The ‘Bharat’ Metaphor! - VIII

 

 

 

 

 

THIS is one more facet of the ‘Bharat’ metaphor. The sages of India -- the rishis who were so many things rolled into one -- are regarded as permanent contributors to universal good through their knowledge, their tapasya, and through their unparalleled dedication to learning and spreading its benefits to larger society. It is their work that made India a knowledge society -- distinct from a society where information is mistaken as knowledge. The rishis are often mistaken by some people in modern-day society as men or women who only recited mantras and shlokas and did not do anything else. This impression is totally nonsensical and created purposefully by antagonistic propaganda of forces inimical to India that is Bharat. The rishis were the actual leaders of ancient India’s knowledge society. They were scientists, litterateurs, authors, religious leaders, moral interpreters, artists ...! The seven rishis mentioned in the Saptarshi constellation made signal contribution to different domains of knowledge -- so much so that the ancient society found it most befitting to name the constellation after them collectively -- with four stars aligned in a quadrangle while three stars aligned in an angular formation.

 

The central one among those three -- Vashishtha -- has a co-star, too. The small co-star in close proximity of Vashishtha was named after his wife Arundhati, who, too, was a great sage and a contributor to the Vedas -- as was her husband. A little deep thought tells us clearly how ancient India honoured its women. Arundhati was among the leading ladies of the Indian society countless thousand years ago. In those days, women were actual leaders of the society, contributing to the Vedas, getting engaged in countless scientific research projects, writing treatises, acting as the larger society’s conscious-keepers and interpreters of legal and moral law ...! And all this was happening in intense competition with men of merit and substance. Women were not honoured just because they belonged to a fairer sex, but were given their social due only after passing severe tests of excellence in different and chosen fields. In those days countless thousand years ago, the social system was a no-nonsense business in which only merit counted and nothing else. Most importantly, what did not make any sense was dynastic succession high positions and honours. One’s dynasty made little difference. What counted was the person’s -- man’s or woman’s -- merit and substance, and nothing else. Science was the core field of interest in the knowledge society India’s was in those ancient times. The rishis were engaged, therefore, in working projects to decide celestial distances and trajectories of stars and other bodies. They were also engaged in research projects involving thousands of scientists (rishis) in coordinated efforts to find truth about difficult propositions.

 

Such works produced sciences like Ayurveda, for example. Enough textual and contextual evidence is available in public domain to prove all this beyond any shade of doubt. In the last 100-plus years, thousands of modern-day researchers have found out the details of ancient India’s knowledge society which was prosperous and harmonious, to say the least. The most important attribute of that knowledge society was the tradition of asking frank questions in seeking a greater knowledge and awareness about underlying principles of science or any other subject. In fact, many Upanishads were dedicated to asking questions and seeking answers. For example, in Kenopanishad, answers are sought about who hears through the ear and who speaks through mouth and what actually the vital force is -- praana ...! (... Pranasya praannah ...) and who actually lives through the instrument of body. The Prashnopanishad, too, has six sages (rishis) raising issues about vital aspects of life and spirituality. Such questions were asked freely and answered with equal elan. Such exchanges were blissful, to say the least, and enriched the society all the more. This may seem rather strange in today’s context, all right. But the motto of the Vedic society of ancient times was to ask questions and not to believe some thing only because some senior or some authority had said something. That also explains why vedic thoughts such as ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ or ‘Tat Twam Asi’ attracted literally hundreds of critiques over thousands of years -- all having formed an integral part of the intellectual discourse of the larger Indian society, leaving it to us to imagine the maturity of such a society thousands of years ago. What a society!