Full transcript of “Session - "Indian Roots of American Enlightenment" at Pt. Hriday Nath Kunzru Memorial Lectures 2025”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:08 colleagues and my dear students very a very warm welcome to this uh very special session on the Indian roots of American Enlightenment uh this is indeed a very special session because the format is different from what we've had so far we'll be having a fireside chat but of course without real fire because we do not want to violate fire protocols we don't want alarms buzzing everywhere but I'm sure we will see some fireworks in this conversation between our imident guests uh before I move on to the task of introducing Our Guest let me request our Dean Professor matu to uh present two MOS as tokens of our affection to our two
0:53 guests it's very heavy yes sir one for you also no no not ins no no also it no no then most certainly not honestly honestly hon it's embarrassing either way it is it is wrong okay is like my Guru so in yes infamously calls me Guru everywhere yes anybody
1:41 who's the last student of Professor matilal is a guru to all okay without further Ado let me introduce you to our moderator and our guest our moderator for the day is Dr shami jit Ray he's an assistant professor of us studies at the center for Canadian US and Latin American studies his areas of interest within the US include conservatism and conservative movements Christianity and the Christian ethos evangelism American Judaism language ethnicity and politics beyond the United States He specializes on Jewish Christian relations and Juda Christian theological conflicts Islam and islamism Shia Islam postc communist post Soviet communism sism siik politics and siik militancy and I for one being
2:28 from his Center I cannot think of a better moderator for this session welcome sir Our Guest for this afternoon is Sri Rakesh Co Mr Co is an indian-american author and the author of the bestselling historical drama the last queen of Kashmir brought out by Harper and Collins in 2016 he is a grantia speaker specializing in Niti storytelling and a writer for major newspapers on The evolutionary forces within history culture and society which lead to individual empowerment he was a founding contributor to the first year of India studies at the University of California Berkeley to the center for the advanc study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and to the matu Center for India studies at State University of New
3:14 York he has served as a co-chairman for the Arts of Kashmir exhibition Asia Society New York uh in 2008 in conversation with welcome sir thank you uh in conversation with him is Professor hiraman is it CER foric stud from the center for historical uh studies are you sure sir that's J that's it okay uh with that I hand over the mic to our moderator Dr R thank you Uma very good afternoon to all of you my dear students and colleagues and Dean sir and everyone else so uh I am in August company you know uh on both right and left
4:00 and uh so but I am not fire away right and left that's not uh it's not my day so Indian roots of uh American Enlightenment when I saw the uh topic it evoked a lot of uh you know interest in uh uh my when I was told by my chairperson that this was the topic but i' would like to know more about this from me you and from you too and uh let's keep it in a conversational style but uh why uh was I so interested because uh I was given to understand which I uh teach my students year after
4:46 year that America was settled by immigrants from Europe in the early 17th century with a very Christian Purpose with a very Protestant and purpose whether they were the pilgrims at pouth or whether they were the Puritans at jamest toown uh the purpose had been to worship God in our own way that's a very Protestant uh thing when the separatists they left the church of England and uh America would be the country where they would have that freedom so religious freedom was one of the primary in fact I believe that it was the primary reason why they across the Atlantic and
5:33 uh you know and uh the May Flower compact one of the first written documents uh which they wrote before they all lighted from the ship uh Mayflower on American soil so uh I try to keep this more conversational rakes sir andan so I'd uh begin with you you can begin your presentation thank you so around 1844 but no let me thank you sir for inviting me uh I had the privilege as a young boy having the eminent R kundu come to our
6:20 home for dinner I remember him vividly as a very spry energetic individual uh mover and Shaker vibrate with intensity he honored us then and I feel very privileged to return that honor today so around 1844 Emerson asked a very provocative question what is the essence of America and this question was inevitable and we see that today in India there's always a time delay between political freedom and the state of individual
7:07 sovereignty they had overthrown their colonial Masters the British they wanted to walk away from European Enlightenment but where to go the Vault Witman Center had invited me to give a talk on his birth anniversary about a year ago and I proposed some fairly radical pieces which I was very happy that there was tremendous receptivity so much so that my talk was then taken by the Cil General and shared with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Walt Witman was the end of that
7:54 stream of Consciousness that began with Emerson Toro and many other philosophers in Harvard and others that you know about and when you read Leaves of Grass and Walt whittman was a seminal poet or a Passage to India there are four remarkable things that come out one is the notion of swatantra in American notion the self-reliance and abav gups notion swatantra I am Sovereign and that's still today very much an American
8:39 trait the second notion is Sir to your point about Christianity the body pure the country was founded on a framework where the body is impure and full of sin And yet when you read Walt witon here's what he says if anything is sacred the human body is sacred and if the body were not the soul what is the soul the man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred no matter who it is it is sacred is that sharara singing
9:27 this and if you don't stop there and say give me more he says Divine am I inside and out and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from I hear and behold God in every object yet not understand God in the least is that a Kashmir shite or an American his idea of a COS mcmah was no different than the indic perception and when you study him he was as observant of his body as he was of
10:13 Nature and when I made the proclamation that he was America's first tantric it was not because I was just you know indulging in a flight of fancy it was his work Maurice Buck who wrote a book on Cosmic Consciousness which I studied 54 years ago and was a student of Walt M bitman says I've heard him speak of hearing the grass grow and the trees coming out in leaf but in his own poem and book specimen days Whitman sings there is a scent in
11:01 everything even in the snow no two places hardly any 2 hours anywhere exactly alike how different the odor of the noon from Midnight winter from summer or a windy spell from a still one no different than what sadguru would say turn on sadguru's videos and he'll say I can see the fragrance in the air so I'll stop there because there's so much to talk about but I will make one more addition before I turn it over before I forget the last speaker Professor son talked about China talked about Buddhism I have been traveling to China for the last 35
11:47 years I was the sponsor of the first exhibition that was held in the Imperial Palace they wanted to open it up to the world at one time the Chinese government didn't have money I put up the money for that so I went as a state guest but last year I told sushma I said sushma I've been going to China for 35 years come I'll take you to China with me and I built itenary probably the only human being on Earth I said we will go to the Imperial Palace Buddhist temples of China these were all built on the border between China and Mongolia the subject
12:34 of the last discussion and these temples were built fresh each time when the Chinese government was negotiating with a particularly Troublesome War Mongolian warlord so they would build this temple in his honor the Mongolian warlord would come and they would then parlay in this Buddhist temple I went to all the major ones with Suma two things are striking and important from a research point of view for all of you young people one is this and I have close to 1,000 photographs to support what I'm am
13:19 now going to share what I'm going to share every Buddhist Temple certainly as Buddhas you climb up you climb up you go go what do you see in the inner sanctum sanctorum in the inner sanctum sanctorum of all these Buddhist temples is a rendition of what Professor AMU presented to me it is a Dy it could be Saraswati it could be sharaka the 18 armed one from Kashmir it could be a
14:05 thousand armed Dy these are all Davy temples point two for you students I've been going to the various temples in China I every time I go I go to Temple would always see three-year-old women lighting incense this time this time the crowds in the temples exceeded the crowds that you see in trupti and jagat Puri I lost my wife in one of the temples for 2 hours I led the most miserable existence why do I say that there is a wave that is starting in China we have
14:52 to outreach to it so with that I stopped and I turned it over yeah before I you know start speaking what I gather is that uh uh an individual uh if the wife is out of sight can have a horrible existence even if it is for two hours terrible yes your wife and China so thank you Sait uh but first of all I want to begin with two apologies and then two thanks my apology uh and which is more or less it is coming out of some little
15:38 silly childish Triumph This is the very first time that that I'm going to speak before this August audience called School of International Studies I find myself absolutely out of place I have nothing to do with international relations except that I'm interested in it I keep trolling on social media people who talk about it uh so that is one apology the second apology is that I am a student of philosophy and Sanskrit and history by default uh so therefore whatever I'm going to say if it doesn't make sense you must forgive me and my two thanks are naturally uh to
16:23 uh Professor amitab matu who is a dear old friend nearly four decades now and with him is sitting another intimidating uh intellectual uh uh and and who again we I think at the same time we met uh in the late 80s and since then we know each other our subjects do not match much except that Amit matu is uh makes me even more nervous because he has written a book on the bhagavat Gita on which I should be an expert but Professor vun s of course has a very ecclesiastically interest from South America to India so among these uh intellect International uh specialist and intimidating intellectuals I dare
17:09 speak and the second thank is that of course I am in the company of a great writer and poet I admire them because all poets are VIIs as some great Hindi poet has said and that is a tribute to who obviously got the Poetry first time and we believe and I happen to believe more I read and more older I get uh uh to believe that he must be really the first poet because he curses a hunter whose job it is to hunt to earn his bread and butter why should he do that
18:01 you have killed only one of the two birds that is the choice that a poet has the poet does not have any distinguishing unlike us differentiating knowledge which leads me to the subject of Enlightenment now I am not uh either an expert and also I do not have any inclination to compare India with anything I happen to believe India is unique whether American Enlightenment or for that matter is predecessor from where it learned European one beginning from the Renaissance in the 13th in the 15th century Florence then traveling to
18:50 uh uh France and Germany and by the middle of 18th century Enlightenment is settled down in this 4 500 years all of them are struggling and wrestling with the idea how actually to celebrate reason did Europe or european thinkers not celebrate reason because everybody you know expects happiness when I was I mean long time ago I read it and that's why I'm carrying this 40-year-old book with me uh and I thought let me browse because my memory as I'm getting old is fading because Amnesia is is considered to be curse I do not believe in in that but memory is also something that keeps Us
19:37 Alive culturally civilization and then I was reminded of none other than Amarin why was I reminded of him because he is the one who thought who I thought invaded my subject he opens his book development as Freedom which is cited as the first book in his Nobel uh uh prize uh with a story which comes from the vadik and of course he mistranslates or rather paraphrases for his benefit because he has an audience in Washington uh uh to to to deal with or maybe the wider audience to me somebody who is St stickler to the text and poetry uh but
20:22 nevertheless he gets the sense of it by opening and he ends that book go and have a look at it with with and he is fascinated by m yag is is now believed to be absolutely satisfied with his life he says here it is I have established this beautiful institution which you call today University and you guys have been teachers enough so one of you can appoint yourself as Vice Chancellor this literally happens in the raran and I am off to my fourth stage and here it is that I'm paraphrasing in and one of the wives the clever one or maybe more you know vocal one M hangs on to his DOI and says before you leave you must
21:10 answer my question and the word that she asks arei will I be happy because the the until until the 13th century or early 14th century in Europe people are very very happy it seem with the biblical narrative and what was happening but there was a volatility under the surface which you could see in the writings whatever I have been able to read and I can't tell you I'm not boasting read quite a lot much more than I would have read in India but there uh MRI says if I had the wealth of the entire nation because wealth is a symbolism of Happiness which all of us
21:57 of course accept this is the upanishad written sometime around 8th Century BC if not earlier the reason why I say this because this is also the upanishad which is cited by the Buddha among the six upanishad from which he quotes he cites this and so if I had the wealth of the entire universe will I be happy sukii bavishi the response is very Curt and very affectionate he said yes my three you will be be happy if you had the the wealth of the entire universe or world but only as much as the richest people of the universe are however the sukka that you're looking for which later on the Buddha
22:43 expands more reasonably and logically he said that and from inner Asia therefore you enter the inner world of your mind and they say you only look at yourself within you and it is here and then he says You must hear it you must hear yourself listen to yourself if not here if you can listen to yourself if is better but at least here and then then meditate ruminate it ponder it and then perhaps you can ask this question and then I shall come back now
23:28 I will just before I I mean I'll close very quickly and then I'll come back to lots of European uh thinkers who have discussed and that's why you can see that I'm not touching this comparative anxiety of of uh what enlightenment is greater and what is not to me my Enlightenment is greater if that can be described in the word Enlightenment uh that the upanishads already in the 8th century BC they are a storytelling method of communicating Enlightenment happiness they're also uh they they are the texts in my opinion and if my opinion can be counted at the age of 63 is that they are very
24:17 very simple they open with most simple questions look at this upanishad it's like a husband and wife having a conversation in the second last week of the week month how much money is left which child wants an iPad or whatever it is and that is the conversation that MRE is initiating in order to graduate the discussion to the level where you really have to look within each in other words it is the question that matters in in terms of celebration of reason and almost every single upanishad begins with question ends with a question so much so that one upanishad among the many is simply called PRN
25:05 upanishad it is nothing but questions and questions so if you have the capacity and the generosity to ask question of yourself if not others so that that is one part and and I'll conclude by quoting another great author scholar whom we all swear by in Indian modern universities those of us who teach or or receive wisdom in English is Emanuel Kant he settles down the matter because before that in the 13th century already uh Thomas aquinus had tried to establish that the wisdom that has been derived we have misunderstood and therefore we need to understand it and in the 17th and
25:51 18th century in particularly and when you come to the 18th century Joseph theaster of France he wants to he wants he wants to answer those radicals he calls them who had begun to shun the biblical knowledge and lashed onto the new world and new knowledge which came in the form of Enlightenment Emmanuel K tries to settle it down in a way that I think makes much sense to us and to me in particular and let me quote him Enlightenment is a man's emergence from his self incurred immaturity and then there are several sentences and this immaturity is the inability to use one's own
26:36 understanding without the guidance of another and several other senten and then I end his his paragraph long paragraph the motto of Enlightenment is therefore that is have courage to use your own understanding thank you uman s you were saying let me conclude we don't want you to conclude no this my okay so uh I'll just uh uh in passing I'd like to say when you talk about poets all the sik gurus were marvelous poets and their compositions are found in the Holy G gurug gr sahb so uh that's one that
27:22 reminded me when you talk about poets two other things that I heard in your uh Speech was one was reason the other was happiness so uh the Protestant Reformation started the Age of Reason in Europe so and enen yeah so I uh in my opening remarks I said that America was settled with a very Protestant purpose apart from religious freedom reason was the as far as happiness is concerned the Declaration of Independence already had life Liber and the pursuit of happiness fine so before I move on to Rakesh sir uh you were talking about Enlightenment you
28:07 were talking about Enlightenment but let me draw your attention to a series of uh movements that started in early 18th century known as the great Awakenings in the N States uh they were the ones which gave rise to the Evangelical America fine so uh and uh there are there's difference in scholarly opinion where there are three great Awakenings or four great Awakenings but it all started in the 18th century 1730 to be particular now uh when you talk about that that that was for the collective Redemption of Americans because uh when we say that
28:54 a person has sinned the Redemption is to be born again in Christ fine and so uh and that is from there we get the name born again and one of the born again had even become president of the United States that's George W bush fine so uh how do you uh look at uh the great Awakenings or or the enlightenment that you are talking about in the context of the great Awakenings sir I'm going to make four points reason Awakening enlightened and I'm going to segue right into the school of international studies and international relations because that's why you're
29:39 here I have a very brutal definition of Awakening which was handed To Us by abav Gupta thousand years ago more than thousand years ago we celebrated as a anniversary a couple of years ago now everybody Associates ABAB gupt with shiv Shakti Consciousness Tantra Loca and they miss they miss what he's all about Kashmir Chism is not about any of the things that other schools promise Redemption
30:25 sin this paradise Kashmir Chism is about lar they're trying to answer a very fundamental question of human existence that of transactions how do the daily transactions of Life happen this worldly view not only distinguish it from ad vidanta and other schools but is very unique and abov gup is very brutal he says I don't care what philosophy you have what belief you have if it cannot
31:12 help me understand worldly transactions it's no good and so when you look at the foundations of cashm shismar it starts with vaki Sonic Consciousness because if you can't communicate you can't have a transaction and what I would submit to you is this is the only definition of enlightenment we should start with because this is objective this stands to reason this stands to Universal analysis but it is now very important because this enlightenment
31:57 is now so important to the survival of the human race any other definition of enlightenment is going to lead us to extinction because those are exclusivist beliefs those are exclusivist beliefs so Loca [Music] vavar brings us to two very powerful foundational words one of which I would respectfully submit should be right there alongside satam sham Sund and that is the idea of samband when see people say to me what school do you belong to are you a Kashmir sh I say I'm a
32:43 sandhi somean and in Kashmir A Thousand Years went into creating rasa Theory rasa is the ultimate form of creating sand but there were all kinds of other sand Technologies developed today we talk in terms of hard power soft power I'm sure when I look at your brochure there'll be military cooperation political economic uh cultural but our body of knowledge on samban is so vast and all our diplomats should be armed with it now I'll address a question that was raised earlier did we spell Buddhism well I don't know about that
33:30 but I sure know is that we were the savior of Buddhism I sure know that there was one Indian sitting in San Francisco who along with a friend while on the board of the Asian Art Museum sponsored the first art of Tibetan exhibition when we were threatened by a mighty power that if we went ahead they would make our lives so isable we would wish we had never been born and we use that exhibition as a way to bring the Dal Lama into the United States he came to the United States and then that became the basis to get him to meet the president of the United States of
34:16 America and the rest is history so as long as one Indian has Buddhism in his heart India has Buddhism in its heart but this idea of some and a subset idea and somean spur how do you create touch these foundational questions occupied our thinkers certainly in Kashmir but are not occupying us now I'll give you an example of spur a Spur movement Suma and I we were traveling through the Baltic states we were in Slovenia there's a great restaurant I
35:03 can't get in I go to the conge I'm a Storyteller so I don't only quote text I can quote text but I like stories so I tell the conage hey can you get us in this restaurant you got to have p and she said yes sir and she calls and she speaks in the language and they all say okay yeah yeah suddenly a table has opened up so she turns to me uh what name should I I make the reservation then I say it's Mr call k a l she says oh okay and she goes into the phone and she says c a l I'm listen to her and then she smiles at me and say it's all set Mr call it's all set I run
35:48 out I call up padmashri subash kak I said subash this is what happened to me he said yeah he said I'm going to set you up for dinner with these two Sanskrit Slovenian professors and we had that night dinner and they walked us through 30% of the Slavic languages are Sanskrit root words and I called up the consor in New York I said what is the foreign Ministry doing where are our Consul generals please open a consulate here let's start the process going so there are and by the way in these Slavic countries there's a rebellion taking place these people are saying before this thing came
36:34 from Palestine we had nothing we want to find that out we want to go back to our roots and that's what Walt Witman said when he described India not as Vish Guru we should always understand how people see he never described us as Vish Guru he described us as the originator rest feminine Shi originator rest here comes the race of Brahma this is how he described Indians what
37:19 wonderful magical words but spur technology San technology understanding that enlight enement is fundamentally about the ability to create someand I'll tell you one last story highly recommend that you go watch a video that my teacher profet Aram chakti and of course you were classmates with him and Swami Ser yeah he's my teacher and Swami s prananda who is the head of the vidanta institute in New York they have this remarkable YouTube video on Sand and relationships and Swami sand tells a story that you know this guy is talking
38:07 about Duality and all that stuff right and the sun says are even the cow understands that the cow understands it is a cow and it is eating grass there is a eater and there is a eater but you are something more than that you're something more than that and that ability how between the inner breath and the outer breath how to find that Middle Point find the middle point of dawn between night and dark how to find that middle point between you and what you think is the adversary that linal space
38:53 all of those Technologies we have failed abysmally in incorporating and in using so this is as much a plea as it is an empowerment let's benefit from our cultural strength in figuring out how to deal with the world at a very foundational but very practical level and sir I will end by saying this yes the up it falls to comparative study of anything anything but there's also an exchange
39:41 that happens and Joseph Campbell in the power of myth a great series draws heavily on India and just listen to those stories and last piece open story upnishad text me I'm a Storyteller I'm a grantia so there's this guy his name is ravan you heard about ravan how many of you heard about ravan how many of you all of you of all right now this part you don't know do you know he was a Kashmir Brahman know ptia was his father PESA was based in Kashmir so you know I'm appropriating him but he asked the same question
40:28 he said what will make me happy and his answer was sh t St that's the only answer I rest now thank you since it is a conversation let me I mean I mean I I want to clarify I did not mean to say that we should not compare what I always feel that let me put uh before everybody whatever I know and what I have learned from my own thing and if a comparison works then it's fine if it doesn't to me it is okay now since you uh talked two talked of two very powerful ideas of uh uh Kashmir Chism and the greatest uh philosopher or
41:15 intellectual poet dramatist that you could think of at least in last 3,000 years other than my uh kalidas yeah is is aava Gupta yeah now abhinav Gupta this you said the the Sonic uh transaction and you also mentioned what is called uh tactile transaction yes this he uh talks in detail in his Tantra Lo now his I mean Tantra is a text which would take several lives except some Kashmir pundits who had you know imbibed it within half of their lifetime uh there the he he talks I mean sh samha is actually the basis for understanding particularly triat tantrism yes and and
42:03 and and that is of course related to Shiva how do you connect yourself and that Sonic transaction let me connect it straight and which is abhinavagupta acknowledges and I'll uh ask for your forgiveness and ask you to open your eyes or close your ears if you like I'll just recite uh the Ric mantras and then probably give you a few glimps of what it might mean y there are 10 verses like this this is a cry of a sage in the r in the 10th mandala 121 suta called H
42:53 suta otherwise translated as unnamed God it is the only Su or only chapter in the entire rvea of 10 mandalas where there is no God now that is the one which is picked up what it says is that it describes the god in 21 different ways and describes the Gods in the Sonic and tactile transaction Sonic transaction that this is a cry the C the refrain at the end of each Mantra is To Whom Shall I offer my oblation since you invoked Bal Krishna maal he
43:39 has a beautiful article uh at the end of which he concludes that article on mysticism and India and he gives an example of the great philosopher Buran and howan wanted to uh uh uh convince the audience and visitors that his donkey was also a philosopher and people uh started making fun of it just like everybody does he said prove it to us and then what he does he uh says place two buckets of grass of equal amount in front of my donkey and then seat now what happens eventually this may be a just uh just a legend or maybe true but Legend more likely as it goes
44:24 in storytelling uh the Donkey stabs to death without having to touch either of the basket and that simply means that you know when you begin to analyze which one should I pick up and then and so this this is at the kernel of the Riga that if you you there are Indra there hundreds of gods that are worshiped but it is in this particular suta that it is inv which is what Ababa Gupta says if Shiva is to be the name of that particular thing and since you invoke the the Aesthetics uh D loan there could be a no greater uh literary criticism in the world and that that I say with full confidence at least of reading two sections English literary criticism and
45:10 French literary criticism where he talks about that this this Sonic interaction you call gave me a better word uh transaction because transaction is a little bit of give and take but interaction and this Sonic interaction said that if you have if you can create at a sound without actually using your mouth organ then she was will be able to chop your Fetters because you are fettered you have the this this desperate desire to feel free and that is what at the end that the Riga and he he refers to this particular suta AOG Gupta but in a very very different way and and I think those of you I mean Aram
45:55 is is one very good example is writing a book on a Gupta at the moment so probably he'll come out with with certain aspects of this this tactile uh interaction or tactile transaction let me say TT and and and St and then probably we will be able to understand abtin more and and that emerges from sandha relation because he was much more obsessed with defining sambandha he's a Sando everything is s everything is relation and therefore if you connect it to Modern international relations if you can understand your relation you either are perished you surrender and I have a differing view on that I simply said that this is a this
46:43 is a song which somehow orders you only if you abandon your identity your name your your color can you come to my camp or you can yourself be able to to sing that I don't need anything to create my sambandha with Shiva and Enlightenment thank you yeah before I thank you sir before I move to rakes sir again I think Dean sir wants to say something I just wanted to I just thought uh I think this is a fascinating exchange I'm glad it's being recorded for posterity because I'm sure uh next Generations will great conversation but U uh I thought you
47:29 began with Whitman yes uh and I thought that perhaps uh in my more Earthly fashion I'll draw another comparison not a comparison but uh I will draw on the experiences of another poet which is and I'll play the last clip which of course again Haman and I have talked about endlessly from and he he he uses words from the open the the itself so let me play that that's in his own voice if he can sorry
48:15 swallow swallow these fragments I have shed against my ruins why then I'll fit you youro mad [Music] again shant shant this is of course from the Wasteland so is this also part of that journey of learning from India aliot was of course a Nobel Prize
49:04 writer born in Missouri in the United States yeah I mean you know John Steinbeck I can just go on and on they have drawn you know uh we can talk endlessly about Hollywood how much Hollywood is indebted to Indian you know the Matrix you got Inception you got Dr strange the legend of bagar was all about the Gita you know the difference being instead of Krishna and Arjun Gone With the Wind the Gone With the Wind so look uh we have never really put our arms around it and tried to understand this tsunami and now of course uh you got you know the David Chans of the world Donald Hoffman ruper Spira so we
49:53 you know I'm not an appropriator I am a gurunanak guy spread the wealth right but I think being ignorant and noty acknowledging and being cognizant of this but I because in the interest of time I just want to just quickly leap to one other point I want to submit to you because that's very contemporary and of course we have to talk about Donald Trump because that's the number one problem in international or challenge in international relations and so right now if you're an Indian or anywhere else when you think of Donald Trump the first thing you think about is reciprocal tariffs right and we have a little window where in the interview Donald Trump and fox said that when he
50:39 told Prime Minister Modi about it prime minister said no no no I don't like that of course Donald Trump in the interview doubled down and said no India is the highest tar of nature okay so let me step back a bit from that and you know this is not a school on economics though that's part of it this is more about School of International Studies this is such a profound State change that's happening in America that if this movement proceeds ahead and builds momentum it will affect all walks of life and you will see us moving to what
51:24 I am putting on the table for the first time time Darian reciprocal humanism so if globalization was symbiotic humanism we are moving to a world of reciprocal humanism now for those of you who want to do a PhD on it the first thing I would recommend to you is go study The Works of Gant Bata go do your PhD under Professor tiari because janta B was this incredible niia scholar again Kashmir yeah and look I I
52:10 I I'm telling you I am a uh you know I'm a recipient of great Treasures why should I not receive them and share them right so jant B uh was a very remarkable person and you know he wrote this book much ad do about religion aama of course logic but other than his novels dramas this is yeah yeah so he tries to handle this issue under this book much ad do about about religion right and he specifically deals with why a framework on morality is destined for failure why a framework on just pure
52:56 materialism is destined for failure why a framework of reciprocal humanism has to be looked at in a certain way so in the interest of time all I am going to do is say to you there's a body of knowledge on the Trump issue too and so please go study it and see what it tells you but just to add in in the same book machadu yeah jant also tells us yes how actually to recognize people yes and and before making judgment right because his his his his great sense of of sarcastic interpretation of people's behavior is
53:41 something which is which is just the opposite of what he writes in his bouquet of logic or Reason and there he says and he says that and this is my concluding verse he says where can I get you a new thing where can I present you the new thing yeah therefore whatever I'm saying here and that speaks for myself too whatever I'm saying here is nothing but a paraphrase of what has already been said which is why has said that in terms of Enlightenment India really doesn't need to bother about it right from the Riga whether you like it or not right until the upanishad until of course
54:30 abinav Gupta puts a very very high premium which many very few have been able to to actually take up that challenge so in that context I think that transaction is something which is not a bad idea but that transaction has to be between you and you yeah so we are a jugul bandi I'm just going to make my last closing comments last closing comments the big opportunity we have Professor amab matu here the dean of The Saga Center in a remarkable coincidence there is a matu center of index studies at State University of New York he given billions of dollars for that and and so while you hear about centers being set up at Harvard and elsewhere the fact is the center at
55:17 Stony Brook 20,000 Americans have taken a course there so in terms of volume the others are you know very Elite PhD and all that no impact strongly suggest that and I'm happy to facilitate you the W were you in the westair of the that's the Indo American Council but yeah but was professor professor yeah and now we brought Stan isar but happy to serve as a facilitator because I was a contributor Dr is like my brother but I really believe this Center that Center should be engaged in something where we bring the best of American Minds best of
56:03 Indian minds and we engage there can be no better time than Sonic connection matu and muu right and what should the engagement be and I'm now going to make a small pitch so I'm a Storyteller my last novel is a novel called Dawn it set in the year 3000 penguin published it and it presented a certain thesis the thesis it presented was that modern society now this is Year 3000 but the whole idea is author uses a premise like that to talk about the present modern society will be organized by three things technology philosophy and
56:50 storytelling he who controls technology philosophy and storytelling will organize the world and that's where we have both an opportunity and a threat and our Scholars our fine Minds should be drawing Upon Our Collective wisdom and saying how do we prepare to play the next game and with that I will still what wonderful no question before I uh you have 5 minutes but before I pass on to the students let me say something sir you have you have talked about all the kashmiri U you know Scholars and Poets
57:35 that I agree but about Rin I have my you know I as far as I am concerned that's what I heard that he was actually from get NOA let him have him let him have him so serious seriously there's a there's a village there known as bis that's a derivative of vishra his father so and the that Village doesn't celebrate that raan jalana on VII so I'm not don't want to add anything to your comments but but but I will counter that by
58:21 saying until the 14th century and this is my first novel The laskan Kashmir ramchandra was the commanderin-chief of Kashmir who fought the external forces his daughter was karani his son was named ravan so we have historical evidence in Jonah Raja that up to the 4 Century a noble Kashmir family did not see any distinction between ramachandra as the father and
59:07 ravan as the son that is evidence rest is all stuff anyway question time thank you sir um a maximum of three questions maybe and no one is going to question put any question to me and someone you seem to be a regular question regular someone I hope you won't mind I I hope you won't mind uh me mentioning uh you as a kashmiri Pandit I'm from Eastern up and mentioning
59:53 someone from augu uh Pandit if I can call jidu krishn morti who who was declared the enlightened one more than 100 years back 1916 by the order of the East any vent and yes madame blaty colel alott yeah and and but who denounced it yes by saying that Enlightenment is illusory yeah if not false yeah who said that organized rituality yeah limits you and therefore is of no use who said that truth and freedom are pathless MH who said that no
1:00:39 one can be a guru for another human mhm so what would you say J yeah so there's much uh there's much to agree with that and let me go through uh my framework my framework says when you're born you have only one birth right that birth right is to have complete fulfillment and to have complete Liberation Liberation meaning Freedom fulfillment meaning I want everything the world can give me because we are worldly embracing we we are not my
1:01:28 people that this is illusion that's our Birthright and so now the question Becomes of how do you achieve that the idea of becoming a j m fully liberated while alive fully fulfilled by alive how do you become and so look you can it can be spontaneous right it can be spontaneous and for those who are lucky enough that it's a spontaneous happening great for many it's merge kashir mother Kashmir meaning that nature is your
1:02:15 teacher and every aspect of nature becomes your teacher for others depending on your proclivity there are infinite Pathways and the gurus see what your proclivity is and they now the first example of that is a hilarious one hilarious one there was a king of Kashmir and he had sons who were idiots real life problem of the question you asked and the King was going out of his wids what do I do my kingdom will be
1:03:01 destroyed so he puts out a challenge and uh says anybody who comes so this Kashmir Pandit Brahman comes and says oh King in 6 months I will make your kids the smartest people on earth king looks at him says I don't believe it because he knew his sons so then this pundit says if I don't succeed you can humiliate me in the worst way that you can humiliate a Kashmir Pandit now you guys don't know that but I will tell you because
1:03:46 everybody is an adult and this insult was actually maintained by this incredible culture of kashmiris and heaped on prime minister Neu when he came and they were upset at him and what was this insult this insult is you turn around and you drop your pajamas and let that man that you're insulting have a scenic view the king says wow you're prepared for that insult okay so this guy takes the princess and that's when the punch Tantra was was born Pandit Vishnu Sharma was the name of the Pandit and he created this incredible collection of
1:04:33 stories to teach you about life Kashmir is one of the greatest birthplace of stories and I would say the biggest teacher in life is our stories shivaji shivaji because the stories his mother told him ex and may I just finish may just finish sir you all the time com from the 16th century sir let me finish that let me that I have published a paper on this where I gave a talk at the University of jamu the most sacred thing about a people is not their scriptures is not their religious preachers it's their stories you destroy
1:05:21 and corrupt their stories they are done and and that's why Hinduism survives because in every village they know their stories have I answered your question yeah a time for only two more questions a very short questions to either of the panelists okay sir yes sir my I other okay Mrs has pleaded your Clause she's a very kind gentle Kashmir pit woman so please sir I am b d PhD second year C my
1:06:08 question is when you talk about the C my question is when you talk about imel K generally in the school we talk about high dimension but Immanuel K is also the father of epist ology and before entering sis I are serious student of Indian history so I want to know that how far we compare the Indian epistemology because both Port same kind of that they inquire the knowledge the question is for him I me inv I just simply two very quick answer one uh uh epistemology if you uh ask me in his uh the English uh Latin base uh name that is one meaning
1:06:56 uh what um if but if you read the prar shastra which flows forth from the upanishads and comes from the six or nine systems later on more importantly when uh Buddhism or Buddhist logic comes comes up then you discover that this this pran shastra is in a way and which is why I don't compare is stronger in many ways than epistemology because the you you look for an epistemic value of a statement or of a thing uh in indan epistemology as it is for lack of any better word we use it for prar shastra is something that is never satisfied with the epistemic value in itself so the the the the the value of t on the basis of P has to be through something
1:07:42 and that something is what I'm referring back to the relationship what is the relation between a proof and that particular truth or proposition proposition that you have made so Emanuel C of of course his epistemology is extremely enlightening I'm using this word word differently but uh uh Indian pran shastra Indian epistemology is much more rigorous because even within the tradition in the in the consan tradition you rarely find people questioning to that level but here the commentator of both vesik Sutra and gamas N Sutra themselves double down on them and establish another more refined version of that so but but as I said you know we
1:08:30 may use different words but the concepts could be similar but I I can't you know resist the temptation this Vishnu Sharma story that I have read it this is a 15th centy 16th century story this is not true and this is not as I I discovered it 30 years ago that this doesn't happen in among Kashmir pandits but this is true that it is it is good fun to read it the story is more important the story is more important than the content yes just add to the comments I completely agree with Professor thari but I will say one more thing when we talk about knowledge always remember there is the smiti Shakti knowledge there's the kpna Shakti knowledge always remember
1:09:16 that and I owe it to roomi because this was I put on the front page of my second book sell knowledge by imagination and the Technologies of kpna Shakti were developed in a way technology means a technique that works every time most beautifully by abav gupt as to how do you channelize your kulp shti for acquisition of knowledge because knowledge is not static knowledge is not rear view mirror knowledge is a frontier
1:10:02 activity that's the only addition to what he said and just to add to your uh about that very good question Pand has left uh you you have to read um orindo in order to understand that aspect of jindu Krishna morti uh without understanding orindo I think we're more or less contemporary uh and and very different in in their style of was slightly earlier yes Ian just but but I think that's more or less contemporary yes so we have time for another question that's that will be the last question and that will be the last question uh no yeah rck is working so I'll talk like this only uh my question is simple we have talked about epistemic inquiry and
1:10:47 search for knowledge within the Indian knowledge system but then mimansa and Rishi jini tell us you don't need to search for knowledge do as it is written you don't need to apply your own thought process where does he say J says in the I know CH I know what say that what is the what is the what is the index of that knowledge yeah yeah because he said he doesn't say that you don't search for it I saying that when there is an imperative issued from Authority yeah to do something as it is dictated then why do we need epistemic inquiry on our parts in the modern system because the Indian knowledge system is also saying that Authority has already issued an imperative so why search for epistemic
1:11:35 inquiry amongst ourselves as sovereignity of the individual I I'll answer that very in a very short way why didn't you come and speak in the mic yeah I understood the question you repeat it because they recording yeah I mean basically you're you're you're quoting J why seek knowledge right right so so question is what is knowledge and the answer again from Kashmir is very simple knowledge is that which takes your desire and turns it into fruits that you can taste that's the purpose of knowledge and what you're referring to
1:12:20 you're talking about the vid and Nish the two five among the five kinds of statements that you you you find in the Ric tradition and the IMA is the tradition which simply talks about hermeneutics how do you draw meaning out of sounds and words and and therefore he says he he talks about two VI and Nish but what about other three kinds and it is there that you need by which you actually discover the meaning from the word spoken and again he he he speaks so how do you get the meaning of say silver he said the is you should not offer silver as a gift
1:13:08 in any ritual that is the injunction or other prohibition so this prohibition how do you go about it how do you how do I satisfy myself that why should uh silver not be given as a gift which is also a tradition now even poor people they can't afford it even small amount amount of gold they put it with at the daughter's wedding if they can't afford it because rajat or silver is is prohibited then he says because when you discover rajat is or the silver is considered to be the tears of the god varuna and therefore and then we say this this Nish this Prohibition in the even in the prohibition he looks for a meaning unless you you get the meaning you will not be satisfied with something
1:13:53 that is told you not to to do and the same goes with the VII so you right up to an extent that it is already given and ordained by the Veda but how do we look for a general public so if you read the commentary after jinii then you discover what actually it is that you're looking for yeah thank you uh Haman sir thank you rakes sir it was a great pleasure sitting in uh between both of you learning from you thank you Dean sir for giving me this opportunity for your time thank you so I'll back uh hand back the podium to Uma for the thanks uh formally thank you very thank you very much I think we've had a very fascinating conversation as the dean
1:14:40 said this afternoon we've had profound insights from both the speakers as well as the moderator and I'm certain that this discussion this conversation will be discussed in G daas over the next few days I thank the moderator and the two speakers on behalf of the sis as well as the organizing team of the kunu memorial lecture series I would also like to thank the audience um the students and members of The Faculty for asking interesting questions and for being a very receptive audience and suffering us here 5:00 we hope to see you tomorrow morning at 11: for the session on why Africa matters thank you all once again
