A small point, but can someone tell me why it is that whenever I meet someone from India, he or she strikes me as polite and mannered to the point of diffidence and yet Indian history is filled with episodes of the most shocking, blood-curdling violence imaginable that seems to come on terribly quickly. I mean most mobs in, say, Indonesia or Haiti (just to grab two troubled countries out of the hat) seem to take a few days to warm up before they get to the point of grabbing passersby, drenching them with gasoline and burning them alive.
Is it my imagination or do Indians go from zero to a hundred in about ten seconds? Is this apparent Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy real?
Another question: Is there language in the Hindu sacred texts that would tend to inflame violence? I always thought, naively I'm sure, that Hinduism was not a religion focused on earthly conquest. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all include a history of religious/ethnic conflict in their theology. Does Hinduism?
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