By Ramesh Kallidai
Dr Rajaram feels that the authority of a Purusha is often invoked to enforce beliefs and actions that cannot be justified on humanistic grounds. “Jehadi terrorism, the persecution of Galileo by the Catholic church, and the burning of Bruno during the Italian Inquisition are all excellent examples of this. It is interesting to note that Mother Teresa sided with the Church against Galileo.”
Dr N S Rajaram, is delivering a series of lectures in the UK that seek to focus on how archaeology, astronomy and Vedic literature can be used to correctly date the Vedic civilisation of India.
“The western reading of Vedic civilisation is outmoded,” he explained. “It was done at a time when archaeology and other sources of information did not exist. Scholarship was also influenced by a Western and Christian bias that existed at that time and believed the Biblical account of creation that claimed that the world was actually created on 23rd October 4004 BC”.
Dr Rajaram said that this bias influenced historians to postdate the Indian civilisation and deny its antiquity by wrongly formulating a theory of Aryan invasion of India.
The Aryan invasion theory suggests that a pre-Vedic civilisation existed in India at the Harrapan sites, but that an Aryan invasion from Central Europe around 1500 BC wiped out this civilisation and established the Vedic age.
Refuting this theory, Dr Rajaram suggested, “The theory of Aryan invasion of India is now rejected by most academics. At a research level no one supports this theory. Politically however, people still hold on to this.”
Dr Rajaram pointed out that genetic evidence shows no large scale evidence of invasion by Aryans in India. He also confirmed that archaeology demolished the notion of Aryan invasion completely.
“Harrapan archaeology is replete with Vedic symbols like the OM and the sacred fig tree,” he mentioned. “This establishes the fact that the Harrapan cities were in fact from the Vedic age. The Vedic age actually begins with the Rig Veda, which predates all the sites of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation.”
Dr Rajaram left for USA in 1976 from India to complete a PhD in Mathematical Sciences. He taught at universities in the USA and rose to become the Director of Continuing Education at the University of Houston. He was also a Principal Scientist at Lockheed Aerospace and a consultant for NASA.
In 1992, at the age of 48, he decided to leave a glorious career and return to India to look after his elderly parents and conduct research in history of ancient India.
“I had sufficient resources to become independent, and I wanted to do something I had always wanted to,” he remembered. “I had always been interested in the history of India because it is part of my heritage.”
Dr Rajaram is the author of ten books including the widely known Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilisation (with David Frawley) and The Deciphered Indus Script (with N. Jha). He was recently nominated a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research, which he declined for personal reasons. He runs the Naimisha Foundation for research and communication of information about the Indian civilisation.
Many people who attended the lecture felt impressed by Dr Rajaram’s knowledge and the lucid manner in which he presented his findings.
Lokesh Kataria, an IT consultant who had attended one of Dr Rajaram’s lectures told me, “We went to the lecture a bit curious, but came out feeling extremely proud of our Vedic heritage.”