Re: Aryan invasion theory and race

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@> wrote:
>
> > You have to show what was the
> > religion of these groups before their conversion to Hinduism, who
> > was converted by whom and how. There is a very specific reason why
> > I am asking you this question. Reason is in Hinduism prior to the
> > medieval times there was no "recipe" to make you a Hindu. You were
> > either born a Hindu or not. You could not "convert" to Hinduism.
>
>

The very term "conversion" is an inapt projection of a Christian-Islamic category onto the Indian situation. Conversion means embracing one religion and rejecting another, viz. your previous one. The paradigm case is the Frankish king Clovis, who "embraced what he had burnt and burnt what he had embraced" when he converted to Christianity. (In fact there is no indication that when still a Pagan, he ever burnt Christian cult objects the sway he was to destroy Pagan cult objects after embracing Christianity; that part of the phrase was already a Christian projection of Christian mores onto Paganism.) It implies distinct identities of religious belonging.

In ancient India, the use of the term is most often demonstrably misleading. Thus, it is often said that Ashoka "converted" to Buddhism. Yet, there is no indication he ever repudiated any earlier religion. The Buddha himself never rejected any religion. Just as nowadays people speak of "Jesus the Jew", we should acknowledge "Buddha the Hindu". Hinduism too welcomed people but without expecting of them that they shed earlier beliefs or practices, except those that violated specific Hindu taboos, e.g. after the taboo on cow-slaughter caught on, newcomers were expected to desist from slaughtering cows. But they were free to continue worshipping their tribal deities, which is how all these Kali-s and Murugan-s and Pochamma-s have entered the Hindu pantheon.

For, of course, Hinduism *did* welcome newcomers. As its "great tradition" spread from the Vedic heartland across the subcontinent, it integrated most Indians. Only, it normally didn't do so on an individual basis, as is done in Christianity, but collerctively. Entire tribes were integrated, becoming the castes (jati-s) of Hindu sciety. That is how the Shakas were integrated, abandoning their foreign identity.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "frabrig" <frabrig@...> wrote:
>
As I have noticed earlier on, even if all of these foreigners had been Buddhists (which is, however, not true because some of them were Hindus too -- see below), their descendants would have been absorbed into the Hindu caste population sooner or later, provided that that part of the Buddhist population of India was gradually reabsorbed into the Hindu caste system starting from the mid-first millennium CE (whereas another part of it was converted to Islam in the early-second millennium CE).
>

There was no "Hindu" identity then from which Buddhists could stand apart. In India, Buddhists have *always* been part of caste society. There was a doctrinal reabsorption of Buddhism into Hinduism, but there was never any need for the sociological reabsorption of Buddhists into caste society, for they never left it. Of all famous Buddhists with a bit of biography available, we know the caste identity (in philosophers, mostly Brahmin). In India, there never was a "Buddhist community" separate from Hindu caste society. The term "Buddhist" essentially means "Buddhist monk". There were "lay Buddhists" in the sense of devotees of the Buddha and sponsors of his monasteries, but this was not an exclusive identity and usually they patronized other religious people and institutions as well, just as most Hindu kings (including Pushyamitra, so often maligned as a persecutor of Buddhism) patronized Buddhist along with non-Buddhist religious establishments.

And of course, in India neither the Buddha nor Ashoka (though the latter meddled deeply in people's daily lives with some of his moralistic legislation) ever attempted to abolish caste or set up a caste-free alternative society. Comapre with Jains even today: though Western textbooks and their own media-savvy spokesmen say that jainism
is caste-free (though perhaps not a "revolt against caste", as is routinely, trendily and ludicrously claimed of Buddhism), the fact is that Jainism is cent per cent part of caste society. They are divided into castes, and these partly overlap with non-Jain Hindu castes. Jain Agarwals intermarry with Hindu Agarwals but not with Jain Oswals.


Buddhist monks were caste-free, but so are Hindu sannyasins, who renounce their caste marks and caste names upon ordination. Indian Buddhism patrons ("lay Buddhists") were all part of caste society. There were nonetheless also Buddhists who were not Hindu, viz. foreigners. One way to be accepted into Hindu society was for them to integrate into its Buddhist part. That till today is the way to become Hindu: get accepted as a member of a Hindu caste (by marrying into it) or, less convincingly, of a Hindu sect (by initiation into it), and other Hindus will accept you as "Hindu" on the say-so of the legitimate and established members of the Hindu community of which you have become a part. A Westerner who declares himself a Hindu, or who is given a quick diksha by a travelling guru without full integration into his own or any other really existing Hindu community is not taken seriously by Hindus in general. If Indian Buddhists of some status assured Brahmins that this or that Shaka or Huna is "one of us", then that would signal his acceptance into the larger Hindu society, but like every other Hindu he would in the first place be a member of his particular community. There are no generic Hindus.

For that reason, there is no such thing as an individual's "conversion to Hinduism". There is conversion, but of individuals into particular communities, if these were willing to integrate them; and there was plenty of *integration* of entire communities into the expanding Hindu civilization.

Kind regards,

KE