Should Various Scriptural Documents Occupy the Same Shelf?

                                               Should Various Scriptural Documents Occupy the Same Shelf?

Apparently yes. Something called the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill became law stipulating life imprisonment for sacrilege against the Guru Granth Sahib, the Quran, the Bible, and the Bhagavad Gita.”

I wish to stake a short excursion into the last two in the above list, namely “the Bible” and the “Bhagavad Gita.”

Which Bible is being referred to here, the Hebrew Bible (in particular, the Pentateuch) or the Greek Bible, or its supposed English translation, the King James Version or the more recent versions like the New International Version or the Revised Standard Version. Any interpretation of any of these versions could be considered a sacrilege by the group of people who follow the other versions. 

Actually the Hebrew Bible does not sit well with the Christian Bibles. The Hebrew Bible must have undergone many changes as the language would not have been static over, say, 2,000 years. Then, would only the Hebrew Bible that predates all the other available Hebrew Bibles will not be a sacrilege? Something to think about.

I know that in the court of law a Hindu witness takes the oath not on Bhagavad Gita but on a generic (!) God. There is another option, but I will skip that here. Two questions arise: One, why only Bhagavad Gita is given protection against sacrilege and not the other, older texts of Hinduism like the Vedas, Upanishads, Itihas, and Puranas in the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill mentioned in the opening paragraph?

Two, what happens to a Buddhist witness? The Buddha never asked his followers to believe him. He pointedly asked them to go their own way and parse whether what they find lessens their suffering. Then, the Buddhist witness would take an oath on himself! Does Indian law afford this, or even, can afford this? Parsis may take the oath on Avesta, I’d suppose. Why doesn’t the above mentioned bill include it? Oh, maybe Buddhists and Parsis are too honest to come before the court. Or, there are no Parsis and Buddhists in Punjab. I am not leaving out Jains because I do not know the name of their sacred literature. I tender my sincere apologies to them.

Things to think about?

Raghuram Ekambaram