Quotessence
Home / Authors / Pavan K. Varma Biography

Pavan K. Varma Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“The truth is that Hinduism is both a salad bowl and a melting pot. It is—and was—a great religion not because it was linear or prescriptive, but because, self-assured in its central narrative, it was not intimidated by diversity. ‘It is perfectly acceptable in Hinduism to be a polytheist, monotheist, monist, pantheist, agnostic, atheistic, animist or any combination thereof’.74 This is proof of its deeply eclectic spirit, not a reason to devalue its coherence. As Rabindranath Tagore says: ‘To experience unity in diversity and to establish unity amongst variety—this is the inherent dharma (the spirit) of Bharat. Bharatvarsha never interpreted diversities as hostility.”

DiversityHinduism
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image

“The Hindu civilisation’s thought processes were never overwhelmed, even when its people were conquered. This is important, because monuments can be destroyed, but the fortress of ideas is imperishable. The core of this thought process was spiritual, as distinguished from simply religious practice. The spiritual vision both transcended and guided religious rituals, and spilled over into the secular realm. This did not make it a religious civilisation. The spirituality was more about ultimate truths, an exploration of the world of ideas, and not a manual only for religious worship. This spiritual churning could have a religious counterpart, but would survive even without it. As Rabindranath Tagore says: ‘In reality, our history had deeply serene and contemplative phases—for the longest period of time—periods not without war or turmoil, but essentially grappling with pivotal concepts in the realm of thought [emphasis mine].’2 Sri Aurobindo also speaks about ‘an ingrained and dominant spirituality, an exhaustive vital creativeness and … a powerful, penetrating and scrupulous intelligence … each at a high intensity of action … the stamp put on her by that beginning she has never lost”

IdeasSpiritualityHinduism
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image

“One has to imagine a setting in a forest sometime as far back as 2000 BCE or earlier, where a sage, who has spent decades perhaps in the search for truth and wisdom, shares thoughts, most often elliptically, with a group of students eager to begin their own journey in unravelling the mysteries of life. The conversation is not in the form of a formal dialogue, but through parable and suggestion, story and allusion, or statements of deep penetrative insight into what constitutes the transcendent reality underlying our lives and this universe. What is significant is that while obviously having the role of a mentor, the guru is open to questions being asked and instead of delivering a monologue from a pedestal, is willing to have a conversation which is guided as much by what the guru has to say as by what is being asked by the shishya. Significant too is that what the sage says is not in the nature of a command, but more in the format of an insight, inviting discussion and interrogation. Considering the fact that for many Hindus (including Adi Shankaracharya), even though the Upanishads are seen as shruti or revealed texts, the fact that they were dialogic, and not prescriptive, set the tone for the further evolution of Hinduism itself. Other foundational texts of Hinduism carry forward this dialogic tradition. One of these is the Brahma Sutra by Badarayana written sometime around 450 BCE. In Indian tradition, Badarayana is identified with the legendary Vyasa who compiled the Vedas. The Brahma Sutra is known by many names—Nyaya Prasthana, because it puts the teachings of the Upanishads in a structured order; Vedanta Sutra, since it is a text on the Vedanta; Sariraka Sutra, since it deals with the nature and evolution of the embodied soul; and Uttara Mimamsa Sutra, since it deals with the final section of the Vedas, unlike the Purva Mimamsa which deals with the earlier sections.”

HinduismGuruDarshanasDialogic
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image

“Sen’s concerted attempt to puncture the claim of Hindu civilisation sometimes assumes laughable proportions. Panini, the great grammarian, who lived in the fourth century BCE was, he says, an Afghani, because his village was on the banks of the Kabul River!46 Does Sen not know that at that time, large parts of modern Afghanistan were part of an Indian empire and closely integrated with Hindu civilisation? By using current political frontiers to categorise one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars as a foreigner seems to be a desperate attempt to devalue our indigenous culture merely because it would enable the ‘Hindutva movement’ as he calls it, to ‘glorify’ it. He considers it ‘convenient’ for Hindu zealots that even cultural theorists like Samuel Huntington describe ancient India as a ‘Hindu civilization’, but is adamant in maintaining that India was not a ‘Hindu country even before the arrival of Islam’.”

IndiaAmartya SenMoron LeftistsPanini
Book:Echoes of Eternity: A Journey Through Indian Thought
Create image

“In Punjab, the great Guru Nanak (1469–1539 CE), who founded the Sikh faith, was greatly influenced by the Bhakti movement. Sikhism, under Nanak, and the nine Gurus who followed him, the last being Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708 CE), created a remarkably sublime and powerful monotheistic faith of nirguna bhakti. In clear Vedantic tones, its mul mantar or fundamental prayer—Ik Onkar: There is only one Supreme Being—made a powerful call of universal spiritual appeal. Like Brahman, the Sikh Absolute is nirankar (formless), akal (timeless), karta purakh (the Creator), agam agochar (incomprehensible and invisible) and is Waheguru (wonderous Teacher). The religion emphasised the non-duality of divinity—Ek noor te sab jag upja: From one luminous light the entire universe arose. In this one statement, it pole-vaulted above conventional religious orthodoxies. Of great importance in the Sikh faith is mehar, kirpa, karam or the Grace of God. Guru Nanak taught that to obtain this, the most important form of worship is bhakti. Guru Arjan, in the Sukhmani Sahib, recommended that true religion is one of loving devotion to God. Selfless devotion and service can lead to Sach Khand or the Realm of Truth, which is the final union with the spirit of God, akin to the Advaita notion of brahmanubhav. Thus, Sikhism considers simran (the meditative remembrance) of God, and japna (chanting or kirtan of God’s name) to be an essential part of religious practice. The singing of the Guru’s hymns as contained in the Guru Granth Sahib—the only divine symbol of worship recognised by Sikhism—is practised through the shabad kirtans. The passages of the Guru Granth Sahib were poetically composed in rhyme, and lent themselves easily to exceptionally soulful musical compositions based on thirty-one ragas of classical music.”

AdvaitaSikhismIk Onkar
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image

“The Rig Veda says that desire was the first movement that arose in the One after it had come into being through the power of abstraction. ‘Desire arose first in It, which was the primal germ of mind; (and which) sages, searching with their intellect have discovered in their heart to be the bond which connects entity with non-entity.’48 The very strength of the urge made it useful to use as a metaphor to convey or explicate a metaphysical point. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says: ‘Just as a man, closely embraced by his loving wife, knows nothing without, nothing within, so does this “person”, closely embraced by the Self that consists of wisdom, knows nothing without nothing within.’49 The same Upanishad also has this passage where a woman’s genitals are used as symbols to describe a sacrificial fire: ‘Woman is a fire, Gautama: the phallus is her fuel; the hairs are her smoke; the vulva is her flame; when a man penetrates her, that is her coal; the ecstasy is her sparks.’50 As I have discussed, the major gods in the Hindu faith have all got consorts. They are rarely described as celibate recluses; they may be said to be beyond passion in an ontological sense, but in their incarnate form they are explicit in the demonstrative attraction of the opposite sex. The goddesses do not lag behind. Their love for their husbands or lovers is often portrayed in an assertively earthy and sensual manner. Gods and goddesses represent a conscious duality, Purusha and Prakriti, complementing each other. The inclusion of desire in the larger religious and spiritual vision gave it both sanctity and philosophical legitimacy. Kama, the God of Love, akin to the Greek Eros, or the Roman Cupid or Amor, has been exalted in a hymn of the Atharva Veda as a supreme god and creator. ‘Kama was born the first. Him neither gods, nor fathers, nor men have equalled. Thou art superior to these and for ever great.”

VedasKama
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image

“Vijayanagara had adopted ‘many of the administrative, tax-collecting, and military methods of the Muslim sultans that surrounded it—namely, stirrups, horse-shoes, horse armour, and a new type of saddle’. Its architecture also showed evidence of the use ‘of the arch and the dome of the Islamic north’.15 Reciprocally, Hindu influences were also discernible in the Islamic sultanates, with whom the Vijayanagara kingdom on occasion entered into strategic alliances. I am not, however, clear what these arguments prove. Because the kings of Vijayanagara did not appear bare-chested in public, or because they used stirrups or horseshoes, and because, where they felt politically necessary, they aligned themselves with one Muslim sultanate to finesse the other, was Vijayanagara not a Hindu kingdom? Or that, when it was defeated, the Muslim sultans did not savagely destroy the city and, in particular, attack its remarkable temples? To quote a few instances of Hindu–Muslim syncretism in architecture, in dress or in administrative practices, is more an acknowledgement of the unavoidable fusions wrought over centuries, and not a change in the mindset of Muslim conquerors against kafirs and their practice of destroying Hindu cultural and religious artefacts. It is a moot point too whether the Vijayanagara kings, on conquering a Muslim sultanate, would have as relentlessly destroyed mosques. Historical records clearly bring out that Krishnadevaraya (1509–1528 CE)—the most illustrious ruler of Vijayanagara and among the greatest kings India has seen—respected all faiths. He was himself a Vaishnavite, but extended wholehearted patronage to Shaiva, Jain and other sects. He employed Muslims in his army, encouraged them to settle in the capital city and erected a mosque in 1439 for them to pray. For the Muslim officers in his court, he placed a copy of the Koran before his throne so that they could perform the ceremony of obeisance before him without sinning against their religious injunctions, even though the Vijayanagara kingdom was formed with the aim of protecting Hindus and Hindu culture from Muslim attacks. Christian Portuguese also found residence in the capital. The Portuguese traveller, Barbosa, who visited Hampi during Krishnadevaraya’s rule, wrote: ‘The king allows such freedom that every man may come and go and live according to his own creed, without suffering any annoyance and without enquiry whether”

HinduismHampi
Book:The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward
Create image