The Ultimate Goal of WPR is Cultural Cohesion of Mankind Although the ongoing movement of the Parliament of World’s Religions, which it calls Interfaith, is purported to promote understanding among the world’s major religions and thereby peace among mankind, the unstated goal of the whole set up is cultural cohesion of mankind. That is why, at one stage of developing my philosophy, I had suggested the name ‘World Alliance of Religions and Philosophies’ for a world organization which would deal with the shaping of the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural aspects of humanity’s thought and endeavor. The cultural venture of man coupled with structured civilizational matters took start as early as 50,000 years ago when human beings departed from the forests of Africa in migratory groups to settle the growing populations in various parts of the world. These were selected after thoughtful speculation and exploration. At that primeval stage of human development, even the primitive man or the so considered savage knew the values of nobility and fellow feeling. Among the earliest civilizations that arose over the millennia, the Indus Valley Civilization ranked higher than others. Students and I in high school were informally told this by a history teacher who narrated this story and the marvelous engineering details of Hindu temples with a lot more gusto. I was between 12 and 13 years of age then, but I had the privilege of somehow interconnecting this little introduction with the rudimentary but invigorating contents of Periyar E.V. R’s rationalist teachings, Marx’s communist philosophy, Thirukural, and things like that. By about the same time, my young mother had me briefed with the key ingredients of Islamic belief by the son of a friendly family in the next street. It was her notion of interfaith. It was around1938. I think it would be worthwhile for readers to know the grandeur of the IVC from the best narration of it in Karen Armstrong’s popular book ‘The Great Transformation’. I quote: “When the first Aryans arrived, they would have seen the remains of a previous civilization in the Indus Valley. At the height of its power and success (c.2300-2000), this ancient Indian empire had been larger than Egypt or Mesopotamia. It had two impressive capital cities: at Mohenjo-Daro, in modern Sind, and Harappa, some 250 miles to the east. But hundreds of other smaller towns have also been excavated, extending 800 miles along the Indus River, and another 800 miles along the Arabian coast, all built on an identical grid pattern. The Indus Valley Civilization had been a sophisticated and powerful commercial network, which exported gold, copper, timber, ivory, and cotton to Mesopotamian and imported bronze, tin, silver, lapis lazuli, and soapstone.” Owing to lack of hard evidence, researchers cannot tell anything definite about the religion followed by the proto Dravidian and Dravidian people of IVC but from the tantalizing hints of the Siva- like and mother-goddess-like figurines found in the excavation and of the Carvaka philosophy later developed and the venerated Kural, one could surely tell that Siva had been identified by the IVC people as the single absolute reality that lent itself to a dialectical Trinitarian interpretation. Kural 1 is very positive about Siva being the origin of the universe. Its well-chosen words preclude any creator. I quote the couplet here and my rendering of the unmistakable real meanings of the words in it: “Akaram mudatru ezhuthellam Adhi bhagavan mudatre ulagu” Translation: All alphabets begin with the letter ‘a’ So also, the universe originates from the Reality. Hence, in my philosophy, Siva, the origin and the uncreated universe evolved from it are one and the same in substance. The IVC people equally recognized the feminine principle in the Reality; the mother goddess figurine strongly indicates it. We find that owing to this cardinal principle, correctly called Sakthi, Carvaka had fitted a matriarchal society as the Taoist. Carvaka had also consented to other names for Sakthi, such as Durga, Saraswathi etc considering the fact that some vital and delicate portfolios of humanity like education, justice, and compassion were lovingly treated as aesthetic, beautiful and feminine. While the above incidences and instances roughly constituted the course of development of my existential cognitive philosophy, the negative view of Islam on Christian Trinity was the major driving factor that led to my dialectical interpretation of the reality or existence. The recognition given in it to the four Grand Avatars or Lords, namely Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus, in declared preference to prophets in the so called revealed religions, meets six out of the eight attributes of reality mentioned in a subsequent couplet in the Thirukural. I am fully confident that by implementing my philosophy and the ten-points set of ethics in it, mankind can achieve cultural cohesion founded on coherent rational thought and proactive collective endeavor in a short time. Jagatguru
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 12:59:10 +0000
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