Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 5:56 am

Fragm. XVII.

Aelion, Hist. Anim. VIII. 7.

Of the Electric Eel


I learn from Megasthenes that there is in the Indian Sea a small kind of fish which is never seen when alive, as it always swims in deep water, and only floats on the surface after it is dead. Should any one touch it he becomes faint and swoons, — nay, even dies at last.  
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:10 am

Fragm. XVIII.

Pliny, Hist Nat. VI. 24. 1.

Of Taprobane.*


[*This island has been known by many names: —

1. Lanka. — The only name it goes by in Sanskrit, and quite, unknown to the Greeks and Romans.

2. Simundu or Palesimundu. — Probably a Greek form of the Sanskrit Pali-Simanta. This name had gone out of use before the time of Ptolemy the Geographer.

3. Taprobane. — Supposed to represent the Sanskrit Tamraparni ('red-leaved' or 'copper-coloured sand'), a slightly altered form of the Pali Tambapanni, which is found in the inscription of Asoka on the Girnar rock. Vide ante, vol. V. p. 272.

4. Salico (perhaps properly Saline), Serendivus, Sirlediba, Serendib, Zeilan, Ceylon. These are all considered to be derivatives from Sinala, the Pali form of Sinhala, 'the abode of lions.' The affix dib represents the Sanskrit dvipa, 'an island.']


Megasthenes says that Taprobane is separated from the mainland by a river; that the inhabitants are called Palaiogonoi,*...
The shortest distance between Sri Lanka and India is only 54.8 km, this part is also known as Palk Strait. The whole area of Sri Lanka is 445 km from North to South and 225 km from East to West.

-- Sri Lanka, by Natucate

[Lassen has tried to account for the name Palaiogonoi thus (Dissert de insula Taprob. p. 9): — "We must suppose that Megasthenes was acquainted with the Indian myth that the first inhabitants of the island were said to have been Rakshasas or giants, the sons of the progenitors of the world, whom he might not inaptly call Palaiogonoi." Against this it may be remarked that, by this unusual term and so uncommon, Megasthenes meant to name the nation, not describe it; and next that Megasthenes is not in the habit of translating names, but of rendering them according to sound with some degree of paronomasia (a play on words, a pun); lastly, that, shortly after, we find the name of Taprobane and of its capital [x], quite like to [x]. Accordingly as Lassen explains [x], the name of the capital, by the Sanskrit Pali-simanta ('head of the sacred doctrine'), I would also prefer to explain the name of the Palaiogonoi from the Sanskrit' Pali-janas (i.e. 'men of the sacred doctrine'). — Schwanbeck, p. 38, n. 35.]

... and that their country is more productive of gold and large pearls than India.

Solin. 53. 3.

Taprobane is separated front India by a river flowing between: for one part of it abounds with wild beasts and elephants much larger than India breeds, and man claims the other part.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:24 am

Fragm. XIX.

Antigon. Caryst. 647.

Of Marine Trees.


Megasthenes, the author of the Indika, mentions that trees grow in the Indian Sea.

Types of plants in the Indian Ocean: Seagrasses; Phytoplankton; Algae.

-- Types of Plants in the Indian Ocean, by sciencing.com
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:46 am

Fragm. XX.

Arr. Ind. 4. 2-13.

Of the Indus and the Ganges.*


[*Conf. Epit. 15- 19, and Notes on Arrian, Ind. Ant. vol. V. pp. 331, 332.]

See translation of Arrian.

Fragm. XX.B.

Pliny. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 9—22. 1.


The Prinas* ...

[*V. L. Pumas.]

... and the Cainas (a tributary of the Ganges) are both navigable rivers. The tribes which dwell by the Ganges are the Calingae,* ...

[*A great and widely diffused tribe settled mainly between the Mahanadi and the Godavari. Their capital was Partualis (called by Ptolemy Kalligra), on the Mahanadi, higher up than the site of Katak. The name is preserved in Koringa, a great port at the mouth of the Godavari.]

... nearest the sea, and higher up the Mandei, also the Malli, among whom is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that region being the Ganges.
Some have asserted that this river, like the Nile, rises from unknown sources, and in a similar way waters the country it flows through, while others trace its source to the Skythian mountains. Nineteen rivers are said to flow into it, of which, besides those already mentioned, the Condochates,* ...

[*V. LL. Canucam, Vamam.]

... Erannoboas, Cosoagus, and Sonus are navigable. According to other accounts, it bursts at once with thundering roar from its fountain, and tumbling down a steep and rocky channel lodges in a lake as soon as it reaches the level plain, whence it issues forth with a gentle current, being nowhere less than eight miles broad, while its mean breadth is a hundred stadia, and its least depth twenty fathoms.*

[*"The Bhagirati (which we shall here regard as the true Ganges) first comes to light near Gangotri, in the territory of Garhwal, in lat. 30° 54', long. 79° 7", issuing from under a very low arch, at the base of a great snow-bed, estimated to be 300 feet thick, which lies between the lofty mountains termed St. Patrick, St. George, and the Pyramid, the two higher having elevations above the sea, respectively, of 22,798 and 22,654 foot, and the other, on the opposite side, having an elevation of 21,379. From the brow of this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large and hoary icicles depend. They are formed by the freezing of the melted snow-water at the top of the bed; for in the middle of the day the sun is powerful, and the water produced by its action falls over this place in cascade, but is frozen at night .... At Sukhi the river may be said to break though the 'Himalaya Proper,' and the elevation of the waterway is here 7,608 feet. At Devprag it is joined on the left side by the Alaknanda. . . From Devprag the united stream is now called the Ganges ... Its descent by the Dehra Dun is rather rapid to Haridwar .... sometimes called Gangadwara, or 'the gate of the Ganges,' being situate on its western or right bank at the southern base of the Sivalik range, here intersected by a ravine or gorge by which the river, finally leaving the mountainous region, commences its course over the plains of Hindustan. The breadth of the river in the rainy season ... is represented to be a full mile." — Thornton.]

Solin. 52. 6-7.

In India the largest rivers are the Ganges and the Indus, — the Ganges, as some maintain, rising from uncertain sources, and, like the Nile, overflowing its banks; while, others think that it rises in the Skythian mountains. In India there is also the Hupanis,* ...

[*The same as the Huphasis or Satlej.]

... a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as the altars set up on its banks testify. The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and the greatest twenty. Its depth where least is fully one hundred feet.

In the deltaic portion the river-width ranges from 1.6 to 8 km.

-- Ganges River, by Banglapedia


Conf. Fragm. XXV. 1.

Some say that the least breadth is thirty stadia, but others only three; while Megasthenes says that the mean breadth is a hundred stadia [60,000 feet = 11.3 miles], and its least depth twenty orguiae.

According to Herodotus, one stadium was equal to 600 Greek feet (podes).

-- Stadion (unit), by Wikipedia
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:58 am

Fragm. XXI.

Arr. Ind. 6. 2-3.

Of the River Silas.*


[*Strab. 703, Diod. II, 37, and afterwards an anonymous writer whom Ruhnken (ad Callimach. fragm p. 448) has praised, and whose account may be read in Boisson. Anecd. Groec. I. 419. The name is written [x] in Diodorus, in Strabo [x], but best [x], in the epitome of Strabo and in the Anecd. Groec. Bahr, 369, has collected the passages from Ktesias. Lassen has also illustrated this fable (Zeitschrift. II. 63) from Indian literature: -- "The Indians think that the river Silas is in the north, that it petrifies everything plunged in it, whence everything sinks and nothing swims." (Conf. Mahabhdar. II. 1858.) Sila means 'a stone.' -- Schw. p. 37, n. 32.]

See translation of Arrian.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:00 am

Fragm. XXII.

Boissonade, Anecd. Graec. I. p. 419

Of the River Silas.


There is in India a river called the Silas, named after the fountain from which it flows, on which nothing will float that is thrown into it, but everything sinks to the bottom, contrary to the usual law.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:02 am

Fragm. XXIII.

Strabo, XV. i. 38,— p. 703.

Of the River Silas.


(Megasthenes says) that in the mountainous country is a river, the Silas, on the waters of which nothing will float. Demokritos, who had travelled over a large part of Asia, disbelieves this, and so does Aristotle.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:03 am

Fragm. XXIV.

Arr. Ind. 5. 2.

Of the Number of Indian Rivers.


See translation of Arrian.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:22 am

BOOK II.

Fragm. XXV.

Strab. XV. i. 35. 36,— p. 702.

Of the city Pataliputra.*


[*Conf. Epit. 36.]

According to Megasthenes the mean breadth (of the Ganges) is 100 stadia, and its least depth 20 fathoms. At the meeting of this river and another is situated Palibothra, a city eighty stadia in length and fifteen in breadth. It is of the shape of a parallelogram, and is girded with a wooden wall, pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows. It has a ditch in front for defence and for receiving the sewage of the city. The people in whose country this city is situated is the most distinguished in all India, and is called the Prasii. The king, in addition to his family name, must adopt the surname of Palibothros, as Sandrakottos, for instance, did, to whom Megasthenes was sent on an embassy. (This custom also prevails among the Parthians, for all are called Arsakai, though each has his own peculiar name, as Orodes, Phraates, or some other.)  

Then follow these words: —

"All the country beyond the Hupanis is allowed to be very fertile, but little is accurately known regarding it. Partly from ignorance and the remoteness of its situation, everything about it is exaggerated or represented as marvellous: for instance, there are the stories of the gold-digging ants, of animals and men of peculiar shapes, and possessing wonderful faculties; as the Seres, who, they say, are so long-lived that they attain an age beyond that of two hundred years.*

[*This was not the name of any particular nation, but was vaguely used to designate the inhabitants of the region producing silk, of which Ser is the name in Chinese and in Japanese. The general opinion places this region (Serica) in Eastern Mongolia and the north-east of China, but it has also been sought for in Eastern Turkestan, in the Himalaya towards the sources of the Ganges, in Assam, and even in Pegu. The name is first, met with in Ktesias.]

"They mention also an aristocratical form of government consisting of five thousand councillors, each of whom furnishes the state with an elephant."

According to Megasthenes the largest tigers are found in the country of the Prasii, &c.
(Cf. Fragm. XII.)
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:28 am

Fragm. XXVI.

Arr. Ind. 10.

Of Pataliputra and the Manners of the Indians.


It is farther said that the Indians do not rear monuments to the dead, but consider the virtues which men have displayed in life, and the songs in which their praises are celebrated, sufficient to preserve their memory after death. But of their cities it is said that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision, but that such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers or on the sea-coast are built of wood instead of brick, being meant to last only for a time,— so destructive are the heavy rains which pour down, and the rivers also when they overflow their banks and inundate the plains, — while those cities which stand on commanding situations and lofty eminences are built of brick and mud; that the greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite, — the Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers elsewhere; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it. Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570 towers and had four-and-sixty gates. The same writer tells us further this remarkable fact about India, that all the Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave. The Lakedaemonians and the Indians are here so far in agreement. The Lakedaemonians, however, hold the Helots as slaves, and these Helots do servile labour; but the Indians do not even use aliens as slaves, and much less a countryman of their own.
412. 'A Brahmen, who, by his power and through avarice, shall cause twice born men, girt with the sacrificial thread, to perform servile acts, such as washing his feet, without their consent, shall be fined by the king six hundred panas;

413. 'But a man of the servile class whether bought or unbought, he may compel to perform servile duty; because such a man was created by the Self-existent for the purpose of serving Brahmens:

414. 'A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude; for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?

415. 'There are servants of seven sorts; one made captive under a standard or in battle, one maintained in consideration of service, one born of a female slave in the house, one sold, or given, or inherited from ancestors, and one enslaved by way of punishment on his inability to pay a large fine.

416. 'Three persons, a wife, a son, and a slave, are declared by law to have in general no wealth exclusively their own: the wealth, which they may earn, is regularly acquired for the man to whom they belong.

417. 'A Brahmen may seize without hesitation, if he be distressed for a subsistence, the goods of his Sudra slave; for as that slave can have no property, his master may take his goods.


-- Institutes of Hindu Law: Or, The Ordinances of Menu, According to the Gloss of Culluca. Comprising the Indian System of Duties, Religious and Civil, Verbally translated from the original Sanscrit, With a Preface, by Sir William Jones

Orientalist scholarship had given the term arya a racial meaning of physical and cultural alterity. The Aryans were other than the indigenous population of India; they came from the margins... Western scholars believed that the etymology of the term varna linguistically supported the Aryan racial theory by its association with color and its reference to caste...

The racial connotation did, however, enter the discussion because of the juxtaposition of the arya with the dasa in the Rig Veda, where the dasa was described as dissimilar to the arya. Since Vedic references to the arya contrast him with the dasa, who was described as short and dark-complected, both were taken to represent two distinct racial types. The Aryans were believed to have invaded India, subjugating the natives (dasa/dasyu), who were believed to be racially different from them. The arya evolved later into the upper three castes with the dasa remaining the lowest. The Aryans were believed to be the white race. They enslaved the Dasas, a dark race, who eventually became the shudras. This racial interpretation of the arya/dasa as white/black largely prevailed among scholars and is still a common scholarly perception... The Sanskrit terms in question are elastic. In the passages customarily cited to support a racial reading, Vedic terms of "white" can equally be translated as "light," with the sense that the Aryans were forces of light or goodness. Similarly, the Sanskrit term for "black" (most often, krsna) can signify "darkness." In an "ideological" reading, those terms racially translated white/black can justifiably be rendered good/evil.

Those references to black skin also can elicit an alternate reading. The Sanskrit terms for skin in the pertinent Vedic citations (tvac) can just as easily signify the surface of the earth. These references could actually refer to the "dark world" of the Dasas as opposed to the "broad light" of the Aryans. The compounds krsnayonih and krsnagarbha have customarily been translated as "those with blacks in their wombs" or "pregnant with blacks." However, the Sanskrit also supports a reading of "having dark interiors" as in "those whose forts have dark interiors" or "the dark world where forts are located" as opposed to the light world of the Aryans...

The Aryans, deemed the founders of European and Asian civilization, entered from the borders and spread over the subcontinent. They settled Aryavarta by subjugating the indigenous Dasas. As victors, the Aryans were assumed to be superior to non-Aryans. They maintained their position of ascendancy through strict rules against racial miscegenation. With the implementation of the caste system, they protected their racial exclusivity, with the brahmins viewed as having preserved the purest Aryan strain...

The treatment of untouchability was truly horrific... in Poona, under the Peshwas, Untouchables were not allowed to use public streets if a Hindu was approaching, lest they pollute the Hindu with their shadow. Untouchables were required to wear a black thread on their necks or wrists to ward off Hindus, lest the Hindus be inadvertently polluted. They were to carry a broom strung from their waist to sweep away the dust that they tread. They were to hang an earthen pot from their neck to catch their spit, lest they defile the dirt upon which Hindus walk... as 1928 in central India, Untouchables could not wear clothing with colored or fancy borders. Women could not wear gold or silver ornaments. Untouchables must work without requesting any remuneration. They were not allowed to draw water from village wells or let their cattle graze on village lands. They were not allowed to walk through Hindu fields, and so forth. No fiction or mystification of caste by brahmin reformers could refute or obscure this brutal state of affairs...

Jotiba Govind Phule... launched an attack on the notion of Aryan racial superiority by identifying the Aryans as the perfidious barbarian aliens who had conquered the indigenous powerful social groups of the time, the shudras (Mahars and Mangs). Mere subjugation did not satisfy Aryan lust for power; they instituted caste isolation so that they and their descendants, the brahmins, could continue to oppress the indigenous population. Aryan brahmins sought to punish the shudras for eternity by depriving them of their rights and condemning them to ignorance...

If culture descended from the Aryan conquerers, then the traditional elite were essentially foreigners (Irani Aryabhats) who had overrun and enslaved the original and true Indians, the mass of peasants, tribals, and Untouchables... the high-caste Hindu, who was no less foreign than the English... the British... at least, aimed at an enlightened vision. The brahmins, however, were bound by villainous and treacherous traditions that had been devised as weapons by foreign forebears and wielded by their alien descendants... the Veda provided the key to unravel the mysteries of Indian identity...

It was through the authority vested in the Vedas that the alien Aryan usurpers fabricated their identity as brahmins and enslaved true Indians with draconian laws. By passing off "idle fantasies" as divine revelation, brahmins forced those whom they had conquered into serving them faithfully as the consummation of devotion. By "stealthily producing heaps of new scriptures," brahmins "brain-washed" the Dasas' descendants, the shudras, into believing them to be the descendants of Aryans. They further duped the shudras into thinking that by serving them and performing menial tasks, they fulfilled their religious obligations. Moreover, brahmins conspired to keep the shudras in ignorance by denying them access to true knowledge and controlling them with "unholy" law treatises...

[T]he Vedas [are] a form of false consciousness. As fictions of religious authority enshrined in scripture and given additional force through custom, the Vedas express nothing but brahmin greed...

Read correctly, the Vedas reveal a different message -- that the Dasyus were the original inhabitants of the land; they were brave, pure at heart, and upright in their conduct...

B.R. Ambedkar (1892-1956) belonged to the Untouchable Mahar caste of Maharashtra... Ambedkar dedicated his life to working for the advancement of his people...

The British government was beginning to address the low-caste needs that had gone unheard by caste Hindu society for centuries. Ambedkar contributed to the cause of low-caste reform by serving as a delegate to the London Round Table Conferences (1930-33), where he made the case for the recognition of Untouchables as a minority with a separate electorate.

Ambedkar would have been successful in London had not Gandhi manipulated the situation. Gandhi believed that the Untouchables should remain within the Hindu fold and seek redress for their treatment there. Ambedkar suspected this strategy to be a caste Hindu ploy to continue control of the lower castes and avoid strengthening the Moslem cause. He, therefore, opposed Gandhi's initiative. When it appeared that Ambedkar's opposition might succeed, Gandhi began a fast. The possibility that Gandhi might actually die put Ambedkar in an impossible position. The "Mahatma's" death would have certainly unleashed a bloodbath against the Untouchable community. Gandhi was as aware of this inevitability as was Ambedkar. Ambedkar had no choice but to acquiesce to Gandhi's strategem and capitulate, thereby forfeiting the opportunity of securing viable representation for his community under British rule...

While Gandhi proceeded with his method of pleading with caste Hindus to abolish untouchability, Ambedkar sought to secure basic rights that his community continued to be denied despite Congress's promises: He sought to obtain his people's rights of a temple entry, use of community wells, and other basic human rights. But here too, he failed...

His greatest service to India, however, was his chairmanship of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution... Even in this venture, Ambedkar had to wage a pitched battle for his people's rights to reasonable representation. By 1956, Ambedkar had had enough. He was disgusted with the continued impossibility of his people's condition. He was tired and ill. With the claim that he was born a Hindu but had no intention of dying a Hindu, since the religion offered him no human dignity, he converted to Buddhism, as did his followers. His commitment to the plight of his people spearheaded the mobilization of low-caste Hindus that took shape with the Dalit revolt in the seventies and continues to this day in the social and political struggle of the scheduled castes.

Ambedkar had begun his mission where Phule left off, by pointing out the fallacy of Indian social reform: Brahmin-based reform was a contradiction in terms. To expect a brahmin to revolt against social inequity was like expecting the British Parliament to pass an act requiring all blue-eyed babies to be murdered... He believed that if reformers really wanted to destroy caste, then they would have to destroy the authority of the Veda, since the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda gave the caturvarna its eternal and sacrosanct status as a system. By invoking the sanction of law, it presented caste as natural, ideal, sacred, and divine. The Rig Veda thus codified caste and ensured its continued application...

The Veda had the double advantage of being both a book and a revealed religion. Caste, if preached by the Vedas, became both sacred and uncontested; it automatically received the authority of the book and the sanctity of divine word. It had to be accepted as sacred, divine, and eternal truth; it could not be attacked, lest one risk the guilt of sacrilege. By giving caste a place in the Vedas, brahmins ensured their sacredness and invulnerability.

According to Ambedkar, the establishment of Vedic authority and infallibility involved a wide-reaching brahmin conspiracy to legitimate the caturvarna system and provide it with an impregnable line of defense. In any other society, the existence of hard and fast classes would have caused embarrassment and self-recrimination. Hindu society, however, evinced no such concerns. Thanks to the Purusha Sukta and the authority vested in the greatness of ancient Aryan civilization, brahmins could steadfastly maintain an iniquitous class stratification and justify their behavior. Since they held a monopoly over scholarship, they could safely benefit from a system that need never undergo scrutiny... no one had judged the Purusha Sukta immoral, criminal in intent, and antisocial in its results. By condemning the hymn, Ambedkar also condemned the Veda and the world of the Aryans... Since the Dasas were believed to have been conquered by the Aryans, their presumed descendants, the shudras, were seen to inherit their position of subservience legitimately...

The Aryans were steeped in the worst kind of debauchery of a social, religious, and spiritual nature. The rampant moral decay of this degraded society manifested itself in their devotion to human sacrifice and genital worship. They indulged in high-stakes gambling and were given over to drink and beef-eating. Even their women indulged in drunken excesses. Aryan society was also steeped in sexual immorality. As there were no rules prohibiting sexual activities, the Aryans engaged in polyandry, polygamy, and incest. They routinely performed sexual acts in public. They shared and rented out their women for sex or as breeding stock. Bestiality was prevalent. Aryan society was predicated upon class war and social degradation. Sacrifice, providing a setting for revelry, drunkenness, gambling, and sexual promiscuity, showcased Aryan carnage and debauchery. When humans were sacrificed, Aryans indulged in cannibalism. When they sacrificed animals, as in the ashvamedha, Aryans committed bestiality. Ambedkar claimed that this was the reality of the Aryan world and the ideal toward which highcaste reformers aspired.

Ambedkar judged Aryan religion as a mass of sacrificial, social, political, and sanitary rules possessing no universal value. He deemed that what Hindus called religion was nothing but an iniquitous code of ordinances supporting a class ethic that inspired no loyalty to ideals and deprived its adherents of moral freedom and spontaneity... Aryan religion was without spiritual content and supported by a canon saturated with wicked thoughts. In the Rig Veda, the Aryans did not pray for forgiveness of sins or deliverance from evil. Instead, they praised Indra for killing the pregnant wives of their enemies and otherwise bringing destruction to their foes. Since Aryan religion was never concerned with the righteous life, it should be destroyed. It had never even been a religion, but rather a compendium of laws in dire need of amendment or abolition...

Scientific evidence indicates that the brahmins and Untouchables belong to the same race. If the brahmins are Aryans, then so too are the Untouchables; just as if brahmins are Dravidians, so too are Untouchables.


-- Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, by Dorothy M. Figueira
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