Culture: July 2004 Archives

by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

The first cause of sin is: shortage of physical and psychic resources. If there is lack of physical necessities, people are not able to follow the higher pursuits of life. A person's discrimination is easily disturbed; with a little anger even an intellectual utters crude words. Hence, due to a shortage of physical wealth, people become restless, lose their discrimination, and become brutal. It is because of this that communism has tended toward brutality. Likewise, if there is a dearth of intellectual resources and the intellectual standard of the people is not high, they may confuse do's and don'ts. An example is a riot in which an innocent little boy is killed. The one who encourages the riot becomes the people's leader. Because the intellectual standard of the people is low, they commit blunders prompted by these leaders and become beasts.

At Melkote, Sanskrit's relevance to every aspect of our life is being show-cased.

To many, Sanskrit is a dead language. Some think it's a 'useless' language. Quite a few Hindus preen themselves that it is exclusively theirs. But did you know serious scholars are beginning to marvel at the rigour, reach and secularism of Sanskrit? Many of these --all over the world-- are mining it for values the modern world can benefit by. But nearly no one does this exposition with greater commitment, catholicity and religious neutrality than Prof M A Lakshmi Thathachar at the Academy of Sanskrit Research, Melkote, Karnataka. On the 15 acres of the Academy, the assertions in Sanskrit texts regarding ecology, farming, health and right living are on view. The Professor is a farmer, livestock breeder, conservationist, researcher, teacher, computer adept and most of all, a man who embodies all that is best in the Indian tradition. He is a Renaissance man unique to India.