CHAPTER – THREE
EDUCATION
Now we shall describe the Method of Study and Teaching.
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It is the chief business of the mother, the father, the preceptor and the relations that they should decorate their children with the ornaments of highest education, training, qualities, actions and habits. The soul of a man can never be beautified by wearing ornaments made of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, coral et cetra as the wearing of ornaments leads only to physical vanity, sensuality, fear of thieves and possibly to death also.
Blessed are those men and women whose mind is ever engaged in the pleasures of knowledge; who have formed good habits; who always obey the principles of truthfulness, et ceta; who are free from vanity and un-cleanliness; who remove the un-cleanliness of others; whose ornaments lie in the form of removing the pains of the worldly people by sound advice and education; and who devote themselves to the good of other by following the injunctions of the Vedaas.
— as soon as they are eight year old, girls should be sent to girls’ schools and boys to boys’ schools. They should not be put in charge of teachers of bad character, whether male or female. Only such persons are fit to undertake the work of teaching and training as are thoroughly educated and virtuous.
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All should get the same kinds of clothes, food and beddings, whether they be princes or princesses, or of poor families. They should all live a life of austerity. Neither the parents should meet their children, nor should children meet their parents. There should be no communication between them, so that they might be entirely free from the cares of the world and devote themselves exclusively to their studies.
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The father, mother or teacher should teach their boys and girls the Gayatri Mantra with its meaning. The mantra is as follows:
Om Bhur Bhuvah Svah. Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi, dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.
The first word of this mantra is OM. This has been explained in the first chapter. The reader is referred to it. Here we give in brief the meaning of three sacred syllables.
“bhuh” stands for the entity, who is the basis of the life of the whole universe, dearer than the breath itself and self-existent. “Bhuvah” is the name of the Lord, as He is free from all pains and His contact frees the souls from all troubles. “Swah” is the name of God as He pervades the multi-formed universe and sustains all.
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“O Almighty God, O embodiment of truth, intellect and bliss, O ever-pure, ever-wise and ever-free, O uncreated, unalloyed and unchangeable, O One that-is-within-all, O basis of all, Lord of the Universe, O creator of the whole world, O beginningless, O sustainer of all, O all-pervading, O ocean of the nectar of mercy, may we embrace or realize that excellent refulgence of Thine – who art our director-in-chief, dearer than our breath, et cetra.” What for is this prayer? “So that Thou mightiest direct our intellects.” “Thou art alone worthy of our worship. We do not acknowledge anyone else as Thy equal or Thy superior.”
The purpose of praying the Lord is that He being within our souls and intellects, will keep us away from evil-deeds and evil ways and will direct us towards the path of righteousness. Let us not worship anything but Himself. There is none His equal or superior. He alone is our father, king, judge and happiness-giver.
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Next, comes Praanaayaam or breathing exercise.
‘When a man does breathing exercises, every impurity is removed in quick succession and the light of knowledge dawns upon him. The inner light goes on increasing until the salvation is attained.’
-Yoga. 2//28
‘Just as the impurities of the metals, for example, gold et cetra, are destroyed by heating them in fire, similarly the defects of the mind and other senses are removed and their purity is achieved by the performance of the breathing exercise.’
-Manusmriti 6//71
method of the breathing exercises:
Just as strong vomiting throws out food and water, similarly the breath should be forcibly thrown out and checked there as long as possible. When the breath intends to move out, the anus should be pulled upward. So long the anus remains pulled upward, the breath remains outside. This is the way how to keep the breath out long. When there is a feeling of uneasiness, then the breath should be slowly drawn in. The above process should be repeated according to the capacity and desire. This should be accompanied by the recitation of the sacred syllable OM in the mind. This conduces to the purification and firmness of the soul and the mind.
Breathing exercise number one is ‘External’, that is, to check the breath outside. Number two is stopping the breath inside as long as possible. Number three is instant checking, that is, stopping the breath all at once at whatever place one desires.
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then stuti, praarthanaa and upaasanaa of God should be taught.
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Question-What benefit accrues from the performance of hom or fumigation rite?
Answer-All persons know that impure air and impure water cause diseases and diseases give pain to the creatures
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Question-Application of sandal paste to someone or giving of clarified butter et cetra for eating is very beneficial. There is no wisdom in wasting these things by consigning them to fire.
Answer-You would never have said such things, had you been conversant with the science of matter. No substance can perish in its entirety. Behold, wherever hom is performed, its good smell reaches the nose of a person standing at a place remote from it. So is the case with a bad smell. Just calculate thereby that a substance burnt in fire is rarefied and expands with the air and removes that impurities at a distant place.
Question-If this is the object, then it can be served by keeping in the house, saffron, musk, flowers and other scents. They will make the air well-scented and will please the occupants.
Answer-That scent has not the power to drive out the air of the house and replace it by purer air, as it does not possess power to rarefy. It is only fire that has the power of decomposing impure substances and throwing impure air out after rarefying it, which helps the purer air to come in place of impure air.
Question-Then, what is the object of reciting mantras in the performance of hom?
Answer-The mantras explains the uses of hom. Their recitation keeps them fresh in the memory. It helps the study of the Vedas and their preservation.
Question-Is it a sin not to perform this hom?
Answer-Yes! Because impurities coming out of a man’s body pollute air and water, cause diseases and do injury to other beings, to that extent he is committing a sin. In atonement for this, he should contribute so much or even more towards the purification of air and water. If these things are given to a man for eating and drinking, it will do good only to one individual. The amount of clarified butter and aromatic substances which a single individual can make use of is sufficient to do good to thousands of persons through the instrumentality of hom. But if men do not eat wholesome substances such as clarified butter, their body and mind cannot be developed. Therefore, they should by all means eat such things. But at the same time, hom too should be performed.
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the pupils should bear in mind that if he would keep strict celibacy in this life, then his body and soul will grow healthy and strong and his vital airs will actuate excellent qualities to reside in him.
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Yamaas are of five kinds.
First, Ahimsa or nonviolence, that is, freedom from ill will; second Truth of thought, word and deed; third, Asteyaor non-stealing, that is abandonment of theft by thought, word and deed; the fourth, Brahmacharya or control on sexual organ; the fifth, Aparigrah, that is, freedom from extreme covetousness or self-importance. These Yamaas and, not only, the niyamas should be followed with regularity. The five niyamas are given below:
First is shauch or cleanliness of the body through bathing et cetra. The second is santosh or contentment. Contentment does not mean that one should remain satisfied with one’s lot and do nothing. It means that one should do all that one can but should not feel sorrow or joy at loss or gain. The third is tap, that is, doing righteous deeds even in difficulties; the fourth is swadhyaayay or study and teaching. The fifth is ishwar-pranidhaan, that is, resigning or surrendering one’s self to God by special devoted-ness. These are five niyamaas. The niyamaas should not be followed without the yamaas, but both should be followed together.
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mahayajna or great duties, that is, five daily religious duties called Brahmayajna or contemplation of God, Devayajna or daily agni-hotra, Pitr-yajna or service of parents, Vaishvadeva or feeding the needy, Atithi-yajna or hospitality to guests.
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The rules of vacation are not applicable to the study and teaching of the vedaas, daily prayers and other daily duties, or homa-mantraas, as every-day-duties do not admit of any break. Just as respiration is an ever continuing work and cannot be withheld, similarly daily duties should be performed every day without break. —-.
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It is the duty of the learned men and scholars that they should be free from ill-will and conduct the people to the path of well-being. The teachers should always use sweet and decent language. Whoever is desirous of the propagation of righteousness should always follow the truth and advise others to do so.
A man who keeps his speech and mind pure and under control obtains all the good accruable from the study of the vedaas.
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The teacher enjoins male and female pupils thus: – always speak the truth; do righteous deeds; study without being indolent; acquire all knowledge after keeping your brahamcharya intact, that is, preserving vital fluid; enter married life and beget children after bringing presents to the preceptor; never be away from truth through indolence; never forsake righteousness through indolence; never lose sight of health and mental equilibrium through indolence; never slacken the proper development of your excellent talents through indolence; never abandon study and teaching through indolence; never slacken the service of the godly and learned persons, mother, father and the like; do show regard to the learned, and serve mother, preceptor and guests in the like-manner; do all unobjectionable and righteous actions, for example, truthfulness et cetra; never have recourse to those actions which are contrary to the above, such as falsehood et cetra, copy only those actions of ours which are good, that is, tally with the rules of conduct; never copy our improper actions; associate with only those persons in our midst who are learned and virtuous Brahman; and have confidence on them alone; give (charity) through faith; give through no faith; give through gracefulness; give through shame; give through fear; and give through promise; if you ever fall into any doubt about duty, behaviour, mode of worship or acquisition of knowledge, then follow the wise, impartial, yogins or non-yogins, soft-hearted, lovers of righteousness and noble-souled people. This is an injunction, this is an advice, this is the secret of the Vedaas, and this is instruction. You should behave and build your character in this way.
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Those who are desirous of knowing righteousness should ascertain it from the vedaas. What is righteous and what is not, cannot be rightly determined without the help of the vedaas.
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When all classes are educated and trained, nobody can introduce fraud or unrighteous hypocrisy. The upshot is that the Brahmanaas and Sanyaasis are the controllers of kshattriya et cetra and the kshattriyas et cetra are the controllers of the Brahmanaas and Sanyaasis. Therefore, males and females of all classes should be educated.
Now, the course of studies be very carefully examined. There are five ways of examination. Firstly, whatever is in agreement with the qualities, functions and nature of God and conforms to the vedaas is truth. The reverse is untruth. Secondly, what tallies with the laws of nature is truth and what does not, is untruth. For instance, if anybody says a son is born without the conjunction of father and mother, then it should be regarded as untruth as it is against the laws of nature. Thirdly, whatever is in consonance with the rules of conduct of the learned, truthful and fraud free people is acceptable and the contrary is unacceptable. Fourthly, purity of the self should be attained through education. Just as pleasure is agreeable to the self and pain disagreeable, so should it be supposed in cases of others also. Just as you like pleasure and dislike pain, so do others. Fifthly, there are eight proofs or sources of knowledge: namely, intuition (Pratyaksha), inferences, (Anumaan), comparison (Upamaan), verbal knowledge (sabda), tradition (Aitihya), presumption (Arthaapatti), probability (Sambhav) and negation (Abhav).
The definitions of these proofs as given below have been taken from the first and second chapters of the Nyayay darshan.
Ear, skin, eye, tongue, and nose come in direct (that is, without any medium) contact with sound, touch, form, taste and smell, and these senses come in contact with manas (mind) and mind with atmaa, that is, soul. The cognition produced by the contact is named pratyaksh or intuition or perception. But, this knowledge should not be the result of the relation which exists between name and the thing which this name stands for. For example, somebody said to a man, “Bring water.” He brought water and said, “Here is water.” Here the object which, the five-syllabled word ‘water’, stands for can be seen neither by the man, who ordered for the water, nor by the person, who was ordered to bring water.
The object of intuition is water itself, that is, the object of which the word ‘water’ is name. The knowledge arising from a word is the subject of ‘verbal testimony’ or verbal knowledge, that is, shabda pramaan. The second condition of intuition is that it should be avyabhichari. For instance, somebody seeing a pillar at night mistook it for a man. When he saw it at day, the knowledge of the man disappeared and there remained in its place the knowledge of pillar.
The knowledge which can so vanish is called vyabhichari, that is, changeable and cannot come under the category of intuition. This means, such knowledge should be unchangeable. The third condition is vyavasayatmak, that is, convincing. Somebody saw the sand on the river’s bank from afar and said, “Are clothes spread there? Or is it water or something else?” Or, somebody says “Is he Devadutt standing or Yajnadutt?” The knowledge cannot be called intuition until it is convincing. Thus, intuition, that is, Pratyaksh is only that which is free from these three defects, that is, first it should not be a knowledge arising from names; secondly, it should not be changeable and thirdly, it should be convincing.
Inference is that knowledge of an unperceived object, whose one part has been perceived from a far distance and the other part has been inferred on the ground of the whole object or a part having been perceived formerly at some time or place. Thus, inference has perception as its precedent. It is like, you infer the existence of father, when you see his son, or you infer the existence of fire when you see smoke on a hill, or you infer previous life when you observe pleasure and pain in this world.
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Third proof is upmaan or comparison. For example, somebody says to his servant, “Bring Vishnumitr here.” He says, “I have never seen him.” His master replies, “As is this Devdutt, so is that Vishnumitr.”
The fourth proof is authority or verbal knowledge.
The teachings of an Aapt, that is, true realizer are called authority.
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The vedaas come under the head authority as they are the Word of God. The words of those men are also authority who are true realizers in the above sense.
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high minded sages have put in their books intricate subjects in a very easy form. This advantage cannot be derived from the books of petty minded authors. The object of sages is to put difficult thing in an easy form, so that common people may get the maximum good from the minimum labour. But petty minded writers put everything in so difficult a form that you may work very hard and get very little. The study of the books of common authors is like digging a mountain and getting a shell; while the study of the sages is like diving once and obtaining precious pearls.
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the vedaas should be taught with meaning, not without meaning.
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He, who does a mere reading of the Vedaas, with accents without knowing their meaning is like a tree bearing the burden of branches, leaves, fruits or flowers, or like beasts of burden, carrying loads of corn et cetra. But he, who studies the Vedaas and understands the accurate meanings of them attains the life of full enjoyments and abandoning sins through the instrumentality of knowledge and righteous actions obtains beatitude after death.
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After having thus, studied the Vedaas, four-years should be devoted to आयुर्वेद or authoritative books on medicine written by sages, चरक, सुश्रुत, et cetra. Their study should comprise of theory and practice of the use of instruments, surgery, bandage, treatment, diagnosis, and of the knowledge of herbs, dietary, body, climate, weather et cetra.
After this comes the धनुर्वेदor the science of government.
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Now comes, the गन्धर्वेद or science and art of music comprising notes, modes, modifications, time, measure, scale, tune, air, instruments, dancing, singing et cetra.
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The अर्थवेद means economics or study of art and craft, industry, commerce and everything that is related to the material well-being of the people.
Two years should be devoted to the study of astronomy comprising of arithmetic, algebra, geography, geology and science of space.
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The educationists should so arrange that young students acquire all this knowledge within twenty or twenty-one years.
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But, in these books also, those portions should be left out which are contradictory to the teachings of the vedaas.
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These are all spurious and false books.
Question-Is there no truth at all in these books?
Answer-There is, of course, some truth in them; but the amount of untruth is much more. These books are worth abandoning like poisoned food.
Question-Have you no belief in the Puraanaas and History?
Answer-We have; but only in true ones, not in false ones.
Question-Which are true and which are false?
Answer-ब्राह्मणानितिहासान् पुराणानि कल्पान् गाथा नाराशंसीरिति ॥
It is a quotation from Grhya-sutra. Itihaas, Puraan, Kalp, Gaathaa, Narasamsi are the five names given to the Aitareya, Satpath and other Brahmanas not to Srimad-Bhaagavat et cetra.
Question-Why do you not accept that portion of the rejected books which is true?
Answer-Whatever is true in them belongs to true scriptures such as the Vedas; and whatever is false, is their own. The acceptance of the true scriptures such as the Vedas, covers the whole truth. If anybody wishes to take the true portion of these books, their untruth also clings to him. Therefore, the truth adulterated with falsehood should be quitted like poisoned food.
Question-What is your religion?
Answer-Our religion is Vedic, that is, we accept and reject those things which are respectively acceptable and rejectable according to the Vedaas. We believe in the Vedaas. All persons should believe so and the Aryas in particular, should profess no other faith than this and live harmoniously.
Answer-Do you regard knowledge as one or many? If one, how are grammar, medicine, astronomy etc. different? Just as knowledge is one, but its parts are different from one another, similarly creation is one but its six aspects are dealt with separately in six different systems of philosophy.
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Just in medical books, diagnosis, treatment, medicines, dietary, are dealt with differently under different heads, but the main object of all is the same, that is, the removal of pain; similarly, the world’s creation is due to six causes and they have been severally treated in the six shaastraas.
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Those things which stand in the way of studies should be carefully abstained from, for example, evil company or association with bad and sexual persons; bad habits such as drinking alcohal et cetra, prostitution, early marriage, that is, the marriage of a male before the age of twenty five and of a female before the age of sixteen; violation of Brahmacharya or sexual uncleanliness; aversion of the king, the parents, the men of learning, and the sacred books; over-eating; over-walking, indolence or in-sincerity in giving and taking examination; absence of consciousness of the value of learning; dis-belief in the Brahmacharya being the chief means of strength, wisdom, prowess, health, government and wealth; wasting time in the worship of idols et cetra in place of the worship of God; the reverse of venerating the parents; the preceptor, and other men of learning by believing them as the true objects of worship; violation of the rules of varnas and aashrmas and replacing them by the following absurdities as different kinds of sandal-pastes on the fore-head-one straight line, or three lines, or tilaks, wearing of kanthis (necklaces made of the wood of Tulsi plant et cetra) and rosaries; fasts of the 11th or 13th of the month; pilgrimage to बनारस et cetra; faith in the efficacy of the recitation of names Raam, Krishan, Naaraayan, Shiv, Bhagavati, Ganesh et cetra, in the removal of sins; disbelief in learning due to the teachings of hypocrites; belief in the reading of spurious Puraanaas as the means of salvation without learning, righteousness, yoga or God’s worship; greed or wealth and aversion for learning; wandering aimlessly. Such undesirable ways of living deprive students of the benefits of Brahmacharya and learning and keep them unhealthy and ignorant.
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Females and males both have a right to be educated – all men without distinction.
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Just as God has made the earth, water, fire, air, moon, the sun, eatable vegetation and other objects for all, similarly, He has revealed the vedaas too for all.
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Question-Should women also read the Vedaas?
Answer-Surely.
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Household affairs, conjugal happiness and home-keeping are the things which can never be satisfactorily accomplished unless women are well educated.
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Therefore, they alone deserve our thanks and realize the full advantage of their lives who enable their children to observe Brahmcharya, get sound education, develop their body and mind and behave mannerly with parents, husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law, king, people, neighbours, friends and children. The treasure of learning is imperishable. It increases by giving. Other treasures decrease by spending.
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The recalcitrant parents should be penalized. Nobody should be allowed, under state rules, to keep his daughter and son at home after the age of eight years. They must be sent to school and should not be allowed to marry before the completion of education—.
The charity of teaching the vedaas is the best of all charities, that is, of water, food, cow, land, clothes, oil-seeds, gold, butter et cetra.
LIGHT OF TRUTH: CHAPTER – ONE | CHAPTER – TWO | CHAPTER – THREE | CHAPTER – FOUR| CHAPTER – FIVE| CHAPTER – SIX| CHAPTER – SEVEN | CHAPTER – EIGHT| CHAPTER – NINE | CHAPTER – TEN
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