Dr. Harmander Singh
Vedic Punjab and Indian Civilization: A Review with Thanks to Bent Lorentzen: Why Punjab is the Defender of Natural World

I personally have researched and found that Aryan Invasion is a false theory to mislead people when European have greater political and thus ruling powers. Based on all works and description that are preserved from Vedic Literature to latest that we know as Shri Guru Granth Sahib, the Holy Book of Sikhs (http://www.searchgurbani.com/guru_granth_sahib/int... ) as authority over mythology and history. It talks and discusses everything based on the Quantum Physics and presence of Arts that we know as Classical Indian Arts and present in the other parts of the world.

These Classical Arts always has been gained by all sages, saints and spirituals without teachers. This very thing is known as if gift from the Spirit. The knowledge has ego as its root of action and that needs accepting something or some authority as teacher, the Guru. For example even Lord Rama and Krishna, who were masters of 14 and 16 Classical Arts also requested the master of each art as their gurus.

We are left with least of these classical arts alive with their major and minor classes and categories in the Modern Indian Civilization and World in general.

These Gurus, the teachers who help to receive the gifts from the spirit to preserve the natural world. This natural world is thus considered the Visible Form of God. Thus, all of it helps preserve all the Arts that go into Genes and also creates an Environment.

Many people in the modern age, particularly in the west consider the Teacher-taught as if a theory that Indians follow to keep the Civilization alive. We have this very teacher-taught relation for all faculties of human knowledge and wisdom. It spreads into animal kingdom and green world, and thus to the natural world. The Natural World is thus considered a teacher in its own open school.

The incomparable respect is given to the mother as she simply does not just conceives a sperm that has been preserved and developed by nature in male but also in the womb in which the same nature nurtures the same sperm within the egg. This comes out as a human body and other forms among the mammals. As the 4 kinds of life include sweat (perspiration), placenta, vegetation (With thanks from the source: http://www.sikhnet.com/news/water-and-origin-life )

It thus also includes the scientific discussions from creation of the universes to invasions of the Mughals embrace that from the Vedas to Holy Bible, Holy Quran and some other modern scriptures has not been put to question with deep intuitive and divine research works that we call as finding the truth without external aids. That means after reading and understanding everything that meets the criteria of Six Schools of Philosophy that has been main thing in world civilization.

I have studied his grammar of Shri Guru Granth Sahib that is in the Gurumukhi Scrip, in which Bhai Sahib Singh has proved that the Gurmukhi Script as the Punjabi language is the modern form of the Sanskrit. His grammar book also inspired me to write my own grammar book that I finished in 1996 but has never have been able to put it into publication for some reasons. His Grammar of Gurmukhi and thus the Gurbani by itself is written as in the Gurmukhi Script Punjabi. (With thanks from the source: http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Professor_Sahib... )

Vedic Punjab

The Rig-Veda, one of the older texts in South Asia, is generally thought to have been composed in the Greater Punjab. It embodies a literary record of the socio-cultural development of ancient Punjab (known as Sapta Sindhu) and affords us a glimpse of the life of its people. Vedic society was tribal in character. A number of families constituted a grama, a number of gramas a vis (clan) and a number of clans a Jana (tribe). The Janas, led by Rajans, were in constant inter-tribal warfare. From this warfare arose larger groupings of peoples ruled by great chieftains and kings. As a result, a new political philosophy of conquest and empire grew, which traced the origin of the state to the exigencies of war.

An important event of the Rigvedic era was the "Battle of Ten Kings" which was fought on the banks of the river Parusni (identified with the present-day river Ravi) between king Sudas of the Trtsu lineage of the Bharata clan on the one hand and a confederation of ten tribes on the other.<5> The ten tribes pitted against Sudas comprised five major the Purus, the Druhyus, the Anus, the Turvasas and the Yadus—and five minor ones, origin from the north-western and western frontiers of present-day Punjab—the Pakthas, the Alinas, the Bhalanas, the Visanins and the Sivas. King Sudas was supported by the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha, while his former Purohita the Rishi Viswamitra sided with the confederation of ten tribes.<6>

Out of such conflicts, struggles, conquests and movements of the Vedic of the Middle and Later Vedic age emerged the Punjab, a society that laid special stress on the value of action as depicted by their ideals and standards in the Hindu Epics, notably the Mahabharata.

Epic Punjab

The philosophy of heroism of the Epic Age is expounded in the Bhagavatagita section of the Mahabharata. That work is a synthesis of many doctrines and creeds, but its oldest core is arguably the enunciation of a martial and heroic cult. The Bhagavatagita expounds a philosophy of heroism probably current in the then Punjab. It provides a philosophical foundation to the profession of arms and invests the Kshatriya or warrior with respectable position and noble status. It canonizes his professional integrity and injects an intensity of purpose into it. The exploits of the civilization can be seen in the accounts of the charges of the Kauravas against the Pandavas. The epic says that the contingents of Gandharas, Kambojas, Sauviras, Madras and Trigartas occupied key positions in the Kaurava arrays throughout the epic war.<7>

Another important event that involved the Punjabis was the conflict between the Indo-Aryan Rishi Vishwamitra of the Kurukshetra area and Sage Vasishtha from the north-western parts of greater Punjab (i.e., the region extending from Swat/Kabul in the west to Delhi in the east).<8><9> The story emerges in the Rigveda and more clearly later Vedic texts and is portrayed in the Bala-Kanda section of the Valmiki Ramayana. The epic conflict is said to have been sparked over the re-possession of Kamadhenu, also known as Savala, a divine cow by Vishwamitra from a Brahmana sage of the Vasishtha lineage. Rsi Vasishtha solicited the military support of the frontier Punjabi warriors consisting of eastern Iranians—the Shakas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, etc., aided by Kirata, Harita and the Mlechcha soldiers from the Himalayas. This composite army from frontier Punjab ruined one Akshauni army of Vishwamitra, along with all of his 100 his sons except one.<10> Indologists like Dr H. C. Raychadhury, Dr B. C. Law, Dr Satya Shrava and others see in these verses the glimpses of the struggles of the Aryans with the mixed invading hordes of the barbaric Sakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas etc. from the north-west.<11><12><13><14> The time frame for these struggles is said to be the 2nd century BCE. Raychadhury fixes the date of the present version of the Valmiki Ramayana around/after 2nd century CE.<15>

Punjab during Buddhist times

The Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya<16> mentions Gandhara and Kamboja among the sixteen great countries (Solas Mahajanapadas) which had evolved in/and around Jambudvipa prior to Buddha's times. Pali literature further endorses that only Kamboja and Gandhara of the sixteen ancient political powers belonged to the Uttarapatha or northern division of Jambudvipa but no precise boundaries for each have been explicitly specified. Gandhara and Kamboja are believed to have comprised the upper Indus regions and included Kashmir, eastern Afghanistan and most of the western Punjab which now forms part of Pakistan.<17> At times, the limits of Buddhist Gandhara had extended as far as Multan while those of Buddhist Kamboja comprised Rajauri/Poonch, Abhisara and Hazara as well as eastern Afghanistan including valleys of Swat and Kunar and Kapisa etc. Michael Witzel terms this region as forming parts of the Greater Punjab. Buddhist texts also mention that this northern region especially the Kamboja was renowned for its quality horses & horsemen and has been regularly mentioned as the home of horses.<18> However, Chulla-Niddesa, another ancient text of the Buddhist canon substitutes Yona for Gandhara and thus lists the Kamboja and the Yona as the only Mahajanapadas from Uttarapatha<19> This shows that Kamboja had included Gandhara at the time the Chulla-Niddesa list was written by Buddhists.

Pāṇinian and Kautiliyan Punjab

Pāṇini was a famous ancient Sanskrit grammarian born in Shalātura, identified with modern Lahur near Attock in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. One may infer from his work, the Ashtadhyayi, that the people of Greater Punjab lived prominently by the profession of arms. That text terms numerous clans as being "Ayudhajivin Samghas" or "Republics (oligarchies) that live by force of arms". Those living in the plains were called Vahika Samghas,<20> while those in the mountainous regions (including the north-east of present-day Afghanistan) were termed as Parvatiya Samghas (mountaineer republics).<21> According to an older opinion the Vahika Sanghas included prominently the Vrikas (possibly modern Virk Jatts), Damanis, confederation of six states known as Trigarta-shashthas, Yaudheyas (modern Joiya or Johiya Rajputs and some Kamboj), Parsus, Kekayas, Usinaras, Sibis<22> (possibly modern Sibia Jatts?), Kshudrakas, Malavas, Bhartas, and the Madraka clans,<23> while the other class, styled as Parvatiya Ayudhajivins, comprised among others partially the Trigartas, Darvas, the Gandharan clan of Hastayanas,<24> Niharas, Hamsamaragas, and the Kambojan clans of Ashvayanas<25> & Ashvakayanas,<26> Dharteyas (of the Dyrta town of the Ashvakayans), Apritas, Madhuwantas (all known as Rohitgiris), as well as the Daradas of the Chitral, Gilgit, etc. In addition, Pāṇini also refers to the Kshatriya monarchies of the Kuru, Gandhara and Kamboja.<27> These Kshatriyas or warrior communities followed different forms of republican or oligarchic constitutions, as is attested to by Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi.

The Arthashastra of Kautiliya, whose oldest layer may go back to the 4th century BCE also talks of several martial republics and specifically refers to the <Kshatriya Srenis (warrior-bands) of the Kambojas, Surastras and some other frontier tribes as belonging to varta-Shastr-opajivin class (i.e., living by the profession of arms and varta), while the Madraka, Malla, the Kuru, etc., clans are called Raja-shabd-opajivins class (i.e., using the title of Raja).<28><29><30><31><32> Dr Arthur Coke Burnell observes: "In the West, there were the Kambojas and the Katas (Kathas) with a high reputation for courage and skill in war, the Saubhuties, the Yaudheyas, and the two federated peoples, the Sibis, the Malavas and the Kshudrakas, the most numerous and warlike of the Indian nations of the days".<33><34> Thus, it is seen that the heroicraditions cultivated in Vedic and Epic Age continued to the times of Pāṇini and Kautaliya. In fact, the entire region of Greater Punjab is known to have reeked with the martial people. History strongly witnesses that these Ayudhajivin clans had offered stiff resistance to the Achaemenid rulers in the 6th century, and later to the Macedonian invaders in the 4th century BC.

According to History of Punjab: "There is no doubt that the Kambojas, Daradas, Kaikayas, Madras, Pauravas, Yaudheyas, Malavas, Saindhavas and Kurus had jointly contributed to the heroic tradition and composite culture of ancient Punjab".<35><36>

Please read more about it including the following:

Invasions:
Persian domination
Alexander's invasion

Maurya Empire
Indo-Greek kingdom
The Shahi Kingdoms and the Muslim invasions
The Delhi Sultanate and Mughal empire (Main article: Mughal Empire)
The rule of the Sikhs
The British in Punjab
The Punjab of Republic of India and Pakistan

from the source with thanks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Punjab...


Vedic Punjab and Indian Civilization: A Review with Thanks to Bent Lorentzen: Why Punjab is the Defender of Natural World has been inspired by a wonderful wall-post by Bent Lorentzen having the most beautiful words showing reverence for natural world as: "...the mother's side of the family into deep history, it additionally means that all life, the land and habitat systems that support life, is considered the deepest mother, again deeply reinforcing an indellible love, respect, connectivity and desire to preserve their habitat's ecosystem... and this is also reflected in the way many tribes and clans encourage their young to study the sciences that have to do with ecology." (With thanks from the Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2... )

Please read this article in detail at here: http://www.lifemetaphysical.co.cc/2011/09/history-...
Dr. Harmander Singh
The Decline of the West - Theism is not Dogma of Force: Oswald Spengler

In general view from East is many of westerner thinker believe that most of the spirituals and others has been used only as means and ends for marketing religion and faith, which is one of well supported propaganda with many names embracing the general name New World Order.

The new advancements has simply put technology as spiritual technology that has nothing to do with God, Divine, Religion, Faiths and thus Spirituality and Nature for the Natural World in which we live.

The following musical video says it well:

The Best Spirituality is Often Just a Walk in Nature

If Wisdom Tree is accepted all is based on evolution, the self-development. The rapid change in the concepts related to God and Religions seem to use brands that are modified daily for more profits and better global business.

Thus seems what Oswald Spengler says as the Decline of the West - Theism is not Dogma of Force:

Atheism, rightly understood, is the necessary expression of a spirituality that has accomplished itself and exhausted its religious possibilities, and is declining into the inorganic. It is entirely compatible with a living wistful desire for real religiousness--therein resembling Romanticism, which likewise would recall that which has irrevocably gone, namely, the Culture--... Atheism comes not with the evening of the Culture but with the dawn of Civilization. Mo

But, if this late form of world-feeling and world-image which preludes our "second religiousness" is universally a negation of the religious in us. The structure of it is different in each of the Civilizations...

The spiritual in every living culture is religious, has religion, whether it be conscious of it or not. It is not open to a spirituality to be irreligious; at most it can play with the idea of irreligion as Medicean Florentines did. But the maglopolitan is irreligious; this is part of his being, a mark of his historical position. The degree of piety of which a period is capable is revealed in its attitude towards toleration. One tolerates something either because it seems to have some relation to what according to one's experience is the divine or else because one is no longer capable of such experience and is indifferent.

What we moderns have called "Toleration" in the classical world is an expression of the contrary of atheism. Plurality of numina and cults is inherent in the conception of Classical religion. But to the Faustian soul dogma and not visible ritual constitutes the essence. What is regarded as godless is opposition to doctrine. He begins the spatial-spiritual conception of heresy. A Faustian religion by its very nature cannot allow any freedom of conscience; it would be in contradiction with its space-invasive dynamic. Even free-thinking itself is not exception to the rule. Amongst us there is not faith without leanings to an Inquisition of some sort....

...

FAUSTIAN PHYSICS AS THE DOGMA OF FORCE [209]
The Deism of the Baroque goes together with its dynamics and its analytical geometry; its three basic principles, God, Freedom and Immortality, are in the language of mechanics the principles of inertia (Galileo), least action (D'Alembert) and the conservation of energy (J. R. Mayer).

Western physics is by its inward form dogmatic and not ritualistic. Its content is the dogma of Force which is identical with space and distance...

THE LIMITS OF FURTHER THEORETICAL--NOT TECHNICAL--DEVELOPMENT [212-13]
...

...the sudden and annihilating doubt that has arisen about things that even yesterday were the unchallenged foundation of physical theory, about the meaning of the energy-principle, the concepts of mass, space, absolute time, and causality-laws generally. ...It is a doubt affecting the very possibility of a Nature- science. To take one instance alone, what a depth of unconscious Skepsis there is in the rapidly increasing use of enumerative and statistical methods, which aim only at probability of results and forgo in advance the absolute scientific exactitude that was a creed to the hopeful earlier generations.

Sections from Spengler, The Decline of the West:

(The following chapters have links available at the source here:

Introduction: Civilization
Introduction: Imperialism
Architecture and Divinities
Imitation and Ornament
The History of Style as an Organism
Arts as Symbol of the Higher Order
Popular and Esoteric
Will to Power
Impressionism
Morale of Dawning Civilizations
The History of Style as an Organism
Pergamum and Bayreuth: the End of Art
Classical Behaviour Drama and Faustian Character Drama
Every Culture Possesses its own Ethic
Every Science is Dependent upon Religion
Atheism
Origin and Landscape: the Group of the Higher Cultures
Cities
Reformation
Science
Second Religiousness
The State
Politics
Conclusion


Thanks for your time to read it.

With thanks from the source: http://www.duke.edu/~aparks/SPENGM.html
Dr. Harmander Singh
One the Best Comment Ever on My Articles is by Bent Lorentzen:

"This is one of the most powerful and altogether deeply insightful articles on the subject of world peace that I've ever had the priviledge of reading!

I began copying a couple of sentences above, to illustrate your deceptively simple thinking, and gave up, for each thought simply integrated and merged itself into a symphony, and to distract anyone with a "unique sentence" would be like taking a Chopin piece, and only offering one note Each sentence brings forth a wisdom from all sorts of disciplines that is rarely seen synthesized so eloquently. I'm almost speechless. Thanks for writing this, Harmander!"


The above comment is on the article: World Peace Message for New World Order Accepting Others as We are-A Sharing of an Appeal

P.S.: I sincerely thank Bent Lorentzen
Dr. Harmander Singh
How India Reacts to New World Order has a great concern for world family as more than billion people have their impact on it. the ancient times gave us all of it as:


"The Indian Concept of One World Family Seems Better Alternative to New World Order. That is why the new concepts of New Age and New Era or Interfaith may not meet these high standards even though all have ideals as if taken from Law of Affinity, the Coexistence, ..."


The Concept of World as One Family is the most ancient concept that Indian Philosophers and Thinkers introduced for world peace, welfare and development. This concept is popularly known as "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Sanskrit: वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम. from "vasudha", the earth; "eva" = emphasizer and "kutumbakam", "family") is a Sanskrit phrase <1> that means that the whole world is one single family.<2> " (With thanks from the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasudhaiva_Kutumbakam )


Some of most precious words as said: "This concept finds its mention in the literature of Hindu organizations. The literature says "This gigantic idea(Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) is an exclusively Indian contribution to world peace. This ancient nation evolved a world-view based on the motto "Loka samasta sukhina bhavantu" (Let the entire world be happy) thousands of years before any League of Nations or United Nations was thought of to avoid global strife. The Indian nation evolved this grand vision not by marching its armies and conquering the rest and offering peace; but by the inner-directed pursuit of universal values by the Rishis living in the forests and mountains of India.


While all Indians support this idea of World as a Family, I have shared my opinions about it on one of my blogs titled: Indian Concept of One World Family Seems Better Alternative to New World Order


Thanks for your time reading it.
Dr. Harmander Singh
Is Corruption Bad for Environmental Sustainability? A Cross-National Analysis


Corruption, defined here as the “abuse of public power for private gain” (World Bank 1997), has long been highlighted as an important consideration in development, and today is part of the wider ‘good governance’ agenda promoted by aid agencies (Doig and McIvor 1999). The assumption is straightforward. Corruption can result in the diversion of resources from the public good to private consumption and overall result in losing the impacts that were intended to be of wider benefit. Indeed Doig and McIvor (1999) state that corruption “has distorted development priorities, led to massive human and financial capital flight, and undermined social and political stability ... corruption is deeply damaging to the social and political fabric, to investment, and to economic growth.” Given this statement it is no surprise that Hisamatsu (2003) states “it is difficult to overstate the economic and social significance of corruption”.

Causes of corruption are said to be many (World Bank 1997, Goudie and Stasavage 1998) but can broadly be divided into three aspects:

1. Opportunity. Included here will be aspects such as demand from foreign firms (Hisamatsu 2003) and ‘spaces of corruption’ where there is a lack of transparency combined with power (Zemanovicova 2002) and where there are “highly distorted policies” that create gaps between demand and supply (World Bank 1997).
2. Motive. This may be especially enhanced if salaries and living conditions of officials with opportunity are relatively poor (World Bank 1997).
3. Probability of being caught and punished. If this is low then corruption is likely to be encouraged. It should also be noted that corruption may actually be tolerated by citizens as a means of ‘making things happen’.

Corruption has not only been linked to social and economic development, but also to environmental sustainability (Lopez and Mitra 2000, Damania et al. 2003, Welsch 2004). While corruption is not environmentally destructive in a general sense (Robbins 2000) poor governance results in bad policy formulation, management, and enforcement, and this can become apparent through problems with environmental sustainability (Damania et al. 2003). Yet while there are many assumed cause-effect relationships between corruption and environmental sustainability there are few empirical analyses. One qualitative example focused on environmental regulation in the New York waste industry and how this interacts with organized crime is provided by Carter (1997). There are also examples that take a more quantitative approach by correlating measures of corruption with indicators of environmental sustainability in much the same way as others have tried with corruption and economic performance (Mauro 1995, Hall and Jones 1999). Since the turn of the century this has been facilitated somewhat by the emergence of the ‘high-profile’ Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) for nation states. The ESI, first published in 2001 and subsequently in 2002 and 2005, has seen an increasing popularity at least in the popular media (Morse 2004, Morse and Fraser 2005) and has been overtly linked in the press to the rule of law:

“Finland and Norway have the most environmentally sustainable economies. The Environmental Sustainability Index is an assessment of dozens of variables that influence the environmental health of economies. One of the strongest determinants, besides wealth, seems to be good governance including a broad commitment to the rule of law” Economist (2002).

The ESI is by no means the only index or indicator of sustainability (Sutton and Costanza 2002), and an approach also gaining in interest is the estimation of Critical Natural Capital (CNC). The increasing popularity of the ESI is in part related to the fact that it is promoted by the powerful World Economic Forum (WEF), and its release coincides with high-profile WEF meetings. The ESI is a thorough index in the sense that the rationale, methodology, and component data sets are carefully laid out in widely available documentation (www.ciesin.columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/). This greatly facilitates the use of the ESI for relating environmental sustainability to economic performance (Morse and Fraser 2005) as well as corruption. Corruption, however unlike economic performance which can be proxied with measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP), is a complex human behavior that is notoriously difficult to measure precisely because its very nature makes it opaque (Lambsdorff 1999, Hisamatsu 2003). Those benefiting from corruption are unlikely to say so and even more unlikely to say how much they receive. Those on the giving end may be less reticent to talk about the extent of corruption, but there is a danger of them exaggerating their problems by confounding difficult bureaucracies and different ways of doing business with corruption. As a result, empirical analysis of corruption is a relatively new endeavor (Lambsdorff 1999), but even so national measures typically based on perceptions of its prevalence do exist and the ESI includes one of them (World Bank Corruption Survey) as a component. A more widely reported metric is the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published each year by the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI). Both of these indices reflect an increasing desire to measure complex characteristics of society and to present the results in a comparative format, in this case league tables.

In a recent and pioneering contribution Welsch (2004) uses the cross-national data available in the ESI 2002 data sets to explore the relationship between air and water pollution and corruption. For the latter he employed the World Bank Corruption Survey data in the ESI data set. Both ‘state’ (ambient) and ‘pressure’ (emissions) were included<1>, and the results suggest that there are two effects:

1. A direct effect, such that corruption interferes with monitoring, enforcement, etc. Hence, more corruption unambiguously corresponds with more pollution. As stated in the ESI 2005 report (Esty et al. 2005), “corruption contributes to lax enforcement of environmental regulations and an ability on the part of producers and consumers to evade responsibility for the environmental harms they cause”.
2. An indirect effect, as corruption is negatively related to prosperity, which in turn has more complex relationships with various measures of pollution. For low income countries an increase in GDP may increase pollution but there is a turning point beyond which increasing prosperity reduces pollution (Grossman and Krueger 1995).

As a result, “the effect of corruption on pollution is particularly strong in low income countries. Reducing corruption is therefore especially important for the less developed regions” (Welsch 2004). However, the linkage between ‘state’ and ‘pressure’ was unclear for some pollutants as emissions kept increasing beyond the point where ambient levels had peaked. Welsch (2004) puts this down to poor data quality for emissions such that values are underestimated, and suggests that this bias could be at least in part a result of corruption. Hence all of his subsequent analyses and conclusions deal only with state indicators. But how valid are such comparisons, even if they are addressing important questions, founded on highly aggregated indices expressed at national level? After all, deriving single values of environmental sustainability and corruption for a nation would appear to be simplistic in the extreme.

This paper aims to critically dissect the assumed relationship between corruption (independent variable; CPI) and environmental sustainability (dependent variable; ESI). Can such analyses yield valid insights into such an hypothesized relationship and what are the limitations inherent within such cross-national comparisons using simplified data sets? If insights can be derived then what are they?

Please read more from the source with thanks: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art22/
Displaying 1 to 5 of 14