ATTACK ON HINDUISM - PART 1

Sidhdhartha was a born prince.  On his birth, the court astrologers predicted that he would take up sanyas renouncing this worldly pleasures in search of truth.  The king therefore forbade him from leaving the palace and provided all the creature comforts within the palace.  He was married to Yashoda and had a son Rahul.  One day, as he was playing near the high ramparts of the palace he heard some one crying.  He had not heard such noise earlier and hence asked the soldier accompanying him as to what it was.  On hearing the answer, he wanted to see for himself the reason for the same.  He ordered that he be taken out of the palace to the streets of the town; where he saw misery, hunger, death and poverty.  He was taken aback with what he saw and when he returned to the palace, he decided to find what is death and the truth.  He left his young wife and son in the dead of the night and went in search of the truth.  He was enlightened under a great banyan tree at the place which is now the most revered Bodhgaya.  He was referred to as Budhdha.  The part of India which was ruled by his father was riddled with various religious practices which were not accepted by puritanical sanathana dharmis.  This forced Sidhdhartha to propagate his teachings of ahimsa, vegetarianism, attaining peace in life etc.  This teaching of his became a sensation and many people opted to follow his teachings leaving behind the strict, rituals bound Sanathana Dharma. Ashoka the conqueror of Kalinga and the emperor helped in spreading this new faith. The Budhdhism took roots in the country spreading from the plains of northern India to the deep south. 

Likewise, Mahaveer, campaigned for long forgotten ways of life of the earliest Tirthankara Rishabadeva and re-established his brand of seeking the truth and Jainism regained the position to be a new offshoot from the religious practices of Sanathana Dharma. It has to be remembered that both Sidhdhartha and Mahaveera both had strong roots in Sanathana Dharma.  Mahaveera had been trained to be a Jain monk with severe penances and observing severe austerities.  Both Sidhdhartha and Mahaveera looked down upon the various practices that were plaguing Sanathana Dharma.  Over a period of time, with support from the ruling elite and class, both these religions became wide spread and many got converted to be Buddhists or Jains to avoid persecution by the ruling elite.  It took the caliber of the person of Adhi Shankaracharya to re-establish the Sanathana Dharma to its past glory and also remove all the cob-webs in which it was mired.  It is seen that there were more than seventy odd different practices more than the major religions like Budhdhism and Jainism which were hampering the growth of Sanathana Dharma during the times of Shankara.  It is to him that we owe for the revival of Sanathana Dharma and its recast practices more towards Bakthi and less towards ritualisitic deeds.  

Be that as it may, the Christianity is reportedly entered the country in the 2nd CE when Thomas a disciple of Jesus Christ landed in Musiri on the western shores of the southern India.  It is the present day Kodungalloor in Kerala state.  But the history is replete with stories of recorded facts that the first mariner who landed on the western shores of southern India was Vasco-da-Gama who incidentally came to India via the sea route much later during the 15th CE.  If that be the case how the disciple of Christ could have landed in Musiri in the 2nd CE. What was the route chosen by him to travel to India? If he traveled by land why he went deep south when he could have been anywhere from today's Afghanistan to Burma in the north which were part of India then, or Gujarat coast, the towns there, were having trading relations with middle east countries even then,

The first act of missionaries in the country since the times of Thomas in India, let us forget how and when he reached the country, was to spread their brand of religion and seeking the truth.  The first act of the missionaries who landed on the Kerala coast were to convert the high class Hindus, viz., the Namboodiris.  The visiting missionaries possibly believed that the once converted Namboodiris talk about the new religion, the others would follow easily into their fold.  I was told by a Christian pastor from Kerala that there were times when the parishioners and a few priests themselves were sporting the tuft of hair on the head duly tied into a knot, and also wearing the sacred thread across their chests, both denoting that they were once Brahmins following the Sanathana Dharma.  With the advent of the European merchants with the missionaries following in their footsteps, first for trade and later for occupation, the conversion to Christianity became a big business. The Anglo Saxon traders and the missionaries acquired lots of land in the country and by the time they left the country the land holding under their control was transferred to the churches thereby making the church in the country the largest land owner outside of the government. 

The invasion of the country from the cold central plains of Asia and the wastelands to the west of the country beyond the Bolan and Khyber mountain passes resulted in power struggle with the local kings who were already at war with themselves for supremacy.  The invading armies of the followers of Islam were armed with better weapons and fast moving horses from deserts of Arabia.  This proved too much for the Hindu kings who were divided into small kingdoms along the Gangetic plains.  The invading armies spent no time in over running these divided houses and took control of their kingdoms to consolidate into a single empire.  The riches in the Indo Gangetic plains attracted these marauders to the country.  They were enamoured by the rich tapestry and the living conditions of the local and were jealous of that compared to their nomadic ways of life.  But their fratricide, patricide etc. which was common among the nomads of the desert continued in India as well.  The ruthless acts of the victors in getting the local people follow their religious faith cannot be condensed into a few paragraphs.  The victorious armies of the Moghuls and followers of Islam took millions of Hindu ladies as sex slave,  burnt the treasure of the local poeple's literature, killed the menfolk, looted the temples, and what not.  A few places alone escaped the serious impacts of their atrocities.  A major portion of the Hindus along the Gangetic plains were converted to Islam. Some of the Mughal rulers entered into marital alliances with the local kings and the queens that they got for themselves became followers of the new faith.

The story in south India was no different.  With the huge empire cracking the local governors posted in southern provinces became too powerful and remained aloof and cut off from the ruler in Delhi.  This paved the way for the Deccan Sultans and their story of terrorising the people to follow the religion of the sultan.  The history of Tipu Sultan and his terrorising the entire population of the present day north Kerala or parts of Mysore to follow Islam is a material for a separate thesis. Many were forcefully converted to Islam. This warranted the local Hindu Kings, post demise of Tipus Sultan,  to entice the Brahmin priests from some districts along Kavery to relocate to their kingdoms with money and material for doing the daily worship in the temples that were renovated by them.  

Despite all this history, the saga of conversion has not stopped. It is continuing in its own rightful way with parts of the country's demographic distribution alarmingly swayed in favour of a particular religious community.  This is posing some serious challenges to the administration of the country as there has been a staunch opposition to the common civil code.  There are resistances to the introduction of common law for all though the constitution provides for the same.  There is also a demand for bifurcating the states into smaller units to provide a state with a particular community in majority in that state. The conversion efforts of the various NGOs associated with the churches were severely hampered after the government came down heavily on foreign donations and improper accounting.  This action of the government has incited some of the church leaders in crying wolf that there is no safety for Christians in India.  It is ironical to see that these church leaders kept their counsel and did not open their mouth when there were spate of allegations against some of the priests alleging human organ trafficking, baby selling, sexual misconduct etc.  

There are many who believe that Sanathana Dharma had seen and undergone many trials and tribulations in the past during many years and survived, therefore, it will survive the present onslaught of those who are bent upon mass conversion to see the extinction of Sanathana Dharma.  But the times have changed a lot from what it was prior to Adi Shankara to date. There had been overt and covert support to the other religions by the successive governments.  There is blind opposition to the plans of the government for improving the economy of the country by vested interests supported by religious groups. The deep pockets of the supporters from their oil economy and developed economic status is covertly supporting the plans of setting up a Caliphate. The gullible poor of the majority faith gets easily swayed by money and promise of better lively hood. These are pointers that the practitioners of the Sanathana Dharma are against a very big and thick wall to surmount to keep their faith intact.