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From: kalyan
From: kalyan
ByS. Kalyanaramanon July 12, 2018
Since its first conference in Atlanta 22 years ago, the World Association for Vedic Studies which is a truly open forum has published in 2018, a stellar volume titled 'Vedic traditions for education and learning, a compilation of 51 papers presented in the 13th international conference held in Dallas. Narayanan Komerath and Shashi Tiwari, Editors of the book published by Amazon note: "Abstracts were requested early. Each abstract was sent to at least 3 reviewers with a quantitative and qualitative evaluation form, and each author was asked to participate by reviewing at least 3 abstracts. Full papers were solicited based on accepted abstracts, with a simple template adapted from engineering conferences…all content in this document has been subjected to full peer review. This was required to bring out the Proceedings volume before the conference, instead of the 2-year process followed in past conferences." The product of these academic efforts performed with high-fidelity is a compilation of 51 path-breaking contributions to the study of the Vedas in their multi-disciplinary splendor. The range of topics covered is of interest to a number of disciplines spanning science, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, sociology, philosophy and governance. The tracks of thought and action which are contemporary are organized in over-lapping, but five eclectic sets: Vidya:Education, Purana: History and Social Debates, Atharva: Technology, Skills and Practices, Yajur-Sama: Bhakti and the Arts, Rg: Philosophy. Narayanan Komerath and Kurur A. Damodaran present a breath-taking treatise on Pavamana Soma, the missing link in the birth of the material universe. "The 9th Mandalam of the Rg Veda deals with the multifaceted and much misunderstood concepts of Pavamāna Sōma. The crux of this Mandalam is that Sōma (unreal), the flowing essence of Ātma, and not Indra, causes manifestation of Nature. This Sōma is a superimposition on the One-ness State, which is the Base and not the cause of this manifestation. Sōma-Pavamāna becomes identified as the Permanent Moving Perceiver 'I' of this ever-changing Universe and the scribe of the Treatise is non-different from that 'I'. Thus he becomes an accomplisher of the Great Sacrifice of Creation; and the mind, freed from the body by Ātmīya Sōma, attains the Painless State." The volume includes Dr. Shiv Shankar Sastry's review of the PIE controversy and suggests a re-think on the formation and evolution of ancient languages of Eurasia. Dr,. Kalyan Chakravarty presents two papers on education as well as on the Śiva tradition. Ms. Aditi Banerjee underscores the realization of knowledge through shraddha, shastras and sadhana with this overview: "The metaphysical framework of the Vedic tradition is one of the last extant traditional knowledge systems in the world today. Accessing the treasures of this heritage requires unlocking the tradition through traditional means and approaches. Trying to understand the Vedic system through Western means is to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. In addition to increasingly losing the wisdom of the Vedic tradition, we have also lost our collective civilizational memory on how to know, what to know and the step-by-step methodology of transforming knowledge from that which is indirect to that which is direct, personal experience. Preservation of the Vedic tradition requires also preserving the Vedic methods of belief, knowledge and experience – the means by which we know and believe" Rajeev Srinivasan suggests a radical rethink on education: "A confluence of three forces suggest a radical rethink of the educational mechanism in India: one is the predicted arrival of general Artificial Intelligence; the second is the apparent urgency to migrate away from the exclusive focus on mechanical learning and to engender creativity; the third is the arrival of technological infrastructure that can (re)enable customized, suitably updated traditional education with a special focus on Mother Tongue education. An added bonus from such a shift would be the opportunity to reduce the influence of Western tropes and memes on Indian students, which could reduce the level of what is often referred to as 'intellectual colonialism', a hurdle in India's rise to the G3. The fact that the end of rote learning is at hand is evident in that even the US and UK systems, which form the bases for the Indian system, are now falling behind in standardized global achievement metrics such as the PISA scores. Thus, not only are we following a system which was designed for a conquered population (as in Macaulay's infamous 'Minute' or in Gauri Viswanathan's 'Masks of Conquest'), but that system is losing ground rapidly to, say, Singaporeans or South Koreans. So that puts Indian students in double jeopardy. This paper is an overview of the technological breakthroughs that can be harnessed for this purpose, and indeed force this rethink, as well as a proposal for a pilot keeping in mind the ground realities of what parents and students will find interesting and useful."
Both Dhirendra Shah and Srinivasan Kalyanaraman focus attention on a remarkable insight provided by the Cambridge Economic Historian, Angus Maddison who posited in his report to the OECD prior to the formation of the European Union, an economic history bar chart demonstrating how Ancient India contributed to 33% of World Gross Domestic Product with China accounting for about 24 percent. This statistic leads them into divergent enquiries. Dhirendra Shah provides a pen-picture of the contours of Indic Civilization: "An attempt is being made here to inquire and analyze the reasons for the Indic civilization's downfall from the most prosperous and enlighten country in the world till 1000 AD to a poor third world country at the time of independence from the British rule in 1947. The paper is divided into four parts: (1) Importance of teaching and study history in general and particularly the Indian history; (2) Sapta Sindhu/Saraswati/Vedic civilization beginning from approx. 10,000 BC to 1000 AD; (3) Medieval Islamic Aggressions and rule in India; (4) British Empire.
Srinivasan Kalyanaraman goes back in time to present a revolutionary re-think on the roots of civilization which led Ancient India to be in the epicentre of a Metals Age Industrial Revolution, dominating an Ancient Maritime Tin Route from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Haifa (Israel) along the Indian Ocean Rim and the navigable riverine Himalayan waterways. This Tin Route which predated the Silk Road by about two millennia rendered possible a truly Eurasian renaissance powered by industrial-scale organisations with a remarkable corporate and social-responsibility form called śreṇi or seafaring merchant guilds and artisan guilds. The evidence he marshals includes translations of over 8000 Indus Script inscriptions (a decipherment of Indus hieroglyphs and language achieved without the aid of a Rosetta Stone) which are wealth accounting ledgers and metalworking catalogues document archives of wealth of nations of Greater Indian civilization, a story narrated by the famous American historian, Will Durant with extraordinary compassion and sharp historical perspective. Nagendra Rao presents a succinct introduction to Sanatana Dharma with an example of an interaction among diverse thought-processes of mankind. These are but glimpses of scintillating thought-provoking enquiries. In summary, the 61 stellar, scholarly contributions constitute a documentation, rendered with academic rigour and integrity, which should be studied and researched further. The book should adorn the shelves of every academic institution of the globe and be read by every citizen of the world.
Both Dhirendra Shah and Srinivasan Kalyanaraman focus attention on a remarkable insight provided by the Cambridge Economic Historian, Angus Maddison who posited in his report to the OECD prior to the formation of the European Union, an economic history bar chart demonstrating how Ancient India contributed to 33% of World Gross Domestic Product with China accounting for about 24 percent. This statistic leads them into divergent enquiries. Dhirendra Shah provides a pen-picture of the contours of Indic Civilization: "An attempt is being made here to inquire and analyze the reasons for the Indic civilization's downfall from the most prosperous and enlighten country in the world till 1000 AD to a poor third world country at the time of independence from the British rule in 1947. The paper is divided into four parts: (1) Importance of teaching and study history in general and particularly the Indian history; (2) Sapta Sindhu/Saraswati/Vedic civilization beginning from approx. 10,000 BC to 1000 AD; (3) Medieval Islamic Aggressions and rule in India; (4) British Empire.
Srinivasan Kalyanaraman goes back in time to present a revolutionary re-think on the roots of civilization which led Ancient India to be in the epicentre of a Metals Age Industrial Revolution, dominating an Ancient Maritime Tin Route from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Haifa (Israel) along the Indian Ocean Rim and the navigable riverine Himalayan waterways. This Tin Route which predated the Silk Road by about two millennia rendered possible a truly Eurasian renaissance powered by industrial-scale organisations with a remarkable corporate and social-responsibility form called śreṇi or seafaring merchant guilds and artisan guilds. The evidence he marshals includes translations of over 8000 Indus Script inscriptions (a decipherment of Indus hieroglyphs and language achieved without the aid of a Rosetta Stone) which are wealth accounting ledgers and metalworking catalogues document archives of wealth of nations of Greater Indian civilization, a story narrated by the famous American historian, Will Durant with extraordinary compassion and sharp historical perspective. Nagendra Rao presents a succinct introduction to Sanatana Dharma with an example of an interaction among diverse thought-processes of mankind. These are but glimpses of scintillating thought-provoking enquiries. In summary, the 61 stellar, scholarly contributions constitute a documentation, rendered with academic rigour and integrity, which should be studied and researched further. The book should adorn the shelves of every academic institution of the globe and be read by every citizen of the world.
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