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Comment by amriksohata | Hacker News Reader

Hindus believes apes did talk at some point, or atleast one species existed that did talk. They were called Vanara. They no longer exist but this literature might point to some species that are now extinct, no fossilised evidence though would be hard to guage from fossils.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanara

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Us Hindus also believe that one of those monkeys could fly, namely Hanuman. That doesn't mean it can be possible. A lot of Hindu mythology is pure myth. Do not even try to link it to science.

Supporting myth and superstition with pseudo-science has become popular these days in India, thanks to our PM and the rest of the ruling party indulging in such practice.

You didn't read what I wrote.

OMG, seriously, I am a Hindu and I don't believe apes did talk or we were flying around in pushpak vimanas. Anything that is described in mythology is mythology. Please enjoy reading it and read it to our kids, but tell them that it's a story. On the other hand if you want to do some solid work on bringing credibility to these mythical stuff mentioned in the stories, please do scientific research and try to back it with solid proof. Otherwise we will become a laughing stock in front of the scientific community.

p.s. There is a dark side version to the Vanara mythology, it was once told by my father and I have come to accept it as one possibility of how the name would have sticked. Here is one version: Vanara in sanskrit means Va-Nara? (question). It's like asking "Are you human"? So when Rama who was from north and when in excile came to contact with people in the south, he is said to have asked are you human? Va-Nara?

And don't forget all the gods then were Kings, which was so convenient isn't it? Rama was king but also is a god. Krishna is a king but also is a god, but oh wait Krishna is dark skinned, as he captured power from Kamsa and not of royal lineage, but in the story it was given a twist (even though he belonged to Yadav caste) that he was indeed of the royal lineage and of Brahmanical descent. Krishna wouldn't have minded that story himself.. So in all possibilities there were wars between two kingdoms (Sinhala and India) and the story is used to build the mythical story that we read now. Just enjoy reading it, but don't take it was written history or anything without solid backing.

p.p.s A comparable mythological story is Epic of Gilgamesh. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh). There are several elements in that story that is said to have inspired the Old Testament.

> Otherwise we will become a laughing stock in front of the scientific community

All peoples have mythology and legends. Very rarely does this create the expectation that those stories are fact. Religion in general being one of those major exceptions. And regular people believe all kinds of "unbelievable" stuff anyway. So I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as scientists don't start claiming (all?) mythology is science.

Greek mythology had a huge influence on many things in every field you can imagine but nobody really thinks it has more than maybe a grain of truth. Certainly not a basis for science.

From what I have heard Rama is not a god in the original ramayana by valmiki. He is only a maryada purshottam - a man of best dignity and character. He became a god several thousand years later.

It's also equally hard to trust give it's based on Hindu scripture, and the Wikipedia article itself states that they're considered mythical creatures.

So how is trusting authority working out for you so far? It's a piece of the puzzle, these stories come from somewhere. The general idea is to use your brain to put the pieces together.

You're right! Let's start looking for flying apes based on the legend of harpies and Icarus.

> these stories come from somewhere

A very rich imagination? It's so easy to see something perfectly normal and imagine a whole new world around it. Even more so if at the time there is no "rational" explanation for it.

A three headed malformed dog? It must be the monster guarding the entrance to Hell.

Hmm. I am interested in this. Perhaps the modern forms have experienced enough predation that makes it difficult to follow this up. But we do such analysis often. Basically I would like to see if local ape populations continue to use our terms after a few isolated years.

Under the aegis of, Narendra "Ganesha is proof Hindus knew plastic surgery in vedic times" Modi, many self appointed spokesperson of what Hindu's believe in, have come out of the woodwork.

They are the western analogue of humans riding on flying dinosaurs. Its the same phenomena. Now, we have our own Ku Klux Klan -- the cow rakshak's who are on a murderous spree with an implicit promise from the government that they will be insulated from justice.

Here's a partial list for HN's entertainment.

https://www.altnews.in/bjp-science-ganeshas-plastic-surgery-... a collection of youtube videos of the Prime Minister of India making such claims and videos of some other assorted jokers who are running the country.

Please don't drag politics into HN.. I know you can link anything to a ideology or government and start bashing it. let's not do that.

Nothing to do with politics. Everything to do with rationality. We need the likes of James Randi by the hordes here in India, especially when our own are getting bumped off frequently lately.

> I know you can link anything to a ideology

By the way I am not linking 'anything' tenuous, these are direct video quotes from the country's leadership -- the prime minister of India, and other ministers

Those people saying the same things were always there. They just get more news time nowadays.

As long as the scientific progress is not hampered, I don't really care what the PM or some enthusiasts believe in. I think it's as harmless as people believing/not believing in God.

Huge difference. These are the decision makers of the country. These are the people who are going to decide which ideas to back, which institutes and projects to fund, what to turn a blind eye to.

As the famous advert goes -- there are many thing medicines cannot cure, for everything else there is cow piss. That's what will get funded.

Apparently the reasoning goes that there are a lot of vitamins and hormones in there. Last time I checked there is a lot in mine too. I wonder why dont they line up right here.

No need for “will”s. The term is near ended. Can you support your theory with real incidents? Which research was funded, which wasn’t funded?

That would be tall task and full time work for a full group. I am a single person with an unrelated day job. That said, here's a few:

Panchgavya project, coordinated by the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, internally approved 34 proposals for research into panchgavya ... to make cow urine capsules

http://unnat.iitd.ac.in/index.php/Pages/display/news/urine_c...

https://thewire.in/the-sciences/cow-urine-distillate-cancer

IIT Delhi gets 50 research proposals to study benefits of cow urine under SVAROP program https://indianexpress.com/article/india/iit-delhi-gets-50-re...

"After its proposal to make floor cleaners using cow urine, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to give a push to the use of cow urine in preparing medicines."

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ad...

Government undertaking research to promote use of cow urine, Lok Sabha told

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

A non existent university gets prime ranking -- Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up

https://scroll.in/article/885897/reliances-jio-university-ge...

India's March For Science: Fund Research, Not Study of Cow, Say Scientists.

https://www.news18.com/news/india/indias-march-for-science-f... I would rather have scientists doing science rather being forced on the street to defend science

Panchgavya has a patent from the previous regime.

IIT Delhi is not a collection of extremist morons. I would much rather take somebody betting their career on something than the random opinion on the Internet.

Ayurveda has been an established practice for a long time. Somebody needs to bet their career on disproving it or else I will continue benefiting from it.

I don’t know why you bring up Jio Institute here.

I don’t know why you missed part of your own link where the scientist says “Scientists supporting the march say the need is to recognise the actual contributions made by ancient Indians, often whitewashed by the European school of science history, rooted in the Enlightenment period. However, this is getting lost in talk of interplanetary travel and cosmetic surgery during the Vedic ages. This had been publicly denounced by Indian Nobel laureate V Ramakrishnan Anne. He even refused to attend the Indian Science Congress last year.“

This is just storm in a tea cup. I don’t remember seeing any cutbacks on any of the scientific programs. In fact some of the long awaited research programs like the neutrino lab came up.

So again what exactly was important that was cut back?

> Panchgavya has a patent from the previous regime

Patent on what ? Let me leave this for you from the same article

"Vardhan, who was a member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party then, is now minister of science and technology. But in the years after the conference, the subject received no interest from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, which was in power till 2014. This changed when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance came to power that year. And in November last year, Minister of State for Ayush Shripad Yesso Naik announced in the Lok Sabha that the government intended to undertake research and academic activities to promote the use of cow urine, especially its “anti-cancer and anti-infective” properties."

No IITD aren't morons but they sure no which way the wind blows and what research topics are favorite and which projects will have funds allocated at another projects expense.

Missed nothing from the quote you pasted. I agree with it.

Re Jio Institute, that's an example of an endorsement from the topmost level possible to an university that exists on paper.

If my examples dont convince you that those are mis-allocation of funds, continuing further is moot.

In case you have a change of tastes, just a reminder mine has vitamins and hormones too. Even the PM would be most cordially welcome.

> In case you have a change of tastes, just a reminder mine has vitamins and hormones too. Even the PM would be most cordially welcomed to it.

Hahahaha, not so easy. Get a bunch of people excited about your urine and come up with some results. I will be all over it, why not?

Will you fund the research or convince the government to fund it?

I haven't done research, but one possible explanation I heard about cow urine (organic grass fed) is in helping balancing the stomach bacteria. We as modern humans have still not fully understood the effects and side effects of gut flora completely. Even recently gut bacteria is linked to heart diseases.(#1: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170711093012.h..., #2: http://sciencenordic.com/gut-bacteria-flora-linked-chronic-h...). So we definitely have a long way to go in understanding our own body, which our forefathers might have gotten a better understanding.

Cow urine is also prescribed as a drug by Ayurveda, which isn't an occult science or anything and have survived well into modern age. Several practitioners of Ayurveda used advanced surgical technologies, perhaps first in the world.

e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery#History https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Ancient_... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Ancient_...

It seems around the world being unscientific and plain stupid is a great asset for winning democratic elections. We will be horrified if a well know professional speaks such rubbish but somehow okay with the facts that such people can handle countries with multi-trillion dollar economy

I used to find some comfort in the fact that Indian politicians were in some ways better than the types of Michelle Bachman. They knew enough not to flaunt their ignorance and knew when they were out of their depth. Apparently no more.

WE WUZ ELAPHANTS!!1!

Maybe that Yakub was a foreign exchange student to IIT back in the day.

Are we all going to pretend that an ancient mythological fairy tale text is the evidence of talking apes?

Nobody really is, or they'd be worrying about the evidence for talking snakes.

This is some kind of "the grass is greener on the other side" stuff. Local myths are absurd, but foreign myths are evidence.

That's not a Hindu belief, and is an overly modern reading of Hindu mythology.

Just like Hindu/Indo-European notions of asparas/wood-nymphs doesn't imply the existence of and rationalization of a tribe of forest women, this isn't really a belief among Hindus about a former state of monkeyhood.

Ancient people simply believed in literally supernatural/estoeric things - they weren't "secretly" technologically advanced with a strange vocabulary we now read as religious.

Many occult texts claim that the monkeys of today are a result of back crossing human DNA into monkey species long, long ago; and that they have been in regression ever since, turning less human with time.

I would find that unlikely considering how rarely cross-species reproduction is and we're not talking a different species, it's an entirely different family. Monkeys are largely not compatible enough to produce viable offspring, the last time that I am aware humans cross-bred with non-humans was with Neanderthals.

And that's not even mentioning the even remoter chance that the offspring is viable and can reproduce.

There have been unsuccessful experiments to interbreed humans and apes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

So getting human DNA back into apes doesn't seem possible.

I'm not aware of any occult texts which claim this, much less of "many." Can you specify?

Laurency's The Philosopher's Stone is one I'm sure about, fairly certain I read the same thing in Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. There are more but it's been a long time and I don't have the books available now.

Is it really that difficult to imagine? There are all sorts of traces and stories about more advanced civilizations before ours, and more advanced beings than us. As of talking monkeys, people with bird heads and feathers and so on.

I'm with Socrates, I don't know anything for sure about this world. What I do know is that the pieces we've been handed don't match up with my experience.

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