THESE three words of prayer or universal wish or fine values of life have often defined the ideals that explain the ‘Bharat’ metaphor like nothing else may do. In simple explanation, the three words mean “Truth”, “Piousness or Purity”, and Eternal beauty”. However, the interpretation of this ancient wish of India about how the human society should actually and ideally be, is deep and complex -- and, of course, wholesome. While signing off this current ten-part series of “The ‘Bharat’ Metaphor”, it is essential to consider the thought-process that actually governed the growth and development of the ancient Indian civilisation. It is, however, essential to emphasise here that the purpose of this series is not to build any politically-driven narrative. The purpose is to bring to fore a few of the millions of nuances of the Indian civilisation and culture that got built over countless thousands of years. The purpose also is to remind the modern mind that the ancient Indian civilisation was not a happenstance, so to say, but an intelligently-construed and carefully-constructed social order in which harmony was the core principle. That harmony gets best defined by the three-dimensional thought of Satyam Shivam Sundaram!

 

According this ideal, search or pursuit of truth -- Satyam -- is what human society must be engaged in. This is a comprehensive truth -- about the material universe, about the non-material universe, about human consciousness ...!

This truth encompasses everything under the Sun (so to say) or everything beyond. That search took the ancient Indian sages to assess the size of the universe -- Brahmanda -- which, according to Shrimad Bhagvatam has a diameter of 500,000,000 yojanas. With one yojan admeasuring approximately 9 miles, the universe was 4.5 trillion miles -- a little over 5,000 years ago when the great book Shrimad Bhagvatam was penned by Maharshi VedVyas. This specific mention of time 5,000 years ago has a special significance. For, in the Nasadiya Sukta in the 10th Mandala of RigVed, a clear mention is available that the universe was continually expanding thanks to the combination of the centripetal and centrifugal forces operating together. This means, the dimensions today may be different -- which was explained the the RigVed whose timeline is not known and cannot be calculated exactly. One thing was sure that RigVed was written countless thousands of years before Shrimad Bhagvatam was written. This reference to the material universal has been made here only to highlight the range of truth-seeking by the sages of ancient India that is Bharat.

 

The second dimension is of Shivam. This means piousness, purity and divinity. The Indian thought-process of those ancient times was engaged in the pursuit of elevation to the divine level. When human thought is guided by the nectar of divinity, it attains a finesse that goes beyond words. That was one of the aims of human existence, as defined by the wisdom of ancient India that is Bharat. The third dimension Sundaram refers to beauty -- as an extension of inner glow each one of us has. It refers not just to physical aesthetics but also to spirituality and divinity as the finest dimensions of human existence at the metaphysical plane. Ancient wisdom of the Indian society insists upon approaching life’s processes with a sense of grace and grandeur and gratitude -- which together form the idea of Sundaram. Let us consider this three-dimensional model of human excellence (to bring it down to a little temporal level) in totality. Does it not suggest an eternal pursuit of light of the Atman or the inner glow? It does. In other words, it suggests the engagement in search of light in all its metaphysical dimensions such as knowledge, finer consciousness, higher pursuit of universal togetherness ...! In other words, all this is indicative of the idea of Bharat -- Bha (light) rat (engaged).

 

This is the point of understanding what Bharat actually means. And when the reference is made to India that is Bharat, then the ‘Bharat’ metaphor gets explained in the light of the nuances brought to fore in this ten-part serial spanning nearly two months. This intellectual indulgence was thought essential only with the idea of calming down the political clamour that went up in India’s public discourse about the word Bharat used by honourable President of India Mrs. Droupadi Murmu in her invitation for a banquet to international guests. There was actually no reason for anybody to object to the use of Bharat as a nomenclature of the country -- since it has been included very honourably and purposefully in the Constitution of India. Yet some elements did exactly that, though senselessly.

This current series was thought of as a responsible response to that clamour.