Some of the intellectual
celebraties in the world of the
West and the East had the following things
to say about Hinduism:
Oppenheimer acquired a deeper knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita in 1933 when, as a young professor of physics, he studied Sanskrit with Professor Arthur W Ryder (1877-1938) at Berkeley.
The Gita, Oppenheimer excitedly wrote to his brother Frank Oppenheimer, was.
“very easy and quite marvelous”.
(source: Robert Oppenheimer Letters and Recollections - By Alice K Smith and Charles Weiner p. 165).
Later he called the Gita “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.” He kept a well worn copy of it conveniently on hand on the bookshelf closest to his desk and often gave the book to friends as a present.
(source: The Story of J Robert Oppenheimer - By Denise Royal St. Martin's Press New York 1969 p. 54).
He continued to browse in it while directing the bomb laboratory. After President Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945, Oppenheimer spoke at a memorial service at Los Alamos and he quoted a passage from the Gita.
In later years, too, he would look back on the Bhagavad Gita as one of the most important influences in his life.
In 1963, Christian Century magazine (May 15, 1963 p. 647) asked Oppenheimer to list the ten books that “did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life.”
It is significant that two of the ten works that Oppenheimer claimed as most influential were Indian (The Bhagavad Gita and Bhartrihari's Satakatrayam) and a third, The Waste Land by T S Eliot, alluded to the Hindu Scriptures, The Upanishads and The Bhagavad Gita and concluded with a Sanskrit incantation: Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.”
He said:
"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries."
He wrote:
"The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom."
In this context it is worth emphasizing that India’s contribution of Buddhism to China (and other countries of the region) is by no means insubstantial. These civilizations would hardly exist without the Indian contribution in all aspects of culture— from science and technology, the arts, philosophy and spirituality.
(source: India as a Creative Civilization - By N. S. Rajaram).
Oppenheimer described the thoughts that passed through his mind when he witnessed the first atomic test explosion in 1945.
" If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds."
As the gigantic nuclear cloud mushroomed up to the stratosphere followed by a doomsday roar, Oppenheimer continued with the verses in which the Mighty One reveals Himself:
"Death am I, cause of destruction of the worlds, matured and set out to gather in the worlds there" - (Bhagavad Gita XI 12-32).
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary minimalist American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb (the "Trinity" test) was being prepared.
Oppenheimer read the Bhagavad Gita in the original Sanskrit, and in the aftermath of the blast reflected on the passage in which Krishna reveals himself as the Creator and Destroyer.
The Act II, scene iii chorus, borrowed from the Bhagavad Gita:
“At the sight of this, your Shape stupendous,
Full of mouths and eyes, feet, thighs and bellies,
Terrible with fangs, O master,
All the worlds are fear-struck, even just as I am.
When I see you, Vishnu, omnipresent,
Shouldering the sky, in hues of rainbow,
With your mouths agape and flame-eyes staring
All my peace is gone; my heart is troubled.
(source: Dr. Atomic Opera - By John Adams and A Survey of Hinduism - By Klaus K. Klostermaier. State University of New York Press. 1994. pg 109-110. The Eye of Shiva: Eastern Mysticism And Science - By Amaury de Riencourt p. 14). For more refer to chapter on GlimpsesX).
Then and there, Oppenheimer symbolized a most extraordinary conjunction - the juxtaposition of Western civilization's most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given to us by the Bhagavad Gita, India's greatest literary monument.
The Gita, Oppenheimer excitedly wrote to his
brother Frank Oppenheimer, was “very easy and quite marvelous”.
The Bhagavad Gita has influenced great
Americans from Thoreau to Oppenheimer. Its message of letting go of the fruits
of one’s actions is just as relevant today as it was when it was first written
more than two millennia ago.
***
Oppenheimer's
spontaneous conjunction of a Hindu mystical poem with a nuclear explosion was
of great symbolic significance. Nowhere in Western literature could he have
found an almost clinical description of mystical rapture that also fits the
description of a nuclear explosion in the outer world. (source: The Eye of Shiva: Eastern Mysticism And Science - By Amaury de Riencourt p. 14). For more refer to chapter on GlimpsesX).
"The general notions about human understanding...which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture, they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom."
(source: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism - By Fritjof Capra p. 18).
26. Colonel James Tod (1782-1835) author of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India
"Where can we look for sages like those whose systems of philosophy were prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works Plato, Thales & Pythagoras were disciples? Where do I find astronomers whose knowledge of planetary systems yet excites wonder in Europe as well as the architects and sculptors whose works claim our admiration, and the musicians who could make the mind oscillate from joy to sorrow, from tears to smile with the change of modes and varied intonation?"
(source: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India - By James Tod p. 608- 609).
27. Sylvain Levi (1863-1935) French scholar, Orientalist who wrote on Eastern religion, literature, and history. Levi was appointed a lecturer at the school of higher studies in Paris (1886), he taught Sanskrit at the Sorbonne (1889-94) and wrote his doctoral dissertation, Le Théâtre indien ("The Indian Theatre").
In L'Inde et le monde ("India and the World"), he discussed India's role among nations. He wrote :
"From Persia to the Chinese Sea, 'from the icy regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization."
"She has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim in universal history the rank that ignorance has refused her for a long time and to hold her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity."
(source: Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru p.200-210). Please refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi and Seafaring in Ancient India and chapter on Glimpses XII for more on India's influence).
"The multiplicity of the manifestations of the Indian genius as well as their fundamental unity gives India the right to figure on the first rank in the history of civilized nations. Her civilization, spontaneous and original, unrolls itself in a continuous time across at least thirty centuries, without interruption, without deviation. Ceaselessly in contact with foreign elements which threatened to strangle her, she persevered victoriously in absorbing them, assimilating them and enriching herself with them. Thus she has seen the Greeks, the Scythians, the Afghans, the Mongols to pass before her eyes in succession and is regarding with indifference the Englishmen - confident to pursue under the accidence of the surface the normal course of her high destiny."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p. 377-378).
"The Mahabharata is not only the largest, but also the grandest of all epics, as it contains throughout a lively teaching of morals under a glorious garment of poetry."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 236).
28. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1887--1961) was a great German philosopher and a philosophical predecessor of the New England Transcendentalists. He wrote in his "lectures on the Philosophy of History." Hegel belongs to the period of "German idealism" in the decades following Kant. He wrote:
“India has always been an object of yearning, a realm of wonder, a world of magic.”
"India is the land of dreams. India had always dreamt - more of the Bliss that is man's final goal. And this has helped India to be more creative in history than any other nation. Hence the effervescence of myths and legends, religious and philosophies, music, and dances and the different styles of architecture." 61
"India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searched for."
(source: A Survey of Hinduism - By Klaus K. Klostermaier. pg 17).
He was the first to proclaim that, alongside Greece and Germany, India had produced the greatest and most profound philosophers. And the great Hegel himself, who understood India far more profoundly, was to remark in his work on The Philosophy of History:
"It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought..."
(source: The Soul of India - By Amaury de Riencourt p. 301).
"India as a land of Desire formed an essential element in general history. From the most ancient times downwards, all nations have directed their wishes and longings to gaining access to the treasures of this land of marvels, the most costly which the earth presents, treasures of nature - pearls, diamonds, perfumes, rose essences, lions, elephants, etc. - as also treasures of wisdom. The way by which these treasures have passed to the West has at all times been a matter of world historical importance bound up with the fate of nations."
(source: Asia and Western Dominance - By K. M. Panikkar p. 21).
Hegel, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, says that " Persia is the land of light, Greece the land of grace, India the land of dream, Rome the land of empire." It is true of all cultures that the greatest gift of life is the dream of a higher life.
(source: Towards a New World - By Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan p-37 ISBN 81-222-0087-7).
Hegel characterized India as a land which had exerted its world-historical influence in a passive manner, by being sought: "Without being known too well, it has existed for millennia in the imagination of the Europeans as a wonderland. Its fame, which it has always had with regard to its treasures, both its natural ones, and in particular, its wisdom, has lured men there. "
(source: India and Europe - By Wilhelm Halbfass p. 2).
29. Solange Lemaitre author of several books, including Le Mystère de la mort dans les religions d'Asie and Râmakrishna et la vitalité de l'hindouism has observed:
"The civilization of India, at root purely religious, is only now becoming known in Europe; and as the mystery surrounding it is unveiled it emerges as one of the highest achievement in the history of mankind. By the very breadth of the outlook it affords on to the destiny of man the Vedic religion offers in abundance the spiritual experience that has inspired the Indian people since the dawn of their history. The vocation of India is to proclaim to the world the efficacy of religious experience."
There is more than a purely literal meaning to be found in the Vedas. This can be felt behind the poetic imagery of many hymns about the Creation and the Divine, in which certain lines sparkle like specks of gold in the opacity of their vein.
(source: Hinduism - By Solange Lemaitre p. 1-12).
30. Alain Danielou a.k.a Shiv Sharan (1907-1994), son of French aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion, history and arts of India, including Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India. He was perhaps the first European to boldly proclaim his Hinduness. He settled in India for fifteen years in the study of Sanskrit. In Benaras Daniélou came in close contact with Karpatriji Maharaj, who inducted him into the Shaivite school of Hinduism and he was renamed Shiv Sharan.
After leaving Benaras, he was also the director of Sanskrit manuscripts at the Adyar Library in Chennai for some time. He returned to Europe in 1960s and was associated with UNESCO for some years.He had a wide effect upon Europe's understanding of Hinduism. Danielou had been sharply critical of the Western-educated Congress leadership which led the country to Independence from British rule in 1947.
Danielou said:
"The Hindu lives in eternity. He is profoundly aware of the relativity of space and time and of the illusory nature of the apparent world."
Hinduism is a religion without dogmas. Since its origin, Hindu society has been built on rational bases by sages who sought to comprehend man's nature and role in creation as a whole.
(source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India p. 9 and 154).
"Hinduism especially in its oldest, Shivaite form, never destroyed its past. It is the sum of human experience from the earliest times. Non-dogmatic, it allows every one to find his own way."
He also noted as early as 1947 that "the Egyptian myth of Osiris seemed directly inspired from a Shivaite story of the Puranas and that at any rate, Egyptians of those times considered that Osiris had originally come from India mounted on a bull (Nandi), the traditional transport of Shiva."
(source: Arise O' India - By Francois Gautier Har Anand publisher ISBN: 81-241-0518-9 p. 22).
Ultimate reality being beyond man's understanding, the most contradictory theories or beliefs may be equally inadequate approaches to reality. Ecological (as we would say today), it sees man as part of a whole, where trees, animals, men and spirits should live in harmony and mutual respect, and it asks everyone to cooperate and not endanger the artwork of the creator.
It therefore opposes the destruction of nature, of species, the bastardization of races, the tendency of each one to do what he was not born for. It leaves every one free to find his own way of realization human and spiritual be it ascetic or erotic or both. It does not separate intellect and body, mind and matter, but sees the Universe as a living continuum. "I believe any sensible man is unknowingly a Hindu and that the only hope for man lies in the abolition of the erratic, dogmatic, unphilosophical creeds people today call religions."
(source: contributed to this site by a reader).
Alain Daniélou was credited with bringing Indian music to
the Western world.
Alain Daniélou was credited with bringing Indian music to the
Western world.
(image source: alaindanielou.org).
***
While in Europe,
Daniélou was credited with bringing Indian music to the Western world. This was
the era when sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and several other Indian artists
performed in Europe and America. During his years in India, Daniélou studied Indian
music tradition, both classical and folk traditional, and collected a lot of
information from rare books, field experience, temples as well as from artists.
He also collected various types of instruments. He has written:
"Under the name
of Gandharva Vedas, a general theory of sound with its metaphysics and
physics appears to have been known to the ancient Hindus. From such
summaries: The ancient Hindus were familiar with the theory of sound
(Gandharva Veda), and its metaphysics and physics. The hymns of the Rig
Veda contain the earliest examples of words set to music, and by the time of
the Sama Veda a complicated system of chanting had been developed. By the time
of the Yajur Veda, a variety of professional musicians had appeared,
such as lute players, drummers, flute players, and conch blowers."
(source: unknown).
Overwhelmingly
convinced of the importance of culture and religion as presented by Hinduism,
Alain Daniélou always considered himself a Hindu and, in his last interview,
declared "India is my true home".
In the recent
supplement to his memoirs, he wrote "The only value I never question is
that of the teachings I received from Shaivite Hinduism which rejects any kind
of dogmatism, since I have found no other form of thought which goes so far, so
clearly, which such depth and intelligence, in comprehending the divine and the
world's structures".
(source: alaindanielou.org).31. Erwin Schroedinger (1887--1961) Austrian theoretical physicist, was a professor at several universities in Europe. He was awarded the Nobel prize Quantum Mechanics, in 1933. During the Hitler era he was dismissed from his position for his opposition to the Nazi ideas and he fled to England. He was the author of Meine Weltansicht
Schrodinger wrote in
his book Meine Weltansicht
“This life of yours
which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a
certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be
surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express
in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat
tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the
west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.”
Schrodinger’s
influential What is life? the physical aspect of the living cell & Mind and
matter (1944) also used Vedic ideas. The book became
instantly famous although it was criticized by some of its emphasis on Indian
ideas. Francis Clark, the co-discoverer of the DNA code, credited
this book for key insights that led him to his revolutionary discovery.
According to his
biographer Walter Moore, there is a clear continuity between
Schrodinger’s understanding of Vedanta and his research:
“The unity and
continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave
mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine
composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few
years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based
on super imposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view
would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One."
He became a Vedantist,
a Hindu, as a result of his studies in search for truth. Schrodinger kept a
copy of the Hindu scriptures at his bedside. He read books on Vedas, yoga and
Sankhya philosophy and he reworked them into his own words, and ultimately came
to believe them. The Upanishads and the Bhagavad gita, were his favorite
scriptures.
According to his
biographer Moore, “His system – or that of the Upanishads – is delightful and
consistent: the self and the world are one and they are all. He rejected
traditional western religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on
the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of emotional
antipathy, for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors, but simply
by saying that they are naïve.
(source: The Wishing Tree - By Subhash Kak p. 1 - 7).
In a famous essay on
determinism and free will, he expressed very clearly the sense that
consciousness is a unity, arguing that this "insight is not new...From the
early great Upanishads the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal
self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian
thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent, the quintessence
of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the
scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips,
really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts."
Schrodinger
wrote:
“Vedanta teaches that
consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal
consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.”
“the stages of human
development are to strive for Possession (Artha), Knowledge (Dharma), Ability
(Kama), Being (Moksha)”
“Nirvana is a state of
pure blissful knowledge.. It has nothing to do with individual. The ego or its
separation is an illusion. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to
develop it further – when man dies his karma lives and creates for itself
another carrier.”
(source: What is life? the physical aspect of the living cell & Mind and
matter - By Erwin Schrodinger p. 87). Refer to What is Life? Published in 1944
He wished to
see:"Some blood transfusion from the East to the West" to save Western science from spiritual anemia."
Schroedinger explicitly affirmed his conviction that Vedantic jnana represented the only true view of reality- a view for which he was prepared even to offer Empirical proof.
(source: A Short Introduction to Hinduism - By Klaus K. Klostermaier p. 168).
"In all world," writes Schroedinger in his book My View of the World (chapter iv), "there is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction....The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad."
(source: My View of the World - By Erwin Schroedinger chapter iv).
Regarding mystical insights, Schrodinger tells us: "The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West."
(source: The Eye of Shiva: Eastern Mysticism and Science - By Amaury de Riencourt p. 78).
32. Nicola Tesla (1856-1943) the
Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist,. Nikola Tesla,
one of the most incredible inventors of all time, developed this Scaler technology
in the early 1900's. Every major technology currently being used today was
invented by Tesla including alternating current, television, radio, robotics
etc. etc. He used ancient Sanskrit terminology in his descriptions of natural phenomena.
As early as 1891 Tesla described the universe as a kinetic system filled with energy which could be harnessed at any location. His concepts during the following years were greatly influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda was the first of a succession of eastern yogi's who brought Vedic philosophy and religion to the west.
After meeting the Swami and after continued study of the Eastern view of the mechanisms driving the material world, Tesla began using the Sanskrit words Akasha, Prana, and the concept of aluminiferous ether to describe the source, existence and construction of matter.
(source: http://www.hinduism.fsnet.co.uk/namoma/life_swamiji/life_swamiji_tesla.htm).
33. Alistair Shearer has postgraduate degrees in literature, Sanskrit, and Indian studies. He has lectured for many prestigious institutions, including London University, the British Museum, and the Royal Academy of Arts. A teacher of meditation, Shearer leads cultural tours to the Indian subcontinent and has published ten books including The Hindu Vision: Forms of the Formless
He affirms:
"The Hindu understanding of the universe has often been misunderstood as bizarre and primitive."
"The Hindu imagery is in fact a sophisticated iconography conveying universal religious truths only now beginning to be understood in the West."
(source: unknown).
34. Dr. Carl Sagan, (1934-1996) famous astrophysicist, in his book, Cosmos says:
"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.
It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology.
Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night
of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun
and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer
time scales still."
There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the god who, after a Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him - until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream."
There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the god who, after a Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him - until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream."
Carl Sagan further says:
"The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed."
These profound and lovely images are, I like to imagine, a kind of premonition of modern astronomical ideas."
Sagan continues, "A millennium before Europeans were wiling to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions"
(source: Cosmos - By Carl Sagan p. 213-214).
In the episode entitled "The Edge of Forever" in the "Cosmos" television series, Carl Sagan visits India, and by way of introducing some of the bizarre ideas of modern physics, he acknowledges that of all the world's philosophies and religions those originating in India are remarkably consistent with contemporary scenarios of space, time and existence.
In his book Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science, he remarks:
"Immanuel Velikovsky
(the author of Earth in Upheaval) in his book Worlds in Collision, notes that the idea of four ancient
ages terminated by catastrophe is common to Indian as well as to Western sacred
writing. However, in the Bhagavad Gita and in
the Vedas,
widely divergent numbers of such ages, including an infinity of them, are
given; but, more interesting, the duration of the ages between major
catastrophes is specified as billions of years. .. "
"The idea that
scientists or theologians, with our present still puny understanding of this
vast and awesome cosmos, can comprehend the origins of the universe is only a
little less silly than the idea that Mesopotamian astronomers of 3,000 years ago
– from whom the ancient Hebrews borrowed, during the Babylonian captivity, the
cosmological accounts in the first chapter of Genesis – could have understood
the origins of the universe. We simply do not know.
The Hindu holy book,
the Rig Veda
(X:129), has a much more realistic view of the matter:
“Who knows for
certain? Who shall here declare it?
Whence was it born, whence came creation?
The gods are later than this world’s formation;
Who then can know the origins of the world?
None knows whence creation arose;
And whether he has or has not made it;
He who surveys it from the lofty skies,
Only he knows- or perhaps he knows not."
Whence was it born, whence came creation?
The gods are later than this world’s formation;
Who then can know the origins of the world?
None knows whence creation arose;
And whether he has or has not made it;
He who surveys it from the lofty skies,
Only he knows- or perhaps he knows not."
(source: Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science - By Carl
Sagan p. 106 - 137).
35. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
poet, author, philosopher, Nobel prize laureate. Tagore
was deeply critical of the British Raj in India. He also made some statements
to the press about the ghastly book by Katherine Mayo called Mother India,
which was then a huge bestseller in the U.S. Mayo's book offers that other old
myth of India: poor, backwards, savage. Tagore's aim was criticize an
unjust practice (colonialism) and an international system (the League of
Nations) which was thoroughly unsympathetic to the plight of colonized people
in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
He described the Vedic
hymns as:
"A poetic testament of a people's collective reaction to the wonder and awe of existence."
India
harmonized rural life and urban life. She was no blind worshipper of
urbanization like the west of today. "A poetic testament of a people's collective reaction to the wonder and awe of existence."
Tagore says well in his book, Sadhana:
"The civilization of ancient Greece was nurtured in the city walls. In fact, all the modern civilization have their cradles of brick and mortar, The walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men...Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilization had its birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and environment. It was surrounded by the vast life of nature and had the closest and most constant intercourse with her varying aspects...His aim was not to acquire but to realize, to enlarge his consciousness by growing into his surroundings. the west seems to take pride in thinking that it is subduing Nature as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement of things. This sentiment is the product of the city wall habit and training of mind. But in India the point of view was different; it included the world with the man as one great truth. India put all her emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and the universal....The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical speculation for India; it was her life object to realize this great harmony in feeling and in action."
(source: Indian Culture and the Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri Annamalai University. 1956 p. 32-33).
"India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism."
(source: Hindutva is liberal - By A. B. Vajpayee - rediff.com).
In a letter to English
painter, Sir William Rothenstein (1872 – 1945) of April 2, 1927,
Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
“In Hinduism, in our
everyday meditation, we try to realize God’s cosmic manifestation and thus free
our soul from the bondage of the limitedness of the immediate; but for us he is
also an individual for the individual, working out through our evolution in
time, our ultimate destiny.”
(source: Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems – By William Radice
1985 p. 7-8).
In later years Artist
Rothenstein met up with Sir Rabindranath Tagore, and he was influential in
getting his Gitanjali printed.
In religion
his inspiration was derived from the Vedas and the Upanishads. Tagore
pointed out that Indian civilization was a "forest civilization". The
essential continuity of the culture was developed and preserved by families
living in small communities close to nature. " The ancient Indians
distrusted the pace and pomp of urbandom; they distrusted it strongly enough to
resist central authority and conformism. He further predicted that: "India
is destined to be the teacher of all lands." Tagore said of the quintessence of India's spiritual philosophy was :
" Santam, Sivam and Advaitam ( peace, goodness and Unity of all beings)." Rabindranath Tagore said that we Indians, can buy our true place in the world only with our inheritance, not with the inheritance of others.
Regarding the vitality of ancient India, Rabindranath Tagore has said: "To know my country one has to travel to that age, when she realized her soul and thus transcended her physical boundaries when she revealed her being in a radiant magnanimity which illumined the eastern horizon, making her recognized as their own by those in alien shores who were awakened into a surprise of life." He also said about the culture of Indonesia: ' I see India all around me.' And in Indonesia, such words as 'sea' and 'ship' are recognizable for their Tamil roots.'
(Please refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi - Greater India).
(source: Our Heritage and Its Significance - By Shripad Rama Sharma p. 56).
In the quest of knowing the inner self, Tagore one of the greatest writers in modern Indian literature, has turned to Upanishads time and again. The Upanishads are based not upon theological reasoning, but on experience of spiritual life.
In
the 6th episode of his “The Religion of Man” Rabindranath Tagore
confesses how much he is indebted to the Upanishads.
“
When I turn back towards the days of youth I feel how I have unknowingly
followed the footsteps of my Vedic ancestors; how I have stared at the vastness
of the sky and got inspiration to explore the truth; how I have gazed at the
white clouds, those coconut trees in the quest to be one with Nature.”
Tagore is fascinated by the concept of "Brahma"
and "Maya"- nature along with man are both expression of
Brahma and are thus one; so Tagore felt a deep unity with nature. This is well
reflected in the following verses from "Maya":
"That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus casting colored shadows on thy radiance ---such is thy Maya.
Tagore was so overwhelmed by reading Upanishads, he felt strongly that the teaching of the Upanishads is very much needed in the present age.
(source: Upanishads in the eyes of Tagore - By Suprata Chowdhary -
swaveda.com)."That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus casting colored shadows on thy radiance ---such is thy Maya.
Tagore was so overwhelmed by reading Upanishads, he felt strongly that the teaching of the Upanishads is very much needed in the present age.
Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. He drew his intellectual sustenance from the Bhagavad Gita. He considered it to be the greatest philosophical poem after Dante's Divine Comedy. (source: Resinging the Gita).
Also, he kept a copy of The Twenty-eight Upanishads in his personal library for ready reference. (Among the books from Eliot's library now in the Hayward Bequest in King's College Library is Vasudev Lazman Sastri Phansikar's The Twenty-Eight Upanishads (Bombay: Tukaram Javaji, 1906).
Inscribed on the fly-leaf is the following note: Thomas Eliot with C.R. Lanman's kindest regards and best wishes. Harvard College. May 6, 1912. At Harvard, Eliot studied Sanskrit and Pali for two years (1920-11), probably in order to acquaint himself with Indian philosophical texts in the original, for he later admitted that though he studied "the ancient Indian languages" and " read a little poetry," he was "chiefly interested at that time in philosophy."
As early as 1918, Eliot reviewed for The Egoist an obscure treatise on Indian philosophy called Brahmadarsanam or Intuition of the Absolute by Sri Ananda Acharya.
(source: T. S. Eliot Vedanta and Buddhism - By P. S. Sri p. 10-11 and 126).
Eliot wrote in 1933:
"Their (Indian philosophers') subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys."
An unexpected remark from a man who devoted his career to a defense of the European tradition and who had studied under Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, R. G. Collingwood, Harold Joachim, and Henri Bergson
Consequent on his early exposure to Indic thought through Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia, whether by chance or by personal bidding, Eliot resolved to go on a passage to India ("reason's early paradise" in the words of Whitman) and imbibe deep the native spring of the Vedas.
The moral implications of the doctrine of Karma find a powerful evocation in the Murder in the Cathedral. The concept of the nature of true action that does not show any concern for the fruits of action is quite a rendition from the Bhagavad Gita.
(source: After Strange Gods - By T. S. Eliot and The making of Eliot - hindu.com). For more refer to The Hidden Advantage of Tradition: On the Significance of T. S. Eliot's Indic Studies
Over and over again, whether in The Wasteland, Four Quarters, Ash Wednesday
or Murder in the Cathedral, the influence of Indian philosophy and
mysticism on him is clearly noticeable.In his poem 'The Dry Salvages' Eliot reflects on Lord Krishna's meaning:
" I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant-
Among other things - or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret."
He mentioned "Time the destroyer" (section 2), then summarized one of Krishna's points:
"And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward...
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle,
Not fare well,
But fare forward voyagers (section 3).
He refers to the Gita's central doctrine of nishkama karma, 'selfless endeavor.' He also talks of the decomposition of modern civilization, the lack of conviction and direction, the confusion and meaninglessness of modern consciousness in his poem "The Wasteland."
As Prof. Philip R. Headings has remarked in his study of the poet, "No serious student of Eliot's poetry can afford to ignore his early and continued interest in the Bhagavad Gita."
(source: Dr. M. V. Kamath, The United States and India
(1776-1976), (The Embassy of India,
Washington, D. C., 1976) p. 56). Eliot familiarized himself with parts of the Vedas and the Upanishads in the course of his graduate studies and used this knowledge as background for certain poetic and dramatic situations in his work.
Of all the American writers who have drawn upon Indian sources T. S. Eliot was one who knew his sources first hand and not merely through translations by Western Orientalists.
The Indian tradition in poetry and philosophy was perceived by Eliot as a vital force in world culture and he appropriated whatever was suitable for his own themes and purposes. The theme of draught and sterility in the Waste Land seems to be inspired by the Vedic myth of Indra slaying Vritra who had held up the waters in the heavens. In the "What the Thunder Said" section of the Waste Land we have the following lines:
" Ganga was sunken and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant,
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder."
Then follows a sequential use of DA-Datta. What have we given? DA-Dayadhvam and DA-Damayata, which as he explains in the Notes are taken from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The last line has Shantih shantih shantih.
He says: "Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lanman, and a year in the mazes of Patanjali's metaphysics under the guidance of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were after - and their subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys - lay in trying to erase from my mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European philosophy was hardly better than an obstacle.
"In the literature of Asia is a great poetry. There is also profound wisdom and some very difficult metaphysics...Long ago I studied the ancient Indian languages, and while I was chiefly interested at that time in philosophy, I read little poetry too; and I know that my own poetry shows the influence of Indian thought and sensibility."
On the influence of influence of the Bhagavad Gita, he felt "very thankful for having had the opportunity to study the Bhagavad Gita and the religious and philosophical beliefs, so different from (my) own with which the Bhagavad Gita is informed."
(source: India in the American Mind - By B. G. Gokhale p. 120-21) India and World Civilization By D. P. Singhal Pan Macmillan Limited. 1993. Pg. 60-62).
37. John Dobson, scientist and a teacher. His theories in physics and cosmology boldly break new ground and significantly challenge the scientific orthodoxy. He was featured in the PBS television series "The Astronomers". John Dobson is perhaps best known for his work in the design and construction of telescopes, however, as most telescopes made today use what is known as a "Dobsonian" mount. He discusses the apparitional nature of the universe and why we are fooled into viewing it in a Newtonian-mechanistic way.
"Can we, by now, square science with religion? In particular, can we square relativity and quantum mechanics with Swami Vivekananda's Advaita Vedanta? Since there cannot be two worlds -- one for the scientists and one for the mystics -- it must be that their descriptions are of the same world but from different points of view. Can we, from the vantage point of the Swami's Advaita (non-dualism), see both points of view? Swami Vivekananda said that science and religion would meet and shake hands. Can we see things from his vantage point? Since the notion of maya or apparition as the first cause of our physics is central to the swami's Advaita, I have chosen as "The Equations of Maya". Can we find them in our physics? According to the philosophy of the Advaita Vedantins, as the swami himself has said, there cannot be two existences, only one. And maya is, as it were, a veil or screen through which that oneness (the Absolute) is seen as this Universe of plurality and change.
(source: http://quanta-gaia.org/dobson/EquationsOfMaya.html#WhatIsMaya).
38. David Bohm (1917-1992) Born in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1917, he studied under Einstein and Oppenheimer, received his B.Sc. degree from Pennsylvania State College in 1939 and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943. He was the last graduate student to study with Oppenheimer at U.C. in the 1940s, where he remained as a research physicist after Oppenheimer left for Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb.
Bohm was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers and was deeply influenced by both J. Krishnamurti and Einstein, was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers.
David Bohm explains his theory that there is something like life and mind enfolded in everything.
Bohm was profoundly affected by his close contact with J. Krishnamurti.
"Yes, and Atman is from the side of meaning. You would say Atman is more like the meaning. But then what is meant would be Brahman, I suppose; the identity of consciousness and cosmos....This claims that the meaning and what is meant are ultimately one, which is the phrase 'Atman equals Brahman' of classical Hindu philosophy."
(source: http://www.ourworldharmony.com/kDavidBo.htm and http://twm.co.nz/Bohm.html).
Heisenberg is best known for his Uncertainty Principle and was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
"the startling parallelism between today's physics and the world-vision of eastern mysticism remarks, the increasing contribution of eastern scientists from India, China and Japan, among others, reinforces this conjunction. Physical science has now become planetary and draws into its fold an increasing number of non-westerners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are quick to note, one cannot always distinguish between statements made by eastern metaphysics based on mystical insight, and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations, experiments and mathematical calculations."
(source: Hinduism Today - December 2002).
"The scientific world view has ceased to be a scientific view in the true sense of the word." Werner Heisenberg went later in life to Rabindhranath Tagore's University in India called Shantiniketan (Abode of Peace) in a rural and natural setting evidently in search of what he missed in science, namely the certain principle which is Reality or Truth but which never known outside and therefore never spoken of but which is felt in the pure heart. It is the reflection of this which Heisenberg might have discerned in the spiritual writings of the poet."
(source: The Bhagavad Gita: A Scripture for the Future Translation and Commentary By Sachindra K. Majumdar Asian Humanities Press. 1991. p 33).
40 Dr. Jean LeMee born in France in 1931, Studied Sanskrit at Columbia University. Author of the Hymns from the Rig Veda says:
"Precious stones or durable materials - gold, silver, bronze, marble, onyx or granite - have been used by ancient people in an attempt to immortalize themselves. Not so however the ancient Vedic Aryans. They turned to what may seem the most volatile and insubstantial material of all - the spoken word ...The pyramids have been eroded by the desert wind, the marble broken by earthquakes, and the gold stolen by robbers, while the Veda is recited daily by an unbroken chain of generations, traveling like a great wave through the living substance of mind. .."
"The Rig Veda is a glorious song of praise to the Gods, the cosmic powers at work in Nature and in Man. Its hymns record the struggles, the battles, and victories, the wonder, the fears, the hopes, and the wisdom of the Ancient Path Makers.
Glory be to Them!"
(source: Hymns from the Rig Veda - By Jean LeMee - Illustrator Ingbert Gruttner
41. Alan Watts (1915-1973)
a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University,
drew heavily on the insights of Vedanta. Watts became well known in the 1960s as a pioneer in
bringing Eastern philosophy to the West.
"There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition".
"To
the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the
concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking
of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact
that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological
applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is
but one of innumerable ways of applying it.""There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition".
It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when Western civilization discovers Relativity it applies it to the manufacture of atom-bombs, whereas Oriental civilization applies it to the development of new states of consciousness."
(source: Spiritual Practices of India - By Frederic Spiegelberg Introduction by Alan Watts p. 8-9).
"It was once customary to refer to these people of India and China as heathens....apart from Sufism, the Near East produced nothing to approach the high level of mystical and psychological philosophy attained in India and China."
"Hinduism, therefore, is perhaps the most catholic of all religions, for it has not become so in the course of its evolution but was based on the principle of catholicity from the beginnings. Those who laid down the code of Manu made provision both for different mentalities and different vocations in the most through going manner; they showed an understanding of the social organism which in subsequent times has seldom been equaled..."
"It is almost certain, however, that Taoist Yoga was derived in great measure from India, and it is here that we must look for the greater wealth of information."
(source: The Legacy of Asia and Western Man - By Allan Watts p.1-2 and 28-29 and 85).
42. Friedrich Majer (1771-1818) a disciple of Johann Gottfried Herder, an Orientalist found that:
" It will no longer remain to be doubted that the priests of Egypt and the sages of Greece have drawn directly from the original well of India," that it is to 'the banks of the Ganga and the Indus that our hearts feel drawn as by some hidden urge."
And again:
"Towards the Orient, to the banks of the Ganga and the Indus, it is there our hearts feel drawn by some hidden urge - it is there that all the dark presentiments point which lie in the depths of our heart...In the Orient, the heavens poured forth into the earth."
(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup
43. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) German philosopher, poet and critic, clergyman, born in East Prussia. Herder was an enormously influential literary critic and a leader in the Sturn und Drang movement. He saw in India the:
"lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," 'the cradle of humanity,' and also its 'eternal home,' the great Orient 'waiting to be discovered within ourselves.'
According to him, "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with a simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world."
Herder regarded the Hindus, because of their ethical teachings, as the most gentle and peaceful people on earth. Herder's "Thoughts of Some Brahmins "(1792) which contains a selection of gnomic stanzas in free translations, gathered from Bhartrihari, the Hitopdesa and the Bhagavad Gita, expressed these ideals.
Herder pointed out to the spiritual treasures of India in search of which later German Sansritists and Indologists had devoted their lives.
(source: Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of India (1900) - By Pranebendranath Ghosh p-334
Herder admired India, as did Novalis and Heine, for its simplicity, and denounced the Europeans for their greed, corruption, and economic exploitation of India.
When George Forster sent him his German translation of the English version of the Sakuntala in 1791, Herder responded:
"I cannot easily find a product of human mind more pleasant than this...a real blossom of the Orient, and the first, most beautiful of its kind! ....Something like that, of course appears once every two thousand years."
He published a detailed study and analysis of Sakuntala, claiming that this work disproved the popular belief that drama was the exclusive invention of the ancient Greeks.
(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal Part II p.229 - 231).
"O holy land (India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' and "Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all religion."
Like Sir William Jones, Herder, a Lutheran pastor, was also attracted by the Hindu ideas of pantheism and of world-soul (atman), both of which came to be viewed by the German Romantics as providing support for their own views about the transcendent wholeness and the fundamentally spiritual essence of the natural world.
(source: Oriental Enlightenment: The encounter between Asian and Western thought - By J. J. Clarke p. 61-63).
He characterized
Indian art as "a monument of a philosophical system in the history of
mankind."
He doubted therefore "whether
any other people on earth have treated symbolism in art as thoroughly as
Indians."
(source: Treasures
of Indian Art: Germany's Tribute to India's Cultural Heritage - National Museum
p. foreword by Dr. Georg Lechner, Director Goethe – Institut Muechen).
44. Troy Wilson Organ a professor at Ohio University and author of The Hindu quest for the perfection of man and Hinduism; its historical development, wrote:
"Hindu thought is not a philosophy. It is a philosophical religion... "Hinduism is a sadhana which seeks to guide man to integration, to spiritualization, and to liberation......The concept of reincarnation is the Hindu way of asserting that there are no temporal nor developmental limits to the perfecting. "Hindu thought is natural, reasonable, and scientific. It is a process, not a result - a process of perfecting man". In the Hindu Monism (Advaita) God is not anthropomorphic being. He is All; He is not a despot or autocratic God.
(source: Philosophy of Hinduism - An Introduction By T. C. Galav Universal Science-Religion. Pg 123)
"In the Hindu world, the folklore and popular mythology carry the truths and teachings of the philosophers to the masses. In India, the mythology never ceased to support and facilitate the expression of philosophic thought. The rich pictorial script of the epic tradition, the features of the divinities whose incarnations and exploits constituted the myth, became the vehicles of communication for the priests. In this way a wonderful friendship of mythology and philosophy was effected; and this has been sustained with such result that the whole edifice of Indian civilization is imbued with spiritual meaning. The close interdependence of the two has served to counteract the natural tendency of the philosophy to become esoteric, removed from solving life's problems. In this symbolic form, the ideas have not been watered down to become popular. The vivid, perfectly appropriate pictorial script preserves the doctrines without the slightest damage to their senses."
45. Andre Malraux (1901-1976) author of Anti-memoir, profound thinker and French prolific writer, an essayist, novelist, art-historian, and political speech writer, Malraux did give his readers a philosophy.
"The problem of this century is the religious problem and the discovery of Hindu thought will have a great deal to do with the solving of that particular problem".
“Europe is destructive, suicidal,” said André Malraux to Nehru in 1936, whom he would meet several times until the 1960s, trying in vain to persuade him of the relevance of India’s spirituality in today’s world.
Malraux also reflected :
"...The West regards as truth what
the Hindu regards as appearance (for if human life, in the age of Christendom,
was doubtless an ordeal it was certainly truth and not illusion), and the
Westerner can regard knowledge of the the universe as the supreme value, while
for the Hindu the supreme value is accession to the divine Absolute.
But the most profound difference is based on the fact that the fundamental reality for the West, Christian or athiest, is death, in whatever sense it may be interpreted --- while the fundamental reality for India is the endlessness of life in the endlessness of time: Who can kill immortality?
But the most profound difference is based on the fact that the fundamental reality for the West, Christian or athiest, is death, in whatever sense it may be interpreted --- while the fundamental reality for India is the endlessness of life in the endlessness of time: Who can kill immortality?
(source: Malraux & India
- (New Delhi : Embassy of France in India, 1996), p. 46.and Antimemires - By
André Malraux
(Paris : Gallimard, 1967), p. 287-288). http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/culture/france/biblio/folio/malraux/
46. Dr. Karan Singh (1931 - ) heir
apparent to the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, Indian Ambassador to the U.S.
and an outstanding thinker and leader. He is a philosopher, environmentalist,
statesman, orator, author and politician.He is the author of Essays on Hinduism (1990) and he has remarked:
"The Entire Cosmos is all pervaded by the same divine power. there is no ultimate duality in human existence or in consciousness. This is a truth which in the West is only recently being under stood after Einstein and Heisenberg and quantum mechanics. The Newtonian-Cartesian-Marxist paradigm of a materialistic universe has now been finally abolished, it has collapsed in the face of the new physics. Our ancient seers had a deeper insights into the nature of reality than people had even until very recently".
(source: Essays on Hinduism - By Karan Singh p. 69-71).
He also written that:
"The master principles upon which Hinduism is based are to be found essentially in the Upanishads, which represent the high watermark not only of Indian but of world philosophy. It is in these luminous dialogues that the great issues confronting humanity have been addressed in a manner that seems to grow in relevance as we move into the global society. "
"The first and most basic concept is that of the all-pervasive Brahman — “Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kincha jagatyam jagat” (Whatever exists and wherever it exists is permeated by the same divine power.) While many philosophies have postulated unbridgeable dichotomies between god and the world, matter and spirit, the Upanishadic view is that all that exists is a manifestation without the light of consciousness behind it, and this, in a way, is the realization of the new science.
The second concept is that this Brahman resides within each individual consciousness, in the Atman. The Atman is the reflection of this all-pervasive Brahman in individual consciousness; but it is not ultimately separate from the Brahman. The concept of “Isvarah sarvabhutanam hriddese tishthati” (The lord resides within the heart of each individual) is the second great insight of the Upanishads, and the relationship between the Atman and the Brahman is the pivot upon which the whole Vedantic teaching revolves.
Another important Vedantic concept is that all human beings, because of their shared spirituality, are members of a single family. The Upanishads have an extraordinary phrase for the human race, ‘Amritasya putrah’ (Children of immortality), because we carry within our consciousness the light and the power of the Brahman regardless of race, colour, creed, sex, caste or nationality. That is the basis of the concept of human beings as an extended family — ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ — which is engraved on the first gate into our Parliament House.
"It is certainly true that Hinduism has provided the broad cultural and religious framework that has held India together despite its astonishing linguistic, ethnic and political diversity and divisions. Hinduism is as essential for an understanding of Indian culture and civilization"
(source: Keep the light shining - By Karan Singh - Hindustantimes.com)
47. August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845).German Scholar and Poet who also learnt Sanskrit. The impulse to Indological studies was first given in Germany, through his book, ' The Language and Wisdom of the Indians' which appeared in 1818. He wrote The Bhagavat-geeta, or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon : in eighteen lectures.
"The divine origin of man, as taught in Vedanta, is continually inculcated, to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and re-incorporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and reaction. Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism like a feeble Promethean spark in the full fold of heavenly glory of the noonday sun, faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished."
Schlegel edited to original text of the Bhagavad Gita, together with a Latin translation, and paid tribute to its authors:
"I shall always adore the imprints of their feet"
He noted in his book, Wisdom of the Ancient Indians, " It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the God. All their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their God..."
(source: Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence - By Stephen Knapp p. vii).
Hindu philosophy in comparison with which, in the words of Schlegel, "even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans" appears "like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished. The Divine origin of man is continually inculcated to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle and incite him to consider a re-union and re-corporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and exertion."
(source: A History of Hindu Civilization During British Rule - By Pramatha Nath Bose volume I p. x and Is India Civilized? - Essays on Indian Culture - By Sir John Woodroffe Ganesh & Co. Publishers 1922 p. 132 - 133).
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My humble salutations to , H H Swamyjis, Hindu Wisdom, great Universal Philosophers, Historians, Professors and Devotees for the discovering collection)
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