Re: New conlang - Ichwara Prana

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 18:08:53 +0200, Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:

> On Nov 22, 2004, at 6:00 PM, Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
>> Well, since the population consists entirely of Hindus and Buddhists,
>> as you can see on the history page:
>>   http://www.choton.org/ichwara/history.html
>> and as such the Bible (and Christian beliefs in general) are totally
>> alien to them, they just adopted the Jewish bible translation with
>> the names given in it (Hashem, Jahwe etc.), since that's closer to
>> their own polytheistic religion. All those names are always regarded
>> as separate entities.
>> Actually, they'd rather bite off their tongue than speaking of "god",
>> and the "GD" from the Jewish bible is always reproduced as "Gada"
>> (and only regarded as one of many entities).
>
>I'm not sure what you mean.
>"Hashem" isn't a name on it's own - it's a euphemism for the
>Tetragrammaton (Y..H).
I know. However, it is regarded as a name of its own, as the name of a
separate entity.

>What do you mean by "Jewish bible translation"?
There's an online version here:
http://www.breslov.com/bible/bible.htm

>How are the Jewish variety of names for the Divine closer to their
>polytheistic religion than the Christian, Muslim, etc. names?  I don't
>know of any religion that always refers to its divine figure(s) in the
>same way all the time.
Because the Jewish variety of names can made to fit the poly-theistic scheme
by stating that every name belongs to a separate entity.

>I've encountered many Buddhists and Hindus using the word "God",
>although the meaning of the term wouldn't exactly match the meaning
>implied when a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Baha'i, Aten-worshipping Ancient
>Egyptian, or any other monotheist or monolater would use it.  In fact,
>i've been told by Hindus that all of their many gods are actually
>different forms of a One God.  Are the Hindus and Buddhists in your
>alternate history so  radically different from Hindus and Buddhists
>*here* that they find the idea of monotheism so horrible?
You got it :)
I really wouldn't call it "radically different" though.
Monotheism is seen as very harmful and disruptive to a harmonic society, so
it is very looked down upon, and any monotheistic beliefs are strictly
prohibited. Only polytheistic forms of Hinduism and Buddhism are practised.
Also, while there are some gods which are more important than other gods,
there is no highest god in either. In the local Hinduism, all gods are
classified into castes, just like the humans. In the local Buddhism, all
gods are viewed as being equally important and on the same level, including
Buddha himself.
While Hinduism still has a slight majority, Buddhism is getting more and
more popular, especially among younger people (and in bigger towns, as
already mentioned), so it probably will overtake Hinduism soon.

(Hmmm... I think I should put that on my web page as well.)

--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of Choton
official Choton homepage:
http://www.choton.org

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