INDOLOGY Digest - 10 May 1999 to 11 May 1999 (#1999-55)

[Balaji Hebbar]

These  days  everyday  wants  to  be  "original",  "pure",  "primal"
etc.  Nobody  wants  to  be  known  as  "secondary",  "converted",
"derived"  etc.  We  have  plenty  of  that  floating  around  in
modern  India.  Scratch  the  surface  of  any  "original"  Hindu  and
s/he  will  have  you  believing  anything  under  the  Sun  including
Hindus  civilized  the  entire  world.  If  we  go  by  that,  we  would
have  to  abandon  all  serious  objective  Indological  scholarship.
Yet,  in  the  interest  of  true  objective  scholarship,  I  am  open
to  what  Mani  Varadarajan  has   said.

Also,  many  of  the  12  AzvAzhars  of  the  Shri-VaiShNava  tradition
were  not  brahmin.  Yet  they  are  held  in  the  highest  regard
(MunivAhana  for  one)  by  followers  of  that  tradition.  Further,
most  Jain  and  Buddhist  philosophers  were  themselves  of
brahminical  origin,  e.g.  BuddhaghoSha  in  Buddhism  and
HaribhadrasUri  in  Jainism  etc.

Thanks  for  the  info  on  the  Hemmiges.

Regards,
B.N.Hebbar