Monday, December 30, 2013

Ancient Indian Wisdom and symbolism

The Indian wisdom is recorded over a period of not just centuries , but over thousands of years .
several invaders tried to erase the history of India .but all of them who came to destroy became  admirers and in fact, propagated  the Indian wisdom. to name a few of them who propagated |Indian thinking are not just Magsthanis and  Huan u-tsang from Greece and China respectively, but included Prophet Mohammad and, hold your breath !, Jesus himself. .How this ancient thinking from India became so famous and acceptable ? its universal application, natural deduction and ready for correction and  proof.  In other  words, when Shri Adi Shankara came in 9th century, there were many who opposed him backed by Buddhist thought and Shanakara defended it by using old text of Vedas. even to-day, that tradition goes in India, where any body can question the wisdom and if it is not defended properly, new theory takes root and established.  this has two characteristics. One  that all religions which came into existence are accepted and tok firm roots in India . for example, Jainism, Buddhism, Siskhism all took off from Hinduism and Though they are a separate religion , Hinduism accepted them as their logic is acceptable. However, some are converted into new religion while others stuck to old methodology. But none, resorted to violence or force and it is the duty of King to protect all including atheists. This lead to religious tolerance in India long before world can imagine and preached tolerance. Second one is more interesting, Hinduism itself implemented some of the new thoughts and transformed into more acceptable form which made Indian wisdom NOT only acceptable , but ancient wisdom has become ever new..

Let us look at one unique element of  Indian wisdom  is  Symbolism .  In every story, every example, and in every  name, there is symbolism. when  a character "Narada"  is introduced, it is clear from thename, he is the one who helps you to reach "Narayana" ( first two letters are taken) .  while Narada's role is to bring human beings nearer to " Narayana " . his name also signifies the same. in a story of "Dhruva", his name means determination and he does exactly same as per his name. He is determined to see God  and achieves. His step mother's name is " Surichi" which means doer of what she likes and hsi mother's name is "Suniti" who does what is right.the story and  names are matching.  they do every where and characters though they may be true or fictitious, they portray their  character in name it self. Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata also depict names, acts and scenes look exactly like they mean.  What impact it does on common man.? if a child wants to focus on story, he can and get what she looks for. if an adult  tries to understand the story and inner meaning, he or she will get the same. finally a mature person or a poet or writer understands where the story leads to , he will get the meaning as well as moral of the story. what a superb imagination ! it is Indian wisdom . it requires wisdom to recognize wisdom. it requires an artist to recognize art.


Saturday, August 24, 2013

Ancient Indian war techniques - Padmavyuha

Abhimanyu  syndrome 

There is an episode in Maha Bharata  about a war  vyuha or plot which was designed by  Acharya Drona to trap Pandavas. it was  arranged when Arjuna was not around, as Arjuna alone  knows the secret of entering and existing. Abhimnayu  knows how to enter and did  not know how to exit.

The typical Padmavyuh consists of petals , where each round will lead to  another inside which gets complicated as we go in. It is spiral type.  Entering itself is difficult as it is two circles keep rotating one in side and other outside, in opposite directions. While entering . one has to see the timing when both circles give a little bit of gap and quickly has to enter at  lightning speed. as you keep winning, the no. of  warriers keep increasing. so unless one has experience, he can easily gets tired. Abhimnayu got tired by the end of the day and had to fight with six great players of that time . In the beginning, he has to beat one  Maha rathi , means a great warrior , watch with so  many horses, elephants and soliders. each hour passes by , the maha rathis keep increasing. There is one person who can break Padmavyuha, . he is Arjuna . All others even  shiver to enter padmavyuha.  Udhishtara has no alternative than to allow Abhimnayu to lead as others can not even enter. His strategy was once Abhimanyu enters, others can go and support him. Due to two concentric circles going in opposite directions, the gap is less. When Abhimanyu entered with lightening speed. otehrs coudl nto enter so fast . the suddenly the entrance got closed. Abhimnayu became alone. Actually that trap was made fro Arjuna as That is the only way to eliminate Arjuna and without killing Arjuna, Kauravas coudl never dream of winning. By Srikrihsna's plan, Arjuna escaped that, Abhimnay got trapped in that.

Now coming to Abhimnayu. what strategy he has to adopt? let us see.  one has to enter quickly and proceed slowly. why ? Because ,  as you progress fast, you get tired.  and each win like video games gets you into tougher  level of game. instead Abhimnayu entered with over confidence and got trapped. We are all like Abhimnayu. we enter into problems without knowing the way out. we think it is courage. but it is the trap.

The Abhimnayu syndrom is called people who refuse to say" i do not know". they refuse to accept or hide their ignorance. The wisdom of Drona is that it is one of its kind of war game which is lot  superior to Spanish Armadas, who never get tired o r Greeks who keeps changing as war progressing and always you have to fight with a fresh soldier. Ancient Indian wisdom is not known to westerns as they never dared to look at India till Alexander came and LOST  the war with  Magadha warriors. History is re-written to suit Alexander.  No body survived the great Mahabharata war and hence not many knew the art of war.
This  Padma Vyuha is a small example for Ancient Indian wisdom. At least Indians should understand the reason India never went on war outside the world is India was and is most fertile and rich country and other places were far inferior in civilization and they are called "barbarians" and backward in civilization.
 Later when we lost our knowledge , self-discipline and unity, we lost war. 


Saturday, March 23, 2013

Ancient Indian Glory

ANCIENT INDIAN GLORY .
yesterday, we went to Nageswar , one of the Jyothirlingas to perform Abhishekam and then visited one of the oldest temples in India. this is dated back to 11,000 years old as tested by Archaeology dept and is maintained by Shankaracharya muth. this is a Ganesha temple where Lord Krishna prayed before setting up Dwaraka. the mantra chanted by Lord srikrishna is written there and the swamy(no pujari )says it is a secret and we there families who visited are lucky as one of the two proofs that Lord Srikrishna walked on this planet.rest have vanished in tsunami followed by Krishna Niryanam. second one is a spring that is called narayana ganga which we plan to visit next month. unfortunately in our country, we do not have history thanks to foreign rule for more than 2000 years. to-day, they talk about babri Masjid,but no body talks about Somanath temple destroyed several times. we talk about Ayodhya , but there is not even a trace of history that Sriram ruled the place. This ram mandir is not even few hundred years old which any archaeology studies show. Where as I saw Egyptians restoring Pharo's monuments though pharaohs are not Islam  again Greece is another country where I see more ruins and less restoration like in India  west who destroyed world cultures are atleast realizing now to restore. we need massive funds and honest people t work to restore the history of ancient India. unfortunately we also destroy our own monuments as for us survival is more important than restoration. if any body goes to Golconda, which is just few hundred years old, we see no body is interested in restoring preserving what is there. same is case with Hampi. surprisingly sri Lanka is keeping Ramayana ruins in a better way. we do nto have pride for ancient India  no wonder we are having low self confidence and low moral values. next time, i will post the photo of ganeshji which was worshiped by Lord Srikrishna. national geography is trying to bring some nice past history of ancient India. I thinkif people and Archaeology dept, are helped by people, we can atlest bring back some past glories. a recent example of finding 100,000 crore treasure in sri Ananta Padmanabha temple in Trivandrum.