Misrepresenting Sanatana Dharma.

It is extremely sad and unbecoming of a young minister (whose primary qualification for the job, may I add, is that he belongs to a dynastic family that has periodically wielded power and whose father happens to be the current chief minister of the state) to make irresponsible statements about something he clearly knows nothing about, or even worse, hadn’t made any effort to study or understand. Firstly, to call Sanatana Dharma an ideology is blatantly incorrect; it is not; and furthermore, qualifying that Sanatana Dharma is something that needs to be eradicated is blasphemy on one of the greatest living traditions of the world. If it is not bad enough that the minister said something unpardonable in a public forum, other senior politicians who have since supported the minister’s statement to earn political leverage, make this entire episode a sad state of affairs indeed.

Let us settle the matter by stating upfront that the term Sanatana dharma is not an ideology, and does not mean Brahmanism, or any isms for that matter. Sanatana Dharma can best be described as eternal values for a changing society. The appropriate translation of the word “Sanatana” is eternal, not permanence. There is a difference between the two. The word permanence indicates a sense of rigidity, a mechanical continuity that is forced, whereas eternal embodies certain inherent inviolate principles that remain constant amid the flux and change – like the planetary motions, or the seasons that follow one another. There is a graceful, effortless fluidity to what is eternal. It refers to living truths that don’t diminish over time and the contours of what is eternal can be subtly discerned in the midst of chaos. The human spirit senses the eternal, which is the beginning of all philosophy and it resurrects itself in every age and clime. In contrast, historically, anything considered permanent has never survived. Sanatana dharma, then, rests on eternal principles based on the Upanishadic teachings, the Vedanta as they are called, which are totally non-sectarian, non-discriminatory, universal and apply to every human being regardless of their caste, creed, religion, or faith. These principles find their finest expression in the Bhagavad Gita, that majestic book of dialogues about how to live one’s life in the midst of the practical affairs of the world.

Unlike other faiths, Vedanta does not posit a personal God or even remotely encourage a belief in one. Everything in Vedanta is a hypothesis that needs to be tested on the treadmill of life. It is a systematic and scientific study of man’s brooding restlessness over his state, bringing under the microscope every aspect of his being: sensory, intellectual, emotional; and then enquiring how the self we call ours is formed and what relation it has to the world outside. In the annals of philosophic thought, there is nothing that comes close to the rigor that Vedantic literature brings to the subject of the self. From the age of the Vedas, the beginnings of Indian speculative thought when anthropomorphizing God was rampant, to Vedanta, where philosophic thought reaches its holistic consummation, we see a clear shift in perspective and transcendence of thought. Sanatana Dharma arose as a way of life from the richness of Vedantic insights and is open to anybody willing to make the effort or Sadhana to discover its validity. The only qualification needed to practice Sanatana dharma is the courage to think, unswerving persistence in the search for truth, and accepting only those truths that can be validated by experience. “Anubhuti”, or experience, is the touchstone of Sanatana dharma. Dogma, belief or parochial assertions of one community over another has no place in it. To reduce such a broad and egalitarian view of life to a political ideology and to seek its eradication is a travesty of facts and betrays a fundamental ignorance of our rich heritage.

The way of Sanatana Dharma distinguishes two types of value systems or truths. One that is eternal, called “Sruti”, and one that changes with time called “Smriti”. Throughout known human history, in every civilization and mystical tradition man has recognized and acknowledged some basic truths about himself and his relationship with the universe. Whether it is Hasidism of the Jews, or Sufism of the Muslims, or Zen of the Buddhists, or Tao of the Chinese, or the golden mean of the Pythagoreans, these truths have found common ground. Principles such as Love, unity, compassion, equality, dignity, and selflessness – find resonance everywhere. These are Sruti, and these values will remain central to human life no matter how often or how frequently the carapace of society changes. On the other hand, Smriti adapts itself to changing times. For instance, the caste system that was once a norm has now become irrelevant. The rituals of yesteryears have in many cases become superfluous in modern times or subject to reinterpretation. The myths of yesterday have given way to the heroes and stories of today. All these changes fall under Smriti. Sanatana Dharma is capacious enough to encompass both – Sruti and Smriti. This way of life acknowledges that smriti will necessarily change depending on social, political, and economic factors at play, but Sruti will remain the magnetic tether around which all the diverse strands of life should coil around. It is the backbone of what it means to be human and it pays no allegiance to any kind of division between men whatsoever. Sruti consists of eternal verities that sustain the human order and smriti embraces current value systems that are subject to periodic renewal or can be discarded for something new – which, incidentally, is what the Ambedkars and Periyars attempted to do. They weren’t against Sanatana Dharma in its essential sense. All they did was to question the smritis of the age so that man could retune himself to the Sruti. If our young minister had this rudimentary understanding of Sanatana dharma, he would have known how to better express himself without embarrassing himself.

It is ironic that the man who took the principles of Sanatana Dharma to the west in the 19th century, Swami Vivekananda, conceived his holistic vision at Kanyakumari, Tamilnadu ( the state this minister belongs to) at a splendid spot where the three oceans meet. Vivekananda swam a few miles in the rough and turbulent waters of the Arabian Sea, and found a rock against which waves lashed with ferocity; and there sitting in meditation, he consolidated the wisdom of Vedanta and realized the beauty and grandeur of Sanatana Dharma. He saw in this way of life the finest consummation and flowering of human thought that belonged not just to India, but to the world. He was convinced that this was not a static ideology or a casteist creed, but the living essence with an unbroken spiritual history that spanned thousands of years. In a stirring address to the parliament of religions in Chicago, he proclaimed: ” By Vedas ( Sanatana Dharma) no books are meant, they are the accumulated treasures of spiritual laws discovered by different persons at different times. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis and we honor them as perfected human beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women..”. Never once during his speeches or conversations, did Vivekananda ever refer to Sanatana dharma as the prerogative of one community. He pointed out that Sanatana Dharma is not a logical postulate to be proved right or wrong, but a voyage of discovery to be lived and experienced. God is not a belief, but a hypothesis and Sanatana dharma dared each individual to seek Godliness through their own effort. And anyone making the effort – through Knowledge, work, or Bhakti – is truly living the way of Sanatana Dharma. Caste doesn’t play a role at all in this endeavor. Sanatana dharma is open to all.

Did the minister mean genocide when he said that Sanatana Dharma needs to be eradicated? Though such an interpretation can be derived from his statement, I would like to think he did not. He is just an ignorant young man, who pushed a point of view of the party he represents without applying his mind to it. And that is the sad part of this episode. We have thoughtless people playing key roles in governance, which is dangerous. It is time someone pulled aside this young actor-turned-minister to give him a few impartial lessons on Indian heritage and the loftiness of its traditions.