Myths of Composite Cultureand

Equality of Religions

Harsh Narain

VOICE OF INDIANEW DELHI

1

37

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I. The Myth of Composite Culture

II. India: Dar aI-J:Iarb Of Dar aI-Islam ?

HI. The Myth of Unity and Equality ofReligions

Index

CONT.ENTS

© Author

"May. 1991

Printed by Suman Printers and Stationers. 1/9346-B. West RehtasNagar, Shahdara, Delhi-110 032 and published by Voice of India2/18 Ansari Road, New Delhi-lIO 002.

Chapter 1

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE

During the early phases of modern Indian renaissance, itwas the Vedic-Upanii?adic phase of Indian culture which wasaccorded the pride of place in describing and evaluating Indianculture. Later, it came to be rivalled by what the atheists andthe materialists, the agnostics and the rationalists, and tl,lehumanists and the modernists combined to call anti-Vedic~Upanii?adic culture fathered by Carvaka and the Buddha.Lastly, during the struggle for India 's independence thr.oughnon-coop6ratioD and civil disobedience against the Brit ish,­coupled with pandering to the so-called mmorities' freaks offancy culminating first in the KhiliiJat movement and then inthe vivisection of this country, a veritable communalization ofIndian politics set in, camouflaged as 'secularism', leading to anexaggerated fancy on the secularists' part for India's Muslim'past and thereby for the so-called composite, Hindu-Muslimcultule.

The st:ated or unstated postulates of 'secular' reason In thepresent context are:

1. That Indian culture is a composite culture.

2. That the composite culture is pre-eminently the culturesupervenient upon the mingling of the Hindu and Muslimcultural streams.

3. That the Hindus should be thankful to the Muslims forthe latter's contribution to the composite culture.

4. That it is this phase of Indian culture which is of para­mOllnt importance as conducive to communal harmony andnational integration.

That such a composition of cultures i$ al~ays gesirable.

The protagonists of this concept of composite Indian culturefeel committed to paint the Hindu-Muslim relations during thepre-British times in the brightest possible colours. To them, allwas well before the inception of the British rule in this country.Indeed, they sometimes wax so enthusiastic in flaunting theirwhim of prennially persisting 'ideal' Hindu-Muslim relations,and pay such glowing tributes not only to the Indian Muslim·community but even to ,the most universally despised persecu­'tors of the Hindus and destroyers of all that is Hindu that the,unway are led to forget that India was ever partitioned on,account of just the non-coexistential disposition of the Muslim.mind.

Through an eulogy of this ,phase of Indian culture as amodel for our times; a mentality is sought to be created whichthreatens to drive Indian culture into self-alienation, if notself-oblivion or outright self-cancellation. Thanks to overt orcovert politicization of the' class of even our intellectuals,ev,erybody is toeing the line of the political demagogues. Indiahas strayed in its self·complacent quest for its cultural identity.

On the other side, cultural purists tend to dismiss the idea-of composite culture out of hand and assert that it is civilizationrather than culture which can afford to be composite. Is it soas a matter of fact or as a matter of logic? They seem t(:) beinclined to the second alternative.

The situation is not that simple. For one thing, as it were,the protagonists of the con-cept of composi,te culture seem tot'ake cultur.~ and civilization together without worrying aboutthe nice distinction between these. For another, although theredoes exist a line of demarcation between culture and civiliza­tion, does it rule out the 'possibility of interaction and inter­mixture between the two? Social life cannot be divided intowatertight compartments. Culture is not civilization-proof, noris civilization culture-proof. It is true that they have their owndynamics each, yet they each can receive stimulus even fromoutside. Just see, where is the purity of our culture today? Ithas 'coine to be gripped by a tremendous process of Westerni-

zationfmodernization. Has Bertrand Russell not predicted,(gloomily) that time will come when 'the only difference betweenEast and West will be that the former is more Western' ?1Likewise, the onslaught of Islam on Indian culture hasundeniably had some impact or other, which deserves to bestuoied responsibly. Tara Chand's findings need suitable-refurbishing and rehashing. •

Even so, there is a genuine apprehension that some of-the abiding fundamentals and ideals of perennial Indian culture.run the risk of getting distorted or clouded at the hands-of the advocates of composite Indian culture or of undiscerning,admirers of Indian Islam and Muslim rule. The tendency is,already on the ascendant of playing down the achievements ofpre-Islamic and pre-Buddhistic Indian culture and of creatingthe impression that all that is significant and sound in Indian

-culture is creditalbe to either Buddhism or , to the Muslimrulers.

It would be pertinent to point out, before we proceed'further, that culture has two strata: culture of the aristos andculture of the demos. It is the former which represents and,defines society, imparts its own identity to it, and determinesthe course of events in it. 'There is little notable differenceamong the different cultures of the demos. The culture of thedemos has no appreciable form of its own, wherefore it iscomparatively easy for it to intermingle with other suchcultures. In what follows, therefore, we always mean aristo­cratic culture by 'culture'.

Now, what do the protagonists of the ccmposite view ofIndian culture mean by 'composite culture'? Three meanings ofihe term suggest themselves: cultural congeries, electic culture,and synthetic culture. Sorokin defines cultural congeries asfollows: 'Any collection of cultural phenomena interrelatedonly by spatial adjacency (or time-adjacency, like many newsreelevents) makes the most conspicuous case of cultual congeries.'2

1. Allen Wood, Ber/rand Russell": A Passionate Seep/ie, London, 1957,p.136. '

2. Pitirim A. Sorokin , Social Philosophies of all Age of Crisis, London,1952, p. 192. '

3'THB MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTUREMYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULlURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS2

Do the sponsors of the composite view of Indian culture meanto say that there is no internal, essential relation between thevarious constituents of Indian culture but only a spatial and/ortemporal one and that, occupying as they do one and the samespace, they are mutually separate and independent? An alliedquestion is: Is there peaceful coexistence amongst the culturesconstituting this congeries or are they constantly at war withone another? That ours is a pluralistic society goes without

saying.

Now, if Indian culture is not just a congeries of cultures, isit of the nature of an eclectic culture? Eclecticism impliesrandom intermixture, irrespective of and indifferent to thenative or nascent urge for unity, self-identity, and genius of therespective cultures concerned, often as a house divided againstitself. A congeries just happens to be, whereas eclecticism israther an invited phenomenon. Thanks to the loss of vitality ofa culture, for example, its bearers tend to become mimics of thegood bad or indifferent traits of other cultures, which resultsin a' hot~hpotch of cultural patterns, tending often to do moreharm tban good. Yamunaca rya, the great pre-RamanujaVai:?l)ava philosopher, warns against intermixture or eclectici~m

(sQl~kara) of different Tantric traditions thus: 'TIle Saiva, thePasupata, the Saumya, and the fourfold Lagu<;la Tantra-s [havetheir own identities and] are meant to be different. They mustnot be intermixed.'l Then do the upholders of the compositeIndian culture theory purport to say that Indian culture is aneclectic culture, a mere intermixture of cultures, without acardinal culture for the constituent cultures to hinge on?

The third and last alternative meaning of composite cultureis a synthetic 'synthetized /integrated culture, a culture born of ahappy blending of different cultures. If the upholders of thecomposite view of Indian culture mean such a culture by com­posite culture, they are living in a fool's paradise. The partitionof India and the Muslim problem miscalled communal problemare a standing challenge to it.

1. Yamuna, AgamaprtimalJya 109.

51THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INt>lAN ClJLrURE

Theoretically speaking, there is no logical bar to the conceptof composite cult:.Jre. But, being in the nature of a more­-subtle, evasive, and elusive reality than civilization, andvirtually a second nature with, its bearers, it is far from aseasily compoundable with other socio-cultural phenomena asthe media of its expression constituting civilization. As regardsthe particular case of India, we have reasons to believe thatwhile Indian society and civilization are definitely composite:Indian culture cannot be called so, notwithstanding the patentfact that the latter betrays sure signs of other cultures' influenceupon it. But being influenced is one thing; being composite,,quite another. For that matter, Western culture is exercising agreater influence on it than Muslim culture ever did, and yetIndian culture cannot be said to be a composite culture on thataccount. And there is the phenomenon of something like areligio-cultural counterattack on the West from the East,especially from India. In fact, mutual give and take amongvarious cultures has been taking place from time immemorial,but cultures combining to form a ~omposite culture is a rarephenomenon in history.

As a matter of fact, perennial Indian national culture is abroad unity, is one omnibus culture, dating from the pre-Vedicor rather pre-historic times and coming down to us aftersuffering a long series of vicissitudes constantly changing itscolours and contours, often sloughing off its dead weight andabsorbing new elements, and yet retaining its identity for thewhole world to see. The following UrdU couplet of AJ:1madNadlm Qasiml appears to fit it weB:

Jab bhi dekhii hai tujhe fiurat-i nau dekhii haiMar(wlah tayy na ' huii teri shiniisii'i kii

,(Whenever I saw thee I saw thee in a new form. The problem ofthy identity remains unsolved.)

The Buddhist, the Jaina, the Sikh, and such other 'cultures'of Indian origin as are considered non-Hindu, semi-Hindu, ormarginally Hindu 'cultures' are in the nature of subcultures of

.and firmly rooted in this great national culture. Similar, at best,

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUABTY OF RELIGIONS4

is the case with the 'secular culture' of to~ay. And the purelyatheistic-materialistic tradition of the Carvaka variety, thrivingon nagation of religion .pure and simple, has had no culture ofits own, nor anything in the nature of a subculture of the greatculture. So far as the cultures of non-Indian, Semitic origins areconcerned, their role here has all along been that of a counter­culture or inculture by and large, with the reservation, however,that, despite all that can be preferred against the Christianmissions in India, it must be acknowledged in all fairness thattheir activities have led to a sort .of unpr.ecedented acculturation'of the down-trodden, the neglected, 'the dust and the dross andthe scum of the earth', so to speak. Intended primarily, though,to subserve the counter-culture, the process of acculturation .is ,standing the national culture also in good stead. Be whatever 'it may, it is Hindu culture which is the presiding (abhimiinin) ,culture of this country, the aforesaid other 'cultures' beingeither adventitious (anusayin) or adjunctive/accretional in,

nature.All this will receive embellishment as we proceed.Well, it bears repeating that our quarrel is not so much with

the protagonists of composite culture as such, nor even with theprotagonists of composite Indian culture in general, but with theprotagonists of composite Hindu-Muslim culture, who are outto exhibit Islam as a progressive cultural force and a boon to·India. They seem to take it for granted, and approvingly, thattheir brand of composite culture has helped antiquate the pre­Muslim phase of Indian culture, rendering it fit only to sinkinto oblivion. This is why the Muslims and the so-calledsecularists seldom talk of the great pre-Muslim culture ofGreater India except, as in the case of quite a number of thesecularists, to malign it implicitly and sometimes explicitly.

This is reflected, for example, in their choice of represen­tatives of composite culture. For instance, Rasheeduddi1l'Khan's list of 'the most illustrious representatives of the com­posite culture of India spanning eight centuries' consists of(1) Amir Khusrau, (2) Kabir, (3) Nllnak, (4) Dara Shukoh ..

(5) ~~mmohun R~ and (6) Jawaharlal Nehru.1 And Gandhi?OmISSion of his name is significant and, to all intents andpurposes, provides_a clue to the mental reservation on the partof the author. Again, according to him, the composite cultureof India includes . the following seven streams of influence:(1) Vedantic vision, (2) Bhakti marga, (3) humanistic conceptsof Islam, (4) tht! message of ljulb-i kull (peace for all andcomplete peace) of SUfism, (5) syncretic Indo-Muslim culturalvalues,. (6) cosmopolitanism of modern urban development, and(7) herItage ofIndian national movement. 2 Elsewhere, he adds'the essence of the philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gitii' as thesecond item, thereby revising the list to include eight items.3

~he emphasis of this list, too, on the role of Islam is clearenough.

As against the claims of the upholders of the theory ofcomposite, Hindu-Muslim culture, it is extremely significant tbatno Indian philosopher has ever shown any awarness of Muslimreligion or philosophy right from the dawn of Islam till theinception of British rule in India. Indeed, even thereafter noIndian philosopher appears to have taken more than pa~singnotice of Muslim thought or culture in shaping his own thought.Barring the honourable exceptions of Dadi Shukoh, Akbar, andpossibly Zayn al-'Abidin4 and FaYQi5, no Muslim theologian,

1. R~sheeduddin Khan, 'The Problematique: The Heritage ofComposite Culture As an Input in the Process of Building a New NationalIdentity', Composite Culture of India and National Integratioll Rasheed·uddin Khan, ed" a product of a seminerg the Indian Institute of AdvancedStudy, Simla, held in 1984 on the subject, Simla, 1987, p. 55.

2. Ibid, pp. 39-41. .3. Rasheeduddin Khan, 'The Root and Origins of Composite Culture

of India', Composite Culture and Indian Society .. Problems alld ProspectSof Integra/ion, Proceedings of Dr. Zakir Husain Educational and CulturalFoundation, ·Radhey Mohan ed., New Delhi, n.d. pp. 5-6.

4. ~~ltiin Zayn al- 'A.bidin of Kashmir wrote a work, Shikl1yat, based onYogl1'VaSl~{lra,no longer extant.

5. Fay~i authored a book entitled Shiiriq al-Ma'rifat, 2nd ed.,Lucknow, 1885, setting out certain Vedihitic theses of the Srimad·Blziigavata al'id tho Yogaviisi~{ha. It is difficult to say how far he him elfupheld them.

7THE MYTH 01' COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTUREMYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALiTY OF RELIGIONS6

9'THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTRB

(There is none so much of a stranger in his own homeland as Iam in mine). It is a different matter that the Red Indians are onthe brink of extinction thanks to exploitation and tyranny ofthe Euro-Americans and that there is nobody to challenge thelatter.

Ghurbat-zadah-i nisI chu man dar watan-i man

-country does not entitle a plunderer to be looked upon asindigenous.- It must first be seen whose interests be is out toserve. What is his attitude towards Indians? Take an example.European settlers entered America and ruined the originalinhabitants, whom they named 'Red Indians' (under a miscon­ception), completely. To expect the remaining Red Indians toregard their European-born rulers as equally indigenous wouldbe a cruel joke beyond their understanding. It is indeed not f{)~

nothing that while white Americans celebrate as the Thanks­giving Day the date on which the Pilgrim Fathers stepped OIl

American soil, the native Red Indians observe it as the Day ofMourning. This poor lot has been reduced to the status of a'stranger in its own hon;teland, like the poet who laments:

This holds good in the case of India with a vengeance. Itneeds no emphasis that the bulk of the Muslim rulers in ourland were preoccupied with uprooting Hindu religion and.culture within their limitations, which were severe enough,however. They left no stone unturned in de-Hinduizing or,denationalizing the Hindus, in effect de-Indianizing theIndians, in various ways. It is preposterous to question theircredentials as true Muslims. Their 'Ulama' exhorted them offand on to make the best of their sword to root out the Hindus,and convert India into a full-fledged Dar ai-Islam. Sayyid NUrad-Din Mubarak Ghaznawi Suhrawardi, at once a leading SUfi,a leading Muslim divine, and the Shaykh aI-Islam of SultanI1tutmish, led a deputation of 'Ulamii' to tbe Sultan and advisedbim to give an ultimatum to the Hindus to embrace Islam orface death. The Sultan's prime minister pleaded powerlessness

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS8

thinker, or even Sufi has ever thought it fit to have a peep intoIndian religion or philosophy while formulating his Yiews.

Even during the British rule, it was taken for granted thatthe expressions 'Indian philosophy', 'Indian religion', and.'i~dian , culture' stood for the philosophy, religion, and~ulture' of India. Muslim philosophy and religion, too,came to flourish on Indian soil, which gave birth to suchleading lights in tbe field as Shaykh Al).mad Sarbindi nicknamedMUjaddid Alf-i Thani (1564-1634), Shah Wali Allah, ShahIs:ma' i1 Shabid, Fazl-i l:Iaqq Khairabadi, Qasim Nanautawi,and Sir Mul).ammad Iqbal. But none of these find place in thehistories of Indian philosophy and religion, with the solitaryexcep~ion of Iqbal, who is sometimes taken notice of in thesyllabus of certain universities. Everybody was convinced that,eve~ though the Muslims had permanently settled in India,their religion, philosophy, and culture-in fact their entire way:of life and thought-were alien; that their rule was a foreignrule; and that their centre of gravity belongs elsewbere thanthis country. That is to say, Muslim culture was taken to be

;having not an essential or organic but only a spatio-temporalrelation with Indian culture.

It was Lala Uijpat Rai who was the first to moot the ideat'hat 'the Hindus and Muslims have coalesced into an Indiall.people, very much the same way as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes,Danes and Normans formed the English people of to-day'!

',and that 'the Muslim rule in India was not a foreign rule' .2 The'non-communal', 'secular' l1istorians began to follow suit. Theircontention is that, despite Islam's being a religion of foreign

'origin and the Muslims' establishing their rule here as foreigniI;lvaders, they settled here for all time to come and becameIndians, forgetting all about their native lands. They ruled

, ~ndia from within India, unlike the British who exercised theirsway over India from afar.

This logic has little, force. Mere permanent settlement in a\ ,"/.

'" , 1'. Young India, pp. 73-75, refened to in R.C. Majumdar, Historiographyi ll Modern India (Bombay, 1970), p. 49.

2. Loc. cit.

10 11

1. Shibli Nu'mani, Shi'ru 'l-'Ajam, Vol. J, 5th impression, Azamgarh,

1962, p, 172, Ibid" p. 163. Ibid, p. 15

Why did the native languages of the countries in generalunder Muslim rule not survive or flourish? 'Because', contendsShibl;: Nu'mani (1857-1914), 'the other nations felt ashamed tocompose poetry in their own language in the presence of thepoetry of Arabia (Is lie ki 'Arab ki sha'iri ke age dusari qaumonleo apni zaban men sha'iri karne men sharm ati thi)'.l And this,after acknowledging in clear words, as if to contradict himselflater: 'Look at Arabia itself. The country whose doors andwalls hummed with poetry sank into an all-encompassing calmall of a sudden immediately after the advent of Islam (Khud'Arab leo dekho. Wahjis lei dar-o diwar se slza'iri lei awaZ ati thiIslam ke ate hi charon tara! sannata chha gayii)'. 2 In fact, onlyTurkish could manage somehow to survive under the Muslimyoke, After the conquest of Iran by the Arabs, Persian wentinto a coma of two centuries' duration and could regainanimation after considerable Arabicization. Reason? 'Abd Allahbin Tahir's order was to destroy all the books of Iran, owing towhich Persian poetry ceased to be composed till the time of theSassanids, as reported by Dawlat Shah. According to tbeMajma'al-Fu/ia/:!a (1284), the Arabs burnt down all of Persianliterature but its infinitesimal part which the Iranians could

conceaLsSpain happens to be the only country which, having suffered'

the thrall of Islam for some seven centuries succeeded in over­throwing it, re-asserting its Christian identity, and biddinggood-bye to Muslim culture, thereby plugging up the avenues tomisconstruction of the imperialist usurpers' rule as indigenouS'

Iran, Afghanistan, etc.-wherever they turned, they broughtall-round disaster. Tbey massacred the unbelievers; enslavedthem en masse; wreaked ,all sorts of indignities upon them;converted them forcibly; destroyed their language and literature,.art and culture, and all that it implies-in short, all the marks

of their identity.

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTUREMYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONs:.

on his behalf to do SOl Then the Sh ksuggestion" th k" h ay h offered an alternatived' h .,.. e 109 s ould at least strive to disgrace

IS onour, and defame th M h" ..Hindus Th . . e us nk and Idol-worshippingthI'S . W' 'h" e hS1gn of the kmgs being protectors of the faith is·

. en t ey see H' d ', h t . a In u, their faces turn red and theyWIS 0 swallow hIm ali '2 A . .to Jalal _ .~e.... sImIlar suggestion was made'tbat H' ad-DID Khaljl, who returned ruefu))y: 'Don't you s~e-

Indus, who are the worst enemies of God and f I I~:~s ~:ilt below my royal ~alace to the Jamuna beati~g d:::::~

.p y ng flutes, and practIse before our eyes the w h' f'the Idols with all the r~tual~ ? Fie on us unworthy lea~:~sIPw:O'declare ourselves MuslIm kIngs' Had IbM 'a real k ' , ... . een a usllm ruler,

h 109, or a pnnce and feIt myself strong and powerful'enoug to protect Islam, any enemy of God and the f 'th f~:~ IP~ophet of Islam would not have been aUowed t~1 che:'in e s In ~ ca~e-:ree manner and put on a clean garment or live­K pe~_ce. Qa(;h Mughfs ad-Din's advice to Sultan 'AI-'u'd-D-h haljI w~s. on similar lines, and the Sultan c~nfesse~ that ~:t::u h~~~~:ted an~ pauperized the Hind.us to bis utmost even

hg , out canng to know the provIsions of the Shari'ah

on t e subject. 4

I It i~no won~er :.the Muslim conquerors and rulers have aUa ong een dOIng It everywhere. Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Syria,

1. At the instance of the kin M " , - -the 'UJama' : g, lOlster NI+amad-DID Junaydi said to

'Fa-amma dar jn IVaqt k' Ii' dki Mllsalmtin dar-miyti I, _I;_~/~an naIV-gir ast IVa Hindu chandan aslbisiytir b~r na a ad ,n-I IS Im~ a-!ari~ - i namak andak dar-ayad,fanmid na b: ~ k: kl aga~ ma fzllkm-I madhkur ba-ishiili kar khahamaz a/ld~ki-i t;a t I yak-dlgar shaIVand, sM'alt-i 'alam shaIVad, IVa ma

, qa na-ytiram IVa az har taraffit l - dchilli chand sal ba-guzarad d- " /101 I zaya , Fa-ammaMllsalmal ti b _ IVa aru l-mlllk IVa kltitat IVa qa~abiitba HU/ludl,,~~:::;~rand; IVa lashkar-ha bisiyiir gird ayad, ma albauah

, _, _ -qat u amma 'l-Isltim" pesh amadani am.'J;>lya ad-DIn Barani, SaMfah-i Na't-i MId"Rampur, MSS), pp. :::91-392 u,mmma I (Riza Library.

2, Loc. cit.

3., .J;>i:,ii' ad-Din Barani, Ttirfkh-i Firozshtihi p. 217Ibid., p. 291. Cpo p. 297, '

rule. It is India alone where those out to uproot the wholegamul of the mainstream of our religio-cultural tradition arehailed as national heroes.

Before the advent of Islam, India was inhabited by a wholehumanity comprising multifarious religio-cultural traditions andwas buzzing with inter-traditional dialogues and debates underthe umbrella of a common cultural milieu conducive to socio­cultural and religio-philosophical equilibrium of a unique kind.Ind.eed , even the Parsis and a section of the Jews persecuted intheIr homelands got asylum here to live like human beings aspart a~ld parcel of the Dharma-inspired, broad-based IndianhumanIty. Why, even pre-Muslim as well as Muslim Arabtraders were welcomed in the South and received handsomegr~nt.s as well as encouragement from the Hindu rulers forbUlldlOg mosques and converting people respectively. Indeeddriven out by.!:Iajjaj bin YUsuf in early eighth century, a sectio~of even MuslIms sought asylum in India and were settled inKonkan and the Cape Camorin area.

Thus, even Muslim traders and refugees received whole­hearted welcome here and it is only the Muslim marauders whowere dreaded and detested by the peace-loving people. AlberUnI~bserves that 'the repugnance of the Hindus against foreignerstnc~e~sed m~re and more when the Muslims began to maketh~lr IDroads Into their country; .. Mal:tmlJd (Ghaznawi) utterlyrumed the prosperity of the country, and performed therewonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms ofdust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in themouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish of Coursethe most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims.'l' AlberUniadds: 'This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retiredfar away from those parts of the country conquered by us, and11ave fled to places which our hands cannot yet reach toKashmir, Benares, and other places. And there the antago~ismbetween them and all foreigners receives more and morenourishment both from political and religious sources.'2 Let

1. Alberuni's India, Edward C. Sachau, cd. & tr., 1st Indian cd., Delhietc., 1964, pp. 21-22

2. Ibid., p. 14

13

Likewise, in Akbar the Brahmal)a-s saw the reincarnation of aYogin named Mukunda Brahmacarin.2 'Alii'u'd-DIn HusaynShah was a born Arab, yet bis love for the Hindus earned himthe honour of being regarded as an incarnation of K:r$l)a.

The Ku~al)a emperor Kani~ka, who belonged to a nomadicTurkish tribe called Yueh-ci and who ruled from Purui?apur(Peshawar) over vast territories of Northern India, Afghanistan,and Turkistan, cast many coine carrying the engravings of thegods of Greece, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism anddid a lot to promote Indian religions and traditions. He convok­ed the fourth Buddhist council to settle the text of the holyscriptures. This Turk came to enjoy fame in Buddhist literaturenext only to Asoka.

1. Jonaraja, (DvitTyli) Rt1jataraligilJi 9732. Bhavitya-Purtil;la, Pratisarga-Parva-Kb"aT;l4a 4, Adhyaya 20, Sloka-s

9 i'.

Contradistinctively from this, the Hindus' sense of gratitudeknows no bounds to Muslim rulers like Zayn al-'Abidin (1420­70) of Kashmir, 'Alau'd-Din Husayn Shah (1493-1519) ofBengal, and Akbar the Great Mughal, who behaved towardsIndians as Indians and at whose hands they could heave a sighof relief from religious persecution. The three rulers tried theirutmost to Indianize theire rule and restore the dignity of Hinducommunity and culture, the latter essaying the uphill task ofintegrating Islam therewith, followed in this behalf by PrinceDara Shukoh. Who that has any the faintest sense of historycan dispute the point that they were all intensely Indian, puttingmany a Hindu to shame in their patriotic fervour. The post­Kalhal)a Kashmir historian Jonaraja declares Zayn al-'Abidinan incarnation of Narayal)a :

Adbhuldniim paddrthiiniim tad-riijye sangraho 'bhavat.N iiriiya/Javatdro 'yam, j niiyeta katham anyatha?l

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE

these statements open the eyes of those who are never tired ofcondemning the Hindus for their proverbial exclusivenessvis-a-vis the Muslims.

M¥I'HS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS12

1.4 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AHD EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS "THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE

As it is, almost all foreign hordes invading or enteringIndia before the advent of Islam, such as the Greeks, theParthians, the Sakas, the HUt;las, the Gurjaras, the Pratiharas,the KU i?al)as, the Scythians, etc., were assimilated to the culturalmainstream by Hindu inclusivism. On top of it, the process ofassimilation had been surprisingly non-violent and peaceful allthrough. This process consisted usually in assignment of the.aliens to different castes or in creation of new castes for themunder the umbrella of the relevant VarIJa-s. This is the secret ofthe multiplicity of the much-maligned castes. A full-scaleresearch needs to be undertaken into this phenomenon as well.as into how the all-assimilating Hinduism contracted the diseaseof exclusivism and touch-me-not-ism. Albertini's explanationreferred to above will prove a beacon light in this area. To be'sure, Islam was out to deal a death blow to the equilibrium,exuberance, and cosmopolitan character of Indian humanity,later designated as Hindu culture in juxtaposition to Indian·culture.

We do not purport to deny that there occurred sporadic acts,of violence between certain sects in pre-Muslim India. We havenot minced matters in this behalf in our relevant writings, nor<10 we intend to do so here. But it is equally undeniable that'Such acts were exceptional, and exceptions serve only to provethe rule.

Well, the Muslim rulers left no stone unturned in doing tothe Hindus what they did to the other races and cultures.

Nevertheless, they could not wipe the former out:Phir bhi magar hai biiqi nam-o nishiii't hamarii '

(Still our name and fame persist). Why? 'The wonder is not',says Sri Ram Sharma, 'that so many were converted but that thevast majority of Hindus kept their faith amidst so many tempta­tions and such persecutions.!

Reasons are many, which it is difficult'to go into in thiswork. Even so, certain indications can be given. The first

1. Sri Ram Sharma, The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors,Bombay, 1962, p.

thing to , note in this regard is the patent fact that, as­.compared with the other countries totally Islamized 'by theMuslim conquerors, India happens to have been, and stillremains, too vast a country with a vaster population to beexposed to easy Islamization. Elimination, conversion, or trans­formation of a subcontinent like tbis is not cbild's play, Even-so, Islam has registered a signal success to its credit in carvingthree independent Muslim states-Afghanistan,! Pakistan, andBangia Desh-out of India's mainland; in Islamizing in toto theIndonesian archipelago, Seistan, Transoxiana, Sinkiang, andMaldiv and several other islands colonized by tbe Hindus andforming part of wbat is known as Greater India; and Islamizingour country to such an extent tbat tbe Muslim population ofeven this truncated India is greater than that of any Muslim.country other than possibly Indonesia. To gauge the extent towhich our name-and-mark (niim-o nishiin) still survives, we havealso to take account of tbe facts that the ratio of Hindu andMuslim population in undivided India in 1800 A.D. was 7:1; in1850 A.D., 6:1;2 and now, less than 3:1. Is our name-and­mark not hastening to extinction that way?

Besides, incidentally, the scheduled castes and tribes as wellas other backward castes and classes are already on tbe way to-secession from Hinduism en masse. The former are also under­going conversion and all that it implies-anti-Hinduization,denationalization, and de-Indianization-, steadily and on amass scale. Besides, the caste Hindus, too, are undergoing apeculiar process of secularization with a clearly anti-Hindu bias.It appears, God forbid, the day is not far off when tbey willthink of sounding the note of declaration of independence fromHinduism. Alas! our native self-complacency is standing in theway of due appreciation of this crisis. India is crying her heartout for a saviour of her soul.

The picture of Hindus' plight during the millennium long

1. Afgha ni st~n was a Hindu- Buddhist state before Muslim invasionthereon, comprising Gandhiira and Kam boja.

2, K .S. Lal, Growth of Muslim Population ill Medieval India, Delhi,1953, p. 156

16 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONSTHE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE 17

span of Muslim rule cannot be overdrawn. Eulogizing the roleof the sword of Islam in devastating Hindustan and ravagingHinduism, Amir Khusrau sings: 'Thanks to the sword of ourholy warriors, the whole of this land has become a forestdenuded of its thorns by fire. The land has become saturatedwith the water of the sword, and the dust of Kufr is lyingunderground. The strong among the Hindus have been troddenunder foot, and are constrained to pay tribute with their handunder that of the tribute collector... lslam became triumphant sogloriously and leaders of Kufr [Hinduism] suffered the scourgeof Islam so ignominiously that, had not the Shari'ah [Muslimlaw, here the Banafite Muslim law] granted exemption fromdeath by payment of Jizyah [poll tax], the very name of theHindu would have been extinct root and branch.'l Likewise,gleefully describing the Hindu predicament under the Sultanate,he puts this statement into the mouth of a subdued Raja ;'Thanks to the perennial, well established convention of theworld, the Hindu has all along been a game of the Turks. Therelationship between the Turk and the Hindu cannot be describ­ed better than that the Turk is like a tiger and the Hindu, adeer. It has been a long establ ished rule of the whirling sky thatthe Hindus exist for the sake of the Turk. Being triumphanto¥er them, whenever the Turk chooses to make an inroad uponthem, he catches them, buys them, and sells them at will. Sincethe Hindu happens to be a (wretched) slave in all respects, none

1. Tamtimi kislllvOI az tegh-i ghiza-k tirChu kharistali'zi atish gashtalr bi-kheirZamil/-ash ser-khurd-i ab-i slwmshirFirau khuftah ghubtir-i kufr dar zirZabardastcil/- i Jiil/df, gashtah ptimtilFirau-dasttili hamah dar dcidol/-i mtilBadili 'izzat shudah Islcim man,varRadtili khari sartin-i kufr maqlrii.Ba-dhimmalz 'gar na badi rukh$at-X shar'Na maildi lIam-i Binda 'zi '$1 ta far'

Arnir Khusrau, MatlmalViyy-i DalVal ROlli Khizir Xhli';'" RashId Al,1mad'Salim An~arl, ed., Aligarh, 1917, p. 46

need exercise force on his slave. It does not become one toscowl at a goat which is being reared for one's meals. Whyshould one wield a sharp sword for one who will die by [just] afierce look 7'1

That fact of the matter is that Muslim rule in India, as else­where, was wedded to the cause of Islam, to the propagation ofIslam to be precise, and to the blotting out of Kufr/Hinduismaltogether. In its eyes, Hindu society was nothing more than ahunting ground of the Muslims. It was a rule of the Muslims,for the Muslims, and by the Muslims, so to speak. 'In themedieval Indian chronicles,' writes K.S. Lal, 'the sovereign isalways mentioned as "the king ofIslam", the territories of hisempire are referred to as the "land of Islam", its armies as"soldiers of Islam", and its religious and judicial head as"Shaikh-ul-Islam". The monarch was committed to make Islamthe true basis of private and public life through the enforcementof the Shariat and to convert the people to the "truefaith".'2 To the Muslims, the Hindu was saleable, enslavable.and slayable at will. It was a firm policy of some of the Muslimrulers to keep the Hindus in abject poverty and illiteracy so as toincapacitate them from living as Kafirs. 'The dominant culturein the Gangetic plain,' writes Nirad C. Chaudhuri, 'becameIslamic, and the Hindus became a cultural proletariat.'3 He

1. A z il; bih ma-dtili lIisbat- f Turk-o HilllltiKi Tllrk ast chuli sher Hil/du chilli allil'Zi rasm-i ki raft ast charkh-i ralVali raWlljad az pa'ye Turk shlld Hil/duali raKi Tark ast ghalib bar-ishtili chu koshadKi ham girad-o ham kharad ham fal'oshadChu Jiil/dti 'st balldah ba-har-sa,i ki bcishadKasf ZOl' bar bal/dah-i khud I/a pcisltadNa shayad dar a,; buz I/azar tez kardanKi parlVardan-ash hast az bahr-i khurdanYaH k'az I/azar tez kardan ba-miradKasi khal/jar-i tez bohr ash chi girad

ArnIr Khusrau, MathnalViyy-i' Nuh Sipihr, Wahid Mirza, ed., Calcutta1948, Sipihr II, pp. 89, 130-131

2. K.S. Lal, op. cit., pp. 159-1603. Nirad C. Chaudhuri. Hinduillm. New Delhi, 1919, p. 127

18 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE 19

further observes: 'Thus the course of political history in northernIndia reduced both Hindu culture and religion to the fevel of afolk culture and folk religion by depriving it of its elite. Bothlost their sophistication and pride. Sans~rit learning virtuallydisappenred from the region. '1

With the loss of royal patronage, the Brahmal)a-s andK~atriya·s had to give up their caste vocations and becomepeasants, thereby depriving Hinduism of its higher expression.The destruction of temples and centres of learning dealt a furtherblow to the leadership of Hindu society. 'Thus Hindu culture'here wears ~'"'\ appearance of poverty which was not its old'condition. It is the religious expression of this culture which isthe "popular Hinduism" of English writers. In reality it wasonly tbe remanent, the detritus of the old Hinduism.'2 The twohigher castes suffered further depletion through mass enslave­ment. The monarchs and other members of the ruling classwere interested in handsome boys and girls, who abounded inthe higher castes. Ala'u 'd-Din Khalji had 50,000 slaves.a

Firozshil.h Tughluq came to have 1,80,000 slaves.4 Mu]:lammadTughluq sold thousands of slaves every day at throw-awayprice.• And so forth. Indeed, there was unprecedentedly briskbusiness in the slave markets in India and abroad, thanks toslave hunt under Muslim rule in India. And the slaves hadperforce to embrace the religion of their masters. For instance,on the capture of Kalinjar in 1202, 'fifty thousand kaniz-oghuliim, having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honourof Islam.'6 Mul,1ammad Ghori is reported to have convertedthree to four hundred thousand Khokhars and Tirahias toIslam.7 In fact, forcible conversions on a large scale have beentaking place frequently right from the rise of MUJ:t~mmad b~n

Qusim down to the fall of Tip'U Sultan. or rather tlll today In

Pakistan if not even in Kashmir.

I. Loc. cit.2. Ibid. , p. 1283. Shams Siriij 'Am, cited in K.S. Lal, op. cit ., p. 1144. Ibid.• p. 1155. Loc. cit.6. Firishtah, cited in Lal, op . cit., p. 1067. Loc. cit.

Again, it was the policy of the Muslim rulers in general tobuild mosques, khanqahs, inns, orphanages, and school!) ofIslamic learning from state funds, that is to say, in effect, fromthe pockets of the Hindus. but they did not feel concerned toprovide anything of the sort for the Hindus.

Certain contemporary historians of leftist persuasion demurto the division of Indian history into Hindu, Muslim, andBritish periods first introduced by James Mill. Romila Thaperwonders why he did not choose the word 'Christian' in place of'British'.l Her wonder is set at rest by the foregoing account:Muslim rule served the interests of Islam; British rule did notserve the interests of Christianity.

The fact of the matter is that Islam or the Ummah (Muslimculture/community) knows no cooperation on tbe basis ofequality or peaceful coexistence with the Kafirs, to whom itoffer.s at most only four alternatives: Islam, the sword. slavery,or Jlzyah-at most because non-Banafite Muslim law a]]owssurvival on payment of Jizyah to the Jews and the Christiansonly and no Muslim law permits any non-Muslim faith withinArabia. Such a religion, culture, or rule is a far cry from anindigenous one in this country. Geographical participation canhave meaning only by subservience to cultural participation.T~e nationhood of a nation consists in its self-identity, and analIen culture grafted upon a country subjugated by it andpreoccupied in destroying its self-identity does not deserve tIleappellation of an indigenous culture or part thereof. Indi­genousness is not purely a geographical concept; it bas culturalovertones supersessive of the claims of geography in the eventof a graft threatening extinction of the original stock.

Tbe sun tradition of Islam is adjudged comparativelyliberal towards non-Muslims. Such a tone is set by Jala:l ad-DinRtimi in the famous parable of Moses and the shephered. Theshepbered worships God in bis own unsophisticated way. notconforming to the code prescribed by the revealed religion of

1. Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipan · Chandra, Communalismand tire Writing of Indian History, 4th print, New Delhi, }984, p. 4 .

20 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS-THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE 21

the day but as best as he was capable of. Moses takes him totask on this account. Upon which God rebuffs Moses for non­recognition of the multiplicity of ways of worship and remarks:'I have endowed everyone with a temperament of his own, giveneveryone an idiom of his own; so that what is praise for him isblame for thee. what is honey for him is poison for thee, whatis light for him is fire for thee, what is rose for him is thorn forthee, what is good for him is evil for thee, what is beautiful forhim is ugly for thee. In the people of Hindustan the idiom ofHindustan is praiseworthy; in the people of Sind, the idiom ofSind is paiseworthy . I do not see the outward and the speech; Isee the inward and the state [of feeling]. For the heart is thesubstance and speech an accident. So, the accident is sub­servient, the substance is the [real] object. The religion of lovestands apart from all religions. For lovers the [only] religion andcreed is God.' This whole speech of God is introduced with theexhortation to Moses, 'Thou camest to unite, thou didst notcome to divide.'l Farid ad-Din'Attar, an earlier Sufi master(1142/43-1220) of Nishapur, also places devotion above Islamand Kufr.2 Certain Indian Sufi-s follow suit. In fact a sizablesection of the SUfi-s had been comparatively free from theproverbial emphasis on coercion for the spread of Islam and forelimination of Kufr. It can boast of a representative like DaraShukoh, who made history by rating the Upani~ads above theQur'an and wrote a book entitled Majma' al-Babrayn in Persianand another entitled Samudrasailgama in Sanskrit demonstratingthat both Sufism and the Vedanta and thereby Islam andHinduism are true and essentially one.

But the role of the Sufi tradition in bridging the gulf betweenIslam and Hinduism or laying the foundations of a compositeculture has been greatly exaggerated. The SUfi-s belonging tothe Chistiyyah, Subrawardiyyah, and Naqshbandiyyah ordersand monasteris are found to have fanned or favoured thefanaticism of the Muslim rulers in medieval India. The

I. Jal ii l ad-Din Riimi, Marll/lawiyy-i Ma 'lIawi (with Payrtihan-i Yiisu!i) •.7th print. Lucknow. 1943, Vol. II, pr. 11 3- 119

2. Farid ad-Din 'AHiir, Man(iq af-Tayr, 15th print. Kanpur, 1896,p. 28, for example

Qiidiriyyah SUfi-s from Gulbarga. Bidar, and Golconda werethe most fanatic murderers of Hindus and destroyers of temples.We have already noted the role of Sayyid NUr ad-Din MubarakGhaznawi Suhrawardi in setting the Muslim state against theHindus. Another Sufi, Jalai ad-Din Bukhari Suhrawardi,nicknamed Makhdum-i Jahaniyail Jahailgasht, fell ill and theHindu Daroghah (a revenue official) of Uchh, named NawahUilor Nahawan visited him to ask after his illness and, full ofreverence for the saint, remarked: 'May God restore HisHoliness the Makhdum to health. The blessed soul of theMakhdum is the last/seal of the saints, even as Mu1).ammad

.(God bless and keep him!) was the last/seal of the prophets.'lUpon this, the saint observed, 'You have recited half of theKalimah (Islam-confessing formula), recite the other half andbecome a full-fledged Muslim, failing which you will have to die.'On his refusal, the Hindu was produced before Firoz Tughluqand got beheaded.2

Again, when 'Ala'u 'd-Din Khalji sacked Deogiri, hundredsof Sufi-s betook themselves to the South and establishedmonasteries, to finance which fat sums were extracted from thelocal chiefs. I;lajji Sayyid alias Sarwar MakhdUm, I;lusam ad-Din,and several other SUfi-s took part in offensive wars openly, onaccount of which they were entitled Qattiil (the great slayer) andKuffcir-bhaiijan (destroyer of the Kafirs).3 Shaykh JaWJ ad-DinTabrizi demolished a large temple and constructed a Takiyah(khanqiih) at Devatalla (Deva Mahal) in Bengal. He alsoconverted a large number of the Hindus there. 4 Another Sufi:Shah Jalal of Sylhet (d. 1347), confused by Ibn Battutah andmany others following him with Shaykh Jala1 ad-Din Tabrizi,was also a warrior Sufi given to forcible conversion of theHindus. Mir Sayyid 'Ali Hamadani (1314-1385) began to get

I. Dhtir-ptik-i makhdii'1l khtitam-i aw/iya' ast, chllnari-ki Mubammad,ui//a 'Utill-u 'alay-hi wa sal/am khtitalll-i allbiya' bl/d.

Jamiili Kanboh Dihlawi (d. 1536), Siyar al-'Arif'ill. Delhi, 1893, p. 1592. Ibid.• pp. 159-1603. M.A. Karandikar, Islam ill IlIdia's Transition to Modernity, Bombay,

1968. p. 1224. Jamiili, p. 17l

Hindu temples demolished and the Hindus converted by recklessuse of force throughout his sojourn in Kashmir. He is said tohave converted 37,000 Hindus to Islam. He commended to therulers reinforcement of the notorious 'covenant of 'Vmar' forthe Dhimml-s.1 And this in the regime of Sultan Qut b ad-Din(l37~-89), who followed in the footsteps of his predecessorSiJlt~n Sha.h Mir ~regime 1339-1342) in maintaining cordialrelatIOns wIth the Hmdus and anticipated Sultan Zayn al-'Abidinin respecting Hindu shrines, participating in Hindu festivals, andso forth . Qut b ad-DIn dressed in the Hindu way, celebratedHindu festivals, visited Hindu shrines, and once performed ayajna to avert a famine. Shah Mir bad gone to the extent of"marrying his daughters to his BrahmaI)a chiefs.2 Thanks to theinfluence of Hamadanf's Sufi son Mir MuJ:tmmad (b. 1372), whostepped into his father's shoes after the latter had left Kashmirafter failing to pull on well with Qutb ad-Dm, Sikandar (1389-

1. MIr Sayyid 'Ali Hamadiini, Dlzaklrfralz a/-Mu/iik, Amritsar, 1903 .4,pp. 117-118, where he has reframed the covenant as under:1. The Hindus will not build new temples.2. They w~1l not reb~j(d temples which may have fallen into disrepair.3. They WIll not prevent Muslim travellers from staying in temples.4. They will provide them three days' hospitality in their houses.5. The d!Ii~nmi-s will not act as spies nor shelter spies in their houses.6. They WIll not prevent from conversion anyone inclined towards Islam.7. They will respect Muslims.

8..They will courteously receive Muslims wishing to attand their meetJOgs.

9. They will not dress like Muslims.10. They will not take Muslim names.] 1. They will not ride horses with saddle and bridle.12. They will not possess sword bods, and arrows.13. They will not wear signet rings.14. They will not openly sell or drink intoxicating liquor.15. They will not abandon their traditional dress.16. They will not practice their customs against Muslims.]7. They will not build their houes in the neighbourhood of Muslims.18. Thep will not carryor boy their dead new Muslim graveyards.19. They will not mourn their dead loudly.20. They will not buy Muslim slaves.. 2. Jonal'iija, 257, for example

23

1. Ibid. 596-671; Srivara, Zayn -Riijatarmigi!li, otherwise known asTrtiyti Riijataragi!li 5.75-77

2. Isltim wa kufr {iidd-i yak-digar alld. I~ltimiil-i jam'-shudan-iill do fj idd mulliiI ast wa 'izzat-diidan-i yak-i rii musialzilll-ikhiiri-i digar ast. 'Izzat-i Islcim dar khiir'i-i kllfr ast. Kas'i kiahl-i kufr rti 'aziz diishl ahl-i Isliim ra khiir siikhl.Dar ratig-i sagtin islztiJi [kllffiirJ rii dar btiyad diisht ... .Wakamii/-i Isliim iin ast ki az iin glzara4-i dunytiwi lIiz biiyadguzaslzt wa ba-islztin na biiyad pardiikht.

The author then refers to the Qur'anic teachings against the Kafil's.Sayyid Al;lmad Sarhindi Naqshbandi Mujaddid-i AIf-i Thani, M ak rii­bat-i Imam Rabbani, Kanpur, n.d., Vol. I, pp. 165-166

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE

1413), a liberal Sultan of Kashmir, turned into a ferocious SuI1 anfor the Hindus and began to be known as Sikandar Butshikan(iconoclast), and his powerful Brahmal)a noble SUhabhatt aembraced Islam under the name "Sayaf ad-Din and became aterror for the BrahmaI)a-s. Guided by the teachings of MitMu]:lammad, Sikandar played havoc with the Hindus throughSayf ad.-Din, destroyed their temples, undertook forcible con­versions, and imposed Jizyah on them for the first time inKashmir.1 Indeed, he out-Aurangzebed Aurangzeb in hisHindu-persecution-mania. Muslim historians are full of praisefor him as an uprooter of Kufr from Kashrp.ir. Shaykh A1)madSarhindi Naqshbandi, nicknamed Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thani (1564­1~34), strained every nerve to turn the Mughul rule into anengine of repression and total destruction of Hinduism. In hisepistles to to various quarters, he tries to bring home the ideathat 'Islam and Kufr are mutually opposite. A meeting of thetwo opposites is impossible, and honouring either entailsdishonouring the other. Honour of Islam lies in dishonour ofKufr. Whoever holds the Kafirs dear renders Muslims humilia­ted. They (Kafirs) should be kept at a distance like dogs ....Excellence of Islam lies in this that even mundane concern withthem should be avoided and should not be cultivated withthem.'2 His preceptor, Khawajah Baqi Bi 'llah (b. 1563-64)'was highly inflamed when a Hindu physician was brought forhis treatment at his death-bed and could be comforted onlywhen it was reported that he was was brought at the instance of

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND ·EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS22

:his mother.'l

Most of the Stifi-s engaged themselves in proselytizing-activities. 'Moplas of the south coast were converted to Islamby the disciples of Malik ibn Dinar (d. 744), the Dudwalas andPinjaras of Gujarat by al-F.lallaj (d. 921), Labbas of Trinchi­nopally by Ni~ar Shah (d. 1039), Memons of Cutch by Ytisuf.aI-din Sindh'i, the Dii'tidpotas of Sind and Baluchistan by theQaramite missionaries of Sind, the Bohras of Gujarat byAbdumih Kharrazi, a tribe of Wakhan and the Afridi Pathansby Na~ ir-i Khusrau, and the Khojas of Gujarat by Isma'ilimissionaries like Ntir Satgar. In the Ghaznawid Lahoreorganized proselytization was begun by Shaykh Isma'il Bukhari(c. 1005); and al-Hujwiri is reported in hagiological tradition tohave converted Rai Rajll a Hindu general of the Ghaznawids toIslam.'2 Shaykh Dawtid of Chati converted fifty to a hundredHindus each day.3 The Mujaddid converted thousands ofKafirs (haze/ran hazar kujfar).4 Shah 'Abd al-'Aziz claimed tohave converted hundreds of Hindus.s

In 1947, Muslim society succeeded in extorting recognitionas a separate culture and nation and getting the countryvivisected on that basis. It is another matter that, in order tohide our shamefacedness or out of thoughtless obduracy, we goon harping on the theme of the truncated India's belonging toHindus and Muslims alike and its culture's being a compositeculture, a culture composed of Hindu and Muslim religio­cultural traditions.

Granted that, even against the nation's will as also at the

i. Kalimlit-i Tayyaliit, fol. 19b, quoted in S.A.A. Rizvi, MuslimR evivalist Movements in North India in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies (Agra, 1965), p. 189

2. S. Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims, 2nd impression, London, 1969,p.84

3. 'Abd al-Qiidir Badiiyiini, Muntakhab at-Tawiirikh, Vol. HI, WolseleHaig, Eng. tr., Calcutta, 1925, pp. 57-60

4. See Saiyid MharAbbiis Rizvi, A History of S/~fism in India , NewDelhi, 1983, Vol. II, p. 428

5. Shiih 'Abd al 'Aziz, Ma!fiiziit, Meerut, 1896-7, p.22

expense of much that. was precious in our perennial culture,lhere did take place some give and take between the two-communities or cultures the impact of which is noticeable eventoday, yet it must be borne in mind that the process failed toculminate in the emergence of a composite culture worth thename. Peaceful, if not constructive, coexistence is the sine quanon of anything composite, much more so of composite culture,and we have seen that precisely this has been lacking here allthrough. The ethos of Islam is too radically different from,-exclusive of, and incompatible with that of Hinduism and itsattitude too uncompromising for it to join hands with any otherculture. In fact, the Qur'an and the Prophet forcefully forbidthe Muslims to befriend the Kafirs,J even the best of whomare inferior to even Muslim slaves.2 The Prophet goes to thelength of ruling that one who follows the example of someother people actually belongs to them (Man tashabbaha bi-qawminfa hua min-hum).

We do bave an eclectic architecture, which owes its existenceprimarily to remodelling of or outright new construction (ofmosques, kbanqahs, tombs, palaces, etc.) on temples and otherHindu buildings demolished by the Muslim rulers, secondarilyto the extensive use of native materials, sleills, and styles, andtertiarily to the natural tendency to imitate the ways of the'Powers that be. It has all taken place on the pbysicallevel andbas had nothing to do with meaning and motif, in wbicb alone-does art consist qua art. The Muslims have been religIouslyindifferent to, if not contemptuous of, Indian sculpture. Thanksto the taste of the Stifj-s, the Muslims took some fancy toIndian music. The main gamut of Indian literature has alsobeen untinged with Muslim literature and historico-cultural.allusions.

Poets like la.yasi, Ra}:lim, and Raskhan are rare phenomena.So -are saints like Kabir, Nanak, and Gharib Das. Theyattempted a synthesis of the two cultural streams in the field ofliterature in their own way. But their endeavours were severely

I. AI'Imran(3) 28, 118, 119; an-Nisii (4) 144, al-Mii'idah (5) 51, 572. AI-Baqarah (2) 221

25THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTUREMYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS24

limited and short-lived. They failed to be popular amongst andinfluence the Muslims.

Urdu language and literature, the much-vaunted symbols orvehicles of composite culture, are not the result of interminglingof Hinduism and Islam but reflect the Muslim image in Indiangarb, whose yarn is predominantly Islamic and whose embroi­dery, too, is imported from without. Iqbal appears to besincere in his confession, 'Let my jar be ever so 'Ajami (noo­'Arabic, barbarian), 'Arabic my wine is. Let my song be everso Indian, 'Arabic my tune is' :

'Ajami khum hai to kya may to lfijlizi hai meriNaghmah Hindi hai to kyli lay to Hijazi hai meri

On the whole, Urdu culture could not cross the deadline ofMuslim culture. Sauda, the classical Urdu poet, for example"refers to India as an unholy land:

Gar ho kashish-i shah-i Khurasan to 'Sauda'Sajdah na karun Hind ki napak zami,i par

(If the king of Khurasan draw me near, I would not bow (to­God) on the unholy land of Hindustan,)

Likewise, pre-Muslim Indian history has never been fortun­ate enough to be owned, nor have the Hindu heroes andsavants been fortunate enough to be honourned, by the Muslimcommunity. Indeed, even the Hindu fighters for freedom fromthe British yoke go unsung and unwept by the Muslims save forNebru and that, too, for his pro-Muslim stance. So far as we'can see, even l\zad, the model 'nationalist Muslim', has had noword of appreciation for the Hindu men of destiny, ancient ormodern, witb tbe natural exception of Gandhi. And thequestion of the Hindus being impressed by Muslim history andheroes as tbeir own history and heroes is ruled out by the verynature of the case. Nevertheless, however, some of them havegone out of their way in showering words of praise over thehistorical role of Islam and in sometimes defending such perse­cutors of the Hindus and Hinduism as Aurangzeb and 'Ala'u

'd-Din Kbalji.

Tbe opposition between the Hindu and the Muslim percep­tions of history is thrown into bold relief by Iqbal, who is allpraise for Aurangzeb and all condemnation for Akbar and DaraShukoh : '(Aurangzeb was the last arrow in our quiver in thewar between Kufr and Islam. Akbar sowed tbe seed of irreligion,which grew in tbe character of Dara... (But) tbe lightning of his(Aurallgzeb's) sword burnt down the barn of irreligion andlighted the lamp of Islam in our convivial assembly.' :

27'THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIA.N CULTURE

Darmiyan-i karzar-i Kufr-o DinTarkash-i ma ra khadang-i akhirin 'Tukhm-i il/:uid-i ki Akbar parwaridBaz andar fitrat-i Dara damidlfaqq guzid az Hind 'Alamgir raAn faqir-i {iabib-i shamshir raBarq-i tigh-ash khirman-i il/:zad sokhtSham'-i Din dar ma/:1fil-i rna bar-farokht

Now, Christian culture, too, has had it. impact here, less"however, than Islam. Its direct impact is discernible in tbeideology of tbe Brabma Samaj and in the spirit of servicecharacterizing tbe Ramakrishna Mission. On the other side,Christianization as also Islamization results, by and large, indenationalization. The moment one converts to Christianity orIslam one's love for and self-identification with India undergoesabatement. This process gets inordinately accelerated in theevent of conversion to Islam. The convert's adberence andallegiance to the mainstream of Indian culture gets diluted anddissipated often beyond recognition, if not totally wiped out.The great traditions of the f{ii·s and muni-s, ascetics and saints,Tirthankara-s and Buddha-s, Siddha-s and Yogin-s, Valmiki-sand Vyasa-s, Rama-s and K:r~!)a-s, and so forth' cannot catchthe fancy of the Christian and Muslim hearts, which have aninnate and self-existent predilection for the Biblical andQur'anic prophets and personages. All Indian history prior to'tbe advent of Islam or Christianity becomes an age of darknessfor the convert. Indian heroes become irrelevant, if not villainsoutright.

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS26

cultures like Islamic did take place during the medieval times,we would do well to examine whether the extraneous elementsthat have entered into Indian culture are in order or are suchas to spell disaster for it.

As a matter of fact, Muslim culture invaded Indian culturenot to make friends with it but to wipe it out. Its declared aimwas Islamization and method Crescentade/Jihad, which changedits colours and contours according to changing circumstances.Hence Muslim culture cannot be said to be an integral part ofIndian culture and must be regarded as an anticulture orcounter-culture in our body politic.

Now, let us examine whether it would be proper to designateas composite culture the combined gamuts of cultural traditions-Vedic-Pural}ic, Buddhist, Jaina, Lokayata, etc.-baving indi­genous origin.

Well, India did produce the Lokayata philosophy, whichcould not fructify, however, into a Lokayata culture. It couldnot in fact have, as Jayanta BhaHa, the great Nyaya-Vaise~ ika

philosopher of circa 1000 A.D. would have it :1

Na hi Lokayate kiificit kartavyam upadisyate.VaitGlpjikakathaivasau, na puna/:! kascid agamah.

That is : 'The Lokayata is not an Agama, viz. not a guide to·cultural living, not a system of do's and don't's; hence it isnothing but irresponsible wrangling.' In fact, the Lokayataoperated and developed as a tradition of universal criticism ornegativism, without caring to evolve a durable or regular life­order, a socio-cultura l order, of its own, with the result that itfailed to commend itself to society at large. No wonder tha t abranch of the Lokayata, the Nilapat a school, so called becauseits members dressed in blue, were responsible for inception ofwhat may be called an inculture (apa-samskrti ), a tradition ofwanton living, about which it is said :2

1. Jayanta Bhatta, Nyiiyamaiijar i (ess, Varanasi, 1936), PramaJ)a­PrakaraQa, p. 247

2. Purtifaflaprabafldhasailgraha, p. 19

28 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALIfY OF REUGIONS

Parsi culture is also an alien culture, but alien in name only,for, tolerant from the first, it has got blended with Indianculture almost beyond recognition. Being the relics of theIranian branch of the great Indo-European Aryan family, abranch sisterliest to the Iranian branch of the Aryans, and beingpersecuted and forced to seek asylum in this country by theIslamic invaders, the Parsis have grown more and more non­different from the Hindus. Besides, the Parsis' is not a prosely­tizing religion, hence they do not pose any coexistential problemto others. Their identit~ stands out in and is confined to theirway of worship and disposal of dead, chiefly. And they are toofew and far between. Therefore, Parsi culture constitutes analmost infinitesimal subculture in this country. Likewise,forest and hil1-dwelling tribes subsisting on the fringes of thevast Indian social system are fast losing their cultural identity,which they are bound to, thanks to the process of theirmodernistic acculturation and assimilation in the body politic.Presently, they are so cut off from the mainstream of Indianlife and yet so much on the way to assimilation therein thattheir cultures cannot claim a better status than vanishingsub-cultures or rather side-cultures.

The greatest impact that our culture displays at present isthat of Western culture, whose chief traits are modernity andscientific temper. This modern, scientific culture is fast assumingglobal proportions and appears to be out to devour al1 nationalcultures. Indian culture, too, is catcbing its hues, which aregrowing faster and faster. These are good, bad, and indifferent,of course. We must be on our guard against the bad hues. Ourneed to guard against evil influences of the Semitic cultures ismuch greater. Our leaders are propagating the myth that theconfluence of cultures is always good, is all good. Their madpropaganda of composite culture points in the same direction.It is forgotten that, not to speak of intermingling of cultures,sometimes even the contact of another culture proves unwhole­some, fataP Therefore, if a commingling of Indian and other

1. See Harsh Narain, 'Pracya aur Pascafya Smnskrtiyoil ka $ammilana

Varadana yii Abhisiipa', Smnskrfi, 27 (March, 1985), pp. 32-35

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE 29

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS' THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE 31

Na nadyo maaa-vdlzinyo, na ca mii?'nsa-maya naga/:z,Na ca niiri-mayam visvam, katham Nilapata/:z sukhi ?

That is : 'How can the Nilapata feel happy till rivers beginsto overflow with wine, the mountains are made of meat, and,the world is full of women ?' This sect violated all socio-culturalnorms, which led to their massacre to a man by king Bhoja.1

Jainism, too, failed to develop any cultural identity of itsown. Jaina ascetics can be called culture-disregarding, thanksto their life-negation and non-participation in socio-culturallife. On the contrary, the Jaina householders are as goodHindus as others, culturally speaking. To be sure, elements ofHindu religion, philosophy, and culture are so ingrained in theJaina tradition that the latter leaves us no alternative but toregard it as part and parcel of Hindu culture. Jainism shareswith the Hindus their pantheon, practice of propitiation of thedead, caste rulers, and even untouchability. According to oneof their texts, water of a well, pool, tank, etc. dug up by theuntouchables must not be used for drinking or bathing :2

Antyajai/:z khanita/:z kupii, viipi, pUljkari1Ji, sarabTe~amjalam na tu griihyam snana-paniiya ca kvacit.

Not only this. It is also laid down that one ought to give upmuttering prayers when an untouchable appears, speaks, hears,sneezes, passes wind, and gapes in one's presence :3

Vratacyutiintyajatiniim dadane, bhtiSa1Je, srute,kljute, 'dhovatii-gamane, jrmbha1Je japam utsrjet.

Some of their texts open the door for importation of muchmore from Hinduism. It is ruled, for example, that the Jainascan accept any injunctions from others subject to the conditionthat the injunctions do not militate against the ideals and vowsof Jainism :4

1. SiliilJka, Siitrakrtiiliga-Bhiiiya, pp. 280-812. Dlzarlllarasika 3.593. Ibid. 3.33

4. Somadeva Siiri, quoted in Muni Nathamal, AhilhsiitattvadarSalla,p.175

Sarva eva hi Jainiinam pramii1Jam laukiko vidhib,Yatra samyaktva-hiinir na, yatra na vrata-dulja1Jam.

Buddhism, too, is basically a life-negating religion havinlittle interest in social order, strictly speaking. The Buddha ha~pr.escribed rules of discipline~ compiled under the title Vinaya_Pltaka, for the monks but precIOUS little to govern the conductof householders, rulers, and others. And the process f. . . . ... . 0IOvitatlOn to or Imtlatton mto monkhood is a process ofbreaking a.way from socio-c~ltural life in effect, J leaving therest of socIety to fend for Itself in planning socio-culturalco~duct, with the result that it has to fall back Upon themamstream of Indian culture called Hindu culture for it. Someclassical philosophers-Vacaspati Misra (circa 900 A.D.),Jayanta Bhatta, and Udayana (circa 1000 A.D.), to be precise-feel amused at the phenomenon and make a fling at theBuddhists for the latter's lack of a comprehensive code ofconduct governing all stations in and stages of life and theirdependence willy-nilly on Vedic-Smrtic code of conduct.Vacaspati Misra, the versatile genius responsible for commen­taries on almost all orthdox systems of Indian philosophy,remarks that the Buddhists have no religio-social code-neitherone to govern social organization nor one to guide individuo­familial life-order, on which account they have perforce to leanupon the injunctions in the Vedic-Sm:rtic scriptures. ~ JayantaBhatta contends that it is under the guidance of Vedic autho­rity only that the Buddhists and others like them treat theCandala-s etc. as untouchables. 3 Udayana, the great Nyaya­Vaise~ika philosopher, observes that the Buddhists and others

1. See Harsh Narain, 'SriimOliya al/r Nirviiria kii Lokavyavasthii seSambant!IJa' , Diirsanika Triiimiisika, XXII, 2 (April, 197'7), pp. 99-110

2. 'f 'if~Tl{TTf+lT CTurf'>fl1T'qn;o<r<l'f~T~Tlif ~ f'l~illTm: f~lTT: 1111!/Tl'fRfT:Sf'lfRrll"ff fcrGufcr I if f~ Sf:qTurr'licr-<rr.rrT~f1T:qT arf'f <'fTilllTTifTlTt 'l.J:fcr~,!crrfi:T~m ­

~urf.n :.<te:rf1T+r+rmurT W'fcf;:ij" I arf'f g a-sf'f ~icJ:crlri:TfGfcr Sf,CTTVTT milllTTif~t

'>f tlTroil<rriftn:f;:o I~ ~

Viicaspati Misra, Nyiiyaviirtikatiitparyafikii, CSS, Varanasi, 1925, 2.1.69,p.432

3. <r~Tsf'f '5:ml1T'1T ifGsrTl1TUlTf<Jlifl1clT qq "umrrf~ 'ff~Rr IJayanta BhaHa, op. cit., p. 234

like them have no alternative but to perform Vedic rites.maintain the distinction of touchables and untouchables, andatone for violation of these rules. l

To tell the truth, the entire ,gamut of what is called theSrama1)a (ascetic) tradition owes its origin to the perennialIndian r~ligio-cultural mat~ix describable as Sanatana Dharma.from viewing his weltanschauung as a revolt from this tradition,the Buddha declares the former as a fulfilment of the latter. Heis all praise for the SramalJa-s and Brahm(1)a-s of old, Vedicseers, the quadritype organization of society called VarVa-order.He never spoke against the division of Arya (freeman) and Diisa

(slave). Thus, Buddhist culture does not merit treatment asseparate or different from Hindu culture. It is just a subculturethereof.

The net result of the foregoing discussion is that ournational culture, Indian culture, is a unity, describable as·Aryan culture, Hindu culture, A rliii (seers') culture, Saniitana­Dharma, Mdnava (Manu-s') culture, or even greater Vedicculture as comprehensive of its pre-Vedic phase. Why Manavaculture? Because, traditionally speaking, it was inaugurated, soto speak, shaped, patronized, developed, and advanced by apre-Vedic gaUaxy of Manu-s mentioned not only in the epicsand the Pura1)a-s but in the Vedas themselves. The Vedic seerprays to his gods not to deflect l1im from the ancestral path ofManu :3

M ii nab pathab pitryiin M iinavdd adhi duram nailita pardvata(J

(0 Gods! do not let me deflect from the ancestral path ofManu.) So, the Buddhist, the Jaina, and other 'non-Hindu'cultures rooted in the Indian soil are not independent, self.contained cultures worth the name but are part and parcel of

1. ;,Htil<f ~1lf<f ~ ~t'taf~'Wlrsfq "'~T!'ffiTrnf6cqlirat <if~'l>T f~ll't ;;AI .

<fTrrf~ofa 'fq!l'll'H;ql!lnf~fcf'llrrt 'IT rrFf~rra-, <lffCl~i'r 'ifrq~rrTf~~Tll'f1fii~ "If,'.:ll ' C. Co ~ -:I

'iT'lfCl6?ifi'f IUdayana, Atmatattvaviveka. Varanasi, 1983, p. 433

2. Rg-Veda 8.30.1

33

the Greater Hindu Culture, of perennial Indian culture, aresubcultures, pure and simple. As pointed out above, there is nosuch thing as Lokayata culture as such, and that, if it did existto any extent and in any form whatever, it would have been nobetter than a subculture, to the greater culture. The modernLokayata, vi:&. secularism, is of course evolving, .if it has notyet evolved, its own culture, and it appears that in the long runit is destined to merge with the scienlific world-culture which isin the offing. But it has not yet been able to isolate itself from.the perennial Hindu culture, like a subculture to which it is.growing up. Needless to mention that it is Hindu culture which!is providing shelter and nourishment to it. Were it Islamicculture instead of Hindu culture, secularism would die illlinfancy, as has happened and is still happening in the bulk ofthe countries under Muslim fule. As a matter of fact, it is itstime-tested traditions of tolerance and tranquility that gonaturally to orient it towards universal brotherhood and cosmo­politanism, as represented by not only Vedic-Upani~adic seersand the Bhagavad-Gitii, the Buddha and the Bodhisattva-s, butin our day by Vivekananda and Ramatirtha, Gandhi andNehru, Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan.

Thus Indian culture is Hindu culture: even if predominantly.it is predominance that gives the name. Muslim and Christiancultures are counter-cultures. Lokayata culture is a non-culture.or subculture. SramalJa culture is a subculture. And Parsi culture.too, is something like that, practically speaking.

In point of fact, Hindu culture alone deserve. the credit ofrecognition as the national culture (abhimiinin) of this country"as the culture owning and possessing this great nation, alongwith other Indian-born cultures like Buddhist and Jaina culturesas its subcultures, Muslim and Christian cultures being in thenature of tenant-cultures, parasitic (anusayin) culturt<s, or out­and-out counter-cultures. The distiction of master-/possessor-/­owner culture and tenant-/parasitic culture has its own significa­nce. Our body is inhabited by a host of souls, out of which themaster-soul, the body-owning or body-possessing soul, theprimary and predominant soul, is only one, which is fullyresponsible for the body and by which alone the body and the

THE MYTH OF COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURBMYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS32

embodied are defined. The other souls inhabiting the body aresecondary souls, which own no direct responsibility for the bodysave as they are constrained to. 1 Among the secondary sO).1ls,some are innocent parasities, which tend usually to do good tothe body without doing it any harm, whereas there are othersecond~r):' souls which prove harmful to the body, the good ofwhich lies in their removal by use of medicines etc. Theincultures/counter-cultures come under this head, with thisdifference, however, that, where there is the will there is theway to humanize or indigenize them.

. .As indicated at the outset, one must be clear in one's mindthat, whereas there is hard ly any warrant for bolding Indian'Culture to be a composite culture the way it is flaunted to,despite its"'being influenced and even inspired by other culturesin some measure, there can be no ' gainsaying the fact thatIndian society and civilization are composite society andcivilization. And this must also be perfectly clear to us thatcivilization does have its impact on culture, that sometimes amighty civilization helps transform a culture even beyondrecognition, and that a mightly culture helps evolve its owncivilization. Today, there is little room for civilizationaldifferences. All civilizations are on the way to transformationinto a '''world civilization. Culture cannot afford to remainuninifluenced by the phenomenon. Indian cultux:e is stillmainr ining its identity, its native genius, thaJ,lk~ to theinexhaustible sum of its poten~ia.1ities and capacity to ·adill)'ltitself t~ ..~han~ing time-place-~ircumstance (desa-V.la.nil:;litta).It would nli>t be . going ·too .far to sugg~st that al;ly world­c'ivilization, apd world-culture•..will. be inc~IJ?plete ! }}'ith9u;tdrawir\g~p,rofusely upon it for its spiHtual, (n.r~li~i0 7Philosonh'c.

content. But this is ~ i9ng story whic~ cannot be told, in .theI " . ' • • t ~. •

spape-.budget at our disposal.

- To' resume the: thread of the" discussion, Muslim andCnristtan cultures remain alien here in intent and contentdespite' the Iormer1s coexistence with the mainstream of Indianculture for more than a thousand years and the latter's for at

L p. Sa~lkar~, Sarirakabhii,~ya 3.1.24

least two centuries and a half. No use mincing matte. . If . rs orpr~ctlslOg se -decepsIOn. Says Dharmakfrti, the great Buddh' tphilosopher, 'If this is what is relished by things as they a ISwho are we?':l re,

'Yadidam svayam arthiiniim rocate, latra ke vayam?'

Our culture is not composite the way our leaders glibly andrather irresponsibly talk about and want us to believe. Even so,eff?rts.c~n ~nd_~h~uld be made to popularize the way of Zaynal- Ab/dw, Ala u d-Din J:Iusayn Shah, Akbar, midi. Shukohand suchlike among the Muslims. It is futile, as was sought t~be done by Abu 'l-Kalam Azad, to exhort the Muslims to harkback to the so-called joint nationalism or single nation idealimmatun wfi/:zic1ah, envisaged in tIle historic agreement concludedbetween the Quraysh led by the prophet of Islam and the Jewsof Medinah shortly after the hegirah. 2 As remarked by Abu'l<Ala Maud?df, and rightly, it was in the nature of a militaryallJ~nce, whIch fell apart in two or three years, some JewshavlOg been deported and the rest killed to a man. Besides, tobe sure, s~ch an agreement would be barred by the Qur'anicverses of JIhad. This point cannot be dilated upon in this work.

Again, instead of harping upon the so-called secularism inseason and out of season, our leaders would do well to findwa~s and .~eans to inculcate in the Muslim psyche a love forIndIan religIOus, philosophical, and cultural traditions the needto shed their Katir-complex, and openness enough ;0 embarkupo~ an era of give and take with others, with a view toclearIng the way t~ intercultural understanding and, if youchoose the expreSSIOn, to composite culture. The Muslimsystem of education current in thousands of Madrasah-s scat­tered all over t~e c.o~ntry acts as a bulwark for what S. MaqbtilAI:tmad calls polItICal fanaticism'3 and turns out still more

J. Dharmaklrti, Prama!!avartika 2.2.210

2..Ibn Hishiim, Sirarll Sayyida-//Ct MII~lam/llad, 'Abd al-Jalil Siddiqi &GhuI~m RasGI Mihr, Urdu trs., under the title Siratu 'n-Nabiyy-i KcimilDeIbl, 1982, Vol. I, p. 554 '

3: S. M.aqb~1 Al;1mad. 'Madrasa System of Education and IndianMuslim SocIety, Indian alld Contemporary Is/am S T L kb d II dSimla, 1971, p. 32 ' . . 0 an wa a, e .,

34 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONSTHE MYTH O? COMPOSITE INDIAN CULTURE

3:5

36 MYTHS OP COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OP RELIGIONS­

thousands of Hindu-haters every year. The mis-schooled Muslimgraduates of these institutions need to be de~schoole~ and th.ene-schooled fOI adapting them to cooperative coexIstence with~he Hindus. To this end, their inflated sense of identity needsalso to be brought within limits. We are inclined to believe thatre-education along the foregoing lines and inc~l~ation . ofscientific temper in them which is the moving spmt behmdSir Sayyid's unfinished eommentar~ ~n t~e ~ur'a:n .ca~ ,,:orkwonders and pave the way to their mdlgemzahon/lndlamzatJon/national integration.

Chapter II

INDIA: DAR AL-HARB OR DAR AL-ISLAM ?

The Qur'an bifurates humanity into the Faithful/Mu'mins!Muslims and the Unfaithful/Infidels!Ka:firs, and the latter into

:ScripturaFies and Polytheists/Idolaters/Mushriks. It rules omlasting cooperative, friendly, or even peaceful coexistence of theMuslims with the Ka:firs, all contempory apologetic andrationalization to the contrary notwithstanding. The quinte­ssence of its commands to the Muslims vis-a-vis the Ka:firs (in aDilr al-lfarb) as perceived, preached, and practised by theProphet, his Companions and Followers, and later Crescentaders.and theologians/jurists, can be put as under:

1. Try to convert the Kafirs to Islam.

2. If any of them resist,

(1) try to consign them to the grave before Allahconsigns them to the hell-fire, plunder and loot theirproperty (al-anjal/al-ghanti'im) movable and immo­vable (al-amwal wa 'l-amltile), enslave them, menfolk(tlsrii') and womenfolk and children (sabayti) alike;

(2) or, where imposition of Jizyah is permissible, let theKafirs escape death and compound their offence ofKufr (infidelity) by disgracefully paying Jizyah,abjectly surrendering to the brute force of theMuslim8, and suffering all sorts of indignities asDhimmi-s (protected ones);

(3) or, again, if you find yourselves too weak to dealwith the Ka:firs the way outlined above, takerecourse to hejira (hijrah) and bide your time.

Taking their cue from such Qur'anic provisions, theFaithful were led to bifurcate the world into two opposite-domains: Dar al-Isltim (the domain of Islam) or, as Mu]:lammad

38 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AHD EQUALITY OF RELIGiONS INDIA: DAR AL-I;JARB OR DAR AL-ISLAM?39

bin Al:tmad as-Sarkhasi would have it,! Dar al-Muslimin, andDar al-J:larb (the domain of war). Sometimes, a third domainis also proposed, particularly by Imam Shafi'i and ImamMul:tammad bin al-I;Iasan, conceptuaIly midway betweenthe two and designated alternatively as Dar al-'Abd, Dar-asfJulb, Dar a/-Amn, Dar al-Amcln, and Dar as-Salm. Shaykh AbOZuharah, a contemporary Egyptian scholar, regards it as aseparate domain in its own right.

But there is hardly any reason to regard it as more than avariety of Dar al-J:larb. It is, as a matter of fact, a Dlir al-J:larbqualified by a purely temporary truce or suspension of hosti­lities, for the simple reason that the Muslim psyche rules outpermanent settlement with Kufr on terms of equality. Indeed, inIslam, as is well recognized outside the world of Islamicapologetics, war with the Kafirs is the norm and peace iscontingent upon special circumstances. This is why the greatImam Abu I;Ianifah counts the so-called Dar as-Sul/:z as part ofDar a/-Is/am and its non-Muslim subjects as rebels, which, toall intents and purposes, is indistinguishable from a Dar a/·lJarb,so far as the possibility of war against the rebels is concerned.If it is a Dar ai-Is/am at all, it is a Dar a/-Is/am only de jure.This will be clear as we proceed.

Dar a/-Islam is held to be of three kinds:

1. l;Iaram/I;Iaramayn Sharifayn (Mecca and Medinah), whichonly the Muslims are permitted to visit and inbabit andwhich the Kafirs cannot even pass through. However, ImamAbu I;Ianifah permits the Scripturaries to pass through it.

2. l:lijaz, tbe beartiand of Arabia, including tbe I;IaramaynSharifayn (Mecca and Medinab), which barring tbe J:IaramaynSharifayn, of course, the Kafirs may only pass through butwbere they are not permitted to bury or cremate their dead.Tbe Prophet is traditioned to have wiIIed that no Kafir:should be permitted to reside there.

3. The rest of the territories of the world.

1. Mul;Jammad bin Al;lmad as-Sarkhasi, Kitab a/-Mabsll{, Vol. X, BiiJral-Murtaddin, p. 114

J:Iijaz is ordained as an exclusive preserve of Islam for to~ollow Abu'l-Kal~~ AZ~d,l the Muslims could take ref~ge i~ it10 tbe event of he]lra (hljrah) or expulsion from a Dar al-J:larb.

The motto of a sizable section of the theologians is: Once aDar a/-Is/am, always a Dar al-Is/tim. But the consensus is that aDar al-blam does become a Dar al-Ffarb under certain condi­tions. Thus, Dar a/-Ffarb is of two kinds:

1. A territory that has never been a Dar al:Islam

2. A territory that is no longer a Dar a/-IslamAccording to Imam Ab'u J;Ianifah, as understood by

as·Sarkhasl (loc. cit.), a Dar aI-Islam changes into a Dar al-]Jarbunder the following three conditions taken together:

1. When the territory in question adjoins a Dar al-lJarb,without any Dar al-Islam intervening between the two.

2. When no Muslim or Dhimmi therein enjoys the security dueto 11im on the basis of former protection rights.

If even one such person enjoys such security, it would meanthat the Mushriks/Kafirs have not yet established theirparamountcy and ascendancy fully (tamam) and hence theterritory has not ceased to be a Dar a/-Is/am.

3. When the rule of the Mushriks/Kafirs is freely and absolutelyexercised (ya?lzaru abkamu •sh-shirk-ifi-hii).

If even one Islamic regulation (such as adhan or circumci­sion) remains in force, it will indicate that they have not yetbeen able to establish their absolute rule, and hence theterritory has not ceased to be a Dar aI-Islam. On the Imam'sbehalf, Mul:tammad bin Ma!:lmUd al-Asbtrawshani adds that,where even a part of the causal situation is intact, the eff~ct

remains extant, too, by the force of the former's endurance. 2

1. Abu 'J-Kalam Azad, Khurbtit, Lahore, n.d., p. 42 . I

2. Mu/:lammad bin Ma1.lmud al-Ashtrawshani Kitiib a/.FII~ti1 Vol. Jleaf 2, Dar a!·'UHim Deoband MSS, quoted by Sa'~d Al;Jrnad Akbarii biidi:'Hindustiin ki Shar'i I;Jaythiyyat', Blirluill, 1967, vide Naqshaw 'I-Ma~a'iir,etc., Aligah Muslim University, n.d., p. 61

40 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS lNDIA : DAR AL-1;IARB OR DAR AL-ISLAM ? 41

The foregoing ruling of Imam Abu I:Ianifah is rejected bybis own illustrious disciples, Imam Abu YUsuf and ImamMu1:lammad, nicknamed as Sti(7iban (the two masters), who laydown that the mere replacement of the rule of the Muslims bythe rule of the MushriksjKafirs and the merest inception of thelatter's dispensation are enough to convert a Dar ai-lsitim into aDar al.J:!arb. In his al-Mabsflt, however, Imam Mu1:Jammad alsoobserves: 'When a Country of Islam falls into the hands of theInfidels, it remains a Country of Islam if the Infidels retainMuhammadan Governors and Muhammadan Judges and do notintroduce their own Regulations.'l

When the Marathas came to power, beyond exacting Chauth(one-fourth), they did not interfere with or disturb the actualadministration by Muslim Subedars and Qa<;!is, who continued,on demise, to be succeeded by new ones of the same religion.That is why India continued to be regarded as the Dar al-Isltimas it was under Muslim rule.

The East India Company in its early phases followed suit.All-powerful as they were, they left the Muslim administrationof the provinces intact, retained the Shari'ah as the law of theland, to be operated by the Qa<;li-s, and acted in the name of theMuslim emperor. 'Indeed,' writes Hunter,2 'so afraidwas the East India Company of assuming the insignia ofsovereignty, th at long after its attempts to govern the countrythrough the Musalmans had broken down, in consequence ofthe indescribable corruption of the Muhammadan administra­tion, it still pretended to be the Deputy of a MusalmanMonarch. It is a matter of history how this pretence in the endsank into a contemptible force and how we struck coins inthe name of the King of Delhi, while our Resident was payingthe poor pensioner a monthly allowance for his table expenses.'Hunter adds a little later that 'had we hastened by a singledecade our formal assumption of the sovereignty, we should

1. [mam Muhammad, Kitab al·Mabsu{, cited in W.W. Hunter, TheIndian MIl,mlmal/; (reprint of 3rd ed. , Delhi: Varanasi : Jndological Boo~House, 1969), p. 122

2. Hunt,::r, pp. 129-130

have been landed in a Muhammadan rising infinitely ' moreserious than the mutinies of 1857. The whole status of theMusalmans would have been suddenly changed. We should havebeen in the position of an Infidel power who has seized andoccupied a Country of Islam." With remarkable patience theCompany waited for exactly a hundred years (1765 to 1864) tolet the Muslim power wither away by imperceptible gradations,-so that it is difficult to put one's finger on any given year oreven decade as that of the change-over. It was by Act XI of1864, however, that the British government did away with theinstitution of the Qa<;!i-s, the last vestige of Muslim rule inIndia.

It appears that the difference between Imam Abu I:Ianifahand the Sdl:zibiin is not so fundamental as it is made out to be.The former seems in effect to have in mind Ddr ai-Islam de

jure, whereas what agitates the mind of the Stibibdn is DaraI-Islam de facto. Dar al-Isldm de jure is a territory which hasnot yet been completely infidelized and thereby has not yet shedits character of Dar ai-Islam. For example, even though, duringthe declining Mughul rule, real power passed into the hands ofthe Marathas, the Sikhs, the Rajputs, and, above all, theBritish-all infidels-, even Shah WaH Allah (1703-1762) did-not deem India to be a Ddr al-lfarb, for, as indicated earlier,'the Mughuls continued for long as the titular head of the state.In fact, a Ddr al-J:!arb and a Mushrik-ruled Deir al-Islam bothinvite Jiha d, but, while hejira (wholesale exodus) from theIformer is the second sanctioned alternative, this is not availableto the Muslims of the latter. Something more about it in thesequel.

Certain Indian theologians have sought to simplify the.definitions of Dilr al-Isldm and Dar al-J:!arb in a more straight­forward manner and much more in keeping with the spirit ofIslam. According to Sayyid Mu1:Jammad Miyan of Jam'iyyatal-'Ulama'i Hind, Dar al-Isldm means a Muslim state, whereasDar al-lfarb means a non-Muslim state even though there be

1. Ibid., p. 130

I I

had only two courses open: Jihad or hejira. Sayyid A1:lmadShahid and Shah Isma'il Shahid declared Jihad on MaharajaRanjit Singh and came to grief. In 1857, thirtyeight 'Vlama' ofDelhi issued afatwa followed by another by many others againstthe British government, which brought forth an uprising ofninety thousand 'mutineers' in Delhi.

Parallel to the movement of Jihad, certain 'UIama' startedthe movement of hejira in 1841. Sometime after, they broughtout what may be called a manifesto of hejira under the titleHijrat ka Risalah, discovered in 1869 and published for the firsttime in June 1988. J

Certain other 'Vlama' chose to call British India a Daral-'Ahd, or a Dar aI-Amon respectively, on the ground that theMuslims enjoyed complete religious freedom during the Britishregime. Iqbal sardonically remarks:

Hai Hind men mulla ko jo sajde ki ijazatNii.dan yeh samajhta hai ki Islam hai azad

(Thanks to the freedom that the MulIa enjoys to bow down (toGod), the fool thinks that Islam is free.)

It is usually forgotten, however, that, even if British Indiawas a Dar aI-Islam, the doors of Jihad were by no meansclosed to the Muslims, who had lost their sway to tbe Kafirsafter all. J:Iijaz was a full-fledged Dar aI-Islam during theCaliphate, yet the first Caliph had to declare Jihad on theapostates. According to the Shan'ab, 'If infidels press hard oroccupy a town in a Country of Islam (Bildd-ul-Islam), it isabsolutely incumbent (Farz-'ain) on every Muhammadan man,woman, and child to hurt and drive away the Infidel Ruler.'2Hunter adds, 'This is so established a rule, that the King ofBokhara was compelled by his subjects to declare Holy Waragainst the Russians as soon as they entered the Country ofIslam.'3 Indeed, during Akbar's reign, India remained a DaraI-Islam, and yet he had to face decrees of Jihad and bloodyinsurrections.

1. Hijrat ka Risiilalz, Ma'tirif, CXLI, 6 (June, 1988), pp. 438-4402. Hunter, p. 1233. Loc. cit.

42 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS·

no war between the Muslims and the non-Muslims and the latterenjoy the fruits of equality before law. According to Shah 'Abdal-'Aziz (1746-1824), Shah WaH Allah's illustrious son, aterritory remains a Dar al-lsltim as long as the war between theMuslims and the Kafirs continues. He adds that the territoryceases to be a Dar aI-Islam and changes into a Dar al-Ifarbeven when the Muslims are unable to fight and yet live in peace,retain their possessions, and have full religious freedom, thanksto the tolerant temper and benignity of the Kafirs rather thanto the prowess and dominance of the Muslims.1 Obviously, theSllah's emphasis is not on freedom but on dominance asdecisive on the issue. His position is a far cry from a host of

the theologians' and runs counter to the ruling given by Ibn'Abidin Shami,2 to the effect that a territory will not turn intoa Dar aI-Ifarb if regulations of both the Muslims and theMushriks/Kafirs are in force therein. That is to say, if aterritory is governed/administered by the Muslims and theK afirs jointly or in their respective spheres-let us add, on thebasis of equality or otherwise- , it cannot be regarded as a Daral-Ifarb, according to Shami but must be regarded as a DaraU/arb according to Shah 'Abd al-'Aziz.

When in 1803, dealing a crushing defeat to the Marathas,tlle British forces entered Delhi triumphantly and there was nohope left of saving the Mughul throne, Shah 'Abd al-'Azizissued the famous fatwa (decree) that India had turned into aDar al-Ifarb, insofar as 'in administration and justice, inmatters of law and order, in the domain of trade, finance, andcollection of revenue-everywhere the Kafirs are in power.'Although, as indicated above, real power had passed into thehands of the Kafirs prior to it, reducing the Mughul emperor tothe status of a mere titular Tuler, even Shah Wali Allahentertained some hope of resuscitation of the Muslim rule, towhich end he invited A1:lmad Shah Abdali to teach a lesson to·the Kafirs.

Now, those who took Shah 'Abd al-'Aziz's verdict seriously'

1. Shiih 'Abd al-'Aziz, FatalVa, Delhi, 1311/1893-94, T, pp. 162-1632. Ibn 'AbidIn ShamI, Radd a/-MII~ltar,Vol. III, p. 275

INDIA: DAR AL-I;IARB OR DAR AL-ISLAM ? 43 I

II

Nevertheless, however, during early British rule, MaulawiKaramat 'Ali of Jaunpur decreed that India was a Dar ai-Islamand that, therefore, Jihad against the British was unlawfuI.l

Now, what is the status of India left truncated by theBritishers ? The bulk of the 'Ulama' are keeping mum on thisissue. The Deoband school has, however, all along been main­taining that it is a Dar al-IJarb. The fatwa of Shah 'Abdal-'AZlz, one of the great forerunners of the Deoband school, hasalready been quoted. Mu1:lammad Miyan asserts that SouthAfrica is a Dar al-IJarb: 'Dar al-IJarb means a non-Muslimstate even if it be free from warfare, there be a peace treatywith' the Muslims or an understanding regarding peace andtranquility, or the law of the land be such that the Muslims feelprotected thereby. If it is not a Muslim state, it is not a Daral-Islam.'2 This definition/verdit fully applies to India of today.I:Iusayn A1:lmad Madani, the greatest nationalist Muslim withAbu 'l-Kalam Azad so called, was more candid. In a letterwritten during the British regime, he states his position thus:'Hindustan is a Dar ai-Ifarb. It shall continue to be a Dilral-J:Iarb, as long as it is dominated by Kufr.'3 In another letterwritten after Partition, he is equally candid: 'Hindustan hasbeen a Dar al-lfarb over since Islamic rule ended here.'4 Therecently published collection of the Deoband fatwas, Fatawa-iDeoband contains a Fatwa on the issue in hand, to the effect,that even free India is a Dflr al-IJarb.5 The ground adduced isthat, allegedly, Islam and the Muslims are denied their share offreedom; that the Muslims' life and property, honour anddignity, are not yet safe; and that the Muslim communityremains miserable (Millat-i Isllimiyyah sogw.1r hi hai).'6

1. Ibid., p. 124, and Appendix III2. Muhammad MiyiiJi., AI-Jam 'iyyat Daily, May 27, 1966, p. 4, col. 13. Hus~yn Ai:lmad Madani, Makliibtit·i Slzaykh al-Isltim, Vol. II,

letter No. 334. Ibid., letter No. 645. Fatawii-i Deobal/d, Vol. II (Fatwa-s of Mufti 'Aziz ar-Rai:lmiin

·Uthmiini). n.d.6. ibid., p. 269

1. To embark upon Jihad with a view to converting the Daral-IJarb into a Dar ai-Islam.

If

,I45INDIA: DAR AL-I;IARB OR DAR AL-ISLAM?

Sa'id Ahmad Akbarabadi maintains that there are not twobut four domains: Dar aI-Islam, Dar al-IJarb, Dar ai-Amlin,and Dar al-'A/:ld,l but asserts that this truncated India is noneof these.2 According to him, these distinctions are valid wherethe Muslims are one party and the non-Muslims another, butIndia that is Bharat is one nation, governed as one nation inaccordance with a Constitution, which alone rather than themajority community has vouchsafed to the Muslim the rightsthey enjoy, on the basis of equality with the majority com­munity. Hence, he concludes, that the foregoing classificationsof domains are far from applicable to our country. He appearsto be inclined to viewing the classifications as outmoded. Thatis why he coins a new term, al-watan al-qawmi with its Englishequivalent 'national home'. to define this country's status interms of the Shari'ah. 3

1. Akbariibadi, op. cit., p. 752. ibid., p. 963, Ibid., p. 103

As indicated earlier, the Muslims in a Diir al IJarb have onlytwo alternatives:

It is true that it is the Constitution to which the Muslimsowe their rights but it is truer that it is the majority to whom theConstitution owes its existence. Therefore, in the last analysis,our country is ruled by the will of the majority community andthe Muslims' participation in government on the basis ofequality with others is due to the benignity of the majoritycommunis. Declaring India as the national home of theMuslims does not appear to alter the issue.

2. Failing which, to migrate to a safer territory. If, therefore,.India is a Dar al-J:Iarb, the danger of an outbreak of Jihadis anybody's guess. And, if it is a Dar ai-Islam de jure, therequirements of the Shari'ah will not be met till it getsconverted to a Dar ai-Islam de facto. It is, indeed, up to the

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS44

46 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS

Muslim community in India to decide if it will maintains thedistinction of Dar aI-Islam and Dar al-lJarb and hold fast toall that it implies or bid good-bye to this part of theShari'ah. Needless to say that the implications of theirdecision will be far-reaching. AkbarabadJ's thesis doesappear to tamper with the Shari'all but would feel powerlessbefore the might of the doctrine of Jihad, as summed up atthe very outset.

• l. f'~ to'

"

..

Chapter III

THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITYOF RELIGIONS

In the opening chapter. we have essayed the task of explod­ing the myth that Indian culture is a composite culture, acultural unity composed predominantly of pre-Muslim Indianculture and Muslim culture. The religious dimension of culturedeserves separate treatment, which we proceed to be up to inthe present chapter.

There are some to whom only their religion is true andsome others to whom all religion are false or foolish. They donot concern us in this chapter. Our concern here is with thecomparatively new-fangled notion that all religions are one,equal, or equally valid, which to us is a pleasant falsehood andthereby the biggest stumbling block in the understanding ofreligion and the religions. It is, in fact, at the back of manya mind inclined to belief in the theory of composite Indianculture.

The tone and templer of the three Semitic religions, viz.Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is exclusivistic. Each of themasserts that only that is true and that alI other religions, not~xcluding the remaining Semitic' religions, are either false. fromthe first or are perverted ' versions of the only true religion­'outgrowths of error, 'sin, and malice', as Arnold Toynbeewould' ha~e it. That is why Cbristianity and Islam are prosely­tizing religions. Amongst the Sl1fi-s in Islam, however, therewere some who appear to have some sympathy with the foll­owers of other religions or their ways of worship. In thepreceding chapter, we have seen how RUmi comes out with apowerful plea for equal validity of alI ways of worship in thOeyes of God, in his story of Moses and the shepbered. AnotherSafi. Ni:?am ad-Diu Awliya' (l238-1325), once read the follo­wing verse to his disciples including Amir Kbusrau :

1, Fawii'id a/-Fu'iid, Shaykh Niziim ad-Din Awliyii's sayings, compiledby his direct disciple Arnir l;Jasan 'Alii Sanjari alias Khawiijah I;IasanDihlawi, Urdu tr. by Muslim Al;1mad Niziimi under the title Jrshiid-iMa~lbiib, Delhi, n.d•• p. 129

2. Siirah al-Wiiqi 'ah (56) 783. Al 'lmriin (3) 7; Ibriihim (14) 39; az-Zukhruf (43) 44. Dara Shukoh, Sirr-; Akbar, Introduction

11

49THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS

them. But Hinduism has outgrown it all. After all, Hinduism~s truly a dialectical religion in the sense that it is perpetually10 a state of flux thanks to the perennial conflict of contrarydevelopments therein, with the result that it cannot remain~ightly tied to any of its forms, any of its articulations, any "OfIts tenets for long. In this consists its dynamism, all-inclusive­~ess, and spirit of tolerance. This is why, wllereas other relig­Ions are condemned to swear by, bear responsibility fOT, andbe bound down to each and every word uttered by their founderHinduism is ever ready to slough off or outgrow any .of it~ossified forms without compunction and assume newer fOQllsso that it becomes rather difficult to pinpoint what falls outsid;~induism or even to define Hinduism at a particular POlDt oftIme. What AJ:tmad Nadim Qasimi has to say to his beloved:

Jab bhi dekha hai tujhe fiurat-i nau dekha haiMar/:zalah !ayy na hua teri shinasdi ka

(Whenever I saw thee, I saw thee in a new form. The problemof thy identity remains unsolved.)

~ow, :he modern tendency of regarding all religions as truebeglD.s WIth Ramak~~l)a nicknamed Parama harnsa (1836-86),practIcally an uneducated saint. He maintains that the . _

f II I " meaom.,o a re IglOns are one and the same, whatever their complexionand contours, and that they are es entially one and lead to oneand the same goal that is God He declares that 'all 1". . . re IglonspursulDg dIfferent ways will finally reach the same God' It .

I I' . IScomm?n y c aImed tha~ h~ ~ractised the spiritual discipliaespreSCrIbed by even ChrIstIanIty and Islam and found tllem t )In her great works, Isis Unveiled and S€cret Doctrine, :;:Blavatsky. the founder of the Theosophical Society, hasunde.rt~k~n the stupendus task of diving deep into themultlphclty of religio-occultist traditions of the world dprod~ced a~ impressive compound of the ideas discove:dtherem. ~akJng his cue from her, Bhagavan Das compiled abook entItled Essential Unity of All Religions. Gandhi' sarva­~harma-samabh~va is ~nother contribution to this way 'Ofthough t. As WIll be eVIdent in the sequel, be hold ull relig!onsnot only true but eqully true. Rene Guenon moot d the idea of

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS48

Har qawm rast-rahi dini wa qiblah-gdhi

Which means: Every (religious) community is on the rightpath, (indeed,) every religion, every way of worship. Yet hesometimes went against this dictum and observed, 'Kafirs willever remain in torment.'l Dara Shukoh believed both Kufr andIslam to be the pathways to God. Kabir, Nanak, DadU, andother monist saints thought on the same line. In order toestablish the truth of both SUfism and Vedanta, and therebyIslam and Hinduism, as also to harmonize and s:ynthetize them,Dara Shukoh wrote a book entitled Majma' al-Babrayn inPersian and another entitled Samudrasangama in Sanskrit. Heheld the Upani~ads in the highest esteem, believed them to bedivinely revealed, identified them as the 'hidden book' (kitabmaknun) referred to in the Qur'an~ and described there as 'themother of the book' (umm al-kitdb),3 and rendered fifty of theminto simple Persian for propagation of their message amongstthe Muslims.4

As pointed out in the opening chapter, however, not allthe Sufi traditions belonged to this way of thought.

As regards Hinduism, it is well known for its inclusivisticand tolerant attitude towards other religions, cultures, andtraditions, wherein, too, it discerns rays of truth and, under­scoring and highlighting its own uniqueness, universality, andexcellence, it does not forget to add, in unison with RUmi, so tospeak, that people following other ways of worship are alsoqualified to attain the summum bonum.

It is true that some of the Hindu scriptures do not lag.behind others in damning followers of different paths to helland sometimes going to the extent of preaching violence against

50 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 61

the existence of a perennial religio-philosophic tradition ofhuminity which constitutes the corner-stone or rather matrix ofthe religions and cultures of the world. Following in his foot­prints, Frithjoff Schuon, a German philosopher of religionrenamed 'Isa NUl ad-Din on conversion to Islam, wrote anumbers of works including the one on 'transcendental unity'of religions. Zimmer, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, AldousHuxley, Mercia Eliade, and Seyyed Hossain Nan are otherimportant names belonging to tbis way of thought. Theypropound a philosophia perennis (sanatana-dharma) as thecommon ground and unifier of all religio-philosophic traditions.

In what follows regarding Ramak:r~lJa, we have thought itfit to use the information contained in the little, revealing bookentitled Ramakrishna Mission: In Search ofa New Identity by RamSwarup profusely. Ramak:r~lJa told his devotees, on September19, 1884, 'God made me pass through the disciplines of variouspaths. First according to the PuralJa-s, then according to theTantra. I also followed the disciplines of the Vedas.' We are atour wit's end in trying to make out wbat 'the disciplines of theVedas' could mean, and that, too, to one far from learned inthe Vedic lore, and how on eartb it became possible for the-practically unlettered saint to master the Pural)a-s and Tantra-s'so as to be able to practise the welter of disciplines prescribedin them, and that, too, in such a limited span of time. Andwhat does he actually mean by 'disciplines' as prescribed in theVedas Purana-s and Tantra-s? If at all, they prescribe anunma~ageabie ~ultiplicity of disciplines often of a mutuallycontradictory character, so much so that one Pural)a extols itsown disciplines to the sky and condemns the others' as unmit­igably sinful. Indeed, believe it or not, one and tbe same PuralJasometimes applauds one discipline Or set of disciplines in oneof its parts and condemns it outright in another. Any way, onApril 12, 1885, the saint said, 'I practised all sorts of Sadbana...During my Sadhana period I had all kinds of amazing visions.'Then be describes his Sadhana-s and visions. These Sadhanascleatly bear the Hindu stamp, presuppose tbe Hindu context.His devotees' claim is that he practised Christian and Islamic

disciplines as well. But his own statement on tbe subject isconspicu?us by its absence from tbe Gospel of RBmakrlilJa,the earhest record of his words. It is said that a devoteeSwami Saradiinanda, met the saint in the last two year;of the latter's life and wrote a work, Sri Ramakrishna: TheGreat Master, running into 1050 pages 25 years after, in whichthe saint's Sadhana-s of Islam and Christianity came to bedescribed for the first time. From the book it appears that thesaint spent three days each in the two disciplines. His practiceof Islam covers only one page, reduced to ten lines by SwamiNikhilananda in his shorter biography of the saint. This Swamisays that the saint began his Siidhana of Islam under theguidance of a Hindu named Govind Ray converted to Islam.'After three days he saw a radiant figure, perhaps Muhammad.This figue gently approached him and finally lost himself inSri Ramakrishna.' Ram Swarup comments, 'In Siiradananda,the radiant figure remains nameless; in Nikhilananda, the namebecomes a guess; in subsequent Mission lore, it becomes a deadcertainty.'l Eight years after, in November 1874, followed thepractice of Christianity, in which not even this was involved.The saint listened to some readings from the Bible and wasmoved. One day he saw a painting of the Madonna and the,Child on a wall and fell into ecstasy. The ecstatic mood lastedfor three days, at the end of which he saw a luminous figure,appearing, entering into, and merging with him. Siiradanandacalls it 'the Master's vision of Sri Ish'. Nikhilananda says that.'the effect of this experience was stronger than that of the-vision of Muhammad.'

What was the mode of the Islamic Sadhana ? Ramakrsna"repeated the mantra Allah ...and said Namaz thrice d~iIY.dressing and eating like a Muslim. Then he felt a great urge totake beef. He entered a dog's body astrally and tasted the flesh·of a dead cow floating in the GaJ'Jga. It is completely forgottenhowever, that in Islam flesh of a dead animal is a tabo~(bariim). And. again, Islam prescribes saying Namaz five timesa day.

1. Ram Swarup, Ramakrishna Mission in Search of a New Idenlily,New:Delhi, 1986, p. 9, r.n.

are all equaL'! According to him, all religions are equal,2true,3 and equally true.4 Also: 'All prophets are equal'S and'equally true'. 6

Well, this doctrine does not appear to be well based. Itfinds no support from any religion whatever. We have referredto RUmi's teaching accommodating all forms of worship. Evenhe takes those to task who hold all religions to be true, or false,

for tbat matter:

Ali ki goyadjumlah baqq ast abmaqi 'stW' ail ki goyadjumlah batil iiil shaqi 'st

'(Whoever says all (religions) are true is an idiot, and whoever 'says all are false is a rogue.) Jayanta Bhatta sardonicallyremarks that, if it be contended that all religions are valid, true.then, if I, too, found a religioh today. it, too, would become''valid, true, with the passage of time:

Sarviigama-pramii7J,atve nanvevam upapiiditeAham apy adya yam kancid agamam raeaytimi eel,Tasyiipi hi pramii1J.atvam dinaib katipayair bhavet.'

'The Mahabharata contains a remarkable couplet in this connex­ion, to the effect that the fundamental moral principles in gene­

,ral may be shared by all religions in common and even equally~but their philosophical positions are often different :8

Tulyam saueam tapoyuktam, daya bhute~u eanagha !Vratiinam dhara7Jam tulyam, darSanam na samam tayob.

1n his Brha~tika, Kumarila invites our attention to the innatedifferences amongst the different religious traditions and arguesagainst the idea of their equal validity:

1. Ibid" 16.1.1937,:. Ibid" 28'11.1936; 4.5.19473. Ibid., 6.4.1934; Stibamatr, 1928, p. 174. Harijall. 30.1.19375, Ibid., 13.3.19376. Loc. cit.7. Jayanta BhaHa, op. cit., p. 248.8. Maluibhtirata, Santi-Parvan 300.9

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS,

During the saint's practice of Islam and Christianity, theHindu gods and goddesses disappeared from his mind. It isalso contended that during the practice of Islam he got convert­ed to Islam. If so, after the two or three days' Islamicdiscipline, the saint relinquished Islam and became an apostate(murtadd) , and Islam penalizes apostasy (irtidiid) with death.Islamically speaking, to embrace Islam temporarily and remainin Kufr permanently are one and the same, in effect.

Be it as it may. From the foregoing account, it transpiresthat the saint had the vision of Hindu g0ds and goddesses whilepractising Hinduism, of Jesus Christ while practising Christian­ity, of prophet Mu]:lammad while practising Islam. Then howhas it been established that the goal of the three religions is oneand the same? Each religion took him to a particular deity orprophet. Unity of the three religions would have been demons­trated if they had made him attain to one and the same deity/prophet or to the deities/prophets of all these religions.

Bhagavan Das's Essential Unity of All Religions is littlebetter than a compilation of the goody-goody points fromeleven religions, on the basis of which no such tall claim can bemade as that all religions are essential1y one. His work throws .little light on the disputed points amongst the religions, not tospeak of trying to examine and synthetize them.

Gandhi, Vinoba, and their followers insist that all religions .are equally true. Says Gandhi ; 'The Hindu instinct tells methat 'alI religions are more or less true. All proceed from thesame God, but all are imperfect because they have come downto .us through imperfect human instrumentality.'l He also says,'I believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Zend Avesta to be asmuch divinely inspired as the Vedas.'2 But 'even the Vedas,the Quran and the Bible are the imperfect word of God.'3 He isa believer in 'the equality of all religions.'4 His fundamentalposition is: 'Religion is one and it has several branche5 which ·

1. Youllg Illdia, 29,5.1924, p . 1802. Ibid., 6.10.1921, p. 3173. Harijan , 16.2.19344. Ibid, 5.12. 1?36; 26.1.1947

'THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 53 '.

I

1\

I

54 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS- THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RBD.lGIONS 55

Tirthakrt-samayiinii:m ca paraspara-virodhatabSarvel/iim aplatii niisti, kascid eva bhaved gurul:z.

Yamuna claims that the Tantra schools are intended to bedifferent and that, therefore, they must not be confused to be­one and the same :1

Saivam, Piisupatam, Saumyam, Liigw!am ca caturvidhamTantra-bhedal:z samuddil/tal:z, sankarom no samacaret.

The Qur'an claims and proclaims that religion is only one,.which was revealed by God to man through different prophets.and in different forms to different peoples in different times andclimes. God has sent His prophets to every nation and everyage to proclaim the one religion2 (ad.din)3 called Islam4 or 'J:Ianafiyyah. 6 He gave to Mu!:J.ammad the same religion topropagate, as He had given to his predecessors like Noah"Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. 6 Mawlana Abu 'l-Kalam Azadwas a well known protagonist of the unity of religion (wal:zdatu­'d-din).

But from a ·close scrutiny of the revelation it transpires thatthe author of the Qur'an has the Semitic races in mind. Itclearly indicates that God has revealed His books or ratherbook to only two nations-Jews and Christians. 7 It also informsus that prophethood and the Book (of revelation), togetherwith kingship, are the hallmark of the clan of Israel,8 viz. theline of the twelve sons of prophet Ya'q'IIb (Jacob) consideredcollectively, who became the progenitors of the twelve familiesof the Jews. Incidentally, a problem arises here. Mul;1mmadbelonged to the clan of Ishmael, and not to that of Israel. Howthen did he come to be anointed with prophethood ? We cannotafford to go into this question in this work.

1. Yamuna, op. cit. , 1092. Ar-Rii'd (l J) 7; Yunus (10) 47; al-Fa~ir/aJ-Malii 'ikah (35) 243. AI-'Imrao (3) 19; ar-Rum (30) 30; ash-Shura (42) 134. Al -'Imriin (3) 195. AI-Baqarah (2) 135; AI '1m ran (3) 67, 95, 135; an-Nisii' (4) 125;

al -An'iim (6) 162; Yunus (10) 105; an-Nal;1l (16) 123; ar-Rum (30) 306. Ash-Shlira (42) 137. AI-An'am (6) 1578. AI-Baqarah (2) 47; aI-Mii'idah (5) 20; al-Jiithiyah (45) 16

Thus, it is evident that the Qur'an can lay claim t~ the unityof the Semitic religions only, rather than of the other religionsas well. To be sure, in the eyes of the Qur'an, idolatrous.polytheism is irreligion, pure and simple, rather than religionfundamentally one with the Semitic religions.

There are some who find in the Qur'an glimpses of equalrespect for all religions, indeed for polytheism and idolatry aswell. One of its verses relied upon by them runs thus :' 'Untoyou your religion, and unto me my religion' (La-kum dinu-k~m

wa /i-ya din).1 But this verse teaches nothing like respectabilityof all religions. The full chapter containing the verse is repro­duced below for a proper appreciation of the import of theverse:

'Say: 0 kafirs (Qui: Yii ayyuha 'I-kafiruna) !

"I worship not that which ye worship (Lii a'budu miiu'budtana).

'Nor worship ye that which I worship (Wa Iii antum 'iibidunarnii a'budu).

'And I shall not worship that which ye worship CWa Iii anii"iibidum mii 'abattum).

'Nor will ye worship that which I worship (Wa la antum'iibidrma rnii ii'budu) .

'Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion (La-kumdinu-kum wa /i-'ya dini).2

According to Jalal ad-Din Suy'IIi;i, the verse in questionstands abrogated by the verse of Jihad .3 MulIa J:Iusayn Wa'i:?Kashifi in his Persian commentary entitled Tafsir-i I)usayni onthe Qur'an and several other classical (Arabic and Persian)commentators of the Qur'an follow suit. Ibn Kathir, one of the­leading classical commentators in Arabic, has a different story

1. Al-Kiifirun (109) 62. Ibid. loG3. See Jal iil ad -Din a~-Suyu~i, AI-Ittiqtill fi •Ultlm al-Qur'iin, Vol. II.

Urdu tr. by Mul~ammad I;Ialim An~ari Daulawi, Firozpur, 1908, .pMl(Section) 47, pp.61-62

.'56 . MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 'THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 57

to tell. According to him, this chapter of the Qur'an is intendedto proclaim and throw into relief the Prophet's disclaimer of or.aversion (bara'ah) to Kufr. Abu 'I-'Ala MawdtIdi, the leading·commentator in Urdu, discusses the chapter at length andcomes to a similar conclusion. He makes it abundantly clearthat it rules out for good the possibility of cooperation, com­promise, or coexistence of Islam with Kufr. In other words,islam is Islam and Kufr is Kufr, and never the twain can meet.MaWd'lldi adds that its teaching is a far cry from religioustoi~rance as it is erroneously made out to be. Another modern<:'o~ment~tor Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi also interprets the chapter~nder cons'ideration as throwing into relief Islam's aversion(tabarra) to and exclusion (mufliraqat) from Kufr. A thirdmodern commentator, 'Abd aI-Majid Daryabadi, remarks thatit is preposterous to interpret the Qur'anic verse in question toteach religious tolerance and forbearance. According to him theposition is just the reverse. The verse proclaims failure andfruitlessness of religious syncretism of all kinds, such as the oneonce founded by Akbar. His words are memorable: 'Ba'zlogon ne 'ajab "khush-fahmi" se kam lekar is ayat ko Islam ki' ~rawada"i" aur "ma-ranjan ma-ranj" policy ke thubut men peshkiya hai, ki Islam ne hal' madhhab wale ko apni jagah qa'im aurbaqi rahne ki ijazat di hai. Halan-ki waqi'ah is se bar-'aks hai.Yah ayat to Akbar (farmiin-ral;Vii-i Hind) ke nikiile hue makhlutidin aur lsi qabil ki sari koshishon ki Iii-bat/iii aur na.-kami ka.i~lan kar rahi hai.' ('Out of strange "good sense", certainpersons have presented this verse in proof of Islam's policy of"tolerance" and of "neither inflict pain nor suffer pain", (whichi.s) that Islam permits the followers of every religion to standfirm and remain in their own place. But the position is justopposi te. This is a verse which is proclaiming the fruitlessnessa nd failure of the syncretic religion invented by Akbar (theemperor of Hind) and of all attempts of this type. ' )

Another oft-quoted verse in this connexion is, 'There is nocompulsion in religion' (La ikriihaji 'd-Din).] From it, too, theunwary or the unscrupulous are wont to hear a declaration of

!lib

1. AI -Baqarah (2) 256

religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence of Islam with otherreligions. But many classical commentators claim it to have,been abrogated by the Jihadic verse. QaQI Ab'll Bakr Ibn ai­'Arabi (b. 1076 A.D.), a great classical commentator in Arabic.represents them all when he observes: 'Wherever in the Qur'anthere are directions to forget, forbear, forgive, and avoid the.Kafirs, all such directions stand abrogated by the verse of the'sword (ayat as-say!), which is, "Then, when the sacred monthshave passed, slay the idolaters whenever ye find them, and takethem (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each,ambush. But, if they repent and establish worship and pay thepoor-due, then leave their way free. Lo ! Allah is forgiving,merciful."1 This verse has served to abrogate one hundredt wenty-four verses. 2 Same is the case with another verse:.. ...Wouldst thou (0 Mu!).ammad!) compel men until theybecome believers ?'8

The full verse containing the words 'La ikrahafi 'd-Din''runs thus: 'There is no compulsion in religion. The right hashenceforth become manifest as distinct from the wrong. So, he'Who rejecteth false gods and believeth in Allah is hearer,knower.' Shah Wali Allah interprets it in such a way, however,that it ceases to rule out the use of force in propagation ofislam and, instead, provides a basis for just the use of suchforce. He writes: 'There is no compulsion for the sake of1"eligion, that is the doctrine of Islam has been demonstrated.Hence it is not tantamount to compulsion, as it were, thoughcom-pulsion it is, on the whole. (Nist jabr kaand bara'i din.Ya'm; bujjat-i Isldm ~iihlr shud. Pas guyii jabr kardan nist, agar­.che ji 'l-jumlah jab,. biishad).4

Before closing this section of the present chapter, we would,do well to examine one more verse of the Qur'an, which readsthus: 'Lo ! those who believe (in Islam), and those who are

1. At-Tawbah (9) 52. As-Suyu~I, loco cit. Particularly about the abrogation of 'La ikraha

fi 'd-dill' , see his Ad-Durr al-Mallthur, Maymanah (Egypt), 1314 A.H.,Vol. I , p. 330

3. Yiious (10) 994. Shah WaH AWih, Ta!sir.i Fat(l ar-Ra(lmtill ,2-256

I

I

58 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURB AND EQUALITY OF RELIGlON$ THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 59

Jews, and Christians, and Sabeans-whoever believeth in Allah.and the Last Day and does right-surely their reward is with­their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither 'shall they grieve.'! This verse refers to four religions: Islam•.Judaism, Christianity, and Sabeanism. Their followers will berewarded by God, if they believe in Him and the Day ofJudgment. Idolatrous polytheism is conspicuous by its absenee 'from the list of the religions, along with Zoroastrianism, thoughthe Qur'an refers to both elsewhere. Indeed, it knows thefollowing half a dozen religions: I. Islam, 2. Judaism, .3. Sabeanism, 4. Christianity, 5. Zoroastrianism, and 6. Idol­atrous polytheism (shirk). 2 Many commentators adjudge the­previous verse abrogated, and there is good ground for the'view. In a later verse the Qur'an itself rules, 'And whoso­seeketh as religion other than Islam it will not be accepted I

from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.'s

The Qur'am appears to regard Judaism and Christianity as·earlier forms of Islam which have undergone distortion and'perversion through history.4 It condemns idolatrous polytheism·as irreligion pure and simple, without any revelational founda- ­tion, masquerading as religion. The mission of Islam is to 'abolish it allogether, reinstate Judaism and Christianity in theirpristine purity that is Islam itself, and establish Islam through­out the length and breadth of the world. Though certain verses.of the Qur'an are construed to criticise Zoroastrianism,6 theQur'an actual1y leaves its status undefined. As regardsSabeanism, the Qur'an contains no adverse remarks, but itleaves its status, too, undefined. In fact, these two religions .posed no problem to the Prophet. His first acquaintance withZoroastrianism was through Salman Farsi, his favourite who ·had renounced Zoroastrianism and converted to Islam. It wasonly in Ba1:lrin, however, that the Prophet met with thec'

1. AI-Baqarah (2) 62. It is almost identical with al-Mii 'idah (5) 69.2. AI -I;Iajj (22) 173. Al 'Imran (3) 854. For example, see al-I;Iadid (57) 275. AI-I;Iajj (22) 17. Zoroastrianism appears to be referred to indirectlyr

in al-An'am (6) 1

community of Zoroastrians, whom he categorized as near.scripturaries and on whom, accordingly, he levied Jizyah. And,if ~here did exist any Sabeans in l;Iijaz during his time, theymIght have existed only exceptionally.

The Qur'an is also acquained with a variety of atheism, anirreligion, according to which there is no other world and time(dohr) is the destroyer of alU

Now, when the Jews and the Christians did not respondfavourably to the Prophet's call, the Qur'an declared themKafirs,2 along with the idolatrous polytheists. Where is the'unity or equality of religions, in the Qur'an ?

Well, what do we actually mean by the unity and equality ofall religions? The following alternatives suggest themselves inthis behalf:

1. Uniformity, formal identity

2. Commonness of core

3. Essential unity, commonness of essence

4. Cognation/cognateness, or common origin

5. Organismic unity

6, Unity of objects of worship/devotion

7. Unity of spirit and of purpose

8. Unity of means, of approach

9. Equal validity of differences in perspective and in spiri­tual competence diversifying essential unity.

When we talk of unity or equality of religions, whichmeaning do we have in mind?

The first alternative, that of uniformity or formal identityp

is patently false. It is belied by experience, which testifies tomultiformity or formal diversity of religions.

1. AI-Jiithiyah (45) 242. AI-Baqarah (2) 41, for example

(10 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 61

The second alternative, that of commonness of the core of,religions, too, does not hold water, The core of the Semitic 'religions may be said to be common more or less. In fact, we-can attempt even a grouping of religions on the basis of,commonness or near-commonness of their core. Yet to claim allreligions to be having a common core would be a travesty oftruth.

As regards the third aIternatiye, what is to be understood byessence? As we have seen, the gulf dividing Hinduism and ,Isiam is too yawning to be bridgeabl~. The centre of gravity ofHinduism is, on one hand, the realizable or in the ultimateanalysis rather etern~lIy self-realiz~dAtman,the Self, as agai~sta wholly other, rather whimsical, jealous, extracosmic personal·Goq of Islam; on another, self-realization, self-enlightenment,as against correct .belief and unquestioning obedience to theletter of the law as in Islam; on a third, due regard 'for varyinglevels of spiritual competence (adhikara-bheda) as against-antipolytheistic, iconoclastic monotheism of Islam, despiteRlImi's readiness to accommodate diverse. conceptiOQs of God'and forms of worship determined by the diversity of levels of'religious insight and Jiimi's recognition of gradations of'spiritual experience (bif~-i maratib), which the two Sufi savants·stood for in spite of Islam's uncompromising stance to the-contrary; and, on a fourth, Dharma-the variously manifestingindividual, social, as well as cosmic Norm-, historical instanti­:ations of which are subject to change with the changing time­place-circumstance (desa-kdla.nimitta) , as against Din, as inIslam, fixed for all time to come.

Indeed, Hinduism is an open religion, an evolutionaryreligion, a pluralistic religion, an aIternationistic religion, andwhat-not. Above all, it is describable as a dialectical religion in'both the fundamental senses of the term 'dialectical' :

1. It is a process.

2. Its growth often takes place through conflict andcontradiction in the realm of ideas and approaches.

It is strange, however, incidentally, that many people wedded

!O dialec~ics and swearing by it in season and out of season inlOterpretmg socio-cultural phenomena, are found to behave asenemies No. one of Hinduism. They are rather embarrassed andexasperated by the dialectical character of this great multi­dimensionol religion, for they fail to find 10 it a sta'tionarypoint to strike at !

Islam is an Allah-, Mul:tammad-, and Qur'au-intoxicatedreligion, so to speak, with a non-negotiable belief in angels,heaven and hell, Day of Judgment, Allah seated on theEmpyrean on the seventh heaven, wherefrom flowed His wordsto the Prophet through an angel named Gabriel in the form ofthe Qur'an. Such an account no amount of rationalization canhope to reduce to the status of merely a figurative description.Islam is a religion iconoclastic to the core, closing the doors ofDivine grace upon the Kafirs and virtualIy outlawing all thoseof them who do not surrender abjectly barely to subsist asdhimmi-s, with few fundamenlal rights.

Tbe Buddha's teachings, as also Hinduism's generally, aremarked by the absence of any such emphasis on monotheismunitary divine revelation, etc. Islam knows neither reincarna~tion (samsara) nor its cessation (nirvalJa/molqa) characteristic ofBuddhism and Hinduism. Hinduism's insistence on eternalit~of the Self and the Buddhists' on the denial of the self are wellknown, though the bulk of the latter involve themselves in acontradictory situation by postulating Nibbana/Nirvana ineternalistic parlance . Christianity cannot admit to its h~aven

' anyone bereft of ,an absolute faith in Jesus, whereas Islamsubordinates the faith in Jesus to faith in Mu1).ammad; in thatfaith in not only Jesus but also in all other prophets is a

,necessary condition for admission to the Islamic Jannah butthe sufficient conditiOtl thereof is provided by ~ crowning 'faithin Mu1).ammad.

Schleiemacher says, 'Tile deeper one progresses in religion,the more the whole religious world appears as an indivisiblewhole.'! And Max MUller, 'There is only one eternal and

L See Friedrich Heiler, 'The H istory of Religions as a Preparat ionfor ,the ·Co-opera.tion o~ .Religiof.Js,: The History ofReligions: Essays inMefrlOdology, 2nd unpresslOD, Universi ty of Chicago, 1962, p. 141

-62 MYTHS OF COMPOSISTE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONSTHE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 63

. . d' b ve beneath, and beyond alluniversal rehglOn stan 109 a 0 , b 1 'J It is alsoreligions to which they all belong or can e o.ng. the hi hasserted that there are seven principal areas of umty of greligions, which are :2

1. The reality of the transcendent, the holy, the divine, theOther.

2. This reality is immanent in human hearts.

3 It I'S for man the summum bonum, th.e highest truth,. d deed extendingrighteousness, goodness, beauty, an 10

beyond these.

4. It is ultimate love which reveals itself to men in men.

5. The way to It is the way of sacrifice.

6. The way to the neighbour side by side with the way tothe divine.

7. Love as the superiormost way to the divine.

These characteristics hold good by and larg~ for mys~ical

religions like Vedantic-Tantric Hinduism, Mahaya~a BuddhIsm,Christian and Muslim mysticisms, broadly speakmg. F~r thatmatter, these mystical religions display two ~ore, km~red

.areas of unity, which are numbered eighth and mnth below.

The ideal of what the Gita calls 'trigu'fJatita',a namely8. the stage beyond gOOQ and evil, virtue and sin, righteous-

d'h d adharma '-anness and unrighteousness, arma an , .offshoot, of course, of the third point and yet deservmgseparate enunciation.

9. The metaphysics of silence, viz. acknowIed.gemen.t in allhumility of the ineffable character of the saId reahty.

But what about the prophetic religions? Items 2, 4, and 6to 9 cannot be said unreservedly to apply to them, short, of

1. Lac. cit.2. Ibid., pp. 142-1513. Bhagavad-Gita 18.17 __4. Kallla-Upaniiod 1.2.14; Mu~rJoka·Upaniiad 3.1.3; Glta 18.66

<:ourse, of their mystical accretions or rather superadditions.

To say, therefore, that all religions are essentially one orequal is a gross overstatement, unsubstantiated or unsupportedby the nature and history of the various lines of religious.development of humanity.

Now comes the fourth alternative. The question is, Do allreligions owe their origin to a common source, or are theycognate ones? It must be granted that down the ages there hasbeen a lot of impact of one religion Upon another and viceversa by way of mutual borrowings and exchange of ideals,rituals. It is also beyond doubt that certain high religions havehad a common origin. It needs no emphasis that the Semiticreligions represent a common line of origin and development.)Even the Qur'an bears testimony to it.2 Judaism appears tohave had a Zoroastrian source to an enormous extent. SUch ofthe former's fundamentals as God and some of His names,eternal struggle between God and the Satan, angels with theirnames and offices, cosmogony, the Resurrection, future life,heaven and hell, are undoutedly traceable to Zoroastrianism.3

And it is admitted on all hands that the Zoroastrian religionowes muca to the ancient Vedic lore or, in the alternative, thatthe Zoroastrian and the Vedic religions have a common Source.Thus, all these religions are cognate ones to some extent or-other. All the same, this does not appear to be true of the bulkof the tribal religions, which must be regarded by and large aswild growths rather than as owing their existence to some,common matrix. Besides, most of the cognate religions tooksuch different and even opposite lines of development that theircognateness has become meaningless today.

But those whom we have referred to earlier as upholding thegreat Tradition of Philosophia Perennis understand the cognate­ness of the religions differently. They usually fight shy of

1. Ganga Prasad, Fountaill Head of Religion, 6th ed., Ajmer, 1957,Chapters I, II, IV

2. See, for example, as-Shiira (42) 133. Ganga Prasad, op. CiT., ch. IV

64 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS . '" 65

recognizing the theory of evolution as applied in the..field ofreligion. They seem to maintain that all the religIOns aredifferent manifestations or representations of the commontradition of humanity and that, therefore, there is a kind oftranscendental unity among them. Maybe, though there is no­tangible evidence to go upon, humanity was fortunate enoughin the beginning to acquire from some now unknown s~urce afund of religious knowledge, which peeps through dlffere~t

religious traditions even today. Even so, however, these tradi­tions stand so radically apart today that it is preposterous totry and hunt up any significant strain of unity among them.

Now let us take the fifth meaning. Are the differentreligions' different organs of one and the same organism? Theircognateness does provide an atmosphere fa~o~rable to such aconclusion . Yet the organismic view of rehglOn ceases to besignificant today no less than the cognateness view, and for thesame reason.

Now about the sixth meaning. Do all religions enjoindevotion to or worship of a common deity? The Buddha doeson occasion prescribe worship of gods and goddesses as al.s~ ofhis own relics,l yet it is of a secondary moment. Jalllismknows no creator of the cosmos. It can, therefore, and does

.prescribe worship of only human beings, viz. Tir~aIik~ra.s,who are liberated human beings, Yahwe/Jehova, Allah, ~1~~U,

Co' Devl- and suchlike look like one and the same, or Similar"Iva, , . fdeities, yet they can be said to belon~ ~o different .st,ages. 0

spiritual development. A Slltra of PatanJah reads .thus:- St~a~~­

upanimantra1;Le sangasmayiikara/Jam, pl~nar anzl/ta-prasangat ..That if a deity proper to a particular stage of trancetempts the wayfarer, the Iatte~ mus: not succumb to ~he

temptation, otherwise he will agam fall lOtO trou.ble. Accordl~g.

to the Vyiisabhiil/ya thereon, the gods belonglOg to what IS

1. Digha-Nikaya, Vagga II, Sutta 3, pp. 71, 110. for example2. Yoga-Safra, Vibhuti-Piida, 51

called the Madhumafi-bhumi are wont to involve the "'wayfaretin various temptations. The illustrations of the teinptatiobsgiven therein remind one of the pleasures of the paradise,Jannah, or Svarga.

Hinduism provides choice of a deity (il/ta-devatd) suited· to.one's own taste, temperament, or spiritual competence, signified 'by the term adhikdra-bheda. The Gita says that the choice ofone's deity is determined by one's own native temperament. 1 .

It would be pertinent to point out in this con~exion that:some Tibetan Lamas are said to claim that .thought ca~ create;a tangible object, a thought-form, which they call tulpa. It is;.also claimed that human beings can project .mental or seml­pbysical phantasms. A thought-form can sometime's be seen .by·.·others, have a temporary life of its own, and even break f~e~from control and wander off.2 It can be evoked even inadvert­ently.a Indeed it is also claimed to be possible to create il'lJthat manner even 'hills, enclosures, houses, forests, road's,bridges.'4 Then, are the variously worshipped deities 'not'mental projections or mental offspring of the worshippers orrather of those who claim to have envisioned them? idssignificant that Kumarila fights shy of giving credence to Yogicintuition as a case of valid knowledge on its own. He arguesthat, if an empiricaI.fiash of intuition unsupported/unverified .b

1. '11Pltr tf~ ~\ ifcrnAT: \l'll'~;~ S'll'~croT :

~ ~ f'flfll'ilf<llii ~T Rl«rr: fcrliT II ' ' • :

Ii) Ii) <rT lit o'!,\ 'If!ffi: JIT~Ts~r~f9"

m:<r oflIT'T<'fT ~r orit<f f<t~Ul1'll"~ "

llTf..cr m-m ~T,!. f'l"C!,! <rTf..cr f'l"C!~ (f1:

ifaTR <rrf.cr if~r, 'irRf 'i"mf;r;iTsfq- ;rTq 11~ ~ ,~~wf~ JITW if'ffo 'ilrm !~)sq' ~(f), <r) <r~:[: tr tff tr: II

~ tTTf~T ffi'!. 'ill'l<:llliftr 'FiffiT:

ifaT,! "!.01fVrT!l!: 'IT<if <r;;r.a- oTl1trT .,..,r: IIGila 7.20-21; 9.25; 17.3-4

2. Geoffrey Ashe, The Anciel Wisdom. London, 1971, p. 1953. Ibid., p. 1964. Loc. cil.

66 MYTHS OF. GOMPOSITB CULTURB AND EQUALITY F ReLIGIONSTHB MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RBLIGIONS 67

perc:eption, inference, etc. is not accorded the status of validknowledge, the Yogic intuition fares no better ;1

Lauk iki pratibhii yadvat pratyak~ iidy anapekl1 i]JiNo. ni.~cayiiya pary(7pt ii , tathii sydd yoginiim api

According to Pa;rthasarathi Mis ra, another Pllrva-Mimarhsiiphilosopher, Yogic intui tion is caused by brooding (bhiivanii)'jand semblance of reason etc. (Iingiidyiibhiisa),3 for whichreason be assi gns 110 probative value to it. Sadhu Santinatha, a'modern yogin who is no more, practised Yoga for over four·decades and came to the conclusion that what the Yogin.-.en.visions is not reality as such but just a creature of his ownimagination intensified by constant brooding.4 It appears that

"this point does have some bearing upon the issue of projection'Of thought-forms by a section of the Lamas. We are not com­petent, however, to pronounce upon it.

Well, the Gitii presents another side of the picture, whichappears to lend support to the view that religions have IIlore orless a common deity to worship, willy-nilly. It says that eventhose who think they worship deities other than God actuallyworship God Himself, though not in an appropriate manner :&

Ye 'py anya.devatii-bhaktiib yajante sraddhayiinvitiibTe 'pi miim eva Kaunteya! yajanty avidhipurvakam

(Even those who devote themselves to other gods and sacrificeto them filled with faith, do really worship Me though notaccording to rule.)

The Giui also claims that at bottom all are oriented towardsGod and that in whatever way people approach God in theirdevotion in that same way does He respond to them :6

i. Mimarilsiislokvtirlika 1.1.4, Pratyak~a-Sijtra, 322. Siislradipikii, Chowkhamba, p. 523. Loc. cit.4. Sadhu Santinatha, The Critical Examination :'of the Philosophy of

Religion, Amalner, 1938, Vol. I, pp. 1-12; PriicyadarSanasamik$ti, Poona,1940, pp. ka-rla (Le. Prastavana); Experiences ~of a Truth-Seeker, Vol. I,Part 1, Gorakhpur, n.d., COllc!uding chapter

5. Gila 9.236. Ibid. 4,11

Ye yathii miirh prapadyante tliilS tathaiva bhajiimy ahamMam vartmiinuvartante manu~yiib Piirtha ! sarvasab

(In whatever way devotees approach me in that same way doI return their love. 0 Arjuna ! they tread my own path afterall and by all means.)

On this plane, the belief in the unity of objects of worship/devotion acquires significance. Since, however, the worshipper's/devotee's tendency in this direction is in the darkness ofignorance, the unity and equality of religions in this sense haslittle practical value. On the theoretical plane, too, it is like theproposition that, since all is Brahman, human beings, animals,and inanimate objects are all one and the same.

Let us now turn to the seventh meaning of the unity andequality of religions, which is, unity of spirit and of purpose.There is hardly any difficulty in maintaining that the broadpurpose of all religions is one and the same, which is, attain­ment of the summum bonum. A verse in the Mahiibhiirata runs

thus :1Asramii/Jlirh co. sarveslirh nil/thiiyiim aikyam ucyate

(Unity of the Asrama-s/stages of life consists in the unity of

purpose.)

For our purpose, we can rewrite it like this;

SarVel/iirh sampradiiyiinli?i'/, nil/thiiyiim aikyam ucyate

That is, the unity of the religions consists in the unity oftheir spirit of devotion. Indeed, the Sutasarhhitii, believed tobelong to the Skanda-Purii]J.a, designates as 'dharma' andthereby accepts as authentic even such a religion as is bOrI;t outof the generative insight of its founder independently of theVedas, in a spirit of devotion :~

Svamanil1ikayotpanno nirmulo dharma-sanFiiitabSraddhayii sahito yas tu so 'pi dharma udiihrtal;z

1. MahCibhtirata, Santi-Parvan 270.362. srttasmilhitti 4.20.13

68 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS,

As regards the eighth meaning of unity and equality ofreligions, viz . unity of means or unity of approach, it has nosupporters. The means envisaged by the religions for attainmentof the summum bonum-the eightfold path in Buddhism, Self­realization in Hinduism in general, Bbakti in Vai$l)avism, faithin the Christ in Christianity, faith in Mu1).ammad and fasting

1. Yajllr- Veda 19.77

farer. I am ashamed of my Kufr, for it has the smell of Islamas well.)

The upshot of these utterances is that a sincere faith does'have the capacity of saving one, even if it is in something notconsidered worthwhile by others. In fact, true, steadfast, andlasting faith is always orien ·.ed or directed towards what onefinds to be true . Hence, if and when one comes to discover thatwhat one takes to be true is at bottom false, one's faith is boundto change its orientation or direction accordingly. Such realfaith must be distinguished from the dogmatic, blind faith ofthe masses having little serious concern for higher verities. A'highly meaningful Vedic couplet is :1

Drfltvii rupe vyiikarot safyiil1rte PrajtipatibAsraddhiim anrte 'dad!liic clzraddhiim satye Prajiipati(l

That is, God has established a distinction between truth and'falsity, locating belief in truth and disbelief in falsity. That isto say, human mind is naturally bent towards truth and has amative aversion towards falsity.

In spite of everything, however, the professed, declaredgoals of the religions sometimes seem to be irreconcilable. The.summum bonum of the bulk of the religions, high or low, isattainment of heaven; of Hinduism in its higher reaches some­thing higher, called Mok$a; of the Bhakti cult of Hinduism'something transcending Mok$a as well, called Bhakti itself; of,early Buddhism Nibbana/Nirval)a interpreted in divergent andsometimes mutually opposite ways; of the Bodhisattva-yana ofMahayana Buddhism universal Nirval)a, NirvaIJa of the wholeworld.

(If something called 'dharma' is not well rooted/not rooted inthe Vedas and is purely a creature of one's own thought, but i~

backed by faith, that is also dharma,)

Once the text goes to the extent of adjudging as the goodwhatever is inspired by devotion or faith :l

Sraddhayti sahitam sarvarh jreyase blmyase bhavet

(Whatevery is inspired by faith has the capacity of leading tothe Summum bonum.)

The same spirit appears to be breathed by the followinglines of Iqbal:

Agar hai 'ishq to hai Kufr bhi MusalmtmiNa ho 10 mard-i Musa/man bhi Ktifir-o Zindiq

Mirza Ghalib is more straightforward and poetic in his-following lines.

Wajiidiiri ba-shart-i ustawari afl/-i imtil'l haiMare butkhiine men to Ka'be men gacjo Barahman ko

Nahin kuchh subbah wo zunniir ke phande men gira'iWajiidari me,i Shaykh-o Barhamall ki iizmii'ish hai

According to Iqbal, the test of true religion, Islam, is truedevotion: a devoted Kafir is as good as a Muslim and a devo­tionless Muslim is as bad as a Kafir. According to Ghalib, theessence of religion is steadfast fidelity/faithfulness, so that aBrahmaJ)a steadfast in fidelity to his idols deserves the honourof being buried in Ka'bah like a true Muslim. The rosary and.the sacred thread are powerless to grasp the true meaning ofreligion. The Shaykh (Muslim divine) and the Brahmal)a haveto stand the test of fidelity/faithfulness for their claims ofreligiousness. To crown all, Shibli Nu'mani sings:

Do dil budan dar iii rah sakhl-tar 'ayb ast s~/ik riiKhajil az Kufr-i khud hastam ki dtirad bu·i imiin ham

(Having divided loyalty is the greatest drawback in a way­

1. Ibid. 4.3.23

THB MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 69

70 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONSTHE MYfH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 71

etc. in Islam, and so on-are patently different and rule out thequestion of their unity entirely.

The ninth and last meaning of the unity or equality ofreligions is equal validity of differences in perspective and inspiritual competence. A couplet of RUmi is :

Az na?argah ast aiy maghz-i wujud!

Ikhtilii/-i Momin.o Gabr-o Juhud

That is, the difference of Muslim, Zoroastrian, and Jewconsists in the difference of perspective. We have alreadydiscussed the Hindu theory of aclhikara, which helps explainmuch of the differences amongst certain religious traditions.Yet it is far from helpful in explaining away the differenceamongst, say, the Semitic religions on one hand and the non­Semitic on the other. It can explain the differences in the con­ception of the deity and devotion to a considerable extent, butit can have no bearing upon the conflicting tenets of thereligions. Of course, no stretch of imagination backed by thetheories of perspective and aclhikiira, or by any theory for thatmatter, can hope to reconcile anti-polytheistic monotheism a~dtrans-polytheistic monotheism, iconoclasm and iQol-worshlp,ihad and the adhikiira doctrine itself.

Only one, general point remains now to be considered.What does the' term 'dharma'j'religion' denote in the expression'unity and equality of all dilarma-sjreligions'? Whatever isnamed 'dbarma'jreligion' ? Or is there any line of distinctionbetween religion so called and religion as such? Gandhi saysthat all religions are true and equally true. Are considerationfor other religions (envisaged in the Gila) and aversion forother religions (displayed in the Qur'an) equally true? TheMahiibharata says :1

Dharmam yo badhate dlzarmo na sa dharmab kuclharma latAvirodhiit tu yO dharma(1 sa dharmab satyavikrama !

That is, if a religion hindersjoppresses another religion, it

1. Malttibluirata, Vana-Parvan 130,11. 'Kudharma' is un-PiilJinian

is not religion but irreligion. Is such a religion also true? ThenJayanta BhaHa's sarcasm will hold good, that, if all that passesfor religion is true, a 'religion' arbitrarily conceived by him willalso become true in course of time!

From the foregoing discussions, it is evident that unity,equality, or equal validity of all religions is nothing better thana myth. Every religion has two dimensions, generic and specific.In its generic dimension, it shares certain characteristics incommon with other religions, while, in its specific dimension, ithas characteristics proper to itself, which distinguish it fro~other religions. To the first dimension belong ethical teachingsin general; to the second, metaphysical and ritualistic doctrinesin general, which serve often to set one religion against another.Even ethical teachings sometimes turn into specific teachings.'Thou shalt not kill' is a generic ethical teaching, shared by thereligions. But, if some religion qualifies it so as to restrict itsapplication to its own followers, tbe general teaching will turninto a special teaching, a teaching proper to tbe particularreligion. For example, again, certain religions teach universalbrotherhood, whereas Islam restricts the feeling of brotherhoodto its own followers. t Likewise, modern conscience will revoltagainst the very thought rof enslavfment, while the Qur'iinrecognizes slavery and has a place for it in its social stem.Thus, even general ethical principles are set at nought by certainreligions.

The truth of the matter is that unity and disunity, equalityand inequality, and validity and invalidity are multi-levelphenomena. Hence, instead of passing sweeping remarks onreligions vis-a-vis unity etc., we had better try and determinetheir levels of unity etc.

Besides, multiplicity of religions does not always involvethe question of their validity or otherwise. It is more often thannot as innocent as the multiplicity of flowers, which are thereto cater for a multiplicity of tastes and temperaments. (Any

1. 'IlI/lOma '/-mu'mfniina ikhwatlln', al-I;Iujuriit (49) 10

12 MYTHS OF 'COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS

INDEX

thorns in the midst,of flowers must be taken care of, to be sure.)

"The gre~t' Urdu poet Zauq'& couplet is :

Gul-hti-i railgii-railg se hai rawnaq-i chamanAiy Zauq ! is jahclIi ko /wi zeb ikhtiliif se

That is, even as the splendour of the garden consists in"flowers of various colours, the beauty of this world consists indifference of.ideas. Indeed, every religion has its personality,'which ser'ves .to distinguish and differentiate it from otherreligions and t6~reby to give it its own identity. That has to beid~ntified. · ,

AbdiiH, A!}mad Shah,42<Abdulliih Kharraji,24ablrimtillill, 6, 33Abu I:fanifah, Imiim, 38,39,40,41,43Abu Yusuf, Imam, 40Acculturation, 6.ad-Din, 54adlrtin, 39adlriktira, 70adhikiira-bheda, 60,65Afghanistan, 11,13,15"Afif, Shams Sir5j, 18Africa, 44Mridi Pathans, 24.Ql!ama, 29AgamaprtimiilJya, 4age of darkness, 27agnostics, 1Ahil71siitattvodarSona, 30A!;lmad, S. Maqbul, 35Akbar, 7,13,'27,35,43,56Akbarabadi, Sa'id A!}mad, 39,45,46"Ajami,26al-Anfal /al-ghana'im, 37-al-Ashtrawshani, Mu!}ammad bin

Ma!)mud,39"Al au'd-Din I:fusayn Shab, 13,35.AlberGni, lL, 14A/beruni's lndia, 12al-Ballaj, 24al-Hujwiri, 24o/-ltliqcin Ii' Ufiim af-Qur'tin, 55Allah, 3,7,51,61,64a/-MabSIt{,40af-w%n a/-qowmiyy, 45America, 9Amir Khusrau, 6,16,17,47(The) Anciem Wisdom, 65angels, 8, 61

anti-culture, 29anti-Hillduization, 15allusoyin, 6,33apa-sarnskrti, 29apologetic(s), contemporary, 37;

Islamic, 38apostasy/apostate, 52Arabia/Arabs, 11,19,31Arabic, 26Arabicization, 11architecture, 25art, 11,25Aryans, 28,32ascetics, culture-disregarding, 30;

Jaina,27as-Sarkhasi, 37-38, 39,42Ashe, Geoffrey, 65A§oka, 13assimilation, process of, 14atheism/atheists, 1,59Atman,60Atmatattvaviveka, 32'AWir, Farid ad-Din, 20Aurangzeb, out-Aurailgzeb, 23Aurobindo, Sri, 52Avesta, Zend, 52Awliyii, Niziim ad-Din, 47Ayah as-Say/, 57Azad, Abu 'J-KaJiim, 26,35,39,43,44.

54

BadayunJ, ' Abd aI-Qadir, 24Babrin,58Baluchistan, 24BangIa Desh, 15Baqi Bi'lliih, Khawiijah, 23Barani, J;>iya, ad-Din, 10beef, 51

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS74

belief, correct, 60; non-negotiable,61

Benares, 12Bengal, 21Bertrand Russell: A Passionate

Sceptic, 3beyond, dharma and adlrarma, 62;

good and evil, 62; righteousness

and unrighteousness, 6::; virtue andsin, 62

Bhagavad-Gitii/Gitd, &, 3:,6:>,G~,66,

70Bhagavan Das, 49,52Bhakti (-marg), 7,69Bharat,45Rhavi$ya-Purii!1G, ] 3Bhoja,30Bible, the, 52Biltidul Isltim, 43Bidar,21Blavatsky, H.P., 49Bodhisatlva(s), 33Bodhisattva-yana, 69Bohras, 24Brahman, 67BriihmaJ;la-s, 13,18,23,32Brahma Samiij, 27Brha!!ikii, 53

British/Britishers, the, ],8,41,42,44British govemment/lndia/regime/ruJe,

43,44brotherhood, universal, 71Buddha(s), the, ],27,32,61,64Buddhist/Buddhists, 3,5,13,31Buddhism, Mahiiyana, 62,69Buddhist Council, the fourth, 13BUkhiiri, Sayyid Jaliil ad-Din, 21Bukhiiri, Shaykh Isma'i1, 24BII/'han,39

Caliphate, the, 43caJ;l<,iiila-s, 31Cape Camorin, 12Ciirviika-s, 1

caste, 14caste Hindus, 15Chandra, Bipan, 19Chaudhuri, Nirad C., 17Chishtiyyah, the, 20Christ, Jesus, 52,69Christianity, 47,49,51,52,58,6\Christianization, 27Christian(s), 19,54,58,59Christian missions, 6circumcision, 39civilization, 2,5,34; composite, 34co-existence, constructive, 25; co-

operative, 36,37; peaceful, 19,25,37,57

coexistential problem, 28communal harmony, 1Communalism and tire Writing of

Indian History, 19communalization, 1communal problem, Muslim problem

miscalled, 4community, Muslim, 19Companions, the 37competence, spiritual , 60Composite Culture and India Sadty:

Problems alld Prospects of Integra­tion, 7

Composite Culture of India andNational Integration, 7

code of conduct, Vedic-Smrtic, 31congeries, 3,4conquerors, Muslim, 10,15conversion(s)/converted, 15,16,21,23,

24Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., 50cultural proletariat, 12,17cultural purists, 2cui ture(s) , alien, 19; aristocratic, 3;

Ar~a, 32; Aryan, 32; Buddhist, 32,35; Christian, 27,34; composite, 1,2,3,6,7,8,20,24,25,26,28,29,34,35,47;cofluence of, 28; counter-, 6,29,33,34; fo lk, 18; (the) Greater

/

INDEX

Hindu, 33; (the) greater Vedic, 32.Hindu, 5,6,9, 14, 18,30,31,32, 33;Indian, 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,14,27,31,32,34,47; Indian-born, 33; indigenous,19; inter-mixture of, 4; Islamic, 33;inter-mingling of, 28; Jaina, 32,33;Lokiiyata, 29,33; master-, posse­ssor-, owner-, 33; modem scientific29; Manava (Manu's), 32; margi:nally Hindu, 45; Muslim 578 11]9,26,28,47; Muslim and 'Cbri~t;an'33,34; national, 5,28,32,33; (the)national, 33; non-Hindu 5 32' ofnon-Indian Semitic origins,' 6;' ofthe aristos, 3; of the demos 3'parasitic, 33; Piirsi, 28,33; pe~en:nial, 25; perennial Hindu, 33;perennial Indian, 33; pre-Muslim,6; presiding (abhimanin) , 6; purityof our, 2; Semetic, 28; semi-Hindu,5: Sramal)a, 33,34; tenant- 33'Western, 28 ' ,

Crescentade, 29Crescentaders, 37(The) Critical Examination of thePhilosophy ofRefgion, 66

Cutch, 24dahl', 59Danes, 8Dar al-'Afrd, 33,45Dar al-Amn, 38Dar a/-Aman, 38,43,45Dar al- f:Tarb, 37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,

45,46Dar aI-Islam, 9,37,39,40,41,42,43,44,

45,46Dar aI-Islam de facto, 41,45Dar ai-Islam de jure, 38,41,45Dar ai-Muslim ill, 38Dar as-Salm, 38Ddr as-Sul[z, 38nadii,48Darii Shukoh, 6,7,13,20,27,35,48Dadanika Trailllasika, 31

75

Daryiibiidi, 'Abd al-Miijid, 56Dasa, 32Da'udpotas, 24Dawlat Shah, 11Day of Mourning, 9deity, choice of a, 65de-Im;lianizatioD, 15denationalization, 15,27Deoband school, the, 44Deogiri,21Devatalla (Deva Mahal), 21Deva Mahal, 21Devi,64devotion, 68, above Islam and Kufr,

20; spirit of, 67; true, 68,69'dharma', 67,68,70Dharma as cosmic Norm, 60Dharmakirti, 35Dizarmarasika , 30Dhimmi-s, 22,37,39,61'dialectical', meaning of, 60dialectics, 61dialogues and debates, inter-tradi-

tional, 12Digha-Nikaya,64Diidwaliis, 24(ad-) Durr al-Mallthiir, 57

East, 3,5(the) East India Company, 40eclecticism, 4education, Muslim system of, 35Egypt, 19Eliade, Mercia, 50emperors, Mughul, 42Empyrean, the, 61enslavement, 18,71equality, 19,30,4J ,45Essential Unity of A l/ Religions, 49~

52European settlers, 9evolution, theory of, 64exclusiveness/exc!usivism, 12,14Experiences ofa Truth-Seeker, 66

faith, 68,69

INDEX

16 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS

Faithful, the, 37fanaticism, political, 35farz 'ayn, 43fatlVa (decree), 42,43,44FattilVa-i Deoband, 44FalVa'id al-Fu'tid, 48Fay~i, 7FaQI-i Baqq Khairabadi, 8Firishtah, 18force, use of, 22Fountain Head of Religion, 63freeman, 32

Gabriel,61(Jandhara, 15Gandhi, 7,26,33,49,52,70Ganga, 51Gangetic plain, the, 17GMlib, Mirza, 68-Gharib, Das, 25GhaznawidS,24Ghaznawi, Ma~miid, 12Ghori, Mul.Jammad, 18.(Bhagavad-) Gita, 7,33,62,65,66,70God of Islam, 69Golkunda, 21(the) Gospel ofRamakrishna, 51Govind Roy, 51gradations of spiritual experience, 60-Greater India, 6,15Greece, gods of, 13G reeks, the, 14GrolVth of Muslim Population in

Medieval India, 15Gujarat,24Gulbarga, 21'Gurjars, the, 14

I;Jajjiij bin Yusuf, 12I;Jajji Sayyid alias Sarwar Makhdiim,

21Hamadiini, Mir Sayyid 'Ali, 2J,22I;Janafite Muslim law, 16I;Janifiyyah, 54

.l;Iaram, 38

!;Iaramayn Sharifayn, 38Harijan, 52,53heaven, 69

Heiler, Friedrich, 61hegirah hejirah, 35,37,39,41,43; a

manifesto of, 43heroes, Indian, 69'hidden book', 48bifz- i maratib, 60Hijrat kti Risti/a!l, 43I;Iijiiz, 38,39,43,59Hindu(s), J,2,8,9, 10,12,13,14,16,17,19

21,22,23,24,30,36; de-Hinduizing orde-nationalizing of, 9

Hindu-haters, 36Hinduism, 13,14,15,17,20,23,16,33,39,

52,60,61,69; popular, 18; Vediintic­Tantrik,62

Hinduism, 17,18,23,25,48Hindu-Muslim relations, 2Hindu-persecution-mania, 26Hindus' plight, 15Hindu predicament, 16Hindu scriptures, 48Hindu society, 17,18Hindustan, 16,20,26,44historians, Muslim, 23; non-com­

munal secular, 8; of leftist persua­sion, 19

Historiography in Modern India, 8history, division of Indian, 19; Hindu

and Muslim perspectives of, 27;Indian, 26,27

(The) History ofReligions .- Essay inMehodology, 61

(A) History ofSufism in India , 24Holy War, 43householders, Jaina, 30,31humanists, 1humanity, 37; the common tradition

of, 64; Indian, 12,14

HiiQa-s, the, 14Hunter, W.W. , 40,43Husiim ad-Din, 21

Huxley, Aldous, 50

Ibn '.Abidin Shiimi, 42Ibn al-'ArabI, Qa~i, Abu Bakr, 57Ibn Banu~ah, 21Ibn Hisham, 35lbn Kathir, 55iconoclasm, 70identity, 28,34,36; cultural, 20,30;

Christian, 11idolater(s), 37,57idolatry, 55idols, 10idol-worship, 70lItutmish, Sultan, 9Imiim Abii I;Ianifah, 38,39,40,41 ,43Imam Abu Yusuf, 40Imiim Mul;lammad (bin al-I;!asan),

38,40Imiim Shafi'i, 38inclusivism, Hindu, 14inculture(s), 6,29,33,34India, 5,6,12; truncated, 45; undivi­

ded, 15India and the Contemporary Islam,

35Indianization, 36(The) II/dian Musa/Illans, 40Indian Muslims, 24Indians, de-Indianizing the, 9India's independence, 1indigenization, 36indigenousness, 19Indonesian Archipelago, the, 15infidels, 37intuition, Yogic, 65,66Iqbal, Sir Mul}ammad, 8,26,27,43,68Iran/Iranians, 11Iraq, 10irreligion, 27,55,58,59,71Irshtid-iMabbub,48irtidtid/murtadd, 52'lsa Nur ad-Din, 50Ishmael,54(The) Isis Unveiled, 49

Israel, 54i~!a-deva((i, 65

Islam, 3,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,15, I7, 19,20,.23,24,26,39,41,43,44,47,49,51,52,54,55,56,57,58,60,68,69,70,7 J; ethics.of, 25; mission of, 58; the prophetof, 25; the scourge of, 16; the swordof, 16; tbe spread of, 20

Islam-confessing formula, 21Islam in India 's Transition to Moder­

nity, 21Islamization, 15,29Ismii'i!i missionaries, 24

Jamiili Kanboh Dihlawi, 21Jama' iyyatu '1-'UJamii'-i Hindi, 41Jiimi,60Jamunii, 10Jannall, 61Jaunpur, 44Jayanta BhaHa, 29,31,53,71Jehova,64Jesus, 52,54,61Jew, the, 12, 19,35,54,58,59,70; of

Medinah, 35Jihiid, 29,35,43, 44, 45, 46, 55, 70; tbe

verse of, 55Jihiidic verse, the, 57Jizyah,16,19,23,37,39joint nationalism, 35Jonaraja, 13Judaism, 47,58,63Junaydi, Niziim ad-Din, 10Jutes, 8

Kabir, 6,25,48Kiifir(s), 17,19,23,24,25,37,38,39,40.

42,48,57,59,61; destroyer of the, 21;devoted, 68

Kiitir-complex, 35Kalinjar, 18Ka/imtit-Tayyabat,24Kamboja,15Kani~ka, 13

MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS THE MYTH OF UNITY AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS 79

perspective, 70Peshawar, 13ph~losophia perennis, 50,62philosophy, Hindu, :!O; Indian 8'

Lokayata, 29; Muslims 7 8 ' ,P ilgrim Fathers, 3 ' ,Pinjaras, 24po~t:y, 11; Arab!c, 11; Persian, 11politIcal fanaticism, 35polytheism/polytheists, 1;37,55; idola-

trous, 55,58,59population, ratio of :Hindu-Musl'

15 un,

PriicyadarSal1asamik,ra, 67Prasad, Ganga, 63Pratihiiras, 14prophets / prophethood 53 54 61 '

Biblical, 27; of Islam,'35; Qur'~nic'27; seal of the, 21 '

Prophet, the (Mul,lammad) 1025373 ,55,58,59,61 " , ..

proselylizat,on, 24Puriioa-s, tbe, 32,50PllrtUat/vallibandlrasafigralra 201purists, cullural, 2 '

PUrll$apur (Peshawar), 13

Qiidiriyya h, 20Qariimite missionaries, 24Qiis im, Mu1;lammad bin 18Qiisimi, AI~mad Nadim: 5Qat/til, 31Qur'iin, tbe, 20,25,36,37,52,54,55,56,

57,58,59,61,62,70,71. Besides it isreferred to in the foot-notes topages 25,18,54,55,56,57,58,59, and71 by Siirah (chapter)-titles.

Quraysh,35Qutb ad-Din, Sultiin, 22

Radd al-Mubtiir, 42Radhakrishnan, S., 33Ral:tim, 25Riii, Lilla Liljpat, 8Rai, Riiju, 24Riijatarangif,li,

modernity, 28modernization, 3

Namaz,51Niinak, 6,48Niinautawi, Qiisim, 8Naqshbandiyyah, 20Naqsltat/l 'l-Ma$diir, 39Narain, Harsh 28 31Nii~ir Khusra~, 24Nasr, Sayyid Hossain, 50NathmaI. Muni, 30national integration, 36nationalism, joint, 35l1ationhooct, 19NawahGn/Nahawan,21Nayak,25near-scripturaries 59Nehru , Jawaharl;l, 7,26,33Nikhilananda, Swami 51NjJapa~a () , 0 'Nilapata school, 29Nibbiina/Nirviil)a, 61 ,69Nisiir Shah, 14Nishapur, 20Niziim ad-Din Awliya',47,48Noah,54Normans, 8Norm, cosmicNorthern India, 13,18Nu'miini, Shbli, 11,68Niir Satgar, 24Nyityaviirtikatatparyatikii, 31

Pakistan, J5,18Piirsi-s, the, 12, 28Parthasiirathi Misra, 66Parthians, 14participation, cultural, 19, geographi- .

cal, 19Partition, 4,44Pii§upata,4Pataiijaii, 64peace, 38persecution, 13Persian, 11

Lokiiyata, 28; the modem, 33

(at-) Mabsii(, 40Madani, J;Iusayn Ahmad, 44Madltumati-blulmi,65Madonna and the Child, 51madrasah-s, 35Mahabliiirata. the 53 67 70Ma1;lmiid (Ghazn;wi): 12Majma' al-Babrayn, 20,48Majma' al-Fu$a(la', IImajority community, 46Majumdar, R.C., 8Makbdiim-i Jahaniyiiti Jahiiilgasht,

21MaktubCit·i Imiim Rabbani, 23Makt/lbiit -i Shaykh aI-Islam, 44Maldiv,15Malfilziit , 24Malik ibn Dinar, 24Man(iq at-Tayr, 20Manu(s), 32'Ma·ranj.o ma-ranjan', 56Maratbas,40,41,42mass enslavement, 18master-soul, the, 33materialists, 1Matl1llawiyy~i Dawal Rani Khirfir

Khiin,16Matlrnawiyy-i Ma'nawiyy, 20Matltnawiyy .i Nuh Sipihr, 17Maulawi Karamat 'Ali, 44Maudiidi, Abu 'I-'Alii, 35,56Max Muller, 61Mecca, 38medieval India, 20Medinah, 38; the Jews of, 35Memons, 24metaphysics of silence, 61Mill, James, 19Mimiililsiislokavartika, 66minorities, 1Mir Mu1;lammad, 22,23modernists, 1

78

Labbas,24Liiguc;la-Tantra-s, 4Lahore, 24' Lal, K.S., 15,17,18Lii ikriilra fi 'd-dill', 56'La kUI/I dinu-kum wa liya dill', 55Lamas, Tibetan, 65,66language, 11levels of religious insight, 60life-negation, 30life-order, 29literature, 11, Buddhist, 13; Indian,

25; Muslim, 25; Persian, 11

kaniz-o glruliim ,18Karamat 'Ali, Maulawi, 43

Karandikar, M.A., 21Kiishifi, Mullii I;Iusan Wa'iz, 355Kashmir, 12,13,18,22,23Ka(ha-Upani$ad,62Khairiibiid i, Fac;U-i I;Iaqq, 8Khalji, 'Aliiu 'd-Din, 10,18,21,26Khalji, Jatal ad-Din, 10Khan, Rasheeduddin, 6,7Khawiijah Biiqi Bi 'Hiih, 23Khiliifat movement, 1Khojas,24Khokhars, 18Khurasiin, 26Khusrau, Amir, 6,16,17,47,68K husrau, Nii~ir, 24

KIH/tbat, 39King of Bokhara, the, 43Ki/iib al-Fu$tiI, 39Kitiib al-Mabsti(, 38,40Kitiib lIlakllllll, 48Koran (Qur'an), the, 52K!'$J;la-s, 27K$atriya-s, 18'Kudbarma', 70Kuffiir-blralijan, 21Kufr, 16, 17,20,23,27,37,38,44,48,56,

69Kumiirila,53

80 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURB AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONs:. INDBX . 81

(Dwitiya), 13

(Tritiyti) /Zayn, 23

Raj puts, 41Rama-s,27Riimakrishna (Paramaharnsa), Sri,

49,50,51Riimakrishna Missian, 27Ramakrishna Mission .. In Search of a

New Identity, 50,51Riimmohun Roy, 7Ram Swarup, 50,51Riimatirtha, 33Ranjit Singh, Mahiirajii, 43Raskhan,25rational ists, 1rationalization, 37,61Rawadari,56Red Indians, 9re-education, 36refugees, Muslim, 12reincarnation, 61'religion', 70Allcuting under religion are to be

printed thoutchanging lines eachcuting are under 'cultur'.

religion(s),Alliih-, Mu1:lammad, Qur'an-intoxi-cated,61a ltema tionistic,~60

cognateness view of, 64core of, 60dialectical,49,60essence of, 68evolutionary, 60folk, 18has a personality, 72high,63Hindu, 9,12,18,30Indian. 8multidimensional, 61multiplicity of, 71Muslim. 7,8,18,19mystical, 6~

open,60organismic view of, 64

pluralistic, 60prophetic, 62proselytizing, 28,47Semetic,47syncretic, 56tribal, 63true, 68unity and equality of, 59,67,69,70,711

universal, 62Vedic, 63Zoroastrian, 63

religious insight, levels of, 60religio-social code. 31(The) Religious Policy of the Mughar

Emperors, 14

renaissance, modern Indian, 1Rene Guenon, 49revelation, 54,61I,tg-Veda, 32RizwI, Sayyid Mhar 'Abbas/S.A A. ,

24Roy, Rammohun, 7r$i-s and muni-s, 27rule./ruler(s), British, 2,7,8; infidel,

43; Mughul, 23,41; Muslim, 3,6,8,9, .10.11,14.1 6,19,20,25,33 ,42

RftmI, Jalii l ad-DIn, 19,20,47,48,53,60._70

Russell , Betraud, 3Russians, the, 43

sabaya, 3,17Stibarmatf, 53Sabeanism, 58Sabeans, 58,59Sachau, Edward C., 12sadhana(,s),50,51Seidhu Siilltillatha 66SaMball, 40,41Sal;ijaft-i Na't-i Mubammadi, W·saints, seal of the, 21Saiva, 4Saka-s, the, 14Salman Farsi, 58sOlilsara, 61

Sallludras(IJ;gallla, 20,48SUllatalla-Dharma, 32,50

SlIlilskrti, 28Smikara, 34Sanskrit learning. 18Sarad iinanda . SwamI, 51Sarwar Makhdiim. J:Jiijji Sayyid

alias, 21Sarhindi, Shaykh Abmad, 8Sur~akabha$ya, 34As-Sarkhasi, Mubammad bin AQmad,

37-38Sarvadftarma-samabhtiva, 44Sassanids, the, 11Seistradipikti, 66Saumya,4Sazons. 8Sayf ad-Din , 23Sayyid A1;lmad Shahid , 4Sayyid Jalll ad-DIn Bukhiiri Suhra·

wareli , 21Sayyid MUQammad Miyiill, 41Sayyid Nul' ad-Dill Mubarak

GhaznnvI SuhrawardI, 21scheduled castes and tribes, J5Schleiemacher.61Schuon, Frithjof, 50sciences, Hindu, J2scientific temper, 36scriptura ries, 38scriptures, Vedic-Smrtic, 31sculpture, Indian, 25seal of the prophets. 21seal of the saiJlts, 21(The) Secret Doctril/e, 49sects in pre-Muslim India, violence

between, 14secularism, 1secularization, 15secularists, 6,33,35Seistan, 15Self, the eternally self-realized, 60self-complacency, 15self-enlightenment, 60self-identity, 19

self-realization, 60,69Shiifi i, Imam, 38Shah 't.\bd al-'Azlz, 24,42,44Shah Tsma'il Shahid , 8,43Shah Jalal of Sylhet. 21Shah MIr. Sullan, 22Shah WaH Alliih. 8,41,42,57ShamI, Ibn 'AbidIn,42Slwri'all , I O,J 6,40,43,45,46Shiiriq al-Ma'rifat, 7Sharma, Sri Ram. 14Shaykh Al:1mad Sarhindi Naqsh-

bandI, 23Shaykb 'Ali Zuharah, 38Shaykb ai-Islam, 9Shaykh Da'ud, 24Shaykh Isma'II BukharI, 24Shiktiyat, 7Shirk,58Siddlw",27SItI'ru 'I·' Ajalll , IISikandar (8I11Shi"01l), 2:,23

ikhs, 58Silcillka, 30Sindh, 20.24single nation idea, 35Sinkiang, 15Sirata 'n - Nabi:yy-i KejllJiI, 35Sirr-i Akbar, 48Sir Sayyid (AI)mad Khan), 36Siyar aI-'Arifin, 218kandn-Partil}a. 67slave-markets, 18slavery, 71slave(s), 18,25,52social order, 31

Social Philosophies of aI/ Age ofCrisis, 3

society, M ; composite, 3:1 ; quadritypeorganization of, 32

socio-cultural order, 29Somadeva Sliri, 30Sorokin, Pitirim A ., 3

82 MYTHS OF COMPOSITE CULTURE AND EQUALITY OF RELIGIONSINDEX 83

soul(s), the body-possessing, 33; ahost of, 33. the master-, 33; theprimary and predominant. 33;secondarY, 34

South, the, 12,21Spain, 11Spiritual competence, (levels 00, 60.

65spiritual experience, gradations of

60Sramatta -s, 32Sri Ish, 51Srimad-Blttigavata, 7Sri Ramakrishna: the Oreat Master,

51

Srivara, 23subculture(s), 5,6,33i ll/b-i kl/II, 7Sul~anate. the. 16~iifi(s) /~iifism/Siifi tradition. 7,8,19,

20,21 ,24,25.47,48Siihabhana,23Slltasmhltita. 67Slitrakrtiillga-B(uii ya, 30Suyii~i, Jaliil ad-Din, 55,57Swami Nikhilananda, 51syncretism, religious, 56Syria, 10Sythians , 10,14Shrawardiyyah. 20Suhrawardi. Sayyid Niir ad-Din

Mubiirak Gha znawi, 21Sayyicl .Ialal ad-Din Bukh ii ri, 2.1

Tabrizi, Shaykh Ja lii l ad-Din, 21Torsir-i Fa/It ar-Ra(lmGII , 57Tarsir-i UusaYlli, 35Tahir. Abd AI/lilt bill, I 1Tantra , 50,54Tanlric lrrdi lions, 4Ta ra Chand, 3Tariklt -; FirozshdM, J9temperament. native, 65temple(s), 22.23,25; destroyer(s)/des­

(ruction of, 18,21

temptations, 65Thiinawi, Ashraf 'Ali, 56Thapar. Romila, 18Theosophical Society, the, 49'There is no compulsion in religion',

56thought-form(s), 65,66T ibetan Lamas, 65Time. 59Tipfl Su/!all , 18Tiriihias, 18Tirthankara-s, 24,27tolerance, religious, 56,57touch-me-not-ism, 14Toynbee, Arnold J. , 47traders, Muslim Arab, 12trance, 64' transcendental unity', 50Transoxiana, 15tribute (Jizyah). 16'trigll~liitita', 62

tradition(s}, ascetic. 32; Buddhist,29; hagiological , 24; Indian religio.philosophic and cultural, 35; Iaina,29,30; Lokiiyata, 29; perennialreligio-philosophic, 50; S rama!/Q,32; Vedic-PuriilJic, 29

Trichinopally, 24Tritiya R(ijatarQligi~li, 23true religion as true devotion, 68Tughluq, Firozshiih, 18,21(u lpa,65Turk(), 16Tu rkey, 10Turkish, IIT urkistan, 13

Uchh. 21Udayan3, 3/ ,32'Ulamii ', 9, 10Ummah,19'Umar, convent of, 22lImma/-leitab, 48/IInmatllll fVti(lidalt, 35Unfaithful, the, 37

unity etc., level of, 11unity, transcendental , 50,64universal brotherhood, 33untouchable(s) 'untouchability, 30,31'unto you your religion, unto me my

religion. 55Upani~ad s, the, 20,41Urdu culture, 26Urdu language and literature, 26I/sra', 37

Vacaspati Misra, 31Vai~ lJavism , 69Valri,iki-s; 27var(za-s, 14Varna-order, 32Ved'iinta/Vedantic, 7,20,48Veda-s, the, 32,50,5 ,67,6RVedl lore, SOVed ic s r(s), .12

d i · pun i ~ndi eors, 3verse of the sword, the, 57Villaya-Pi!aka, 31Vinoba, 52Vi~ I)U, 64Vivekiinanda, 33Vyasa-s, 27Vyiisabhti$ya, 64

wa(ldatll 'd.dill. 54Wakhiin, 24

war, 38warrior snfi(s), 2\weltallschmlllg, 32West, 3,5Westernization, 2-3world-civilization, 34world-culture, 34Wood, Allen, 3worship, 20,47,48 ,53.60

Yahweh , 64yajiia , 22Yiijur-Veda , 69Yft muna/Yii munacii rya, 4,54Yiiqub (Jacob) , 54yoga, 66Yoga-Sittra , 64YOK(l veisi~'I"a, 7Y gic intuition, 65,66y in-s, 27Youllg [lidia, 8,22

Yueh-ci, 13YU uf ad-Din Sindhi, 24

Zawq.72Zayn al-' Abidin , 7,22,35(ZaYII -) RtijMarmigi(li, 23Zend Avesta, 52Zoroastrianism, 13,58,63Zoroastrian(s), 59,70

ERRATA

Page No. Line No. F.II. No. II/correct Correct

2 6 prennially perenniallY

2 6 unway unwary

17 5 That The

24rayya/tit Tayybtit .

30 16 rulers rules

34 4 parasities parasites

47 16 templer temper

53 3 Stibamati Stibarl17ati

54 13 I;Ianafiyyan J;Tanifiyyah

57 27 kaalld kardal/

57 27 ya'mi YO'lIi

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