Dear Srivaishnavas,
Adiyen came across this article in a website (which ofcourse may be
old and may have been put in the forum before), neverthless posting
this once more will enlighten the srivaishnavas of the kainkaryams
to the sanatatna dharma and Srivaishnavism as a whole, by Swami.
please visit the following address for the article.
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/75/
Quote"
To many, Sanskrit is a dead language. Some think it's a 'useless'
language. Quite a few Hindus preen themselves that it is exclusively
theirs. But did you know serious scholars are beginning to marvel at
the rigour, reach and secularism of Sanskrit? Many of these --all
over the world-- are mining it for values the modern world can
benefit by. But nearly no one does this exposition with greater
commitment, catholicity and religious neutrality than Prof M A
Lakshmi Thathachar at the Academy of Sanskrit Research, Melkote,
Karnataka. On the 15 acres of the Academy, the assertions in
Sanskrit texts regarding ecology, farming, health and right living
are on view. The Professor is a farmer, livestock breeder,
conservationist, researcher, teacher, computer adept and most of
all, a man who embodies all that is best in the Indian tradition. He
is a Renaissance man unique to India.
An ancient seat:
Melkote [pronounced 'May-l-kottay'] claims a connection with
Sanskrit since the mythical times when Saint Dattatreya is said to
have taught his disciples the 'true knowledge'. More certainly,
history confirms a connection at least since the 12th Century when
Sr Ramanujar, scholar, social reformer, father of the bhakti
movement and founder of Vishistadvaita philosophy made Melkote his
home. One of his devotees -- Ananthalvan -- is a direct ancestor of
Lakshmi Thathachar. Their family, has been custodians of Sanskritic
heritage ever since. One of the country's oldest, formal Sanskrit
college was formed in Melkote in early nineteen century.
Young Lakshmi Thathachar was a robust young man, farming the acre
behind his house. He produced all the vegetables and fruits for the
family. He tended the household cattle. He had a scientific bent of
mind too and wanted to study science in college. But his father
forbade him 'sciences'. It was feared he would be distracted by the
western way of thought and miss the self-contained scientific system
in Sanskrit. Thathachar -- now 68 -- feels his father was right. He
worked for his Masters in Sanskrit at Madras university. While at
it, he was also a pupil at a small gurukulam run by the great
Sanskrit scholar, Sri Karappankadu Venkatachariar. The learned man
was ageing and repeatedly urged Thathachar to build a centre that
will bring the works of Sri Ramanujar to the world. That message was
to remain with him throughout his career in Bangalore University as
Professor of Sanskrit.
In nearer history, Melkote had been ruled by a dynasty founded by
Yaduraya. His clan had built several water retaining structures --
kalyanis-- of great effectiveness and beauty. A small scholarly
community had thriven there. In early 19th century, Tipu Sultan's
army descended on a Deepavali day and massacred 800 citizens, mostly
of a sect known as Mandyam Iyengars. Sanskrit scholarship had been
their forte. [To this day Melkote does not celebrate Deepavali].
That slaughter rendered Melkote a near ghost town. Its
environmentally connected life was broken, kalyanis went to ruin,
water shortage became endemic, the hills went brown. Sanskrit lost a
home.
Revival begins:
By 1977 Thathachar had persuaded the Karnataka government to
commission an Academy of Sanskrit Research. He was given 15 acres in
Melkote, if he would set up the Academy; funds for building and
running the centre however was not assured. He had to depend on his
considerable reputation and energies to raise the money. He took the
challenge on. He quit his job as professor and returned home. An
adventure awaited him.
Thathachar stood on the windswept ridge allocated for the Academy.
Years of deforestation and water run off had rendered it a rock
strewn moonscape. From the valley below the wind howled. Most of the
stone-stepped kalyanis lay in disrepair. The Academy buildings and
research teams seemed far away and impossible.
He began at what he knew. The line of Ananthalvan of which he was
the current heir, had always been the chosen one for gathering and
bringing various strictly specified flowers for worship. The 'sthala
purana' ['local history'] extensively described the flora and fauna
of the hills. Thathachar decided to recreate a garden that will hark
back to the gentle times.
This was easier conceived than done. It was then that Thathachar re-
discovered the Hallikar bulls. These had been Tipu's beasts of
burden dragging his guns and carrying his rations and other supplies
to war. They have a fine head and their horns crown them well. They
are fierce, fast, strong and loyal. It was said Tipu would tie
flaming torches to their horns and drive them to speed at nights; it
was Tipu's 'shock and awe' play.
Thathachar recruited this proud, handsome, native species for a new
enterprise now, and began to breed them. The Hallikars were used to
bring soil, water and materials to the Academy site which was up a
gentle slope from the temple town. Soil was strategically filled in
the hollows between rocks and he began to plant them with jasmines,
sampige and other Indian flowering trees and shrubs. As the garden
formed in this hard rock place, the professor --without any place to
research Sanskrit yet-- began to observe the emerging world around
him. He dipped into the texts to learn of 'rishi-krishi paddati' or
the system of zero cultivation. His growing Hallikar herd and rising
grove meshed with each other and encircled Thathachar. He doesn't
take organic material to compost somewhere. He lets material fall
where they might. He takes raw dung and piles it over organic
matter. There they lie and decompose and create soil again. Today
after 24 years of this practice there are 300 species of plants
growing in mixed wilderness. There are 26 species of jasmine alone.
Between running around for funds to construct the Academy buildings
Thathachar has remained focused on letting nature rebuild desolated
wasteland. When some old houses were being demolished in Melkote
town, he discovered the walls were made of rich red earth. His
Hallikars ran convoys for days carrying this rich rubble to his
rocky estate. The clumps were broken down and spread everywhere. He
restored eight lined kalyanis and unlined ponds within the campus.
He harvests no more than half the fruits and flowers. "It is the way
of the wild. One takes what one needs and lets the rest feed the
birds and animals or drop to the ground to rot. Modern farming
thinks it is smart to maximise produce and wipe it clean. The
ancient way was to live with nature, not treat it as a profit
centre," he says.
>From land to knowledge:
When the handsome centre was eventually built it stood in a micro
landscape that approximated to what the ancient texts described.
>From there he leapt to very modern times. It was a time when desktop
computers began to be affordable. Thathachar was quick to scent
their importance and relevance to his work. He soon became an
adept. "I simply exposed myself to it and realised its potential,"
he says by way of explaining how he can handle all the gear and
understand how programming languages work.
The Academy began to publish authentic English translations of Sri
Ramanujar's works as also treatises on Vishishtadvaita. He began to
collect works written on palm leaves. He went all over south India
and householders happily gave him their heirlooms. "This is what is
marvellous about an India not yet gone 'modern'," he says. "In the
West people would hand these to Sotheby's for getting the greatest
price; the people I met gave them away when I told them I would care
for them." He has a collection of over 10,000 palm based texts, 850
rare old paper texts and over 25,000 books -- all related to
Sanskrit. A large bowl of lemon grass oil is constantly kept warm
amidst the array of shelves. It is enough to effectively preserve
the treasures.
The Academy has state of the art facilities for digitisation of
vulnerable texts. It has an in-house printing press. Thathachar has
gathered a team of Sanskrit scholars from all over India to organise
the texts for publication. The Academy also publishes media for
popularising Sanskrit learning. There are lexicons and commentaries
for students.
With passing time however, it is becoming clear that Sanskrit is
just the visible skin over a vast throbbing organism called
cosmos. "How silly to think Sanskrit is a language for a ritual or a
religion," he says. And then asks: "Tell me how you
translate 'gyan'? You'd say knowledge, knowledge system etc and you
would still not have captured the spirit of the word. The closest
perhaps is, 'right and total knowledge of the cosmos'"
Approaches to the source:
Lakshmi Thathachar's view of Sanskrit's nature may be paraphrased as
follows: All modern languages have etymological roots in classical
languages. And some say all Indo-European languages are rooted in
Sanskrit, but let us not get lost in that debate. Words in Sanskrit
are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives object
oriented programming [OOP] today. For example, in English 'cow' is a
just a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill
down the word 'gau' --Sanskrit for 'cow'-- you will arrive at a
broad class 'gam' which means 'to move. From these
derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of 'movement'.
All words have this OOP approach, except that defined classes in
Sanskrit are so exhaustive that they cover the material and
abstract --indeed cosmic-- experiences known to man. So in Sanskrit
the connection is more than etymological.
It was Panini who formalised Sanskrit's grammer and usage about 2500
years ago. No new 'classes' have needed to be added to it since
then. "Panini should be thought of as the forerunner of the modern
formal language theory used to specify computer languages," say J J
O'Connor and E F Robertson. <http://www-gap.dcs.st-
and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Panini.html> Their article also
quotes: "Sanskrit's potential for scientific use was greatly
enhanced as a result of the thorough systemisation of its grammar by
Panini. ... On the basis of just under 4000 sutras [rules expressed
as aphorisms ], he built virtually the whole structure of the
Sanskrit language, whose general 'shape' hardly changed for the next
two thousand years."
Every 'philosophy' in Sanskrit is in fact a 'theory of everything'.
[The many strands are synthesised in Vedanta --Veda + anta--, which
means the 'last word in Vedas'.] Mimamsa, which is a part of the
Vedas, <http://www.san.beck.org/EC11-Hindu.html> even ignores the
God idea. The reality as we know was not created by anyone --it
always was--, but may be shaped by everyone out of free will. Which
is a way of saying --in OOP terms-- that you may not touch the
mother or core classes but may create any variety of instances of
them. It is significant that no new 'classes' have had to be
created. Thathachar believes it is not a 'language' as we know the
term but the only front-end to a huge, interlinked, analogue
knowledge base. The current time in human history is ripe, he feels
for India's young techno wizards to turn to researching Mimamsa and
developing the ultimate programming language around it; nay, an
operating system itself.
Professor's wish-list
1-- Funds are always short for running the Academy and creating new
facilities. The Professor spends most of his time running around to
raise the required funds and is beginning to tire of this non-
creative work. He seeks generous well-wishers to come forward to
relieve him of this chore. A detailed proposal for potential donors
is available which lists requirement of funds for capital and
recurring costs. You may email the Professor
<mailto:asrbng@xxxxxxxx> directly to receive the document.
2-- Academy's website <http://www.sanskritacademy.org>is somewhat
dated and requires a facelift. Professor readily admits the Acdemy
does not have in-house skills to build a contemporary site to
showcase its works. He seeks enthusiastic youngsters to redesign,
host and maintain the website. It would of course mean that
volunteers would have an interest in the work of the Academy and are
willing to set aside regular time for running the site and also
raise the required money for hosting it.
3-- The Professor yearns for young post doctoral computer science
researchers at the cutting edge to spend extended periods at the
Academy to explore ways of developing natural language computing
based on Sanskrit. Modest, comfortable accommodation can be provided
though the Academy is not in a position pay any stipends. Better
than emailing, it is better to talk over the phone or best, pay a
visit after making an appointment.
4--The Professor's greatest dream is to create a Gurukulam at a five
acre piece of land available near teh Academy. He would like it to
be his final endeavour to show that Sanskrit-learning can lead to
viable, contemporarily relevant careers. For something like about
Rs. 10 lakhs a new educational system can be pioneered. Prospective
donors can also particiapte in developing the curriculum. Please
write to the Professor <mailto:asrbng@xxxxxxxx>
Thathachar believes that not enough is being done to explore the
rich veins in Sanskrit's knowledge mines. Yoga, ayurveda,
architecture, music, dance, statecraft and the like are but a few
products that have been brought out. Agriculture, metallurgy,
computer sciences etc can gain if new forays are made into the
depths of Sanskrit. He is gratified recognition for the Academy's
work with Sanskrit is coming slowly. It is an approved 'Scientific
and Industrial Research Organisation' [SIRO]. It is recognised by
the University of Mysore as a centre that can guide doctoral
candidates. Visveswaraiah Technological University, Belgaum has
permitted it to award PhD and MSc degrees by research in Information
Technology, Materials Science, Aeronautics and Social engineering.
Indian Space Research Organisation [ISRO] has commissioned it to
prepare an Indian view of the cosmos.
We are out in the fields again. "If there is one thing I denounce
the West for, it is the concept of banks and interest. Yes, you can
quote me -- I am closer to Islam in this respect. Money as an end
measure of attainments is ruining everything. Our governance,
commerce, farming and relationships are all drifting away from the
reality that can work without conflicts. We are fooling ourselves
with what is progress. We will face the wall soon," he says. He
sounds far from being despondent or extremist, though. In fact there
is a glint in his eyes, almost as if he can sense that the trend may
be reversing.
All around him the trees are wilting because of the worst drought he
can remember. Reluctantly he drilled a bore-well this year. But
there is still some water in one tank. And enough spirit in this 68
year old man.
He readily concedes compromises need to be made while living the
modern life and he doesn't wish that anything should be forced. All
he dreams of is that a large mass of people will live the connected
life. What we learn, what we believe in, what we speak, what we do,
what we create, what we care for, what we grow, what we eat and what
we leave behind have all to be connected. It is foolishness to
believe --as modern economics believes-- that these can exist
separately.
Compromises may have to be made yes, and many may not have the
opportunity yet to live a connected life. But truly wise ones must
seek such a life. Professor Lakshmi Thathachar has steadfastly clung
to his citizenship in eternity. He lives and works close to the
source of all streams that govern life -- a source called Sanskrit.
__________
Academy of Sanskrit Research
Melkote - 571431
Mandya District
Karnataka, India
The nearest railway station is Mandya, on the Bangalore-Mysore route.
Prof. M A Lakshmi Thathachar
email: asrbng@xxxxxxxx
Website: sanskritacademy.org
Phones:(+91) (08236) 298741, 298781; 298742 [after hours]
__________
August, 2003
"unquote
Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan,
Nallan Chakravarthy Narashiman
azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ramanuja/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ramanuja-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia |
ramanuja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To subscribe to the list |