The Dravidanists of Tamil Nadu keep claiming that the Tamil Culture is totally different from the rest of Bharat and was not in anyway associated or linked to the Santana Dharma which is the culture of Bharat.
Is it so?
Sangam Literature, the oldest literature of Tamil, beautifully depicts the Tamil culture during that period (600 BCE to 200 CE)...
To counter this with proofs, I created few snippets, some time in 2019, which I am posting here in the blog
This was written way back in 2002, as a response to one of my friends when we had the debate on Compassion and Charity when he argued that Hinduism is more Self centered in Self Realisation and does not care about Humanity, while it is the corner-stone of Christianity......
This was my response:
Compassion for fellow human beings has been the foremost compelling quality
that evoked many of the philosophical and social systems. Right from
Utopianism, Utilitarianism, Imperialism, Communism, Consumerism and Democracy and
these came out of this basic premise of happiness for all.
Most of the religions too had, and few have this basic premise. For example
in Christianity Compassion and Charity had been the driving force when it
started but gave raise to religiosity imperialism that came to dominate in the
later years.
However, in Hinduism, it has been the other way around. The driving force
is Absolute Truth and in this Absolute Truth the Seers saw a universal
‘happiness for all’ hidden in it covered by illusion. The aim was not
‘happiness for all’ but it became a by product.
The Hindu tradition classifies pure bhaktas/devotees/ spiritualists in
three ascending categories:
kanistha adhikari
madhyama adhikari
uttama adhikari
The definitions of these three categories are as follows:
The kanistha adhikari, is still limited in vision and therefore sees
spirituality/ religion in a more or less material way; He feels
compassion for the physical and mental sufferings of people, he gives charity
to those who need food and medicine, and in general he tries to patch up
situations so that people will feel happy. He feels superior and boosts his ego
by “charity” and promotes his “charity” to boost up his ego within the society.
He “enjoys” the” superiority” of him while he does not even recognise the
insult he does to the “taker” of his charity and is under the illusion that the
taker is “happy” for having received his charity, though at the material level
he would have, but at an inner level he would be terribly hurt. Some call it “humanitarianism”
So at the foundation level of Hinduism, Compassion and Charity are very
much embedded and ingrained, without which there can be no progress for a
practicing Hindu or without Compassion and Charity, Hinduism can not exist.
The madhyama adhikari is able to see the difference between transcendence
and material identification (even when applied to religious identification and
attachment). He feels compassion for the living entities’ sufferings in a wider
perspective, not only in their immediate circumstances but according to a
larger scale of time and cause-effect relationships. In other words, he feels
more compassion for the criminal than for the victim of a crime.
This kind of compassion is much more effective because it acts on the roots
of the problems rather than on the external branches, and by trying to prevent
the bad karma it automatically prevents the ensuing sufferings.
The uttama adhikari is completely situated on the transcendental level and
sees the ignorance, illusion, fear and sufferings of materially identified
people as nothing more than a bad dream.
His compassion is not for the immediate sufferings of others (which he
sees as necessary to wake up the soul and destroy delusions), but for the
ignorance and illusion that are the root cause of such sufferings, and
therefore focuses on distributing knowledge and helping people to become aware
of Reality
Thus in
Absolute Reality perspective, the materialistic Compassion and Charity are only
at the initial stages in the pursuit of Realisation, when Realisation is
attained he becomes the personification of Compassion itself. But Alas, many
see only materialistic Compassion as the end in itself.
--- Sriram S
L
3rd
December 2002
I had not been posting my articles, thoughts and my musings in the blog for quite a long time... almost more than a decade...due to the following reasons
- Had been quite busy in my official work..... of course this is an excuse
- Wanting to learn more on the subjects and field that I am more interested, so that I do get a good hold on the subjects and the field such that it will make a proper intended impact on the reader, as well as it reflects originality and scholarly.
I am not really sure I have obtained such a competency, but many of my friends with whom I have been interacting on varied subjects of interests are insisting that I put my thoughts on to the blog and they give me confidence probably I have acquired such a competency. I leave it to the readers to judge.
Sriram Koundinya
11th Aprol 2022
