A session on ‘Searching Truth or Exploring Beauty’ was conducted at the Mangaluru Lit Fest on November 30 with Sanjay Dixit and Abhinav Agarwal. The session was moderated by Dr Nandan Prabhu. The session was a discussion on the cultural roots of India. Dr Prabhu said that the complete title was actually ‘Searching Truth or Exploring Beauty: Retelling the Puranas of India’.
Putting “culture” into perspective, Sanjay Dixit, a columnist, author, writer, speaker, sports administrator and a serving IAS civil servant, said, “There are two logics, the Abrahamic logic and the Indian logic. The Abrahamic logic is a binary logic, that there are only two sides to everything: true or false, black or white. In India, we never had that logic. We had a Chatuskoti logic, where from false, one must take a journey to the truth. From there one reaches Shraddha, a state which is both true and false. And finally from there one reaches Vishwas, the Truth. The Truth is to be seen. The truth is not something that comes as a mandate from god. The Ishwar that is inside us, the cyclical concept of time-that is the basis of India’s culture and the root of India’s religions or cultures. These are the essentials that define our culture. And from that, the plural ethos comes. The Ramayana and Mahabharata resonates with these themes in different contexts”. He added, “Every kriya does not get you the karma you are looking for”.
Abhinav Agrawal, author and columnist, spoke on the retelling of Indian mythology in modern times said that one must have respect for the original text. Speaking on popular retells, he said, “What I believed to be faith was in the context of wanton vandalism of the original text, something under the veil of retelling and are full of distortions. These have the net effect of trivializing our epics.”
Speaking on the disregard of Indian history and itihaas, Dixit said, “The Bible was uncontested history till the time of Darwin. Till the advent of imperial science, scientific method wasn’t there. No scientist was able to contest the binary logic of the church till the scientific method was established. But that is not how itihaas is written. In the Mahabharata, extensive focus is on the mind of the characters”. Talking about some of the best western literature, he said, “Shakespeare appeals to the binary logic. Troy became historical the moment they found Troy. However, in India, we have hundreds of Mahabharata and Ramayana sites still existing, some excavated and some not. But just because itihaas is retained in poems, Westerners who are used to only the binary logic disregard its existence.” He also said that he believes there is nothing scientific about the social sciences.
Agarwal spoke on Westerners writing about Dwaraka and Ayodhya, “When ASI found a lost city submerged 3000 years ago which matched the description of a city described in the Mahabharata, Diana Eck wrote in her book that she found the actual discovery marginal compared to the faith of the people who thought that the place existed.” “When the facts go against your narrative or ideology, the facts are not relevant”, he added. He later elaborated on distortions in popular “abridged” retellings of our Puranas. “Trivialization of our Puranas is a western import. Being a fan of these popular books in past, I now wonder how I consumed junk food while thinking it is nutritious. How can one judge the merit of something until they have read the original? If someone is writing and distorting the original text, it is our responsibility to ask questions and criticize. Freedom to write comes with the reader’s right to criticize”, he said.
Written by Shloka Nayak