This is an important piece of article for us to think deep.
This is an important piece of article for us to think deep. The role of language in our future narratives, say in about 10-20 years time frame is what is touched upon in this article. My take is that - if we need to become a society of true intellectuals we need to communicate the depths of our shastra in our own mother tongue - which I suppose is not difficult as all our mother tongues have sufficient Sanskrit words to convey the message much easier very close to Sanskrit. When I say our shastra - think in the lines of various scientific undercurrents intertwined with our Samskriti (loosly culture), vyavahara /laukika dharma (meta rules), mulyataa (value system) , purushartha (life's purpose ), vividhyam (diversity), darshana (meta physical philosophy), sarvam brahmamayam (pantheistic outlook), etc.
Earlier on another occasion I wrote about some of the scholar Pravachana karta - such as
Sri. Nochur Venkataraman, Sri. Dushyant Sridhar, and many others in Tamil,
Sri. Koteswara Rao, Sri. Samavedam Shanmukha sharma in Telugu,
Sri. K.G. Subbaraya Sharma in Kannada, Dr. Gopalakrishnan (IISH) in Malayalam and many such people - they are all indeed doing the knowledge distribution service to the society. I am not sure whether such kind of Sanskrit /Vedic /Vedantic scholarly pravachana karta (not Swami /Baba types but householder types) do drive the informal inquiry into our shastra in Northern India.
In the past, about 20/30 years back the format and model was mostly on "Hari Katha Kalakshepam" and the coverage again was mostly on Ramayanam, Mahabharatam and Bhagavatapuranam.
With the arrival of Swami Chinmayananda - the focus shifted to slowly to Bhagavadgita. Today Pravachana Kara are doing pravachanam on Bhagavadgita, Upanishad, Brahmasutra, etc. - the listeners are maturing indeed.
As Veda and dharmashastra says that the purpose of Veda /shastra is to firmly put one in the path of (dharma-artha-kaama) Moksha. For this purpose, there is no better tool other than Sanskrit and/or mother tongue. Also there is no better method other than shravanam, mananam, nidhidyaasanam and then satsangam (here satsangam I don't mean group of people meeting /bhajan /listening to pravachanam, etc.)
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/the-role-of-indigenous-languages-in-indias-development/
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/the-role-of-indigenous-languages-in-indias-development
Earlier on another occasion I wrote about some of the scholar Pravachana karta - such as
Sri. Nochur Venkataraman, Sri. Dushyant Sridhar, and many others in Tamil,
Sri. Koteswara Rao, Sri. Samavedam Shanmukha sharma in Telugu,
Sri. K.G. Subbaraya Sharma in Kannada, Dr. Gopalakrishnan (IISH) in Malayalam and many such people - they are all indeed doing the knowledge distribution service to the society. I am not sure whether such kind of Sanskrit /Vedic /Vedantic scholarly pravachana karta (not Swami /Baba types but householder types) do drive the informal inquiry into our shastra in Northern India.
In the past, about 20/30 years back the format and model was mostly on "Hari Katha Kalakshepam" and the coverage again was mostly on Ramayanam, Mahabharatam and Bhagavatapuranam.
With the arrival of Swami Chinmayananda - the focus shifted to slowly to Bhagavadgita. Today Pravachana Kara are doing pravachanam on Bhagavadgita, Upanishad, Brahmasutra, etc. - the listeners are maturing indeed.
As Veda and dharmashastra says that the purpose of Veda /shastra is to firmly put one in the path of (dharma-artha-kaama) Moksha. For this purpose, there is no better tool other than Sanskrit and/or mother tongue. Also there is no better method other than shravanam, mananam, nidhidyaasanam and then satsangam (here satsangam I don't mean group of people meeting /bhajan /listening to pravachanam, etc.)
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/the-role-of-indigenous-languages-in-indias-development/
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/the-role-of-indigenous-languages-in-indias-development
Your idea of seeing a bright vibrant intellectually strong India after a decade or two is excellent Probably you remember, with the same idea in the last century late 1950 and early 1960 ,late Mr Guljarilal Nanda promoted the propagation of our culture through various organizations including all matts like Sringeri, Sivananda, Swamy Chinmayananda etc. But for political reason it was a big failure. Now with your initiative let us join hands again for an intellectual strong India. Good luck. I am with you
ReplyDeleteSincerely I am not doing anything other than learning myself and sharing within a very small group people in person and occasionally writing in such forums. Thus I am in no way doing even a minuscule percentage of what many people are doing or have done. I also don't know what Sri. Gulzarilal Nanda has done specifically for Bharatiya shastra education, etc. One thing that I wish to see that, people shouldn't fall for cheap /short cut methods with respect to Jnaana (loosely - "collective knowledge") of a civilization which is time immemorial, because there exists none. Also I am not a teacher of something like that nor wish to become one. Thus I suppose someone worthy and destined should lead. There are many great scholars in small pockets, but the questions that remain are "whether are we matured enough to identify them ?" and once identified "are we courageous enough drop our pretense and willing to learn" and finally "what is our motive for this learning".
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