A number of civilisations came into existence in ancient times. All died out or were wiped out by external aggression except the two Indian and Chinese. With the prolonged communist regime of China, the ancient Chinese civilisation has been decimated to a great extent. Each and every aspect of life is dictated by the communist rule. Diversity and differences of opinions have suffered irreparable loss on Chinese land. On the contrary, India has adopted a constitution which is in consonance with the dynamism of Indian tradition. Dynamism is the variety of ideas with the adaptive nature of the society. Life, culture, philosophy, art, literature, etc, are allowed to evolve and change with the changing stream of life. The Rigveda is the oldest text which is full of hymns where natural forces are worshipped as divine. The Yajurveda is full of rituals. The Sama Veda contains hymns with intonations and specific rhythms. The Atharva Veda deals with more mundane subjects. What followed the Vedas are Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. They all have different contents. Brahma as are more ritualistic in nature.

 

Aranyakas are the products of the reflective minds in solitude and forests. Upanishads are the best jewels about the world, individual and universal consciousness. The seers of Upanishads realised that the same Supreme Reality vibrates in different forms and one can realise the oneness of the existence through one pointedness of the mind. ThusYoga came into existence. There are numerous types of Yoga like GyanaYoga , BhaktiYoga and KarmaYoga. GyanaYoga emphasises the intellectual aspect of human personality. BhaktiYoga is the emotional bonding with the divine. KarmaYoga is the selfless discharge of the duty. Side by side emerged the six systems of Vedic philosophy named Mimansa, Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshik and Vedant. Each system views the ultimate truth through its own prism. Then came the age of great epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

 

The eighteen Puranas contain very colourful narratives of the different aspects of human life. The six Vedangas or the limbs of the Vedas are the beautiful addition to the cultural tradition of India. They have given birth to a very precious and long tradition of knowledge systems. They are Shiksha or the science of pronunciation, Chhanda or prosody, Kalpa or rituals, Vyakarana or grammar, Nirukta or linguistics and Jyotisha or astronomy and astrology. Parallel to the Vedic systems of Indian knowledge, there evolved non Vedic streams of philosophy which are called Nastika Darshana. The Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka, Lokayatna, etc are the best repositories of different dimensions of human life. They contain great wisdom of the ages. The existence of many world class universities like Nalanda, Takshashila, Vikramashila, etc are the best examples of the highly evolved thought process of India tradition. The beauty of the Indian tradition lies in the fact that despite the manifest differences and divergence all types of thoughts have evolved on the Indian subcontinent. The culture of Shakas, Huns, Kushans, Parthians, etc who came to India became an inseparable part of the Indian tradition. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, etc have also got integrated into the wider cauldron of Indian tradition. Despite the conflicts and contradictions, India has not fossilised its thinking , but is marching on the dynamic path of evolution and experiments.

 

■(The writer is Former DG Police & CG, Homeguards, Maharashtra)