WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 welcome back to the deep dive we have a uh a 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.259 really unique stack of documents today yeah this 00:00:05.259 --> 00:00:07.540 one's different usually we're looking at history 00:00:07.540 --> 00:00:10.720 or tech or you know the latest science today 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:13.660 we're looking at a linguistic high wire act that's 00:00:13.660 --> 00:00:15.619 a good way to put it and frankly the more i read 00:00:15.619 --> 00:00:17.359 about this the more i felt like i was watching 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.820 someone try to defuse a bomb While solving a 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:23.219 Rubik's Cube. That is probably the best way to 00:00:23.219 --> 00:00:26.399 describe it. It's a massive undertaking. We're 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:29.300 looking at a specific moment in 1945 where two 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:33.140 massive ancient civilizations just collided in 00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:35.439 the mind of one man. We're talking about the 00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:38.280 translation of the Holy Quran, a text rooted 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:41.119 in, you know, the deserts of Arabia, Semitic 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:43.619 language, strict monotheism into Sanskrit, the 00:00:43.619 --> 00:00:47.820 lush liturgical language of Hinduism and Vedic 00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:49.700 philosophy. And just to set the stakes here, 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.039 this is not like translating French into English. 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:55.060 You aren't just swapping grammar. You are trying 00:00:55.060 --> 00:00:57.880 to bridge two completely different operating 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:00.820 systems for reality. You've got the one god of 00:01:00.820 --> 00:01:03.299 the desert. Meaning, well, the pantheon of the 00:01:03.299 --> 00:01:06.359 subcontinent. Right. And our guide for this is 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.819 a fascinating paper by Samuel Kutluturk titled 00:01:09.819 --> 00:01:11.959 The Translation of the Holy Quran into Sanskrit. 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:14.719 We're going to focus specifically on one translator, 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:17.519 a man named Gunderal Harker, and his translation 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:19.920 of just the opening chapter, the Surah Al -Fatiha. 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.260 Gunderal is the key here. He's our expert witness, 00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:25.980 so to speak. So the mission for this deep dive 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:29.359 is to understand how you explain strict, absolute 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.030 monotheism. Yeah. Using a vocabulary built for 00:01:33.030 --> 00:01:36.109 a pantheistic or, you know, a polytheistic worldview. 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:39.329 Yeah. How do you rewrite the DNA of a religion 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:42.250 using the words of another without, well, breaking 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.129 both? Precisely. It is a masterclass in cultural 00:01:45.129 --> 00:01:48.969 mediation. It forces us to ask, are these religions 00:01:48.969 --> 00:01:51.909 as different as we think? Or is it, at some level, 00:01:51.969 --> 00:01:54.430 just a language barrier? Okay, so let's start 00:01:54.430 --> 00:01:56.370 with the context because the where and who here 00:01:56.370 --> 00:01:58.510 mattered just as much as the what. We're in the 00:01:58.510 --> 00:02:00.390 Hyderabad Nizamate. Right, pre -independence 00:02:00.390 --> 00:02:03.030 India. This is a crucial background. The Hyderabad 00:02:03.030 --> 00:02:05.310 Nizamate was a princely state, effectively its 00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:08.150 own country within British India. And it had 00:02:08.150 --> 00:02:11.430 this very specific dynamic. A Muslim ruler, the 00:02:11.430 --> 00:02:14.349 Nizam, governing a population that was overwhelmingly 00:02:14.349 --> 00:02:16.830 Hindu. Which, you know, historically speaking, 00:02:16.990 --> 00:02:19.110 sounds like a recipe for tension. It certainly 00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:21.789 could be, and often was. But it also created 00:02:21.789 --> 00:02:25.129 this... Weirdly fertile ground for intellectual 00:02:25.129 --> 00:02:27.930 exchange. The Nizam wanted his administration 00:02:27.930 --> 00:02:30.150 to work, and he wanted the culture of the ruling 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:33.169 class to be understood by the populace. So into 00:02:33.169 --> 00:02:36.750 this mix steps Gunderao Harkar. And, I mean, 00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:39.009 on paper, this guy seems like a walking contradiction. 00:02:39.430 --> 00:02:42.330 He really does. Born in 1887. He's a Brahmin, 00:02:42.349 --> 00:02:44.330 so he's from the priestly caste in Hinduism, 00:02:44.430 --> 00:02:46.949 the guardians of the Vedas. Right. But he isn't 00:02:46.949 --> 00:02:49.310 sitting in a temple somewhere. He's a munsifa 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:51.750 civil judge working for the Muslim king. Wow. 00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:54.289 So he's a Hindu Brahmin interpreting law for 00:02:54.289 --> 00:02:56.509 a Muslim administration. And get this, he wasn't 00:02:56.509 --> 00:02:58.990 just some bureaucrat. He was a bona fide polymath. 00:02:59.849 --> 00:03:03.009 The sources list his languages, Sanskrit, Telugu, 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:05.229 Marathi, English, Persian, and Arabic. And he 00:03:05.229 --> 00:03:07.729 held the title Vakaspati, right, which is master 00:03:07.729 --> 00:03:11.250 of eloquence. And Vidyapushana, adorned with 00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:14.389 knowledge. I mean, this is someone deeply embedded 00:03:14.389 --> 00:03:16.949 in the Hindu intellectual tradition, deeply respected. 00:03:17.430 --> 00:03:20.710 Yet he decides to take on the Quran. Now, the 00:03:20.710 --> 00:03:22.830 source notes that Muslims had been in India since 00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:25.009 the 9th century. Surely there were translations 00:03:25.009 --> 00:03:28.490 before 1945. Oh, there were. But they were vernacular 00:03:28.490 --> 00:03:30.669 translations. You had translations into Persian, 00:03:30.889 --> 00:03:33.229 Urdu, Sindhi. The day -to -day languages. Exactly. 00:03:33.310 --> 00:03:36.250 In the 18th century, the scholar Shah Walilo 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:38.530 really pushed for people to understand the text 00:03:38.530 --> 00:03:41.750 in their local language. But Sanskrit, Sanskrit 00:03:41.750 --> 00:03:44.550 was kind of the final frontier. Why? Was it just 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:46.810 too difficult? It wasn't about difficulty. It 00:03:46.810 --> 00:03:49.659 was about sanctity. Sanskrit was... Sort of the 00:03:49.659 --> 00:03:52.960 VIP section of languages. It was the exclusive 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:55.659 domain of the Hindu clergy, reserved for the 00:03:55.659 --> 00:03:59.060 Vedas and the Upanishads. Using Sanskrit for 00:03:59.060 --> 00:04:01.400 a mlechia, or a foreign text, was considered 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.020 taboo by Orthodox pundits for a very long time. 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:06.120 So Gundero isn't just translating, he's almost 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:09.699 trespassing in a way, or breaking a seal. Or 00:04:09.699 --> 00:04:34.399 opening a gate. Okay, so let's get into the text 00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:37.490 itself. This is where it gets nerdy. and really 00:04:37.490 --> 00:04:40.430 fun he starts obviously with the bismillah in 00:04:40.430 --> 00:04:43.009 the name of allah yeah and right out of the gate 00:04:43.009 --> 00:04:45.949 he hits a wall how do you translate It's the 00:04:45.949 --> 00:04:47.790 ultimate problem. I mean, if you use a word like 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:50.790 Ishvara or Bhagavan, you trigger these immediate 00:04:50.790 --> 00:04:53.230 associations with Hindu deities. Sure. You say 00:04:53.230 --> 00:04:55.910 Ishvara and a Hindu reader might picture Shiva. 00:04:56.110 --> 00:04:58.569 You say Bhagavan. They might think of Krishna 00:04:58.569 --> 00:05:01.930 or Vishnu beings with forms and myths and families 00:05:01.930 --> 00:05:04.610 and avatars. Which completely defeats the whole 00:05:04.610 --> 00:05:07.769 purpose of the Quran's strict formless monotheism. 00:05:07.829 --> 00:05:10.250 You can't have the reader picturing a blue -skinned 00:05:10.250 --> 00:05:11.990 god when you're trying to describe the unseen. 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:15.660 Exactly. So Gundera bypasses all the popular 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:18.040 guides and goes straight to the philosophical 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:21.180 core. He chooses the word paramatman. Paramatman. 00:05:21.259 --> 00:05:24.060 Let's break that down. Okay, so para means supreme 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:28.759 or ultimate. Okay. And atman translates to self, 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.040 spirit, or soul. So you get the supreme self 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:35.980 or the supreme spirit. That feels very... abstract. 00:05:36.300 --> 00:05:38.800 And that's the point. In Vedantic philosophy, 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:42.240 Paramatman is the formless, absolute reality. 00:05:42.689 --> 00:05:44.750 It's the ground of all being. It doesn't have 00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:47.209 a face. It doesn't have a statue. It encompasses 00:05:47.209 --> 00:05:49.449 everything. So by choosing that word, he's stripping 00:05:49.449 --> 00:05:52.230 away all the anthropomorphic baggage. He is aligning 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:55.470 the Islamic definition of God uncreated, formless, 00:05:55.569 --> 00:05:58.889 absolute, with the highest abstract concept in 00:05:58.889 --> 00:06:01.430 Hinduism. He's saying, look, the all of the Quran 00:06:01.430 --> 00:06:03.750 is the same reality as the paramatman of the 00:06:03.750 --> 00:06:06.529 Upanishads. That is a massive theological bridge 00:06:06.529 --> 00:06:08.430 to build with just one word. It's like he's saying, 00:06:08.470 --> 00:06:10.269 we aren't talking about your gods versus my God. 00:06:10.430 --> 00:06:12.629 We are talking about the source. Exactly. But 00:06:12.629 --> 00:06:14.449 then he immediately runs into the next phrase, 00:06:14.629 --> 00:06:17.350 Rab al -Alamin, Lord of the Worlds. And here, 00:06:17.470 --> 00:06:19.250 the source says he does something that made me 00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:21.930 do a double take. He translates worlds using 00:06:21.930 --> 00:06:24.670 the concept of Devas. He does. But wait a minute. 00:06:24.689 --> 00:06:27.670 I thought Deva meant God, like a deity. If he 00:06:27.670 --> 00:06:29.410 just got rid of the gods to use Paramet Man, 00:06:29.529 --> 00:06:32.930 why is he bringing Devas back in? In common parlance, 00:06:32.930 --> 00:06:36.420 yes, Deva means God. But Gunderao is playing 00:06:36.420 --> 00:06:40.160 4D chess here. Okay. He translates Rab al -Alamin 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:42.360 as the ruler of the world of humans, animals, 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:45.439 and divas. But he clarifies in his commentary 00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:47.740 that he is not talking about independent gods. 00:06:47.980 --> 00:06:50.379 So what are they then? He goes back to the etymological 00:06:50.379 --> 00:06:53.600 root of diva, which is divan meaning to shine 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:57.360 or to be luminous. He argues that in this context, 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:01.000 divas refers to luminous beings. Luminous beings. 00:07:01.100 --> 00:07:04.000 That sounds a lot like angels. Exactly. He maps 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.480 the Islamic concept of angels, beings of light 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.500 who serve God onto the Sanskrit term diva. He 00:07:09.500 --> 00:07:12.379 effectively demotes the divas from gods to servants 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:15.040 of the paramatman. That is incredibly bold. He's 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.519 redefining his own religious vocabulary to fit 00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:19.939 the text. He's telling his readers, you know 00:07:19.939 --> 00:07:22.000 those beings you worship. In this system, they're 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.759 the staff, not the boss. It is. He's telling 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:26.759 his Hindi readers, in this worldview, the hierarchy 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:29.959 is different. The divas exist, but they are created 00:07:29.959 --> 00:07:33.930 beings. It preserves the Islamic hierarchy, God 00:07:33.930 --> 00:07:36.529 is supreme, everything else is a creature, while 00:07:36.529 --> 00:07:38.589 using words that feel familiar. Okay, moving 00:07:38.589 --> 00:07:42.529 on. We have the famous attributes, ar -rahman 00:07:42.529 --> 00:07:46.110 and ar -rahim, usually translated as the most 00:07:46.110 --> 00:07:49.629 gracious, the most merciful. Now, I'll be honest, 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:51.449 I've always found these hard to distinguish in 00:07:51.449 --> 00:07:53.610 English. They just sound like synonyms, you know, 00:07:53.629 --> 00:07:55.889 two ways of saying nice. They often do in English, 00:07:55.970 --> 00:07:58.490 yeah. But in Islamic theology, there's a very 00:07:58.490 --> 00:08:01.329 specific nuance. Rahman is usually understood 00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:04.170 as general mercy. It exists for everyone. It's 00:08:04.170 --> 00:08:07.310 the mercy of existence itself. Rahim is specific 00:08:07.310 --> 00:08:10.310 mercy, often interpreted as mercy for the believers 00:08:10.310 --> 00:08:13.350 or mercy that responds to an action. So how does 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:15.629 Gunderao capture that distinction? Because if 00:08:15.629 --> 00:08:17.850 English struggles with it, surely Sanskrit has 00:08:17.850 --> 00:08:20.410 a million words for mercy. He brings in a heavy 00:08:20.410 --> 00:08:22.829 hitter from Hindu philosophy, the concept of 00:08:22.829 --> 00:08:25.490 dharma. Dharma. Okay, that's a huge word. Duty, 00:08:25.689 --> 00:08:28.129 cosmic law, righteousness, the right way of living. 00:08:28.490 --> 00:08:30.829 All of the above. It's the moral fabric of the 00:08:30.829 --> 00:08:34.450 universe. Now, for Ahriman, he uses the phrase 00:08:34.450 --> 00:08:38.169 Aparakaruna Paravara. Aparakaruna Paravara. I'm 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:39.769 not going to try saying that five times fast. 00:08:39.850 --> 00:08:42.269 What does it mean? It translates to the ocean 00:08:42.269 --> 00:08:45.629 of boundless compassion. Para implies an ocean. 00:08:46.169 --> 00:08:49.809 a shoreless expanse. He explains in his commentary 00:08:49.809 --> 00:08:52.850 that this mercy is like the ocean or the rain. 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:55.450 It falls on everyone, regardless of their dharma. 00:08:55.509 --> 00:08:57.730 Regardless of their duty, regardless of whether 00:08:57.730 --> 00:08:59.429 they're good. Right. It doesn't matter if you're 00:08:59.429 --> 00:09:02.370 a king, a thief, a believer, or an atheist. The 00:09:02.370 --> 00:09:04.690 sun shines on you. The rain falls on you. You 00:09:04.690 --> 00:09:07.750 get to breathe the air. That is Ramat. It is 00:09:07.750 --> 00:09:09.490 independent of your actions. It's unconditional. 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:13.070 And Rahim. For Rahim, he uses Karunavat, which 00:09:13.070 --> 00:09:15.570 means possessing mercy. But here's the kicker. 00:09:15.950 --> 00:09:18.870 He distinguishes it by saying this mercy interacts 00:09:18.870 --> 00:09:21.690 with Dharma. It's the mercy that responds to 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:23.629 those who follow the path of righteousness. Ah, 00:09:23.649 --> 00:09:25.889 I see. So Raman is the operating system of the 00:09:25.889 --> 00:09:28.450 universe. It just runs, no login required. That's 00:09:28.450 --> 00:09:30.429 a great way to put it. And Rahim is the user 00:09:30.429 --> 00:09:33.049 interface. It responds to your input. It does. 00:09:33.610 --> 00:09:36.830 And by anchoring it in Dharma, he makes it instantly 00:09:36.830 --> 00:09:39.950 clickable for a Hindu scholar. They understand 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.409 that some things are cosmic constants and some 00:09:42.409 --> 00:09:45.620 things are karmic results. He's using their own 00:09:45.620 --> 00:09:47.960 ethical framework to explain Islamic theology. 00:09:48.340 --> 00:09:51.240 Speaking of karma, we have to talk about the 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:53.480 timeline. Because this seems like the place where 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.440 the two worldviews would just fundamentally crash 00:09:56.440 --> 00:09:59.460 and burn. The collision of time, yes. This is 00:09:59.460 --> 00:10:02.000 probably the hardest part. Because Hinduism is 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:04.460 generally cyclical, right? You have Kalpa creation, 00:10:04.679 --> 00:10:06.860 destruction, rebirth. It's a wheel. You die, 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:10.519 you come back. Right. And Islam is linear. Creation, 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.240 history, judgment day, the end. You can't really 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:16.659 merge those. You can't have a little bit of reincarnation 00:10:16.659 --> 00:10:18.500 in Islamic theology. You have to pick a lane. 00:10:18.659 --> 00:10:20.720 So what does Gunderao do with the phrase master 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:22.519 of the day of judgment? Does he try to fudge 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:25.039 it? No, he completely respects the source text. 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:27.840 He steps out of the cyclical worldview entirely 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:30.679 for this verse. He translates day of judgment 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:33.500 as punaruthana divasa. Punaruthana divasa. It 00:10:33.500 --> 00:10:36.399 literally means the day of rising again, resurrection. 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:40.700 And in his notes, he explicitly describes a cosmic 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:43.649 dissolution. A singularity where the universe 00:10:43.649 --> 00:10:47.110 ends. He's very clear. This happens once. But 00:10:47.110 --> 00:10:49.090 here's where the deep dive aspect really kicks 00:10:49.090 --> 00:10:52.690 in. He uses a specific word to describe God on 00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:55.690 that day. Yes. Falaviaka. The giver of fruits. 00:10:56.009 --> 00:10:58.289 The giver of fruits. Which sounds kind of pleasant, 00:10:58.330 --> 00:11:01.070 like a guy handing out mangoes. But I suspect 00:11:01.070 --> 00:11:03.450 it means something else. It does. In Sanskrit 00:11:03.450 --> 00:11:06.710 philosophy, falafrut is the technical term for 00:11:06.710 --> 00:11:08.750 the result of an action. It's the output of karma. 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:12.039 If you plant a seed, which is an action, it bears 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:15.019 fruit. So God is the one who hands out the karmic 00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:17.480 results at the end. Exactly. He's taking the 00:11:17.480 --> 00:11:19.240 mechanics of Hindu ethics, cause and effect, 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:21.960 karma and phala, and installing them into the 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:24.700 Islamic linear timeline. He's saying, on that 00:11:24.700 --> 00:11:27.460 final day of dissolution, the paramatman becomes 00:11:27.460 --> 00:11:30.480 the phaladiaka. That is brilliant. He's using 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.120 the logic of karma to explain the mechanism of 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:36.620 judgment day. It removes the arbitrariness. For 00:11:36.620 --> 00:11:39.539 a Hindu reader, judgment might sound like a king 00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:42.639 just deciding who he likes, but giving the fruit, 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:46.539 that implies justice. You get exactly what you 00:11:46.539 --> 00:11:49.120 grew. I love that image. It bridges the gap between 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:51.940 judgment and consequence. It makes the concept 00:11:51.940 --> 00:11:54.500 of a final judgment feel less like a courtroom 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:57.639 and more like a harvest. It appeals to the Hindu 00:11:57.639 --> 00:12:00.480 sense of cosmic justice perfectly, even though 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:02.259 the timeline itself is completely different. 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.259 So we've got the supreme self, the luminous beings. 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.559 The ocean of mercy and the giver of fruits. Now 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:10.879 we get to the people. The surah talks about the 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:13.539 straight path, Surat al -Mustakim. Which he translates 00:12:13.539 --> 00:12:15.740 as, Supantha, the good path or beautiful path. 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:17.899 And it describes the people on that path as, 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:20.779 those upon whom you bestowed favors. And this 00:12:20.779 --> 00:12:23.139 is where the emotional texture changes. He translates 00:12:23.139 --> 00:12:25.480 that phrase, those upon whom you bestowed favors, 00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:29.039 as Priya. Meaning? Beloveds. That's surprisingly 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.179 intimate. The path of the beloveds. It connects 00:12:32.179 --> 00:12:34.519 directly to the Bhakti tradition in Hinduism. 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:37.279 You have to remember, Hinduism isn't just dry 00:12:37.279 --> 00:12:39.779 philosophy. You have the whole bhakti movement, 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:43.700 the path of loving devotion. It's personal. It's 00:12:43.700 --> 00:12:47.460 emotional. By using priya, Gunderao is suggesting 00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:50.139 that the favor of the Quran isn't just guidance 00:12:50.139 --> 00:12:53.320 or wealth. The favor is being loved by God. It 00:12:53.320 --> 00:12:55.620 reframes the whole relationship. It's not just 00:12:55.620 --> 00:12:58.000 master and servant. It's lover and beloved. He 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:00.240 calls them exclusive devotees of the supreme. 00:13:01.149 --> 00:13:03.789 It just adds this layer of warmth that a dry, 00:13:03.909 --> 00:13:06.970 literal translation might miss. But now, OK, 00:13:07.029 --> 00:13:08.590 hold on to your hats. We have to go to the dark 00:13:08.590 --> 00:13:11.330 side, the end of the surah, the path of those 00:13:11.330 --> 00:13:13.649 who earned wrath and those who went astray. Yes. 00:13:13.750 --> 00:13:16.230 And this is historically the most difficult part 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:18.330 of the text to translate diplomatically. Yeah. 00:13:18.490 --> 00:13:21.009 Traditional Islamic exegesis often identifies 00:13:21.009 --> 00:13:23.529 those who earned wrath as the Jews and those 00:13:23.529 --> 00:13:25.929 who went astray as the Christians. Right. Does 00:13:25.929 --> 00:13:28.669 Gundero keep that interpretation or does he sort 00:13:28.669 --> 00:13:31.549 of? scrub it to be polite. He actually keeps 00:13:31.549 --> 00:13:34.590 it. He references it in his notes, Yehudi and 00:13:34.590 --> 00:13:38.169 Nasara. But, and this is the biggest aha moment 00:13:38.169 --> 00:13:41.389 of the entire paper for me, he explains why using 00:13:41.389 --> 00:13:44.190 formal Indian logic. Indian logic, you mean like 00:13:44.190 --> 00:13:47.330 a specific school of philosophy? Yes, specifically 00:13:47.330 --> 00:13:50.289 the Naya school. Naya deals with epistemology, 00:13:50.429 --> 00:13:52.850 how we know what we know and how we make errors. 00:13:53.610 --> 00:13:56.590 Gundral uses this toolkit to categorize the wrath 00:13:57.259 --> 00:13:59.700 and the astray. Okay, walk me through this. How 00:13:59.700 --> 00:14:02.480 does Indian logic explain wrath? Gundra defines 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:05.259 the state of wrath using the term atyantapava. 00:14:05.820 --> 00:14:08.799 Atyantapava sounds heavy. It means absolute non 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:11.580 -existence. In Aya logic, it refers to something 00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:13.879 that is fundamentally absent. So Gundra argues 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:16.240 that this group implies an ontological absence 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:19.039 of knowledge regarding the true path. So it's 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:20.860 not just that they're bad people, it's that the 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:23.899 connection to the truth is broken. Or blocked. 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:27.159 Gone. He suggests that due to historical obstinacy 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:29.580 or baggage, the capacity to receive the truth 00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:31.379 has faced a total blockage. It's an absolute 00:14:31.379 --> 00:14:33.299 absence. The signal isn't getting through at 00:14:33.299 --> 00:14:36.240 all. And the astray, the Christian. For them, 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:39.379 he uses a different logical category. He describes 00:14:39.379 --> 00:14:41.980 a state where the capacity for knowledge exists, 00:14:42.299 --> 00:14:45.379 but it's deviated. They are engaging with non 00:14:45.379 --> 00:14:47.720 -truth. So the receiver works, but it's tuned 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.610 to the wrong station. Essentially. He argues 00:14:50.610 --> 00:14:52.690 this is a willful deviation or a misunderstanding 00:14:52.690 --> 00:14:55.649 rather than the absolute non -existence of the 00:14:55.649 --> 00:14:58.710 first group. That is wildly sophisticated. He's 00:14:58.710 --> 00:15:01.330 taking theological condemnation and turning it 00:15:01.330 --> 00:15:04.230 into an epistemological diagnosis. He's categorizing 00:15:04.230 --> 00:15:06.850 error. He's saying here is a type one error, 00:15:07.009 --> 00:15:09.610 absence, and here's a type two error, deviation. 00:15:10.029 --> 00:15:12.850 It allows a Hindu logician to look at these groups 00:15:12.850 --> 00:15:15.570 and say, I understand the structural difference 00:15:15.570 --> 00:15:18.039 between them. rather than just seeing them as 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:20.539 bad guys. It really drives home the mission we 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:22.799 talked about at the top. He isn't trying to convert 00:15:22.799 --> 00:15:25.340 the reader to Islam, is he? No, and that is so 00:15:25.340 --> 00:15:28.000 important. The source emphasizes that Gunderao 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:30.799 and other translators like Dr. Satya de Verma, 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.639 who came later, treated the Quran with deep respect, 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:36.320 but also with impartiality. They weren't engaging 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:38.740 in polemics. They were looking for the one behind 00:15:38.740 --> 00:15:41.840 the many. Finding the signal in the noise. Exactly. 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:44.360 Dr. Verma, for instance, would quote the Vedas 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:46.580 side by side with the Quran in his commentaries. 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:48.860 Not to say the Vedas are better or the Quran 00:15:48.860 --> 00:15:52.240 is better, but to say, look, they are talking 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:54.620 about the same ultimate reality. It challenges 00:15:54.620 --> 00:15:56.179 the way we think about religious boundaries. 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:00.019 We usually see them as walls. Gunderao saw them 00:16:00.019 --> 00:16:03.049 as what? Different dialects. Different dialects 00:16:03.049 --> 00:16:05.470 of the same spiritual language. He showed that 00:16:05.470 --> 00:16:08.990 you can express strict Islamic monotheism using 00:16:08.990 --> 00:16:11.389 the vocabulary of the Vedas without breaking 00:16:11.389 --> 00:16:14.529 either system. He proved the concepts are translatable, 00:16:14.629 --> 00:16:16.909 even if the histories are different. It brings 00:16:16.909 --> 00:16:19.490 me back to that first word he chose, paramatman. 00:16:19.710 --> 00:16:22.149 The supreme self. It makes you wonder about the 00:16:22.149 --> 00:16:24.899 sensory experience of religion. If you grew up 00:16:24.899 --> 00:16:27.539 praying to Paramatman, does that change the flavor 00:16:27.539 --> 00:16:30.000 of the divinity compared to praying to Allah 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:33.779 or God? I think it has to. Words are containers 00:16:33.779 --> 00:16:36.879 for history and emotion. Paramatman sort of smells 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:38.879 like sandalwood and sounds like temple bells. 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.559 Allah carries the stark, beautiful silence of 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:43.840 the desert and the call to prayer. So when you 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.379 wrap the Quranic concept in the Sanskrit word, 00:16:46.580 --> 00:16:49.580 you create a fusion flavor, a new way to taste 00:16:49.580 --> 00:16:51.960 the divine. And maybe that's the ultimate value 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:54.679 of translation. It forces you to see your own 00:16:54.679 --> 00:16:58.399 beliefs through a stranger's eyes. Gunderal Harker 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:00.899 gave us a glimpse of what monotheism looks like 00:17:00.899 --> 00:17:03.840 when it wears the robes of the Vedas. A beautiful 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:06.440 thought to end on. From the Hyderabad nizamit 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.000 to the supreme self, this has been quite a journey. 00:17:09.220 --> 00:17:11.160 It certainly has. Thanks for diving deep with 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:12.720 us. We'll see you on the next one. Stay curious.