People
often talk inadvertently of various religious and their scriptures and
proceed to compare them and end up with the pontifical remark that they
are all good, they are all equal and none of them says anything wrong
or objectionable. That generalizing argument is an excuse to hang all
manner of scriptures from the Vedas to the Buddhist Tripitakas or
Shatapitakas, the Christian Bible, the Islamic Koran and many others on
a common washing line. But the illogicality, irrationality and
absurdity of that generalization needs to be thoroughly exposed. People
must learn to be bold enough to question the validity of such
statements instead of blindly and meekly swallowing them without
examination and questioning.
All
Scriptures Not Equal
It
ought to be realized that the persons making such generalizations are
either pacifists, politicians or mercenary bureaucrats. They are not
logicians, but opportunists, self-aggrandizers or no-thinkers.
The illogicality of the above generalization can be detected by citing
an analogy. If a dietician says that take any eatable whether milk or
wheat or rice or vegetable, they all have the same nutritional value,
will that be right? Therefore all scriptures can never be of the same
calibre.
Secondly, the followers of a scripture fanatically declaring it to be
divine doesn't make the scripture divine. There are certain tests which
the scripture must fulfil.
Another point is that the so-called religious which are like one-man
leadership factions cannot stand any comparison with Vedic culture.
Therefore the Vedas are a class apart. Other so-called religious
scriptures may be compared inter-se because they are denominational,
factional books; but the Vedas stand on an altogether different plane.
Therefore it is improper even to mention the Bible and the Koran in the
same breath along with the Vedas.
Vedas
Came at the Start of the Creation
Also
the Vedas came at the beginning of creation, while the Bible and the
Koran came billions of years later. Therefore, a toddler of yesterday
cannot be compared to an ancestral patriarch and paterfamilias of hoary
antiquity. Yet another consideration is that in the Koran and the Bible
there is a total lack of any logical sequence or argument moving from
certain premises to a certain definite conclusion. Their sources also
differ. The Vedas were conferred on mankind by Brahma, the creator
Himself. But the Bible was not even "delivered" by Jesus. It was
compiled several cnturies after him. As for the Koran, there wasn't any
possibility of its coming through Mohamad, because according to all
authorities, Mohamad could neither read nor write. How, then, could
Mohamad note down the passages inspired in his mind while meditating in
solitary seclusion inside a dark mountain cave? Therefore the Muslim
belief about the transmission of the Koran through Mohamad is
unwarranted.
The
Scriptural Language
The
language is another consideration. The Bible and the Koran, being in
sectarian languages such as Aramaic and Arabic, they were only meant if
at all for the local people who knew that particular language.
Contrarily, the Vedas are in Sanskrit, which was a divine language
which all humanity spoke from the time of the creation.
Thus the difference between the Vedas and other scriptures is like the
difference between an elephant and an ant.
The Vedas are a gigantic, divine compendium of the cosmic mechanism and
unending cycle of births of all beings associated with that mechanism.
Contrarily the so-called scriptures of other religions are like petty
manifestos of small individuals staking a claim to leadership in a
pocket-borough.
From all such considerations it is highly improper for anybody to
equate the Vedas with other scriptures. To compare the two may be good
pacifism and good politics but not good logic and good academics.
If scriptures such as the Bible adn Koran are classed as religious
scriptures then the Vedas should be distinguished as scriptures of
global human culture. In this sense Hinduism is not a religion. It
is the eternal human culture aimed at chaperoning humanity to the
divine home and not to the hut of its mortal prophet. Therefore
readers beware of misleading comparisons on the ground of equality of
all religions. In this world one thing is hardly ever equal to another.
Even human beings who may seem to have the same physiological
components and emotional characteristics differ widely in their looks
and mental and physical capabilities, their attainments and prowess.
Therefore, in academic evaluation, the pacifist and political talk of
the equality of man and equality of religions must be firmly and
strictly ruled out. Anything pleasant to the ear is not necessarily
admissible to the head. If anybody argues that all religions are equal
and therefore all scriptures are equal, he must be pointed out three
faults in his argument, viz. firstly that religions made at different
times by different persons in different regions under different
circumstances can never be equal. Secondly, Hinduism is not a religion
and that the Vedas are no factional religious scriptures. Therefore the
Vedas, Vedic culture and Hinduism must never be dragged into a
discussion about the scriptures made to the order of or in the name of
a Jesus or Mohamad.