Indian Influences on Rastafarianism | Hacker News Reader

Indian Influences on Rastafarianism

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87 pointsthunderbong35 comments

More specifically Central Indian (Bhojpuri, Maghai, Angika, and Maithili).

Most of the South Asian origin indentured servants in the West Indies were brought in from the regions that became Bihar and Jharkhand.

If you go to French dependencies, then most of the South Asian origin community is a mix of Tamil and Telugu.

There is a similar impact of Southern Chinese ethnic groups and Arabs in South America as well!

Edit: fixed spelling

Here's a great video showing an example of the hidden Chinese influences in South America!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m3fYellBlw

Not the biggest fan of the individual who makes the videos, but you'd be hard pressed to find as good a lens on some often unseen places.

Telugu not Telegu.

I've been hearing about this influence for,"years". But if you were to ask any of my classmates, co-workers or the guy who lives up the road from me - they'd laugh in your face.

Rastafarianism may have been influenced Indians - but it sure isn't now!

Rasta has always been a Black Power movement that takes Haile Selassie as the reincarnation of the Black Christ prophesied by the "prophet", Black Nationalist Marcus Mosiah Garvey.Think the Nation of Islam, but less dogmatic and centralized . Garvey is in other respects, Jamaica's first National Hero.

The ban on cutting hair (Leviticus 21:5, Numbers 6:1-5, Judges 13:5), vegetarian/pescatarian diet and the smoking.(not all Rastas are ganja smokers) are features of the Nazarite vow. No one is mentioning Indians when they're that Nazarite vow to join the House of Nyahbinghi or Bobo Ashanti

The British brought in hundreds of thousands of Indian indentured servants when they couldn’t take African slaves anymore. Trinidad for example has a significant population of people of Indian descent today. So I don’t find it all that surprising that there would be some Indian influence on Caribbean cultures.

FWIW rasta in Hindi means way or road. Rastafarian = Way fairing traveller?

The word itself has no connection with India. Rastafarianism is named after Ras-Tafari, one of the epithets of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie whom Rastafarians revere. Per Wiktionary, the etymology of that epithet is as follows:

> From Amharic ራስ (ras, “Duke”, literally “head”) and ተፈሪ (täfäri, “revered”) from ተፈሪ መኮንን (täfäri mäkonn, “Haile Selassie”, literally “feared (son of) Makonnen”).

Just for the sake of being circular, I will mention the rumour i once read that Ras Tafari (Halie Selassie) was in fact the product of an affair between the Pricess Woizero and an Indian enginneer, which rasies the eyebrown given his the lack of resemblence the Shuwa King, Makonnen Woldemikael. But mentioned anyhow since it would be poetic if Rastafari also meant Way fairing traveller in Hindi, but i dont know much about poetry. https://landofpunt.wordpress.com/haile-selassie-abyssinian-r...

There's a song in my playlist where they play a recording of someone calling a hotel and asking them to page "Haile Selassie". I never understood the reference until now!

The Orb's "Towers of Dub"? Genius.com says this song's sample was a "prank call was made by Victor Lewis Smith, a British film, television and radio producer, a TV and restaurant critic, a satirist and newspaper columnist."

https://genius.com/21251560

That's it!

What’s more important is that it has roots in Judaism which is very often not taken in account.

In dub music which is largely the chanting of rastafari you can find all the Old Testament figures and YHVH is Jah in rastafari.

Dub music isn't "the chanting of Rastafari", it is a musical genre orthogonal to Rastafarianism that was developed by Jamaican musicians from varied backgrounds. Rastafarianism does have a chanting tradition in worship and e.g. Nyabinghi chants have been recorded over the decades, but it sounds little like dub music, which is, after all a studio-based genre, and it also sounds more West African-diaspora than Jewish liturgical music.

Dub music and Indian influences are brought together beautifully in the Lee Perry song Bird in Hand, based on a song from an Indian movie.

https://youtu.be/7IY0O0SxepY?si=6MXMimfJBieWcZPv

I can't agree. Dub music evolved more or less around Nyabinghi chants through Count Ossie's jazz interpretations. The Nyabinghi chants are spiritual chants, so you may think of dub music as very spiritual. Add to that the lyrics of dub music and there you are. Of course the likes of Lee Scratch and Mad Professor really brought psychedelic vibes with reverb and delay into it, but the point is what it was used for, and what the themes in it are about.

For me dub is undoubtedly psychadelic spirtual music and its sources are in Rastafari. I like it very much, even though I'm don't share all the Rastafari beliefs.

I'm not saying that Nyabinghi drumming has anything to do with Jewish liturgical music. or that Rastafari is a descendant of Christianity, for, or not. Fact is that even though it has no direct connection physically (those people were in Jamaica, right so?), they were absolutely enchanted by the idea of Ethiopian roots. Ras Tafari is Ethiopian, right?

Potentially it was wrong to use "Judaism" as terminology at all here, and I was rightfully downvoted. But what I meant is Old Testament is closely related to the Hebrew Bible, which is a foundational text in Judaism.... These texts contain many of the same books that are found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, although the arrangement and the number of books may differ. So may wording was not entirely right, I stand corrected.

No you may not know, but Ethiopia has never been colonized, and is very proud for it. And it was one of the first countries to be exposed to Christianity (or Judaism if you want, or whatever it was called in these BC ages). There is very good reason to believe that the legendary Queen of Sheba have actually visited King Solomon, although I'm not going into arguing about Song of Songs, really. This is ... like long before Christ came to bring the New Testament.

But the point here is that Ethiopian Orthodoxy, etc influenced the Rastafari interpretations. Was it for political reasons, for Marcus Garvey reasons - I can't tell. But if you care to listen to what people sing about in the roots roots dub, try https://www.discogs.com/artist/43151-Alpha-Omega. They are for sure much more into this whole stuff - much more than you and me. Listen to the themes. The themes are biblical, and very much about characters and events that you find in the Old Testament. About Israel, Exodus, etc. This is biblical music, like it or not. And such these are the roots of dub. You find similar themes in music by Twinkle Brothers, Pablo Moses, etc...

Surely you can find lots of articles on this topic, such as https://jamaicans.com/ethiopian_church/.

Appropriating Jewish biblical figures into a non Jewish practice isnt making that a practice rooted in Judaism. It's just very surface level nonsense. They could be named anything.

Does it have to do with Jahbulon from masonic rites?

Also apparently most of the Romani Gypsy(southern Spain and in Serbia) are also of Indian origin.

The closest living relatives to the Romani languages is Gujarati.

I always read that Romani originated from one of the languages from Rajasthan/north east India.

> southern Spain and in Serbia

and Italy

"I discovered" in the abstract is a bit misleading, they realized it by reading the existing literature.

I discovered, albeit with resignation, that I was still alive this morning.

Discovery is not just something done for humanity.

Is this not the same as "exploring" places people have already been before? I don't see the mutual exclusivity that you imply. Is it because one isn't seeing the source material for one's self that makes it different?

the word is used in at least two ways -- frame of reference Individual; frame of reference Society.

Charles Darwin woke up and discovered he was alive that day.

I use to know a guy with a giant collection of reggae albums. An exchange student from India thought it was wonderful then said something like: I don't want to shock you but reggae music comes from India, I know it sounds preposterous but it's the truth. He had some cassette tapes, played some songs, pointed his finger to the ceiling, listen! It was quite hilarious. Like learning about the amen break.

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

this says jamaica so ?????

Like any historical thing, there can be many interpretations, all of them hitting on something true.

It depends how far back you want to look for the origin of sounds.

With something like sound, it is also possible for multiple parallel discoveries to result in something similar. There isn’t necessarily one origin.

In this case we have a documented history of the origins of reggae music as an outgrowth from ska and reggae. This includes confirmation of the genre's post-Independence origins. So I'm not sure what this "Indian Origin of Reggae" comes from or why no historian or musicologist has ever noticed this.

I was curious if I could find any examples and listen to some traditional punjabi music for 10 whole minutes after writing the post.

I know there are better examples to be had but here you go.

http://go-here.nl/india-reggae.mp4

It sounds Reggae enough to me.

Then you must have a very interesting definition of reggae.

This piece has no skank. It actually arpeggiates on the 4 beat, and is played by a percussion instrument, instead of the usual Fender Jazz electric guitar.

Also, none of the,drumbeats are present (rub-a-dub, steppers, one drop, rockers).

Listen to how your clip sounds compared to the below - Drop into a Walk by Yuzo Koshiro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKhseX_wWqU

Citation Needed.

http://go-here.nl/india-reggae.mp4

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