The word ‘saṃskāra’ has no single-word equivalent in English; it has many meanings including ‘refinement,’ ‘cultivation,’ ‘perfection,’ ‘embellishment,’ ‘consecration,’ ‘education,’ ‘positive transformation,’ ‘effect of past deeds,’ etc. In general, it refers to ‘doing something well’ or ‘improving upon something while removing what is undesirable.’
Every society will have its own view of what is a significant event in the life of a person living in that geographical region and in that period in time. What remains true for all time and for all people is the fact that our life spreads from before our physical birth all the way to the future after our physical death.
You and I are constantly changing.
Throughout our lives, we change in many ways: at the level of the body, in the emotional sphere, in the mental realm, in our various relationships with people, the roles that we play in society, and in many other ways.
For a person who has lived in the Indian main land and has experienced sanatanic lifestyle to the fullest, a mere visit to the Cambodian monuments will convince beyond doubt, the connection this far off settlement must have had with India. It is also evident through the sculptures found in the country that the roots of both the form and the content lie in India. Thus, a few pointers and examples will suffice to reaffirm the thesis.
In the concluding words of his work “Kambuja Desha”, RC Majumdar points out the following
There were two major social conventions that took place within eight years spanning between 1920–28: (i) Prajamitra Mandali or the unrest in favour of non-brahmin sections, Miller Committee, etc. belong to this group and (ii) Progressive Party.
I’ve said everything that I could about the first group. The second one, was specifically a result of Krishna Rao’s efforts. Commemoration of the Late Hosakoppa Krishna Rao is bound to be a part of the history of Mysore’s public life.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere about a couple of other incidents under the tenure of V P Madhava Rao[1] that stirred up people’s minds. The government bringing down the compound wall of Bangalore’s Janopakari Doddanna Shettaru convention hall was one such similar incident. There arose a lot of opposition to this event too. People felt that the government had targeted Doddanna Shetty charitable trust because D Venkataramayya was its trustee and a patron. Overall, V P Madhava Rao’s tenure was unnecessarily an era of commotion.
K T Appanna encouraged us and supported us in many ways. After he set up his Hindu Restaurant at Ahmed Building, there was a vacant space available in Chikpet where he once ran the Hindu Coffee Club. In that place, we instituted the Sri Ramakrishna Seva Sangha and set up a reading room and library. That was around the time of Navaratri. I vividly remember the day when Krishna Iyer and I toiled to move the tables and benches. The reading room ran for about a year.
I haven’t found the means to determine the period that marks the commencement of efforts towards giving an integrated structure to public life in the State of Mysore. Such efforts had already taken place in the State of Madras by 1852-53. Even before the Sepoy Mutiny (also known as The First War of Indian Independence) of 1857, an organization called the Madras Native Association had been formed. Gajalu Lakshminarasu Chetty, G Purushotthama Naidu, and a few other public luminaries were its leaders.
The current article is an enlarged version of a talk presented by Arjun Bharadwaj on 5th June 2018 at the National Seminar on Dharmashastra - Theory and Practise - RC Puducherry. The article derives its inspiration from a paper titled "Vedic Cambodia" written by Dr. R Nagaswamy.