Questions on Ancient India, Gupta Civilization (Vanity)

[Appalled but Not Surprised]

Yes, life would be wonderful if we were all like the Indians. As long as nobody got to be any of the undercastes. /sarc.

India's a wonderful place but the racism there makes the stoniest redneck from the woods of Georgia look like a New York liberal by comparison.

[DeuceTraveler]

You'd love the websites I've gone through. I've learned today that:

1. "The Hindu religion is the most environmentally friendly religion in the world." No joke, it's on one of the major Hindu American websites. Wonder what they say now that India is industrializing.

2. That "the ancient Indians have never been a warlike race, the small kingdoms only sought to conquer what was always thought of as the territory of all Hindu people." Gee... I wonder what some of those losing Hindu kingdoms thought about their fellow peaceful neighbors. Also, I can only find excerpts on the war veda, the Siva Dhanur Veda. They have a lot of the peaceful documents in full, but I can only find bits and pieces of their war document which was considered the defining document of the Gupta civilization. The Gupta Empire is considered a golden age of India, but too bad there is little to be found on the net. Oh, and no historical mention at all on these sites of the death cults of Yama and Kali...

3. (My favorite) "The Hindu religion was very respectful towards women." This was followed by an American woman describing her time in India and how she was appalled that some of the temples used their priestesses as concubines this present day. Then she went and praised the practice since she met the women and their out of wedlock children and noted how happy they seemed. Also that they only had to sleep with strange men two hours out of the day, but during the other hours they were treated to horseback rides for free and playtime and all sorts of fun. So therefore it must be ok that she gets most of her exercise on her back... I wonder if any of those women are allowed to quit that job. She never mentioned that aspect.

[Appalled but Not Surprised]

Larry Gonick's CARTOON HISTORY OF THE WORLD VOL II has a great summation of Indian history, including the MAHABHARATA ("the very short version") summing the entire work up in two pages of cartoons (plus an additional halfpage on the BHAGAVAD-GITA, showing Krshna humming Beatles tunes as he urges Ajuna to kill his family cheerfully because it's his duty). Cheery stuff.

[neither-nor]

I dont know what your (DeuceTraveler) internet sources are but you can try going to this place. Go to

http://www.jnu.ac.in/

This is, for my money, the finest liberals arts university in India and right up there as a global institution. Go to the School of Social Sciences and try and find Professors/academicians in the history department. See if you can contact them.

[SunkenCiv]

This may help:

Google

Pinging the list in case anyone can help DeuceTraveler

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[DeuceTraveler]

Thanks, I appreciate it. I tried to boycott google after the whole google.cn thing, but I swear that no one else can hold a candle to how much internet info they can get for you. Ask Jeeves and Webcrawler just didn't have enough info that I was looking for.

[indcons]

Congrats on your proposed article. You may want to discuss Chandragupta Maurya, Chanakya, and the Age of the Guptas (which has ben justifiably termed India's Golden Age.

And don't worry - you don't have to read the Vedas. If you are going to treat this subject objectively, please contact me via FReepmail and I'll try to send you as much info/contacts that I can.

Good luck.

[indcons]

Can you folks help FReeper DeuceTraveler with this request? I will be sending him/her additional information too.

[CarrotAndStick]

Ping!

[Gengis Khan]

"India's a wonderful place but the racism there makes the stoniest redneck from the woods of Georgia look like a New York liberal by comparison."

Have you ever been to India? You don't sound very knowledgeable with that post of yours.

[CarrotAndStick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire

[Gengis Khan]

What exactly are you searching for Gupta period or the Vedas. Vedas were written millenia before the Gupta period. Gupta period saw the emergence of Buddhism.

[adam_az]

"The Hindu religion was very respectful towards women."

Burning the wife on her hubands funeral pyre was very respectful. Gag.

[adam_az]

The age of the Gupta's is NOW.

I'm in Santa Clara this week, and it seems that every other guy is named Gupta. ;)

[Little Ray]

And don't forget the lovely custom of suttee.

[SunkenCiv]

Here's another recent topic regarding India, but much too early of course. :')

India Cultivated Homegrown Farmers
Science News Online | 1-28-2006 | Bruce Bower
Posted on 01/31/2006 11:42:30 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1568824/posts

[DeuceTraveler]

An excellent idea! Thanks for the link. From the site it seems they are pretty fluent in English, which makes my contacting them a bit easier.

[NYer]

Perhaps you can help this freeper. Thanks