An Article about Sri U.Ve., M.A Lakshmi Thathachariyar of Melkote

[Guest guest]

Dear Srivaishnavas,

 

Adiyen came across this article in a website (which ofcourse may be

old and may have been put in the forum before), neverthless posting

this once more will enlighten the srivaishnavas of the kainkaryams

to the sanatatna dharma and Srivaishnavism as a whole, by Swami.

please visit the following address for the article.

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/75/

 

Quote"

To many, Sanskrit is a dead language. Some think it's a 'useless'

language. Quite a few Hindus preen themselves that it is exclusively

theirs. But did you know serious scholars are beginning to marvel at

the rigour, reach and secularism of Sanskrit? Many of these --all

over the world-- are mining it for values the modern world can

benefit by. But nearly no one does this exposition with greater

commitment, catholicity and religious neutrality than Prof M A

Lakshmi Thathachar at the Academy of Sanskrit Research, Melkote,

Karnataka. On the 15 acres of the Academy, the assertions in

Sanskrit texts regarding ecology, farming, health and right living

are on view. The Professor is a farmer, livestock breeder,

conservationist, researcher, teacher, computer adept and most of

all, a man who embodies all that is best in the Indian tradition. He

is a Renaissance man unique to India.

An ancient seat:

Melkote [pronounced 'May-l-kottay'] claims a connection with

Sanskrit since the mythical times when Saint Dattatreya is said to

have taught his disciples the 'true knowledge'. More certainly,

history confirms a connection at least since the 12th Century when

Sr Ramanujar, scholar, social reformer, father of the bhakti

movement and founder of Vishistadvaita philosophy made Melkote his

home. One of his devotees -- Ananthalvan -- is a direct ancestor of

Lakshmi Thathachar. Their family, has been custodians of Sanskritic

heritage ever since. One of the country's oldest, formal Sanskrit

college was formed in Melkote in early nineteen century.

Young Lakshmi Thathachar was a robust young man, farming the acre

behind his house. He produced all the vegetables and fruits for the

family. He tended the household cattle. He had a scientific bent of

mind too and wanted to study science in college. But his father

forbade him 'sciences'. It was feared he would be distracted by the

western way of thought and miss the self-contained scientific system

in Sanskrit. Thathachar -- now 68 -- feels his father was right. He

worked for his Masters in Sanskrit at Madras university. While at

it, he was also a pupil at a small gurukulam run by the great

Sanskrit scholar, Sri Karappankadu Venkatachariar. The learned man

was ageing and repeatedly urged Thathachar to build a centre that

will bring the works of Sri Ramanujar to the world. That message was

to remain with him throughout his career in Bangalore University as

Professor of Sanskrit.

In nearer history, Melkote had been ruled by a dynasty founded by

Yaduraya. His clan had built several water retaining structures --

kalyanis-- of great effectiveness and beauty. A small scholarly

community had thriven there. In early 19th century, Tipu Sultan's

army descended on a Deepavali day and massacred 800 citizens, mostly

of a sect known as Mandyam Iyengars. Sanskrit scholarship had been

their forte. [To this day Melkote does not celebrate Deepavali].

That slaughter rendered Melkote a near ghost town. Its

environmentally connected life was broken, kalyanis went to ruin,

water shortage became endemic, the hills went brown. Sanskrit lost a

home.

Revival begins:

By 1977 Thathachar had persuaded the Karnataka government to

commission an Academy of Sanskrit Research. He was given 15 acres in

Melkote, if he would set up the Academy; funds for building and

running the centre however was not assured. He had to depend on his

considerable reputation and energies to raise the money. He took the

challenge on. He quit his job as professor and returned home. An

adventure awaited him.

Thathachar stood on the windswept ridge allocated for the Academy.

Years of deforestation and water run off had rendered it a rock

strewn moonscape. From the valley below the wind howled. Most of the

stone-stepped kalyanis lay in disrepair. The Academy buildings and

research teams seemed far away and impossible.

He began at what he knew. The line of Ananthalvan of which he was

the current heir, had always been the chosen one for gathering and

bringing various strictly specified flowers for worship. The 'sthala

purana' ['local history'] extensively described the flora and fauna

of the hills. Thathachar decided to recreate a garden that will hark

back to the gentle times.

This was easier conceived than done. It was then that Thathachar re-

discovered the Hallikar bulls. These had been Tipu's beasts of

burden dragging his guns and carrying his rations and other supplies

to war. They have a fine head and their horns crown them well. They

are fierce, fast, strong and loyal. It was said Tipu would tie

flaming torches to their horns and drive them to speed at nights; it

was Tipu's 'shock and awe' play.

Thathachar recruited this proud, handsome, native species for a new

enterprise now, and began to breed them. The Hallikars were used to

bring soil, water and materials to the Academy site which was up a

gentle slope from the temple town. Soil was strategically filled in

the hollows between rocks and he began to plant them with jasmines,

sampige and other Indian flowering trees and shrubs. As the garden

formed in this hard rock place, the professor --without any place to

research Sanskrit yet-- began to observe the emerging world around

him. He dipped into the texts to learn of 'rishi-krishi paddati' or

the system of zero cultivation. His growing Hallikar herd and rising

grove meshed with each other and encircled Thathachar. He doesn't

take organic material to compost somewhere. He lets material fall

where they might. He takes raw dung and piles it over organic

matter. There they lie and decompose and create soil again. Today

after 24 years of this practice there are 300 species of plants

growing in mixed wilderness. There are 26 species of jasmine alone.

Between running around for funds to construct the Academy buildings

Thathachar has remained focused on letting nature rebuild desolated

wasteland. When some old houses were being demolished in Melkote

town, he discovered the walls were made of rich red earth. His

Hallikars ran convoys for days carrying this rich rubble to his

rocky estate. The clumps were broken down and spread everywhere. He

restored eight lined kalyanis and unlined ponds within the campus.

He harvests no more than half the fruits and flowers. "It is the way

of the wild. One takes what one needs and lets the rest feed the

birds and animals or drop to the ground to rot. Modern farming

thinks it is smart to maximise produce and wipe it clean. The

ancient way was to live with nature, not treat it as a profit

centre," he says.

>From land to knowledge:

When the handsome centre was eventually built it stood in a micro

landscape that approximated to what the ancient texts described.

>From there he leapt to very modern times. It was a time when desktop

computers began to be affordable. Thathachar was quick to scent

their importance and relevance to his work. He soon became an

adept. "I simply exposed myself to it and realised its potential,"

he says by way of explaining how he can handle all the gear and

understand how programming languages work.

The Academy began to publish authentic English translations of Sri

Ramanujar's works as also treatises on Vishishtadvaita. He began to

collect works written on palm leaves. He went all over south India

and householders happily gave him their heirlooms. "This is what is

marvellous about an India not yet gone 'modern'," he says. "In the

West people would hand these to Sotheby's for getting the greatest

price; the people I met gave them away when I told them I would care

for them." He has a collection of over 10,000 palm based texts, 850

rare old paper texts and over 25,000 books -- all related to

Sanskrit. A large bowl of lemon grass oil is constantly kept warm

amidst the array of shelves. It is enough to effectively preserve

the treasures.

The Academy has state of the art facilities for digitisation of

vulnerable texts. It has an in-house printing press. Thathachar has

gathered a team of Sanskrit scholars from all over India to organise

the texts for publication. The Academy also publishes media for

popularising Sanskrit learning. There are lexicons and commentaries

for students.

With passing time however, it is becoming clear that Sanskrit is

just the visible skin over a vast throbbing organism called

cosmos. "How silly to think Sanskrit is a language for a ritual or a

religion," he says. And then asks: "Tell me how you

translate 'gyan'? You'd say knowledge, knowledge system etc and you

would still not have captured the spirit of the word. The closest

perhaps is, 'right and total knowledge of the cosmos'"

 

Approaches to the source:

Lakshmi Thathachar's view of Sanskrit's nature may be paraphrased as

follows: All modern languages have etymological roots in classical

languages. And some say all Indo-European languages are rooted in

Sanskrit, but let us not get lost in that debate. Words in Sanskrit

are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives object

oriented programming [OOP] today. For example, in English 'cow' is a

just a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill

down the word 'gau' --Sanskrit for 'cow'-- you will arrive at a

broad class 'gam' which means 'to move. From these

derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of 'movement'.

All words have this OOP approach, except that defined classes in

Sanskrit are so exhaustive that they cover the material and

abstract --indeed cosmic-- experiences known to man. So in Sanskrit

the connection is more than etymological.

It was Panini who formalised Sanskrit's grammer and usage about 2500

years ago. No new 'classes' have needed to be added to it since

then. "Panini should be thought of as the forerunner of the modern

formal language theory used to specify computer languages," say J J

O'Connor and E F Robertson. <http://www-gap.dcs.st-

and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Panini.html> Their article also

quotes: "Sanskrit's potential for scientific use was greatly

enhanced as a result of the thorough systemisation of its grammar by

Panini. ... On the basis of just under 4000 sutras [rules expressed

as aphorisms ], he built virtually the whole structure of the

Sanskrit language, whose general 'shape' hardly changed for the next

two thousand years."

Every 'philosophy' in Sanskrit is in fact a 'theory of everything'.

[The many strands are synthesised in Vedanta --Veda + anta--, which

means the 'last word in Vedas'.] Mimamsa, which is a part of the

Vedas, <http://www.san.beck.org/EC11-Hindu.html> even ignores the

God idea. The reality as we know was not created by anyone --it

always was--, but may be shaped by everyone out of free will. Which

is a way of saying --in OOP terms-- that you may not touch the

mother or core classes but may create any variety of instances of

them. It is significant that no new 'classes' have had to be

created. Thathachar believes it is not a 'language' as we know the

term but the only front-end to a huge, interlinked, analogue

knowledge base. The current time in human history is ripe, he feels

for India's young techno wizards to turn to researching Mimamsa and

developing the ultimate programming language around it; nay, an

operating system itself.

Professor's wish-list

1-- Funds are always short for running the Academy and creating new

facilities. The Professor spends most of his time running around to

raise the required funds and is beginning to tire of this non-

creative work. He seeks generous well-wishers to come forward to

relieve him of this chore. A detailed proposal for potential donors

is available which lists requirement of funds for capital and

recurring costs. You may email the Professor

<asrbng directly to receive the document.

2-- Academy's website <http://www.sanskritacademy.org>is somewhat

dated and requires a facelift. Professor readily admits the Acdemy

does not have in-house skills to build a contemporary site to

showcase its works. He seeks enthusiastic youngsters to redesign,

host and maintain the website. It would of course mean that

volunteers would have an interest in the work of the Academy and are

willing to set aside regular time for running the site and also

raise the required money for hosting it.

3-- The Professor yearns for young post doctoral computer science

researchers at the cutting edge to spend extended periods at the

Academy to explore ways of developing natural language computing

based on Sanskrit. Modest, comfortable accommodation can be provided

though the Academy is not in a position pay any stipends. Better

than emailing, it is better to talk over the phone or best, pay a

visit after making an appointment.

4--The Professor's greatest dream is to create a Gurukulam at a five

acre piece of land available near teh Academy. He would like it to

be his final endeavour to show that Sanskrit-learning can lead to

viable, contemporarily relevant careers. For something like about

Rs. 10 lakhs a new educational system can be pioneered. Prospective

donors can also particiapte in developing the curriculum. Please

write to the Professor <asrbng

Thathachar believes that not enough is being done to explore the

rich veins in Sanskrit's knowledge mines. Yoga, ayurveda,

architecture, music, dance, statecraft and the like are but a few

products that have been brought out. Agriculture, metallurgy,

computer sciences etc can gain if new forays are made into the

depths of Sanskrit. He is gratified recognition for the Academy's

work with Sanskrit is coming slowly. It is an approved 'Scientific

and Industrial Research Organisation' [sIRO]. It is recognised by

the University of Mysore as a centre that can guide doctoral

candidates. Visveswaraiah Technological University, Belgaum has

permitted it to award PhD and MSc degrees by research in Information

Technology, Materials Science, Aeronautics and Social engineering.

Indian Space Research Organisation [iSRO] has commissioned it to

prepare an Indian view of the cosmos.

We are out in the fields again. "If there is one thing I denounce

the West for, it is the concept of banks and interest. Yes, you can

quote me -- I am closer to Islam in this respect. Money as an end

measure of attainments is ruining everything. Our governance,

commerce, farming and relationships are all drifting away from the

reality that can work without conflicts. We are fooling ourselves

with what is progress. We will face the wall soon," he says. He

sounds far from being despondent or extremist, though. In fact there

is a glint in his eyes, almost as if he can sense that the trend may

be reversing.

All around him the trees are wilting because of the worst drought he

can remember. Reluctantly he drilled a bore-well this year. But

there is still some water in one tank. And enough spirit in this 68

year old man.

He readily concedes compromises need to be made while living the

modern life and he doesn't wish that anything should be forced. All

he dreams of is that a large mass of people will live the connected

life. What we learn, what we believe in, what we speak, what we do,

what we create, what we care for, what we grow, what we eat and what

we leave behind have all to be connected. It is foolishness to

believe --as modern economics believes-- that these can exist

separately.

Compromises may have to be made yes, and many may not have the

opportunity yet to live a connected life. But truly wise ones must

seek such a life. Professor Lakshmi Thathachar has steadfastly clung

to his citizenship in eternity. He lives and works close to the

source of all streams that govern life -- a source called Sanskrit.

__________

 

Academy of Sanskrit Research

Melkote - 571431

Mandya District

Karnataka, India

 

The nearest railway station is Mandya, on the Bangalore-Mysore route.

 

Prof. M A Lakshmi Thathachar

email: asrbng

Website: sanskritacademy.org

Phones:(+91) (08236) 298741, 298781; 298742 [after hours]

__________

August, 2003

 

"unquote

 

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan,

Nallan Chakravarthy Narashiman