WHAT IS HINDUISM?
such against the socially divisive and destructive effects of
English industrial capitalism and the soul-destroying
‘enlightenment’ concepts of ‘science’ and scientific
‘rationality’ on which it was based. Even the very Kaiser
who led a militarised German nation state into the First
World War in 1914 saw this war as essentially a war to
protect spiritual culture as such against the barbaric, crude and
soul-less ethos of England commercialism, capitalism or
‘Mammonism’ – with its purely pragmatic and utilitarian
‘philosophies’. This anti-capitalist and anti-English message
was most famously expressed in a widespread propaganda
tract^2 entitled Händler und Helden – ‘Traders and Heroes’.
This contrasted the English mentality of the ‘trader’
(Händler) with the German spirit of the hero (Held).
Interestingly, this same message was spelled out also with
reference to India: “This Germany cannot be defeated, nor
can it be made to suffer the same fate as Hindustan. For
today the world soul expresses itself through Germany.”
(Schulze-Gävernitz).
‘Aryan Invasion’ or ‘Out of India’
There has long been a highly charged ‘debate’ between
scholarly proponents of an ‘Aryan Invasion Theory’ (AIT)
or ‘Indo-European Migration Theory’ – who locate the
origins of Indian Vedic culture in central Eurasia, and the
Kurgan culture in particular – and politically motivated