hindu once again

[S Krishna]

>This parallels the preference of ISKCON to call itself a Vedic rather 
>than a Hindu movement. On the other hand, it is hard to see how *every* 
>place that is currently called a 'Hindu temple' could be called a 
'Vedic 
>temple'.
>



>> Vaishnavas (Jeeyar Swami) to get rid of the word Hindu and replace



May I know as to which Jeeyar Swami are you refering to? I think you
are refering to Tridandi chinna Srimannarayana Jeeyar Swami, a very
*political* kind of Swami. As to the word Hindu being a term of 
contempt, the arguement holds no water. No work on Hinduism ( even very 
polemical works by Hinduttva theoriticians mention this). I've read 
works by both Golwalkar and Hegdewar and neither of them mention 
anything about the word Hindu being a term of contempt.
  I believe that if you are basing this on the statement of the above
mentioned swami, you may be going for an incorrect interpretation 
because Jeeyar Swami, in addition to being politicised, is not very 
fluent in Hindi...he is a Telugu speaker who speaks a smattering of 
Tamil......his translation of something from Urdu/Persian need not be 
taken literally until it is backed up by some other claim.....During the 
Mughal days, "Kafir"(Infidel) was the "uncomplementary" way of refering 
to the Hindus. Pls note that people like Veer Savarkar, Hegdewar or Lal 
Kishan Advani who are more conversant with Hindi/Urdu
donot mention this at all....

 it with
>> either Vedic or Bharata. He said that the word, Hindu, came in to 
                   -------

The problem with "Bharata" is that it would translate as "Indian" which 
brings back to square one. Are all Bharateeya Hindu( or vice versa)?

As far as this "Veda" thing is concerned, Jeeyar
should know that there are *nonvedic* practises like the
recitation of the Sursagar,Ramacharitmanas etc done in temples
( when I say "nonvedic", I mean that these are part of the Hindu
religious tradition, but THE VEDAS DONOT TALK about them). So, if the 
tradition followed is not strictly Vedic, what is the big point in
calling them "Vedic" centers and giving rise to further confusion?
In all probability, you would have the same kind of debate that arose 
between the Tengalai and Vadagalai Srivaishnavas---should non-Sanskrit
texts be given the same status as Sanskrit texts? Would it be considered 
Vedic practice to chant anything other what is mentioned in the 
Vedas?...this would only be fertile ground for more divisions,splits 
etc.....In short, we are asking for unwanted trouble


Krishna

>> afterwards and in trying to get them to stop. For example, he is
>> encouraging groups like the "Hindu Society" or "Hindu Temple" to 
change
>> their name to Vedic Temple or Vedic Society, etc.
>> 
>> Claude Setzer,  cssetzer at mum.edu
>> 




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