Notes on Classical History

The spread of Christianity in no way harmed the flourishing of pagan literature. Instruction in the universities (Rome, Milan, Carthage, Bordeaux, Athens, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria) was still based on rhetoric, and literature received the support of senatorial circles, especially in Rome (for example those of the Symmachi and the Nicomachi Flaviani). Latin literature was represented by Symmachus and the poet Ausonius. The last great historian of Rome was Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek who wrote in Latin for the Roman aristocracy; of his Res gestae, the most completely preserved part describes the period from 353 to 378. The works of Sextus Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, who ably abridged earlier historical works, are fairly accurate and more reliable than the Scriptores historiae Augustae, a collection of imperial biographies of unequal value, undoubtedly composed under Theodosius but for an unknown purpose. Erudition was greatly prized in aristocratic circles, which, enamoured of the past, studied and commented on the classic authors (Virgil) or the ancestral rites (the Saturnalia of Macrobius). Greek literature is represented by the works of philosophers or sophists: Themistius, a political theoretician who advocated absolutism; Himerius of Prusias; and above all Libanius of Antioch, whose correspondence and political discourses from the Theodosian period bear witness to his perspicacity and, often, to his courage.

Script kiddos...

Once, I had a long discussion with some people on this topic. I was arguing that all Indian scripts must be written in one script- Roman, devanagari, Malayalam, Bengali or whatever, you make one up, if you find choosing one of 'em to be favoring a culture.

I don't really mind anyone being selected because except Tamil, most of these Indian scripts are very recent. Hence, the whole argument of preserving the age-old tradition with a script doesn't hold too strong.

Not only that these scripts are recent - the linguistic identity (which gives birth to strong regionalism in Indian states) is a very post-colonial influence. Those who had the chance to know about more than a language (and here, for example, I don't mean the ability to buy cigarettes from a bhaiya panwallah or comprehension of bollywood trash to be counted as knowledge of Hindi; I mean those have explored literature of two or more languages) would really appreciate this fact. There was Western style literature (novels, essays, articles) written before we came into the contact with West. It was all about poetry-religion, with the common people having no concern with the habit of reading/writing. Even writing letters was something that only high-class people did. Back then, not surprisingly, the choice of scripts wasn't too big a deal. A bunch of Brahmins or Buddhist monks, would start compiling some new stuff, and transfer that to their generations - and Voila! we got a new script launched. Even those people were not too picky about the scripts, not as half as the regionalists are in India these days.

Its just ridiculous to see that most Indian languages, write the same ka, kha, ga, gha in umpteen no. of ways, each with their own regional nationalistic justification "don't write in devanagari, we would loose our identity" As if our ancestors wanted 'ka' to be written only this particular twisted way. Yet another hypocrisy, I must say; yet another way how Indians only sanctify the culture instead of contributing to it, just the way British wanted them to be in 19th century. Do people have any idea how easy it becomes to learn other languages, if the script is common. On top of that does it not complicate matters for two languages to have different scripts, despite being very very similar? why disable people of reading other languages even if they know those langauges are so much the same?

Pakistan (like other Islamic nations except the turkey kinds) would write all their languages in Nastaliq. All European languages would be written in Roman (without anyone worrying how ) East Europeans are switching to Roman instead of Cyrillic- They all know that scripts are meant to spread knowledge- to make sure that it reaches more people. It really helps if everyone writes in the same script for the reasons a script is meant for.

Pardon my rants- i must admit that all this comes after someone like me knows to read > 10 scripts, but would always fail at achieving the same reading speed with all of them. It would help "big time" if bongs, Pakistanis, marathis, gujjus, punjabis(whatever little they write [;)]), bhaiyas(whatever trash they write) all write in one script.

On a lighter note, some scripts are "evil"- their characters are so pointed that its likely for most westerners to associate it with devil. Not that its a reason, but if you can go all English for globalization, why not just imbibe this little thing. Its natural...right? Why create a whole confusion? Imposition of a script on an evolving language is tantamount to bigotry- causing language enthusiasts like myself to suffer.

The script used for Urdu (nastaliq) is alright for most Hindi work. Its extended alphabet includes many of the letters which are not there in Arabic or Persian. The very basic sounds of Ta (as in tomato) and kha (as in khel, khana) - Its perfectly alright to invent new symbols in the target script (extend its alphabet to the source language) That is how Urdu evolved, not among the bigots and grammarians, but among the common people; it opened the locked doors in the people of North India; it made foreigners appreciate the beauty of the local languages, and the natives acquire a common language for a unified and uniform culture.

Where are we now? Why can't one further step be taken? Why is one script not extended to other languages. Instead, what folks are busy doing is to associate Urdu with Muslims... make them even more untouchable than it has increasingly become.

People need to inculcate love and feel for languages amongst themselves. I know that its really very antagonistic. One one hand, when everything is going English (and most Indian don't know crap about their own languages) the issues of linguistic identity become more important. You need not have read the great stuff in your local language, but you feel like extolling its marvel...its easier to that now, because you don't even happen to read it anymore, being busy with the English reading list. So, you would easily spot a bong, who never read a short story by Rabindranath, but would go ahead telling you how great he really was! Or even worse is this -you might know premchand was a great writer- but because you read his stories translated in English.


For this neo-rich metropolite class, I have no suggestions anyways. I think the real problem is that - the space for local languages in our lives is shrinking day by day. In that case, it really doesn't become feasible to think of a common language seeking base in local languages. What we have right now, instead, is some made-up crap to bolster our regional identity- which doesn't have to be necessarily meaningful. No wonder all local arts- literature in India is declining. At this rate, there would be no local languages 50 years from now.

What we could probably do is try to understand what Indian culture really means to us, and let it grow instead of containing it in our colonial prejudices.

end-game

My only contention with Ambedkarism is because Budhhism should not be interpreted as just a hindu-hating recalcitration. The pantheistic idea of gods among hindus (being illusory as Hindus themselves would agree) is more friendly to budhhism than assertion of a supreme God that rules us all. And when I say friendly, I don't mean that it is just a feeling of harmony. Instead, it is so that a Hindu doesn't have to face a social obstruction for moving to truth or the path Buddha took. His duties are not imposed by the Supreme, but are only dynamics of his society; he doesn't think that things go bad because of the devil's designs. Ideally, he knows that realization individual self is false, he knows that soul is a non-entity. Theoretically, the Hindu gods are not the instances of God either. There is a big difference between praying God and worshipping a god (mark the difference between pantheism and monotheism). It is for those reasons that I say Hinduism is not too much antagonistic to Buddhism. (and I am talking philosophy here)

I know that one can easily come up with instances in Chinese buddhism which contradict some of the things that modern Hindus have incorporated, but again Hindu is a medieval term, it is always incorrect to say that Buddhism came out of Hinduism, in the literal sense. On the top of that, I agree that practically we see things a lot different among hindus (than it should be according to Vedanta) but thats more because of political reasons in general than any proposed 'brahmin conspiracy' (or should we not be more just by putting brahmin conspiracy under political reasons rather than the essence of Hinduism) ?

Frankly, I have problems with the whole 19th century way of classifying Eastern religion as such, and trust me, I am not the only one. There are umpteen reasons why eastern religion (or eastern philosophy) should not be approached just by finding equivalents of a central scripture (bible/quran), a religious head (pope/ulema) – which I (like many others) think, would be inherently erroneous. Such an error is evident not just in the differences that a 19th century indologist would cite between buddhism or hinduism, but also in the classification of various 'sects' withing buddhism itself in the buddhist countries (comparing thailand or sri Lanka for instance)

Intrestingly, Jainism has enough reasons to curse Brahmins as much as anyone else. They have been assimilated manipulatively too. Jains would not submit to Vedanta (They never were adherent to Vedanta historically) but still the evil brahmin mind could gel them in. You would seldom find a Jain who would refuse to accompany a Hindu to a temple. After a few 19th century revivals, you would easily find Jains marrying so called Vedantists (or mainstream Hindus, might I say) too.

Honestly, with demise of Hinduism and buddhism in India and the onslaught of some chauvinistic confused revivals, I see more days of intellectual bankrupcy in India.

Nostalghia

My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?

Charlie Kauffman and the coffee shop

A u-turn I had taken in life once was to keep the faith in 'love' as a feeling. It was too corny of a confession but, I didn't mean the 'corny' way - I was just saying that you gotta acknowledge love, if you really can't deny it completely.

Actually, the way I wanted to say so was that I didn't feel the need for any human language to have to separate words for passion and love. They are so much the same; They both are made up by those unbridled feelings that the only drive that carries you. I am even sure there would a good enough statistical correlation between true lovers, and people passionate about something, anything.

Charlie Kauffman's movies actually helped in that assertion; some of them even changed the way I used to look at things. Not sure, if his movies would contribute to existentialism too but at least my interpretations would. In "adaptation" and more so in 'TESoASM' the idea of loving what you love is defended to its best, without having any expectations from what you love because thats what love is all about. It is, only if it is unrequited. If its not unrequited, it would be just an agreement. If its an agreement, you would find something to trade it for. So, it can't be love... i think that is right. You gotta love few things in life, and love them with no expectations (the last one was from software design, not from existentialism nor kauffman)

What I think of Indian commies...

WB commies are not surviving in Bengal because of the supremacy of their ideology, but because of their experience in harboring pro-bengali sentiments since a long time back. People go and vote for WB commies because its portrayed as a bengali party. Leaders from all other parties in Bengal would be adequately branded foreign and hostile to Bengal, by these marxists. The lower world of criminals and union-leaders is so strong and interlinked, that almost no free political thought can take hold in Bengal. The Bengal of British times, seems to be 'gone with the Raj'.

Ironically enough, these so-called Marxists, exercise all nasty machiaveliian political tactics, expoiting the very malpractices in Indian society, which their intellectuals are found tirading against. In the villages of bengal, the new untouchables are those who don't support CPI. Its the same play goin' on in Bengal, where marxists have just changed the names of the characters, to give this whole game a humanitarian edge, or probably to hybridize marxist socialism and Bengali identity into their own kinda communism.

I would say leftists in India don't have an ideology. They have to save their butt by being a good regional party. Throughout all their history, from the intellectuals to the leaders, they have always said what the indian educated class wants them to say. At times, they have even ridiculously changed stances, like in the time of world war. They remain nothing more than whores of elitism, controlled by big business houses, but still trying to sell their ideas of socialistic justice, reflected nowhere in their own actions. If they represent anything in india, its only the bankrupcy of ideas and hypocrisy.
delete

my rant on religion

do unto others as you would they do unto you.

This ethic is based on individuality, and the ablilty of an individual to make choices that seemingly govern his fate. To be frank, this has roots in an existing christian ethic. In this particular case, existence of an individual has to be assumed. Since hindu/buddhists don't believe in individual entity, it really doesn't make sense to govern their ethics on this rather than the fatalistic notion of karma.

The reason why atheism has been as vain, as any other theism [on a rational ground] is that it can't really detach itself from either cultural or philosophical norms rooted in other religions. In this ethic, for example, the regular individuality is assumed. So, on one hand, where this can help people detach themselves from church, on the other, it doesn't really give them a belief system very different from one based in christianity.

These atheists can remove the religion, like they adequately have by separating state and church. But then, saying that all what church has given to world is irrationality in superstition, is difficult for its denial of the fact that the work culture everyone works in is governed by the puritan work ethic; or the fact that the ideals of freedom of individual, equality are mere post-renaissance reformulations of 'God lies in everyone's heart' against the earlier times when 'king deified was god'

Point being - every ethics is governed by a certain philosophy, and before philosophy was separated from church, religion was the sole contributor to philosophy. Since philosophy can't be denied yet, nor can its basis in a certain religion. isliye bachchon, thhoda religion padh lo
delete

Saying that [i]moral and spiritual aspects of all religions are at their core identical, when the religions themselves are so different[/i] is wrong too.At least the moral aspects of Hindu-budhhist religions are completely different from judaist ones, in the very essence, from belief in an individual's soul to 'duty' of an individual. Budhhits/hindus don't believe in individual soul, and their notion of dharma is very different from 'duty' of an individual too.

That all religions are same is generally said, I think, to point out that every religion was meant to administer people, tell people not to fight each other, stay happy and cool, blah blah blah. However, it doesn't make sense, because you're saying that current form of ethics was the hidden motive of ancient religions, which of course, is a self-satisfied argument. Most of the religions were removed/changed adequately to fit certain standards through history. I don't really see why the essence of all religions should be considered same, when they were so strongly motivated to end each other, both in idea and material. What is the common essence, in that case?

The argument that religion is just about imposing a certain morality is not ture either. Philosophy has been the main course of all religions. Religion didn't start in India for instance, because some romanticist brahmins crafted a system where everyone would be happy. It was only a philosophical quest that started religion, to justify/understand whats right or wrong. So, was it for most of the philosophers all over the world Greece-Rome-Mesopotamia... Pagans' cultural traditions were removed, but the philosophical tradition was cherished, even by christians and muslims. Because of the inherent re-ordering after the spread of chrisitanity, there are still a lot of conflicting beliefs in the religion, which translates into a lot of philosophical debate on morals in our times. for example,

1- Belief in soul, is orignially not a christian concept. Greeks were the ones who believe in it. A jehovah witness for example won't believe in soul, on grounds of its absence in the revealed scriptures. Christian belief being a melange of a lot of faith, does have this concept as its central belief, however.

2- Likewise, belief in atman, and not soul is an essential part of hindu-buddhist religion. Most of the hindus don't know that.

3- Most of the pagan traditions of Roman Catholic church are because of the roman empire. The pope for example, served only as a substitute for roman pontiffs, pretty much antagonistic to the idea that divinity can't be in a mortal. Greeks-Romans form the heart of western epistemology, the reason why later, it strengthened itself to get separated from church; the latter having once suppressed the former.