Hindu Dharma and Pakistan

Hindu Dharma and Pakistan


Almost all the religious books of the Hindus, particularly the Dharma Shastras regarded Sakas and  Yavanas,  the  inhabitants  of Pakistan in those days, as M'leechas  (impure).  The Atharva-veda regarded Pakistan as outlandish. Similarly they were unanimous in considering Vangals i.e., Bengalees, as barbarous, outside the pale of Aryans--outscastes, outsiders. Further, they were all termed dasyus (slaves) and rakashas (devils). According to a passage in the Mahabharata, Yavanas and Gandharas (people of Pakistan), and Vangals (Bangladeshis) are sinful creatures in earth. They did not respect the Brahmins and their religion; did not follow their laws, spoke different language and were therefore detested and despised by the Aryan high castes.  Inter-mixture with them was prohibited. Patanjali speaks of Yavanas and Sakas as sudras and relegates them outside Aryavarta (A History of Indian Culture, by Radhakumad Mukherjee).  

The strange fact is that the basin of the Indus and the Punjab West of Sutlej came to be regarded as impure land by the Brahmins of interior India at quite an early date.  Orthodox Hindus are still unwilling to cross the Indus, and the whole of West Punjab between that river and the Sutlej is condemned as unholy ground, unfit for the residence of strict votaries of Dharma (Oxford History of India, by VA Smith, 3rd edition, edited by Percival Spear).  

The Jat's spirit of freedom and equality refused to submit to Brahminical Hinduism and in its turn drew the censure of the privileged Brahmins of the Gangetic plain who pronounced that 'No Aryan should stay in the Punjab for even two days because the Punjabis refused to obey the priests (A History of Sikhs, by Kushwant Singh).  

The inroads of those foreigners blotted  out the memory of the memory of the Aryan immigration from the  North-West  (i.e. Pakistan) which is not traceable either in  the  popular  puranic  literature  or  in  the oral traditions of the people.  To the east of Sutlej (i.e. India) the Aryans were usually safe from foreign invasions and free to work out their own way of life undisturbed.  They proceeded to do so and thus to create Hinduism with its inseparable institution of caste (Oxford History of India, by VA Smith, 3rd edition, edited by Percival Spear).  

It is noteworthy that according to the Bandayana Dharma Shastra the Indus Valley was considered impure and outside the limits of Aryandom proper. Any one who went there had to perform sacrifices of purification on return. (Tribes in Ancient India, by BC Law)  

The Brhat-Samhita mentions Vokkana country as situated in the western region of Indian subcontinent (Pakistan). In chapter XVI, V.35, Varaha Mihira includes the Vokkana among those  belonging  to  Rahu,  together with barbarians, evil-doers and the like  (Roruka:  was  it  Moenjodaro? by Pranavitana, Studies in asian History: Proceedings of the Asian History Congress held at New Delhi in 1961).  

In later vedic  literature  there  are  references  to  confederation of  un-Aryan tribes living in  the north-east and north-west  of  the sub-continent in the first half of the 1st  millennium  B.C.  Pundra and Vanga in Bengal, Madra in the Ravi-Chenab Doab  (The Peoples of Pakistan, by Yu Gankovsky).  

While the Aryans by now expanded far into India their old home in the Punjab and the north-west was practically forgotten.  Later  Vedic literature mentions it rarely and  then  usually  with disparagement and contempt, as  an  impure  land  where   the  Vedic  sacrifices  are  not performed (The Wonder that was India, by AL Basham).  

Both Buddhism and Jainism flourished in Sind and it had revolted against the superiority of Brahmins.  They ignored their Gods and denied the Vedas (Sindhi Culture, by UT Thakur).  

It might have been noticed that by the beginning of the Christian era, the racial and ethnic character of Pakistan had undergone complete transformation. Whatever Aryan elements were left had almost disappeared in the avalanche of Central Asian Saka and Kushan tribes whose disregard of strict Hindu principles antagonised the high caste Hindus, ultimately leading to mass conversion of Pakistan to Buddhism during Kanishka's time. With this development, the differences in ethnic and racial composition between Pakistanis and Indians also assumed religious colour. It was because of the hatred for the people of Pakistan that, as already stated, the Hindus never built any holy city or temple or regarded any river in Pakistan sacred.  The Punjab Gaztteer Vol. XX says that "the Punjab can show but few Hindu antiquities."  It may be noted that the remains of pre-Vedic (Indus Valley Civilization) and Buddhist periods are found in Pakistan but not of the Hindu period which came between the two and again appeared to a limited extent after the fall of Buddhism.  

The Aryans who settled down in the Gangetic Valley had come to their journey's end after a very long and arduous march. The rich fertile doab of the Ganges was the baikuntha, according to their heart's desire. To entrench themselves in this paradise they took two measures:  

(i) they adopted the policy of  apartheid  (the caste system); and 
(ii) they made earnest efforts to turn the  marginal lands into a buffer zone and  to  seal  their  nearer  borders (i.e., the eastern border of the western wing and vice versa)  against foreign intrusions.  

For their further expansion and colonisation they took north-south bearings. This vertical lay-out of this Hindu (Neo-Aryan) map of the subcontinent is the key to the understanding of geo-history of this part of the world. Vishnu  Purana  (II,  3.1)  thus  delineates  the  land of Bharata:  

The country that lies  north  of  the  ocean  and  south  of  the  snowy mountains is called Bharata; there dwell the descendants of Bharata;  

Kautilya,  the  Hindu  Machiavelli,   spoke  of  the  "thousand  Yojanas (leagues) of land that stretch  from  the  Himalayas to the sea" as "the proper domain of chakravartia patha  (a single universal emperor)". This north-south (vertical) lay-out  of  the  land  of  Bharata has been well summed up in the famous aphorism:  Himalachala  stu paryantum, i.e. from Himalayas to the end of  land  (Rameswaram).  Vishnu  Purana (11. 127-9) gives the geo-political reason for  the  vertical  lay-out of Bharat; it states:  

On the east of Bharata dwell the Kiratas  (the barbarians); on the west, the Yavanas (the  outlandish  Greeks/  Bactrians);  in the centre reside Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishayas and Sudras.  

To protect  the  blue-blooded  Aryans  from  the  contamination  of  the 'demonaic' (Ashuras),  'wild'  and  'carrion-eating'   (Paisachas)  and outlandish (Yavana)--people of the western wing and the 'barbaric' and 'boorish' Kirates, Pundras and Vangas of the eastern marginal land, the Hindu shastras laid down strict rules. The Dharma Sutra (II, 1.2.2) of Baudhayana states:  

Who visits the country  of  the  Arattas  (the  Punjab), or of the Pundras and Vangas (Northern and Eastern Bengal)  must  perform a purificatory sacrifice.  

The Sutras and the Puranas  are  relatively  late  compositions. We find that the Aryan aversion for  the  people  of  the  rimland had developed quite early during their migration  from  the  land of the seven rivers. The Satapatha Brahmanas of the  "White"  Yajur-Veda (OX.31 18) show that the emigrant Aryans regarded those Aryan  tribes, that were still in the basin of the Indus, with mistrust. The Aitareya Brahmana of the Rigveda states that beyond Magadha lived the Pundras of North Bengal and the Vangas of Central and Eastern Bengal who were outside the pale of Aryandom. The Mahabharata speaks of the Bahikas of the Punjab "who are  outcasts from  righteousness,  who are shut out from the Himavat, the Ganga, the Saravati,  the Yamuna, and Kurukshetra, and who dwell between the  Five  Rivers"  (VIII  202, 9) It further lays down:  

In the region where the Five  Rivers  flow let no Aryan dwell there even for two days. There they have no  Vedic  ceremony  nor any sacrifice (V, 20, 63).  

The imperialistic Hindu chakravartins did not always follow these rules of their Shatras. Whenever they  found  themselves  powerful enough they invaded, pillaged and annexed as  much  of  the portions of the marginal lands as they could. This expansionist hunger of the Hindus has not been satiated to this day. However, though they protested vehemently against "the vivisection of Bharat Mata" yet they never ceased to regard the marginal lands as impure. A  remarkable  evidence  of their constancy in this respect is the fact that while  the length and breadth of Bharat is studded with their tirathas, --- holy towns, e.g. Kurkshetra in Hariana, Kashi (Benaras), Mathura, Haridwar  (Hardwar),  Prayaga  (Allahabad) and Ayodha (Faizabad) in UP; Gaya in Bihar; Navadvipa (Nadiya) in W. Bengal; Cuttack Puri in Orissa; Avantika  (Ujjain)  in central India; Dvaraka in Gujrat; Kanchi and Ramesvram in  the  south; holy rivers all over Bharat and their  holier  confluences,---  not  a  single  notable tiratha ever existed in  what  is  now  Pakistan  (Islam   in   the  Geo-historical Perspective of Pakistan, by Qudratullah Fatimi).  

The cleavage, as such, is not new  as  Indians try to make out; and what is more, the cleavage is not due  to  Islam  only as they further try to stress. It is age-old, has its roots deep in history and is not only temperamental and spiritual but racial as well as geo-political.  

It is indeed strange for the Hindus  to claim Pakistan as part of Akhand Bharat on the  basis  of  history when  the  entire  history  not  only thoroughly disproves this claim  but,  on  the contrary, amply bears out that Hindus themselves  have  regarded  it  as  outside Aryavarta, as an impure land, not fit for their holy  places; a land inhabited by sinners outside their fold.