DEIVATHIN KURAL # 80 (Vol #4) Dated 01 Oct 2010.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 80 (Vol #4) Dated 01 Oct 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 437 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)
70. The logic of why there was this condition that an aspirant should have his own house is easy to understand. One is likely to have a sense of pride towards a house owned by one self and so you tend to take care of it. If you are paying subscriptions and taxes for that house, it is more than likely that you will be thriftily protective. One is not likely to have that sort of an attitude when you do not own a house or towards a house say rented by you. Such a person will not be worthy of being entrusted with care of public property. Instead of building a house on his own property, if he has encroached on others or public land, then such a person can never be trusted anyhow. That is the reason that a person standing for being elected to become a member of the village Sabha, should be one who has a house on his own land, legally! These are all part of the efforts to erect a fence of Dharma around public property, thought of in those times. To loosen such checks and balances is nothing short of muddled thinking as a result of the heady wine known as Democracy!
71. Next is the age limits for people aspiring to be a member of the Sabha. Somehow, in this Indian democratic republic, they have laid a lower age limit of 25 or thirty and kept the higher age without a limit! Calling them the younger generation and future heirs and such fancy names, there is a tendency to rope in even school going children into political meetings, demonstrations, hartaal, rasta roko and so on! To get their support, the lower age limit may be even taken down further. Anyhow, for the voters the only qualification is the minimum age! There is already a talk to take this down from 21 to 18, when you are considered as having become a major from being a minor! In these days of ‘kandathe kaatchi kondathe kolam’ meaning, ‘seen is the scenery and worn is the dress’, learning from the experiences of the world is a very tardy process.
72. People may claim great achievements and tell me to keep quiet on the following lines! “Sitting with a head covering inside a Matam in some corner of the world, what do you know about what is happening in the world? We have modern sciences, technologies, research in to arts, and ultra modern management techniques and so on and so on! Our general knowledge level has gone sky high! We have school children’s union, parliament and shadow cabinets. You better note that we are the enlightened modern generation!” That is alright, for you to claim anything! (Sixty years after PeriyavaaL’s this talk, you can further add, as the modern achievements, space travel and cell phones, television, internet communications, face book, twitter, chatting, web cam, new sciences and what not!)
73. Agreed! All that is partially true may be! But the truth is that ‘the modern generation is not enlightened but, in greater ignorance, mostly! All your modern scientific achievements are intellectual, temporary and sensual! If you ask the question as to, what is life and by what will it become meaningful and in what way do the modern scientific achievements help you in answering that question, the answer is a blank! None of these so called modern scientific achievements can provide any acceptable reply for that question. Not only that. Because of the glare of these modern findings, instead of progress, people are regressing. They are more at a loss for understanding, less happy and more confused. There is more heart burn, more hate and less satisfaction. Yes I am sitting in a Matam with my head covered by a portion of my piece of cloth around my body, in some corner of the world! But there are more people coming to me with a variety of complaints and problems. From what they are telling me, I am seeing that compared to the recent immediate past, the enormity and intensity of problems are on the increase. They are regressing in understanding, clarity of comprehension and finding it difficult to cope with and accept the inconsistencies of life! There is a clear retrograde movement in learning through experience that I am noticing.
74. Let me make this point very clear. I became the Mataadipathy some 40 year back. (This talk of PeriyavaaL is dated around the 1960’s.) People have been coming to me with complaint about the society on many issues. But I clearly notice that their level of understanding and comprehension is on the decline. To reduce the voters’ and aspirants’ age group further is really asking for trouble! In matters of public interest, to deliberate and take decisions, what we need is being experienced worldly wise, with general knowledge and maturity. At the time of the inscriptions on the stone, that I am referring to (a thousand years back in history), after two years of experience, they had increased the age limit from 30 to 35! In the first stone inscription, they had said the minimum age of an aspirant for election as 30. Then after two years of experience and deliberations, they had made it 35! Nowadays, it is the childish desire of every so called politician to pull children in to their side! So they are keen to further reduce the minimum age limit! (This has been done in India since then, reducing the voter’s age from 21 to 18!)
75. Now there is no higher age limit. But, those days looking at human nature, they had made a rule on that. After a certain age, one tends to tire. Old age leads to diseases, forgetfulness and senility. More over in earlier days, by constant exposure to Puranas and Satsang, people used to get certain amount of dispassionate attitude towards worldly involvement, with a sense that all events are somehow God’s will. For an active public life such resignation is not suitable. So, there was an upper limit for age. Earlier it was 60 and then later it was raised to 70 after two years. I suppose that while you may become less active physically, maturity of age is more preferable in elder statesmen with a little less passion and more of wisdom.
76. On the one hand, at 60 you reach the retirement age for most jobs. You get the Shashtyabda Poorthi (completion of 60 years), celebration, when you remarry your wife if she is alive and become less active in social forums. May be that this less running around conserves the energy for better decision making. So, for a more sedentary job of planning, deeper deliberations and devising laws and regulations; it was found that you could contribute effectively for another ten years! Since the work in a Sabha does not mean a strenuous work load with may be some visits of inspection to work sites for elder officials, there was an upward amendment to 70 as the cut off age possibly!
77. Elder Statesmen. As a member of the Sabha at the middle age of 35, the advices as given by people above 50 years of age was given more weightage as those of ‘vruddha’ or Elders. There is some extra value to the words of senior citizens, thank God, everywhere in the world! So was it during the period of time of the Sozha inscriptions we are talking about. Talking about the definition of a Sabha, there is a sloka, which gives special position of privilege about old veterans in an assembly. I Quote : “na saa sabha yatra na santhi vruddhaa: na te vruddhaa: ye na vadanti dharmam I na sa dharmo yatra na satyam asti na tat satyam yat - salelaanuvittam II” It means that, “It is not an assembly where elders are not there. Elders are not elders if they are not talking about righteousness. It is not righteous if there is no truth! It is no truth if it is only hypocrisy”. This sloka is worth being etched in stone, copper plates, letter heads and the entrances to U.N.O., the Parliament building and the State Assemblies; and in the minds of all leaders of the world who call themselves upholders of democracy! We will talk about it in the next edition of Deivathin Kural!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.


(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 437 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)
70. The logic of why there was this condition that an aspirant should have his own house is easy to understand. One is likely to have a sense of pride towards a house owned by one self and so you tend to take care of it. If you are paying subscriptions and taxes for that house, it is more than likely that you will be thriftily protective. One is not likely to have that sort of an attitude when you do not own a house or towards a house say rented by you. Such a person will not be worthy of being entrusted with care of public property. Instead of building a house on his own property, if he has encroached on others or public land, then such a person can never be trusted anyhow. That is the reason that a person standing for being elected to become a member of the village Sabha, should be one who has a house on his own land, legally! These are all part of the efforts to erect a fence of Dharma around public property, thought of in those times. To loosen such checks and balances is nothing short of muddled thinking as a result of the heady wine known as Democracy!
71. Next is the age limits for people aspiring to be a member of the Sabha. Somehow, in this Indian democratic republic, they have laid a lower age limit of 25 or thirty and kept the higher age without a limit! Calling them the younger generation and future heirs and such fancy names, there is a tendency to rope in even school going children into political meetings, demonstrations, hartaal, rasta roko and so on! To get their support, the lower age limit may be even taken down further. Anyhow, for the voters the only qualification is the minimum age! There is already a talk to take this down from 21 to 18, when you are considered as having become a major from being a minor! In these days of ‘kandathe kaatchi kondathe kolam’ meaning, ‘seen is the scenery and worn is the dress’, learning from the experiences of the world is a very tardy process.
72. People may claim great achievements and tell me to keep quiet on the following lines! “Sitting with a head covering inside a Matam in some corner of the world, what do you know about what is happening in the world? We have modern sciences, technologies, research in to arts, and ultra modern management techniques and so on and so on! Our general knowledge level has gone sky high! We have school children’s union, parliament and shadow cabinets. You better note that we are the enlightened modern generation!” That is alright, for you to claim anything! (Sixty years after PeriyavaaL’s this talk, you can further add, as the modern achievements, space travel and cell phones, television, internet communications, face book, twitter, chatting, web cam, new sciences and what not!)
73. Agreed! All that is partially true may be! But the truth is that ‘the modern generation is not enlightened but, in greater ignorance, mostly! All your modern scientific achievements are intellectual, temporary and sensual! If you ask the question as to, what is life and by what will it become meaningful and in what way do the modern scientific achievements help you in answering that question, the answer is a blank! None of these so called modern scientific achievements can provide any acceptable reply for that question. Not only that. Because of the glare of these modern findings, instead of progress, people are regressing. They are more at a loss for understanding, less happy and more confused. There is more heart burn, more hate and less satisfaction. Yes I am sitting in a Matam with my head covered by a portion of my piece of cloth around my body, in some corner of the world! But there are more people coming to me with a variety of complaints and problems. From what they are telling me, I am seeing that compared to the recent immediate past, the enormity and intensity of problems are on the increase. They are regressing in understanding, clarity of comprehension and finding it difficult to cope with and accept the inconsistencies of life! There is a clear retrograde movement in learning through experience that I am noticing.
74. Let me make this point very clear. I became the Mataadipathy some 40 year back. (This talk of PeriyavaaL is dated around the 1960’s.) People have been coming to me with complaint about the society on many issues. But I clearly notice that their level of understanding and comprehension is on the decline. To reduce the voters’ and aspirants’ age group further is really asking for trouble! In matters of public interest, to deliberate and take decisions, what we need is being experienced worldly wise, with general knowledge and maturity. At the time of the inscriptions on the stone, that I am referring to (a thousand years back in history), after two years of experience, they had increased the age limit from 30 to 35! In the first stone inscription, they had said the minimum age of an aspirant for election as 30. Then after two years of experience and deliberations, they had made it 35! Nowadays, it is the childish desire of every so called politician to pull children in to their side! So they are keen to further reduce the minimum age limit! (This has been done in India since then, reducing the voter’s age from 21 to 18!)
75. Now there is no higher age limit. But, those days looking at human nature, they had made a rule on that. After a certain age, one tends to tire. Old age leads to diseases, forgetfulness and senility. More over in earlier days, by constant exposure to Puranas and Satsang, people used to get certain amount of dispassionate attitude towards worldly involvement, with a sense that all events are somehow God’s will. For an active public life such resignation is not suitable. So, there was an upper limit for age. Earlier it was 60 and then later it was raised to 70 after two years. I suppose that while you may become less active physically, maturity of age is more preferable in elder statesmen with a little less passion and more of wisdom.
76. On the one hand, at 60 you reach the retirement age for most jobs. You get the Shashtyabda Poorthi (completion of 60 years), celebration, when you remarry your wife if she is alive and become less active in social forums. May be that this less running around conserves the energy for better decision making. So, for a more sedentary job of planning, deeper deliberations and devising laws and regulations; it was found that you could contribute effectively for another ten years! Since the work in a Sabha does not mean a strenuous work load with may be some visits of inspection to work sites for elder officials, there was an upward amendment to 70 as the cut off age possibly!
77. Elder Statesmen. As a member of the Sabha at the middle age of 35, the advices as given by people above 50 years of age was given more weightage as those of ‘vruddha’ or Elders. There is some extra value to the words of senior citizens, thank God, everywhere in the world! So was it during the period of time of the Sozha inscriptions we are talking about. Talking about the definition of a Sabha, there is a sloka, which gives special position of privilege about old veterans in an assembly. I Quote : “na saa sabha yatra na santhi vruddhaa: na te vruddhaa: ye na vadanti dharmam I na sa dharmo yatra na satyam asti na tat satyam yat - salelaanuvittam II” It means that, “It is not an assembly where elders are not there. Elders are not elders if they are not talking about righteousness. It is not righteous if there is no truth! It is no truth if it is only hypocrisy”. This sloka is worth being etched in stone, copper plates, letter heads and the entrances to U.N.O., the Parliament building and the State Assemblies; and in the minds of all leaders of the world who call themselves upholders of democracy! We will talk about it in the next edition of Deivathin Kural!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.