Copy to Sheldon Pollock and Rajiv Malhotra

Dear Ananya Vajpeyi Ph. D.

I looked at your letter making three points.

1. You request support to JNU in its present predicament.

2. You allude to Rajiv Malhotras plagiarism.
3. You praise Sheldon Pollocks scholarship.

While I expected a more profound analysis of The Battle For Sanskrit from a Ph. D.
degree holder like you or at least a rebuttal of the statements attributed to
Sheldon Pollock on Sanskrit and Brahmins, especially considering that you are his
student, I will settle down for the mediocre emission, and I take it then that TBFS
represents your gurus stance on the crucial subjects of Sanskrit and Brahmins, let
me proceed with my own, a physicists, consideration of what lurches in the minds
of the hate mongers. I also include a Sanskrit poem at the end which your guru can
get translated into English by one of the Indian slaves he employs. Stop
stereotyping people, a despicable exercise of the West, and be original true to your
sampradaya.

1. 56 Professors of Madras IIT said "We support intellectual freedom, and

alternative views are a must for democracy and creativity. However, there is a deep
distortion of the meaning of academic freedom.
They have requested the President to take steps for saving educational institutions
from the "scholarship of abuse, hate and discord" and restoring the atmosphere of
sobriety, reflection and harmony necessary for genuine scholarship, Shreepad
Karmalkar, a professor and one of the signatories, said in a statement. In view of
this statement I cant support JNU as requested by you.

2. I have thoroughly examined the evidence on Rajiv Malhotras alleged plagiarism,

and have written three articles on the subject. Please read them.

3. Sheldon Pollocks Scholarship: All scholars make evidence based statements.

Contrarily, if any person makes statements and does not provide evidence, that
person cannot claim to be a scholar.

Pollock says a king patronized Valmiki. Can he provide the name of that king?
Does Valmiki say in Ramayana anything about a patron king? How was the
first Hindu poem written? One morning on the banks of Ganga Valmiki saw a
couple of cranes mating, but the very next instant the male bird died, hit by
an arrow. He became angry and was overcome with grief. He looked around
to find out who had shot the bird. He saw a hunter with a bow and arrows,
nearby. Valmiki became very angry. His lips opened and he cried out,

'
m nida pratih tvamagama vat sam
yat kraucamithundekam avadh kmamohitam
You will find no rest for the long years of Eternity
For you killed a bird in love and unsuspecting.
This was the first Hindu verse, and the first Sanskrit verse. The natural
chandassu was Anustup which he used for Ramayana rachana inspired by
Brahma and getting the story from Narada. Do you see a king here? Why is
Sheldon Pollock distorting history saying there was one, without providing a
name?

Mauryan Emperor Ashoka sent his daughter Sangamitra and son Mahendra
to Sri Lanka to propagate Budhdhism. Muslim hordes invaded India to
propagate their religion and culture. Christians from Europe came and

occupied India. Name one Hindu king who sent Armies or led an invasion on
a foreign country to spread Sanskrit and Hinduism.

Muslims killed 18 million Hindus, majority of them Brahmins and the

Christians killed 7 million in Bengal famine alone under Winston Churchill in
1943 in a manmade Holocaust. Can you name a Hindu king who did anything
closely resembling these massacres of Hindus by Muslims and Christians?

Sheldon Pollock says all Hindu art and literature developed under kings. Let
me mention three great poets in Telugu language who refused any patronage
from kings - Potana, Tyagayya and Shyam Sastri. Potana (1450-1510) wrote
Mahabhagavata inspired by Rama and dedicated it to Rama even though he
was a Shaivite. He wrote:

.
Refusing to give in to the lowly king, this Bammera Potaraaju dedicated his
Bhaagavatam to Sreehari. Look at the word Potana (Potaraju) uses to
describe the kings LOWLY. He went on to become one of the greatest
Telugu Poets.

Tikkana the greatest Telugu poet dedicated his magnum opus Mahabharatam
to Hariharanatha a deity he created from the words Hari (Vishnu) and Hara
(Siva) to promote harmony among the followers of these two.

Thyagaraaju, another great Telugu poet refused patronage of any king,

singing his songs in the temples of Rama and likewise another great Telugu

poet, Shyama Sastri, sang in the Kanchi temple. Both of them joined
Muttuswami Dikshitaar to become Carnatic Music Trinity.

Thus there are many Telugu poets who dedicated their works to their
favourite deity and not to a king. How can Sheldon Pollock say that all Hindu
literature was patronized by Kings and get away with a blatant lie?

Three great Telugu poets Nanne Choda, Vemana and Ramaraja Bhushana
were non-Brahmins.

Sheldon Pollock says Sanskrit was a reserved area of Brahmins. The greatest
Sanskrit poets Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa were not Brahmins. Valmiki was a
hunter, Vyasa was the son a fisherwoman Satyavati and Kalidasa was not a
Brahmin. Even if Valmiki mentioned he belonged to Bharadwaja clan, does it
preclude him being the son of a hunter woman?

Marriages between Brahmins and non -Brahmins were common. Vashista the
Brahmarishi par excellence married Arundhati, a Dalit Kanya.

Sheldon Pollock says the subject material of all kavyas was kings. Here again
he fails to produce fool proof evidence. Mrichchakatika one of the best
Sanskrit plays and definitely the best known in Europe, had a poor Brahmin,
Charudatta, as hero and Vasantika, a courtesan as heroine. The other roles
were from lower classes who spoke all languages like Prakrit in addition to
Sanskrit in the play. A disregard to Natya Sastra that frowned upon. Krishna
Karnamritam, another kavya did not choose a king for hero.

Even Ramayanas Aranyakanda, Kishkindhakanda, Sundarakanda and

Yuddhakanda deal with rakshasas, vanaras and birds, and have no mention of
a single Brahmin. The Guru Vishwamitra was not a Brahmin.

The other great playwright of Sanskrit Bhasa chose themes involving

common people, against the stipulations of Natya Sastra. Not always were

sastras obeyed as Pollock would have us believe. In Telugu, Palkurki

Somanatha wrote in Dwipada Chandassu, a disrespect to Lakshanika Sastra.

A strange statement is attributed to Pollock that Muslims and British tried to

rejuvenate Sanskrit and Brahmins refused. I lived in Telangana under Nizam
for 21 years before I left for Canada. Nizam did not give a cent for the
development of Telugu, the local language let alone Sanskrit. Everyone had to
learn Urdu. In Pakistan Sindhi, Punjabi, Pustu and Balochi are not spoken
today because of the domination of Urdu, according to Tarek Fatah. That is
how Muslims treated other Muslims in a Muslim country. Imagine the
atrocities Nizam committed in Telangana against Hindus - rapes, murders and
looting. Telugu language is full of poems describing the Nizams atrocities.
Not only Telugu, but there are similar poems in Marathi and Kannada
languages also, as they were under the Nizams rule as well. No Marx, or no
Pollock can say those atrocities did not happen.

In one of his papers Pollock complains the prayoga (experiment) was not
developed in India as much as sastra (theory). He should know better.
Hindus were best in three areas - metallurgy, textiles and shipbuilding. Did
they get to be the best without prayogas?

Madhva based his Dwaita sidhdhanta on Pratyaksha ( perception),

Anumna ( inference) and abda ( - relying on word), a rationalistic
approach unheard of in the Abrahamic religions or even in dogmatic Marxism.

Calculus was developed in India 250 years before Leibnitz and Newton by the
Kerala school as reported by a Manchester-Exeter universities team. The
Kerala school developed the Pi series and used it to calculate Pi correct to 9,
10 and later 17 decimal places. It goes on to say .. there is strong
circumstantial evidence that Indians passed on their discoveries to
mathematically savvy Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the 15th
century. That knowledge, the researchers argue, may have been passed on to
Newton.

So called Pythagoras theorem, Pascals Triangle and Diophantine equations

were known to Vedic people long before they were to Europeans. Zero,
infinity, negative numbers , age of the earth, age of the universe , shape of
the earth as being round as opposed to Biblical version of a flat earth, and
plastic surgery are some of the achievements of Hindus so pre-occupied with
power, prashasti according to Pollock.

The plastic surgery developed by Susruta was practiced by potters, not

Brahmins.

Soldiers were non Brahmins who spoke Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali.

Thus Hindu intellectual achievements spanned a spectrum of areas from arts,

science, mathematics, technology, medicine, surgery, governance,
metaphysics, philosophy, literature and others where non Brahmins made
significant contributions.

Certainly we didnt have kings like Henry VIII or other syphilitic monarchs of
Europe. Europe introduced syphilis into every country they travelled. A
major genocide of First Nations people in North America happened from other
diseases carried in blankets brought from Europe. Let Pollock deny this!

It seems Pollock has Hindu phobia and Sanskrit phobia. One wonders why?
Hindus opened their arms to all refugees including Jews, Syrian Christians,
Parsis, Buddhists and even Muslims. India, a Hindu country had one time in
the recent past, a Muslim President (APJ Abdul Kalam), Sikh Prime Minister
(Manmohan Singh) and Christian Congress Party President (Sonia Gandhi) - all
minorities. Can Pollock show a religion like Hinduism that showed so much
tolerance to minorities? We know what Christians did in Canada, in America,
in Mexico, in Chile, in Australia genocide of unbelievable proportions. Even
today in Canada the rapes and killings of First Nations women, children and
men continue unabated, sometimes at the hands of the police. In the USA,
police and Euro-Americans kill African Americans routinely. Did Hindus do

anything like it? Why oh, why, does Pollock hate Sanskrit and Brahmins so
much? I think I know the answer. He is directing his anger toward Hitler onto
Brahmins and Sanskrit. Hitler admired Sanskrit, he took Swastika as his
symbol, he admired Aryans and then he killed so many Jews. So Pollock hates
Hitler who liked Sanskrit ergo in his little mind Pollock has to hate Brahmins
and Sanskrit. However unreasonable it may sound. I just want to remind
Pollock that Leningrad is no more Leningrad - it is St. Petersburg once again.
USSR failed, communism failed. Will Frankfurt school be any better? No. It
wont be. Al l Western philosophies share one thing common with
Monotheism, even the communists and Marxists - the belief that <MY WAY IS
BETTER THAN YOURS. I WILL GO TO ANY LENGTH TO DEFEND IT - EVEN
KILLINGS ON MASS SCALE> Now let me tell you why Hinduism survived - it
accepted everyone with love, patience and tolerance, qualities absent in the
West and in the middle east and in the Abrahamic Religions. Let Pollock
consider this awhile.

I will stop here and let you apply the theorem to Sheldon Pollock of not
furnishing evidence for his statements.

Following Valmiki who addressed the Nishada cursing him with no rest for ever for
killing the unsuspecting male crane in the process of maithunam, I send the
following poem to Sheldon Pollock for being so uncharitable to Sanskrit and to
Brahmins.

( )
This is a work of fiction. Main characters in this poetic play are from Ramayana. Any
resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental. The author wishes to
acknowledge with profound thanks the editing done by Dr. Ratnakar Narale.
Naveen Chandra Ph. D.

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A poem, ( ), written by Dr. Nellutla Naveena Chandra, retired

scientist and educator, author, freelance journalist and speaker. Copyright2016 Dr. Nellutla
Naveena Chandra. chandraalex@hotmail.com