Yadava Difficulties?

©Prakash John Mascarenhas, Bombay. Revised 26th November 2003.
I have recently received a series of messages (See Yadava Correspondence). The first message was from some one who called himself "Ajit Patel" - obviously, a Gujarati Koli - a Patidar - by caste. [You will understand why I mention the caste latter.] Then a Vinod Yadav wrote, followed by a Rajeev Yadav, using the email id of [email protected], for back-up.

It seems that a page I wrote, Indianroots.html, has been made into the basis for a controversy on a list run by Krishnaite Yadavs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yadav whose principal protagonist is apparently another Rajeev Yadav, using the email id of [email protected].

Given that this is a Yadav group, the involvement of a Patel is apparently inexplicable. However, I think that more than being a Yadav group, it is a Krishnaite group, and since Gujaratis are big on Krishna, it is understandable that even a Patidar can get into the act. After all, the page that is being controverted impugns Krishna!

Principally, according to Vinod Yadav, the following part of my article has been found objectionable by them: "The modern myth invented by the Hindu Revanchists, following the fantastic claims of their ancient texts, the Mahabharata, claims that humanity and the Aryans originated in India. The rest of mankind is largely attributed to the progeny of the Yadavas, not the true Yadavas, but the bastard Yadavas birthed by the illegitimate unions of the 'god' Krishna with the Yadava cowherdesses - Radha and thousands of others.

"According to the law of the Hindu scriptures, because Krishna was a Kshatriya and these women belonged to a lower caste, Krishna could not marry them, but only keep them as his kept-women. According to the Krishna stories, he then went on to beget children from these by the hundreds of thousands. Later, he became fed-up with their antics and slew a great number of them, driving the rest away into the lands outside India.

"The Hindu missionary endeavour among foreigners is premised on this belief.

"But more than just this is premised on this belief. The Hindus claim that all mankind is descended from Hindu ancestors. As proof they proffer the claim that names such as Budapest and Guatemala are corruptions of original Sanskrit names: Buddhaprastha and Gautamalaya. More ambitious of Hindu Revanchists secretly and not so secretly dream of world empire based on this claim to be the mother culture of all mankind. This is a threat that must be taken seriously and addressed."
In contrast to my article, the following page of Yadava history has been offered me: http://www.yadav.com/yadavhist.html

I am not conversant with the exact fine details of who is what in the mass of people who are lumped together as Yadavs, Jadhavs, Ahirs, Abhiras, and the like. What I do know is largely what learnt over time from different sources. It is of course possible that I have misunderstood certain parts.

In my article, I reiterate the distinction between the true Yadavas and the Yadavas descended from Krishna's extramarital relationships. And the Yadava Group's objection does not clarify whether they are objecting to this distinction or to the claim that Krishna had had, in fact, indulged in extramarital relationships.

When I pointed out the distinction, I repeated the claim that non-Indians are descended from the latter group... Therefore, that group must necessarily exclude the Indian Yadavas, such as the complainants in this case.

But, it is my surmise that the complainants are not really complaining, despite their averments, against alleged defamations against them as (Indian) Yadavas, as much as they are complaining against the exposition of Krishna and his immoralities...

Correct me if I am wrong.

However, as I am not conversant with the exact fine details of who is what in the mass of people who are lumped together as Yadavs, Jadhavs, Ahirs, Abhiras, and the like, I apologise for any error or misrepresentation of the facts of Yadav history, or of any particular branch of the Yadavs, which alleged misrepresentation would be purely inadvertant and certainly not out of any malice. However, for the rest, my page stands.

Let me make this thing clear, very clear: I am not buying or accepting any part of the "Yadava history page" that has been offered as being the more accurate version of Yadava history!

Christianity, like the Mosaic Law before it, insistently commands us to love our neighbour, to love all men. The Bible tells us: God so loved man that he gave forth his only begotten son to pay the price for our sins, so that whosoever believes on him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. Christians, therefore, are insistently taught to love all men. But we are also insistently taught to abhor all man-made religions and "gods", to abhor these systems and ideologies. We are therefore to love the pagan but abhor his paganism.

In India, it is my understanding that the Yadavas are considered low caste. I do not know whether they come under the Vaisya category or the Shudra, according to Hindu Law, which is that of Manu. It is my surmise that they come under the latter (Shudra) but I may be wrong.

There are, of course, Yadavas who are Kshatriyas. Throughout India's history, there have been Yadava dynasties. The Mahratha Empire of Deonagari or Devgiri was a Yadava empire; another famous one is the Hoysala Kingdom...

The Yadavas are spreadout throughout the subcontinent. In the Deccan, they are usually called "Jadhavs". There are also the Ahirs, who have some kind of relationship with the Yadavas: probably, they are a subset.

In Maharashtra and the Konkan, the Jadhavs are the descendants of the Imperial Yadava dynasty of Devgiri, and have been absorbed into the Deshastha Kshatriyas or Marathas and the Konkanastha Kshatriyas. Shivaji's mother, Jijai was a Yadava of the Devgiri Imperial dynasty. Shivaji's great-grandfather had been a Rajput refugee from the Muslims in North India. Shivaji's grandfather deliberately maneuvered to have Jijai married to his son so as to gain from the status of the Imperial Yadavas of Devgiri...

Other Jadhavs had lapsed from Hinduism to become "Chamars" or "Mahars". Most of these people had been Kshatriyas related to the Imperial dynasty, but had lapsed due to being forced to flee into the forests during the invasions of the Muslims, as a result of which, they could not perform the "Upanayana Samskara" by which they retained their Hindu caste status. Many "Ambedkarites" are Jadhavs, but they no longer maintain their distinct identity as Yadavas and are part of the larger "Ambedkarite" people.

It is my understanding that some of the Devgiri Yadavs also made their way into Andhra society...

To come to the meat of the matter: It seems, from the article on Yadava history provided by these folks, that Krishna was a Yadava himself, distantly related to the 'gopis' - the Yadava women who tended kine and whom he seduced in huge numbers, principally the gopi Radha. This is because they shared the same common ancestor from whom the Yadavas got their name, Yadu.

The Yadav history page offered itself makes it clear that the Aryans originated outside India. The author cavils at this definition, prefering to entangle himself in a long and convulted argument that the entire stretch - including both the original homeland, placed by him at the head of the Amu Dariya in Turan (Central Asia) or thereabouts, and India, formed one single territory by name of Aryavarta. Again, while admitting the ancient record of conflicts with the natives, he will still pretend that the Aryans were also native!

It is strange that the author(s) of the Yadava history claim at the same time that the Aryans originated outside India (or Bharatvarsha) and yet within India; that the Aryans were native to India, originating in India, and yet that they had to work hard to overcome the opposition of native Indians who opposed them as invading and displacing colonists!

This is the classic case of wanting to have one's cake and to eat it too!

I find it ridiculous that the followers of Krishna take objection to factual expositions of his immoralities even as they insult without any provocation and without any basis our Lord Christ Jesus and the Christian religion.

Thus for example, the page being offered as being a more accurate account of Yadav and Krishna history has this unprovoked and baseless slander of Christianity: "Furthermore, what about "Christ" and "Christian", which resembles so closely to "Krishna"? This is indicative of the fact that the establishment of Yadhuvanshis in the western regions for a long period of time and their subsequent amalgamation into their religion and culture (Islamic and Judaism ), carries some weight in supporting similar sounding words in both languages." The name Jesus Christ is the Greek form of his Hebrew name, which is Yahweh-shua Ha-Mashiah (or it's contraction, Yeshua Ha-Mashiah). Just as the name that our Lord gave to Simon bar-John, "Cephas", was transliterated as Petros in Greek, so was our Lord's name transliterated into the Greek as Christos: Both Ha-Mashiah and Christos mean the "anointed". It is from this Greek word that the Latin name, Christus and the English name Christ is derived. The Sanskrit form of Ha-Mashiah is "Abhishikta" which is the form used by some Indianized Christians — such as "Swami Abhishiktananda".

Moreover the above is commonly known among people worldwide. Therefore there is no basis at all for the insulting insinuation that the name Christ is a corruption of Krishna.

Again, I have also in many of my other pages thoroughly discredited the even more insulting insinuation that Christianity is based on the system of Hinduism or of Krishna. My most relevant page on this subject is Proveritas.html.

Again, this page, Proveritas.html, [and another, Messianicproofs.html] already deal with the comparative claims of Christ and Krishna to be divine incarnations. Therefore, I do not need to treat of that issue again here.

Another relevant page is Baruch.html, which is the Epistle of St. Jeremias to the Jews in Babylonia... It is this page, among other Biblical texts, which give a forceful presentation of the Christian viewpoint of paganisms and their "gods", including Krishna.

A few months back, when my friend was delaying the repairs of my PC, I decided to visit him one Sunday evening and sit "upon" him so that he would expedite the matter. While there, he played for me a VCD of the life of the Old Testament prophet, St. Jeremias — a US Protestant production, yet nevertheless highly accurate.

The movie was very moving. My friend is a member of the Pseudo-Catholic church under the antipope Karol Wojtyla, who infamously and persistently indulges in joint worship with different religions — such as at Assisi, Kyoto, etc. I pointed out to my friend that what God tells us through St. Jeremias is very relevant for him and his sect.

St. Jeremias was forced by God to admonish Israel for its infidelities. This consisted in the worship of man-made "gods" — the innumerable Ba'als, Chemosh, Moloch, etc., for which God threatened Israel with severe punishment.

I pointed out, and constantly point out to members of this apostate sect: God's message in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, is consistent. It rejects and forbids on pain of severe punishment, the cultus of these rival, man-made "gods". I ask: If as Christians, we are obliged to reject the various Ba'als, Chemosh, Moloch, etc., on what basis do we accept Rama or Krishna or Ganpati or whatever?

If we accept Rama or Krishna or Ganpati, etc., then we, as Christians, must necessarily reject and discard the Bible and the God of Israel, Jesus Christ.

But if we are to adhere to Christ Jesus then we must reject these "gods" as devils, as demons.

The Bible is very, very specific and uncompromising: We are taught: The "gods" of the pagans are devils; What the pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to the devils; and so on.

No faithful Christian can compromise on this. If we compromise, we are no longer Christians.

As God tells us by St. Paul: What fellowship between Christ and Belial? What fellowship between Light and Darkness? Therefore flee from these impieties!

Recently, about a month or so ago, a Hindu friend had enquired with me on a similar subject, and what follows is the gist of what I answered him: God is a spirit, but more than a spirit: He is the Creator - a being far beyond the abilities of our petty minds to encompass. He is neither male nor female. He has no body, no genitals, no wantings and no desires. That is all the characteristics of creatures, not of the Creator. God does not desire food, rest, sex. He does not go about seducing girls, women, men's wives, or indulging in any sex whatsoever. He does not lose control over himself. He does not err. He does not repent. He cannot be cursed and be the victim of the "fates".

God has created man freely. He has made us the highest sapient and spiritual lifeform on this planet. And all this has a purpose - He desires us to freely come to Him, to partake of His eternal happiness. He created man and it is He alone who is competent to instruct man as how he must fulfil the purpose for which he is created.

But man is given freedom to choose, and men abuse that freedom. That is permitted by God, but not condoned by Him.

And in abusing their freedom, men have made themselves fabulous and strange gods, in the form of men and of beasts. Worse still are the "gods" that are monsters - the admixture of the forms of beasts and even of men! This is sheer teratolatry - the worship of monsters!

Abusing their freedom, men have made themselves gods in their own images. They have put away the true and impassable God and have fashioned themselves fantastic and grotesque "gods" that are a glorified personification of our own fallen natures, of our own debased natures.

They have fashioned themselves "gods" that lust, that hunger, that are ignorant, that are victims of vagaries and of accidents. "Gods" that seduce and rape. "Gods" that justify all the wrongdoings that man can think of and can commit. And this, when he has fashioned his pantheon of unspeakable and immoral monsters, he falls down and worships them, saying, "Behold, here are the gods! Do not they hunger and thirst like we do? Do not they envy and covet and backbite and curse and steal and rob and commit adulteries and fornications and murders and all other works that we do?"

Logically, then, the next step is to say, "We are god!" And that is what Hinduism, more than any other paganism, says!

But God tells us to flee from these impieties.
The Yadavas of North India have long been illtreated by the "caste Hindus". Because of their supposed connection with Krishna, they have not been so badly mistreated as the others, the true Shudras, but they have certainly been maltreated.

A few years ago, a newsreport came to my attention. There had been a dispute between the "Bhoomihars" (landowners, Brahmin and Kshatriya by caste) and the Yadavs, who tended and milked their cattle. The Yadavs were demanding a higher daily wage and struck work for some days. One day, the Bhoomihars in one place attacked the "basti" (hamlet) of the striking Yadavas, and molested their women in an unspeakable and bestial manner: The "Bhoomihars" began to "milk" the Yadava women. This was intended to humiliate and degrade the Yadavas. Typically of India, I think, no real punishment was meted out to these monsters.

[The hypocritical, misanthropic and antisocial attitude of the Law-Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and the Judiciary of India always disturbs me. I would suggest that it makes more sense that such perpetrators of rapes and of crimes against humanity, instead of being arrested one day under public pressure only to be released as soon as it is opportune and to be lionized and made to grow stronger, should be lined up outside the Presidential Palace and awarded the "Bharat Bhushan". End the charade!]

The reason I cite this incident is because the Yadavas, despite their mistreatment at the hands of the "higher castes" still do not learn their lesson, and secede from the Caste System entirely. There is no mass movement among the Yadavas to abandon Hinduism, whether for Buddhism, Islam or Christianity, unlike among most of the other "low castes". On the contrary, the Yadavas themselves have been involved in incidents where they have attacked and humiliated groups considered to be "lower" than themselves — such as the Kurmis.

It is my understanding that the media and the ascendant (i.e. Manuwadist) sectors of Indian society have been hounding Lalooprasad Yadav of Bihar as a "bribe-taker" precisely because he represents a challenge to their ascendancy and represents the Yadava Ascendancy... I think that most of the charges are contrived.

Certainly, in my understanding, the Indian Bank scam, involving the Chidambarams and Arunachalams of Tamil Nadu involves far greater sums than Laloo's alleged "fodder" scam... Yet there is absolutely no noise made about the Indian Bank scam which resulted in huge losses to the Indian exchequer.

Unfortunately, because of the selfish and myopic attitude of the Yadava leadership, which can think only in terms of Yadavas and Yadavas only, their gains are insecure and liable to be reversed.

For India to progress, it is necessary for all the peoples victimized by Hinduism to combine and to overthrow Hinduism, and to institute a program of Social Integralisation... Such a process will necessarily destroy all caste groups and integrate the Indian people as one homogenous people.

However, the semi-privileged groups such as the Yadavas are not psychologically ready for this progress; to participate and to cooperate, and to cede their "semi-privileged" status which makes them "superior" to such peoples as the Kurmis, Valmikis, etc.

And, pointedly, for the Yadavas to embrace this progress and be party to it, they will need to junk their fond mythologies of past grandeur... as represented by this "Yadava History page."

Interesting as this Yadava history page is, it does not address the issues that I have raised.

What is the relationship between Krishna and Radha and the other gopis, some eight thousands or more (according to the Hindu legends I have been told, breathlessly and approvingly)? Why did Krishna not marry Radha, choosing to remain in an extra-marital relationship with her and these other women? Why should this behaviour not be seen as immoral?

It is my understanding, from my readings, that the Hindus under Vivekananda, Arvind Ghosh ("Aurobindo"), the Ramakrishna and Iscon Movements, the Sangh Parivar and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, etc., claim that all of mankind outside of India is descended from Yadava emigrants. I am willing to have a reliable authority deny this for me.

The Yadava history page claims that Islam commenced by overthrowing a Hindu king ("Devendra") and the Hindu religion and worship in Mecca. That is utterly fanciful, nonsensical and fabricated.

On 25th November, an old Hindu friend raised the same claim with me: "The Ka'aba was originally a Hindu temple, dedicated to Shiva; Islam commands that Muslims specifically and particularly eat cow's meat (and only cow's meat) at the door of the Ka'aba, which is proof that Islam has commenced by supplanting Hinduism and therefore seeks to counterpose itself against Hinduism, which forbids eating of cow's meat, since the cow is worshipped as one of the Hindu gods..."

The Mohammedan belief system is derived from pre-Islamic Arab pagan, Jewish, Christian (Nestorians and Jacobites) and Gnostic sources. There is nothing in the Mohammedan belief system that smacks of Hinduism or any such connection.

If, as the Hindus claim, Islam commenced by supplanting Hinduism in Mecca, the Mohammedan accounts would have been full of that fact — as Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Buddhism are. But, in matter of fact, there is no such mention of what would have been of far greater moment than (what would have been) the comparatively remote Judaism or Christianity, etc.

The histories are very clear that at the time that Muhammad arose, Arabia was dominated by two major Arab Nestorian Christian states under the respective tutelages of Iran and Byzantium, and a third, Arab Jacobite state in Yemen under the domination of Jacobite Ethiopia. Paganism retained a small foothold in Mecca, where Gnosticism and elements of Christianity borrowed from Nestorianism and Jacobitism and of Judaism were melded into Meccan religion.

Yet even here, it is extremely doubtful that this paganism was Hindu. The Arabs are Semites. They lived amongst Semitic people, more culturally prominient than themselves - the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramites, etc. Each of these Semitic people followed Ba'alism - which is the Semitic paganism.

Secondly, Iran, which is Zoroastrian, dominated Arabia for a long time since it overthrew the Babylonians under Cyrus the Persian - a domination that continued, with interludes, right upto the rise of Islam. At the height of the Roman Empire, the Romans vied with the Iranians for dominance of Arabia, Assyria, Chaldea and Armenia, and in the end, it was Iran that prevailed.

Given the savage hostility of the Zoroastrians for Hinduism and Hindu "gods" (the very name of "deva" is for them abomination — the devil!) it is improbable that they would have indifferently countenanced the perseverance of a Hindu cult in Mecca, in an area where they were, for most of the time, baring some Greek and Roman interludes, the undisputed lords and masters. At the very least, there would have been a lively controversy over the issue, with the Iranians, Antiochid and Ptolemid Greeks, Romans and Meccans involved, and some record at least of this would have survived to our day.

Thirdly, we have in hand historical records surviving of accounts of life and events in the area from before the rise of Islam - written by different peoples who have interacted with the area — Phoenicians and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Iranians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Aramites, Jews, etc... even native Arabs.

If Mecca had, in fact, been a centre of Hinduism, that fact would have been signally marked by these ancient histories.

Again, Mecca could not have been Hinduized without the more easterly Yemen and Oman being first Hinduized. And if these areas had been Hinduized, there should be some evidence, some record surviving...

Mecca and Jeddah, its seaport, are part of the Red Sea litoral, intensively navigated by the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who even used it as their main thoroughfare to India.

As such, the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, apart from the Iranians who dominated the Persian Gulf at the time, were not unaware of Hinduism. And, Mecca sits in the middle of the one-time Roman province of Arabia Felix, stretching from the province of Arabia Petrea in modern Jordan to and including Yemen at the far end...

Thus, Mecca was certainly an integral part of the cultural impact zone, and any Hindu influence there could not escape notice and being remarked upon...

But that none of these peoples' histories remarks on this is signal evidence that there is in fact no historical foundation whatsoever to this fond fable that the Hindus have invented for themselves!

Coming back to our topic, I would like to point out that the Greeks, in the time of the Apostles, were said to be so ashamed of the immoralities of their "gods" and their stories, that it was forbidden in Greek civil society to speak and repeat these stories. That extraordinary step is proof of a great moral progress and one which opens the way for the truth. Truly then did those Greeks eagerly embrace the Gospel and put away from themselves these foul immoralities.

Unfortunately, in India, the Hindus have never progressed, as a mass, to that stage. On the contrary, they are, by and large, militantly proud and unashamed of their monstrousities. Such a people cannot progress of themselves!

I am aware that having reitereated Christianity against the pretensions of Krishna-ism, I will have provoked the Krishnaites to anger. Nevertheless, what I write is the truth, and the greatest charity is truth.

I tell you, you are men, not beasts. Your beliefs robs men of their humanity and degrades and dehumanizes them, even as it "divinizes" mere beasts!

I therefore call upon you, in the name of God, to put away from yourselves these impieties, these Ramas and Krishnas and other Indian Ba'als, and to come back to the God who made you — the one and only true God that is, and who indignantly rejects the pretension that he is identical with these impious and fabricated "gods" of yours!

Come to Christ Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, for there is no other name given to man under the heavens whereby we can be saved!

Your eternal salvation depends on this move to fidelity and piety.

Yours sincerely,

Prakash John Mascarenhas, Bombay.
To be continued...
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