Recitation is not ‘Learning by Rote’

Daily recitation of poems, ballads, sloka, keerthanas, vachanas, gamaka are very beautiful. It soothes your mind. It keeps you as a company while doing your daily chores. It is an ancient method for remembering things, conveying social messages, spirituality, divinity, even science & maths which we’ll discuss later how. Education in the ancient times included a whole lot of recitation in Samskrutha & our vernacular languages. Isn’t it almost removed from our modern education today? Even in our school times in 80’s and 90’s we used to mug up a whole lot of poems. Any stanza could be asked in the exam. Any poem could be asked in the class randomly. Kids could give their own music to recite it & render it.

But today’s education scheme almost bars school children from poem reciting. Why? Is it considered a burden? Will it hamper child’s growth? Is it considered superstitious? Do they consider that there is No Learning in poem recitation? Does our educators consider the recitation as a bad influence or a bad culture? Do they fear society awakening? Do they fear upraising like how ‘Vande Mataram’ did to the ruling class running fear down their spine?

My guess is today’s educators consider all of this is true and hence have removed the recitation for the Kids in schools. What a pity! What a big loss for the individuals & society for growing up bland children!

Learning by Rote method

Recitation is also unfortunately equated to the ‘Learning by Rote’. And it is considered as a burden on young minds! They argue the children would become dumb by recitation without understanding the meaning of the Poem!! You check your Children’s note book on what do they teach for a poem in the text book. The child has to write answers for the following questions typically for the poem:

Theme of the Poem

Tone of the Poem

Rhyming Scheme

Message/ Moral of the Poem

And obviously, the child simply mugs up the answers rather than the poem itself. The theme, tone, morale etc., will dawn on the individual over the years if he recites. Every time the child recites that poem he derives a new meaning of it. Poem recitation is like slowly munching & enjoying the peppermint. But if you ask him to mug up the meaning of the poem as directed by the teacher, we are cutting his imaginative capability. Also Q & A he learns on the poem remains in his memory only till the exam. So it serves only marks scoring purpose and not serve the long term memory.

Learning by Rote method is a method of learning by repetition. This is specifically for memorizing things for short term. For example, What are the various types of bone joints? What are the rivers of Karnataka? What policies were people centric by the King? Whats the meaning of this poem? Etc., for which one of the technique is to learn by Rote. This helps short term memory. It serves marks scoring in the exam. That’s it. 2 weeks after the exam, everything will be lost. They wont even remember the heading of the chapters or scheme of the text book.

Other types of ‘Learning’ are by practical means & experiments. For example, you go to a postoffice and see by yourself how posting, sorting, packaging etc., work. You go to a farm and you learn tilling, sowing, watering, harvesting, processing etc., But this requires a lot of travel, coordination, discipline etc., for a school to do. Instead they teach all of this in classroom board. The only way child remembers these is by mugging up the notes by Rote! It further burdens the children. They hate it. Parents hate it.

The Beauty of Recitation

Recitation is there in every culture, every religion, every part of the world. By recitation in a musical way, it gets registered in the Musical memory of the brain. In my another blog I had given the Human Memory Tree: https://npraveer.blogspot.com/2014/09/time-memory-character-building-in-child.html

Science says that the musical memory is expandable and unlimited. In vedic culture, all things are musical. The vedas, Upanishads are musical. Panchatantra, Kathasarithsagara etc are beautiful ancient tales of morals education for the kids. It was also made of verses for reciting followed by prose of story elaboration.

Mathematics, Science, Economics & Political Science:

Even the mathematics, scientific books by Bhaskaracharya, Aryabhatta, Varahamihira are in shloka-roopa followed by the prose explaining further. For the engineers building tanks, tank bunds, temples and various complex architecture, it was easy for them to recite and recall for formulas. There is a very nice book brought out by the Samskrita Bharati giving simple snippets of key slokas from these books along with comparable European scientific developments. Similarly, the Ayurveda texts of ancient times had easy to recite and recall slokas for describing body parts & medicinal imparting procedure. Even the famous ‘Arthashastra’ by Chanakya is in recitable slokas helping the administrators for economic policies, political treatises etc., In those era the constitution was in the form of Smrithis like – Manu Smriti, Parashara Smriti etc., which were also in easily recitable slokas.

History & Vedic Philosophy:

Our Bharata Itihasa (Indian History) is our own Ramayana & Mahabharata. Ramayana has 24000 slokas. Mahabharata is the largest single book in the present world with 1lakh slokas. All our puranas are in the recitable sloka form describing many historical events. That is how it is passed on generations over generations and survived.

In fact, it was considered that writing down Vedas is a sin. It should be recited and passed on in its purest form through music only. When Vedavyasa segregated Vedas into 4 shakhas (branches), he passed it onto 4 different groups of people asking them to recite it as part of their daily ritual. That’s how we have 4 shakhas in the Brahmins caste now. But today hardly anyone know its importance to preserve it. It is now put down in written form & forgot by many.   

Geography:

Sarva Magala Ashtaka rendered in the Vivaha Mahotsava describes the geography of India very well. It is the invocation of all Rivers, Mountains, Celestial bodies, All scriptures, Rishis, Rajarshis and many divine things describing our beautiful Bharata to come to the blessings for the couple tying the nuptial knot! So we get to learn our Geography. Few examples given below:

Our Ancient Capitals for recitation:

अयोध्या मथुरा माया काशी कांची अवंतिका |
पुरी द्वारावती चैव सप्तैता मोक्षदायिका ||

Ayodhya Mathura Maya Kasi Kanchi Avantika |
Puri Dvaravati chaiva saptaita moksadayikah ||

Our ‘pavithra rivers’ for reverence:

गङ्गे च यमुने चैव गोदावरि सरस्वति ।
नर्मदे सिन्धु कावेरि जलेऽस्मिन् संनिधिं कुरु ॥

Gange Ca Yamune Caiva Godaavari Sarasvati |
Narmade Sindhu Kaaveri Jalesmin Sannidhim Kuru

RSS has adopted a similar set of slokas called Ekatmata Stotra. It extends to even cover our freedom fighters and modern Indian scientists, social reformers. It is very easy for kids to recite and learn about our entire Bharatha.

Recitation in folklore and tribes of India

My uncle says, there used to be a nomadic tribe called ‘Adavi Ramaru’ in central Karnataka who were going around all towns and villages simply singing the songs of Rama in folk language closer to Kannada. Their only job & profession was to render these songs throughout their life. People used to take care of their basic needs everywhere they used to go. Temples used to give them special treatment on special days. Now their kids are modern educated. Full stop.

All steps of the agriculture used to be done in groups through singing folklores. Through these folklores there used to be social message, removal of any social stigma, social reforming message, motivational examples, local heroes eulogizing, local deity’s reverence etc.,

Now with the modern education pervading even the villages and remote rural areas, the kids of next generation are corrupted to think lowly of their own forefather’s tradition. So it fades into history. Some enthusiasts and NGOs record it from surviving folks. That’s it. It gets into the oblivion of recordings. The live performances are hastened to death due to no natural patronage by political powers nor private sector.

Add to this apathy by our own selves, the western religious missionaries erase whatever left out traditions in the tribes filling the void left with their Christian carols and rhymes. Especially since the tribes describe everything they live with as divine, it will be considered religious and cleansing it is a holy mission for the missionaries to uplift them.

Our modern education erases our tradition. Kids naturally grow up ‘educated’ with no sense of gratitude to our traditions, language, culture; Parents don’t entrust their culture with the same fervor they got it from their elders. They think the modern education is an ‘upliftment’ for which they don’t mind sacrificing their tradition. They don’t realize that by not transmitting their tradition down their generations, they are burning to ash a valuable tradition passed down to them from their elders.

Govina Hadu in Kannada; Punyakoti

One such immeasurable treasure is our Kannada’s Punyakoti poem which is getting emphatically killed by our educators. Even in the modern education, this great poem was part of the primary school curriculum till recently at least in state syllabus. Then during Siddaramaiah’s CM period, some crooks removed it altogether. The reason given is two fold. Firstly it is too long for kids of any class! But the second is more bizarre. Only crooked minds can appreciate it. They say, the end line is injustice to the tiger! There is even an attempt to rewrite it. The so called Intelligentsia under whose grips our Children’s education is there are just loathsome! And we are in a pitiable state as there is absolutely no opposition to them. The CBSE, ICSE curriculum of Kannada probably never had it conveniently. Rather inconveniently. 

Every child in Karnataka used to recite this poem. Every school in its school day some year or the other had this performed on stage. Many models were made of the entire story and kept in exhibition. Some of the phrases from this folksong are ubiquitous in our conversation too. SL Bhyrappa wrote a famous novel which was filmed on one phrase from this song. The title is ‘Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane’. Now there is crowd sourcing for a Sanskrit movie being made on this theme. The tale is so touching and so full of meaning. There are many take aways in the whole narration. It lets the imagination of a kid go very wide and wandering. A child can derive a good morale by itself and by its own imagination without any readymade answers and induced mugged up answers. In fact, the song-tale is a reflection of the Kannada culture and its soul.

But alas! Now the primary universal education no longer appreciates it. Just axed it.

Why ‘Religious Tolerance’; Why not ‘Religious Acceptance’?

Religious Tolerance is one of the many concept and term thrust upon us by the western intellectuals. Good or bad it is now global call for the day. In the East most of the Indic religions follow ‘Religious Acceptance’. But that is not globally acceptable. In his famous speeches in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda upheld the ‘Religious Acceptance’ aspect of Hinduism & asked the world audience to adopt it.

Tolerance is an English word for ‘Sahan’ in Hindi or ‘Sahane’, ‘Sahishnuthe’ in Kannada. When someone is in pain or hurt badly, they use this word to tolerate the pain. Like when you are getting a Doctor’s Injection, you have to tolerate it. So how is it used in Religious context? Does religion hurt? Does it hit someone? Does it pierce or pain anyone?

‘Cult’ a prelude to ‘Religion’

In the west, the religions are Deity (God) based.  Most powerful religions today originated from Israel/ Palestine. They are also called Abrahamic or Semitic religions. Judaism also may be considered the mother of Christianity and Islam. Similar to how Jains, Buddhists offshoot from Sanatana Dharma or Vedic religion or now it is called Hinduism. These are Indic religions as they originated in India.

In the past (about 1800 years back), in Europe, Arabia, Egypt, Africa etc., they had multiple gods, multiple way of worshipping as we have in India. The difference is that – they formed ‘Cults’ around the deities. In India we formed ‘Jathi’ around the family profession.

The ‘Cults’ were rigid as our ‘Jathi’s are. The word ‘Culture’ also comes from ‘Cult’. These cults developed exclusivity in their way of living. Each cult had one of their own deity. And it was exclusive to them. They were recognized by the deity they worship. Unlike in India, several Jathi’s worship same deity. For example, almost all Jathi’s visit the lord Tirumala Venkatesha, same people also visit Tiruvannamalai. They may not touch each other in their neighborhood and may have developed ‘Untouchability’ a disgrace to Indian society. But in temple Darshan Queue they do unite under the Bhakti (devotion) to the God!

These cults in the west developed ‘Culture’. The way they worship, the way they conduct marriages, the way they decorate their houses, the way they dress, the singing, dancing etc., was exclusive to each other. And it all centered around the deity. The rigid lines were drawn between different cults. No marriage between cults. No common festivities. No mingling in social way. Formal trade was only way to interact. Skirmishes and discrimination between cults developed. The same way our Jathi s developed rigid lines here. But since the deity was exclusive in the west, they developed hegemony against the deity of other cults too. Unlike in India, where the rigid lines limited inter marriages and family mingling only. But in India social festivities around deities united everyone.

So essentially the cults developed rigid lines against each other. It included denigrating each other’s deities too. So when the skirmishes and wars happened, they felt good & victorious to desecrate and destroy each other’s places of worship, idols, symbols etc.

Whereas in India, the temples were never vandalized by the (Indian) conqueror, but were venerated as they conquered the land.

Onset of Religion

The concept of Religion came up later when the Christianity attained its Zenith having erased all ‘Cults’ in Europe. They probably felt ‘Cult’ diminishes their image. So they came up with ‘Religion’ to denote their predatory expansion. Having conquered Europe, they were on a conquering spree in new found lands in America, Australia & in old lands of Africa, Asia to spread their Gospel. So they had to use a polished word.

Similarly, the Islamists defend their act of erasing all Cults in Arabia to establish peace under one God head ‘Allah’. The explanation given for ‘violent Jihad’ during the raise of Islam in 7-10^th century in Asia & Africa is that, there were many small tribes with opposing culture, opposing deities, always at war with each other. This was draining their economy, social harmony and peace. So there was a need to raise unity. And thence rose Islam under the Last Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to erase all opposing cultures and united under one god Allah!

These 2 Religions are predatory. They are spreading even today with their Gospel using the same tenets of ‘Cult’. The Gospels of Bible and Quran doesn’t shy from discriminating, denigrating other cultures and their deities to ‘uplift’ the heathens to their Cult! Heathens means – those who don’t believe in their God based Cult. They are simply called Non-Believers. In fact, the Bible calls its God as a Jealous God, who doesn’t tolerate worshipping other Gods. And Quran clearly says to destruct the Idols and convert the Idolaters.

They sincerely believe that multiple gods mean multiple cults at war with each other. And they feel the urge to unite them under one Religion. The word religion is derived from Latin Religio which means Reverence to ‘The God’! They sincerely believe multiple gods create chaos, animosity, war, economic distress etc.,

But in India, when they desecrate a temple, all Jathi s come together to protect it, fight for it, die for it, and rebuild it. There is no equivalent Cult here, who take pleasure in destruction of other cult’s temple. In the west, when the predatory religions destructed one Cult, the other cults felt good that their rival was removed, never realizing it is they who fall next in line. So when Christianity entered Europe in 3^rd cent CE, it erased all cults in about a century. Similarly, Islam in Arabia, Persia, Egypt, Turkey and central Asia erased all cults in a matter of 4 centuries from 6^th to 10^th Cent CE. India was the only country who stood like a wall for it, challenging it.

In India for example, Somnath temple in Gujarat was rebuilt every time it was destructed by foreign marauders. Many of the South Indian Hoysala, Chola temples were reconstructed and strengthened by Vijayanagara empire after it was defiled by Mallik Kafur’s armies. All Jathis contributed their sweat and money to rebuild it. Everyone felt it is their duty to rebuild it. Nobody felt good that some deity’s temple is destructed, so one down in his enemy.

 

Religious Tolerance

Now where comes Religious Tolerance here?

As explained, the 2 predatory religions, hurt other religions as part of their Gospel. But as Europeans became conquerors around the world, they took their religion along. When it hurt the indigenous people, they coined the term ‘Religious Tolerance’ as part of their Religious propagation. So that means, the predatory religions get the ‘Religious Freedom’ & fundamental right to ‘Religious Propagation’. And the indigenous people who are hurt have to ‘Tolerate’ it.

As the Europeans became conquerors across Asia, Africa, America & Australia, they wanted to subjugate the natives, yet take credit of uplifting them. So their Gospel came to perfect use. By their propagation they denigrated the native deities. It helped them to make the natives feel ashamed of themselves to subjugate them. And then announce the good news of arrival of their religion to uplift them to realize their ‘True God’! So in one shot they hit 2.

-          They make natives feel ashamed of themselves & their indigenous culture & deity

-          It makes their path of Religious Propagation easy as they offer to ‘Uplift’ them from their shame

Now after UN is formed post 1945 CE, it is still in the grips of Western philosophy, terminologies. None at the world body has deeper exposure to the eastern philosophies and way of living. Or rather even if they have they cannot stand the rhetoric of the west. So they adopted Secularism & one of its tenet as ‘Religious Tolerance’ as universal formula for world peace.

Why didn’t ‘Religious Acceptance’ make the cut at the world stage? That requires the religious heads to accept other religions as true. That is not acceptable to the western religions. Because their philosophy is ‘There is one true religion’, ‘There is one true God’, ‘There is one true Prophet’, ‘There is one true Gospel’. Others are false. So acceptance is not the word acceptable.

In Indic religions, we always accept, the diversity as true. ‘Aham Brahmasmi; Tatvam Asi’ means, ‘I’m Godly; So are you!’ That’s the fundamental of acceptance of diversity & others religiosity.

Whats our duty?

In essence, we must understand that there are some fundamental differences between the western religions and Indic religions. Also India is raising at the world forum. Normal people like us also are exposed too much to the world at large. We have clients, friends, relatives, colleagues across the world. We must make our subtle attempt to educate our way of things to the world. We must not be shy that everything west is right and ours is wrong. Many a time, just by telling what basic we know, they understand and appreciate the diversity. But we remain shy to make that attempt for fear of ridicule or failure.

The western religions are intensely GOD centric & differentiate by the God they worship. Indic religions give freedom to choose your GOD & it is more philosophy or profession based.

We must understand, that GOD in the west is a dividing factor. Whereas in India, GOD is a uniting factor. In India, in a village, all Jathi's come together to celebrate the village deity's annual festival. In fact, that's how they come together burying their hatchets if any. In the west, you dont see this culture of coming together for a deity's festival. For a deity's festival, only that deity's followers come together. They may come together for non-God's festivals like Independence day or New year day, but they dont unite under God's name. Any God's festivals will be termed Religious festival. In India for this reason, although Holi, Ugadi, Sankranthi, Raksha Bandhan etc., are more celebrations of nature, bounty, relations, the Christians and Muslims by & large do not participate as they term it as deity's festivals and hence term it religious and stay away. Religion for them is deity based. And it is a dividing factor for them. 

In the West, ‘Religious Freedom’ means one can propagate ones superiority at the expense of others. Freedom to erase and denigrate others physical symbolisms, like God, Idols, temples, culture etc., Why do they do it? Because they genuinely and honestly believe that the 'other God' is false or 'Satan' & will take that society to wrong path leading to violence. And it is their religious duty to announce 'the true God' to the world at large. They believe those ignorant of this 'truth' will be destined to doom. In the new age many of the westerners also don’t like this type of propagation and are open for alternative theories. And we Indian's must give that alternative and must not hesitate. As much the west has thrust its effect on east, the reverse has not happened. And there is merit in doing so. And it lies in our hands to do it. 

In India, ‘Religious Freedom’ means one can freely debate, write, oppose the philosophies of a Religion, its books, theories etc., But not denigrate their God, places of worship and anything physical symbolism. Religious freedom also would mean spreading love, prayer in any God’s name. But in one God’s name denigrating other Gods is not freedom.

In India, we are more English and West educated and swayed by their theories like Secularism, Liberalism, fight for Rights etc., But there is a lot of interest slowly raising about Indian roots, ways of living, sense of duty, purpose of life etc., So in that quest, we must explore further and be proud of ourselves and neutralize the impact of the bad influence of the west yet absorbing & retaining whatever is good from them.