Are any of these actually “religions” in the first place? Having said that, given that the concepts of dharma, samsara, moksha, karma come from the early Upanishads (which are Vedic) which predate Buddhism and Jainism, then how do those religion not have similiar “doctrines”

Also, can you please show the historical sources that say 1) Manu Smriti was equal to Shariah and was the explicit law of the state in ancient India

“It didn’t seem to have occurred to Sir William Jones to ask whether the legal code, so reminiscent of the Code of Justinian, on the one hand, and the Five Books of Moses on the other, and thus familiar in concept, had recently, or indeed EVER, been applied by actual judges in India to real life. (Which was sort of the point of the exercise of digging it up and imposing it in the first place.)

Apparently it hadn’t. And some of the actual familiarity of its contents to traditionally educated Hindus was due, not to pious consultation of “Manu,” but to big chunks of it appearing, in virtually identical form, in the Sanskrit epic “Mahabharata.” (The literary relationship of these passages is still open to debate.) This is made clear by Doniger and Smith and by Olivelle; although both focus on the work as an example of, and influence, in, the Indian cultural tradition.”

Also, in response to a query of why non-dwija hindus would be proud of Hinduism…. as a non-dwija Hindu myself, I’ll answer it with a quote from Wendy Doniger (who, while I don’t always agree with her, is quite brilliant):

“So I agree with a lot of Hindu mythology and theology, and I think Hinduism describes life better than any other religion. It has a vision of the universe that corresponds more closely to the universe I’ve glimpsed in my 68 years on this planet than other visions of the universe.”

Given that most Hindus (even us low casters, which you and your buddy Boston Mahesh, for some feel the need to speak on behalf of in blanket terms) know their “religion” from mythology, I’d have to agree. I bet both of you are actually brahmins on top of it.

The Hindus of Sri Lanka don’t attend the Buddhist temples of Sri Lanka (or vice-versa).

Ditto for the Buddhists of Maharashtra.

Ditto for the Tibetan refugees at Majnu Ka-Tilla: You will only see them at a Hindu temple incidentally, but they don’t want to amalgamated with the Hindus.

Sikhs are a very open community (unlike some other closed faiths) that welcome everyone – caste no bar. However, Sikhs don’t go to Hindu temples that frequently, and if they did, it was incidentally (or maybe the langar menu didn’t suit their tastes that day).

People here on SM seem to be trying to believe that Sikhs are a type of Hindus, but let me tell you this – they are not. Nor are the Sikhs jumping up and down about their ancestor’s fire rituals, and I know that they frown on that…as do Muslims…Jews…Christians…and Buddhists.

All of humanity have unwholesome practices in the very distant past that they may in the 21st find distasteful. Only a hypocrite would single out ancient brahmanical rites. Other groups (in India even) have even more interesting customs. Do you know about them Gypsy. Did the university that gave you a PhD in brahmin hateology not require a a broad survey. Or is it that those other grunting cave dwellers don’t merit censure being nothing better than animals.

Swamy is not asking one to be proud of negative aspects of a very old and dynamic culture. Societies grow and evolve. Hindu society has and there is pride in that too (unlike people of the book who get stuck in a time and place and context).

“The Vishva Hindu Parishad totally rejects the “Manu Smriti” as it has no place in a civilized society.” (Ashok Singhal, President of VHP)

The Manu Smriti was the Hindu equivalent of Sharia.

Hindus should also be ashamed of the Vedic animal and human sacrifices, as anyone in his right mind would be. The Vedic Ashvamedha, or horse sacrifice, involved not just the killing of the horse but also the simulated copulation with it’s dead body by the Queen! A human sacrifice, Purushamedha, followed a similar format. The horse sacrifice figures in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata as well:

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

Any rational person would have to agree with the atheist Carvaka school’s judgement on this nonsense:

“The three authors of the Vedas were buffoons, knaves and demons. All the well known formulas of the pandits, jarphari, turphari etc and all the obscene rites for the Queen commanded in the Aswamedha were invented by buffoons”

So instead of asking non-hindus to be proud of their Hindu past shouldn’t he be asking Hindus to be ashamed of their past and instead look forward to a better future?