Ancient Sanskrit texts are flawed; let’s not burden our children with them

In recent times, there has been too much push for introducing ancient Sanskrit books into every national discourse and school, college, and university curricula. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in particular, and most Dwija (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Kayastha, and Khatri) writers, irrespective of their ideological position and political stand, in general, go with a uniform opinion that Indian cultural and civilizational progress must be seen through only ancient Sanskrit books. The Hindutva thinkers claim that all scientific developments of the world are rooted in the knowledge of those texts.

There is a lot of pressure on all children across the country to learn Sanskrit, as it is being shown as a divine Indian language. But in modern times, no Brahmin or Dwija writer has written any modern book in Sanskrit. They all write in English or in regional languages. The Jews write modern books in Hebrew, and Arabs write in Arabic. But Brahmins hardly write in Sanskrit. If it is a great language of spirituality and science, why do they not write in that language?

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There is a big trap here for all future generations. In post-colonial India, the lovers of Sanskrit educate their own children in top-class English-medium schools. But the new entrants into the education system from agrarian and artisanal communities are being forced to learn an extra, unwanted language. It eats away their energies. It is a trap in a cocoon for the agrarian and artisan youth.

Where is the “divine essence”?

My serious reading of translations of Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmanas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata in English informs me that there is no divine essence in these texts, leave alone science. They all deal with only human essence, without any universal ethics and values getting reflected in them.

Not a single book mirrored the ancient Indian labour and production relations wherein science takes its birth. Divine essence comes established with a divine preaching of living methods, not war methods.

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Anyone who surveyed the global literature on divine essence would know that ancient Sanskrit literature falls short of two fundamental principles of divine essence. First, any divine operation has to begin with all human beings getting created equal. The second most important idea of divine essence is that food production, apart from food gathering, must acquire a central place in any spiritual book that is worthy of being called “sacred” or “spiritual” or “divine”. All Sanskrit texts failed on these two critical counts.

All the four — Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmanas, and Puranas — written in Sanskrit were called the “sacred books” of India. Even a foreign-colonial scholar, Max Muller, described them as “sacred books of the East”. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are called the great epics. But in recent years, ever since the RSS and its political wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, they are being projected as “sacred books” as well.

Of course, Bhagavad Gita, which is part of the Mahabharata, is considered a more critical sacred book. Gita is put above the Mahabharata as a whole, as a divine text. This book contains a semblance of animal-human relations and a meat-and-milk economy, but that also does not deal with agriculture as a divinely sanctified major production system in ancient India. Its main philosophy operates around Yuddha Dharma. That is a negative divine essence. Positive divine essence deals with the philosophy of production and the distribution of the fruits of production and the human relations that engender in that process.

God and human divisions

God, as a universal creator, does not divide people into slaves and masters or Shudras, Vaisyas, Kshatriyas, and Brahmins. Furthermore, God, in the universal understanding, is mainly concerned about human survival and progress, not multiple human divisions and wars between them. The primary issue for God should be that of commanding humans to live by the “sweat of their brow”. No ancient Sanskrit book made this essence of God as its running theme. When this is missing in those books, all ideas of future science are blocked.

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Such “Labour as Life” essence is found in the divine deities of agrarian societies, called “Shudra Devatas”. Unfortunately, however, there are no properly written textual narratives about such divine deities. The ancient Sanskrit texts do not deal with them at all. A lot needs to be written about the Shudra Devatas in future.

Future Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis

How should the contemporary Shudras — not just Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits, and Adivasis — take the present propaganda about Sanskrit books in which they do not exist? The status of the Shudras, who were declared as the slave-class varna/caste serving the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas in those books, was fixed. The latter three castes are the richest and power-wielding castes even in the 21st century and they are now re-imposing the very same books as books of all.

Even now, they do not till the land, graze cattle, or involve themselves in village-level artisanal works. These activities are treated as impure. Since the exploiting castes describe their present religious status as Hindu and also include all Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis in that religion with the re-imposition of anti-production Sanskrit books, what will happen to the future of the Dalits/Adivasis and Shudras?

They use Vedas, Puranas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata as the sacred books of Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis. A vast number of these communities also believe that all these books are their own sacred books. Yet they do not have the right to become priests in the temples where these Sanskrit books are used as divine books. Is it not surprising?

Need for critical reading 

A critical reading of the Brahminic, so-called sacred books, like the four Vedas, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, surprised me for the complete absence of productive folks and production processes in those books. From the stories of Brahma, Indra, Agni, and Vayu in Rigveda to Mahabharata’s Pandavas and Kauravas to Ramayana’s Dasharatha, Rama, Laxmana, Bharata to all Sri Lankan rulers like Ravana were rulers, warriors, and so on. Most of them were said to have come from Brahmin and Kshatriya castes. 

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There are characters like Hanuman, Vali, Sugriva in Ramayana, whose varna or caste was not mentioned. But there are no visible Shudra heroes in all the texts.

Why does God not like agriculture?

There are figures like Sri Krishna, Karna, and Shambuka, who are mentioned as Shudras, but not as agrarian food producers but doing the same jobs, like involving in war or diplomacy and so on. Occasionally, cattle appear around Sri Krishna. Not that he was using them for tilling the land, but grazing and playing with them. In the entire gamut of epics, Krishna was the only divine figure who was said to have had intimacy with cattle. Most others deal with war weapons, horses, chariots, and so on. All these are not the essential tasks of divine figures.

All the Brahmin saints — with some exceptions like Vishwamitra, who came from a Kshatriya social background — were concerned about their own moksha.

Social welfare does not appear in their life-story narratives. All Brahmins saints had a negative view of food production and the instrument-making process. It is a known fact that these two domains — agriculture and artisan systems — are the main sources of science and technology of modern India and the world. But all Sanskrit books treat agriculture as undivine Shudra job. They condemned agriculture and artisanal activity as spiritual pollution.

Who was producing food for Sanskrit heroes?

So, who was producing food for them was completely absent in those books. Why was that so?

In the Rigveda — and also in subsequent Brahminic books, up to the writings of Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Manu’s Dharma Shastra — the job of working on animal-based economy, agriculture, and artisanal instrument-making was assigned to the Shudras. The Shudras, by the present population levels, are the majority. They must have been so all through Indian history. But they were never seen in the books working fields and supplying goods, commodities, or ornaments to the kings and saints. So, how did Dwija rulers and saints live without food production in their living locations?

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There was a lot of metalwork involved in the living styles of the heroes and villains of those books. According to one writer:

“We get a better idea of working in metals in Vedic times from the descriptions of various gold ornaments and iron utensils and implements of war which are to be found throughout the Rig-Veda. The allusions are numerous, and we select only a few as illustrations. We are told of armour used in war and of golden helmets, while mention is also made of armour for the shoulders or arms, probably a shield. The lightning is compared not only to a javelin, but also to a sword or battle-axe, and to bows and arrows and quivers. Three thousand mailed warriors are mentioned; feathered, sharp-pointed, shining shafts are described; and sharp-edged swords are noted, as well as war-chariots and kettle-drums. And lastly, we have a spirited account of the arms and accoutrements of war, which we shall translate for our readers further on”.

The question that arises is who made them? Did the Brahmins and Kshatriyas make them? According to the very same books, the Brahmins and Kshatriyas were not supposed to perform the productive tasks. All artisanal and agrarian tasks were assigned to the Shudras. But the Shudra activity was not even described in those books, even though the writers lived on the labour power of the Shudras of their times.

How did their idea of God and divine break away from the universal norm of their own times? No ancient spiritual books of Israel, Egypt, Greece, China, and so on avoided talking about food producers, toolmakers, or craftsmen. But in all Sanskrit books, they were untouchable to the spiritual system and the book writers avoided talking about them along with others like rulers and saints.

The 21st-century situation

As I live in the first quarter of the 21st century, the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Kayasthas, and Khatris across India do not perform any agrarian and artisanal tasks. This reluctance to engage with production work has deep roots in Sanskrit books. But they get enough resources to live better lives than the farmers, artisans, and labouring masses. That shows an interesting mechanism of financial arrangement they made in the system through the mechanism of writing those Sanskrit books.

Socially, even during my generation, they command hegemonic status; educationally, they control several institutions of knowledge, and spiritually, they control all major temple rituals. They control what they call the Hindu Gods and Sanskrit language, which is even now considered to be the only language of Gods. The food producers were not allowed to learn it in ancient times. Even now, whatever would be the economic status of the Shudras, though they can learn Sanskrit, they cannot lead the temple system spiritually. It was not just an ancient problem. It is a 21-century problem as well.

The Brahminic sacred books tell the caste names of kings, saints, warriors, and their wives. They kept praising the people of those caste/Varna backgrounds as divine, heroes, kings and so on. They are either Brahmin or Kshatriya. How does the casteless system get established if the same books are made a critical content of teaching for the youth?

What do children learn from Sanskrit texts?

So, what do children learn by reading those texts now? Even in terms of work, the great work the Sanskrit heroes performed was fighting a war or performing a yagna or kratu. But they never tilled the land, grazed the cattle, or made instruments. The very source of human life — labour — was made completely un-divine and invisible in all the story narratives. In real life, though, most of the children see only those works being done by their parents or relatives for their own survival and for others’ survival. How did the source of life in Sanskrit books become polluted and invisible?

They have not written a single book in Sanskrit changing that narrative even in post-colonial India.

If the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi children see their parents keep doing the works that do not get appreciated in the so-called sacred texts or great Sanskrit books, what do they think about their own parents?

These questions are critical for all Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi parents who send their children to school, college, and university now. No child should be allowed to live in a self-denial culture or civilization.

(The writer is former Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad)

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