--- In cybalist@..., CeiSerith@... wrote:
> In a message dated 10/17/2002 2:53:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> richard.wordingham@... writes:
>
- In a message dated 10/17/2002 2:53:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
richard.wordingham@... writes:
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
*****
Before we start mixing up attitudes of today, with what may have
occurred 2500 years ago, why not consider the basic information, and
reflect on it for a few days, and indeed research it to the original
sources quoted !.
Once you start introducing nationalism and others issues, I find
things go off topic fairly quickly.
There is much that suggests the influence of Indian thought in Greek
and Christian ideas.
My interest is how language was affected in this process,
The direction is frankly irrelevant to me !
See my message on this list.
16369 Re: early Interaction of Indic and Greek tradtions
Ravi