A REDISCOVERY OF ROOTS AND A REAFFIRMATION OF OUR NATIONAL NARRATIVE

We may have inherited the finest spiritual traditions from our forefathers but we must live up to the golden standards of such spirituality. Else, vanity about our heritage will tantamount to gross violation of its essential principles and a debasing of such a fine inheritance. It is life that breathes life into the otherwise dead past and it is life that keeps up the continuity of tradition, ever invigorating it with fresh additions of present ingenuity and embellishing it with the graces of the human spirit. Thus, we move on from one era to another seamlessly so often save when revolutionary changes resolve out multitudinous past interactions to carve out fresher channels along the meandering course of evolution. All these, however, point to a vibrant culture of collective life offering enormous scope for individual fulfilment, be it in the domain of social security or in the fields of the arts and the sciences. Culture must thrive, this is the precondition of civilisation and this, the fundamental basis of social life. The best of the past must be harmonised with the exigencies of the present and the need of the hour must never so outstrip cultural considerations that mass destruction of the past heritage be perpetrated as so often happens in the case of violent revolutionary changes in society. Harmony is the watchword and peace and the flourishing of civilisation its natural end.

Such a wonderful heritage we are heir to and we must learn to appreciate every line and curve, every nuance, every shade and light of it such that we prove worthy of our inheritance. As legatees of a golden civilisational past whose vibrant heartbeat even now keeps us alive as a premier spiritual people in the world, we must own up to our responsibilities and must behave as a mature nation whose mission it is to be the spiritual guardian of the world, its preceptor in principle and practice of all that is sublime in human thought and action, and its anchor in direst need of sustenance when the going gets rough and human barbarism surfaces to annihilate all that is worthwhile in this beautiful blue planet. We cannot and must not rest on our laurels, must not wallow in the mire of material misdemeanours and make a sham of what is supremely a sublime ancient attainment of our forefathers who bestrode the world of mortals like titans and cast off this sheath the universe is like so much dispensable debris post illumination as to the nature of things. Such a lineage we belong to and such must be our destiny. Betwixt the twain we are caught in our present cauldron of this world and we must carve effectively our way out and show the rest of humanity the path as well. This seems to be our national mission, our contribution to the cosmic scheme of things in so far as the terrestrial order of humanity is concerned, our national score in the universal symphony which we must harmoniously play out for the general concord.

This leads to a rather serious proposition, that we ought to take stock of our present cultural compositions, our academic attributes, our intellectual inclinations and our overall social stratification. For our civilisation to remain rooted to its pristine principles we need to define clearly our fundamental national narrative instead of allowing a myriad unharmonised ideas that are afloat to create a babble and so confuse the polity as to where its moorings are. We have to lay out clearly that the Vedas are the bedrock on which Indian civilisation has been built and that ours is fundamentally a dharma tradition whose social fruition is our national life. We are at heart the children of Bharatvarsha whose eternal philosophy is enshrined in the Vedas and the Upanishads and the Puranas which form the body politic of the Sanatan Dharma. Sanskrit is our mother language and all that we hold as hallowed is contained in the countless discoveries of the rishis (seers of transcendental truth) which are recorded in our ancient scriptures. There have been a succession, a veritable procession of prophets, patriots, saints, seers, sages and divine incarnations down the ages whose utterances have been also given due veneration in this our blessed motherland but they have all been classified as Vedic and non-Vedic. In so far these principles philosophical or spiritual have been in conformity to the Vedas which are regarded by Hindus as inviolable revealed transcendental truth, they have been accepted as part of the growing Vedic tradition but where they have gone against the Vedas, they have been declared non-Vedic but accorded honoured status, nonetheless, in the thought tradition of Bharatvarsha. Even the gross materialism of the Charvaks was given due recognition and allowed free flow within the consciousness of the Indians and they were never persecuted for preaching the vilest materialism as such. Likewise, Buddhism converted two-thirds of our population in its heyday and was accepted, despite its heretic stance towards the Vedas, as the viable alternative to Sanatan Dharma for a thousand years till it brought about its own downfall through the practice of vile debauchery in the name of dharma and was bodily expelled from the motherland by the redoubtable Adi Sahankaracharya in the early ninth century of the common era.

Such then is our great spiritual and cultural tradition and we must comprehend it in full measure through adequate understanding of our true national history before we are able to further its cause in competent terms. We must learn our ancient language, Sanskrit, which is the storehouse of all our literary treasures and is the mother of almost all the languages which we speak today in our country. The understanding of Sanskrit will make us conversant with our glorious historical past and then and then alone will we be able to rise as a nation to our full stature with pride in our heritage and faith in our destiny. En route we must respect all other cultures of the world and never for a moment think that we as a people or as a civilisation are superior to any or inferior to any likewise, for our very Vedic philosophy teaches us to regard the whole of humanity, any, all of sentience, to be divine and the perception of equality to be the basis of life and existence. So, there must be no snobbishness nor self-debasement as we venture into this rediscovery of our nation and its roots even as we advance into the future through shifting horizons. May our efforts be crowned with success that attends humility in achievement and vigour in defeat for detachment is the key to our national progression across the stretches of space and time! Jai Hind!