Three civilizational design principles in the VedA. Civilizational continuity in a changing world. A Perspective on Response of Hindu AchAryAs to Changing Patterns of RtA. The non-response to 15th century European incursions in the South of India. Continuing Non-Response to the 21st Century Globalism.

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Civilizational  Continuity in a Changing World

By Jayant Kalawar, August 23, 2023

About 3500 to 2500 years before now, there seems to have been a phase when DharmA in BhArat, was in a long period of decay especially in its political economy (governed by Artha ShAstra) and social formations (governed by KAma shAstra). Research and analysis may be required to understand how the decay in the network of bronze age civilizations^[i], beginning about 3500 years before now, played into such decay of DharmA in BhArat. In the meanwhile, the contradictions in the Dharma SutrAs of GautamA for example, provide us a glimpse of how DharmA was applied during that range of time. The SutrAs describe how large masses of the mAnav sanghatanA were to be treated with an iron hand. On the other hand, those entrusted with understanding the changing nature of RtA and use of the over-arching principles given by the Rishis to adapt DharmA to desh-kaal-paristhiti, did not seem to be active. As a reaction to such prevailing decay of DharmA, there seems to have emerged an energetic reaction among the mAnav sanghatanA, around about 2500 years ago there began emerging multiple intellectual responses to this civilizational slide. KautilyA in India. Aristotle in Greece. Han Fei in China. All three intellectual responses were focused on humans as social and political beings – thus the formulations were in terms of KAma and Artha shAstrAs^[ii]

At around the same time, BhArat also experienced a different response to this crisis: that of Siddharth Gautama (about 5^th century BCE) was one manifestation. Siddhartha Gautama not only gave up his Kingship role (Raj DharmA) but also his role as GrihastashramA. He seems to have articulated the challenge that Hindu AchAryAs had failed to provide guidance on how DharmA practices should adapt to changing in RtA. However, instead of working on re-building VedA based DharmA, Siddhartha Gautama chose a different path: of an assertion that samsArA was full of suffering with personal liberation (NirvANa) the only way out of that suffering of endless births.

Siddhartha GautamA’s response with his pivot to personal liberation as the only path to release from samsArA was  mainstreamed by Emperor AshokA about 2300 years ago. Subsequent to this pivot, intellectual conversation on social technologies  based on VedAngAs (which form the basis for Artha and Kama shastras, including state building) seems to have come to a stand-still among Hindu AchAryAs^[iii]. The capacity on the Hindu civilization to respond to changing dynamic nature of RtA declined. Hindu civilization became vulnerable to attacks from non-Hindu mAnav sanghatanA.

To understand this point of dynamic nature of RtA better, let me take a short diversion. Humans are able to observe certain (very limited) bandwidth of cosmic rhythms (the major part of RtA). For example the rhythm of the Moon that is correlated with the tides, Sun’s annual (solar year, which is how humans broadly share and manage time globally in this epoch) north-south pulsation giving rise to seasons. There are other pulsations of much lower frequency: consider the axial precession of the Earth, which apparently has a frequency of about 25,800 solar years. Our ancestors were cognizant of this. Shastras based on Vedanga Jyotish were an attempt to research and regenerate a more subtle human understanding of RtA. The HC has not tended to researching and developing of this area of knowledge for at least more than a millennia. Consider for example, the possibility that annual solar cycles undergo small changes which accumulate and result in climate changes in the hemispheres, through the progression of precession of the equinox^[iv]:

Axial precession makes seasonal contrasts more extreme in one hemisphere and less extreme in the other. Currently perihelion occurs during winter in the Northern Hemisphere and in summer in the Southern Hemisphere. This makes Southern Hemisphere summers hotter and moderates Northern Hemisphere seasonal variations. But in about 13,000 years, axial precession will cause these conditions to flip, with the Northern Hemisphere seeing more extremes in solar radiation and the Southern Hemisphere experiencing more moderate seasonal variations.

There have been variations in seasons even within the 13000 years, which then have given rise to changes in rhythm for humans. This may have lead to seasonal migrations from the steppes to the plains, with annual raids as a means of production against the settled agricultural societies. Not only is RtA dynamic, its patterns reflect the entire range of short and long term spandanA of the cosmos.

The question that arises, if we were to assume dynamic nature of RtA, is: How can mAnav jAti shape and maintain DharmA by continually aligning with dynamic RtA?

Diminished Capacity of DharmA to Help Grihastashrama Flourish?

Hindu DharmA may have seen diminished capacity to provide the protection (physical security) and abundance (economic security) due to the intellectual pivot away from focus on supporting Grihastashrama and towards aspiring for moksha as the solution to suffering of samsarA, about 2500 years ago. I would like to offer a more contemporary perspective on the challenge that Hindu AchAryAs face if they wish to be responsive and adaptive to dynamic nature of RtA in the 21^st century.

As many of you know, there are broadly two types of Artificial Intelligence (AI – neural network programmed big data computing) models. One is classificatory AI model that can be trained once and then used for ever to select cat images from among a large collection of random images. The basic building block for this type of classificatory modeling is the subject-predicate-object model. Same as the core of the VyAkaraNa rules laid down by Maharishi PANini^[v] about 2500 years ago for Samskrit. These classificatory models can then begin generating sentences with meaning as well (see for example Open AI GPT-3). Flourishing of Samskrit literature post PANini did that as well.^[vi]

The other broad type of AI model is time series based, where it keeps learning and training itself, based on new data it actively looks for. For example Alpha Go. The reinforcement learning method enables opening up new areas that humans have not thought of. The latest example, at this time of writing, is successful use of Alpha Tensor to develop a more efficient way to do matrix multiplications, which are core to AI and require considerable computing power and therefore energy^[vii]. Cultures which have this capability to learn from changing environmental patterns may have a better chance of adapting and of being resilient to protect and sustain their Grihastashrama configuration. Hindu AchAryAs due to their focus on personal liberation^[viii] (Moksha Shastra) led by non-Grishastas (Brahmacharis, Swamis, renunciates from KAma and Artha) in about the last 2500 years, may have under-cut its cultural intellectual capacity to monitor, learn and respond to changing patterns of RtA. For example, consider how the following popular verse from the Bhagavad Gita was interpreted by most (and perhaps all) SAmpradAyA Gurus^[ix] from the Moksha shastra lens (and I then offer an interpretation through my Artha Shastra lens):

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि।।2.47।।^[x]

Sri RAmAnujAchAryA’s commentary is helpful in providing perspective for this verse through the Moksha ShAstra lens: “As for obligatory, occasional and desiderative acts taught in the Vedas and associated with some result or other, you, an aspirant established in Sattva, have the right only to perform them”^[xi]. First, the AchArYA narrows down the actions to KarmAs (actions) prescribed in the Karma Kanda of the VedAs. He further narrows it down to say the guidance is being given to those already established in Sattva (thus being devoid of Rajas and Tamas). And the guidance is that such individuals should perform actions set forth in the VedAs without asking for anything in return and without expecting any fruits from performing the VedA prescribed Karma KAnda actions.

More recent pracharaks and commentators of the Bhagavad Gita, while recognizing the Gita as a Moksha Shastra, no longer nuance that the actions it references are Karma Kanda actions and applicable only to those established in Sattva (hence free of Rajas and Tamas). The exhortation of doing work without expectations of fruit is made applicable to all actions and to all individuals^[xii]. How does such guidance, provided through the Moksha shastra lens, impact functioning of GrihastashramA in a rapidly changing material world that most Hindus experience? From their commentary it is clear that Hindu AchAryAs approach the Bhagavad Gita as a Moksha Shastra. How does that help with encouraging curiosity and initiative required to monitor, learn and adapt to be resilient in a dynamic RtA? How does it assist in applying the desh-kaal-paristhiti principle to enable robust GrihastashramA?

Now let us see how an alternative perspective of the first line of the Bhagavad Gita verse 2-47 from an ArthA perspective may provide different guidance:

You may act (karmaNye) to the best of your competence (the adhikAra you have acquired). However, the fruits from your actions (phaleshu) are not (mA) certain (kadAchana).

Introducing the sense of certainty / uncertainty may enable exploration of the dynamic nature of RtA in particular desh-kaal-paristhiti states. It may open up curiosity for ways of collaborating in the rapidly moving theater of the Devi. An integral part of the script in the Devi’s theater for mAnav sanghatanA is playing out of GrihastAshramA. The backdrop in the theater and other actors and scripts (whether climate, natural environment, multiple mAnav sanghatanA each with its own culture) they speak may keep changing. But the core RtA, enduring pattern, for mAnav sanghatanA is an effective and enduring GrihastAshramA process. So what may help Hindu Civilizational renaissance is VedA based DharmA that is dynamic and cognizant of the changes in RtA to enable flourishing of Hindu GrihastashramA.

MAnav sanghatanA experiences changes in RtA from two broadly different sources: a) the change in patterns of natural environment and b) the change in patterns due to human produced technologies. Given the rapid development of human constructed technologies in the last two hundred years, this source of changing patterns needs to be recognized while considering DharmA configurations to support Grihastashrama in the 21^st century. These pattern changes have been introduced by technologies developed mostly by non-Hindu mAnav sanghatanA. Have Hindu grihastAs adapted to these technology driven pattern changes through ad hoc imitation, rather than thoughtful DharmA based adaptation? That is explored in the next section.

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[i] Research about late bronze age civilizational network has mostly been focused in the eastern meditarranean. See for example: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208015/1177-bc . The BhAratiya civilizations may have been a key player

[ii] See for example http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html and https://phi.project.sinica.edu.tw/%E5%BB%96%E6%96%87%E5%A5%8E/1939The%20Complete%20Works%20of%20Han%20Fei%20Tzu%20A%20Classic%20of%20Chinese%20Political%20Science%20(scan).pdf

[iii] I include brahmacharis and Swamis associated with MathAs as being buddhi-jeevi, Hindu AchAryAs.

[iv] https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/

[v] In turn based on the core model of human cognition given by the VedAs: prameta-pramANa-prameya.

[vi] Hindu culture is well accomplished in this classificatory model, with its major regional languages adopting PANini’s VyAkaraNa as their grammar, beginning sometime in the 8^th-9^th century CE (Kannada language is said to be the first regional language to have accomplished this through the RashtrakutA court).

[vii] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03166-w?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email accessed on October 10^th 2022.

[viii] Hindu AchAryAs use the tools they gain from study of MimAsA (structured interpretation) based on VyAkaraNA (grammar of MaharishI PANinI) and TarkA (logic again based on VyAkaraNA). These are tools help generate abstract mental models that are internally consistent in their logic. They do not support modeling and production of systematized knowledge of the vibrant pulsating cosmos that humans experience with their every breath.

[ix] See translations of commentaries by Acharya Sri SankarA, Acharya Sri AbhinavguptA and AchAryA Sri RAmAnujA at https://www.gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in/srimad?language=dv&field_chapter_value=2&field_nsutra_value=47&setgb=1&etassa=1&etradi=1&choose=1

[x] https://www.gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in/srimad?language=dv&field_chapter_value=2&field_nsutra_value=47

[xi] Ibid

[xii] For examples, see Swami Vivekananda as quoted at https://vivekavani.com/bhagavad-gita-chapter-2-verse-47/