Sunday, April 29, 2012

Law and Order, Dharma

Courtesy: Wikipedia.org
I have always believed that law and order is the primary duty and reason for existence of the government in a state. All other regulations or activities that one would expect a government to do will fall under law and order.

To begin with, life is probably the most important thing that living beings covet. The state must first protect life. That is, when we step out to go to the market, we should not fear for our lives, or face any intimidation that includes potential for violence against our selves.

Going up the 'pyramid', personal belongings, the environment and natural resources, etc., become important. These get into areas where no one man is necessarily affected directly, but the state needs to take on the responsibility for future generations, as well as for the protection of nature in general.

In some ways, the United States, and the modern Western world in general, are successful and just societies (relatively) because of the presence of reliable and effective law and order. Even Jinnah believed this, while unfortunately other Indian leaders of the time unfortunately didn't accord law and order as much importance.

The Manusmruti is probably the oldest book on law and order, and is supposed to cover not just crimes and such but a horde of other do's and don'ts, rituals to be followed, duties of the different classes of people, etc. I began reading a translation of Chanakya's Arthashastra a few months ago. Like the Manusmruti, the Arthashastra too is not necessarily an account of the laws in vogue at the time they were written. The Manusmruti is of course much more ancient than the Arthashastra.

By the way, here's an interesting article by Stephen Knapp on the 'Purpose of Government According to the Mahabharata' where he discusses Manusmruti.

In the Mahabharata, Yudhishtira is hailed as 'Dharmaraja'. An example of his sense of justice is when he chooses to have Nakula brought back to life when all his brothers are killed by a divine 'demon' (Dharma, who Yudhishtira is an avatara of?) Yudhishtira's reasoning for bringing Nakula back in spite of the chance of bringing the powerful Bhima or Arjuna back was that his father had two wives, and he the first wife's son was alive. It was only just to have a son of the other wife alive too, ahead of Arjuna or Bhima. The 'demon' (who was just testing Yudhishtira) brings back all his brothers alive anyway, overjoyed by Yudhishtira's Dharmic stance. Dharma is hence a matter of not just law, but of ethics as well. No punishments for not being Dharmic in many cases.

There probably are some things that are plain obvious to us regarding dharma. Should I kill an animal and eat it just because it is going to be tasty? No. How can you drink milk, it after all is from the cow and intended for its own calf? This is more difficult to answer, but the shrutis (Vedas), Puranas and the Manusmruti all talk of the cow's products as being made available to mankind, and therefore not being off limits. Protecting mankind is the duty of the cow, and taking care of it is ours (putting it between two buns isn't). On other topics, the question of dharma can become tricky, especially since most of us have very limited knowledge.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Caste references by Vishnu...

Image courtesy: spirituality-krishna.blogspot.com
In all of the Mahabharata, I can think of only two instances where Vishnu explicitly mentions or uses the caste of a person for any purpose at all.

Karna goes to learn from Parashurama
Parashurama had taken a vow that he would only teach brahmanas, and hence Karna is forced to pretend that he was a brahmana to learn archery from him.

Karna does learn from Parashurama, including the use of the brahmAstra, the most potent astra there was, for the purpose of fighting Arjuna (?). On one occasion, when Parashurama was resting his head on Karna's thigh to sleep, a wasp bores into Karna's thigh. Karna, not wanting to disturb his guru, does not move but bears the wasp's bite for a while. Because  of the heat generated by the wasp sucking blood, Parashurama wakes up. Realizing that only a kshatriya could bear such pain, he curses Karna to not be able to remember the mantra for the brahmAstra in time of need.

Parashurama, here, does not actually uphold the caste system. He breaks it, and as a rule. Quite a surprising act from the Lord. Further, it's ironic that the first person that recognizes him as a kshatriya (good news?) also gives him bad news in the form of the curse.

Krishna advises Draupadi to reject Karna
Unfortunately, the second instance also involves Karna. Karna contests in the Draupadi swayamvara, and when it appears that he might actually be able to win Draupadi (on advice of Krishna) stops him and rejects him stating that he was not eligible because he was not a kshatriya.

The Purusha Sukta
The purusha sukta has been slighted sometimes and mentioned in controversial light because it is a key sukta in the vedas, and mentions the castes by name.

"Brahmanosya mukhamaseet bahoorajanyahkrutah, ooroo tadasya yadvaishyah padbhyaam shoodro ajayata..."

The sentence is literally translated "the brahmana came from the face of the Lord, the kshatriya from his arms, the vaishyas from his thighs, and the shudras from his feet." The sukta goes on to describe that the moon came from his mind, etc.

I've heard some supporters of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu mention this part of the purusha sukta, and talk about how the upper castes (and God, the "co-conspirator") have set in stone the backwardness of the lower castes.

Firstly, I don't think a literal translation of the vedas is going to yield significant insight. Scholars and schools of thought have evolved over centuries essentially debating the meanings, each school propounding a different meaning or 'spirit' to many such portions of the vedas.

Secondly, the vedas and puranas emphasize that the caste (varnAshrama, really - I don't know that 'caste' is an accurate meaning, but it works for our purpose) of a person is really based on the person's innate qualities or sAdhana, not based on birth or colour (as some people tend to incorrectly translate varna).

However, we also see vedic schools of thought with theories that suggest that while the dharma for a person being born into a certain varnAshrama is that of the typical activities of that varnAshrama for the benefit of society, the ideal progression over several births is from shudra to brahmana. I don't know if this progression refers to the innate quality (sAdhana). There sure must be two different planes on which varnAshrama is defined/used in our scriptures.

In the epics and puranas, we also see instances of caste being dynamic, changing with marriage (at least for the offspring), etc. So one was supposedly able to move between castes. I've never understood how this worked, and how this became rigid over time, though. Even more perplexing is when and how people ended up in a 5th category (the untouchables), beyond the 4 castes. Definitely blemishes in Indian society that no doubt have existed since the days of the Mahabharata or even earlier.

And btw, my examples of Vishnu using the caste of Karna in seemingly negative ways, were not intended to suggest that Vishnu might have done wrong. There sure must have been reasons, and it would be nice to understand in better detail.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Illogical inferences of modern researchers?


Image courtesy: vina.cc
I've seen a bunch of documentaries over the years - mostly by Western researchers (archaeologists, indologists, etc.) on India, its traditions, history, etc. While some of these were well researched and very informative to the western (and sometimes even Indian) audience, they feature somewhat ludicrous inferences/ideas. Maybe I shouldn't rubbish their ideas as ludicrous, but here are a few examples.

A Facebook post began making the rounds recently, one about a History Channel documentary of the discovery of the 'lost city' of Dwaraka. I'd seen this one before and thought I should write about it. Here's an excerpt from the documentary.


The Mahabharata says that Dwaraka was submerged under the ocean 36 years after the Mahabharata itself. Krishna (and to a lesser extent, Arjuna) are said to have played a role in the evacuation of some of the people, after a period of societal decay. I wonder if the story of Dwaraka submerging was actually part of the original Mahabharata, or if it was included only in the retelling of the Mahabharata by sage Vaishampayana (on request by King Janamejaya, son of Parikshit -> son of Abhimanya -> son of Arjuna). Maybe 36 years wasn't that long a period for Janamejaya to come into the picture, but Parikshit himself died early because of a snake bite and Abhimanyu was dead in the war). Maybe I am wrong.. will need to confirm where the story of Dwaraka occurs in the Mahabharata.

While the underwater shots in the documentary are great, the narrator quickly jumps to an alien theory. The mahabharata and our puranas talk of different astras (warheads in today's military parlance). Each divine astra (Pashupathastra, Brahmastra, etc.) is described as being capable of doing certain things (like incapacitating the opponent, bolts of thunder, etc.) There of course were normal 'arrows' that may not be any special astra. This documentary explains these occurrences as caused by aliens and their superior technology. I found the animation shots of a flying saucer shooting lasers to destroy Dwaraka (to help us picture the war between Salwa and Krishna) especially hilarious!

Here's a very well made documentary called 'The Story of India', by the BBC.

There is one particular theory proposed in the documentary that I am not sure how to react to. Go to 4:30 in the video, where the narrator shows you a Brahmin father in Kerala teaching his son Vedic chanting; and a subsequent elaborate yagna. I have a strong feeling that what is being chanted is from the Sama veda (this intuition is with just a wee bit of sama veda chanting experience, and I can't be a 100% sure).

The narrator concludes that this must be non-language based chanting that are likely bird sounds from Africa that some traditions in Kerala still practice, and that these don't actually mean anything to humans.

The sama veda is a branch of the vedas that is musical in nature, and one of the toughest to learn and chant, even with a book in front. Of the ~20 veda/upanishad portions (small ones) that I've had the opportunity to learn to chant, only the Taittiriya upanishad tritiya bhrgu valli (3rd chapter) had a paragraph from Sama veda at the end, fairly simple to learn. Longer portions from the Sama veda, I am sure, are much harder since there is a lot of breath and vocal pitch control required, and each word may be 'sung' for much much longer than the size of the word itself. Sentences and paragraphs of course can go on and on, even if the whole portion is only a page or two long in text.

For people interested in listening to a live Sama veda chant, try the Vishwanath temple in Kashi (Varanasi) in UP. When I was there some 8 years ago, a saptarshi pooja was performed for the shiva linga there, by 7 priests, who chanted from the Sama veda. I believe the saptarshi pooja is performed every week.

It was perhaps this same BBC documentary (it has been a while since I watched it last) where the journalist went searching for soma (soma paana and soma are mentioned frequently in the vedas). The journalist had but one interpretation of soma in mind - an intoxicating drink. He eventually finds an old-world drugs and herbs store in Peshawar, Pakistan where a herb called soma is available. This herb (if I remember right) comes from central asia, and can be used to make an intoxicating drink. The journalist seemed to conclude that the vedas must therefore have been composed in central asia, and not in India. I wish people stopped interpreting ancient Sanskrit with such ignorant callousness.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Rama in the subcontinent and beyond

Happy to be writing a post on Rama on Rama Navami, Nandana Samvatsara...this is less about the Ramayana itself than it is about cultural impact and political issues today.

Rama was born to king Dasharatha of Kosala (capital: Ayodhya) in the Treta Yuga, the third avatar of Vishnu in that yuga - after Vamana and Parashurama. Interestingly, this is the first yuga where Vishnu incarnates as normal humans, the Satya yuga having included Matsya, Koorma, Varaha and Narasimha.

Rama breaking the bow to win Sita. Nobody else
was able to even lift the bow. Raja Ravi Varma.
The story of Rama, by and large, is familiar to most of us from India, and the reason is probably because the Ramayana is such an important part of our culture that the story is familiar to everyone cutting across faiths and subcontinent cultures. In fact, not so long ago many a village in the subcontinent would have a local legend about Rama having passed through on way to Lanka, or Sita having dropped some jewels when being flown by Ravana to Lanka, etc. Whether these were true or not in each case, the pride in being somehow related to Rama can be infectious. Rama is still the benchmark for a man, and comparative references to Rama's eka patni vratha are common even in contemporary conversations. 

There are various estimates for the time period of the Ramayana, ranging from 20,000 years ago to much earlier. Dating events in the previous yugas becomes tricky due to several reasons, including the ages of people and other frames of references being very different. I read some accounts of Rama rajya having run for a period of 11,000 years. Again, I'm unsure of whether this is a time period comparable to 11,000 years in kali yuga. Another aspect to consider is that some schools of thought propose yuga sandhis between different yugas, periods of dormant metamorphosis of the earth where changes in environment, species, continents, etc. take place. Going by this theory, the age of the ramayana would have to account for 2 yuga sandhis.

Javanese Ramayana play. Courtesy hinduyuva.org
What amazes me is the spread of the legend of Rama beyond the seas, to countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. In fact, the Indonesians do plays to this day depicting the Ramayana. 

The Javanese (Indonesia) version of the Ramayana may not mirror the mainstream Indian versions exactly. Still, that this is still a part of their culture is inspiring.

Rama has become a major flashpoint in India in recent times. The Babri demolition and subsequent riots are an example. The issue however is not as recent as the 1990s, but appears to have been simmering for at least 2-3 centuries, during the Mughal and then British rule of India. I will not go into this issue here, but a more recent 'academic' controversy is worth noting. Delhi University decided to include (and subsequently revoked, after protests) an essay by AK Ramanujam describing several different versions of Ramayana. There do exist perverted versions of the Ramayana that depict Rama and Sita as siblings, for example, but I don't believe that these versions were at all part of the culture of the land. The differences in the credible versions are much more subtle. I haven't read Ramanjuam's essay, but going by media accounts, what he attempted was likely just a collection of the different versions. When in no way reflective of the culture or beliefs of the people, it would have been wise on the part of the history department to leave this essay out, or present it in the right light to students.

Allama Iqbal.
Courtesy: opinion-maker.org
I was surprised to see a post floating around on Facebook a few weeks ago, about poet Mohammad 'Allama' Iqbal having written a poem on Rama. Iqbal was initially an Indian nationalist, and a secular person (much like Jinnah, but they of course ended up supporting the two nation theory eventually). Iqbal of course wrote the famous Sare Jahaan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara before he took a u-turn. Still, I am happy that when he was saner, he saw Rama through the prism of culture and nationhood, and not via religion or faith. On the other side of the political spectrum (of the 1940s), MK Gandhi was also a famous proponent of Rama rajya. I am not entirely sure what he meant when he used the term, but I'm certain it had no particular religious connotation.

Like many others, I wait for the day that a temple for Rama will stand tall again in Ayodhya, where he administered Rama rajya from.