Chanakya and Chandrayaan are two significant signposts nearly 2,400 years apart between which flourished a great civilisation called Bharat or India. Chanakya was the epitome of the grand Indian vision of politics and economics, which he described in a single word Arth Shastra. His treatise by that name, which he set out to pen after retiring from the post of Maha Amaatya in the kingdom of Chandragupta Mourya, remains to this day a pioneering work on statecraft, polity and economy. It is not surprising that there are scholars working on Chanakya'sArth Shastra in universities of USA, France, Germany and many more countries. What is really sad is the fact that it is hard to find any in our own universities.
Chandrayaan?the celestial journey set off on October 22 by our own satellite?represents India'sgrand urge to conquer not just this world but the entire universe. In a historic event, the Indian space programme achieved a unique feat on November 14, 2008 with the placing of Indian tricolour on the Moon'ssurface on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru'sbirthday. The Indian flag was painted on the sides of Moon Impact Probe (MIP), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, that successfully hit the lunar surface at 20:31 hrs (8:31 pm) IST on that day. This is the first Indian built object to reach the surface of the moon. The point of MIP'simpact was near the Moon'sSouth Polar Region. Our satellite has already reached about 200 km close to the Moon and soon its other equipment will be launched on to the surface of it. According to Dr Annadurai, the Project Director of Chandrayaan, we would be able to send our first manned mission to the Moon by 2020 CE.
Through the ages, the Moon, our closest celestial body has aroused curiosity in our mind much more than any other objects in the sky. This led to scientific study of the Moon, driven by the desire and quest for knowledge. This is also reflected in the ancient verse:
Roa lkse iz fpfdrks euh”kkA
Roa jft”B euq usf”k iUFkkeAA
(O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect. You enlighten us through the right path.)
Rigveda Part-1.91/1 (About 2000 years BC)
Several nations have attempted manned and unmanned missions to the Moon and claimed various victories; but it still remained a mystery that has the potential to open floodgates of knowledge about the universe and its creation. Today we also joined that group with our successful launching of the Chandrayaan.
Chanakya and Chandrayaan signify the vibrance and virility of our great civilisation. It has existed before Chanakya and it will continue to exist after Chandrayaan.
?If Sparta and Rome perished, what state can hope to endure forever?? declared Rousseau in utter disillusionment once. Yet our civilisation lived for millennia.
?Yunana Misra Roma?.???Greeks, Egyptians and Romans etc have all perished; yet, there is something in this soil that makes it eternal??exclaimed Md. Iqbal in his famous poem Saare Jahaan se Acchha. That ?something? was described by Swami Vivekananda eloquently when he said: ?Every nation has a destiny to fulfil, duty to perform and mission to accomplish.? We have a universal mission the accomplishment of which is the grand vision of our civilisation.
August 15, 1947 saw the dawn of India'sfreedom. In a very significant message given on that day Sri Aurobindo spoke of his five dreams that in a nutshell present our grand global vision: ?Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my life time, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement.?
