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AlOchanaamR^itaM
The Plasticity of Indian ShastraAs the Indian mind ... advances westward towards inevitable
conquest, it must inevitably carry with it Yoga and Vedanta for its
banners wherever it goes. But in order that the victory may
not be slow, it is necessary that whatever
India has to offer should be stated to the West in language that the
West can understand... Europe will
accept nothing which is not scientific... Undoubtedly, for
practical purposes the West is right....
Indian knowledge possesses such a
scientific basis, but ... expressed
only in broad principles, compact
aphorisms. The
aphoristic method has great advantages. It prevents the mind
from getting encrusted in details and fossilizing there It
allows a science to remain elastic and full of ever new
potentialitiesfor the discoverer. No
doubt, it has disadvantages. It leaves much room for inaccuracy ...
For this
[reason], among other more important reasons, the Indian mind has thought it wise to give
a firm and absolute authority to the guru... In
Europe, the manual replaces the guru; the mind of the learner is
rigidly bound by the written rule and
detail not by the more adaptable and flexible word of the guru.
In this webpage, I present excerpts from an excellent
7-day sangIta prasangam by Sri Madugula Nagaphani Sarma at Hyderabad in 2002.
My purpose is to introduce its rasa to rasikas.
This and other prasangams and gAnams are now available for online purchase at
his
avadhAna sarasvati website
It means, "Music and Literature are the two breasts of Sarasvati, the Mother
of Learning. One [like honey] is sweet as we drink it;
the other yields more and more nectar as we reflect on it [like an ikShu
khaNDa i.e., sugarcane piece].
Well, this sangIta prasangam by Madugula is 14 hours of pure rasa that is
both ApAta-madhuram and AlochanAmR^itam!
The entire prasangam's video is available for purchase in 18 VCDs
of excellent quality. I extracted the audio out of it all without losing
quality and converted it to realaudio and mp3.
I appeal to rasikas to come forward and monetarily contribute to Sarma
gAru's great cause, which is to set up a University for dhAraNa (retention in
memory) at Hyderabad. Purchasing his works is one way.