VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAK AM ‘Th e w h o l e w o r l d i s b u t o n e f a m i l y ’

w w w. b h a v a n a u s t r a l i a . o r g

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Towards a New Era of Value Creation- Daisaku Ikeda

We are living in an era marked by an absence of values, in which no measure of worth other than the monetary is recognized.

Discussions of poverty and income disparity, for example, are cast solely in terms of monetary values, making them needlessly sterile and soulless.

Growing income disparities are an undeniable fact, and legal and systemic measures to create and maintain a social safety net are of course essential. However, these respond only to the symptoms, when more fundamental, curative measures are required. To ensure the genuine and lasting effectiveness of our response, a spiritual undergirding—a fundamental reevaluation of our priorities—is necessary.

We need to develop the awareness that the standard of values that judges human worth solely on the basis of economic capacity represents the effective absence of values. We need to ask ourselves why there is such pervasive pessimism and nihilism in advanced industrial societies.

When science and technology are divorced from the question of value, they are subject to no real control and potentially pose a deadly peril to human society. If this tendency is left unchecked, the consequences for humanity could be truly dire.

The nightmare unleashed through the development of nuclear weapons technologies demonstrates all too clearly the immensity of the danger.

We need to replace this nihilism and pessimism with a new sense of value that will open the door to a new era; religion can be a source of energy to achieve this. There is a need for the kind of religion that is compatible with and embraces the insights of science, but can serve to guide and restrain those technologies which, if misused, have the potential to wreak devastation on humankind.

A key function of religion is to help people replant their feet firmly in the here and now, enabling an out-of-control civilization to realize its needed course correction. The here and now is the foundation and pivot of all aspects of human activity. If we lose sight of this and base ourselves in a virtual world, we end up the slaves of the very technologies that we ourselves created.

Toward A World Without Nuclear WeaponsThe year 2010 will be critical in terms of finding a path toward the resolution of global issues, with a

number of important international meetings scheduled, including the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in May.

U.S. President Barack Obama has signaled a potentially fundamental transformation in the status of nuclear weapons. In his speech in Prague, the Czech Republic, in April 2009, he provided an important new impetus to long-deadlocked efforts for nuclear disarmament by calling for a world without nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons embody the deepest negative impulses of the human heart. The work of abolishing them is laden with profound difficulties, and it is unrealistic to expect rapid or simple progress. It is vital to maintain an approach that is both flexible and persistent.

The time has come for the nuclear-weapon states to develop a shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons and to break free from the spell of deterrence. A new kind of thinking is needed, one based on working together to reduce threats and creating ever-expanding circles of physical and psychological security until these embrace the entire world.

The nuclear-weapon states should evince their resolve to move beyond deterrence by undertaking the following three commitments at the 2010 NPT Review Conference and working to fully implement

them by 2015.

1. To reach a legally binding agreement to extend negative security assurances—the undertaking not to use nuclear weapons against any of the non-nuclear-weapon states fulfilling their obligations under the NPT.

2. To initiate negotiation on a treaty codifying the promise not to use nuclear weapons against each other.

3. Where nuclear-weapon-free zones have yet to be established, and as a bridging measure toward their establishment, to take steps to declare them nuclear non-use regions.

In addition to expanding the frameworks defining the legal obligation not to use nuclear weapons in this way, it is also necessary to further clarify the norm that nuclear weapons are indeed weapons that must never be used. To achieve this, the threat or use of nuclear weapons should be included among the war crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The establishment of this norm will clear the way toward the abolition of nuclear weapons—the fervent desire of people the world over.

In addition, we need to create a system, based on the United Nations Charter, for the General Assembly and the Security Council to work together for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Article 26 of the UN Charter states that the Security Council has responsibility for formulating plans for regulating armaments in order to promote the maintenance of international peace and security, minimizing the diversion of the world’s human and economic resources for armaments. However, to date the Security Council has failed to fulfill this role. It is time that new efforts be made to fully implement Article 26 so that the Security Council fulfills its disarmament obligations, strengthening impetus toward nuclear abolition and the demilitarization of our planet.

None of these proposals will be easy to implement, but all of them build on existing institutional foundations. They are by no means unreachable goals. The NPT Review Conference should initiate movement toward these goals, and such efforts should culminate in a nuclear abolition summit in 2015—held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which would effectively signal the end of the era of nuclear weapons.

Human SecurityThe impact of the current economic crisis on the more vulnerable members of society has been particularly severe. There are growing concerns that new humanitarian crises may arise in different parts of the world unless targeted assistance addressing the needs

of these populations is provided. Three concrete areas where measures should be taken concern employment, children and the empowerment of women.

Human dignity is gravely threatened when individuals are unemployed or work under inhumane or degrading conditions, or if lack of job security makes it impossible to plan for the future. The G20 should take responsibility to be the driving force for global employment recovery. One means to achieve this would be the establishment of a task force dedicated to promoting decent work and the Global Jobs Pact under the G20 umbrella.

It is children who are forced to pay the highest price when their societies face a crisis. There are concerns over the increasing numbers of children who are denied access to adequate nutrition and health care or are forced to quit school in order to work. UNICEF has advocated child-friendly schools and the building of classrooms that can withstand earthquakes and storms. Schools should function as a refuge to protect children from various threats—as strongholds of human security—and become a venue for fostering children as protagonists of a new culture of peace.

Finally, girls’ education has a crucial impact on all aspects of human development. Empowering a girl through education will lead to a brighter future for herself, her family and her children, eventually permeating society as a whole with the light of hope. We need to establish an internationally administered fund dedicated to realizing a better future for women, in which a portion of developing countries’ debts is forgiven and the equivalent amount allocated to girls’ education.

In all these efforts, the key is the power of dialogue and engagement to awaken that which is best in each individual. Just as there is no easy path to learning, there is no easy path to the realization of good. We must root ourselves firmly in reality, deliberately taking on difficult challenges, ceaselessly training and forging ourselves in the “smelting furnace” of spiritual struggle and earnest engagement with others.

There is always a way, a path to the peak of even the most towering and forbidding mountain. What is most strongly required of us is the imagination that can appreciate the present crises as an opportunity to fundamentally transform the direction of history.

Source: Summary of Annual Peace Proposal 2010 submitted by UN by Daisaku Ikeda

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Towards a New Era of Value Creation 2 Bankim Chandra Chatterjee 30

Gandhiji and Empowerment of Women 7 Maharana Pratap Jayanti 32

Empowering Africa’s Women 13 What is Meditation? 34

Killing Justice in Russia 14 True Education 36

Festivals of the Month 16 Sant Kabir Jayanti 39

Guru Hargobind Sahib 24 King Shahu Chhatrapati 40

Timeless Relevance of the Indian Way of Life

27 This Matter of Culture 41

Minor Illness Syndromes in Children 28 Shani Jayanti 50

Sucheta Kriplani 52

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Articles & Focus ThemesCover: Women Power. Picture Source: International Museum of Women & www.clker.com

Presidents PageWomen’s Rights are no doubt Human Rights. Seventy per cent of the world’s poorest people are women. And despite doing more than two thirds of the world’s work, women only receive ten per cent of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of the world’s property. At the core of both social justice and sustainable development is gender equality. Neither of the former can exist without first establishing the latter.

Unfortunately, though independent India has spent the last half century trying to empower its millions of impoverished citizens, gender disparity has remained an incredibly deep-seeded relatively unaddressed. Though women constitute fifty percent of India’s population, they comprise a mere eight percent of India’s parliament, a democratic institution that claims to champion gender equality. Given that the constitution of India guarantees gender equality and that India has signed and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, a ‘bill of rights’ adopted by the UN in 1981), the continued gender gap in government participation at the national level is an extremely shocking incongruity.

This is not to say India has been completely unresponsive. Similar reservations were introduced for women during the early 1990s at the Panchayat level, the lowest level of Indian governance. Through a one third reservation of seats in local government bodies, women in regions across India have become active and valuable participants in grass root level decision-making. Even with the success of this legislation however, state and central legislatures remain reluctant in adopting similar measures. There is no doubt that higher levels of decision-making would benefit from the dynamic involvement and leadership of women, if a strategy to ensure equal representation for women in legislatures were to be employed across all levels. It was out of this discussion that the Women’s Reservation Bill was drafted.

To ensure that women from all parts of the world are given an equal opportunity and to ensure that they are provided with the most fundamental human rights, it is imperative that violence of any kind against women be stopped. India’s women’s movement succeeded in gaining a piece of central legislation in the effort to eliminate domestic violence with the passage of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (PWDV) Act. On September 14, 2005 President A. P. J Abdul Kalam applied his seal making the bill an act of Parliament.

Under this, the law considers physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, psychological, and economic abuse or threats of the same. Even a single act of commission or omission may constitute domestic violence -- in other words, women do not have to suffer a prolonged period of abuse before taking recourse to the law. The law says any definition of domestic violence must detail the fact that it is a human rights violation. Further, the law details the different forms of violence faced by women, and ensures that such interpretations are not left solely to the discretion of the judges. In spite of a progressive law women have continued to face violence, due to various reasons.

What is needed is change of heart through social education at all levels. That is humongous task which the no government can achieve on its own. The social organisations, NGOs and the business conglomerates / corporations need to join the governmental efforts.

That will be a true tribute to Mahatma Gandhi who nearly a hundred years ago propounded and practiced the equality of gender. In fact the Mahatma went one step further when he said: “if by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior” and “ but unfortunately today, she does not realize what tremendous advantage she has over man.”.

Gambhir WattsPresident, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Rabindranath Tagore’s Geetanjali

Moment’s Indulgence I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works

that I have in hand I will finish afterwards. Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,

and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and

the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove. Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing

dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Flower Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it

droop and drop into the dust. I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am

aware, and the time of offering go by. Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower

in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

Fool O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!

O beggar, to come beg at thy own door! Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all,

and never look behind in regret. Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath.

It is unholy---take not thy gifts through its unclean hands. Accept only what is offered by sacred love.

Leave This Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!

Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground

and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower,

Gandhiji and Empowerment of WomenDr. Vibhuti Patel*

Woman is more fit than man to make exploration and take bolder action in nonviolence. There is no occasion for

women to consider themselves subordinate or inferior to men. Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacity.

If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with women. Woman, I hold, is the personification of self-sacrifice, but unfortunately today, she does not realise what tremendous advantage she has over man.

These are some of the most famous quotes from Gandhiji’s writings and speeches. Gandhiji believed that India’s salvation depends on the sacrifice and enlightenment of her women. Any tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, would be an empty one, if we were to take no cue for our own guidance from his words and from his life; for him, ideas and ideals had no value if they were not translated into action.

He saw man and woman as equals, complementing each other. And he saw himself not as a visionary, but as a practical idealist. If then, men and women work together selflessly and sincerely as equals with a faith like Gandhi’s, they may indeed realise Ram Rajya, the perfect state.

Traditionally, woman has been called abala (without strength). In Sanskrit and many other Indian languages, bala means strength. Abala means one without

strength. If by strength we do not refer to brutish strength, but strength of character, steadfastness, and endurance, she should be called sobala, strong.

His message almost six decades ago at the All India Women’s Conference on December 23,1936, was: “When woman, whom we call abala becomes sabala, all those who are helpless will become powerful.”

Ideal of Woman as MotherIn the formative years, Mahatma Gandhiji (alias Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was influenced by his mother Pvitlibai who imparted in him a strong sense of personal ethics and compassion that is conveyed in Gandhiji’s favourite prayer song by the 15th century religious reformer, Narsimha Mehta (Life time: 1414-1481)

“Vaishnavajano to tene kahiye je peed parai jane re” (A godlike man is one who feels another’s pain, who shares another’s sorrow).

Gandhiji said: “The outstanding impression my mother has left on my memory is that of saintliness. She was deeply religious. She would not think of taking her meals without daily prayer. She would take the hardest of vows and keep them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them.”

He got his mother’s permission to go to England for studies by taking an oath: “I vowed not to touch wine, women and meat.” These three vows shielded

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

him throughout his stay in England. Gandhiji married at the age of thirteen to Kasturba. But he lost no time in assuming the authority of a husband to lord over her life (emphasis added). At the time of conjugal conflict, Kasturba used the weapon of passive resistance of “fasting”; from which Gandhiji got the inspiration to start Satyagraha in the freedom movement to resist the British regime.

Kasturba became his active partner and supporter in all his activities. She was a devoted wife who was content to live in the shadow of her illustrious husband. She had a multifaceted personality. She was a fiercely independent woman. Kasturba became Ba-mother of all who took care of Bapu’s extended family.

Gandhiji learnt much from Kasturba and perhaps even more from his mother. His spiritual bent of mind seems to have come from her. Gandhiji’s devotion to women began with his devotion to his mother and Kasturba, most particularly to women as mother. Motherhood became increasingly his model for liberation of India and his own life, a mother, having brought forth a child, selflessly devotes herself to his care till he grows up and becomes independent. Even after children are grown-up her constant desire is to make herself one with them.

Unless we have feeling and devotion for our motherland many countries will be lying in wait to crush us down. He saw no hope for India’s emancipation while her womanhood remained un-emancipated. He held men to be largely responsible for the tragedy. In the course of his social reform work the realisation came to him that if he wanted to reform and purify society of the various evils that had crept into it; he had to cultivate a mother’s heart.

He learnt the fundamental aspects of his soul politics from his mother and his wife, but women’s influence on him was not limited to his family. The bhadra mahila (responsible or new women), created in the nineteenth century by Indian social reformers, became the model for Indian women on the nationalist era. Women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created organisations such as All India Women’s Council and Bhagini Samaj founded predominantly among the upper-middle class in urban centres.

Although many associate the ideals and organisations of the “new woman” with Gandhiji, as Elise Boulding indicates “well before Gandhiji was calling women to practice Satyagraha, the grandmothers, mothers,

wives and daughters of the educated classes in India were forming organisations providing education and action-training for other women, in order to rebuild an Indian society freed from colonial structures.”

Inf luence of Women on GandhijiHe was profoundly influenced by Annie Besant, a British militant feminist and a Theosophist, Sarojini Naidu, a trusted Gandhi’s co-worker, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, a fiery Satyagrahi, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Pushpaben Mehta. Geraldine Forbes examines the model that Sarojini Naidu developed in her speech as President of the Indian National Congress”, a model with India as the “house”, the Indian people as “members of the joint family and the Indian woman as the “Mother”.

Naidu, Gandhiji, and many other advocates of women’s and national liberation agreed wholeheartedly that women and India would advance together to the extent this new familial model for India was adopted by the women and men of India.

Gandhiji believed women could do much to transform India on all levels. He believed that equal rights for women and men were necessary but not sufficient to create a more just social order. What good does it do to us to have equal rights if we are divided within ourselves and unable to attend true unity with others?

In a letter written to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur from Wardha on October 20, 1936, Gandhiji writes, “If you women only realise your dignity and privilege, and make full sense of it for mankind, you will make it much better than it is. But man has delighted in enslaving you and you have proved willing slaves till the slave and holders have become one in the crime on degrading humanity. My special function from childhood, you might say, has been to make woman

realise her dignity. I was once slave holder myself, but Ba proved an unwilling slave and thus “opened my eyes to my mission.”

Gandhiji further said: “I began work among women when I was not even thirty years old. There is not a woman in South Africa who does not know me. But my work was among the poorest. The intellectuals I could not draw... you cannot blame me for not having organised the intellectuals among the women. I have not the gift.. but just as I never fear coldness on the part of the poor when I approach them, I never fear it when I approach poor women.

There is invisible bond between them and me.”

The mass of poor women were those whose dignified upliftment he craved. Poor women understood what he was saying because he spoke in the religious pantheon and referred to the facts of caste and gender. Sometimes highly progressive, other times conservative, he created an empathy with his audience through this cultural fine tuning.

Rajkumari Amrit Kaur echoing tiiis aspect of Gandhiji’s personality stated: “We found in him not a “Bapu” - wise father, but what is more precious, a mother, whose all embracing and understanding love all fear and restraint vanish.”

Gender-based DiscriminationGandhiji was totally opposed to gender discrimination. He did not like Indian society’s preference for a boy and a general neglect of a girl child. In fact, in most cases she is not allowed to be born. If born her survival is not ensured. If somehow she survives she is subjected to neglect. She does not get respect and the status she deserves equal to that of a boy.

He described discrimination against women as an anachronism as already stated: he said: “I fail to see any reason for jubilation over the birth of a son and for mourning over the birth of a daughter. Both are

God’s gifts. They have an equal right to live and are equally necessary to keep the world going.”

Gandhij i called women as the noble sex. He said that if she is weak in striking, she is strong in suffering. He described; “Woman as the embodiment of sacrifice and ahimsa.” He further states: “A daughter’s share must be equal to that of a son. The husband’s earnings are a joint property of husband and wife as he makes money by her assistance.”

Gandhiji firmly believed that if a husband is unjust to his wife, she has the right to live separately. He averred, “Both have equal rights over children. Each would forfeit these rights after they have grown up, and even before that if he or she is unfit for them. In short, I admit no distinction between men and women except such as has been made by nature and can be seen with human eyes.”

Gandhiji preached and practised sharing of housework by both men and women of the family. He encouraged women to do intellectual work and men to help in cooking, cleaning and caring, conventionally ‘women’s chores’. He prepared a primer for the children for a primary school. This primer or Balpothi is the form of a mother teaching the child.

In a chapter on housework, the mother asks her son, “Dear son, you should also help in the housework as your sister does.”

Son answers: But she is a girl. I am a boy. A boy plays and studies.

Sister says: How come I also like to play and study?

Brother: I do not deny that but, dear sister, you have to do housework as well.

The mother: Why should a boy not do house-work?

Son: Because the boy has to earn money when he grows up, therefore, he must study well.

The mother: You are wrong my son. Woman also makes an earning for the family. And, there is a lot to learn in housework-house cleaning, cooking, laundry. By doing house-work you will develop various skills of the body and will feel self-reliant. In good housework, you need to use your eyes, hands and brain. Therefore, these activities are educative and they build your character. Men and women, both need to be educated equally in house-work because the home belongs to both. Gandhiji expounds this theme further. More often than not a woman’s time is taken up not by the performance of essential domestic duties, but in catering for the egoistic pleasure of her lord and master for his own vanities.

To me this domestic slavery of woman is the symbol of our barbarism mainly. It is high time that our womankind was freed from this incubus. Domestic

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work ought not to take the whole of women’s time.

His policy of e m p o w e r m e n t was that man must participate in the housework and reduce the drudgery of women’s homework

Gandhiji was not only a great political leader but a passionate lover of humanity. An enemy of

all injustice and inequalities, he was a friend of the lowly and the downtrodden. Harijans, women and the poor drew his attention. He had almost an instinctive understanding of women and their problems and had a deep sympathy for them.

The oppressive custom of dowry too came under fire from Gandhiji. He preferred girls to remain unmarried all their lives than to be humiliated and dishonoured by marrying men who demanded dowry. He found dowry marriages “heartless”. He wished for mutual consent, love, and respect between husband and wife. He said: Marriage must cease to be a matter of arrangement made by parents for money. The system is intimately connected with caste. So long as the choice is limited to a few hundred young men or women of a particular caste, the system will persist, no matter what is said against it. The girls or boys or their parents will have to break the bonds of caste if the evil is to be eradicated.

Injustice, like exploitation, has to be resisted wherever it is found, even in the political field. For the fight against foreign domination, women by the thousands rallied to his call for civil disobedience. Women set aside their traditional roles, came out of seclusion, cast off their purdah. They entered the public domain along with men and offered satyagraha; they remained undaunted by police beatings and extreme hardships in prison. Even illiterate tribal women from the forests joined the freedom movement. That is the truth-force, Gandhiji urged in private matters as well. In fact, that is where he wanted it to begin.

The first condition of nonviolence is justice in every department of life. In Harijan, October 3, 1936, we find the reason for his faith: “I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she will make the same effort, and have the same hope and faith.”

Though pre-occupied with heavy responsibilities his views in this regard were clear and he tried to educate the public to accept women as equal partners. He said: “I am uncompromising in the matter of woman’s rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man. I should treat daughters and sons on an equal footing of perfect equality.” He added: “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is a man’s injustice to woman. If by strength it is meant moral power then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not great powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with women.”

Women could play a significant part in the freedom fight under his inspiring leadership, his fostering care and loving guidance. According to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, of all the factors contributing to the awakening of women in India none has been so potent as the field of nonviolence which Gandhiji offered to women in his “war” against the British domination of India.

It brought them out in their hundreds from sheltered homes, to stand the furnace of a fiery trial without flinching. It proved to the hilt that woman was as much able as man to resist evil or aggression.

The greatest tragedy of present day situation is that even after almost 53 years of our development work we have not been able to clothe our women. This problem was brought to our notice in 1917 by Mahatma Gandhi. He said: “I happened to visit a village in the Champaran district of Bihar. I found some of the women dressed very dirtily. So I told my wife to ask them why they did not wash their clothes. She spoke to them. One of women took her into her hut and said: Look now there is no box or cupboard here containing other clothes. The sari I am wearing is the only one I have. How am I to wash it? Tell Mahatmaji to get me another sari, and I shall then promise to bathe and put clean clothes everyday. This cottage is no exception, but a type to be found in many Indian villages.”

He took to spinning so that every poor woman could be clothed and he promoted production of khadi as an economic activity.

Women’s ContributionFundamentally, man and woman are one; their problems must be in one essence. The soul in both is the same, each is a complement of the other. The one cannot live without the other’s active help.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that at some point there is bifurcation. Whilst both are fundamentally one, it is also equally true that in form there is a vital difference between the two. Hence the vocations of

the two must also be different.

The duty of motherhood, which the vast majority of women will always undertake, requires qualities which man need not possess. She is passive, he is active. She is essentially mistress of the house. He is bread-winner; she is the caretaker in every sense of the term. The art of bringing up the infants of the race is her special and sole prerogative. Without her care the race must become extinct... The division of spheres of work being recognised, the general qualities and culture required are practically the same for both the sexes.

He had said that the woman is the incarnation of Ahimsa: ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. Who but woman, the mother of man, shows capacity in the largest measure? She shows it as she carries the infant and feeds it during nine months and derives joys in the suffering involved. What can beat the suffering caused by the pangs of labour. But she forgets them in the joy of creation. Who, again suffers daily so that her babe may wax from day-to-day?

Let her transfer that love to the whole of humanity, let her forget she ever was or can be the object of a man’s lust. And she will occupy her proud position by the side of man as his mother, maker and silent leader. It is given to her to trade the art of peace to the warring world thirsting for nectar. She can become the leader in Satyagraha which does require the stout heart that comes from suffering and faith.

He gives an example of the bravery which a woman shows during child birth by not taking chloroform, as it would risk the child’s life, and undergoing a painful operation. He further says: “Let not women, who can count many such heroines among them, ever despise

their sex or deplore that they were not born men.”

Gandhiji declared that we cannot return our debts to Mother India or Mother Earth or women as mothers who have given us everything. We should remain loyal to them and cease to exploit. We should “rediscover” status of women and give them full respect and support needed by them in domestic and other works. Feminist researchers differ widely in the assessment of Mahatma Gandhi’s theory and practice of women’s emancipation during the Indian nationalist movement.

Ketu Katrak maintains, for example, that “like other Indian social reformers, Gandhiji reinforced British liberal and imperial policies since he did not challenge women’s subordinate position in the patriarchal

family structure.” On the other hand, Madhu Kishwar asserts that : “Gandhiji saw women not as objects of reforms ... but as self-conscious subjects who could, if they choose, become arbiters of their own destiny. In this way Gandhiji represents a crucial break from the attitude of many of the leaders of the reform movements of the late nineteenth century... The main contributions of Gandhiji to the cause of women lay in his absolute and unequivocal insistence on their personal dignity and autonomy in the family and society.”

women will always undertake, requires qualities which mar need not possess. She is passive, he is active. She is essentially mistress of the house. He is bread-winner; she is the caretaker in every sense of the term. The art of bringing up the infants of the race is her special and sole prerogative. Without her care the race must become extinct... The division of spheres of work being recognised, the general qualities and culture required are practically the same for both the sexes. He had said that the woman is the incarnation of Ahimsa: ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. Who but woman, the mother of man, shows capacity in the largest measure? She shows it as she carries the infant and feeds it during nine months and derives joys in the suffering involved. What can beat the suffering caused by the pangs of labour. But she forgets them in the joy of creation. Who, again suffers daily so that her babe may wax from day-to-day?

Let her transfer that love to the whole of humanity, let her forget she ever was or can be the object of a man’s lust. And she will occupy her proud position by the side of man as his mother, maker and silent leader. It is given to her to trade the art of peace to the warring world thirsting for nectar. She can become the leader

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in Satyagraha which does require the stout heart that comes from suffering and faith.

He gives an example of the bravery which a woman shows during child birth by not taking chloroform, as it would risk the child’s life, and undergoing a painful operation. He further says: “Let not women, who can count many such heroines among them, ever despise their sex or deplore that they were not born men.”

Gandhiji declared that we cannot return our debts to Mother India or Mother Earth or women as mothers who have given us everything. We should remain loyal to them and cease to exploit. We should “rediscover” status of women and give them full respect and support needed by them in domestic and other works. Feminist researchers differ widely in the assessment of Mahatma Gandhi’s theory and practice of women’s emancipation during the Indian nationalist movement.

Ketu Katrak maintains, for example, that “like other Indian social reformers, Gandhiji reinforced British liberal and imperial policies since he did not challenge women’s subordinate position in the patriarchal family structure.” On the other hand, Madhu Kishwar asserts that : “Gandhiji saw women not as objects of reforms ... but as self-conscious subjects who could, if they choose, become arbiters of their own destiny. In this way Gandhiji represents a crucial break from the attitude of many of the leaders of the reform movements of the late nineteenth century... The main contributions of Gandhiji to the cause of women lay in his absolute and unequivocal insistence on their personal dignity and autonomy in the family and society.”

However, Phyllis Mack contends in his “feminine behaviour and radical action: Franciscans, Quakers, and the Followers of Gandhi” that St. Francis, Fox, Gandhiji and their followers placed women’s experience at the heart of the movement. She suggests “that we (contemporary feminist and peace activist) would do well to contemplate the virtues of these partisans of nonviolent public behaviour, and that we can find affinities with their compassionate activism very close to home to embrace our own political and spiritual struggle.” It took several years for Gandhiji to overcome the forms of sexism, classicism, and racism. The process was painful for him and for Kasturba. But from the perspective of social feminism, he made enormous progress. The new women (women engaged in feminist movement) loved Gandhiji because he

spoke their language, he did what they wanted men to do, and encouraged other men to follow suit.

Given the stark contrast in Indian society between men and women’s cultures, broadly speaking men are more bellicose and rigid, controlling culture and women’s more relational, egalitarian, fluid, opened peace-loving culture, it is not surprising Gandhiji chose the latter. The extended family, even with its patriarchal modes of dominance, gave many women a wide scope of expression than either the British or the Indian public spheres. Gandhiji’s effort to model Indian public life on the joint family brought thousands of women into social and political institutions of the nation. Equity-feminism, on the other hand, seemed foreign to women during the Indian nationalist women with the exception of a small number if middle-to-upper class women who lived primarily in cities.

Gandhiji had advocated three distinct levels of women’s participation in the national movement. First, women who had familial responsibilities such as care of children and the aged were to fulfill only their primary duties which were not to be given up for the sake of the national movement. Second, a group included women from whom he expected a sacrifice of the pleasure of house-keeping and child-caring. If already married these women were expected to remain celibate for the sake of the nation. He advised Vijayalakshmi Pandit and her husband, for instance, to practise celibacy after having blessed the marriage. Third, full time workers were expected to stay single and dedicate themselves entirely to the struggle for independence.

It is clear that Gandhiji’s theory and practice which unfolded over five decades on two countries wa enormously complex, as the voluminous research about him has shown. Equity-feminism has been so central among western feminist that social feminism is ignored, marginalised, or seen as an earlier and less radical precursor to real (equity) feminism. Based on an equity feminist analysis of Indian women in the nationalist era, Forbes states of Sarojini Naidu, “by linking feminism with nationalism, she and her colleagues hindered the development of a radical feminist critique of women’s work.”

*Dr Vibhuti Patel is the Director, PGSR; SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai

Source: Bhavan’s Journal May 15 & May 31 2010

Empowering Africa’s WomenGraca Machel*

JOHANNESBURG – Africa is again high on the global agenda, and this time for all the right reasons. As the kickoff to the World Cup in South Africa approaches, people are seeing not just South Africa but our entire continent as equal partners in this extraordinary global celebration.

So, as the world’s eyes turn to Africa, we should take the opportunity to showcase the key role that Africa’s women are increasingly playing in the continent’s success.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s election as President of Liberia, the first women elected to run an African country, was symbolic of the progress of women across the continent. We are proud as well that women make up more than 50% of MPs in Rwanda – the highest proportion in the world. South Africa and Lesotho are just two other African countries that sit near the top of the gender-equality league table.

It is women as well who are helping to calm tensions and heal Africa’s terrible wounds of conflict and violence. Women are in the lead in conflict resolution, in reconciliation, and in drafting the legal and constitutional framework to secure peace and prevent abuses.

In the media, civil society, and in communities up and down the African continent, women are taking on major responsibilities. There is a huge amount more to do, but women are winning the fight to have their voices heard and help shape solutions and map priorities.

The gender gap in schooling remains a concern. Africa still lags behind many parts of the world in educating its girls from primary school through to university. But many more girls are attending and completing school now than a decade ago.

Education is the bedrock for progress and educated women will empower Africa, so the focus now must be on those countries that are failing to close the gap. Governments need to implement the right strategies and find the political will and resources to succeed. One of the major problems highlighted in the just-published Africa Progress Report, prepared by the African Progress Panel, is the gap between plans and

change on the ground.

Another area where we have seen little progress is in harnessing women’s full talents and potential in the formal economy. Women’s economic contribution is, of course, under-valued in many places around the world. Wherever they live, women face greater obstacles and frustrations than their male counterparts.

But this is particularly true in Africa – a continent where the crucial role that women play in the economy cannot be missed by even the most casual visitor. Look in our fields. It is women who you will see planting and harvesting the crops. Look in our markets. It is women who you will see buying and selling the goods on offer. Women, too, are setting up the small businesses that are creating jobs and spreading prosperity.

Women are truly the motors of Africa’s economies. Yet at every turn, their contribution is downplayed and their ambitions are obstructed. Women find themselves cut off from training and support. And they can face discrimination from the authorities and suppliers.

But it is in women’s treatment, deliberately and accidentally, by the financial sector that the most damage is done. Women receive, for example, only 10% of the credit given to small farmers and less than 1% of total loans to agriculture. Yet they are responsible for growing 80% of the food on our continent. Inheritance rules dictating that land – and its proceeds – can be passed down only through the men of the family have put women at a terrible disadvantage.Africa’s potential not only to feed its own people but to export food around the world is increasingly and

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rightly acknowledged. But this ambition will be met only through policies that recognize the central role of women in agriculture and enable them to drive a green revolution on the continent.

Women’s lack of assets, together with out-dated social norms, is also a major barrier blocking their access to the capital they need to set up and expand small businesses. Women-run start-ups are most likely to become established enterprises. Yet they command less than 10% of the capital available for investment in new enterprises.

The discrimination continues, despite overwhelming evidence showing that women are more likely to invest business loans wisely and to meet repayment schedules. Even micro-credit schemes often seem to lend less to women than to men in the same circumstances.

Nor are these problems limited to small businesses. The African Women’s Economic Summit, which I attended recently in Nairobi, was electrified by the story of a woman who had set up her own construction firm in Cameroon. Her capital needs run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, when dealing with financial institutions, she faced the same obstacles and out-dated attitudes familiar to the smallest businesswomen across the continent.

Financial institutions must remove such barriers to fair and easy access to capital and financial services. For Africa to reach the growth rates needed to meet the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, women must be brought fully into the formal economy and the financial sector.

This requires innovation in the financial services and products on offer, which in turn requires that women – locally, regionally, and internationally – are helping to formulate the solutions. If governments and key stakeholders can lift the barriers that prevent women from playing their full role in our economy and societies, the future is bright – not just for women but our entire continent.

* Graça Machel is a Member of the Africa Progress Panel (www.africaprogresspanel.org), President of the Foundation for Community Development, and founder of New Faces, New Voices. She is married to Nelson Mandela.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.

www.project-syndicate.org

The Human Rights Revolution seriesKilling Justice in Russia

Vaclav Havel

PRAGUE – The death of Eduard Chuvashov, a judge killed in cold blood on April 12 in Moscow, is another in a long and growing list of murders perpetrated on those in Russia who try to seek justice for the victims of crimes - an essential task for the future development of the Russian society.

Within the Russian judiciary, Chuvashov was one of the rare judges with the courage to rule against powerful local government officials as well as high-ranking officers of the interior ministry. Indeed, he dared to send a number of them to prison. Recently, Chuvashov defied personal threats made against him and sentenced members of a particularly nasty Moscow neo-Nazi group to prison.

The Western press has, up until now, often portrayed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s term in office as a time of liberalization, a period when the Russian government is beginning to loosen its authoritarian grip

on society. Some even suggest that, with Medvedev, a new era of perestroika is about to be launched.

But the pattern of assassination directed against Russian “troublemakers,” which started several years ago when human rights expert Nikolai Girenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya were murdered, has not been effectively addressed. In fact, in 2009, Medvedev’s second year in office, a devastating series of such killings occurred.

Stanislav Markelov, Natalya Estemirova, Maksharip Aushev, and Ivan Khutorskoi were all alive at the beginning of 2009, determined to improve Russia’s human rights record and expose the truth about abuses. Markelov, a lawyer, routinely tackled the human rights cases that no one else was willing to take on. These were often cases related to the war and ongoing violence in Chechnya or the growing neo-Nazi terror found on the streets of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and

other Russian cities.

Estemirova, a key activist in Chechnya for the group Memorial, which is determined to inform Russians about the truth of their modern history, investigated abductions and extrajudicial killings. Indeed, she was a crucial source of information about the situation in Chechnya.

Aushev, a leading Ingushetian opposition activist and journalist, ran an influential local news Web site after Magomed Yevloev was shot dead in police custody in 2008. And Khutoskoi, a leading Moscow-based anti-fascist activist, would organize security at anti-fascist concerts, as well as at Markelov’s press conferences.

All of their work was ended by assassins. We urge the Russian government to break this chain of human tragedy once and for all. In permitting the murder of people whose only purpose is the preservation of human dignity, Russia is losing its hope for a better future. At the very least, the Russian authorities are failing in the central task of any government: to protect the lives and physical safety of all its citizens. Making matters worse, none of these murders has been properly investigated and none of the perpetrators has been brought to justice.

Such impunity creates an atmosphere in which continued attacks are practically invited. The fact that Russian security forces are alleged to have been involved in some of the cases demonstrates the depth of the problem. These charges need to be investigated if President Medvedev’s claims to want a society based on the rule of law are not to ring hollow. The more authorities prove their determination to protect all citizens, the more this will further constructive international cooperation with Russia.

We ask the President of the Russian Federation and urge the Russian government to protect people in danger and to ensure quick and effective investigations into the murders of human rights activists, journalists, and independent-minded jurists. Political leaders must speak up loud and clear against these terrible crimes. They must underline the great danger posed for the health of both Russian society and the state when people who are acting in the public interest are silenced through murder. And the international community must find ways to provide support, protection, and shelter to Russia’s endangered human rights defenders.

*Vaclav Havel is a former president of the Czech Republic. El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan is a Commissioner on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and Chairman of the West Asia-North Africa Forum. André Glucksmann is a philosopher and essayist. Frederik Willem de Klerk is a former president of South Africa. Hans Küng is President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos) and Professor Emeritus of Ecumenical Theology at the University of Tubingen. Yohei Sasakawa is President of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Karel Schwarzenberg is a Czech senator and former Czech foreign minister. Desmond Tutu is Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Richard von Weizsäcker is Former President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Grigory Yavlinsky is Chairman of the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.

www.project-syndicate.org

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Festivals of the Month-Parveen*

Ganga Dussehra—River of LifeDuring Ganga Dussehra festival, ten days of the month are devoted to the worship of Holy River Ganga venerated by the Hindus as a mother as well as a Goddess. Places such as Rishikesh, Haridwar, Garh-Mukteswar, Prayag, Varanasi etc where Ganga flows hold special significance on this day. Devotees flock to these places and Varanasi with its numerous ghats

situated on the west bank of the Ganga, to touch the river water, bathe in it and take the river clay home to venerate. In Haridwar, ‘Aartis’ are performed at twilight and a large number of devotees meditate on riverbanks. The river Ganga holds a uniquely

significant place in Indian life and consciousness. It takes birth at Gangotri, high in the snow-clad Himalayas. Cascading down mighty boulders, it flows into the hot plains of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and finally meets the waters of the sea in the Bay of Bengal. At Allahabad, the Ganga merges with the river Yamuna and the mythical river Saraswati. The confluence of these rivers, known as Prayag, is considered one of the most sacred spots on earth.

GangaThe Ganga, largest of the rivers of India, has been sacred to Hindus from the epic era. She is the mother who washes away all the sins of mankind. The water of the Ganga is worshipped in sealed containers in every home, sprinkled as a benediction of peace, and used as the last sacrament. Regarded as a celestial river originating in the heavens, Ganga was gifted to mankind in answer to the great Sadhana undertaken by Bhagirath, after whom she is also called Bhagirathi. Bhagirath, a descendant of the Sagara dynasty, prayed for the Ganga to descend onto the parched earth and bring life. But the torrential waters of the Ganga were a mighty and destructive force. Despite its pollution the Ganga is a symbol of purity. Its water bestows salvation to the dying and bring new life to the living. In Haridwar, at the foothills of the Himalayas, where the Ganga reaches the plains, Aartis are performed each evening.

Brahma and Vishnu asked Shiva to accept the Ganga into his matted locks. Confined in Shiva’s hair, Ganga lost the wild force of her flow and became a placid, life-giving river.

Gayatri Jayanti

Goddess Gayatri is worshipped as Veda Mata or the mother of Vedas, Dev Mata and Vishwa Mata. According to a holy transcript the Goddess is considered as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Vedas. She is looked upon as if her four heads represent the four Vedas and fifth one symbolizing the almighty and is sitting on lotus. The ten hands of Goddess Gayatri bear the symbols of Lord Vishnu. It is believed to be second consort of Lord Brahma. The belief that Goddess Gayatri appeared in the form of knowledge on the 11th day of the Shukla Paksha of Jyeshta marks the celebration of Gayatri Jayanti. This knowledge was shared to the world by Sage Vishwamitra and thus contributed in removing ignorance. Gayatri Jayanti is celebrated to cheer the expression (Pradurbhaava) of Aadi-Shakti Gayatri. The whole Universe is originated by Gayatri. Scholars advocate that Sage Vishwamitra first uttered the Gayatri Mantra on the Gayatri Jayanti day. The day is celebrated every

year. In 2010, the date of Gayatri Jayanti is June 22. Special prayers and pujas are dedicated to Gayatri Mata. Special Satsangs and Bhajans are also sung in praise of the Deity. Gayatri Mantra is chanted during Puja.

Mahesh Navami

Lord Shiva or Mahesh is one of the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh). Mahesh Jayanti or Mahesh Navami is devoted to Lord Shiva. The business community Maheshwaris worships Mahesh and his consort Parvati on this day because it is believed that on the ninth day of Shukla Paksha of Jyestha (May–June) Maheshwari Community was formed. Since then the day is celebrated as Mahesh Navami every year. In 2010, the date of Mahesh Navami is June 20. Popular legend associated with Mahesh Navami says that once villagers along with Royal men went for hunting in the jungle near Jaipur, Rajasthan. The hunters went into an Ashram and disturbed the serenity and tranquillity there. The sages got angry and cursed them to become stone. Then the wives of those unlucky hunters prayed to Lord Shiva for getting rid of the curse. Lord Shiva felt pity on them and agreed to rescue them only if they promise to stop hunting and involve themselves in some other vocation like business. The women agreed to the condition and thus all the men were

rescued. The salvaged hunters and their kin left hunting and concentrated on business and they named their community as the Maheshwari community after Lord Mahesh to show their love and devotion towards Shiva. In this way Lord Shiva was the saviour of the ancestors of the community.

Nirjala EkadasiNirjala Ekadasi is considered most important Ekadashis of all. Nirjala Ekadashi is also referred as Pandava Ekadashi or Bhimasena Ekadashi. Nirjala Ekadashi falls on the eleventh day of Shukla Paksha of Hindu month of Jyestha. Hindus consider Nirjala Ekadashi fasting as an essential rite of Hindu religion. Nirjala Ekadashi or Pandava Bhimsena Ekadashi is most awaited day in Hindu religion, as everyone whether old or young, women or men observe strict fast on this day. Tough fast on this day is dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Even small kids also keep fast on this day. Nirjala means ‘without water’ and toughness of the fast can be well imagined by the fact that devotees don’t even drink water or consume food while fasting on the day. Nirjala Ekadashi Fast lasts from sunrise on Ekadashi to sunrise on Dwadashi, the next day. Almost for about 24 hours devotees avoid food and water, consume their time by reading sacred scriptures and holy hymns of the Lord. Strict fasting on the day of Nirjala Ekadashi is considered highly auspicious and beneficial as people believe that the fast will avail them place in heaven after death. There is common belief that fasting on Nirjala Ekadashi grants benefits of year round Ekadashi fasts. Even observing fast on this pious day is considered equal to pilgrimage.

LegendNirjala Ekadsahi is associated with a legend which also explains its other name as Pandava Bhimsena Ekadashi. According to the legend, Bhima the second eldest brother of Pandava, who was popular for his power and strength always wanted to observe fast. Due to his strong body and love towards food he could not succeed to resist himself against food during Ekadashi fast. This all made Ekadashi fast difficult for him. Sage Vyasa showed him the solution for the problem by advising him to observe single tough fast on Ekadashi, once in a year. That single Ekadashi was the Ekadashi of Jyestha Shukla Paksh as it had the benefits of observing all the 24 Ekadasis and tough fast included no water and food consumption for all 24 hours of Ekadashi. Thus Bhim was able to get the benefits of all Ekadasis by observing Nirjala Ekadasi. The Ekadashi Jyestha Shukla Paksh is now popular by the name of Nirjala Ekadashi, when fast is undertaken without water. Nirjala Ekadashi falls on eleventh day of the waxing phase of Hindu month of Jyestha. In 2010, Nirjala Ekadashi is on June 22.

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UrsThe Urs is held at Ajmer, Rajasthan every year at the tomb of the Sufi Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, commemorating his symbolic union with God. The Urs, commemorative celebration is held in the solemn memory of Khwaja Muinnddin Chisti, a sprightly respected Sufi saint fondly revered as the benefactor of the poor, popularly known as Gareeb Nawaz. The Dargah Sharif in Ajmer is the site of the largest Muslim Fair in India. Pilgrims from all over the world gather to pay homage. Qawwalis (poems) are presented in the Saint’s honour and religious assemblies (Mehfils) and ‘Fatihas’ (mass prayers) are held.

Celebrations

The lakeside town of Ajmer also called Ajmer Sharif (holy) comes alive during the Urs which attracts thousands of devotees irrespective of caste, religion etc. At the huge fair, the largest Muslim fair in India, that springs up at this time, religious objects, books, rosaries, embroidered carpets and silver ornaments are on sale. Chadar, Ghilaph and Neema, which are votive offerings for several hundred thousand devotees are offered at the tomb. Mehfils and Qawwalis are held and mass prayer calls for the eternal peace of the mankind. An interesting ritual is the looting of Kheer (Milk Pudding), which is cooked in two large cauldrons, called Degs and distributed to the devotees as Tabarruk (blessed food). Ajmer is located in central Rajasthan.

KhwajaThe Khwaja came from Persia and established the Chishtia order of Fakirs in India. He is popularly known as Gharib Nawaz (Protector of the Poor) because he dedicated his entire life to the service of mankind. His spartan life spanned almost a hundred years and he embraced death in solitude while he had withdrawn to his cell for six days, asking not to be disturbed. The Dargah Sharif in Ajmer is the place

where the Saint’s mortal remains lie buried. More than five lakh devotees belonging to different communities gather from all parts of the subcontinent to pay homage to the Khwaja on his Urs (death anniversary) during the first six days of Rajab (seventh month of the Islamic calendar.) The pilgrims who come to seek the blessings of the Khwaja make rich offerings called Nazrana at the holy spot where the Saint has been entombed. The offerings of rose and jasmine flowers, sandalwood paste, perfumes and incense contribute to the fragrance that floats in the air inside the Shrine. Offerings for the tomb are brought by devotees on their heads and handed over to the Khadims inside the sanctum sanctorum. Outside the sanctum sanctorum of the Dargah, professional singers called Qawwals in groups sing the praises of the Saint in a characteristic high-pitched voice. People gather around them and listen attentively, sometimes clapping to the rhythm of their instruments.

DargahThe Urs is initiated with the hoisting of a white flag on the Dargah by the Sajjada Nashin (successor representative) of Chishtis. It is done on the 25th of Jamadi-ul-Akhir (sixth lunar month), with the accompaniment of music. On the last day of the sixth month, the Jannati-Darwaza (gateway of heaven) is flung open early in the morning. People cross this gate seven times with the belief that they will be assured a place in heaven. On the 1st of Rajab, the tomb is washed with rose water and sandalwood paste and anointed with perfumes. This ritual is called Ghusal. The Sajjada Nashin then covers the tomb with an embroidered silk cloth. On the 6th of Rajab, after the usual Mehfil and the sound of cracker-bursts accompanied by music, the Sajjada Nashin performs the Ghusal of the tomb. Fatiha and Salamti are read. A poetic recitation called Mushaira is arranged in which poets of all communities arrive to recite compositions dedicated to the Khwaja. The Qul (end-all) on the 6th of Rajab marks the end of the Urs. At night, religious assemblies called Mehfils are held in the Mehfil-khana, a large hall meant for this purpose. These are presided over by the Sajjada Nashin of the Dargah. Qawwalis are sung and the hall is packed to capacity. There are separate places reserved for women who attend the Mehfil. The Mehfil terminates late in the night with a mass prayer for the eternal peace of the Khwaja in particular and mankind in general.

Vat Savitri PujaThere are many fasts and rituals associated with married Indian ladies which they specifically perform for the well-being and prosperity of their spouse. Vat Savitri Puja is one and is observed by married Indian Women in almost all parts of India with great

dedication and devotion. This a special fast observed by married women for longevity of their beloved husbands. The festival is dedicated to the legendary married woman Savitri who succeeded to get back her died husband, Satyawaan by her severe penance.

Regional CelebrationsVat Savitri Puja is celebrated by married women in almost all parts of India. The festival is mainly observed in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Orissa and Maharashtra. South Indian married ladies especially of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka observe festival with the different name as Karadaiyan Nonbu.

LegendsThe Vrata has been dedicated to Savitri, the brave wife of Satyawaan who conquered life of her died husband. Even the festival is named after the ideal Indian married Woman, Savitri as Vrat Savitri Puja. Savitri was the beautiful and charming daughter of king Aswapati of Madra Desa. She had chosen Satyawaan as her life’s partner who was a Prince in exile, living in the forest with his blind father Dyumatsen. Princess Savitri left the dignitaries of palace and started living in forest with her husband and in-laws. She took all pains and started looking to all her responsibilities as a devoted wife and daughter-in-law. One unfortunate day, Satyawaan fell down from a tree and expired in the lap of his beloved wife, Savitri. As soon as Satyawaan died, Yamraj appeared to take away the soul of Satyawaan from his body. But the deeply moved wife of Satyawaan, Savitri strongly pleaded and appealed to Yamraj for her husband’s life. She cried and begged for not getting separated from her husband. If at all he would take away the soul of her husband she would also end her life. Yamraj, the God of death, moved by the sheer determination and love of Savitri returned the life of her husband. Satyawaan came to life again and both of them lived happily thereafter. Like this Savitri achieved her husband’s life back with her dedication and devotion towards her husband.

RitualsAll women following Hindu religion observe this Vat Savitri Puja for their husband’s well- being. Women worship the legendary Savitri as Goddess and observe fast for their husband’s long life. The festivities begin before two days as few ladies fast for 3 continuous days while some have tradition to observe only on the main Purnima or Vat Savitri Day. Women wake up early and take bath and get ready as a perfect married woman with all necessary accessories. Ladies wear new clothes, new bangles and apply bindi on forehead and vermilion on the hair-parting line. Ladies fast for the health and well-being of their husbands. In the afternoon, Ladies seek blessings by bowing low to their respective husbands and elderly people. Savitri is worshipped on this day as an incarnation of Goddess and Vat or Banyan tress are also equally revered on this day. Then all women of nearby places move together to temple with Banyan or Vat tree. As per custom, Ladies pour holy Ganga water on the tree, and tie red threads around the tree while going around the tree for 108 times and wish for long conjugal life to their spouses. Wet pulses, rice, mango, jack fruit, lemon, banana and several other fruits are offered as Bhoga. The temple priest performs the Puja and then recites the story of Savitri and Satyawaan. Finally, after observing fasting for the whole day they simply take the offered Bhoga.

Vat Savitri Puja 2010Vat Savitri Puja festival is observed on the Full Moon Day or No Moon Day of the Hindu month of Jyestha. Vat Savitri fast is observed for three day and nights. It begins on the Trayodashi day (13th day of a Lunar fortnight) and ends on Amavasi or Purnima. Now, women mainly observe fast on the main ritual day ie is either Purnima or Amavasi of Jyestha month. In 2010, Vat Savitri Purnima Puja is on June 25, mainly followed by North Indians. Vat Savitri Amavasi Puja is on June 12, mostly followed by West Indians.

World Environment DayJune 5 was declared as World Environment Day by the UN General Assembly in 1972. World Environment Day was established to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. United Nations designed World Environment Day as the main tool to create worldwide awareness about hot environment issues. Main objectives of United Nations behind declaration of World Environment Day was to give a human face to environmental issues, empower to become agents of sustainable and equitable development, promote to change attitude towards the environment and advocate partnership between each human being and each society to ensure a safe future.

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CelebrationsWorld Environment Day is celebrated around the globe to promote alertness regarding scorching issues of environment pollution, drastic climatic changes, green house effect, global warming, black hole effect etc, among human beings on the planet Earth. Each year, United Nations decide a host city to organize different events for the cause of celebration. Celebrations of World Environment Day each year are based on the particular theme declared by United Nations.

World Environment Day 2010United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has selected Pittsburgh in North America to host World Environment Day 2010 (WED 2010). Decided theme for the program of WED 2010 is “Biodiversity: Connecting with Nature”. Various events based on the theme will be scheduled for six weeks in a series from April 22, Earth Day to June 5, World Environment Day in Pittsburgh.

World Environment Day 2010 in India

India is taking a giant step forward in hosting the first ever “Green Commonwealth Games”. The country is taking initiatives to organize Green Games in the 19th Commonwealth Games 2010 at Delhi. The organizing committee of the Commonwealth Games has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Environment Program. Several measures in terms of energy efficiency, water conservation, etc., have been worked upon to lessen the carbon emissions from Games related activities.

World Blood Donor DayBlood is the lifeline of every living being on the earth. Today world is facing deficiency of blood stock and

that is causing threat to life. The only way one can see for health care is through Blood transfusion. The increasing need for blood globally requires everyone to contribute by donating blood and motivating others for the cause. The commitment and support was declared unanimously in 58th World Health Assembly for voluntary donation of blood. As a result a resolution was passed which declared 14 June as World Blood Donor Day and it is committed that this will be observed as an annual event to be held every year. This day not only awakes people about the importance of blood donation and persuading more and more individuals to donate blood regularly but also it takes an opportunity to celebrate and thank all those who voluntarily donate their blood without any reward. World Blood Donor Day 2010 will be celebrated on the global theme of—Young Donors, with the slogan “New Blood for the World” on June 14. This year the event will take place in Barcelona, Spain.

Father’s Day

Father’s Day is considered to be the day of commemoration and celebration for that one person in your life who is there for you at different walks of verve, to help you out when you need him, to make you feel secure, to make available to you all pleasures of life. This day is an occasion to recall, recognize and remember those endless pains; he had taken for your growth and upbringing, that very special icon,

your father or what do you call your Dad. This day not just calls for an honour to your father, but to all men who have acted as a fatherly figure in your life—whether as Stepfathers, Grandfathers, or even your ‘Big Brothers’. He was there for your first step, your first fall, and you can count on him to be there when you need him next. Your biggest hero deserves your biggest thanks.

HistoryFather’s Day is celebrated on 3rd Sunday in June. The idea for creating a day for children to honour their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Having been raised by her father, Henry Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June 1910. At about the same time in various towns and cities across America other people were beginning to celebrate a “Father’s Day”. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Roses are the Father’s Day flowers: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died. Father’s Day has become a day to not only honour your father, but all men who act as a father figure. Stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and adult male friends are all honoured on Father’s Day.

Father’s Day in IndiaFather’s Day is not celebrated with much pump and show in India. But, India is one blessed nation with many such great fathers, queuing up from Vasudeva, who though was not Lord Krishna’s biological father, but Lord Krishna was called with his name as Vasudev Shree Krishna. Humanyun, who surrendered his own life just to save his son, Akbar’s life, who then was on the verge of deathbed. Though Humanyun had to give up his life, but he left after him the most promising Mughal Emperor, Akbar The Great. These fathers can be categorised as great fathers as they did certain exceptional deeds. But for a Child, father is always and shall always be a Great father.

International Children’s DayInternational Children’s Day is celebrated on the 1st of June each year. The ICD is said to have originated in Turkey in 1920 and later in Geneva, Switzerland in 1925. Children’s Day was a coincidence that two very important events took place on 1st June 1925. The first was the World Conference for the Well-

being of Children in Geneva and at the same time the Chinese Consul-General in San Francisco gathered a number of Chinese orphans to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. Since both these incidents had the idea of child welfare at their core, 1st of June began to be celebrated as International Children’s Day thereafter but it were largely restricted to the communist countries and continue to be restricted, even after the atrophying of communism. There is often little public awareness of International Children’s Day in the Western world and the central Asian continent.

CelebrationsMost of the nations in the Western world, the Middle East, Africa and the Southern hemisphere have their own particular so called “Children’s day”, which they celebrate during different times of the year. However, being a prominent phenomenon in Europe, International Children’s Day has acquired an important place in the agenda of United Nations and its concerned agencies, especially UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund). Despite of the prominence that International Children’s Day gets in nations like China and Poland, it practically remains an arcane in the majority of nations of the world. However, what demarcates it from other public holidays is the hope that it sheds over the future of children, the architects of tomorrow, especially those thriving for “just existence” in the underdeveloped world. The participation of agencies like UNICEF, G8 and other charitable organizations makes it an endeavor that is a giant leap towards peace and unification of humanity giving all those involved in the process that the world is ONE FAMILY.

World Ocean DayOur world comprises of ¾th of water and ¼th of land. We have five oceans and various seas in this world, which make our regular life more secured and space for living. World Ocean Day is celebrated to make everyone feel the connection of a living being with an ocean. The Day is kind of showing honour to the ocean and oceanic products like sea food, sea weed along with marine life out of ocean like aquariums and fishes etc. Its celebrations help people know that ocean is safe and protected and also its products. It makes us feel how ocean is playing vital role in saving the world and making the world worth living. World Ocean day was first celebrated on 8th June 1992. World Ocean Day took place at Erath Summit located in Rio de Janeiro of Brazil.

Oceans and Our LivesOceans play a major role in world’s weather and holding this planet in a proper way so that we can take breathe of peace. Oceanic products also provide huge

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benefits in international trade. Maximum amount of oxygen that we consume for breathing is generated from oceans. Oceans clean the water that we use for drinking. It provides pharmacopoeia of important medicines. On the negative side due to over-consumption of ocean products and pollution, oceans and their products are getting wasted. Oceanic species are getting less in number as their reproductive life is interrupted by human being for their selfish means. Even human race is using oceans as its garbage disposal place.

Oceanic ProjectOceanic project in association with World Ocean Network celebrates World Ocean Day with various innovative ideas each year by coordinating various events and activities. Oceanic Network is built to spread awareness about the importance of oceans in our lives. World Ocean Day is the platform which provides the chance to be associated with the future of the world by saving the health of oceans involving various activities like, beach cleanups, educational programs etc. World Ocean Day will change the perspective of the human being about the oceans. World Ocean Day will make conscious how oceans make our live worth for living by its various contributions. Oceanic products and species living in ocean have diverse effects in our daily lives. Thus, celebration of Ocean Day will ensure the importance of them. World Ocean Day will make us aware that our day-to-day little changes in habits can make drastic changes in oceanic life. World Ocean Day will make us feel whether we live on land or on the coast but we are every way connected to the oceans and their effects. So, making it unpolluted and hazard free is our duty.

World Music Day 2010

Music is the soul of every human being. World Music Day is also known as Fête de la Musique. World Music Day is a music festival. Fête de la Musique firstly took place in England. But now World Music Day is spread over the entire globe. Fête de la Musique is actually a Lebanese music festival. World Music Day was firstly initiated by France. It was firstly ideated by French Dance and Music director Maurice Fleuret for the sake of Minister of Culture Jack Lang during the time of 1981. Though the festival took place in the year 1982, World Music Day is celebrated every year on 21st June. In order to build peace worldwide by the means of music, this gala of music festival is celebrated joyfully worldwide. Celebration of World Music Day involves, arranging speech of leading composers, musicologists and interpreters in order to gather the knowledge based on the essence of music and recent scenario of music, arranging seminars of artists, organizing music competitions and quizzes, arranging different exhibitions of records; musical instruments; paintings; posters; sculptures; caricatures etc.

International Anti Drugs DayAccording to the UN general Assembly, 26th June is declared as the day to be celebrated as International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. It was first on 1987, when UN general Assembly proclaimed that day for celebration. It is the celebration of keeping much stronger resolution for making world against the drug addiction and taking the oath of converting international society free of drug abuse.

*Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Source: www.festivalsofindia.in, www.altiusdirectory.com

Queen’s Official BirthdayThe Queen’s Official Birthday (sometimes known as “the Queen’s Birthday”) Is the day on which the Monarch’s birthday is officially celebrated rather than the actual day of the Monarch’s birthday. The exact date of the celebration varies from country to country, and only marks the real birthday of a sovereign by coincidence (the current monarch, Elizabeth II, was born on 21 April 1926). Most Commonwealth Realms release a Birthday Honours List at this time.

It has been celebrated in Britain by a the Trooping the colour also known as the Queen’s Birthday Parade since 1748. In Britain there is no public holiday for it and King George VI (1901-1910) moved it to the 1st, 2nd, or (rarely) 3rd Saturday in June in the hope of better weather. It might be said that the Monarch’s official birthday is only this date as the Monarch declared it, and others have kept it, whereas the celebration of the Queen’s birthday elsewhere is the name of a public holiday, sometimes renamed.

It has been celebrated as an official public holiday, sharing sometimes with the celebration of other things, in several Commonwealth countries, usually Commonwealth realms, although it is also celebrated in Fiji, now a republic.

AustraliaAustralia, except for Western Australia, observes the Queen’s Birthday on the second Monday in June, marking it with a public holiday that also serves as the opening weekend to Australia’s snow season, though it is quite common for there to be no ski-worthy snow until later in the month. Because Western Australia celebrates its Foundation Day on the first Monday in June, the Governor of Western Australia proclaims the day on which the state will observe the Queen’s Birthday, based on school terms and the Perth Royal Show. The day has been celebrated since 1788, when Governor Arthur Phillip declared a holiday to mark the birthday of the King of Great Britain. Until 1936 it was held on the actual birthday of the Monarch, but after the death of George V it was decided to keep the date on the second Monday in June. The only civic occasion of note associated with the day is the release of the “Queen’s Birthday honours list,” in which new members of the Order of Australia and other Australian honours are named. This occurs on the date observed in the Eastern States, not the date observed in Western Australia.

CanadaAccording to the present (1952) legislation governing Victoria Day, originally the birthday of Queen Victoria

(born 24 May 1819) and now a holiday in her memory, Canada celebrates the day on the Monday on or before 24 May.

New ZealandIn New Zealand, the holiday is the first Monday in June, and usually serves as the opening weekend to the country’s ski season. There are few actual celebrations of the Queen’s birthday on the day, apart from the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. There have been proposals to replace the holiday with Matariki (Māori New Year) as an official holiday. In 2001, The Māori Language Commission “began to reclaim Matariki, or Aotearoa Pacific New Year, as an important focus for Māori language regeneration. The idea of renaming the Queen’s birthday weekend to Hillary weekend, after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to ascend Mount Everest, was raised in 2009.

Other countries and territoriesThe Queen’s official birthday is a public holiday in Gibraltar and most other British overseas territories, but in 2008, the Government of Bermuda decided that it would cease to be a public holiday in 2009, despite protests from people in the island, who signed a petition calling for its retention.[10] In the Falkland Islands, the actual day of the Queen’s birth, 21 April, is celebrated, as June is a late autumn and winter month in the Islands.It ceased to be a public holiday in Hong Kong after the territory’s handover to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Fiji also still celebrates the Queen’s Official Birthday, along with the Prince of Wales’s Birthday, since although the Queen ceased to be head of state in 1987, she remains recognised by the Great Council of Chiefs as traditional Queen or paramount chief of Fiji. In addition to Fiji, other countries of the South Pacific that celebrate the Queen’s Birthday include Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Source: Wikepedia

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Guru Hargobind Sahib

G uru Hargobind Sahib was born at village Guru Ki Wadali (Amritsar) on 19th June, 1595. He was the only son of Guru Arjan Sahib and

Mata Ganga Ji. He had one daughter Bibi Viro Ji and five sons: Baba Gurditta Ji, Suraj Mal Ji, Ani Rai Ji, Atal Rai Ji and (Guru) Tegh Bahadur Ji. Out of these, four sons passed away during the life of Guru Sahib and the fifth one, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji became Ninth Nanak in 1664.

Guru of Spirituality and PowerGuru Hargobind Sahib succeeded Guru Arjan Sahib in 1606, at the age of eleven years. After the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Sahib, the moment was crucial for the Sikhs. Now the Sikhs had begun to think seriously to counter the high-handedness of the mighty and theist Muslim Empire. Guru Hargobind Sahib wore two swords, one of Spiritual Power—Piri and the other of Military Power—Miri. Now the Sikh became “Saint-Soldier.” Guru Sahib advised the Sikhs to take part in the military training and martial arts. Guru Sahib kept seven hundred Cavaliers and sixty artillerymen. There was a band of Pathan mercenaries and Painda Khan Pathan was made its chief. Riding, hunting, wrestling and many other martial sports were introduced. And on the other hand the martial songs like ‘Vars’ were daily sung in the court of Guru Sahib to inspire the Sikhs of heroic deeds. Abdul and Natha Mal were given the task in this respect. Guru Sahib himself was healthy and strong in body and mind. He himself learnt the use of different weapons, besides riding wrestling and hunting.

In due course of action, Guru Sahib erected a wall around Amritsar city and constructed a small fort named ‘Lohgarh’ on the outskirts of the city. Guru Sahib revealed Sri Akal Takht Sahib also known as Akal Bunga just in front of Sri Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in 1609. This place became the seat of preaching and praying in due course of time. At this place, Guru Sahib used to gave sermons to the Sikhs and discussions were held on the problems faced by the Sikh nation. In this way the Sikhs were encouraged to settle their own disputes themselves, some martial sports were also performed in the open courtyard before the Akal Takht. This development further consolidated the Sikh nation. The Sikhs called Guru Sahib ‘Sachcha Patshah’ (True Emperor) and the Sikh Nation followed the judgments or decisions taken on Sri Akal Takht Sahib enthusiastically.

Mughal EmpireEmperor Jahangir did not tolerate this new policy of

Guru Sahib and subsequently ordered to imprison him in the Gwalior Fort. Emperor Jahangir was falsely alarmed about the military preparations of the Guru Sahib and Sikhs by the enemies of the Sikh Nation, who were earlier responsible for the execution of Guru Arjan Sahib. After receiving summons from Emperor Jahangir Guru Sahib appeared before the Emperor and was received by the Emperor with due respect. A debate on Sikh religion and Sikh doctrines held between Guru Sahib and Jahangir (having pre-tempered mind against Guru Sahib) but the emperor remained unimpressed and ordered for the imprisonment of Guru Sahib at Gwalior Fort. Guru Sahib was detained in the fort upto three years. Sain Mian Mir and Wazir Khan (Governor of Lahore) approached Emperor Jahangir on behalf of Guru Sahib and secured the releasing orders. When Guru Sahib met Jahangir immediately after his release, he insisted upon Jahangir for the release of other fifty-two Hindu Princes on his personal surety (These Princes were said to be the rebellious ones). The request was obliged and all the prisoners were released in 1612. Then the title of “Bandi Chhor Baba” was given to Guru Sahib and is still remembered by this name. Guru Sahib reached Amritsar on the occasion of Diwali. This was a big occasion for the Sikhs. It is said that Baba Budha Ji littered the earthen lamps throughout

the Amritsar city. The Sikhs celebrated this occasion enthusiastically. From this day the Sikh Nation began to celebrate Dewali festival as “Bandi Chhor Diwas” also.

Now the attitude of Jahangir and his Empire towards Guru Sahib changed considerably and remained favourable and friendly till the death of Jahangir. It was the outcome of the noble interceding by the religious, secular and political personalities like Sain Mian Mir Ji, Nizam-ud-Din and the Governor of Lahore, Wazir Khan. Shortly after the release of Guru Sahib, the angry Sikhs overtook Chandu Shah (the main brain behind the execution of Guru Arjan Sahib). They preceded him through the streets of Lahore. Chandu, like a mad dog, was pelted with stones, filth, and abuses thus put to death. A chronicle further states that “Death came to him as a relief and his body was thrown into the river Ravi.”

Building SikhismShortly after the release from the Gwalior Fort and having cordial relations with the state, Guru sahib started to re-consolidate the Sikh Nation. Guru Sahib undertook Dharam Parchar tours to spread Sikhism. He started from Amritsar and covered thousand of miles in India. Guru Sahib spent the last decade of his life (from 1635 to 1644) at Kiratpur Sahib, which is situated in the hill state of Hadur (Nalagarh), founded by Baba Gurditta Ji (Guru’s son). It is said that Raja Tara Chand donated land for this purpose. Guru Sahib devoted his much time in reorganizing the Sikh Nation and updating the preaching centres by establishing a new system called Dhunas. Baba Gurditta Ji was made the Incharge of religious affairs and he further appointed head preachers.

On the other hand Guru Sahib did not abandon the mission of militarizing the Sikhs. Now for the first time in the Indian history since the invasion of Muslims, the Sikh Nation, under the supreme command of Guru Hargobind Sahib, prepared for the armed resistance. The tyranny and injustice of the Muslim theocratic state was opposed. This was only an imperative measure of defense. Guru Sahib converted the peaceful sect into a warlike community, ready to defend their interests with the swords and it was the need of the hour.

Emperor Shah JahanAfter the death of Emperor Jahangir the policy matter of the new young Emperor Shah Jahan changed considerably. The Emperor took the notice of new converts to Sikhism from the Muslims. He ordered to destroy all the Temples and Gurdwaras, which were under construction. The sacred Baoli of Guru Arjan Sahib in Dabbi Babar, Lahore (now in Pakistan) was desecrated and converted into a Mosque. Later

Maharaja Ranjit Singh re-excavated and re-established this Baoli. Again it was destroyed in 1947, by the Muslims.

When Shah Jahan succeeded the throne after the death of his father Jahangir, Qazi Rustam Khan lodged a complaint with the new Emperor, who was incensed earlier by the fanatic Muslims and Hindus against the Sikh Nation and Guru Sahib. He obliged the complaint and revised his policy matter; earlier adopted by his father Jahangir towards Guru Sahib. The possible conflict out of charged circumstances was inevitable. Guru Sahib fought five battles during the regime of Emperor Shah Jahan, and all were won. A small conflict of Rohilla near Sri Hargobindpur was fought in 1621. It was the first armed clash between the Faujdar of Jalandhar and Hargobind Sahib.

Conf lict with MughalsThe most serious conflict between Guru Sahib and the Mughal forces started in April 1634. It started with the lifting of a royal hawk of the imperial army of Shah Jahan by the Sikhs, who incidentally were also hunting in the same territory around Gumtala village near Amritsar. This led to a small violent conflict between the two parties. Guru Hargobind Sahib was not directly involved in this clash.

This incident enraged the Emperor, Shah Jahan. He deputed Mukhils Khan with, 7,000 soldiers “to teach the lesson” to Guru Hargobind Sahib. The mini fortress of Lohgarh was attacked. The Sikhs though small in number, gave a stiff resistance. Guru Sahib and the whole family had to hurriedly move to Chabal, to solemnize the marriage of Bibi Veero Ji (daughter of Guru Hargobind Sahib). The attackers had an upper hand over the Sikhs on the first day of the battle. They looted and plundered all the property and holy residence of Guru Sahib. On the next morning the Sikhs, after consolidating their position, retaliated and made a vigorous attack on the sleeping Mughal forces. Mukhlis Khan, the Commander and most of his leading lieutenants were killed. Guru Sahib also suffered a heavy loss of life and property. This was the first armed clash between the Mughals and the Sikhs.

After this battle, Guru Hargobind Sahib retired to the semi-desert wastelands of Bhatinda. (While leaving Amritsar for the Malwa region, Guru Sahib took Guru Granth Sahib with him but later he sent Guru Granth Sahib to Kartarpur along with the family). Soon after this, a tussle between Guru Sahib and Subedar of Lahore began over the two horses, which were forcibly snatched and taken into custody by the Mughal officials from the two devotees of Guru Sahib, at Lahore. This incident was informed to Guru Sahib. Bhai Bidhi Chand, a daring disciple recovered the horses one by one from the royal stable. This dare devil act was considered an open thereat

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to the authority of the Mughal Empire. The imperial forces (22000 troops) were dispatched towards the Lakhi Jungle under the command of Qammar Beg and Lalla Beg. Guru Hargobind Sahib had only three to four thousand warriors. The Sikh forces under the command of Rai Jodh and Kirt Bhatt camped near a water reservoir. The interception took place near Mehraj and Lahira villages. In December 1634, the Sikhs waged a guerrilla attack on Mughal forces at night, which resulted heavy causalities in the Mughal camp. The Sikhs routed and defeated the enemy. The Mughal forces fled to Lahore leaving behind the dead and wounded. The Sikhs did not intercept the enemy. Guru Sahib faced another encounter with the Mughal forces but remained victorious. After these successful encounters Guru Sahib retired at Kartarpur (Jalandhar) along with his warriors.

Painda Khan Pathan a commander in Guru’s army and childhood friend, deserted him later and joined the Mughal camp after some altercation with the Sikhs and Guru Sahib on some small issues. He and Kala Khan (brother of slain Mukhlis Khan), along with imperial army made an attack on Guru Sahib at Kartarpur on 26th April 1635. The Sikhs having a nominal strength of 5000, fought with rare courage and velour. Teg Bahadar Ji (Guru), Baba Gurditta Ji and Bhai Bidhi

Chand Ji showed great feasts of bravery. Painda Khan and Kala Khan were killed. Several Sikh Saint Soldiers were also martyred.

After the battle of Kartarpur, Guru Sahib moved onwards Kiratpur Sahib, which was under the rule of Raja Tara Chand (a hill state chief). Again Guru Sahib’s entourage was suddenly ambushed by a contingent of royal forces under the command of Ahmed Khan in the village Palahi near Phagwara town on 29th April 1635. It caused considerable loss on the Guru’s soldiers. Bhai Dasa Ji and Bhai Sohela Ji (sons of Ballu Bhat, and grandsons of Mula Bhat) sacrificed their lives.

Final DaysGuru Sahib crossed the Sutlej River and reached Kiratpur Sahib where he established another spiritual and preaching center of the Sikh Nation. Here, Guru Sahib spent ten years of his life and breathed his last on 28th February 1644. Before his death Guru Sahib nominated his grandson Har Rai Sahib (The second son of Baba Gurditta Ji) as his successor (Seventh Nanak).

Source: www.sgpc.net

Teachings of Sant KabirSant Kabir says:

The best place to look for God is “in the heart of your heart.”

Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false.

Between the grinding stones of cravings and aversions the whole world is being crushed. Kabir weeps at the plight of the world as none is able to see the truth.

A diamond was lying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up. (Those who seek true knowledge will acquire it.)

A rosary (Japa Mala) is rotating in the hand and tongue swings in the mouth. But if the mind is moving in all the four directions then this is not a meditation of God.

Timeless Relevance of the Indian Way of Life

Surendralal G. Mehta*

W aters of the mighty rivers that enrich and nurture the soils of the American continents, Greece, Rome, Egypt,

Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumer, Nubia, Persia, Byzantium and Turkey, still flow between their banks and mingle with the oceans. However, the glorious civilisations and cultures that sprang on the banks of these rivers have all been buried deep beneath the sands of Time.

When these great civilisations existed and thrived along with them, there existed yet another civilisation, the Indian civilisation, on the banks of the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the vanished river, Saraswati, on the Indian subcontinent. Through their intellect and intuition, introspection and meditation the thinkers and sages of ancient India were able to discover the very purpose of human existence. Truth revealed itself in the form of Vedic wisdom; those sages who bequeathed their knowledge and wisdom to the entire mankind and this wisdom has come down to us in as fresh and pure form as it had existed several thousands of years ago. How has the Indian thoughts and the way of life become fine tuned so far back in time and has been vibrantly alive all the time while other great civilisations have vanished? What is the reason for this amazing resilience?

The ancient Indian sages not only looked around at the expanse of cosmos around them but also looked within and found it to be so deep that it contained everything that they thought existed outside. Their minds were liberated. At that level they were full of tolerance, compassion, understanding, love and illumination. They were the Rishis, Maha Rishis and Brahma Rishis.

People believed them and had absolute faith in them and in their teachings. They learnt the value of tolerance, and compassion became a part of their lives. They had faith in themselves and in God. They saw the multitude of forms of lives around them and also saw divine presence and action in each one of them. The incredible diversity of nature taught them that there can be diverse ways and means of cognising Divine presence and action.

They, therefore, accepted readily the teachings of Gautama Buddha and Vardhamana Mahaveera and what is more, absorbed and assimilated their teachings as well and made them their own It is this open mindedness and readiness to accept noble thoughts

from whichever direction they may flow from and still remain focused towards evolving to higher stages of existence which empowers the Indian mind and helps it to remain tranquil, steady and calm, in spite of the complex and diverse forces that try to penetrate, disturb and distort and sway.

It empowers minds and keeps them energised and strong. It is this built-in system of moulding and strengthening the mind that has kept the great teachings intact and keep their eternal relevance in full focus. It is precisely this fact that is responsible for keeping Indian way of life or Sanathana Dharma vibrant and alive. Sanathana Dharma is beyond time and its relevance is eternal.

When Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism with their distinct teachings, approaches, beliefs, practices and cultures reached the Indian shores, they hardly met any resistance. They also were accepted as different other paths that led one to the only one God. These cultures that wafted in brought their own distinct fragrances and they also became part of the Indian way of life and a harmoniously blended culture has emerged as the Indian culture.

The entire world is slowly but steadily turning around and is looking at India for spiritual guidance. Nowhere else in the world but in India can concepts such as “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side” and “The world is one family” can emerge and influence the thinking and actions of people. These thoughts are so profound, that the Bhavan has adopted them as its motto and inspiration, to keep them focused on its objectives of achieving Loka Kshema.

*Surendralal G Mehta, President Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Minor Illness Syndromes in ChildrenProf. B. M Hegde

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened!” -Winston Churchill.

I t was in the fifteenth century that Peru had millions of people dying of malaria. The local superstition that God gives the medicine for the

disease he sends made people go to the forest and get the bark of a white beautiful tree to make a decoction which cured malaria. Their Viceroy’s wife was beautiful; her name was Cinchona. Peruvians named the white tree as Cinchona tree. Thanks to their faith in God and superstition, we got quinine and quinidine for the world. Europeans were jealous. They also had malaria. They had the white tree in their forest as well. The bark lowered the temperature but killed the patients with malaria.

That was the willow bark and the world got aspirin from its bark, a good antipyretic but not anti-malarial like the Cinchona bark! After nearly 400 years we still do not know if aspirin is a blessing or a curse. Recent audits do show that daily dose of even baby aspirin could increase deaths due to heart attacks and also cerebral hemorrhage, not to speak of the gastrointestinal bleedings. The question is whether willow bark decoction increased malarial deaths. Body temperature goes up with any infection for the simple reason that the body’s wisdom knows that elevated temperature helps kill all germs invading the body. So fever, as a sign, is not the disease but a saviour in many instances. Lowering body temperature when someone has fever might not be scientifically correct.

Hyperpyrexia could be dangerous and in some children with febrile convulsion history temperature might have to be monitored closely. Use of antipyretics in fever therapy should be discouraged. Body temperature could be brought down physiologically by tepid sponging and avoiding hot foods.

Minor Illness Syndromes in Children Common cold, feverish cold, sore throat and ‘Flu like illnesses’ are the usual culprits and almost all of them can be managed at home without pharmaceuticals. Bed rest, fresh air, adequate hydration, simple nutritious foods, and careful monitoring lets the body manage the infection efficiently. In winter, in the west with heated houses, a humidifier is a must as mucus membranes of a child with fever should never dry up. It is only in the unlikely event of any complications that one needs to interfere using medical assistance.

However, in a febrile child one must carefully look for the following symptoms or signs which warn of the

impending dangers: presence of jaundice, diarrhoea, sore throat where the voice is affected along with large tonsillar swellings with yellow spots, fast breathing suggesting pneumonia, vomiting and inability to see bright light (meningitis) could all warrant immediate medical attention.

All the four above named culprits are caused by viral infections and antibiotics should be shunned especially in children. If one is a cardiac or respiratory cripple one needs medical attention immediately with these additional burdens. Even ear aches (otitis media) do not seem to warrant antibiotic use scientifically.

When antibiotics are used in viral diseases they change the immune response of the patient leading to a change in the cytokine response from TH 1 to TH2; the latter are leukotrienes which produce vaso-constriction and broncho-constriction, leading to higher incidence of asthma in later life. Fresh fruits and steamed vegetables are a good bet for immune boosting.

Simple home remedies like hot water vapour inhalation, nasal irrigation with sterile normal saline solution, and tepid sponging when needed would help a lot. A warm drink with turmeric powder could be a good anti-viral agent. Sipping hot water slowly might help sore throats to a great extent. All nasal decongestants with vasoconstrictors in the market should be avoided as they dry up the mucus membranes which could be counter productive.

Fever as a Therapeutic ToolWhen I was a house officer in Stanley Hospital, Madras, many decades ago, the king of diseases was syphilis with its dreaded complication of GPI

(general paresis of the insane), a cruel disease indeed which could make Alzheimer’s look like a blessing today! Our treatment was to inject boiled cow’s milk (a foreign protein) intramuscularly producing very high fever which was supposed to kill the treponema pallidum, the syphilis germ.

Fever therapy was mentioned by Hippocrates in 100 BC! But it was Julius Wagner Jauregg, who popularised it in 1927 by publishing a study of treatment of GPI by injecting malaria parasites into GPI patients producing hyperpyrexia when malaria itself did not have any cure. Jauregg claimed remarkable success and managed to get the 1927 Nobel Prize for medicine. In the year 1926, when Juregg’s claim came up in the Swiss Nobel Jury panel, there was a medical doctor, Gladius, who disclosed that Jauregg had injected many such patients of which only six survived with remarkably good results (publishing only the positive results); The rest, in retrospect, must have died of malaria as, at that time, it was not known that there were varieties of malaria parasite like falsiparum malaria against which Caucasians had no racial immunity!!

Jauregg’s lobbyists could not succeed in 1926. As fate would have it, poor Gladius died of a heart attack later that year and Jauregg’s lobby managed to get the Nobel in 1927 for his innovation of fever therapy for infections which Jauregg also claimed was his own discovery. He never knew about Hippocrates’s writings.

Home Remedies Just as a simple oral rehydration fluid could bring down diarrhoeal deaths in children significantly, thanks to initial funding by Fred Matser, a Dutch philanthrope, there are many simple home remedies for the minor illness syndromes. Matser is still doing the same in 2010.

Along with Matser, I had the good fortune of interacting with a great Russian biologist, (physiologist) Vladimir Veikov, from Moscow Central University, in San Diego where both of us were lecturing on the need for a paradigm shift in sciences in general and medical science in particular-Sages and Scientists meet- organised by the new age Guru, Deepak Chopra, with the motivation from a great living scientific legend, Professor Rustum Roy of Penn. State University.

Vladimir is an unconventional biologist studying life even in the deep dark unfathomed caves of the ocean where there is no sunlight at all. His findings showed one important fact that the human body, as any other living organism, lives by burning water! He had a bad cold, coming from Moscow, where the temperatures

are around -30 degrees with mountains of snow. If one were to go by the linear mathematical laws, as we do in medicine and science now, the 2010 winter is an indication that we are going in towards the next Ice Age in the not too distant future.

Bad for the global warming enthusiasts and their awards, though. One has to read the book Superfreakonomics, by Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and his friend Stephen Dubner, a journalist-turned economist. They have debunked the global warming fiasco so beautifully and have even shown, with hard data, that one single cow’s fart (around 800 ml per day) and the putty together, could warm this globe much more than a medium factory’s carbon output.

Simple home remedies like fresh ginger, garlic, honey and onion in good combination, taken twice or thrice a day, work wonders in all viral upper respiratory infections.

These old grannies’s treatments kill viruses, Vladimir told me that even Russian grannies did advocate that but, he believes that these again raise our immune guard by making our body water burn better and not by killing viruses!

This world goes round in circles. Like the Peruvian superstition many other superstitions teach a lot of things to us. One does not have to believe in them but could learn from them.

Many in India believe that common cold is good for the system as it clears the head of all poisons.

Therefore, they surmised that people who do not get cold must go mad sooner than later!!! Wrong to the core but there is something that we should learn from this.

A study of schizophrenics locked up at some of the European mental hospitals of yore never suffered from physical illness even for as long as forty years. None had common cold. Observational research of our old grannies must have observed that “mad” people never get common cold even if they were exposed to rain or shine day in and day out!

Latest research tells us that the mind plays a vital role in these illnesses like common cold. Our immune guard goes down with frustration, anxiety, loss of social support etc. which would make the viruses that live in symbiosis with us take an upper hand. Schizophrenics live in a different world where their mind does not affect their bodies. This is different interpretations of the same scientific truth. Let us learn more from old grannies’ superstitions.

Source: Bhavan’s Journal May 15 2010

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Bankim Chandra ChatterjeeBankim Chandra Chatterjee was one of the great novelists of nineteenth century Bengal. He was a literary pioneer and nationalist who had an exceptional ability to communicate with and arouse the masses. He was born on 27th June 1838 in the village Knathalpara of the 24 Paraganas District of Bengal. He belonged to a family of Brahmins. The family was well-known for the performance of Yangas (sacrifices). Bankim Chandra’s father Yadav Chandra Chattopadhyaya was in Government service. In the very year of his son’s birth he went to Midnapur as Deputy Collector. Bankim Chandra’s mother was a pious, good and affectionate lady. The word ‘Bankim Chandra’ means in Bengali ‘the moon on the second day of the bright fortnight’. The moon in the bright half of the month grows and fills out day by day. Bankim Chandra’s parents probably wished that the honour of their family should grow from strength to strength through this child, and therefore called him Bankim Chandra.

Man of BrillianceBankim Chandra’s education began in Midnapur. Even as a boy he was exceptionally brilliant. He learnt the entire alphabet in one day. Elders wondered at this marvel. For a long time Bankim Chandra’s intelligence was the talk of the town. Whenever they came across a very intelligent student, teachers of Midnapur would exclaim, “Ah, there is another Bankim Chandra in the making”.

Bankim Chandra finished his early education at Midnapur. He joined the Mahasin College at Hoogly and studied there for six years. Even there he was known for his brilliance. His teachers were all admiration for his intelligence. With the greatest ease Bankim Chandra passed his examinations in the first class and won many prizes. He was not very enthusiastic about sports. But he was not a student who remained glued to his textbooks. Much of his leisure was spent in reading books other than his texts. He was very much interested in the study of Sanskrit. He would read and understand Sanskrit books on his own. He was struck by the beauty of that language. Bankim Chandra’s study of Sanskrit made him stand him in good stead. Later when he wrote books in Bengali this background of Sanskrit was of great help to him. There was no set rule for his study of books. It was enough that a particular book attracted his attention. He would pore over it for hours on end in some corner of the college library. He used to spend most of the academic year in this way, reading books other than his texts. And as the examinations drew near he would race through the texts. But it made no difference for, as usual, he would

pass in the first class, and win prizes. And then again he would keep away from texts.

Professional LifeIn 1856 he joined the Presidency College in Calcutta. The next Year, in 1857, soldiers of the Indian army rose in mutiny; the mutiny was bid to gain freedom. Calcutta was all confusion during this time. But Bankim Chandra’s studies went on as usual. He sat for the B.A. Examination along with eleven candidates. Both Bankim Chandra and his friend Yadunath Bose passed. The Lieutenant Governor of Calcutta appointed Bankim Chandra as Deputy Collector in the same year. His father Yadav Chandra had also rendered service as Deputy Collector. According to his father’s wishes Bankim Chandra accepted the appointment. He was then twenty years old. Having developed an interest in the study of Law he got through effortlessly in the B.L. Degree examination, too.

Guardian of JusticeBankim Chandra was appointed Deputy Magistrate. He was in Government service for thirty-two years and retired in 1891. He was a very conscientious worker. Most of his officers were Englishmen. They were a proud lot for they were the ruling power of this country. Bankim Chandra never submitted to any of

their proud, unjust or stubborn behaviour. He worked hard and with integrity. Yet he never got the high position that he so much deserved! Bankim Chandra would never sacrifice justice or self-respect. His self respecting behaviour invited many such troubles and due to this his official career was full of such troubles. There were also some unhappy incidents in his personal life.

MarriageBankim Chandra was married when he was only eleven and his wife just five years old! Within a year or two of his appointment as a Deputy Collector at Jessore he lost his wife. Bankim Chandra was only twenty two then. The death of his young and beautiful wife made him very sad. After some time he married again. His second wife was Rajlakshmi Devi. They had three daughters but no son. Bankim Chandra’s youngest daughter Utpala kumari is said to have committed suicide.

Writer of EminenceWhen he was in Jessore, Bankim Chandra met a person, Dinabandhu Mitra. He was a renowned Bengali dramatist of the time. They became close friends. Later Bankim Chandra dedicated his ‘Anandamath’ to the memory of his dead friend Dinabandhu Mitra. In due course Bankim Chandra emerged as a great writer in Bengali. He wrote novels and poems. He wrote articles, which stimulated impartial thinking. He became well-known outside Bengal too. His novels have been translated into many Indian languages. Bankim Chandra first wrote poems. Then he wrote a novel in English. But after this he began to write novels in Bengali. He wrote while still in service. Because of constant pinpricks he grew weary of service. He felt that Government service curbed his freedom and challenged his self-respect. Sohe asked for permission to retire, though he was only fifty three years old. But his superior officers were displeased with him. So they would not even allow him to retire. When a new Lieutenant Governor, Charles Eliot by name, was posted, Bankim Chandra approached him. He told him that he wished to write books and needed leisure. “I would like to retire. Please allow me to do so”, he requested Eliot. He agreed. At last Bankim Chandra was free. He was retired on a pension of four hundred rupees a month. When Bankim Chandra retired he was eager to write many books. The Bengali Novel practically began with him. He also wrote philosophical works, which stimulated independent thinking. His first fiction to appear in print was Rajmohan’s Wife. It was written in English and was probably a translation of the novelette submitted for the prize. Durgeshnandini, his first Bengali romance, was published in 1865. The next novel Kapalkundala

(1866) is one of the best romances written by Chatterjee. Bankim Chatterjee was superb story-teller, and a master of romance. He was also a great novelist in spite of the fact that his outlook on life was neither deep nor critical, nor was his canvas wide. But he was something more than a great novelist. He was a path finder and a path maker. Chatterjee represented the English-educated Bengalee with a tolerably peaceful home life, sufficient wherewithal and some prestige, as the bearer of the torch of western enlightenment. No Bengali writer before or since has enjoyed such spontaneous and universal popularity as Chatterjee. His novels have been translated in almost all the major languages of India, and have helped to simulate literary impulses in those languages.

Vande Mataram

He gave Bengal the song “Vande Mataram” (I worship mother) which became the mantra of nationalism and the national song. Incidentally it gave tremendous impetus to the various patriotic and national activities culminating in the terrorist movement initiated in Bengal in the first decade of the twentieth century. ‘Vande Mataram’ became the sacred battle cry of freedom fighters. It became such a source of inspiration that the British officers were enraged at the very mention of this. People were sent to prison just because they sang this song. ‘Vande Mataram’ has an honoured place in independent India. It keeps bright in the hearts of the people the ideal of dedication to our country. Throughout his life, Bankim wrote on social and political issues facing the society and the country at that time like widow remarriage, education, lack of intellectual development and freedom. He believed that by communicating with the masses he could unite them against the British.

The British Government honoured him with the title “Ray Bahadur” in 1892. Though he wanted to write for long term but he was not able to devote many years to writing on a large scale. His health soon declined and he passed away on April 8, 1894 when he was only fifty six.

Source: www.liveindia.com, www.FreeIndia.org, www.indiavisitinformation.com,

www.indianetzone.com

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Maharana Pratap JayantiMaharana Pratap Jayanti is the birthday celebrations of Maharana Pratap Singh, a famous ruler of Mewar. It is one of the popular festivals that Rajputs of Rajasthan observe. It is mainly celebrated in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan every year on Shukla Tritiya of the Ashad month. In year 2010, Maharana Pratap Jayanti is scheduled on 15th June.

Maharana PratapMaharana Pratap was 16th century King who ruled Mewar, a state in north-western India. He was born on 9th May 1540 in Kumbhalgarh, Rajasthan. His father was Maharana Udai Singh II and mother was Rani Jeevant Kanwa. He was the eldest among 25 brothers and 20 sisters and was the 54th ruler of Mewar. He belonged to the Sisodiya Rajput clan. From childhood Rana Pratap had the passion that a Kshatriya King needs to possess. Maharana faced many struggles in his career. He kept on fighting with Akbar all his life. Akbar tried several ways to win over Maharana Pratap but he was always a failure. Maharana could not forget when Akbar killed 30,000 unarmed residents of Chittor only because they refused to convert to Islam. This made Maharana revolt against Akbar and he followed strict codes of Kshatriyas to fight with Akbar. One more attribute of Maharana Pratap was his horse named Chetak. Chetak was a white horse. The horse was divine gift of God. It is described that Chetak was very faithful to Maharana. It had beautiful big eyes and with an extremely attractive appearance. It was blessed with “flying” legs. It was swift and expert.

In 1567, when Crown Prince Pratap Singh was only 27, Chittor was surrounded by the Mughal forces of Emperor Akbar. Maharana Udai Singh II decided to leave Chittor and move his family to Gogunda, rather than capitulate to the Mughals. The young Pratap Singh wanted to stay back and fight the Mughals but the elders intervened and convinced him to leave Chittor, oblivious of the fact that this move from Chittor was going to create history for all times to come.

In Gogunda, Maharana Udai Singh II and his nobles set up a temporary Government of the Kingdom of Mewar. In 1572, the Maharana passed away, leaving the way for Crown Prince Pratap Singh to become the Maharana. However, in his later years, the late Maharana Udai Singh II had fallen under the influence of his favorite queen, Rani Bhatiyani, and had willed that her son Jagmal should ascend to the throne. As the late Maharana’s body was being taken to the cremation grounds, Pratap Singh, the Crown Prince decided to

accompany the dead body of the Maharana. This was a departure from tradition as the Crown Prince did not accompany the body of the departed Maharana but instead prepared to ascend the throne, such that the line of succession remained unbroken. Pratap Singh, in deference to his father’s wishes, decided to let his half-brother Jagmal become the next King. However, knowing this to be disastrous for Mewar, the late Maharana’s nobles, especially the Chundawat Rajputs, forced Jagmal to leave the throne to Pratap Singh. Unlike Bharat, Jagmal did not willingly give up the throne. He swore revenge and left for Ajmer, to join the armies of Akbar, where he was offered a Jagir —the town of Jahazpur—in return for his help. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Pratap Singh became Maha Rana Pratap Singh I, 54th ruler of Mewar in the line of the Sisodiya Rajputs.

The year was 1572. Pratap Singh had just become the Maharana of Mewar and he had not been back in Chittor since 1567. His old fort and his home beckoned to him. The pain of his father’s death, and the fact that his father had not been able to see Chittor again, troubled the young Maharana deeply. But he was not the only one troubled at this time. Akbar had control of Chittor but not the Kingdom of Mewar. So long as the people of Mewar swore by their Maharana, Akbar could not realize his ambition of being the Jahanpanah of Hindustan. He had sent several emissaries to Mewar to get Rana Pratap to agree to sign a treaty but the latter was only willing to sign a peace treaty whereby the sovereignty of Mewar would be intact. In the course of the year 1573, Akbar sent six diplomatic missions to Mewar to get Rana Pratap to agree to the former’s sovereignty but Rana

Pratap turned down each one of them. The last of these missions was headed by Raja Man Singh, the brother-in-law of Akbar himself. Maharana Pratap, angered that his fellow Rajput was aligned with someone who had forced the submission of all Rajputs, refused to sup with Raja Man Singh. The lines were completely drawn now—Akbar understood that Maharana Pratap would never submit and he would have to use his troops against Mewar.

With the failure of efforts to negotiate a peace treaty in 1573, Akbar blockaded Mewar from the rest of the world and alienated Mewar’s traditional allies, some of whom were Maharana Pratap’s own kith and kin. Akbar then tried to turn the people of the all-important Chittor district against their King so they would not help Pratap. He appointed Kunwar Sagar Singh, a younger brother of Pratap, to rule the conquered territory, However, Sagar, regretting his own treachery, soon returned from Chittor, and committed suicide with a dagger in the Mughal Court. Shakti Singh, Pratap’s younger brother now with the Mughal army, is said to have fled the Mughal court temporarily and warned his brother of Akbar’s actions.

In 1576, the famous battle of Haldighati was fought with 20,000 Rajputs against a Mughal army of 80,000 men commanded by Raja Man Singh. The battle was fierce though indecisive, to the Mughal army’s astonishment. Maharana Pratap’s army was not defeated but Maharana Pratap was surrounded by Mughal soldiers. It is said that at this point, his estranged brother, Shakti Singh, appeared and saved the Rana’s life. Another casualty of this war was Maharana Pratap’s famous, and loyal, horse Chetak, who gave up its life trying to save his Maharana.

After this war, Akbar tried several times to take over Mewar, failing each time. Maharana Pratap himself was keeping up his quest for taking Chittor back. However, the relentless attacks of the Mughal army had left his army weaker, and he barely had enough money to keep it going. It is said that at this time, one of his Ministers, Bhama Shah, came and offered him all this wealth—a sum enabling Maharana Pratap to support an army of 25,000 for 12 years. In one incident that caused him extreme pain, his children’s meal—bread made from grass—was stolen by a dog. It is said that this cut into Maharana Pratap’s heart deeply. He began to have doubts about his resolute refusal to submit to the Mughals. Perhaps in one of these moments of self doubt—something each and every human being goes through—Maharana Pratap wrote to Akbar demanding “a mitigation of his hardship”. Overjoyed at this indication of his valiant foe’s submission, Akbar commanded public rejoicing, and showed the letter to a literate Rajput at his Court, Prince Prithiraj. He was the younger brother of Rai Singh, the ruler of Bikaner, a State established some

eighty years earlier by the Rathores of Marwar. He had been compelled to serve Akbar because of his Kingdom’s submission to the Mughals. An award-winning poet, Prithiraj was also a gallant warrior and a longtime admirer of the brave Maharana Pratap Singh. He was astonished and grieved by Maharana Pratap’s decision, and told Akbar the note was the forgery of some foe to defame the Mewar king. “I know him well,” he explained, “and he would never submit to your terms.” He requested and obtained Akbar’s permission to send a letter to Pratap, ostensibly to ascertain the fact of his submission, but really with a view to prevent it. He composed the couplets that have become famous in the annals of patriotism.

The now-famous letter led to Pratap reversing his decision and not submitting to the Mughals, as was his initial but reluctant intention. After 1587, Akbar relinquished his obsessive pursuit of Maharana Pratap and took his battles into Punjab and India’s Northwest Frontier. Thus for the last ten years of his life, Maharana Pratap ruled in relative peace and eventually freed most of Mewar, including Udaipur and Kumbhalgarh, but not Chittor. Maharana Pratap Singh was the light and life of the Hindu community. There were times when he and his family and children ate bread made of grass. Maharana Pratap became a patron of the Arts. During his reign Padmavat Charita and the poems of Dursa Ahada were written. Palaces at Ubheshwar, Kamal Nath and Chavand bear testimony to his love of architecture. These buildings, built in the dense hilly forest have walls adorned with military-style architecture. But Pratap’s broken spirit overpowered him in the twilight of his years. His last moments were an appropriate commentary on his life, when he swore his successor, Crown Prince Amar Singh to eternal conflict against the foes of his country’s independence. Maharana Pratap was never able to win back Chittor but he never gave up fighting to win it back. In January 1597, Rana Pratap Singh I, Mewar’s greatest hero, was seriously injured in a hunting accident. He left his body at Chavand, aged 56, on January 29, 1597. He died fighting for his nation, for his people, and most importantly for his honour.

Celebrations: Maharana Pratap Jayanti is celebrated in a special way. Several cultural programs are organized on this day. Children are dressed in the style of Maharana Pratap. Local people climb the hill and pay homage to Maharana Pratap and his divine horse Chetak. In Udaipur Memorial light and sound program display the glorious 1400 years of Mewar’s history. People from all over India come to see the programs.

Source: http://www.chittorgarh.com,

http://in.ygoy.com

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

What is Meditation?Satish K. Kapoor

Meditation is a step from the known into the unknown realms of existence. It is a journey from the periphery to the centre of one’s being. It is the broadening of one’s consciousness, the awakening of dormant energies, and the rechristening propensities. Meditation is levitating upwards, not, of course, with the aid of some mechanical device, but through inner transformation. It is returning to the bosom of the One, from whom all existence emanates and finds sustenance, and into whom all existence melts, and gets reshaped again. Meditation provides the alchemy which turns a Mahavira into a Jina (one who has conquered himself), and a Narendranath into a Swami Vivekananda. It makes a person realise his virata rupa (extended self), his existence beyond existence, his oneness with the universe, and his mission on the terrestrial region.

Meditation takes one beyond the domain of the mind, the body and the senses. Mind is the centre of all activities, or as a psychologist would describe, the totality of conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. It has the faculty of reasoning, but it cannot go beyond it. It may be intelligent enough to interpret the external phenomena, but it cannot arrive at the source of intelligence.

It has the power of willing but it cannot reach the source of the Supreme Will. Mind can shuttle between good and bad, virtuous and the voluptuous, minimum and the maximum, but it cannot be still, quiet, or in a state of beatitude. Meditation is controlling the fluctuations of the human mind so that its fissiparous tendencies are checked and regulated towards higher goals.

The body is an instrument catering to the urges of die senses and the proclivities of me mind. It is the epicentre of all activities. But without prdna or the moving power, it turns into a carcass.

One who identifies oneself with the body remains busy in satisfying carnal desires. Sense-gratification leads to disharmony within, and makes one oblivious of the true goal of life. Meditation helps one to transcend from the plane of mushrooming desires to the plane of thorough contentment.

The science of meditation finds a place in almost all religious traditions, though with varying emphases and objects of concentration. But the purpose appears to be the same, i.e. to stem the tide of thought waves storming the ocean of mind, and to gain transcendental consciousness. In that supreme state of bliss, also called satori, one goes beyond ordinary sense perception, and finds the individual body in the

cosmic body and individual mind in the cosmic mind. The ego sense melts away and the veil of ignorance is lifted, making the multiplicity of phenomena appear as one. The sluice gates of subtle energy open, and pervade the whole being of man.

Meditation is certainly not the expansion of one’s imagination. Imagination belongs to the domain of mind, while meditative state takes one above it. Meditation is not even trance, a half-conscious state, or an unconscious cataleptic condition. It is rather the expansion of human consciousness. It is not a state of somnolence or hypnosis but one of awakening. It is the flowering of man beyond his cognitive ability.

Modern man is so much absorbed in me world of senses that he has forgotten his real self. While the “outer man” is nourished with material comforts, the inner man is starved of spiritual solace. Stressful life-style, mounting desires, growing competition and decline in moral values -these and other factors have led to tension, fear, frustration or crime. The new social milieu born of materialist culture, has affected not only the behaviour of each person, but also the collective consciousness of society.

Meditation is the way, the tao to peace and progress, both in this and the next world. It may be noted that any improvement in human society ought to be preceded by an improvement in each person, for he is society in miniature. If the components are dull,

ignorant, disillusioned or dehumanised, society is bound to remain deprived of its full potential and creative ability.

It has been rightly said that the solution to behavioural problems which create murky situations is “to raise individual and collective consciousness to such a high level of coherence that all actions by every other person simultaneously fulfil both his own needs and the needs of society.”

The one who following Lord Krishna sees himself in all beings and all beings in himself, makes no distinction between high and low, native and foreign, humble or exalted. He finds everything around him as an extension of his own self, and is thus dissuaded from greedy acts, crime and the like.

Maharshi Mahesh Yogi observed: “In enlightenment, when everything is experienced as identical with one’s own consciousness, the possibility of doing harm becomes zero; there is no one else to do harm to”

Scientific studies have shown that meditation can be of great help in producing a state of no-tension, and in restoring health and harmony to human organism. Since a majority of diseases from which modern man suffers are psychosomatic in origin, meditation is the key remedy for treatment. The deep state of rest that one gets during ten minutes of meditation is far better than six hours of sleep. As one moves from the circumference to the centre of one’s consciousness, the mind gets activated in the process. This leads to a marked improvement in the psychomotor abilities of a person. During meditation, there is a decrease in oxygen consumption, cardiac output and breath-rate, resulting in a revitalised organism. Increase in the electrical activity of the brain stimulates the cranial nerves and sharpens one’s radiocinative ability. This helps in bringing about an attitudinal change in the adept, who becomes emotionally more stable and mentally more orderly.

At a time when humanity is endangered by thermonuclear war, when families are breaking-up, and a majority of people suffer from stress and strain, the practice of meditation can bring about harmony and peace, helping a person to come out of the vortex of ego-centric consciousness, to sublimate his passions, channelise his mental faculties and integrate his personality.

Awakening, summum bonum of meditation, turns a Siddhartha into a Buddha, who then becomes the instrument of change in society.

In the inimitable words of Osho: “The word ‘meditation’ and the word ‘medicine’ come from the

same root. Medicine cures your body, meditation cures your being; it is the inner medicine.”

From Swami Vivekananda and Swami Yogananda, the earliest exponents of yoga in the west who taught non-physical types of yoga such as Bhakti Yoga (yoga of devotion), jndna Yoga (Yoga of knowledge), Karma Yoga (yoga of action), Raja Yoga (yoga of control of mind), Mantra yoga (Yoga of sound), Lay a Yoga (Yoga of rhythm), or Kriya Yoga (combined practice of austerity, scriptural study and devotion to god) to B.K.S. Iyenger and Pattabhi Jois, disciples of the celebrated yogi, Turmalai Krishnamacarya, who focussed on Hatha Yoga (yoga of physical discipline), to Bikrama Choudhary who patented a new form of yoga in America called Bikram Yoga (Hot yoga, in common parlance), performed at 105°F (45.5° C), to Baba Rama Deva whose Prdna Yoga camps (shiviras) and TV. shows have gained immense popularity in India and abroad, Yoga has come a long way from its chaste, pristine and orthodox form and adopted new styles ranging from the aesthetic (as that of Bharat Thdkur), to the cantankerous (Rock Yoga), the giggling (HasyaYoga), the shapely (as in Shilpa Shetty‘s DVD) the macho (characterised by fast exercises), and many more. The patented Sudarshan Kriya of Shri Shri Ravi Shankara, a rejuvenating and cleansing technique marked by scientific-breathing and physical exercises, for the wellbeing of mind, body and soul, has been tried by nearly 15 lakh people in 140 countries. The Raja Yoga of Brahmakumaris (different from Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga) has gained worldwide popularity for its focus on the achievement of peace and bliss in a society riddled with tensions and conflicts.

Yoga, today, is being used more for beauty and fitness, cure of diseases, removing toxins or fat from human body, increasing libido, eliminating stress or sharpening memory than for self-realisation, its ultimate goal. Of the eight limbs of yoga, described by sage Patanjali, as yama (‘restraint’), niyama (‘observances’), dsana (‘postures’), prdndydma (‘breath-regulation’), pratydhdra (‘withdrawal’), dhdrana (‘concentration’), dhydna (‘meditation’) and samddhi (union with supreme Being), only two limbs, dsana and prdndyama, involving physical postures and breathing exercises, are being emphasised.

Yoga has become a marketable commodity and the number of corporate yogis is on the increase. Yet, its presence is an indirect recognition of the wisdom of the Hindu sages of the past.

Source: Bhavan’s Journal May 31 2010

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

True EducationDr. V. Nithyanantha Bhat*

Good education is that which draws out and stimulates spiritual, intellectual and physical faculties of children. - Mahatma Gandhi

B y education Gandhiji meant “an all-round drawing out of the best in child and man — body, mind and spirit”. This view on holistic

education has been endorsed by all our educationist philosophers. Sri Aurobindo considers ideal education to be ‘integral education’ that insists on “simultaneous development of Knowledge, Will, Harmony and Skill” as also various parts of the being. According to him, matter and spirit are necessary for the well-being of mankind, and education should help bringing about a balanced development of both. He believed that education through science and technology would make the material basis stronger, more complete and effective for the manifestation of the spirit. He insisted that integral education must emphasise the psychic and mental aspects in addition to the physical aspects.

According to Rabindranath Tagore, “the highest mission of education is to help us realise the inner principles of unity of all knowledge and all the activities of our social and spiritual life.” Eminent Philosopher Dr. S. Radhakrishnan considered education as a creative process moving from ‘being’ to ‘becoming’, from ‘knowing’ to ‘internalising’, from ‘self-generated understanding’ to a network of interactional activities leading to knowledge (gyan). The purpose of education, according to him, is to provide a coherent picture of the universe and an integrated way of life. He insists that our outlook in education should go beyond information and technical skill though these two are important. He has repeatedly said that education is not a process of pumping information into empty containers. According to him knowledge does not mean just information derived from books. It is “a process of growth, of maturation triggered by a network of interactions between a particular biologically-given complex system - the human mind - and the physical and social world” ( Shivendra K. Verma, “Radhakrishnan’s Philosophy of Education.”)

The chief aim of education, according to thinkers, is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers rather than fill it with the accumulation of others. According to Sri Aurobindo, “the chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use ...” For Swami Vivekananda, true education is training both

the head and the heart. He observes that “just as the intellect is the instrument of knowledge, so is the heart the instrument of inspiration”. According to him education that builds fundamental traits of character such as - honesty, compassion, courage, persistence and responsibility - is absolutely essential.

In ancient India there was a happy and harmonious blending of the two — the head and the heart — which resulted in the fullest efflorescence of all the latent faculties of man in the domain of both the heart and the intellect. The system of education then was aimed at moulding the young students into individuals capable of living a perfect and full life — based on the principle of Dharma. It was a comprehensive scheme of perfecting the individual personality in all its facets — physical, intellectual, spiritual. Knowledge in this system was not confined to the intellect, it was actual realisation revealed through thought, word and deed.

Vedic education aimed at perfection and freedom. And this is the import of the well-known sruti “sa vidya ya vimuktaye “ (that is real education which liberates). This ancient aphorism, as Gandhiji believes, is as true today as it was before. He explains that “education here does not mean mere spiritual knowledge, nor does liberation signify only spiritual liberation after death. Knowledge includes all training that is useful for the service of mankind and liberation means freedom from all manner of servitude even in the present life. ... Knowledge acquired in the pursuit of this deal alone constitutes true study.

During the Upanishadic times, education system aimed to transform the potentiality of an individual to a complete man. And this was done not just through imparting precepts and theories but also through

giving examples quoting parables. Education was not confined to the science of phonetics. Education meant imparting knowledge which will inculcate the qualities such as self-discipline, charity, and compassion. In brief, the Upanishadic education aimed at the all-round development of personality, and preservation and dissemination of knowledge. All-round development meant physical, mental and moral development of the students. Students were instructed to speak the truth, practise virtue, to be devoted to studies and work for the welfare of society. Upanishadic Gurus taught their students the most important doctrines in order to make their life meaningful. Upanishads were considered as the cardinal texts for teaching the students of monastic order. They have great significance as they have deep ethical bearings on human conduct, man’s social responsibilities, and the legitimacy of his actions.

Thus the aim of the Vedic/ Upanishadic systems of education was to produce a rational individual, free from passion, full of universal affection, continuously self-educating and striving to reach the highest goal.

An individual’s learning must reveal itself through his thought, word and deed. He must cheerfully fulfill his obligations to his family, society, and country. He must be willing to sacrifice his good for the good of all.

Education should never become merely a utilitarian activity as it has largely tended to become in the modern system of life. The Paramacharya of Kamakoti Math once remarked : “Modern education is determined by the desire to obtain a career in life...” In ancient times in our land, learning was not connected with earning. True education was what was in accord

with dharma.

Modern education is utilitarian; it does not aim at the cultivation of character and the development of noble virtues. Eminent Educationist Philosopher J. Krishnamurti observes that “education is meant not merely to have some academic capacities but to bring about a good human being who will know what affection is, who will care, who has love, consideration, sympathy, generosity” (“What have you done to your children?” Question-Answer session in Madras on 31, Dec.1981).

But he regrets that what we now call education is a matter of accumulating information and knowledge from books, which anyone who can read can do. According to him, “education in the true sense is “helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness”. For Confucius, the well-known Chinese philosopher, education was a matter of acquiring moral knowledge. But this was not simply knowledge that certain actions and attitudes were good; it was also knowledge acquired in practice and through experience, by being good and by doing good.

At the core of its concept of moral goodness is the notion of ren Gen), that is, benevolence or love of humankind. Albert Einstein observes: “It is essential that the student acquires an understanding of a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good” .

Commenting on modern education, Sri Aurobindo remarks that Indians in the modern age have confused education with the acquisition of knowledge. According to him the amount of knowledge is in itself not of first importance, but to make the best use of what we know. He says that “the easy assumption of our educationists that we have only to supply the mind with a smattering of facts in each department of knowledge and the mind can be trusted to develop itself and take its own suitable road, is contrary to science, contrary to human experiences”. Enlightenment of

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spirit which is the goal of education is not possible by injecting information. The renowned poet T. S. Eliot rightly remarked: “Where is the wisdom which is lost in knowledge, where is the knowledge which is lost in information?”

Pointing out irrationality in modern training, Sri Aurobindo says: “A very remarkable feature of modern training which has been subjected in India to a reduction ad absurdum is the practice of teaching by snippets. A subject is taught a little at a time, in conjunction with a host of others, with the result that what might be well learnt in a single year is badly learnt in seven and the boy goes out ill-equipped, served with imperfect parcels of knowledge, master of none of the great departments of human knowledge.

The old system, an ideal one, was to teach one or two subjects well and thoroughly and then to proceed to others, and certainly it was a more rational system than the modern. It did not impart so much varied information, it built up a deeper, nobler and more real culture. Much of the shallowness, discursive lightness and fickle mentality of the average modern mind is due to the vicious principle of teaching by snippets.

Tagore’s educational philosophy is firmly based on his philosophy of life. He had realised that the educational system in India suffered from the loss of contact with the environment. Education, he believed, should have close relations with the natural surroundings and human society. The aim of his educational philosophy was to maintain harmony with social and natural atmosphere so that everybody would be able to develop all creative capabilities from the very beginning of his or her life. He attempted to make education a means by which a child’s mind and body are able to keep in harmony with the rhythm of nature.

Gandhiji too believed that individuality develops only in a social atmosphere where it can feed on common interests and common activities. “What is the use of intelligence which cannot be used for the good of humanity” - asks Sai Baba and adds, “if today’s education is not going to be helpful to society, it is

better to remain uneducated.” Swami Vivekananda asserts that the education that does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy, is not worth the name.

It is only befitting to conclude by quoting the observation of Swami Gambhirananda — “Anyone who seriously ponders over what is taking place at present in the realm of education all over the country is sure to notice that a soul-killing morbidity has seized our sacred temples of learning and the disease is eating into their very vitals. And the tonic to restore them to normal health and vigour can come only by infusing into their body the beneficent influence accruing from moral training and religious education - a revival’in part atleast of the elevating, sanctifying atmosphere that prevailed in our ancient system of education, oriented according to the needs and moods of the present age.”

Dr. V. Nithyanantha Bhat is a Honorary Director Sukrtindra Oriental Research Institute Kochi,

Member Managing Committee Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Kochi Kendra.

Source: Bhvan’s Journal May 31 2010

Sant Kabir JayantiAmongst the several Saints that have blessed our country, Kabir Das, the well-known mystic poet, deserves a major credit for bringing about a revolution. He was a man of principles and practiced what he preached. People called him by different names like Das, Sant, Bhakta. As Das, he was referred to as the servant of humanity and thus a servant of divinity. Kabir played the role of a teacher and social reformer by the medium of his writings, which mainly consisted of the two line verses called Dohas. He had a strong belief in Vedanta, Sufism, Vaishnavism and Nath Sampradaya. He applied the knowledge that he gained through the various experiences of his life. He was always in the pursuit of truth and nothing could hold him back. Kabir was well-known for his religious affiliation.

CelebrationsSant Kabir Jayanti is observed on the Purnima or full moon day in the month of Jyeshta (May–June) as per traditional calendar. In 2010, the date of Sant Kabir Jayanti is June 26. It is believed that Sant Kabir Das was born on this day. The birth anniversary of Sant Kabir is observed in India and around the world. Meetings, Satsangs, and recital of Sant Kabir’s poems are held on the day.

Religious ReformerSant Kabir was a revolutionary Saint, poet and religious reformer who refused the tag of a particular religion by accepting all religions and by propagating that the same Supreme Being appears in all religions. Kabir Das called himself the child of Lord Ram and Allah. A weaver by profession, Sant Kabir wrote numerous poems extolling the greatness of the oneness of the Supreme Being. He was able to weave simple philosophical thoughts into his Dohas which were easily digestible by the common man who was always kept aloof by the scholarly class from philosophical discussions.

LegendsThere are plenty of legends associated with the birth and death of Kabir (1440–1518). He is believed to have lived during the 15th century AD. Some people are of the view that, he was born in a Muslim weaver family, while others say that he was born to a Brahmin widow. It is said that, when he headed his way for heaven, tussle took place between the Hindus and Muslims over the issue of performance of the last rites. Eventually, in the memory of the great Kabir, his tomb as well as a Samadhi Mandir, both were constructed, which are still standing erect next to each

other. According to another legend, in a short span of time before his death, Kabir took a holy bath in the two rivers, namely Ganga and Karmnasha, so as to wash away his sins as well as the good deeds.

Kabir PhilosophyKabir’s poetry is a reflection of his philosophy about life. His writings were mainly based on the concept of reincarnation and Karma. Kabir’s philosophy about life was very clear-cut. He believed in living life in a very simplistic manner. He had a strong faith in the concept of oneness of God. He advocated the notion of Koi bole Ram Ram Koi Khudai.... The basic idea was to spread the message that whether you chant the name of Hindu God or Muslim God, the fact is that there is only one God who is the creator of this beautiful world. He was against the caste system imposed by the Hindu community and also opposed the idea of worshipping the idols. On the contrary, he advocated the Vedantic concepts of Atman. He supported the idea of minimalist living that was advocated by the Sufis. His poems and two line verses, Dohas speak his mind and soul. Kabir was strictly against the practice of hypocrisy and didn’t like people maintaining double standards. He always preached people to be compassionate towards other living beings and practice true love. He urged the need to have company of good people that adhere to values and principles. Kabir has very beautifully expressed his values and beliefs in his writings that include Dohas, Poems, Ramainis, Kaharvaas and Shabads. The poems of Sant Kabir are famous for its thought provoking content and inspirational teachings. They have a universal appeal and attract every generation with its simple similes, questions and philosophical ideas.

Source: www.hindu-blog.com, www.thecolorsofindia.com

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King Shahu ChhatrapatiKing Shahu Chhatrapati was considered as a true democrat and social reformer. He was an invaluable gem in the history of Kolhapur. Shahu Chhatrapati was the King of Kolhapur.

BirthShahu Chhatrapati was born on 26 June in the year 1874 as Yeshwantrao Ghatge. He was the son of Sambhaji and grandson of Shivaji, the Great. When Shahu Chhatrapati was a child, he was adopted by Anandibai, who was the widow of Maharaja Shivaji IV of Kolhapur in the year 1884. The following generations saw a lot of marriages taking place between the members of these two families. This caused Shahu’s family to remain closely associated with the ruling dynasty of Kolhapur. This also helped in securing Shahu Chhatrapati’s place on the throne despite his not being a male-line member of the Bhonsle dynasty. Another important point came in the life history of Shahu Chhatrapati in 1891, when he married Lakshmibai, the daughter of a Maratha nobleman from Baroda. Together they gave birth to four children. Shahu did a lot for the upliftment of the poor and the downtrodden. Shahu Chhatrapati tried his level best to make education and jobs available to all those living in his domain.

Life for the SocietyShahu was a staunch follower of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Shahu devoted his life for the upliftment of poor and the down-trodden of the society. He emphasized on the development and welfare of the lower-castes. He always used to contemplate over some serious issues of the society. He carried out efforts to provide education and employment to all. Shahuji initiated the process of providing free education to the children of the down-trodden class. In order to provide shelter to them and outstation students, Shahuji established hostels. By promising proper employment to the students, Shahu Chhatrapati devised one of the earliest affirmative programs. And many of these plans were executed in the year 1902.

During the rule of Shahu Chhatrapati, Child marriage was sincerely restricted. He also passed laws to allow the training of non-Brahmin men as temple priests. He also voiced his support favouring inter-caste marriage and widow remarriage. For his activities, Shahu Chhatrapati had to face severe criticism from many corners of the society. Shahuji was greatly influenced by the contributions of social reformer Jyotiba Phule. Jyotiba Phule, and he long patronized the Satya Shodhak Samaj, formed by Phule. Shahu

was associated with many progressive activities in the society including education for women. Primary education to all regardless of caste and creed was one of the significant moves of the King. Later he moved towards the Arya Samaj.

Wrestling was one of the favourite sports of Chhatrapati Shahu. Wrestlers from all over the country would come to his state of Kolhapur to participate in the wrestling competition. To honour Shahu’s contribution to the society, the Indian postal department issued a stamp dedicated to him. The great ruler and social thinker, Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj died on 6 May, 1922.

Source: www.iloveindia.com, www.culturalindia.net

This Matter of Culture-Ramdas

T he super cyclone of October 1999 swept across Orissa killing more than 10,000 people and three lakh cattle. The turbulent storm

demolished 90 per cent of the mud and thatched huts and houses. The crop on 21 hectares was damaged and some nine crore trees laid waste. The Ersama block of Orissa was the worst hit.

For every cyclone death the State Government announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 25,000 plus Rs. 50,000 from the Central Government to be paid to the surviving family. A newspaper reporter visiting the cyclone hit region gave the news to a 48-year-old farmer of Sarabapeta village. The farmer lamented: “What will I do with the money? Who is there to enjoy it? I only curse God for keeping me alive to see the dead bodies of my close relatives.”

Money has not brought cheer into the lives of those who survived. True, their broken homes could be rebuilt, but their spirits were shattered forever.

During the Second World War, Hitler’s Germany had occupied Hungary in March 1944. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary from the North-East in the late 1944. Istvan Orkeny (1912–1979), a Hungarian playwright and short-story writer, was called up for military service. The Russian offensive smashed the unit of Orkeny near Niklayevka, so was that of another soldier, Jeno Janasz. Thus the two were thrown together. In the midst of constant enemy fire, they were marching on foot through snow and ice for

nearly 200 miles, occasionally taking a ride. On the way they came across the smouldering ruins of a bombed ware-house, where they scraped out a tin can of fruit preserve. Just then a bridge ahead of them was blown up by the partisans. As they floundered across the wrecked remains, Jeno Janasz was singing. Anything he saw or heard, he turned it into a song in the blink of an eye, complete with lyricism, rhyme and melody. Songs came to him like singing comes to a cuckoo, effortlessly. When they reached the outskirts of Byelgorod in the Russian territory snow began to fall and Janasz was humming.

Flakes of snow float down

slowly

Russian sleigh bells jingle

merrily.....

Just as Janasz was singing, five rapid cracks from an automatic weapon were heard and he fell dead, his song unfinished. In the midst of physical destruction all around, unceasing creativity was gushing forth from Jeno Janasz, unmindful of the impending danger to his life.

It is the cultural background which modifies one’s response to the situations in life. Among Indian scriptures, Vedas are ‘shabdapradhan’ (sound-primary) and being inscribed in sound makes them unalterable, the style of recitation of the ‘mantras’ being denoted by phonetic symbols. Vedas are intuitively revealed to various Rishis of that era. The issue of ‘arthapradhanya’ (meaning-primary) becomes relevant during the concluding portions of Vedas e.g. Vedanta (Upanishads).

Puranas are ‘arthapradhan’ (meaning-primary), the authorship being attributed to Vyasa, as the chief editor of the vast Puranic literature. ‘Kavya’ (ornate

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poetry) is ‘shabdarthapradhan’ (equal importance to sound and meaning).

“What, though belonging to the past, becomes new in Purana.” In other words Puranic teaching is relevant in all ages.

“Those devoid of poetic talent become composers of Puranas.”

Contents of Puranas are distinguished by five characteristics e.g. ‘sarga’ (primary creation), ‘pratisarga’ (secondary creation), ‘vamsha’ (genealogy of gods and rishis), ‘manvantarani’ (history of cosmic ages associated with Manus) and ‘vamshanucharita’ (dynasties of kings).

Among the 18 Mahapuranas and 18 Upapuranas, Bhagawata Mahapurna is unique by virtue of its poetic diction, ornate with Vedic vocabulary.

“Emperor Janamejaya, son of emperor Parikshit of the Pandava clan, the most glorious of the Rajas, the sovereign of 14 states, ... reigning at Hastinapur ...” so reads a copper granth executed in the reign of the king, the language being a mixture of Sanskrit and Canarese. This still existing copper granth belongs to the Gawja Agrabar in Anantpur taluka, Mysore. (“The Indian Encyclopedia”: S. Kapur, 2002, vol. 12, p. 3702).

Arjuna’s grandson, Parikshit, during the latter half of his life, had become a victim of an imprecation of a hermit, that he will die of snake bite at the expiration of seven days:

(Shringi, the son of sage Shamik, cursed): “Takshak, the dreaded snake, urged by me, shall on the seventh day from today, bite this transgressor of ‘raja-dharma’. He has unnecessarily troubled my father (sitting in deep meditation), and consequently, has turned a self-destroyer.” (Bhagawat: 1/18/37).

King Parikshit realising the repercussions of his error, inadvertently committed, entrusted the reigns of his kingdom to his eldest son, Janamejaya, and retired to the banks of the holy river, Ganga, where several sages including Shuka Deva arrived, shocked to get the sad news. This bank of Ganga happened to be the venue, where Shuka, the enlightened son of Vyasa Maharshi, narrated the Bhagawata Mahapurana to King Parikshit.

If the despondency of Arjuna, a fact, inspired a later imaginative Sanskrit writer to compose 700 shlokas in 18 chapters of the Bhagawad Gita and interpolate it in Vyasa Maharshi’s Mahabharat, as chapters 25 to 45 of the Bhishma Parva; a cursed Parikshit, also a fact, seems to have prompted another prolific writer to create Bhagawata Purana in 18,000 shlokas, the latest among the 18 Mahapuranas, where the emphasis is on devotion to the Supreme God, as a Person, hence the mass appeal.

With deep commiseration, intimate empathy with the chosen deities like Sri Krishna, Sri Rama, we experience a higher dimension of consciousness, no doubt, like the negative physiological changes are noticed among those with the Cauvade Syndrome, where husbands of pregnant women get morning sickness. It can also happen with fictional characters.

Charles Dickens’ novel, “The Old Curiosity Shop” was serialised in 1840. Little Nell, a sweet, delicate child, brave and wise, beyond her years, is its heroine. She had captivated the minds of the American readers. Curious to know the fate of the selfless, but ailing heroine, Americans swarmed the boats, bringing the latest installment of the book, asking, “Is Little Nell dead?” And when her fate was revealed, the country went into mourning.

This is the secret of the popularity of the Bhagawata Purana, full of mythological anecdotes, when Sri Krishna’s birth and marriage ceremonies are celebrated with pomp and pageantry. What the masses need is some merry-making distraction, from the hum-drum actualities of mundane life. Are the actualities of daily life so unpleasant, necessitating an escape into mythological past?

And this is the secret of the unprecedented success of the seven novels of J.K. Rowling, about the adventures of an 11-year-old boy, Harry Potter, in an imaginary world of magic, sorcery and witchcraft.

In 1990, when J.K. Rowling was writing her first book, she was then a recently divorced mother with the responsibility of bringing up her daughter Jessica. Living on unemployment allowance in Edinburg, Scotland, where she had settled after leaving her teaching job and the Portuguese, journalist husband in Portugal.

She was born in 1965 in Bristol, England. The manuscript of her first book, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, after several rejections, was at last accepted by Bloomsbury, offering to print 1000 copies and she was paid 2,250 dollars, when she was euphoric with transcendent joy.

The first book published in 1997 was an instant success, followed by other five, one after the other and the world-wide demand necessitated translation of her books into more than 65 languages. Thus she became the first billionaire woman by writing books. However, when she completed the writing of her seventh and the last book in the series, instead of feeling relaxed, she found herself crying uncontrollably until she drowned herself in a little bottle of champagne. (“Time”, Dec. 31, 2007–Jan. 7, 2008).

Are these tears, tears of joy or of sorrow? In her six fantasy novels running into 2800 pages, J.K. Rowling nowhere mentions God or Scripture. Only in the seventh novel, we find Harry discovers a verse from the Bible, on his parents’ grave: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (Bible: Corinthias: 15/26).

The day she completed the writing of the seventh book, suddenly, she became aware of an enormous gaping hole in her life. When her mind was preoccupied with the Harry Potter series, her fear of the “inevitable” was kept in abeyance; suspended, as it were from her conscious mind. Being a devout Christian seeker, the fear of the Unknown returned, when she completed the writing of the fantasy novel. Hence the uncontrollable tears.

The “illusion” of power popularised her books fast, among kids and ‘kidults’ (adults with kid’s mentality), the sense of adventure emboldened children, temporarily. If the mundane life, as it is, is unpleasant, why not investigate into that, instead of seeking escape, either through mythology or phantasy novels? Escapes treat the symptoms not the disease. Why not face the facts of life?

Among the three major races on Earth, e.g. Caucasoid (Europeans), Mongoloid (Asians) and the Negroid (Black Africans), the sub-Saharan Negroes remained most backward, though, archaeologists have traced the evidence of earliest humans in Africa. In fact, South-East Africa is the birth place of Homo Sapiens. Why they remained backward until the advent of Europeans? Due to Negritude.

A French Army Surgeon had visited Asia, Africa, America and Oceania during 1866–1896. He has left a written record of his experience of medical anthropology, having come in contact with several human races on Earth. “Among all human races on Earth, the Negroes of Africa e.g. the Wolofs, Kessonkes, Malinkes, Toucouleurs, Bombaras, etc.

have the largest genital organs.” (P. 158, “Untrodden Fields of Anthropology,” Editor, Charles Carrington, Vol. II, 1999).

The Negritude of the Africans was in peace with Nature. This sedateness seems to have blocked their intellectual growth and therefore, cultural evolution.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, discovered the Americas. The White settlers of this new-found-land needed hardy labour force to develop their cotton, sugar and coffee plantations and Africa supplied Negro slaves. From the 15th century until the mid-19th century an estimated 25 million African slaves—men, women, children, were transported, out of which some 15 million reached the plantations in the West, because, during the five or six weeks trans-Atlantic voyage in over-crowded ships, one-third of them died due to unhygienic conditions; the dead and the sick were thrown into the sea.

Slave trade was then considered like any other trade of exchanging merchandise without any compunctions or sense of guilt for the odious practice of selling fellow-humans. In the 1780s U.S. Congressman Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the first to persuade American slaveholders to free as many as possible, on humanitarian grounds. Jefferson later became the third American President (1801–1809). Then an English Parliamentarian, William Wilberforce (1759–1833), after 50 years of incessant struggle got slave trade outlawed in British Parliament, which became effective from July 31, 1834.

In the U.S. slave trade was abolished in 1865, then followed by other European countries. Though out-lawed officially, it continued clandestinely for another five decades.

With the abolition of slavery, the Negroes in America became American citizens and from among these black Americans emerged the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) and Toni Morrison (b. 1931) won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Such is the achievement of the descendents of African slaves uprooted from their homeland and brought in chains in the Western plantations. Placement of the primitives in the midst of an advanced culture, accelerated their psychological evolution, unlike the Red Indians, the original inhabitants of North America.

In Africa, the original homeland of black Americans, tremendous transformation was brought about by the European colonisers, no doubt, simultaneously exploiting their vast mineral resources. Western urbanity influenced the African social structure. British civilising mission produced three more Nobel laureates from among the natives of Africa: Albert

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John Luthuli (1898–1967), Azhulu, chief of Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) was awarded in 1961 the Nobel Peace Prize; the Nigerian Negro, Wole Soyinka (b. 1935) won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986; Kofi Annan, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, jointly won the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N.O. He was a descendent of a Ghananian tribal chief; the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize was given to the native Kenyan woman environmentalist, Wangari Maathai; and now in 2009, America has an African-American President, Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle is the First Lady.

Such is the achievement of synthesis of civilised culture with moral and ethical values of a simple, aboriginal life.

Blind imitation of an alien culture can be disastrous, as it happened to the original inhabitants of Tahiti Island, 1770 onwards, with the advent of European navigators...

Part IIAurobindo’s father, Dr. K.D. Ghosh, a civil surgeon in Kolkata, disliked the Indian way of life and had groomed his son to make him a perfect Englishman right from the age of five and at seven the boy was sent to England in 1879. Aurobindo passed the I.C.S. Examination in 1890, minus the ‘horse riding test’. He returned to India at the age of 21, strangely enough, with spiritual aspirations of a Yogi.

Thus contrary to what was expected of him, Aurobindo became a perfect Indian Yogi, unlike for example, Stalin who was groomed by his mother to become a priest in a church, but he became a ruthless Communist dictator. When the inner genetic constitution is forceful in a particular trait, the outer veneer of culture fails to be effective, and a modified personality emerges.

Amin Maalouf, was born in 1949 in a Christian-Arab family of Lebanon. Due to political differences between Lebanese Christians, Lebanese Muslims and the allies of Palestine Liberation Organisation, civil war erupted in 1975. He migrated to France to pursue his career in literature. Amin Maalouf settled in Paris writing mostly in French and in 1993 won the French literary Award, Prix de Goncourt, for his novel, “The Rock of Tanois.”

The historical themes of his novels, influenced by his mixed heritage, are set in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranian lands of 11th and 13th centuries, probably, it is the racial memory of the crusades, European Christians’ struggle to gain control over their Holy Land, Palestine, from the Muslims. Amin Maalouf s book, “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes”, is based on the Arab chronicles of the time, the only version of the crusades from the ‘other side’. Thus Arabs consider him their historian.

The Jews were without a homeland for almost 2000 years. In 1917, the U.K. issued Balfour Declaration supporting Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1920, Palestine became a mandated territory of the U.K. During the post-World War II era, when the British Labour Party was in power, the Government of Prime Minister Attlee, favoured the Jewish cause. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations partitioned Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza strip on the Mediterranean Sea, being given to the Arabs.

The independent state of Israel had to be effective on May 14, 1948, but the mounting hostility of the Arabs under the leadership of the Mufti of Jerusalem, threatened the very existence of the Jews. The neighbouring Arab countries Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, in a combined effort, were determined to wipe out Israel from the world map. To fight with the oil-rich Arabs, Israel needed a minimum $25 million to purchase modern war machinery. Where will the money come from?

The treasurer of the Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv, Elizer Kaplan, was sent to the U.S. on a fund-raising mission in January 1948. He came back with pockets virtually empty, with an oral offer of $5 million from the American Jewish community. So it was decided that both David Ben-Gurion and Kaplan should immediately leave for the U.S. to make the Americans realise the seriousness of the situation.

Then a quiet voice belonging to a woman interrupted Ben-Gurion: “What you are doing here, I cannot do,” the Ukranian carpenter’s daughter, Golda Meir told Ben-Gurion, “however, what you propose to do in the United States, I can do. You stay here and let me go to the States to raise the money.”

Two days later, Golda Meir arrived in New York with

no more luggage than the dress she wore and the hand-bag she clutched in her hand, as she had hardly any time to fetch a change of clothes and in her purse a ten dollar bill, that winter evening.

Two days later the Council of Jewish Federation in the U.S. was to meet in a conference hall of a hotel in Chicago, a fortuitous coincidence. The Jewish financial leaders from the 48 States of America were to meet there to discuss the funds needed for their American institutions. In 1938 during her earlier visit to the U.S. along with other associates of the Zionist Movement, Golda Meir knew that some Jewish millionaires were hostile to the Zionist ideals. This time she had come alone and with enormous responsibility.

When Golda Meir spoke on telephone to the Director of the United Jewish Appeal in Chicago, Henry Montor, he told her that the speakers’ programme of the meeting had been drawn up long in advance. Still Golda Meir insisted that she is on way to Chicago.

In the conference hall, Golda Meir heard the toastmaster, announce her name. As her simple austere figure moved to the speaker’s stand, somebody from the crowd murmured: “She looks like the woman from the Bible”.

This messenger from Jerusalem spoke without a prepared text, explaining to the distinguished guests, the urgency of acquiring the latest war equipment and that too immediately.

When Golda Meir finished her appeal in an emotionally charged voice, there was a hush in the audience. For a moment, she thought, she failed. But then followed a thunderous applause, like the one Swami Vivekananda experienced after his first utterances: “My Sisters and Brothers of America,” before the Parliament of World Religions, 55 years ago, in this very city of Chicago.

The Jewish millionaires approached Gold Meir, some with cash, some with cheques, some offered in a couple of days after speaking to their bankers and so on. Thus poured millions of dollars in her kitty.

Emboldened by the success in Chicago, she undertook a whirlwind tour of the States, speaking at four or five meetings each day. And the carpenter’s daughter who had come to New York with a 10 dollar bill in her wallet, returned with 50 million dollars, ten times the sum mentioned by Elizer Kaplan, twice the figure set by David Ben-Gurion.

At the Lydde Airport, Ben-Gurion was there to receive her, saying: “The day when history is written, it will be recorded that it was thanks to a Jewish woman, that the Jewish State was born.”

On May 14, 1948, Israel came into existence and the very next day, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan pounced on Israel, like a wolf pounces on the young one of a sheep.

But Israel repulsed the attack and gained some territory. Thus the Jews got their “Promised Land” after 2000 years, a racial craving fulfilled at last.

During the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, an Israeli Brigadier, Veshishkar Shadmi imposed strict curfew on the Israeli Arab town, Kafra Qassem in the southeast and in 7 other neighbouring villages on the Jordanian border. Some quarry workers and field labour who had not heard of the curfew and returning home late in the evening, were gunned down during the night for violating the curfew order. In all 49 Israeli Arabs, including 9 women and 7 children were killed.

An effort to cover up the massacre failed. A Jewish journalist published the story and compensation to the relatives of the dead was offered. The officers and the border guard responsible for the “Unlawful shooting” were convicted and given light sentences: “Unlawful shooting”, because the curfew violator is to be shot only after trying other means of removing him from the village street, which the convicted Israeli army-men didn’t care to do.

Brig Shadmi’s error was, ‘bureaucratic mix-up’, the court concluded and he was sentenced to a reprimand and a fine of 1 Israeli piaster (equivalent to Indian 10 paise), the Brigadier’s contention being, that his orders were ‘misinterpreted’. Now among the Israeli Arabs, the phrase, “Shadmi’s piaster” has come to mean, something worthless. Forty-nine innocent lives, worthless?

Some 20 years later in 1976, in memory of the 49 dead, a small monument was erected in the heart of Qafra Qassem town on the Street of Martyrs: a tiny park with a marble obelisk, surrounded by red and white rose bushes. This tragedy was a disgraceful event for the then young State of Israel, seeking acceptance in the world community in the midst of war.

This episode of Israeli carelessness about what unnecessarily happens to others, reveals a basic truth, that when an underprivileged becomes the privileged,

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

he does the same as his peers in the echelon did.

As per the traditional belief, Arabs are the descendents of Ishmael, the son of the first Patriarch, Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian handmaid in the service of Sarah, Abraham’s legal wife. When Isaac was born to Sarah, Hagar and her son, Ishmael were sent away, who settled near Mecca, then a settlement of a tribe known as Qureysh.

Abraham settled in Anaan (Palestine) and the family flourished there, 2000 B.C. onwards and the Jews are the descendents of that family. Ishmael’s 12 sons in the long run became leaders of 12 Arab tribes, who continued as nomads and populated Arabia.

Romans entered Palestine around 64 B.C. and the Roman rule began there from 70 A.D. onwards. Since then the Jews are without a homeland and roamed over Europe, Russia and America, frequently expelled from one country to another. This uncertainty factor brought out the best competence from them which is one of the reasons why Jews were hated everywhere. This Jewish resilience is something deeper than the cultural cosmetic.

Unlike the Jews, the Arabs roamed in the Arabian desert and remained comparatively backward intellectually, hence the cultural differences between the cousins, Jews and Arabs, both Caucasian by race and Semitic by language, Judaism being the ancient faith of the Jews and Islam of the Arabs since the middle of the 7th century A.D. The founder of Islam, Mohammed (570–632 A.D.) was of the Qureysh tribe, referred to above. Their new faith gave the Arabs a mission in life, to spread Islam, with sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Thus developed cultural differences between the cousins.

American interference in Vietnam and Soviet’s in Afghanistan are models of culture wars, capitalist and socialist, respectively. That gives credence to The Times of London comment on the anti-war British playwright and poet Harold Pinter, winning the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature: “Pinter is just about the biggest and sharpest stick with which the Nobel Committee can poke America in the eye”, because America showed her recalcitrance by “dropping on Vietnam greater tonnage of bombs than was expended by all combatants during the entire Second World War.” The Franz Kafka Society of Prague awarded a Prize to Harold Pinter and his plays are frequently produced across the Continent.

Then again, the American Economics Professor, Edmund Phelps, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics, tells us: “Compared to Britons and Americans, the French, Italians, and Germans lack economic dynamism and innovativeness, having a lower acceptance of competition or change or new ideas, due to the continental cultural background.”

Cultural development has two major paths, either through rational thought or through emotions, feelings, sentiments. Among the products of rational thought, like the scientific developments: with the advent of new gadgets, the older ones become outdated. The transistor outdated radio, the TV which combined the video and the audio, outdated transistor. Again the Colour TV outdated the Black and White TV model and so on.

But the creative products are immortal. They never become outdated. For example, the 3500 years old Nasadiya Sukta (Hymn of Creation) in the Rig Veda (X-129) “Shakuntala” of Kalidas (5th century A.D.), Julius Ceasar of Shakespeare (1564–1616), the “Pieta” of Michel Angelo (1475–1564), in which dead Christ is on the lap of Virgin Mary, such creative products are immortal.

You cannot teach a person to be an artist, a writer, a musician, or a sculptor. Creativity cannot be ensured by rational methodology. The seed of creativity has to be in the genes. Scholarship cannot produce the ingredient of creativity. When the yoga of the rational and the emotional materialises, that is dedication.

Like culture-triggers, there are episodes of culture-shock. When a person is unable to adapt to a superior, unfamiliar culture, somatisation of anxiety and depression, engenders culture-shock, manifesting obsessive-compulsive behaviour, culminating in sudden, unexplained, natural death, especially among the South Asian refugees.

Fifty-one healthy adults (Laotian, Kampuchean, Vietnamese refugees) suddenly died at night, while in bed, after the onset of seizure-like episodes, all except one male. These 51 deaths were reported from 15 States of America during the period 1977–1982. Doctors attributed the syndrome to culture-shock resulting from psychological conditions like separation from families, friendlessness, awareness of learning disability etc.

At the polar opposite end of culture-shock, one finds another tendency among those who inherit from their forebears, a gene named DRA4 7R, responsible for “Attention Deficit Disorder”. Such persons assume themselves omnipotent and hence their drive to get away with things, which others cannot. Normally, they disregard precautions given by others and die unnecessarily.

Persons with obsessive urge for great achievements do not love life and often end up in great disasters. They consider life a threat. Such a one prepares for defences strong enough to hold back possible disasters.

This is the psychological basis of the inheritors of gene DRD4 7R. This gene is found in the Kennedy family of America, known to have suffered tragedies,

one after the other.

Persons with a variant of this gene, are prone to pathological need of power and achievement. (The Kennedy Family by Edward Klein, 2003)...

Part III

There is great beauty in creative products no doubt. Renaissance in Europe from the late 1300s to the early 1500s, produced great artists like Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, but everyday life of renaissance was a saga of tragedy and torment, failing to achieve the perfection of terrestrial beauty. There is beauty in the art but not in the artist’s personal life.

In Rabindranath Tagore’s poems, short stories and plays there is beauty, some masterpieces of dramatic skill, poetic diction, expressing tender, passionate sentiments, with gentleness and moderation. But look into his personal life.

In his writing Tagore is against child marriage, but his own daughters were married off very early; Tagore explaining to his reluctant wife: “We are doing it for our children’s good”, because somehow he wanted to be free from the responsibilities, earlier the better. For his only surviving son, Rathindranath, a young widow was chosen by Tagore, so that the grateful lady would be available to attend to his personal needs, being himself a widower. After Tagore’s death, Rathindranath and his wife lived separately.

Thus culture is a symbol of life’s failure to materialise its ideal into an actuality. In cultural creations you can play with your ideas. There you have the freedom but not in actual life, where you are dealing with live beings, who cannot be that easily moulded to suit the idealist model. There is an unbridged gap between the great ideal and the mediocre actuality, like there is a gap between your idea of the God in the temple and the actual Godless life.

Our divinity is in the sacred book, be it Ramayana, Ramacharitamanas, Bhagawat Puran, Quran or Bible. In our daily life there is no transcendent divinity and if you bring in that transcendent divinity into your daily life as saint Tukaram of Maharashtra did, then your domestic life will be disorderly, because the inward spiritual construction and outward material destruction is simultaneous. You cannot hold on to both at the same time. In spiritual life, the first step is the last step.

Hence the common man’s endless demand for the commentators on sacred books, which we use to peg or suspend, temporarily, our Godless lives. For the aspired perfection, life may have to imitate culture, its own product. Probably, cultural creations are life’s messengers of shape of things to come in the distant future.

The poet-saint of Karnataka, Purandar Dasa (1484–1564) sang:

“Allide nammane,

llli bande summane”

“My real home is out there (beyond this earthly one). I unnecessarily came here (to this world of torment and tragedy).”

The basic need of a cultured human being is to feel that one is doing something worthwhile, in the spirit of those bitter lines of the German poet Goethe:

You must rule and win

Or serve and lose,

Suffer or triumph,

Be anvil or hammer.

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

We are living in a world which has 10.1 million people worth more than one million dollars excluding the value of their main homes, according to the latest World Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch and the Consultancy Capgemini and it is true that this world spends 1,339 billion dollars a year on arms. Is it progress or regress?

There is a worth-heeding advice from Brian Greene of Columbia University: “We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living ... and see that the wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us.” (New York Times).

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), the American Palaeontologist, observed that in evolution, species tend to remain stable changing little over long periods of time. The system is then called to be in stasis or equilibrium. Eventually that stability is punctuated by an episode of rapid change. Thus evolution occurs, he observed, in rapid, irregular spurts, which he called “Punctuated Equilibrium.”

Gould often used to say, “if not for a freak asteroid impact 65 million years ago, mammals might still be small, furry creatures, scurrying around a dinosaur-centric world”.

The rare chemical element, Iridium is normally found on earth’s crust at the sites of meteor impacts. There are about 120 meteor impact craters and basins on Earth. For example, the Meteor Crater in Arizona, U.S.A. is 1,275 metres across and 175 metres deep, which was formed around 50, 000 years ago. To create such a massive impact, our scientists estimated, the meteor or the asteroid would be weighing as much as 3, 00, 000 metric tons.

The largest meteorite found on earth in 1902 by Oregon’s Willamette in the U.S.A. and therefore called Willamette Meteorite, weighs 14 metric tons, measuring 300 centimetres in length.

Geophysicists, Walter Alvarez and Louise Alvarez in 1980 declared their finding of layers of Iridium at the Cretacious-Tertiary boundary. Soon after the Cretacious Period of the Gigantic reptiles (from 135 million to 65 million years ago), began the Tertiary Period of the mammals. Widespread disappearance of the Dinosaurs made available to the mammals, otherwise scarce ecological niches. Thus mammals proliferated in immense varieties. In this geo-chronological boundary, the Alvarezs detected Iridium in abundance in the Earth’s clay worldwide.

The asteroid impact could have raised immense clouds of dust which would block the solar rays and cool the planet with its disastrous effects on plant kingdom, depriving the herbivorous animals of their food, and in turn, the carnivorous, their food, for long periods of time. Such a catastrophe could have initiated the extinction of the Great Reptiles.

In the 1800s, for the first time, the discovery of the dinosaur remains, brought to light the existence of prehistoric reptiles called dinosaurs (meaning terrible lizards). Dinosaurs seem to have appeared on earth around 220 million years ago. Some of them were 70 to 90 feet long, 12 feet tall at the hips, weighing as much as 85 tons, ten times the weight of a full-grown elephant. Some dinosaurs were herbivorous, and some carnivorous. For about 160 million years dinosaurs were the virtual masters of the earth. Then around 65 million years ago, they died out suddenly.

Layers of Iridium in the earth’s crust worldwide is an evidence of the impact of the asteroid 5 to 15 kms wide, hitting the earth in the vicinity of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, creating the 170 km wide Chicxulub Crater, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Continuing the earthly evolutionary process, life seems to have achieved maximum physical growth among dinosaurs. Scientists have begun to accept

that animals and plants display emotions just as humans do... Dolphins display complex behaviour related to helping their mates, even other species. Monkeys show complex behaviour associated with cooperating in the gathering and sharing of food with less fortunate monkeys. When playing, an older rat will allow a younger rat to win sometimes. When dogs play, they pretend to be angry but are careful not to hurt their playmate. If they were to hurt their playmate, the playmate would lose trust and may not play next time”.

And millions of years later, nature achieved maximum intellectual growth among humans. This is where the flux of live physical existence and the punctuated equilibrium in the evolution, has brought us to.

The German Historian, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), known for his philosophy of historical evolution, tells us: “We tread on the ashes of our forefathers and stalk over the entombed ruins of human institutions and kingdoms ... Man’s body is a fragile, ever renovating shell, which at length can renew itself no longer but his mind operates upon earth only in and with the body ... Melancholy fate of the human race: ... Rude violence and malignant cunning rare everywhere victorious upon earth”.

That is what the 20th century, the bloodiest century of the millennium proved to us. If we humans behaved wildly, let us remind ourselves that, once upon a time, in the ancient past, the “Terrible Lizards” were our ancestors in the continuing evolutionary process. After the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals ‘exploded’ on earth in immense varieties. The punctuated equilibrium of Gould, in the long run, culminated in producing the best of them, humankind.

So if not degraded, fallen angels, we are superior, risen animals, by virtue of developing and cultivating higher cultures. Modern scientific temperament developed in Western countries and Easterners’ quest turned out to be spiritual. It all depends on what

culture a particular society is consistently nurtured, so that, the inherited wild animal instincts do not crop up and spoil the sport of cultured life and a seeming order is maintained in society, avoiding anarchy of the Dark Ages, known in the past.

Colour, of our skin may be white, brown or black due to climatic conditions. However, each country has developed her own culture, depending on geographical and historical backgrounds.

For example, the English language is made up of 26 alphabets but the Chinese have no alphabet, instead, they have over 10,000 pictographs or characters.

The French food is considered the world’s best, because, the French chefs (cooks) take their craft of cuisine seriously. That is why General Charles de Gaulle, President of France once said: “How do you run the Government of a country which makes two hundred and sixty varieties of cheese?”

The elitist behaviour of the cultured person, at times, hides his unmindfulness of the adverse repercussions of his action on others.

For example, in the 1920s Edward Berneys, the nephew of the Austrian Psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, promoted cigarette smoking among women styling his initiative as “torches of freedom”, associating it with women’s equality with men.

Then again when the toxic industrial contaminants were detected in farmed Salmon fish, all newspapers condemned it in chorus. But the vested interests dubbed their opinion as prejudice of “academic scientists”.

Thus the campaign to remove the stain of “poisoned Salmon” from the public mind was largely successful, though the toxic contaminants in the said farmed fish were a fact.

Source: Bhavan’s Journal, July 31 2009, August 31 2009, September 15 2009

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Shani JayantiShani Jayanti or Sani Jayanthi is observed on Amavasya in Vaishakh month. Shani Jayanti is considered as the Birthday or appearance day of Lord Shani, one of the Navagrahas or nine celestial Deities in Hinduism. Shani Jayanti 2010 date is June 12, Saturday. In Hinduism, Sani is the Deity of Shanivar. Shani Bhagwan is also called as Shaneeswaran, Sani dev, Sanischara Bhagwan or Chhaya Putra. Shani Jayanthi is also observed as Shani Amavasya. In 2010, Shani Jayanti has a great significance and spiritual importance as it falls on Saturday. As Shani Dosham (bad effects from Lord Shani’s position in one’s birth chart) is considered as an important feature in one’s future aspects, Shani Puja is an auspicious ritual for Hindu astrology believers. Shani Thailabhishekam and Shani Shanti Puja are the main rituals observed during Shani Jayanti, Shani Amavasya, and Shani Trayodashi days. In Shani Shingnapur Shaneshwara Mandir, Sani Jayanti is a major festival during when many rituals and Pujas are observed.

Shani DevLord Shani, the son of Surya Dev and Vikshubha or Chhaya is one of the nine “Navagraha” (celestial Gods) in Hindu belief. Lord Shani occupies the seventh place among these nine planets which govern our lives. After the birth of Lord Shani when he first opened his eyes, it is believed that his father Surya went into an eclipse. Since then Lord Shani is believed to be the God causing miseries in the life of a human being. Hence Shani occupies the principal position among the pantheon of Hindu Deities in warding off evil and to get rid off obstacles. He is the brother of Yama (Deity of death) and is believed to be responsible for punishing or rewarding one in the lifetime in accordance with their ‘Karma’ (action).

Shani traditionally is depicted in Hindu mythology as extremely dark wearing black clothes and mounted on a vulture or a raven. The trinity Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh are the creator; preserver and destroyer of the world but to execute these tasks several incarnations of Lord have taken birth. Lord Shani in this sense is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Vishnu like the other eight planets. Since Lord Shani is designated the task of granting the fruits of one’s action he is the most feared amongst Hindu Gods. The powerful Lord is believed to have the control of making a King into a pauper as well as changing the fortunes of a sufferer. Lord Shani is worshipped extensively across the length and breadth of India. He is specially revered by people who face difficult times in their lives and find solace in doing ‘Daan’ (service by donating) on Saturdays. Saturday is the day denoted to Lord

Shani and it is believed that those who have Shani as their swami should resort to wearing the stone of Lord Shani—Sapphire. More than anything, it is felt by many great men that the difficult times one faces when Lord Shani or Saturn is in a particular position; it leaves you as a wiser and better human being.

Shani Dev is a great devotee of Lord Shiva and hence those who wish to appease him pray to Lord Shiva along with Lord Shani. Since Shani Dev is considered an Avatar of Lord Sri Vishnu it is also said that to protect oneself from the wrath of Shani, a visit to Lord Venkateshwara’s shrine in Tirupati is suggested. Shani Dev has few shrines in India the most important ones are in Maharashtra at Shingnapur, Shanidham at Mehrauli Delhi, Shree Sahneeshwarar at Nerul Mumbai. In Vedic astrology it is believed that if Saturn or Shani is placed in a favourable position, no one can bestow more wealth and success than Lord Shani.

CelebrationsThere is a popular belief and fear among Hindus that Shani creates obstacles in the life and creates numerous emotional, physical and financial problems. So, how to worship Lord Shani and get rid of the troubles is a constant question lingering in the minds of people who believe they are under the malefic influence of Lord Shani? There are numerous things you can do to propitiate Lord Shani. Shani Yagya or

Homa is conducted on this day by those people who have the Saturn cycle or Sani cycle or Sade Sathi in their horoscope. Many believe that Saturn cycle can be a reason for the bad patch in their life. Pacifying Sani or obtaining Shani Shanti is the desired result from such Pujas. Visiting Navagraha shrines, Sani temples or temples of Lord Ganesha on the day is considered auspicious. Some people also observe a

fast on the day and the method followed is the same as that of Shanivar Vrat. The fasting is from sunrise to sunset. Only a single meal is consumed on the day that is after Pujas and prayers in the evening. Black coloured items like sesame (til), sesame oil, black clothes, and black gram whole are offered to Lord Shani. It must be noted here that the colour of the idol of Shani is always black in colour. So black is the favourite colour of Lord Shani. Belief in the supreme power of Lord Shani along with determination, hard work and trust in their abilities help people overcome all difficulties. People worship Lord Shani to help in being determined and dedicated. There is no substitute to hard work and Lord Shani often makes people understand their hidden talents and energy.

Saturday FastingSaturday fasting is dedicated to God Shani and Hanuman. Shani is so dreaded that many Hindus avoid journeys on Saturday. Many people observe an Upvaas or fast to avoid the adversities and misfortunes on Shanivar or Saturday. Some devotees worship a black iron idol of Sani. Some worship the Peepal Tree and tie thread around its bark. It is believed that those who have the blessing of Lord Hanuman are protected from the wrath of Shani. Therefore many people make it a point to worship Hanuman at home or in temples. Legend has it that Lord Hanuman had rescued Shani from Ravana. This happened during the burning of the Lanka episode in the epic Ramayana. Lord Shani had then promised that he would not trouble Lord Hanuman devotees.

Source: http://hindupad.com, www.hindu-blog.com, www.festivalsinindia.net

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Sucheta Kriplani

S ucheta Kriplani was a great freedom fighter of India. She was born as Sucheta Mazumdar in the year 1908. She was the first woman to

be elected as the Chief Minister of a state in India. She was an important personality who has made an immense contribution in fighting for the freedom of India.

Early lifeSucheta Kriplani was born to a Bengali family in the Ambala city. Her father S.N. Majumdar was a nationalist of India. Her father’s Nationalist attitude and the support of husband inspired her for doing so. Soon she was among the top woman leaders of Indian National Congress. Sucheta took education from Indraprastha College and St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. After completing her studies, she took the job of a Lecturer in Banaras Hindu University. In the year 1936, she tied her wedding knots with a socialist Acharya Kriplani and joined the Indian National Congress.

Freedom Movement and IndependenceShe came into the Indian historical scene during the Quit India Movement. Sucheta worked in close association with Mahatma Gandhi during the time of partition riots. She was one amongst the handful women who got elected to the Constituent Assembly. She became a part of the subcommittee that was handed over the task of laying down the charter for the constitution of India. On the 15th August, 1947, i.e. The Independence Day, she sang the national song ‘Vande Mataram’ in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly.

With GandhijiIdeology of Mahatma Gandhi was in the direction of her thought process and she was much impressed by the working of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1946, on Gandhiji’s advice she was appointed Organizing Secretary of the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust. This led to her travelling all over India all along with Thakkar Bapa, who had been appointed Secretary of the Trust. It was also in the same year that Gandhiji sent Dada Kriplani to Noakhali, following the communal holocaust that had wrought havoc there. She took part in the Quit India Movement along with Aruna Asaf Ali and Usha Mehta. During communal violence Sucheta Kriplani went to Noakhali with Gandhiji and worked hard. Sucheta insisted on going along with him and even when Dada came back from there she stayed on and became a real mother to the victims of atrocities.

It was in 1952 that Dada Kripalani had resigned as Congress President due to his differences with Jawaharlal Nehru, and set up the Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party before the first general election in 1952. In this election, Suchetaji won a seat to the Lok Sabha from New Delhi as a K.M.P.P. candidate. Before that she had been a member of the Constituent Assembly. She had also been a delegate of India to the U.N.

A Great OrganizerSuchetaji was a very good organizer and she helped Dada in organizing the various parties with which, he became involved after leaving Congress. When she joined the Congress after the split in the Congress in 1969, Dada Kriplani, did not do the same. Suchetaji helped in organizing the party in Delhi and elsewhere. When the student movement started in 1974, she took an active interest in it. Since, they both were in different parties, they were very professional and Suchetaji did not go out to canvass votes for her husband, but she was there to see to his comfort and needs and to take care of his health.

She was a very good Parliamentarian and was very

articulate in the Lok Sabha debates. Circumstances, however, pulled her away into the provincial politics of UP, where Congress was divided into two groups, one led by Kamalapati Tripathi and the other by C.B. Gupta. Their power struggle led to C.B. Gupta urging Suchetaji to leave Delhi and assume the Chief Ministership of UP, since he had lost the election. As the Chief Minister she did a very good job. She showed herself to be a very efficient administrator and an able politician. God always test the courage and firmness of determined persons by posing a difficult situation before them. Sucheta also had to face and tackle the ever first strike of State Employees. This strike lasted for 62 long days but Sucheta was firm on her decision of not hiking the pay of employees, finally the leaders of employees agreed for compromise. In the 1971 she decided to retire from the politics. She was intelligent, hard-working, well read and had a lot of studious habits. Moreover, she was an honest and sincere person. She is still remembered by old-timers as the best Chief Minister UP ever had, since her lifestyle was also very simple, very unlikely to a CM’s position.

Retirement from PoliticsAfter they retired from active politics, the Kripalanis built for themselves a house in Delhi. Suchetaji in later years discharged her duties as a very able and careful housewife. In these days, she wrote three or four autobiographical articles for The Illustrated Weekly of India, which covered her early life. It was unfortunate that she did not complete her autobiography. Whatever earnings, these both had earned and saved, were put

into the Lok Kalyan Samiti, set up for the service of the poor and needy in Delhi. The health services rendered by the Lok Kalyan Samiti, as also its other welfare activities, had been the best.

The Final YearsThough she was a very active person, always immersed in political and social activities, she was always careless about her own health. Suchetaji had met with a serious accident in the Shimla Hills, where she sustained a spinal injury, but in time fully recovered from it. However, in 1972, she first showed signs of cardiac insufficiency. Two heart attacks came, from which she made complete recovery.

In 1974, Dada had bronchitis and a persistent cough, making him irritable. But Suchetaji continued the duty of looking after his health day and night, with great devotion. When he was a little better, she engaged a night nurse for him but would nevertheless come to see him twice every night. If Dada rang for the servant she would come herself. However, she never told him that she had cardiac pain. But on 29 November 1974, Suchetaji had a last heart attack. It was so severe that she had to be shifted to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. And on 1 December 1974, this prominent personality passed away, following a massive coronary attack, leaving an older spouse prostrate with grief and with no one to look after him.

Source: www.iloveindia.com, www.indianetzone.com, www.amaltas.org

http://www.thesindhuworld.com

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

O! Mother!Bharathi Kaavalar Dr. K. Ramamurthi

Grace of God and father’s love

And your penance conceived me

Since your rescue with divine love

You’ve streamed out mercy.

In you when I begin to shape

With my physical body and soul

Relished no bread and juice of grape

And lanked, you in whole.

Wonder its for my concern

To foster me with lot of strains

You’ve acceded blissful burden

Expecting no gains.

How did you endure labour

and gave me birth in this earth

Mother, O! Mother by your favour

I’m “being” for mirth.

On the land let me crawling

And throned me, yes! On your lap

Rejoicing thro’suckling

With love, smiling clasp.

Oft you kept me neat and clean

From excretion of my body;

And taught good you’ve heard and seen

All for my needy.

As you’re only great succour

So I owe your countless crores

Fruitful life I want conquer

Bless me! O! God’s source.

To the extent of my grateful

I can only pray and praise

Worship and prostrate, heartful

Mother, O! Mother! I crace.

(Based on Adi Sankara’s Eka Sloka Maathru Sthuthi, popularly known as Maathru Panchagam)

Source: Bhavan’s Journal May 31 2010

SERMON ON THE MOUNT— Jesus Christ

BLESSED are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

BLESSED are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

BLESSED are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

BLESSED are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

BLESSED are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

BLESSED are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

BLESSED are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.

BLESSED are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

GOD IS— Mahatma Gandhi

There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it.

It is this Unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the.senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent.

Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why, and how he rules. And yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules. There is an unalterable Law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is not a blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.

That Law, then, which governs all life is God.

Law and the Lawgiver are one.

I may not deny the Law or the Lawgiver, because I know so little about It or Him.

Even as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing, so will not my denial of God and His Law liberate me from its operation; whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority makes life’s journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier.

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power or spirit is God.

And since nothing else I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is.Courtesy: Navajivan Trust

Excerpts from Bhavan’s Manual of Falth

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

Charter of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Bhavan) is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political Non Government Organisation (NGO). Bhavan has been playing a crucial role in educational and cultural interactions in the world, holding aloft the best of Indian traditions and at the same time meeting the needs of modernity and multiculturalism. Bhavan’s ideal ‘is the whole world is but one family’ and its motto: ‘let noble thoughts come to us from all sides’.

Like Bhavan’s other centres around the world, Bhavan Australia facilitates intercultural activities and provides a forum for true understanding of Indian culture, multiculturalism and foster closer cultural ties among individuals, Governments and cultural institutions in Australia. Bhavan Australia Charter derived from its constitution is:

To advance the education of the public in:a) the cultures (both spiritual and temporal) of the world,b) literature, music, the dance, c) the arts, d) languages of the world,e) philosophies of the world.

To foster awareness of the contribution of a diversity of cultures to the continuing development of multicultural society of Australia.To foster understanding and acceptance of the cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the Australian people of widely diverse heritages.To edit, publish and issue books, journals and periodicals, documentaries in Sanskrit, English and other languages, to promote the objects of the Bhavan or to impart or further education as authorized.To foster and undertake research studies in the areas of interest to Bhavan and to print and publish the results of any research which is undertaken.

www.bhavanaustralia.org

The Test of Bhavan’s Right to ExistThe test of Bhavan’s right to exist is whether those who work for it in different spheres and in different places and those who study in its many institutions can develop a sense of mission as would enable them to translate the fundamental values, even in a small measure, into their individual life.

Creative vitality of a culture consists in this: whether the ‘best’ among those who belong to it, however small their number, find self-fulfilment by living up to the fundamental values of our ageless culture.

It must be realised that the history of the world is a story of men who had faith in themselves and in their mission. When an age does not produce men of such faith, its culture is on its way to extinction. The real strength of the Bhavan, therefore, would lie not so much in the number of its buildings or institutions it conducts, nor in the volume of its assets and budgets, nor even in its growing publication, cultural and educational activities. It would lie in the character, humility, selflessness and dedicated work of its devoted workers, honorary and stipendiary. They alone can release the regenerative influences, bringing into play the invisible pressure which alone can transform human nature

Bhavan’s Children Section

Brahma Creates The DemigodsBrahma realised that, even with the help of Vishnu and Shiva, he still needed a government to run the universe. After some thought, he decided to create a number of lesser gods, known as devas or demigods.

The first of these was the powerful Indra, the king of heaven. He appeared majestic, riding on a white elephant and wielding his personal weapon, the thunder bolt. Then came the noble-hearted Surya, lord of the sun. Vayu took control of the winds, and Agni took charge of fire. Varuna became god of the waters and fair-faced Chandra became lord of the moon planet. Brahma appointed the stern and impartial Yama as the god of death and justice. When Brahma had finished, he arranged that each of the demigods be married to a beautiful goddess, and gave them palaces in heaven. Brahma then married the goddess of learning, Sarasvati. She wore a spotless white saree and carried a musical instrument, called the vina.

Did you know? Brahma created other powerful beings called asuras or demons, and gave them homes in the lower planets. There are many stories of the demons fighting the demigods, trying to conquer their heavenly kingdom. The demigods serve and worship Vishnu but the demons consider Vishnu their mortal enemy.

Brahma Creates the PrajapatisAfter creating the gods, Brahma turned his attention to filling the world with creatures - on land, within water, and in the air. Shiva had already injected the souls into matter, and they waited for their various bodies.

To help him populate the cosmos, Brahma created a class of powerful beings, called Prajapatis (the masters of creation). The chief Prajapati was called Daksha. He and his wives had sixty daughters, who married demigods such as Chandra and Yama.

Another Prajapati, called Kasyapa, married sixteen of Daksha’s daughters. Kasyapa requested his celestial wives, “Please become the mothers of the many species of life”. Kasyapa then explained the plan that Brahma had made for the universe. There were to be six main groups of species, as follows:

1. Aquatics 900,000 species

2. Plants 2,000,000 species

3. Insects & Reptiles 1,100,000 species

4. Birds 1,000,000 species

5. Animals 3,000,000 species

6. Humankind 400.000 species

June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12

From Bhavan’s Journal May 16 1960. Reprinted in Bhavan’s Journal May 31 2010

A United Indian BarM. C. Setalvad

Corruption is said to stalk at large and we all know how corruption has in many countries led inevitably to the rise to power of autocratic forces. It should be the paramount duty of a body composed of men pledged to the smooth and impartial administration of justice and the orderly development of a true democracy to earnestly ponder over these and like situations and take active and energetic measures to counter them in so far as such action may lie within its power.

Few in the profession have appreciated the silent and peaceful revolution which has overcome us. The men of law cannot afford to stand aside when the country is forging ahead along its newly chosen path. We have to adapt ourselves to these new conditions, discard the notion that we are a mere profession and realise that we can regain the influence which we once exercised in public affairs only if we become the leaders of the people in the changed conditions so as to guide them to the new destination which they have set themselves to reach.

What I have Learnt of Indian MusicProf. Howard Boatwright

I knew that Indian classical music is an art music-not a wild flower, but a carefully cultivated bloom, off the shoot of an ancient culture. But I really had no idea of its depth, colour, or variety until I came to India. Even with the greatest interest, one cannot manage to hear an adequate amount of it in the West, or hear it under the proper conditions to gain a true impression

of its power to touch the listener. To become a good-not to say great-Indian musician requires a lifetime of devotion. It is very plain to me that any Westerner, coming to India in his maturity, could never, even with the hardest work, become more than a good amateur, as far as performing Indian music is concerned. The vast ignorance about Indian music in the West would certainly have been lifted to some extent by now if all the pandits from Dikshitar to Bhatkhande had been able to print their large collections in staff notation.

The BuddhaDr. P. Narasimhayya

The sixth century B.C. to which the Buddha belongs was a period of great events and great teachers in many countries, from China to Greece. It was the period of Confucius and Lao-Tzu in China, of Mahavira Jina and Buddha in India, of the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah II among the Jews, of Nebuchadnezzar, the ambitious king of Babylon, of Cyrus, the great and tolerant king of Persia, of Thales, the father of Greek philosophy, and Pythagoras, the Greek religious reformer and mystic philosopher.

Buddhism has flourished for centuries in Asia-from Japan to Egypt and Central Asia, from Mongolia to South-East Asia and Ceylon. The greatest Buddhist temple or monument every built was in South-East Asia in Java-the Borobudur. In Western Asia, in the eighth century A.D., Buddha was presented by a Christian writer (St. John of Damascus) as a Christian Apostle, and in the 16th century, he was received and canonised as a Christian saint by a decree of the Pope at Rome. In India itself, Hindu religion and philosophy have paid their greatest homage to the Master, as a Divine incarnation. He has become the symbol and soul of Asia, and is a World teacher with a universal message of Dhamma and Sheela.

Holy & WiseEkam Sdvipra Bahudha Vadanti - That is one whom the learned call differently - Vedanta

To him I call a Brahmin whose wisdom is deep, who possesses knowledge, who discerns the right way and the wrong and who has attained the highest end. - Gautam Buddha

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. - Fuller

Although result (fruit expected) of one’s action is in accordance with the karma he does (in previous destiny) and intelligence too follows karma; yet, a wise one should do a thing with careful consideration.

- Neetishataka-89

It is an article of faith in my creed to pick the man who does not take himself seriously, but does take his work seriously. - Michael C. Cahill

Dr K.M. MunshiFounder Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Lord BuddhaLord Buddha occupies a unique position in the annals of mankind. He is the greatest among those who have set out on a mission to save human beings from suffering; the first to transfer the emphasis from metaphysics to a life of practical righteousness and from individual salvation to the salvation of all beings.

By the influence of his teachings and personality, he has inspired missionaries, age after age, to show the path of right living by their love. There is a spurious belief, encouraged by certain Western scholars, that Buddha taught something quite different from Hinduism as it then was and that his teachings were destructive of all that it stood for; that he also denied the existence of the Soul and God.

In fact, Buddha never denied Hinduism; he was as much a Hindu as Vyasa, who preceded him, and Sankara, who followed him. And he never denied God or the Soul. To us, the Buddha is the Avatar of God, as have been Bhagavan Vyasa, Sri Ramachandra and Sri Krishna. The words he spoke and the way the lived have been woven into the fabric of our lives, and his personality has been indelibly stamped on our Collective Unconscious.