Many who live in the present, enjoying the comforts of modernity, growing fat with the affluence and the ease of doing things with scientific advances abhor the many changes that happen around them. They clamour about decadence, injustice and our self-induced path to destruction. They reminisce about the good days when foods were tasty, the air was clean and leaders were honest.
The more you delve into history, the more one realises that Man's past was never anything but of turmoil. Take the instance of South India, for example. They talk about the glorious good old Golden Age of the Pandyas, Cheras and Cholas and their gargantuan seafaring, scientific and philosophical feats.
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| Thanjavur Periya Kovil
Sample of Chola architectural prowess
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All these achievements did not come without any human sacrifices. The Hindu kings had to outdo their Jain Kings with their architecture and their wealth. They had to compete with the Buddhist for support from the masses as Buddhism appeared kinder to those who lost out in the Sanāthana Dharma's caste system and gender discrimination. Even the Buddhists were no angels either. In their animosity with the Hindus, they collaborated with the invading Mogul army only to be played out, converted and chased away. That is how Buddhism spread eastwards and that is why they did not have representation in the Din-Illahi panel. Their role as a dominant religion had fizzled out. And the peaceful paths of all religions leaves a trail of blood, death, injustice and the ego to prove their assertions.
The scene in this snippet reminds me of the time in South Indian history when one great Shaivite poet, Sambanthar, managed to convert a Jain King to become a Hindu King. The first thing that the King did afterwards was to impale 3,000 plus of his kinsmen who refused to convert!
In the movie clip, a Pandya King, puzzled after being rejected by a palace dancer, confides in his learned poet for solace. The Minister suggests divine indulgence for peace of mind. The King, a non-believer, demands proofs for the existence of God -where is He; which direction He is going to; what is He doing now?
As illustrated, the simple truths of Life were enumerated simply by a prodigy with her child-like precocious intelligence which is rampant in Hindu Purana stories.
So what or who or where is God? Like in the milk metaphor, the Milky Way (Universe) is the vessel that contains all lifeform matters and non-matters? It is the force that binds all these Existence which all culminated from The One - Milk, the elixir of life? Like the brightness from the lit candle, God, the Enlightened One, traverses all directions? That the Universe is always expanding? The Light as highlighted by the Sufi Mystics and Zoroastrians? That His 'actions' are the all the ill effects of all of Man's reckless actions, not His doings! Man does everything at the spur of the moment influenced by his ego, self-interest, compulsion, weakness and compassion that gets him into all kinds of a mess but he blames God afterwards? After all, His 'doing' is just to juggle to keep the equations of opposing forces, to thermodynamic and other universal laws in steady-state...
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