RELIGIONS , POLITCIANS  OF THE WORLD UNITE--- IN VANDALISM    

Khushwant  Singh poked fun at the Hindu habit of touching a book to the eyes whenever his feet accidently touched a book. This is of course the Hindu way of expressing apology for showing disrespect to Saraswati the goddess of knowledge and wisdom.

In contrast we are aware how some goons destroyed rare  manuscripts in the Bhandarkar library in Pune simple because someone did his research in this library and came out with a book that made some references to Chatrapati Shivaji which  were deemed derogatory by the goons and their bosses.

The tradition of destroying books and entire libraries goes way back.

Rulers from ancient times have resorted to destroying whole libraries if  they perceived a threat to their religious ideological or political authority.

The 3 rd  Caliph Uthman in AD 645 destroyed the  great library of Alexandria . His reason –which shall remain one of  the most  examples   of Islamic bigotry   ever—was as follows:

If the wisdom contained in the books agreed with the Koran then the books were redundant and if they contradicted the Koran they were a work of evil and  deserved to be destroyed anyway. [I am afraid a Muslim lady friend of mine told me just a year ago that there was no wisdom  outside her holy book. I love her deeply and hence let the matter go unchallenged. Some day she will learn that the Prophet of Islam had himself told his followers  ‘ accept wisdom even if it comes  from China’]

The library of Alexandria was rebuilt, re- stocked  and sadly  re- destroyed three times thereafter by Ptolemy 111, Julius Ceasar and Emperor Aurelian .

By the way this library was attacked by Christians  too—this time by  Archbishop  Theophilus . His reason --and this too shall remain a classic example of Christian  bigotry ever—anything contained in a pagan temple was worthless and must be destroyed. I am afraid I am unable to agree with the Christian references to anything before Christ as ‘pagan’ and  therefore  worthy of being destroyed. In one fell sweep some Christians dismiss the Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita and Dhammapada  as ‘useless’.

The Nazis did the same  kind of destruction of books. In the U.S the Bush administration  has been vandalizing the research reports of the EPA since these conflict with the ideology of the  government .

It seems knowledge scares the bigoted.

I would like someone to give me information of Hindus doing mass destruction of books and libraries. [I have any number of examples of their lack of reverence for human life including of fellow Hindus].  

K.R.RAVI

USA