The Vedas have hit cyberspace, and a modern institute, which follows an ancient system of imparting knowledge, is India's answer to the myriad systems 'on, the world wide web
THE ancients in India believed that the
divine aphorisms of the Vedas, once
uttered, remained for ever in the ether.
The great seers were probably talking
web before anyone conceived it. But the
Vedas are now actually available in the
ether, courtesy four "crazy" people who
have put it on a web site. They are Satya
Narayan'Das, Steven Rudolph, Rhishi
Pal Chauhan and Pratap S Chauhan.
They ar 'e now operating from their
newly founded Jiva Institute of Vedic
Arts, Science and Culture in Faridabad,
Uttar Pradesh.
When the foursome first announced
their plans last year, people thought
they were talking about saffron-clad
kids with laptops. But the two things
they share mi common are the obsession
to change educational patterns in the
country, and the faith that the solutions
for a lot of our modern-day problems lie
in the Vedas. Their plan is to bring in a
lot of indigenous medical solutions and
health benefits and promote the wisdom of the Vedic way of life. And they
laughed at the sceptics when the Vedas
hit cyberspace late December last year.
Not just that, the Institute is already
running a school of 150 students, 16
teachers and maintaining 24-hour link
with Ernet (Educational Research
Network, government of India), and
thus became the first Indian school to
take-classes on the-e-mail. The curriculum followed is that of the standard
Central Board of Secondary Education;
but the emphasis is on comprehension,
not cramming.
The school charges a modest fee of
Rs 125 per month from the students,
and manages to sustain itself. Till not so
long ago, the Institute sustained itself on
the income from selling translations of
Vedic literatukq, earnings of Pratap
Chauhan's ayurvedic cyberclinic,
and educational and instructional.
software put on the internet by
Rudolph.
It is not for nothing that most
peo0le ft1t that the four needed
mental care, not encouragement.
Das, a graduate from the Indian
Institute of Technology, threw up a
lucrative career inthe us to work
'the Vedas. Rhishi Pal Chauhan
is also a trained engineer; Rudolph,
presently the educational director
at Jiva, is an American who has
renounced the materialistic culture
to come and study the Vedas. He
had seen the bad times of drugs and
lack of spiritual meaning in his
school days.
After completing his masters degree
from Japan, Rudolph went in search of
philosiophical ideals, and found it only
in the Vedas when he came to India.
"Here's a system that laid down the
norms of learning and living in almost
'every field of life, from medicine to
engineering," Rudolph says. Pratap
Chauhan is the only one who has not
really digressed: he was, and still is an
ayurvedic practitioner. Only, now he
operates on the ether like the deities
Ashwini Kumar brothers in Indian
mythology.
Rhishi Pal formally started the Institute in 1992, after the foursome got together. But now, their ware is finding global response. Three cheers!
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