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Written by Sri Swami Chandrashekarendra
Saraswati |
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Our nation, it is often alleged, does not have a sense of history. In my
opinion the Puranas are history. But to our educated people today
history
means the history of the past two thousand years since the birth of
Christ. They do not believe that the events of earlier eras, including
those
mentioned in the Puranas, are history. Some of them admit, though, that
there is an element of truth in Puranic stories as shown by recent
researches. But these relate to theories like the division of the Indian
people into races like Aryans and Dravidians, theories they fancy are
supported by the Puranas. The rest, like the miracles or accounts of
supernatural occurrences, they dismiss as fables or as a tissue of lies.
Since they are unable to comprehend matters that are beyond our senses
they treat the Puranas as mystery.
Now children have no choice but to read the textbooks of history written
by such people. But I believe that it is not a good to keep children
ignorant of the Puranas. It is not my purpose to say that you should not
read history, but I should like to mention that the puranas are also
history
and that our youngsters have a great deal to learn from them, a great
deal that will help in moulding their conduct and character. No such
purpose is served by the history taught in schools.
One reason why they say history must be read is their belief that
"history
repeats itself". The idea is that the lessons of the past would be
helpful to
us in the future. We learn from history about the circumstances that
usually lead to war and about how great civilizations rise and fall. We
can
be on guard against a repetition of these circumstances and this, we are
told, is one of the "uses" of history.
The same events are repeated kalpa after kalpa. According to our sastras,
the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata, the Dasavatara (the
story of the ten incarnations of Visnu) and the Puranas are reenacted
kalpa after kalpa. Here too we see history repeating itself.
Have we in reality learned any lesson from history, I mean from the
history taught in schools? No. We learn how such men as Cenghiz Khan,
Timur, Ghazni, and Malik Kafur appeared from time to time and caused
devastation in various countries and how they massacred innocent
people. But by reading accounts of their infamous deeds have we been
able to prevent the appearence of such scourages again? Hitler and
Mussolini rose to perpetrate the same kind of outrages on people.
We are witness in our own times to governments losing their support
because of charges of bribery and corruption made against them and
other malpractices ascribed to them including partisanship and nepotism.
When one such government falls, another group forms a new
government and they too lose the support of the people in the
subsequent elections for the same reasons. Here is an example of our
failure to learn any lesson form history.
History must be taught along with lessons in dharma; then alone will it
serve the purpose of bringing people to the right path. The Puranas do
precisely this.
History contains no more than accounts of monarchs and other rules in
chronological order. It does not give importance to their moral
character:
whether wicked rulers suffered an ill fate or whether just and righteous
rulers earned a high place. According to the law of Karma, Isvara
determines the fate of people on the basis of their actions, meritorious
and sinful. Such justice is not necessarily meted out during the
lifetime of
a person. The fruits of a man's action are reaped in subsequent births.
It
is not the task of history to deal with such questions, nor do
historians
have the capacity to inquire into such matters. Whether a wicked ruler
like Hitler was consigned to hell on his death and whether he had a
lowly
rebirth is a subject for the Puranas. Those who composed these texts had
the reqisite insight to deal with such questiions; indeed the very
purpose
of these stories is this, to impart moral lessons. From history we do
not
derive any edification.
The Puranas are also, as I said before, history. Besides, they contain
lessons in papa and punya (demerit and merit). In fact, their choice of
stories and narration are such as to bring people closer to the path of
dharma. Again, the Puranas contain accounts of individuals who by virtue
of their steadfast adherence to dharma attained to an elevated state in
this birth itself. At the same time, they also tell is about persons
who, by
their acts of adharma, came to harm in this very birth itself. There are
in
fact no Puranic stories that do not contain some moral lesson or other.
"The experience of the past narrated in history are a pointer of future
events. The stories of good men who performed virtuous deeds and
benefited from them should be a source of inspiration for us. In the
same
way, the stories of wicked men who brought evil to the world and
themselves suffered on account of their acts contain a warning for us".
Is
the stufy of history really usefull in this way? It is not. To improve
ourselves morally and spiritually we must turn to the Puranas.
The purpose of the Puranas is not to give [as history does] a
chronological
account of kings or their quarrels without imparting lessons on good and
evil. We do not need such history since it does not contain any guide
for
the condcut of our life. History must be capable of bringing us Atmic
rewards.
The Puranas too deal with the lineages of various ruling houses. They
give
accounts of dynasties descended from the moon and the sun
(candravamsa and suryavamsa) and contain list of successive rulers of
varous kingdoms. But in most cases only the names of rulers are
mentioned or only brief references made to them. Detailed accounts are
given only of rulers whose lives have a lesson for us. For instance, the
Bhagavata tells the story of Uttanapada, the father of Dhruva, and of
Dhruva's son, but only very briefly. However, the story of Dhruva
himself
is told in detail, Dhruva who is an example for all of us in devotion,
determination and courage.
English historians dismiss the Puranas as false. But on the pretext of
carrying out impartial research they twist history to suit their ends
like,
for instance, their "divide and rule" policy. It is in this way that
they have
propagated the Aryan-Dravadian theory. If the Puranas are a lie, what
about the history written by these Englishmen? Efforts are going on to
reconstruct our history. But prejudicial acounts cannot be ruled out in
these new attempts also. What ever claim the historians make to
impartiality, it is hard to say how far the new history (or histories)
are
likely to be truthful.
Vyasa, who composed the eighteen Puranas, the great men who wrote
the various Sthala Puranas, and the Tamil author Sekkizhar were unbiased
in their accounts.
It is not right to view history merely as an account of the rise and
fall of
empires or of wars, invasions, dynasties amd so on. Each and every
subject has a history of its own. But we find that political history is
given a
dominant place. The emphasis in the Puranas is on dharma and,
incidently, they also deal, in a subsidiary manner, with the ruling
dynasties, with holy men as well as with ordinary folk. They contain
details also of cultural life, the arts and the sciences. The thrust of
the
Puranas, however, is dharmic and Atmic. |
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