Aurobindo about Advaita

C.R. Selvakumar selvakum at VALLUVAR.UWATERLOO.CA
Wed Jun 16 19:52:55 UTC 1999


@
@--- Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
@
@> I can only say that you are either being overly optimistic or overestimating
@> the influence of Western scholarship over the minds of Indians or both. IVC
@> = Dravidian has been the basic paradigm of Western scholarship for many
@> decades now. It seems to have bred only resentment, not acceptance, in many
@> Indian circles.
@
@ Not really. Give us 10 Professors working in Europe and USA full-time
@on Dravidian culture/letters; Their publications will shatter many internal
@orientalisms/imperialisms/impositions.
@
@Regards.

      Exactly.
      The role of Dravidian culture/scholarship/art/spiritual
      insights/music/medicine etc.  are at the core of indian lore, though
      not yet recognized by the West.
      When the world scholarship whether it is western or
      eastern or any other affluent culture discovers the core
      contributors to indiana, they will see the truth in a better light.
      Dravidian will be the touch stone.

      Sri Ramanujar is said to have been studying the hymns
      of Tamil Azhvaars, but it is not clear whether
      he had even mentioned as much as the name
      'Azhvaar'  in his sanskrit works.
      Adi Sankarar who is supposed to have been born and
      brought up in the then tamil-speaking land (today Malayalam-speaking
      Kerala), has so little to say about Tamil/Dravidian spiritualism.
      Reading only sanskrit works one may get a very distorted picture
      of India. While there are several stone images of Kaaraikaal Ammaiyaar
      discovered in the Far East, and even today one can find at least in
      thousand temples statues of Tamil/Dravidian
      spiritual saints, not many have Adi Sankarar.
      Not that these Tamil/Dravidian spiritual saints
      have not left any spiritual literature - they have;
      but they are yet to be
      recognized by world scholarship in proper perspective.
      Same goes for many other arts and science like music, dance,
      medicine etc. Grafting faulty, incomplete, comprehensions
      of dravidian wisdom, art and science into independent
      Aryan traditions (sanskrit) is complicating the picture.
      But I'm hoping that a better picture will emerge.

      Regards /C.R.(Selva) Selvakumar





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