BENGALURU: Dharma is considered the most fundamental concept of Indian culture, and it is a barometer that guides us, guiding all aspects of life, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar has said. He was speaking at the Namah Shivaya Parayan organised by the Sri Sharada Peetham, Sringeri, to commemorate the golden jubilee of the initiation into the sanyasa of Peethadhipati of Sri Sri Bharatiteertha Mahanasannidhanam, in Bengaluru on Saturday.
Dharma represents both the path, the passage, as well as the destination and the goal, applying to all spheres of existence, including divine beings, and serves as a practical rather than utopian ideal for righteous living, Dhankhar said.
He also said that Sanatana stands for empathy, sympathy, compassion, tolerance, nonviolence, virtuosity, sublimity, religiosity, and all this converges in one word, inclusivity. We don’t need lessons in this country on inclusivity. We live inclusivity every moment, every day. This nation, Bharat, home to one sixth of humanity, has for centuries demonstrated to the world what is inclusivity, the Vice-President said.
Dhankar said that Vedic chanting represents one of humanity’s most ancient and unbroken oral traditions. “The systematic compositions of Vedic verses, the intricate rules of their recitation... this demonstrates the scientific sophistication of our ancient scholars. This has been accomplished without a pen or without a pen drive. Harmonious articulation of syllables has been transmitted through generations, and what an absorbing capacity we have,” he added.
Talking about Adi Shankaracharya, he said, “All kinds of efforts were made to run down our culture, taint and tarnish our culture, and destroy our cultural fabric. This was by bigoted minds. The nation has survived because our culture is indestructible. It can’t be destroyed or decimated, and friends, amongst this luminous class, is Adi Shankaracharya, who devotedly worked to liberate society from its suffering.”
“We owe a great debt to Adi Shankaracharya for the revival of timeless tradition of India’s spirituality and philosophy, the legendary and easily comprehensible teachings of Adi Shankaracharya and his reflections on our scriptures catalysed unifying spirit across Bharat,” the Vice-President added.