कुल पेज दृश्य

शुक्रवार, 31 मई 2013

hindi lyric: rachna aur rachiyata acharya sanjiv verma 'salil'

रचना और रचयिता: संजीव 'सलिल'

रचना और रचयिता:




संजीव 'सलिल'
*
किस रचना में नही रचयिता,
कोई मुझको बतला दो.
मात-पिता बेटे-बेटी में-
अगर न हों तो दिखला दो...
*




*

बीज हमेशा रहे पेड़ में,
और पेड़ पर फलता बीज.
मुर्गी-अंडे का जो रिश्ता
कभी न किंचित सकता छीज..
माया-मायापति अभिन्न हैं-
नियति-नियामक जतला दो...
*





*

कण में अणु है, अणु में कण है
रूप काल का- युग है, क्षण है.
कंकर-शंकर एक नहीं क्या?-
जो विराट है, वह ही तृण  है..
मत भरमाओ और न भरमो-
सत-शिव-सुन्दर सिखला दो...
*




*
अक्षर-अक्षर शब्द समाये.
शब्द-शब्द अक्षर हो जाये.
भाव बिम्ब बिन रहे अधूरा-
बिम्ब भाव के बिन मर जाये.
साहुल राहुल तज गौतम हो
बुद्ध, 'सलिल' मत झुठला दो...


 
************************

Acharya Sanjiv verma 'Salil'
http://divyanarmada.blogspot.com
http://hindihindi.in

virasat: bachpan -subhadra kumari chauhan


विरासत :

बचपन
सुभद्रा कुमारी चौहान
*
बार-बार आती है मुझको मधुर याद बचपन तेरी
गया, ले गया तू जीवन की सबसे मस्त ख़ुशी मेरी
चिंतारहित खेलना-खाना वह फिरना निर्भय-स्वच्छंद
कैसे भूला जा सकता है बचपन का अतुलित आनंद?
ऊँच-नीच का ज्ञान नहीं था छुआछूत किसने जानी
बनी हुई थी वहाँ झोपड़ी और चीथड़ों में रानी
किये दूध के कुल्ले मैंने चूस अँगूठा सुधा पिया
किलकारी किल्लोल मचाकर सूना घर आबाद किया
रोना और मचल जाना भी क्या आनंद दिखाते थे?
बड़े-बड़े मोती से आँसू जयमाला पहनाते थे
मैं रोई, माँ काम छोड़कर आई मुझको उठा लिया
झाड़-पोंछ कर चूम-चूम गीले गालों को सुखा दिया
दादा ने चंदा दिखलाया नेत्र नीर-युत दमक उठे
धुली हुई मुस्कान देखकर सबके चेहरे चमक उठे
यह सुख का साम्राज्य छोड़कर मैं मतवाली बड़ी हुई
लुटी हुई, कुछ ठगी हुई सी दौड़ द्वार पर खड़ी हुई
लाजभरी आँखें थीं मेरी मन में उमंग रंगीली थी
तान रसीली थी कानों में चंचल छैल-छबीली थी
दिल में एक चुभन सी थी यह दुनिया अलबेली थी
मन में एक पहेली थी मैं सबके बीच अकेली थी
मिला, खोजती थी जिसको हे बचपन! ठगा दिया तूने
अरे! जवानी के फंदे में मुझको फँसा दिया तूने
सब गलियाँ उसकी भी देखीं उसकी खुशियाँ न्यारी हैं
प्यारी, प्रीतम की रंग-रलियों की स्मृतियाँ भी न्यारी हैं
माना मैंने युवा काल का जीवन खूब निराला है
आकांक्षा, पुरुषार्थ, ज्ञान का उदय मोहनेवाला है
किन्तु यहाँ झंझट है भारी युद्ध-क्षेत्र संसार बना
चिंता के चक्कर में पड़कर जीवन भी है भार बना
आ जा बचपन एक बार फिर दे दे अपनी निर्म, शांति
व्याकुल व्यथा मिटानेवाली वह अपनी प्राकृत विश्रांति
वह भोली सी मधुर सरलता, वह प्यारा जीवन निष्पाप
क्या आकर फिर मिटा सकेगा तू मेरे मन का संताप?

मैं बचपन को बुला रही थी बोल उठी बिटिया मेरी
नन्दन वन सी फूल उठी यह छोटी सी कुटिया मेरी 
'माँ माँ' कहकर बुला रही थी, मिट्टी खाकर आई थी
कुछ मुँह में कुछ लिए हाथ में मुझे खिलाने लाई थी
पुलक रहे थे अंग, दृगों में कौतूहल था छलक रहा
मुँह पर थी आल्हाद-लालिमा विजय-गर्व था झलक रहा
मैंने पूछा यह क्या लाई? बोल उठी वह- "माँ काओ"
हुआ प्रफुल्लित ह्रदय खुशी से मैंने कहा "तुम्हीं खाओ"
पाया मैंने बचपन फिर से प्यारी बेटी बन आया
उसकी मंजुल मूर्ति देखकर मुझमें नवजीवन आया
मैं भी उसके साथ खेलती-खाती हूँ, तुतलाती हूँ
मिलकर उसके साथ स्वयं मैं भी बच्ची बन जाती  हूँ
जिसे खोजती थी बचपन से अब जाकर उसको पाया
भाग गया था मुझे छोड़कर वह बचपन फिर से आया

--------------------------------------------------------    
 

गुरुवार, 30 मई 2013

DOHA GATHA 10 ACHARYA SANJIV VERMA 'SALIL'

goha gatha 10 acharya sanjiv verma 'salil'

दोहा गाथा १० : मृदुल मधुर दोहा सरस
 संजीव
*
कथ्य, भाव, रस, बिम्ब, लय, अलंकार, लालित्य।
गति-यति नौ गुण नौलखा, दोहा छंदादित्य।।

दोहा की सीमा नहीं, दोहाकार ससीम।
कम  शब्दों को दे सके, दोहा अर्थ असीम।।


दोहा दीप जलाइए, मन में भरे उजास.
मावस भी पूनम बने, फागुन भी मधुमास.

बौर आम के देखकर, बौराया है आम.
बौरा गौरा ने वरा, खास- बताओ नाम?

लाल न लेकिन लाल है, ताल बिना दे ताल.
जलता है या फूलता, बूझे कौन सवाल?

लाल हरे पीले वसन, धरे धरा हसीन.
नील गगन हँसता, लगे- पवन वसन बिन दीन.

सरसों के पीले किए, जब से भू ने हाथ.
हँसते-रोते हैं नयन, उठता-झुकता माथ.
 

दोहों में शब्दों के चयन पर ध्यान दें।  उनके उच्चारण में ध्वनि का आरोह-अवरोह या उतार-चढाव सलिल-तरंगों की तरह होने से गति (भाषिक प्रवाह) तथा यति (ठहराव) दोहे को पठन के साथ गायन योग्य बनाता है। शब्दों का लालित्य मनमोहक हो।  दोहा का वैशिष्ट्य शब्द का विशिष्ट रूप, लावण्य, गागर में सागर, सीप में मोती, सरल, सरस, रुचिकर, गहन, सरलता, सहजता,  लाक्षणिकता, क्षिप्रता, सारगर्भितता आदि है। 
 
प्राचीन दोहाकारों के दोहों का अध्ययन शिल्प तथा कथ्य संबंधी समझ विकसित करने के लिए करें किन्तु उस भाषा का प्रयोग करने से बचें। विनम्रता सहित निवेदन है कि कबीर, रैदास, मलूक आदि अनेक दोहाकार अशिक्षित अथवा अल्प शिक्षित तथा ग्रामीण परिवेश से तथा तुलसी, सूर आदि मंदिरों से सम्बद्ध थे। उस काल में प्रचलित भाषा अब नहीं बोली जाती। अनेक शब्द अपना अर्थ अथवा प्रचार खो चुके हैं। विकास के साथ अनेक नये शब्द हिंदी को समृद्ध बना रहे हैं। अतः, हमें आज की भाषा में दोहा कहना होगा ताकि युवाओं को समझने में आसानी हो। दोहा की शब्दावली विषयवस्तु अथवा कथ्य तथा उसके पाठक-श्रोता वर्ग के अनुकूल हो। ग्रामीण अंचल से जुड़े तथा लोक भाषाओं की विरासत ग्रहण किये दोहकारों को शब्द रूपों की शुद्धता के प्रति अधिक सजग होना होगा। दिल्ली निवासी डॉ. श्यामानन्द सरस्वती 'रौशन' के दोहा संग्रह 'होते ही अंतर्मुखी' से उद्धृत निम्न पठनीय-मननीय दोहों के साथ कुछ समय बितायें तो आपकी कई कही-अनकही समयस्याओं का निदान हो जाएगा। 

दोहे में अनिवार्य हैं, कथ्य-शिल्प-लय-छंद।
ज्यों गुलाब में रूप-रस, गंध और मकरंद।।

चार चाँद देगा लगा, दोहों में लालित्य।
जिसमें कुछ लालित्य है, अमर वही साहित्य।।

दोहे में मात्रा गिरे, यह भारी अपराध।
यति-गति हो अपनी जगह, दोहा हो निर्बाध।।

चलते-चलते ही मिला, मुझको यह गन्तव्य।
गन्ता भी हूँ मैं स्वयं, और स्वयं गंतव्य।।

टूट रहे हैं आजकल, उसके बने मकान।
खंडित-खंडित हो गए, क्या दिल क्या इन्सान।।

जितनी छोटी बात हो, उतना अधिक प्रभाव।
ले जाती उस पार है, ज्यों छोटी सी नाव।।

कैसा है गणतंत्र यह, कैसा है संयोग?
हंस यहाँ भूखा मरे, काग उड़ावे भोग।।

बहरों के इस गाँव में, क्या चुप्पी, क्या शोर।
ज्यों अंधों के गाँव में, क्या रजनी, क्या भोर।।

जीवन भर पड़ता रहा, वह औरों के माथ।
उसकी बेटी के मगर, हुए न पीले हाथ।।

तेरे अलग विचार हैं, मेरे अलग विचार।
तू फैलता जा घृणा, मैं बाँटूंगा प्यार।।

शुद्ध कहाँ परिणाम हो, साधन अगर अशुद्ध.
साधन रखते शुद्ध जो, जानो उन्हें प्रबुद्ध.

सावित्री शर्मा जी के दोहा संकलन पांच पोर की बाँसुरी से बृज भाषा के कुछ दोहों का रसपान करें। इन दोहों की भाषा उक्त दोहों से कुछ भिन्न है। ऐसी शब्दावली ब्रज भाषा के अनुकूल है पर खड़ी हिन्दी के लिए अनुपयुक्त है। रेखांकित शब्द-रूपों को देखिये क्या इन्हें इस रूप में आधुनिक हिंदी में प्रयोग किया जाना ठीक होगा? इनका उपयोग होने पर जो अहिन्दीभाषी हिंदी सीखकर शब्दकोष की सहायता से पढ़ते हैं क्या इनका अर्थ समझ सकेंगे?

शब्द ब्रम्ह जाना जबहिं, कियो उच्चरित ॐ।
होने लगे विकार सब, ज्ञान यज्ञ में होम।।

मुख कारो विधिना कियो, सुन्दर रूप ललाम।
जनु घुंघुची कीन्हेंसि कबहुँ, अति अनुचित कछु काम।।

तन-मन बासंती भयो, साँस-साँस मधु गंध।
रोम-रोम तृस्ना जगी, तज्यो तृप्ति अनुबंध।।

कितनउ बाँधो मन मिरिग, फिरि-फिरि भरे कुलांच.
सहज नहीं है बरजना, संगी-साथी पॉँच.

चित चंचल अति बावरो, धरे न नेकहूँ धीर.
छिन जमुना लहरें लखें, छिन मरुथल की पीर.

मन हिरना भरमत फिरत, थिर रहै छिन एक.
अनुचित-उचित बिसारि कै, राखै अंपनी टेक.

तिय-बेंदी झिलमिल दिपै, दर्पण बारहि-बार.
दरकि हिया कहुं जाय नहि, करि कामिनि श्रृंगार.

होत दिनै-दिन दूबरो, देखि पूनमी चंद.
माथ बड़ेरी बींदिया, परै नेकहुं मंद.

झलमल-झलमल व्है रही, मुंदरी अंगुरी माहि.
नेह-नगीने नयन बिच, वेसहि तिरि-तिरि जात.

अब देखिये बांदा के अल्पज्ञात कवि राम नारायण उर्फ़ नारायण दास 'बौखल' (जिन्होंने ५००० से अधिक बुन्देली दोहे लिखे हैं) की कृतियों नारायण अंजलि भाग १-२ से कुछ बुन्देली दोहे--
गुरु ने दीन्ही चीनगी, शिष्य लेहु सुलगाय.
चित चकमक लागे नहीं, याते बुझ-बुझ जाय.

वाणी वीणा विश्व वदि, विजय वाद विख्यात.
लोक-लोक गाथा गढी, ज्योति नवल निर्वात.

आध्यात्मिक तौली तुला, रस-रंग-छवि-गुण एक.
चतुर कवी कोविद कही, सुरसति रूप अनेक.

अलि गुलाब गंधी बिपिन, उडी स्मृति गति पौन.
रूप-रंग-परिचय-परस, उमगि पियत रज मौन.

पंच व्यसन प्राणी सनो, तरुण वृद्ध अरु बाल.
'बौखल' घिसि गोलक तनु, तृष्णा तानति जाल.

बैरिन कांजी योग सो, दूध दही हो जाय.
माखन आवै आन्गुरी, निर्भय माट मथाय.

बहु भाषा आशा अमित, समुझि मूढ़ मन सार.
मरत काह जग साडिया, चढिं-चढिं ऊंच कगार.

चातक वाणी पीव की, निर्गुण-सगुण समान.
बरसे-अंबर से जलद, बिना बोध अनुमान.

मरै न मन संगै रहै, मलकिन बारह बाट.
भवनै राखि मसोसि नित, खोलत नहीं कपाट. 
 
मृदुल कीर्ति जी के भोजपुरी दोहों का रस लें-
 
कामधेनु दोहावली, दुहवत ज्ञानी वृन्द.
सरल, सरस, रुचिकर,गहन, कविवर को वर छंद.

तुलसी ने श्री राम को, नाम रूप रस गान.
दोहावलि के छंद में, अद्‍भुत कियो बखान.

दोहे की महिमा महत, महत रूप लावण्य.
अणु अणियाम स्वरूप में, महि महिमामय छंद.

गागर में सागर भरो, ऐसो जाको रूप.
मोती जैसे सीप में, अंतस गूढ़ अनूप.

रामायण में जड़ित हैं, मणि सम दोहा छंद.
चौपाई के बीच में, चमकत हीरक वृन्द.

दोहा के बड़ भाग हैं, कहत राम गुण धाम,
वन्दनीय वर छंद में, प्रणवहुं  बहुल प्रणाम. 

दोहा लेखन में ध्यान रखें कि लय (मात्रा-संतुलन) के साथ-साथ शब्द-चयन और विन्यास भाषा की प्रवृत्ति के अनुकूल हो। दोहा की मारक शक्ति का प्रमाण यह है कि उसे ललित काव्य के साथ-साथ पत्राचार, टिप्पणी, समीक्षा आदि में भी प्रयोग किया जा सकता है। विख्यात कवयित्री मृदुल कीर्ति जी के निम्न पत्र में दोहा का प्रांजल रूप निरखिए। 

Saumya Salil ji,
You are a great scholar, accept my Naman. Your doha classes are wonderful and amazing too. So many lessons I am grasping.
Kabeer , Meera, Soor, Raskhan, Tulsee never been to vyakaran process but they are so perfect as ever been. So real poems come from the realm of Reality and automatically they are perfect because HE is perfect.
आत्मीय! हूँ धन्य मैं, पा स्नेहिल उपहार।
शक्ति-साधना पर्व पर, मुदित ह्रदय-आभार।।

दोहा गाथा में इन्हें, पढ़ सीखेंगे छात्र।
दोहा का वैशिष्ट्य क्या, नहीं दोपदी मात्र।।

दोहा-चौपाई ललित, छंद रचे अभिराम।
जिव्हा पर हैं शारदा, शत-शत नम्र प्रणाम।।

दोहा कक्षा को दिए, दोहा-रत्न अमोल।
आभारी हम आपके, पा अमृतमय बोल।।

सचमुच शिक्षित नहीं थे, मीरा सूर कबीर।
तुलसी और रहीम थे, शिक्षित गुरु गंभीर।।

दोहा रचता कवि नहीं, रचवाता परमात्म।
शब्द-ब्रम्ह ही प्रतिष्ठित, होता बनकर आत्म।।

दोहा करे कमाल 
 
कबीर जुलाहा थे। वे जितना सूत कातते, कपडा बुनते उसे बेचकर परिवार पालते लेकिन माल बिकने पर मिले पैसे में से साधु सेवा करने के  बाद बचे पैसों से घर के लिए सामान खरीदते. सामान कम होने से गृहस्थी चलाने में माँ लोई को परेशान होते देखकर कमाल को कष्ट होता। लोई के मना करने पर भी कबीर 'यह दुनिया माया की गठरी' मान कर 'आया खाली हाथ तू, जाना खाली हाथ' के पथ पर चलते रहे। 'ज्यों की त्यों धर दीनी चदरिया' कहने से बच्चों की थाली में रोटी तो नहीं आती। अंतत: लोई ने कमाल को कपड़ा बेचने बाज़ार भेजा। कमाल ने कबीर के कहने के बाद भी साधुओं को दान नहीं दिया तथा पूरे पैसों से घर का सामान खरीद लिया। कमाल की भर्त्सना करते हुए कबीर ने कहा-

बूडा वंश कबीर का, उपजा पूत कमाल।
हरि का सुमिरन छाँड़ि कै, भरि लै आया माल।।

चलती चाकी  देखकर, दिया कबीरा रोय।
दो पाटन के बीच में, साबित बचा न कोय।।
 
कमाल कबीर की दृष्टि में भले ही खरा न रहा हो पर था तो कबीर का ही पूत... बहुत सुनने के बाद उसके मुँह से भी एक दोहा निकल पड़ा-
 
चलती चाकी देखकर , दिया कमाल ठिठोंय।
जो कीली से लग रहा, मार सका नहीं कोय।।

कबीर यह गूढ़ दोहा सुनकर अवाक रह गए और बोले की तू
कहने को कह गया लेकिन कितनी बड़ी बात कह गया तुझे खुद नहीं पता।

कबीर-कमाल के इन दोहों के दो अर्थ हैं। एक सामान्य- कबीर ने कहा कि चलती हुई चक्की को देखकर उन्हें रोना आता है कि दो पाटों के घूमते रहने से उनके बीच सब दाने पिस गये कोई साबित नहीं बचा। कमाल ने उत्तर दिया कि चलती हुई चक्की देखकर उसे हँसी आ रही है क्योंकि जो दाना बीच की कीली से चिपक गया उसे पाट चलते रहने पर भी कोई हानि नहीं पहुँच सके, वे दाने बच गये।

इन दोहों का गूढ़ अर्थ समझने योग्य है- 
 
कबीर ने दूसरे दोहे में कहा ' इस संसार रूपी चक्की को चलता देखकर कबीर रो रहा है क्योंकि स्वार्थ और परमार्थ के दो पाटों के बीच में सब जीव नष्ट हो रहे हैं, कोई भी बच नहीं पा रहा।

कमाल ने उत्तर में कहा- संसार रूपी चक्की को चलता देखकर कमाल हँस रहा है क्योंकि जो जीव ब्रम्ह रूपी कीली से लग गया उसका सांसारिक भव-बाधा कुछ नहीं बिगाड़ सकी। उसकी आत्मा पुनर्जन्म के चक्र से मुक्त होकर ब्रम्ह में लीन हो गयी।

दोहा के सूफियाना मिजाज़ का एक और रंग देखें। खुसरो (संवत १३१२-१३८२) से पहले दोहा को सूफियाना रंग में रंगा बाबा शेख फरीद शकरगंज (११७३-१२६५) ने। गुरु ग्रन्थ साहिब में रहसा और राग सूही के ४ पदों और ३० सलोकों में बाबा और उनके पश्चातवर्ती शेख अब्राहीम फरीद (१४५०-१५५४) की रचनाएँ हैं। आध्यात्म की पराकाष्ठा पर पहुँचे बाबा का निम्न दोहा उनके समर्पण की बानगी है। 
कागा करंग ढढोलिया, सगल खाइया मासु।
ए दुई नैना मत छुहऊ, पिऊ देखन कि आसु।।
 
पाठांतर:
कागा सब तन खाइयो, चुन-चुन खइयो मास।
दो नैना मत खाइयो, पिया मिलन की आस।
इस दोहे के भी सामान्य और गूढ़ आध्यात्मिक दो अर्थ हैं जिन्हें आप समझ ही लेंगे। कठिनाई होने दीप्ति जी से निवेदन कर पूछिए।
 
चलते-चलते एक और सच्चा किस्सा-

अंग्रेजी में एक कहावत है 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' अर्थात सत्ता भ्रष्ट करती है तो निरंकुश सत्ता पूर्णतः भ्रष्ट करती है, भावार्थ- 'प्रभुता पाहि काहि मद नाहीं' . घटना तब की है जब मुग़ल सम्राट अकबर का सितारा बुलंदी पर था. भारत का एकछत्र सम्राट बनाने की महत्वाकांक्षा, हर बेशकीमती-लाजवाब चीज़ को अपने कब्जे में रखने का लोभ, हर सुन्दर स्त्री को अपने हरम में लाने की हवस तथा ऐसा कर उस स्त्री के पति, परिवार तथा कुनबे को पद दलित करने का नशा उसके सिर पर सवार था. दरबारी उसे निरंतर उकसाते रहते और वह अपने सैन्य बल से मनमानी करता रहता। गोंडवाना पर उन दिनों लोकमाता महारानी दुर्गावती अपने अल्प वयस्क पुत्र की अभिभावक बनकर शासन कर रही थीं। उनकी सुन्दरता, वीरता, लोकप्रियता, शासन कुशलता तथा सम्पन्नता की चर्चा चतुर्दिक थी। सुन्दर महारानी, चतुर दीवान अधारसिंह कायस्थ तथा सफ़ेद हाथी 'एरावत' अकबर की आँख में कांटे की तरह गड़ रहे थे। वीरांगना महारानी मालवा सुलतान बाज बहादुर को धुल चटा चुकी थीं। अधारसिंह के कारण राज्य में शासन व्यवस्था व समृद्धता थी। लोक मान्यता थी की जहाँ सफ़ेद हाथी होता है वहाँ लक्ष्मी वास करती है. अकबर ने रानी के पास सन्देश भेजा-
अपनी सीमाँ राज की, अमल करो फरमान।
भेजो नाग सुवेत सो, अरु अधार दीवान।।

मरता क्या न करता... रानी ने अधारसिंह को दिल्ली भेजा। अकबर अधारसिंह को कैद करना चाहता था। अधारसिंह ने यह पूर्वानुमान कर लिया। अकबर ने एक चाल चली। मुग़ल दरबार में जाने पर अधारसिंह ने देखा कि सिंहासन खाली था। दरबार में बादशाह को कोर्निश (झुककर सलाम) न करना बेअदबी होती जिसे गुस्ताखी मानकर उन्हें कैद कर लिया जाता। खाली सिंहासन को कोर्निश करते तो हँसी के पात्र बनते कि इतनी भी अक्ल नहीं है कि सलाम बादशाह सलामत को किया जाता है गद्दी को नहीं। अधारसिंह धर्म संकट में फँस गये, उन्होंने अपने कुलदेव चित्रगुप्त जी का स्मरण कर इस संकट से उबारने की प्रार्थना करते हुए चारों और देखा। अकस्मात् उनके मन में बिजली सी कौंधी और उन्होंने दरबारियों के बीच छिपकर बैठे बादशाह अकबर को कोर्निश की। सारे दरबारी और खुद अकबर आश्चर्य में थे कि वेश बदले हुए अकबर की पहचान कैसे हुई? झेंपते हुए बादशाह उठकर अपनी गद्दी पर आसीन हुआ और अधारसिंग  से पूछा कि उसने बादशाह को कैसे पहचाना?

अधारसिंह ने विनम्रता से उत्तर दिया कि जंगल में जिस तरह शेर के न दिखने पर अन्य जानवरों के हाव-भाव से उसका पता लगाया जाता है क्योंकि हर जानवर शेर से सतर्क होकर बचने के लिए उस पर निगाह रखता है। इसी आधार पर उन्होंने बादशाह को पहचान लिया चूंकि हर दरबारी उन पर नज़र रखे था कि वे कब क्या करते हैं? अधारसिंह की बुद्धिमानी के कारण अकबर ने नकली उदारता दिखाते हुए कुछ माँगने और अपने दरबार में रहने को कहा। अधारसिंह अपने देश और महारानी दुर्गावती पर प्राण निछावर करते थे। वे अकबर के दरबार में रहते तो गुलाम होकर रहना पड़ता
, मना करते तो बादशाह रुष्ट होकर दंड देता। उन्होंने पुनः चतुराई से बादशाह द्वारा कुछ माँगने के हुक्म की तामील करते हुए अपने देश लौट जाने की अनुमति माँग ली। अकबर रोकता तो वह अपने कौल से फिरने के कारण निंदा का पात्र बनता। अतः, उसने अधारसिंह को जाने तो दिया किन्तु बाद में अपने सिपहसालार को गोंडवाना पर हमला करने का हुक्म दे दिया। दोहा बादशाह के सैन्य बल का वर्णन करते हुए कहता है-
कै लख रन मां मुग़लवा, कै लख वीर पठान?
कै लख साजे पारधी, रे दिल्ली सुलतान?

इक लख रन मां मुगलवा, दुई लख वीर पठान।
तिन लख साजे पारधी, रे दिल्ली सुलतान।।

असाधारण बहादुरी से लम्बे समय तक लड़ने के बाद भी अपने देवर की गद्दारी का कारण अंततः महारानी दुर्गावती, अधारसिंह तथा अन्य वीर अपने देश और आजादी पर शहीद हो गय। मुग़ल सेना ने राज्य को लूट लिया। भागते हुए लोगों और औरतों तक को नहीं बख्शा। महारानी का नाम लेना भी गुनाह हो गया। जनगण ने अपनी लोकमाता को श्रद्धांजलि देने का एक अनूठा उपाय निकाल लिया। दुर्गावती की समाधि के रूप में सफ़ेद पत्थर एकत्र कर ढेर लगा दिया गया, जो भी वहाँ से गुजरता वह आस-पास से एक सफ़ेद कंकर उठाकर समाधि पर चढ़ा देता। स्वतंत्रता सत्याग्रह के समय भी इस परंपरा का पालन कर सत्याग्रहियों ने आजादी के लिये संघर्ष करने का संकल्प किया जिनमें इन पंक्तियों के लेखक के ताऊ जी षW. ज्वाला प्रसाद वर्मा भी थे। दोहा आज भी दुर्गावती, अधारसिंह और आजादी के दीवानों की याद दिल में बसाये है-
ठाँव बरेला आइये, जित रानी की ठौर।
हाथ जोर ठांड़े रहें, फरकन लगे बखौर।।

अर्थात यदि आप बरेला गाँव में रानी की समाधि पर हाथ जोड़कर श्रद्धाभाव से खड़े हों तो उनकी वीर गाथा सुनकर आपकी भुजाएं फड़कने लगती हैं. अस्तु... वीरांगना को महिला दिवस पर याद न किये जाने की कमी पूरी करते हुए आज दोहा-गाथा उन्हें प्रणाम कर धन्य है
                                                         =======================
 

आभार : हिन्दयुग्म २८.३.२००९


 

thought of the day deepti - sanjiv

आज का विचार:
दीप्ति - संजीव 
*
Never Think Hard about PAST, It brings Tears...!
     
Don't Think more about FUTURE, It brings Fears....!
            Live this Moment with a Smile, It brings Cheers..... !!!

मत अतीत पर शोक करो आँसू आ जायेंगे 
                        मत भविष्य का सोच करो, डर-भय ग्रस जायेंगे 
                                            'संजीव' यह पल जिओ खुशी से मन हर्षाएंगे ।।

VIVEKANANDA in CHICAGO


Paper on Hinduism (Read at the Parliament on 19th September, 1893)
 


"I am from the sea."



                                                                          


SWAMI VIVEKANANDA’S SPEECH
AT WORLD PARLIAMENT OF RELIGION, CHICAGO

RESPONSE TO WELCOME

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu peopleof all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this plateform who referring to the delegates from the orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering remnant Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, alllead to Thee."

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
 
 Why We Disagree, 15 Sep 1893
 
I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance. But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on
and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
 
"Where are you from?"

"The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?" and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.

"My friend," said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well?"
 
Then the frog took another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?"

"What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!"

"Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out."
 
That has been the difficulty all the while. I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.
 
Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric--Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand
religion, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed, and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith. From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu's religion. Where then, the question arises, where is the common centre to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall attempt to answer.

The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there
before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings.

I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women. Here it may be said that these laws as laws may be without end, but they must have had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation.

If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, running parallel to each other. God is the ever active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day: "The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and moons of previous cycles." And this agrees with modern science. Here I stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, "I", "I", "I", what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material
substances? The Vedas declare, "No". I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I shall not die. Here am I in this body; it will fall, but I shall go on living. I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health, with beautiful body, mental vigour and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable, some are without hands or feet, others again are idiots and only drag on a wretched existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God? In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.

Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude?

Here are two parallel lines of existence--one of the mind, the other of matter. If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here. We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration, through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by its past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives. There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, now is it that I do not rememberanything of my past life? This can be easily explained I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my
consciousness; mut let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would by conscious even of your past life.

This is direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by the Rishis. We have discovered the secret by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up-try it and you would get a complete reminiscence of your past life. So then the Hindu belives that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce-him the fire cannot burn-him the water cannot melt-him the air cannot dry. The Hindu belives that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Not is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free. unbounded. holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow of other it finds itself tied down to matter and thinks of itself as matter. Why should the free, perfect, and pure being be thus under the thraldom of matter, is the next question. How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the question and say that no such question can be there. Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion; an the question and say that no such question can be there. Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. 

How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion; anmmortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions--a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect; a little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow's tears or the orphan's cry? The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of Nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape?--was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again." "Children of immortal bliss" --what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name--heirs of immortal bliss--yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth--sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls mmortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter. Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One "by
whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth."
 
And what is His nature? He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. And how to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life." This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth. He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water butis never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world--his heart to God and his hands to work. It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love's sake, and the prayer goes: "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward--love unselfishly for love's sake." One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of India, was driven from his kingdom by his enemies and had to take shelter with his queen in a forest in the Himalayas, and there one day the queen asked him how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery.

Yudhishthira answered, "Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are; I love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for anything; I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love's sake. I cannot trade love." The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is therefore, Mukti--freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery. And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy. How does that mercy act? He reveals Himself to the pure heart; the pure and the stainless see God, yea, even in this life; then and then only all the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubt ceases. He is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. This is the very centre, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is: "I have seen the soul; I have seen God." And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising--not in believing, but in being and becoming.
 
Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, tobecome divine, to reach God and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus. And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He lives a life of bliss infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God. So far all the Hindus are agreed. This is the common religion of all the sects of India; but, then, perfection is absolute, and the absolute cannot be two or three. It cannot have any qualities. It cannot be an individual. And so when a soul becomes perfect and absolute, it must become one with Brahman, and it would only realise the Lord as the perfection, the reality, of its own nature and existence, the existence absolute, knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute. We have often and often read this called the losing of individuality and becoming a stock or a stone. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim, the ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a universal consciousness. Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prisonindividuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am one with life, then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself, then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself; and this is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.

Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus Chemistry could not progress farther when it would discover one element out of which all others could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfil its services in discovering one energy of which all the others are but manifestations, and the science of religion becomes perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world. One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science. All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.
 
Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion of the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, one will find the worshippers applying all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to the images. It is not polytheism, nor would the name henotheism explain the situation. "The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet." Names are not explanations. I remember, as a boy, hearing a Christian missionary preach to a crowd in India. Among other sweet things he was telling them was that if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick,
what could it do? One of his hearers sharply answered, "If I abuse your God, what can He do?" "You would be punished," said the preacher, "when you die." "So my idol will punish you when you die," retorted the Hindu. The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, men, the like of whom in morality and spirituality and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, "Can sin beget holiness?" Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray?

My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word "omnipresent", we think of the extended sky or of space, that is all. As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress.

He must not stop anywhere. "External worship, material worship," say the scriptures, "is the lowest stage; struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realised." Mark, the same earnest man who is kneeling before the idol tells you,"Him the sun cannot express, nor the moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express Him, nor what we speak of as fire; through Him they shine." But he does not abuse any one's idol or call its worship sin. He recognises in it a necessary stage of life."The child is father of the man." Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a
sin? If a man can realise his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till itreaches the Glorious Sun.

Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does no fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols--so many pegs to hang the
spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for every one, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism. One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this
cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity. 

To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures. It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna,"I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there ." And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. Says Vyasa, "We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed. " One thing more.

How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole fabric of thought centres in God, believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainism which is atheistic?

The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also. This, brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature.

Offer such a religion, and all the nations will follow you. Asoka's council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar's, though more to the purpose, was only a parlour-meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion. May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo, a thousandfold more effulgent than it ever was before. Hail, Columbia, motherland of liberty! It has been given to thee, who never dipped her hand in her neighbour's blood, who never found out that the shortest way of becoming rich
was by robbing one's neighbours, it has been given to thee to march at the vanguard of civilisation with the flag of harmony.

Religion not the crying need of India (20th September, 1893)

Christians must always be ready for good criticism, and I hardly think that you will mind if I make a little criticism. You Christians, who are so fond of sending out missionaries to save the soul of the heathen--why do you not try to save their bodies from starvation? In India, during the terrible famines, thousands died from hunger, yet you Christians did nothing. You erect churches all through India, but the crying evil in the East is not religion-- they have religion enough--but it is bread that the suffering millions of burning India cry out for with parched throats. They ask us for bread, but we give them stones. It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion; it is an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics. In India a priest that preached for money would lose caste and be spat upon by the people. I came here to seek aid for my impoverished people, and I fully realised how difficult it was to get help for heathens from Christians in a Christian land.
 
Buddhism, the fulfillment of Hinduism (26th September, 1893)

I am not a Buddhist, as you have heard, and yet I am. If China, or Japan, or Ceylon follow the teachings of the Great Master, India worships him as God incarnate on earth. You have just now heard that I am going to criticise Buddhism, but by that I wish you to understand only this. Far be it from me to criticise him whom I worship as God incarnate on earth. But our views about Buddha are that he was not understood properly by his disciples. The relation between Hinduism (by Hinduism, I mean the religion of the Vedas) and what is called Buddhism at the present day is nearly the same as between Judaism and Christianity. Jesus Christ was a Jew, and Shakya Muni was a Hindu. The Jews rejected Jesus Christ, nay, crucified him, and the Hindus have accepted Shakya Muni as God and worship him. But the real difference that we Hindus want to show between modern Buddhism and what we should understand as the teachings of Lord Buddha lies principally in this: Shakya Muni came to preach nothing new. He also, like Jesus, came to fulfil and not to destroy. Only, in the case of Jesus, it was the old people, the Jews, who did not understand him, while in the case of Buddha, it was his own followers who did not realise the import of this teachings. As the Jew did not understand the fulfilment of the Old Testament, so the Buddhist did not understand the fulfilment of the truths of the Hindu religion. Again, I repeat, Shakya Muni came not to destroy, but he was the fulfilment, the logical conclusion, the logical development of the religion of the Hindus.

The religion of the Hindus is divided into two parts: the ceremonial and the spiritual. The spiritual portion is specially studied by the monks. In that there is no caste. A man from the highest caste and a man from the lowest may become a monk in India, and the two castes become equal. In religion there is no caste; caste is simply a social institution. Shakya Muni himself was a monk, and it was his glory that he had the large-heartedness to bring out the truths from the hidden Vedas and throw them broadcast all over the world. He was the first being in the world who brought missionarising into practice--nay, he was the first to
conceive the idea of proselytising.
 
The great glory of the Master lay in his wonderful sympathy for everybody, especially for the ignorant and the poor. Some of his disciples were Brahmins. When Buddha was teaching, Sanskrit was no more the spoken language in India. It was then only in the books of the learned. Some of Buddha's Brahmin disciples wanted to translate his teachings into Sanskrit, but he distinctly told them, "I am for the poor, for the people; let me speak in the tongue of the people." And so to this day the great bulk of his teachings are in the vernacular of that day in India. Whatever may be the position of philosophy, whatever may be the position of metaphysics, so long as there is such a thing as death in the world, so long as there is such a thing as weakness in the human heart, so long as there is a cry going out of the heart of man in his very weakness, there shall be a faith in God. On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master dashed themselves against the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. At the present day there is not one who calls oneself a Buddhist in India, the land of its birth.

But at the same time, Brahminism lost something--that reforming zeal, that wonderful sympathy and charity for everybody, that wonderful leaven which Buddhism had brought to the masses and which had rendered Indian society so great that a Greek historian who wrote about India of that time was led to say that no Hindu was known to tell an untruth and no Hindu woman was known to be unchaste. Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism. Then realise what the separation has shown to us, that the Buddhists cannot stand without the brain and philosophy of the Brahmins, nor the Brahmin without the heart of the Buddhist. This separation between the Buddhists and the Brahmins is the cause of the downfall of India. That is why India is populated by three hundred millions of beggars, and that is why India has been the slave of conquerors for the last thousand years. Let us then join the wonderful intellect of the Brahmins with the heart, the noble soul, the wonderful humanising power of the Great Master.
 
Address at the Final Session (27th September, 1893)

The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour. My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realised it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to
smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.
 
Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the other, to him I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: "Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
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