Adyar Pamphlets Nos. 173 and 174

ANCIENT SOLUTIONS OF MODERN PROBLEMS

by Shri  Bhagavan Das


'Inaugural Address by Dr. Bhagavan Das at the meeting of the Allahabad University
Arya Association, on 4th March, 1933.

Published May & June 1933

The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai [Madras], 600 020 India

 

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

READERS who have seen Mr. A. Ranganatham's and Mr. L. W. Rogers' admirable papers on ' A World in Distress,' in Adyar Pamphlets Nos. 171 and 172, will, we believe, read with interest the present booklet.

Mr. Rogers concludes thus: “Although the distress is world-wide, and although the situation has for many months been growing worse, not a single statesman anywhere has proposed any remedy that shows the slightest grasp of the  fundamental principles  involved in the problem. None of them seems to have, the slightest conception of where the trouble lies; so they talk of modifying the tariff, the rearrangement of war-debts, and how to revive foreign trade . . . Any plan to be successful must embody certain fundamental principles. It must test all its measures by the rule of the greatest happiness of the greatest  [Page ii]  number and see every problem from the viewpoint of the common welfare of the race”.

The present paper endeavours to expound such fundamental principles, drawn from ancient Indian traditions, and to apply them to modern problems in the way rightly stated by Mr. Rogers as requisite.

Mr. Ranganãtharn's closing words are: “If people of different persuasions and castes . . . only realise that they are all parts of one organic whole ... we shall have proved to the world that spirituality and material prosperity are not exclusive of each other but always go together”.

This paper indicates how the ancient social organisation of India is the  actual  way of  realising  in daily life {and not merely vague  feeling ) that “we are all  parts  of one organic  whole”.

1-6-33 T. P. H.



ARYAN CULTURE

Dear Friends,

The affection which has subsisted between your present Vice-Chancellor [Pandit Iqbal Narain Gurtu, M.A., LL.B. ] and me, for nearly thirty years now, since the day when he became my colleague in the work of carrying bricks for the Central Hindu College of Benares, has compelled me to present myself before you today. Instead of taking a refusal, he threatened to take mortal offence if I did not comply with his demand. The consequence is that despite all my unwillingness I find myself in this difficult position.


DIFFICULTY OF SPEAKING FOR THE OLD CULTURE
IN THE PRESENCE OF THE NEW


To enter the precincts of a modern University, humming and buzzing with the latest technicalities [Page 2] of all sorts of wonderful and ever progressive western sciences, mathematical, chemical, physical, biological, economical, political, sociological, and what not, for the purpose of addressing a highly cultured and even more highly critical audience, when one has nothing better to offer than a few rusty old world ideas and ideals, is surely to find oneself in a very awkward position. I felt like declining at the last moment.


ENCOURAGING CIRCUMSTANCES

But the name of the ' University Arya Association; whose Secretary sent me the over-powering invitation through the Vice-Chancellor, put some heart in me. If an Association with such a name could live in its atmosphere, the University could not be so wholly up-to-date and modern; my ancient ideas might not be thought quite out-of-date ; I would perhaps not feel an utter stranger. I took some more heart when I learnt that another dear friend, of even longer standing, almost fifty years, your ex-Vice-Chancellor, [Mahãmahopãdhyaya LLD., D. Litt. Dr. Garigãnãtha Jha, M.A., ] who, I know, holds views even more antiquated than mine, was to take the chair for me. [Page 3]


ALARM OF WESTERN EXPERTS THEMSELVES
OVER THE GIANT RAKE'S PROGRESS


Finally, I fortified myself with the very encouraging reflection that a growing number of those experts themselves who had created these various sciences, and thereby built up modern civilization, were voicing, more and more strongly, serious dissatisfaction with the consequences of the marvellous progress in discoveries and inventions. They seem to be realizing that this western civilization, which they have created, has become a Gigantic Rake's Progress, rushing headlong towards World-Bankruptcy and World-Suicide, through repeated World-Wars of mutual economic and physical destruction, by means of tariff-devices and of solid, liquid, and, more dreadful than all others, gaseous weapons.

To bring into relief the special features of ancient Aryan Culture by needed contrast, I propose to dwell awhile on the results of modern Western Culture. I will illustrate my meaning with a few quotations, picked up at random from recent papers. The medieval division of the branches of learning in Europe was into the two broad classes of the 'divinities' and the 'humanities'. Sir Oliver Lodge has suggested the addition of a third class, the 'realities', to cover the physico-chemical and biological sciences of recent origin and growth. It seems that the  [Page 4] 'realities' have been annihilating the 'divinities', and turning the 'humanities' into the 'brutalities'. Sir Oliver Lodge himself has been trying to contend against this perversion. But I will not quote him. I will quote Mr, Lloyd George and Profs. H. E. Armstrong and Crew.



MR. LLOYD GEORGE ON PRESENT WORLD-CONDITIONS
— “NATIONS ORGANISING TO STARVE AND SLAUGHTER EACH OTHER”

Mr. Lloyd George is a super-eminent practical exponent of 'the humanities' as concentrated in economics and politics. He is a 'practical politician' — the exact opposite of the 'practical mystic', though he can always quote the Bible for his purposes — and, now out of power, talks bravely, but, when in power, often acted very badly. After the world-war, he was, for some time, one of the Big Ten, then one of the Big Four, and then, finally, the sole Big One of Europe, before passing into obscuration, from which he seems to be re-emerging. Also, he has crossed beyond the Biblical span of life, is seventy-one years of age, and can scarcely tell lies, or talk clap-trap, or make thoughtless or exaggerated utterances. He must be taken seriously, as one of the best authorities on what he is talking about. Speaking not only of the  [Page 5] government of Britain, which must surely be manned by the politicians and economicians next most expert after himself in that country, but also of present world-conditions in general, he said the other day ( vide Leader, dated 15-2-1933):

“The Government has been rummaging all the ancient precedents of reactionary governments in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, to find out expedients for meeting the emergency — viz., tariffs, trade restrictions, imprisonment for speeches they dislike.  They are like a dog digging up old bones; and the older and rottener the bones, the more tasty they find them. It is a Government that looks back to the failures of the past for its inspiration, and not to the  ideals  of the future — a Lot's wife Government. It does not seem to have the slightest comprehension of the character of the problem, with which it has to deal . . . The existing industrial, financial,, and economic order, with its  blind and cruel greed,  with its extravagance and its poverty, its luxuries and miseries, its waste and its chaos, with its tens of millions of workers reduced to eating the bread of charity whilst the  riches  of Providence are  rotting  in the fields because they are  not permitted  to reach the needy; with its slums where no humane man would house his cattle, with nations  organising to starve and slaughter each other — this system has been tried and found wanting. The evidence against it is accumulating, and the proofs are as high as the heavens. Behold, the judge standeth before the gate”.

Thus spoke Mr. Lloyd George, ex-Premier of the premier empire of this sphere of sorrows, though he does not suggest any other and better system. Mahatma Gandhi has said nothing stronger against the 'system' which is crashing the life, the soul, out of humanity. Surely Mr. Lloyd George must know. If there were any doubt left it would be brushed away by the corroborations supplied by other experts, which appear from time to time in the papers.


PROF. ARMSTRONG IS ' WITH GANDHI IN FEELING
THAT MAN IS NOW SLAVE OF THE MACHINE'


Prof. Armstrong is said to be the doyen of British Chemists, and may be regarded as super-eminent representative of the 'realities', as Mr. Lloyd George of the 'humanities'. In a letter to Ãcarya P. C. Rãy, ( vide Leader, dated 27-2-1933), he says: “I am now nearly eighty-five, and just beginning to write the story of the past fifty years in education . . . We are worse off than we were fifty years ago — slaves of examinations. Even intellectual freedom is going out of us. Most of our science is religious faith — not a reasoned knowledge. Pursuing the electron, we are losing [Page 7] our souls.  I am with Gandhi in feeling that man is now the slave of the machine.  How are we to raise his level ? All our research work is of no account compared with that”.

Writing in Nature, the same Professor Armstrong said, a few months earlier: “A century of science seems to have brought us to  a wonderful understanding of things that do not matter,  while telling us little that will help to fill our bellies and suffer one another with equanimity, let alone gladly and with Christian amity ... In future, the  scientific worker,  to be worthy of the name must justify himself through  social service  in the first instance.'


PROF. CREW ON PROSTITUTION OF SCIENCE TO TYRANTS 'LUSTS AND GREEDS'
AND ON 'NEED OF NEW MORAL OUTLOOK AND IDEAL'

Another scientist of note, Prof. Crew of Edinburgh, said (in December, 1931), in an address on 'Science and Society'; “Science has been prostituted through man's  greed  to serve his  lusts . . . The greatest problems of the day relate to spiritual as opposed to  material  adjustment ... In this world, there is the knowledge and there is the power to refashion society. But there is not the will to do so, and we have  no ideal  toward which to aim. We know a little of the methods of supporting life . . . but not how to live nor [Page 8] what to live for , . . Science has become the servant of man's lust for power and is now the tool of the tyrant. We need to discover  what is good for mankind,  and then to see to it that the power that knowledge gives is used  for that end.  Knowledge without affection . . . has set the world alight in a  blaze  of hatred and misery ... A new moral outlook is demanded. Whence will it come ?”

Thus Prof. Crew propounds the great problem of the day. He does not supply the answer. We have all also heard the pair of resounding and tremendously conflicting phrases: 'How to make the World safe for Democracy', and 'How to make Democracy safe for the World'. Haply, Ãryan Culture may have some suggestions to make, on all such matters.


BREAD-POWER — THE UNHONORED PARENT OF ALL OTHER POWERS

The west has learnt to fiy in the air, to rush beneath the waters, to flash along the surface of the earth; but it has forgotten how to live in peace upon that surface, forgotten to honour ' the bread of life' and the producer of that bread, and to divide justly, for the welfare and the happiness of all, the  bread-power,  which makes possible and nourishes the mind-power whose small bye-products are coal-power, oil-power [Page 9] steam power, powder-power, gas-power, electricity-power and all other such powers; and the consequence of that forgetting is internecine war.


ACHIEVE SPIRITUAL RIGHTEOUSNESS,
AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY WILL FOLLOW

An Iranian Ãryan said, many centuries before these aeroplanes and submarines and automobiles were invented,

Agar bar hawã parî, magasé bãsî
Agar andar ãb rawî, sumuke basT ;
Dil ba dast f.r, ta kasé bãsî,

(Fly in the air, and you are but a fly;
Swim 'neath the waters, you are but a fish;
Control your selfish heart — then are you Man.)


The Christian Bible asked two thousand years ago: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul ?” The most practical scientists of today, in both branches of science, the sociological and the physical, confirm that it shall profit him nothing, nay, shall mean his ruin. Science is for life, not life for science. The Indian Bible, the Vaidika Upanisad, said the same thing many more thousands of years earlier:

Ãtmanas tu kâmâya sarvam vai priyam bhavati;
Ãtrna vai S'rés'has' ca Presthas' ca.

“For the sake of the Self, the Soul, the Spirit, the Principle of Life and Consciousness which pervades all things and in which all things live [Page 10] and move and have their being — for Its sake is dear whatever is dear; nothing else, nor art, nor science, nor wealth, is dear for its own sake; only the Soul, the Self, is dear for its own sake; this Supreme Self is the Best, the Truest, the Greatest Good, and also the Dearest, the Most Beautiful.”

MEN, MINES, AND MACHINES

Our own Ãcãrya Rãy, we all know, is now much more an exponent of the  carkhã  (the spinning-wheel) than of the secrets of chemistry. He is “justifying himself by social service”. For this cult of the  carkhã,  which symbolises the samsãra-cakra, the 'cyclicity' of the whole World-Process, which spins out the warp and the woof of Nature, the Garment of God, the Veil of the Hidden Life, we may find high motto in the Bhagavad-Gita:
:
Évam pravartitam cakram,
N-ânu-vartayat-îha yah,
Aghâyur - indriyâ -râmo,
Mogham, Pârtha! sa jîvati.

(He who helps not to turn the wheel of Life
Set going thus by Me, the Supreme Self,
Pervading all — he lives his life in vain.)

Very curiously, the working of vast mines and of huge machinery,

Sarvâkarésv -adhikâro, mahã - yantra -pravartanam - Manu  [Page 11] is counted, by antediluvian Manu, in a list of the  upa-pâtakas,  the subsidiary sins and crimes, which feed, and through ever higher an ever faster living in the few great towns, and correspondingly ever lower and ever slower living in the very, very, many villages, inevitably lead on to the  mahâ-pâtakas, the great sins and crimes,

Brahma-hatyã, Surâ-pãnam, Stéyam Gurv-an-ganã-gamah. (Manu)

To grasp the full significance of this verse, we have to read it with two other verses of Manu, which describe the conduct, the ways of life, that ensue from the fostering of the ' lust ' kãma, and the 'hatred'  krodha,  that are mentioned in the quotations just made from western experts:

Mrgayâ, akso, divâ-svapnah,
parivãdah, striyo, madah.
Tauryatrikam, vrth-âtya, ca,
kãma-jo das'ako ganah.
Pais'unyam, sãhasam, drohah,
irsya, asüyã, artha-dusanam,
Vâg-danda-jam ca pârusyam,
krodhajo 'pi gano 'stakah.

(Manu) Let us translate these into modern terms.



AN OUTLINE PICTURE OF MODERN URBAN CIVILISATION


The great sin are: (I) the extensive and intensive brutalisation. the degradation, the de-spiritualisation, of human nature, the slaying [Page 12] of 'the Brahma in man', 'the God in man, Brahma-hatyâ by (2) the intoxication, the poisoning, the toxin-ing, of whole nations with alcohol and blood-meats, involving the daily slaughter of countless millions of animals and the daily conversion and perversion of most precious (in modern terms, millions of pounds worth of) human-labour and whole-some nutritious substances into oceans of spirituous liquors, Surâ-pânam, by (3) the 'night-side' of the life of the huge modern Babylons, the enormous towns, the 'great harlots' of the Bible, 'wasting in each night's bout the wealth of kings', the Sex-Slave Traffic, the moral and physical ruin and worse than murder of millions upon millions of innocent girls and women, Gurv-anganâ-gamah, and, finally, by (4) the wholesale butcheries of human bodies, the 'abodes of Brahman', the ' temples of God', in world-wars, entered upon for the sole purpose of robbing one another's goods and territories,  Brahma-hatyâ  again, and for Stéyam.

“The ways of living born of Lust are: Hunting, racing, betting upon living and non-living things, dicing, gambling of all sorts, sleeping by day and waking by night, scandal-mongering, club-chatter, false advertisements, adulterous sex-indulgence, running after each other's wives and husbands, drinking and drugging, balls and dances, music halls and theatres, often obscene cinemas and talkies, and aimless shopping, gadding about, and rushing to [Page 13] and fro, by land and sea and air. (The American triad is 'meals, movies, motors'.)

“The bye-products, in social life, of Hatred are: Malicious slander, false propaganda, reckless dare-devilry, intensive competition, frenzied finance, rancorous ambitions, rapacities, jealousies, envies, robbing and stealing in all ways, verbal and physical violence, and the flourishing of bullies, gunmen, and gangsters.”

Perhaps we may recognise a rough picture of the life of the vast modern capitals of today in these verses. The description, in the Rãmãyana, of the banqueting halls of Rãvana, and of the food and drink of Kumbha-karna, is but an allegory of the daily consumption of meat and wine of a huge town of the Ãsurî-sampatti, the ' titanic type of civilisation', of which Vulcan's subterranean forges, vast mines, and vast machinery are necessary factors. Indeed, if we look at the daily bill of fare of the thousand-headed and million-handed Titan Londonensis, eldest son of the Giantess Britannia-Lanca-shiria, and of various cousins and step-brothers of his, Berlinos, Parisinus, Romus, Novo-Yorkus, Chicagonus, San-Franciscus, the children of his aunts and step-mothers, Germania, Franconia, Italia, Americia, we find that ten-headed and twenty-handed Rãvana and Kumbha-karna and old Lanka, or hundred-handed Briareus and Enceladus, or even thousand-handed Kãrta-vîrya and Ban-isura, are but poor pygmies. [Page 14]

Life in enormous mines and factories is described, by those who know, as life in purgatory and hell; and the latest experience of scientist is that machinery, invented and expected to  save labour, has began to starve the laborer on a vast scale. The present Prince of Wales, to acquaint himself at first-hand, as a good prince should, with the conditions of life of his people, once went down into one of the mines of Britain; what he saw filled him with horror; he tried to speak about it openly to rouse the public conscience; but a clapper was promptly put upon his mouth by “vested interests” and their “safe-guardsmen”.



THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE MIS-EMPLOYED

The total of the Unemployed is now reported to be 30 millions — for the civilised west. For the submerged east, no one has thought it worth while to count. Far worse, far more dangerous for humanity, than these Unemployed, are the Mis-employed — Mis-employed for Satan's own infernal work of war. The present total of the standing armies of the world, including reserves, was declared, lamentingly but helplessly, by President Hoover of the United States of America, in a public speech, about two years ago, to be 30 millions also, as against 20 millions before the world-war.  [Page 15]

The cost of maintaining this vast total of 30 million Mis-employed in utterly wasteful and non-productive idleness now, and for fearfully destructive work later, is said to be some 900 million pounds sterling annually, or 30 pounds per man. This seems to be very greatly an underestimate, as compared with the state of things in India, where a varying total of less than a quarter million soldiers, British and Indian taken together, costs some 40 million pounds a year, or an average of about 160 pounds per man, though the average cost of the British soldier in India is four or five times that of the Indian. 30 pounds per year would scarcely cover the bare food of a western soldier, much less his clothing, arms, ammunition, and all the other vast paraphernalia and infernalia of war by land, sea, and air, including six-million pound super-dreadnoughts, with a life of only a few years, and liable to be scrapped at a moment's notice, by some new discovery or invention. The probable average may therefore be safely put at half the Indian average at least, the full figure of which is due to “special reasons”, of course.

The total cost on the Unemployed, I have not seen reported anywhere. Britain alone has spent just over 120 million pounds on 3 million persons, in one year, or 40 pounds per person. Putting it at 20 pounds per annum per person for all countries taken together — which is probably too low in  [Page 16] view of the high seals of living in the west— it comes, in round figures, to a total of 600 million pounds. And the whole burden of these 1,500 (or, at the higher estimate of 80 pounds for the Mis-employed, 3,000) million pounds per year for maintaining the Mis-employed and the Unemployed, and also of supporting all the high and fast life of the enormous towns besides, falls ultimately on the broken shoulders of the actual  Producer of Food and Clothing,  the prime necessaries of life, who cannot retain half enough food and clothing for himself. These figures illustrate the quotations from the western experts.

Such is the picture of modern western civilisation and culture. Such is the pass to which the very clever, the very 'practical,' politicians and economicians and statesmen of the west have brought the human world. They are all crying for Disarmament and Distariffing, but they are all also full of lust and greed and mutual mortal fear and hate, all the time, and none will begin. Capitalist greed for money and luxury, bureau-cratist and militarist greed for power and glory, universal craving for sense-indulgence, prostitution of science to these — such is  the root-cause of all the troubles  of the human world. When eyes are 'veiled', 'blinded,' by lust and hate and greed (which constitute the Ãvarana-s'akti of Maya) and are ' forcibly turned in the erroneous' [Page 17] direction (by the viksépa-sakti of the same), then, naturally, they cannot see the true cause and the right remedy.



THE ' PRACTICAL' STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS OF THE DAY

Your brilliant Chancellor [Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, ex-officio Chancellor of the University ] has recently perpetrated two epigrammatic definitions: “A statesman is a person who desires to do something for his country; a politician is one who desires his country to do something for him”. They are worthy of G. B. Shaw himself. Even so, while the second definition is perfect, that of the present day politician, the first seems to be capable of some improvement: “A modern statesman is a person who desires to do something for his country, at the ruthless expense of as many other countries as possible”, or, “is one who desires that other countries should do something for his country”. 'Patriotism', 'nationalism',  etc., mean today (as they have unhappily meant throughout most well-known history), (1) for subject nations, struggle to escape from the boa's coils, (2) for the dominant nations, stronger constriction with those coils, (3) for others, sabre-rattling, flag-waving, slogan-blustering, perpetual trying to swallow, or avoid being swallowed by,  [Page 18] neighbours. For none, today, apparently, do those words mean 'humanism,' and knowledge of the science and art of peaceful and happy social and individual life, and ability to bring about real and lasting cure of domestic and economic ills (which are the main root of political ilia) consistently with the maxim of 'live and let live'.



THE SOUL OF MODERN CIVILISATION — A CAPITALIST-MILITARIST GHOUL

The soul of present day western civilisation and culture seems to be a ghoul born of the misunion of capitalism and militarism, and this ghoul has succeeded, by its serpent-wiles, in deceiving, coaxing, compelling, and degrading into its service Sacred Science, which is only now, after the world-war, beginning to realise, and to make groan and moan, that it has prostituted and enslaved itself to this obsessing demon, this Frankenstein monster, which it has itself helped unwittingly to create.



CAN THE PRINCIPLES OF ÃRYAN CULTURE BE OF ANY USE?

In such conditions, a person who has some faith left in the underlying principles of ancient Ãryan Culture, may perhaps hope that he will not be regarded as altogether impertinent, if he comes  [Page 19] into one of the houses of science, a great University, and places before the occupants, for mere consideration, and to be flung aside, of course, if not thought suitable, after such consideration, some suggestions which that culture embodies, for the solution of the problems that are now vexing humanity, and for rescuing both the older and the newer cultures from complete degeneration,  by combining the best elements of both,  in the light of the principle of the golden mean, the middle path,  via media, avoidance of excess, moderation.

It should be clearly understood that it is not my intention, by any means, to offer apologia for medieval or latter-day Indian conditions, the degeneracy of which is patent; nor to condemn everything of the modern west, in which, on the contrary, I see many most valuable sciences, which need only to be well-applied by philanthropy to make of earth a heaven, instead of being misapplied by satanic misanthropy to make of earth a hell. Neither do I pretend or presume to say that everything, or even anything, of the ancient east was perfect; I only believe that it possessed some philosophical and psychological  fundamental principles  which can enable science to be well-applied; and I wish and hope that modern experts may take them into due consideration'. [For evidence that thoughtful persons of the west also recognise the possibility and desirability of such limited and discriminate ' modernisation' of Asiatic outer  forms  of life-activities, while the essential principles are retained, see C. Delisle Burns,  A Short History of the World,  1918-1928, Oh. XVIII.] [Page 20]


THE MEANING OF ARYA

The hope is greatly strengthened when I find that there are already congenial spirits in that house who have banded themselves into an “University Arya Association”. The name is very promising. A well selected name is a word of power. It becomes a bîja-mantra, a motto, a key-note, a constant reminder of the duty that has to be done, of the high aim that has to be achieved, and a perpetual encouragement to do and achieve them.

Nivâran-ârtham ârtinam
Artum yogyo bhavét tu yah,
Aryaté satatam e-ârtaih,
Sa Ãrya iti kathyaté.

'He to whom people in trouble go for help — he is an Ãrya.'

That culture, (from cultus, colere, to plough, to till, also to worship), that cultivation, ploughing and tilling and reverent and worshipful educating, of the mind, which makes human beings Ãryas, which causes the feeling of unselfish helpfulness to prevail over the feeling of selfish aggressiveness in the breast of the large majority of the members of society — that is Ãryan culture.  [Page 21]

Other old definitions, which only indicate the consequences, in conduct, from this essential principle, are:

Kartavyam âcaran kâmam,
akartevyam an-âcaran,
Tis hati prakrt-âcâré,
yah sa Ãrya iti smrtah.

(Vasistha)

“Who does the right thing at the right time, never a wrong or irrelevant or purposeless thing - he is an Ãrya.”

Na vairam uddîpayati pras'antam,
na darpam ãrohati n-ãstam-éti,
Na durgato'sm-îti karoty-akãryam,
tam Arya sllam param ãhur-Ãryãh.
Na sve sukhé vai kuruté praharsam,
n-anyasya duhikhé bhavati prahrs'ah,
Na c-ãpi dattvã kurute-'nutãpam,
tam Ãrya-s'iIam param âhur-Ãryâah
.
“Who does not arouse hostilities, is neither arrogant nor cringing, does no unseemly act even when driven by ill fortune, is not elated by prosperity nor depressed by reverse, who never rejoices over another's sorrow, and never regrets a gift well made to the deserving — he is an Ãrya”. In the words of the  Gita, sthita-prajna, sthita-dhîh, sthira-buddhih, sthira-matih.

The other Aryan word, Insâm, has a similar significance. It means 'the man of  uns', sympathy for fellow-men. The words 'gentleman', 'nobleman', 'bhalâ-adami', ' bhadra-loka', ought to mean in practice, as they mean by etymology,  [Page 22] ' the man of goodness and worth', not of fine clothes or mere birth; and worth is nothing else than helpfulness. Sharif, he who deserves sharf, honor, means the same, for only helpfulness deserves honor.



THE MEANING OF UNIVERSITY

As to the other important word in your name, the word 'University', it struck me that I should examine its precise meaning, only about a year and a half ago, when I was revising my book, The Science of Social Organisation, or the Laws of Manu, for a new edition, and was dealing with the chapters on Education. The biggest dictionaries available told me that it came from two or three Latin words,  unus, one, and versus, vertere, to turn, and meant “all turned or combined into one”, hence “a place where the whole of knowledge was gathered”. I was not quite satisfied. I noticed that  versus implied opposition, turning against, as in the only too familiar 'A versus B' of the law-courts. So I decided to apply the methods of the Nirukta [A Samskrt work on the Science of Interpretation ] , and made up a meaning for myself, which I recommend for your acceptance also.

A Uni-versity is a place where the endless Di-versity of God's Nature is shown to inhere systematically in the Unity of Nature's God; [Page 23] where the countless pairs of opposites, contradictions,  dvam-dvam, ziddain, one versus another, which make up Nature, are shown to be reconciled in the being of the Primal Unity by the laws of that being; where it is learnt and taught that the law of cyclic periodicity, of turning round and round, prevails in all departments of the World-process,  Samsãra-cakra, Carkh-i-gardün, that all things whatsoever are ever turning round the Central Spiritual Sun, the One Source of the Light and Heat of Consciousness and Life, that all the Physical sciences of the Finite are subordinate to and revolve around and are held together by Metaphysics, the Science of the Infinite, that the Unity of the Anima Mundi pervades all the Multiplicity of the  Corpus Mundi, which is ever emerging out of and merging back again into that Unity.

I arn afraid this conception is not embodied by all modern Universities, may perhaps be even repudiated as an absurd conceit instead of a rational conception, by many of them. But the instinctive progress towards it is there, and discernible, in almost every university worth the name. Any way, I am confirmed in my conception of that a university ought to mean, whether it actually does or not, by many worthies, both ancient and modern.

The Rsi of the Upanisads says:

Brahma-vidyâ sarva - vidyâ - pratisthã. [Page 24]

“The Science of the Infinite Brahman is the foundation of all the sciences of finite material things”. If the experts of the different sciences will scrutinise carefully the root concepts of their respective sciences, they will very soon discover that all these are purely metaphysical concepts. To mention only one or two: “A point is that which has position but no magnitude”; formerly an atom and now 'an electron or proton is something which is indivisible'. Position without magnitude, indivisibility, etc., are metaphysical, and not physical, ideas. Krsna says:

Adhyãtma-vidyã vidyânâm
Vâdah pravadatâm Aham,

“Of all the sciences, I am the Science of the Infinite and Eternal Self”. And again:

Yadâ bhüta-prthag-bhâvam Éka-stham anu-pas'yati
Tata eva ca vistâram, Brahma sampadyaté tadâ.

“When the seer seeth all Diversity proceeding out of Unity, and again receding back into the same Unity, then is Brahman, knowledge, science, Véda, fulfilled in him, then he has truly realised Brahman, the primal, all-pervading and all-including Self.”

An Iranian Aryan says:

Gauharé jua khud-sinâsi
Nist dar bahré wujüd;
Mâ ba girdé khwés mi
Gardém cün girdâb-hâ. [Page 25]

“Self-knowledge is the only pearl
In the sea of life;
Like whirlpools round our Self we whirl
In incessant strife.”

A western thinker, Herbert Spencer, I believe, has defined science as organised knowledge, the seeing of similarity in diversity, and philosophy as completely organised, completely unified, knowledge, which would be the seeing of Unity in Diversity. Another scientific thinker, Prof. Arthur Thomson, has written that it is the function of metaphysics to assign its proper value and place in the total scheme of knowledge as subservient to human life, to each of the sciences dealing with finite things. Sciences are not many, Science is one — this notion is coming into vogue, more and more.



THE MEANING OF GURU-KULA ANI BRAHMA-CARYA

This conception of a university is all contained, with other important things besides, in the old words,  Guru-kula and Brahma-carya, which two words name the most important factor in Ãryan Culture, nay the very factory wherein that culture was manufactured. The word Guru-kula, “the Family-Home of the Teacher”, is fragrant with the sweet perfume of the atmosphere of paternal and filial relationship and spiritual [Page 26] affection which pervaded that home; and the word  Brahma-carya means the pursuit of Brahman in its three aspects and meanings, viz., (1) the recognition of the all-pervading Immortal Self, (2) the gathering of the higher and the lower knowledge, metaphysical and physical science, and (3) the conserving and maturing of the seed of life wherein dwells the sacred potency of infinite multiplication. Only those who have seen, however feebly and faintly, that the One Life runs through all forms, only they have established within their hearts, the rational basis for the Golden Rule of Christ, and are truly regenerate, twice-born, dvi-ja, Ãrya,



ANCIENT AND MODERN TYPES OF CULTURE; AGE AND YOUTH

Dear friends, the work of expounding Âryan Culture which you have set me, is not for one brief paper, but for many volumes, not for one incapable person but for very many very capable ones. I have very feebly tried to contribute my mite of rough spade-work towards it elsewhere. Here I am attempting just to sketch the background for relief, and to put into the foreground some broad outlines, in the shape of principles and contrasts.

But I should make it clear again that while, for purposes of relieving contrast, I have emphasised  [Page 27]
the darker side, due to excesses, of the newer, or rather younger, civilisation, I see well that it has a very bright side also, which can show forth only if the dust and dirt of the excesses be removed. It is the old, old, story of the freshness, beauty, liveliness, glory and romance of youth, ruined by its mistakes and turbulences and consequent diseases, on the one side, and, on the other side, the mature wisdom of age made ineffective by decay of vitality and feebleness of body. To put the Ancient Wisdom into the youthful body of the new generations of both east and west — is what is needed.



MEANING OF CULTURE AND CIVILISATION

As the human body has three prominent features, head, heart or trunk, and limbs, as consciousness or mind has three main functions, cognition, emotion, and volition, so a distinctive culture or civilisation has three main aspects, (1) its distinctive philosophy and science, (2) its distinctive religion and art, (3) its ways of living.

(1) The science of Modern Civilisation as manifesting in its chief  loci and foci, the huge towns, is Material Science; its theoretical philosophy is the Philosophy of Change, Force, Energy, Libido,  Élan Vital, Sakti; and the essence of its practical philosophy, its moral outlook, its ideal, is contained in the slogan, ' Struggle for existence'. [Page 28] 'Individualism'; (2) its outer religion is hierarchical Christianity; its real religion and art are the Worship of (vãma-mãrga) Sakti, Kalî, Power, Might, Thor, Odin, Mammon, Mars, Eros, Bacchus ; (3) its Way of Living is 'Organising for War', economical and martial, 'organising for mutual starvation and slaughter'; all its enterprises, its colonisations, its roads by land, sea, and air. its means of communication, its post and telegraph and wireless, its trade and transport, are governed by military considerations and by motives of exploitation of the weaker and poorer classes and peoples, in the background; it is predominantly mechanical, industrial, and urban, and embodies applied material science; and it believes in free indulgence of the senses and multiplication of outer wants and their satisfactions by outer possessions and machines worked by physico-chemical forces.

(1) The science of Âryan Culture was Spiritual Science, with Material Science by no means neglected, but subordinated, otherwise there could not have been ' The Wealth of Ormuz and of Ind ' to tempt invaders; its theoretical philosophy was that of the Universal Self, the Philosophy of the Changeless, the Spirit which re-solves and absolves within Itself the two opposite Poles of Progress and Regress, Action and Reaction, between which Energ-ic Change is ever working cyclically, the Philosophy of S'iva the Own-er of  [Page 29] S'akti; its practical philosophy was embodied in the  mantra 'abhéda-buddhi', the sense of non-separateness and non-separatism.'Alliance for existence',  loka-sangraha, 'social organisation', i.e., Socialism including Individualism as subordinate; its ideal, which to live for, was  abhyudaya or dharma-artha-kãma, virtue-profit-pleasure, refined and lawful 'sense-enjoyment' through 'lawful' possessions here on earth, and moksa, spiritual happiness, hereafter; (2) its inner religion was the balanced Worship of three deities, Sarasvati, Laksim, and Gaurî-Annapurnã, for Al-Allm, Al-Malik, and Ar-Razzãq-al-Jamil) i.e., the deities of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, or Knowledge, Wealth, and Powerful and Joyful Health — all in subordination to the worship of S'iva, the ' Sleeper within all, the worship of S'anti, Peace, of Truth and Right, Rtam-Satyam; its outer religion was worshipful communion with the manifest Facts and Forces of Nature, 'the gods ' of the elements and of the heavens, Sûrya, Candra, Indra, Vãyu, Agni, Varuna, Mahî, and of hill and dale, forest and mead, river and sea; (3) its Way of Living was 'Organising for Peace', external and internal, 'peace on earth and good will among men'; it was predominantly rural, pastoral, and agricultural and embodied applied psychology and spiritual science; and it believed in simplification of the outer life, the control of the senses, multiplication of inner experiences and possessions,  [Page 30] development of biological and psychical powers, of superphysical sensor and motor organs, and acquisition of yoga-siddhis, which led to inner planes and worlds where there was no such over-population, or intriguing, or struggle, where, indeed, 'the more the souls the more the heavens,' as Swedenborg discovered for himself.

Please bear in mind that this characterisation of the two cultures is only by predominant, and not exclusive, features. The difference between them is only that between youth and age. The modern has in it all the possibilities of the ancient. The ancient has in it many of the actualities of the modern, but with the outward exuberances and excesses, the assertivenesses and aggressivenesses, toned down greatly, and thoughtful inwardness and accommodativeness developed highly.



ORGANISATION FOR PEACE versus ORGANISATION FOR WAR

Loka-sangraha, the Organisation of Society for Peace, was its out-standing feature. By such organisation, it solved the problems of humanity, including those of defensive war, and managed the main concerns of life, education, domesticity, economics, politics, and recreation and religion.

Organisation means that different organs, performing different functions, bound together in relations of subordination, co-ordination, and [Page 31] super-ordination, subserve a single purpose, the life of the organism in which they all inhere.



INDIVIDUALISM plus, NOT versus, SOCIALISM;
ÂS'RAMA-DHARMA plus VARNA-DHARMA


Human Society, the Human Race, is the organism for our purpose here. Its organs are groups of the individuals which compose that society. Individualism and Socialism are interdependent by nature; conflict between them is wholly artificial, due to absurd extremism. 'I' means selfish-separatism; 'We' means unselfish collectivism. The old culture reconciled them lay a double organisation; ' the organisation of the individual life' or Âs-rama-dharma, and 'the organisation of the social life' or Varna-dharma. For the purposes of this dual organisation, the old culture distinguished four main temperamental natural types of human beings, viz., the differentiated men and women (1) of knowledge, (2) of action, (3) of acquisitive desire, (4) the undifferentiated men and women of unskilled or little skilled labor. These make up the head, arms, trunk, and legs of the social organism. I am trying to avoid the well known technical Samskrt names because they at once bring up the idea of rigidly hereditary caste, which, I am convinced, was not among the [Page 32] principles of the old culture. The Law of Heredity is only half the truth; the Law of Spontaneous Variation or Mutation or Exfoliation, or however else it may be named, is the equally important other half of the whole truth. The principle of Unity, uniformity, continuity, running through nature, is the source of the one law; that of Multiplicity, multiformity, discontinuity, which is, if possible, more patent, is the cause of the other law. It is absolutely necessary that each should be given its due share in the organisation of society. Wholesale suppression of the second is the main cause of the degeneration of the Indian people. With this clearly understood, we may see that the four temperamental types are facts in human nature.

Brahma vaktram, bhujau ksattram,
Krtsnam ürü-daram vis'ah,
Pãdau Yasy-ãs'ritãh S'udrãh,
Tasmai varn-ãtmané namah. (M.-bh.)

“In the composition of the Oversoul of collective Humanity, the head is constituted by the men of wisdom, the arms by those of valorous action, the trunk by those of charitable and generous wealth-making desire, and the legs by those of helpful and cheerful labor. We offer salutation to this Oversoul.”

Bani Âdam ã'zãi yak digar and,
Ke dar afrînis ze yak jauhar and. [Page 33]

“The children of Adam, Âdi-Manu, the First Man, Macro-cosmus, are all as limbs and members of one and the same body.”

This conception of the “identity” of all human beings in one vast organism, Virãt-purusa, Âlam-i-kabir, Macro-cosm, appears to some to be a nobler and truer ideal than that of even “fraternity, equality, and liberty”, which all involve separateness.

Tafraqã dar nafs-i-haiwãni buwad,
Rüh-i-wãhid ruh-i-insãni buwad.

“ The soul of separateness is the animal soul; the human soul is the Soul of Unity ”.

Correspondingly, the old culture distinguished, for the purposes of  Varna-dharma, four main broad classes of vocations, (1) the learned professions, (2) the executive and active professions, (3) the wealth-producing and wealth-managing professions, (4) the assistant laboring professions.

The individual life, for the purposes of Âs'rama dharma, was divided into four main natural stages, (1) the student, (2) the householder, (3) the honorary public worker, (4) the religious hermit. Selfish Individualism was allowed to predominate in the first two stages; Unselfish Socialism,  i.e., free unremunerated social service, yajna, was required to predominate in the last two. In this way was reconciled not only tho difference between individualism and socialism, but the eternal conflict between youth and age, modern and ancient, was also allayed. [Page 34]

(1) Functions, (2) rights and corresponding duties (with greater stress upon the duties), (3) means of livelihood, and (4) the prizes of life, were all partitioned between the four types of human beings of the four corresponding professions. For prime test of temperament and vocational aptitude, let every educable and educated person select one of the first three prizes, (1) honor, or (2) power, or (3) wealth; the non-educable will of course receive the fourth (4) amusements.



SAMPLE SOLUTIONS OF MODERN PROBLEMS BY ANCIENT PRINCIPLES

Now. let us attack this older system of Daivi-sampatti, (we mast not say 'god-like', but we may surely say) 'godly' civilisation, thus very briefly outlined, in contrast with the 'titanic' civilisation of  Asurî-sampatti — let us attack it in terms of modern problems at random, and see what answers it makes.

1. How should Disarmament be effected ?

By attacking the cause thereof, instead of paltering with the effect. Armament is an effect. The causa is national greeds, ambitions, lusts, over-progenition, jealousies, hatreds, rivalries. The effect is physical; the cause is psychical. No amount of fumbling and fencing with the effect, and trying to limit its size by mutual agreement, [Page 35] at Geneva Conferences, will be of the slightest use. The mutual agreement, in any real and sincere sense, will be impossible, until the cause is removed. When that is done, the effect will disappear of itself. Elaborate agreements will be unnecessary. How destroy the psychical cause? By a twofold psychical remedy: (1) Educate for peace, not for war; create peace-mentality, not war-mentality. Education is the root, civilisation is the fruit. (2) Organise for peace, in the way sketched above.

Karãnam cikitsyam; na tu kãryam. (Caraka)

''The cause of the disease should be attacked by the physician; not the effects.”

Prayojanesu yé saktãh, na vis' ésésu, Bharata !,
Tãn aham panditãn manyé vis'ésãs tu pra-sanginah. (M -bh., Vidura-nïti)

“They are the wise who concentrate attention on, and hold fast to the fundamental principles, root-causes, prime motives; the corresponding details are secondary, and inseparably follow of themselves.”

2. How shall the Balance of Power between the Nations be maintained ?


By establishing a “balance of power between the four classes” within each nation, and thereby eliminating the present jealousy and hatred between those classes, after which the rivalry  [Page 36] between the nations will lose all reason for existence. The old culture does this by partitioning the four prizes of life,  viz., honour, power (in the sense of authority), wealth, and amusement, between the four professions. When these are dissociated from one another, as far as humanly possible, by universal opinion and legislation, and wealth is no longer able to purchase honour and power and amusements at will, but is put in the third place, and placed in the inverse ratio with honour particularly, it will cease to be misused or sought for frantically; but will, instead, be used either for private artistic enjoyment, or for public 'pious' works, in which latter case only, it will be allowed to bring honour in return. So power or authority, put in the second place, by duly educated public opinion embodied in law, unable to grab wealth and honour and amusements at will, will cease to be abused; it will be allowed to win honour only when well-used for public good, at self-sacrifices. So, highest 'honour', given in direct ratio to helpful wisdom,  i.e., self-denying, ascetic, philanthropic science, and carefully dissociated and withheld from wealth, will cease to be misused for cloaking nefarious practices, for 'trading on reputation', for stealing wealth and power and amusements surreptitiously; it will be used only to spread the benefits of sound knowledge and spiritual ministration among the people, and then it will be  [Page 37] eagerly  served by the holders of 'power and authority' and 'wealth'. and will be 'amused' also by benevolently guiding and watching the healthy amusements of those who need them most.

Brãhmanasya tapo jnãnam,
tapah ksattrasya rakasanam,
Vais'yasya tu tapo vãrttã,
tapah s'üdrasya sévanam. (Manu)

“The spreading (1) of righteous knowledge, (2) of protection, (3) of necessaries and comforts, (4) of assistance — these are the 'sacrifices' of the four types of men respectively.”

3. How is the Ideal Partition to be brought into operation ?

(1) Again, primarily, by diligent inculcation in the homes of education. The 'will to equality', 'the will to refashion society, 'the needed' change of heart', would be created in this way. (2) Secondarily, by appropriate legislation. Again, education is the root, civilisation is the fruit. As prevention is better than cure, so education is better than legislation, the inner impulsion of spiritual and moral culture is far better than the outer compulsion of penal codes,

Samath sarvésu bhütèsu
yah pas'yati sa pas'yati . . .
Cãaur-varnyam Mayã srstam
guna-karma vibhãgas'ah. (Gîtã)

“He who sees equality, sameness (of Spirit) in all — he sees truly, (and therefore does unto  [Page 38]
others as he would be done by) . . . The Self's Nature has divided human beings into four typical classes.”

4. If armaments disappear, how shall Defence in emergencies be ensured ?


Defence, of course, should always be provided for; and for this purpose the irreducible minimum will always be available and ready, in the second type of persons, with proper militia training, after the abolition of standing armies as above,

Tapah ksattrasya raksanam.

“To defend is the sacrificial duty of the Ksattriya.”

5. Who shall decide which class a person should be put into,  i.e., which type he belongs to ?

The Educator. Instead of saying, B.A., or M.A., or B.Sc., or M.Se., etc., on the diploma, the University should say, ' Fit for a learned profession,' or ' for an executive profession,' or ' a wealth-managing profession'. To ascertain the vocational aptitude of the student should be the chief duty of the educator. He will apply the prime test of temperament mentioned before.

Âcãryas tu asya yãm jãtim
vidhi-vad Véda-pãra-gah
Utpãdayati Sãvitryã
sã satyã, sã-ajarã-amarã. (Manu) [Page 39]

“The type, the class, which the Educator, well-versed in Psycho-Physics, Véd-anta, decides to be that of a pupil — that is his true class.”

6. How shall necessaries, a 'living wage', be assured to all, and the minimum ideal of Socialism be realised?

By the partitioning of the means of livelihood: 'Honoraria' of various kinds, presents, and subsidies by the slate, and by private citizens — for men of wisdom, the learned professions; one single, simple, graduated 'tax' on incomes — for the second type, the executive profession, the ruler, the public servant; agricultural, pastoral, commercial 'profits' — for the third; 'compulsory supply' of all necessaries by the other three — for the fourth. No person should earn money in more than one way. The same person should not be allowed to be a vast land-owning Maharaja as well as an enormous capitalist as well as an Executive Councillor on many thousands of rupees per month, all at the same time, or a professor and a money-lender, or a land-holder and a shop-keeper, or a salaried Minister and a factory-owner, or a police-officer or army-officer and a bank-shareholder, at once.

Sannãm tu karmanãm asya
trîni karmãni jîvikã,
Adhyãpanam, yãjanam ca,
vis'uddhãc ca pratigrahah;
S'astr-ãstra-bhrttvam ksattrasya;
Vanik-pas'u-krsir-Vis'ah. (Manu) [Page 40]

Avas'yam bharanîyo hi
Varnãnãm s'üdra ucyaté. (M.-bh.)

Individualist 'incentive' to good and hard work, so disastrously absent from western socialist schemes, will be supplied by the partitioned 'prizes of life, honour,  etc..


7, How will Unemployment be reduced ?

It is coming to be generally recognised that the excessive present unemployment is due to the tactics of the mephistophelian system of capitalist-militarism and of ' trading on reputation alone', 'on credit  without cash or kind behind it'. When, wealth loses its present fascination, by divorce from honour and power, and armament loses its necessity by the growth of goodwill and common sense, then “the gifts of Providence now rotting in the fields”, will be “permitted to reach the needy”, in the words of Mr. L. George; the extremes of wealth and poverty will both come nearer to the mean; competing mines and factories will decrease in number down to the useful minimum; cottage industries will revive; and the immense amounts of money now wasted on the Misemployed and the Unemployed will be used for transferring them to, and populating with them, the vast and fertile but now empty spaces of the earth.  [Newspapers report, in April, 1933, that the Italian government, under Mussolini, has reclaimed seventeen million acres from the Pontine marshes near Home. If we even quadruple the Irish ideal of “Three acres and a cow” for one family, this area should support one-and a half million agricultural families, or about six million human beings, in comfort. Signor Mussolini takes a small salary for himself, and therefore has, and can afford to have great ideas and ideals for those whom he regards as his own people, whatever his views may be as regards other peoples. He dissociates wealth from supreme executive power, in his own person, and thus sets an effective example. The present indigenous and exogenous rulers of India have no such ideas and ideals; the reasons are obvious; yet such dissociation is the only way to reduce poverty and unemployment. ] [Page 41] Millions of men were carried across the seas, to and fro, in the days of the World-War. Much more can and should be done in times of peace.

Also, Manu discourages sale and purchase, in terms of 'money' of, and ' financial transactions in various 'necessaries'. Living commentary on. these verses is supplied by the manoeuvring in 'trusts', 'corners'. 'combines', of 'wheat-kings', 'cotton-kings', 'oil-kings,  etc., (Manu has provisions for punishing profiteered) in the last fifty years; and by the extraordinary revival, in Europe and America, within the last two or three years, of the more natural system of  barter of goods, in place of the more artificial system of 'coin' and 'credit' transactions, which has corrupted and befouled itself by extreme excess of gold-hoarding and of  abusing of credit and wholesale  swindling by capitalist governments and individuals.

'Promote foreign trade' — is the cry of some experts. But it is impossible to act on when  [Page 42]
'home trade' is perishing. Both can and will revive, simultaneously, only when there is a just and rational exchange of one sort of goods produced more naturally and easily by one people, without any attempt at 'dumping', and more needed by another people, with another sort of goods similarly produced by this other, and needed by the one; and when 'money' (coin, or paper, or other token) is used strictly as 'counter' for goods, never for ' financial transactions, 'strokes of business'. 'coups', and is duly protected, not only from counterfeiting, forging, and debasing, but even more from inflatings and deflatings at will. There are provisions, in the  Smritis, for fixing the value of coins.

“More money”, suggested by other experts, is no solution of Unemployment at all. It means only “more grabbing” and “more hoarding” and “more juggling” by plutocrats and bureaucrats.  Better distribution of the existing money (and there is more than enough) is what is wanted. Or, rather,  more production, where really needed, of food and clothing, of  necessaries (instead of luxuries), and  better, more equitable and more rational,  distribution of these everywhere, (together with better distribution of population also), is what is urgently needed. This is possible only in the way suggested above — so says the older culture. [Page 43]

8, But could this Process of Distributing of Population go on for ever, indefinitely, without Limiting Population ?

Scarcely; the old culture did not believe in too prolific progenition. The Mahã-bhãrata says expressly that that earlier Great War, in India, was caused by two causes (1) excessive population, and (2) the tyrannical rule of  Daitya - souled, Titan-natured, kings with huge armies. A balance has to be maintained between the food production and the mouths that consume it. While the reckless and feckless countries are groaning under Unemployment, France has no such problem. Patriarchal Manu, the first law-giver of this land, wishful that his progeny should 'go forth and multiply', but also mindful of the ill consequences of all excess, insists on some progeny, but counsels limitation, though indirectly:

Yasmin rnram sannayati,
yéna c-ãnantyam as'nuté,
Sa éva dharm-jah putrah,
kãma-jãn itarãn viduh. (Manu)

Some children are necessary, to transform  carnal passion into spiritual parental  affection, and prevent that passion from growing into insanity into helpless hypochondria or ravening sensuality, into depressive psychopathia or violent mania of many sorts.  [Page 44]

“The eldest-born, who takes over the three-fold 'social' debts and duties of the father, is the child of Dharma -Virtue; the others are the children of Passion”. Parents should have only as many children as they can care for and bring up properly.

If human beings must multiply like fish, they must also swallow one another like fish. The Omnipotent Himself would be impotent to keep them all in food and clothing. War there must be. But it may be within, between the higher Self and the lower self, as in the men of wisdom, trying to become saints ; or it must be without, as between the lower selves, the bodies, of savages, or, to be polite, let us say, the men of war-action. There is a third alternative; while the Europeans, being valiant, die of war, like Titans, the Asiatics, or, rather, now, only the Indians, being slaves, die of epidemics, war-fevers, and famines, like flies and locusts. The fourth alternative is that of 'the middle course,'partly control and partly systematic War with Nature, as the Moral Equivalent of War between men. Nation-wide education is the means here as elsewhere. If governments were less absorbed in enhancing the  pays, powers, privileges, prestiges, and pleasures of their own personnel, they would see that it was their duty to provide due instruction to the people in such matters, and arrange for the better distribution of the population. In most places, in  [Page 45] India particularly, at any rate, the salaried public servant seems to think much more of himself than of the Society he is paid by, and to regard the public only as means to his own well-being, instead of the reverse. People should be taught, diligently, that every person, particularly the paid public servant, should think more of and for Society as a whole than of and for himself, and that he will thereby best and most easily promote his own well-being also. The significance of the rna-traya, 'the triple congenital social debt', and the  panca-mahã-yajna, 'the five daily acts of sacrificial service' is just this.

9. What form of government is best ?

Very strictly limited monarchy, hereditary, but only under many qualifications and conditions, and constantly supervised and controlled by the legislature, unqualified heirs-apparent being debarred, and disqualified vicious rulers being replaced by qualified ones, 'selected' by the 'men of wisdom' appointed for the purpose, rãja-kartãrafã, and then 'elected' and acclaimed by 'the people in general',  vis'ah.

Brãhmah prãpténa samskãram
ksattriyéna yathã-vidhi,
Sarvasy-ãsya, yathã-nyãyam
kartavyam pariksanam. (Manu)

Prajãnãm tu nrpah svãmi,
rãjnah svãmi purohitah . . ,
Sad-bhãga-bhrtyã dãsyatvé
prajãbis tu nrpah krtah. (S'ukra) [Page 46]
Nityam yas tu sato raksed,
asatas' ca nivarayet,
Sa eva rãjã kartavyah,
tena sarvam idam dhrtam.
Brahma vardhayati ksattram,
ksattrato brahma vardhaté;
Rãjã sarvasya c-ãnyasya
svamî, rãjnah purohitah.
Pratijnãm c-ãdhirohasva
Manasã, karmanã, girã,
Pãlayisyãmy-aham bhaumam
brahma-ity-éva c-ãsakrt;
Yas' c-ãtra dharma ity-ukto,
danda-niti-vyapas'rayah,
Tarn as'ankah karisyãrni
sva-vas'o na katham-cana.

(M.-bh., S'ãnti, chs. 58, 73,78.)

“A person of the type of the man of action, who has received thorough and high  educational consecration, who therefore realises the sacredness of the office to which he is called and is of righteous and duteous heart, (and not a lustful and murderous criminal, as so many 'sovereign' rulers and princes have been and are), should he appointed king, under solemn oath to defend the people from harm; and while he will rule over the people, in accordance with the law, not his own caprice, the men of wisdom,  elected by the people to the legislature, shall rule over him. The Spiritual power and the Temporal Power (Church and State, altar and throne) nourish and foster one another, but the former must always instruct and direct the latter. The king is not the lord and master but the chief servant of the people, paid hire and [Page 47] wage by them in the shape of a sixth-share of their income, for the work of protecting them.

Purah, agré, loka-hitãya, prati-nihitah, dharma-karyésu prati-nidhi-krtah, puro-hitah.

“He who has been put forward, made representative, elected, by the people, for ministering to the general welfare, in all public works of piety and matters of legislation and law — he is the  puro-hita.”

10. If a Ruler becomes a Misruler. a Government a Misgovernment, as is perpetually happening in history, what is the Remedy ?

The old culture says that “The man of wisdom appoints the man of executive action, and must restrain him, punish him, and replace him when he misbehaves”.

Ksattrasy-ãti-pravrddhasya
brâhmânân ati-vartatah,
Brahma-iva san-niyantr syãt,
ksattram hi Brahma-sambhavam. (Manu)

The great wars of Paras'u-rama and Karta-virya, of Vasistha and Vis'va-mittra, of the Rsis and Véna, of Agastya and Nahusa, of Bhãrgava and Dandaka, and many others, described in the  Purãnas, illustrate the theme of the punishing of the corrupt 'temporal power' by the pure 'spiritual power', of the vicious 'man of action' by the virtuous 'man of science', who is always, in such cases, when he is really virtuous and self-sacrificing as well as learned, followed and obeyed by the mass of the oppressed people. [Page 48] If the scientists and priests of all the countries had been true to their vocation and had concerted together, the world-war would have been impossible. Wisdom is 'science plus philanthropy”, 'knowledge with affection' as Prof. Crew would say. Philanthropic science creates the sword, in order to guard the purse, in order to support the plough, in order to feed and clothe the world. The sword does not create science. That which makes the sword can and should break it, if that sword does not do its duty of protecting the innocent, but begins to torture them. The old culture has many great words on the subject of the right use and the wrong use of  danda, the ' rod of power', ' compulsive force', drawn from itself and entrusted to the ruler by the people, how terribly it recoils upon him who misuses it unrighteously, and how it promotes the welfare of all concerned, if guided rightfully and dutifully. But in order that this may be, the nations should possess, in sufficient numbers, scientists who shall also be true priests, men of self-sacrifice as well as learning, teachers of (not high salaries but) high hearts, accustomed (not to high living and plain thinking but) to high thinking and plain, nay, austere and ascetic, living, whom the people instinctively revere and follow. Then only will bad rulers fear and obey. As things are, today, moat of the so-called self-governments of the world are, not governments of the people, by the (higher [Page 49] Self, the 'select and elect “best” of the people, for the (welfare of the) people, “but”“ of the people, by the (lower Self, the pushful, cunning, scheming, self seeking, intriguing,  worst of the) people,  for the (aggrandisement of cliques of bureaucrats and handfuls of capitalists and militarists, and  against) people ”.

11. Should a Government own or control an Imperial Bank, a Reserve Bank, etc, ?

No. The function of the ruler must not be adulterated with the function of the wealth-manager. Otherwise, serious mischief. The balance of power between the classes will be fatally disturbed. Martial power and money power in the same hands will ruin the people. Governments today have become the worst fakers, stock-jobbers, and gambling speculators, issuing paper-currency  ad lib, without adequate coin-reserve, running the administration, just from year to year, recklessly, on ever-increasing national debts, squaring the budgets with loan, without considering who has to pay interest and repay capital ultimately, on the principle of 'make merry while we may', 'tide over the moment anyhow', ' let tomorrow and the younger generation take care of themselves', 'after me the deluge'; and because they are able to gamble with loaded dice, they always win at the moment, against the people. Mr. L, George spoke of 'old [Page 50] expedients'. Debasing the coinage was a favourite one in medieval times. Today, 'debasing the prices ' of coin and of paper, or raising them at will, making securities utterly insecure, by wholly artificial inflations and deflations and jugglings, is the favourite dodge — to the ruin of whole countries. For the same reason, all State-monopolies of any sort of trade and industry and 'money-making business' are undesirable. They mean the most terrible bureaucracy and autocracy ultimately. The clothing, the food, the light-supply, even the drinking water, and even the breathing air would come into the octopus-grip of a handful of individuals — the Big Ten, and Four, and One. It is said that about 40,000 millionaires and billionaires own practically the whole money of the world today. [ Much more startling is the statement of “Ambassador Gerard, who represented the U.S. A. at Berlin prior to the World War”, that “Twenty men (of wealth) in America have it within their power to control the national policies of that country”, (vide p. 14 of Adyar Pamphlet, No. 172, Mr. L. W. Rogers' admirable paper on ' A World in Distress,' published April, 1933) ] Another 40,000 probably would include all the higher ranks of the armies, the bureaucracies, and the police-forces of the world. Imagine the two coalescing, or combining, or the one getting the other under its thumb — not to help but to oppress the remaining 2,000 millions of humanity. Satan would be visibly installed in the seat of the All-Highest. Fortunately, certain Psychical Laws  [Page 51] make the complete or lasting effectuation of such an awful arrangement impossible. [An illustration of these Laws appears in the Indian papers of the first week of May, 1933: “A correspondent in Japan, of a British paper, describing the most powerful minister of the Mikado says, ' General Araki is the idol of the young officers and the Mussolini of Japan. He  hates capitalist groups in proportion to their  wealth. In this ... he has the approval of the  military group who, under a representative government, see the  danger of wealth supplanting valour as a dominating influence in the counsels of the empire. The seethings and boilings going on in all the nations, today, point to the acute need for  regularising the nature-craved balance of power between the four natural classes within each people; so only will the jealousies between them, which inevitably,  naturally, and rightly tend to bring about that balance, be rationally  adjusted, abated, satisfied. ]

The Bolshevik idea of State-monopoly of vast industries and factories, suffers from this radical psychological defect — of adultery of functions which should be kept separate. So long as the ' Dictator' (Dictator and Bolshevik — is a contradiction in terms) is selfless and benevolent, his 'Despotism' (and not 'Bolshevism', which word seems to be etymologically allied to the Skt.  bahula, ' majority'-rule) will be beneficent. But so soon as the dictator becomes selfish and malevolent, Satan gets holds of the reins, and the government becomes the usual autocratic-bureaucratic tyranny. Though as much a one-man-show as the Bolshevism of Russia under Lenin and now Stalin, or the Republicanism of Turkey-Angora under Mustafa Kamal, the Fascism [Page 52] of Italy under Mussolini seems to be against state-monopolies. The historian Villari [ The Awakening of Italy, pp. 134-5, quoted by Prof. J. S. Mackenzie in  The Fundamental Problems of Life, p. 284 ] ' says :

“The state must be reduced to its proper function, viz., the maintenance of order, the enforcement of the law, the defence of the country against foreign aggression, and the general encouragement of civilisation, education, and progress ... It must not be a merchant, a manufacturer, a farmer, or even a railway owner . . . These activities produce disastrous effects on the bureaucracy, and on the people as a whole”. In other words, the state should not be a 'money-making ' vais'ya, but a 'defence-making' ksattriya pure and simple, which should 'defend' the people from external as well as internal exploiters, and should merely see that 'moneymakers' do not swindle, but make money only reasonably and fairly, and that 'science-making' — brãhmanas flourish. It is very encouraging and refreshing to find ancient ideas thus receiving unexpected modern support. At the same time it may be noted that these ideas provide rules for  sampat-kãla, 'normal times'. The conditions of Russia, Turkey, Italy, have been those of  ãpat-kãla, 'abnormal times' — and “God fulfils himself in many ways”. A vitally important difference between the  laissez faire school and the ancient [Page 53] system is that the latter requires the State not only to maintain order generally, but also particularly an orderly and specific Social and Individual Organisation”. Here, as everywhere, between 'let everything alone' and 'let nothing alone,' between 'King Log' and 'King Stork,' 'too little government' and “too much government', 'wholly Free Trade' and, 'intense Protection' — there is a just and rational middle course, which should be sedulously followed.

12. Who should Legislate ?

The ' men of wisdom ' obviously.

Sarvésãm yah suhrn nityam,
sarvésãm ca hite ratah,
Karmanã, manasã, vãcã,
sa dharmam vaktum arhati. (M.-bh.)

“He who wishes well to all, and also knows what is conducive to the good of each, and is ever trying to help others with thought, word, and deed, he who is himself good and wise, he alone can make good and wise laws, and he alone should legislate”; not persons with special beer-interests, or whisky-interests, or enhancement-of-official-salaries-interests, or gold or silver or steel-interests, or mills-interests, or any particular creed or caste or sect or color or race or sex interests, but persons without any interests, disinterested, with all just interests at heart.  [Page 54]

Khudã-tars rã bar ra'iyat gumãr,
Ke mémãr-i-mulk ast parhéz'gar.

(Only the man who loves and therefore fears
To give offence to God — only he can
Promote the people's welfare righteously.)

The same brilliant Chancellor of your University, whom I quoted before, advised the staff and students, in his first Convocation address here, to think out carefully what sort of Sva-raj was most suitable for India. Somehow the advice was not well-received. Some writers fell foul of him in the leading paper of the Province. It seems the sins of the Governor were visited upon the Chancellor. Yet the advice, in the terms in which it was given, was thoroughly sound. It did not lay down what kind of Sva-raj he thought most suitable. It only asked the members of the University to study the question. Latterly, as Governor, he has been going round these provinces, and advising the public at large to make sure that they send in the  right sort of persons to the next legislatures. So far, again, the advice is quite correct; but, of course, the ideal of the legislator which he has been putting forward is in accord with the traditions in which he has grown up, and not with those of Ãryan Culture. Our 'right sort' is very different from his 'right sort'. The ancient culture clearly says that Raj, government, by the higher Sva, the Higher Self, of the people, is the only true Sva-raj, and is suitable for and most urgently [Page 55] needed by, not only India, but by the whole of suffering humanity, in every country. The best and wisest, most philanthropic and most experienced, among the people, constitute its higher Self. They should be carefully discovered, selected, elected, persuaded, into the Legislatures. They alone should be invested with the sovereign power of making laws. I have quoted elsewhere the more brilliant and very modern but very incomplete Mr. G. B. Shaw, on this point.[ See Adyar Pamphlet No. 147,' The Ethico-Psychological Crux in Political Science and Art, or Who should become Legislators'. ] All the other details of the constitution will follow of themselves, logically and correctly, from this fundamental principle. If the  Ãs-rama-dharma were duly observed, the country would always have, in ample numbers, ' retired' men and women of leisure, inspired by philanthropy, and full of all the needed experience of human affairs, who would make 'good and wise' legislators, and promulgate good and wise laws.

13. How should Education be spread?

By entrusting it to the men of wisdom, by assuring necessaries to them and also such comforts as are indispensable to enable them to do their work of gathering and spreading knowledge,  [Page 56] and for the rest, giving them highest honour instead of high salaries. Also the homes of education need not he costly palaces. Thus making the education less costly will enable it to spread much more widely. It is said that some such thine is being done in Russia now. The true scientist, priest, educator, legislator, the man of wisdom, does not want money and luxuries; but his heart needs honour, and his body of course, necessaries. If honour were assured, the best brains, and what is far more needed for the educational home, the best  hearts, would gladly go to man the homes of education, for mere subsistence allowance, or for none, if they had private resources of their own. I speak from personal experience of the Central Hindu College, (and your present Vice-Chancellor can support me, for he also worked there for many years in return for honour only) and of other institutions, which have been staffed amply thus, even now when Mammon has been installed in the seat of the All-Highest by modern civilisation, and when even educationists, who should be brãhmanas in head and heart, are seduced into behaving and living like ksattriyas and vais'yas, and not even true ksattriyas and vais'yas at that. Persons who really give their hearts to Sarasvati, seldom reserve any considerable portion of it for Laksmi, either in the east or in the west, even today. [Page 57]

Tapo vidyã ca viprasya
nis'-s'reyasa-karam param,
Tapasã kilbisam hanti,
vidyayã amritam as'nuté,
Yasya rãjnas tu visayé
s'rotriyah sîdati ksudhã.
Tasy-ãpi tat-ksudhã rãstram
aciréna-iva sîdati
Yo rãjnah prati-grhãti
lubdhasy - occãstra - vartinah ,
Sa paryãyéna yãt-îmãn
narakãn-éka-vims'atim. (Manu)

“Self-denial and science — these are the wealth of the man of wisdom, the educator. The ruler who fails to support the true educationist and lets sound education languish — he and his state shall also starve and perish before long, falling into barbarism for lack of uplifting knowledge. But the educator must not accept support from the lawless and bad ruler or vicious citizen for then he will lose power to reprove him, and, helplessly abetting sin, will fall into purgatory with the sinners, here and hereafter”. The economic bias is all-powerful, and educators paid out of and fed with, e.g., excise-revenues could not have the courage to fight against a blood-nourished and drink-excited civilisation.

According to the old traditions, any ruler or citizen who, directly or indirectly, derives revenue or income from prostitution, intoxication, gambling, meat-trade,  etc., is a vicious ruler or citizen, nay, a degraded criminal of the lowest sort, like a person making money by the debauching of his [Page 58] own daughters and sons, sisters and brothers. Perhaps that is why the heart of India relegated to oblivion for long centuries, despite its other very valuable features, the perversion of Raja- “Dharma”-s'ãstra, 'the Science of the Ruler's Duty', into mammonist  Artha-s'ãstra, ' the Science of grabbing money and stocking the king's Treasury' by that processor of Machiavelli, Cãnak-ya,- Kautilya, “the crooked”, the very great (and himself personally ascetically pure) minister of the Emperor Candragupta the Great, contemporary of Alexander the Great.

14. Should Executive and Judicial functions be combined ?

No, for that would be adulterating the functions of the man of wisdom with those of the man of action.

15. Should Civil Servants and other executive officials, or even Cabinet Ministers, drawn from 'public men' but salaried, have power to vote in the Legislatures ?

No, again, for the same reason. Laws must be made only by disinterested, non-competitive, non-money-making, persons, of the type of men of wisdom, and not by interested persons of the type of men of action engaged in salaried work. In the latter case, the unavoidable result is that the public- servant' becomes 'public- master', legislates to increase his salaries and powers, to  [Page 59] multiply sinecures and parasitical wasteful offices, to make the administration ever more and more top-heavy, to make the public subserve at every turn the convenience and the comfort of the 'public-servant ' turned 'public-master', instead of the 'public-servant ' subserving the convenience and the welfare of the 'public'. The system of government is said to be steadiest in Switzerland because the Executive there is completely subordinate to the Legislature.

16. How solve the Untouchability question ? and the Communal Problem ?

By recognising the principle of Karmanã varnah 'caste-class-type by individual vocational temperament,' rather than Janmanã, 'by rigid exclusive heredity' ; that there is no effect without adequate rational cause; that untouchability can be due only to dirt or contagious disease, and not to birth as such. The same principle of 'class-type by temperament', and not 'exclusive caste rigidly by birth', will solve the communal problem also. All creeds and all communities of all countries can come into the social organisation of elastic Vary-Ãs'rama-dharma.

Nãsti tu pancamah. (Manu)

“There is no fifth class-type, besides these four, anywhere.”

Incidentally, we may bear in mind that the 'communal riots' of India (mostly engineered by  [Page 60] religional and political' schemers) make a very much easier problem than the vast 'National and Racial Riots' called the Great War or the World War,  etc. (mostly engineered by ' capitalist and militarist' schemers). An external ' peace-imposer' can only make matters worse. A real genuine League has to be evolved from within, in the case of each of these two problems; and this can be done only by grappling with the psychical causes, as suggested above, and by diligently teaching in all educational institutions, the essentials which are common to all religions.

17. What about the Agrarian problem and the Rent question ?

The old way was for the state, the ruler, to take a proportion of the produce, in kind. The proportion was ordinarily one-sixth. But it varied, from one-fourth to one-fiftieth, according as the need, at any particular time, of the state was great or small; also according to the nature of the produce and the conditions of the industry. This is the only way to assure ' a happy people and a smiling land,' with  automatic adjustment of amount of tax, and perfect sympathy and equality of joy in good fortune and sorrow in ill-fortune, between ruler and ruled, or, better, between 'Minister' (which means 'servant') and 'Ministered'. When the gods of the rains and the rivers, the wells and the canals, the great artificial  [Page 61] reservoirs and lakes, are kind, then both rejoice; otherwise, both sadden equally, and help each other diligently — instead of the rulers and princes luxuriating in palaces amidst balls and dances and dinners and suppers of one thousand and two thousand guests, and objecting to 10 p.c. and 5 p.c. cuts in salary, and to remissions of revenues and rents and taxes, while the cultivator and the general trading public are groaning under 50%. and 75%. 'cuts' in their incomes in consequence of the 'economic depression' brought about by these very clever statesmen-rulers and princes and 'sovereigns'. It is one of the very key-principles for the maintenance of the balance of power between the four classes, which are the four natural estates of every civilised realm, that the producer of necessaries should not be  compelled to sell his produce for ' money', but should give only a portion, and a fairly small portion, of that produce, in kind, to the State, as income-tax.

18. What about Land-holder and Tenant ?

The land-holder was bhü-pa, bhümi-pãla, exactly translated later by  zamîn-dãr (dãstan), 'protector (not proprietor) of the land'; he had more duties than rights, the duties of himself carrying out, or getting carried out, as public-servant, not proprietor, the functions of patwari, (patel, Skt.  pãtalika) caukidãr, health-officer, pancayati arbitrator [Page 62] and munsif-magistrate, taqavi supplier of seed, cattle, implements, etc., and collector of the state-share. All these duties have been taken away from the landholders; enormous private incomes have been left to a few hundreds, for sinful extravagance, a competence to a few thousands, and the remaining hundreds of thousands are no better off, on the whole, than the hundreds of millions of the cultivators. The Aryan culture suggests that the present very highly-salaried 'executive' should be replaced by the system of  bhümi-pãlas, paid with a portion of the produce, to secure more 'humanity' and less ruthless 'efficiency' in administration, which 'efficiency' is of the same kind as that of the surgical operations, of which they pay, heartlessly, that “the operation was quite successful, but the patient died of shock”. Existing governments are, in many places, 'killing the goose which lays the golden eggs', or, as the Skt. proverb says, ' cutting out the udder of the cow to get all the milk at once'.  [See p. 25, Adyar Pamphlet No. 172. Hundreds of land-properties are reported by the papers as being sold in Bengal for default of Government revenue ]

19. Will it be possible to carry on Railways, Telegraphs, Ocean-liners, and other -needed minimum, machinery with such an arrangement of collecting state-revenue in kind? [Page 63]

Yes, and better than at present, if the  spirit is cultivated, of doing public service on such rates of salaries as even to-day are said to prevail in such widely-different systems as those of Japan, Italy, Russia. Of course, some system of token-currency,  duly backed by 'kind' or even 'metal', (not by hollow 'credit'), will be needed, and will not be inconsistent by any means with the old ideas. Many modem socialist Utopias are advancing similar ideas, some trying to dispense with money altogether, while advocating even greater use of machinery ; and the actual revival of 'barter' has been mentioned before. If the State collects its one income-tax in kind, it is obvious that ' necessaries' will always be available, in ample quantities for all public servant?. The right spirit is everything, in all departments of life. If the militarist - capitalist - bureaucrats insist upon having every grain of their pound of flesh, upon all the incidents of their present ways of high life being left intact, then, of course, 'revenue in kind' will not do. If the sick man will keep up all his dissipations, no medicine is of any use.

30. How Reduce ill-health and especially Venereal Diseases, Insanity, Suicides, and Crimea?

The percentage of the last four is higher in Europe; as also, of course, of deaths and destructions by 'accidents,' collisions, and explosions, [Page 64] caused by loose screws, or dropped matches and cigar-ends, etc., which, incidentally, reveal how delicate as well as powerful is the life of the monster-machine, how the colossus of brass is standing on feet of clay. That of other diseases is higher in Asia. The reason is fairly obvious. In Europe, the 'moral outlook' is different, and the 'nervous strain' of competition in luxury and temptations for sense-enjoyments much higher and ever-increasing. In India, poverty is the main cause, and of course over-population; and the nervous strain is increasing in a different sense — the strain due to 'carking care' for tomorrow's meal (now, in Europe and U.S.A. also). The cure is to be found in the educational inculcation of the righteous and spiritual moral outlook and of corresponding habits of life and the reduction of poverty and limitation of population in the ways suggested before.

Crime can be reduced, and also ill-health, by making the magistracy and the police and the sanitation officials really ' responsible'. Today, “very responsible officer” means an “officer who can very cleverly and confidently shift responsibility from his own shoulders to that of some one else, preferably that of the public by whom he is paid”. Manu expressly commands that  the ruler must pay compensation out of his own private money to private citizens for goods stolen by thieves and not recovered by the police, and [Page 65] enjoins condign punishment for oven the negligent and much more the corrupt public servant. Thereby hangs an illustrative tale of King Rama-candra, the slayer of Rãvana. Rãm-ji (as he is fondly and familiarly called by the Indian people) became so angry, once, with the Health Officer of Ayodhya, named S'ambüka, for grossly neglecting his duties and pretending to be engaged in religious i austerities, while the accumulated dirt was causing an epidemic of infant mortality, that he even had S'ambüka's head sliced off. Ram-ji was very fond of the roly-poly babies of the citizens, and was very grieved to see the dear little things dying, and naturally and rightly held the hypocritical S'ambüka guilty of their murder. Aryan culture says that “If a hundred men of the people complain against any public servant, he shall be dismissed forthwith”. Today, instead, any lying informer can send a hundred good men to jail, and be  rewarded by the 'state' in various ways, for doing so.

Prajã-s'atena vidvistam
santyajéd adhikãrinam. (S'ukra)

21. How reduce Ignorance in especial, and ail other evils, mostly consequent on it, in general?

By giving the highest place, among the subdivisions of the two main functions of the state, viz., nigraha and anugraha, constituent and ministrant, preventive and promotive, to the  [Page 66] ministrant and promotive function of Education. And this function should be discharged, not by too minute and excessive organisation and mechanisation and officialisation of education and subordination of the man of wisdom to the man of action (whence disastrous evils of bureaucracy and hierarchical ' Churchianity ') but mostly by free public and private subsidies, presents of 'necessaries' rather than cash, honoraria,'pious' provision of all needed educational buildings and apparatus, as well as free quarters, to all persons continuously judged and regarded by the public as true men of wisdom, self-denying, philanthropic, learned, in short true spiritual and scientific ministers, not priest-crafty priests.

The difference between free, spontaneous, elastic organisation, through moral plus intellectual culture and consequent perpetual righteous impulsion from within, on the one hand, and cast-iron and hide-bound mechanical organisation on the other, is the difference between a self-repairing, self-lubricating, self-renewing living organism, on the one hand, and a dead machine, requiring oiling, patching, changing by others, on the other; or that between a hive of bees, or a hill of ants, or an army of guerilla warriors, on the one hand, and a collection of soldiers regimented and perpetually directed and ordered about by martinets, and having no will and no judgment of their own and no power to decide for themselves  [Page 67] in emergencies, on the other. The ancient idea seems to have been for the ruler, the state, to maintain the broad social organisation of the four type-classes, to see that there was no varna-sankara no 'adulteration' o£ functions, rights-and-duties, livelihoods, and prizes of life, to see that there was no shirking of its own duties and encroachment on any other's rights by any class, generally, and to leave the more detailed internal organisation within each broad type-class-vocation to the ' e(a)lders ' and 'leaders' of each. The idea of ' self-governing universities' and of 'the guild-system', trade-unions', 'associations', is much the same at bottom, but warped by greater or lesser excess of self-protective, self-aggrandising, other-exclusive and other-depressing motive. Manu has many things to say, and warnings to give, against extending and multiplying bureaucracies, and making them, or letting them become, irresponsible to the men of wisdom.

Under these conditions, the enslaving 'examinations' complained of by Prof. Armstrong, (with their consequence in hundreds of thousands of 'machine-stamped' 'educated' unemployed, at least in India), would be automatically replaced by ' estimations ' and ' vocational certificates ' by the teachers themselves, with the help of which every person would be able to secure, and fit into, his proper niche in Society.[Page 68]



Such are a few samples of the answers given by the ancient culture to modern questions.

As I said before, it is a task for many and much abler men and many volumes to expound and illustrate Aryan Culture, and suggest, in detail, solutions, based on its principles, for each of the many problems with which Humanity is faced and harried today. I have already taken up too much time and must close.

Briefly, Manu founds his Home of Civilisation on 'the scientific and benevolent men of wisdom', walls and pillars it with 'the men of valorous protective action', stocks and stores it with 'the men of charitable and righteous desire' and 'of well-nourished cheerful happy labor'.  He creates an army of true missionaries, the opposite of mercenaries, as diligently as modern statesmen create armies of hired slaughterers. The missionary-hearted educationist-legislator is the very foundation of Ãryan Culture and Civilisation. The positive promotion of virtue and of the right spirit of socialist unselfishness (1) by right education, and (2) by right social organisation through 'social legislation' is better and more effective, far more so, than futile effort at mere negative prevention of countless vices born of individualist selfishness, (1) by 'penal legislation', and that too, based ultimately on (2) wrong education. All the work of all the inexhaustible and therefore futile 'Don'ts' is done by a few simple [Page 69] 'Do's', and much else is done besides. All the negative commandments of Moses are implicitly contained, and far more else, in Christ's Golden Rule. “Achieve Righteousness and all things else will be added”. This is the true spirit of Ãryan Culture. Hinduism has been described by some globe-trotting observers as the worship of the Cow and the Brãhmana. It could scarcely be better described in brief.

Gãvas tu mãtr-vãtsalyam,
Brãhmano jnãna-sancayah;
Étau yatra na hîyété
samrddhés tatra na ksayah.

“The Brahmana, not by birth, but by worth, stands for philanthropic science, Wisdom;  the Cow is Mother-Love incarnate, which overflows visibly as milk from the maternal heart for the nourishing of the baby. Where these two, Mother-Love and Wisdom, prosper and are honoured, there the gods rejoice and shower all their choicest blessings”. And remember that Mother-Love is greater far than Father-Wisdom. The Brahmana worships the Cow, not the Cow the Brahmana.

Sahasram tu pitrn mãtã gauravén-ãtiricyaté. (Manu)

“The Mother exceedeth the Father a thousand times in the right to reverence”.The Arabian Ãryan  [The Theosophical belief is that the Semites, Hebrews, Arabs, etc., are an early branch of the main Aryan Race. ] [Page 70] said,

Al jannato tahata qadam-il-Umm. (Quran)

“Heaven unfolds beneath the feet of the mother”. An auspicious instinct, implanted in your heart by beneficent Nature, impels you to call your University your  Alma Mater, your “Benign Mother”. Vandé Mataram. Reverent Salutation to the Mother!

If you pursue this idea you will find all that is valuable in Ãryan Culture.

May your Association flourish, may you all become true Ãryas, may you be able to assimilate the best of the 'realities' and the 'humanities' of the modern West into the body of the 'divinities' of the ancient East, for the uplift of Mother India — this is the heartfelt prayer of an old man for you of the younger generation.

Sanskrit Words

 

 

 

 

 


Go to Top of this page
Back to our On Line Documents
Back to our Main Page


A free sample copy of our bilingual magazine can be sent to you. This offer is only good for a mailing to a Canadian address. You have to supply a mailing address.

The Canadian membership of $25.00 includes the receipt of four seasonal issues of our magazine “The Light Bearer” . If you are a resident of Canada send a note to enquirers@theosophical.ca requesting a packet of information and your free copy of our magazine

For membership outside of Canada send a message to the International Secretary in Adyar, India theossoc@satyam.net.in

For a problem viewing one of our documents — or to report an error in a document — send a note to the webmaster at webmaster@theosophical.ca

We will try to answer any other query — if you would send a note to
info@theosophical.ca


This document is a publication of the
Canadian Theosophical Association (a regional association of the Theosophical Society in Adyar)
89 Promenade Riverside,
St-Lambert, QC J4R 1A3
Canada

To reach the President — Pierre Laflamme dial 450-672-8577
or Toll Free — from all of Canada 866-277-0074
or you can telephone the national secretary at 905-455-7325
website: http://www.theosophical.ca

Используются технологии uCoz