I had just finished listening to a podcast on the biography of the famous 8th century Indian Philosopher Sankara. The one word from this lecture that stays with me is 'Acharya.' As I understand it, this word does not just mean teacher, but rather one who is 'qualified and esteemed' to be a teacher.
From earlier readings, a word that has stayed with me is Adhikari. This happens to be an interesting word - worth looking up. This as I have heard it explained, means 'qualified' to be a student. Again, not just a student, but a person qualified to be a student for that particular topic at hand.
Several examples are worth noting:
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| Plate - Aristotle |
Socrates/Plato
Plato/Aristotle (now, there is a pedigree!)
Aristotle/Alexander
Chanakya/Chandra Gupta Maurya (parallel to the example above)
Rutherford/Neils Bohr
Mozart Sr / Amadeus
Jesus/Peter
One can think of scores of these examples in literally every field.
It occurs to me therefore that there might be an equation one might think of:
True Acharya + True Adhikari = True Learning (Shiksha?! My minimal Sanskrit fails me here)
Assuming that the word 'true' is implicit in all the words above, the simpler expression of the equation might be:
Acharya + Adhikari = Learning.
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| Dance of Life |
Being an Acharya is one among many. Being an Adhikari is one among many. The right Acharya meeting the right Adhikari is quite a low probability for that true learning to take place.
This dance of learning could be a combination of the deterministic and stochastic - a combination of the probability of the existence of the teacher and the student and then, them meeting.
Broadening out the thinking, it seems to me that there is a dance of life going on every where around us which is a combination of the deterministic and the stochastic.
I have tried to capture this in my recent poem, Sprinkles:
SPRINKLES
Its an act of magic
Everytime it happens
Sure to defy logic
With its stochastic trappings
It is so with stars above
When seeds sprout above ground
Sure is when couples find love
And ants swarm the mound
Such is our ambience
That everything is sprinkles
A dot here and there of chance
Creates countless lively wrinkles
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My questions to you:
- If you are an Acharya, who is your Adhikari?
- If you are an Adhikari, who is your Acharya?
- How is your dance of life?
2 comments:
you are absolutely right
Yes . That is a correct statement. But I feel that the 'True" is put there on purpose ! The true Guru has to be knowledgeable, selfless and love his students. Not all gurus can do that. Similarly, true 'adhikari' must be eager to learn, respect the guru and have devotion to the subject an have the objective urge to learn. This combination is very rare and when it does occur, true knowledge is transmitted.
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