Satyameva Jayate, by S.K. Balasubramanian
Every community sets up standards or morality for secular life. These deal with our relation to the entity called God and our interaction with the rest of the society, including those who do not subscribe to our view. We shall deal mainly with these standards and discuss the Hindu outlook from this standpoint.
The fundamental tenet of Hinduism is, “Satyameva jayate na anrtam.” It is normally interpreted as, “truth alone succeeds.” But your ‘truth’ may be different from mine. Truth has a subjective element in it. It is known as Rta in Sanskrit. Anrta is a wrong perception or delusion. Satya is reality untrammeled or limited by preconceived notions. So my translation of the axiom is, “Reality prevails over delusions.”
All of us without exception, I may assert, carry some delusion or other. Any novel idea may be a delusion. This is especially so in social affairs where ideas cannot be tested without human cost. If it is proved to not be a delusion, we call it foresight. But proof of validity is a must. It is like the proof of the pudding that lies in eating. This is the conclusion from the fundamental axiom of ancient Hindu thought.
Delusion arises because of our inability to comprehend or accept the reality around us. We seek solutions to the problems that life poses. Unfortunately there is only one correct solution for every ‘problem’ while the wrong ones could be infinite. So statistically the chances are that we may more likely suffer from delusion than otherwise. I am speaking of people considered medically normal. I am excluding insanity, which is being out of touch with reality.
I look upon misery as a measure of our delusion or lack of realism. It is often compounded by a deadly combination of delusion with design for future and determination to achieve it. This combination is known as sankalpa. Gita defines a yogi as one who has given up all sankalpa. (sarva samkalpa sannyasi yogaarooda-s-tathochyate)
Delusion may extend to the concept of God. That is why Hinduism accepts the atheist arguments as valid. For example, the Charvaaka tradition is an atheist school of Indian philosophy that traces its origin to 600 BCE . This may disillusion modern intellectuals who imagine that their discovery of atheism is a great intellectual feat.
The implication of the axiom is that nothing can be taken as ‘given’. Every idea has to prove its validity. Otherwise it remains in limbo.
Every human being would have his own ideas. He is free to hold them as long as their validity is not disproved or they are not socially destructive. The ideas may extend to God. This is why we accept that every one is free to choose his method and God of worship. The term ‘destructive’ does not apply to criticism that may be necessarily disruptive, but to complete break from the past tradition in favor of untested idea.The corollary is that every one is free to hang on to unproven/unprovable concepts including delusions as long as there is no disruption or harm to the society.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam were disruptive and destructive in this sense. They tried to supplant an old order with an unproven new idea. None of these religions had solved any human problem anywhere. They had created problems because they were themselves the problems.
The Jews paid a high price for their revelation. I am not referring to their persecution at the hands of Christians and Muslims. I am speaking of the misery imposed by the Jewish Prophets on their own followers including the kings. Even the wisest of the Jewish Kings, Solomon, was not spared. He was held guilty of tolerance. Christianity and Islam are guilty of destroying whole civilizations. Christianity did it in the name of divine love while Islam is continuing to exact a price.
In our days Marxism would qualify as the greatest delusion of all times. The Russians and Chinese together had snuffed out nearly 100 million human lives. The human toll in the Word War II was much less. I am mentioning this to illustrate the deadly effects of delusions.
The catholicity of Hinduism is derived from the premise of the axiom. Pluralism is an inbuilt feature of this religion that demands avoidance of delusions even in the name of the Creator. Only when a hundred flowers bloom is there a chance for the best one to come out.
If delusion is to be avoided, one has to develop objectivity in guiding society. This is the duty of the social leaders. An Upanishad defines the qualities of the Brahmins who can guide society on dharma. They have to be learned, wise (to the ways of men), incorruptible and pious. They should not have any personal motive except social evolution and welfare. In short total objectivity is required of them.
Objectivity is the basis of Vedanta. It is derived from the fundamental axiom. The word non-attachment is inadequate to describe objectivity. Sannyasa is not renunciation in the negative sense. It is dedication to a higher level of objectivity after transcending the lower ones. In this respect Hindu Sannyasa is different from the Priesthood of the Catholic Church. A priest may be sincere but he has to obey the edicts of the church whether he accepts them or not. A Sannyasi, on the other hand, does not, in theory, ‘obey’ any one.
Nevertheless, emergencies like wars may demand expediency rather than objectivity. This is allowed. When Drona assumed command of the Kaurava forces, the Pandavas faced a ticklish situation. They had all been students of Drona. To defeat Drona, Yudhishtira was persuaded to tell a lie that demoralized Drona and made him quit. In this context I would like to say that Mahabharata is not about morality. It is about existential reality. Every aspect of human behavior is covered.
While every effort is to be made to avoid a war, it might become imperative for survival. This is the lesson that Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita. Hinduism recognized the emergency in existential crises and allowed an approach based on recognition of the need for ambivalence in human affairs. Thus Ahimsa is accepted as paramodharmah but so is violence in defense of dharma or social order.
Evolution is another deduction from the axiom. By accepting standards of objectivity societies develop a clearer appraisal of the reality. This leads to acceptance of change in the social mores. The change for better is evolution.
Christianity evolved to an extent under Lutheran criticism and the French revolution. The human face it claims to possess is the result of these two events. It still retains in my view a fossilized outlook.
The crisis in Islam is due to the frozen timeframe it is subject to. It has no escape from the follies of its foundation.
Science promotes objectivity. The change that we have seen in our lives had been due to this untrammeled outlook. Science should also easily accept change in its theoretical framework. But this is not the case. Paul Davies of Arizona State University had argued that some ideas in science are to be taken on faith as ‘given’. Astronomy and physics are major fields guilty of theoretical absolutism. I am mentioning this because even science, the human activity that compulsively demands objectivity, is also not free from delusion. This is a tragedy but it serves to show how deep the canker of delusion could penetrate our psyche.
The realistic part of science, as shown in the results of the past two centuries, is derived from the stepwise progression based on earlier experimental work. As long as this approach is in vogue there is no likelihood of science going off the track. The problem arises when an attempt is made to arrive at an ambitious over-arching theory covering the whole gamut of the material universe. Unfortunately this trend is entrenched further by the peer review procedure for allowing publication. The procedure, however welcome to weed out absurdity, has created ‘an establishment’ with a vested interest that opposes and keeps out of circulation every review/criticism of current theory.
Hinduism is the only religion that goes beyond even science. This is important to understand. Many provisions/practices of Hinduism are criticized because they do not fulfill our need for intellectual delusions. The axiom of satyameva jayate or reality prevails over delusions should be seen in this light. It is the understanding that reality alone will prevail that has allowed the Hindu society to experiment, question, accept and follow multitudes of paths to reach the ultimate reality.
Dr. S.K. Balasubramanian completed his Ph.D. from IIS Bangalore. He went to business in Pune manufacturing fine chemicals. You can contact him at smanian@sancharnet.in.
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