Of talent and serving the country

Rare are those who bring glory to the country in the world through their talents. And, of them, still rarer are those who make world realize the greatness of their country in heritage, in antiquity and in its culture in particular. Among such personalities one name of Manjul Bhargava came to be added last days. “Field medal” has the reputation of “Nobel prize” in the field of arithmetic. Professor in America’s Princeton University, Manjul became first Indian to earn “Field medal”. He achieved this feat in the field of geometry. Manjul also has a good command of Sanskrit language, which he learned from his Professor Grandfather. Notably, his grandfather had a Sanskrit manuscript written by 628 B.C.’s Indian arithmetician, Brahamgupt. Manjul made a deep study of the manuscript, with the help of which he succeeded in explaining in simpler way the “Number theory law” given by 18th century’s arithmetician Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Though, the work of introducing entire world, more particularly America, with the rich ancient knowledge of India— which Manjul today did— was first done by Swami Vivekananda. But one more as much important work of arousing his countrymen to their ‘swa’ [Self], and of having pride on it, he did. The time Vivekananda arose to the nation’s horizon was the time when most of the saints, sages and religious heads were engaged in highlighting that selective exposition of Dharma given to which in the eyes of the people physical consumption, worldly pleasure and all that had got to be something of low worth, of extreme contempt. The tendency of giving one’s indolence and inaction the name of sanyasa was in vogue. It was Vivekananda who dealt first ever effective blow on this tendency.

Even before coming in the contact with Ramkrishna Paramhans, Vivekananda had been voracious reader, and the works of Hegel, Mills and such other world renowned philosophers and thinkers he had deeply read. After having been initiated from Ramkrishna Paramhans when his attention drew to the plight of the people around beset with blind faith and meaningless rituals it occurred to him that much had been read about the world over and that he should now earn the knowledge for the redemption of his people, of his countrymen too. Thus from the religious scriptures he took out and put forth those elements of wisdom which inspire for the action, and give the message of living the life full of joy, and which were common and that of nourishing the feeling of oneness among the different section of people then badly segregated into castes, creeds and such other. So also, when, one apart from itself, Christian fraternity was not ready to consider anybody civilized in the world, Vivekananda, making the full use of opportunity he got in Chicago Religious-parliament, made the world aware of the greatness of all-inclusive Hindu-view of life based upon Vedanta.

If we go more back to the history we find that those who had been forcibly or through deception once converted to Islam wanted to come back to Hindu-fold then this was made impossible by the then Hindu religious heads. In their eyes if anything that conversion was then it was nothing less than a sin. Means, the Hindu that once adopted Islam could get to be anything, but never a Hindu yet again. Hurt thus from their own people, this Hindu-turned- Muslim henceforth emerged as yet more fanatic, and, hence, got to be unsparing in taking revenge from them on getting opportunity. As such, that whose eyes fell on this evil throwing Hindus to the path of self-suicide was Vidhyaharan swami, the then Shankracharya of Shringeri-shrine of South India.

He decided to open the eyes of Hindu-community and its so many obscurantist so-called religious exponents. Having gone through the Hindu scriptures afresh in view of exigency of time, he put forth those parts of scriptures which support shudhikaran[religious-purification ceremony to be performed to bring one back to Hindu-fold] of those who got to be religiously defiled one or other way. With his arguments based on scriptural evidences he made contemporary religious fraternity give up its biased stance on the matter; and thus opened the way of coming back to Hinduism. Among the Hindus coming in big numbers back to fold also were two brave Hindu-turned-Muslim brothers, Harihar and Bukrai, who later on by the inspiration of Vidhyaharan swami displayed a great prowess in the battlefield and defeated Muslims, founding the glorious Vijaynagar empire in 1336 A.D. This is not all. In Goa when Muslim-rule came to an end in the hands of Hindu leadership yet again he performed shudhikaran of local defiled Hindus by making them take holy dip amidst chanting of mantras in Madhavteerth pond build especially for this purpose. So that ever after the shudhikaran may continue to be observed like he introduced it as a scriptural provision.

How one could make use of his talent, his skill and even his interest in the cause of nation or, for that matter, society if we take a look of such instances in the history then they are many more. But now is the time of mobile and internet. If today somebody, more particularly youth, is not doing anything, then he would most probably be doing something or other on mobile— as internet has made easy his approach to the whole lot of information worldwide. Likewise, the son of my friend has collected plethora of information regarding brain, which he even shares with his friend on social sites. Once hearing minute things regarding it from him, I anxiously asked him, “By Yoga and Pranayam the physical ailments could be cured, now there remained no doubt about it. But could brain related ailments, so also, be cured by them?” He had no answer to this. “How good would it be if, with other things, he had also gathered at least some information about this rare gift [Yoga] to the world by us,” it occurred to me

By Er Rajesh Pathak