The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation: The Saraswathi Award 2015
A Navrati Kolu display of antique dolls
Hinduism in Ancient Arabia
Source: Hinduism in Ancient Arabia
Ramana Maharshi – a twentieth century Indian saint, Part Three
To read part one first, click here.
These days the Ashram Sri Ramanasramam Ashram Sri Ramanasramam is crowded with many visitors, mostly westerners. The visitors are not boisterous or even conversational; instead they are quiet, respectful, and contemplative.
During Ramana Maharshi’s life, he had welcomed all people who came to him for guidance, speaking with great compassion and clarity with women as well as men, which was unusual at the time, and with people who came from the west as well as from India.
He is buried in a sarcophagus in the main hall, where there is an atmosphere of peace and tranquility.
In a smaller hall, people sit in a lotus position, in prayer or meditation. Visitors are encouraged to go and spend time there, since remaining a few minutes in calm and silence may bring about more understanding than many words.
In the dining hall people have a dinner of rice and vegetables, served on a palm leaf.
Outside there are the tombs of several of Ramana’s animals. His beloved cow, Lachshmi, who was with him for many years, is there; also a dog, a monkey, and a crow that he had rescued. He had always insisted that the animals must be treated with the same courtesy extended to humans. They were to be spoken with gently and allowed to wander wherever they wished.
The way to enlightenment taught by Ramana Maharshi is called Self-Inquiry. It is not in essence any different from traditional Hinduism, but is presented in a particular way. Ramana taught that a person seeking enlightenment must look within him or herself, asking the question, “Who am I?” The purpose in asking the question is not to discover what kind of person one is: wise or foolish, good or bad, or what one’s human personality may be like. Instead it is to come, eventually, to a realization that the true Self within each of us is not the human personality at all.
It is not our name, our profession, our identity, our life history, where we are from or what we look like, whether we are kind or cruel, truthful or deceitful, charming or impolite, world-famous or insignificant, confident or timid, rich or poor – none of these things is us.
The human personality, the “ego-sense,” is a construct, it is not the fundamental essence of an individual.
There is a Hindu chant, Shivoham, which means “I am Shiva” or “I am God.” This and similar expressions of identity with God are often grossly distorted and made fun of, especially in the west by people who do not understand what is meant. “I am Shiva” is not really a good translation. A better way to put this would be, “I do not exist. Only Shiva exists.” Or “I do not exist. Only God exists;” that is closer to the true meaning.
This perception that only God exists isn’t a linear, rational sort of truth. It is a mystical awareness, which can be grasped to a small extent intellectually, but which can only become a genuinely perceived reality through a direct experience, which comes about by the grace of God, and one puts oneself within reach of this divine grace only through diligently following a path.
Advaita Vedanta, one of the primary philosophies of Hinduism, teaches that the essence, or the soul, the Self or the “Atman,” of all beings is “Brahman,” the ultimate divine reality.
On an ultimate level, the soul of you or me, of a criminal or a saint, of a tree, a cloud, a flower, or a mountain, a monkey, a bumblebee, or a river, is the same soul. There is only one soul, which is Brahman.
Seeing this intellectually is a small step. Seeing this as the only real truth occurs as a mystical experience, and cannot be reached by the wandering thoughts of the mind.
It was Ramana’s mission, and that of so many other Hindu saints over the millennia, to open the gates that will allow enlightenment, like the sun shining through the darkness.
After around fifty years of living a tranquil, inspiring life on the slopes of Arunachala, in November of 1948, he developed a malignant tumor on his left arm, which was operated on four times by surgeons. When they wanted to amputate his arm, he declined, feeling that his time on earth was meant to come to a close.
On the evening of April 14, 1950, as he lay dying, he shed tears of joy on hearing his devotees chanting, “Arunachala Shiva.” At 8.47 that evening, his breathing slowed and came peacefully to a stop.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, the French photographer, who had been staying near the ashram for a couple of weeks, was standing in front of his house that evening with a few friends when he saw a brilliant shooting star pass across the sky, disappearing behind Arunachala. He looked at his watch, seeing that it was 8:47. Guessing the import of the shooting star, they rushed over to the Ashram, to learn, as they had feared, that Raman had passed away. He was 71 years old.
In the days leading up to his death, he had said calmly to re-assure his worried disciples, “Where can I go? I am here.”
Photos: © Sharon St Joan, 2013
Top photo: A side path by the Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple.
Second photo: Sculpted cows rest peacefully on a pillared hall.
Third photo: Sivagangai Vinayagar Sannathi
Fourth photo: One of the gopurams (temple gates)
The little factory that could, part two
By Sharon St Joan
To read part one first, click here.
Four bids had been submitted. One of the bids was from a company that had been around for 90 years and was known as one of the world’s finest engineering companies.
Another was a company based in Gujarat that had a fantastic reputation and specialized in building small aircraft. Also submitting a bid was the same company that had just failed to complete the job on time and had missed the deadline by many months. And then there was Aspick, the small unknown company, started just the year before.
The space agency was legally obligated to award the contract to the lowest bidder – because all the bidding companies had been pre-qualified.
The bids were opened one by one. Aspick’s was opened first and read out. Dr. Krishna recalls that he “put on a poker face” — not wanting to look too amazed or surprised.
When his bid was read out, the whole room turned around and looked at him. His bid was only a small fraction of the other bids. Amazingly, the unknown company, Aspick, had just won the contract to build India’s first space communication antenna.
Even Dr. Krishna was a little dumbfounded at this outcome. He went home and spent several hours re-doing all the calculations to be sure he had everything right and hadn’t made any mistakes. There were no computers in those days.
The space agency may have had second thoughts too. The next morning he received a telegram asking him to reconfirm that he actually could meet all the requirements of the project. He replied that yes, he definitely could.
The antenna was meant to be finished in thirteen weeks. During that time Colonel N. Pant, the Director of the Space Applications Center in Ahmedabad, practically lived in Dr. Krishna’s factory. The purpose of his job was to put scientific technology to work for the common man. A number of the drawings were modified, yet even with all the changes, Aspick still managed to deliver the perfect, finished antenna in fourteen weeks.
When assembled, the antenna was 33 feet across, with 64 panels and one center panel. It was disassembled and sent off in three government trucks to Delhi. Packing it took a long time since each panel had to be packed separately with shock absorbing material.
The communications satellite program in India was a huge success. 600 villages all over India had TV sets connected to small dish antenna pointed towards ATS-5. The information that was picked up related to monsoons, market conditions, and when to harvest – the kind of practical knowledge that was immensely helpful to small farmers and villagers; it aided in the planting of crops and school education.
In other areas of his life, Dr. Krishna has applied the same level of positive intention. As the Vice-Chairman of the Animal Welfare Board of India, and a lifelong advocate for animals, he has contributed to India having the world’s most enlightened system of animal welfare laws. From his days as a young man, when he, along with his parents, Usha and Captain Sundaram, became the founders of the first and largest of the modern Indian animal shelters, Blue Cross of India – following in their footsteps, he has spent his life dedicated to the well-being of animals.
In 1973, when Aspick began, on the property at the Guindy Industrial Park, in Chennai, Dr. Krishna soon noticed three or four street dogs living in the area. He invited them in, fed them, and made sure that all his workers welcomed them warmly. After a rescue at the Chennai airport, the numbers of dogs at the factory grew to around twenty. Some of the dogs went on to live at home with him and his wife, Dr. Nanditha Krishna; some found other homes or stayed on at the factory. Now there are seven dogs living at Aspick – all contributing to the peaceful, yet industrious atmosphere – possibly the only factory anywhere with welders’ torches lighting up the air, palm trees waving gently just over the factory walls, and a line of dogs stretched out happily in the shade.
© 2015, Sharon St Joan
Top photo: Courtesy of Aspick Engineering
Second photo: Sharon St Joan / Dr. Chinny Krishna.
Third photo: Sharon St Joan / A puppy with a young volunteer at Blue Cross of India.
The little factory that could, part one
By Sharon St Joan
In 1960, NASA had begun to develop new communications satellites. In 1969, they launched the ATS 5, and made its use available to several nations. First, in a stationary orbit over Africa, it was used by a number of African nations for research purposes. Next was to be India’s turn, for one year, and the satellite would be in orbit over India in communication with an antenna on the ground known as the Delhi earth station.
The project was named the Satellite Instruction Television Experiment. Arthur C. Clarke, the renowned science fiction writer and futurist, called it “the greatest communication experiment in history.” In a bold new venture, it would reach rural Indian villages that had little access to modern education and information.
In order to seize this opportunity, India needed to build a ground antenna that could communicate with the satellite. The contract to make the antenna had been given to the Electronics Corporation of India in Hyderabad – which, unfortunately, had not been able to fulfill their commitment.
This left the Indian government scrambling at the last minute to find another company that could deliver the antenna – a correct antenna that could do the job – on time. The problem that ECI had was that it couldn’t achieve the required accuracy for the surface panels. The panels needed to have an absolutely smooth surface, to a tolerance of one fortieth of an inch.
When it became clear that the ECI was many months late, the Indian Department of Space started to lose patience. They placed an ad asking for bids for the project. A young Dr. Chinny Krishna had started his company, Aspick Engineering, just one year before, in 1973. It was a brand new company and still quite small. He had sold his motorcycle to help with the funding needed to start Aspick.
Having attended AC Tech Engineering College, Chennai, and then Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Dr. Krishna returned to India in 1972, when he joined the faculty of IIT Chennai to teach while preparing to start his company, which would design and manufacture special purpose machinery out of steel and other metals.
Today, forty years later, Aspick Engineering is one of the most outstanding and highly successful companies of its kind, executing special orders for customers throughout India and around the world.
At that time, in 1974, when Dr. Krishna placed a bid for the chance to built the antenna for the NASA communications satellite, hardly anyone had ever heard of Aspick Engineering.
The antenna was to receive signals from the satellite which was in geo-synchronous orbit. This meant that the antenna, which was approximately 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) above the earth, would move at such a speed that, to an observer on the ground, it would appear to be stationary. The satellite would complete one orbit around the earth in precisely one sidereal day intentionally matching the earth’s rotation period of 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.9 seconds. However, there would be small movements of a fraction of a degree of drift of the satellite and the antenna would have to continuously make small changes in its orientation to track the satellite precisely.
There would be 65 panels, made of hand-treated aluminum, and the final alignment could only be made by adjusting it manually. Around a dozen people at Aspick eventually worked on it.
Aspick sent in their bid to the Department of Space, which sent a team to Chennai in south India to visit Aspick to pre-qualify them. The team were especially careful in their appraisal because they had just been let down by the Hyderabad company after so many months of expectation. Dr. Krishna gave the team a tour of the factory and the offices. He felt entirely confidant that Aspick had the ability to meet all the precise qualifications for the antenna. The team were suitably impressed, and they pre-qualified Aspick.
The opening of the bids for the contract to build the antenna took place at the Shastri Bhavan Offices of the Department of Space. As was his habit, Dr. Krishna sat in the back of the room. He’d always done that, including throughout his school days.
To be continued in part two…
Top photo: Courtesy of Aspick Engineering / The satellite antenna.
Second photo: Sharon St Joan / Dr. Chinny Krishna
Third photo: Courtesy of Aspick Engineering / Other machinery manufactured by Aspick.
C.P. Art Centre Exhibit: Ganesha
C.P. Art Centre Exhibit: In search of Lord Krishna
Ending the sacrifice at Gadhimai, part two
By Sharon St Joan
To read part one first, click here.
Meanwhile, Gauri Maulekhi, of HSI and PFA, appealed to the Supreme Court of India, which then issued a directive to close the India-Nepal border to any transport of animals into Nepal during the weeks preceding the festival.
Since most of the animals to be sacrificed came from India, closing the border had a momentous effect.
Large numbers of volunteers from Indian animal welfare groups arrived to assist the Border Patrol in spotting people trying to take animals to Nepal. They spoke with farmers and other animal transporters and, if they did not turn back, the volunteers followed up with the Border Patrol to make sure they were sent back.
Dawn Williams and his team from Blue Cross of India played a leading role in tracking down those attempting to smuggle animals into Nepal. A former commando, Dawn Williams rescues animals daily, often risking his life going down dangerous wells to pull out cows, dogs, cats, or other animals. Animal People contributed a generous grant to support this highly successful effort along the Indian/Nepalese border.
Jayasimha Nuggehalli and Alokparna Sengupta of HSI – India and many other volunteers were also there. All these courageous animal people, along with a great many others, on both sides of the border, worked long days and nights in hazardous, primitive conditions.
The volunteers from the various groups rescued around 2,500 animals and sent them to shelters. Many thousands of animal owners and transporters were turned around, taking their animals back home with them.
Also in the days leading up to the event, in Nepal, Uttam Dahal of Nepal Animal Welfare and Research Centre approached Nepal’s Supreme Court, which issued a directive that all Nepalese laws were to be enforced by the police and adhered to by all local and national authorities and individuals, including the Nepal Animal Health and Livestock Services Act, the Nepal Animal Slaughterhouse and Meat Inspection Act, and the Environment Protection Act. In other words, the Court ruled that barbaric slaughter by machete in unsanitary conditions would not be allowed. This re-enforced the stance of animal activists that the Gadhimai sacrifice was illegal.
Jayasimha Nuggehalli and Alokparna Sengupta in a journal described the difficult and dangerous circumstances of their work along the border. At one point they stopped a transport truck full of buffaloes – this nearly led to their arrest by the Nepalese police who stopped them repeatedly throughout the rest of the day. They wrote sad descriptions of animals being led along to the sacrifice. As they made their way towards the temple, they encountered a horrendous scene of hundreds of thousands of people camped out in open fields and then, in the days following, the mass killings of animals near the temple.
They and the many other volunteers rescued many animals. Sadly, some animals did get through and thousands of animals were slaughtered – however, the total was at least 70% fewer animals than the half a million slaughtered in 2009.
In the end, the festival itself was a failure, so much so that the Chinese company who had contracted to buy the remains of the poor slaughtered animals canceled their contract – there were just not enough animals available. The future was already looking bleak for the next Gadhimai festival in 2019.
Inside the temple, for several hours, as multitudes of people approached the head priest, Mangal Chaudry, to seek his blessings, Dr. Nanditha Krishna, who had earlier made his acquaintance at Jaipur, had been invited to sit beside him. Dr. Nanditha Krishna has an unmatched gift for communicating about innocent animals – in a way that is both non-judgmental and unflinchingly direct – a clear voice of truth. In numerous situations behind the scenes, without fanfare, her words, whether to government leaders or to rural village women have helped to turn the tide on one animal issue after another. There is no doubt that they had an effect in this case.
Manoj Gautam, President and Founder of AWNN, in Nepal, also spoke at length with the head priest and held a number of meetings with the temple committee.
The conditions around the festival were entirely horrible for all those who traveled there to help the animals – the brutality and hatred, the filth and dirt, the smells, the sights, the sounds, all were a nightmare – from the travel on dangerous, rugged roads to the atmosphere of cruelty and the immense suffering of the animals. All those who went to help are heroes, and many thanks are due also to all those who supported them in India, in Nepal, and around the world.
In the end, the bloodsport that was the Gadhimai sacrifice could not stand up to the combined force of those working on behalf of the animals, and, at last, the temple sacrifice was revealed to all as what it was – a horror, a disaster, and finally also an economic failure.
With the announcement, on July 28, 2015, by Motilal Prasad Gadhimai Temple Trust Secretary and Ram Chandra Shah, Trust Chairman, the Gadhimai animal sacrifice finally came to an end.
Because one could not forget the suffering of so many animals, the ending of the sacrifice was not a joyful victory, but it was a decisive one.
In the words of Dr. Chinny Krishna, Chairman Emeritus of Blue Cross of India, “A tipping point had been reached, with the negative world-wide publicity of the senseless killing, the lower than expected numbers of those killed, and the Supreme Court’s rulings which would have ensured even smaller numbers of animals in 2019.”
An entrenched, blood-thirsty spectacle, which it seemed might never end, had been stopped by the will, the courage, and the dedication of the many who set aside their own wellbeing and comfort, and who never gave up in their fight to save hundreds of thousands, and over the years what would have become millions, of innocent animals.
© Sharon St Joan, 2015
Top photo: © Mcpics / Dreamstime.com
Second photo: © Erinpackardphotography / Dreamstime.com
Third photo: © Aleksandr Noskov / Dreamstime.com