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?

Religious Scriptures

P N Oak (1917 - )

P N Oak is a controversial figure, and while The Bhaktivedantas do not subscribe to everything he has written, he has uncovered evidence that merits further investigation and research into the world's original Vedic civilization.

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 centuries 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 and 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 not 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.

This excerpt is taken from the 2003 edition of World Vedic Heritage (ISBN 81-88388-23-8), published by Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi.

Contact Info: –

P N Oak
Plot No. 10, Goodwill Society
Aundh, Pune 411007
India

Hindi Sahitya Sadan
2 B D Chambers, 10/54 D B Gupta Road
Karol Bagh, New Delhi-5
India
Tel: 011-51545969, 9811115461
indiabooks@rediffmail.com

About the author: –

P N Oak (born at 9:54am on March 2, 1917 in Indore), having made some far-reaching discoveries in history, is the founder president of the Institute for Rewriting World History. His latest finding is that in pre-Christian times Vedic culture and Sanskrit language held full sway throughout the world.

P N Oak was born in a Maharashtrian Brahmin family in which his father talked to him only in Sanskrit, mother only in English, relations in Marathi and town-folk in Hindi. That gave him fluency in these four languages from childhood.

After obtaining his B.A. degree from Agra University and completing M.A., LL.B courses of the Bombay University, Oak worked for a year as tutor in English at the Fergusson College, Pune, and later having joined the army was posted to Singapore at the age of 24.

There, after the British surrender, Oak was one of the organizers of the Indian National Army, a director and commentator at the Free India Radio, Saigon, and later a co-worker of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

After the end of World War II, Oak hitch-hiked from Singapore to Calcutta across the border jungles of several countries.

From 1947 to 1974 his profession has been mainly journalism, having worked on the editorial staffs of the Hindustan Times and the Statesman, as a class 1 officer in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, and as editor in the American Embassy's information service, all in New Delhi.

Around 1959, Oak developed a curious new insight into history, which led him to some stunning discoveries as a result of his absorbing hobby of visiting historic sites. He then founded (June 14, 1964) the Institute for Rewriting Indian History and wrote several books.

Oak's historical acumen led him to discover further that even world history has gone wrong. His discoveries have therefore outgrown the name and scope of the Institute for Rewriting Indian History. Having discovered that from time immemorial up to the Mahabharat War Vedic culture and Sanskrit pervaded the whole world, Oak is keen to find a world Vedic Heritage University to educate the world in the primordial Vedic unity of all humanity. To that end he invites correspondence from all those willing to help.