I wrote this yesterday and sent it today.
The story of Sri Ram and the demon Kadanbha, Employment for EWS Quota, Making Gurukuls the main mode of education while keeping IX th to XII th western curriculum to compete internationally
By
www.pvkrishnan.com
Dear Sir,
Good morning.
I hope your weekend went off well and you were able to spend time with your family.
I am once again emailing my thoughts in continuation to my last email – slow pedalling and measured growth. A brief mention of what was last discussed. The need for stepping away from international affairs and international peace arbitrations, Gaza, Ukraine and the cozying-up to certain nations. The importance of slow pedalling and concentrating on internal growth and growing some economic muscle. The need for sharpening our schemes of PM Awas Yojana, Ayushman Bharath and Agniveer so they reach and enable grassroot growth in our great Bharath. Average people becoming independent of need for ‘Money’ and instilling character and patriotism in them through army placements. The need for growth and supremacy in Semiconductor and Chip industry given the ubiquitous ability of americans to hack every phone and laptop we have. Finally the realisation and need for tempering our growth trajectory by realising that no graph keeps going up eternally and we have to provide for a planned regression.
In this email, I would like to illustrate a small story from our Sri Ramayana Itihasa and lead on to an idea for making Gurukuls permanent across Bharath and the employment of the EWS Quota people so they may read and practice Sanskrit, Vedas but still have a societal and financial standing thereby ensuring the survival of our vedas for the next generation.
Given the weight of what I am trying to communicate here, I pray and pay my humble obeisances to my forefathers and the almighty so that what I mean to communicate is communicated clearly and people who need to understand this also understand this clearly without any doubts.
With this thought.
Let us begin.
It is said by learned sanskrit scholars, and I quote, Sri U Ve Velukudi Krishnan from Chennai – the Itihaasas and Puraanams can be warehouses of literary wealth. The word Puraanam can be read as Pura-Api-Navam or essentially the meaning is that the texts of the old which gives new meanings as we grow older and read it again. Keeping this in mind, let us go through the story of Sri Rama vanquishing the demon Kadanbha.
Ram encounters a peculiar demon in the forest. His name is Kabandha. Kabandha stretches his two long arms and grabs Ram and his brother and then draws them close to his mouth. That is when Ram notices that the demon has no separate head; it has merged with his stomach. In other words, he sees for his stomach, he hears for his stomach, and he thinks for his stomach. His existence is all about eating. There is no other thought. No other purpose. This is a great metaphor for Capitalism – the great economic philosophies that shape our societies today.
Take a look at the ambitious billionaires of the world today. They have more wealth than anyone else in the world, but they still want more, pursuing relentless growth. In interviews they appear motivated, driven, hungry, and they glamourise their discontentment. This is because modern society sees endless ambition, like relentless growth, as a virtue, rather than a pathology.
Ambition makes sense when you do not have enough to pay your bills. But what about when you have a surplus of seventy generations? At what point does one say – I have enough. Modern society says contentment is a pathology – it is equated with complacency in business schools and business world. Everyone, poor and rich, is expected to keep running – on the treadmill, in the office, on the smartphone, accessible even on vacation, chasing the next goal, the next target, the next vision. Only the lazy rest. The rest stay productive.
This endless ambition and relentless growth is what drives our Indian citizens today. This is why everyone wants to immigrate to America and other foreign countries. This is why that 25 year old girl who should have been bouncing around ebulliently with irrepressible happiness and energy died after being over-worked at Ernest & Young this September 2024. It is said that this young lady who just joined the work force and had worked for only around 4 to 6 months was paid 28 Lakhs. Is 28 Lakhs worth this??
We really need another Lord Ram to come and conquer this demon which sees, thinks and hears with its stomach and only concentrates on consuming everything. Sri Ram ate only what was needed by him, he did not feed endlessly, relentlessly and therefore led a satisfied, happy and contented life. We have to re-teach this art of satisfied happy living to our progeny lest they become Kadanbha and go behind a 28 Lakh salary only to die young like the poor girl.
But how to do that? How do you teach a grown 20 something youth to temper his ambitions and drive to grow and achieve endlessly.
Basically we cannot do the above. Because the age of 20 we generally call as Yuva or youth period has these characteristics and they cannot be meddled with from outside. This has to be controlled by the person himself through knowledge he has gained or accumulated during his studying years as a brahmachari.
So Yes, this can be achieved through proper education to young kids. This is where our NEP plays a huge role in trying to bring in our culture into our education. But we still have too many Pappu (Rahul G) in our society who will not allow Ramayana and Mahabharatha to be taught to children in the schools like children used to be taught in Gurukuls by brahmins of yesteryears. Thus, our aim should be to bring about a fundamental change which is to make brahmins teach our children. The brahmins will then take care of introducing Ramayana, Mahabharatha and vedic scriptures to our children with or without NEP and Pappu.
We generally only see Convents and schools setup by Christian missionaries across our country. Yes, they have mushroomed everywhere and need to be rooted out. But amongst this dense undergrowth, there are also a few Hindu Educational Charity organisations like the Sankara Schools in Chennai. As far as noticeable to me, every town that has a notable hindu temple also has atleast one hindu educational charity operating in it with atleast one school under them. Let us say, we are able to somehow encourage these ‘ Hindu Charitable Schools ‘ to employ EWS Quota / Sanskrit educated / Veda padasala educated brahmins as teachers, we would have taken the first step to teaching our young progeny the values of our culture. These kids will no longer run after money but will run after dharma when they grow and eventually become Grahasthas or family men. Sanskrit / Veda padasala grads might require a short course that they will need to do before they can teach in schools. We have to look into that. That shudhras should not be excluded from education should be made clear to these Trusts and Charities
I hope the cogency or line of my thoughts is correctly communicated here. We had talked about Puraanams giving new meanings everytime we read it as we age more. Then we saw the new meaning of the demon Kadanbha and how Lord Ram vanquished him. Then we were trying to see how to bring this generational knowledge to our next progeny. And we have now come upto using Sanskrit and Veda Padasala educated EWS Quota people to teach in schools run by ‘ Hindu Charitable Trusts’ . This idea can be expanded to all schools at a later stage. If we manage to replace schools with gurukuls across bharat, the last step is redundant. But till we are able to achieve that, this step is necessary.
Now for the last step of empowering the EWS quota people and solving problem of governmental control over temples.
If we can further invigorate the ‘ Hindu Charitable Trusts ‘ like foreigners have funded and invigorated Christian Missionary Schools in the guise of minority institutions.., For Your Information, EWS Quota is also a minority, We can help our Hindu Charitable trusts to setup their own colleges within the temple towns where they operate and exist. If we are able to simultaneously sharpen our NEP to include vedic education along with university education as has been rumored, we would have achieved our goal of instilling the knowledge of the vedas into our progeny of tomorrow. Not only that, the graduates of these schools/gurukuls and colleges would be mature enough to handle the operation of their town temples without need for governmental oversight. Thus, the carefully chosen and cultivated Hindu Educational Trusts can first be encouraged to employ EWS Quota people to teach in the gurukuls and senior secondary schools after which we can possibly open colleges under the same umbrella Trusts. This will be followed by the trusts being coagulated with the temple trusts so the same people ensure the education of our children as also the protection of our culture. In Tamilnadu, Age-old Aadheenams can do this.
An essential idea to note here is that if we are somehow able to circumcise the need for schools to be for IX th or Nineth Standard and above .. uptil XII or Twelfth Standard, this will ensure that all kids will go to local gurukuls for their education till they are 14 years old. It must be noticed that this has been the traditional education system in practise in Bharat before the invaders came. The kids are given upanayanam irrespective of caste and sent to gurukuls at the age of 7 wih bright white and shiny new yagnyopaveethams. They were expected to finish gurukul in 7 to 8 years at the age of 14. Thus, they would have imbued all the knowledge that they need to know before their hormones began to flow. This means that the traditional knowledge is safe guarded. If you think deeply, you will not remember that many things from your life till you attained the age of 14 years. The memory will be in broken pieces. But from around the age of 14 or VIIth or VIIIth standard in school, we will remember everything clearly. Thus, 14 is the age from which we start to make meaning of what is around us. If all that needs to be taught is taught to the children before this critical age of 14, they will use this knowledge to make sense of their surroundings and thus our culture will live on. This is the reason veda-adhyayanam is also for 8 year period after upanayanam at the age of 7.
To close and ensure the entire idea was communicated.
1. Story of the demon Kadanbha
2. The current thinking style of our children/younger generation
3. Status of ‘Old’ Hindu educational charities in Temple Towns. These are called Aadheenams in South Tamilnadu
4. Employing EWS Quota sanskrit / veda padasala educated people
5. Empowering Hindu educational trusts / Aadheenams like Christian Missionaries were empowered by foreigners
6. Hindu Educational Trusts / Aadheenams setting up Colleges based on NEP which includes vedic education
7. Cutting school education to only start from age 14 i.e. IX th or Nineth standard uptil XII th or twelfth.
8. Creating space for local gurukuls to grow and teach our children between ages 7 and 14
9. Only from IXth standard - means only Junior Colleges will exist in Bharat, no primary or middle school.
Thus we will re-Instate Gurukuls across Bharat and retain western education to compete internationally.
If the cutting down of national requirement of schools to be between IX th (nineth standard) and XII th (Twelfth Standard) is possible, then, we do not need to teach the EWS Quota any short course so they can teach in schools. If this cutting down of school to start from Nineth standard is done in a phased manner while allowing the local eco-system to also grow their own local gurukuls by the local EWS Quota, we would have achieved the target of giving employment, social and financial standing to the EWS Quota People while also safeguarding our culture and vedic knowledge. So in Bharat of the future, official schooling should start from Higher Secondary Schools or Junior colleges and all younger kids should compulsorily attend Gurukuls for 8 years. There can be compulsory 6 months of Special/English/Hindi language classes prior to Junior College for the kids to learn requisite or additional languages as needed for their further education.
Icing on the cake – we can make sanskrit our national language in about 10 years from now. Thus, a secondary objective of making Sanskrit the national language like the Qing dynasty made Mandarin the national language in china would be much easier. Inspite of innumerable versions of chinese scripts and dialects in the kingdom of China the Qing Dynasty made it possible for Mandarin to be the language of the land in early 1900s. This will be Modi who established Sanskrit in Bharath. Once Sanskrit is the national language we would have ensured that the vedic knowledge and civilization lives on for atleast the next 2 or 3 generations. Where our Bharathiya people go after 3 generations is for them to decide.
Gurukuls and EWS Quota people should not be allowed to mix with or teach Technology. Technology is the illegitimate child of Capitalism. In a cyclical loop, it always forces us to go for the next version, the next iteration, stay updated and this causes the birth of the demon Kadanbha who sees, hears and does everything with his stomach. Go back to the start of this essay to know about why we dont want kadanbha. Therefore Technology should be kept away from Gurukuls and EWS Quota people. Please find a way to reduce the influence of Technology and thus Kadanbha on our Bharathiya population.
But yes, we need to embrace the new to move forward and therefore technology comes into the picture but do we always need the next iteration? We can have some sub-continental rule applicable to only Bharath which forces a gap (of 2 years maybe) before the next version (of Intel Processor, or Windows OS or any other Smart Phone) comes into our realm. This will ensure that Bharath always gets the most tried and tested, stable version of every Software and Hardware that comes into being. By this we will also know all the hacks and backdoors to the new technology as they have already been researched and published thereby minimising chances of technology being used to spy on us by foreign countries/agencies. Think about tempering the introduction of Technology (Hardware/Software) into India until it has been widely used across the world for atleast a year. Or atleast our DRDO should have had enough time to study the technology and certify it is safe with no spyware.
I hope what I wanted to communicate was done clearly and people who need to understand do so without issues.
Bharat Mata Ki.. Jai.
Krishnan
