KOCHI: It is most unfortunate that in the city of Tormsk in the state of Siberia in Russia, a case was filed in the court for banning Srimad Bhagavad Gita. It is doubly so because the news comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s official visit to Russia which was widely acclaimed as a great diplomatic success. It is indeed paradoxical that Russia which had enjoyed very good relationship with India for many centuries in the past and which continued uninterrupted even while Russia had gone communist has now acted in this manner. How can anyone do condemn the most beautifully condensed message of the Upanishad in the form of Gita as a literature that spreads hatred and encourages religious intolerance?Leo Tolstoy had an immense fascination for Upanishads, Gita, and Buddhist literature. The works of Swami Vivekananda had a profound influence on him. Theodore Fedor Ippolitovich Stcherbatsky, another eminent Buddhist scholar studied Sanskrit and Pali and translated Nyaya logic into Russian.Later, he was director of the Russian Institute of Buddhist culture from 1928 to 1930. Indological studies received a great impetus by the influence of Maxim Gorkhy on Lenin’s activities after the Russian revolution of 1917. He inspired Lenin to establish the Moscow Institute of Oriental Languages and the Petrograd Institute of Modern Oriental Languages.It should be mentioned in this context that Russian research and scholarship was concentrated in Siberia, Mongolia and Turkestan. The Russian Sanskritist Alexei Barannikov translated the Ramacharit Manas of Tulsidas into Russian and also delivered a series of lectures on ancient Indian literature, Sanskrit language, grammar and poetry at St. Petersburg. Profusely influenced by Charles Wilkin’s rendering of Bhagawad Gita, N.I.Norikov translated it into Russian as early as 1787. Even when the communist party was reigning, supreme Swami Ranganathanantha delivered his lecture at Moscow State University in 1977. It is an irony of history that the protests and intolerance that was not visible in the past towards Indian culture have surfaced with the decline of the communist party and rise of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church has taken control of the communist party.Five years back, the Orthodox Church strongly expressed its violent intolerance and religious bigotry by protests which prevented the construction of a Krishna temple at St. Petersburg by ISKON. With an intellectual vacuum, the Orthodox Church fears the erosion of its folk by the intellectual dynamism of Gita which has never been a bandwagon of any religious denomination. It is unimaginable that such a country has taken the initiative to ban one of the most sacred scriptures of the world, Bhagavad Gita. Gita is the quintessential wisdom of the vast Upanishadic literature which is the fountainhead of Indian culture. How non-sectarian and universal the Upanishads are can be clearly understood from the statement of the great German philosopher Schopenhauer “There is no study so elevating and so ennobling as that of the Upanishad. They have been the solace of my life and they will be the solace of my death.” How can anyone do condemn the most beautifully condensed message of the Upanishad in the form of Gita as a literature that spreads hatred and encourages religious intolerance?Edwin Arnold, an equally famous European poet, has called Gita the ‘Song Celestial-the Divine Song.’ Commenting on the title ‘Song Celestial,’ Swami Ranganathananda, who was deputed by no less a person than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the ‘cultural ambassador of India’ across the world, has stated: There is nothing sectional, nothing creedal in the teaching of Gita. The philosophy is meant for any human being, wherever one is, man or woman, adult or child, to achieve one’s fulfilment in one’s own line of development. That is why it can appeal to every human being. It is a music which can inspire every heart in any part of the world (Page 338, Universal message of Bhagavad Gita, Volume -III, Swamy Ranganathananda).The initiative of the Orthodox Church-dominated state of Siberia to ban such a universally acknowledged scripture is the height of intolerance and needs to be opposed by enlightened people all over the world. The present situation in Siberia comes in the wake of the long-drawn-out hostility of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church towards the International Krishna Consciousness Movement.So the protest move cannot be dismissed as an isolated incident by some stray fanatic elements in Russia. Culture is the best link to bridge countries and civilizations. It will be the height of human folly to do anything that weakens the bridge. It is only natural that Indian Parliament unanimously protested against this uncivilized act. It is equally encouraging that the Russian ambassador expressed regret.
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