If interpreted correctly, an understanding of the Vedas is a powerful liberating force for decolonising the mind—the basis for resurrection of the Indian civilization, says Francois Gautier, the well-known French Indologist.
“Everything is contained in the Vedas, the past, present and the future,” says Gautier quoting Sri Aurobindo, the famous Indian philosopher and spiritualist. In his blog, Gautier criticised the western Indologists for deliberately misinterpreting the Vedas. “Europeans have seen in the Vedas only the rude chants of an antique and pastoral race sung in honour of the forces of nature and succeeded in imposing them on the Indian intellect,” he observed citing Sri Aurobindo.
But the French intellectual pointed to the necessity for Indians to once again decolonise their mind to achieve fundamental progress of their civilization. Sri Aurobindo, Gautier said insisted that a time must come “when the Indian mind will shake off the darkness that has fallen upon it, cease to think or hold opinions at second and third hand and reassert its right to judge and enquire in perfect freedom into the meaning of its own scriptures”.
Gautier pointed out that Sri Aurobindo understood the scientific structure, principles, and paradigm underpinning the Vedas. “Our ancient Vedic rishis knew of a triple fire, which they had named Agni: the ordinary fire – Jada Agni; the electric fire – Vaidyuta Agni; and the solar fire – Saura Agni. Modern science knows only these first two fires and the fact that the atom is like a solar system could lead them to the third discovery,” he said, quoting Sri Aurobindo. “This prophecy of course, came to be fulfilled when the Americans exploded their first nuclear device in the Nevada desert in 1944. But how could Sri Aurobindo have guessed twenty years before this momentous event, that solar heat is the result of a nuclear fusion and that nuclear power is locked in the atoms?” Gautier asked.
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The answer lies in the self-discovery of Vedic rishis who had “experienced within themselves the different subtle properties of Agni, the inner fire, which becomes solar, Saura-Agni, when one reaches the supra-mental levels of consciousness and of which nuclear energy is only the most material manifestation.” “It is through Agni that man can reach superior states of being and come into contact with the Gods: Agni is the mouth of the Gods and it is through this mouth that they breathe”, says the Shatapâ-brâhmana, Gautier opines.
The French scholar contended that Sri Aurobindo, insisted that the Vedas remain the foundation of Indian culture. “The Veda was the beginning of our spiritual knowledge; the Veda will remain its end. The recovery of the perfect truth of the Veda is therefore not merely a desideratum for our modern intellectual curiosity, but a practical necessity for the future of the human race. For I firmly believe that the secret concealed in the Veda, when entirely discovered, will be found to formulate perfectly that knowledge and practice of divine life to which the march of humanity, after long wanderings in the satisfaction of the intellect and senses, must inevitably return,” he said quoting Sri Aurobindo.
Gautier is also author of the book, “An Entirely New History of India “where he examines India’s history holistically, breaking many stereotypes and conventional images about India that are nurtured by many.
