Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: Significance of India
What is the significance of the land of suncontinent. All the avatar before hazrat Ali (a.s) are either born in subcontinent or came to subcontinent. we also believe that the last avatar will also come in subcontinent for the restablishment of truth (our imam as Qaim). Why the land of subcontinent has tremendious value.
The following are pertinent footnotes in God Talks to Arjuna, The Bhagavad Gita on this matter.
* The testament of the Hindu scriptures is that India's civilization goes back far earlier than contemporary Western historians acknowledge. Swami Sri Yukteswar, in The Holy Science (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship), calculates that the Golden Age, in which India's spiritual and material civilization reached its pinnacle, ended about 6700 B.C.—having flowered for many thousands of years before that. India's scriptural literature lists many generations of kings and sages who lived prior to the events that are the main subject of the Mahabharata. In the Gita itself, Krishna describes the long descent of India's spiritual culture from a Golden Age to his own era, as the knowledge of yoga gradually was lost. "Most anthropologists, believing that 10,000 years ago humanity was living in a barbarous Stone Age, summarily dismiss as 'myths' the widespread traditions of very ancient civilizations in Lemuria, Atlantis, India, China, Japan, Egypt, Mexico, and many other lands," a passage in Autobiography of a Yogi reads. Recent scientific research, however, is beginning to suggest that the truth of ancient chronologies be reevaluated. (Publisher's Note)
* Of the Gita's author, the celebrated German philosopher A. W. Schlegel wrote in the foreword to his Latin translation of the Gita: "O thou sacred singer, thou inspired interpreter of divinity! Whatever may have been thy name among mortals, I bow before thee! Hail to thee, author of that mighty poem, whose oracles lift up the soul in joy ineffable, toward all that is sublime, eternal, and divine! Full of veneration, I salute thee above all singers, and I worship unceasingly by the trace of thy footsteps."
"The very name we know India by, Bharata, gives us the necessary clue. Bha means light and knowledge, and rata means devoted. Bharata means devoted to light as against darkness....We have this unique feature with regard to our Sanskrit literature, that the language, the rules of grammar, the diction, etc., necessitates the use of words for denoting objects in such a manner that the philosophy, the science, and the theology behind the whole thing is clear....The rules of the language dictate that every object is to be named with a significance of its own. Significance, not merely explaining its present condition, its present meaning, exigencies, requirements, etc., but how the name should be justified by actual action.... So Bharata is not the name of a mere geographical entity placed in some corner of the world and having its geographical, topographical, and other limitations. Bharata stands for every individual soul that has this idea of light, the dedication to the light, as against immersion in darkness. So we speak of the light that God's creation of the world began with, and we think of the Light that India claims to be its chief aspiration, its chief, its most important and most valued goal....
"Looking at the great major centers of civilization that flourished in those ancient times, we find four: (1) along the Nile in Egypt, (2) along the Tigris and the Euphrates in the Middle East—Mesopotamia, (3) along the Yangtze (Ch'ang) and the Yellow River (Huang Ho) in China, and (4) along the Indus in India. What has happened to all these civilizations?... And yet, in the land of the Indus and the Ganges, that perennial, ancient stream of wisdom still flows with the same vigor."
"In each century India has given birth to lofty spiritual personages. Though she has reached great heights in every field of culture, when that tradition declined somewhat in material terms, its spiritual luster was nevertheless upheld by these luminaries who appeared, one after another, upon the Indian scene."
At the time India was conquered by Western colonial powers, according to historian Dr. J. T. Sunderland, she was the wealthiest nation on the globe: "This [material] wealth was created by the Hindus' vast and varied industries. Nearly every kind of manufacture or product known to the civilized world—nearly every kind of creation of man's hand and brain, existing anywhere and prized either for its utility or beauty— had long, long been produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or any other in Asia" (India in Bondage, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929).
"Let us remember," wrote the eminent historian and philosopher Will Durant (in The Case for India, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), "that India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages; that she was the mother of our philosophy, mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother...of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
World religions authority Huston Smith recalls that in the 1950s the eminent British historian Arnold Toynbee predicted that in the 21st century "India the conquered would conquer her conquerors."
"He didn't mean by that that we would become Hindus," said Smith in an interview in the San Diego Union-Tribune, April 7, 1990. "What he meant was that basic Indian insights would find their way into our Western culture, and, because of their metaphysical and psychological profundity, our way of thinking in the West would be influenced by Indian thought just as Indian technology has been influenced by ours." (Publisher's Note)
That was a really good information. But i am wondering why Bharat was chosen ? Did Bharat had the most disobedient beings that God had to choose india, or it was the land of devotees that deserve the glimpse of Him. My o­ne friend told me that he had heard in a waez of Abu Aly, he mentioned that Our Guru Brahma requested Vishnu to visit (menifest in) Bharat (all the time) because of some reason i dont remember. if someone had heard that waez or know some significance of Bharat please share it.
Did Bharat had the most disobedient beings that God had to choose india, or it was the land of devotees that deserve the glimpse of Him.
This is an interesting observation! Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah in his memoir sated:
"First, however, we must ask ourselves why this final and consummate appearance of the Divine Will was granted to mankind, and what were its causes. All Islamic schools of thought accept it as a fundamental principle that for centuries, for thousands of years before the advent of Mohammed, there arose from time to time messengers, illumined by Divine Grace, for and among those races of the earth which had sufficiently advanced intellectually to comprehend such a message. Thus Abraham, Moses, Jesus and all the Prophets of Israel are universally accepted by Islam. Muslims indeed know no limitation merely to the Prophets of Israel; they are ready to admit that there were similar Divinely inspired messengers in other countriesGautama Buddha, Shri Krishna and Shri Ram in India, Socrates in Greece, the wise man of China and many other sages and saints among peoples and civilizations, trace of which we have lost. Thus man's soul has never been left without a specially inspired messenger from the soul that sustains, embraces and is the universe. Then what need was there for a Divine revelation to Mohammed ?"
As per the above bolded phrase, the people were advanced to accept the message. The divine always appears according to the capacity of the audience.....
Here is another view on same aspect. I want to clarify that I do NOT agree with this. This what many of the Hindus do believe about incarnations of Vishnu in India. Accroding to Ravishankar "All the incarnations of the Lord have happened in India.Further, most of the
world spiritual giants have come from this soil. As some mahatmas says, '
Like each soil is ideally suited for specific crops, like black soil for cotton
etc., the land of bharat was custom made for spiritual awakening"
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject: Re: Significance of India
adnan.ali wrote:
What is the significance of the land of suncontinent. All the avatar before hazrat Ali (a.s) are either born in subcontinent or came to subcontinent.
That is inaccurate. there are many names of Imam preceding the Das Avatar names in our Old Ghat pat ji Dua.
Only few names are from India out of at least 128 names of Imam we have [plus of course recently Aga Ali Shah, Sultan Muhammad shah]
Indian names do not necessarily mean they were in India. Example in ginans, sometime Mohamed Mustafa [PBUH] is called Mamad Mawji, it does not make of him an Indian or a Hindu
in fact some names of Imams before Das Avatar names in our religious documents are the same as names of divinity from Mesopotamia pre-India Imamate / pre Das Avatar era.
Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject: Re: Significance of India
Admin wrote:
adnan.ali wrote:
What is the significance of the land of suncontinent. All the avatar before hazrat Ali (a.s) are either born in subcontinent or came to subcontinent.
That is inaccurate. there are many names of Imam preceding the Das Avatar names in our Old Ghat pat ji Dua.
Only few names are from India out of at least 128 names of Imam we have [plus of course recently Aga Ali Shah, Sultan Muhammad shah]
Indian names do not necessarily mean they were in India. Example in ginans, sometime Mohamed Mustafa [PBUH] is called Mamad Mawji, it does not make of him an Indian or a Hindu
in fact some names of Imams before Das Avatar names in our religious documents are the same as names of divinity from Mesopotamia pre-India Imamate / pre Das Avatar era.
To ponder upon...
Ya Ali Madad,
Thats really interesting fact. Btw can you give example of some verses of Holy Ginans in which Prophet Muhammad is referred as Mamad Mawji?
The following are pertinent footnotes in God Talks to Arjuna, The Bhagavad Gita on this matter.
* The testament of the Hindu scriptures is that India's civilization goes back far earlier than contemporary Western historians acknowledge. Swami Sri Yukteswar, in The Holy Science (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship), calculates that the Golden Age, in which India's spiritual and material civilization reached its pinnacle, ended about 6700 B.C.—having flowered for many thousands of years before that. India's scriptural literature lists many generations of kings and sages who lived prior to the events that are the main subject of the Mahabharata. In the Gita itself, Krishna describes the long descent of India's spiritual culture from a Golden Age to his own era, as the knowledge of yoga gradually was lost. "Most anthropologists, believing that 10,000 years ago humanity was living in a barbarous Stone Age, summarily dismiss as 'myths' the widespread traditions of very ancient civilizations in Lemuria, Atlantis, India, China, Japan, Egypt, Mexico, and many other lands," a passage in Autobiography of a Yogi reads. Recent scientific research, however, is beginning to suggest that the truth of ancient chronologies be reevaluated. (Publisher's Note)
* Of the Gita's author, the celebrated German philosopher A. W. Schlegel wrote in the foreword to his Latin translation of the Gita: "O thou sacred singer, thou inspired interpreter of divinity! Whatever may have been thy name among mortals, I bow before thee! Hail to thee, author of that mighty poem, whose oracles lift up the soul in joy ineffable, toward all that is sublime, eternal, and divine! Full of veneration, I salute thee above all singers, and I worship unceasingly by the trace of thy footsteps."
"The very name we know India by, Bharata, gives us the necessary clue. Bha means light and knowledge, and rata means devoted. Bharata means devoted to light as against darkness....We have this unique feature with regard to our Sanskrit literature, that the language, the rules of grammar, the diction, etc., necessitates the use of words for denoting objects in such a manner that the philosophy, the science, and the theology behind the whole thing is clear....The rules of the language dictate that every object is to be named with a significance of its own. Significance, not merely explaining its present condition, its present meaning, exigencies, requirements, etc., but how the name should be justified by actual action.... So Bharata is not the name of a mere geographical entity placed in some corner of the world and having its geographical, topographical, and other limitations. Bharata stands for every individual soul that has this idea of light, the dedication to the light, as against immersion in darkness. So we speak of the light that God's creation of the world began with, and we think of the Light that India claims to be its chief aspiration, its chief, its most important and most valued goal....
"Looking at the great major centers of civilization that flourished in those ancient times, we find four: (1) along the Nile in Egypt, (2) along the Tigris and the Euphrates in the Middle East—Mesopotamia, (3) along the Yangtze (Ch'ang) and the Yellow River (Huang Ho) in China, and (4) along the Indus in India. What has happened to all these civilizations?... And yet, in the land of the Indus and the Ganges, that perennial, ancient stream of wisdom still flows with the same vigor."
"In each century India has given birth to lofty spiritual personages. Though she has reached great heights in every field of culture, when that tradition declined somewhat in material terms, its spiritual luster was nevertheless upheld by these luminaries who appeared, one after another, upon the Indian scene."
At the time India was conquered by Western colonial powers, according to historian Dr. J. T. Sunderland, she was the wealthiest nation on the globe: "This [material] wealth was created by the Hindus' vast and varied industries. Nearly every kind of manufacture or product known to the civilized world—nearly every kind of creation of man's hand and brain, existing anywhere and prized either for its utility or beauty— had long, long been produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or any other in Asia" (India in Bondage, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929).
"Let us remember," wrote the eminent historian and philosopher Will Durant (in The Case for India, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), "that India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages; that she was the mother of our philosophy, mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother...of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
World religions authority Huston Smith recalls that in the 1950s the eminent British historian Arnold Toynbee predicted that in the 21st century "India the conquered would conquer her conquerors."
"He didn't mean by that that we would become Hindus," said Smith in an interview in the San Diego Union-Tribune, April 7, 1990. "What he meant was that basic Indian insights would find their way into our Western culture, and, because of their metaphysical and psychological profundity, our way of thinking in the West would be influenced by Indian thought just as Indian technology has been influenced by ours." (Publisher's Note)
This may be something a bit off from this topic. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the contradiction between
1) the birth of Adam (as first man) happening around 6,000 years back, and
2) anthropologists have found modern human remains that validate that humans roamed the earth around 10,000 - 40,000 years back. They were capable of farming, language and social interactions etc as well.
The following are pertinent footnotes in God Talks to Arjuna, The Bhagavad Gita on this matter.
* The testament of the Hindu scriptures is that India's civilization goes back far earlier than contemporary Western historians acknowledge. Swami Sri Yukteswar, in The Holy Science (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship), calculates that the Golden Age, in which India's spiritual and material civilization reached its pinnacle, ended about 6700 B.C.—having flowered for many thousands of years before that. India's scriptural literature lists many generations of kings and sages who lived prior to the events that are the main subject of the Mahabharata. In the Gita itself, Krishna describes the long descent of India's spiritual culture from a Golden Age to his own era, as the knowledge of yoga gradually was lost. "Most anthropologists, believing that 10,000 years ago humanity was living in a barbarous Stone Age, summarily dismiss as 'myths' the widespread traditions of very ancient civilizations in Lemuria, Atlantis, India, China, Japan, Egypt, Mexico, and many other lands," a passage in Autobiography of a Yogi reads. Recent scientific research, however, is beginning to suggest that the truth of ancient chronologies be reevaluated. (Publisher's Note)
* Of the Gita's author, the celebrated German philosopher A. W. Schlegel wrote in the foreword to his Latin translation of the Gita: "O thou sacred singer, thou inspired interpreter of divinity! Whatever may have been thy name among mortals, I bow before thee! Hail to thee, author of that mighty poem, whose oracles lift up the soul in joy ineffable, toward all that is sublime, eternal, and divine! Full of veneration, I salute thee above all singers, and I worship unceasingly by the trace of thy footsteps."
"The very name we know India by, Bharata, gives us the necessary clue. Bha means light and knowledge, and rata means devoted. Bharata means devoted to light as against darkness....We have this unique feature with regard to our Sanskrit literature, that the language, the rules of grammar, the diction, etc., necessitates the use of words for denoting objects in such a manner that the philosophy, the science, and the theology behind the whole thing is clear....The rules of the language dictate that every object is to be named with a significance of its own. Significance, not merely explaining its present condition, its present meaning, exigencies, requirements, etc., but how the name should be justified by actual action.... So Bharata is not the name of a mere geographical entity placed in some corner of the world and having its geographical, topographical, and other limitations. Bharata stands for every individual soul that has this idea of light, the dedication to the light, as against immersion in darkness. So we speak of the light that God's creation of the world began with, and we think of the Light that India claims to be its chief aspiration, its chief, its most important and most valued goal....
"Looking at the great major centers of civilization that flourished in those ancient times, we find four: (1) along the Nile in Egypt, (2) along the Tigris and the Euphrates in the Middle East—Mesopotamia, (3) along the Yangtze (Ch'ang) and the Yellow River (Huang Ho) in China, and (4) along the Indus in India. What has happened to all these civilizations?... And yet, in the land of the Indus and the Ganges, that perennial, ancient stream of wisdom still flows with the same vigor."
"In each century India has given birth to lofty spiritual personages. Though she has reached great heights in every field of culture, when that tradition declined somewhat in material terms, its spiritual luster was nevertheless upheld by these luminaries who appeared, one after another, upon the Indian scene."
At the time India was conquered by Western colonial powers, according to historian Dr. J. T. Sunderland, she was the wealthiest nation on the globe: "This [material] wealth was created by the Hindus' vast and varied industries. Nearly every kind of manufacture or product known to the civilized world—nearly every kind of creation of man's hand and brain, existing anywhere and prized either for its utility or beauty— had long, long been produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or any other in Asia" (India in Bondage, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929).
"Let us remember," wrote the eminent historian and philosopher Will Durant (in The Case for India, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), "that India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages; that she was the mother of our philosophy, mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother...of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
World religions authority Huston Smith recalls that in the 1950s the eminent British historian Arnold Toynbee predicted that in the 21st century "India the conquered would conquer her conquerors."
"He didn't mean by that that we would become Hindus," said Smith in an interview in the San Diego Union-Tribune, April 7, 1990. "What he meant was that basic Indian insights would find their way into our Western culture, and, because of their metaphysical and psychological profundity, our way of thinking in the West would be influenced by Indian thought just as Indian technology has been influenced by ours." (Publisher's Note)
This may be something a bit off from this topic. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the contradiction between
1) the birth of Adam (as first man) happening around 6,000 years back, and
2) anthropologists have found modern human remains that validate that humans roamed the earth around 10,000 - 40,000 years back. They were capable of farming, language and social interactions etc as well.
Thanks
Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice.
It depends on what Adam you are referring to - Kmaherali probably can explain it better...there was the Adam that fell from the sky..and there was already an evolving Adam - Abul Bashr (unless I have that reversed like i usually do).
This may be something a bit off from this topic. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the contradiction between
1) the birth of Adam (as first man) happening around 6,000 years back, and
2) anthropologists have found modern human remains that validate that humans roamed the earth around 10,000 - 40,000 years back. They were capable of farming, language and social interactions etc as well.
Thanks
There is a difference between the historical Prophet Adam and Adam as the symbolic first man. There has been a discussion on this subject in this forum at:
Joined: 07 May 2008 Posts: 1139 Location: AUSTIN, TEXAS. U.S.A.
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:07 am Post subject:
And if any one like to listen waez of Rai Abu Ali on two Adams ( Adam Shafiullah and Adam abu Bashar please listen the waez # 522 this waez available in Ismaili.net waez section.
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:12 am Post subject: Re: Significance of India
adnan.ali wrote:
What is the significance of the land of suncontinent. All the avatar before hazrat Ali (a.s) are either born in subcontinent or came to subcontinent. we also believe that the last avatar will also come in subcontinent for the restablishment of truth (our imam as Qaim). Why the land of subcontinent has tremendious value.
Significance of India to who?
I am an Ismaili and I haven't heard the term Das Avatar before. Can you explain what is Das Avatar, please? Pardon my ignorance. You might very well know that Ismailis come from anywhere in the world and not only from India. I believe term Das Avatar is mainly in India, and I am not from India. Please someone correct me if I am wrong, and explain what does this term mean.
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:46 am Post subject: Re: Significance of India
haroon_adel wrote:
I am an Ismaili and I haven't heard the term Das Avatar before. Can you explain what is Das Avatar, please? Pardon my ignorance. You might very well know that Ismailis come from anywhere in the world and not only from India. I believe term Das Avatar is mainly in India, and I am not from India. Please someone correct me if I am wrong, and explain what does this term mean.
Thanks and Ya Ali Madad.
In short ‘Das Avtaar’ literally means ‘Ten Manifestations’. According to Satpanth view of history, the Lord manifested himself as or assumed ten physical forms to bring about major changes of cosmic significance. Their appearances brought about a new phases in history.
Further explanation and allusions are given in this forum at:
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