Note that we need not agree with the Śāstrakāra-s that the varnāśramadharma is truly “Vedic”, for we do not find it in the first nine books of the Rg… - Koenraad Elst

Politicized Indian invasionists usually claim goddess worship as a redeeming native, non-Aryan, “matriarchal” and “humanist” contribution to the “patriarchal” and “oppressive” Hindu religion, but now it turns out to have been brought along by the Bactrian invaders: how one invasionist can upset another invasionist’s applecart.

He was essentially a Western-educated man, and had imbibed some of the condescending incomprehension so typical of westernized Natives. Yet, among this class of Western-educated Indians, there is hardly any who has to such extent freed himself from pervasive prejudices and fashionable beliefs, such as the claim of a racial basis of caste. Because he himself had suffered the humiliation which many caste Hindus kept on inflicting on the untouchables, it is not abnormal that he was intemperately bitter against Hinduism. Nevertheless, he remained loyal to Hinduism in the broad sense, and rejected eager offers to take his followers into mass conversion to soul- greedy and imperialist religions.

The ancient Arab traders went on pilgrimage to the Somnath temple, because in the moon-bearing Shiva they recognized their own moon-god Hubal. And conversely, Indian traders doing business in Arabia went to the Kaaba in Mecca because its presiding deity Hubal was clearly their own Shiva. Yes, in the human netherworld there were local differences, but these were not consequential. The places from which you see the starry sky are different, but the stars in heaven are the same. So, I have decided to focus on the absolute unity of heaven, more than on the relative difference of the vantage-points on earth. Therefore, I don’t care anymore about being from here or from there, the truth would in each case turn out to be the same. It doesn’t change anything to my worldview or my way of life whether I artificially try to change myself into a Hindu or naturally define myself as being European and all other levels of identity that happen to apply to me.