WRITTEN BY R. NANJAPPA                        

Post No. 8216

Date uploaded in London – – – 21 June 2020   

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge; this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

R. Nanjappa

ராகம் பிலூ!

பிலூ திரை இசைக்காரர்களுக்கு மிகவும் பிடித்த ராகம். பல வித சந்தர்ப்பங்களில், பல மன நிலைகளை வெளியிட இது வசதியானது. உ.பி, பீஹார் பகுதிகளில் நாட்டுப்புற இசையும் இந்த ராகத்தின் சாயல் கொண்டது. இது மழைக் காலத்துடன் தொடர்புடையதாகக் கருதப்படுகிறது. மகிழ்ச்சி, களிப்பு, மனதைத் தொடும் நிகழ்ச்சிகள் ஆகிய நிலைகளில் இந்த ராகத்தை பயன்படுத்துவர். நமது சினிமாவில் அனேகமாக எல்லா சந்தர்ப்பங்களிலும் இந்த  ராகத்தில் மெட்டமைத்திருக்கிறார்கள்.

கீழ்வரும் பாட்டு சாந்தாராமின் “பர்ச்சாயின்” என்ற படத்தில் வருவது. இங்கே ஹீரோ  வாழ்க்கையில் பல துன்ப அனுபவங்களால் மனம் தளர்ந்திருக்கிறார். கண் பார்வையும் இல்லை. அவருக்கு உற்சாகமூட்டுவதாக அமைந்த பாடல். கேள்வி பதில் வடிவில் இருக்கிறது.

அப்னீ கஹோ, குச் மேரீ ஸுனோ

Apni kaho, kuch meri suno

kya dil ka lagaana bhool gaye, kya bhool gaye

நீ எதாவது சொல், நான் சொல்வதையும் கேள்

மனம் விட்டுப் பேசிப் பழகுவதை மறந்துவிட்டாயா, என்ன?

Rone ki aadat aisi padi,

hansne ka taraana bhool gaye,  haan bhool gaye

அழுவதே வழக்கமாகிவிட்டது

சிரிப்பதையே மறந்துவிட்டேன்; ஆம், சிரிப்பதையே மறந்துவிட்டேன்

kaali raaten beet gayin
phir chandni raaten aayi hain
phir chandni raaten aayi hain

இருண்ட இரவுகள் மறைந்துவிட்டன

மீண்டும் நிலவொளியுடன் கூடிய இரவுகள் வந்து விட்டன

dil mein nahin ujiyaala mere
gham ki ghataayen chhayi hain
gham ki ghataayein chhaayi hain

என் மனதில் ஒளி எதுவும் இல்லை

துன்பத்தின்  மேகமே சூழ்ந்திருக்கிறது

preet ke waade yaad karo
kya preet nibhana bhool gaye
kya bhool gaye

அன்பின் உறுதிமொழியை நினைவுபடுத்திக் கொள்

அன்பின் மொழியை நிறைவேற்றுவதைக் கூட மறந்து விட்டாயா, என்ன?

நீ எதாவது சொல்…

bhoola hua hai raah musaafir
bichhda hua hai manzil se
bichhda hua hai manzil se

பயணிக்கு வழி மறந்துபோய் விட்டது

இலக்கிலிருந்து விலகிவிட்டான்

khoye huye raste ka pata
tum poochh lo khud apne dil se
tum poochh lo khud apne dil se

மறந்து போன வழியை உன் மனதைக் கேட்டே தெரிந்துகொள்

chalte chalte itna thake
manzil ka thikana bhool gaye
haan bhool gaye

வழி நடந்து நடந்தே இத்தனை களைத்துப் போய்விட்டேன்

இலக்கின் திசையே மறந்துபோய்விட்டது

ஆம், மறந்து போய் விட்டது

nazdeek badho
nazdeek badho
yeh mausam nahin phir aane ka
yeh mausam nahin phir aane ka

அருகில் நகர்ந்து வா, சிறிது அருகில் வா

இந்த மாதிரி சமயம் மீண்டும் வராது

nazdeek shama ke jaane se
kya haal hua parwaane ka
kya haal hua parwaane ka

விளக்கின் அருகில் சென்றால்

விட்டிற் பூச்சிக்கு என்ன நேரும், தெரியுமா?

mitne ka fasaana yaad raha
jalne ka fasaana bhool gaye
kya bhool gaye

மறைந்து போன கதை நினைவிருக்கிறது

எரிந்துபோன கதை மறந்துவிட்டது போலும்!

(அன்பில் கரைந்தது மறந்துவிட்டது போலும்)

apni kaho kuch meri suno
kya dil ka lagaana bhool gaye
kya bhool gaye  

ஏதாவது சொல், நான் சொல்வதையுக் கேள்

Song: Apni kaho, kuch meri suno Film: Parchain 1952, Lyrics: Noor Lucknowi

Music: C.Ramchandra Singers: Talat Mahmood & Lata Mangeshkar

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anFM9w4dI28

இப்போது இதே ராகத்தில் வேறு இரட்டையர்கள் குரலில்  ஒரு பாட்டு:

து ஜோ மேரே ஸுர் மே

तु जो मेरे सुर में, सुर मिला ले, संग गा ले,

 तो जिंदगी हो जाए सफल,
तु जो मेरे मन को, घर बना ले, मन लगा ले, 

तो बंदगी हो जाए सफल

चांदनी रातों में, हाथ लिए हाथों में,
डूबे रहे एक दूसरे की रसभरी बातों में,
तु जो मेरे संग में, मुस्कुरा ले, गुनगुना ले,

तो जिंदगी हो जाए सफल
तु जो मेरे मन…

क्यूँ हम बहारों से, खुशियाँ उधार लें,
क्यूं ना मिल के हम ही खुद अपना जीवन सवार लें,
तू जो मेरे पथ में, दीप उगा ले, हो उजाले,

 तो बंदगी हो जाए सफल…
तु जो मेरे सुर में…

म ध नि सा, म ग रे सा, नि ग ग, सा रे रे, नि सा सा,
ग रे सा नि ध म, ग सा ग म ध नि सा…

तु जो मेरे सुर में, सुर मिला ले, संग गा ले,

 तो जिंदगी हो जाए सफल,
तु जो मेरे सुर में…  

து ஜோ மேரே ஸுர் மே சுர் மிலாலே, ஸங்க் காலே

தோ ஃஜிந்தகீ ஹோஜாயே ஸஃபல்

நீ என் ஸ்வரத்துடன் உன் ஸ்வரத்தை இணைத்து,

என்னுடன் சேர்ந்து பாடினால்

வாழ்க்கையே நிறைந்துவிடும்!.

து ஜோ மேரே மன் கோ கர் பனாலே,,மன் லகாலே

தோ பந்தகீ ஹோஜாயே சஃபல்.

நீ என் மனதில் குடிபுகுந்து, மனதிற்குப் பிடித்துவிட்டால்

பின் இந்த பிணைப்பு பயனுள்ளதாகிவிடும்!

சாந்த்னீ ராதோ(ன்) மே, ஹாத் லியே ஹாதோ(ன்) மே

டூபே ரஹே  ஏக் தூஸ்ரே கீ ரஸ்பரீ பாதோ(ன்) மே

து ஜோ மேரே ஸங்க் மே  முஸ்குராலே, குன்குனாலே

தோ ஃஜிந்தகீ ஹோஜாயே ஸஃபல்

நிலவொளி வீசும் இந்த இரவில், கைகோர்த்து

நம் இனிய பேச்சில் மயங்கி இருப்போம்!

நீ என்னுடன் சேர்ந்து முறுவலித்து, சேர்ந்து பாடினால்

வாழ்க்கையே பயனுள்ளதாகிவிடும்!

க்யோ(ன்) ஹம் பஹாரோ(ன்) ஸே குஷியா(ன்) உதார் லே

க்யோ(ன்) ந மில்கே ஹம் ஹீ குத் அப்னா ஜீவன் ஸவார் லே

துஜோ மேரே பத் மே தீப்  உகாலே, ஹோ உஜாலே

தோ ஃஜிந்தகீ ஹோஜாயே ஸஃபல்

நாம் ஏன் இந்த வசந்தத்திலிருந்து மகிழ்ச்சியை பெறக்கூடாது?

நாம் இருவரும் சேர்ந்து ஏன் இந்த வாழ்க்கையில் பயணிக்கக்கூடாது?

நீ என் வழியில் தீபத்தை ஏற்றுவாய், ஒளி பரவிவிடும்

பின் வாழ்க்கை பயனுள்ளதாகி விடும்!

Song: Tu jo mere sur mein Film : Chitchor 1976 

Lyrics& Music: Ravindra Jain

Singers: Yesudas & Hemlata

Youtube link ;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNiFNdwfC…..

சாஸ்திரீய அடிப்படை என்றால் வெளுத்துக்கட்ட ஏசுதாசுக்கு என்ன தடை!

இந்தப் பாட்டிற்கு அவர்குரல் மிகவும் பொருந்தி இருக்கிறது!

ஒரே ராகத்தில் இரண்டு மெட்டுக்கள், இரண்டுவித சூழ்நிலைகளில்!

இதுதான் நம் இசையமைப்பாளர்களின் திறமை!

இங்கே ஹேமலதா சற்றுத் தடுமாறுவது போல் தோன்றும்! அது கதையின் தொடர்பினால் வருவது! இங்கே பாடும் பெண்மணி பாட்டு கற்றுக்கொள்கிறார்! 

யாதோன் கீ பாராத்  படத்தில் (1973) வரும் “சுராலியாஹை தும் நே ஜோ தில் கோ” என்ற பாட்டும் இதே ராகத்தில் அமைந்த மெட்டு தான்! ஆர்.டி.பர்மனின் இசை! 

Youtube link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvY9nHIAneg

பின்னணி இசையினால் மேற்கத்திய மெட்டுபோல் தெரியும்! 

இப்படி பல ராகங்களிலும் பல மெட்டுக்களை அமைத்திருக்கிறார்கள் நம் பழைய இசையமைப்பாளர்கள்.

ராகம் என்றாலும் சொந்தக் கற்பனையும் இருக்கும்- ராகத்தை அப்படியே ‘காப்பி’ யடிக்க மாட்டார்கள்!. ராக அடிப்படை+ கற்பனை நுணுக்கம் இரண்டும் சேரும்போது நல்ல பாட்டு உருவாகிறது!

இந்தத் தொடர் அடுத்த கட்டுரையுடன் நிறைவடைகிறது.

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Preview YouTube video apani kaho kuchh meri suno..best of talat – lata – parchhaiyan 1952– V. shantaram-

apani kaho kuchh meri suno..best of talat – lata – parchhaiyan 1952– V. shantaram-

Preview YouTube video Tu Jo Mere Sur Mein Sur Milaye from Movie chitchor

Tu Jo Mere Sur Mein Sur Milaye from Movie chitchor

Preview YouTube video Tu Jo Mere Sur Mein

Tu Jo Mere Sur Mein

Preview YouTube video Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko (Eng Sub) [Full Song] (HD) With Lyrics – Yaadon Ki Baaraat

WRITTEN BY LONDON SWAMINATHAN

Post No. 8212

Date uploaded in London – 20 June 2020       

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge; this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com

SANGAM 2700 YEARS AGO

Sangam is a Sanskrit word; though banned by the oldest Tamil book Tolkappiam, Tamils are very fond of this Sanskrit word. No word should begin with ‘Sa’ in Tamil according to Tolkaapiam. But Tamils believe that they had their first Tamil Academy called Sangam 10,000 years ago. It is an exaggeration. (I have explained it in my article several years ago; please see the link at the bottom).

But Tamils had and have Sangam, an academy for languages. It was an assembly of poets. Nowadays it is just an association. Depending upon who runs it, we have third rate  show by rubbish film actors or talk by highly intellectual Tamils.

The word has been used by Panini, world’s first linguist and grammarian, in his book Ashtadhyaayi (also called Panineeyam). Sangam like organisation was in Greece as well  2000 years ago.

**

SANGAM IN GREECE

Let me give some interesting information about an association of poets, actors and artists that existed in ancient Greece.

“The actors’ union was called ARTISTS OF DIONYSUS, a union formed in third century BCE by 280 poets , technicians , musicians and actors. Some replaced ‘actors’ with ‘ toadies’ (sycophants). The union lasted 500 years. Its last recorded title, under the emperor Aurelian, was modestly, ‘The Sacred Musical Travelling Aurelian  Great World Guild of the Artists of Dionysus’.

(It is strange that Greek poets chose a ‘bad’ god, who was god of wine, fertility, religious orgy, effeminate and who became a bull and a lion; he was Bacchus in Rome)

The actors demanded freedom of travel by land and sea, and freedom from taxation and arrest. At Delphi, they get prior rights to consult the oracle and to hospitality, for them and their descendants.

Not surprisingly, performers had a reputation for arrogance and bad behaviour. In the pseudo-Aristotelian  ‘Problems’, the question is asked-

‘Why are Artists of Dionysus mostly without principles ? The answer is that ‘their profession does not encourage reason and wisdom, and most of their life is spent in either rank self- indulgence  or poverty, conditions always productive of low moral standards’. They could get away with all this because theatrical and sporting shows were staged as festivals in honour of gods (Dionysus and Heracles), whom the performers were serving .”

–Eureka by Peter Jones, London, 2014

***

VARIOUS SANGAMS 2700 YEARS AGO

Panini lived in seventh century BCE according to Goldstucker and famous Sanskrit scholars of India. He lists various Sangams. There was also a Dravida Jain Sangam in Tamil Nadu around 450 CE (may be a religious Sangam like Buddhists’).

Though Sangam poets had high moral principles 2000 years ago, the condition deteriorated later to a low level and God Shiva had to interfere in it according to Tiru Vilayadal Puranam. All the fake poets were thrown into water when they sat on a Sacred Plank called ‘Sanga Palakai’. Another device was also set up. The poets were asked to recite their verses in front of a Divine Dumb boy. If he sheds tears (of joy), then they were  considered genuine poets. Moral standards were also very low and many famous poets were associated with the courtesans.

**

Panini lists the following Sanghams :-

Panini speaks of ‘Sangha’ as a generic term, applied to the following –

Firstly, sangha means a ‘multitude’ as in the expression ‘graamya-  pasu- sangha’ , a herd of domestic cattle . in the same sense it is also applied to  a multitude of human beings.

Secondly,  a sangha was a term for a ‘nikaaya’, which is termed by panini  as a corporate body where the distinction of upper and lower does not exist 3-3-42

(may be compared to Liberty, Equality and Fraternity of France)

‘Sanghe chanauttaraadharye’

This applied to a religious sangha functioning as a fraternity  without distinctions of high ‘Uttara’ and low ‘adhara’.

Thirdly, there is the ‘suutra samgh-odghau gana-prasamyoh 3-3-86, which speaks of the political sangha technically known as Gana.

Sangha and Gana were used as synonymous words for a republic. Panini speaks of Yaudheyas as a Sangha, whereas they refer to themselves as a Gana on their coins, albeit in the post- Paninian period.

The religious Sangha treated all equal, but political Sangha  vested power in their families. In the post Buddha period there were 18 Sanghas.

The Sangha spirit in Panini’s time had influenced every sphere of public life political, economic, religious, social and educational .

Ayudhajivi sanghas

Panini mentioned Ayudhajivi Sanghas by name in sutras 5-3-115 to 117 and in three Ganas of these sutras — Daamanyaadi, Parsvaadi, Yaudheyaadi

They were martial tribes who cultivated military art as a way of life (They made a living by the profession of Arms) mostly Kshatrias, but Brahmanas are also mentioned in 5-3-114 in the group

(I think Gurus like Dronacharya ,commanders like Asavttama and may be Parasurama come under this category; Drona and others are from Punjab where the Ayudhajivis lived)

In sutra 5-1-58, Panini refers to the numerical strength of a Sangha which Patanjali explains as consisting of five, ten or twenty members. This seems to refer to the Executive of a Sangha ( a democratic set up).

**

My comments

Amazing thing about Panini is that he wrote only a grammar book and all these  information came as examples for grammatical rules. If we make a list of the missing things in Kautilya’s Arthashatra who wrote a book on politics and economics, we would know the time gap between the two. Panini lived well before Kautilya of fourth century BCE.

We know for sure there were political and religious Sanghas from Panini’s time. Panini’s SANGA is the oldest reference of an organisation. Religious Sanghas continued for long. Political Sangha of Tamil Kingdoms of Chera, Choza, and Pandya was mentioned by Kharavela of Orissa in Second Century BCE (Hathikumba Inscription).

But we don’t hear about Sangha of Poets in Sanskrit literature. We hear about poets being honoured on Festival days such as Vijayadasami . Since we hear lot about Nigamas (Traders Guilds), naturally poets would have formed such groups. Tamil Sangam gave the seal of approval to good works by poets. Though the existence of Tamil Sanghams is true, the staggering number of poets mentioned and the years of its existence may be an exaggeration. We don’t have any secondary proof for it. Moreover all these details are reeled out only in very late period.

Source book – India as Known to Panini, Dr V S Agrawala, Lucknow University, 1953

Here is the link for my earlier article :-

THREE TAMIL SANGAMS : MYTH AND REALITY | Tamil and …

tamilandvedas.com › 2012/02/25 › three-tamil-sangams…

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25 Feb 2012 – Tamil and Vedas. A blog exploring themes in Tamil and vedic literature. THREE TAMIL SANGAMS : MYTH AND REALITY.

Missing: angam ‎| Must include: angam

–subham–

tags- sangam, Sangham, Panini, Tolkappiam, Sa letter, Ayudha jeevi,

WRITTEN BY R. NANJAPPA                        

Post No. 8211

Date uploaded in London – – – 20 June 2020   

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge; this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

by R Nanjappa

Tracing the national identity of any people is an interesting exercise and a humbling experience.
Today, we may define it on the basis of citizenship-natural or acquired, ethnicity, historicity, or culture. Yet, if we probe into each patiently, we come up with the stark fact that no nationality is pure on any ground whatsoever. 

Colonial Concoctions

The colonial rulers divided us in many ways: into Aryan and Dravidian, into tribes, into aborigines, into martial races and even robber tribes. Our people blindly continued to follow them. The Punjabis and the Gurkhas were considered ‘martial’ and preference was given to them in the armed forces; the Bengalis were considered ‘revolutionary’ after the 1905 Partition experience and were not recruited into the army. Even among others, they forced the division of Brahmins and non-Brahmins. Our free govt. has added its own divisions: SC, ST, BC, OBC etc. People readily identify with one of these, more than with any pan-Indian category. Then there is the language identity. Through all this, it is real hard to say who is a true  or total Indian. 

English Scene

If we forget ourselves for a minute, and focus on our colonisers who started all this, we come up with very interesting facts!  What we call Great Britain is composed of so many immigrants it is almost impossible to say who were the original inhabitants of those islands!  The following is the picture we get around 600 AD:

Britain peoples circa 600

by user -Hel- Hama-vectorization CC BY-SA 3.0

So, we see the strands in the British population. Almost all of this consists of immigrants: Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Normans! And the whole area was not yet one nation or country, but each area shown was a separate kingdom.The majority of Britons are of Germanic extraction, as also their monarch! It certainly did not lie in their mouth to call us divided on so  many  lines, but we did not know then how to call their bluff! The Irish and the English are still contending to adjust their claims, not fully reconciled to each other. So is the case with Scotland. And the English Royal  Coat of Arms includes two French mottoes.

The arrival of the first ancestors of Englishmen out of Germany into Britain.

Richard Verstegan. 

What should really hold our fancy is not the variety,or the origin, but that Britain became such a great power in the subsequent centuries!

The US is an Infant

Compared to this, the United States is recent, hardly 5 centuries old.. It is a mini-world, containing people from all nationalities of the world. Yet, the core consists of Christians from Europe: about 51% Protestants, 24% Catholics. Other religions of the world constitute about 5%. The original inhabitants of America, the Native Indians form less than 2%, after millions of them were exterminated by the European settlers.  There are sizable segments of Afro-Americans and Hispanics. Historically, there was resistance to  the immigration and assimilation of certain peoples like those from southern Italy or Eastern Europe, and Asia but over the years, every one was absorbed.

 But when we have to define an American identity, we have to think of American culture or the American dream! Any one having American citizenship is legally an American, but he would become a “real” American when he shares that culture. But no one can say what that culture is! It is the basic American trait- you think BIG! You think there is no limit to the progress you can achieve! And yet there is a bit of conservatism, a bit of religious affinity- over 75% of Americans think of themselves as ‘religious’. They boldly put on their currency: “IN GOD WE TRUST”! Samuel Huntington said that the basic identity of Americans is Anglo-Saxon Protestants. 

Compared to the UK, India has been a nation for many millennia before her. Few Westerners and their Indian counterfeits have understood or acknowledged this. In contrast, Diana L.Eck  investigates

a particular idea of India that is shaped not by the modern notion of a nation-state, but by the extensive and intricate interrelation of geography and mythology.

The fact that the people of ancient India….gave a single name to the whole of this diverse subcontinent is itself noteworthy. The name is Bharata…This is an indigenous name used since the time of the Mahabharata to describe roughly the territory we call India…India, like Japan,China and Greece, links its modern identity with an ancient and continuous civilization.  For centuries the understanding of India in the West followed primarily a Western agenda, from the land called “Indika” by the Greek scholar Megasthenes, to the “Hindustan” of the Turk and Afghan Muslim dynasties , to the India of John Stuart Mill who, in the nineteenth century, without ever leaving England, wrote an enormous English-language history of India, to the postcolonial studies that still see India through the lens of Western interventions. In the past three centuries India has been seen by traders as a source of riches,by rulers as a part of empire, by missionaries as a mission field for winning souls, by romantics and seekers as the source of something missing in the heart and soul of the West.

The resistance to the ideas of India’s unity is embedded in colonial thought and often in postcolonial thinking as well. Even the many books that address the idea of India in recent times seem to acquiesce to largely Western constructs.

What are some of the ways in which India has seen itself and enacted its regional and pan-regional identities? Political analyses do not touch this question. Postcolonial studies do not reach very deeply into the premodern subsoil of India to inquire whether there have been alternative ways of imagining the complex collectivity of India in a distinctly Indian idiom. …Bharata is not merely a convenient designation for a conglomerate of cultures , such as Europe has been for so much of its history or such as Indonesia has become in modern times. ….And yet it is arresting to consider a “sense of unity” construed…., a sense of connectedness that seems to have flourished for many centuries without the need for overarching political expressions or embodiment.

 …the geography of this kind is more than a map. It is a three-dimensional sacred landscape.

Taken from: Diana L.Eck:  India, A Sacred Geography.Harmony Books, New York, 2012. p.45-49.

There are many points which could be added to this but I only wish to add two clarifications. India of the Mahabharata times was much more extensive than the India of today.

Even during historic times, India was more extensive than today. See the Maurya empire circa 250 BC.

By Avantiputra7 (Own Work). CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons via Wikimedia

What is a Nation State?

Then there is the question of the nation state. As usual, there is no clear cut idea among scholars, only hypotheses. Some say it was the idea of the map-makers of the 15th century. Nation state- as the idea of a geographical area containing a political unit is a very late European idea- as late as the 19th century. Eric Hobsbawm contended that France became a nation state only in the 19th century; at the time of the French Revolution, (1787-1799) only half the people of France spoke some French, only 12 to 13% spoke ‘fairly’. Germany and Italy too became unified only in the 19th century.  

As we have seen in the old map of England, the British isles were not yet a nation! 

Wales had started coming close to England in the 13th century, and the eldest son of the English monarch was named the Prince of Wales! Wales finally merged with England in 1556.Scotland and England had always had problems between them because of religion (Catholic v.Anglican) but England, Scotland and Wales united in 1707. Religion [ that is factions within Christianity with one Book, one God, one Son of God] was a barrier between Ireland and England too, though Ireland joined the  earlier union of England, Scotland and Wales in 1801 , leading to the birth of the United Kingdom or Great Britain. (But Ireland, except the northern portion became Independent in 1922)

The United Kingdom. From BBC News.

 So for these Western writers and their Indian copy cats to say that India was not one nation before the British created it is the height of literate nonsense and deliberate lie. India, from Sethu to the Himalayas has been the Hindu nation from time immemorial. Many great emperors had established huge empires here, from Ashoka onwards, even if we do not take into account our old Itihas.

India is More Than Geography

So, when we say Indian, we do not just mean someone who happens to be born and to live in India as a geographical territory. We mean one who has fully inherited this hoary history and its sense of the sacred geography. As Dr. S.Radhakrishnan says:

When one says that he is an Indian, whether settled abroad or settled here, the matter is not one of geography but of history. What is the tradition for which the Indian stands? What are the ideals to which the Indian adheres? Why do we think that the ideals for which India has stood will have some quality of healing so far as the struggles of nations are concerned? …….

This world is asat. It is subject to mortality.It is dark. ..The Upanishad thinkers say that there is a reality which transcends this universe. It gives you freedom from fear….And it is the perception of that Reality underlying this cosmic process which gives us tranquillity which gives us some kind of freedom.

If the geography of India consists of this extensive territory from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, the history of India consists of the formulation of these great ideals for which this country has stood from its beginning.

Anyone who calls himself  an Indian must know something about what this culture stands for.

From: Dr.S. Radhakrishnan: The Adaptive Indian- Identity and Ethos  (originally published as Our Heritage,1976) Orient Paperbacks, 2007.

We can now clearly see what is the identity of a true Indian. Let us remember: if mere birth in this land makes one an Indian, even buffaloes and donkeys are born here!

Note:

Christianity and Islam hold up an alien land and alien values as the ideal. That is why Dr.Ambedkar advised his followers not to convert to Christianity or Islam, but embraced Buddhism! Buddhism is an Indian religion, and accepts Dharma as the base.  We should be eternally grateful to Dr.Ambedkar for boldly declaring and calling India by her proper name  in the Constitution: INDIA THAT IS BHARAT. 

—–Subham—