From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 16374
Date: 2002-10-17
Strictly, yes, lol! But isn't Hinduism the closest we now have to
classical religion? I can't think of any closer system not
considered whacky in its locales.
Quite simply, no. The current religion that goes by the name "Hinduism" bears, at most, as much resemblance to the strictly Indo-European Vedism as Christianity does to Judaism. Vedism was indeed close to classical religion. However, it could not be said to have been closer to it than any other of the Indo-European religions. I personally find a particularly close correspondence between what we can reconstruct of pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion and Roman Paganism. I suspect, however, that in this case we are dealing with a form of Hindu nationalism, which solves the question of how Sanskrit could possibly be autochthonous by asserting that it was essentially that which others call "Proto-Indo-European," and that the other IE languages are actually descended from it. Along with this goes the idea that Hinduism was the earliest religion, and that it was carried along with the IE language out of India into Europe, thus making European Pagan religions degenerate forms of the Hindu religion which, the theory goes, was maintained in its purity in India. There is so much wrong with this that it is difficult to know where to start.
David Fickett-Wilbar
David Fickett-Wilbar