Sri Adi Shankarachaarya in his Bhaja Govindam mentions of the play of time when he says "...Kalaha Kreedati...." I also remember a shloka from one of my Sanskrit lessons, where Raja Bhoja addresses his guardian (his uncle if I remember right, who tries to kill young Bhoja for the sake of the throne), the import of which was something like '..this land of ours has been ruled by the great Kings like Mandhata, Yudishtira and so on in different ages. And all of them have had to pass away leaving the land as it it. When this has been the fate of great men like these, Oh Munja, do you think the goddess of earth is going to accompany you after death."
The young Bhoja was referring to the transient human life in which our obsession often clouds realities.This again brings to my mind a hard hitting statement that I heard at school from one of the monks. He said "One of the curious things about man is that he lives as if he is never going to die but dies as if he has never lived." Human history has seen the appearance and disappearance of civilizations. However great they might have been, from the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Mauryans, the Byzantine, the Turks, the Mughals, the European colonial powers and on goes the list, each of them was one more step in mankind's ongoing evolution and once their role was played the sun had to set on them. And the same is true of our generation.
But the common thread has always been the struggle to create a society based on the principle of "Equality." This is an ideal that has inspired human race for thousands of years and every reformer's roots can be traced to the putting into practice of this ideal. In the ancient world, as I understand, the solution was by appealing to the "religious intuition" of man. But later the solution has been attempted by appealing to the "social" instinct of man. But both of these are processes still ongoing.
Those of us who sometimes tend to disregard the role that religion has played in this process, by basing our arguments on caste system and other such divisions will also do better to remember that that the Social solution to the problem has also been put to many a litmus test and is still being done so. For example, the American declaration of Independence, as early as 1776 said "...We hold these truths to be self evident; That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;...."
But the blacks there had to struggle as long as the 1965 till this had to truly begin its way to practice. The same can be said of the social systems whose ambitions resulted in world wars.
So, this process of creating a society where all men are treated equal is an evolution in progress. This has been a struggle for centuries and will continue to be so. The best thing we can do is to try to answer the questions that this poses with relevance to the times we live in.
That said the only answer that can endure across ages is that of recognizing the "Divinity withing every man." A solution that was offered to the world ages ago. All other solutions are simply based on utilitarian ideas and will be relevant only as long as the nature of the division remains the same.
Anikethan
The young Bhoja was referring to the transient human life in which our obsession often clouds realities.This again brings to my mind a hard hitting statement that I heard at school from one of the monks. He said "One of the curious things about man is that he lives as if he is never going to die but dies as if he has never lived." Human history has seen the appearance and disappearance of civilizations. However great they might have been, from the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Mauryans, the Byzantine, the Turks, the Mughals, the European colonial powers and on goes the list, each of them was one more step in mankind's ongoing evolution and once their role was played the sun had to set on them. And the same is true of our generation.
But the common thread has always been the struggle to create a society based on the principle of "Equality." This is an ideal that has inspired human race for thousands of years and every reformer's roots can be traced to the putting into practice of this ideal. In the ancient world, as I understand, the solution was by appealing to the "religious intuition" of man. But later the solution has been attempted by appealing to the "social" instinct of man. But both of these are processes still ongoing.
Those of us who sometimes tend to disregard the role that religion has played in this process, by basing our arguments on caste system and other such divisions will also do better to remember that that the Social solution to the problem has also been put to many a litmus test and is still being done so. For example, the American declaration of Independence, as early as 1776 said "...We hold these truths to be self evident; That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;...."
But the blacks there had to struggle as long as the 1965 till this had to truly begin its way to practice. The same can be said of the social systems whose ambitions resulted in world wars.
So, this process of creating a society where all men are treated equal is an evolution in progress. This has been a struggle for centuries and will continue to be so. The best thing we can do is to try to answer the questions that this poses with relevance to the times we live in.
That said the only answer that can endure across ages is that of recognizing the "Divinity withing every man." A solution that was offered to the world ages ago. All other solutions are simply based on utilitarian ideas and will be relevant only as long as the nature of the division remains the same.
Anikethan
