"Da, Da, Da": What the Thunder Said (part-2)

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(contd. from earlier post)

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One by one, Prajapati's students troop up to him and

ask their Master for a final word of 'instruction' in

a touching gesture of farewell. The entire story, in

fact, if we read it carefully, reminds us of what in

any modern university campus might be the scene of a

solemn Convocation (or 'Graduation') ceremony.

 

Today's Convocation ceremony (at Indian universities

that I know or read about) is however anything but

solemn. It is not anymore the teacher, the real hero

of the piece, whose honour it is to address students

on such a momentous occasion in their lives. It is the

local political big-wig, a mayor or senator, or a

high-ranking government official, or else a corporate

or stock-market tycoon who is invited to make an

appearance, don the academic robe and "grace" (!) the

occasion. Nowhere can anyone anymore see university

convocations reflecting the true spirit of the real

ceremony... which is to invoke and celebrate that

ancient Upanishadic ideal of the Master-Pupil

relationship.

 

In the story, Prajapati's convocation address to his

students consists of nothing more pithy than 3

syllables -- "Da, Da, Da". This strikes us as a bit of

over-dramatization but there is far more wisdom in 3

little syllables of the Upanishad than there is

perhaps in all the gaseous verbosity of a present-day

VIP's Convocation speech. Prajapati's final

instruction to his students is in fact a clear, even

if slightly histrionic, enunciation of the true value

and purpose of all education: Evolve, Evolve, Evolve.

 

 

In the Upanishadic university, education does not

culminate at a Graduation ceremony where a diploma or

doctrate is handed out or conferred. Education only

inaugurates Evolution; Education ends when it is clear

that Evolution has truly begun. The students of

Prajapati are in effect told by their teacher, "My

children, your creation and education may have been my

responsibility all these years but your evolution is

now in your own hands. You are now masters of your own

destiny. Your education cannot perfect you. It is what

you do with it that will decide what you might become

and what you will be".

 

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The extent of a man's education can be easily measured

by the Degree, Diploma or Doctrate he has earned. How

to similarly ascertain the extent of his evolution?

 

The Upanishad teaches us to measure it using three

"Da-s": 'dama', 'datta' and 'dayA' -- self-control,

charity and compassion. "Prajapati's children" are

three in number -- 'dEva', 'manushya' and 'asura' and

each, in effect, represents a measure of Man's

evolution.

 

The "dEva" (sometimes also called 'dEvata' in the

Vedic pantheon) is a benign celestial with superhuman

powers and qualities (e.g. "varuNa", 'agni', 'vAk'

etc.). The "asura" is also an equal superhuman but of

a demonaic mould. The Vedic 'purANAs' are full of

illustrations of the 'asuric' character (e.g.

Hiranyakasipu, SakatAsura etc.). The "manushya" is

that specie all the world knows as 'the ordinary man'

-- the being who is a curious, sometimes tragic

amalgam of both celestial and the satanic, of Beauty

and the Beast, of both the sublime and the slime...

 

The Upanishad story explodes here the myth which the

so-called 'Man of Science', for a very long time

indeed, had held about himself: the myth that he,

great 'homo-sapien', represented the crowning

achievement of Evolution, biological and otherwise;

that with the arrival of Man on earth, Nature's work

stood, once and for all, fulfilled. In PrajApati's

estimation however, we see the evolution of "manushya"

in a far less flattering light. Man's advancement is

clearly rated 'second-grade', stranded as he seems at

a forlorn cross-road somewhere in no-man's land

between inhuman 'asurA' and demigodly 'dEva'.

 

************

(to be continued)

 

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

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