The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 2022 calendar, presents 12 pieces of evidence to bust myths propagated by vested interests.
The IIT Kharagpur 2022 calendar has caused much debate since it came out on December 18.
In each of the pages dedicated to 12 English months (January-December), the calendar challenges the myth of Aryan invasion through evidence.
The calendar, titled 'Recovery of the Foundation of Indian Knowledge Systems', and prepared by the Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System of IIT Kharagpur, covers subjects such as the Indus civilisation, cyclic time, space-time causation, non-linear flow and changes, Aryan sages, unicorn, aeons of time, cosmic symmetry, semantics and semiotics, and world wars.
The calendar's introduction reads, "The current Chronology of Indian Civilisation and history is dubious and questionable. A long evolutionary sequence of literature, and cultural and spiritual texts are evident prior to the birth of the Buddha and the Mahavira. It must have had taken a few 1000 years to achieve that. From the early Vedic Srutis (oracular form) before it took form of literature to later Vedic Age and Puranic literature, it is definitely few 1000 years. But the long Chronology has suffered suppression, compromises, contractions, and distortions."
Quoting the writings of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, the calendar explains how western experts have propagated the myth about the Aryan civilisation.
The Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System was inaugurated on December 18 and offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Vastu Vidya (architecture), Paribesh Vidya (environmental studies), Arthashastra (political science) and Ganita (mathematics).
Prof Joy Sen, chairperson of the Centre told The Indian Express, "The calendar never focuses that much on whether the Indus Valley Civilisation precedes or succeeds the Vedic age but has proved, based on race and genetics, that there was no Aryan invasion. The fallacy of the Aryan invasion myth is a matter for disapproval and rejection now, which is what the calendar does."
Swami Vivekananda's writing "In what Veda, Sukta, do you find that Aryans came into India from a foreign country? Vain has been your study of Ramayana; why manufacture a big fine story out of it? The object of the peoples of Europe is to exterminate all in order to live themselves…In Europe, it is everywhere victory to the strong and death to the weak. In the land of Bharata, every social rule is for the protection of the weak." has been highlighted to bust the Aryan Invasion Myth.
The IITK had published a similar calendar last year as well. The calendar ends with this quote of Swami Vivekanand "May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo (Brahmaputra river), a thousand fold more effulgent than it ever was before."
