Safeguarding Hinduism's Essence & History

Arya is defined as "noble," its classical meaning, but also as the self-referential term of the Vedic Aryans, its Vedic meaning. This is entirely correct, though the latter meaning could have been clarified further by stating that the Hittites and Iranians also referred to themselves by related words. Thus everyone used it in the sense of "us" as against "them." It was originally a relative ethnic term, with the Iranians considering all others, including the Vedic people, as "them." One man's Arya is another man's Anarya, and vice versa. In India, as the Vedic tribe (the Pauravas and their subtribe, the Bharatas) became identified with the word Arya, this term came to mean "Vedic," "civilized," and hence "noble," as opposed to the uncultured people who had not been exposed to the Vedic tradition. So, the text of the encyclopedia is correct but incomplete. To convey actual understanding, a bit more information would have been helpful. Dasa, nowadays "servant," very clearly referred to the Iranians, as did Dasyu, Pani and probably Shudra. The first three have Iranian equivalents and are known in Iranian contexts from Greek and Iranian sources. The Rig Veda describes them as "without Indra," "without fire-sacrifice" and other known characteristics of the Mazdean (Zoroastrian) tradition. It is rank nonsense to assert that these terms have anything to do with "dark-skinned natives," as the Aryan Invasion Theory has inculcated in far too many people. Here, most Hindus including the authors under discussion are too defensive and fail to assert the Iranian origin of the words which later came to mean "servile class." The Dasa entry starts with the common meaning, "servant," then dilates upon its figurative religious meaning (as in the name Ramdas, "servant of Rama"), but doesn't give any information on the word's origins. This is already defective from a scholarly viewpoint, and it is also politically unwise, for the enemy has lost no time to propagate the notion that the "Dasas are the natives reduced to slavery by the Aryan invaders." In their dominant discourse, the fact that Hindus ignore this claim merely shows "Brahminical hypocrisy." Likewise, central concepts of Sikhi are properly derived from ancient Hindu concepts, e.g., the mantra So'ham ("I am He," viz. He who lives in the sun) has Vedic origins but reappears in glory in Sikh scripture and practice. The entry Dasham Granth recounts how the last Sikh guru, Govind Singh, had stories from the Puranas tran