We Are All Hindus Now

Greek was known in ancient India, and much of the Middle East. Not merely 500 years ago, but two millenniums plus a couple of centuries before.

The Greek spoken in Constantinople in 1409 was not classical Greek, and the Hellenism of the Byzantine Empire was one mediated by Christian thought. These “Romans” were as different culturally from the Greeks of Byzantium in 330 as the Romans of 330 were from the Romans of 1409.

Oh yes...some are becoming more hindu than others HEHE!!
http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab116/smurphette565/IMG_0158.jpg

An Ashokan inscription in Aramaic found in 1969 in Laghman Province indicates that Ashoka also thought of lands far to the west of the Afghan area. Professor André Dupont-Sommer of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, points out that the inscription contains the phrase "At a distance of 200 'bows' this way to (the place) called Tadmor." Tadmor may be identified as Palmyra, Syria, and the inscription stood beside the highway which led from India to the Middle East. Ashoka's missionaries travelled the length of this highway and Professor Dupont-Som-mer, who also worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls, theorizes that they may have provided the inspiration for such monastic orders as the Essenes, authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, whose origins continue to mystify scholars.

Though the ideals are similar, the texts on the inscriptions found in Afghanistan are not identical to any of the texts found in India. Ashoka adapted his edicts to meet the cultural patterns of the people to whom they were addressed. Ashoka's Doctrine of Piety is put forth in the Greek text from the bilingual inscription at Kandahar:

"Ten years (of reign) having been completed, King Piodasses (Ashoka) made known (the doctrine of) Piety to men; and from this moment he has made men more pious, and everything thrives throughout the whole world. And the king abstains from (killing) living beings, and other men and those who (are) huntsmen and fisher-men of the king have desisted from hunting. And if some (were) intemperate, they have ceased from their intemperance as was in their power; and obedient to their father and mother and to the elders, in opposition to the past also in the future, by so acting on every occasion, they will live better and more happily." (Trans. by G.P. Carratelli)

For the people living south of the Hindu Kush, subject to this humanitarian influence from the east, this was a period of tranquility accompanied by prosperity.

Kindness to prisoners

Ashoka showed great concern for fairness in the exercise of Justice, caution and tolerance in the application of sentences, and regularly pardoned prisoners.

"It is my desire that there should be uniformity in law and uniformity in sentencing. I even go this far, to grant a three-day stay for those in prison who have been tried and sentenced to death. During this time their relatives can make appeals to have the prisoners' lives spared. If there is none to appeal on their behalf, the prisoners can give gifts in order to make merit for the next world, or observe fasts." Pilar Edict Nb4 (S. Dhammika)

"In the twenty-six years since my coronation prisoners have been given amnesty on twenty-five occasions." Pilar Edict Nb5 (S. Dhammika)

http://www.afghanan.net/afghanistan/mauryans.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka_the_Great

I stipulate that Hellenistic influenced reached India. But would also be true that no modern Greek would feel at home at home in Socrates’ Athens, and would be treated as a barbarian whose speech was unintellible and whose manners and mores would be utterly different from theirs. Even if he could read and write classical Greek, that would be the case.

Cultural Christian. Your very idea of what is legal or illegal is shaped by the law you have been exposed to—the English common law as modified by American statutes and conditions— because it is founded on Christian practices.

Even then, it wouldn’t be that big of an effort to understand the various anachronistic versions of Greek.

...

“... the Common Law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.”

— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824.

That's Jefferson's opinion, and he was wrong. The first English legal code was set down in Latin at the time of the Roman Mission. This came at the end of the historical blank we called the Dark Ages. It was part and parcel of the theory that antique English law could be traced to the forest of Germany, and depended on the useful fiction that the king did not make law but simply proclaimed what had been law from time immemorial. In fact from the time that the kings began to accept Christianity, they depended on Christian clerks who recast English laws and customs to fit the forms of Roman law.

"But you are told that our ancestors brought with them the Common Law of England, and that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There are in the books some sayings of the English Judges that Christianity is a part of the Common Law, and one of the most distinguished among those, who have held this doctrine, is the celebrated Sir Matthew Hale. But this Judge is one of those Judges, who have condemned persons for witchcraft, and the ermine of his judicial robes was stained with the blood of the innocent victims of superstition. Sir Matthew Hale would be as good authority to sustain a prosecution for witchcraft, as to sustain the present prosecution against the defendant, by establishing that Christianity is a part of the Common Law of England. Indeed Sir Matthew Hale was the great authority in Massachusetts to sustain the prosecutions for witchcraft which disgraced our early history. What is the Common Law of England ? It is called the customs of immemorial antiquity handed down by tradition, among the English people. Now during the period of the existence of the Common Law, England has had all kinds of religion ? Has the Common Law embraced all those kinds of religion ? Are they parts of the Common Law ? Yet one must be as well as another, or else none of those various kinds of religion are parts of the system. The Common Law is older than Christianity. In the earliest times of British history, the British religion was the dark superstitions of the Druids, the Priests of Mona's isle, who worshipped in the deepest recesses of the woods, and offered up the horrid sacrifice of human victims to the objects of their idolatry. Is this religion a part of the Cotnmon Law? When the Romans came they brought with them the Gods of Rome, and Ceesar, who found London a great place, and as Shakspeare tells us in Richard the Third, built the Tower, bore with him the God of War and the other Gods of his Country. Did the religion of ancient Rome become a part of the Common Law of England ? When the Saxons invaded Britain, they brought with them their Gods of War, Woden and Thor ? Did the Saxon religion become a part of the Common Law ? Yet two days in the week in England and the United States, Wednesday and Thursday bear the names of their Deities, and have perpetuated the memory of these " fabled Gods " even to the present day. It was not till the reign of Claudius, the successor of Tiberius in whose reign Jesus Christ was crucified, that Christianity was introduced into England, by means of the conversion of a noble Jady, by a missionary from Rome. Up to that period surely, Christianity was no part of the Common Law of England. The religion of England has been often changed, and the dates of the changes, are well known, and some of them are recent affairs. But the Common Law is of immemorial antiquity, and as old as the native Britons, say the English law books, and therefore these various kinds of religion, introduced within legal memory, and can be no part of this system of immemorial antiquity. England after the introduction of Christianity embraced the Catholic religion."

LINK: http://books.google.com/books?id=WusWAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22common%20law%22%20is%20older%20than%20christianity&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=%22common%20law%22%20is%20older%20than%20christianity&f=false

Yes. this is the Anglo-Saxon theory ,and it is proposed to discredit Roman Catholicism. The fact is that we know almost nothing of the history of England from 500 to 600. This was the time when Arthur was supposed to have ruled, but nothing but, as you know, that is not history. What is history is that the kings of England were converted to Catholicism. something that New England did not find a pleasant thought. The historical record in England begins aboout the year 600 with the arrival of Augustine. Anglo-Saxon law as it existed at the time of the Congress was subject to revision according to the methods of canon law was was itself in its early stages of development. The truth of the assertions about earlier Germanic law is that” barbarism” was also part of English law.

Vishnu, Krishna, Braham, Hannuman, etc., etc. That doesn't sound monotheistic to me.

I once spoke to a Hindu priest who informed me that many of the other gods are mostly aspects or avatars. The main gods are three ....Brahma, Visnu (or Vishnu) and Siva (Shiva). Now it gets interesting ...those three gods are actually a trinity (called the 'Trimurti'), very similar to God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit (in their case, Brahma the Creator, Visnu the Sustainer, and Siva the Destroyer). The Trimurti, like the Trinity, are actually one being known as Brahman (not to be confused with Brahma, who is the Creator figure in the Trimurti). Thus, said the priest, Hindus when you distill it are monotheistic.

Thus, it is quite interesting. For instance ...Krishna is an avatar of Visnu (Visnu came in several forms, Krishna being one of the more famous ones). Deities like Hanuman, Indra or Ganesh are lower ranking gods ...think of them like 'hyper-powered' saints.

Anyways, religion is weird - all these men saying all these things (be they Christian men, Buddhists, Hindus, Daoist, etc). Personally, my personal relationship with Christ is as close to religion as I want to be.