1. FESTIVALS: ‘KARTHIKAI DEEPAM’ is a Hindu Tamils and Hindu Telugu festival. The festival falls in the month of Kārttikai as per Tamil calendar. This occurs on the day when the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Karthigai (Pleiades) and pournami. This constellation appears as a group of six stars in the firmament in the shape of a pendant from the ear. This year in Madurai, the festival was celebrated with piety and fervor on December 5. A large number of devotees thronged Sri Subramaniaswamy Temple at Tirupparankundram to get a glimpse of the ‘Mahadeepam’ lit atop the hillock on December 5. Devotees also stood in the streets around the temple and chanted hymns as the ‘Mahadheepam’ was lit at 6 p.m. Nearly 120 metres of cloth, five kg of camphor and 350 litres of ghee and oil were used for the wick and to fuel the ‘deepam.’ - goTop
2. KAILASH SATYARTHI, MALALA
YOUSAFZAI CONFERRED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Bharatiya
child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai
received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 at an impressive ceremony held
in Oslo, Norway on December 10 for their struggle against the
suppression of children and young people and for the right of all
children to education. This is the first time that a Bharatiya and a
Pakistani have jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize. Satyarthi said
that he was accepting the award on behalf of the martyrs and activists.
"I bow to my late parents, my homeland Bharat, and to mother earth. I
remember all the kids who I have freed," said Satyarthi. "The single aim
of my life is that every child is: free to be a child, free to grow and
develop, free to eat, sleep, see daylight, free to laugh and cry, free
to play, free to learn, free to go to school, and above all, free to
dream," he said. - goTop
3. UNITED NATIONS GENERAL
ASSEMBLY DECLARES JUNE 21 AS 'INTERNATIONAL DAY OF YOGA': This
comes less than three months after Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi proposed
the idea. Through the resolution, adopted under the agenda of 'Global
Health and Foreign Policy,' the UN General Assembly recognised that
Yoga "provides a holistic approach to health and well-being" and that
wider the dissemination of information about benefits of practising
Yoga, would be beneficial for the health of the world population. The
main significance of the UN declaring an International Day is to focus
the attention of the international community on the topic and to
encourage activities among the member states to commemorate the day.
- goTop
4. SAY NO TO DRUGS: PM MODI’S RADIO MESSAGE FOR YOUTH: Pradhan
Mantri Narendra Modi on December 14 called drug addiction menace a
"national pain" that leads to the dark alleys of destruction and
devastation. In his third 'Man Ki Baat' programme on Akashvani, the PM
said instead of the youth mired in the problem, drugs should be shunned.
"Drug addiction is bad, not the child," he said. Calling drug addiction
"a malaise-filled 3D-darkness, destruction, devastation", Modi said a
thinking process should begin to rid the country of this problem.
"Have you thought that the money you spend on drugs might be going to
terrorists who buy bullets to kill our soldiers? You also love mother
Bharat. How can you help terrorists," he told the youth.
Modi also referred to the UN decision declaring June 21 as the
"International Yoga Day" and mentioned how the resolution, proposed by
Bharat, was co-sponsored by a record 177 nations.
- goTop
5. BHARAT'S TEAM INDUS GOES
FOR THE MOON SHOT: Narayan,
an IIT-Delhi alumnus and a space enthusiast who had done several tech
ventures, conceptualized the Moon mission in 2011 when he heard about
the Google Lunar XPrize, a global competition to land a robotic space
craft on the Moon by December 2015. He spoke to some of his friends, and
four agreed to join him - Sameer Joshi, a former Indian Air Force
fighter pilot, Julius Amrit, an investment banker, Dilip Chabria, an
advertising professional, and Indranil Chakrobarthy, an aerospace
engineer.
For Team Indus, a huge boost came in February 2014, when Google Lunar
XPrize named the team among the five finalists for what it called
milestone prizes-teams that had achieved certain technological landmarks
and appeared closest to reaching the final objective. Team Indus was
among three named for the landing system and among four named for the
imaging system. Only two US teams -Astrobotic and Moon Express -were
named in all three categories, including the rover. Since the landing
system is regarded the most complicated and carried the highest prize
money (of $1 million), Team Indus was seen as No. 3 in the race. Another
big boost came three months ago when senior Bharatiya space scientists
did a design review and showered the team with praises.
"We had tears in our eyes when we heard the fantastic evaluation," says
Narayan. V Adimurthy, the Mars orbiter mission designer for ISRO, has
recommended to ISRO that Team Indus be provided launch network and
ground services. Team Indus will also need ISRO's launch vehicle when
the project is ready, and lots more funding in the months to come.
Narayan says he's confident Team Indus can do it.
- goTop
6. ISRO LAUNCHES GSAT-16: Bharat's
advanced communications satellite GSAT-16 was carried into orbit by an
European Ariane 5 rocket, that blasted off from the Kourou spaceport in
French Guiana on December 6. Weighing 3,181.6 kg, GSAT 16, designed by
the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) carries 48 transponders --
automatic receivers and transmitters for communication and broadcast of
signals. The GSAT-16 is equipped with Ku and C-band transponders to
boost telecommunication transmissions on the Bharatiya subcontinent. The
satellite is the 11th among GSAT series and the 24th geo-stationary
communication satellite with a lifespan of 12 years. "GSAT-16 will
replace the INSAT-3E, which expired in April," ISRO satellite centre
director S. Shiva Kumar said. -
goTop
7. SERVICE CHIEFS LEAD BY ‘FITNESS’ EXAMPLE: Men
in uniform have to look smart and fit. And the three Service chiefs live
up to this image leading from the front. Sans pot bellies or extra flab,
they can put any younger officer to shame with their fitness levels.
Army chief General Suhag runs five km on weekdays and 10 km on weekends.
“I became a running enthusiast during my school days and after joining
the National Defence Academy (NDA) it was part of our training.”
For Air Chief Marshal Raha, being a fighter pilot, he has to remain fit
and alert in order to fly sophisticated planes. He also prefers the
treadmill but for him regular yoga is the reason behind his fitness
level and him being in shape.
A visitor to Admiral RK Dhowan’s office could well be bemused to find
the Navy chief standing at the back of a specially-made desk and
disposing of his official work. And he does so throughout the time he is
in his office — “be it seven hours or eight hours”. “I picked up this
habit as a navigator during my younger days. I had to stand on the
bridge of the warship for hours together as part of duty and the only
chair placed there is meant for the captain of the ship,” he says.
Late night parties are a strict no-no for the trio. “We have to be fresh
and alert the next morning,” they stress.
- goTop
8. “PROBLEMS FACED BY
MANIPUR ARE THE PROBLEMS OF THE NATION” said
RSS Sarasanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat while inaugurating conference of
cadres of the organisation at the Bhaigyachandra Open Air Theatre in
Imphal on Dec 7. He said that the people of Manipur are part of the
nation and their problems should be shared and solved by the nation.
King Leishemba Sanajaoba, who was present in the function, said that the
immediate need of Manipur is the reintroduction of the Inner Line Permit
system. He also said that for the sake of posterity, the Armed Forces
(Special Posers) Act 1958 should be repealed and the territorial
integrity of Manipur protected.
A day before on 6th December,
RSS opened a telemedicine unit at its Nagamapal Seva Bharati office
complex, as a major endeavour of the Sangh Pariwar as part of its
healthcare programme in the northeast. RSS Sahsarkaryavah Dr. Krishna
Gopal inaugurated the unit in the presence of a number of swayamsevaks.
A team of medical and technical experts from Jharkhand and West Bengal
have been engaged in the unit, the first-of-its kind in the northeast
set up by the RSS. The new unit would help develop the healthcare system
in the state, Krishna Gopal said.
Besides the health sector, the Sangh Pariwar has also taken up different
education and career-oriented programmes in the northeast, including
'Psychological Mapping Test', (PMT) for students from Classes VI to X.
- goTop
9. ‘EMERGENCY AN AVOIDABLE
MISADVENTURE’: Revealing
minute details of the events leading to the imposition of Emergency in
the country, which included the liberation of Bangladesh and the
Jayaprakash Narayan movement, Rashtrapati Pranab Mukherjee, in his book
The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, has said that the then
Prime Minister was “unaware of the constitutional provisions” of such a
move and it was then West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray
who guided her into the decision. Mr Mukherjee, who terms the imposition
of Emergency an “avoidable event’”, documents his relationship with
Indira Gandhi through her good and bad years. “The Congress and Indira
Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this misadventure,” Mr Mukherjee
says.
“Indira Gandhi told me subsequently that she was not even aware of the
constitutional provisions allowing for the declaration of a state of
emergency on grounds of internal disturbance, particularly since a state
of emergency had already been proclaimed as a consequence of the
Indo-Pak conflict in 1971,” he said.
- goTop
10. CGS BARRACUDA, FIRST
BHARATIYA WARSHIP TO BE EXPORTED: Bharat
will export its first warship later this month, a move that is seen as a
big leap for the country’s defence public sector units. CGS Barracuda, a
75 ft by 15 ft off-shore patrol vehicle, will be handed over to
Mauritius on December 20 and will be first such export by Bharat. The
island nation has bought the ship for about Rs 300 crore. “This is a big
leap for domestic defence manufacturers as this is the first time when
we are delivering a ship that has been purchased by a foreign country,”
sources said. The ship is built by state-owned Garden Reach Shipbuilders
& Engineers Limited. -
goTop
11. MIGRATION NEW MANTRA FOR BHARATIYA PRIESTS: With
more temples coming up in countries like the US, UK, the country's best
and brightest priests are headed abroad. While it is primarily devotion
that drives young Brahmin boys to wake up at 4 am every day to study the
vedas in their decade-long preparation for priesthood, a few ambitious
souls among them are also inspired by the American dream. Over the past
40 years, temples in America have proliferated from one in the 1970s to
around 700 today, opening up prospects for hundreds of Hindu priests.
The 2,500-year-old Kanchi Mutt in Kancheepuram is one of the several
hunting grounds in Bharat for trustees of temples abroad, who make
annual recces to schools of Vedic studies and prominent temples looking
for promising candidates. America and Australia are the preferred
destinations for young priests-in-training, admits Chandrasekhar S
Mehta, PRO at Kanchi Mutt.
A
decade or two ago, homesickness, extreme weather and an uncertain grasp
of English would have driven many holy men back to Hindustan, but as the
expat population abroad grew, so did the kinship.
- goTop
12. SHRIGURUJI WAS LIKE A RISHI—MOHAN BHAGWAT: The
ancestral house of the second Sarasanghachalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS), late Madhav Rao Sadashiv Rao Golwalkar, popularly known as
ShriGuruji was renovated and dedicated to the nation at the hands of
Sarasanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat recently at Ramtek, 50 km from
Nagpur. Acharya Govindadev Giri Mahraj, RSS Sarkaryavaha Shri Bhaiyaji
Joshi and many other dignitaries were also present on the occasion.
The new house has been named “Sw. Bhauji-Tai Golwalkar Smruti Bhavan” in
memory of Shri Guruji’s parents. Sharing his emotions after inauguration
Shri Bhagwat said Sri Guruji’s persona resembled to that of a Vedic
rishi. In spite of his sharp intellect and deep knowledge, he was easily
accessible to all. He took on many challenges of his times and
successfully steered clear the organisation through strife and
turbulence. He appealed to the swayamsevaks to dedicate themselves to
the service of the nation following the ideal of Shri Guruji. Acharya
Govind Dev Giri also praised the mission of Shri Guruji citing good
number of examples to substantiate his point of view.
- goTop
13. YOGA WILL BE PART OF
SCHOOL CURRICULUM: A
day after the United Nations General Assembly accepted Pradhan Mantri
Narendra Modi's proposal and declared June 21 as International Yoga Day,
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on December 12
announced yoga would be included as an integral part of the school
curriculum in the state.
Since 2007, Madhya Pradesh has been observing Yoga Day in January
wherein schoolchildren, government officials, ministers and the CM
publicly participate in a state-wide pranayam and surya namaskar
exercise. - goTop
14. 3 KERALA COMPANIES HAVE
MORE GOLD THAN SWEDEN, SINGAPORE, AUSTRALIA: Three
gold loan companies in Kerala – Muthoot Finance, Manappuram Finance and
Muthoot Fincorp – jointly hold nearly 200 tonnes of gold jewellery,
which is higher than the gold reserves of Singapore, Sweden or
Australia. Muthoot Finance 116 tonnes of gold as security for its loans,
Manappuram Finance has 40 tonnes and Muthoot Fincorp, 39 tonnes. The
trio's combined holdings are 195 tonnes. To put things in global
perspective, Singapore's gold reserves are 127 tonnes, Sweden's 126
tonnes, South Africa's 125 tonnes and Mexico's 123 tonnes. Bharat,
according to the World Gold Council, has the 11th largest gold reserves,
with 558 tonnes. - goTop
15. STOP DIABETES MELLITUS
THROUGH YOGA THERAPY: SEWA INTERNATIONAL AND SVYASA CAMP AT HOUSTON: “This
was by far the best program in this center with highest rate of
retention”, said William Rees ‘Billy’, Senior Consultant with DAWN
(Diabetes Awareness & Wellness Network) facility in the 3rd ward area of
downtown Houston. The 20 hour program to manage Diabetes through Yoga
therapy was conducted in partnership with City of Houston Health
department. This was 4th such camp offered by Sewa International and
VYASA in Houston. 15 residents of third ward area participated in this
camp which was spread over 3 weekends. Melanie Gilmore, (Health Planning
Chief with Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS),
Division of Aging, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention (ACDIP),
expressed great joy and shared her happiness that so many participants
could participate and benefit from this program . She and her family
prepared delicious vegetarian soup and sandwiches for all participants
and encouraged all to continue the practices which they found
beneficial. - goTop
16. HINDU COUNCIL'S TALENT@60
SHOW IMPRESSES: The
Hindu Council of Kenya hosted the inaugural 'Talent at 60 and over'
concert on November 29. The idea of Shaina Shah, director, Social and
Relief Welfare committee of the Hindu Council of Kenya, organizer of the
event was to recognise the unknown and bring out the hidden talent of
the people who are in their golden, diamond and platinum ages. The guest
of honour was Dr Magan Chandaria. There were 15 entries with a variety
of talents. The participants performed singing, dancing, reciting and
acting. They also spoke on happiness. The talent show went on for more
than three hours. - goTop
17. BHARATIYA WINS ICT
MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT AWARD: Jayprakash
Panwar a Bharatiya won a mountain development award in Nepal along with
Avinash Jha and Sibjan Chaulagain of Nepal, Suleman Mazhar of Pakistan
and HELVETAS Swiss Inter-cooperation. The award given by the
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
reflects the increasing importance of the potential of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) in improving the lives and livelihoods
of mountain communities. The winners will receive USD 250 along with a
certificate of recognition.
ICT Mountain Development Award is given by the Nepal-based International
Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)for promoting
innovations and good practices for environmental conservation in the
Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The award seeks to recognise ICT-enabled
innovations, good practices, and applications that help promote mountain
development and environmental conservation in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH)
region. - goTop
18. 3 BHARATIYAS VIE FOR $1
MN PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING TEACHERS: Three
teachers from Bharat have made it to the top 50 exceptional teachers
shortlisted for a new $1 million Global Teacher Prize. The teachers, two
from Gujarat and one from West Bengal, were selected from nearly 5,000
nominations from 127 countries for the Varkey GEMS Foundation Global
Teacher Prize, instituted by a UAE-based NRI educationist. The Bharatiya
teachers among the global top 50 include Kiran Bir Sethi, who teaches at
the Riverside School in Ahmedabad; Hira Prasad, who is from Birla High
School Junior Section in Kolkata, and Bijal Damani of S N Kansagra
School (The Galaxy Education System) in Rajkot. The winner of the prize,
created to recognise an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding
contribution to the profession, will be announced at the Global
Education and Skills Forum in Dubai on March 16, 2015.
- goTop
19. BHARATIYA-ORIGIN
EX-MINISTER SHRITI VADERA TO CHAIR BRITISH BANK: Bharatiya-origin
Shriti Vadera has been appointed as chairman of Santander UK, becoming
the first woman to head a major British bank. 52-year-old Vadera, former
minister in the UK's finance ministry, will join the board of Santander
UK as joint deputy chairman in January before succeeding Terence Burns
in March next year. She will also join a very exclusive club of just
three FTSE 100 firms, listed on the London Stock Exchange with the
highest market capitalisation, with women as their chair. Vadera was a
Labour minister in the Cabinet Office, Business Department and
International Development Department from 2007 to 2009 and served in the
House of Lords. - goTop
20. REMNANTS OF SHIVA TEMPLE
FOUND DURING EXCAVATION AT MOSQUE IN GUJARAT: Remnants
of a Shiva temple having two shrines were found during an excavation
carried out at Jami Masjid mosque and its adjacent areas in Gujarat
about 35 years ago, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on December
10. Replying to a question whether two ancient Shiva temples were traced
in Jami Masjid at Sidhpur district in Gujarat between May, 1979 and
April, 1980 in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma
said that "while exposing parts of mosque and adjacent area after
removal of modern buildings, the remnants of a Shiva temple having two
shrines were found."
On the details of scientific excavations carried out at the
archaeological monuments of Rudramahalaya and Jami Masjid at Sidhpur
district of Patan in Gujarat during the same period, he said plinth of
the temple was exposed and sculptures, architectural members, decorative
mouldings were found after scientific excavations.
- goTop
21. KOREAN TEMPLE IN AYODHYA
COULD HELP FORGE TIES: A
Korean monument in Ayodhya, built to commemorate a fable, could serve as
a platform for the two countries to forge closer cultural ties. The
legend goes like this: About two thousand years ago, a Bharatiya
princess from Ayodhya — known as Queen Huh from the Gaya dynasty —
travelled to South Korea and married a Korean king. The stories about
the Bharatiya princess are part of one of Korea’s important epics, the
Sam Guk Yoo Sa, and are taught in schools. “There is no historical
record but in Korea, it is a fact of history,” Kim Ki-Jae, president of
the Central Garak Clan Society (CGCS) said.
Kim, who is the former mayor of Busan, the country’s second largest
city, said a monument to mark the legend was built in Ayodhya in 2001
with the help of the Bharatiya and Korean embassies, Uttar Pradesh
government and generous donations by Koreans. Since then, every year
around 100 members from the CGCS visit the site, take part in
traditional Korean ceremonies and are felicitated by the local
authorities. - goTop
22.
SHRI VISHWA NIKETAN:
Pravas`: Ma Suresh Soni sah sarkaryavaha RSS will return Bharat after
finishing his tour to Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and
Myanmar. Shri Saumitra Gokhale samyojak Vishwa Vibhag returned to USA
from Bharat, Ravikumar sahsamyojak returned from Thailand. Dr. Ram
Vaidya sah samyojak returned to UK.
Visitors:
Smt & Shri Madhusudan Sukhwal - France, Ma Ramesh Bhutadaji & family,
and Rakshapal Sood - USA, Anil Shringi - Canada, Gayatri Mishra -
Zambia.' - goTop
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I
am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of your
unworthy servants. I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the
descendants of the sages, you the descendants of the most of glorious
Rishis the world ever saw. Therefore have faith in yourselves, be proud
of your ancestors. – Swami
Vivekananda. - goTop
JAI SHREE RAM
YEZIDIS AND HINDUS MAKE
COMMON CAUSE UNDER ‘PEACOCK ANGEL’
Patrick Harrigan
A delegation of top Yezidi spiritual and political leaders visited
Washington DC October 24-31 seeking support for their threatened
minority and sacred sites in northern Iraq that are currently surrounded
by ISIS fighters, who aim to ‘cleanse the Islamic State’ of any trace of
the ‘pagan’ ancient religious minority who worship Melek Ta’us, the
‘Peacock Angel’.
In a deeply symbolic act, the Baba Sheikh, spiritual leader of the
Yezidis, visited the Washington temple of the pan-Bharatiya war god
Skanda-Murugan on October 29 to witness Soora Samhāram, the ritual
conclusion of Skanda Sashti, ‘Skanda’s Six-Day War’ against demonic
forces threatening the earth. It was the first time ever that the Yezidi
spiritual leadership visited a temple of the peacock-mounted war god of
Bharat, whom Yezidis identify with Melek Ta’us, the ‘Peacock Angel’ whom
they consider to be God’s regent on earth.
In the Yezidi faith, Melek Ta’us is regarded as the foremost among
archangels and an emanation of God Himself. Yezidi religion is centered
upon Melek Ta’us, who is depicted as a peacock. Peacocks, however, are
not native to the lands where Melek Ta’us is worshipped, but to the
Bharatiya subcontinent.
According to their own oral traditions, Yezidis once lived in India
thousands of years ago. Yezidis, moreover, still preserve a system of
four castes that do not intermarry. And they also believe in karma and
rebirth, which are core tenets of Hindu Dharma.
According to the Yezidi calendar, it is currently the year 6,764.
Scholars of religion concede that the Yezidi faith has absorbed and
preserved many elements from ancient faiths including Sanatana Dharma,
Mithraism, and Zoroastrianism, as well as the influence of Sufis or
Islamic mystics—all targets of hardline ISIS fundamentalism.
“The Yezidis are a very special religious community because they’re one
of the only remaining religions in the Middle East with non-Abrahamic
origins,” says Matthew Barber, a scholar at the University of Chicago’s
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
“The Yezidi religion has absorbed elements from many religious
traditions in the Near East, but within their religious framework are
preserved some very ancient beliefs that no longer survive in any other
religion. The reason that ISIS attacks the Yezidi community in this way
is because they view them as pagan and polytheistic because they’re
outside of the Abrahamic religions that have a written scripture.”
The Baba Sheikh and his entourage evinced a keen interest in the Hindu
war god’s associations with the peacock. They were astonished to see
tall standing brass oil lamps surmounted by peacocks, identical to the
sanjaks or brass peacock lamps that play a central role in one of the
most important events of the Yezidi New Year—the ‘Parade of the Sanjaks’
or ‘Parade of the Peacock’.
The war god Skanda Kumara was among North India’s most popular deities
during the Classical Age in the first millennium of the Common Era. He
remains extremely popular in South India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and
worldwide among the Tamil Hindu diaspora where he is known as Murugan,
the ‘tender youth’ associated with poetry, love, and war.
The Baba Sheikh blessed Hindus who were
observing the Skanda Sashti Soora Samhāram at the Washington temple. He
remarked to them that this startling confluence of Yezidi and Hindu
worship was also happening on a Wednesday, which is the Sabbath day of
the Yezidis.
The Baba Sheikh urged listeners to
strive for peace worldwide and not to descend into bigotry and
intolerance that are the hallmarks of religious fundamentalism. Hindus
and Yezidis alike marveled at the uncanny convergence of two ancient
faiths on Skanda Sashti, and all prayed that their Lord of the Peacock
would answer the fervent prayers of Yezidis in Iraq and worldwide.
The author is an American indologist
specializing since 1972 in the Sri Lankan shrine Kataragama, regarded as
sacred by the island’s Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and indigenous
communities. -- December 8, 2014, WHN
- goTop
SANSKRIT MESMERIZED WESTERN
INTELLECTUALS
Salial Gewali
Sir William Jones first translated
Kalidasa’s Shakuntala from the original Sanskrit into English in 1789.
This stirred the minds and hearts of the top European intellectuals that
include Johann Goethe, Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, August
Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, et al.
Very impressed by the language and its
philosophical plot the father of the German literature (J. Goethe)
learnt the Sanskrit on his own. And, he plunged into this ancient play
Shakuntala for the whole thirty years. He even wrote an insightful poem
eulogizing this play. Again, George Forster translated this Kalidas’s
work into German in 1791. In a span of some decades sprouted 46
translations into fourteen European languages.
On the other hand the translation of the
Bhagavad Gita by Charles Wilkins in 1784 and Upanishads by Anquetil
Duperron in 1801 opened up unprecedented vistas for the philosophical
regeneration hitherto unknown in the European literature. ‘Oneness of
the universe’ of the Vedanta seemed very plausible to the philosophical
psyche of the western scholars.
Again, one of the fathers of Modern
linguistic Franz Bopp and a great philosopher Friedrich Schlegel, both
from Germany, laid the revolutionary foundation of the comparative
linguistic by freely borrowing from Panini’s “Ashtadhyayi” which was
later further developed by the language giants like Ferdinand de
Saussure, Leonard Bloomfield and Noam Chomsky. Panini, who was an
enlightened sage of 4th BC Bharat, was the first to systematically put
down the comprehensive Grammar of Sanskrit language. This treatise
consists of about 3959 sutras which can handle the nuances and
intricacies of any languages in the universe, empirically and
anatomically.
Having been too bewitched by the
Sanskrit language a most renowned American linguist Leonard Bloomfield
exclaims --- “It was in India, however, that there rose a body of
knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about
language. Panini Grammar taught Europeans to analyze speech forms; when
one compared the constituent parts, the resemblances, which hitherto had
been vaguely recognized, could be set forth with certainty and
precision." Yes, here at home we prefer to call Sanskrit as a dead
language, and instead, with enthusiasm and hubris chose to learn German.
There are countless western scholars and
scientists who have overwhelmingly acknowledged the exceptional richness
of Sanskrit language wherein they saw an immense scope in the
development of an area of studies. Voltaire, Hegel, Schopenhauer,
Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, TS Eliot, Neils Bohr, Schrodinger,
Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, Mark Twain, Car Jung, J. D. Salinger and others
learnt Sanskrit or studied Sanskrit literature to strengthen their
intellectual prowess.
John Archibald Wheeler –a famous modern
physicist who first coined Black Hole and Warm Hole and occupied the
chair that had previously been held by Albert Einstein, enthuses – ‘One
has the feeling that the thinkers of the East (INDIA) knew it all, and
if we could only translate their answers into our language we would have
the answers to all our questions.’ With the same vigor bursts out
another physicist Erwin Schrodinger, known as the father of Quantum
Mechanics --- “Some blood transfusion from INDIA to the West is a must
to save Western science from spiritual anemia.”
Here are my few earnest questions -- had
all these rational thinkers, scientists, writers whose theories,
principles, literature, formulae and equations we study in schools and
colleges and thus claim ourselves as academically qualified, gone crazy
to heap high praise on Sanskrit and its literary treasure troves? How
can we claim to be BHARATIYA when we joyfully belittle and undermine our
own heritage? What is it that makes us to see only flaws in our Mother
even without ever making a bit of genuine effort to know and realize her
uncanny virtues?
I don’t think we have ever seen any
country in the world that its citizens speak ill of their heritage,
their tradition and values - however archaic, rustic and crude they may
be. Why does it touch our raw nerves when someone appreciates the values
and culture of the native land? Sanskrit and the myriad scriptures
produced in this grand language are as resplendent as the Sun ball over
our head. Can you ignore the Sun? I don’t think François Voltaire was a
big fool to announce with vehemence about 300 years ago ---- ‘Everything
has come down to us from the bank of GANGA’; ‘The first Greeks travelled
to India to instruct themselves’; ‘India, whom whole Earth need, who
needs no one, must by that very fact the most civilized land’. Should it
not call for a dispassionate introspection and thus our self-correction
and reawakening?
is a Hindu Tamils and Hindu Telugu festival. The festival falls in the month
of Kārttikai as
per Tamil calendar. This occurs on the day when the moon is in conjunction
with the constellation Karthigai (Pleiades) and pournami. This constellation
appears as a group of six stars in the firmament in the shape of a pendant
from the ear. This year in Madurai, the festival was celebrated with piety
and fervor on December 5. A large number of devotees thronged Sri
Subramaniaswamy Temple at Tirupparankundram to get a glimpse of the
‘Mahadeepam’ lit atop the hillock on December 5. Devotees also stood in the
streets around the temple and chanted hymns as the ‘Mahadheepam’ was lit at
6 p.m. Nearly 120 metres of cloth, five kg of camphor and 350 litres of ghee
and oil were used for the wick and to fuel the ‘deepam.’
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