Author: Radha Rajan
Publication: Vigilonline.com
Date: November 3, 2010
URL: http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1405&Itemid=1
Nations, nation-states, religions and civilizations
in their entirety have been irretrievably wiped off the face of the earth
by Islam and the Church; while there is no vestige of pre-Islamic and pre-Christian
religions in Rome, Greece, America and Africa, the Hindu nation, even after
the combined onslaught of Islam, the Church and Nehruvian secularism, has
emerged with its civilization, religion and culture intact. If anything, the
surge in Hindu determination to preserve Hindu dharma and protect the Hindu
nation from further predatory Abrahamic onslaught is only growing stronger.
Notwithstanding the yet floundering sense
of nation and nationhood afflicting English-educated Hindus since 1885 when
the Indian National Congress was created, and English-educated dark-white
Hindus who considered serving in colonial administration and the Bar and Judiciary
to be high honour, one Indian court while acknowledging that the Ramjanmabhumi
belongs to Hindus, however delivered a fork-tongued judgment on September
30, 2010. Even as they allowed the Janmabhumi to be returned to the Hindus,
two of the three judges, one Muslim and one Hindu handed over one-third of
ownership rights to Muslims, sure proof of the persistent floundering Hindu
consciousness, palpable fear of standing up to Muslim violence and our propensity
to grandstand to the international community, our commitment to secularism.
The territory of Ayodhya, land of the Ikshvakus
and far older than Srirama, was not for the judges of Allahabad High Court
to divide and distribute; juxtaposed against Hindu right to the Janmabhumi
in Ayodhya, the Muslim claim to the site of 'Babur's mosque' is bizarre to
be polite. Just as surreal and untenable would be Christian claims to Al Aqsa,
Muslim claims to Bethlehem and Jewish claims to the kabah in Mecca. Our lawyers,
judges and politicians who play God as a matter of right with the destiny
of the Hindu nation, must travel to Rome, Greece and Egypt for a better understanding
of their own responsibility to preserve the timeless Hindu religion and civilization
on its territory.
At the heart of Athens stands the Temple of
Olympian Zeus. This majestic temple, which was repeatedly razed to the ground
in numerous wars, was ordered to be rebuilt by Antiochos IV, the king of Syria
in 2nd century BC. However, Antiochos died soon thereafter and the temple
was completed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 131 AD. Of the 104 columns which
adorned the temple, each one standing loftily at 17 meters, only 16 remain
as ruins of an ancient religion and civilization, now forever dead.
The Temple of Poseidon, the god of the seas,
standing on a promontory in Sounion, the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula,
has fared no better. The ruins of this once powerful temple and the remnants
of a wall belonging to an ancient fort are all that remain of an important
period in Athenian history. Aegeus, king of Athens (the Aegean Sea bears his
name) threw himself from atop the Sounion cliff into the sea in despair when
he saw the ship carrying his son Theseus returning from Crete with a black
sail instead of white, which meant that his son Theseus had been killed in
the battle with the Minotaur. The Temple of Poseidon was the beacon and sanctuary
of Athens' sea-faring warriors, fishermen, and traders alike.
Of the 42 magnificent marble columns in the
temple, only 18 remain today. It is the same wretched story across Rome, Florence,
Venice, Athens and Delphi. Temples to Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Saturn,
Mars, Mercury and Venus, all made of Parian and Pentelic marble, have been
reduced to rubble, to broken stones, desolate pillars and lonely columns,
disfigured deities and empty prayer halls, all standing accusingly under the
open sky. Of the once all-powerful Delphi Oracle, there is no sign.
The Propylaea, Parthenon, the Erectheion on
the Acropolis, temples to Athena Nike and Apollo in Athens and Delphi, the
Roman Forum, Caesar's grave and the Roman Pantheon with its temples to several
gods and goddesses, have been destroyed, plundered, looted, mutilated not
only by Persians, Goths, Visigoths and Vandals but also by early Christians,
medieval and post-medieval Popes and by Turkish Islamic hordes; and of course
the accursed Lord Elgin. Now we know the etymology for 'vandalism'. Beginning
from the 3rd century AD and until the present day, the Church has planted
the cross in temples, shrines and other monuments belonging to other faiths.
Thus we can see the tragicomic cross in the Roman Pantheon, in the Roman Agora,
in Hadrian's Library, in a small pre-Christian shrine across the Loch Ness
and of course in the Sri Kapaleeswarar Temple in Santhome, Chennai.
Damiano, my guide who conducted me across
the Roman Forum and the Pantheon is a student of History and History of Art.
To a pointed question addressed to him privately about the tonnes of missing
marbles and bronzes of his country's history and religion, Damiano remarked
bitingly, that if I had a discerning eye, I would see entire marble canopies,
uprooted pillars, pediments, columns, marble and bronze sculptures in the
churches across Italy, in the Vatican, in private collections put together
from plunder and public auctions in the homes of the rich and infamous around
the world. Of course, he added bitterly, if you travel to Paris and London,
you will see most of the plundered history of Rome, Greece and Egypt in the
Louvre and British Museum; which I did.
All of this has a bearing on the judgment
on Ramjanmabhumi and its significance for this nation. The passionate desire
of the people of Rome and Greece to preserve the wretched ruins, their relentless
battle to reclaim the priceless items of their pre-Christian heritage now
housed in museums outside their countries and bring them home to where they
belong, is rooted in the primordial need of man and nations to root their
self-identities in an illustrious past, to root national self-identity to
an ancient civilization; more so when the past was a far superior civilization
which gave brilliant expression not only in the creative arts but also in
systems of philosophy and law. The Roman and Greek civilizations, like the
Hindu civilization, were both sensuous and cerebral.
When Athens built its modern, contemporary
Academy of Science, it placed towering statues of Athena and Apollo at either
end. Sitting majestically at the entrance of the University of Athens are
Socrates and Plato while the walls are adorned by stunningly beautiful friezes
of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Homer, Sophocles and
Euripides with anthropomorphic figures of Rhetoric, Law, History, Philosophy
and Poetics. Not a sign of Christianity or the Church anywhere. And yet, one
of the first acts of Emperor Justine, soon after Greece became a Christian
country, was to ban the teaching of Law and Philosophy in his Christian kingdom!
The Church has always destroyed not only the body but also the mind of her
victims.
The Greeks and Romans today are seeking to
live in a past they have rendered illegitimate and soulless. The tragedy of
the people of Rome and Greece is that they want to re-connect with the same
gods whom they and the religion to which they owe allegiance today, have damned
as 'pagan' and unfit for worship. They want the body without the soul; they
want the temples to be reconstructed, but in museums; they want the gods to
adorn their monuments but they do not want to place these gods inside the
temples for worship. The Romans and Greeks want their past in disconnected
pieces.
The lesson that our lawyers, judges and politicians
need to learn from the tragedy of Rome, Greece and Egypt is that while pre-Islamic
and pre-Christian kings destroyed the temples of their enemies in wars, the
same temples would be re-built again and again and yet again and the gods
re-installed for worship. But that which Islam and Christianity have destroyed
over 2000 years has not been rebuilt and revived. The destruction is final
and the past irretrievable. And that is why reclaiming Ayodhya is an important
battle in the war of the Hindu nation. Reclaiming, not just the Ramjanmabhumi
but Ayodhya, will signal the beginning of the Hindu nation's war to correct
gross injustices perpetrated in the name of the Abrahamic religions. The judgment
of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court is the first move in this
battle.
Hindus not only want their gods and goddesses
in their temples, they also want to get back those temples still in the custody
of Islam and the Church. Hindus want their gods in temples, where they belong
and not as statues in public spaces bereft of divinity, which is where they
will soon be if Hindus lack the courage to protect the Hindu nation.
(Column written for special Deepavali edition
of 'Organiser')
