>From: "Madhava K Turumella" Subject: Ancient Indian History - When was the
>break?
>Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 15:19:53 +0200
>My dear Rajan,
>Anybody who wish to do some thing, should start it now. I believe, worldly
>responsibilities and divine responsibilities should go hand in hand. How
>could anybody know about "when they are going to be free in order to do
>some thing else?"... We always build our lives on presumptions. Bhagawad
>Gita advises us against binding our responsibilties to the never arriving
>Tomorrow, and ignoring our spiritual sadhana (progress). 13,14,15 --
>Chapter 16
>Madhava
To: Advaitin List & Gita Satsang
Hari OM & Pranams,
Reference to the response of Shri Madhava urging me not to wait to commence
sadhanas, on the pretext of Worldly responsibilities:
1) Swamini SharadaPriyananda opens her book “Vedanta in everyday Life” with
the comment that “Vedanta is easy to read, hear and even understand, but
difficult to apply in Day to Day life”. The 4 goals of life: Dharma, artha,
Kama, & Moksha are also well known as well as the 4 stations in life
beginning with Brahamachari and proceeding towards sanyassam. While one may
be oriented towards Moksha, one need not abandon the present set of
activities. For example, Even Lord Krishana, even after administering a high
dose of Philosophy into Arjuna in Gita, does not ask him to stop fighting,
only interpret his action of fighting differently. He goes on to fight right
after.
2) The causes for breakdown of Hindu way of living in Ancient India has
resulted in the physical zone of influence and number of followers to be 50%
than what would have been otherwise (Original area: Afghanistan to Assam –as
mentioned in Puranas and of the present population of 1.3 billion only about
600 are those ready to acknowledge themselves as Hindus). It is a serious
matter to be approached with enough resources of time and access to already
published sources. I would estimate it over 1,000 man-days and over 100
books to be referred to. It is not as simple as writing a letter to editor.
The objective must be to find as many significant reasons for it as much as
possible and also quantifying to the extent possible the influence of each
factor. For example, if 2,000 foreigners overcame 2 million native Hindus in
a battle as claimed in a hostile broadcast, we have to ascertain whether the
numbers were correctly quoted and if so whether it was due to lack of war
technology such as gun powder or other factors such as carelessness. Even
now we are hearing so many strange excuses for the initial debacle in Kargil
as recent as last May.
3) We must also distinguish between Hinduism as a Universal religious
philosophy accessible to all people of the world and its continuos positive
dissemination(if propagation is a strong term) and India as a political &
military entity. For example, India and its inhabitants may have collapsed
due to their style of living but these does not automatically lead to the
conclusion that there is something wrong with their religion or philosophy.
But such linkages are inevitable in popular folklore. For example when USSR
collapsed, everyone is associating it with demise of Communism. So the my
mission is to also to separate these 2 issues.
4) However, I do see a valid point in what Shri Madhava said about not
waiting because who can guarantee that one will be alive till such a date.
So I will begin my mission NOW, in a small way by posting a write up at
intervals of atleast once a month of 500 words, on this subject after
reviewing the literature available at the Indian consulate library,
fortunately located at about 2 kms from my place of work. As I said
earlier, it might take more than 250 weeks to come to a valid scientific
conclusion on the subject supported by valid evidence and statistics.
5) I need an auspicious Muhurtha to start this war of exploration and I
request Shri Madhava to suggest this date based on the following story,
which he once told me. When Shri Rama wanted to start his Lanka war against
Ravana, he wanted a date and muhurtha for which a Brahmin Pundit had to be
consulted. In the middle of jungle where only the vanara sena was available,
it was difficult to locate such a person. So Shri Rama instructed his
brother Lakshmana to walk over to the other side of the Bridge made by his
vanarasena early morning and ask the First Brahmin who will be doing his
sandhayas, for this date. Ofcourse, Lakshmana did as he was told and asked
the first Brahmin he met for the Muhurtha to start a very important task so
that it results in success. (War was supposed to a secret even then). The
Brahmin without looking up from his sandhyas, told him the date & time.
Lakshmana returned with this info to Shri Rama. In the early usha dawn
before sunlight, both Lakshmana and the Brahmin had not recognized each
other. That Brahmin was no other than Ravana. Rest is history or more
particularly Ramayana. (In a lighter vein, I may add that Shri Madhava was
the second most admirer of Ravana I have met after – EVR – called Periyar in
Tamil Nadu because, Ravana was an ardent Siva Bakhta.)
Namaste.
P.B.V.Rajan
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Ancient Indian History - When was the break? -
05-22-2000, 02:02 AM
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