Guest guest Posted September 7, 2001 Report Share Posted September 7, 2001 Namaste. It is interesting to imagine the life pattern of Upanishadic ages. How did a common man live in everyday life: - A carpenter - A father - A mother - A farmer - A goldsmith - A merchant - A lawyer - A law-keeper such as a policeman - Young people - School-going children - A king - A priest - A thief - A money-lender - A soldier What was the life-pattern of a poor man, a rich man. What were the various occupations practiced. How was a village/town/kingdom organised : - Buildings, offices etc - People overseeing law and taxes - People practising various professions - Entertainment centres - Prisons - Land and farming Temples: - Who were the deities - - Varuna,Mitra,Sun,Rudra/Shiva, Vishnu ... (There was no Krishna, Rama, Harishchandra ...) - Was there a solid structure for temples or was it only the yagnas. Food: - What were the various preparations Trade: - How did they trade - What was the currency Clothes and dresses: - What did various people wear. Pets and other animals: Art: - Music, dance, Scupting, etc. With the above static picture, a day-to-day life flow may be further interesting. - How did people start each day (by offering to the Divine in each person their day ahead ? ) - How did they conduct their daily activities (cheerfully with karma-yoga ?(the term itself coined later on)) - How do they react to floods, fire, deaths, earthquakes etc (cheerfully but with vigour ? ) - How do they react to strangers entering community (I have a suspicion they treated strangers like honourable kings ?) - How did people end each day (with peace that all was done in the way of the Lord in each person ?) - How did they react to a not so learned person entering a scholarly discussion - How did they react to a king entering their community - How did they react to a law-breaker, a priest, a merchant, a scholarly person, a commonperson , etc. - etc .... Just some thoughts ... With Love, Raghava Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 7, 2001 Report Share Posted September 7, 2001 Namaste, Answers to at least some of these are available in: Life in the Upanishads ~ Special Order Shubhra Sharma / South Asia Books / December 1985 Amazon Price: $15.00 Read more about this title... ... www.hindushops.com/bookstore/top50_upanishads.shtml - advaitin, raghavakaluri wrote: > Namaste. > > It is interesting to imagine the life pattern of > Upanishadic age. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 8, 2001 Report Share Posted September 8, 2001 9th Sep, --- Raghava Kaluri <raghavakaluri wrote: > It is interesting to imagine the life pattern of > Upanishadic ages. How did a common man live in everyday life > What was the life-pattern of a poor man, a rich man. > What were the various occupations practiced. > How was a village/town/kingdom organised : Hari Om. There are several aspects to this topic: A) Given that there no siginificant technology available at that time, the common people would have had a more difficult time manually but perhaps with more peace of mind. Even now, a citizen in any major metro is far too busy to be contemplative of life rather than a villager. While the Upanashiads have a lot of spiritual siginificance, it was unlikely, due to the style of living of common people. The theoriziation and conceptualization did not go up from common man to the Sages but it was more the other way. B) As the case histroy of Adi Shankara clealry demonstrates, even in adverse circumstances when Buddhism prevailed among scholars and Vedic tradition had degenerated, it was possible to reorient & resurrect it, in One single life span, due to the strong underlying philosophy and this should be the aspect to our group's study and research. The seemingly impossible can be done. Society can be changed positively, no matter what is the current attitude among a large segment of population. C)India or Bharat was not one country at that time where all people behaved the same way more or less. Just as today Islam is spread over 50 countries and in which in about 25- it is the state releigion, but Muslims have widely different daily habits in different countries, more dependent on Economic & security conditons rather than on spiritual beliefs alone. To generalize the life of one Rishi or one Gurukula or one village on the whole population may be incorrect statistically. D) For some reason, Indians or rather the Original natives with belief in Vedas & upanishads did not seem to have kept detailed historical records in writing and circualated authorized copies. This may be because of lack of technology such as-the paper, ink and print technology. The oral tradion predominated and only so much could be memorized and repeated exactly or for that matter, interestingly. The foreign visitors and invaders kept better records than locals. With Pranams P.B.V.Rajan Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Messenger http://im. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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