The way Indians today talk among themselves about Indian culture looks quite bizarre. Some of them describe all the customs and practices of their ancestors as wonderful, possessing everything under the sun and therefore, they bask in past glory. On the other end of the spectrum, some speak of these practices dismissively, as if everything here is utterly futile and worthless. But neither of these two descriptions is about the way we experience the world. Instead, these are the descriptions given by the Europeans centuries ago at different points in time about India and her traditions and we keep on unconsciously reproducing and sustaining them. Both these images, one as India being wonderful and the other as useless, can be situated in the descriptions of how Europe experienced Indian traditions and described them, and have nothing to do with India itself. These descriptions, as repeatedly shown in the works of S N Balagangadhara, when taken as truth about Indian society and culture, make us appear foolish in our understanding of ourselves and feel contemptuous of our own traditions. Based on these descriptions, many thinkers raise several questions on the relevance of Indian culture. Many of them even go to the extent of dismissing them completely as primitive and superstitious. On one hand, there is an urge among the people to give apt responses to such descriptions about our life. On the other hand, we realize that our traditions, and our practices are paths to happiness. We celebrate, enjoy, and cherish the part of being in this ritual life. Though this is our experience of traditions, we have not been able to describe our traditions systematically, using our experience. In present times, attempting to do so yields many confusions and problems, hindering us from giving a reasonable account of our own lives and society. Therefore, it is important to understand how we have landed in such a crisis while talking about our own traditions.

Let us be clear about the fact that this constant attack on our traditions and the attempts to respond to these criticisms are not new. These attempts to trivialize and caricature our traditions have their history since European colonialism. It is precisely because of colonialism that many thinkers took the pathway of ‘decolonization’ to defend India and her traditions. Despite these attempts, problems and confusions in giving appropriate descriptions of India from our experience persist. Since there is a long-standing story of this never-ending debate between an apparent attack on Indian tradition and its defense, it is important to know its limitations and create an alternative pathway to enable us to describe Indian traditions aptly. In this context, it is worthwhile to ask what a response to such a challenge from Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) would be. Though there could be many possible directions one can take in addressing these issues, I would like to explore one potential pathway, something which is familiar to people who know the works of S N Balagangadhara. I would use his approach to see whether we can address some challenges in front of us. 

Snake and Rope: European experience and Indian culture

Let us try to untangle the knots of such a confused situation about India and her traditions, using the snake and rope analogy (Rajju-Sarpa Nyāya - Adhyāsa) from Advaita Vedānta and let us see whether we can arrive at some resolution of the issues at hand. Let’s discuss Adhyāsa in detail. We are aware of the idea that Adhyāsa is about superimposing something on the object when it is not. In this case, if one assumes India as a rope, the idea of a snake (European experience) is superimposed on the rope (Indian traditions). The superimposition of a snake on the rope was possible because certain conditions made the person observe the rope to see that object as though it were a snake. Such superimposition is possible because of the observers’ experience and the background conditions within which the rope was seen. In any case, I would like to argue here, that when Europeans came to India and saw the life of Indians, they perceived that life (rope) as a snake. The snake that came into existence in the experience of Europeans later became the standard way of talking about India. Even though everyone for centuries talked about a snake, it never existed and yet became an object of study.

In this background let us relook at our description of Indian culture. This requires us to examine a bit of history of what happened to Indian culture in the past. We are all aware that Islamic and European colonialism have affected and damaged the transmission of Indian culture.  But now we have been able to understand how European colonialism has affected Indian culture, though at this point in time we are yet to examine and explore Islamic colonization and its consequences. It was Europeans who wanted to know more about India. When they started engaging in managing different parts of India, they had to understand the culture of this country in order to govern the Indian population.   By the time they started administration in India by the late 18th century and till they left India, they first started documenting and developing ideas about what kind of people Indians are. For more than two centuries, Europeans as colonizers, missionaries, and travelers began to give descriptions about India and her traditions, based on the ideas they carried about the nature of human beings from their cultural experience. Though these descriptions were about Indians, they were part of how Europeans experienced Indian culture rather than about Indian culture itself.  Therefore, these descriptions were more about European ways of experiencing Indian culture than about India, i.e., the descriptions relied upon how they experienced India rather than what India is.

Hence, we can say that Europeans misconceived rope (India) as a snake and began to give descriptions of “snake". These descriptions are mainly perpetuated through education and unfortunately, today, our academic community sustains these same European descriptions. In other words, whenever they speak of the rope (India), they persist in calling it a snake (European experience). This misidentification reveals nothing about the rope itself, instead, it exposes far more about the observer who mistook the rope for a snake. Here, Śaṅkara Bhagavatpāda’s Adhyāsa (superimposition) becomes the best possible explanation to understand the situation. The moment we say this, many Indians would stand up and argue that they are devoted to their practices (ācāra), hence they have not been captured by these snake’s descriptions over rope, and that they have an accurate understanding of India. But such arguments fail to explain our ‘vismṛti’ or forgetfulness (which is popularly known as amnesia). Because when such people give a description about their ācāra, they reproduce the very same snake’s description. This is because of the vismṛti or forgetfulness, which doesn’t allow Indians to access their past. Now let us make this clearer with an example.

Adhyāsa, Vismṛti and Nalanda University:

In recent days, most Indians have come to believe that India's National Education Policy has inaugurated the educational revival of independent India, which might have some element of truth in it. But such attempts to revive Indian education based on its cultural nuances were not only reflected in NEP 2020, but prior policies have also mentioned them. Though it is evident that the policy has some important proposals regarding the integration of Indian traditions and has some repeated references to the Indian legacy of education, nevertheless some of the issues dealt with in the NEP are debatable. According to this new policy, India's traditional way of learning can be a model not only for India but for the world too. As the National Education Policy says, "India has a long tradition of holistic and multidisciplinary learning, from universities such as Takṣaśilā and Nalanda, to the extensive literature of India combining subjects across fields." Not only that, but it also explains how an individual can attain liberation from Saṃsāra, that is, from worldly affairs. According to them, “The aim of education in ancient India was not just the acquisition of knowledge as preparation for life in this world, or life beyond schooling, but for the complete realization and liberation of the self. World-class institutions of ancient India such as Takṣaśilā, Nalanda, Vikramaśilā, Vallabhī, set the highest standards of multidisciplinary teaching and research and hosted scholars and students from across backgrounds and countries." It is also argued that these Indian institutions attracted a large number of students from other countries of the world for the purpose of gaining knowledge. According to this education policy, “The ancient Indian universities Takṣaśilā, Nalanda, Vallabhī, and Vikramaśilā, which had thousands of students from India and the world studying in vibrant multidisciplinary environments, amply demonstrated the type of great success that large multidisciplinary research and teaching universities could bring." In short, Nalanda appears not just to be an inspiration but a practical model for shaping India's future education.

The claims in the reports seem to be reflecting something that existed in the past. Let us ask some critical questions now. Does this Nalanda model of education exist today? Is the reference to Nalanda really pointing to what exactly the Nalanda tradition was offering? Assuming that such institutions as described in NEP about Nalanda were to exist today, would our policy recognize and nurture such institutions? It is most likely that if Nalanda-like institutions were to exist our education policies would not recognize them as the legitimate institutions, upon which they intend to model today’s universities. Though this claim might appear strange, that is the reality of our education policy today and I would like to argue that this is exactly the nature of vismṛti that I have been pointing out so far. 

If one looks at Nalanda through its history, one can recognize many things.  Fundamentally, Nalanda was a Mahāvihāra of the Buddhist tradition. Nalanda was not a university as people talk about today. This Mahāvihāra was the most important Buddhist learning center of the Indian subcontinent around the 5th century to the 13th century. We have been told how Nalanda was attacked over a period of time by Islamic invaders and subsequently burnt. One can visit Nalanda in Bihar and see the excavated place even today. It is a fact recorded in the annals of history that, from this tradition, the kings of Tibet sent many students to the Nalanda Mahāvihāra in order to systematically establish the Buddhist way of learning in their kingdom. We also know that a series of great masters from the Nalanda tradition went to Tibet on the invitation of the King and established a teaching and learning process in Tibet.

After the Islamic invasion, the whole Nalanda learning system was preserved completely and fully in the Vajrayāna or Tantrayāna traditions of Tibet. The tradition seriously developed in these vihāra by many ācāryas (teachers) such as Dharmapāla, Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, Candrakīrti, Asaṅga, Śilābhadra and Śāntarakṣita was carried forward in the Vajrayāna tradition of Tibet. There are many traditions in the vihāras of Tibet today. Some of these traditions are more than a thousand years old, even the newer ones are more than 600 years old. Among them, traditions such as Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug have diligently preserved the entire Nalanda learning model. Here, students engage in serious study for about 20 to 26 years. In the initial years, they learned logic, language, and so on. After that, a monk engages in the study of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Madhyamika Buddhist tradition, Vinaya, Abhidhamma etc., for at least 17 to 20 years. During this study, his daily routine starts from early dawn and continues till ten at night.  What has been normally referred to as the traditional ways of learning, is practiced here.  For about 20 years, every day they engage in debate, and learn how to argue properly; through this process of debating, they progress toward a better understanding of how to develop thinking about their inner world. It is in this tradition of learning that one could understand what it means to use the framework of Śravaṇa, Manana and Nididhyāsana as an Indian model. All that is discussed in our traditions as “Vāda” is not just alive here but taught in a very structured and systematic way.

Nalanda tradition has continuously survived in many vihāras in India. After China's invasion of Tibet in the 1950s, at least a sizable population of Tibet's people, including the Dalai Lama, migrated to India. In the 1960s, they restarted the entire Nalanda tradition in India. In these traditions, every year more than a thousand students complete 15 to 20 years of study and obtain degrees such as Geshe, Khenpo, and so on. This is the Sādhanā (practice) that a person does for the ultimate truth (paramārtha) or for ‘ānanda’. If this is one example of the Nalanda model, traditional education also continues in many gurukulas across India. Many gurukulas of Veda, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, agriculture (Kṛṣi), architecture (Sthapati), and so on, still educate thousands of people in India even today. This Nalanda model of education that the National Education Policy mentions still exists in India today. In Karnataka, in Mundgod, Bylakuppe, and Hunsur, about 30,000 monks are continuously studying in the Nalanda model even today. One can still see people from multiple countries of Southeast and South Asia and at times from Europe coming to vihāras even today and learning for 20 to 25 years. If we try to find out whether any university in India has learnt from the Nalanda model, we will not find a single example. Not only that, but we also do not have any university that has anything that resembles the Nalanda model, nor does any university or our education system give recognition to the degrees attained in the vihāra. If vihāras try to get recognition for the degrees that they study, the kind of regulation that is imposed on these vihāras would simply destroy the core of the Nalanda model. That is why most of these vihāra fear the university system. The conditions that the University imposes to recognize Nalanda model education in vihāra today would destroy the traditions that they have preserved for centuries.  

The very model of education that is said to be an inspiration as per the NEP 2020 goes unrecognized or treated as illegitimate in our own independent India's democracy. Furthermore, even if an attempt is made to recognise this learning model under UGC rules, it would bring the vihāra’s learning entirely into the framework of the current university model and would end up fundamentally changing the learning process, which has been preserved for thousands of years. What is very vital about Nalanda pedagogy is that for two decades, students continuously engage in debate every single day, and they understand this world without falling into the grip of any ideology. Contrary to this, in our universities, starting from our textbooks, all understanding about India comes from ideologies alone (liberalism, Marxism, and so on) which in no way can lead us to knowledge. In vihāras, as they engage in debate every day, this method of debate creates a meditative environment. In universities, debates and discussions are tools to trade one's own opinions and ideologies which often lead to violence.

Our contemporary or modern universities have emerged in the background of European traditions. These are the institutions that were developed and nurtured in Europe and then they were transplanted to India through the colonial state. On the contrary, vihāra and the gurukula were born from the background of Indian traditions. The two have different purposes, both institutionally and structurally. Our modern education system, which is the product of the colonial state, has continued moving forward while uprooting traditional learning methods. Dharampal's book 'The Beautiful Tree' explains how the English education system began to kill Indian learning methods step by step and systematically. That is why, today, the modern education system structurally and pedagogically cannot accept the shaping of an education system based on our traditional system itself; and the biggest irony is that Indians are unable to grasp the gravity of the situation . This is an institutional and structural problem. Those who are leading the transformation of Indian education are not even near to the recognition of the living Nalanda model or the gurukula system to shape our new education system.

The irony is that they hold up the European description of the Nalanda story as a beautiful ideal for the universities and today, India's traditional learning methods are being made illegitimate/ legally invalid or euphemistically called informal education. For instance, what kind of practices and teaching methods led to multi-disciplinary learning in Nalanda is not a concern of policy. In fact, the kind of comprehensive system that Nalanda offers and its daily routine, its reflective methods, emphasis on practicing certain kinds of meditation and other specific things etc., pooled together bring what one can see as multidisciplinary learning. For the Nalanda model, this transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approach is not something they need to plan to create, rather it emerges naturally in their learning system. I do not think policy makers have seen any aspect of this Nalanda model. Thus, policy appears to be drawing some romantic historical claims to whatever they otherwise wanted to do. Just to encourage multidisciplinary learning in universities, Europe has developed some interesting models and mostly policy is trying to advocate it (I wish at least these European models were taken seriously) by just putting this romantic label of Nalanda. Is there anything in the Nalanda model that is taken seriously to remodel our university? The policy at least does not even remotely indicate such things. We know that in the colonial period the descriptions of Nalanda were generated out of some European descriptions and then it was used to talk about the Asian or Indian model of learning. Even though the greatness of Nalanda Mahavihara is an undisputed fact, its descriptions as a university with professors and an administration like modern-day universities are certainly a continuation of European experience. Consequently, Nalanda today is described as something which it was not. The worst part of this story is that while the Nalanda model continues to thrive even today in India, it is not even seen as a legitimate teaching -learning system.  As pointed out, the thriving Nalanda vihāra is just rejected by the Indian state as well as policy, as the monks who get trained in these places do not even get a certification, even if they wish, they need to change their ways of teaching-learning system to fit the university by losing their essence and tradition. If this is not vismṛti, then what else is it?  Ignoring and not recognizing what is right in front of us, and getting trapped in the story of rope understood as a snake, is the greatest tragedy of our times. This also illustrates the state of affairs with respect to the rhetoric of revival of ancient education today.