The recent oath of Udayanidhi Stalin in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, to eradicate Sanatana Dharma is indicative on the one side of his ignorance of what he spoke and expression of his fanatical orgy on the other. It was only of late the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed that former Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udayanidhi Stalin’s call to “eradicate” Sanatana Dharma was almost an exhortation to genocide. What did Udayanidhi mean when he spoke “Sanatana Ozhippu” or “eradication of Sanatana Dharma?”.
Eradicate the Dharma which is the very principle of the cosmic existence sustained by universal mutuality or eradication of people who follow Sanatana Dharma? That neither is possible is something his dwarf imagination could not realize. Because if Sanatana Dharma is a religion the call would amount to ‘Religicide’ or ‘genocide’ as the court observed and this is in fact instigating 20 per cent of population against the remaining 80 per cent.
Can Sanatana Dharma be eradicated?
Where did he aim to eradicate the dharma from? Is it from Tamil Nadu alone, the entire India or from the world itself? Those who follow the Sanatana Dharma abound in millions with their faith deeply rooted in the culture of Bharat. The greatness of this Dharma has down the centuries been lauded by the international community of enlightened scholarship with men of academic credibility like Will Durant eulogizing India as the mother of world civilization.
This Dharma is in fact international. And even if one is identifying the Sanatana Dharma with certain religion i.e., Hinduism, how one can eradicate this all India religion which is inextricably intertwined with the nation’s heritage and cultural tapestry from time immemorial? Is it possible to a small group confined to Tamil Nadu alone which again has been the land of the eternal Dharma as seen from its temples and tradition, a land with its own Kasi and Ganga, Siva Ganga and Siva Kasi, to eradicate it? Seems like swallowing elephant through its tail!
Then let us go deeper into the meaning of the word Sanatana Dharma. ‘dharayateti dharma’, that which sustains is dharma. To sustain what is not specifically said. Therefore one may take the meaning sustain all and everything including the very order of the cosmic existence. Rhythm a derivative of the Sanskrit rita is what is at the basis of the order of the universe. What is not rita is anrita or disorder that runs in contrast to the natural order of things. Everything moves in symmetrical order as if directed by an inaudible command of an invisible power.
Even Einstein found himself confused as to whether God plays dice or not. But this symmetry or the order behind the cosmic movement is confirmed both by science and spirituality. And what is more interesting is the element of harmony inlaid in the flowerbed of the cosmic dynamism.
Universal mutuality and the Sanatana Dharma
Some time it appears, even the very aim of diversity itself is to lead things towards a creative unity which calls for coherence at all levels, individual, social and universal. For this one must identify oneself with the entirety to see oneself in others and others in oneself. This is what an Indian grandma chanted sitting in front of her sacred twilight lamp: Oh Lord! who is sat-chit-ananda or knowledge-absolute-bliss, the ego centric ‘I’ must never occur to me. Even if it is otherwise, please make me feel I am everything or the entirety”. To see oneself in others and others in oneself is the core of Sanatana Dharma. It is the universal mutuality or the natural law working behind the secret of the existence. This all inclusive vision has been one with the thought of India right from the time civilization dawned.
‘Lokasamgraha’ or ‘holding together’ of all was her cultural hallmark symbolically presented through her innumerable icons. Think about the vessel with the never ending supply of food wherefrom Sairandhri ate only after feeding everybody or a Bodhisattva who prays for the opening of the world of salvation to all before he enters it! ‘Others first and oneself last’ was the idea of India’s national culture which looks to the world as one family, ‘vasudhaivakutumbakam’. Even nationalism does not suffice the great ideal of India. “Patriotism is but a local affair … great souls have greater destinies to fulfill. Life, not merely the life of India demands our great devotion”.
This view of India’s philosopher and art critic Ananda Coomaraswamy is indeed the tip of an ideological expanse that includes within it the entire humanity. Science explains this further. Human consciousness is the split portion of the universal consciousness and any action of man would affect the entire cosmos, opined Erwin Schrodinger when he addressed the question ‘What is Life’. Definitely it is our thought and action that affect the universe and its consciousness both positively and negatively.
Because it is this idea or ideal that sustains the very cosmos, the thinkers of ancient India realized in their Samadhi or balanced intelligence, and made this the very ideal of her national life. India took this idea to the divine level. Nation is ‘parasakti’ or the ‘universal energy’ concealed in geographical entity and the dharma the greatest priest appointed in the sanctum of this divinity, believed Sri Aurobindo. Without this eternal dharma nothing can thrive, especially the ‘dharmarashtra’ or the ‘spiritual nation’ that is Bharat.
God has written each line on the forehead of every nation, Joseph Mazzini, Italian philosopher of nationalism believed and Aurobindo, being the former’s strong admirer, meant dharma for this line. Hence the Mahayogi’s conclusion of his Uttarapara speech: “… it is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatan Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatan Dharma it would perish. The Sanatan Dharma, that is nationalism”. If this is the eternal Dharma that sustains everything, how can one eradicate it? Ignorance can air out anything idiotic.
