Tamaham Vismayavishtah Punarevedamabruvam/ Durlabham Bharate Janma Tatraapi Cha Manushyata// - Skanda Purana (Verse 1.2.3.36) THE Skanda Purana written several thousand years ago has many such verses that highlight the good fortune of having been born in ‘Bharat. -- Durlabham Bharate Janma (‘Not easy to be born in Bharat ...’ or ‘To be born in Bharat is a precious good fortune ...’). The Skanda Purana is one of the largest of Mahapuranas with around 80,000 verses. In seven different chapters, it describes holy areas of ‘Bharat’ (that later came to known by foreigners as [‘India’). Each of those chapters -- or Cantos -- describes the good fortune of having been born in Bharat. The Skanda Purana, thus, is one holy text that offers multiple nuances of the metaphor of ‘Bharat’ -- in the process explaining various defining statements of what ‘Bharat’ means in reality and in spirituality. This is important -- the spiritual dimension of ‘Bharat’. Bharat, by that standard, is not just a land mass, but a place embedded in the centre of the seas and the mountains offering the gods an abode whose merit is difficult to be captured in words. So Durlabham Bharate Janma ... ! The Bharat metaphor has to be understood, therefore, from multiple angles, from multiple standpoints, from multiple nuances, through multiple cultural colour-screens. ...! To understand the comprehensive metaphor of Bharat, therefore, takes a serious delving into the history and culture of the place -- which is far beyond the timeline known to westerners in particular.

 

The people of Bharat -- the Bharatiyas -- were the real sons and daughters of the soil. Early morning they rose from their beds and apologised to Mother Earth that they ‘had to’ place their feet on her body: Samudravasane Devi Parvatastannmandaley/ (Oh Ocean-clad Goddess With Mountains forming your chest) Vishnupatni Namastubhyam Padasparsham Kshamasva Me// (Oh Consort of Lord Vishnu, so sorry we are that we have to place our feet on you). This feeling continues even today -- in whole of India, that is Bharat. Every person here feels personally guilty (of sorts) of having to place his feet on Mother Earth. So, in order to atone for that sin, he (or she) commits self to serving Mother Earth, Mother Nature, in the best manner possible, vowing to ensure that Nature is not exploited for petty gains of human greed. Thus, the mountains -- represented by the king Himalaya -- and the seas and the greens form innate, intrinsic, inextricable parts of prayers of the people from Bharat on a daily basis. To understand this in full measure is to understand the metaphor called Bharat. Of course, prayers are often integral to human civilisations. In our country, however, prayers have different connotations, different nuances that are not generally found elsewhere in the world.

 

So, the scientists engaged in the launch of the Moon Mission are also found engaging themselves in religious prayers with a sense of immense pride, with a complete connect with science of consciousness, with a full awareness that prayers are designed to serve the specific purpose of elevating the human soul. So, to the critics who laughed at the scientists’ so-called backwardness, Prof. S. Somanath, the indomitable Director of the Indian Space Organisation (ISRO), said, in effect, that spacecrafts and rocket science were for handling (not conquering) the outer space; while prayers were for tackling the inner space -- in which worst turmoils of cognition and emotion often torment the person. To understand this is to understand the Bharat metaphor. Of course, Bharat (that is India) expresses itself through multiple nuances whose number is beyond counting. It is certainly not without reason that the Skanda Purana talks of how Durlabh being born in Bharat is. For, when one is born in Bharat, one is privy to the history and tradition and ethos and culture with enormous time-line -- so enormous that a person with western grooming cannot even imagine its length and depth.

 

It is in this light that one can say safely that there must be countless thousands of scientific precepts that were first thought of and designed and defined countless thousands of years ago. So, in the 10th Mandala of RigVed, the Nasadiya Sookta talks in detail of the ever-expanding universe (whose knowledge is so terribly recent in western comprehension). The same RigVed prays with a sense of commitment to acquiring knowledge -- embedded in the very name Bharat: Aano Bhadra Kratavo Yantu Vishwatah (May all good thoughts come to us from all universe). This is embedded into the collective consciousness of Indian people. This has shaped their thinking totally differently. This is yet another dimension of the Bharat metaphor.