J Nandakumar
The advent of Sri Shankaracharya and Adwaita Darshan has triggered heated debates and discussions in the realm of philosophy (Darshan) after the 8th century. The Mayavad of Shankaracharya has been subjected to a gross misreading and distortion. It was no other than Acharya Abhivagupta who came up with a logical interpretation to Advaita Darshan by taking cognisance of the existence of the world. The Buddhist-Hindu binary, that too would not have happened if Abhinavagupta was properly studied and explained. Hence I believe, to create divisions in the society, a certain group of people purposefully sidelined and overlooked the contributions of Abhinavagupta.
Referring to those who speak or give judgments without experience and confuse others, similar to what Sri Sankaracharya called ‘Udaranimitham Bahukrita Vesham’, Abhinavagupta too wrote in his autobiographical verses
(Verse 15):
“Bahurapi Sohameham bhramitastavopadesakam manye
Tatvamiti varnayugamapi yesham rasna na pasparsa”
(“There are dull-witted people who are themselves confused and throw the multitude of creatures into confusion. Having bound them fast with fetters, they bring them under subjection with tall talk of their qualities.”) Even nowadays, we can see many chanting Soham, the very meaning of it is ‘I am That’. In fact, they might not have experienced either ‘So’ (That) or ‘Aham’ (I). But still, they keep on rendering the same. They confuse us. Abhinavagupta, the great Guru and philosopher of philosophers, has not been discussed or followed or researched upon as much as it should have been. He still remains in the realms of darkness. Even the students of philosophy have no idea as to who is Abhinavagupta.
Even though it is a little late, yet the right time has come. With the efforts of the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre and institutions like the Art of Living, a new
discourse on the life and contribution of Abhinavagupta has started all over the country. There has been a concerted effort to sideline the Eastern philosophy even after Independence. The vicious agenda of the West to colonise our minds during the British Raj is understandable to an extent. Because colonialising the minds was essential and instrumental for the British, like every other empire, to rule over a country forever. Towards that respect, they have taught us Bharat is not a nation. It has no culture and civilisation. They snubbed the Bharatiya thoughts and Dharshans as rubbish and useless baggage. We were taught that we can no longer move forward with the burden of this baggage!
But, I wonder, what on earth prevented the successive governments to do away with the British narrative in post-Independent Bharat. What has been done to promote Sanskrit language in our country since Independence? We have to identify clearly and specifically what all has really happened to us? ‘Sanskrit is a dead language’, says the so-called modern world scholars. If the British propagated that, it could have been justified because they envisioned the destruction of our nation. But we cannot comprehend why our own people keep harping on the same. Bharat, which traces its roots to pre-Vedic period, was dubbed ‘a Nation in the Making’ by the British. It connotes, we have never been a nation ever before! Then who made us a nation? They say the British made Bharat a single nation, by interlinking distant states through railways, roads and post offices. While they were making the nation, they were forced to leave India. So we are still a nation in
making!
The Real Spirit of the Nation
What happened to the history in post-Independent Bharat? Who were entitled to write the history of Bharat after the British left? No nationalist historian was given the right to write our own history. The monopoly of writing history has directly been transferred from the British to their natural heirs. Later, a new brigade of so-called neo-liberal
academicians, who ensured that the culture, tradition, morality be kept out, has emerged. They still challenge the very idea of morality and ask what is the purpose of it? There started a conscious effort to dismantle the moral fabric of our nation.
Against this backdrop, it becomes pertinent to quote from The History of Indian Philosophy written by eminent thinker and scholar Surendranath Dasgupta, “The old civilisation of India was a concrete unity of many-sided developments in art, architecture, literature, religion, morals, and science so far as it was understood in those days. But the most important achievement of Indian thought was philosophy. It was regarded as the goal of all the highest practical and theoretical activities, and it indicated the point of unity amidst all the apparent diversities which the complex growth of culture over a vast area inhabited by different people produced. It is not in the history of foreign invasions, in the rise of independent kingdoms at different times, in the empires of this or that great monarch that the unity of India is to be sought. It is essentially one of spiritual aspirations and obedience to the law of the spirit, which were regarded as superior to everything else, and it has outlived all the political changes through which India passed.” (Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, Preface)
As far as the history of Bharat is concerned, the spirit defined by Dasgupta deserves attention. The spirituality and the philosophy of our nation all that matters. We shall not go after any foreign invasion, we shall not go after any kingdom or monarchy here or there, or any dictator. We shall go after the very spirituality only with which we can understand the
nation, Bharat.
Then, Dasgupta thus continues in the same passage, “It is therefore very necessary that Indians, as well as other people, should become more and more acquainted with the true characteristics of the past history of Indian thought and form a correct estimate of its special features.” I feel that the very objective of the Acharya Abhinavagupta Millennium Celebrations is nothing but to realise “the true characteristics of the past history of Indian thought”.
Triveni: Veda, Tantra & Yoga
It was generally believed that our history starts from Sindhu-Saraswati valley. But now the historicity of the ‘5,000 year old’ antiquity of the Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation has been challenged by the new studies. The scientists from IIT-Kharagpur and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have uncovered evidence that the Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation is at least 8,000 years old, and not 5,500 years old, taking root well before the Egyptian (7000BC to 3000BC) and Mesopotamian (6500BC to 3100BC) civilisations. That means, it is necessary for the experts to rewrite the existing history based on the new findings of these excavations and research.
Now we have sufficient evidence to arrive at a safe conclusion that the Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation was built up and nurtured by the sacred Triveni of Veda, Tantra and Yoga. We can bring together all the numerous philosophical, ritualistic and cultural shades of different Hindu groups including that of the Vanavasi cults under these three heads. Analysing the evidence from Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, we get the shades of all practices which became prevalent later. For instance, use of water in religious practice, symbolic representation of the Linga and Yoni, a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess, deification or veneration of animals and plants, the fire altars of Kalibangan, meditating figure etc. This emphasises the fact that all these practices were existing millenniums ago and what we follow in the present days are no way different from those of the Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation. Hence we can say, the Triveni i.e. the Veda, Tantra and Yoga are indispensable parts of our culture and civilisation.
From this region, afterwards, the Hindus probably migrated to the tip of the Peninsula and even to Lanka, to the South as well as to the North, North-East and the North-West beyond the original Sindhu-Saraswati habitat, taking with them the multi-dimensional cultural heritage evolved through generations of their collective life to the new regions. Thus now, in our scriptures, we can see mention of a Vedic cultural empire as well as the Tantric geographical divisions of Asva Kranta, Gaja Kranta and Ratha Kranta (including the Tibetan region, Maha Cheena) and also the three main Tantra Sampradayas, namely Kashmira, Gauda and Kerala (Saktisangama Tantra) etc. We hear legends about the Vedic sage Vasishtha’s journey to Maha Cheena to study Tantra-Yoga, Rishi Agastya, coming to Kerala, Parasurama getting initiated into the Sree Vidya path by Dattatreya (Tripura Rahasya, Parasurama Kalpasutra) etc. indicating the internal migrations and the spread of the Hindu culture.
Meanwhile, the Veda, Tantra and Yoga also grew separately and independently showing distinctive features in philosophical and practical levels. And as time progressed there was a natural (after all, they were all of one Hindu stroke both generally as well as culturally) give and take among the followers of these paths including the Boudh and Jain systems. Boudh-Jain systems assimilated the Tantra-Yoga system, like the followers of the Vedic system. Later, Tantriks adopted certain Vedic practices and this give and take resulted in the formation of the so-called Vedic-Tantric mode of worship which is the base of modern temple worship, especially that of Kerala.
Hindutva: The Meeting Point
Likewise, Rabindranath Tagore in his essay, Swadeshi Samaj, has put it marvelously that, “To feel unity in
diversity, to establish unity amidst variety-this is the
underlying dharma of Bharat…. Because of this virtue, in Bharat, by seeing others we wouldn’t get frightened as we don’t consider any society or people as our enemy. Each fresh conflict will enable us to expand ourselves. The Hindu, the Buddhist, the Muslim and the Christian will not fight with one another and die in Bharat-here they will find a meeting point. That meeting point will not be non-Hindu, but very specifically the Hindu.”
Yes, in my opinion, Abhinavagupta can also be considered as such a meeting point, a confluence of all streams of knowledge and wisdom. During the
lifetime of Abhinavagupta, his disciples were present all over the country, including Kerala and Karnataka. Talking about Abhinavagupta’s Paramartha Sara, according to Dr Jeffrey S Lidke, an earlier Paramartha Sara was
composed by the South Indian legendary saint, probably from the present Kerala, called Adisesha during the Sixth
century, some four hundred years before Abhinavagupta. So I come to a logical conclusion that Abhinavagupta’s reinvention of this older text indicates the constant transaction of ideas between Kashmir and Southern part of Bharat, Vaishnavite and Shivite sects. It doesn’t mean that Adisesha’s Paramartha Sara was copied by Abhinavagupta but it was taken for consideration by Abhinavagupta. In addition to that, the famous
18th-century Tantric scholar Bhaskararaya from the present Andhra Pradesh, who journeyed through the length and breadth of the country like Shankaracharya, profusely quoted Abhinavagupta in his writings on Tantric philosophy. So this intermingling and integration, the very fundamentals of Hindutva, can be seen in Acharya Abhinavagupta’s period.
The need of the hour is to explain the Hindu spiritual world view put forth by our Acharyas like Abhinavagupta in such a way that it can be grasped clearly by our people as well as the rest of the world and also to bring forth a viable social model based on this worldview. Besides Abhinavagupta, Lalitaditya, Kalhana were all the gifts of Kashmir to Bharat. Lalitaditya fought with swords to save our identity and boundary. Kalhana taught us how to read history. And Abhinavagupta brought all the philosophies and streams of knowledge to a meeting point called Hindutva. So, it is imperative to follow their teachings to strengthen ourselves and the very idea of nation.
(Excerpts from the keynote speech by Shri J Nandakumar, Akhil Bhartiya Samyojak of Pragya Pravah ( the then Sah Prachar Pramukh) of RSS, at the National Scholars Confluence in Bengaluru on January 6, 2017)
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