Ethnicity and Civilization. Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602 Australia, +61-2-62475187; January 7, 2000; rewrite November 20, 2001; update February 10, 2002. My comments within quoted text are shown {thus}.
Write to me at contact.html.
You are at http://mailstar.net/eth-civ.html.
If Ariosophy is the belief that all civilization and wisdom come from whites (Aryans: the Greeks and Romans, but also those of ancient India), then Judeosophy is the belief that civilization and wisdom are inherently Jewish (centred on Jewish history as God's chosen people).
For an attack on Ariosophy, see In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak & David Frawley.
The Aryans who conquered India imposed their rule through the caste system, but gradually absorbed the culture and religion of those they conquered.
Today the New Age movement is the vehicle for the same process, by which the "white" conquerors of the New World intermarry with, and absorb the culture of, those they conquered.
Apart from India, the Aryans also invaded Western Europe (from the steppes) and the Middle East.
The word "Aryan" is today preserved in the names of the countries "Iran" and "Ireland", i.e. "Eire" = "Aryan", showing the extent of the conquest. Their incursion into the Middle East may have contributed to Abraham's westward journey from Ur in Sumeria (if Abraham was an historic figure), and caused a westward exodus of "Hyksos" peoples into Egypt, bringing the Middle Kingdom to an end.
The Aryans, like the early Jews portrayed in the Bible, were nomadic destroyers of civilizations; only later did they become builders of civilizations, and then they borrowed from other peoples, just as every other civilization has done. The real origins of civilization are neither "White" nor "Jewish".
This article examines both Ariosophy and Judeosophy.
(1) ARIOSOPHY?
1a. The Aryan Destruction of the Harappa Civilization
For reference, see the Rig Veda. It consists of 10 Books, each containing many hymns: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/index.htm.
References to the Rig Veda comprise Book number, Hymn number, and verse number.
For example, the following verse shows that the Dasyus - the people the Aryans conquered - were of different appearance and language:
"10 One car-wheel of the Sun thou rolledst forward, and one thou settest free to move for Kutsa. Thou slewest noseless Dasyus with thy weapon, and in their home o'erthrewest hostile speakers." (5.xxix.10, i.e. book 5, hymn XXIX, verse 10).
The "car" of the Rig-Veda is the chariot.
That the Dasyus the Aryans conquered were black-skinned is shown by the following verses:
"21 His kine their Lord hath shown, e'en Vrtra's slayer, through the black hosts he passed with red attendants. Teaching us pleasant things by holy Order, to, us hath he thrown open all his portals." (3.xxx.21: book 3, hymn XXX, verse 21)
"17 He looked upon the Asvins, as an axearmed man upon a tree: Let your protecting help be near. 18 By the black band encompassed round, break it down, bold one, like a fort." (8.lxii.18: book 8, hymn LXII, verses 17 & 18)
"1. ACTIVE and bright have they come forth, impetuous in speed like bulls, Driving the black skin far away. 2 Quelling the riteless Dasyu, may we think upon the bridge of bliss, Leaving the bridge of woe behind." (9.xli.1: book 9, hymn XLI, verse 1)
David Anthony explains that the nomadic Aryans of the steppes lives in wagons and tents; but archaeologists can excavate their grave-sites: http://users.hartwick.edu/~iaes/Russia.htm.
For background on the Rig Veda see http://users.hartwick.edu/~hartleyc/surya.htm.
The Aryans of the Rig Veda, like the Jews of the Bible, were barbaric
invaders. The Aryan invaders of India destroyed the Harappan civilization,
which was bigger in extent than that of Egypt or Mesopotamia; the first
Sumerians may have come from Harappa. Stuart Piggott noted in his book
Prehistoric Roots of Ancient India (Penguin, Harmondsworth 1950),
�
"{p. 257} ... the Aryan advent in India was, in fact, the arrival
of barbarians into a region already highly organized into an empire based
on a long-
"{p. 258} established tradition of literate urban culture. ... the conquerors are seen to be less civilized than the conquered. In the Rigveda we see ... this conquest from the Aryan point of view alone: they are the heroes, and scant tribute is paid to their contemptible opponents, more skilled in the arts of peace than those of warfare".
"{p. 261} These opponents of the Aryan onslaught, the despicable enemy who dares deny Indra's supremacy in heaven and on earth, are referred to as the dasyus or dasas. They have black complexions, no noses to speak of (anasa), they are 'of unintelligible speech' and above all they are infidels. They have no 'rites', they are 'indifferent to the gods', they 'follow strange ordinances', they do not perform the Aryan sacrifices, and they probably worship the phallus. But they are wealthy, with great stores of gold, they are formed into groups or states, and they live in fortified strongholds."
Piggott agrees with Mortimer Wheeler, in seeing the following verses of the Rig Veda as referring to the destruction of the Harappa civilization. Piggott writes:
"{p. 261} {quote} With all-outstripping chariot-wheel, O Indra, thou
far-famed, hast overthrown the twice ten kings of men
With sixty thousand nine and ninety followers
... Thou goest on from fight to fight intrepidly,
destroying castle after castle here with strength {endquote}
"This is a hymn in the first book of the Rigveda (I, 53). The forts destroyed by Indra are said to be of stone, or with the
"{p. 262} epithet ama, which may refer to unbaked ('raw') brick walls; some are 'autumnal', which may mean that they were protected from the river floods after the rains. Indra is paramdara, the fort destroyer: 'Thou smitest foemen down, and many a citadel', 'thou breakest down the seven citadels' say the bards in his praise. He 'rends forts as age consumes a garment'.
"The attack seems to have included setting fire to the buildings:
{quote} ... in kindled fire he burnt up all their weapons,
And made him rich with kine [cattle] and carts and horses (ii, 15) {endquote}
"says another hymn of one of those favoured by the war-god. And it is possible that one can trace references to the destruction of the 'bunds' built to protect the Harappa cities from flood, so that the waters turned against them; it is difficult to be sure of this, because of the possibility of a sudden transition to the metaphorical use of words describing Indra in his celestial character of Jupiter Pluvius releasing the rains and swelling the rivers, but the association of flood and conquest is significantly brought together in the same hymn from which the last quotation is taken:
{quote} The mighty roaring flood he stayed from flowing, and carried those who swam not safely over,
They having crossed the stream attained to riches ...
He slaughtered Vala, and burst apart the defences of the mountain ...
He tore away their deftly-built defences ...
There the staff-bearer found the golden treasure ... (ii. 15). {endquote}
"And again, 'he sets free the rivers' paths', and 'all banks of rivers yielded to his manly might' (II, 13).
"In the past, these 'forts' of the dasyas and dasus were considered to be either mythological or at best the primitive earthworks and palisades of the supposed aborigines of Northern India at the time of the Aryan conquest. But now, as Wheeler has said,
{p. 263} {quote} 'the recent excavation of Harappa may be thought to have changed the picture. Here we have a highly-evolved civilization of essentially non-Aryan type, now known to have employed massive fortifications, and known also to have dominated the river-system of north-western India at a time not distant from the likely period of the earlier Aryan invasion of that region ... On circumstantial evidence, Indra stands accused.'" {endquote}" {end of selection from Piggott}
More detail on the Aryan destruction of the Harappan civilization: rig-veda.html.
1b. The Aryan Absorption of Indigenous Culture
It is common to side either for or against the "Aryans", but Alain Danielou finds merit in the synthesis. He writes, in his book Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation(Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont 1993):
'{p. 14} When the Aryans first established dominion over the Punjab, they were conquerors who despised the urban luxury of the original inhabitants. The Puranas and Itihasas give lengthy descriptions of battles that are a transposition to a mythological and heroic level of the battles between the invaders and the indigenous population. As the Aryan empire was established, however, its customs were gradually relaxed by contact with the "demons," who had by now become men whose wisdom and skills could be acknowledged and whose religion and philosophy could be adopted from many points of view, thus posing new problems that are common to all great empires.'
A. L. Basham writes in History of the Ajivikas: (Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi 1951):
"{p. 4} The industrious and uninspiring civilization of the Indus cities, with its chthonic religion, had been replaced by the more barbaric culture of the Aryans, with a disorderly pantheon of celestial deities.
"Penetration down the Ganges probably proceeded slowly; but the records of the period have left little direct indication of the process of Aryan expansion, or of the culture of the people whom the Aryans met. It is not likely that the culture was at the lowest stages of barbarism. It must have been able to exert a counter-influence on the Aryan polytheism which was imposed upon it, for it is difficult otherwise to account for the emergence of the doctrine of transmigration and of mystical monism in the period of the Upanisads, which probably dates from the seventh century B.C."
A. L. Basham writes in The Wonder That Was India: (Grove Press, NY 1959; For the Fontana edition, add 2 to each page-number):
"{p. 242} As Aryan culture pressed further down the Ganges it absorbed new ideas about the after-life. In the Rg Veda the fate of the dead seems to have been finally decided when they died - they went either to the "World of the Fathers" or to the "House of Clay", where they remained indefinitely.
"In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad the first form of the doctrine of transmigration is given. ...
"{p. 243} This doctrine of karma (literally "deed") soon became fundamental to most Indian thought. It provided a satisfactory explanation to the mystery of suffering ... and it justified the manifest social inequalities of the Ayran community. ...
"The growth of the doctrine of transmigration coincided with the development of pessimistic ideas. ... {like the Green, i.e. anti-Progress, movement today}
"In a late hymn of the Rg Veda we read of a class of holy men different from the brahmans, the "silent ones" (munis), who wear the wind as a girdle ... The muni knows all men's thoughts, for he has drunk of the magic cup of Rudra, which is poison to ordinary mortals. Another class, much mentioned in the Athara Veda, was the vratya. This term, in its later broad meaning, implied an Aryan who had fallen from the faith and no longer respected the Vedas; but the vratya of the Athara Veda was a priest of a non-Vedic fertility cult, which involved ritual dancing and flagellation. ...
"{p. 244} By the time of the Upanisads asceticism had become very widespread, and it was through the ascetics, rather than the orthodox sacrificial priests, that the new teachings developed and spread. Some ascetics were solitary psychopaths, dwelling alone in the depths of the forests ... Others wandered, often in large groups, begging alms ... Some were completely naked, while others wore simple garments.
"{p. 245} In fact the magic potency, formerly ascribed to the sacrifice, now began to be attributed to asceticism. In the succeeding age the idea that the universe was founded and maintained through sacrifice slipped into the background; in its place it was widely believed that the universe depended on the great god Siva, meditating forever in the fastnesses of the Himalayas, and on the continued austerities of his human followers."
"{p. 247} Thus the growth of asceticism is not only a measure of the psychological uncertainty which was felt at the time, but also of the thirst for knowledge."
1c. The Greek "Enlightenment" of the 5th Century BC
In his book The Greeks and the Irrational, E. R. Dodds describes a situation like ours in Greece, at the time of the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta, which began about 432 BC and lasted 30 years.� It was a time when Greece had an "Enlightenment", brought about by its rationalist intellectuals, who by undermining the traditional religion had weakened the social fabric.
As in the Cold War, Sparta was the "people's democracy" of its day, and Athens the "democracy". Ideologically, Plato (using Socrates as his mouthpiece) took the Spartan side, as many Western intellectuals have taken the Bolshevik side. Following Plato, Rousseau idealised Sparta as a model for his Enlightenment state, and this was the model of leaders in the French Revolution such as Babeuf. The war finished off Ancient Athens, as Thucydides argued: it was the end of its creative period, and Greek philosophers ended up, several centuries afterwards, slaves of the Roman empire, tutoring the children of the rich.
In Dodds' description the Inherited Conglomerate is the traditional culture:
"{p. 191} the new rationalism carried with it real as well as imaginary dangers for the social order. In discarding the Inherited Conglomerate, many people discarded with it the religious restraints that had held human egoism on the leash ... with most ... the liberation of the individual meant an unlimited freedom of self-assertion; it meant rights without duties ... The new rationalism did not enable men to live like beasts - men have always been able to do that. But it enabled them to justify their brutality to themselves ...
"{p. 192} ... the regressiveness of popular religion in the Age of Enlightenment. The first signs of this regression appeared during the Peloponnesian War, and were doubtless in part due to the war. Under the stresses it generated, people began to slip back from the too difficult achievements of the Periclean Age; cracks appeared in the fabric ... As the
{p. 193} intellectuals withdrew further into a world of their own, the popular mind was left increasingly defenceless ... " {today's academic bastions of Radical Feminism and Gay Lib are similarly divorced from the common people they despise}
(2) JUDEOSOPHY?
The Biblical Genocide
Former Jesuit Dr Ian Guthridge writes in his book The Rise and Decline of the Christian Empire, Medici School/Publications, Middle Park, Vic., Australia, 1999:
{p. 319} THE BIBLICAL HOLOCAUST
Even more poignantly, however, the Bible also contains the horrific account of what can only be described as a "biblical holocaust". For, in order to keep the chosen people apart from and unaffected by the alien beliefs and practices of indigenous or neighbouring peoples, when God commanded his chosen people to conquer the Promised Land, he placed city after city 'under the ban" -which meant that every man, woman and child was to be slaughtered at the point of the sword. {Josh ch 6 etc.}
Thus we read in the Book of Numbers that the Jews "waged the campaign against Midian, as Yahweh had ordered Moses, and they put every male to death... the sons of Israel took the Midianite women captive with their young children, and plundered all their cattle, all their flocks and all their goods. They set fire to the towns where they lived and all their encampments... Then, when they took the captives, spoil and booty to Moses..., Moses was enraged.... 'why have you spared the life of all the women...? So kill all the male children. Kill also all the women who have slept with a man. Spare the lives only of the young girls who have not slept with a man, and take them for yourselves". {Num 31: 7-19}
Similarly in the Book of Deuteronomy, when the Jews attacked Sihon's Amorite kingdom, "Yahweh our God delivered him over to us... We captured all his cities and laid whole towns under ban, men, women and children; we spared nothing but the livestock which we took as our spoil".
{Deut 2: 33-35. The NRSV translation of this passage is as follows: "the LORD our God gave him over to us; and we struck him down, along with all his offspring and all his people. At the time we captured all his towns, and in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single survivor. ..."}
Likewise in the Transjordanian kingdom of Og, king of Bashan: "We captured all his towns at that time... Sixty towns... We laid them under ban... - the whole town, men, women and children, under the ban". {Deut 3: 4-7}
Sometimes, the ban could vary; for in a later chapter of the same book, we read that "if (a town) refuses peace and offers resistance,... Yahweh your God shall deliver it unto your power and you are to put all its menfolk to the sword. But the women, the children, the livestock and all that the town contains, all its spoil, you may take for yourselves as booty". {Deut 20: 12-14}
In the Book of Joshua, we read about the most famous case of all - the fall of Jericho: "Then Yahweh said to Joshua, 'Now I am delivering Jericho and its king into your hands". So, when "the walls of Jericho came tumbling down", the Jewish warriors "enforced the ban on everything in the town: men and
{p. 320} women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all". {Josh 6: 21}
The same for the people of Ai; for "Yahweh said to Joshua... "You are to do with Ai and its king as you did with Jericho and its king... (And) "the number of those who fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand, all people of Ai ... All to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword". {Josh 8: 2 and 8: 24-5}
The same in southern Canaan, which "Yahweh gave into the power of Israel; and Israel struck every living creature there with the edge of the sword, and left none alive". {Josh 10: 30} The same at Lachish where "no one was left alive". {Josh 10: 33}. {end of selections}
The above Biblical accounts of the way the "Promised Land" was given to the "Chosen People" may not be historically accurate, but they are part of the Zionist claim to Palestine today.
From the Jewish Bible: 1 SAMUEL Chapter 15. This chapter says that God, through his prophet Samuel, condemned King Saul for not killing all of the non-Jews he fought, when ordered to do so. Saul, regretting his disobedience, slew the captive king he had spared - samuel-saul.html
Thought you knew the Ten Commandments? This is the way they really appear in the Jewish Bible (NRSV): "Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighhor." (DEUTERONOMY 5:21).
(3) Civilization is fragile
It must be nurtured and protected. Piggott points out,
"{p. 252} After the extinction of the Harappa civilization, there are no inscriptions or manuscripts known in India until the middle of the third century B.C."
The new script, the Brahmi script, "itself appears to be of semitic origin", i.e. was imported (p. 252).
India's "dark age" was comparable to that of Western Europe after the fall of Rome.
Barbarism lurks not only in our 'enemies', but also in 'ourselves'. Was the British Empire barbaric? Were the Bolsheviks barbaric? Was Japan's Unit 731 in Manchukuo barbaric? Was it barbaric to drop the bomb on the city of Hiroshima, rather than the naval base? Was Mao's Cultural Revolution barbaric? Was the Gulf War barbaric? Is Hollywood barbaric? Are battery-hen farms barbaric? Yes, we are all barbaric, and we hide our own barbarism by scapegoating the Germans and denying the shared guilt for the outbreaks of WWI and WWII.
Alain Danielou & Camille Paglia on the Shivaite / Goddess cultures the Aryans destroyed: danielou-paglia.html.
Connections between Judaism & Goddess religions: jewish-taoist.html.
Write to me at contact.html.