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Re: Vedic scholarship in India
In article <4hpq6t$8hv@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Sankar Jayanarayanan <kartik@Eng.Auburn.EDU> wrote:
>As my friend said, in a few years, even chanting of the Vedas would be
history.
>What was handed down generation after generation as the nectar of
spirituality
>is decaying so fast that there may be nothing at all soon.Already, in the
north, there is almost none who knows the Vedas.
I saw the GV Iyer movie in sanskrit on shankarAcharya and in that
the following scene is depicted:
Young shankara and two of his friends are watching a person clandestinely
climbing a coconut tree and stealing the coconuts. Then, this person is
spotted by one of the maintainers of the coconut groove. He asks this person
to climb down from the tree. The thief is trembling with fear and does not
know what awaits him for punishment. To the amazement of shankara and his
friends, the other person brings him food and asks him to partake it.
Young shankara goes up to this person and aks him why he rewarded the thief
instead of punishing him ? To that this person replies, I have convicted his
soul and not his body. Physical punishment is transient, but what he just got
will hopefully transform him from within.
Young shankara ask him what was the source of such a wisdom? To that this
person replies:
"Vaidhikohi dharmaH adyaH shitilAyateH!!"
This the dharma contained in vedas and it is getting ruined these days!
When back in the yore itself people had such sentiments, it no wonder that
today is even more stronger!!
Finally, Thirmula Thirupathi Devasthanam trust has recorded many of the vedic
hymns sung by original scholars for reason of preserving it for posterity.
They do make a sincere attempt to assemble scholars, collect and preserve such
invaluable materials. I do not know whether such information is made readily
available for use by everyone or not!!
Anand
