After "Breaking India" and 'Being Different', here's the new title 'INDRA'S NET' by Rajiv Malhotra exploring the dimensions of Hindu identity post the historical references to the Aryan and Dravidian myths and the path-breaking ideologies trying to recoup the Western Interventions and offer insights into the hard core realities of an age old faith and Religion which is highly potent and emanating truths in the all encompassing 'satyam shivam sundaram' i.e, truth, harmony and beauty that has been the Indra's net. Every jewel in its node serve as a microcosm of the entire Universe being a whole in the living entity/ matter in cosmic level.
The authors see three major civilisations competing for global dominance today—the West (especially the US), China and Islam. All three have diabolical designs of splitting India, according to them, and they focus on Western efforts to break India. The problem we have is not in the study of Western intervention, though, curiously, Yankee Hindutva attempts to usurp the language of anti-imperialism.
The Hindu initiate is an active participant in his quest for adhyātma vidya (knowledge of the self). Malhotra aptly points out that none of the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, or Paul allowed for individual freedom. Instead they rejected individuality as something stained by Original Sin and even salvation in Christianity is a collective exercise. This denial of individuality in the religious realm extends to all walks of western life, and contrary to what westerners imagine they are not individualistic but highly institutionalized creatures. On the other hand, dharma frees one from conditioning, celebrates individualism, and leads one to the blissful state called satchitānanda. Unless the west rejects the foundational premises of Christianity as embodied in the Nicene Creed, it is not possible for westerners to pursue internal quest.
In Judeo-Christian traditions, revelation is initiated by God, from above, with the individual being a passive and submissive recipient. This process is highly history-centric, relies upon authority that is frozen in time, and allows for no direct experience. Dogma insists that one is born into Original Sin and human existence is sinful unless one seeks salvation from a historical prophetic tradition. But this salvation does not transform man into something sublime. God always remains an external agency and all that salvation means is that one escapes eternal condemnation to hell. These history-centric beliefs of Judeo-Christian systems also fail scientific scrutiny.
For example, Indian Classical music is non-linear and non-normative, and as a result possesses not only the musical note but also a melodic ecosystem complex called swara which has no equivalent in Western Classical music. Malhotra’s observation brings to mind Yehudi Menuhin’s rueful remark in his famous book Unfinished Journey that the tempered scale in Western Classical music where each note is adjusted up or down from its true center has corrupted western ears whereas the perfect fifth set by the tanpura in Indian Classical music is a criterion for all other intervals and has rendered the Indian ears sensitive to microtonal variations called ghamaka that westerners cannot comprehend. In an echo of Malhotra’s remark about Indian individualism vis-à-vis the lack of individualism in the west, Menuhin too remarks that whereas the Indian musician’s expressions celebrate his individual quest to unite with the infinite the western musician accepts loss of freedom for the sake of collectivism.
