Vedas to Quran (V – Q) Part 2

“Irrevocable and Undisputable” The First Culture/Religion

Prologue

From the earliest time of human origin till about 10000 years back, Vedic culture was the religion, so to say, practiced in the world. The many historical incidents like, Arjun marrying  a nāg kanya called ‘Ulopi’ from Pāthāl (America*), the belief of the Mosque at Mecca  as an earlier temple of Shiva when King Vikramaditya was the ruler there  and, Shakuni of Mahābhārath to be a resident of Gāndħār (Afghanistan), all clearly establish the ancient spread of the culture of Bhārath all over the world. Remnants of the Indian Sub continental culture still available in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Java, Sumatra, China etc. give testimony to a wider spread of ancient Indian culture. The prevalent ancient culture of Māya in America had its strong association with the then Indian culture. The Parsee faith (Zorastrianism) is very much an offshoot of Vedic faith of those times. The Vedic culture also gave rise to Jainism and Buddhism. From Zorastrianism, sprouted the Jewish faith and later the Christian and Islamic faiths.

Hindu Dharm (Hinduism)

The currently in vogue Hindu Dħarm is nothing else but a rechristened name of Vedic Dħarm. Even though many linguistic experts believe the word ‘Hindu’ to be a corrupt or estranged pronunciation of ‘Sindħu’, is nevertheless not fully true. The word, Hindu, does not appear in Sanskrit scriptures older than 5000 years but it appears in the later Sanskrit scriptures. The word ‘Hindu’ was used in the scripture ‘Meruntam’ and, according to it, ‘Hindu is one who shows aversion towards base (mean, wicked or evil) deeds’.
* See elsewhere for pathal (America) and other lower worlds to be in this world only.

“Heenam cha dhooshyathyesh hindoorithyābhidħiyathe”│(Meruntham) 

The following is a verse recorded in ‘Rāmkosh’:

“Hindhooh dhushto na bhavathi nānāryo na vidhushaka sadhadħarm pālko vidhvān shrouth dħarm parāyanaha”│(Rāmkosh)

As per this, Hindu is never one who would indulge in evil, wicked or mean deeds but one, who adopts the path of righteousness and is noble, learned and strictly follows the righteous principles heard and recollected from the pronouncements of ancient seers.

According to ‘Kālika Purān’ – “yavanee yavanaiha krānthā hindhvo vindħyamāvishan” (Kālika Purān)

It means that, Hindus entered the part of Vindħyāchal.

The following finds mention in āyath 162 of an ancient scripture of Pārsi faith of Iran called ‘Shāthir’:

‘Akan virahmne vyās nām hindh│

Āmadh dhānā kee aklā chunā nesth’║

‘Choon vyās hindhee valoov āmadh│

Gasthāsap jarthasth rakh khvāndh’║

meaning, a scholar named Vyās has come from Hind. The King asked the local scholar-in-chief named, Jartħrusth to enter into spiritual discussion with Vyāsji. Vyāsji told him, ‘ma’n mardhe ham hindhee nijādh’ meaning, ‘I am a hindu of Hind-Desh’.

To implicate the meaning of the word, ‘Hindu’ in wrongful notions or concepts is indeed the sign of narrow mindedness. In fact, the real meaning of ‘Hindu’ is, ‘Hinasthi dhurithāni saha hindhu’ ; that is, ‘Hindu is one who annihilates one’s sins and bad qualities’.

Hindu Dħarm had been in vogue from the ancient times until now. The varied thoughts or opinions propagated by the followers of this Dħarm essentially to arrive at their avowed spiritual objective, gradually took the form of established sects like Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Dheivism or Shakthism, Jainism, Budħism, Sikhism etc, which are all sects that have basic connection with Hinduism and, their founders had been different individuals. It is a common belief that, one who practices the tenets of truth with mind, words and deeds taking testimonies from Ved, Scriptures, Upanishadhs etc. is a real Hindu.

Bhārath Varsh or the Indian subcontinent was the pioneer in spiritual pursuit and, this chosen land of sacred divinity lighted the first torch in search of truth. 

So, Sanatan Dharma/Vedic culture, which became Hinduism later, is unquestionably the oldest religion.

Since, Sanatana Dharma finds mention in the Rigveda, a cursory look at Vedas becomes imperative. The Vedas are the oldest scriptures of the world and they have been in existence from the beginning of the cosmos itself. They are the unworldly divine knowledge given to the world in the form of reverberating sound waves in the subtle cosmic environ. These sound waves were captured by the highly evolved rishis (sages) and transmitted to others orally. These early sages were of volitional creation of the Creator God and hence had superhuman powers. The understanding is that the four Vedas were perceived by four different sages. The different hymns of the Vedas were further elaborated by other sages and traditionally passed down from generation to generation by oral transmission. People of the earlier era had greater mental and neural capacity and hence they could remember everything that were heard. Obviously, there was a gradual and continuous reduction in the cerebral abilities of people down the line and a time came some 5000 thousand years back when the Vedas got written down.

The Vedas by all accounts appear to be the first divine transmission to the whole world or, humanity in general. It is indeed unfortunate that with the establishment of various religions, the wisdom of Vedas came to be associated or identified with Hindus or a scriptura non grata for other religious people. There is mention of a “Book of enlightenment” (Kitab Al- Munir) in Quran, a book that God* had sent at the very beginning. This book that finds mention in Quran is about the Vedas and nothing else. So, Vedas and Quran are the first and the last divine teachings that have come from above albeit from different levels#. It is rather unfortunate that ignorant humans, instead of seeing the reality of the one and only one Almighty God sending teachings at different times at different places, fight amongst themselves trapped in the cobweb of religions of their making and owning one book of teaching as theirs and disowning the other as not theirs. Out of misguided ignorance, people fail to see the truth and end up owning and disowning messengers/prophets and scriptures trapped in the canonical fissiparous religious ideologies perpetrated by the custodians of different religions. At no time has God dictated the establishment of religions in His name but man, in his game of ‘Up Manship’, created narrow confined religions and religious beliefs.  It is time that humans woke up and broke asunder the shackles of religious non-truths.

*See elsewhere for the identity of the word God appearing in different scriptures/discussions.

From the time of creation, messengers/prophets/incarnations have been gracing the earth at various times and at various places for the good of mankind.

In fact, there is mention in the Quran that nearly 124000 prophets/messengers had come in different parts of the world under command from the Supreme Lord.  All of them had not obviously come amongst the Semitic-origin religious communities and in fact, there is only a count of 25 of them.  All the three Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) put together, is only approximately 3500 years old.   Apparently, most of the others had come earlier at different times in different countries within various religious groups. 

 The very first messengers who performed their duties could be Swayambhuva Manu and the various Vedic seers as from the time of Human creation about 200 million years ago. Till about 5000 years back, Vedic culture or Sanatana Dharma was the one in vogue all over the world. These early humans who were pious and of noble nature were known as Aryans. From the time of Swayambhuva Manu till the time of Pandavas (about 5000years back) Aryan culture was in practice all over the world. This is proved on the authority of Maitreyopanishad which says, “Why!

# See ‘Hierarchy of Universes and their Lords

Besides these, there have been other mighty rulers who were the sovereign lords of the whole earth, such as, Sudyumna, Bhuridyumna, Indradyumna, Kuvalyashwa, Yanvanashwa, Baddyrashwa, Ashwapati, Shashavindu, Harishchandra, Ambrisha, Nanaktu, Saryati, Anarmya, Akshasena, and also such like emperors as Mauruta and Bharat” (Maittreyopanishad, 1, 4). The names of other sovereign rulers as swayambhuva etc. are clearly mentioned in the Mahabharata, the Manu Smriti and other authoritative books. Only the prejudiced, biased and ignorant fail to see the reality of these statements. Mind you, there is no known account of the state of affairs or of any culture prevalent for any part of the world until about 5000 years back. Please ask yourself, were there any recorded religions in the world in those early years of earth’s history?  The facts have to be seen unbiasedly and factually and not with jaundiced eyes.

All the knowledge and culture of the world in those years had originated from Aryavarta (Bharat then and now India) and Vedic culture was the first culture cum religion also known as Sanatana Dharma. This then spread to Afghanistan and Egypt, thence to Greece, Rome, the whole continent of Europe and thence to America and other countries.

When most of the learned men, kings, and emperors, sages and seers were killed or died during the great war of Mahabharata, the light of knowledge began to grow dim and with it, the dissemination of the Vedic religion came to an end.