India Kings

No probs, I was actually coming to that. I believe national boundaries are actually a true indicator of culture and race. Atleast that's how it should be. (Unless you strongly propagate multi-culturism). How do you picture a world without any boundaries? I know the world is changing very fast and we are mixing every minute, but our sterotypings still hold true for most of it. That's why when we say a Black-Chinese man, or a White-Mongolian, it is disturbing and we cannot imagine someone like that. All this is a result of cultural and national boundaries.

I know that you believe that "national boundaries are actually a true indicator of culture and race".

You were still in a somewhat safe position till the time we were discussing culture, because "culture" is an ambigous term which is difficult to exactly pinpoint. By introducing race into the matrix you've just spelled the doom of your own argument.

Think about it: an overwhelming majority of Americans and Europeans belong to the same Caucasian race. Still they live in about 50 different countries, with 50 different sets of national boundaries. Africans belonging to the so-called "dark" race belong to 53 different countries. If one were to subscribe to your ideal worldview then all the countries of Europe and America should aggregate to form a super country with people of the same race. That is absurd just because people don't identify just themselves by "race". They also identify themselves by religion [and sects and sub-sects and sub-sub sects therein], castes, regional affiliations, linguistic groupings etc.

Any one person always carries multiple identities. Hence a man hailing from Andhra Pradesh can identify himself by race[Dravida or Aryan], by religion, by caste, by region, by nationality, by linguistic affiliations, by profession, class etc etc etc.

If your race argument were to be taken to its logical extreme then India would be divided into SEVERAL countries, with India being populated by Aryans, Dravidians, Mongolians and a huge mix match of composite races.

Sociologists have long debunked the notion of pure races or cultures. Such a thing is not scientifically possible.

And multiculturalism is just a buzzword which doesn't mean anything definite.

There is nothing like a pure culture. Every culture is per force multicultural, with the exception of closely-knit and isolationist tribal cultures [and hence these do not advance and stay stuck in a time warp].

Do you know that kurtas, a widely worn dress in most of India, were brought to India by the Arabs, who also brought in several kinds of foods and sweets, salwar kameezes and god knows what else which we now call a part of "Indian" culture.

Jalebis are a Turkish invention, brought to India in the medieval period. Potatoes were first grown in the 15th century or thereabouts in Latin America, from where they spread to all over the world through European [Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English] explorers and invaders. Nowadays its difficult to imagine an Indian cuisine without potatoes.

Culture is a constantly - evolving entity. It does not remain frozen in time. Who knows, a hundred or so years down the line, pizzas and burgers may become an inalienable part of Indian culture.

Isn't that idea of having one big country true for most of it? If you think of those races as one, they have lived and evoled very close to each other. And why should they live in the same boundaries? I thought Europe was (or still is) well divided already based on different culture and races. You are identifying them as one single race, (the whites) but I never said that all whites should start living in one single country... why should they? Even though they belong to the same race, they were culturally always very different. Don't you think the Saxons were so different that the French, that their living in two different countries it totally justified.

And about the discussion on race, I think a pure race exists. But let us not get into that discussion in a politically correct nation like ours. Moreover, I seriously lack the time to actively take part in this discussion in order to my point clear. So for now, I just wish to tell you that just like eveybody is a photographer, everybody is also a racist (esp we Indians), which is sad but true. If you give it a serious thought, I don't think you can deny these two facts.

Vineet wrote:

So for now, I just wish to tell you that just like eveybody is a photographer, everybody is also a racist (esp we Indians), which is sad but true. If you give it a serious thought, I don't think you can deny these two facts.

I deny it. I believe in global citizenship and disintegration of national boundaries. And I am not the only one.

@Ritwik
I agree with you. With every passing day, it becomes more and more of a reality.. In maybe many decades, majority of the world will be super-connected..
That's where the entire debate of Globalisation and Global Citizens comes up and Arundhati Roy is up in arms against it..

Coming back to the original topic, I'd like to say that most kings were basically useless, all they bloody did was sit in their palaces and pamper themselves on public money. If they were genuinely good for the people then monarchy would still be alive.(I know it still is in some countries, but only to a very nominal extent.)

Also, having glanced through the posts, I think what Vineet is trying to say is he doesn't believe war is a solution either, but if someone attacks India for example, we can't stand at the border and try to talk to them while they blow the shit out of our brains. When you say it is "the other side" of these wars that you don't appreciate, you still can't deny the fact that it does exist and wars are still waged by one country on another.

The day we are able to sort out issues without wars is when we will reach the peak of civilization. However, for all the idealists who want to totally eliminate violence from day-to-day life, I suggest you wake up to reality.

from the greatest king of india this discussion has evolved into one about wars eh? well the following are my points:

pragya where and how did u find that Buddha ate pork? i noe nothing of this but i need to noe more...was that before or after he attainted enlightenment....please give me your sources i need to know how u make such a radical statement so casually...

yes i am to a great extent impressed by Ashoka...but more than that i guess i like Chandragupta Maurya...but then wen i say this i display that anything before this is a myth dont i ? but not according to me...there were greater leaders and unifiers like Bharat or Ikshvaku and even Swavambhuva Manu....these were the first rulers of either the first clan or first tribe or first kingdom in the region today known as india....and personally i do not forget or abandon them....

vineet i agree with your take on wars....in the ancient times wars were restricted to the battle field...they were not fought after nightfall....utmost care was taken not 2 destroy the fauna and flora....war in those times was much more "clean" if such a word can b associated with wars...to people who discard wars altogether they will b hard pressed to answer how have countries and kingdoms evolved in the first place if there were no wars? where man goes there will b conflict...but in the ancient times there were ethics to that too....

Coming back to the original topic, I'd like to
say that most kings were basically useless, all they bloody did was sit
in their palaces and pamper themselves on public money. If they were
genuinely good for the people then monarchy would still be alive.(I
know it still is in some countries, but only to a very nominal extent.)


hmm kings were basically useless eh?? so humans in times earlier were utterly stupid to have lived under kings for so long right? or perhaps there was none as intelligent as u??? kings were a natural evolution my friend....in a clan or tribe of humans one man was bound to rise above either by hunting more beasts or slayin more of the rival tribe....this man was bound to lead the clan in the successive battles and expeditions....in the times after kings were kings by sheer merit and support of the people...and they became so by proving themselves worthy of leadership.....look into how and why man started living under monarchies...wud do u much good

guys as far as ramayana and mahabhata are
concerned...i dont think its true ...we dont have any written record or
inscriptions describing them..

pragya i think u are plagued by what i call the historian's myopia.....the ramayan and mahabharat are not records in themselves to u?? oh perhaps u need archaelogical evidence??? well u shud noe this better that the farther back in time an event was the harder to find physical proof for it....

u choose not 2 believe in the ramayan and mahabharat because of the religious attachments to them....remove that...do u noe that the geography of the regions as described in them as amazingly accurate?? or are u aware that the stellar configurations described in them can b accurately pinpointed to dates in the BC era?? no your regular history course will not teach u all this....because we all suffer from historian's myopia..including ur teachers...all due respect

how do you define a "great king"? a king with the most conquests? but which king would actually fight a war? NO civilization in the world is gonna allow the citizen with the most power to engage in a optentially fatal situation

i cannot define a great king...a great king is define by his own subjects...we can only offer subjective opinions ....

bt when u say which king wud actually fight a war....sir cmon all kings have fought a war....and in the ancient times the measure of a king was the glory he reaped...the conquests he made, the territory he expanded.....y is alexander the great called the great?? not for his services to the utility sector of athens i assure u

hehe my request for proof has offended u hasnt it? and by merely asking u to back ur claims i have come across as deluded by blind faith? sad...bt dats historian's myopia....

anyways if ur source for Buddha ate pork was the TOI...dats not a good enuff source for me...i do not trust the TOI....secondly i grant that it is highly possible that Buddha ate pork BEFORE his enlightenment...after all he was a kshatriya prince....but dat he did so even after his englightenment would mean that Buddha was a hypocrite...which i have trouble believing....

no i am not shocked 2 hear about Brahmins eating beef....i have read the Myth of the Holy Cow....but once again u mentioning this here is proof 2 me of the myopia i seem to be harping on about....we have an entire text called Ramayana after which u say where is proof about ramayana....but one book by one author convinces u of the beef-eatery of the Brahmins....personally i do not know whether i believe it or not....but if it is true i do not have ne problems and it does not offend my sensibilities...

hmm now once again....u say that ram was maryada purushottam simply because he asked sita to go for agni pareeksha? please tell me honestly have u read the entire valmiki ramayan? if u have i admit i wud be really surprised....on my part i havent...but i do have a spiritual guru (84 years old) who has and i trust him completely...i will confirm this Ram eating hiran ka maas issue with him and if u turn out to be right rest assured i will definitely accept that u are right and i am wrong....

no i do not believe that it is impossible to find evidence for the ramayana....in thailand to this day the kings add Ram after their name...believing themselves to be descendants of him....there is a city there named Ayuthaya....named after Ayodhya....even old muslim grandmothers in indonesia know of the Ramayana....while knowing nothing of hinduism....what i said was that a lack of archaelogical evidence does not mean that it did not happen.....and that one might have a problem with ramayana because of its religious associations...remove that....look at it purely as a historial issue....Valmiki himself called the Ramayan "itihaas" ....loosely translated it means history but actually itihaas means "this is how it happened" ....u may b a bigger believer in DN Jha and i by all means allow u that....but can i not b a bigger believer in Valmiki....if i am does that make me more deluded and blind than u? how so?

Well amrit you say Myopia..then let me tell you that a historian can never suffer from myopia.they see facts.religion has little to do with facts.they have faith in facts not any guru or religion...

mughal empire always fascinates me.....
though i really dnt knw who will be d best king!!!