[Advaita-l] Traditional Scholarship vs Modern Pseudo-Intellectualism

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

In olden days people were walking to Kashi and do Kashi Yatra. Today they
travel in trains and planes to Kashi and have Darshan of Kashi Vishwanath.
We cannot say even today also we have to walk to Kashi like the traditional
method. It is not practical because people have become physically and
mentally weak. We have to adjust to the modern developments.

In olden times all Brahmins were memorizing whole Veda and say mantras not
looking at books. Today only one or few people in hundred know only some
portions of the Veda by heart. All others say mantras looking at books. We
are mentally weak now than people in olden times. We have to accept that.
We cannot memorize that much.


On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Rajaram Venkataramani <
rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Memorising improves logical reasoning. Please look at Stanford research
> on the topic.
>
> http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/YuanEtal_WorkingMemory.pdf
>
>
> Originally, academic interest in other faiths was to defeat and then arose
> a genuine interest
> to learn diverse human experience as an outsider. Now, there is a shift in
> the stand to actually
> experience as an insider. In fact, Islam and Christianity are primarily
> taught by practitioners in the
> Universities. Western Universities are extending this privilege to
> Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism
> and Jainism also. Oxford Centre of Hindu Studies is headed by Shaunaka
> Rishi, a practising
> Gaudiya Vaishnava. Shri Mani Dravid Sastrigal expressed concerns about how
> students of
> Sanskrit College have to go through so many courses without assimilating
> and internalising.
>
> I am not asking for too much when I say that Universities should also teach
> traditions as per
> traditional methods - at least give that option. It is fanatical to say
> that they should only teach
> as per modern methods. There are serious epistemological issues in modern
> methods, which is
> obvious to any one who knows even the basics of the system of pramana. FYI,
> many academics
> understand that point of view that traditional experience should be part of
> traditional education.
>
> The problem is even many modern mutts don't teach tradition in a
> traditional way. At the root of
> the problem is a lack of bhakti, which is seen as a sentiment rather than
> as ontologically supreme.
> Without bhakti, to guru and Ishwara, it is impossible to learn tattva. The
> logical defence of bhakti
> assumes great significance in that context.
>
> On Tuesday, July 23, 2013, Venkatesh Murthy wrote:
>
> > Namaste
> >
> > Even in teaching Sanskrit also the modern methods are making the learning
> > interesting for students. The old tradition methods make the students to
> > learn more by memorization but not giving a lot of examples. They were
> good
> > for olden times. Students knew a lot of Sanskrit words already and were
> > good in spoken Sanskrit. But now students do not know many Sanskrit words
> > and Sanskrit is not the mother tongue. Examples must be given at every
> > step.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Venkata Subramanian <
> > venkat_advaita at yahoo.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com <javascript:;>>
> > > To: Advaita List <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org <javascript:;>>
> > > Sent: Monday, 14 November 2011 8:57 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Traditional Scholarship vs Modern
> > > Pseudo-Intellectualism
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > b. There is  something to be learnt from professors in a modern
> academic
> > > institution. If in today's world, we want to articulate a nuanced
> > > restatement
> > > of traditional positions on the role of revelation in our own
> > philosophical
> > > traditions, we HAVE to reckon with more than three hundred years of
> > > academic
> > > study of Indian traditions that has now been firmly established. And
> > > rather than
> > > find fault with all of academia in a blanket sweeping fashion, learn
> from
> > > it and
> > > reconfigure how to utilize the skills you may learn from it, in order
> to
> > > further
> > > your own intellectual purposes.
> > >
> > > == Well said.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Venkat.
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
> > --
> > Regards
> >
> > -Venkatesh
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh