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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Usedtobecool (talk | contribs) at 05:58, 9 August 2021 (→Change source of states of India from library of congress to official Indian government website: archived using OneClickArchiver)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive 45←Archive 50Archive 51Archive 52Archive 53Archive 54Archive 55

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Bharat (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Covid - 19 situation

Reaction Vinsent Constantine (talk) 15:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Vinsent Constantine: Do you have any question or edit request? Dinesh (talk) 03:38, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 May 2021

There are 23 official languages

AthulNSNeelamkavil (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
@AthulNSNeelamkavil: There are two official languages - Hindi and English. This is not to be confused with the 22 Scheduled languages. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 01:53, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
English and Hindi is official language. India has 22 languages, exclude English.[3] You can find more information at Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India Dinesh (talk) 03:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Hindi and English is national level official languages and another 22 (including Hindi) are state lovel official languages. Dinesh (talk) 03:35, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
I already said that...? Also. the 8th Schedule's languages are not necessarily states' languages. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 05:04, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Salzmann, Zdenek; Stanlaw, James; Adachi, Nobuko (8 July 2014). Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Westview Press. ISBN 9780813349558 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ "Official Language – The Union -Profile – Know India: National Portal of India". Archive.india.gov.in. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  3. ^ https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/EighthSchedule_19052017.pdf

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 11 May 2021

PLEASE CHANGE THE COLOR OF INDIA IN GLOBE FROM GREEN TO SAFFRON BECAUSE IT REPRESENTS HINDU CULTURE WHICH IS MAJORITY OF INDIA. 2401:4900:4155:CCD4:0:1C:D40:4101 (talk) 03:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: Green is usually the legend used to represent an area on a map. It has nothing to do with representation of culture. You should also not shout in your messages. — LeoFrank  Talk 03:06, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 May 2021

I want to edit the national symbols panel. Knowledge go (talk) 03:42, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you. — IVORK Talk 06:44, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Undid by User:bazza 7, removal of post Cabinet Secretary of India

Regarding--Removal of Cabinet Secretary of India from article's government section.

Dear bazza 7,

What the..... What's the meaning of not elected(non-elected) here. I think you are confusing with the fact that, government doesn't mean only the elected persons or elected positions. As see Government of India. Government means(also means same with according to Constitution of India) the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. So Cabinet Secretary of India is the head of permanent executive of government of India.

For more see this section in this talk page.- 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:India#User%3ADineshswamiin%2C_Deleted_(undo)%2C_the_post_of_Cabinet_Secretary_of_India--_Undid_revision_1019733498_by_Aj_Ajay_Mehta_007_(talk)Add_only_top_five_or_important. Aj Ajay Mehta 007 (talk) 11:09, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
See MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE for the manual of style information about infoboxes. In particular, "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves [its] purpose". Information in the infobox should be in the article (because the article should be complete even if the infobox is removed); the Cabinet Secretary is not mentioned elsewhere in the article. (Neither are the Chief Justice and Lok Sabha Speaker, so those positions also should be removed; I'll leave that to somebody else.) Bazza (talk) 11:29, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Dear Mmm...that seems very negative approach things towards adding things to wiki(point to be noted-I'm not saying that you are wrong in accordance to wiki rules). I think this line is quite good here, as I have read this somewhere on the wiki(may be something wiki rules etc., not exactly remembered) 'Consider whether the article could be improved rather than deleted' things here. Also here in MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, exception has been written.

Well, about things that you have deleted and want to delete are far very important things of India as well as of Government of India. If these things are not mentioned below in the article, it can be mentioned, not meant to be deleted. If things are not mentioned below doesn't mean these are not the part of India.

Thanks. Regards, till this point to be react. Aj Ajay Mehta 007 (talk) 17:55, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


This is not for you to answer or to react(there is no need to react to on what further has been written).--'Here, I'm seeing things(also some editors are saying) like India article shouldn't consists states and uts, also shouldn't consists Chief Justice, also shouldn't consists Lok sabha speaker, then I'm worrying what article will be at last as every thing(line) relate somewhere in some sense with other things. As it's(India) main para says about it is a most populas nation, well then it should be concluded in article of most populas countries. And many more like boundary countries. Things related to past will be part of history, present boundaries should be part of geography. But this para things are for other editors, not want a reaction from u.'

Thanks. Regards.Aj Ajay Mehta 007 (talk) 17:59, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 May 2021

Please change the distorted India's and replace It with a correct one with Jammu and Kashmir included without any extra highlight as those are also a part of India and highlighting it may concern me as well as many other users . It's my humble request please do the above changes. 2405:201:0:209F:B12D:99E4:95C1:384C (talk) 10:23, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Not done, please see the FAQ at the top of the page. CMD (talk) 10:43, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello

@Moxy: What you did there? Please check the end of the article. Dinesh (talk) 04:35, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:EXPENSIVE trying to find problem.----Moxy- 11:36, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Sports Section

We need a Sports Section For football Cricket hockey etc Vibhuwastaken (talk) 07:56, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes. It's a shame that we do not have a dedicated sports section here. Footy2000 (talk)

RfC about the starting date of Hinduism

Should the introduction of the India article continue to suggest the "dawning of Hinduism" circa 1200 BCE ? ("By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India." [1]). Discussion so far has failed, and is accessible above. Please answer Yes or No, with justification पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Objection: this is not a neutrally phrased RfC and therefore not valid. You cannót ask the respondents to answer in Yes or No. You are not a prosecution attorney. An RfC is not a vote. It is a request for comment. I go to sleep for a few hours and there is a feeding frenzy in that time. Was there any previous discussion about an RfC? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
>Yes, there was a previous discussion about an RfC at Talk:India#Enough, to which you already objected by saying "A Featured Article on Wikipedia is a democracy of sources, not of voting editors."... which is not very Wikipedian to say the least. An RfC was also recommended by Administrator EdJohnston this morning in the same decision that gave you a warning for edit-warring on the India page [2]. And no, this RfC is as neutrally phrased as can be. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Neutral phrasing Comments are requested for the following sentence to replace the one currently in place:

    ""By 1200 BCE, an [[Proto-language|archaic form]] of [[Sanskrit]], an [[Indo-European language]], had [[Trans-cultural diffusion|diffused]] into India from the northwest; [[Oral transmission|orally transmitted]] with exceptional fidelity as the language of the ''[[Rigveda]]'', it recorded the first evidence of what later became [[Hinduism]]."

    (the citations are to the sources collected with generous quotes in the section above, especially to John Lowe, Michael Witzel, and Wendy Doniger for the dates and to Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, Gavin Flood, and Axel Michaels for the first evidence. Fritz Staal and Witzel for the fidelity of the transmission. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • The one currently in place is: "By 1200 BCE, an [[Proto-language|archaic form]] of [[Sanskrit]], an [[Indo-European language]], had [[Trans-cultural diffusion|diffused]] into India from the northwest, [[Oral transmission|unfolding]] as the language of the ''[[Rigveda]]'', and recording the dawning of [[Hinduism]] in India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC) Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:28, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
> We have to make it clear that Hinduism is a synthesis of various traditions, or that Vedism is but a contribution to Hinduism (admitedly a major one), and not insinuate by ommission that Hinduism is merely an evolution from Vedism, which it is not (your problematic "it recorded ... what later became Hinduism). पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
That is the subject of the sentence after the next one for which I have already proposed an amendment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
And here is that amendment:

By 400 BCE, Hinduism had begun to exhibit its more representative heterodox, or classical, features; stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within it;[29] and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity."[30]

In additon to the citations already in place, the sentence has further support in the references compiled in the section above, in particular in Jamison and Brereton; Witzel, and others. As this RfC is about the first sentence, not the development of Classical Hinduism, we cannot contaminate it with something it is not about. Still, here is Gavin Flood (from the list of references above: "I take the term ‘Hinduism to meaningfully denote a range and history of practice characterized by a number of features, particularly reference to Vedic textual and sacrificial origins, belonging to endogamous social units (jati/varna), participating in practices that involve making an offering to a deity and receiving a blessing (puja), and a first-level cultural polytheism. (p. 4) and Michael Witzel: "Puja, however, is a clear continuation of the Ṛgvedic guest worship offered to the gods. ... True heterodoxy is attested by ca. 400 BCE when several such systems had developed including those of wandering teachers such as the Buddha and Mahāvīra. (p. 90)" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:58, 7 April 2021 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:16, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
SUMMARY This sentence is problematic in many more ways than one: "By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India." [3]. It has to be seen as a carefully crafted piece of prose (which it is, its author can be credited for that...), where every word, every nuance, every association of idea and insinuation counts...
1) The suggested date for the start of Hinduism (1200 BCE) is a gross distortion of history (and of the sources), since Hinduism is very generally considered to be a synthesis of previous traditions, which started around 500 BCE, with roots or formative elements possibly going as far back as the Indus Valley Civilization. But this distortion of the starting date of Hinduism is only the basis for something darker and deeper....
2) The poetic and figurative word "dawning" has been defended adamantly, when simpler and less ambiguous alternatives abound. Why not use "beginnings" for example? It is claimed that "dawning" is only used in the figurative (abstract) sense here, but in any such word the literal meaning is organically linked to the figurative meaning. There is almost no reason to doubt that the use of this rare/antiquated/quaint/ambiguous/unsourced expression "dawning of Hinduism" is intentional, and is only meant to convey the insinuation that India was in miserable darkness before the rising sun of the "glorious arrival" of the Aryans, as User:Kautilya3 perceptively suggested [4]. Good writing in an encyclopedia should on the contrary strive for simplicity and clarity, and the removal of all ambiguities. There should be no room for double-entendre and nefarious innuendos.
3) By also claiming that the "dawn of Hinduism" happened under the Aryans in 1200 BCE, the sentence suggests in one breath that Hinduism developed under the Aryan invaders, insinuating that the religion of the Hindus owes its birth to the Aryans, rather then to the "creative syncretic genius" of the Indians circa 500 BCE. This is quite a distortion, and almost a case of cultural misappropriation. These distortions in effect attempt to deprive Hindus of their religious achievements and disparage their cultural heritage (a recurrent tendency of the author [5][6]).
4) To compound all this, the sentence, although linguistic on the surface, is actually intended as a metaphor of the Aryan invasion, by the author's own admission "The sentence is not about Hinduism in general. It is about the Indo-Aryan migration whose only evidence is the Rg Ved" [7], hence the strange wording "diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as...". We are not talking about cultural influences here, but about the armed invasion of the Aryans, whose Rig Veda embodies "the first gleams of Hinduism".... which is again basically saying "the Aryan invasion brought Hinduism to the Indians".
In a nutshell, this painstakingly crafted sentence deforms the historical reality of the birth of Hinduism (actually circa 500 BCE), in order to advance it to the Aryan invasion (circa 1200 BCE) to insinuate that Aryans can be credited for its inception, in effect suggesting that Aryans "brought the light" to the Indians who had been living in darkness and obscurantism, and that everything the Indians believe in today was actually the gift of the "glorious" Aryan invaders. There is no denying that many foreign influences were at play in ancient India (Aryan, Achaemenid, Greek, Scythian, Kushan etc...), but Hinduism is an invention of the "syncretic genius" of the Indians from circa 500 BCE, it is very different from the Aryan's "pure worship of the elementary forces of nature" [8]. Hinduism did incorporate several concepts from the Historical Vedic religion, but also from Buddhism, Jainism and, mostly, local anthropomorphological popular cults, a substrate possibly going back to the Indus Valley Civilization (see History of Hinduism). It is actually much more, and in effect a very different religion, an accomplishment of Indian syncretism elaborated from circa 500 BCE, with formative roots possibly going back to 3000-2000 BCE, as explained by the sources. No, Hinduism did not "dawn" under the Aryans circa 1200 BCE. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 06:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
"seeding a religious heritage that later contributed to the emergence of Hinduism" is more accurate. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Things are falling into place following Kautilya3's perceptive comment above. I am getting so sick with the sectarian/racist innuendos at this point, which I realize are probably quite pervasive in this article and a few other related ones... Can we try to avoid the word "seeding" please? How about some good straightforward language such as "recording" as in "recording the Vedic religion, which was later to contribute to the rise of Hinduism" for example. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 10:58, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • No. Stick to the sources: "record Aryan culture, one of the predecessors of Hinduism." And add some info in the body of the article on the emergence of the Hindu synthesis, and on the emergence of Puranic Hinduism; the lead should summarize the article. I've already done a proposal for the emergence of the Hindu synthesis.

Between 500[1]–200[2] BCE and c. 300 CE the "Hindu synthesis" developed, [1][2] which incorporated Sramanic and Buddhist influences[2][3] and the emerging bhakti tradition into the Brahmanical fold via the smriti literature.[4][2] This synthesis emerged under the pressure of the success of Buddhism and Jainism.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b Hiltebeitel 2007, p. 12.
  2. ^ a b c d Larson 2009.
  3. ^ Cousins 2010.
  4. ^ Hiltebeitel 2007, p. 13.
  5. ^ Vijay Nath 2001, p. 21.
Stating "By 400 BCE, Hinduism had begun to exhibit its more representative, or classical, features" suggests that there already existed a well-defined "Hinduism" at 400 BCE, which began to develop further then. This is misleading; the "Hindu synthesis" just started to develop then. More accurate, for the lead, would be: " Around 400 BCE, the Hindu synthesis emerged, with its representative heterodox [etc.]."
Additionally, to "Under the Gupta's," add "who sponsored both Vaishnavism and Buddhism." For Puranic Hinduism: replace "resurgence of Hinduism" (another popular misconception, see Adi Shankara#Critical assessment, and at odds with the "renewed Hinduism" of the Gupta's) with

After the end of the Gupta Empire and the collapse of the Harsha Empire, power became decentralized, local cults and languages were enhanced, and the influence of "Brahmanic ritualistic Hinduism"[1] was diminished.[1] Rural and devotional movements arose, along with Shaivism, Vaisnavism, Bhakti and Tantra,[1] The Brahmanism of the Dharmashastras and the smritis underwent a radical transformation at the hands of the Purana composers, resulting in the rise of Puranic Hinduism,[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c Michaels 2004, p. 42.
  2. ^ Vijay Nath 2001, p. 19.
Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
"Hindu synthesis" here is more like: WP:SYNTHESIS. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
It's the term used by Hiltebeitel, in contrast to your personal interpretation of sources, which don't mention a "dawning of Hinduism" at 1200 BCE. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:44, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I understand the term as used; I was talking about your sentence. Please see Gavin Flood and Witzel, whose quotes I am about to add separately from my list of sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Regarding "it recorded the first evidence of what later became Hinduism," the sources state that the Rig Veda record the Aryan culture, and is "the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism." Why this strange, and confusing, synthesis of two different sentences? Just stick to the sources, and state the obvious: 'the Rig Veda "records the Aryan culture," and is "the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism." The Rig Veda does not record the evidence, it is the evidence. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • No opinion on the factual aspects, but the use of "unfolding" for a language reads oddly to me: "evolving" might be a more usual term. The same goes for "dawning", where "emergence" might be more neutral. So By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, evolving as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the emergence of Hinduism in India. Bazza (talk) 09:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
"Recording the emergence of Hinduism in India" is not what the sources say, as noted before; they speak of "recording Aryan culture." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@Joshua Jonathan:You will read above that I said I had no opinion on the factual aspects, but was commenting on the wording in the question. Bazza (talk) 10:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
No they don't. The two translators in their magnum opus, 2014 (3-volume translation) and one-volume guide are very clear. Here is the guide: Jamison, Stephanie; Brereton, Joel (2020), The Rigveda: A Guide, Oxford University Press, pp. 1, 2, 4, ISBN 978-0-19-063339-4, "The Rgveda is a monumental text with signal significance for both world religion and world literature; yet it is comparatively little known outside a small band of specialists, even among those who study the religious traditions of India. The oldest Sanskrit text, composed probably in the latter half of the second millennium Bce, it stands, at least nominally, as the foundational text of what will later be called Hinduism, and one of its verses, the so-called Gayatri mantra, is part, at least nominally, of the daily practice of those initiated into Vedic learning. (p. 1) ... The RgVeda is one of the four Vedas, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism. (p. 2) Although Vedic religion is very different in many regards from what is known as Classical Hinduism, the seeds are there. Gods like Visnu and Siva (under the name Rudra), who will become so dominant later, are already present in the Rgveda, though in roles both lesser than and different from those they will later play, and the principal Rgvedic gods like Indra remain in later Hinduism, though in diminished capacity (p. 4). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Your original sources do, and you know that. In case of doubt, or dispute, just stick to the sources as close as possible, and state the obvious: 'the Rig Veda "records the Aryan culture," and is "the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism."' How hard is it, to admit that improvements are possible? You're given an opportunity to make your beloved FA-article even better; it's up to you to take it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:39, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
An RFC is a Request for Comment, not a vetting of "original sources." You could have simply requested, "please improve the sources." But instead, you guys started a long song and dance— not you so much, but user: Pat—I would have easily given you Jamison and Brereton (guide, 2020), which I own, though the 3-volume set (2014) I don't; it is frightfully expensive. There is nothing wrong with "dawning." It has a simple figurative meaning. I gave you the OED definition. I always choose my words very carefully. You had suggested "early dawning." Another possibility was "first dawning" (per Isaac Newton's famous quote: "I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into full and clear light." Somewhere below or above user: Kautilya3 was expressing dissatisfaction with "dawning," because he claimed it suggested that the subcontinent was dark before. But it is figurative usage. Newton was not in the dark, he was the world's most famous scientist when he stated that. User: Pat, moreover, has run away with it into realms of ill-framed post-colonial interpretations, i.e. that "seeding" (which in verb form, in any case, is not a favorite word of mine) as suggested by K3 (and implicitly by Jamison and Brereton) is also Western Orientalist, racist, thinking. You, JJ, I have found to be a reasonable editor who keeps an open mind. Why are you involved in this silly RfC? (A man is judged by the company he keeps.) User: Pat's understanding seems to be "Hinduism" was a new religion wandering in the marketplace of religions and it mixed and matched a little bit of Vedic mythology and religion, a little bit of Buddhism, and a few other faiths of wandering teachers. Obviously, that is incorrect. If that were the case, the priestly class would not have survived, the caste system (varna) would not have survived. Anyway, I leave your stance in this RFC to your better judgment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
It's precisley because the priestly class "mixed and matched a little bit of Vedic mythology and religion, a little bit of Buddhism, and a few other faiths of wandering teachers," and a host of local traditions, that the priestly class survived, and Hinduism came into existence. As explained at Hindu synthesis. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:12, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
But that is not the same thing as appearing fresh on the scene and mixing and matching other religions; they already had a religion that adapted a little but had a long history, from late in the second millennium BCE. The same with the caste system, it had been around since the Indo-Aryans set foot on the subcontinent and began to subjugate the artisans and forest dwellers when they did not kill them outright. It survived gloriously, despite its non-existence in Buddhism and Jainism. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:53, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes of course! And that's also so fascinating, how the relgion - and ideology - of a kingly state in the doab from 1000 BCE came to be formative for a whole continent and beyond, up to our present times. Fascinating! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:05, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand that comment. If you are trying to be fictiotious, please don't. Things are confusing enough already. Indra, the king of Vedic gods is considered a clown in Hinduism. How people can confuse Vedism and Hinduism is beyond me. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
@Kautilya3: You have hurted my religious sentiments by calling Lord Indra as "clown". Please strike or remove your comment and apologize. LearnIndology (talk) 14:52, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry LearnIndology, this is an encyclopedic, international, discussion, and we do have freedom of speech. Clearly, gratuitous personal insults are not allowed (although they are recurrent with some users), but here Kautilya3 is simply making an educated point. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:17, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Calling our deity "clown" is not freedom of speech, it is mental abuse and trolling. I am shocked how common and easy it is to abuse Hindus on Wikipedia and get away with it easily. Kautilya3 needs to apologize. LearnIndology (talk) 15:39, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
On Wikipedia, we follow WP:RNPOV and there is no intent to offend any one. If you are that easily offended, then you need to withdraw from the discussion. Reliable sources back what I said [9]. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:50, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Absolutely पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
ABC-CLIO is hardly reliable. I used to think they were in a low-brow fashion, but they published a book in which my articles on Indian famines had been copied (verbatim): See here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:24, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler, I am not sure if your comment is relevant at all to the discussion at hand. Anyway, does a single occurence of an author managing to sneak in a paraphrase of a paragraph of an article, suffice to condemn a whole publisher such as ABC-Clio as being "hardly reliable"... even if this is your very own prose and unmistakable style? Isn't this slightly disproportionate? Is ABC-Clio generally considered as "hardly reliable" or is it just your own personal interpretation of the sources? Does this affect in any way the perceptive academic analysis made by George M. Williams, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at California State University? Note that his book Handbook of Hindu Mythology has also been published by the Oxford University Press in 2008 [10], but are they too "hardly reliable"? पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 04:18, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
A clown Indra is not. He remains the God of Thunder, and schoolchildren in India know about that, and call him "Indra Bhagawan." There are probably not too many temples dedicated to him, but little statues and figurines of him, in the throne of heaven with his court around him, are still popular in parts of South India around Navarathri. In any case, Hinduism is not just the one found in India, but also in Southeast Asia (Thailand, small parts of Indonesia), and Indra is very much worshipped there. The caste system, endorsed by Hinduism, of course, as JJ is implying remains the world's oldest extant system of apartheid. And I'm not being dramatic or allegoric, but there was a genocide of sorts committed, followed by enslavement, exclusion, and stratification in the years and centuries after the Indo-Aryans appeared in India, especially as the major deforestation of the upper Ganges plain began (which is probably what JJ means by the doab). That Indians are nowhere near acknowledging it probably means that the caste system will be around for another 100 years. It will eventually go when arranged marriages go, and that is nowhere near happening. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
From the historical demographer Tim Dyson's A Population History of India, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 16:

the settlement of the Ganges basin by Indo-Aryan speaking people was an extremely long and arduous process. The texts of the Vedas refer to Arya victories over dasas, their darker-skinned enemies.44 And the process of settlement well may well have involved driving communities out, appropriating women, and the enslavement of pre-existing peoples.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:12, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
There is a fatal flaw in Kautilya3's argument. Even if we suppose Indra is no longer worshipped, it is not at all clear that he was not in Classical Hindusim, ca 400 BCE to 500 CE, and post-classical Hinduism until the 15th century CE. Sculptures of him riding his elephant abound in much temple art. Here are a few pictures from WP: File:12th-century Vedic Indra and Indrani at Shaivism Hindu temple Hoysaleswara arts Halebidu Karnataka India (crop).jpg (btw, the "vedic" is added by the uploader or perhaps the art historian who named it, but it is a Hindu temple we are talking about, long after Classical Hinduism has formed); File:Indra deva.jpg, File:Indra Indrani and Airavat at hoysaleshwar temple.jpg, File:Indra with Indrani, 13th century Keshava temple Somanathpur.jpg, File:Indra,_Brahma,_Shiva,_Vishnu_and_Surya.jpg (Konarak), ... There are dozens and dozens on WP alone, not counting Indra in other South Asian art, or Southeast Asian art until the 17th century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:30, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
It is not a question of worshipping. As we know, Hindus are happy to worship practically everything. But if the main god of the Vedic pantheon has been unrecognizably demoted and defamed, you can't continue beating the drum that it is the same religion that is still being practised. It quite defies common sense. It is even ridiculous that we are having such a big argument about it. Why don't you just go and find an honest-to-goodness textbook on Hinduism and read it? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:50, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: As we know? Hindus are happy to worship anything? Please don't distort the issue at stake here. The Lead of the India page says: "By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India." I have repeatedly stated that the noun "dawning," a nominalization of the verb "dawn," did once have the meaning of the noun "dawn" (e.g. Shakespear "the bird of dawning"), but that is now archaic or poetic. Its current meaning is figurative, "The first gleam or appearance" Yet you and your cohorts in the RFC keep insisting on distorting the meaning.

Please also don't be patronizing about what I should be reading ("Why don't you just go and find an honest-to-goodness textbook on Hinduism and read it? And please don't remove your comment after I have posted my reply).

I have on my shelves: Gavin Flood's Blackwell Companion to Hinduism with an article by Michael Witzel on "Vedas and Upaniṣads;" Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel Berenson's Ṛgveda, OUP, 2020 (a companion to their 3-volume translation of Ṛgveda, OUP, 2014) from both of which I have quoted above. I also have in my study books ranging from Wendy Donigers Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, translated from the Sanskrit. Penguin Classics; The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit, Penguin Classics; I also have Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's translations of the Gita and his "Hindu View of Life." I also have R. C. Zaehner's Hinduism. I have Patrick Olivelle's Oxford World Classics translation of selections from the Upanishads; I also have J. A. B. van Buitenen's Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata and W. J. Johnson's The Sauptikaparvan of the Mahabharata: The Massacre at Night (Oxford World's Classics); I have Gandhi's translation of the Gita, titled Anasaktyoga. I have Edwin Arnold's first edition of The Song Celestial (his translation of the Gita), as well as the famous edition from the 1930s illustrated by Willy Pogany. I can upload a picture of any of those books with my WP user page in the background, so tired I am of your patronizing and wilfully obfuscting post. Please be very careful about telling to read about anything, not least in a patronizing manner. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

So, if you have sources and have read them, then you should be able to point out how or whether they contradict Williams' analysis, instead of displaying pictures of temple art. Note also how your list displays the preconceived equation between Vedism and Hinduism, for instance by listing Witzel's "Vedas and Upanishads" and ignoring the other chapters. This just displays obstinacy and insularity rather than a spirit of openness. You have made up your mind, and, if anybody doesn't fall in line, something is wrong with them! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Except for Bazza7 and Kautilya3, everyone else is shunting the same garbage repeating or reworking their previously made comments back and forth; indeed they are using Sfn's from a previous posting, as if they are going to tell us anything here, when the full sources are not given! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
I am pinging Administrators Doug Weller and EdJohnston for the unacceptable incivility of the above message by Fowler&fowler: "everyone else is shunting the same garbage back and forth". पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 12:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
The full sources have been belatedly added, but my point is already made. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Although I have expressed my distaste for this prosecution attorney-like Yes or No, and have proposed a more neutral and nuanced alternative, in case someone is counting Yes's and No's, my vote is obviously Yes. Aman.kumar.goel's preference in the many instances of offering input is also Yes. LearnIndology has also given a preference for Yes. With three yes's and three no's, I don't think this RfC, as originally worded in POV-language, is going anywhere. It is best to abandon it, and wait for the formal FAR which will begin sometime late this spring or early in the summer. As such, this RfC is wasting the time of productive editors which would be better employed prepping the article for the FAR. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:45, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler:
1) The two users your are pinging above have not appeared yet in this RfC. By your very post pinging them you appear to be WP:CANVASSING, which is very surprising and unwise for an established user, and again contrary to Wikipedia rules (pinging Administrator EdJohnston). And of course you conveniently forget to mention User:Johnbod (note I am not pinging him) who has already shown strong opposition to your distortion of sources. Not only is pinging for supporters in an RfC fondamentally against the rules and morally reprehensible, it is also counter-productive as the legitimacy and validity of the posts of canvassed users is greatly weakened.
2) The objective of an RfC is precisely to broaden the discussion to other Wikipedians when a discussion has broken down, which you have clearly provoked by your stubbornness to refuse any changes before this RfC was launched. Next time, try to be more open to the proposals of your fellow contributors and avoid WP:OWN. So now, many more editors will come, over many more days, possibly many more weeks, to evaluate your claim of the "dawning of Hinduism" circa 1200 BCE. That's what RfCs are for. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 17:01, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
They had expressed their wish to keep the current phrasing quite a few times, in each of the subsections, you and others had opened. I saw the same on an RfC on the Kamala Harris page (about characterizing her as the "first African American and South Asian American senator.") A few people had already expressed their support for that before the RfC. They were counted as Supports. People are busy. Not everyone has the time, awareness, to keep track of the endless little changes in eliciting opinions about the same topic. Obviously, your RFC, and the campaign before that, is going nowhere. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: By this account, and if you really want to make an early tally, you should have the honesty to count User:Johnbod as a vehement No [11][12][13][14], and ping him like you pinged those who happen to share your ideas. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
You are welcome to ping him. Even if he gets on board with voting No in your misshapen RfC, it will be 4 to 3, not a consensus. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:13, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Since you have no intention to correct, it is clear you are only and intentionally doing WP:VOTESTACKING. No, I will not ping users to draw them to an RfC, it is against the rules, everybody knows that. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
With the statement Most academics like myself do not distinguish between a separate Vedic Religion and Modern Hindu Religion, although they do distinguish between time periods. Find me one author who says that 21st century Hinduism is the same as the Vedic religion from 1200 BCE. Not Jamison and Witzel, who state that the Vedic religion is not the same as Hinduism; not Michaels, who sums up the differences. Think about it two seconds, and you see that your claim is even beyond WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:55, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I think he doesn't mean that it is the same religion, but that it is the first layer of a historic evolving religion. He has said something similar before. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:38, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
  • No, current science is not able to pinpoint to "dawning" of Hinduism. Some scholars already reject the notion, that it began in Vedic times and favor the Harappan period. Here is a quote from Asko Parpola's 2015 introduction citing Renou 1953:

    It would have been quicker to enumerate those elements [of Hinduism] that are demonstrably Aryan: they would consist of perhaps a few functional gods ( as it is the fashion to describe them), the soma cult and the rudiments of a social system: little enough, in all conscience" (Renou 1953:47-48). Regarding the Indus civilization, he suggests: "If the forms of religion revealed in the seals and figurines of the Indus have any remote connection with Indian forms, it is not so much with those of Vedism as with those of Hinduism, a Hinduism which, though known to us only be inference, must have already existed in Vedic times, and probably considerably earlier" (Renou 1953:3)."

    ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 17:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: Thank you for the interesting comment. This reminds me of a reflexion by Art Historians Pran Gopal Paul and Paul Debjani, who suggest that the Vedic period was actually suppressive of the anthropomorphological worship visible initially in the Indus Valley Civilization and then reappearing in Hinduism after 500 BCE:

We should do well to remember that the Aryans worshipped purely the elementary forces of nature by means of elaborate sacrifices, together with appropriate hymns. In this scheme of ritual it was not necessary, nor was it possible to substitute the object of exaltation so convincingly by any concrete form, least of all by human figure, without compromising the fundamental attitude of the worshipper to the all-pervasive power that was being propitiated. Such a change in the approach of the tightly-knit Vedic and even post-Vedic society, orchestrated as it was by orthodox priesthood, could not have come of itself. This was possible when such an urge was actually felt by the general masses and that feeling was intensified by the ideological impact of fresh ethnic influx into the Indian social pool.
Paul, Pran Gopal; Paul, Debjani (1989). "Brahmanical Imagery in the Kuṣāṇa Art of Mathurā: Tradition and Innovations". East and West. 39 (1/4): 112–113. ISSN 0012-8376.

पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 19:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
"Urges of the general masses," possibly the non-Vedic masses with which the migrating Brahmmins (second urbanizaton) came into contact with. These urges were synthesized with this Brahmanical elite and their practices and religious heritage. Brahmins too need food; if not enough people are interested in paying for the performances of the rituals for your Vedic gods, but they are willing to pay for performing rituals for other gods, well, what do you choose? Kids are hungry, wife is angry, and a rational to justify this inclusion of new gods is easily provided, if the need is there. Hence, early Hinduism: a synthesis of Brahmanical practices and ideology with non-Vedic local religions, the adherents of the latter paying nominal lip-service to the exalted status of the Rig Veda. Everybody happy (well, sort of, mayby). Note, by the way, that it was not Vedism that was integrated with non-Vedic religions, but subsequent Brahmanism, with it's ideology and societal organisation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:31, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
>>>current science is not able to pinpoint to "dawning" of Hinduism.
@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: It is probably best not to lay claim to the mantle of "current science" and buttress that with a quote from a French Indologist born in 1896
I have repeatedly stated that the noun "dawning," a nominalization, or verbal noun, of the verb dawn does not have the same meaning as the noun "dawn." But everyone here keeps repeating "dawn of Hinduism." "Dawning," today has a figurative meaning of "The first gleam or appearance; earliest beginning." (OED)
Please note in particular "earliest beginning." It is not the beginning; rather it hints at the earliest of multiple beginnings. It is the same as with rivers; and scholars such as Gavin Flood have used the river analogy to described Hinduism. The Ganges doesn't have one beginning. (Please see the headwaters of the Ganges map I drew by hand many years ago.) By the time the river reaches the Bay of Bengal very little of the water it carries is from its Himalayan headwaters. Still, they supply the master narrative.
Please read the four references in footnote 28
Do you disagree with Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel Brereton's assertion that the Rgveda is the first (textual) evidence for what will later become Hinduism?
Do you disagree with Gavin Flood's definition in the same footnote: "I take the term ‘Hinduism to meaningfully denote a range and history of practice characterized by a number of features, particularly reference to Vedic textual and sacrificial origins ...?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:24, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
My quote is from Asko Parpola 2015, who cited the French Indologist in his preface (the content which introduces his whole book) - that means, it reflects a current science viewpoint, which had a longer history. Even Gavin Flood (a theologist...) recognized the Indus Valley Civilization as a prominent donor of Hinduism containing earlier elements of it. For my taste, a true Indologists has acquired a good knowledge of both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian heritage (Sanskrit, Tamil, Indus). Very few of the indologists in your list have any Dravidian background, which is a petty. Iravatham Mahadevan (Sanskrit/Tamil expert, see various latest papers) considered the Vedas a partial successor of Indus culture, already heavily mixed. Asko Parpola (Sanskrit/Tamil expert) also has pointed out Indo-Aryan text references on evident Dravidian culture (for instance the whole Hindu astronomy/astrology). The influence on Hinduism is therefore not disputed given it's partially Indian origins. Overall from my personal perspective the quote by Renou seems to stand quite true after all these years and that's why Parpola probably used it. What I have observed over the years is that the Sanskrit experts usually have no or only rudimentary knowledge of Dravidian heritage which results in a wide range of opinions. To your question regarding Brereton: I don't believe Vedas are the first evidence, but certainly the first "textual" evidence if you seriously want to count oral transmission as evidence. Regarding Gavin Flood: Definitley would disagree with the requirement of Vedic texts and sacrifices. I remember that there was a ruling by the Supreme court of India, where the justice described a Hinduism, which includes reverence for Vedic texts, yet there stands ultra-popular Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev who completely rejects Vedas. There is also a major Hindu sect, the Lingayats, who are not only against Vedas, but also the caste system since a very long time. Plenty of Hindus who reject caste system in South India. There are all Hindus... aren't they? ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 17:28, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: I don't think anyone doubts the accuracy of the oral transmission. Please see my section: Indian_mathematics#Oral_tradition. It is much more than a text; the oral transmission has preserved in an unparalleled manner the intonation and the music of the hymns. That is Michael Witzels point in Footnote 27
I have already proposed an NPOV version of the RfC, in which I am asking that the following sentence be considered as a replacement

"By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest; orally transmitted with exceptional fidelity as the language of the Rigveda, it recorded the first textual evidence for what later became Hinduism."

Thus "textual" is not really needed, but I'm happy to add it to emphasize that oral transmission in this instance is textual; the Ṛgveda has survived nearly 3200 years as a single text without variant readings, which is more than what we can say about Homer, the ancient Iranian gathas, and so forth. There is a reason that Vedic Sanskrit is the language of choice in Proto-Indo-European reconstructions. (See John Lowe's Footnote 33 in Sanskrit).
But, just as the Indo-European language spoken by the first Indo-Aryan migrants into India was substantially changed in phonology (picking up retroflex sounds) and lexicon (picking up the names of the new flora and fauna), so were their religious beliefs. How could they not? If Akbar the Great ended up with Din-e-Ilahi two generations after Babur, how could the Indo-Aryans from Central Asia (and earlier Southeastern Europe) not be influenced by the society and religions of their adopted lands?
But this is the lead. Space is at a premium. We have one sentence each: for the early Homo sapiens arrivals from Africa; the long period of mutually isolated hunter-gatherer societies; the neolithic villages in the western margins of the Indus; the Indus Valley Civilization of Pakistan and northwestern India; and the arrival of the Indo-Aryans the only evidence for which is the Ṛgveda. There is a sentence or two about the Indo-Aryans and the Vedas in the Ancient History section, but no one has made any attempt to say something there. There is even a religion subsection.
As for poor coverage of the Dravidian contribution in Indian history, culture, and ethos, I could not agree with you more (and one of my goals in the upcoming FAR will be to move the history and culture away a little from the Gangetic Plain.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler:
  • Why insist so stubbornly on the poetic and figurative word "dawning", when simpler and less ambiguous alternatives abound? Why not use "beginnings" for example? You claim that "dawning" is only used in the figurative (abstract) sense here, but anyone with a certain level of literacy knowns that such words have multiple meanings, which are conveyed simultaneously: the literal meaning is organically linked to the figurative meaning, otherwise humour and poetry (even literary prose) would not exist. There is almost no reason to doubt that the use of this rare/antiquated/quaint/ambiguous/unsourced expression "dawning of Hinduism" is intentional, and is only meant to convey the insinuation that India was in miserable darkness before the rising sun of the "glorious arrival" of the Aryans, as User:Kautilya3 perceptively suggested [15]. Smart word-crafting, but not so smart: good writing in an encyclopedia should on the contrary strive for simplicity and clarity, and the removal of all ambiguities. There should be no room for double-entendre and nefarious innuendos.
  • By also claiming that the "dawning of Hinduism" happened under the Aryans in 1200 BCE, the sentence insinuates in one breath that Hinduism was developed by the Aryan invaders, that the religion of the Hindus owes everything to the Aryans, rather then to the "creative syncretic genius" of the Indians circa 500 BCE. This is quite a distortion of history, and almost a case of cultural misappropriation. These distortions in effect attempt to deprive Hindus of their cultural contribution and heritage: it's like saying "Guys, you know what, all the things you believe in were actually given to you by the Aryans".... Not only is this historically wrong (and unsourced), it is also nothing more than one more step in a 14-year-long and recurrent campaign to denigrate and deprecate the Indian people, and especially Hindus and their history [16][17], and to wage a Muslim-Hindu cultural war [18][19]. This is historical revisionism with a supremacist axe to grind... I don't think there is room on Wikipedia for this kind of distortions and innuendos, and I believe that everything should be rewritten with referenced, precise facts and straightforward, neutral, vocabulary as proposed by User:Joshua Jonathan. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 17:18, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Your diffs speak for themselves Fowler&fowler, and these are but a very very small number of examples. This is unwarranted battleground mentality. Not to mention your innumerable instances of incivil behaviour towards your fellow contributors (a recent example). Can't you realize how innapropriate all that is? Can't you handle some non-sectarian and civil interraction? As User:Kautilya3 perceptively pointed out no later than yesterday "You have made up your mind, and, if anybody doesn't fall in line, something is wrong with them!" [24]. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:20, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@पाटलिपुत्र: You have made a serious allegation: >>> "it is also nothing more than one more step in a 14-year-long and recurrent campaign to denigrate and deprecate the Indian people, and especially Hindus and their history [25][26], and to wage a Muslim-Hindu cultural war [27][28]<<< Are you aware that the first diff you have supplied was in response to a now indeffed user Highpeaks35. I was using "Hindu garbage" in the sense of " 'Hindu' garbage" in reference to his gratuious use of "Hindu" in the picture captions and in the themes of the pictures. "Hindu" was interpreted as a descriptor in the captions not as a reference to Hindus by admin Vanamonde93, Sitush, and Joshua Johathan. See this discussion on Highpeaks35's talk page just before he was blocked by admin TonyBallioni and eventually indeffed by admin Abecedare. So again, what do you mean by bringing the "Hindu garbage" reference again and again. This is the fourth or fifth time you have brought it up. I consider the reference to a 14-year campaign to be a personal attack and request that youy scratch it, not remove it, only scratch it so that everyone can see it, and preferably apologize as well. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:25, 11 April 2021 (UTC) Updated with ping Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Did you strike anything or apologize when you insulted User:Johnbod, one of the most respected contributors on Wikipedia [29]? Never. Did you strike anything or apologize when you made personal attacks on me [30]? Never. So you should clean your own act before crying out simply because your very own edits are being reported. Everybody who has been here long enough knows that your incivility and sectarian utterances have brought you to ANI multiple times throughout your 14 years-long career on Wikipedia, so it is just a statement of fact. If you don't like it, it's easy: behave with other contributors in a civil manner, stop bullying them everytime they disagree with you [31], and try to be more open to the contributions of others. You have a severe case of WP:OWN on the India page [32], and no decent Wikipedian can accept that. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes It cannot be determined correctly (exact time); I support. I have read some verses of Yajurveda, seems like Gita. Hindu religion is based on the Vedas. The values of the Vedas is the most, after the Gita. Vedas are the basis of Hinduism and Hinduism has emerged from them. Yet, it does not say that Hinduism was established at this time. Dinesh (talk) 16:41, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Dineshswamiin: The problem is that the rise of Hinduism is generally dated to 500 BCE, not 1200 BCE, although Hinduism is generally considered as a synthesis drawing from multiple influences, including the Rig Veda, but also probably elements from the Indus Valley Civilization etc... The sentence in question misleadingly insinuates that Aryans created Hinduism in 1200 CE, not Indians in 500 BCE, which is historically wrong and dismissive of the syncretic role played by the Indians in the formation of their main religion, Hinduism.पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Bibliography

Compromise

I think we've had enough discussion; nobody's happy about this, and we've all had already enough reason to be unhappy in this time of COVID. I propose to change "recording the dawning of Hinduism in India" into "marking the dawning of Hinduism in India" per Bruce M. Sullivan (2001), The A to Z of Hinduism, p.9:

The period of the composition of Vedic literature, to about 200 BCE, is a period for which scholars are often hesitant to use the term Hinduism." [...] There is not absolute uniformity among scholars in this use of terminology, again relating to the definition of "Hinduism" with which this introduction began.

I'm not going to write down the full quote here (I've also had a long and full work week), but all of you, read it please; I insist to have it included as a source and explanatory note (I'm willing to write it down fully, in that case), in addition to the sources in place now. Only then, when "recording" is changed into "marking," and the full quote is given, do I agree to keep the present sentence (except for "recording") and it's disputed phrase "dawning." Regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Support - Thanks, JJ. Clever wording, good compromise. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:50, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Support - That's a good idea. Joshua, it would be great if we negotiate here too[33]. Thanks! LearnIndology (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose The RfC began on the 7th of April; today is the 10th. The discussion has barely begun; we will wait and see how it evolves. I did not start the RfC, but I will now use this time to read up on Hinduism to make sure that what goes into the article (the lead; the ancient history section; and the society section) in the upcoming FAR will be accurate. There is no point in looking for quick fixes during the interim. I have ordered Gavin Flood's (ed.), The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice, OUP Oxford, ISBN 978-0-19-105322-1, 2020. I have been looking at Flood's Introduction to Hinduism (1996); it is a little dated. His views have changed somewhat. The two books together would be good. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
    Btw, it certainly did not "mark." It only recorded, spectacularly recorded. I would not consider changing it to "marked," let alone adding a poor source (with quotations). Please consider the quality of my sources shown here and compare them with the sources you have been offering in response. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:33, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
You are actually right Fowler. We have seen discussions not ending for months, and it has barely been a week. Quick fixing is not the solution, thus I withdraw my support.LearnIndology (talk) 04:00, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment As I wrote above, if this RfC goes on normally, we will have many more comments from other contributors over a period of several weeks (probably around one more contributor a day in average). I agree that it is a good thing for the discussion to go on, as it will clarify the issue and help us determine the way Hinduism should be presented. It is a complex subject, and this discussion helps us expand our understanding and adjust our sense of certainty everyday. Let's trust Wikipedia's "democracy of knowledge" [34], which should normally put us on the right track. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 04:53, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Consensus for Pakistan's location: west/northwest

There has been a lot of edits and reverts, back and forth. Can we reach a consensus for the location of Pakistan w.r.t. India? (If it is already done, please link to it.) -- DaxServer (talk) 19:08, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

If there are any sources explicitly refraining from mentioning northwest AND mentioning the physical borders of India, then sure. I haven't personally come across any, myself. At the least northwest could refer to the western border of North India. Foxhound03 (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
>>> "There has been a lot of edits and reverts, back and forth." How many have there been? I've noticed just one.
The phrasing was the result of the consensus achieved during the last WP:FAR in 2011. At least half a dozen admins including RegentsPark, Abecedare, and Saravask took part. Editors well-versed in geography took part. I distinctly recall user:AshLin adding "shares land borders with." No one will be looking at the Arabian sea for that border. Baluchistan and Sind (whose north-south spread is smaller than that of Baluchistan) are clearly to the west of India (and were considered to be in the western part of the British Raj; see Imperial Gazetteer of India: "Baluchistan: an oblong stretch of country occupying the extreme western corner of the Indian empire." (here).
Western India, moreover, generally includes Rajasthan and Gujarat, which Sind borders. The combined area of Sind and Baluchistan is 188K sq miles; the combined area of Western Punjab and NWFP, which can be considered to be in the northwest, is 120K sq miles; Kashmir (both Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered) is disputed territory, so we cannot include it in such assessments. In other words, three-fifths of Pakistan shares land borders in the west, only two-fifths in the northwest. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
West is probably the more accurate though, technically, a bit, a very little bit, of Pakistan is to the north of India. (Am I missing something? Why was the aggressive edit summary necessary here?) --RegentsPark (comment) 21:05, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
True, a wisp of Chitral is in the northern marches of the subcontinent. Simple descriptions are probably best in the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:46, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd favour "to the west of north India" - NI linked or not. Btw, while you're all here, am I correct in thinking that not a sq inch of Pakistan was ruled by the British until the 1840s? Johnbod (talk) 23:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
    Can't say for sure about the square inch part (who knows where the margins were!) but none of the provinces of Pakistan were under the EIC until Sindh came under the EIC's control in the 1840s followed by the Punjab in the next decade. --RegentsPark (comment) 00:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks - I thought so. Not at all the impression you get from the "History" section of Pakistan, which jumps straight from the Mughals to the British - History of Pakistan is rather better. Johnbod (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • About the West/North West. I'd prefer leaving it at West because that's simpler but west of North India is okay too if that's where consensus goes.--RegentsPark (comment) 00:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
    The consensus version from 2011 is: "Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east."
  • If the Arabian Sea is to the southwest, then saying that India shares land borders with Pakistan to the northwest, begs the question, "What lies to India's west?"
  • On the other hand, "it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west of north India" is confusing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • "to the west of north India it has a land border with Pakistan" might be better, with a new sentence: "Other borders..." for the rest (the sentence is rather too long). What is an "unshared" border, btw? I find that rather confusing. Johnbod (talk) 13:02, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
    @Johnbod I think borders with water bodies could be interpreted as unshared borders? Still a bit confusing though -- DaxServer (talk) 14:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • The expression, "shares land borders with" is widely used—2,390 times in Google Books (here) and 275 times by academic publishers (here); it is meant in contradistinction to "shares maritime borders with," which India does with Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka; the latter expression is used 700 times in Google Books (here).
  • The Indian Ocean bounds (peninsular) India. The expression "shares land borders with" is also used in contradistinction to being bound by water bodies. The lead of the UK page uses it in this manner. Both expressions are used widely in Google Scholar, (over 2000 times) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:40, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • @Johnbod: The article Company rule in India (Origins; expansion) has the answers to your questions. There were nearly a hundred years separating the British conquest of Bengal (1757) and the British conquest of the Punjab region (1846 to 1848). Sind was annexed by the Company between 1839 and 1843.
  • The expansion did not proceed apace westward (from Bengal). Oudh, smack in the middle of North-Western Provinces (the old name for a large part of the United Provinces) was annexed in 1856. The Moghul Empire, although formerly formally acknowledged by the British until 1857 as the rulers of Hindustan, was effectively reduced (in extent) to the city of Delhi 1720 onward. The Punjab region fell to the Afghans (Durrani; Abdali) soon after and later in the 18th century to the Sikhs.
  • The Pakistan page's history sections are poorly written. I had written large portions of History of Pakistan long ago, but they seem to have been drastically rewritten. Company rule in India seems to have escaped death by a thousand cuts. That is why I am anxious for you and others to help out to whatever extent you can with managing this page: it will give me a chance to improve CRiI, who knows even British Raj, perhaps park them at FAC someday. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:54, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Depends on how you see it - the Company's first territorial foothold here was in Bengal, half of which was a former bit of Pakistan - now Bangladesh. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 13:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
A good point, which I did think about, but as this is not the period between 1947 and 1971 when Pakistan had two wings (West and East), it is no longer Pakistan that is the heir that history; it is Bangladesh, to which you have alluded. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:02, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
PS Upon further reflection, I take back some of what I said. The Muslim League, the party that led Pakistan (both East and West) to its independence in 1947 was founded in Dacca in what is now Bangladesh in 1906. Furthermore A. K. Fazlul Huq, the first Prime Minister of Bengal (before 1947) played a major role in the partition and became a cabinet minister in Pakistan after 1947. H. S. Suhrawardy, prime minister of Bengal in the early 1940s became the prime minister of Pakistan in the 1950s. Khwaja Nazimuddin, prime minister of pre-partition Bengal after Suhrawardy became the Governor-General of Pakistan after Jinnah's death, and later prime minister of Pakistan. So the history of Pakistan (formerly West Pakistan) was shaped by the events in East Bengal (later East Pakistan and now Bangladesh) in which the British arrived very early—in the second half of the eighteenth century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
History of Pakistan, rightly to my mind, only deals with Bengal in the decades running up to Partition, and until Bangladesh split off. The British "arrived" in Bengal in the mid-17th century, & the first Fort William, India was built in 1696. Johnbod (talk) 02:37, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
The British arrived in East Bengal in the second half of the 18th-century. Fort William—on the banks of the Hooghly—is in West Bengal. It remained a trading post until Plassey (1757). I generally agree about the run-up to the Partition, but how long before 1947 the run-up began is disputed. Pakistan is founded on the ideology of the Two-Nation Theory, the nations being Muslims and Hindus. The earliest champion of TNT was Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, ca the 1860s; he lived in Aligarh in Northern India; another was Aga Khan III; he lived in Bombay when he was not racing his horses in England; yet another was the Nawab of Dacca Khwaja Salimullah, who lived in East Bengal. I think it would be legit for Pakistan to include in its history the post-1857 (i.e. post-mutiny) Muslim nationalism on the subcontinent. Except for that, it should focus only on the history of the region that constitutes the geographical extent of Pakistan today. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Why don't we all just say "west and northwest" and be done with it? When you include PoK - which, as a geopolitical reality, is controlled by Pakistan - Pakistan has many northern bits of the subcontinent. Also, relative to Madhya Pradesh, which is roughly the centre of India, Pakistan is to the NW. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 06:58, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
If four directions suffice for land borders, then there is no reason to use a fifth. (Just as if four colors suffice to draw a map, which they do, there is no reason to use a fifth.) On a globe, we generally determine west and east along lines of latitude, or more precisely by the longitudinal markings on these lines. In pretty much every line of latitude drawn across the border between India and Pakistan, Pakistan is to the west. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Change source of states of India from library of congress to official Indian government website

Change source of states of India from library of congress to official Indian government website - https://www.india.gov.in/india-glance/states-india Navneetiitv (talk) 03:04, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: Independent secondary or tertiary sources are preferred. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:14, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree but states are something which are decided by the government and what is better source than the government's website. Anyways, at least change the source to something which can be accessed in single click e.g. CIA world factbook. Navneetiitv (talk) 16:15, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
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