Dear Professor,

You will be glad to know that the Jain Journal, published by Jain Bhawan, P-25, Kalakar
Street, Kolkata-700006, is going to complete its fiftieth year of publication in 2015.
The next issue of the journal will mark the fiftieth year of its publication.
We are planning to bring out a special issue of Jain Journal, featuring articles on
different aspects of Jaina philosophy and allied topics, contributed by renowned scholars
to celebrate the occasion.
We invite you to contribute an article on any topic related to Jainism in which you may
be interested to write for this special issue. We are hoping for a positive response from
you.
It will be helpful if your article reaches us by the end of October 2015. Please send
your article in MS Word or Pdf file to our e-mail ID : jainbhawan@rediffmail.com or
anupamjash@rediffmail.com
We look forward to hearing from you.
With kind regards
Yours sincerely
Dr. Anupam Jash
Asstt. Professor,
Department Of Philosophy
Bankura Christian College
P.O.+Dist.-Bankura
PIN-722101
West-Bengal, INDIA
(Mob) +91 9475623025
&
Joint Editor
Jain Journal (ISSN:0021-4043)
& Sramana (ISSN: 0975-8550)
Kolkata

Visual Culture in the Indian

Subcontinent
The Chitrolekha Magazine is inviting articles, essays and photo essays on the visual culture
on the Indian subcontinent right from the prehistoric to the modern times. Submissions can
be made on the following topics/areas (not exclusive but suggestive):

New Perspectives on the origin of Art in the Indian Subcontinent

Issues in the History of Art in the Indian Subcontinent

Religious Architecture and Philosophy

Aesthetics of Town-planning

Paintings in the Indian Subcontinenthistory, forms and evolution

Sacred sculpturesinterpretations of the iconographies.

Religious movements and the production of art objects

Theories of Art

Artisansconditions and creations

Foreign influences and their incorporation

Ethnography, ethnicity and creation of art as a symbolic assertion

The science of arttechnology, techniques, experiments and materials.

We cordially invite your opinions, suggestions for inclusion of other topics and contributions
to the topics.
Word-limit: 2000-5000 words (including notes and references)
Style-sheet to follow: APA
Contact: Tarun Tapas Mukherjee & Sreecheta Mukherjee at editor@chitrolekha.com and
ttm1974@gmail.com
Submission Deadline September 30, 2015.

Expected Schedule of Publication: December, 2015.

Mohan K.V

Other recipients: shree...@gmail.com

Translated by Google - Marathi English - View Original Stop translating

** - (eko gunah khalu nihanti samasta-dosn) MEANING: "One good

quality makes up for every fault" -- to write such simple, intelligible lines in verse is extremely hard! This
has all the best qua

Sadasvada
Eko turn ons health is above all nihanti-dosan
(Eko gunah khalu nihanti samasta-dosn)
MEANING:
"One good quality makes up for every fault" - to write such simple, intelligible lines in verse is extremely
hard! This has all the best qualities of a subhas ita - this line is the 'take-away', can stand independently
and expresses an interesting insight. The rest of the verse presumably justifies this. How? Before you
read on, try thinking of what could fit in the past 3 lines :-)
CONTEXT:
Today's phrase is taken from the Cnakya-nti. Cnakya, also known
as Kaut ilya and Visn ugupta, was the famous founding father of the Mauryan empire which united India
for thefirst time in history about 2300 years ago. Over time, his political acumen and intelligence have
been so celebrated that the very word 'Cnakya' is a synonym for an extremely brilliant person.
A relatively lesser-known fact is that Cnakya was pretty much forgotten in all but name for the largest
part for the last 1000 years, and came to light as recently as 1905, whenRudrapatnam Shamasastry, a
scholar and librarian at the Oriental Research Institute at Mysore, discovered an ancient palm-leaf
manuscript written in the Tamil-like Grantha script. Over 4 years of meticulous reconstruction yielded a
workable copy, and 6 years of translation efforts finally made the work known to the wider Englishspeaking world. This is as much a testament to the industry of Shamasastry as it is to the glory of the
ascendant administration of Mysore at the time. Starting from Diwan C. Rungacharlu in 1881, for almost
an unbroken magical spell of 60 years, the Kingdom of Mysore was in the hands of some of the ablest
administrators the land has ever known, either before or after. It was Rungacharlu's successor, K.
Seshadri Iyer, who appointed the young Shamasastry as librarian after being impressed by his
scholarship. His work speaks for itself - The KingKrishnaraja Wadiyar IV once visited Germany and was
invited to meeting a address. The Maharaja was introduced to the guests as "His Highness the Maharaja
of Mysore". Address After his, a German audience member came up to him and asked, "Your Majesty, are

you the Maharaja of Mysore where lives Dr. Shamasastry, the discoverer of Arthasastra? '' The Maharaja
was pleasantly surprised that Shamasastry was so well known even in Germany! He felt proud of this
great scholar, and after his return called him and said, "In Mysore we are the Maharaja and you are our
subject, but in Germany, you are the master and people recognize us by your name and fame! "
We leave the reader to reflect if such an appointment, or such genuine pleasure at an appointee's
success, is conceivable in government today.
In the literary space, Cnakya is credited with two works - his magnum opus Arthastra, and a smaller
work on Nti. Our topic today is the second work.
As with many ancient works, the authorship of this one is hotly disputed. The degree of dispute varies
from some claiming that this work is much later than Cnakya, and that it's simply coasting on his name
and fame, to some who claim that no one called 'Cnakya' ever existed, and some collection of the
floating mass of oral knowledge was condensed into a work. We shall leave these considerations to
historians and focus on the work itself.
The Cnakya-nti, like a vast portion of Sanskrit literature, is not a work of poetry. It could be called a
collection of thoughts on practical matters, and here a difficulty quite common in the study of old works
accosts us: many such thoughts, one might say even the majority, do not apply to our society and world
today. They are either irrelevant, inapplicable, or sometimes plainly morally wrong by our standards. How
is one to react?
One reaction may be to judge them, and by extension the society that produced them, poorly: "If these
people really believed these utterly wrong things, they must have been very backward and worthy of
contempt". To people who believe so, any good ideas in the work are merely exceptions as long as there
is a sufficient mass of 'wrong' ideas at hand, which always is.
A counter-reaction to this would be that this is comparing apples and oranges. What if we compare
Cnakya-nti and its society to other works and societies of that time? This leads to the familiar "When my
ancestors were pondering ethics of society, yours were prancing naked in the forests" line of arguments.
A third approach would be to explain by adding context. "Yes, this work contains such-and-such
seemingly wrong idea, but if you consult these hundred other documents, you'll find that given all the
other things that existed then, this idea is not that wrong, not that harmful, and in fact quite reasonable.
After all, we accept so many wrong things today, from horribly unequal money distribution to electing
criminals - do you think we live in times of unbearable inhumanity? Certainly not! ". However, it must be
admitted that this approach has all the tedium and little of the joy of explaining a pothole in the road by
recourse to a study of geology, materials science, civil engineering, urban planning and politics.
All the above approaches have judgment of the work as a whole and more as one of their central aims.
For our purposes, it is best to adopt a fourth approach here that differs: Yes, here there are many thorny
ideas, but we shall choose to focus only on what gives us joy. Is that 30% of the volume, which in our
experience is typical of the very best and most celebrated of works? Maybe 5%, or 1%? Whatever it is, it
is a number not worth getting agitated about. After all, there is an entire ocean to explore, and every
moment spent on ponderous judgment is a moment not spent on discovering self-evidently beautiful
things.
With that, let's delve right in:
Kotibharah samarthanam key duram balasalinam.
.3.13 Priyavadinam On the videsah suvidyanam kah.
ko'tibhrah samarthnm kim dram balalinm |
ko videah suvidynm kah parah priyavdinm | 3.13 |

"What indeed is too heavy for the mighty? What distance is too far for the strong? What is a foreign land
to a learned man? Who is beyond the power of praise?"
This is a famous subhasita, with the last line being the "punch". It appears in many other places as well.
Throughout this work, there are echoes of Pancatantra, Bhartr hari, and others - it is a lifetime's task to
find out who influenced who.
Pujyante dhanyam here susancitam not fool here.
Couple kalaho breakfast where srih itself agata .3.21.
mrkh yatra na pjyante dhnyam yatra susacitam |
dmpatye kalaho nsti tatra rh svayam gat | 3.21 |
"Where fools do not hold power, where riches are not squandered, and where there is not infighting
among couples - wealth makes its way there by itself."
We should be wary of reading too much wisdom, but one must admit that this reveals an incredible
concept in allegory. If only we take 'couples' to mean 'those who have to stay together for whatever
reasons', this lays out a distinction between 'figure' and 'ground'. In a piece of art, the part which the artist
actually draws is the 'figure'. The back ground of the piece, did which includes what the artist not draw
explicitly, but which formed automatically, is the 'ground'. This is a common theme in optical illusions. If a
certain minimum set of conditions is satisfied, human ingenuity left to itself will take care of producing
wealth. The 'figure' should not crowd out the 'ground', and there must be a balance between the two. The
from The greatest economic learning 20th century has been that having too many constraints and
expecting too much discipline is not just ineffective, it is destructive.
Kah kalah Justice Hiralal J. Kania mitrani the Country Cooperation vyayagamau.
Chronicles the focus of the May high kascaham cintyam muhurmuhuh .4.18.
kah klah kni mitrni ko deah kau vyaygamau |
ka cham k ca me aktih iti cintyam muhurmuhuh | 4.18 |
"What is the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times? Who really are my friends? What is the nature of the land I
am in? What really have I gained, and what have I lost? Who am I in my context? What is my strength? " One should think thus periodically.
We find that our answers to these questions, and how they change in the course of our life, are the most
insightful inputs into our self-knowledge. Writing nearly 2000 years after our author, Richard Bach
said, "The simplest questions are the most profound: Where were you born? Where is your home? Where
are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change
".
Rajni dharmani dharmisthah sins papah same samah.
Rajanam anuvartante as king and prajah .13.8.
rji dharmani dharmist hh ppe pph same samh |
rjnam anuvartante yath rj tath prajh | 13.8 |
"When the king is noble, so are the subjects. When he's wicked, so are they. They follow their king in
every way".
Another very famous verse. It is interesting to see how this plays out in democracies, where rj are praj
are ideally inverted. We do not know if that has ever happened to the satisfaction of everyone
somewhere, but we are quite intimately familiar with what happens when an inchoate mass of fickle
impressions is made the ruler. A commentator speaking about a recent megascam quipped about the
culture of pervasive corruption, 'yatha praj tath Raja' :-)

Dharmakhyane smasane f roginam or matirbhavet.

Sa sarvadaiva tisthet cet not mucyeta bandhanat .14.6.
Income pascattapasya buddhih bhavati yadrsi.
Tadrsi If purvam peradventure kasya not syan mahodayah .14.7.
dharmkhyne mane ca roginm y matirbhavet |
s sarvadaiva tist het cet ko na mucyeta bandhant | 14.6 |
utpanna-pacttpasya buddhih bhavati ydr |
tdr yadi prvam syt kasya na syn mahodayah | 14.7 |
"The detachment that comes when listening to the Purnas, when visiting a graveyard and when ill - if
only it lasted, who would not be free of bondage?"
"If only the clarity that appears during remorse had appeared earlier, who would not have become great?"
A couple of other short-lived vairgya s are also popular: prasava-vairgya, speaking of the intolerable
pain to the mother at the time of birth, abhva-vairgya, the detachment that develops as a defense
action against scarcity.
Today's verse appears at the end of the work, in a surprisingly poetic climax:
Vyalasrayapi vikalapi sakantakapi
Vakrapi pankilabhavapi durasadapi.
Gandhena bandhurasi fragrant sarvajantoh
Eko turn ons health is above all nihanti-dosan .17.21.
vylraypi vikalpi sakant akpi
vakrpi pakilabhavpi dursadpi |
gandhena bandhurasi ketaki sarvajantoh
eko gunah khalu nihanti samasta-dosn | 17.21 |
(Vasanta-tilak metre, 14 syllables per line)
"Even though infested with snakes, appearing mutilated, abounding in thorns,
crooked, growing in slime and difficult to approach,
O Ketaki tree, your fragrance alone makes you a friend.
One good quality makes up for every fault "
In one stroke, Cnakya explains one of the most fundamental features of humanity. David Nicholls once
said, "There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of discovering them over and over and
over". This idea is definitely up in that list. Virtually everything we relate to as human behaviour has to do
with this. Relationships? Absolutely. Parental, fraternal, romantic, platonic - all kinds of bonds that would
have otherwise been slowly corroded by mismatches are stabilized by some one redeeming feature. If
one were to look for a logical best match, our bonds would change as fast as our moods do. Patriotism?
Of course. From Rama ("api na svarnamayi lanka Me laksmana rocate | janani janmabhumisca
svargadapi gariyasi") to the Fond Reminiscences of Poets , features some of ONE's Homeland Stand
untouched by any Consideration.
How about art, creativity and the essentials of human continuity? By every means. An old Greek proverb
goes, "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in".
Why do they take the trouble to plant them? This same feature Canakya extols. Some actual examples
are in order. A sandalwood tree is almost completely odourless for decades of its life. Only after 40 or 50
years does it concentrate enough of the fragrance to be usable, and even then, for high quality it has to

age for 80 years or more. What is assured is that no one who plants and cares for a sandalwood tree will
live to reap its benefits - only the following generation can take advantage of it. Sandalwood production is
almost a barometer for society's maturity - only if a society is wise enough to think of its future will it thrive.
So far it has, which is most encouraging. Another example: the temples of the Ellora caves took about
300 years to build. The first sculptor chiseling away at the entrance had no hope of seeing his art
complete - and yet, nearly 1500 years later, we still marvel at them.
It is no different in the realm of literature. There has been a tremendous amount of work connected with
Sanskrit literature done in regional Indian languages such as Kannada. Chakravarthi Srinivasa
Gopalacharya was a great scholar of Sanskrit of the past generation. Starting in the 1960s, after nearly 30
years of toil, he published an incredibly detailed Sanskrit-Kannada dictionary called 'abdrthakaustubha' that almost borders on being an encyclopedia. The greatest service one may offer to a
language is to actively engage in it, recount its great works and rejoice in its beauty - and Chakravarthi
Srinivasa Gopalacharya's magnum opus does all this and more, touching upon art, literature, linguistics,
culture and history as it defines, nay, chronicles words. Alas, in those times when printing even a small
book was a major project, due to severe financial constraints he had to heavily abridge his work for
publication. Even after such abridgments, his work came to six volumes totaling over 3000 pages. When
we consider our own tradition - here we are, discussing a work of more than 2300 years ago and rejoicing
in the very same words (and perhaps even thoughts) as the very first man who wrote it - the tireless
dedication of people to tasks that always seemed to have that 'eko gunah' leads to the richness of the life
we're living.
In a beautiful closing-of-the-loop, this verse applies to the work itself. For all its faults, this one gem makes
it worth reading the whole thing :-)
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The brilliant clarity of Cnakya's thought is manifest in this verse from the Arthastra:
Naksatram very prcchantam balam arthotivartate |
Arthasyartho this key Nakshatram karisyanti tarakah .9.4.26.
naksatram ati pr c chantam blam artho'tivartate |
arthasyrtho hi naksatram kim karisyanti trakh | 9.4.26 |
"Wealth ignores the fool who worries too much about astrology. Wealth is its own star. What can far-away
twinklers do?"
What raw power! What certitude! What are we to think, when our ancestors had such acuity, while today
our elected leaders spend vast sums of public money on vstu re-adjustments? The cassandras that we
are, the most we can do is take recourse in eloquence; Dr. Warder, commenting on the play
Mudrrksasa in his masterful Indian Kavya Literature says: (vol 3, page 277)
As long as India could produce Cnakyas, her civilization flourished, defended from the aggression of the
mlecchas. When on the other hand she relied on simple, straightforward heroism and chivalry, as the
ideal, her civilization was gradually destroyed by barbarous invaders.