[kumarvvr]

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty.

In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond.

Massaging with oil and flour based cleansing was the staple of almost every household.

Oils and Flours were cheap. Most of agricultural products were cheap in India. Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters? The only filter that was used was a fine threaded cloth.

Fuel for cooking food, as with any country in those times was usually wood, husk or similar material.

> barely able to feed themselves

Yeah, no. Leaving aside a few famines here and there, India was mostly self sufficient and had plentiful of food.

In fact, selling food was considered the gravest sin. It was codified in societal practices that a householder should try to feed at-least one from outside before he has his food. Food donation was considered the highest ideal, even greater than money.

> barely a roof over their heads.

Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world.

>You are the peasant. No lands for you, you aren't a lord or lady, you're a peon like 99.999% of people. Almost no middle class, and you aren't upper! You're lower class.

This is just an ignorant thing to say, without having any knowledge of world history, forget about Indian history. Also reeks of extreme contempt.

If you are not aware, this was how most of the world lived. Lower class was the norm. We are now living in an age of disproportionate luxury.

[Frost1x]

>Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters?

Potable water hasn't been an issue strictly introduced by industrialization, it was exacerbated by increased population density in areas where water sources were more likely to be contaminated. There are plenty of nasty biological contaminates out there that make water non-potable: various bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. as well as inorganics like lead leaching that led to bad water sources (not to mention droughts). Potable water has always been an issue (to this day), industrialization agreeably added new issues although it also introduced water processing science to make non-potable waters potable in many places.

We should celebrate modern industrialized water processing, not shun it.

[stavros]

Did they mean potable, or portable? You don't need potable water to wash your feet, but you do need it to be in your house somehow, I guess...

[politelemon]

> In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty.

Your statements reek of nationalism and revisionist history, viewing the past through black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses, and passing blame onto 'evil foreigners' for current problems. It's mind boggling that you think anyone would lap these statements up.

[Vetch]

The original phrasing could be worked on but it's not so far out as you say either.

> passing blame for current problems

Humans think we're special but we're still slightly more complicated networked state machines. This means the issue of metastability, where a pathological state is entered and maintains even with the triggering stimulus removed, due to sustaining effects such as fitness criteria given rampant corruption, is real. Control and dynamical systems theory is as applicable to human systems as it is to traffic networks or distributed systems.

This isn't to say current problems are solely because of past inequities but worth recognizing that once entered into, exiting by solutions which entail solving challenging coordination problems are extremely difficult to obtain.

> black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses

I know next to nothing about Indian history but what they says sounds plausible even if causality for present is more involved. I have at least heard of the famous Indus Valley Civilization and its emphasis on baths, scientific precocity, exceptional levels of egalitarianism, pacifism and influence on subsequent Indian civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilisation#Post...

[BbzzbB]

Disclaimer: I know way too little about history of present-day India, I'm not looking to argue with anyone.

But is what you're linking what GP is talking of? Because this is over 2k years old, while it's interesting it doesn't validate or invalidate living conditions of pre-colonial India. Wouldn't it be like linking to an article on propsperity from peak Roman empire when discussing much more recent feudalist Europe? Roman influence on Europe (and beyond) abound, but some early positive characteristics of it's statehood have been long gone by medieval times. And I thought the thread was on recent(ish) history.

[jvanderbot]

Arguing across an ocean about the validity of anecdotal bathing practices is not the transhumanist future I though ubiquitous internet would provide.

But what did I expect...

[salawat]

I actually find this refreshing, and a reminder of the types of arguments that gave the internet it's original charm.

[halfmatthalfcat]

This is actually the content I come to HN for. You could argue that HN specializes in one-upmanship or pedantry but it's also a breeding ground for a lot of good discussion on incredibly niche topics.

[mensetmanusman]

This is also classic HN. Right above you someone is backing up their argument by proclaiming with gusto that humans are network computers.

[ETH_start]

This is not true. We have reliable indicators of pre-modern poverty levels [1], and they were indeed brutal. India (in the mythical pre-invasion period) was no exception. [2]

>>Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world.

This is what extreme poverty (pervasive in pre-modern times, aand still present today in the poorest regions of the world) looks like:

"Official reports for Burgundy between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries are full of 'references to people [sleeping] on straw... with no bed or furniture' who were only separated 'from the pigs by a screen'."

- Civilization & Capitalism [3]

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

[2] https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20W...

[3] https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-...

[kumarvvr]

Depends on what you mean by poverty. I mean, how does one even measure it a 1000 years ago.

I am suspicious of these reports.

Every country has a history of good times and bad times. However, the culture of India is unique in the sense that the most strongest unit was the collective society and cultural practices (food donation being held as the highest ideal, practical prohibition of sale of food, a multitude of rituals for householders wherein donation of money, clothes, grain, etc was part of the ritual, societal support for disabled persons, etc). This led to a fairly decent life and times.

Were there not people in extreme poverty, sure. Was the whole country in poverty, surely not.

[formerkrogemp]

> Depends on what you mean by poverty. I mean, how does one even measure it a 1000 years ago.

It's called anthropology, linguistics, geology, and history. They're legitimate fields with highly qualified and knowledgeable professionals. Through their efforts we have a decent idea of what various cultures and lives were like even a thousand years ago through carbon dating, archaeological digs, artefacts, and so forth.

[cyber_kinetist]

I see some anthropologists themselves quarrelling over the definition of 'poverty' though. Yes they are much knowledgeable than us, but you shouldn't think of them having a straightforward 'answer' like what you usually have for math problems.

So if you are bringing academic authorities to the question, at least namedrop some academics/books/papers, so people can have a constructive debate about this.

[9dev]

That’s not how this works; you cannot discredit an entire scientific field and then demand some papers and books for the lazy to get into it. Anthropology has a corpus of millions of papers, and you demand what? A proof that they aren’t full of themselves.

[cyber_kinetist]

I wasn't discrediting the field at all, quite the opposite! A healthy discourse is what keeps the academia in motion, especially for fields adjacent to the humanities. (Although you see this even in the field of 'hard' science like physics or mathematics, where people argue about even the most fundamental things like the validity of renormalization techniques or the usefulness of the law of the excluded middle).

And also, how can you possibly start a conversation about anthropology (or anything generally academic) without bringing any written literature? The worst way for academics to start a conversation with people outside of the field is "We are the authority on this topic, and you are ignorant so you should stop talking". Give us something interesting to ponder about, that's all!

EDIT: Since maybe I'm being a hypocrite by not providing any interesting links/sources myself, I'll have a try. The whole sub-field of developmental anthropology (some Wikipedia links below) seems to have close relations to the current modern concept of poverty (and to a broader extent global neoliberal politics) and is surely interesting. I'm also seeing many criticism towards their approaches from other anthropologists (Arturo Escobar is one prominent example), and taking a close look at this debate seems much more interesting than just claiming "Anthropologists are experts and we should let them just do their research" (which is a dead end to any interesting discussion on HN). And no, don't get started with "These people are fake anthropologists, real anthropologists use carbon dating and 3D scanning all that scientific jazz..." Anthropology has historically been intertwined with politics and ideology from the start, since it doesn't just end with obtaining the facts, but extrapolating and interpreting from the facts to infer what kinds of human societies were there in the past. And it is in that interpretation that all kinds of disagreements come in to play.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_anthropology

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_poverty

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology_of_development

[ETH_start]

We can see in markers of extreme poverty in remains of people who died in pre-modern times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_bioarchaeology#

>>Anne L. Grauer, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, assessed the presence of porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions in the population (n=1,014) from St. Helen-on-the-Walls in York, England. She used porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions to examine health and disease in urban medieval England. Grauer discovered that 58% of the population displayed evidence of porotic hyperostosis and 21.5% displayed evidence of periosteal reactions.[6]

Without industrial civilization, the amount of labor people do is not sufficient for most of the comforts of modern life, like insulated and waterproof shelter, sanitary pads, diapers, vaccines, bandages, regular laundrying of clothing, etc etc.

[swatcoder]

This would be more useful with detail on what share of the population lived in urban environments, as well as insight into what life was life for the share that didn’t.

Do you know that? Do you have that?

[simonh]

We have the Domesday Book from the 11th century which was a complete survey of the entire country, and we have parish and monastic records, wills, town charters and tax accounts from later periods. Of course there are gaps and ambiguities but we’re far from blind about those times.

[ch4s3]

There have been plenty of collectivist societies in history and some had gift economies, this isn’t really unique. There are several Native American cultures that would have fit the same description. You could even see a faint parallel in cross-tribal clan membership.

[bryanrasmussen]

>In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue.

My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste?

>If you are not aware, this was how most of the world lived. Lower class was the norm. We are now living in an age of disproportionate luxury.

Even so it still seems unlikely that every member of the society would be able to enjoy these amenities, the question really becomes at which cutoff point is one too poor to do so, and how much of the society was that poor?

[andrekandre]

  > My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste?

afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about...

(happy to be corrected on this if i misunderstand)

[unmole]

> afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about...

This is revisionist nonsense. Ancient texts, both sacred and secular both describe a extant caste system.

[msravi]

Um, no, they don't. They describe a jaati system, and a varna system, both of which do not take the same meaning as caste. The british conflated the two, and invented caste.

The jaati system was a system of hereditary professional guilds - so you'd have different jaatis for accountants (Kulkarnis for example), farmers (Vokkaligas), teachers (Upaadhyayas), etc. The professional skill was jealously guarded and generally not open to outsiders.

And then you had the varna system which literally means category. This categorized people into 4 categories - Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras based on their nature and actions, NOT profession. This was not hereditary.

The british had zero idea of this, conflated jaati and varna into "caste" and made it rigid by bringing out voluminous reports that classified each jaati into a varna!

[unmole]

Again, revisionist nonsense. Karna, one the greatest warriors of his time is not treated as a Kshatriya because of his birth. Shambuka, a Shudra is executed for daring to perform tapas. So much for the Varna is not hereditary theory. The Arthashastra makes it clear that privileges of being a Brahmin were accrued by birth. The Manusmriti describes the caste of the offspring based on the permutations of the parents castes in copious detail.

Varna has always been hereditary. Anyone claiming otherwise is mistaken or making stuff up.

[msravi]

You should read the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's (BORI) Critical Edition of the Mahabharata - which is the definitive edition, rather than relying on unsubstantiated translations. When Kripacharya asks for Karna's royal lineage (not caste) to let him take part in the competition, this is what Duryodhana says:

Duryodhana said, “O preceptor! It is stated in the sacred texts that there are three ways to become a king—through noblebirth, through valour and through leading an army. If Phalguni is unwilling to fight with someone who is not a king, I install him as king in the land of Anga.”

Right there you have it. Different ways to become a King. None based on caste.

Our history has had several, several, instances where "Kshatriyas" have not been kings. There are umpteen people who are regarded as Gods and among the greatest, who do not belong to the "upper castes." The author of the Ramayana, Valmiki, was a hunter - which is also regarded as a "lower caste." The author of the Mahabharata was the son of a fisherwoman, also regarded as a "lower-caste." Shabari, from whom Rama accepted half-eaten berries was a tribal inhabitant from a hunting clan - also deemed to be "low-caste." All these people have been looked upon as great beings, almost equivalent to Gods, and have been worshiped.

So no, if there have been revisionists, it is the ones who have used distorted british translations, and mutilated our history.

[turtleyacht]

This is interesting. Thank-you. Could you elaborate on the next piece from this idea?

For example, from jaati and varna, what follows from that? Admittedly, a vague question but wanting to learn a bit more.

Just saying this is the first perspective on HN I have read about caste being inaccurate, and wanting to understand this fresh context.

[msravi]

Sorry for not responding earlier, but it'll take a lot more than a comment to elucidate this in any amount of detail. Plus this needs lots and lots of references from a vast many sources to put together. Will put it together in a post sometime.

[pySSK]

It is revisionist nonsense.

[monetus]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

Seems like the British systems formed and formalized it, but that that itself was an amalgam of the cultural stratification that was sometimes already there. Multiculturalism turned monstrous... sad.

[rendall]

> Seems like the British systems formed and formalized it

Here is an extremely harsh critique of that perspective, from an upper-caste scholar of Indian history

https://thewire.in/caste/caste-history-postcolonial-studies

[ch4s3]

There have been a number of genetic studies[1] that can identify caste heredity going back to almost the time of the Vedas showing VERY little genetic mixing between the castes.

[1] https://hms.harvard.edu/news/genetic-study-finds-caste-syste...

[monetus]

I think the link through in that article is sadly dead, but I still found it.

Wow, that is less intermingling than I would have guessed. I knew that caste had been there for ages, but it is still a bit astonishing to read that.

[ch4s3]

Oops, I may have chopped off a few characters. Yeah there were essentially only a handful of upper caste men gathering children with lower caste women and virtually no other mixing for thousands of years.

[bryanrasmussen]

I've heard this before, but always found it doubtful, conquerors tend to enact systems that mimic those in their home countries.

[zeroonetwothree]

Do you have a source for this? I’d be surprised if we know this much detail and accuracy about how peasants lived hundreds of years ago.

[kumarvvr]

https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india...

A book by a westerner.

[kortilla]

It’s shocking how incongruent your views are with the text from the book (see sibling comment). Do you just selectively choose which parts of the book to believe or do you not believe peasants were any substantial part of the population and are therefore not worth caring about?

[nwiswell]

Very good. Page 68:

> In ancient times, distinction was made between several different categories of farmers. There were those who cultivated their own land, those who had it cultivated by wage-earning laborers, and those who leased their land to 'metayers', farmers who paid rent in kind, in this case half the harvest and crop. There were few big landlords, and the largest estates nearly all belonged to the king, that is to say, the State in fact. The temples, too, recieved vast properties as gifts and had them developed by hired labourers and staff. But these were exceptions, and most of the land was parcelled out in small lots, sometimes only big enough to feed a single family. Many small farmers, however, chose to work the land on a 'united family' basis, under the direction of a head of the family, pooling fields, cattle, agricultural implements, harvests, crops, and grazing-grounds. Under this system, they avoided fragmentation of the family property, and to some extent, they guarded against risks and responsibilities.

> Theirs was not an easy life. The vagaries of the climate often brought seasonal catastrophe: tornadoes devastated the fields, drought scorched the land, floods wiped out whole crops. Apart from these natural hazards, there was the problem of the laws of hospitality, which were rigorously applicable and cost the farmers dearly; the most onerous of these obligations involved the provision of food and fodder for the king and his suite during the course of their cross-country tours of inspection. On such occasions, the absolute right of the king and his dignitaries to provision and stores from the local peasants might well reduce these communities to penury during a bad year, with no hope of replenishing their empty granaries before the following harvest.

> To natural calamities and unavoidable obligations had to be added the burden of taxation. Taxes were numerous and were applied to collective enterprises as well as to individuals. The peasant had to pay not only a basic tax amounting to twenty-five or thirty per cent of the produce of his land at the moment when it was in full yield, but also a periodical (probably annual) contribution based on his income. He had to pay his share of the general tax levied by the State on his village, as well as special taxes that were set against the services rendered by the State to the rural population -- protection against theft in pasturages and fields, the cost of land-surveying, irrigation works, the upkeep and repair of canals. Fruit, herbage, honey and wood were all taxable. If the farmer was not the owner of the land he worked, he was liable to pay rentals or other concessionary fees in addition to the obligatory payment of communal dues and tolls. Under some reigns, tax and duty rates reached such heights that quite often villages would be abandoned by their entire peasant population, who preferred to risk bringing new land under cultivation in some other region rather than submit to such exorbitant demands.

Lest we think these ancient peasants ever actually had it good before the foreigners showed up.

And regarding your assertions about how plentiful water was before industrialization, Page 63-64:

> We are told that, in ancient times, these canals were kept full either 'by hand', that is with the aid of water-skins or a balance-pole (tula), or else by transporting water on the backs of animals, or by using a bucket-chain. An ingenious system, still used in present times, was worked by oxen climbing up a gently sloping artificial ridge and descending it time after time, in so doing hauling up from a well on each occasion a leather bucket filled with water which was emptied into a supply-canal. The canals were excavated communally and served sometimes as demarcation lines between two neighbouring properties. It seems that the use of this commonly owned water often gave rise to keen disputes, and that it was not uncommon for the course to be diverted in the direction of one village's fields at the expense of another's. In such a case, violent quarrels resulted which developed occasionally into pitched battles between rival villagers, and the disagreement had to be brought before the local council for adjudication.

Finally, a portrait of village life, Page 126:

> Village houses were lower and more modest than town ones; their outer walls were covered with a mixture of lime, earth and cow-dung, the last being considered a purifcative agent. The shops were more like street-stalls, and the crowd that passed by their displays were of more humble stock: farmers returning from the fields, pushing ahead of them a small flock of skinny sheep; ragged foragers, grey with chaff, a sickle stuck through their belt, carrying home trusses of hay tied around their hips; women balancing on their heads large bundles of forage rolled inside a mat, to be used as animal fodder; porters trotting along, laden with baskets suspended from each end of a pole carried across the shoulders. Then there were artisans in the process of delivering their merchandise, pedlars transporting their gimcrackery in a bag, strolling players looking for a suitable place to present their turns. Cattle mingled freely with the human throng. Heavy wagons drawn by bullocks (gramasakaia or go-ratha) rolled along the main streets; these were (as they still are today) massive wooden constructions built by the village carpenter, who followed time-honoured traditions in the matter of design. The body was relatively shallow, balanced on two large, heavy, creaking wheels with protruding hubs. A shaft with a yoke at its end was designed to harness a pair of hump-backed bullocks, the yoke resting on their necks between the nape and the dorsal hump; long wooden pegs, carefully carved and painted, were stuck through the yoke, one on each side of the beast's neck, enclosing it, with the additional means of a halter. In addition, their nostrils were pierced and a cord was passed through them, this being intended as a check on their fiery temperament. Their tails were carefully tied flat against their flanks, so that the swishing would not annoy the driver. The latter, squatting at the front of the wagon, his feet on the shaft, guided the team with the aid of a simple whip consisting of a stick and a plaited cord. These vehicles were surmounted by hooped ribs covered by matting, and were used particularly for transporting grain at harvest time; the peasant's entire family, out in the fields, sought respite from the hot sun by sitting under its awning.

> Apart from local and seasonal feast days (see pp. 144-8), rural existence offered only very rare distractions, and each day heralded the same repetitive rhythm of the farmer's routine. While the men worked in the fields, the housewives went about their daily chores and artisans followed their particular craft. Peace did not invariably reign between villagers, or even between villages, and Buddhist tales often mention the sometimes hilarious and bawdy quarrels which provided the only relief from the monotony of daily life.

[bandrami]

Even this book (which frankly has some Hindutva BS in it) is saying "India" but means "The Ganges valley". The hyperspecific layers of types of farmer by tenancy just wasn't found in the Deccan.

[kumarvvr]

> Lest we think these ancient peasants ever actually had it good before the foreigners showed up

They sure as hell had it much worse after the invaders, looters and religious fanatics wreaked havoc in the region for 1000 years.

[hef19898]

Poor, landless peasants had a hard life everywhere, regardless of whom they served. Believing otherwise means you are lying to yourself.

The caste system, as all similar systems that existed in all kinds of places throughout history, is one of the worst, inhuman and unjust social systems that currently exists. It is basically apartheid based on religion and history. It is carried over from centuries ago, and right now all progress that was made in abolishing it is rolled back by higher caste Indian nationalists to score political points. And the latter part has nothing to do with colonialism and all the shitty things the British did in India.

No country needs foreigners to screw things up, societies are quite at doing all of this themselves.

[gspr]

Do you see how far you've moved the goalposts? You start out claiming things like food being plentiful and cheap for everyone, yet now it's "it was better before at least".

[unmole]

> They sure as hell had it much worse after

Which is very different from your original absurd claim.

[justanorherhack]

If it was a cultural value to feed people outside of the home before yourself and food donation was a cultural promoted ideology then that means there were lots of people to feed..

[smogcutter]

Yup, afaik these kinds of horizontal gifting relationships were about a) surplus being essentially impossible to store or accumulate as capital so you might as well give it away, and b) modest insurance against bad times - what goes around comes around.

[southerntofu]

How do you reach this conclusion? I know many people in France who have difficulty feeding themselves / their family, yet depending on the region it may or may not be part of local culture to feed other people outside your home.

In fact, it's definitely not local culture in any big city i've visited, and on the countryside it varies not by region but from one village to the next. From what i could see it it's really not correlated with local productivity.

[greenpeas]

If food was plentiful and everyone had access to food, sharing food would not be a virtue. It's only a virtue if it's somewhat difficult for the person sharing (it means they are sacrificing something to help others) and at the same time is valuable to the receiver (the receiver really needs the food).

[southerntofu]

That makes sense, thanks!

[kumarvvr]

I wouldn't characterize it as that. Population was low enough, compared to food production.

Feeding people is a cultural norm in India, rooted in the scriptures that ones hunger should not be a cause for doing business.

The highest ideal in Hinduism is "Sarve jana, sukhino bhavanthu" (All living things should be happy)

The reverse logic in your statement is also pertinent, in that if there was a lot of feeding going on, then there was a lot of food available.

Indian norms and culture emphasizes on moving away from materialism and advocates for distribution of wealth. Greed is frowned upon and actively discouraged in a society. Wealthy are encouraged to perform rituals and festivals and distribute their wealth.

India is the only civilization in the world where there are written references to kings of large sections of the country, leaving aside all their pomp and glory and going off into forests for meditation and penance. Mind you, they were not failures or banished. They voluntarily gave up their luxuries in search of the ultimate meaning of life.

Indian civilization is a complex layered society where philosophy of life is seeped permanently in daily language, customs, cultures, practices, rituals and history.

That the ultimate goal of life is not wealth, but of discovering the true nature of ourselves, the true nature of this world, the illusion that it is, is emphasized in every aspect of life.

Take the example of the word "punyatma". It is an adjective used for someone who is pious and does good deeds. Similar to "Good samaritan". However, the word is a combination of two words "Punya" (Fruits of good deeds) and "Aatma" (Soul). The implication, and our philosophical belief is that the soul is eternal and is bound to re-births. And the fruits of our actions are tied to our soul, and that there is no escape from getting the results of your actions (good or bad alike).

[kortilla]

> Indian norms and culture emphasizes on moving away from materialism and advocates for distribution of wealth. Greed is frowned upon and actively discouraged in a society. Wealthy are encouraged to perform rituals and festivals and distribute their wealth.

This is also a bog standard description of Christianity and a bunch of other religions. There isn’t anything special about India here.

> India is the only civilization in the world where there are written references to kings of large sections of the country, leaving aside all their pomp and glory and going off into forests for meditation and penance. Mind you, they were not failures or banished. They voluntarily gave up their luxuries in search of the ultimate meaning of life.

Bullshit. Just the history of England and France alone are packed full of wealthy and privileged people focusing their life on the pursuit of enlightenment (spiritual, artistic, and/or scientific) and giving up pre-arranged lives of power and wealth.

> That the ultimate goal of life is not wealth, but of discovering the true nature of ourselves, the true nature of this world, the illusion that it is, is emphasized in every aspect of life.

Again, this is standard guidance you’ll find in all of the major religions. One of the most common criticisms of materialists in America is how they are not following Christianity. Wealth and the eye of a needle, etc.

India was not special. It was just as poor as any other pre-industrialized nation. You’re just looking back on it with rose colored glasses because we haven’t internalized the misery of dying from simple infections, dysentery, famines from floods, etc.

[kumarvvr]

> This is also a bog standard description of Christianity and a bunch of other religions.

I never said India is special in this regard.

>Bullshit. Just the history of England and France alone are packed full of wealthy and privileged people focusing their life on the pursuit of enlightenment (spiritual, artistic, and/or scientific) and giving up pre-arranged lives of power and wealth.

Name 2 kings or monarchs who did this voluntarily.

>Again, this is standard guidance you’ll find in all of the major religions.

Where does it say in Christianity or Islam that this world is an illusion, that there is one god, that all paths lead to the same god, or that the soul inside you is the very same god you pray to ?

>India was not special.

Spiritually, It is special, in the sense that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophical way of life, that encourages debate, discussion, logical analysis and introspection. Historically, the only gift for questioning ones religion was a beheading in the case of Christianity and Islam.

Christians roam around the world converting people. Its so annoying. I never understand this obsession of "my god is the only path, your god is false, and if you don't follow my god and don't accept my god, you will go to hell and are not even fit to be considered a human being". Christianity has lost its soul. The history of the church is the history of Christianity and how low it has fallen from the true path of Christ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna

[allendoerfer]

> Where does it say in Christianity or Islam that this world is an illusion,

Christianity is very obviously all about eternal live in heaven with god. That's the main selling point: Your suffering on earth is not actually the real thing and you do not have to be afraid of death. You do not have to worry. Also something, something, love is good. That is how it gets sold.

> that there is one god, that all paths lead to the same god,

That's the main thing that unites the three abrahamic religions.

> or that the soul inside you is the very same god you pray to ?

Literally in Genesis. And god created men in his own image.

I had to comment on this thread, because what you and others are writing here just seems like some Indian exceptionalism. Seems like you are trying to defend something and overshooting quite a bit.

Above the state of India 1000 years ago got mentioned. As a European I give you this perspective: I feel like I can be a bit more relaxed regarding other nations, because everybody was invading each other all the time, so most certainly I would not exist genetically if my (proto-)nation would have won all these conflicts. I have nothing to do with my nation 1000 years ago. We are all the result of history.

[hnfong]

(I am not taking sides, just to comment on a minor point here)

> > or that the soul inside you is the very same god you pray to ?

> Literally in Genesis. And god created men in his own image.

An "image of God" is not "God" itself, just as a JPG photo of you is not the "real" you. In Christian traditions the only person who is simultaneously human and "God" is Jesus, and he's the only one so far. The average Christian is encouraged to pray to external deities (Jesus, God, Mary, Saints, etc.) instead of recognizing the deity within. My understanding is that the eastern philosophies that the GP refers to consider the soul of every human literally equivalent to god, or at least an integral part of such. I think there's a substantial difference here, even if some concepts overlap at the edges.

[bawolff]

> > >Again, this is standard guidance you’ll find in all of the major religions.

> Where does it say in Christianity or Islam that this world is an illusion, that there is one god, that all paths lead to the same god, or that the soul inside you is the very same god you pray to ?

But that's not what you were replying to. The original context was feeding the hungry and giving charity. Which is something found in a lot of religions (albeit often convinently forgotten when it comes time to actually do it)

> >Bullshit. Just the history of England and France alone are packed full of wealthy and privileged people focusing their life on the pursuit of enlightenment (spiritual, artistic, and/or scientific) and giving up pre-arranged lives of power and wealth.

> Name 2 kings or monarchs who did this voluntarily.

You can be wealthy/privleged without being a king.

Marcus Aurelius is well known for his philosophy, although i suppose he didn't give up his position. A quick google also finds James of Aragon.

[galaxyLogic]

That is the great thing about Hinduism as a religion, that it does not preach one true dogmatic doctrine, but love of the universe. Buddhism is not too far from that either.

Still the teaching can be great but what about practice and where is it going now? Are Hindus becoming less tolerant of other religions? See for example: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-02-16/india-...

[hef19898]

Nor sure how the Muslim minority sees Hinduists (as opposed to Hinduism, most religions preach love of your neighbors in theory and ignore it in practice, Buddhism included) "love of the universe".

[dTal]

>Food donation was considered the highest ideal, even greater than money

That doesn't sound like the kind of norm that would develop in a society where nobody has to worry about getting enough to eat.

[firecall]

Thankyou! Great responses! :-)