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Book: Hindu Dharma, Written by Swami Chandrashekarendra
Saraswati |
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There are books aplenty in the world dealing with a vast variety of
subjects. The adherents of each religion single out one book for special
veneration, believing that it shows them the way to salvation. The
followers of some faiths even build temples in honour of their holy
scriptures. The Sikhs, for instance, do so; they venerate their sacred
book,
calling it the "Granth Sahib" [and enshrine it in temples].
Thus the followers of each religion have come to have a work showing
them the way to their spiritual uplift. Such books are believed to
enshrine
the utterances and commandments of God conveyed through the
founders of the respective faiths. For this reason they are called the
revealed texts. We call the same "apauruseya" (not the work of a human
author). What men do of their own accord is "pauruseya" and what the
paramatman reveals, using man as a mere instrument, is "apauruseya".
What is the authoritative work of our Vedic religion? People of other
faiths are clear about what their sacred books are. Buddhists have the
Tripitaka, Parsis (Zoroastrians) the Zend-Avesta, Christians the Bible,
and
Muslims the Qur'an. What work is basic to our religion, common to
Saivas, Vaishnavas, Dvaitins (dualists) and Advaitins (non-dualists) and
the
followers of various other (Hindu) traditions? Most of us find the
answer
difficult. Why?
There is an important reason. People born in other religions are taught
their sacred texts in schools. Or they receive instructions [at home] in
their respective faiths for two or three years, and then have what is
called
"secular" education. So even at a youthful age they are fairly
conversant
with the religion into which they are born. We Hindus receive no
religious
instruction at all. How has this affected us? Whenever adherents of
other
faiths go seeking converts, we become a convenient target for them. How
is it that people belonging to other religions do not leave their faith
to
embrace another in any considerable numbers? The reason is that they
learn about the tenets of their religion in childhood itself and remain
firmly attached to it. In contrast, we are not taught even the elements
of
our religion in our early years. Worse, we speak ill of our scriptures
and
have no qualms about even destroying them.
Our education follows the Western pattern. We want to speak like the
white man, dress like him and ape him in the matter of manners and
customs. We remain so even after our having won independence. In fact,
though we keep speaking all the time about our culture, about swadeshi
and so on, we are today more Westernised than before. Remaining a
paradesi (alien) at heart we keep talking of swadeshi. Religion has been
the backbone of our nation's life from time immemorial. If we wish to
remain swadeshi, both inwardly and outwardly, we must receive religious
instructions from childhood itself. The secular state is of no help in
this
matter because, in the secular set-up, education continues to be
imparted to our children on the Western pattern, and the children are
taught that our sastras are all superstition. The result is that most of
us
do not know what the sacred text is, that is common to all Hindus.
Our Atma-vidya (science of the Self) is extolled by people all over the
world. (In our country learning even subjects that are apparently
mundane like political economy, economics, dance, etc, has a
transcendent purpose). Foreigners come to India in search of our sastras
and translate them into their own languages. If we want to be respected
by the world we must gain more and more knowledge in such sastras as
have won the admiration of the world. We cannot earn more esteem
than others for achievements in fields like science and technology. We
feel proud if one or two Indians win Nobel prize but the rest of the
world
hardly takes any notice of it. Its attitude may be expressed thus: "The
strides we have taken in science and technology do not give us
satisfaction. So we go to the Hindus seeking things that are beyond. But
they themselves seem to forsake the philosophical and metaphysical
quest for our science and technology". We must be proud of the fact that
our country has produced more men who have found inner bliss than all
counties put together have. It is a matter of shame that we are ignorant
of the sastras that they have bequeathed to us, the sastras that taught
them how to scale the heights of bliss.
Many Hindus are ignorant of the scripture that is the very source of
their
religion - they do not know even its name. "What does it matter if we
don't know?” they ask. "What do we gain by knowing it? "
Though we are heirs to a great civilization, a civilization that is
universally
admired, we are ignorant of its springs. "Who cares about our culture?
Money is all that we need, “such is the attitude of our people and they
keep flying from continent to continent in search of a fortune. Some of
them come to me and tell me: "People abroad ask us about our religion,
about the Vedas, about the Upanishads. They want to know all about the
Gita and yoga, about our tenples and Puranas and about so many other
things. We find it difficult to answer their questions. In fact we seem
to
know less than what they already know about these matters. We are
indeed ashamed of ourselves. So would you please briefly put together
the concepts of our religion and philosophy? "
What does this mean? We are proud of living as foreigners in our own
land, but the foreigners themselves think poorly of us for being so. We
are inheritors of the world's oldest religion and culture; yet we have
no
concern for them ourselves. How would you then expect foreigners to
have any respect for us?
Perhaps it would have mattered much if we were an unlettered people.
Others would have thought us to be ignorant, not anything worse. But
what is the reality today? We read and write and talk a great deal.
Science and technology, politics, cinema, fiction -- these are our
interests.
Yet foreigners think poorly of us because we ignore what is unique to
our
land, the sastras relating to the Self.
There are so many books on our religion but we seem to have no need for
any of them. All our reading consists of foreign literature. We know all
the works of Milton and Wordsworth, but know precious little of the
poetry of Bhavabhuti and Ottakkuttar. We are acquainted with the
history of the Louis dynasty and of the Tsars, but we know nothing of
the
solar and lunar dynasties of our own country. Why, we do not know even
the names of the seers of the various gotras. We are thoroughly
acquainted with things that are of no relevance to us, but of the
subjects
that have aroused the wonder of the world we are ignorant, ignorant
even of the names of the sastras on which they are founded. Even if men
learned in the scriptures come forward to speak about them we refuse to
listen to them. It causes me great pain that our country and countrymen
have descended to such abysmal depths of ignorance.
The reason for this sorry state of affairs is that we are not as anxious
to
know about our culture, as we are to find out how much it would fetch us
in terms of money. Indeed the true purpose of earning money and other
activities of ours must be to know this culture fully, live in
consonance
with its spirit and experience a sense of fulfilment. Why should we care
to
know about our religion? A question like this is absurd. Religion itself
is
the purpose of all our actions - it is its own purpose. The need be no
purpose for religion although the performance of religious rites brings
us
great benefits such as tranquillity of mind, affection for all and,
finally,
liberation. Unmindful of all this, we want to know whether it would
fetch
us money. If we were truly interested in religion and truly attached to
it,
we would never be worried about the purpose served by it.
"Brahmanena niskarano dharmah sadango Vedadhyeyo jneyasca,” so say
the sastras. It means that a Brahmin must learn the Vedas and sastras
not
because there is any reason for it, not because there is any purpose
served by the same. It is only in our childhood that we learn the
subject
without asking question about how useful it is. A schoolgoing chiild
does
not ask:"Why should I learn history or geography? “Our religious texts
must be taught early in life. When a child grows up and goes to college,
he believes his studies will prove useful to him. If he reads for a B.L.
or
L.L.B. degree, it is to become a lawyer. Similarly, if he reads for an
L. T (or
B. Ed.) degree or on M. B. B. S., it is to become a teacher or a doctor.
If
you ask a teenager to study our religious texts, he would retort: "Why
should I learn them? How will it help in my career? “So religious texts
should be taught in childhood itself that is before the youngster is old
enough to question you about their utility [or harbour doubts about the
same]. Only then will we develop an interest in our religion and sastras.
Do we pay our children for their being interested in sports, music or
cinema? Similarly, they must be made to take an interest in religion
also
and such interest must be created in the same way as in sports and
entertainment. If children take to sports and entertainment which afford
only temporary pleasure, they are bound to take religion which will
confer on them everlasting happiness. The present sorry state of affairs
is
due to our basic education being flawed.
Today we have come to such a pass that people ask whether knowledge
of religion is of help in their upkeep. This is a matter of shame. The
sastras admonish: "Do not ask whether Vedic education will provide you
food. We eat and live but to learn the Vedas. “Your approach must be
based on this principle. A child born in a faith which has such high
ideals
is cut off from all opportunities of religious instruction at his very
birth.
Our concern is imparting him worldly knowledge from very start. Our
children must be brought up properly and faith in God inculcated in them
early in life.
We spend so much on our youngsters- but what do we spend on their
religious instruction? A father spends thousands on his son's upanayana.
But if he were to spend one tenth of the sum towards achieving what
constitutes the very purpose of the upanayana ceremony - making the
child a good brahmacarin - faith in our religion would be kept alive. To
repeat, far better would it be to spend money on achieving the goal of
upanayana than on the upanayana ceremony itself. The child must be
given religious instruction by a private tutor and taught the duties of
the
brahmacarin. Why should teachers conversant with such matters be
denied an income? If religion is taught in childhood itself, people will
be
free from doubts as they grow up and the teacher too will be benefited.
Today the situation is so lamentable that most of us do not know even
the name of the text that forms the foundation and authority of our
religion.
The fact that our people are not taught religion at an early age is one
reason why there are so many differences among them. One man is a
theist and another atheist. One performs religious rites without
devotion
while another is devoted but does not perform any rites. The differences
and disputes are many. As for the doubts harboured by people about our
religion there is no end. If our religion were taught in childhood
itself
there would be unanimity of views and freedom from doubts. We know it
for a fact that there are not so many doubting people among followers of
other religions as there are among ours: the reason is that, unlike us,
they
are better informed about the concepts of their respective religions.
What is the book of our religion? A definite answer even to this
question
seems to be a difficult task for people these days. However, if we
follow
the truths of that book which is the basic work of our religion there
will
be universal uplift.
Followers of most religions point to a single book as their sacred text
even if the matters mentioned in it are dealt with in other works of
theirs
also. A man may write one book today; tomorrow a second man will
come up to write another. There may be good as well as bad points about
them and it would be difficult to determine the value of each. So is it
not
to our advantage if a single book is accepted for all time as our basic
religious text? That is why every religion treats such a single book as
its
prime scripture.
What are the works that tell us all about our religion? The libraries
are
chock-full of books on Hinduism; indeed there are hundreds of thousands
of them. The subjects that come under our religion are also numerous. It
all seems to cause confusion. But we must remember that there are a few
texts that constitute a common basis for all the other numerous works.
By practising the tenets of our religion many have had the beatific
experience and remained in tranquil samadhi, without knowing death
and oblivious of the outside world. We see such men even today. There
are books from which we learn about Sadasiva Brahmendra, Pattinattar,
and similar realised souls. Other religious systems have not produced as
many realised souls as has our own faith. Is it possible that a religion
that
has been a source of inspiration for such a large number of great men
should have no authoritative texts? |
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