Wednesday, July 27, 2011
FOREIGN MINISTER OF PAKISTAN IS IN INDIA; WHAT FOR
AUM.
HINA RABBANI kHAR IS BUILDING BRIDGES OR DISMANTLING
By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM
Hina, foreign minister of Pakistan is here in India to make friends, to strengthen friendship between the two arch-rivals so that a new and relaxed atmosphere is created. An assured security will bring in prosperity; if prosperity comes, can Peace be far behind?
Hina has her task cut out. She knows it has pitfalls. She wishes to be a success when stalwarts like Zulfiqar Bhutto had failed. Perhaps it was a deliberate failure to gain mileage to rule Pakistan after whipping up anti-India emotions. Hina has a different road to travel on. Hina Rabbani professes that she is not carrying any baggage from the past. However, we should not forget that not long ago she was a member of the PML(Q), a political party that was nurtured by General Pervez Musharraf. This gives her an advantage too. The Pakistan Army, a force in political arena of the Islamic Republic, is on board with her. No more no less.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED
Hina has broken Zulfiqar's record of being the youngest foreign minister of Pakistan. Friend Zulfi was just 35 when sworn- in, in the General Ayub Khan cabinet. Hina has broken that record as she is just 34 and sitting confidently in saddle as the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Times have changed and much water has flown down the Ganges in India and the Indus in Pakistan between the years of Zulfi and Hina. While it must be conceded to the Truth that the two nuclear-armed countries are not yet friendly but multi-faceted plans and projects have been launched to give a semblance of peace and friendship. Achieving Peace Perfect may appear to be chasing a Mirage and both Hina and her Indian counterpart, Krishna know it.
Hina cannot wipe out the inimical feelings between the two countries in just one trip to New Delhi. However, her dialogues with the Indian leaders may reduce the level of animosity between the Saffron and the Green.
FAUX PAS ON DAY ONE
Hina Rabbani Khar met the separatist leaders of Kashmir on the first day of setting her foot on the Indian soil. Among those whom the Pakistan High Commission in NewDelhi hosted to meet the new Foreign Minister were the diehard separatist Gilani and pro-Pakistan Mir Waiz. Examining the event diplomatically, an astute diplomat would not hesitate to say that Hina Rabbani Khar should have met the Indian leaders first before seeing the separatist Kashmiri leaders and thus indirectly stoking the fire of unrest, violence and hatred for India. Allow me to call a spade a spade and say "Dear Foreign Minister of Pakistan, you have not put your best foot forward on the Indian soil and it has detracted from peace efforts being made by the two neighbours.
When the two erstwhile belligerent nations do sabre rattling more often than emit signals of Peace and brotherhood, every step that the negotiating leaders take should exude sweetness of a Rose and not bitterness of bitter gourd. More so when the leaders of India and Pakistan talking Peace happen to be Foreign Ministers of their respective countries. When the Pakistan Foreign Minister met the separatist Kashmiri diehards, the world was watching with powerful binoculars despite the parleys being held behind thick curtains of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. The not so subtle comment could be: Pakistan has Peace on lips but hidden dagger in hand to stab in the back. Well, does it mean that Hina is here just to pay lip service to Peace? In other words Pakistan is pursuing the cloak and dagger policy directly and not through its notorious ISI. Be that as it may Pakistan is committed to follow its own agenda and India has its own. Nevertheless, stoking the fire of separatism and promoting Kashmiris who advocate secessionism was certainly not the best diplomacy that Pakistan practised on the Indian soil.
Hina Rabbani Khar, your credibility as a negotiator for Peace on the Continent has taken a beating. The dent thus made in the image of the Peace maker would not be watered down despite all the charm that you exude through your good looks and perfect etiquette. Being a member of the landed aristocracy of southern Punjab and having received education in Lahore and Massachusetts, your art of conversation is above reproach. However, it is the wrong advice of bureaucrats and diplomats of yesteryears in Islamabad who still believe in fomenting trouble between the two neighbours. They have to be reined in.
Should the foreign minister realise the diplomatic faux pas committed in receiving and talking to the Hurriyat diehards before meeting the Indian minister, she may make amends by suitably advising those bearded gentlemen of the Kashmir valley to contribute to Peace and not indulge in senseless violence.
The diplomatic world will wait and watch how Hina and Krishna talk Peace in 2012 and what their achievements will be. The parleys should not be reduced to just a photo-op.
WHAT DID TALKS ACHIEVE
Frankly speaking the talks in New Delhi in July 2011 were an exercise in futility. The two ministers met, they smiled diplomatically and they parted with a promise to meet again. In the diplomatic language the talks were described as good because they were held in cordial atmosphere. The two ministers agreed to press on with confidence building measures like release of unwanted prisoners from Jails, increasing trade across the border and bringing the culprits of 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai to justice soon. Hina got away with the excuse that the legal system in both the countries is rather slow. At best the talks provided a good photo opportunity. That is it.
India seems to be a loser in not having succeeded in bringing the Islamist Terror to the table of discussion in a forceful way. There is no mention of Pakistan’s ISI providing support to acts of terrorism in India. Hina Rabbani Khar described our view of Terror as Dated. In other words what India complains is not relevant to today’s talks. She scored a point for Pakistan. Again, she justified her meeting the separatist leaders of Kashmir as reaching out to people in a democratic set up and her foreign secretary defended it as not being anti-India. Total rubbish their pleas were as they acted against India on ground and professed Peace on paper. No wonder Nirupama Rao, our foreign secretary admitted that she was not happy with the progress of peace talks between the two neighbours.
India should not have allowed separatist leaders to meet the foreign minister of Pakistan on the soil of India as it would give a boost to secession of Kashmir from India.
Well, all said and done, there is no requirement to meet leaders of the government of Pakistan if they are not prepared to discuss Terror and discontinue other measures taken by their agencies to destabilise India. Fake Indian currency is being printed in Pakistan and sent to India to disrupt our economy and we do not even mention it in a joint meeting like the present one.
The lack of will and effort on the part of India to press its points and make Pakistan listen to what we say only means that one of the Indian top leaders is angling for Nobel Peace Prize and, therefore, he is projecting himself as the Messiah of Peace and harbinger of tranquillity and prosperity. The facts on the ground speak otherwise. May I advise the said gentlemen to sleep in comfort as no Nobel Prize is likely to come his way.
Mobile- 9811173590.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Must read for all who want to see Samskirta learned and promoted - IT IS NASA research center
There has recently been an astounding discovery made at the NASA research center. The following quote is from an article Sanskrit & Artificial Intelligence, which appeared in AI (Artificial Intelligence) magazine in spring of 1985, written NASA researcher Rick Briggs:
"In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor.
But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of liguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old."
This discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for at least 3000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA, the most advanced research center in the world for cutting-edge technology, has discovered that Sanskrit, the world's oldest spiritual language, is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet.
In early AI research it was discovered that in order to clear up the inherent ambiguity of natural languages for computer comprehension, it was necessary to utilize semantic net systems to encode the actual meaning of a sentence. Briggs gives the example of how a simple sentence would be represented in a semantic net.
He further comments, "The degree to which a semantic net (or any unambiguous nonsyntactic representation) is cumbersome and odd-sounding in a natural language is the degree to which that language is 'natural' and deviates from the precise or 'artificial.' As we shall see, there was a language (Sanskrit) spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero."
Considering Sanskrit's status as a spiritual language, a further implication of this discovery is that the age-old dichotomy between religion and science is an entirely unjustified one. It is also relevant to note that in the last decade, physicists have begun to comment on the striking similarities between their own discoveries and the discoveries made thousands of years ago in India which went on to form the basis of most Eastern religions.
Considering the high level of collaboration required in uncovering the nature of energy and matter, it is inconceivable that it ever could have taken place without a common language, namely mathematics. This is a perfect example of using a language for discovering and designing life. The language of mathematics, being inherently unambiguous, minimizes personal interpretation and therefore maximizes opportunity for exploration and discovery. The result of this is a worldwide community of scientists working together with extraordinary vitality and excitement about uncovering the unknown.
It can also be inferred that the discoveries that occurred in India in the first millennia B.C. were also the result of collaboration and inquiry by a community of spiritual scientists utilizing a common scientific language, Sanskrit. The truth of this is further accented by the fact that throughout the history and development of Indian thought, the science of grammar and linguistics was attributed a status equal to that of mathematics in the context of modern scientific investigation. In deference to the thoroughness and depth with which the ancient grammatical scientists established the science of language, modern linguistic researchers in Russia have concluded about Sanskrit, "The time has come to continue the tradition of the ancient grammarians on the basis of the modern ideas in general linguistics."
Sanskrit is the most ancient of all languages. From its sisters, Latin and Greek, most of the modern European languages have been derived. Sanskrit use can be traced as far back as before the first millennia B.C.; the only preserved language to which Sanskrit was originally related is Vedic. The oldest extant example of the literature of the Vedic period is the Rig-Veda. Being strictly in verse, the Rig-Veda does not give us a record of the contemporary spoken language. Still it is believed that Vedic coexisted with Sanskrit originally as a living language.
The term "Vedic Sanskrit" is more appropriate to later Vedic prose which exhibits features that imply the influence of Sanskrit. The very name "Sanskrit" meant "language brought to formal perfection" in contrast to the common languages, or "natural" languages (Prakrita).
Although there existed an older form of Sanskrit utilized in epic literature—namely the Ramayana and Mahabharata—which was slightly less strict in its grammatical codification, the form of Sanskrit which has been used for the last 2500 years is known today as classical Sanskrit. The norms of classical Sanskrit were established by the ancient grammarians. Although no records are available of their work, their efforts reached a climax in the fifth or fourth century B.C. in the great grammatical treatise of Panini, which became the standard for correct speech with such comprehensive authority that it has remained so with little alteration until present times. Based on what the grammarians themselves have stated, we may conclude that the Sanskrit grammar was an attempt to discipline and explain a spoken language. The NASA article corroborates this in saying that Indian grammatical analysis "probably has to do with an age-old Indo-Aryan preoccupation to
discover the nature of reality behind the impressions we human beings receive through the operation of our senses."
Until 1100 A.D., Sanskrit was without interruption the official language of the whole of India. The dominance of Sanskrit is indicated by a wealth of literature of widely diverse genres including religious, philosophical, fiction (short stories, fables, novels, and plays); scientific (linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine), as well as law and politics.
From the time of the Muslim invasions onwards, Sanskrit gradually became displaced by common languages patronized by the Muslim kings as a tactic to suppress Indian cultural and religious tradition and supplant it with their own beliefs. But they could not eliminate the literary and spiritual/ritual use of Sanskrit. Even today in India, there is a strong movement to return Sanskrit to the status of "the national language of India." Sanskrit, being a language derived from simple monosyllabic verbal roots through the addition of appropriate prefixes and suffixes according to precise grammatical laws, has an infinite capacity to grow, adapt, and expand according to the requirements of change in a rapidly evolving world.
Even in the last two centuries, due to the rapid advances in technology and science, a literature abundant with new and improvised vocabulary has come into existence. Although such additions are based on the grammatical principles of Sanskrit, and mostly composed of Sanskrit roots, still contributions from Hindi and other national and international languages have been assimilated. For example, the word for television, duradarshanam, meaning "that which provides a 'vision' of what is far away" is derived purely from Sanskrit; whereas the word for motorcar, motaryanam, borrows from the English.
Furthermore, there are at least a dozen periodicals published in Sanskrit, all-India news broadcast in Sanskrit, television shows and feature movies produced in Sanskrit, one village of 3000 inhabitants who communicate through Sanskrit alone (not to mention countless smaller intellectual communities throughout India), and schools where Sanskrit is fostered. "Contemporary Sanskrit" is alive and well.
Although the Muslim invasion seems to be the ostensible historical cause of the decline of Sanskrit as the lingua franca of India from 1100 A.D., it seems important in the context of this article to consider some other possibilities. By the great body of philosophical, religious, literary, scientific, and linguistic knowledge that was held by succeeding generations with increasing reverence, the qualifications for being a learned man became more and more consuming, especially considering the great emphasis in Indian culture on the memorization of entire texts. This fact could easily have contributed to the decline of Sanskrit as a language tool for the discovery of the nature of reality, which was the real source of its own perfecting.
Apart from historical contexts there is one obvious explanation for Sanskrit's decrease in popular use. Its function gradually became more and more mechanical as its practice increasingly served the purpose of only reviewing the discoveries of the past. When the esteem for knowledge as the mastery of what had already been learned replaced the thirst for new discovery, the widespread usage of Sanskrit declined. At the same time, this need not imply any detraction from the value and inspiration derived from a thorough knowledge of the great works of antiquity; it only helps to explain the decline of Sanskrit as a living language. But the striking lesson to be learned from the example of Sanskrit may be well worth the 2000 years it has taken. The attempt to recapture the truths discovered by the ancient Sanskrit explorers by the mere repetitions of their formulas actually may have destroyed the spirit of investigation and ended up dulling the language
instrument. If this were not so, there is no imaginable reason for the discontinuation of such a perfect language as the lingua franca of India or its utilization by other civilizations throughout the world. The benefits which a language like mathematics affords in scientific investigation, or even English in economic advancement, are today sought from every corner of the globe. Therefore the consideration of what might bring Sanskrit to life as possibly the most valuable tool we have for optimum global communication and spiritual unity requires that we learn from the miscalculations of the past.
The linguistic perfection of Sans-krit offers only a partial explanation for its sustained presence in the world for at least 3,000 years. High precision in and of itself is of limited scope; like mathematics, it generally excites the brain, but not the heart. Like music, however, Sans-krit has the power to uplift the heart. It's conceivable that for a few rare and inspired geniuses, mathematics can reach the point of becoming music or music, mathematics.
The extraordinary thing is that it offers direct accessibility to anyone to that elevated plane where the two—mathematics and music, brain and heart, analytical and intuitive, scientific and spiritual—become one. Great discoveries occur, whether through mathematics or music or Sans-krit, not by the calculations or manipulations of the human mind, but where the living language is expressed and heard in a state of joy and communion with the natural laws of existence.
Generating clarity and inspiration, the Sans-krit language is directly responsible for a brilliance of creative expression such as the world has rarely seen. No one has expressed this more eloquently than Sri Aurobindo, the twentieth-century poet-philosopher:
"The ancient and classical creations of the Sans-krit tongue both in quality and in body and abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech, and in the height and width of the reach of their spirit, stand very evidently in the front rank among the world's great literatures. The language itself, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgement, is one of the most magnificent, most perfect, and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed, and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed, and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium."
Sans-krit is the language of mantra—words of power that are subtly attuned to the unseen harmonies of the matrix of creation, the world as yet unformed. Vak (speech), the "word" of Genesis, incorporates both the sense of voice and word. It has four forms of expression. The first, para, represents cosmic ideation arising from absolute divine presence. The second, pasyanti (seeing), is vak as subject, seeing which creates the object of madhyama-vak, the third and subtle form of speech before it manifests as vaikhari-vak, the gross production of letters in spoken speech. This implies the possibility of having speech oriented to a direct living truth which transcends individual preoccupation with the limited information available through the senses. Spoken words as such are creative living things of power. They penetrate to the essence of what they describe, and give birth to meaning which reflects the profound interrelatedness of life.
Although it is a tantalizing proposition to consider speaking a language whose sounds are so pure and euphonically combined, the basic attitude towards learning Sans-krit in India today is "It's too difficult." Actually it is not difficult, and there are few greater enjoyments than learning it. The first stage is to experience the individual power of each of the 49 basic sounds of the alphabet. This is pure discovery, especially for Westerners who have never paid attention to the unique distinctions of individual letters such as location of resonance and position of the tongue. It is arranged on a thoroughly scientific method, the simple vowels (short and long) coming first, then the diphthongs, followed by the consonants in uniform groups according to the way in which they are pronounced.
The unique organization of the alphabet serves to focus one's attention on qualities and patterns of articulated sound in a way that occurs in no other language. By paying continuous attention to the point of location, degree of resonance, and effort of breath, one's awareness becomes more and more consumed by the direct experience of articulated sound. This in itself produces an unprecedented clarity of mind and revelry in the joy of language, as every combination of sound follows strict laws which essentially make possible an uninterrupted flow of the most perfect euphonic blending of letters into words and verse.
The script used is known as devanagari or the "city of the gods." The phonetic accuracy of devanagaricompares well with that of the modern phonetic transcriptions. Once the alphabet is learned, there is just one major step to take in gaining access to this unique language: learning the case and tense endings. The endings are what make Sans-krit a language of mathematic-like precision. By the endings added onto nouns or verbs, there is an obvious determination of the precise interrelationship of words describing the activity of persons and things in time and space, regardless of word order. Essentially, the endings constitute the "software" of the basic program of the language, and once a pattern has been noted, it is a simple exercise to recognize all the individual instances that fit the pattern rather than see the pattern after all the individual instances have been learned.
Learning the case endings through the chanting of basic pure sound combinations in musical and rhythmic sequences is a perfect way to overcome learning inhibitions, attune to the root power of this language, and access the natural computer-like efficiency, speed, and clarity of the mind. What may be the greatest immediate benefit of learning by this method is that it requires participants to relinquish control, abandon prior learning structures, and come into a direct experience of the language. But one thing is certain — Sans-krit will only become the planetary language when it is taught in a way which is exciting and enjoyable.
By Ashwini Kumar
"In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor.
But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of liguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old."
This discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for at least 3000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA, the most advanced research center in the world for cutting-edge technology, has discovered that Sanskrit, the world's oldest spiritual language, is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet.
In early AI research it was discovered that in order to clear up the inherent ambiguity of natural languages for computer comprehension, it was necessary to utilize semantic net systems to encode the actual meaning of a sentence. Briggs gives the example of how a simple sentence would be represented in a semantic net.
He further comments, "The degree to which a semantic net (or any unambiguous nonsyntactic representation) is cumbersome and odd-sounding in a natural language is the degree to which that language is 'natural' and deviates from the precise or 'artificial.' As we shall see, there was a language (Sanskrit) spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero."
Considering Sanskrit's status as a spiritual language, a further implication of this discovery is that the age-old dichotomy between religion and science is an entirely unjustified one. It is also relevant to note that in the last decade, physicists have begun to comment on the striking similarities between their own discoveries and the discoveries made thousands of years ago in India which went on to form the basis of most Eastern religions.
Considering the high level of collaboration required in uncovering the nature of energy and matter, it is inconceivable that it ever could have taken place without a common language, namely mathematics. This is a perfect example of using a language for discovering and designing life. The language of mathematics, being inherently unambiguous, minimizes personal interpretation and therefore maximizes opportunity for exploration and discovery. The result of this is a worldwide community of scientists working together with extraordinary vitality and excitement about uncovering the unknown.
It can also be inferred that the discoveries that occurred in India in the first millennia B.C. were also the result of collaboration and inquiry by a community of spiritual scientists utilizing a common scientific language, Sanskrit. The truth of this is further accented by the fact that throughout the history and development of Indian thought, the science of grammar and linguistics was attributed a status equal to that of mathematics in the context of modern scientific investigation. In deference to the thoroughness and depth with which the ancient grammatical scientists established the science of language, modern linguistic researchers in Russia have concluded about Sanskrit, "The time has come to continue the tradition of the ancient grammarians on the basis of the modern ideas in general linguistics."
Sanskrit is the most ancient of all languages. From its sisters, Latin and Greek, most of the modern European languages have been derived. Sanskrit use can be traced as far back as before the first millennia B.C.; the only preserved language to which Sanskrit was originally related is Vedic. The oldest extant example of the literature of the Vedic period is the Rig-Veda. Being strictly in verse, the Rig-Veda does not give us a record of the contemporary spoken language. Still it is believed that Vedic coexisted with Sanskrit originally as a living language.
The term "Vedic Sanskrit" is more appropriate to later Vedic prose which exhibits features that imply the influence of Sanskrit. The very name "Sanskrit" meant "language brought to formal perfection" in contrast to the common languages, or "natural" languages (Prakrita).
Although there existed an older form of Sanskrit utilized in epic literature—namely the Ramayana and Mahabharata—which was slightly less strict in its grammatical codification, the form of Sanskrit which has been used for the last 2500 years is known today as classical Sanskrit. The norms of classical Sanskrit were established by the ancient grammarians. Although no records are available of their work, their efforts reached a climax in the fifth or fourth century B.C. in the great grammatical treatise of Panini, which became the standard for correct speech with such comprehensive authority that it has remained so with little alteration until present times. Based on what the grammarians themselves have stated, we may conclude that the Sanskrit grammar was an attempt to discipline and explain a spoken language. The NASA article corroborates this in saying that Indian grammatical analysis "probably has to do with an age-old Indo-Aryan preoccupation to
discover the nature of reality behind the impressions we human beings receive through the operation of our senses."
Until 1100 A.D., Sanskrit was without interruption the official language of the whole of India. The dominance of Sanskrit is indicated by a wealth of literature of widely diverse genres including religious, philosophical, fiction (short stories, fables, novels, and plays); scientific (linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine), as well as law and politics.
From the time of the Muslim invasions onwards, Sanskrit gradually became displaced by common languages patronized by the Muslim kings as a tactic to suppress Indian cultural and religious tradition and supplant it with their own beliefs. But they could not eliminate the literary and spiritual/ritual use of Sanskrit. Even today in India, there is a strong movement to return Sanskrit to the status of "the national language of India." Sanskrit, being a language derived from simple monosyllabic verbal roots through the addition of appropriate prefixes and suffixes according to precise grammatical laws, has an infinite capacity to grow, adapt, and expand according to the requirements of change in a rapidly evolving world.
Even in the last two centuries, due to the rapid advances in technology and science, a literature abundant with new and improvised vocabulary has come into existence. Although such additions are based on the grammatical principles of Sanskrit, and mostly composed of Sanskrit roots, still contributions from Hindi and other national and international languages have been assimilated. For example, the word for television, duradarshanam, meaning "that which provides a 'vision' of what is far away" is derived purely from Sanskrit; whereas the word for motorcar, motaryanam, borrows from the English.
Furthermore, there are at least a dozen periodicals published in Sanskrit, all-India news broadcast in Sanskrit, television shows and feature movies produced in Sanskrit, one village of 3000 inhabitants who communicate through Sanskrit alone (not to mention countless smaller intellectual communities throughout India), and schools where Sanskrit is fostered. "Contemporary Sanskrit" is alive and well.
Although the Muslim invasion seems to be the ostensible historical cause of the decline of Sanskrit as the lingua franca of India from 1100 A.D., it seems important in the context of this article to consider some other possibilities. By the great body of philosophical, religious, literary, scientific, and linguistic knowledge that was held by succeeding generations with increasing reverence, the qualifications for being a learned man became more and more consuming, especially considering the great emphasis in Indian culture on the memorization of entire texts. This fact could easily have contributed to the decline of Sanskrit as a language tool for the discovery of the nature of reality, which was the real source of its own perfecting.
Apart from historical contexts there is one obvious explanation for Sanskrit's decrease in popular use. Its function gradually became more and more mechanical as its practice increasingly served the purpose of only reviewing the discoveries of the past. When the esteem for knowledge as the mastery of what had already been learned replaced the thirst for new discovery, the widespread usage of Sanskrit declined. At the same time, this need not imply any detraction from the value and inspiration derived from a thorough knowledge of the great works of antiquity; it only helps to explain the decline of Sanskrit as a living language. But the striking lesson to be learned from the example of Sanskrit may be well worth the 2000 years it has taken. The attempt to recapture the truths discovered by the ancient Sanskrit explorers by the mere repetitions of their formulas actually may have destroyed the spirit of investigation and ended up dulling the language
instrument. If this were not so, there is no imaginable reason for the discontinuation of such a perfect language as the lingua franca of India or its utilization by other civilizations throughout the world. The benefits which a language like mathematics affords in scientific investigation, or even English in economic advancement, are today sought from every corner of the globe. Therefore the consideration of what might bring Sanskrit to life as possibly the most valuable tool we have for optimum global communication and spiritual unity requires that we learn from the miscalculations of the past.
The linguistic perfection of Sans-krit offers only a partial explanation for its sustained presence in the world for at least 3,000 years. High precision in and of itself is of limited scope; like mathematics, it generally excites the brain, but not the heart. Like music, however, Sans-krit has the power to uplift the heart. It's conceivable that for a few rare and inspired geniuses, mathematics can reach the point of becoming music or music, mathematics.
The extraordinary thing is that it offers direct accessibility to anyone to that elevated plane where the two—mathematics and music, brain and heart, analytical and intuitive, scientific and spiritual—become one. Great discoveries occur, whether through mathematics or music or Sans-krit, not by the calculations or manipulations of the human mind, but where the living language is expressed and heard in a state of joy and communion with the natural laws of existence.
Generating clarity and inspiration, the Sans-krit language is directly responsible for a brilliance of creative expression such as the world has rarely seen. No one has expressed this more eloquently than Sri Aurobindo, the twentieth-century poet-philosopher:
"The ancient and classical creations of the Sans-krit tongue both in quality and in body and abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech, and in the height and width of the reach of their spirit, stand very evidently in the front rank among the world's great literatures. The language itself, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgement, is one of the most magnificent, most perfect, and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed, and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed, and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium."
Sans-krit is the language of mantra—words of power that are subtly attuned to the unseen harmonies of the matrix of creation, the world as yet unformed. Vak (speech), the "word" of Genesis, incorporates both the sense of voice and word. It has four forms of expression. The first, para, represents cosmic ideation arising from absolute divine presence. The second, pasyanti (seeing), is vak as subject, seeing which creates the object of madhyama-vak, the third and subtle form of speech before it manifests as vaikhari-vak, the gross production of letters in spoken speech. This implies the possibility of having speech oriented to a direct living truth which transcends individual preoccupation with the limited information available through the senses. Spoken words as such are creative living things of power. They penetrate to the essence of what they describe, and give birth to meaning which reflects the profound interrelatedness of life.
Although it is a tantalizing proposition to consider speaking a language whose sounds are so pure and euphonically combined, the basic attitude towards learning Sans-krit in India today is "It's too difficult." Actually it is not difficult, and there are few greater enjoyments than learning it. The first stage is to experience the individual power of each of the 49 basic sounds of the alphabet. This is pure discovery, especially for Westerners who have never paid attention to the unique distinctions of individual letters such as location of resonance and position of the tongue. It is arranged on a thoroughly scientific method, the simple vowels (short and long) coming first, then the diphthongs, followed by the consonants in uniform groups according to the way in which they are pronounced.
The unique organization of the alphabet serves to focus one's attention on qualities and patterns of articulated sound in a way that occurs in no other language. By paying continuous attention to the point of location, degree of resonance, and effort of breath, one's awareness becomes more and more consumed by the direct experience of articulated sound. This in itself produces an unprecedented clarity of mind and revelry in the joy of language, as every combination of sound follows strict laws which essentially make possible an uninterrupted flow of the most perfect euphonic blending of letters into words and verse.
The script used is known as devanagari or the "city of the gods." The phonetic accuracy of devanagaricompares well with that of the modern phonetic transcriptions. Once the alphabet is learned, there is just one major step to take in gaining access to this unique language: learning the case and tense endings. The endings are what make Sans-krit a language of mathematic-like precision. By the endings added onto nouns or verbs, there is an obvious determination of the precise interrelationship of words describing the activity of persons and things in time and space, regardless of word order. Essentially, the endings constitute the "software" of the basic program of the language, and once a pattern has been noted, it is a simple exercise to recognize all the individual instances that fit the pattern rather than see the pattern after all the individual instances have been learned.
Learning the case endings through the chanting of basic pure sound combinations in musical and rhythmic sequences is a perfect way to overcome learning inhibitions, attune to the root power of this language, and access the natural computer-like efficiency, speed, and clarity of the mind. What may be the greatest immediate benefit of learning by this method is that it requires participants to relinquish control, abandon prior learning structures, and come into a direct experience of the language. But one thing is certain — Sans-krit will only become the planetary language when it is taught in a way which is exciting and enjoyable.
By Ashwini Kumar
PLAYING POLITICS ON TERROR IS SIN
An attack on Mumbai by the Islamist terrorist is an attack on Bharat or India. It is the sacred duty of every Indian, men, women and adolescents, to rally round the national leadership of all political, cultural and religious groups to defend and protect everything that is Indian and thwart terrorist invasion at all cost. A person living in India and nurtured by the Indian economy whose personality has been developed by the Indian education must stand up and be counted as a defender of the national faith.
An Indian who fights shy of fighting against the terror or who prefers to support terrorists and foreign countries out to destabilise India will not be counted among the Patriots. He or she will find a place among the traitors and stand behind Jai Chand, Mir Jaffar and their tribe.
IRRESPONSIBLE PUBLIC STATEMENTS BY SELF-SEEKERS
One comes across some failed politicians who lost elections and trust of the people of their constituency or the state. And these failed political "know-nothing of Patriotism"types still wish to bask in the limelight by hook or crook. They go around issuing public statements that only morons may like. Those public statements are, generally speaking, anti-national and far removed from the spirit of patriotism. Then there are some reporters hungry for news lest they are pulled up by the chief sub-editor for not filing a story. So the twain meet and form a club of eccentric men and women who take pride in running down patriots. soldiers, saints and men or women who have made a mark or left an imprint on pages of history. The failed friend just takes pride in spitting skyward; never mind if the discarded dirty saliva falls on his own face.He thinks he has made a mark; little realising that he has become a laughing stock and brought a bad name to his family and friends, if he has any.
The mad cap who calls names and distorts history to prove his point, eventually lands up in the company of traitors, terrorists and the like. He uses honorific words for top terrorists, visits their families to console them if their wards are incarcerated and promises them all types of help and support, both moral and material. He never visits families of those who were martyred, men and women who laid down their lives for the cause of the country. His aim is not to contribute to the betterment of the society he lives in, his sole aim is personal gratification and personal publicity even if it is a negative one.
A man with sinister intentions and sinful thinking that goes against the grain of the Bhartiya Sanskriti wishes to make news by destroying the ethos of his own country. He has learnt the definition of the NEWS: "when a dog bites a man, it is no news but when a man bites a dog, it is news". The gentleman, if he can be called one, is the man who has been biting just about every living being just to make it to Page Three of the local newspaper named "The Dhoom-Dharaka Times". May be a local TV channel that thrives on yellow journalism ask for his byte where he really bites all that is dear to the nation.
The Indian Army has its motto "Nation Above All" but this self-seeker has one motto to live by - Just Me and Me: after me the Deluge." By the way, there are no prizes for guessing correctly who the person ,mentioned in despatches, is.
By Chitranjan Sawant
An Indian who fights shy of fighting against the terror or who prefers to support terrorists and foreign countries out to destabilise India will not be counted among the Patriots. He or she will find a place among the traitors and stand behind Jai Chand, Mir Jaffar and their tribe.
IRRESPONSIBLE PUBLIC STATEMENTS BY SELF-SEEKERS
One comes across some failed politicians who lost elections and trust of the people of their constituency or the state. And these failed political "know-nothing of Patriotism"types still wish to bask in the limelight by hook or crook. They go around issuing public statements that only morons may like. Those public statements are, generally speaking, anti-national and far removed from the spirit of patriotism. Then there are some reporters hungry for news lest they are pulled up by the chief sub-editor for not filing a story. So the twain meet and form a club of eccentric men and women who take pride in running down patriots. soldiers, saints and men or women who have made a mark or left an imprint on pages of history. The failed friend just takes pride in spitting skyward; never mind if the discarded dirty saliva falls on his own face.He thinks he has made a mark; little realising that he has become a laughing stock and brought a bad name to his family and friends, if he has any.
The mad cap who calls names and distorts history to prove his point, eventually lands up in the company of traitors, terrorists and the like. He uses honorific words for top terrorists, visits their families to console them if their wards are incarcerated and promises them all types of help and support, both moral and material. He never visits families of those who were martyred, men and women who laid down their lives for the cause of the country. His aim is not to contribute to the betterment of the society he lives in, his sole aim is personal gratification and personal publicity even if it is a negative one.
A man with sinister intentions and sinful thinking that goes against the grain of the Bhartiya Sanskriti wishes to make news by destroying the ethos of his own country. He has learnt the definition of the NEWS: "when a dog bites a man, it is no news but when a man bites a dog, it is news". The gentleman, if he can be called one, is the man who has been biting just about every living being just to make it to Page Three of the local newspaper named "The Dhoom-Dharaka Times". May be a local TV channel that thrives on yellow journalism ask for his byte where he really bites all that is dear to the nation.
The Indian Army has its motto "Nation Above All" but this self-seeker has one motto to live by - Just Me and Me: after me the Deluge." By the way, there are no prizes for guessing correctly who the person ,mentioned in despatches, is.
By Chitranjan Sawant
Thursday, July 14, 2011
ऐसे में आर्य समाज संगठन का क्या होगा ?
सार्वदेशिक सभा के अधिकार को लेकर विवाद कई दशकों से चल रहा है | और आज भी चल रहा है | ३-४ गुट अपने आप को सर्वाधिक योग्य बता रहा है | कोई किसी की नहीं सुनता | लगता है कि यह विवाद जल्दी शांत होने वाला नहीं है |
महर्षि दयानंद होते तो ऐसे अर्थहीन संगठन को कभी का विसर्जित कर देते | अपने प्रयोजन को सिद्ध करने में विफल रही स्वयं द्वारा स्थापित पाठशालाओं को उन्होंने तत्काल बंद कर दिया था | व्यर्थ की - नाम मात्र की - संस्थाएं चलाते रहना उनके चिंतन से विपरीत था |
स्वामी अग्निवेशजी आर्य समाज के संगठन को कोई स्थिरता प्रदान नहीं कर पाए हैं, और न ही उनको भविष्य में कभी सर्व स्वीकृति मिलने वाली है | वे निरंतर विवादास्पद बने रहे हैं और आज भी आर्य समाज (और देश) के अधिकांश लोग उन्हें संशय से ही देखते हैं | उनकी प्रसिद्धि और व्यक्तित्व आर्य समाज को बल प्रदान करने में विफल ही रहा है | अगर वे आर्यसमाज और स्वामी दयानंद के मिशन के प्रति समर्पित हैं, तो हम यही कहेंगे कि उनका यह समर्पण हमारी समझ में नहीं आता | श्री सत्यव्रत सामवेदीजी (जयपुर), श्री डो० वेदप्रताप वैदिकजी, स्वामी आर्यवेशजी, स्वामी दिव्यानंदजी (हरिद्वार), स्वामी विवेकानंदजी (मेरठ), स्वामी सुमेधानंदजी (चंबा), तथा अन्य कई "वेश" नामधारी सज्जन लोग हैं, जो अग्निवेशजी की संस्तुति करते रहते हैं | प्रयोजन होगा अपना-अपना |
एक तरफ स्वामी प्रणवानंदजी, डो० सोमदेवजी, आचार्य वेदप्रकाशजी श्रोत्रिय आदि कुछ लोग हैं, जो सभी गुटों के साथ बराबर दिखाई देते हैं, मगर लगता है कि वे भी एकता करने में असमर्थ हैं |
पवित्र होते हुए भी श्री आचार्य बलदेवजी की भी मर्यादाएं हैं | सार्वदेशिक सभा के नेतृत्व के लिए आज के युग में वे भी योग्य नहीं लगते |
दूसरी ओर अन्य कई अच्छे प्रभावशाली विद्वान महानुभाव हैं, जो प्रशंसनीय सामर्थ्य के धनी हैं - जैसे कि स्वामी सुमेधानंद (राजस्थान), आचार्य आर्य नरेशजी, आचार्य ज्ञानेश्वरजी, आचार्या सूर्यादेवीजी, डो० रामप्रकाशजी, स्वामी सम्पूर्णानंदजी, डो० रघुवीरजी वेदालंकार, श्री उमाकांतजी उपाध्याय, स्वामी विवेकानंद जी परिव्राजक (रोजड), प्रो० राजेन्द्र जिज्ञासु, प्रो० ज्येष्ठजी वर्मन, डो० सुरेंद्रकुमारजी, स्वामी धर्मानंद जी (उड़ीसा) आदि आदि | मगर लगता है कि आर्य समाज के संगठन सम्बन्धी कार्यों में उनमें से कई लोगों को रुचि नहीं होगी |
बड़ी-बड़ी घोषणाएँ करने वाले और आत्म प्रशंसा में अपनी पत्रिकाओं के पृष्ठ व्यर्थ में काले करने वाले तथाकथित नेताओं पर हमारा अब कोई विश्वास नहीं रहा है |
ऐसे में आर्य समाज संगठन का क्या होगा ?
By भावेश मेरजा
महर्षि दयानंद होते तो ऐसे अर्थहीन संगठन को कभी का विसर्जित कर देते | अपने प्रयोजन को सिद्ध करने में विफल रही स्वयं द्वारा स्थापित पाठशालाओं को उन्होंने तत्काल बंद कर दिया था | व्यर्थ की - नाम मात्र की - संस्थाएं चलाते रहना उनके चिंतन से विपरीत था |
स्वामी अग्निवेशजी आर्य समाज के संगठन को कोई स्थिरता प्रदान नहीं कर पाए हैं, और न ही उनको भविष्य में कभी सर्व स्वीकृति मिलने वाली है | वे निरंतर विवादास्पद बने रहे हैं और आज भी आर्य समाज (और देश) के अधिकांश लोग उन्हें संशय से ही देखते हैं | उनकी प्रसिद्धि और व्यक्तित्व आर्य समाज को बल प्रदान करने में विफल ही रहा है | अगर वे आर्यसमाज और स्वामी दयानंद के मिशन के प्रति समर्पित हैं, तो हम यही कहेंगे कि उनका यह समर्पण हमारी समझ में नहीं आता | श्री सत्यव्रत सामवेदीजी (जयपुर), श्री डो० वेदप्रताप वैदिकजी, स्वामी आर्यवेशजी, स्वामी दिव्यानंदजी (हरिद्वार), स्वामी विवेकानंदजी (मेरठ), स्वामी सुमेधानंदजी (चंबा), तथा अन्य कई "वेश" नामधारी सज्जन लोग हैं, जो अग्निवेशजी की संस्तुति करते रहते हैं | प्रयोजन होगा अपना-अपना |
एक तरफ स्वामी प्रणवानंदजी, डो० सोमदेवजी, आचार्य वेदप्रकाशजी श्रोत्रिय आदि कुछ लोग हैं, जो सभी गुटों के साथ बराबर दिखाई देते हैं, मगर लगता है कि वे भी एकता करने में असमर्थ हैं |
पवित्र होते हुए भी श्री आचार्य बलदेवजी की भी मर्यादाएं हैं | सार्वदेशिक सभा के नेतृत्व के लिए आज के युग में वे भी योग्य नहीं लगते |
दूसरी ओर अन्य कई अच्छे प्रभावशाली विद्वान महानुभाव हैं, जो प्रशंसनीय सामर्थ्य के धनी हैं - जैसे कि स्वामी सुमेधानंद (राजस्थान), आचार्य आर्य नरेशजी, आचार्य ज्ञानेश्वरजी, आचार्या सूर्यादेवीजी, डो० रामप्रकाशजी, स्वामी सम्पूर्णानंदजी, डो० रघुवीरजी वेदालंकार, श्री उमाकांतजी उपाध्याय, स्वामी विवेकानंद जी परिव्राजक (रोजड), प्रो० राजेन्द्र जिज्ञासु, प्रो० ज्येष्ठजी वर्मन, डो० सुरेंद्रकुमारजी, स्वामी धर्मानंद जी (उड़ीसा) आदि आदि | मगर लगता है कि आर्य समाज के संगठन सम्बन्धी कार्यों में उनमें से कई लोगों को रुचि नहीं होगी |
बड़ी-बड़ी घोषणाएँ करने वाले और आत्म प्रशंसा में अपनी पत्रिकाओं के पृष्ठ व्यर्थ में काले करने वाले तथाकथित नेताओं पर हमारा अब कोई विश्वास नहीं रहा है |
ऐसे में आर्य समाज संगठन का क्या होगा ?
By भावेश मेरजा
TERROR ATTACKS ONCE AGAIN ON MUMBAI!
The Islamist terrorists have struck again with impunity and achieved success in Mumbai. As usual all bigwigs in India and Pakistan have condemned the terrorist attacks in strongest terms. Condolence messages have been delivered to the bereaved kin, compensatory money promised and alerts sounded in seventeen places all over India. Appeals have been made to good citizens for donating blood.
21 Indian citizens have died in the three savage bomb blasts in Mumbai on 13 July 11 and 130 lay injured at the last count a little before midnight.
All political and social bigwigs travelled to blast sites under police protection and ensured that the Press and electronic media noticed them for Page 3 stories. Never mind that in the bargain, important forensic evidence was lost and rubbed off before being lifted by the forensic experts.
WHY TERRORISTS TARGET MUMBAI
1993 , 2003, 2006 and now 2011, Mumbai has been targeted by terrorists many times. Mumbai is the financial capital of India and terrorists wanted to squeeze the last penny from the business community of stature. In the light of this, no one should be surprised that Zaveri Bazar, a hub of diamond and bullion merchants of Hindu Gujarati descent, has been invariably the main target of terrorist attack. The merchants suffered losses but recouped in no time and bounced back in big business of diamonds.
The terrorists might have succeeded in mounting number of attacks and escaped undetected every time but they lost the battle of attrition. The business is booming in Mumbai and the Zaveri bazaar is dazzling bright as if they were celebrating Diwali every night, night after night. Indeed a decisive victory of the diamond merchants of Gujarati descent and naturally a financial defeat of terrorists from across the border.
Of course, the financial victory of merchants of the Zaveri Bazar does not absolve the Mumbai Police of the charge of dereliction of duty. It is indeed unpardonable that the Police Intelligence was caught napping. They did not have the slightest idea of this terrorist attack going to be mounted with impunity. P. Chidambaram, Home Minister of India, who talks big but is small on action, and the entire Intelligence set up must hang their heads in shame for knowing nothing about the attack on 13 July 11. All concerned with the internal security of the country have been caught with their pants down. This has been happening every time terrorists choose to strike.
The Government of India just reacts and never acts before the attackers. This speaks volumes on the inefficiency of the Police department as a whole and the Intelligence dept in particular. One of the reasons for this slackness is lack of Accountability. No officer or foot soldier has ever been punished, leave incarceration aside, for not knowing about a terrorist attack in advance. After the terrorist attacks are over, the blame game goes on for some time and after a couple of months all about it is forgotten. Everyone goes forward with back slapping colleagues and the mood of forgive and forget prevails.
The terrorist outfits know of this psychological angle of “forgive and forget” and they just bide their time before mounting another attack on the slumbering Mumbaikers.
THE FUTURE
President Barack Obama of USA called the terrorist attack on Mumbai “Outrageous.”The President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan also dutifully condemned the terrorist attack. All fingers pointed towards the Indian Mujahideen for killing and maiming so many Indians. The common man stands united. Aishwarya Rai, the celebrated actor and Bachhan Bahu, chose not to accept the French honour in view of this misfortune fallen on fellow citizens. So far so good. But what about the Future? Will our Prime Minister and others confine themselves to making just phone calls to each other and just sit quiet thereafter.
It is time for action and not just making phone calls to each other and asking people to remain calm. The people are angry that the govt is so incompetent that it cannot prevent terror attacks. Notwithstanding all the talking nationally and internationally, the culprits of 26/11 terrorist attack have not been brought before a court of law to stand trial.
The govt of India must carry out sentences passed by Supreme Court and other courts of law. There is no point in showing mercy to terrorists like Afzal Guru as it encourages other terrorists to be bold in mounting attacks on India. It is the weak kneed policy of our govt that is a morale booster for terrorists and a morale dampener for law-abiding citizens.
The need of the hour is Action; tough action against enemies of India.
By Chitranjan Sawant
21 Indian citizens have died in the three savage bomb blasts in Mumbai on 13 July 11 and 130 lay injured at the last count a little before midnight.
All political and social bigwigs travelled to blast sites under police protection and ensured that the Press and electronic media noticed them for Page 3 stories. Never mind that in the bargain, important forensic evidence was lost and rubbed off before being lifted by the forensic experts.
WHY TERRORISTS TARGET MUMBAI
1993 , 2003, 2006 and now 2011, Mumbai has been targeted by terrorists many times. Mumbai is the financial capital of India and terrorists wanted to squeeze the last penny from the business community of stature. In the light of this, no one should be surprised that Zaveri Bazar, a hub of diamond and bullion merchants of Hindu Gujarati descent, has been invariably the main target of terrorist attack. The merchants suffered losses but recouped in no time and bounced back in big business of diamonds.
The terrorists might have succeeded in mounting number of attacks and escaped undetected every time but they lost the battle of attrition. The business is booming in Mumbai and the Zaveri bazaar is dazzling bright as if they were celebrating Diwali every night, night after night. Indeed a decisive victory of the diamond merchants of Gujarati descent and naturally a financial defeat of terrorists from across the border.
Of course, the financial victory of merchants of the Zaveri Bazar does not absolve the Mumbai Police of the charge of dereliction of duty. It is indeed unpardonable that the Police Intelligence was caught napping. They did not have the slightest idea of this terrorist attack going to be mounted with impunity. P. Chidambaram, Home Minister of India, who talks big but is small on action, and the entire Intelligence set up must hang their heads in shame for knowing nothing about the attack on 13 July 11. All concerned with the internal security of the country have been caught with their pants down. This has been happening every time terrorists choose to strike.
The Government of India just reacts and never acts before the attackers. This speaks volumes on the inefficiency of the Police department as a whole and the Intelligence dept in particular. One of the reasons for this slackness is lack of Accountability. No officer or foot soldier has ever been punished, leave incarceration aside, for not knowing about a terrorist attack in advance. After the terrorist attacks are over, the blame game goes on for some time and after a couple of months all about it is forgotten. Everyone goes forward with back slapping colleagues and the mood of forgive and forget prevails.
The terrorist outfits know of this psychological angle of “forgive and forget” and they just bide their time before mounting another attack on the slumbering Mumbaikers.
THE FUTURE
President Barack Obama of USA called the terrorist attack on Mumbai “Outrageous.”The President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan also dutifully condemned the terrorist attack. All fingers pointed towards the Indian Mujahideen for killing and maiming so many Indians. The common man stands united. Aishwarya Rai, the celebrated actor and Bachhan Bahu, chose not to accept the French honour in view of this misfortune fallen on fellow citizens. So far so good. But what about the Future? Will our Prime Minister and others confine themselves to making just phone calls to each other and just sit quiet thereafter.
It is time for action and not just making phone calls to each other and asking people to remain calm. The people are angry that the govt is so incompetent that it cannot prevent terror attacks. Notwithstanding all the talking nationally and internationally, the culprits of 26/11 terrorist attack have not been brought before a court of law to stand trial.
The govt of India must carry out sentences passed by Supreme Court and other courts of law. There is no point in showing mercy to terrorists like Afzal Guru as it encourages other terrorists to be bold in mounting attacks on India. It is the weak kneed policy of our govt that is a morale booster for terrorists and a morale dampener for law-abiding citizens.
The need of the hour is Action; tough action against enemies of India.
By Chitranjan Sawant
Sunday, July 10, 2011
PADMANABHASWAMY TEMPLE WEALTH FOR HINDUS
Shri Padmanabha temple of Thiruvananthpuram in kerala is among the oldest and most respected temples of the known world. The rich and the poor pray there and ask for a boon or blessing for self and society. Indeed the biggest batch of temple priests that graduated after rigorous training is from Kerala, God’s own country. When a temple runs short of cash, it can rely on the gold reserve kept in the underground vaults and remained untouched by human hands for centuries.
One such temple is the Shri Padmanabha temple in Thiruvananthpuram, capital of Kerala. Built in the 16th century by kings of the Travancore State, the temple had large endowments of cash and immoveable property donated in reverence by the royal family. In due course a trust was formed for management when the State acceded to the Union of India in 1947. Most of the trustees were from the royal family and they continue to be there. The present wealth of the temple is a result of growth over many centuries. Of course, most of the donations to the temple were from the Royal House of Travancore followed by His Highness of Cochin, other royal houses of the South as well as the North; not forgetting the common man who came from all over the country, all over South-East Asia, Bali, Fiji, Mauritius and so on. By the way, in this temple worshippers are required to wear unstitched clothes, that is a Dhoti and a shawl or a plain wrapper. Only men and women professing Vedic Dharm or only the Hindus are permitted to enter the precincts of the holy place.
It goes to prove that the donations are from the Hindus only and, therefore, only Hindus should have a say in the management of the temple, including the new-found riches. No government should usurp the rights of the temple trust and thrust atheists or non-Hindus into the management. It would be sacrelige.
GENESIS OF PROBLEM
The unbelievable quantum of gold, jewellery, gems and other valuables came to light when the Supreme Court passed an order to open the underground vaults where no human footfalls were heard for a century and a half, to take stock of the moveable and immoveable property of the temple. This order was passed on a petition of a Hindu citizen alleging that the temple trust was mismanaging the temple affairs and corrective steps need to be taken. The making of an inventory of the temple wealth is the first step in that direction.
The process of making an inventory is a long drawn one as all the wealth is yet to be taken out of some unopened vaults. It may take a couple of months. The known wealth so far is indeed staggering. Maunds of pure gold, a nine-foot long golden necklace for the idol, gold coins of all ages and dynasties, precious gems etc have been listed in the inventory being made. There is nothing surprising in what has been taken out of the vaults. It may be recalled that Lord Padmanabhaswamy, just another name of Lord Vishnu, is the presiding deity of the Royal House of Travancore. Members of the royalty and commoners prayed together in the temple and their faith was unflinching as their prayers never went unheard. Offerings made by the devotees whose prayers were granted poured in like rains in Kerala. No wonder the Padmanabhaswamy temple has surpassed even the Tirupati temple of Tirumalai hills in Andhra Pradesh in the ownership of gold and other forms of wealth.
It is a piece of welcome news that the Chief Minister of Kerala has made it known that it is the Temple Trust alone that is empowered to manage the temple including the new-found wealth. The state government has no locus standi in the matter and as such has no intention of meddling into the temple administration. The Supreme Court will hear the case only after all the wealth, moveable and immoveable properties have been accounted for.
LEGAL ANGLE
Generally the intellectual men and women get involved into academic discussions on the issue of ownership of wealth, state of expenditure and who the beneficiaries of new-found wealth should be. One school of thought believes that the Temple Trust is the sole agency to manage the temple affairs and no one else, not even the state govt, has any right to poke its nose there. Answering the question of ownership of all properties and wealth, this school relies on law of the land which says that the Deity in a temple is a legal person and, therefore, is entitled to own, manage or dispose of its property in the best interests of the temple. Since the view of this school is backed by law of the land, it has gained popular support and is flourishing.
There is another school of thought that believes that what has been dug out of vaults will be subject to the law that lays that it should be surrendered to the government for such disposal as it deems fit. Since this view is diametrically opposed to the view of the Temple Trust and also goes against the grain of common man’s faith and belief, it may have to be abandoned. Moreover, what is the property of a Hindu temple, that should be managed by the Hindu temple itself. Is there govt interference in the management of a church, a mosque or a synagogue? The answer is NO. Since that is the case, the Hindu Temples should not be singled out for interference by the govt in the name of improving management.
There is a general perception that the money or gold or jewels donated by Hindu devotees to a Hindu temple should not be spent on the welfare of a Christian or a Muslim individual or institution. Doing so would amount to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Such an act or omission will violate the law of the land and be absolutely unconstitutional. In a secular country, the govt cannot take away wealth from a Hindu temple and spend it on renovation of a church or a mosque. It cannot be done in the name of doing welfare of minorities. Has any part of charity money received from the Pope of Rome been spent on the welfare activities of the Hindu community? Has the aid given by Saudi Arabia for Muslim Madarsas spent on any Hindu Sanskrit Pathshala? The answer is No.
In view of the foregoing, any sinister plan to take away the new-found gold of the Lord Padmanabhaswamy temple to be spent on the so-called welfare work for all citizens would be violative of the principle of secularism and would, therefore, be unconstitutional.
One such temple is the Shri Padmanabha temple in Thiruvananthpuram, capital of Kerala. Built in the 16th century by kings of the Travancore State, the temple had large endowments of cash and immoveable property donated in reverence by the royal family. In due course a trust was formed for management when the State acceded to the Union of India in 1947. Most of the trustees were from the royal family and they continue to be there. The present wealth of the temple is a result of growth over many centuries. Of course, most of the donations to the temple were from the Royal House of Travancore followed by His Highness of Cochin, other royal houses of the South as well as the North; not forgetting the common man who came from all over the country, all over South-East Asia, Bali, Fiji, Mauritius and so on. By the way, in this temple worshippers are required to wear unstitched clothes, that is a Dhoti and a shawl or a plain wrapper. Only men and women professing Vedic Dharm or only the Hindus are permitted to enter the precincts of the holy place.
It goes to prove that the donations are from the Hindus only and, therefore, only Hindus should have a say in the management of the temple, including the new-found riches. No government should usurp the rights of the temple trust and thrust atheists or non-Hindus into the management. It would be sacrelige.
GENESIS OF PROBLEM
The unbelievable quantum of gold, jewellery, gems and other valuables came to light when the Supreme Court passed an order to open the underground vaults where no human footfalls were heard for a century and a half, to take stock of the moveable and immoveable property of the temple. This order was passed on a petition of a Hindu citizen alleging that the temple trust was mismanaging the temple affairs and corrective steps need to be taken. The making of an inventory of the temple wealth is the first step in that direction.
The process of making an inventory is a long drawn one as all the wealth is yet to be taken out of some unopened vaults. It may take a couple of months. The known wealth so far is indeed staggering. Maunds of pure gold, a nine-foot long golden necklace for the idol, gold coins of all ages and dynasties, precious gems etc have been listed in the inventory being made. There is nothing surprising in what has been taken out of the vaults. It may be recalled that Lord Padmanabhaswamy, just another name of Lord Vishnu, is the presiding deity of the Royal House of Travancore. Members of the royalty and commoners prayed together in the temple and their faith was unflinching as their prayers never went unheard. Offerings made by the devotees whose prayers were granted poured in like rains in Kerala. No wonder the Padmanabhaswamy temple has surpassed even the Tirupati temple of Tirumalai hills in Andhra Pradesh in the ownership of gold and other forms of wealth.
It is a piece of welcome news that the Chief Minister of Kerala has made it known that it is the Temple Trust alone that is empowered to manage the temple including the new-found wealth. The state government has no locus standi in the matter and as such has no intention of meddling into the temple administration. The Supreme Court will hear the case only after all the wealth, moveable and immoveable properties have been accounted for.
LEGAL ANGLE
Generally the intellectual men and women get involved into academic discussions on the issue of ownership of wealth, state of expenditure and who the beneficiaries of new-found wealth should be. One school of thought believes that the Temple Trust is the sole agency to manage the temple affairs and no one else, not even the state govt, has any right to poke its nose there. Answering the question of ownership of all properties and wealth, this school relies on law of the land which says that the Deity in a temple is a legal person and, therefore, is entitled to own, manage or dispose of its property in the best interests of the temple. Since the view of this school is backed by law of the land, it has gained popular support and is flourishing.
There is another school of thought that believes that what has been dug out of vaults will be subject to the law that lays that it should be surrendered to the government for such disposal as it deems fit. Since this view is diametrically opposed to the view of the Temple Trust and also goes against the grain of common man’s faith and belief, it may have to be abandoned. Moreover, what is the property of a Hindu temple, that should be managed by the Hindu temple itself. Is there govt interference in the management of a church, a mosque or a synagogue? The answer is NO. Since that is the case, the Hindu Temples should not be singled out for interference by the govt in the name of improving management.
There is a general perception that the money or gold or jewels donated by Hindu devotees to a Hindu temple should not be spent on the welfare of a Christian or a Muslim individual or institution. Doing so would amount to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Such an act or omission will violate the law of the land and be absolutely unconstitutional. In a secular country, the govt cannot take away wealth from a Hindu temple and spend it on renovation of a church or a mosque. It cannot be done in the name of doing welfare of minorities. Has any part of charity money received from the Pope of Rome been spent on the welfare activities of the Hindu community? Has the aid given by Saudi Arabia for Muslim Madarsas spent on any Hindu Sanskrit Pathshala? The answer is No.
In view of the foregoing, any sinister plan to take away the new-found gold of the Lord Padmanabhaswamy temple to be spent on the so-called welfare work for all citizens would be violative of the principle of secularism and would, therefore, be unconstitutional.
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