VEDIC DARSHAN

1. Asya Vamya Sukta. Brahma Vishno Mahes,

2. Vag Sukta - Divine Speech, Nasadiya sukta-Uncertainty of

Creation

3. Purushasukta

4. Bhagvadgita Chapter 18, advice, pushpa, five causes, leave

ignorant alone

5. Mausmriti, brahman assialant must be killed

6. Arthasastra sama dana danda bheda

7. Sukraniti political stability, administrative skill

8. Upanisad, Isa action, Brhadaranyaka brahmas, Chhandyoga

seed,

9. Mahabharata Shanti Parva, Vana Parva

10. Vakyapadiya Child and Brahman grace and skill across

differenet levels

11. Tantraloka Shiva Without shakti is jar

12. Radhakrishnan universal is prior to particular, levels of

reality

13. Tagore You without me is nothing

14. Vivekananda potentially divine. Addition not subtraction

15. Eisntein arbitrary concepts help orientation in the maze of

manifest

16. Heisenberg quantum coherence and interactive decoherence

 SPIRITUAL REALISM

Vedic Texts, Rituals as Science, Naturalism, Manyu, Creation,

Togetherness, Justified Aggression, Yagya is Yoga bonding

Panini’s grammar on Individual and Category, Particular and

General. Using words to transcend words.

Mahabharata and Ramayana as epics of War, Shantiparva on

peace through strength and wisdom. Value of Danda and Sword

Bhagvadgita on the necessity of taking up arms to fight and win

the battle for righteousness. Action and Knowledge.

Chankaya’s Arthasastra on sam, dam, danda, and bheda

Upanisads on two levels of brahma the imminent and

transcendental. The imminent as the anna brahma, In Seed

Vaisesika, Sankhya, PurvaMimansa approaches to study of

the particular in its in infinitesimal and infinite manifestation

Dharmasutra and Dharmasastra on performace of duties

here and now for social and individual good in diverse contexts

Natyasastra as the treatise of realizing the aesthetic sense

through perfection of the names and forms, openness to change.

Vakyapadia with Prakaranakanda as the foundation to realise the

Brahmakanda, Pratibha as emergent insight. Contextual meaning.
Mahabharat, Bhagvadgita, Ashtadhyayi, Mahabhashya, Natyashastra,

Tantraloka on Sakti Siva as no more than a jar.

Vivekananda on strength as the essence of the Upanisads.

Tagore on knowledge with action as the message of the Isa

Upanisad. Consummation of the infinite in the finite.

Radhakamal Mukerjee on complementarity of the perceptible

and imperceptible reality in natural and social science.

Radhakrishnan unity of universal and particular and

redemption of the world through knowledge.
 THE DHARMASHASTRAS AS HINDU LAW BOOKS

Are about morality and social duty. They provide guiding rules and
principles for the order and regularity of society and righteous
conduct.

It is necessary to study the Dharmasastra with understanding,

accepting the basic principles of human conduct that are still valid and
relevant and examining the rest for their historical value. They belong to an
age when people had different worldviews and conducted their lives based on
certain beliefs, values, traditions and assumptions. It is not fair to judge them
based on our contemporary values, norms and principles.

On the positive side, Hinduism has remained largely free from the
restrictive views of the law books and marched ahead with time
accommodating changes and adaptations to meet the challenges of human
progress. The law books lost much of their practical utility, due to the decline
in the power of Hindu rulers during the medieval period. Despite many
setbacks, Hinduism continued to grow assimilating new currents of thought
and transforming itself into a complex knowledge tradition encompassing a
whole gamut of beliefs, philosophies, and practices.

Dharma is a very elaborate concept with divergent meanings. Its

primary aim is to ensure the orderly progress (Rta) of creation and
existence, by preserving their foundational structure, values, order and
regularity. According to Hinduism, one of the is to protect the worlds and
beings by enforcing the Dharma that is specific to each of them. The rules of
Dharma are universal in the sense that their primary source is God only.
However, variations arise in their implementations as they are applied at
different levels of capabilities and in different contexts according to the duties,
roles and responsibilities prescribed to each of them.

Dharma is eternal, but its enforcement and observance are

contextual. Hence, they are subject to change. They are also applicable to
beings who are bound to either duty or mortality, but not to those who are
liberated forever. In the liberated state, the souls (jeevan muktas) enjoy
eternal power in the world of Brahman, where there are no boundaries and no
laws, but only all knowing awareness, and immeasurable existence that is not
subject to any laws or limitations. In that eternal and infinite state, each soul
governs itself, exists by itself, bound to nothing, complete, perfect and very
much like God in a state of unity.

The Dharma Shastra were meant for people who are bound to the
mortal world, because of their ignorance, sinful karma, delusion and
desires, and who engage in desire-ridden actions. For such people guidance is
required for distinguishing the lawful from the unlawful, and performing such
duties that flow directly from God which will ensure the orderly progression of
the world and preservation of the moral, social and political order.
The Dharmashastras are not products of divine revelations like the
Vedas. Hence, they are vulnerable to the imperfections to which the human
mind is prone. Yet, we cannot cast them away as mere intellectual works of
limited vision. They were crafted with care to provide guidance from a divine
perspective. In them you will find a sincere attempt to provide practical
solutions to possible social anarchy, disorderliness, and moral confusion. In
them we find divine wisdom as distilled by the human mind and filtered by
discerning intelligence.

Hence, they are considered smriti rather than sruti. They represent
the collective wisdom of spiritual teachers, scholars, rulers, and law makers
who were instrumental in their creation and enforcement. The law books
prescribed best possible solutions to each class of beings to pursue the four
ideals of dharma, artha, kama and Moksha, but in doing so they were not
completely free from the caste predilections that favored a few social classes.
They betray a veiled attempt by ingenious minds to ensure status quo and
preserve the social, economic and political privileges of select castes.

Using the authority of God and social norms, the Dharmasastr

tried to ensure the order and regularity of the world on an ongoing
basis, but in that they were not completely successful as is evident from the
decline of their jurisdictional power following the decline of the power of
Hindu rulers in the Indian subcontinent. However, on the positive side, they
created a framework to envisage ideal human conduct and standards to
distinguish the right from the wrong. They laid down elaborate rules to govern
human conduct and instill fear of moral and temporal authority.

Some of the laws and principles prescribed in the Dharmasastr are

bound to be questioned by from the point of view of the values of equality,
fraternity, individual liberty and social and moral justice. Many verses in them
stand in contrast to these modern values and sound retrogressive. Therefore,
when we study them, we need to weigh the knowledge from an academic or
historical point of view as a work in progress. It is unwise to use them as a
reference to justify any social or gender inequality in today's society or make
an argument that we must draw inspiration from them to regulate our social
conduct. We may take from them a principles that are still valid in the present
day world and observe them in your life, but we may not use it as a justifiable
point to argue their universal adaptation.

Some critics of Hinduism use the law books to denigrate Hinduism

and cast aspersions upon Hindu society. Since present-day Hindus
follow common civil code rather than the law books such attempts must be
countered at every level. Humanity has advanced to the current stage through
periods of history. Human civilization was never perfect. We made progress
through trial and error, learning from our mistakes and failures and making
amendments with the past. Therefore, to judge Hinduism based upon the law
books would be similar to judging the Europeans based upon inquisitions and
religious persecutions of the medieval period.
Hinduism has come a long way from the days of the Vedic people
and from the ancient practices of human and animal sacrifices. Overtime
Hinduism managed to resolve the inconsistencies and anachronisms of its
past and morphed into a tradition with a strong spiritual base and broader
appeal. It became possible due to the untiring works of numerous souls, who
sculpted the tradition as an expression of the highest in the intelligence of
man and the best in the vision of God.

We need to reinterpret Hindu dharma for the coming generations,

to meet the expectations of those who would scientifically be well prepared
and spiritually well advanced. The silent revolution within Hindu dharma has
been going on, despite attacks from within and without to embrace the future
that is shaping itself in the womb of the earth. Hindu studies is important for
all those who are trying to redefine Hinduism and making it more relevant to
the complex contemporary world as well as the coming ages.

Our knowledge and understanding of reality and existence is

changing. We may require new philosophies and approaches to explain the
enormous contradictions that exist in the universe at the subatomic level and
in the dimensions of space and time. There are still many gaps in our
understanding of modern physics, quantum mechanics, quantum gravity,
gravitational laws and the laws of thermodynamics. Until we resolve them, the
universe will remain a huge puzzle and enigma.

There is prominent role of probability and uncertainty in

causation, in the existence and interaction of things. We are a combination
of trillions of atomic and subatomic particles. Whether they hold the memory
of life or consciousness we do not know. What may happen to us depends
upon a number of probability factors and how we act and interact with the
things and forces of Nature. We exist until the energy in our bodies moves and
acts, and we disappear when that dance of matter and energy ends. Were we
there before we were born? Will we be there after we die?

There is no certainty where a living being may appear and how long
it will survive. Almost all the happenings upon earth are influenced by
multiple factors and events. The same is true at the subatomic level with
regard to the life of electrons, protons, and quarks or the elementary particles
that make up the atoms. They appear in the cosmic ocean of the universe for a
brief moment and then disappear. Physicists cannot tell you where they were
before or after that brief moment of their appearance. Thus, modern
researches in quantum physics turn our notion of reality upside down.

Swami Vivekakanda provided a gist of the latest developments in

modern physics. It is written in layman's language with extraordinary
clarity. It opens our minds to the mind-boggling discoveries of the last two
centuries, including Einstein's theory of relativity and Heisenberg's equation
of quantum mechanics. Swami Vivekananda had anticipated these discoveries
in his writings in late 19th century.
1. The subatomic particles in an atom do not always exist in space
and time. They exist as probabilities, and appear only when they collide with
other particles or jump into another orbit. Thus, the existence of an
elementary particle, such as an electron, at the quantum level arises only by
chance during its interactions with other particles. No one can predict where
the individual particles exist or how they will collide with others. It may be
that even the particles in their restful mode may have no specific location.
They may exist simultaneously at different locations or do not exist at all.

2. What Newton believed as the gravitational field is indeed space

itself. This was the startling discovery made by Einstein by sheer chance.
Einstein proved that space is not empty but a substance or fine matter. He
suggested that space is not flat but curved which is responsible for gravity. It
curves more around heavier objects, especially black holes, and less around
lighter objects where things remain in their place.

3. Because of the gravitational waves, space is more like the surface

of an ocean rather than that of a glass pan. It also expands and
contracts due to a number of factors. Another startling discovery is that space
is not continuous, but made of little units called quanta or “atoms of space.”
No one can say with certainty where they exist. They certainly do not exist in
space because they are the space. Then, where does space exist? What is its
support?

4. The flow of time is an illusion. It arises only when things become

heated up. In a cold universe time does not flow from past to present or
present to future, but remains bound to the units of space. In a heated
universe we may experience the illusion of time moving from past to present
and to future in a localized object because of thermodynamics and the rapid
movement of the atoms. However, at the universe level, there is no universal
present moment or the current reality. Thus, the division of past, present and
future is just an illusion created by the laws of thermodynamics..

5. The black holes are not only objects of compressed matter and
energy but also compressed space. Space compresses in and around the
black holes to such an extent that it does not let anything escape from it. Black
holes are aberrations in time and space like little whirls in the flow of water.
They expand and explode when they reach a certain threshold. Thus, black
holes are localized powerhouses of energy where space and time cease to be
what they are, and where the known laws of physics may not operate with the
same degree of probability or predictability.

6. While the universal "Now" or "Present" is absent in the universe,

it has "Here" or the localized points of space. The Now or the Present
moment is relative to your location in space and time. Even that may depend
upon a number of probabilities at the quantum level and the relative speed at
which things move. There is no flow of time as such. The flow of time is an
illusion. In other words, you may determine time in relation to other objects in
the universe, but you will never know what the universal time is, unless
perhaps we detect other universes and find out in what time they exist.
7. Uncertainty and unpredictability seems to be the essential nature
of existence. The universe itself is a set of probabilities and possibilities. It is
an open ended system where anything can happen as long as the possibility or
the probability of its happening exists. The known or the manifested universe
has some predictability but what makes it possible, visible or active is not
always predictable. The emergent universe could have been entirely different,
and earth and the possibility of life upon it might never have happened. At the
quantum level, the universe is foggy, uncertain and unpredictable. The
causality and knowability of the universe has long been considered a mystery
and huge challenge in Indian knowledge tradition.

It seems we do not know much about the universe and what we

know may need further refinement. We are fortunate we can
consciously see and experience the vastness of the universe and understand its
complex processes despite that we are so tiny in comparison. We are not
separate from it, but we exist in it. We are also neither the center nor the
purpose of the universe, and we may not even matter at all. It is possible that
we may just be the outcome of probabilities, upon which the whole fabric of
the universe rests. It is possible life may appear multiple times on each planet
in its long span of billions of years and disappear without leaving a trace.

Thus, we exist in a maze of theoretical realities and possibilities

that may manifest if certain conditions are present, and may not manifest at
all if they are absent or if they are present in a different combination of causes
and effects. We do not know whether there is any organized and continuous
intelligence, which is responsible for all the phenomena. If there is one, it may
or may not fit into our conception of God. Someday we may perhaps find that
force, or we may not find it at all.

Absolute reality remains a theoretical possibility in all existences.

It manifests differently in different universes. Even in the here and now of our
own time and space, it may forever remain an enigma as the silent and
mysterious force which exists in between the play of particles and in the
interlude between the appearance and disappearance of things, or in an
entirely different dimension that is beyond our comprehension and reach.
Even if we see it by chance in the possibility of impossibilities, you may not
know that he is the One.

We may ascribe self-importance to our existence, but we do not know

how much the universe cares about us. Do you think that our existence makes
any difference to this vast universe? Did we just happen, or were we meant to
happen? We may manage to survive in it, but we have no control upon it,
except in the little space and time that we create for ourselves. We are little
possibilities in the endless possibilities of the universe.

The universe was there before we appeared on earth, and it will

surely be there after we disappear. Our survival is also a matter of
probability. Indian knowledge tradition recognises that we possess only a
fraction of the knowledge and energy of the universe. We have yet to know the
fundamental reality of our own brains and bodies, and how they manifest
consciousness, thoughts and interactions or the individuality.
 ANCIENT INDIAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
Needs to be studied not for the pleasure of showing its peculiarities
and its singularities. It should be studied because it may lead to a
better understanding of the present nature of society and politics.
It acquires a meaning and justification for the present only if it
advances and ennobles life for now and future.

No one hypothesis or theory dominated Indian social and political

thought in any age. The intellectual universe of the Indians was
“pluralistic.” There were different schools criticizing, correcting, and
modifying one another’s enquiries in a spirit of growth and development in
critical inquiry, sceptical attitude, rationalism, and openness.

It is strange that the Indians should have been regarded so long as

a purely non-political or even other-worldly in spite of the thousand and
one evidences of a rich social, political and material life furnished by
architectural, sculptural, numismatic and literary records. study of the
functions of the state in Indian social and political tradition shows that
political insight, the study of public interests, concerted efforts for material
prosperity and common welfare were integral features of Indian social life.

A study of ancient Indian social and state system provides a keen

insight into the principles of strong and good government and
political wisdom that find place in Indian texts of the time. The structure
and functioning of the Indian social and political system of these times has
many points anticipated the latest principles of good administration and
which have yet to be realised by modern states.

The king was no doubt supreme in his kingdom in Indian political

thought but he was not considered infallible. The social limitations
were fully recognised, and moral as well as legal restrictions are imposed upon
him as upon other men. The theory of the Divine Right of kings must not be
imported into the study of Indian socio-political institutions.

Faith in the impersonal energy of ultimate reality that creates and

sustains the earth, the sky, and the stars, and also irradiates our minds with
the light of a consciousness that moves and exists in unbroken continuity with
the outer world is not only a philosophical imagination for India.

It is considered the life-object of individual and society to realise

this great harmony in feeling and in action through Purushartha- dharm,
arth, kam, moksh. Unity and diversity between the human and the spiritual is
the fundamental bedrock of Indian social and state system.

The combination of sharing with enjoyment, the harmonising of

sanyasa and asceticism with Samsara and attachments, the inter-mixture
of Nivriti or highest spiritual self-realisation with Pravritti or pursuit of
pleasure in life, the perception of the Infinite in the finite, freedom in law, and
the blending of duties with rights are, in fact, the permanent and essential
features of Indian social and political institutions.