Sanskriti VaahanaThe vehicle of Culture

THE

NATIONAL

COUNCIL

OF

INDIAN

CULTURE

IN THIS ISSUE:An Introduction to In-dian PhilosophyRe-thinking Indian Inden-ture

Above:Winning artwork at Sanskritik Sangam 2009,

An Introduction to Indian Philisophy-Part 1

What do you understand by the term “Indian Philosophy”? Do you think of “Hinduism” (pretending for a mo-ment that we can pin it down to something simple)? Do you think about the teachings of gods such as Rama or Krishna? About ancient sages with awakened Siddhis (lit. perfections (mystical powers)) such as Vyaasa or Adi Shankara? OR even about modern teachers such as Swami Vivekananda, Swami Prabhupada or any Swami for that matter? Does it conjure up words such as Aatman, Brahman, Karma, Dharma, purusha, prakriti, maayaa or samsaara ? If so then you are probably, far from being alone, among the majority of people today who have yet to sink into the depths of Indian Philosophical Thought. Not that these thoughts and ideas are somehow wrong or are invalid! They all undoubtedly form part of the great ocean of Indian Philosophy, but only a PART…

What is not known to the average person is that “Hinduism”, that we are exposed to today, forms just a small branch of Indian Philosophy, ( In ancient India the word used for a philosophy was darshana (lit. seeging; used in the sense of viewpoint)). The orthodox or vedic schools called the “aastika” schools of thought are divided into six main streams : The ritualistic school -Puurva Miimaamsa (miimaam-sa- lit. well chewed), discusses vedic sacrifice in practice. Though today we think of ritualism as being at odds with philosophy, the ritu-alistic philosophers of India, such as Kumarila and Bhartrhari, have been amongst the most brilliant philosophers, heavily influencing later thinkers in many of schools of thought including Vedanta and Bud-dhism. Counterpart to the Puurva-miimaamsa is the Uttara Miimaamsa where the vedic sacrifice is internal-ized. It is comprised of the three streams of Vedatna(non-dualism, qualified non-dualism and dualism). Saankya (enumeration) and its practical counterpart Yoga (Union) analyse the world in its two primary aspects: inert nature and consciousness. While Saankhya deals with the theory behind the “entanglement” of these two, yoga gives practical advice on undoing the entanglement. Other than these more popular schools there are Nyaaya (logic) and Vaisheshika (the theory of particulars), where theories of causality, primitive atomic theory can be found. These schools though are more concerned with the physical constitution of the universe and proper methods of analysis. Many of these philosophies were originally atheistic (including miimaamsa, the prime philosophy of vedic sacrifice). However, they all believed in aatman and Brahman OR Purusha and Prakrti (note Brahman/Purusha CANNOT be translated as God).

Flourishing alongside these, there were heterodox or non-vedic schools called “naastika”(na-aastika) darshanas. Foremost amongst these were Buddhism and Jainism who rejected the basic notions of aatman and Brahman or purusha and prakrti outlined in aastika darshanas. Importantly, they also rejected the authority of the Veda. There were also completely hedonistic schools such as the Char-vaakas or lokaayatas, which taught seeking ephemeral pleasure as the goal of life and whatever the means to get it was valid, be it cheating, stealing or murdering.

An Introduction to Indian Philisophy-Part 1

What we know as “Hinduism” today is for the most part a mesh of various principles and ideas from a number of those philosophical schools of thought originating in the sub-continent. While the great diversity of philoso-phies that has infused what we call “Hinduism” make it very malleable, comfortable in dealing with contradic-tions, and differences and greatly adaptable; At the same time, one who has read even a little of wider Indian Philosophy cannot help but think that we have lost something monumental...

Indian Philosophers of the past are often painted as “seers” people who sat in meditation for extraordinary periods of time and through mastering the body, mind, senses, were able to gain divine insight. Mantras were revealed to them, imbued with power to awaken divine wisdom! They could see the reality (or non-reality as the case may be) of the world!! But could they really?? Many philosophers did not accept the seers of other schools, and questioned them “If the Buddha is omniscient, why does he need to ask for directions in a village?” If indeed there were such seers, they numbered only a few in history, and often times, what they left lay equally in the domain of poetry as it did philosophuy

The lion’s share of the work remained to be carried out by scholars of tremendous dedication who ruthlessly questioned and questioned, who, instead of accept-ing things as divine insight, relentlessly probed the implications of beliefs and proclamations, who chose to

push ideas to their limits, forcing them to move from poetic generalities to defined and defendable philosophical ideas and frameworks. What are the mechanics of perception? What are the means to valid knowledge? How trust-worthy is cognition? What constitutes valid means of proof? These were just some of the critical questions that Indian Philosophers tried to answer.

Through continuous rigorous debates (such as the famous one between Shankara and Mandana Mishra, illustrated on the left, that lasted several days) a rich philosophical landscape developed over centuries, no doubt possible only because of an open intellectual atmosphere, where people were free to disagree, to challenge and to be challenged. More importantly though, these challenges were met with serious scholarship and real philo-

sophical debate, not name calling and cries of intolerance. By contrast, today, questions pertaining to Indian Philosophy are dealt with religiously, being met with prescriptions of blind faith, strength of belief outweighing strength of reason, a sad change from the intellectual courageousness that was the hallmark of past philoso-phers.

Over the course of our coming issues, we hope to systematically introduce you to many of the philosophi-cal schools of ancient India mentioned (which are just some general categories of the innumerable sub-sects), through which we hope you will get a greater appreciation for the broad spectrum of thought which existed and how they were all connected to not only each-other but how they are all connected to us today!

Arrivalby Amrica Seepersad

One hundred and sixty-six years ago across the kalapaaniBhaarat ke parampara Chinidad me bah-ane lageBringing with it a rich and vibrant cultureSurviving hardship, struggle and torture

Many years later we excel and overcomeand after much effort we have only just begunWe cannot let our heritage slowly slip awayYahan parampara, anushtaan, aur abhyaas raha rahe hai!

As the years have passed onSociety has broken downTaking a toll on our communityand attempting a destroy a beautiful dynastyNow that we have learnt the hard way,To our forefathers I say, “Mujhe afsos hai”We recognise the need to preserve its sanctityand we are building a vision to become a reality

O bachee! Our culture is in despairwhen daaru ke gane pervade everywhere!Please restore it to what it ought to beBring it back to its beauty and all its gloryFearless and courageous at the startFrom our noble teachings, we must never partI urge you, please respect our ancestryand do what you must to preserve our iden-tity!

Bhai aur behin, our culture lies in our youthIn a doha of virtue and a katha of truthMere dosto, we have a tradition to maintainthat our ancestors' hard work won't go in vainBhaashaa, bhojan, geet aur capreVoh laaye hamaare ke liye!So let us all direct the flow of our cultureand do all that we must to preserve our Dharma

Charcoal Artby Brahma Beharrysingh

Re-thinking Indian Indenture-Part 1

This column has been titled “Re-Thinking Indian Indenture” because we don’t intend to present any new his-torical information on indenture, what we intend to do in this series, is re-present already existing information in an attempt to encourage young people to think, explore, read and write around and about our history. It is an attempt to compensate for the fact that the histories of indentured Indians are not fully covered by the secondary school syllabus. Their histories are being neglected, but it is not a history that belongs to them alone, it is not just Indentured History nor Indian History but a large part of our collective history as a nation and as a part of the wider Caribbean region. A history which is not being taught in our schools and therefore not being thought about by our people. Maybe more aptly the title of the column should be “Thinking Indian Indenture”.

After slavery ended in 1838 Trinidad plantations were faced with a la-bour shortage, so they turned to India as a source of labour and the first batch of indentured Indians arrived on our shores on May 30th 1845. The international trade in indentured Indian labour had started over a decade earlier in 1829 when Indians were being indentured to estates in Mauritius, however for many before Indians had been travelling overseas as labour-ers, as slaves in the French territories of Reunion and Mauritius in the 18th century, to Burma by the East India Trading company to work on the ports, Indian convicts had also been sent to Sumatra, Singapore and Mauritius and Indian labourers were sent to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and East Africa to work on plantations there. However it was not until the 1830’s that the system of sending Indians as labourers overseas started to be regulated and controlled. In 1836 John Gladstone, an estate owner in Guyana wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the President of the Board of Control for India requesting permission to ship Indian labourers to Guyana to work on the sugar estates. In 1838 he was granted permission and thus initiated the trade of Indian labourers to the West Indies. Indian labourers were initially recruited from the Tribal regions of Chota Nagpur which was close to Bengal and Bihar, they were referred to as “Dhangars” but were mainly from the Santal, Mundis and Oraon tribes who had started hiring themselves out within India as agricultural labourers. Labourers, early on, where also recruited from the city areas around the ports where many people who had left their villages in search of employment had flocked. After the 1950’s as the demand for labour increased more and more recruits came from the plain areas of what is now Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. Most recruits to the West Indies came through the port at Calcutta (Kolkata), initially a few came from the South, through the port at Madras (Chennai)

The decision to leave was not an easy one for many of the people who migrated. There was a history in India of people leaving their homes and villages, leaving their families behind and going off to different areas in search of jobs, as seasonal labourers, as members of the army, but they always returned home and always had the intention of returning home. The majority, for instance, of those who were sent to Burma, Ceylon and the tea estates of Assam in the North East of India, returned home. Therefore, for these emigrants, many who were unaccompanied men who had left their families behind, the intention was to go abroad in search of better pros-pects and at the end of the indenture period return. For those who chose to leave, the economic circumstances in India was a major push factor.

Re-thinking Indian Indenture-Part 1

Most Indians who came to the West Indies came through the port at Calcutta where the catchment area for recruits was the Indo-Gangetic plains, areas close to Bengal: Bihar, the North Western Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand) areas which had been affected by the East India Company’s Permanent Settlement policy, which re-structured the Indian land system making it very rigid and defined in order to collect taxes. The end result was a very exploitative relationship between tenant and zamindar (or land owner) which continues to dominate Indian rural life to this day, famines and underdevelopment of rural areas and agriculture. The East India Company’s trading interest in India had also put many Indian craftsmen, crafts which had been handed down through generations, out of their fields. Therefore pools of labour in India, especially in these areas in the East sprung up, which could be easily exploited due to desperation.

When there was drought and famine in India, for those years emigration to the colonies spiked, and it was more difficult to find recruits when times were better. Therefore many who left India did so because they found themselves in dire circumstances. In addition to these, many were kidnapped, or tricked into coming by “arkatias”, (informal recruiting agents), not officially part of the system but who were more familiar with the areas they recruited from and were hired by the licensed recruiting agents. Others left to escape the law, or exploitative situations in their village and some left out of curiosity.

On this the 166th year marking the arrival of Indians in Trinidad we remember our forefathers who left their homes and came here, some returned, some longed for return, some settled, we remember and commemorate their struggles, their survival, what they left behind and what they have given us. In no way can this quarterly column supplement to the lack of engagement with Indo-Caribbean history in our schools, it is a humble at-tempt to forge a way whereby young people can enter into these discourses, to think of and around them. However, importantly it also highlights that history does not only exist in the realm of academic institutions

and should not be limited to just that sphere, it is something to be engaged with. Therefore in our first issue we would like to encourage our read-ers, to write to us, to talk to us, to engage with us and engage with your own histories, share your stories, share the story of your family, or your friends, or your neighbour, stories of Indenture, stories of the Plantation, stories of hardships and fun times, stories which may not be found in any text book but stories which form part of our col-lective history.

Vijaya Bhaskar, The Hindu

Surya -Namaskaar-Reproduced fromSivananda Yoga Ashram

One round of Sun Salutation consists of two sequences, the first leading with the right foot in positons 4 and 9, the second leading with the left. Keep your hands in one place from positons 3 to 10 and try to co-ordinate your movements with your breathing. (http://www.sivananda.org/teachings/asana/sun-salutation.html)

Stand erect with feet together and hands in the prayer position in front of your chest. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed. Exhale.Inhaling, stretch your arms up and arch back from the waist, pushing the hips out, legs straight. Relax your neck.Exhaling, fold forward, and press your palms down, fingertips in line with toes - bend your knees if necessary.Inhaling, bring the left (or right) leg back and place the knee on the floor. Arch back and look up, lifting your chin.Retaining the breath, bring the other leg back and support your weight on hands and toes.Exhaling, lower your knees, then your chest and then your forehead, keeping your hips up and your toes curled under.Inhaling, lower your hips, point your toes and bend back. Keep legs together and shoulders down. Look up and back.Exhaling, curl your toes under, raise your hips and pivot into an inverted “V”shape. Try to push your heels and head down and keep your shoulders back.Inhaling, step forward and place the left (or right) foot between your hands. Rest the other knee on the floor and look up, as in position 4.Exhaling, bring the other leg forward and bend down from the waist, keeping your palms as in position 3.Inhaling, streach your arms forward, then up and back over your head and bend back slowly from the waist, as in position 1.Exhaling, gently come back to an upright position and bring your arms down by your sides.

Start

Sanskrit Corner

When we think of sanskrit we usually think about religion, phi-losophy etc. However, the body of sanskrit literature extends far beyond just religion. For centuries, sanskrit was the lan-guage of intellectual discourse, politics and poetry. The body of ancient sanskrit manuscripts number in the region of 4-6 Million, a number which dwarfs the collected literature of the rest of the ancient world (estimated between 30-50,000). Many poetsFeatures of the language such as continguity of words (no spaces between them), were exploited to layer multiple mean-ings onto single sentences. for example take the following subhaashita (proverb):

tamakhupatramraajendrabhajamaajnaanadaayakam |tamakhupatramraajendrabhajamaajnaanadaayakam |

The analysis is as follows:tamakhu patram raajendra bhaja maa ajnaana daayakam

the leaves of tobacco, Oh King, do not partake, for they are are the givers of ignorance

tam akhu-patram raajendra bhaja maa jnaana daayakamhim whose vehicle is a mouse (Ganesha), worship, Oh King, who gives the knowledge of the mother

Architecture forsustainability-Nagaur

Today sustainability, energy efficiency and environmentalism are buzz words. How can we optimize the use of our scarce resourc-es? This is exactly the same problem many ancient civilizations faced, albeit for different reasons, namely lack of technology. It is amazing then, when one walks through the complex of the Nagaur Fort in the blazing desert of Rajasthan, and sees the elaborate wa-ter collection system.

Originally built out of mud in the fourth century by the Naga-vamshis, the fort was rebuilt in the 12th century by Mohammed Bahlim, Governor of the Ghaznivites, in stone. Since there was no means of pumping water or airconditioning, the fort had to be designed to maximixe the use of water.

Geographically the fort is placed in a slight basin, allowing water from outside the fort to be fed in via gravity. On the way in to the storage facility, a systsm of gravity fed fountains can be seen ( picture on the left). The water moves from here to to a collection pond.

In other places the water coming in is fed through indoor waterfalls, as shown in the picture to the right. the slope of the water fall has scales to increase the surface area of the flowing water. It is also placed in a breeze-way so the incoming air would evaporate the water and cool the room. Even after the water reaches the bottom of the fall it is taken throughout the room via a system of graded streams on the ground, before flowing to col-lection ponds on the outside. Using this method the room could be cooled by 10-15 degrees celcius, making the room a cool haven in the desert heat.

Apart from bringing water in from outside, every drop of water that falls on the fort grounds, the roofs, even the walls, are collected, the walls out-side the fort house 5 storey high collection rooms, and the fort grounds itself holds a set of collection ponds. The one on the left shows a dry collection pond. In the middle of the pond there is a musician stand. The stand has no steps, to access the top floor. The only way for the musicians get to the centre would be to float across on a raft! Makes you wonder about the water problems we have locally doesn’t it!

To learn more about water harvesting in Rajasthan visit:http://www.ted.com/talks/anupam_mishra_the_ancient_ingenuity_of_water_harvesting.html

CHAIIngredients :

3 cardamom pods1 cinnamon stick, lighlty crushed1/2 teaspoon ground ginger4 black pepper seeds lightly crushed4 whole cloves 1/8 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg2 cups water2 cups milk2 tablespoons Black tea or 4 tea bags3 tablespoons granulated sugar (or to taste)

Method :1. Lightly crush Cardamon pods and Cinnamon in a mortar.2. Put water in a pan. Add crushed Cardamon, Cinnamon, ground Ginger, black pepper seeds and cloves to water. Bring the mixture to boil. Let it simmer for few minutes.3. Remove the pan from fire and let the spices infuse their flavor for about 3-4 minutes.4. Add tea leaves/bags and bring to a boil, let boil for about 5 minutes.5. Add the sugar and milk to the pan and bring to a boil until it almost boils over, then remove from the heat and repeat, allowing it to boil over twice more before removing from stove. The key to good chai is in the boiling. 6. Strain before drinking.

About US

Sanskriti Vaahana, is a quarterly publication of the NCIC Youth Arm. You might know the NCIC as the organization that hosts the Divali Nagar, which also happens to be the site of our official office. The NCIC has been (since 1964) and continues to be instrumental in developing Indian Culture in Trinidad and Tobago and has been recognized, nationally, regionally and internationally for its effots (which are all completely voluntary).

Historically, the NCIC publishes an annual thematic maga-zine at the Divali Nagar as well as a thematic presentation of over 50 posters. However, with growing interest in and appreciation for all aspects of Indian Cultural artforms we have began slowly increasing the scope of our activities. We now hold regular sanskrit classes at the NCIC site. We have also hosted music workshops by artistes of international repute such as Pt. Anaindo Chatterjee, The Gundecha Brothers and Kalaa Ramnath. In addition to these efforts, we also felt it necessary to begin reaching out to the community on a more regular basis and provide a forum for budding and recognized artists and artistes alike to share their work and inspire others to explore the latent talent they possess.

If you would like to share any of your work, or even interesting facts, or vegetarian recipes that you might have please do not hesitate to contact the publication team of the youth arm. You can reach us via email at the address given below and include “Newsletter” in the subject of your email.

website: www.ncictt.comemail: ncic.youth@gmail.comphone (ncic office): 671-6242

THE NCIC YOUTH ARMCome join the fun!