While the Gods Play Quotes

“The idea that modern civilization started practically from scratch, from a single source of ape-men several millennia ago, has distorted, or caused to be ignored, information that has reached us just as much by tradition as through archaeological finds. We are so fascinated by the technological advances of the last centuries of modern civilization that we simply forget the periods of obscurantism that preceded them and the differences in the level of development of the various peoples of the world. We tend to consider "progress" a continuous and general phenomenon stretching from the apes to Einstein. Yet the history of man is not one of regular development. It is characterized by a succession of developments and regressions related to astrological and climatic cycles. Barbaric races, still in their infancy, destroy civilizations that had been developed by older, more evolved populations, doing away with the sciences and arts, yet allowing some scraps of knowledge to survive which serve as the basis of the development of new cultures. On all continents we can find traces of outstanding cultures and advanced technologies belonging to bygone ages, followed by periods of barbarism and ignorance.”
― Alain Daniélou, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind

“The disdain shown toward these texts by most of the modern Orientalists, who wanted to relate everything back to the Vedä(s) (as, moreover, the Western world does to the Greeks), has led them to make monumental errors in dating and describing the evolution of religious and philosophical concepts. Many passages of the best-known texts of philosophical and religious brahmanic literature written in the Sanskrit language are derived from the Âgamä(s). This is the case with, for example, the Bhagavat Gîtâ, of which over half the verses are borrowed from the Parameshvarä Âgamä and three of which passages are quotations from the Shvetâshvatarä Upanishad, which is itself based on the Âgamä(s).2”
― Alain Daniélou, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind

“If we wish to understand Indian thought, we must return to its sources, that is, to the great civilization that preceded the arrival of the Aryans, which has continued to the present time and of which the Shaiva religion, the cosmological theory called Sâmkhyä, the practices of Yogä, as well as the bases of what we consider to be the Hindu philosophy, are part.”
― Alain Daniélou, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind

“Human efforts are ineffective" (N'atthi purisakare) was the slogan of the Âjîvikä(s).”
― Alain Daniélou, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind

“The spiritual decadence of man, according to Hindu tradition, goes hand in hand with progress in metallurgy from the Golden Age (Satyä Yugä) to the Iron Age (Kali Yugä).”
― Alain Daniélou, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind