Historical texts reveal India as a land of varied miracles and many wonderful historical treasures; the vedas, the cities of Prayag, the ancient seats of Nalanda and Takshashila, the stories of Mahabharat and Ramayana to name a few. Lots of efforts are underway to revamp our rich culture and heritage by archaeologists and other organizations. Sadly, even today, we as Indians fail to feel proud of our glorious past and heritage.
The problem is that our youth have completely immersed themselves into the era of technology and our history seems like a taboo to them. However, a TV series released in 2010 named “Seven” forced me to re-think about our past and the need of bridging its values with our modern lifestyle in the 21st century.
Since childhood, we have heard that India has a rich past and cultural heritage. However, on going a little deeper we realize that it is not just rich but priceless. Here are a few of those ideas that were conceived by our ancestors in a time nowhere close to today, but yet fit perfectly in our society:
1) The Ashwamedha Yagna: The supreme sacrifice any King could dream of performing, a display of his clout and power by sending off a horse freely and annexing any kingdom that it went by. To those who opposed him, they had to fight his army and defeat him. A perfect example of how political parties battle it out in today’s elections, or how the armed forces of countries show their might in times of an attack or insurgency operation.
It is believed that when Lord Brahma created this earth he wrote about 10 such Ashwamedha Yagna that would happen in the times to come, and coincidence or not, we have a place which is named “Dashashwamedh Ghat” in Uttar Pradesh, one of the culturally rich states of India.
2) The Knowledge about Sciences of the world: It is also believed that King Ashoka, who is the performer of one of the 10 divine sacrifices, had the best scholars of his time document the entire secrets of this ritual in 10 books and hid them safe in different locations, in which lie the secrets of world’s most creative sciences including teleportation, time travel, alchemy and even the knowledge of acupressure (Marma Shaastra) that have the power to perform any tasks under the sun. Most of these sciences are still being researched upon in the 21st century, and it shows how our ancestors had the vision to foresee the future.
3) The Saptarishi Mandala(Constellation): It is believed that the seven sages ( Bharadwaj, Kashyap, Vishwamitra, Vasishta, Atre, Gautam and Parashuram) who were the saviours of the world from the evil and the bad forces, take birth in every generation in the form of their descendants each possessing a unique power which when combined together can oust any dark forces. A brilliant analogy In 21st century of how we dream of superheroes like batman, spiderman and the like.
4) The origin of the universe: Modern science says that the universe originated from what we call “the big bang theory”. However, this knowledge was no secret to our ancient scientists who believed the universe to be originated from “Shunya” or absolute zero with a big bang.
5) The process of in-house education: Today, our experts insist on having in-campus and in-house study programmes for the overall development of the student in aspects of social collaboration, community living and independence. However, our ancient India was not new to this concept; right from the times of Rig-Veda, we have had the process of Gurukul to the ancient seats of learning — Nalanda and Takshashila where more than 1000 students used to reside at a time and learn various subjects of interests and as well serve their teachers as a token of respect. Today, lots of efforts are being initiated to revamp this prestigious temple of knowledge.
The above few are just certain things which our history reveals while there could be a plethora of such things left unknown to the world. The important fact we all ought to realize is that no matter how fast we move or how much technology gets modern; a society cannot think of going ahead leaving behind its past. Most of what we are and what we know still comes from such ancient values. Hence, it is very important to keep up your values in the modern day (Kalyug), yet have an idea about how these values existed in the ancient century and were responsible for a peaceful and virtuous society.
“No matter to which heights science and technology may go, certain beliefs at the ground is the core”