[Assam] Moses & Aryans' Rosetta Stone ; Columbia univ: Macauley's Indian edu argument 1835: Teaching the superior literature

[umesh sharma]

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html


 Source: http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/education/Macaulay001.htm 

it seems that in a bid to promote English as the medium of instruction Macauley went a bit too far and was often quoted as such. However, it seems that he was trying to create a modern education system as we see it in NCERT curriculum in India now - with no Ayurveda ( but modern Darwinian biology) , no Vedas but modern history and social science etc etc. I think we are the better for it. However, it still rankles why we have to teach histiry from the Victors point of view. .

 I just read in a USA Kaplan book of SAT World HIstory that Moses led the Jews  out of Egypt in what is called as the "Exodus" - despite the mythical incident of his  ripping aprt the sea of create the path for the people to go through. Histriography seems to fail here.  Aryans are shown as bloodthirsty invaders who believed in their racial superiority and enslaved and subjugated the dark skinned Harrapan (Indus Valley civilization inhabitants in 1900 BC) to form the caste system. 

 On the face of it it does seem gruesome how come so many people agreed to be untouchables and outcastes - even after 4,000 years - they must be under great pressure - fear of death perhaps. On the other hand it is fantastic that the Aryan Invasion theory was created even before the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappa and MohenjoDaro) in 1930s. The truth may be somewhere in between. 

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

Perhaps some day a Rosetta Stone would be discovered (like the one in 1700s by a French soldier in Egypt which had same message in Greek, Heiroglyphics and another local language, which led to the interpretation of ancient Egyptian language) for Indus Valley civilization - so that history may be  re-written :-)

any comments?

Umesh

Historiography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses
Known extra-Biblical references to Moses date from many centuries after his supposed lifetime, and contain significant departures from the Biblical account. In addition to the Judeo-Roman or Judeo-Hellenic historians Artapanus, Eupolemus, Josephus, and Philo, a few gentile historians including Polyhistor, Manetho, Apion, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Tacitus and Porphyry make reference to him. The extent to which any of these accounts rely on earlier sources is unknown. Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Midrash, Mishnah and Qur'an
 No other surviving written records from Egypt, Assyria, etc., indisputably referring to the stories of the Bible or its main characters before ca. 850s BC have been found,[69][70] and there is no known physical evidence (such as pottery shards or stone tablets) to corroborate Moses' existence.[71][72] However, destruction of unfavorable records by unsympathetic Pharaohs, and even mass obliteration of cartouches from monuments, is known to have occurred at several epochs in Ancient Egyptian history.[73]



Umesh Sharma

Washington D.C. 

1-202-215-4328 [Cell]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)




www.gse.harvard.edu/iep  (where the above 2 are used )
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/



http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
       
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