including very typically Christian ideas of Protestant ideas like and that's especially important. The audio, some of the audio, some of it is very important in Indian culture history because it played a great role in the freedom movement and in the Hindu movement.

[00:49:33]

The enormous apple started sort of mostly by audience and markets marches. And now what they did, you know, they started from a very healthy impulse. They wanted to preserve Hinduism and Hinduism flourish and so on, and especially defended against the the Christian missionaries who were on the march. So that's good, but in the process, they did two things they tried to reduce Hinduism to divide us and say that everything else, the Puranas and so on, let alone the very, very tribal practices and so on, that this was all a degeneration, these old decadence, or it was borrowed from foreign peoples or what, and that only real Hindus in this valley can.

[00:50:29]

That is historically simply incorrect. And by the way, for those who object, oh, Mr. Elst is a foreigner and he doesn't comprehend. Well, you can find much the same ideas in cheek until I get this word. I mean, I'm not inventing anything once again, but so what the idea Samaj did was reducing 2002 to they became the end to import the two very important Protestant ideas of monotheism and I iconoclasm. The rejection of idol worship.

[00:51:14]

You know, so these are two Christian conservatives have no place in Hinduism, you know, they found one Zadik first where it is said that Indra is without that Arkema. Now, Pratima, in colloquial Hinduism today means an idol that literally means a likeness. And so all that this first is, is Indra is without like a. well, exactly. Of course, a very poor to say that that doesn't mean he's against idols or he's against goals or what.

[00:51:51]

It's like this young man who takes his guitar to the balcony of this young lady and said, oh, lady, you are incomparable. You know, you're beautiful like no one else. No, that's a manner of speaking, it's a bit exaggerated and so on, but it's a perfectly normal way of saying, oh, you are very special. So that's what that's what I would say to the girls. What's what's so, you know, so that has nothing to do with the Christian idea of a rejection of idolatry.

[00:52:25]

You touched on something interesting there, right from the days of Paris, the modern Hindu Hindu revivalism, or that it's insipient right up to the present day. There is a strong streak of anti intellectual ism in the Hindu nationalist movement. And you see that in India as you see this in the writings of Mr. Paul Volcker and others you see just even today. Right. And it manifests itself, even in social media, in a number of people want to date Rigveda to crazy dates like 10000 B.C. fifteen thousand beef even before Neolithic Revolution, which doesn't make any sense at all.

[00:53:00]

It's nonsense. I know you have tried to engage with some of this and not very successfully use it because it's very deep rooted and intellectual climate. Right. How do you explain that? Right. And is there a way out. Right. And if you personally find it frustrating because and also related to that, I have a different question, and this pertains to the Orient migration hypothesis, which you are a very strong critic. I mean, some of us may have different opinions on it, but.

[00:53:39]

But respect to Hindu nationalism. Right. I do see that in the tournament seems overinvested in detail in the early Hindu nationalist like they worker. And they were OK with some form of it. But today I mean it, which I think you're more partial towards, seems to be the standard position of most Hindu nationalist. And what contributed to the change in the intellectual orientation of internationalism.

[00:54:07]

Yes, OK, well, you know, these are two questions without combining them.

[00:54:12]

Yeah, well, you see this morning I spent some time, you know, wasting time, in fact, on Twitter. But it's very interesting, you see, and even high brow people should once in a while condescend to spending time on Twitter and engaging in debate. There you see, somebody had asked the question about what should Hindus do in the present power equation? And so they all started. I mean, hundreds of them really started talking about how we should do this and we should do that and we should free the temples and no more government control of temples and we should change education and teach more Hinduism to the kids and and and some pretty extremist proposals like we should cut the birthrate and we should force the Muslims to have only two children and and so on and so on.

[00:55:12]

They all had proposals. And so all these proposals are just on paper, are just Gosset. Because nobody ever says, OK, this is what I'm doing in this regard or this is what I'm going to make the government do in this regard. First of all, of course, all these proposals are advice to someone else. They're not things you can do yourself. I mean, of course, in your own private sphere, you can give a better Vedic education to your children rather than let them watch TV all the time.

[00:55:48]

You know, there are certain things you can do privately, you can even take a local initiative, start some some lecture group in your village, you know, to spread the knowledge of the Vedas or whatever. You know, there's a little Boy Scout initiative you can take. And RSS people, I admit, are very good at that. But you see, that's not going to achieve your goal. That's not going to change society, that's not going to change the fact that there are very many forces arrayed against you that you are helpless to do anything about.

[00:56:22]

Now, only the government can make a difference. And so none of them had the strategic sense of saying, OK, I don't just find this a good idea, I find this idea worth implementing. Therefore, I'm going to make sure that know that we have a government of our own. You know, we're going to make the government do this because already for seven years, it hasn't been doing anything inappropriate in the sense it has done something in this sense of national integration and the integration or the normalization, as I instantly call it, the normalization of the Kashmir situation.

[00:57:02]

And economically, it has done some things that I don't understand. But apparently they're good for India, but for the specific Hindu agenda that it's not doing anything. And so nobody thought, OK, let's let's do something about this. We have three more years left, commonness, and let's implement some of that agenda. No. One, nobody's even thought of this. So there is this enormous lack of strategic thinking among those. They are satisfied with trinkets, you see, and that's what the Modi government gives them.

[00:57:39]

You see some you know, when he gives a speech in parliament, it starts with some little politicking. And whenever present day minister is visiting Dhaka or, you know, someplace in Hutong or somewhere, he makes sure to be filmed, you know, when visiting a Hindu temple. And so there is this whole feel good atmosphere around this government that more than the past Congress governments, it respects new sentiments. But you see, that's OK, Advani, the BJP leader, called it 30 years ago.

[00:58:21]

So we should allow the Hindus to build a temple in Nigeria because you should respect Hindu sentiments. Now, you see, sentiments are totally inconsequential and politically unimportant. When why should you build a temple in Nigeria? Not to respect Hindu sentiments, because it is the right of India's at their own one of their most sacred sites. Of course, Hindus have a right to build whatever they want. You see, that's not because of respecting their little sentiments.

[00:58:55]

And that's obvious any secularist anywhere in the world can see that the French government, which lost that and stuff, which is militantly secularist, nevertheless facilitates the pilgrimage. The murders were supposedly the Virgin Mary has a beard simply because it respects the people who go there, you know, because it's a secular state shouldn't shouldn't militate against this or that belief. Maybe privately any minister can do so. But in his capacity as minister, he simply has to make sure that everybody in this country is happy.

[00:59:31]

So that may mean facilitating the pilgrimage. OK, and so they stop having those sentiments is all cheap and unimportant. And so for Hindu sentiments, yes, this government caters quite well, but it's only that and it's not using its power to implement anything consequential for the Hindus. And yet any self respecting Hindu should feel revolted about the present state. You see here you have a state where the great majority of people is discriminated against in favor of the minorities.

[01:00:13]

It's not so much the minorities who do the discriminating they also do in their own fields. But at the state level, it is the secularists who imposed the discrimination on Hindus. So certain reforms are needed. A few finishing touches to the Constitution. It's not at all interesting and it does not at all take the form of hurting the feelings of the minorities. In fact, it doesn't impinge upon their rights at all. Except maybe the case of the common civil codes, which I personally think on the one hand should be their.

[01:00:53]

But on the other hand, should not be an immediate priority. And so it's a priority for the secularists because it means that India is not a secular state in a secular state by definition. All citizens are equal before the law. So it's the secularists who should mobilize in favor of abolishing the separate system for Muslims, also for Christians and so on, before Christianity, not so much a problem. They won't give you trouble if this is if this is reform.

[01:01:25]

It is, you know, the Muslim attachment to the Sharia Islamic law that stands in the way of diplomacy. But so he shouldn't meddle in these issues, will get the blame anyway worldwide. And they will say, oh, it's because of his views that what? Well, enormous riots are going to take place. Every Muslim mufti and imam and so on is going to feel it affected. His power within the Muslim community will be cut short severely.

[01:01:55]

And, in fact, all the Muslims who know their stuff. They are attached to Islamic law because Islamic I mean, Islam is not just a system of worship, it's also a system of law. And so a real Muslim is one who practices Muslim law, whatever the law of his neighbors. So, you know, Islam militates against the idea of a common civil cause, regardless of religion. So that's that's going to create a conflict and maybe one day it is worth going through that conflict.

[01:02:31]

But it's not today. There are far more consequential issues that you should do first. You know, as you saw during the age of the the education around to see a. You know, that that only concern. The Hindu refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It's a very small number of people, of course, in effect, this policy of giving them asylum and so on, that is very defensible. But you see to go through it in the way they did with making a law out of it and then.

[01:03:13]

Being not very apt in communicating that little, you know, that aroused already quite a bit of counter agitation. Which, of course, was worldwide support and seen as proof of Hindu oppression of the minorities and so on. You see, if you wanted to go through all that trouble, well, then make sure it is worth it. You see, do something bigger, more ambitious than just this law for refugees. And so what should be done?

[01:03:50]

And it is very simple, you know, I'm not going to take much of your time, but it's very simple, we should abolish all the anti discrimination laws. And so the most important one, maybe just because of my own professional orientation, I care about education. And so I think the most important one is to abolish the discrimination in education, especially Article 30 of the Constitution. And you know, that's also because right now, education is far more important than in the past.

[01:04:27]

It's in the past he learn Hinduism because it was all around them. It was in the air that is much less so today. And they watch TV and they see all the anti Hindu movies from Hollywood. And you go to school and you get secularist and communist education. And they are very purposely being estranged from Hindus and they become ignorant of Hinduism. You see, I mean, did they hang posters in their little shops, not organized, but of some Bollywood star and so on, so, you know, Hinduism becomes foreign to them and what is unknown is unloved.

[01:05:10]

You know, as you can see, according to radio, if somebody converts who spends a lot of time trying to get more and more in trying to know more and more of this new religion. Right. And so similarly, Hindus, Hindus who are really serious about Hinduism, I see them all the time exploring more and more dimensions of Hinduism, coming up with news about Vastu Shastra and Hindu temple architecture. And they saw that ancient board that nobody knows and so on.

[01:05:45]

So there is a correlation between attachment to religion and knowledge of that religion. So is that knowledge of religion is no longer passed through in the family? Well, then education has to step in. Education is far more important today than it was even one hundred years ago, let alone the rest of history. So you have to take control. This is absolutely vital. If Hinduism is to survive, it has to take control of education or education for its own people.

[01:06:18]

At least, you know, I'm not talking about Christian or Muslim education. Maybe they can have something else. But for Hindus, at any rate, this is vital. Right. But how do you ensure that this is done the right way?

[01:06:31]

Because I asked an earlier question pertaining to anti intellectualism, which is very much there on the Hindu right now, a correction to the way we educate the youth.

[01:06:44]

I mean, it may take the form of encouraging false historical theories or pushing conspiracy theories. Right. Inaccurate dating of ancient texts. Right. Mythologizing the past. How do you ensure that we marry academic rigor with a certain regard for Hindu interest in when it comes to education? Yeah, well, that's what I'm trying to do all the time. You know, you can't do it in this place. You can spread that kind of knowledge. But I know that there is there is quite a real rejection of that in the news circles.

[01:07:29]

OK, so one example, I think, is the one that you've already suggested, namely via Univision discussion. You see, first of all, of course, this is a very artificial debate, I mean, of course, historians can can go into that debate. It's their job. But the fact that politicians also invest in taking a position in this debate for or against our invasion. That is a little bit funny if you look at it from the outside, and so forgive me for being a foreigner, but the advantage of being a foreigner is that you can look from the outside and compare to how the rest of the world would look at this.

[01:08:13]

So they would go about this. So very many countries in the world are based on immigration. Either complete immigration because there was no one there. Like in New Zealand or in the Pacific and so on, or because a new group replace an older group like in America. In fact, an invasion. Yeah, of course. And even you see the girls are seen as the original groupies with actually they too are invaders. And so, you know, throughout human history, quite common phenomenon.

[01:08:59]

And so some countries based their own national myth on immigration. I think, for instance, Rumania, you see, we don't know about the original inhabitants of Romania, probably never agricultural part of the expansion from Anatolia into Europe of the first agriculturists, although they, too, were not the first ones yet because they overtook from earlier hunter gatherers. OK. And anyway, so then later came on horseback. The invaders were Scythians, which is Iranians. They call themselves something like Dorotea.

[01:09:46]

You know, these became DOCA in the Roman parlance. Dossi is the same word as Dassa. Servants, which was a term originally used for the Iranians, left behind after the Iranian armies or aristocracy had been chased out of India. So the Iranians left behind with the lower classes. And so they were called Dos Equis, their ethnic name. It became the name of a social function in the lower classes. Right. OK, anyway, so this is an ethnic name.

[01:10:29]

So you see the dancers entered the country, conquered the country from the original inhabitants. Then the Ruhlman scheme, they took over from the Darwinians. They had these Provencal DayQuil. And so from that mixture, adopting the Roman language came this new ethnicity of the Romanians. And so the Roman emperor who did the conquering and Bertillon's is all over the place with statues and so on, so their national myth is one of immigration or take Mexico. You see, the defining event of Mexico is the marriage between the Spanish conqueror and on the reporters with an estate princess.

[01:11:20]

So that that united the newcomers and those who were already there, though the activists themselves were also conquerors coming from what is now Utah in the United States. And so they conquered from others who probably had their own history of conquest, that that far, I don't know. But so there has been plenty of conquest, and it is part of the Mexican national myth. So. So for India, you know, it's really easy to integrate a myth or a fact, a historical fact, if it were one of our universities and indeed around nineteen hundred many Indians heading into your eyes, the invasion scenario.

[01:12:08]

And he also found a way to be proud of it. Because that made them more or less the equals of the British conqueror. So there wasn't anticolonial dimension of the belief in the orientation, Delacroix's, a militant freedom fighter, had his own version of the Korean invasion to. So, you know, it's already funny that this you know, this this thing is there. But OK, so now the present situation is that the Aryan invasion theory is massively used by breaking into the forces, by the Christians, by the secularists, by the U.S. and this by the Ambedkar rights.

[01:12:54]

And so now it has become important or useful for the pro India and the pro Hindu forces to deny the alien invasion, not fortunately for them. It so happens that there are many scholarly reasons and more and more to reject the foreign invasion theory. But, you know, in in clamoring about the invasion never happened and it's a colonial myth and the Hindus are not using the weapons that they have. You see, they could they could really take care of this problem, of all the separatism, of all the Indian and Indian use of the division by simply promoting real scholarship, because that is going to end up in their favor.

[01:13:52]

But instead, you see they are sabotaging this or many of them by adhering to funny theories. Or, for instance, the most common among them is the idea that there is no history and evidence. It is not me, it is an Indian, namely city controller who has made the revolutionary contribution to the art innovation debate of showing that there is historical, that is to say, written literary assistance, namely in Vegas, in the way that you have a description of a part of the actual Orient emigration from India.

[01:14:40]

This is the battle of the Ten Kings and the subsequent Vasundhara battle. And so all the ethnic groups that are mentioned that end up in Iran, in Armenia, all the way to Greece and Albania. And. So instead of welcoming this, you have very many Hindus lambasting Tagore and claiming, no, no, no, no, David, I have no history. You see, they are eternal and God can't be bothered with writing about human affairs like the Battle of the Thinkings.

[01:15:24]

You know, they should also be read symbolic, you know? Well, no. You see, it so happens, even though the figures are not the history book, you know, anybody writing anything cannot help giving a lot of information about himself that historians can use. And so you do find the Vegas, first of all, simple, simple facts like it was written in north northwest India in the Bronze Age. You can see that from the material descriptions there.

[01:15:59]

There are no polar bears. There are no giraffes. You know, all the flora and fauna are north west Indian. There are elephants and lions and so on. OK. And then more specifically, in a certain place named certain mountains and rivers are mentioned as also it's all very, very clear. This is a human document attesting to human affairs. And yet to see and it so happens that if you read it as a human document, you get a lot of information that refutes the organization.

[01:16:36]

Now, the Univision debate, of course, is a very temporary thing. It started in the 19th century somewhere. And within the twenty first century, it will be over. It will be decided. That is very short. And so after that, again, starts eternity when there will be no, ah, Univision debate anymore. And so they traditionalists say, well, you see, OK, now we have this little advantage. Maybe I mean, they don't believe that there is any historical information, Rivera.

[01:17:11]

But OK, they admit he claims he can help the Hindu cause by refuting the Aryan invasion theory with a claim about information. But you see, that is just a very small affair. That is nothing compared to eternity when the videos were given to mankind long time ago about the sale. And and so it is more important to stand by their version of Vedic orthodoxy rather than to give in to this and say, you know, our innovation arguments. Well, you know, OK, well, that's an interesting position.

[01:17:53]

But the fact is that it goes against the effort of refuting the university. So I think that by now. This debate could have been over if news had been more serious about it, more scholarly about instead the microphone is grabbed by people who don't understand the affair, who misbehave on social media and so on, who gives a very bad impression of the Hindu position to outsiders so that outsiders boycott or stonewall anything that comes from the Indian side which need not have happened.

[01:18:34]

Interesting perspective as we're nearing the top of the hour, we wanted to ask a final question on Hinduism of a global religion, right?

[01:18:44]

I mean, you mentioned that growing up, you were sort of influenced maybe by the counterculture climate in the West during the 60s and 70s when you had movement like it's gone. And then also yoga became a finger and Christian material and the disciples spreading, forming yogic schools in the West. And I know there was a lot of interest in Hinduism back then. And since then it seems to have petered out. Right. I mean, today, maybe if Buddhism commands more interest in the West than Hinduism right now, my question is, if Hinduism defined to be a national religion of sorts, which is sort of which loses its appeal outside of the subcontinent, because if you look outside the subcontinent, there aren't that many places where you may regard Hinduism to be very robust.

[01:19:30]

There are some exceptions like maybe Bali, maybe to some extent Guyana. But even that, it's probably eroding. Right. So what do you think of Hinduism's prospects outside the Indian subcontinent?

[01:19:44]

Well, I've never been to Guyana or Surinam, but I am in touch with people there. And so I do not have the impression that they're Hinduism is eroding. And I see clothes on my doorstep in Holland and in England. It's quite a Hindu community that is holding firm. So. You're seeing the right circumstances. I think Hinduism can go flourish. Then as for the relation with outsiders, you know, I mean, there is no longer that that that that crazy about India that there was like 50 years ago, but still, you see there is a modest, continuous influx of Westerners in the sort of ambit of of Hinduism.

[01:20:38]

And mainly through yoga. And so I know that in New York, I often starts with very amateurish, sometimes just laughable forms of physical yoga. But you see some of those people grow out of it and grow into more serious yoga and starting to understand more of it. And often in doing so, they pick up elements, both of Hindu philosophy and Hindu ways of life, like I would very strongly their. So in an informal way, I think Hinduism is still spreading.

[01:21:22]

And so this is especially true in the West, but it's even so in China, you see, I spent some time in Rishikesh, of course, like most care about India. I went to the world capital of yoga. And so. And there was a group of Chinese people who were following a formation of training for yoga teachers to take you over to China. And Latin America is full of yoga adepts, some serious, some not so serious, but anyway, there is clearly an openness for these developments and especially I want to draw your attention to this.

[01:22:11]

In the Muslim world. You see, I mean, in the new imagination, the Muslim world is like a black hole, once you're in there, you can't come out anymore, ever. And that's not the case or less in this case. You see, within the Muslim world, there are more and more people who express their dissatisfaction with the. And there are certainly very many people who keep it discreet, but nevertheless, you know, take their distance from Islam or without leaving Islam still are open to bringing in elements from other civilizations.

[01:22:53]

And so. You see, in the past, I have criticized the Indian traveling guru, Ravi Shankar, a few times. Nevertheless, in spite of that, I want to praise him for taking a very important, very far sighted initiative. He set up a network of meditation centers in the Middle East. And so that's extremely important. That's why he he tries not to offend Islam and so many in his position, I don't care to admit that's enjoyed according to his own lights.

[01:23:31]

Because the the idea of bringing this extremely central element of Hindu culture in the Muslim world is so fruitful, so important. So, again, you see, it just shows that in the Hindu culture, it is not dead yet. It's been great to hear your thoughts, Mr. Helft, or do you have any other questions for Conrad? I think we're running out of time, otherwise I did have questions, I was actually thinking of asking him about the business.

[01:24:13]

OK, one more. One more. Yes. I know I was going to say you can ask one more question. OK, I was going to say about the Aryan invasion business, I'm obviously on the other side here, more or less as an outsider. I think the genetic evidence seems to be that there is an influx of people from outside into India.

[01:24:37]

OK, very gladly take that question. OK, I promise I won't take it long, but it's really quite simple. You see, in our courses of European linguistics, you know, it was it was emphasized that the fight over one hundred years ago of identifying the Indo-European language with a physical type, you know, long skull, long nosed with the back, had knob and so on, that this was stupid. Even Max Miller, who was interpreted by outsiders as equating Indo-European language with the race, emphatically denied that this could be linked.

[01:25:29]

And obviously, they knew it from the beginning because the concept of Indo-European language family means that half of the speakers are brown and half of the speakers are white, you know, India and Europe. Right. So if it starts in one place, this place was either white or either brown. And so half of the speakers of any European, which today is something like a billion people. Right. Have adopted the language across racial frontiers. Whether the origin was white or was brown, at any rate, half of the Indo-European speaking population have adopted the language from people, not their own skin color.

[01:26:23]

OK, so language does not equate physical type. Now, today, physical anthropologists are no longer measuring skulls and so on, they are considering genes. And here you have exactly the same mistake that was made one hundred years ago. You know, in Indian articles about the Univision debate, you hear people say, in all seriousness, now, you know, these are one a, one gene is the. And Gene, what is this nonsense? You see, of course, people have changed language many times often.

[01:27:03]

And so this doesn't prove anything. And I will agree with you that there is genetic evidence for an influx of people into India, of course. But we already knew that within the historical period. You have is definitely newsagent's, you see people coming from outside and making their genes part of the Indian gene identifiable today with modern genetics, you have the Scythians, you have the Greeks, the Huns, the cushions, then you have the Turks, the Arabs, you know, the Afghans.

[01:27:42]

Then you have refugee communities that passes the Syrian Christians. You know, we know that they all came. We are very sure that they came. And they left their genes in the gene pool. Yet? There is not one of those groups that has preserved its foreign language. You see, even with Islam, you know, they had a system that was strongly separatist, that you cared a lot about identity that wanted to keep their own group separate from the Indian population, yet they haven't succeeded.

[01:28:21]

OK, Urdu has a foreign script, that much of ground with Urdu is mostly Hindi. So you see even they you know, they adapted, they assimilated. There is no Turkish lobby in India today or Arabic lobby or Syriac lobby or, you know, Persian lobby for the parties and so on. No, they all assimilated linguistically, even though India is very good at allowing people to keep their own identity and they did keep their own identity, yet not their linguistic identity.

[01:28:58]

So what would make the Arian's the supposed are so special that unlike all the other invaders, they, as a small minority against, is far more advanced and far more numerous. Indian society would keep their own language and moreover would manage to impose their own language on this entire Indian population. So you see, I think that the genetic evidence really makes the difference. Now there is another group that also has genetics and that does not care about language. It is the animals.

[01:29:45]

And there you also have genetic data and there they may be relevant to the organization discussion somewhat, a little bit, they give a tendency of probability, namely. A number of animals, of course, come from India, like the DeCock, like the the hen, the chicken, and some very specifically go with migrating human beings inside of the cheek. And you can still say awesome sheep from a simple Tamiya by accident or by design, took some Indian birds with them.

[01:30:27]

And this way they spread. And so there are animals that are very typically only taken out by human beings. We just got to. Now, cattle, normally, they are animals that love pleasant places. They're not like mountain goats, and so they live in the plains with lush vegetation and so on. And so if they go to do a really difficult place like the Hindu Kush Mountains, like the Khyber Pass, it is only because humans are leading them there.

[01:31:02]

And indeed, the Arias famously, according to everyone, we're cattle breeders, you know, and so according to the Aryan invasion theory, they came they were cattle breeders, and yet they came without their cattle because there is nothing of the Western type of of a cow present in India. By contrast, genetic analysis shows that in Syria and in Ukraine, the cattle have a strong element of the Indian humped view of the Indians. So there were human beings who had herds of Zable and took them along with themselves.

[01:31:48]

They migrated and they took their zebras with them as far as Ukraine. So if genetic evidence weighs in anyhow on this debate, it is on the side of the out in the field. I think many of our own, most geneticists would disagree with that in the human case, but that's what we don't have to debate this endlessly. I think the other side of it is that the use of the the Aryan invasion theory in current Indian politics is an entirely separate issue.

[01:32:29]

Is it not possible to say that whether the Aryans or the Europeans came into India or not has very little to do with what is the contemporary, you know, divisions within Indian society or the structure of Indian society right now? It has relatively little to do with that.

[01:32:53]

This, of course. Of course. But that's what I said to the media in Mexico. And so, you know, you can perfectly, perfectly well live with a free history of immigration. That's no problem. But the enemies of Hinduism have made that an issue. You see right now, those who oppose the university are accused by outsiders. But you are all politically motivated. Well, not exactly. You see, the political motivation is mostly in India, in the Aryan invasion theory or on that side of all the politicians who use it against the Hindus, against Indian unity and integrity and so on.

[01:33:35]

So to defend India, people have taken this this very arcane, you know, ivory tower, a scholarly debate to heart and made it political. But so that's only a natural reaction against the politicization that has taken place on the side of the IRA and invasion to. Right, but you could argue back without actually necessarily taking the out of India position also. Right. You could argue against the political uses of that theory without even conceding or rejecting the the population movement idea.

[01:34:17]

Whatever the nature of that movement and whatever the cultural outcome of that movement, that the current uses are all 19th century creations. And you can argue with them about 19th and 20th century issues without even having to take an opposite position or you don't think that's possible?

[01:34:36]

Well, yeah, I am all for arguing. I guess that's what the last show. So, I mean, you know, I'll be satisfied with that. OK, but we'll talk more about this.

[01:34:50]

Very interesting. Yes, I hope so. I think we have. I really enjoyed especially the what you might say, the first three quarters of this was very, very scholarly and, you know, informed discussion about Hinduism, about religion, whether we agree on the on the on the analysis. We can disagree that we can agree or disagree. But but it was a very, very, you know, reasonable discussion. And I hope we can have more of that.

[01:35:24]

I actually we are out of time. Otherwise, I wanted to ask you about the chronology in your view of what is the chronology of sort of Hindu tradition? Yeah, I agree. It's a very interesting argument, but that will have to be done next time. It'll have to wait because it would be too long. We would have an entire other podcast just on that. So I think we will end here. And thank you very much for joining us.

[01:35:47]

And I know this is going to end up being a, quote unquote, controversial podcast on our site just because of the nature of things right now. But one way or the other. Personally, I don't really care about that. But we will hopefully have you again and talk to you in much greater detail. There's other aspects we never touched on. I wanted to ask you why you are always referred to as an Islamophobic, but not as a Kristofor.

[01:36:16]

What do you think is the reason for that? Yeah, well, again again, I have a lot to say about that, but that will make it too long. OK, right.

[01:36:27]

OK, thank you very much. But don't. Tune in next week for Brown Cast.