Gurupurnima at Udhbhavaha

Udhbhavaha, the alternate learning space in Bangalore, celebrated Gurupurnima today by giving out the first Dr. K.S. Narayanacharya award for writers promoting Bharatiyata. The event was jointly organized by Udhbhavaha and two publishing houses, Sahitya Prakashana and Subbu Publications. The award for this year was given to Sandeep Balakrishna.

The function, held at the beautiful Udhbhavaha campus, started with Gaupuja and Gurupuja. There were four eminent speakers including Sandeep Balakrishna. The other three were Shri M Subramanya, the founder of Sahitya Prakashana, Shrimati Smitha Srinivasmurthy, a translator and author, and Shri Jeevan Rao, the young author of Yuganta: The advent of Kaliyuga. The four speakers kept the audience of around hundred people engrossed in reminiscences of Narayanacharya and with stories on various aspects of Bharatiyata. Diwakar Chennappa, the head of Udhbhavaha and the moderator of the event, concluded with some inspiring stories of life at Udhbhavaha. The evening ended with bisi bele bhath, curd rice and payasa served by the Udhbhavaha teachers and parents.

I request people from Udhbhavaha to share some photos of this memorable event on the SIDH Telegram channel.

About K.S. Narayanacharya:
Dr. K.S. Narayanacharya, was an English, Kannada and Sanskrit scholar who retired as the Principal and Head, Department of English, Karnataka Arts College, Dharwad. He has published over 200 books in Kannada and English on Indian topics like The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Bhagvad Gita, Tamil scriptures, Sri Krishna, Valmiki, Chanakya, Agastya, Gandhi and Bose. His book ‘Those eighteen days’ (in 3 volumes) about the Mahabharata war is very popular in Karnataka. His discourses on the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads etc. were very well attended.

About Sandeep Balakrishna:
Sandeep Balakrishna is a Kannada/ English author, editor, speaker and independent researcher with about 20 years of writing on Indian history, culture and literature. He has authored over 2000 articles, essays, critiques, academic papers and delivered lectures related to these themes at institutions like the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, IIM Bangalore, Sri Aurobindo Society, Shree Somanath Sanskrit University, Bangalore University and Amrita University etc. Sandeep is the author of bestselling books such as Tipu Sultan: The Tyrant of Mysore, Madurai Sultanate: A Concise History, 70 Years of Secularism: Unpopular Essays on the Unofficial Political Religion of India, Invaders and Infidels and Stories from Inscriptions. He has also translated Dr S.L. Bhyrappa’s critically acclaimed work ‘Aavarana’ into English, and it is now in its 20th reprint. Sandeep is the founder and editor of The Dharma Dispatch, an online journal dedicated to Indian civilisation, culture and history,

Links:
Udhbhavaha https://www.udhbhavaha.org/
Sahitya Prakashana https://sahityaprakashan.com/
Subbu Publications https://subbupublications.com/

Convergent and Divergent Problems

(Note: The following is a long extract from E.F. Schumacher’s ‘A Guide for the Perplexed’ relevant to this blog’s discussion on education.)

Take a design problem—say, how to make a two-wheeled, man-powered means of transportation. Various solutions are offered, which gradually and increasingly converge until, finally, a design emerges which is simply ‘the answer’—a bicycle. Why is this answer so stable in time? Simply because it complies with the laws of the Universe—laws at the level of inanimate nature.

I propose to call problems of this nature convergent problems. The more intelligently you study them, the more the answers converge. They may be classified into ‘convergent problem solved’ and ‘convergent problem as yet unsolved’. The words ‘as yet’ are important; for there is no reason, in principle, why they should not be solved some day.

It also happens, however, that a number of highly able people set out to study a problem and come up with answers that contradict one another. For example, life presents us with the human problem of how to educate our children. We ask a number of equally intelligent people to advise us. Some of them tell us this: Education is the process by which existing culture is passed on to the next generation. Those who have (or are supposed to have) knowledge and experience teach, and those who as yet lack knowledge and experience learn. This is quite clear, and implies that there must be a situation of authority and discipline.

Now, another group of our advisers says this: ‘Education is nothing more or less than the provision of a facility. The educator is like a good gardener, who is concerned to make available good, healthy, fertile soil in which a young plant can grow strong roots. The young plant will develop in accordance with its own laws of being, which are far more subtle than any human being can fathom, and will develop best when it has the greatest possible freedom to choose exactly the nutrients it needs.’ Education, in other words, as seen by this second group, calls for the establishment not of discipline and obedience, but of the greatest possible freedom.

Logic does not help us because it insists that if a thing is true, its opposite cannot be true at the same time. It also insists that, if a thing is good, more of it will be better. Here, however, we have a very typical and very basic problem, which I call a divergent problem, and it does not yield to ordinary, ‘straight-line’ logic; it demonstrates that life is bigger than logic.

There is no solution—and yet, some educators are better than others. How do they do it? One way to find out is to ask them. ‘Look here,’ they might say, ‘all this is far too clever for me. The point is: You must love the little horrors.’ Love, empathy, understanding, compassion—these are faculties of a higher order than those required for the implementation of any policy of discipline or of freedom. To mobilise these higher faculties or forces, to have them available not simply as occasional impulses but permanently: that requires a high level of self-awareness, and that makes a great educator.

The Myth of Disenchantment

‘The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences’ is a 2017 book by Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, a professor of religion at Williams college. The book argues that even in the West, the epicentre of the project of modernity, evidence does not support that magic and enchantment have been banished.

The following excerpts will give an idea about the thesis.

Excerpt 1:

Paris, 1907. Marie Curie sat in the sumptuous chambers of an apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. As the lights were dimmed, the chemist joined hands with the man sitting next to her, and together they watched the psychic medium across the table begin to shake and mumble, speaking in a strange low voice, overcome by the force of a possessing spirit called “John King.” Eusapia Palladino, as the psychic was called, was believed to be able to make objects move without touching them and to produce “visions of lights or luminescent points, visions of hands or limbs, sometimes in the form of black shadows, sometimes as phosphorescent.” . . . By all rights, Marie Curie should not have been there. She was in many respects a paragon of the period’s scientific establishment, a hardheaded and critical thinker who had made a number of stunning discoveries. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she is one of the very few people in history to win it twice (physics and chemistry).

Excerpt 2:

“Modernity” is regularly equated with everything from specific artistic and philosophical movements to particular historical ruptures to distinctive sociological processes, such as urbanization, industrialization, globalization, or various forms of rationalization. I will not unravel all the possible associations and nuances of the term. From among these, I aim to undermine the myth that what sets the modern world apart from the rest is that it has experienced disenchantment and a loss of myth. I am not claiming that industrialization never happened, nor am I denying that rationalization occurred in any cultural sphere; rather, I am interested in the process by which Christendom increasingly exchanged its claim to be the unique bearer of divine revelation for the assertion that it uniquely apprehended an unmediated cosmos and did so with the sparkling clarity of universal rationality. Sometimes this account of modernity has been celebratory, rejoicing in the ascent of European science and the end of superstition. But equally often, it has been a lament, bemoaning a loss of wonder and magic.

Excerpt 3:

For a long time scholars have known that he [Isaac Newton] had an obsession with alchemy and the philosophers stone, and that he dedicated much of his life to searching for hidden codes in the Bible. As contemporary historian Charles Webster argues, “Newton in particular saw himself as a magus figure intervening between God and His creation.” It is not hard to find evidence for this claim, and in Newton’s unpublished papers one can find an extensive collection of magical and Kabbalistic texts and his own translations of alchemical writings. . . . Indeed, Newtonian physics was not the stripped-down mechanism he is associated with, but a dynamical cosmos inclined toward apocalypse and dissolution, which required active intervention by God and angels. In sum, it is hard to imagine Newton as a disenchanter insofar as he explicitly rejected the very clockwork universe he is often said to have discovered in favor of an animated world.

Svaraj In Ideas

Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya (1875–1949), the author of the essay titled ‘Svaraj In Ideas’ written in 1928, is perhaps the best-known academic philosopher of the colonial period. He held the King George V Chair (now the B. N. Seal Chair) in Philosophy at the University of Calcutta and trained many of the eminent philosophers of the post-independence period.

The following are some excerpts from the essay:

Excerpt 1:

We speak today of Svaraj or self-determination in politics. Man’s domination over man is felt in the most tangible form in the political sphere. There is however a subtler domination exercised in the sphere of ideas by one culture on another, a domination all the more serious in the consequence, because it is not ordinarily felt…. Cultural subjection is ordinarily of an unconscious character and it implies slavery from the very start. When I speak of cultural subjection, I do not mean the assimilation of an alien culture. That assimilation need not be an evil; it may be positively necessary for healthy progress and in any case it does not mean a lapse of freedom. There is cultural subjection only when one’s traditional cast of ideas and sentiments is superseded without comparison or competition by a new cast representing an alien culture which possesses one like a ghost. This subjection is slavery of the spirit; when a person can shake himself free from it, he feels as though the scales fell from his eyes. He experiences a rebirth, and that is what I call Svaraj in Ideas.

Excerpt 2:

Our education has not so far helped us to understand ourselves, to understand the significance of our past, the realities of our present and our mission of the future. It has tended to drive our real mind into the unconscious and to replace it by a shadow mind that has no roots in our past and in our real present. Our old mind cannot be wholly driven underground and its imposed substitute cannot function effectively and productively. The result is that there is a confusion between the two minds and a hopeless Babel in the world of ideas. Our thought is hybrid through and through and inevitably sterile. Slavery has entered into our very soul.

Excerpt 3:

In politics our educated men have been compelled to realize by the logic of facts that they have absolutely no power for good, though they have much power for evil, unless they can carry the masses with them. In other fields there is not sufficient realization of this circumstance. In the social sphere, for example, they still believe that they can impose certain reforms on the masses—by mere preaching from without, by passing resolutions in social conferences and by legislation. In the sphere of ideas, there is hardly yet any realization that we can think effectively only when we think in terms of the indigenous ideas that pulsate in the life and mind of the masses. We condemn the caste system of our country, but we ignore the fact that we who have received Western education constitute a caste more exclusive and intolerant than any of the traditional castes. Let us resolutely break down the barriers of this new caste, let us come back to the cultural stratum of the real Indian people and evolve a culture along with them suited to the times and to our native genius. That would be to achieve Svaraj in Ideas.

(The full essay is available for download here)

Triprangode Shiva Temple

Yesterday I went to two very old temples in Kerala. First to the Navamukunda temple at Tirunavaya and then to the Triprangode temple a few kilometers from Thirunavaya. At Triprangode I discovered, to my surprise, that these two old temples are connected together by an old story. You may know the story but not its connection to the two temples. This is how it goes:

Long ago, there lived a sage called Mrikandu with his wife Marudvati. Both were devotees of Shiva. The childless couple performed tapasya to be blessed with a child. In time, Shiva appeared before them and asked them if they desired an ordinary and mentally disabled son who would live a long life or an exceptional son who would live a short life up until the age of sixteen. The couple chose the short-lived exceptional son. In due course, Marudvati gave birth to a boy and the child was named Markandeya. Markandeya was an exceptionally gifted child, especially devoted to Shiva, and became an accomplished sage early in his childhood. As the boy was nearing his sixteenth year, Rishi Mrikandu and his wife became sad. On noticing this and asking the reason, Markandeya was told that his life would end at the age of sixteen. When Yama came to take his life, the boy ran to Lord Mahavishnu at the Navamukunda temple at Thirunavaya. Vishnu was helpless and he directed the boy to the Siva temple at Triprangode. On the way to Triprangode temple there was a huge banyan tree that separated into two parts to delay the pursuit of Markandeya by Yama. Markandeya hugged the Shiva Lingam at Triprangode and requested Lord Shiva to protect him. When Yama threw his noose around the boy-sage it also encircled the Shiva Lingam. Lord Shiva appeared in a fiery, angry form, took three steps (each of these steps has a separate small temple in the Triprangode temple complex today) and struck down Yama with his Trishul. There is an enclosed pond in the temple complex with a board saying – ‘This is where Shiva washed his Trishul’. Shiva blessed Markandeya with eternal life and proclaimed that he would remain forever as a sixteen-year-old sage. The assembly of Devas begged Shiva to revive Yama and he did it with the declaration that his devotees would always be spared from the noose of Yama.

Hope you all liked the story. I narrated it in detail to show how the itihaasa of the two temples close to each other is linked together. I was left wondering how these stories connected to the stories of other old temples nearby and also how every old temple would have stories exactly like this, with many Markandeya’s being saved by many Shivas in temples all over India.

Links:
Triprangode Shiva Temple
Tirunavaya Navamukunda Temple

Fewer Talks

FEWER TALKS.
MORE BREATHE!

…said the byline to a large nice-looking hoarding I saw recently. The hoarding was for a real estate company selling apartments. The message that the copywriter wanted to convey, I thought, was that in this apartment complex there was a lot of fresh air so one could ‘More Breathe!’ and at the same time the apartments were all so spread out that we could get by with ‘Fewer Talks’. I could be wrong but there were no other clues to what the copywriter could have possibly meant.

I also felt that the copywriter nailed the main problem in the world as ‘More Talks. Fewer Breathe!’ and then went and created a slogan that was exactly opposite. In a way solving all the problems of the world with a small shift in the sequence of words. I thought it brilliant! It reminded me of the slogan popularized by Meher Baba ‘Don’t worry, be happy!’. I imagined this copywriter also as a smiling sage gazing into the centre of the universe and coming up with the easily spreadable life mantra – ‘Fewer Talks. More Breathe!’

Whatever I may think about the spiritual value of the message, it is clear that the material meaning is not very clear. I have heard it said that these big hoardings are expensive to design and display. The people selling the apartments have persumably engaged an Ad-agency who have come up with the design and text on the hoarding. What was the Ad-agency thinking? What were the people who paid the money to put up the hoarding thinking? Nobody thought the slogan strange. And what will the people like me who pass by and read it think? Will anyone phone up the number on the hoarding and buy an apartment inspired by the ambiguous slogan?

The slogan also reminded me of a story that Pawanji tells about his experience with the students of a premier institute. Pawanji was teaching this bright class of computer science undergraduates. There were children from all over the country and speaking to them Pawanji had an insight. He suddenly felt that these children had very superficial language skills. He asked them to look out of the window and write a short essay on what they saw. The children struggled to do this easy task. Pawanji found out that in their single-minded pursuit to reach the premier institute most of the children had focussed on transactional English. They had lost out on learning both English and, sadly, also their mother-tongues to any deep level. Their parents who were less ‘educated’ had a larger vocabulary than these children.

Now, the slogan on the hoarding can mean that we have lost our self-consciousness about the superiority of English and are comfortable with whatever broken English we can get away with. Or it may mean something else. Whatever it is, always remember to ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy!’ and to never forget:

FEWER TALKS.
MORE BREATHE!

Thoughts on the Ramayana – Part 2

(This is part 2 of the reflections inspired by my YouTube conversation on the Ramayana with my friend Pranav. Available here)

Nārada muni had confirmed to Vālmiki that it was possible for someone to have the sixteen guṇa-s, and Ram was one such person. After few days, Brahma the sriśṭikartā visited Vālmiki’s ashram. Brahma confirmed about Ram, what Nārada had claimed. He encouraged Vālmiki to write Ram’s story and spread it in the world, for people to follow as an example. The advice from Brahma created a resolve in Vālmiki to spread the word about Ram.

One morning, Vālmiki saw a hunter hunt down a bird while the bird was in middle of mating with his partner. Seeing this, Vālmiki spontaneously said ­– मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमश्शाश्वतीस्समा: । यत्क्रौञ्चमिथुनादेकमवधी: काममोहितम् ।।1.2.15।। 15 (Tr. “O fowler, since you have killed one of the pair of infatuated kraunchas you will be permanently deprived of your position”). Importantly, the sentence was spoken in a particular chhanda (meter) of poetry. It was beautiful. After that, Vālmiki decides to narrate/compile the story of Ram in the particular meter of poetry. And hence, we witness the birth of the poet in Vālmiki.

In my opinion, there are two important points to note here. First, in both classical India and classical Greece, the poet was the historian. Histories were written/sung in the form of poetry. And unlike the modern process of history writing, for which time-sequence is sacrosanct (what happened before : what happened after), the classical historiography is description of an event. For the classical poets, “the lesson of each event, deed or occurrence is revealed in and by itself” (Arendt. “Between Past and Present”, p.64, Penguin Books 2006). In my opinion, an event by definition is autonomous i.e., it has the capacity to reveal (aspects of) Truth independently, with no need for any causal relation with past or future events. Our interest in narrating events is reflection on Truth, and not to find causal ‘time-sequence’, which modern historiography seems to be obsessed about.

Secondly, the prominence of poets in a society (and poets as those who describe events) was common to both classical Greece and India. The importance accorded to poets is probably due to the realization that whatever is worth passing on to next generation needs to be inscribed in meter of poetry. This is in contrast to contemporary attitude (or modern attitude) which gives importance and dignity to inscription in the form of binary-logic. I think, one important tenet of Indian civilization is its kalā-pradhāntā or kathā-pradhānta and this aspect is a natural outcome of the tradition of poets in our society.

Pranav, in this recording calls maharishi Vālmiki as ādi-kavi (the original poet or the first poet) and Rāmayaṇa to be ādi-kāvya (original poetry or first poetry). The purpose of Rāmayaṇa is to pass the learnings of Veda-s amongst people. And therefore, there is a bias towards knowledge (veda). The classical historiography is biased, is subjective unlike modern historiography whose character is “eunuchic objectivity” (Arendt. “Between Past and Present”, p.49, Penguin Books 2006) i.e., incapable of any reflection on matters of Truth.

In my opinion, this is an important matter to flag – the classical process of historiography, when conceptualizing the ‘Indic framework of expression’.

Thoughts on the Ramayana – Part 1

(The following reflections are inspired by the conversation I had with Pranav on the Ramayana. Available here)

I am finding the story of Ratnakar, the dacoit transforming to Vālmiki, the poet very interesting.

Ratnakar used to loot and kill travelers, and thus support his family. On one such occasion, he caught hold of 7 rishi-s and looted them. Before being killed, one of the rishis asked Ratnakar if he is aware that his actions will invite pāpa upon him. Ratnakar said he was aware of it but justified his actions by saying he has to feed a family. The rishi-s then asked – “are the family members willing to share a portion of your pāpa?” The questions stunned him, for he never thought about this. He had assumed that the pāpa will be shared by the family. But the rishi-s suggested him to check with family members. To Ratnakar’s shock, the family refused to have any part in his pāpa – Ratnakar’s sins were his own, and he alone would bear the brunt. The realization that pāpa is not shared, nor transferred to anyone, proved to be a turning point. Ratnakar now asks the rishi of what he should do for prāyaścita. The rishi-s give him a mantra and ask him to do tapasyā. And so, Ratnakar leaves dacoity and become a tapasvi.

I thought this was one important point for us to flag. In India, we do not believe in ‘aggregation’ of sin. This is in contrast to the abrahmic world, where sins of many can be aggregated together and then transferred to someone (Jesus, the son of God, decides to suffer on behalf of men – a decision which transformed him into Christ). In India, perhaps we do not believe such a thing is possible – and this belief is an important aspect of the karma-phala principle.

Moreover, the case of Ratnakar has another interesting aspect. He knew that his actions would invite sin, and yet he chose to continue with them. It was not a case of ill-informed decision making on his part. Pranav explains, that according to veda-s certain actions invite puṇya and certain invite pāpa. The human being always has a choice to act or not act correctly. However, whatever action he chooses to do, the associated puṇya or pāpa cannot be escaped from. A human being may choose to postpone his mokśa to next life by choosing to do actions worthy of pāpa. We find another such example in Duryodhana, who says that he knows his actions are adhārmic but he still chooses to do them.

Moving on with the story,

Ratnakar’s tapasyā was intense. Over a period of time, an ant hill (called valmika in Sanskrit) got formed all around him, but he remained unfazed in his chanting. Once the same group of rishi-s was passing by, when they heard sound of chanting emanating from inside the valmika. On clearing that, they found Ratnakar immersed in his tapasya. Impressed by his transformation they predicted he will find glory and named him Vālmiki – the one from valmika. On their suggestion, Vālmiki built an ashram on the banks of river tamasa, where he continued with his tapasyā.. One day, probably as a result of the tapa, he formulated 16 characteristics (guṇa) an ideal man would have. Having thought of these, he wondered if there is actually anyone in this world with all the sixteen guṇa-s. One day, rishi Nārada visited Vālmiki in his ashram. Vālmiki described the sixteen guṇa-s and posed the same question to Nārada muni – is there anyone in this world with these guṇa-s? It is then, that Nārada muni told Vālmiki about Ram.

(To be continued…)

People Like Us!

There is this need that alternative-type people have of looking for a community of ‘People Like Us’. Maybe this is a need that everyone has but it is more noticeable in the alternative crowd because they are a small minority. Me and my wife were on this search when we, long ago, took our three children out of school. The need was to quickly find other people who had taken their children out of school and then to quickly become friends with them so that quickly our children would have other children to play with. Let me tell you a small story about the end to that search. We, confused new homeschoolers, were in a weekend meeting of people who were all talking about homeschooling on an internet forum. It was a full day meeting on a farm outside Bangalore and in the second half after lunch something struck me as odd and I asked this very vocal and passionate young man if his child/ children were homeschooled. He said he wasn’t married and didn’t have any children but in the course of time when they appeared he would definitely homeschool them. He was very sure about that. We saw that a community of homeschooler ‘People Like Us’ wouldn’t happen and we decided to go it alone!

However, our need to look for alternative-types of ‘People Like Us’ went on for a long time. We visited Auroville, we visited a large community that was being started near Bhopal, we went and spent time at many enthusiastic organic farming experiments. We didn’t find any ‘People Like Us’. We realised that this may be because we are really weird. Because it looked like many people were finding people like themselves. And some of these communities stayed together for longish times before they seemed to inevitably (a) lose their energy or (b) mostly became ‘vayuranilam amritamatedham bhasmantam shariram’, in other words vanished without a trace. I also know of some people who gave the better part of their lives to movements that ended messily. These people, as we can expect, continue to be very bitter about their experience.

Now the problem before me is that all the workshops of SIDH attract a certain type of ‘People Like Us’ and I am sure that communities built around this idea are not sustainable. I am still thinking about it, meanwhile my mantra is what a blogger I follow often says: ‘Building community is learning to live with the stupid idiot next door!’ I kind of believe that is exactly how it is. What do you think?

Ramayana Conversations with Pranav – 1

I have known Pranav for more than a decade, since our days in CEH at IIIT-Hyderabad. For some time, I have been wanting to have a series of discussions with him on the Rāmāyaṇa.

Why Rāmāyaṇa? Like many, I have faint memory of watching Ramanand Sagar’s Rāmāyaṇa serial on Doordarshan. In addition, I have heard the story in bits and pieces in moral conversations in the family, especially with my Nani. I remember, for many years my Nani every morning did pooja of Ram and Sita before she would eat her first meal. In more recent times, I heard Rāmāyaṇa from Guruji Ravindra Sharma at his place in Adilabad. His rendering caught my attention and developed a curiosity towards the story of Ram. Further, in discussions with Navjyoti sir, we pondered over the idea of maryādā and maryādā-puruśa. Navjyoti’s long essay titled “Role of Good Manners as a Bridge between the World Religions in the Sanatana Tradition (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism)”, chapter published in “Philosophy Bridging the World Religions” (Ed. Peter Koslowski, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003) is an important read. In this essay, Navjyoti has attempted to show that construction of a maryādā-puruśa is perhaps common endeavor to all religious pursuits, and the ‘Sanatana theory of justice’ can be the basis of all dispute resolution. Further, in discussions with Navjyoti we learnt about the enterprise of Itihāsa (distinct from the enterprise of History); Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata have been considered Itihāsa by people of India.

Of late, in SIDH, I have been contemplating upon Dharampal’s seminal essay – “Bhāratiya, Citta, Mānasa aur Kāla”. In that, amongst other things, Dharampal has called for a need to develop a conceptual framework of ‘Indianness’ or public behavior supported by systemic structure. Our small team in SIDH has been contemplating on what would constitute such a framework? Further, the question we have faced is where do we begin from? In that regard, I thought a contemplative conversation on Rāmāyaṇa could be useful, since Ram is integral to India. And I could not think of a better person to converse with than my dear friend Pranav Vashisht. There would be very few people in my generation who are not only familiar with western philosophies but have also read the Śāstra-s. Pranav is one such person.

In Episode 1, Pranav talks about the story of Agnisarma, also known as Ratnakar, a dacoit who lived by looting and killing travelers. The story is about his transformation into Valmiki – the poet, who decides to tell the story of Ram. (It is important to note that both in classical India and Greece, the poet plays the historian). Towards the end of episode 1, I put forward three questions – 1. Is it possible to share/transfer one’s pāpa/puṇya with/to others, 2. What is the significance of considering Veda-s to be aupurushiya (author-less) and 3. What is the significance of using meter (of poetry) to describe good deeds to future generations?

The reading of Itihāsa is a lifelong process. Let us see how far Pranav and I can go with it. Hopefully, this would help us identify some basic tenets of Bhārtiyatā.

The talk is available at: