A Tribute To The Ancient Seers
(Published in The Rising Nepal Friday Supplement, September 25, 2015)
(Published in The Rising Nepal Friday Supplement, September 25, 2015)
Sandhya Regmi
sandhyaregmi2000@gmail.com
There would not be a matter of greater pride
than to know that the greatest French Enlightenment author, critic, essayist,
historian and one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of Modern time Francois
Voltaire making proclamation – “Everything has come down to us from the
bank of the Ganga.”; “2500 years ago Pythagoras had gone to the Ganga from the
Samos Island of Greece to learn geometry.”; “The Veda was the most precious
gift for which the West has ever been indebted to the East.”
These prideful statements
appreciating Eastern civilization appear in a world-acclaimed book titled ‘Great
Minds on India’ written by Shillong-based scholar and researcher Salil
Gewali, and edited by Houston based eminent NASA scientist Dr AV Murali.
A freelance writer,
journalist and editor since 1980, and a member of International Organization of
Journalists, Salil Gewali has already authored 17 books including text books
for the schools of Meghalaya. ‘Great Minds on India’ is the author’s unique
research work of nearly two and a half decades. Globally acknowledged as one of
its kind ever published, the book attempts to showcase how the world-renowned
intellectual luminaries have thought about the ancient Eastern civilization and
the fathomless classical literature. The book provides how the wisdom of Indian subcontinent inspired ‘the
greatest of the great’ scientists, thinkers, writers, poets, such as Albert
Einstein, Werner Heisenberg (co-founder of Quantum Physics), T. S. Eliot,
Voltaire, Friedrich Hegel, Ralph Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Johann Goethe, HG
Wells, Herman Hesse, Mark Twain, Bernard Shaw, Erwin Schrodinger (father of
Quantum Mechanics), Heinrich Zimmer (Professor of Sanskrit at Heidelberg
University), Sir William Jones (Translator of Sanskrit drama Shakuntala), and many
more. The book, which has already been translated into 9 languages including Nepali,
has earned worldwide appreciation.
We all know that what made Albert Einstein one
of the wisest geniuses the world has ever seen is his ground-breaking ‘Theory
of Relativity’. But how many of us are aware that this father of Modern Science
had made a serious confession - “We owe a lot to the East,
who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery
could have been made.” Salil Gewali’s masterpiece holds out such proud
revelations by world’s top intellectual giants and celebrated thinkers.
It was a great astonishment for me personally
to know from this landmark book that one of my favorite poets T. S. Eliot
was greatly inspired by our ancient Upanishads and Patanjali Sutra and he also
learnt Sanskrit. A renowned USA scholar Dick Teresi writes in his
masterpiece ‘Lost Discoveries’ -"Twenty-four
centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Scripture asserted that gravitation
held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea
of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one.” The
book also illustrates how the father of Atomic Bomb, Julius Robert
Oppenheimer got immersed into the treasure trove of oriental wisdom who had
gone to the extent of proclaiming- "What
we shall find in Modern Physics is an exemplification, an
encouragement and a refinement of old Eastern wisdom."
Salil, a die-hard lover
of Eastern virtues, strongly felt then, these western scientists would not have
applauded and approved of those ancient wisdom and knowledged of the East, had
there not been any scientific validity and significance. He
gradually got to know that scientists like Erwin Schrodinger, Neils Bohr, Julius Oppenheimer, David Bohm, Heisenberg,
David Josephson, Werner Heisenberg had sufficiently got the ideas
relative to Quantum Physics from
Upanishads and Vedas. It dawned upon Mr Gewali that the ancient treatises
had greatly emboldened those scientists to plunge deeper into the atom,
moreover into the inner core of the Quantum Mechanics. All
these consequently strengthened his conviction about the infallibility of
ancient literary wisdom. While the East has specialized in understanding and transforming the
Interior world, the West has excelled at investigating and manipulating the
Exterior world.
And I myself being acquainted with S&T
over the past 3 decades, little had I realized the wonders of Eastern
philosophy and civilization, the immense knowledge and endless wisdom our
Scriptures held for the scientific inventions and breakthroughs by ‘the wisest
of the wise’ in the West. Reading this amazing book was like bathing in the
holy Ganga the wisdom par excellence empowering myself with the supernatural
power of the Bhagawata Geeta. I was shaken up emotionally and awakened to recognize
my true identity and strength with an overwhelming feeling for eastern treasure
of knowledge. As if it were an immense enlightenment in my life - I was entering
into a spiritual immortal world of eternal wisdom leaving far far behind the superficial
perishable materialistic world.
This fantastic book serves a beacon
of great light even to the educated derelicts who seem to have lost faith in
the ancient values and virtues. It offers ambrosia of divinity to cleanse our
notorious ego. The readers get easily captivated and enchanted by the songs of
Hinduism and the Hindu Scriptures sung in the book. Hinduism has been regarded
as eternal religion embracing all others. The endearing eleventh President of India
and eminent scientist Dr. Abdul Kalam regards Vedas as the oldest classics and
the most precious treasures of the East. Great philosopher, poet and artist
Rabindranath Tagore was highly inspired by the Upanishads and the works of the
greatest Sanskrit poet Kalidas while writing his ‘Geetanjalee’. Mahatma Gandhi,
whose works and lifestyles inspired many great scholars, statesmen, scientists
and diplomats of the modern age, also admitted the Bhagawata Geeta as a
boundless ocean of priceless gems. The renowned Nepali writer and great scholar
Madan Mani Dixit has proclaimed in his recently released book ‘Ananta
Chaitnaya’ (‘Infinite Consciousness’/‘Eternal Dynamism’) that the first
scientists of the world were Maharshi Yagyawalka, Uddhalak Aruni and
Shwetaketu, the scholars of ancient eastern civilization. Even VS Naipaul- the
renowned author of ‘A Wounded Civilization’ and Carl Sagan- the prolific author
of the world famous book ‘Cosmos’ admit Hinduism as the noblest of all.
Gewali has completed his share of
work by presenting us the monumental book. But it has left behind for the
society the Herculean task of re-discovering the lost values and reorienting
ourselves, without which the great pearl of profound wisdom cannot be woven
into a necklace for mankind.
When the West could make
breakthroughs from the knowledge derived from our ancient scriptures, then why
are such virtues being underestimated in our own soil?
It is great to see the Westerners
practicing yoga, and meditation, chanting ohm,
and awakened to the higher importance of the Vedic knowledge and spiritualism. But
sitting on the epicenter of those ancient heritages, why have we lost faith in
our own virtues, and why do we hesitate to stand on its foundation? Why have we
been ignoring, underestimating and devaluating the ancient Eastern philosophy
and heritage in our own soil? Why do we hesitate to embrace an education system
that enlightens our children with the eternal truth of our ancient scriptures? Instead
of translating the rich virtues into the field of creation and productivity by
ourselves, why do we have to wait for the West to so?
Unless we receive the wakeup now and
respond to it, a day might not be that far, when we have to send our children
to the Western schools to “learn” the meaning and value of our lost
civilization. And that’s surely not the way we wish to
pay our highest tribute to the ancient seers.
(Sandhya Regmi is a freelance writer and researcher.)
