Ayodhya Bhoomi Puja marks the Reassertion and Revival of Sanatana Dharma
- In History & Culture
- 10:37 AM, Aug 20, 2020
- Venkatesh Kikkeri
On August 5th, 2020 Hon. Prime Minister of India Sri. Narendra Damodardas Modi by performing the Bhoomi Puja at Ayodhya wrote a foreword of sorts to the movement of revival and reassertion of Sanatana Dharma over its lost places of worship.
Citizens across the country remarked that a struggle, five centuries old, had been justly rewarded. People also opined that Ayodhya was now free from the taint of an Islamic invader. All these remarks and many other opinions on the same lines were justified and bore testimony to the fact that this was a fight to which generation after generation of Sanatanis spanning across centuries had devoted themselves to directly or indirectly. Many lives were lost in this fight either at the epicenter of the struggle or during the communal riots that followed. The struggle has seen its logical conclusion with the judiciary upholding that the temple site belongs to the Sanatanis and there existed a historic temple.
However, the significance of the Bhoomi Puja on August 5th, 2020 is much more and is beyond all those which have been expressed so far. It is time we delve into this. It is time we introspect. It is time we absorb. Absorb the magnitude of what has been achieved against what was a historical wrong. The word wrong is an understatement. In fact, it was a crime against a particular Dharma, the Sanatana Dharma.
To understand the significance of the Bhoomi Puja one must travel in time to understand the roots of Sanatana Dharma, the Civilisation, the persecution it faced, the destruction it underwent and yet how it is managing to revive itself, amidst the present cacophony of secular propaganda and the indoctrination of a hypocritical thought called secularism.
“Bharat – Civilisation, History and Sanatana Dharma – A brief backdrop”
Bharat is a Civilisation and not a mere land mass demarcated by human agreed borders. More commonly known as the Saraswathi Civilisation, which was the birth place of the Sanatana Dharma. For the Sanatanis, the followers of Sanatana Dharma, the scriptures upon which the Dharma is based are broadly classified as ‘Shruti’and ‘Smriti’. All those scriptures which are in oral form are classified as ‘Shruti’, which can be heard and narrated. Vedas and Upanishads falls under ‘Shruti’. Those scriptures which were written in a textual form were categorized as ‘Smriti’. Itihaasa (history), Purana, Darshana, Dharma Shastras etc., are ‘Smriti’.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata forms a part of Itihaasa, our history. Our history dates back at least to the times of Ramayana, 12,209 BCE (according to Sri Nilesh Nilkanth Oak, historian, this was the year of the war between Sri Rama and Ravana). It can also be understood from various works of experts that our history went much before Ramayana to the period when Bhagawan Shiva is believed to have passed on the Vedas to the Saptarishis.
There is no parallel to such an old, rich and glorious history as ours. Our Civilisation was rich and profound spiritually, morally, socially, politically and even economically. The Vedic foundation made our society rich in every sphere of life. Considered to be oldest Dharma and Civilisation, when other civilisation and religions of the West and mid-East took birth we were at the peak.
However, all that glory started to attract the evil eyes of the invaders and marauders starting from the Islamic invasion around 700 CE. The successful invasion of Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim marked the beginning of the assault on Sanatanis and Sanatana Dharma which continued for centuries till the downfall of the last Islamic invader who ruled Bharat. We were invaded every time in the name of holy war. The invasions saw a long series of attacks and massacres of thousands of people as also the destruction of thousands of temples. In the name of holy war, women were raped, Sanatanis were converted, those who refused were slaughtered and wealth looted.
American historian Will Durant stated that “Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history”. The Islamic invaders were on an ethnic cleansing which continued for more than a thousand years. Historian Sri K C Lal puts the number of Sanatanis killed during the entire period of Islamic invasions, occupation and their rule of Bharat at “80 million”! There can be no bigger holocaust than this. The Jewish holocaust is not even inch closer. Numbers have to be compared to understand the magnitude of the crime perpetrated by the Islamic invaders and occupiers.
The real intention of the Islamic invaders and occupiers was to convert the Sanatanis to Islam and exert their authority on their way to establishing the Caliphate. This they achieved by various means. The main targets were spiritual centres and institutions. Temples being centers of spirituality were razed to the ground and according to historic accounts the materials of the razed temples were used to build mosques on the same site. Thousands of temples were razed by the Islamic invaders and during their rule, its wealth looted and the debris used to construct mosques at the same site to psychologically weaken and attack the Sanatanis’ belief system. It was a cruel irony that the only Dharma and its followers, the Sanatanis who believed in वसुधैव कुटुम्बकं (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam meaning the entire world is one family) were cleansed mercilessly.
Many glorious spiritual centres and institutions bore the brunt of the attacks by Islamic marauders. Rizwan Salim, reviewer, New York Tribune, Capitol Hill reporter, Engineering Times assistant editor, remarks “savages at a very low civilisation and no culture worth the name from Arabia and West Asia began entering India from the early 8th century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered unaccountable sculptures and idols, plundered innumerable palaces and forts of Hindu kings, killed vast number of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women”.
Sri Sita Ram Goel in his monumental book “Hindu Temples – What happened to them” (two volumes) has provided a detailed account of each of the temples destroyed during the Islamic invasion, occupation and rule. The list runs into several hundred temples. However, equally ferocious were the struggles and counter attacks to repossess the lost places of worship. Classic example of repossession is the temple of Somanath, one of the twelve Jyothirlingas.
“The Seven Cities of Moksha”
अयोध्या-मथुरामायाकाशीकांचीत्वन्तिका ।
पुरी द्वारावतीचैव सप्तैते मोक्षदायिकाः।।
Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya (Haridwar), Kashi, Kanchi, Avantika (Ujjain) and Dwarakapuri cities are described in the above Sanskrit sloka as the seven cities where one can attain moksha. Out of the seven sacred cities mentioned above Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi were destroyed by the invaders. Temples of Bhagwan Rama, Sri Krishna and Bhagwan Shiva respectively at these three cities were razed to the ground and mosques built on the same site.
It is in this backdrop as explained before of relentless plunder and invasion by the Islamic marauders of our holy places and our Dharma for more than a thousand years one has to gauge the significance of the Bhoomi Puja at Ayodhya. The Puja has erased that taint and the Sanatanis have repossessed/reclaimed one of the three tainted holy cities out of the seven mentioned in the sloka. This is only a beginning and not an end. Still there are many significant things to be achieved by the Sanatanis.
Reclaiming temple sites is one of the very many significant things to be achieved. In the name of secularism, the Sanatanis post Macaulay’s era have been indoctrinated for centuries now and have lost their identity. Sanatanis must be proud of their Civilisation which is second to none. ‘Break India Forces’ are organizing many schemes of events to destroy our Civilization. It is important for Sanatanis to imbibe the Vedic philosophy and thought to avoid one more holocaust.
The first step towards this direction would be to assert ourselves and reclaim our identity before anything else. We have just now celebrated 74th Independence Day. The independence we achieved is only a political independence, a transfer of power from the British to the Indians. What happens to the other aspects of our Civilisation which are still tainted by the invaders’ action and forced acceptance?
Swami Vivekananda thundered thus at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893:
“I thank you in the name of the mother of all religions and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindus of all classes and sects….. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal tolerance, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. I AM A HINDU”.
It would do a world of good for all Sanatanis if they take a leaf out of the above words of Swami Vivekananda and proceed further in our struggle to reclaim our lost glory.
References:
- Kannada book ‘Hindu Dharma’ published by Bharat Vikas Parishad, authored by Dr. M Chidananda Murthy
- ‘12209 BCE Rama Ravana Yuddha’ a book by Sri Nilesh Nilkanth Oak, published by SUBBU
- Kannada book ‘Bharata Darshana’ published by Rashtrotthana Sahitya, authored by Sri B V Vidyananda Shenoy
- ‘Crimes Against India: and the Need to Protect Its Ancient Vedic Tradition: 1000 Years of Attacks Against Hinduism and What to Do About it’ a book by Stephen Knapp, published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, Kindle edition
- “Hindu Temples – What happened to them” (two volumes), authored by Sri Sita Ram Goel, published by Voice of India
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