Acharya Tulsi
The American President Bill Clinton has declared the ninth decade of the twentieth century the "decade of the brain." In the course of that decade, multifarious research has been carried out about the structure and functions of the brain. The researchers have derived several conclusions. One of the points in their conclusions is that the brain can be made to function better by intellectual exercise.
Intellectual exercise is closely related to education. Education does not provide merely bookish knowledge. It also trains the mind. Education is meant to bring about social refinement. If society is not refined in spite of education, it should be concluded that something is wrong somewhere. If the sunflower does not bloom with the light of the sun, what else would make it bloom? The clearest medium for inculcating the wholesome sanskaras is education. It goes further than the natural factors of life in refining man's character and links. But if education itself shows sign of morbidity, what benefit would society derive from it?
What is the Source of Sanskaras?
Man gets his first sanskaras from his mother if mother has her own importance in inculcating the sanskaras, one's mother-tongue and his motherland and are not less important. How can we expect any sanskaras.[1]Sanskaras are the natural and learned instincts emanating from previous births and learning respectively through education which does not come from one's mother, mother tongue and his motherland?
India is on the point of completing five decades of independence. It is indeed amazing that in spite of such a long period, India has not been able to evolve a sound educational system. If we study our mixed education system and cultural impact of the communication media, the situation appears very disappointing. Today, the mother has been replaced by the ayah. Film songs in the place of morning waking-songs are becoming the order of the day. The creative thought behind playing with dolls is now becoming destructive because of the toys like pistols and rockets. The children barely two or two and a half years old are being tied to the school routine and are being deprived thereby of the unhindered education at the home.
Wealthy parents send their children to public schools or convents. If admissions in those schools are not easy, they are made available after paying huge sums by way of donations it is painful to see the way the mother-tongue of the children is being neglected in those schools it is not as though I look upon foreign languages with disdain or consider them a taboo. But the way English is becoming a dominant language in India today; the Indian languages are feeling the sting. Forget the language like Sanskrit and Prakrit, even Hindi is on the way out from our lives. The young people after being honoured with countless academic degrees cannot read a good book in Hindi on religion or philosophy. It is difficult to understand this tragic situation.
Cultural Change
Education is an unavoidable part of development. It is also the means to bring refinement by bringing us out of our blind faith, social evils, improper beliefs and morbidity in life. On the one hand, education teaches us the art of living and on the other hand, it brings dexterity in our mutual dealings. If the educated people develop greater awareness about their goal in life, they also prepare themselves to meet the challenges of their times. But this is possible only when we get education in values of life and culture. It is not that the present system of education is completely bereft of all these things. But as a result of relegating our own language and culture, some things which should not come into our lives are making their inroads.
How the children of this age address their parents! They hesitate to use conventional terms like "Ma" and "Pitaji". They have turned "Ma" into "Mom"," Mummy" or "Mamma." And the term "Daddy" has now become "Dad." The children have given up greeting their parents respectfully in the morning. Now they start their day by wishing their parents "Good morning." Folding their hands respectfully before their elders or touching their feet is a sign of backwardness in their eyes. Even small children happily shake their hands with the elders when they go to school saying, "Ta-Ta" and "Bye-Bye" their parents feel very proud. Such things really surprise me a great deal.
Food habits have changed. So have the manner of dressing. Life-styles have also changed. The relations between the young and the old have changed. Celebrations of traditional festivals have undergone a change. And how do people celebrate the birthdays of their children? They do not know that birthdays can also be celebrated in the Indian way. Blowing out the candles and cutting the cake are the Christian way of celebrating the birthday. Who can be blamed for all this? It is futile to blame the children. The new ways of life which the children are being taught leads to the eradication of Indianess from their lives. Their guardians do not think along these lines. In such a situation, our culture can be preserved only with the help of education.
Importance of Mother-tongue and Motherland
How would the people who do not accept the importance of the mother-tongue understand the worth of their motherland? The talent which is draining out of the country in the name of higher education or special qualifications is a big challenge before the country. When I say this, my intention is not to say that we should not go to foreign countries and learn new things. It is no cause to worry where children go and live to acquire knowledge. But their disregard of their duty towards their mother country is indeed a matter of concern. But the belief that temptation of financial rewards and comforts and convenience can uproot a person from his soil and install him anywhere is beginning to become a reality.
Today, the people of India are not proud of belonging to their own country. How would they feel proud? So long as education is not indianised, people would not feel inclined towards accepting Indianess. Education is being given in India. Still, the languages of India are not given their due importance. Indian culture is not considered important. The government and the educational institutions are merely mute witnesses to all this. The educationists of India have no courage to advocate the importance of Indian languages and Indian culture.
Sanskrit and Prakrit are India's prime languages. Thousands of treatises were written in those languages in ancient India. The Vedas, the Agamas, and the Pitakas ~ are the treatises of our cultural heritage. They have been written in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali respectively. In the post-Vedic period, Shankaracharya and Ramanujacharya wrote very serious treatises in Sanskrit. Those who wrote the commentary literature of the Agamas and other spiritual treatises included the noteworthy works by Jain acharyas like Acharya Kundkund, Umaswati, Siddhasen, Samantbhadra, Hemachandra, Haribhadra, Akalanka, Jinasena, etc. among the Buddhist scholars Dingnaga, Dharmakirti, Ashwaghosha, Vasumitra, Buddhaghosha and many others. The great poets like Kahdasa, Magha, Bhavabhuti Banabhatta, Dandin and others can be counted among those who created the poetic literature par excellence. The list of such learned authors is very long. Here I have briefly indicated some of them. Each of those scholars wrote the works consisting of lakhs of verses. Their creations are not just works of literature, but-the living images of Indian culture. Our culture of thousands of years is contained in every world written there. All these ancient treaties written in Sanskrit and Prakrit would have to be made the basis for understanding Indian culture.
In Praise of the Supreme Court
As a matter of fact, the educationists in India should have included Sanskrit and Prakrit languages as compulsory in curriculum. But what happened was its opposite. Not only were these languages not made compulsory, they were not accepted even as optional languages. The Government of India did not include not only Sanskrit, but also Prakrit language. It is said that Sanskrti and Prakrit are the great languages [2] that were spoken by the sages. It came to the notice of the Supreme Court that these great languages were being grossly neglected in the country of their origin. The Division Bench consisting of Justice Kuldip Sinha and B.L. Hansaria directed the Central Board of Secondary Education to include Sanskrit as the optional language in the school curriculum. This decision of the Supreme Court is encouraging for those who wish to protect Indian culture. At the same time, the Supreme Court had given another judgement according to which primary education should be given through mother-tongue.
After hearing these two judgments, one feels like acclaiming the wisdom of the Supreme Court. These decisions of the learned judges are the concrete steps not only in the interest of justice, but in the interest of Indian culture. Although Prakrit is still a language unknown to them, they have proved that without the study of Sanskrit, it is not possible to understand Indian philosophy and culture. In the Indian system of education, the Gurukul tradition has been an accepted practice. The gurukuls used to be the centres, where education was imparted in absolutely informal way. The gurukuls, along with livelihood, also provided education for shaping life. Both spiritual and secular education was provided through paravidya[3]and aparavidya. [4 ] On the one Hand, the pupils were taught the use of weapons, agriculture and other practical knowledge, and on the other hand, they were made aware about the value of qualities of good conduct like courtesy, tolerance, compassion, restraint, labour and self-reliance. In the present times however, education has become one-sided. Even now, if the basic features of Indian culture are combined with it, it is possible to inculcate good sanskaras in the coming decades.
New Dimension of Education
When we talk about Indianisation of education, we do not mean that the present system of education has nothing but faults. I have always emphasised that our educational system is not wrong. How could we have scientific progress, economic development and new technological achievements if our system of education was wrong? New techniques are being developed in the field of medicine every other day. This is only due to the present system of education. But despite this unimagined progress from the worldly point of view, it is as clear as day light the aspect of national character has become blurred. Education has done nothing worth the mention in this field. That is why it is necessary to have a system of education that would function in the context of values of life.
Babu Jagjivan Ram narrated to me a touching experience: "I once went to Japan during one of my foreign tours. The train stopped at a railway station and at once started moving. Hundreds of ticketless labourers boarded the train. I thought that people must be travelling there too as they did in India. When I mentioned this to a labourer he said/what do you mean, Sir? We did not have time to buy the tickets at the station. Later on, we shall pay the full amount to the travelling ticket checker. There is not a soul so worthless in our country who would harm the nation for his selfish gain?
This is an incident which speaks volumes about good sanskaras. India is a great country. India's culture is also great. Ours is a great heritage, but it has somehow disappeared from our education. If good character is not considered part of education, how would the student here any character? How is it possible to have the mango fruit by sowing the seeds of dhatoora? Dhatoora- the daturaalba, the thorn-apple which is a powerful narcotic. It seems that our education has lost its vital breath. It is necessary now to bring it back into education.
The science of living is a new dimension of education. Along with the intellectual development of the students, it gives full attention to their physical, mental and emotional development. Its aim is to build an integrated personality. It gives sufficient importance to inculcating good sanskaras and preserving our culture. If we want to bring our culture back to life, and to resuscitate our culture and make the students imbibe them in our educational institutions, it could be done only by linking education with the science of living.
