The Call of Dharma

The word Dharma is derived from the root verb ‘Dhr’ which means to ‘uphold’, to ‘nourish’ or to ‘sustain’. Dharma is that which upholds humanity. Dharma is not religion. Religion is a restrictive concept that relates to individual societies laying down the conduct of its members in personal and social context. Thus, while Dharma outlines universal principles of existence, religion limits its canvas by seeking adherence to specified modes of worship and social interactions. As such Dharma unites but religion ends up being restrictive and thus divisive. Dharma is the law or a divine order that recognizes the nature of things in existence and is that all encompassing principle which outlines the humanity’s interaction and response to existence for its own sustenance. In other words Dharma is that which sustains and protects humanity.

The Vedic people in ancient India followed the Sanatan Dharma. Sanatan means eternal. Thus, Sanatan Dharma refers to that which is relevant since eternity and shall be relevant till eternity. It is interesting to note that the eternity of Sanatan Dharma is not just because it is indestructible or it is timeless but because it is capable of making its followers eternal by providing to them the ultimate knowledge of existence. It provides the follower the path of truth leading him to attain union with the soul.

However, Dharma which helped India prosper from time immemorial, which is said to protect humanity from ills and is so all powerful that it can lead individuals themselves to the state of being eternal, where is it today? How come India today is facing upheavals of discord and conflict? There is a remarkable dictum in the eighth chapter of Manu Smriti “Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitaha". It implies Dharma protects those who protect it. Dharmo rakshati means dharma offers protection i.e if one chooses to live a life guided by the principles of Dharma. The second part of the dictum is rakshitaha i.e the dharma itself requires protection. This means that the concept of Dharma whose protection we seek needs to be protected!

While Dharma itself encompasses values of universalism, acceptance, tolerance, embracing diversity, etc., the second part of the statement “Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitaha” spurs us into action. When a large section of the society starts to resort to Adharma and causes major upheavals in the society, it becomes necessary to take to action to protect dharma.

Thousands of years ago, Lord Krishna goaded Arjuna to fight, not for selfish purposes, but for higher principles of Sanatan Dharma. Adharma had attained proportions threatening dharmic (righteous) existence of humanity. Thus, the war of Mahabharata became necessary for restoration of dharma. What India is facing today is as alarming. Terrorism all over the world has assumed dimensions that threaten existence itself. Killing and maiming of innocents in the name of beliefs, dogmas and religion is destroying all the principles that Sanatan Dharma propagated. Today once again Dharma is in danger. And the call of Dharma is – action.

Dharma does not imply inaction or non action but indicates all those actions that are necessary for sustaining the health of humanity. Although it propagates the virtue of tolerance, it does not imply tolerance of intolerance. In fact Dharma cannot exist without a confrontation of intolerant ideas. The concept of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam (world is one family) ingrained in Sanatan Dharma propagates acceptance of diversity. But tolerance and acceptance of diversity does not mean acceptance of tyranny.

Adi Shanakara says in Gita Bhashya “Vedas state two fold dharma for the maintenance of the world, one characterised by action and the other by renunciation. Dharma is that which leads directly to liberation and worldly prosperity.” In the Karana Parva of Mahabharata it is stated “Dharma is for the stability of the society, the maintenance of social order and the general wellbeing and progress of humankind. Whatever conduces to the fulfilment of these objectives is Dharma, that is definite.”

Today India is facing onslaughts from dangerous belief systems which are threatening peace and prosperity that the country has been moving towards in the last 60 years since its Independence from the British rule. These belief systems have thrived over the centuries on the dogmas of terror, brutality, murders and crusades against those with alternate ways of life who are termed by them as non believers. They have practiced the doctrine of jihad – a code of murder and rapine disguised under the coating of a religion. Jihadi terrorism in India today aims at establishing this belief system in India by extermination of Hindus, the followers of Sanatan Dharma.

On the other hand, the self righteous anti Hindu intellectuals have joined these enemies from within. In the garb of globalism, tolerance, coexistence, they are competing with these enemies in undermining the Hindu pride and glorious traditions. They are using the pen and particularly the visual media to project distortions in the minds of the people of this country. At a recent meeting in Mangalore Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living said “With the support of intellectuals supporting terrorists, the pen has also become another terror along with gun, threatening the integrity and sovereignity of the nation.”

India today is secular because India is a Hindu majority country. India is a democracy also because India is Hindu. If Hindus, the followers of Sanatan Dharma, do not rise to check these onslaughts, the days of secularism and democracy in this country are numbered. The need has arisen to for Hindus to awaken from their slumber to protect Dharma. In other words, to protect Dharma is our Dharma today.

History waiting to repeat?

The family visit to Agra last week was for the benefit of my two young nephews aged 9 and 7 years who had never seen the Taj. Strangely the visit for me turned out to be a morose one. The Taj did not seem as splendorous as it used to. The grandeur of its marble seemed to have been visibly effected, presumably, by pollution since I last saw it around two and half years ago. The badly lit inside was depressing and too claustrophobic. The too well known story of 22,000 craftsmen having their hands cut off upon the orders of the Emperor after the completion of the monument seemed to stain the beauty of the Taj as I looked at it.

Visit to the Agra Fort was no better. How Akbar, the so called ‘emperor’ died suspected to have been poisoned by his own ambitious son Jahangir. How Jahangir blinded his own son Khusraw, a contender for the throne as per Akbar’s will. Shah Jahan, Jahangir’s son killed his own brothers to secure the throne and was finally imprisoned by his own son Aurangzeb in this very Agra Fort ! Listening to the guide giving the tales of treachery, deceit, barbarism, cruelty and ruthless ambition that was played out in these monuments of Moghul historicity, I wondered how this land of Vedic culture based on truth and dharma gave way to such lowly culture of killings, loot, plunder and lust!

Greed, lust, cruelty and barbarism reflected in every story told by the guide. He showed us the phansi ghar in the basement (not open to public so we could just peep in) just below the Jahangiri Palace which incidentally was a place for rest and pleasure for the women in the emperor’s harem. It made me wonder why a phansi ghar was situated inside the living quarters and just below the place where the emperor indulged in pleasures. I was then told by the guide that this was the place where the women (queens) of the harem who fell out in disfavour were tortured and executed! Only a Moghul emperor could drink the choicest of wines and enjoy pleasures sitting atop a dungeon where hapless and screaming women were being tortured and tormented.

Looking down from the Fort we were shown a tank like structure and were curious. The guide related the story. It was a favourite sport of the members of the royal family. Elephants were kept around the tank deprived of water in hot seasons. They were drugged to make them thirstier. In that state after days of deprivation of water, they were led to this tank which was filled with alcohol. As they drank the alcohol, in that inebriated state of extreme thirst, they bloodied each other as the emperor and other royals watched with pleasure!

This was the culture that invaded the land where Sanatan Dharama was practiced. A land where animate and inanimate were revered, where birds, animals and even rivers, mountains were worshipped!

That Hindu India was prosperous and full of riches has been chronicled by various travellers. It was a coveted land. One is told of how rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds were embedded in the walls of the Moghul monuments and mausoleums creating ornate designs. Jewels were set into the floors across the vast marble. The splendour and wealth of the Moghul courts has been narrated over the years. Where did all this wealth come from? Obviously plundered and looted from the people of the land. Babur the first Moghul was a nomad and obviously did not bring it from his country. The wealth was plundered from the temples, state treasuries and the peoples of this land. It was the wealth of the Hindu land conquered by the invaders given to plunder and loot.

Even before Muslims came to India, there were wars and battles between the Kings. There were conquerors and there were the conquered. However, the wars were mainly fought between the martial classes. Strange as it may sound today, the Kings and princes observed time honoured conventions that were sanctioned in Shastras. For example, places of worship were never touched. The Brahmins and the learned were not harmed, women were not violated, and cows were not killed. In fact, non combatant civil population were never killed or captured as the battles were mostly fought in open spaces. The local population was never plundered and war booty was an unknown concept in wars and battles fought then. The kings had a code of honour and violating this code was considered reprehensible and kings found it worse than death.

However, Muslim invaders came with a different code. They would fall upon unarmed, hapless civil population after a victory on the battlefield. They would burn down villages and towns after the defending martial warriors had been killed. They went in for mass murders of the civil population and Brahmins were their special targets. They pillaged and looted even from the bodies of the dead. They raped and captured women who were considered a part of the booty. Those who were not killed were sold as slaves. This was the code of the Muslim invaders – code of their Prophet. They did it all for their Prophet as ‘holy warriors’. The world famous historian, Will Durant has written in his Story of Civilisation that "the Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history". The Hindus found it very hard to understand the psychology of this new invader which they were witnessing for the first time in history. If one were to read the chronicles of those times, advent of the Muslims into India became possible only through deceit and treachery and not out of valor or greater prowess.

Then came the British and the plundering of this hapless people continued and more than ever before. It was not a plundering for a short while. It lasted for a full 200 years from the battle Plassey in 1757 to Independence in 1947. So much so that a country which even after being ruled over by the Muslim invaders for so long was considered the “brightest jewel in the British Crown”, at the beginning of the 20th century, India was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income! After 1000 years of attacks against Hinduism, India gained Independence but at the cost of partition of the land with hundreds of thousands of Hindus killed and driven out of their homes by Muslim claimants to the North Western part of the country.

Last 60 years India has tried to regain its self with economic progress on all the fronts. Today, it is being projected as the 'Superpower' of tommorrow. It has tried to forgive and forget the wounds afflicted since the days of Mohd bin Qasim. It has been trying to think of a better future for its people. Hindus accepted a large part of Muslim population within even though a separate state Pakistan was carved out as homeland for Muslims. They embraced the followers of Christianity which had bled them and ruled over them for over 200 years. All because Hindu way of life is inherently tolerant and accepts all diversity with a vision of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam (world is one family). However, it has again become a target of these two monotheistic religions. For over a decade now Islamic terrorists have been attacking mainly the Hindu population. The objective of the ‘jihadi’ terrorists is to divide India once again on the basis of religion and create what they envision as Mughalistan. On the other hand, the poor and underprivileged are constantly being targeted by the Christian evangelists, converting them to Christianity against lure of money brought in from the affluent West. These conversions have assumed alarming proportions in the last couple of years.

Is history waiting to repeat itself ?

Vasudaiva Kutumbakam vs Globalization

Long ago the rishis (Hindu ascetics) of ancient India proclaimed “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” i.e ‘the world is one family’. Another verse which was in the form of a prayer reflected the same globalism enshrined in the Vedic thought thousands of years ago, “Loka samastha sukhinau bavanthu” – May the world live in peace. The people did not just pray for the happiness of humans alone. They prayed for every living creature in the world. “Sarve sukina santhu, sarve santhu niramayaha” – May every living being be free from ills and miseries and attain peace. Such was the vision held by the people of the Vedic culture.

Today the world is talking of ‘global village’ and ‘globalization’. Globalization by definition is ‘the process of transformation of local phenomena into global ones, a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together’. While globalization started as an economic phenomenon driven by business interests, it is today perceived as a unification of economic, technological, social, cultural and political forces. However, although globalisation aims at diluting and dissolving the political boundaries of nations, nationalities, cultures and diversities, the world today is witnessing strife, wars, conflicts at all fronts and on all accounts i.e economic, political, social and cultural !

The Vedic people who proclaimed 4,000 years ago that ‘world is one family’ were not seen to be in such conflict. Although the underlying objective of the two concepts appears to be the same, there obviously is a difference between the process of ‘globalization’ being attempted today and the principle of 'Vasudaiva Kutumbakam' that was ingrained in the culture and way of life of the people on the Indian subcontinent.

Globalization was motivated by economic interests and not out of a concern for ‘universal welfare’ – economic interests of those searching for new markets and better resource mobilization. Its advocacy for free trade was adopted by different countries as it did lead to cash flows in otherwise deficient economies. However, the whole process being motivated primarily by economic interests of a few powerful nations and corporations, the emphasis was on pursuit of financial gains. It did lead to satisfaction of economic needs of many people in less developed countries, though not all, thus nations’ policies and actions have started to get structured around greatest financial gains to benefit their societies. Progress and success has started to be measured in material terms, and other concerns such as environmental issues, or human perspectives of emotional richness or social well being, are not necessarily cared for. Moreover, the survival in the new global business markets is dependent on improved productivity and increased competition and in such highly competitive environments, human actions are getting centered on self interest and greed.

In this pursuit of material progress - production, distribution and consumption of an increasing number of goods and conveniences is the creed and each competes with the other to produce more with less. More skills, better technology, better access to cheaper resources even if through the exploitation of natural resources of the earth or through better, bigger bombs to maim and destroy opponents, all in pursuit of more financial gains! Although many of the wars being waged in the world appear to have religious and ethnic basis, the underlying motives are now being perceived to be economic – competition for dwindling resources of the world. Troops and weapons are being deployed where local people threaten corporate investments and returns!

On the contrary, ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ was ingrained in the way of life of Vedic people as an integral part of their culture. Their vision encompassed the whole humanity as one’s own part. There was no place for exploitation of natural resources, in fact animals and plants and even rivers and mountains were venerated. Their actions were seeped in a concern for ‘universal welfare’. Their interactions with alternate beliefs, faiths and even civilizations reflected tolerance and pluralism. When sects like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism emerged as reformist movements, even though as rebellion to what their propagandists considered wrong in the society, the Hindus did not suppress these reformers but gave them the freedom and space to grow. After the spread of Budhism in India, Sri Adi Shankaracharya brought many back to the Hindu fold not through force, coercion, incentives or threat but by preaching in the form of debates.

Where did this vision of and concern for ‘universal welfare’ come from?

The Vedic people had the knowledge of the eternal truth, the truth of the wholeness of universe. They knew it was a oneness and a perceived separateness from this oneness as an individual identity was a matter of awareness. Thus any action at any point in this oneness would affect the whole. The whole is aware what happens at any point in the universe and a response is triggered to every action. Scientific researches of modern day confirm this Vedic knowledge of oneness of universe. Here is what I read about it some time back. The starkest revelation is through the theory of non-locality in Quantum mechanics.

‘Non locality is if you take two quantum particles that were twins and separate them billions of miles apart, and then do something to one particle here, the other particle billions of light years away will “immediately” come to know about what you did to that one particle here!! This quantum property has been confirmed by experiments. In fact, “all” particles in this universe are twins, in the sense they all can be traced back to a common ancestral origin. In other words, what happens to every particle should become known to every other particle in this universe! So the whole universe is “interconnected”?!’

It was this knowledge thousands of years ago that made the Vedic people proclaim ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ – ‘the world is one family’. Present day drivers of globalization can take cue from this knowledge.

Later day philosophers and thinkers in India have been propounding this concept again and again. Lately, Sri Sri Ravishankar, a spiritual master has made it a mission to make it a reality in the present day chaos. The Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Art of Living in 2006 witnessed a congregation of 2.5 million people from over 150 countries belonging to different cultures, nationalities and religions. All came to celebrate this truth, this reality of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam – the world is one family !