The Wisdom of Old India

During my last trip to Ladianta, I had managed to finish the whole tale of Ramayana retold by C. Rajagopalachari. I’ve wanted to read about both Ramayana n Mahabharata since several months but can figure out which version is the best and which author (or translator) that would suit my purpose of reading. So I browsed the Wikipedia to find out more about these two books where I finally discovered about C. Rajagopalachari’s version. Actually this is not the first time that I heard his name. In fact his is the first version that I found when strolling around Gramedia bookstore but still hesitated to buy since I have a little doubt about the author’s background and quality in cultural and religious literature. But from Wikipedia, I found out that I have nothing to doubt about. To quote Wikipedia:

"Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (Tamil: சக்ரவர்த்தி ராஜகோபாலாச்சாரி) (10 December 1878 - 25 December 1972), informally called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist, politician, writer, statesman and leader of the Indian National Congress who served as the last Governor-General of India. He served as the Chief Minister or Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Minister for Home Affairs of the Indian Union and Chief Minister of Madras state. He was the founder of the Swatantra Party and the first recipient of India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna."

“Rajaji was an accomplished writer both in his mother tongue Tamil as well as English. He was the founder of the Salem Literary Society”

“In 1916, Rajaji started the Tamil Scientific Terms Society. This society coined new words in Tamil for terms connected to botany, chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics. At about the same time, he called for Tamil to be introduced as the medium of instruction in schools.”

“In 1951, Rajaji wrote an abridged retelling of the Mahabharata in English, followed by one of the Ramayana in 1957.”

“Rajaji often regarded his literary works as the best service he had rendered to the people. In 1958, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil for his retelling of the Ramayana - Chakravarti Thirumagan. Rajaji was one of the founders of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of education and Indian culture.”

Nuff said. And even better, his version is available in PDF online for free, so what is it that needs to be considered anymore? Here is the link:

So why are all the sudden with this Ramayana and Mahabharata? It is because of my friends influences. One of them said about his father in-law who always teaches about religion by using the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Son Go Kong (Which I wish to reread also some time in the future) yet he is a Moslem. Another friend of mine is a Jogja-nese who always poised me with the Java version of these tales from “Pewayangan Jawa” hence increased my interest to both stories. Well he mostly boasts (sorry :D ) about Mahabharata, but why not read both tales when I can, considering these Tales are strongly related to each other both in their storylines and in “Dharma”. But the problem is I couldn’t care less about the Java version (pardon me) yet since it has always been my personal policy since the dawn of my personal study to read a literature as original (if not close to) as I can get. So yes, I’m searching for the Hindi version, but in English - I’m not Karan Johar or Shahrukh Khan, don’t expect me to read in Hindi, Heck, even for reading the Gospels I still wouldn’t want to learn to read in Greek (Yes the four Christian Gospels are originally written in Greek, not Latin nor Hebrew), and I don’t even think that Russell Peters could speak Hindi other then Hindi accent-English, so English version is enough.

Another factor is that I inherently have deep love and respect toward great ancient literatures, doesn’t matter whether it’s a mythology or history, I honor both of them. When a mythology has stood the test of time and even stands as one of the groundwork of one of the oldest religion ever on earth, then it must have some great wisdom in it.

Relax O Ye my fellow Christians for I would never converted to Hinduism, since I don’t think any conversion is necessary to learn the wisdom of any religion from any culture. Wisdom and teaching have been here in the universe since the beginning of time, and no human categorization including religion can confine it, it surpass every worldly boundaries provided one ready to learn from it with an open heart. And truly I tell you, woe to you who judge a teaching or religion other than your own before even care to lake a good look at it and understand about the teaching of that certain religion (simply put – negative prejudice).