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Re: Re : Erwin Schroedinger and Hinduism
> From parrikar@spot.Colorado.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:14:29 1996
> In article <4dnfue$q6c@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
> Sankar Jayanarayanan <kartik@eng.auburn.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > Do you consider Adi Sankara to be a Hindu? If so, why?
>
> Yes, since he was born and grew up in the land that was considered to
> be that of the Hindus, since he identified with the prevailing Hindu
> cultural and religious ethos.
>
> > This, of course, brings the question of who a Hindu is. I,personally,
> > go by the definition that a person is a hindu if he believes in the
> > Vedas/Upanishads. In many of the writings by Schroedinger, you find that
> > his belief in the Vedanta was extraordinary. Moreover, you left out
> > something from my previous posting-
>
> There have been many Westerners (Emerson et al) who were enormously moved
> by Vedantic ideas and who didn't consider themselves Hindu.
>
> > > Also, my professor in India has stated that when Schroedinger was staying
> > > for a few days in India, he scrupulously followed the Indian customs,
> > > including applying Tilak to his fore-head, wearing a Dhoti,etc....
> >
> > So let's consider Schroedinger's case-
> > 1) He had belief in the Vedanta, or rather, the Advaita philosophy.
> > 2) He seems to have had some liking towards the Hindu customs, too.
> >
> > From the above two points, I must confess that it was me and not
> > Schroedinger who "considered" Schroedinger a Hindu.
>
> I'm glad you see the difference. For people not born into the native
> tradition but who borrow from or are heavily influenced by that tradition,
> it isn't always clear what label they should go by (if they want one in
> the first place) unless they themselves explicitly claim one.
>
You keep harping on the point "tradition" and seem to ignore the
point on "religion" completely. After all, in the soc.religion.hindu,
we don't discuss things like the price of Diwali crackers...or the
length of the sari or...
> The Hare Krishnas handsomely satisfy both 1) and 2) above (substitute
> Dvaita for Advaita), yet many of them will tell you that they aren't
> Hindu.
>
"hindu" in the sense of "tradition" and not of religion...
btw, you still haven't given me the(your) definition of "hindu", and yet
you have refuted so many of my claims. I'll tell you what I(personally) mean by
the term "hindu"-
1) Culturally- People who are born and/or brought up in India.
2) Religiously- People who believe in the Vedas.
Primarily, since this is a religious news-group, I think we ought to
take the second(religious) matter much more seriously than the cultural one.
After all, this news-group does have the term "religion" in it, and I do
see several postings by the Hare-Krishnas, who by your words,
" handsomely satisfy both 1) and 2) above (substitute
Dvaita for Advaita), yet many of them will tell you that they aren't
Hindu."
Can you tell me what these people are doing in this news-group?
(Ofcourse, since you took the pains to point out, I'm also going to include
the Americans whose parents are Indian.)
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I went to the URL---
http://rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu:8080/alt_hindu_home.html
and had a look at the alt.hindu archives . I went to the
March section of the archives and discovered several articles by a guy
called Nathan Parker. I suppose he's a Hare-Krishna, who, by your definition,
should not be considered a hindu. What was he doing in the alt.hindu???
> Let me also give you a reverse scenario:
> 1) Many Indians I know have a strong belief in Western science or
> Western ideas.
> 2) They also have some liking towards many Western customs etc.
>
> Yet, most of them will think you've gone cuckoo if you suggested that
> they consider themselves "Westerners."
>
But if I see a person who's had parents and grandparents
who've settled in America(parents, grandparents et.al.) but are really
"Indian", I most certainly do not think he'll mind the term "American".
or, for that matter, "westerner". Realise that I do not mean the first
generation Americans, but the nth(n=3,4,5) generation. Supposing they do observe
the "hindu" religion...
-Kartik
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