India’s spiritual heritage finds new voice through ‘The Upanisads’
Asato Ma Sadgamaya
Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya
Mrtyorma Amrtam Gamaya
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
From Untruth, Lead Me to Truth
From Darkness, Lead Me to Light
From Death, Lead Me to Immortality
Om Peace Peace Peace…(Om has many meanings. One of the meanings is Welcome To Gods). This hymn is from the Brihasdaranyaka Upanishad.
Om Poornamada Poornamidham
Poornaath Poornamudachyathe
Poornasya Poornamaadaya
Poornamevaavasishyathe
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
That is the Whole; This is the Whole
From Wholeness emerges Wholeness
Wholeness coming from Wholeness
Wholeness Still Remains
Om Peace Peace Peace…(From Isavaasya Upanishad)
There are thousands of slokas like this in the Upanishad, the science of life and spirit. The word Upanisad is derived from a combination of the syllables “Upa,” meaning nearness or contiguity as well as instruction by a teacher; “ni,” meaning down; and “sad,” meaning to sit down or settle. This implies groups of students sitting respectfully near a teacher and learning. (The Upanishads, translated into English by Nachiketa Jha, a scholar of Vedanta).
The hymns reproduced above have no parallels anywhere in the world. Vedas, Upanishads, and Vedanta are ancient Bharat’s contributions to the world. Those who master the great Indian philosophies stand head and shoulders above others because of their detachment from all that troubles mankind. They are free from Karma (Desire/ Lust), Krodha (anger), and Lobha (greed), which are the root causes of all troubles tormenting mankind.
Compare these with religious books that command the followers of the sect to kill those who do not subscribe to their ideologies. Some Ayats (verses) from the Quran command the believers to fight against followers of other faiths; “Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive and besiege them and prepare for them each ambush”. (Surah 9: Ayat 5)
In truth, the disbelievers are an open enemy to you (4.101)
Those who disbelieve our revelations, We shall expose them to the fire ( 4.56). These quotes are from the Holy Quran, the book of revelations from Allah, the Mighty.
The book of the other Abrahamic religion is no different. The less said, the better. It is this book that the evangelists try to push into the hands of Hindus as part of their mission to plant crosses across Asia, especially India, and harvest our souls.
Our Left Historians survive by belittling the age-old Indian civilization. According to these self-styled intellectuals, India has no civilization, culture, or tradition that could be labelled as its own. They claim that it was the Westerners who gave us the first lessons on culture and civilization. We cannot blame these scholars who categorized themselves as intellectuals, while others are rated as obscurantists. This is the outcome of the system of education brought into India (or should we say, imposed on the country) by Thomas Macaulay, who was the Paymaster General of India (1846-1848), who, under the pretext of revamping the education system, destroyed the thousands of years old Guru-Syshya tradition. The teaching of the Vedas and Upanishads came to an end, and the western model of education with a focus on Christianity became the norm. What happened was that the generations after Macaulay’s arrival became ignorant of the rich system of Desi knowledge.
The Upanishads and Vedas are India’s contribution to the world and date back to eight thousand years, according to Nicholas Kazanas, director of OMILOS Meleton Cultural Institute, Greece. Speaking during a series of talks held in Chennai, the scholar on Indian studies said that India was the cradle of civilization, which gave the Vedas and Upanishads to the world. “If some people do not want to be proud of that, well, they have some agendas,” Prof Kazanas.
It was just last week that this writer came across two young women from Europe who are the disciples of Mohanji, the guru whose mission is to guide his followers to make the transition from humankind to kind human. Thea, from Belgium, a scholar in French literature and linguistics, was an atheist who was literally broken due to the pulls and pressures of modern life before she came into contact with Mohanji, who took her through the hitherto unknown world of the Vedas and Upanishads. “I understood life is beautiful only because of the kind of education I got from Mohanji. “I am what you consider me to be,” is the mantra advised by Mohanji to his disciples and it is from the Upanisad that he carved out this formula. Thea is happy and contented and has forgotten Belgium altogether.
What is this Upanisad? It was carved out of the intellectual bouts encountered by the sages and philosophers who lived during the last phase of the Vedic period, according to late Ranganathanada Swami, who headed the Ramakrishna Mission. “The Upanishads are the compendium of their experiences born out of these struggles and they constitute the vivid and vast chapters of Vedic literature,” the Swamiji said during a speech delivered through All India Radio in December 1950. The Swamiji also pointed out that the Upanisad scholars had the rare talent to sacrifice the ideology and pleasant discrimination which they consider dear to their hearts.
Nachiketa Jha’s translation of the Upanishads is an attempt to bring this rare and invaluable Indian literary and philosophical work to the global stage. The day the authorities removed Sanskrit from the school and college curriculum marked the closure of learning the Vedas and the Upanishads. Even today, the secularists and liberals consider learning Sanskrit a kind of obscurantism. They are fearful of the truth that if the present generation learns Sanskrit, that would be the end of the system of education imposed on us by Macaulay. Sanskrit takes us to the world of Vedas, Vedanta, and Upanishads, without which there would not be India.
Upanishads have an important message for us who live in this constantly evolving society, says Jha in the preface to his work. The Upanishads discuss and throw light upon a wide-ranging set of topics that will always be significant to humanity. Upanishads encourage ethical living.
Jha has successfully translated the Upanishad into English, and that too in an easy-to-comprehend style. Not that there are no other English translations of the Upanishads. The translator has ushered in a new reading experience. There is a saying in this part of the world while speaking about the taste of mango pickles. Raw mangos are put in jars filled with salt water for consumption after months of seasoning. The old people ask, “ Are these mangoes as tasty as the salt?” The real experience of the Upanishads and other great Indian literary works could be gained only through Sanskrit. Still, for those who are not familiar with the divine language, the English version is a remedial measure. The query “Are these seasoned mangos as flavored as salt?” remains.
THE UPANISADS
by NACHIKETA JHA
ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
Rs 999/-
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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