Nagpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday said in Nagpur that India has a huge reserve of traditional knowledge. But some selfish people deliberately added wrong facts to the ancient texts. “Some of India’s ancient books were lost while in some cases people with vested interests got wrong viewpoints inserted in ancient works,” he said..
Bhagwat was speaking at the inauguration of the Aryabhatta Astronomy Park at Kanholibara in Nagpur district on Thursday. He said that before we had no scriptures, everything was through oral tradition. Later all these scriptures were scattered and some selfish people inserted something in the scripture that is wrong, the knowledge of those scriptures and traditions must be revised once. Again, he stressed.
“Everyone should have at least some basic knowledge of what we have in our tradition, which can be gained through the education system as well as through general conversations between people,” he said. Historically India possessed a scientific approach of looking at things but with invasions, “our systems got destroyed and our culture of knowledge got fragmented,” the RSS chief said.
If Indians explored their traditional knowledge base and found what is acceptable for the present times, “many problems of the world can be solved with our solutions”, he said. The world outside is possessive about knowledge, he said, giving the example of some countries claiming to be the birthplace of Yoga, and even patents being filed there to acquire proprietary rights on it.
“Knowledge is to be given to the wise seeker. Knowledge should reach all,” Bhagwat said. But as others seek to appropriate knowledge, it is important that we at least know what our traditions contain, he said. India’s traditional knowledge base is vast, the RSS chief said, adding that some of our ancient books were lost while in some cases people with vested interests got wrong viewpoints inserted in ancient works. The syllabus prepared under the New Education Policy includes some things which were missing earlier, Bhagwat said.
He further added that if the people of India could find their traditional knowledge base acceptable even in the present times, many of the world’s problems could also be solved with it. Bhagwat further said that if Indians examine their traditional science and knowledge base and find that what is acceptable in present times was also there in the past, then many of the world’s problems can be solved with our solutions.
“Only knowledge should be given to the seeker of knowledge. Knowledge must reach all sectors of society. He said that since other people want to take knowledge without permission, it is necessary that we at least know what things our tradition contains. The need of the hour is to review once again the knowledge of scriptures and traditions,” Bhagwat stated.
