ANCIENT INDIAS TREASURE TROVE OF LITERATURE Justice Dave, You Don’t Need to be a Dictator to teach the Gita - By Adithya Reddy When Supreme Court Judge Justice Dave says he needs to be a dictator to introduce lessons on Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita in schools, he obviously presumes that this cannot be done within the framework of our Constitution. This may not be correct for many reasons. Chief Justice Ahmadi in the famous S.R. Bommai case has observed that “the term ‘secular’ has advisedly not been defined presumably because it is a very elastic term not capable of a precise definition”. But Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution of India concretize secularism by prohibiting discrimination on the ground of religion. So to say teaching only Mahabharata and Bhagavd Gita in schools is against the Constitution it needs to be first established, as a matter of legal principle, that these are religious texts which stand on the same footing as sacred texts of other religions. The tritest of distinctions between sacred texts of other religions and Hindu scriptures has been described well by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in a 2009 judgment- “the tenets of any religion are contained in specific Holy Books or scriptures and they are traceable to the ultimate Spiritual Personality of that religion. For instance, in respect of Christianity, Bible happens to be the source of tenets and Jesus Christ is its founder. Similarly, for Islam, Kuran is the Holy Scripture and …Similar attributes are present for Judaism, Buddhism etc. However, one cannot identify any particular religious text as the sole basis for Hinduism nor can one authoritatively proclaim that a particular Spiritual Personality is the sole propounder thereof.” What flows from this undisputable statement is that Mahabharata or Bhagavad Gita doesn’t mean the same thing to Hinduism as what the Bible means to Christianity or Kuran means to Islam. The existence of Hindusim does not rest on any text. The peculiarity of a Hindu text is intertwined with the peculiarity of Hinduism itself. Almost all ancient Sanskrit texts refer to some form of faith or divinity even while discussing the most secular aspects of life. For instance, the ancient Indian surgeon Shushruta begins his treatise on medicine by explaining the chain of divine sources through which the knowledge of Ayurveda came to him, beginning with Lord Brahma. Similarly, Panini‘s monumental works on Sanskrit grammar are said to have been gifted to him directly by Lord Shiva. These works and a plethora of scriptures on such varied secular subjects as logic, mathematics, epistemology, law and yoga constitute the broad framework of what the Supreme Court of India has called the Hindu way of life. Belief in or adherence to the religious concepts mentioned in these scriptures has never been a mandatory prerequisite for Hindus to incorporate their secular values in daily life. A student of Sanskrit grammar in Takshahsila or Nalanda did not have to believe in the divinity behind Panini’s knowledge. FOR MORE centreright.in/2014/08/justice-dave-you-dont-need-to-be-a-dictator-to-teach-the-gita/#.U-ZxqPldUbg
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:54:54 +0000
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