DEIVATHIN KURAL # 78 (Vol #4) Dated 27 Sep 2010.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 78 (Vol #4) Dated 27 Sep 2010.

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from the last para on page number 427 of Vol 4 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
54. Desecration of temples, destruction of idols and architectural beauties and forcible conversion of the masses to their religion and peaceful coexistence with the Hindus, were both prevalent at various times at various places in India, like the ebbs and tides in the riverine areas near the ocean! But, while making rules for the Hindu people, the Muslim rulers refrained from forcing their way of life on the Hindus and let them follow their own Saastraas. For example Hindu women were not enabled to divorce / remarry and they did not bring in rules for matriarchal system of entitlement of properties amongst the Hindus! Whatever their inner intension, being minority rulers by force, they may not have wanted to totally antagonize the majority populace and expect to run the government peacefully! This may be the reason that they did not interfere with the Hindu’s internal way of life and let them be!
55. This situation of not interfering with majority Hindu’s internal arrangements, continued even after the transfer of power to the Britishers. If the Muslims used forcible methods more, the Britishers used underhand means and duplicity more. The net effect was that the Hindu Dharma was made to disintegrate and deteriorate inwardly. The Victoria Proclamation onwards the Acts and Laws enacted looked as though they were least interested in interfering with our religion! The carrot before the donkey was the lure of lower bureaucracy known as ‘babudom’! To get so employed, you had to study in their schools and learn their language and their manners, dress, and culture. This was the meanest cut of all in that, while they recruited clerical and managerial cadre, they caused the younger generation simultaneously to lose their trust and belief in our own Hindu Dharma Saastraas! In the name of modern political and management concepts, social upliftment, historical research, study of languages and scriptures and so on; claiming to do so impartially that too; they did everything to completely undermine and bring down the very edifice of Hinduism! (There were many westerners who got completely sold on Hinduism like Arthur Avlon, Madame Anne Besant, Bertrand Russell, Franc Humphrey, Harry Dikman, Raphael Hurst, later known as Paul Brunton, Edwin Arnold and so on. But that is a different story.)
56. A Hindu does not have to convert to any other religion. All the religions of the world are already included in it. If you are a nature lover, you are welcome. You think of plants, animals, birds, fish, pig, elephant, rat, eagle, tortoise et al., they are all adored and revered as God in this land! We worship the Earth, Space, Fire, Water and Air as the Five basic building blocks of the whole world! You talk of reasoning and absolute logic; we have it all and still be able to give you some beyond your comprehension; in our Vedanta! Surrender as a principle of the Muslims, is the same as the Visishtadwaitam of the Ramanujacharya. If you are keen on materialism as the end of human existence, we have the Madhva’s Dwaitam to take you beyond what is existentialism! Take the ultimate experience of oneness of the Sufis or Catholic priests of ‘I am that I am’, you cannot do better than experience the Adwaita Anubhava of Adi Sankara! So we do not believe in having to convert but believe in inversion! Not knowing the real value of their own religion, many Hindus that too Brahmins converted to Christianity. Britishers better bettered their own expectations and were more than successful in inflicting a mortal blow on the Indian Hindu Society. If the Brahmin can walk away from his appointed role of Adhyayanam, Adhyaapanam, Yagnam, Yaajanam, Pratigraham and Daanam (of Learning the Vedas, Teaching the Vedas, Conducting the Yagnas oneself and for others, Receiving alms and giving alms to others respectively); all other castes could also move away from their appointed roles in the Hindu society. The resultant attitude was one of a total collapse of all checks and balances!
57. Around the time of the arrival of Europeans on our shores, all over Europe, there was a constant tussle for supremacy between the Church and Royalty. The very coming into being of Protestantism was a rebellion against the control by the Catholic Church. This led to a situation wherein in England it was the Church of England and elsewhere in Europe it was Lutheranism the State Religion. Basically there was a parting of ways between the Church and Governments all over Europe. Europeans came to Asian shores more in search of lands to conquer and for expansion of trades as a competition amongst the European countries! It was the custom and tradition to send away the trouble creators on such voyages of adventure. If they get lost forever, it was good riddance of bad rubbish and if they come back with victories over virgin lands, it was good use of bad material!
58. In England it was the tradition for the King to appoint some of the Bishops and appoint them to the House of Lords. Arch Bishop of Canterbury used to do the coronation of the King. Still there was not much love lost between the Crown and the Church! Christians never had a religious book of law like the Shariat amongst the Muslims. Before Christ, among the Hebrews there was something like a legal-religious book of morality like the Ten Commandments. Jesus Christ Himself had given many very cogent Do’s and Don’ts covering all aspects of life on various occasions. But there was no codification of those rules and regulations that, there was a constant tussle daily between the Popes, Bishops and Governments. In the end there was a clear parting of ways that Governments established Jurisprudence as a separate secular authority on social behaviour! All these developments were concurrent with the ever new findings of Science! The truths of Science were so far from the religious beliefs resulting in a clear erosion of religious beliefs, that there were more non practicing Christians in Europe. Anyhow the Muslims were more regular with their Namaas than Christians were with their Mass!
59. What I was coming to say was that under the situation, when the Britisher’s belief in their own religion was waning and had deeply fallen into a black hole of sensual degeneration abetted by modernity and science; they were not liking the idea of a country that was a slave nation under them, having such a glorious religion as Hinduism. So it was in their interest to rub the nose of Indian Hindus in the mud and get a good name as great evangelical champions of Christianity! So they did their zealous best for a cause of undermining Indian Hindu Religion and spreading Christianity by whatever means! Still, when it came to enactment of Laws, they did not do anything to directly interfere with the Hindu way of life!
60. What the Muslims rulers or Britishers did not dare to do forcing the Hindus, is being done by our own independent government of free India in the name of secularism! Calling all others a minority, in the name of national freedom, they are freely changing and interfering with each and everything of the Hindus, having become slaves of western way of life in style, dress, thought process, economics and industry!
61. Only for name sake is it a secular government. In practice, it is pro Christian, pro Muslim and anti-Hindu. The Muslim and Christian votes are the swing votes! They are precious and so handle them with love, kindness and kid’s gloves! The Hindu votes can be manipulated every which way because they can never vote on any issue en bloc! In reality Hindus are the most fissiparous minority, who cannot see eye to eye with each other on any issue! So in India secularism has come to mean breaking whatever is said in the Saastraas, blame the so called casteism for all the ills of the society, teach them equality, reform Hinduism!
62. Under the situation, there is no meaning in being annoyed. It is our duty to point out the fallacy, with a prayer in our hearts! We have to tell our own people and the whole world that in the name of reformation, we should not be ending up destroying a glorious Religion and a way of life that can never be recreated, if once destroyed! If we have never been pontificating, we should do so now, not to convert others but to save and protect the Hindu religion from extinction!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.