CPM member of Parliament, Sitaram Yechury, making his case for the Nalanda university, in the Rajya Sabha:
“We are the churning crucible of human civilisation, and that is what these lands represented. Various tendencies have come; we have assimilated various tendencies, and on that basis, we have advanced. And today the BBC describes, in its Epic History series, India as the only continuing civilisation in the history of human civilisation anywhere in the world.
“I think we have come to a stage in India where this churning crucible that is called the Indian civilisation has a variety and divergence that is unknown and unconceivable anywhere in the world— from the Kashmiriyat to the Dravidian civilisation to the pari mahal, where Dara Shikoh wrote that famous treatise called Majma-ul-Bahrain, where he was talking of the synthesis of Sufism and Upanishads, mingling of the two oceans….
“We must remember that we are moving into a higher plane of human intellect and civilisation. Remember the final paragraph of Swami Vivekananda‘s declaration at Chicago. He says, ‘I take pity from the bottom of my heart on those who believe in the destruction of someone else’s religion for the purpose of his own religion. In the final analysis it shall be inscribed on the banner of every religion: assimilation not destruction.’ That is the philosophy with which we have advanced and come to this stage.”
Read more of his speech here: ‘Churning crucible of civilisation’
Tags: Churumuri, Dara Shikoh, Dravidian Civilisation, Kashmiriyat, Majma-ul-Bahrain, Nalanda University, Rajya Sabha, Sans Serif, Sitaram Yechury, Swami Vivekananda
25 August 2010 at 6:38 pm
Inspiring… Spoken like a true Hindu (that he claims to be not!)
25 August 2010 at 9:57 pm
The Kashmiriyat he is referring to is it the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism of Abhinavagupta and Vasubanda or is it the one of the separatists.
25 August 2010 at 10:55 pm
M. Peshva is right. These words could have come right out of the divine mouths of Advani and Ram Jethmalani.
25 August 2010 at 11:06 pm
What civilization is Yechuri talking about? The problem with us is the multiplicity of thought, religions, castes, creeds among other things. The net result is we have lived in chaos for the last 5000 years or so and we continue to do so. Politicians like him should be talking of how we control our population and address basic issues of poverty, governance, law and order
25 August 2010 at 11:31 pm
Kashmir Shaivism of Abhinavagupta and Vasubanda hardly matters if you see the bigger picture. Frame is no longer a passport size. apparently it is now poster size. Of course we have painted it with different colours. Indian civilization should assimilate best of everything and often a times invent good of its own.
There must be provisions for eradicating corruption from within the civilization.
Self realization of reforms should be the act of orgs like AOL.
Temple should provide education. How about school with every temple.
How about temple organize social restructuring and reforming. A GOD MAN can do whatever he wants to do. It is certainly a question of “what he wants to do….”.
It is written in the sand of time how merchants constructed drinking water facilities of bygone era. now when people have municipal corporations…. we have gone the ape civilization…
25 August 2010 at 11:51 pm
another junk university in the making!
26 August 2010 at 4:22 pm
I hope infy will hire folks from this hallowed nalanda university to work in their IT center and BPO.
28 August 2010 at 3:31 pm
Once I had a Maruti 800 bright Red in color. With fading the shining Red gradually turned into dull Orange. or was it Saffron?
Mao Zedong should be turning in his grave about this comrade’s treatise on culture. According to the Red Book, culture should be interrupted and it should not be allowed to prevail or evolve.