Sri Rama Jayam
The beauty of horizon is, more we travel towards it , more it recedes with new vistas opening up beckoning us. Same is and should be with our goals, aims and achievements.
There was a time when mere freedom, independence from alien domination was enough. Actually British cleverly manipulated even this, much diluting it further making Indians to plead only for good government , because many eminent leaders felt Indians were not fit to rule themselves. The debate was between Suraj and Swaraj-Good governance vs self rule by independence. And those who wanted latter were called extremists. Any how now all that looks ridiculous. India became independent although significant parts of India remained under even worse oppression and obscurantism .
However in spite of machinations, intrigues with cooperation of some native leaders which broke India to pieces, what remains as India is able to overcome many handicaps and register progress and development. Now India is not only free, independent and has reached a state, a stage so that the nation is overtaking many developed nations in many things , economy, education, skills , strength and many other such things considered worthwhile and conductive for civilization and humanity.
Having reached goal of freedom, now the new horizon beckons us to expand our culture and civilization further.One of them is to reestablish cultural links, Samskruthi , to start with neighbors and then to rest of wide world. When India was under domination of aliens, as you know these links were broken. Now is the time to reestablish them. Through universities like Nalanda, Taxsila, India was teacher to civilized world once. Fortunately after a long gap of 800 years Nalanda University got restored and open.
Government of India has introduced the study of Mahabharat and Ramayana along with Gita. They are precious heritage. Even without any sponsorship worldwide there is an yearning to learn the philosophy contained in them.
Undoubtedly such people called Jijnasus or inquisitive ones in Gita will receive further support for their search with India and people of India becoming more and more familiar with their own heritage.
Just few items enclosed about the past when India’s culture influenced and became part of neighboring nations. In fact countries like Cambodia were part of ancient India. Recent times the ruling dynasty came from a Brahmin of South India when he got to marry the princess there, a Sarma became Varma, Kshatriya last name.
Great monuments still remain in Cambodia depicting its close and innate connection with Hindu civilization. It is difficult , at least till recently, for temples like Angkor Wat of Khmer Hindus of Cambodia to be called part of Hindu civilization by western scholars who till late 20 th century harbored deep prejudices and bias against India and Hindu civilization, loath to admit they the colony and natives of colony were ever capable of building or producing a grander civilization that ever existed in any of European country. Such conclusion offends master race theory prevailing then in general in Europe mainly in England from which Hitler borrowed liberally to build his own prejudices .
Any way imprint of Hindu civilization is apparent in every stone ,every temple and in every god worshiped in Sanctum of many temples. The main worshipful deity of Angkor Wat was Sri Ranganadha, reclining Vishnu on Serpent, Adisesha, bed.
This is a mural , presiding deity, reclining Vishnu or Sri Ranganadha like in Sri Rangam in sanctum sanctorum was similar but now replaced with reclining Buddha instead.
Like in any temple dedicated to Vishnu or Siva in India , there also exist places of worship for their entourage. Also in any sizable town where there is a main temple to which all roads lead to, there are also smaller temples in adjoining villages and towns. Similar situation exists in Angkor Wat as well.
Our modes of worship are all water based. In fact building temples or conducting Yagna is not recommended where there is no water like in a desert. There is water available in a well called Zam Zam in Kaaba , Mecca or Makha where the ancient worshipful deity was Siva , called Mahadev. And initially Kaaba also housed about 360 deities, entourage of Siva .
Our culture, civilization was not limited to what we consider as India at present, a truncated, fragment part of Bharath Varsha. There need be no reticence acknowledging this historical fact, that once from Mecca , Arabia to Aceh, Indonesia ( even beyond for that matter) Hindu civilization flourished to make people and lands prosper and make progress.
A time not too far from present, in future will come when we should help local people of Cambodia who built such magnificent temples which reflect their building skills in construction, artistry, architecture as well as science-Angkor Wat has a room that demonstrates 3 dimensional Pythagoras theorem built long before grand father of Pythagoras was born.
The place is surrounded with water, and once was a home it is said for large numbers of people, as many as 750,000. Even up to 16 th century this was a huge number, akin to a major metropolis now a days with millions of people. How the engineers then managed water supply, their skills in Hydraulic Engineering all make a statement about a highly developed civilization in Hindu Cambodia.
Please do view the enclosed fascinating videos , even if information in them was a taboo to be taught in secular India.
Source: World Hindu News (WHN)