Concept of an Adarśa Veda Vidyalaya

It is a matter of historical fact that education in India started with study of the Veda and continued to flourish for aeons and produced geniuses of such a high quality and in such a large number as has scarcely been done elsewhere in the world even until now. Upanisadic sages like Yajñavalkya, Uddalaka Aruni, Satyakama Jabala, Aśvapati Kaikeya, linguists like Audumbarayana and Yāska, grammarians like Panini, Katyayayana and Patañjali, philosophers like Gautama, Kapila, Kanāda, Patañjali, Jaimini and Badarayana, statesmen like Kautilya, astronomers like Brahmagupta, Varahamihira, etc., etc. are obviously products of educational institutions imparting primarily instruction in the Vedas. The most eminent position the famous Gayatri mantra has been accorded in the midst of legions of them is indicator of the fact how much concerned the Vedic teacher has been about the stimulation of the hidden core of the intellect of the student so as to bring it to the fore and develop it to the highest possible extent. The thrust of that educational system is very well borne out by the famous Upanisadic prayer: Lead me from untruth to truth; lead me from darkness to light; and lead me from death to immortality. What a wonderful system, and how wonderful the objective the system set before it to achieve! How radically different it is from the system of education in operation today having little to offer to the development of the genius and his real humanity!

This, however, is not to suggest to make a retrograde movement and to substitute the present one by the past Vedic one, since it would amount to callous negation of what mankind has achieved particularly in the modern age of explosion in diverse disciplines of human understanding. Problems of man can get resolved neither by exclusive devotion to spirituality nor by indulgence in the gross physical but by a balance between the spiritual and the physical, as has been pointed out in the Iśa Upanisad:

विद्यां चाविद्यां च यस्तद्वेदोभयं सह।
अविद्यया मृत्युं तीर्त्वा विद्या ऽ मृतमश्नुते।।

“One who is conversant in spirituality and the worldly things both, he crosses over death by knowledge of the worldly and attains to immortality by means of spirituality.”

To render the content of the modern education in the Vedic terminology, it has its concentration on the manomaya kosa with partial extension to the vijnanamaya kosa and seeks thereby to cater to the needs of the annamaya kosa and pranamaya kosa. But this is just the groundwork of the creation known as man, leaving completely unattended to the rest of him bearing out the real manhood in him. That remaining part of him comprises the crux of the vijnanamya and the anandamaya which is the exclusive preserve of the Veda.

In view of these hard facts of the educational psychology, it is imperative in this great country on at least experimental basis to create certain centres at which Veda, as an alternative source of knowledge be given the prime place in the curricula followed by the educational institution concerned, in the same way as science/social science is given the prime place in our centres of learning today.

As effective learning in any basic discipline of knowledge such as language and mathematics has got to start from the very beginning of the process of the educational process, the contemplated Vedic Vidyalaya cannot afford to pick up students anywhere from the middle and seek to inculcate in them so subtle and precious a thing as Vedic knowledge when their mind has already been preoccupied with things uncongenial to it.

The Vidyalaya is proposed to be started at the first instance at Ujjain under the aegis of the Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan, the premier custodian of the Vedic learning, scholarship and knowledge in the country. It is supposed to have an intake of 50 students admitted to it in class one at the age of 5 each year and see that all of them go on getting promoted each year up to class 12 when they have completed the seventeenth year of their lives. The students will have to be drawn from the whole of the country and selected on the basis of their potential in this new area of knowledge. In case of desertion anywhere in the middle, but no later than class six, the vacancy may be filled by allowing fresh admissions at that stage as per the same criterion of the merit and potential which may be evaluated in terms of the learning of the student particularly in the Veda.

The courses of study will be so designed as to give 50% weightage to the Veda and the rest 50% to other subjects useful in making the child grow into a perfect human being with adequate manual skill, intellectual power, social awareness and moral strength and spiritual elevation.

Training in Yoga will be a necessary part of the curriculum. Needless to point out has come to be recognised almost universally in the modern age as the best means to the maximum development of the human personality in all respects, physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual. Interestingly enough, it is Yoga which forms the be-all and end-all of the Vedic ethos. As a matter of fact, the way of the Vedic seers came to get to the reservoir of the knowledge embedded in the Vedas, has come to be recognised as Yoga. As such, Yoga is not only the most efficient way to human development but is also the best and perhaps the sole key to the understanding of the secret of the Veda.

Taking all these points into consideration, the outline of the curriculum of the 12 years of study will be tentatively as follows:

Class I

1. Knowledge of the alphabet both Devanāgari and English;
2. Knowledge of the numerals 1-100 and above; some idea of the tables;
3. The ideal of truth: To speak the truth, whatever the consequences;
4. Aspiration for perfection: whatever you do, do it as perfectly as you can;
5. Dream of the New World: Where truth alone prevails, where beauty and goodness pervade;
6. Practice of recitation of some Vedic mantras, including the Gayatri, on traditional lines;
7. Learning of Sanskrit through the conversational method;
8. Practise of a few Āsanas.

Class II

1. Teaching of some elementary text book to be so prepared as to stimulate in the child social awareness, moral uprightness, and sense of curiosity for the understanding of things around him;
2. Exercises in remembering and repeating noble aspirations and thoughts;
3. Exercises in observations and accurate description (leaves, plants, flowers, minerals, scenes, animals, figures, human body, artistic pictures, musical pieces, buildings, objects, events.)
4. Art of bathing, art of cleaning the teeth, art of dressing, art of sitting, and standing in right postures;
5. Exercises in the control of senses: control in regulating calls of nature, thirst, and appetite;
6. Control in speech; control in behaviour, control in movement and action.
7. Elementary knowledge of the processes of addition and deduction;
8. Practice of recitation of some more mantras;
9. Furtherance in the learning of Sanskrit through the conversational method;
10. Practice of a few more Āsanas.

Class III

1. Teaching of a little higher order of text book intended to generate social awareness, etc. as in the earlier class;
2. Development of sense of wonder: (a) Examples from astronomy: distance, vastness, galaxies, expanding universe; (b) examples from physics: what is matter behind what we see and touch; (c) examples from chemistry: what is water? Is it mere oxygen and hydrogen or something more? Examples from other sciences: caterpillar and butterfly, language and understanding, outer man and inner man.
3. Elementary knowledge of the processes of addition, subtraction, and multiplication;
4. Training of the senses and their powers.
5. Practice of recitation of some more mantras and understanding of the meaning of a few selected ones out of them;
6. Continuance in the learning of Sanskrit through the conversational method; memorisation of the Maheśvara Sutras; some understanding of the rules of Sandhi;
7. Furtherance in the practice of Āsanas; initiation in meditation.

Class IV

1. Teaching of a little upgraded order of texts intended to generate social awareness, etc.
2. Furtherance in the knowledge of mathematics;
3. Furtherance in memorisation and recitation of mantras as also understanding of their meaning;
4. Advancement in the learning of Sanskrit, English and Hindi;
5. Practice of concentration every activity;
6. Practice of quietude and silence in “Rooms of Silence.”
7. Advancement in the practice of Āsanas and meditation.

Class V

1. Teaching in social studies, mathematics and science as befitting the student of this age group;
2. Teaching of English, Hindi and Sanskrit;
3. Advancement in the memorisation, recitation and understanding of the meaning of Vedic mantras;
4. Initiation in the Vedic ethos through stories;
5. Understanding of the relationship between science and values through explanation of the processes of emergence of matter, emergence of life in matter, emergence of mind in life and of the possibilities of further evolution of man;
6. Development of value-consciousness through the stories of Buddha, Mahavira, Naciketas, Svetaketu, etc.;
7. Furtherance in the practice of Yoga.

Class VI

1. Advancement in the courses of social studies, mathematics and science;
2. Upgradation in the teaching of Sanskrit, Hindi and English;
3. Broadening of the area of memorisation, recitation and understanding of the meaning of Vedic mantras;
4. Initiation in the Vedic thought;
5. Lessons in the relationship between science and values through inculcation of the understanding of animal psychology, grades of human behaviour, ideals of human life and modes of man’s creativity;
6. Lessons in human psychology particularly on the yogic lines;
7. Upgradation in the practice of Yoga.

Class VII

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, social studies, mathematics and science;
2. Broadening of the area of memorisation through division of students in groups, say five in number, each taking up a different set of additional mantras for memorisation and recitation, in particular. This process will reduce the burden of memorisation on students and at the same time would help in bringing larger and larger portion of the Vedic texts under the purview of memorisation fulfilling thus the necessity of keeping all the primary Vedic texts under the purview of recitation on traditional lines;
3. Upgradation in the understanding of the meaning of the Vedic mantras;
4. Upgradation in the understanding of the Vedic thought;
5. Stimulation for works of labour and community with an inner motive of dedication;
6. Promotion in the practice of Yoga; creating awareness in the student in regard to the relationship between Yoga and Veda.

Class VIII

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, social studies and science;
2. Introduction of the Vedic mathematics along with the modern one;
3. Introduction of Ayurveda and Gāndharvaveda;
4. Teaching in Śiksā, Nighantu and Nirukta;
5. Introduction to problems of Vedic Interpretation;
6. Inculcation of the understanding of value-oriented concept of the body on the Vedic as well as scientific lines;
7. Upgradation in the practice of Yoga.

Class IX

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics including the Vedic;
2. Introduction to a comparative study of the Vedic and modern scientific thought;
3. Introduction of Dhanurveda and Sthapatyaveda besides advancement in Ayurveda and Gandharvaveda;
4. Furtherance in the learning of Śiksā, Nighantu and Nirukta;
5. Introduction to Vedic Symbolism;
6. Introduction to Kalpa and Jyotisa;
7. Upgradation in the value-consciousness through lessons in Yoga, science, history and lives of Vedic seers, Upanisadic sages and modern scientists;
8. Intensification in the practice of Yoga.

Class X

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics;
2. Introduction to the problem of reconstruction of the Vedic thought;
3. Upgradation in the learning of the Upavedas;
4. Expansion in the learning of the Vedic grammar, Śiksā and Nirukta;
5. Developing the skill of translating Vedic texts into Hindi, English and regional languages of India;
6. Consolidation in the learning of Kalpa and Jyotisa;
7. Lessons in Yogic consciousness vis-à-vis scientific findings in this regard;
8. Intensification in the practice of Yoga.

Class XI

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics;
2. Consolidation of the task of reconstruction of the Vedic thought;
3. Consolidation in the learning of the Upavedas;
4. Assessment of Śikşā and Nirukta in the light of the laws of modern linguistics;
5. Comparative study of Jyotisa and modern astronomy;
6. Introduction to the problem of application of the Vedic knowledge to problems of the contemporary world;
7. Lessons in ancient Indian sciences and Yoga; Yoga and modern psychology;
8. Intensification in the practice of Yoga.

Class XII

1. Upgradation in the learning of Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics;
2. Finishing touch to the task of reconstruction of the Vedic thought from various viewpoints, i.e., scientific, psychological, and philosophical;
3. Upgradation in the learning and practice of the Upavedas;
4. Maturation of the skill of translation of Vedic texts;
5. Advancement in the learning and practice of Kalpa and Jyotiśa;
6. Audio-visual recording of recitation of Vedic texts on traditional lines;
7. Lessons in Yoga as an exploration of existence by the enlargement of consciousness and unfoldment of the dimensions of human personality;
8. Further advancement in the practice of Yoga.

The entire Vedic teaching and learning of the Vidyalaya will have to be conducted meticulously with a view to developing the interest of the child in bringing his learning to practical application in life resulting in the inculcation of higher sense in him besides enhancing his intellectual power. Veda being the richest treasure of such higher intuitive and spiritual knowledge, thorough acquaintance of the student with it is expected to instil such sense and capacity in him during his stay in the Vidyalaya for as many as twelve years. Needless to point out that the student would be required to cover a long range of courses besides the Veda, but by virtue of his brilliance, as he is expected to possess on account of being a select one, he is sure to come up to the expected level.

In this scheme of education, the student will not be made to suffer the unnecessary ordeal of examination. All assessments will be internal not only to see how much the student has learnt but also and more importantly to find out how much of his learning he has really digested and is capable of making creative use of in his life.

There will be as much flexibility in selection of courses of study at all stages as possible in order to enable the student to choose a particular course as per his interest and develop his intellectual capacity and skill in the same to the fullest possible extent.

As regards the question of the future prospect of the alumnus of the Vidyalaya, there will be several ways out available to him. In the least by virtue of his meticulous training in subjects like languages, social studies, sciences and mathematics, he is expected to get entry to any institution of his choice offering graduation and post-graduation in them. He is very likely to excel there on account of the power of concentration he would have developed through his rigorous training in Yoga as also through the inculcation of the Vedic knowledge and ethos. But more importantly, the proposed Vidyalaya itself may be allowed to grow into a graduate and post-graduate institution and thus be able to cater to the requirement of the student for an advance course in the discipline of his choice and enable him thus eventually to turn into an intellectual, moral and spiritual luminary in the society which the latter is badly in need of today and perhaps will remain so more or less for all time to come.

It also needs to be mentioned that the proposed Vidyalaya is supposed to be established and run at Ujjain in the premises of the Veda Vidya Pratisthan at the first instance on the experimental basis. On finding the results coming out on expected lines, this type of Vidyalaya may very well be started at other places in the country also so as to make people at large be benefited by it.

Lastly, to sum up the significance of the whole programme, if we are willing to care at least as much for our deep psychological and spiritual potentialities as for our senses, sense-mind and intellect, establishment of such a Vidyalaya is a dire necessity particularly at the dawn of the new millennium auguring a new lease of life to humanity.