tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post5995214858911441552..comments2024-03-25T14:25:25.102+00:00Comments on Poetry as Socio-proctology: The mayavadi nightmare of the British Rajwindwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18099651877551933295noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-20885878582487518542010-03-13T14:26:21.044+00:002010-03-13T14:26:21.044+00:00Mayavadi philosophy refers to Non-Dual (Advaita) p...Mayavadi philosophy refers to Non-Dual (Advaita) philosophy which holds phenomenal reality to be purely an illusion with no real existence- for e.g. a rope mistaken for a snake.<br>Such philosophy is concerned with Moksha- that is salvation- rather than Politics or other subjects of practical interest to the ruler.<br>To speak of the British Raj as subscribing to Mayavadi philosophy is not accurate. It was a system of government which at times emphasized Utilitarianism (greatest good of greatest number) and Reformist policies while, at other times, proclaiming the doctrine of Racial superiority by which it became the duty and obligation of the White Race to rule over darker skinned.<br>Christian Evangelism was also a factor from time to time. However, in the main, British Raj was not concerned with propounding a philosophical path to Moksha (Liberation). Thus there is no connection with Mayavadi philosophy.<br>British may have feared that the country would rise against them and the events of the Mutiny would be repeated. It is correct to say that Britain could not have greatly prolonged its rule in India against the wishes of Indian political leaders. <br>Since the British may well have felt uneasy or homesick in India- it may be that your use of emotive language about 'Panic' (from the Greek- Pan- meaning 'all') and 'a God whose nature is nightmare' etc. is justified in a narrow sense.<br>However, you are no longer discussing the British- who left sixty odd years ago. India is ruled by Indians- they do not fear their own Religion or Beliefs because they know them thoroughly since childhood.<br>Hence, your comments are wide off the mark.Sanjay Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-61323981270448853622010-03-13T14:37:02.849+00:002010-03-13T14:37:02.849+00:00Dear Sanjay Bhai,My point is that the tools we use...Dear Sanjay Bhai,<br>My point is that the tools we use to analyse Society arise out of a rationalist, Utilitarian, research program.<br>Yet, we are aware that this is an inadequate tool and that we are perpetually going to be taken by surprise by cataclysmic changes which our concepts can't capture.<br><br>There is nothing irreligious in the contention that Time (Kala)can bring about the destruction of niti and nyaya of an earlier period. Consider the manner in which Lord Krishna's people met their end.<br>We do not, of course, have the self conscious and fully illuminated stature of the great teachers. So, my comments are in that context merely.windwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17743208784383880385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-25205421119742157792010-03-13T18:20:58.070+00:002010-03-13T18:20:58.070+00:00Sorry, I don't see what point you are making.T...Sorry, I don't see what point you are making.<br>The issue of Kala, Pralaya and other such cosmological concepts has been dealt with authoritatively by different sampradayas (scholarly lineages).<br><br>Briefly, the present age is Kali Yuga when Bhakti devotion is the straight and recommended path. God of Bhakti has no negative qualities. Such God is not 'nightmare' but Pure Bliss and Enlightenment.<br><br>During present age, rather than seeking to test men's faith, or put obstacles, God enters heart to save directly.<br><br>If there is a 'rationalist, Utiltarian, research program' being used to analyse Society- I am sorry it is news to me. I have been following politics for more than forty years and have published articles on the subject since last thirty. <br><br>I think your mistake is to consider British sole architect of modern India. However, British took over pre-existing administrative machinery, legal codes, revenue arrangements etc.<br>Innovations came from both sides- British and Indian.<br>You may be surprised to know that the technique of fingerprinting analysis was started in India and then copied by Scotland Yard.<br>To conclude, the idea that you are putting forward- viz. British created 'rational' India but left fearing that rationality could not take root in the soil and that this remains still the case today- is without basis.<br>Your concluding line- 'This Panic then we must abide, that rational organization building its paths into the darkness, prods into fretful wakefulness a God whose nature is nightmare.'- simply does not square with the facts at any level- Historical, Cultural or Religious.Sanjay Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-45550750604607617012010-03-14T02:22:54.178+00:002010-03-14T02:22:54.178+00:00You don't see the point I'm making? I'...You don't see the point I'm making? I'll spell it out.<br>The phenomenal world appears to be structured in a manner such that increasing mastery over it can be attained by systematic, rational, organized effort.<br>Mayavaad is the doctrine that this phenomenal world that we perceive is not real but an illusion.<br>Indian mayavaad philosophy invites us to sublate phenomenal reality in favor of an underlying Reality that is free of certain contradictions which engender suffering and render effort ultimately futile.<br>Thus Indian mayavadi philosophy- which far from being the enemy of Bhakti, is in fact its crest-jewel- is not pessimistic or anti-rational. It points to no great inevitable collapse of Order into Chaos. There is no 'Twilight of the Gods' here.<br>Nineteenth Century Britain, however, was moving in the opposite direction. Between Blake and Shelley and (with Clough and Arnold occupying the turning ground) and Housman and Hardy we see a great change in eschatological expectation. <br>Reason and Order come to be seen as but a taper briefly lit against the gales of Chaotic Night.<br>Writers as different as Saki and Forster become obsessed with the theme of Panic- a rebellion of Nature against Order.<br>There were solid reasons for this change. The old ideology was, indeed, bankrupt.<br>"We are between two worlds' says Arnold (later Gramsci would utter the same sentiment) 'one dead, one powerless to be born' In that intereggnum, that twilight sleep of reason, monsters stalked the land.<br>Solidly Victorian though our present administration surely is- vindicating the vision of Hume and Wedderburn and Cotton- it is a 'dominance without hegemony' a joogard rather than an efficient piece of machinery, a pragmatics rather than a poesis.<br>There is no fundamental moral support for the panoply of government. If erased by some exogenous shock, no force on earth could resurrect its semblance.<br>This was not the case of polities founded on Dharma. Extinguished, they would reappear bearing essentially the same structural features- or at least exhibiting the ability, at propitious times, to rapidly develop towards that level.<br>Imagine a Mayavad philosophy which holds nothing to be real, nothing true, save that thought itself is futile- would that not be a nightmare?<br>Yet that is the philosophy underpinning the present administration.<br>That's my point.<br>No one is saying the British were the sole architect. They did a joogard- nothing more.What was inherited was joogard. What is still on the road is joogard. Every component may have been swopped more than a dozen times- but the vehicle is joogard and bears no relation to what the tutelary genius of the soil would have inspired.windwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17743208784383880385noreply@blogger.com