Academicians and experts lend support to ‘ancient wisdom in solving modern challenges’ symposium

Varanasi: A host of academicians, experts and scholars attending the ongoing three-day world symposium here on “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges” echoed the importance of utilising long-drawn traditions in addressing the contemporary challenges while laying emphasis on the need to engage in dialogue and discussion with the youth.

Many of the globally acclaimed academicians, speaking to IANS, backed the idea of “relevance of ancient wisdom to modern challenges” as espoused by Dr Priti Adani, Chairperson, Adani Foundation at the Varanasi event on Monday.

Making a keynote address at the inaugural session of The World Symposium on "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges", Dr Priti Adani said, "Ancient wisdom does not become valuable simply because it is ancient. It becomes valuable when we discover its relevance to contemporary problems," and called for civilisational knowledge to be preserved and applied to address suffering, inequality and conflict.

Chiara Robbiano, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said, "We need to be able to spend time with one another and realise that who we are at any given moment is shaped by what happens between us. Through dialogue, we emerge as new people. Therefore, how we engage in dialogue and how we remain receptive to the wisdom of others are very important."

Zahraa McDonald, Professor at the University of Pretoria, said, "It is about bringing these cultures into modern education. We have been focusing on teaching mathematics and reading, and that is important. We cannot neglect these subjects."

Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), said, "The Adani Group is an enormous business, and it's one of the great progenitors of change in India. So, when we look at India's very rapid economic growth—the fastest-growing large economy in the world—it is fuelled in significant part by the advance of infrastructure, and the Adani Group is playing a huge role in that."

American philosopher Thaddeus Metz, justifying his participation in such gatherings of wisdom, said, "It is worth drawing on long-standing traditions to address contemporary problems because they hold wisdom. If a body of thought has remained relevant for many centuries, there must be valuable insights in it about the human condition and how to make things better. ''

Gauri Mahulikar, Academic Director of the Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF), said, "Just as we live in a family where some members earn, and others do not, there was a time when families consisted of 20 or more members. I remember that there were many people in my extended family whom we children barely knew, yet we would visit them. If we develop the same attitude towards one another, there would be no question of conflict.”

Summing up the event and reasoning as to why Varanasi was chosen for the Summit, Nirupam Bajpai, Economist and Professor at Columbia University, explained, "This is the third edition of the symposium. We have previously held two symposiums, one in Greece and the other in China. This is the first time it is being held in India. Varanasi was chosen because of its focus on Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.”

“I believe there is no place more suitable than Varanasi in India to host this event. We had considered Varanasi from the very beginning, and accordingly, the symposium focuses on these three religions," he further stated.

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