[Advaita-l] Petition against Murty Classical Library

[Sri Krishna Sudhamsu Kambhammettu]

Although we don't have rights to dictate anything to a private individual,
we have all freedom to educate and request a fellow Indian to spend his
money in a more useful way. Whether or not he agrees to what we say is upto
him; but we do what we ought to do.

regards,
sudhamsu

On 12 March 2016 at 11:08, D.V.N.Sarma డి.వి.ఎన్.శర్మ <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> The scheme is privately funded. No public money is being spent on
> this. What is the locus standi for us to dictate who should do the
> work.
> If we do not agree with conclusions arrived at, we have every right to
> question the conclusions.
> regards,
> Sarma.
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 8:49 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda via Advaita-l
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> > PraNAms
> >
> > I am posting this update without comments - for those who are interested
> and who want to act on the suggestions provided.
> >
> > --------------------------
> > Respected Scholars,
> >
> >
> > With each passing day, more people are signing our petition. More
> importantly awareness on this issue is increasing on Social Media. In last
> 4 days, there have been 5 various blogs and articles by our new
> Intellectual Kshatriya team.
> >
> > I request you to visit the petition site
> https://www.change.org/p/mr-n-r-narayana-murthy-and-mr-rohan-narayan-murty-removal-of-prof-sheldon-pollock-as-mentor-and-chief-editor-of-murty-classical-library
> and go through the updates. You will find multiple comments / outrage
> against each of the update that we have posted.
> >
> > Kanchi seer Mahaperiyavaa foresaw many decades ago what Rajiv Malhotra
> says about Indology today
> > The following extract is taken from the book The Vedas by Kanchi seer
> Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati which can be found here (
> http://www.bhavans.info/store/bookdetail.asp?bid=149&bauth=Chandrasekharendra+Saraswati
> )
> > The translation is by late Shri. NSS Rajan. It is a translation of
> selected discourses by Paramacharya on Vedas and related topics from Tamil
> to English. The first edition of this book is 1988, so timing of his
> discourses is before 1988.
> >
> > In this extract the seer makes his observations on Indology studies by
> Westerners and he said the same things then (about 40-50 years ago) that
> Rajiv Malhotra is saying today. Read on to find out how.
> >
> > It is a matter for regret that the main source of the knowledge about
> the Vedas for most of us in India is the research done by foreigners called
> orientalists and our scholars who follow in their footsteps and conduct
> research. I agree that foreign scholars have indeed made very useful
> contributions concerning the knowledge about the Vedas. We must acknowledge
> it and thank them for it. Many like Max Muller have really taken great
> pains to collect material and analyse it as they were inspired by the
> grandeur of the Vedas. They have written volumes on the Vedas. We would be
> struck with wonder at the number of publications released by the Asiatic
> Society, founded over 200 years ago by Sir William Jones, who was then a
> Judge of the Calcutta High Court. Max Muller, with the aid of the East
> India Company, had serially printed and released Rig Veda with Saayana's
> commentary and also many other Hindu religious texts. Englishmen, Germans,
> French and even Russians have worked hard with their researches. They have
> collected and published translations of the Vedas along with the extant
> aphorisms, which were scattered in parts all over India.
> >
> > There are foreigners who have also served the cause of some other
> aspects of our cultural heritage. When Lord Curzon was the viceroy, the
> Protection of Ancient Monuments Act was enacted. This stopped vandalism.
> Ferguson took photographs of all sculptural treasures throughout the
> century and made us aware of their importance. Cunningham, Mortimer
> Wheeler, Sir John Marshall are all noted archaeologists. Mackenzie gathered
> ancient palm leaf scrolls from all over the country without which we could
> not have known about some of our sastras. A separate department of
> epigraphy was instituted only during the British Rule. Thus a lot of gain
> accrued to us from foreign domination. But in their wake came losses too.
> The Indologists and orientalists were committed to writing ancient history
> from material taken from Vedic texts and, in the process, introduced the
> till then unheard of concept of Aryans and Dravidians, which created mutual
> hatred. Their conclusions were based on what they called rationalisation,
> according to which anything outside the ken of the sense organ, can only be
> regarded as allegorical. This would permit them to regard the ancient
> Rishis as primitive men inferior to the modern. Their analysis of our
> religious texts was motivated by the desire to show Christianity as a
> better religion. All the while they kept up the facade of impartial
> research and, in the process, denigrated our religion.
> >
> > Noting the points of similarity between Sanskrit and their language,
> many studied our texts purely in the interests of comparative philology.
> >
> > We can admire them for their tenacious research, and the publicity they
> gave to the greatness of the Vedas. But they missed the essential purpose
> of the Vedas which is to ensure the well·being of the universe at large by
> spreading the sound of Vedic chant and ensuring the performance of Vedic
> rites. Setting aside. these two essentials, the Vedas, which are beyond its
> reach, have been sought to be analysed by the brain. What should subsist as
> a living force in word and deed of the common man has been entombed in
> voluminous books adorning the shelves of libraries, like keeping fauna in
> museums which house skeletons and archaic objects.
> >
> >
> >
> > Aditya
> >
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