India's perpetual
Vanaary lOy 1980 - THE CANADIAN INDIA TIMES - Page 5
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What happened in the courts of tche Caesars? Rome and India for a long time had extensive trade relations with each other. India exported goods like pearls, jewels, perfumes, spices, silk, fine muslin (called! nebula by the Romans as it was so fine and transparent); dyes, cosmetics, oils, and ghee <purified butter). Roman wealthy women decked in seven folds of Indian muslin parading the streets of Rome were seen to be a menace to the city's morals. The imports of india caused a very serious drain to Rome's supply of gold and silver since Rome did hot have much to export to India, to meet, her trade deficit except by exporting bullion. Roman Senators complained bitterly that 4 * articles that served feminine vanity, the jewels and luxury objects drained all the riches out of the empire. As a result, the Roman govern- v ment laid an embargo by legislative means on the import of that fine stuff from India. Silk at about the first century A.D, "derived alone from India, was sought for eagerly by the wealthiest Roman ladies, and so late as the time of Aurelian, in the latter half of the third cent pry of our Era was valued at its weight in gold. "
Pliny, a Roman historian of early second century A.D.. complained that "in no year does .India drain our empire of less than five hundred and fifty millions . of sesterces''. which was computed in about the 'middle of the 19th century/ "at about 1.400,000 pounds" a year. Pliny;woefully: complained that "So f dear do pleasures and wom,cn cost us." . This drat* to India "was an important cause of the financial , difficuiti.es; ir^ the Roman empire from the reign of ISero oh wards**. No wonder that in the public laws of the Roman; empire collected by Emperor JUitinian in the 6th century A.P.. as an Englishman told us, "we find amongst the rest of the Indian commodities charged with duties all sorts of; silk and cotton manufactures, which they brought, >s we do, from those countries, and prob* ably for the same reason, because they found that method cheaper than bringing the commodity and working it up at home.'
; It was noi a coincidence that against the perversity of the European women were made long after the Roman complaint in the 17th and 18th centuries,who were., so proud of wearing Indian muslins, calicoes and silk inviting the same legislative prohibition by all the European governments "except the Dutch. This story will be /{old in the next article dealing with economic, condition of India soon before the British topsy-tur-vcyed her from the richest to the poorest country of the earth.
But one thing is certain that not to talk of religious, philosophical, and cultural importance of India in the history of the world, even the economic history of the world, as pointed out by an eminent historian; Arnold Toynbee, "becomes intelligible only when you' have taken into account the Indian factor in it" because India has also been "a major forcein the field of economics.
This was so as India* before the; British writhed her under. then perfidious grip, was the commer* cial center of the whole world hot for few yeai^s or few centuries but for full three thousand years perhaps the longest period of economic suprernacy in the his-tory of the world- as pointed out by an eminent Indian: historian; "For full thirty centuries India stood out as the. very heart of the commercial world** and she "thrr oughout had the balance of trade
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clearly jh her favour, a balance which cduld only be settled by the export of treasure from European and other countries that were commercially indebted to her. An Englishman, Sir George Bird-wood, vfhose book was written at tKe request of the British Secretary of State, also observes that ; 'the whole world has been ceaselessly pouring its bullion for 31000 years 'into India** to buy the products of her industries. The bullion jhad to be exported from Europe simply because 4 'West had nothing to offer the East in exchange for its products other than metallic currency, an enormous qMantity of which was thus absorbed by trade with India� *.
Herodutus, a Greek historian called the 4 Father of History* * of 5th century B.C. pronounced India as the wealthiest and most populous country on the face of the earth. 44The subsequent history, of commerce has proved the correctness of his assertion. Alexander's generals in the fourth century B.C. were amazed at India's wealth.
Milton *s phrase "the wealth of ormus and of Ind*\ in Paradise Lost is well-known. Shakespeare refers .to India as 4 4the climax of great opportunities for this world as virtue is with regard to the world to come. * * *4 India as a JLand of Desire forms the most essential element in General History*'; wrote Jan eminent German philosopher i Hegel < 1770-1831). 4 4From the most ancient times downwards^ all nations have directed their ^wishes and longings to gaining access to the treasures of this land of marvels, the tnqst costlyl which the Earth ^presents; treasures of Nature � pearls, diamonds as also treasures of wisdom; The way by which these treasures have passed to - the West; has at all times been a matter of World historical importance^ bound up with the fate of nations."
The birth of America and the greater part of Australasia for Europeans was an offshoot of the intense desire and activity to reach India; as Columbus and others European disebverors wanted to; discover India; but4 4picked up the Americas, and the greater part of Australasia) as unconsidered | trifles by the way. *' Galvano wrote, 44it may be said that he (dia'z) like Moses, came to see the Promised Land, the land of India, but was never to set foot in it;** A Swiss author, Bjoran tahdstron,. who studied the story of 3,000 years of bold voyages and greaf explorers from the early Egyptians to the dawn of the discovery of America; in his book The Quest for India, wtites: "The routes and means were many, but 'he goal was always the same; With fabulous riches of gold, silver, precious gems, exotic foods, spices, fabrics../' '
' 'In!a way, it is a considerable tribute to India that Marco Polo use^ the term 'India* not only for Peninsular India but also the regions of the Indian Ocean from Javai to the coasts of Africa. The king! of Portugal, in 1487, re-named the 44Cape of Storms'as disc^veror Diaz called it, to the 4'Cape of Good Hope", because 14he. had good hopes of finding the passage to India beyond it.'9
After more than two hundred yea^s of search for the passage to Indi|ar Vasco da Gama, a Pqrtr uguese, "guided /by an Indian , pilot whom the ki)^ hadjpJaced at his disposal" at last fouifrd the <4Land ofjCesire" and VLatod Promise^in 1*98. P* Gama's, discovery "represents the Hast phase of a long quest for the; Orient, dating from the Roman era*' and wrought a lution "not only in the com-
New Delhi (IBS) - Child marrialge is still a major aspect in the average Rajasthani's way of lifle. Eyebrows go up if a girl is still a spinster when she enters puberty.
Journalists visiting villages around Udaipur saw scores j of children, some of them stillj. in swadling clothes who were married. Joining oyer 10,000 kidsj in matrimony is a common feature in Rajasthan on occasions of Afcha Teej, especially in the regions around Marwar. {
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Akha Teej is supposed to be Ithe most auspicious day; of the yfear for marriages* and the belief that the pandit need not be consulted on this one day before two persons lives are tied by [the invisible thread of matrimony finds rows of marriage parties winding : their way through ;the beaten track carrying the groom, sometimes still in his mother's , arms, to meet his bride, still a sucking infant. I
"The Phera" around the s>Cred flame, which Hindu law expects of the groom and bride, is done by the parents of the children if they are tod little to walk. The parents carry their infants around i the -flame while the godman chants the rites.
Even more amazing is the Ifact that certain clans of Rajasthan still conduct bethrothal and ^ven marriages of their children Awhile the infants are still in the mother's womb. Ironically, if orje of the children dies at the time of birth, ^the "husband" or "wjife" comes iinto this world already a widow or widower. j
Parents justified the ceremony of child marriage saying they ivere prescribed by the shastras and no law of the land could abolish this. The age of marriage was fouiid to be 4pwest among the Brahmins and Scheduled Castes becjause both parties claimed that jthey were helpless in protecting their womenfolk from the lusts of ^>ther men. J^.-;' -:v /vlv r'":-i
The Union Government which had long ago banned child marriage claims that it would be looking into the growing casies of violation of the law, but with a population of upward of? 600 million j people how this w^ll be done is/left to be seen. 1 .
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New Delhi (IBS) - Sri Lan^a has placed an order with an Indian firm for the supply of |p,000 bicyles and another order for 200,000 cycles which W(H1 be placed in the next two years in order to reduce pressure oji road ^ transport service.
merce and politics, but also j in the whole moral and intellectual life of Europe.'* I
Today Europe and America 4<the spoiled child and grandchild of Asia** may think of theirifather; and grandfather as senile, ^tupid, and backward as childreti norr mally do in this Western culture, but it will be a great fraujd with history not to remind them the words of H.G. Wells when he said in 1930 that 4*the suprenrjacy of the West is only a question of probably the past hundred years.. The history of Western ascendancy is very brief indeed.'?
. I have reserved the treatibent of economic condition of Indict in the 17th and 18th centuries, [before the British subjugated hqrj for the next article. It will be perhaps a news- to most people that ^ven in science and technology, iaccord-ing to European contemporaries, India Was ahead of the ^Test in the 18th century. � | :
Albert Schweitzeri, defining religious myth wrote; 4*It is nothing else than the clothing in historic form of religious ideas, shaped by the unconsciously inventive power of legend, and embodied in a historic persona-; lity". (Albert Schweitzer - The Quest of the Historical Jesus. 1956. p.79). Buddha and Christ are two such -historicVpersonaH-ties round whom myths have been woven. The definition may be broadened to include semi-historic persons like Rama and Krishna. A more comprehensive elucidation of the term will be a fiction presented as historically true but lacking factual basis; a
; popular, traditional, and unconscious falsehood believed to be true feuilt up for^presenting truth symbolically and emotionally. There is, therefore, a pragmatic element in a myth. For instance, there may be presentation of cosmology, employing the mythical method to escape the limitations of literal meaning on the one hand, and scientific scrutiny on the other. Vaisnavism is preeminently the product c* myths of
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Vaisnavism has a �mythical| theory of history which is cyclical fitting in with the theory of incarnation of Vishnu. Creation, preservation and destruction are the functions of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the puranic (mythical) trinity. History evolves according to the three actions in a circular form divided ^into four periods called yugas or ages. It is presumed that what is created must be ultimately destroyed. This is in tune with the second law of thermodynamics: the gradual decay of the universe. The story of mankind started with the Satya Yuga or the heroic age. It was followed by the Treta Yuga, a slightly soiled age when men and ..; women were not exactly 'heroic' in mind and body. '. Rama is supposed to have figured in this remote past. A modest but imaginative g-uess may place him sometime between 1500 B.C. and 1200B.C. He was a bright young man full of life and vigour with a strohg sense of loyalty, brave, and morally above reproach. Tulsidas makes him much more lovable than Valmiki; the original creator of a character which is historically feasible absolutely. He cojonized south India and carried the Vedic culture over there. .vj-;^'
The next era - the Dwaper Yuga was definitely a decadent age. Vishnu became incarnate in Krishna v'"^Xv.^r:>:'-^'''-^''^-../
It may also be called the age of � the Mahabharat. The only trace which we have about Krishna in the old Upanishads is the reference to him as the son of Deyaki and a pupil of" Ghora Angiras, a celebrated teacher of philosophy. (Chandyogya Upanishad > 17th Khanda or section, 3rd Prapathak or chapter and 6th paragraph). A much, much later Upanishad - the Gopaltapani - is wholly devoted to him along with Puranas like the Bhagvat Puran. In the Mahab-harat, he appears as a mastermind who plans the destruction of the Bnpire of Bharat of the Kauravas to establish what is known as the Dharmarajya 6r the rule of moral law. For this purpose he found the Paridavas, the five cousins of the reigning monarch, as his tool. Krishna appears to have collected round about him more myths than any other person in Indian history. In . Gita he is reported to have stated clearly: whenever there is hihderance to thje Dharma, to re-establish it, 1 become^ that is, take concrete form. (Gita-Chap-ter 4, verses 7 and 8.) It is also a succinct statement underlying the Indian theory of incarnation. In this connection ft; may be urged that there are twe* very different phenomena to be contrasted: the deiflcaiioB of some great persons like Rama and Krishna on the one hand, and the identification of
such persons witn tne faram Brahma or the Supreme Being of the Upanishads on the other hand. At what stage Rama and Krishna passed from the .one to the^other is entirely a matter of speculation. If Krishna is the Gita claimed to be Param Brahma as Shankarbhashya (Shankar's commentary) indicates, then according to Advaitavad or panthe^ ism, every individual can do the same as the Upanishadic great saying (mahavakya) goes( abam Brahmasmi - I am the Absolute. But according to Vaisnavism or Bhaktivad, Rama and Krishna are both incarnations; neither can assert any monopoly because the Indian theory of incarnation haV very interesting historical and �ical implications.
Who incarnates himself - Param Brahma or God, or Vishnu, one of the manifestations and creations of God? The Upanishads are absolutely clear that the gods were not independent beings as they are the creatures of God, something like the angels in heaven. The problem of incarnation is entirely mythical in the Indian Puranas or collections of myth. there is no scientific, philosophical and theological support for any exclusive claim. Adwaitavad, a typically Indian pantheism, logically contradicts it. To popular imagination, it has a glamour, a relevancy and a justification far beyond the logic of a scientist and a philosopher. According to myth there have been so far nine Avatars or incarnations, the tenth one is expected to arrive in the fourth Yuga, that is, the Kali Yuga or the modern time. Let us see how the 9 fared in the past. The first one was the" fish-Avatar, the second tortoise, the third boar, the fourth lion-man or Narsingh Avatar. The fifth Avatar was a pygmy or sub-man. The sixth was the cave man called Parsa-ram, a violent and very possibly an individual guided more by the instinct to survive than to save mankind. Rama is the seventh Avatar, the fully awakened moral man. The eighth is called Bajaram which is the name of Krishna^s elder brother but it^ actually applies to him. The fact" is, the theory of incarnation is not uniformly understood or spelled out by its protagonists and by its believers. For instance, according to Valmiki, the author of the Sanskrit Ramayana, Vishnu became incarnate in Rama by half, the other half was lodged ih his three brothers. Tulsidas, however, made Rama an incarnation hundred per cent. Similarly, Vishnu appears to have incarnated ^himself in Balaram, also called, Harikulesh, and in Kris-� hna, the hero of the Mahabharat, Bhagvat Puran and Vishnu Puran.. Mythicallyy is is painted in different colours. He is a statesman-philosopher, an insubordinate vassal of the empire of India, a person not incapable of playing the part of a diplomat and finally, a Don Juan who was in solemn quest of heroes, the lover of Gopis or cow girls. In the new world there are cow boys; in India there used to be the opposite sex discharging man � s duties. Thisis women's lib with a vengeance. The ninth Avatar, strangely enough, was Buddha. Who says Buddhism is dead in India? He is the only historically accepted Avatar. There is a great similarity between Buddhism and Vaisnavism, especially Mahayana Buddhism.
Two interesting points are to be npted^ According to the historical divisions called the Yugas or eras, society and the universe appearto be decaying. According to the theory of: incarnation there is a distinct biological upsurge from the fish to h umans. Life emerged somewhere by the sea and then migrated landwards to reveal itself. From the-- unicellular amoeba to man is a long upward swing. >0
- NX. Chatterji.