Epics in Imprints-1.pdf - Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan

We live in an objective world of
plurality, diversity, and complexity.
However, the convincing truth
behind the experiencing of this objective
reality is that it is the perennial sense of ‘Iness’
or subjectivity which really matters to
us. This ‘I-ness’ is a greater and more direct
fact of existence to us than the galaxy of
objects presented to it. What is imminent,
intrinsic, and immediate in our experience
is our CONSCIOUSNESS of self-existence.
Are there two realities? The subjective
and the objective? Are consciousness and
matter mutually opposing polarities? What
is the real nature of this apparent
dichotomy? Is there a background SELF
which is at once the subject and the object?
Is this background SELF a state of
superconscious existence to which order,
symmetry and auto regulation are intrinsic?
Is our existence and awareness continuous
and eternal subjectively at the realm of
experience, but intermittent and spasmodic
at the realm of form and appearance? Does
our existence begin with the appearance of
our bodies and end with their
disappearance? Is there anything permanent
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FEBRUARY-AUGUST 2003
WESTERN INTERPRETATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA
Dr.SHIVARAM KARIKAL
NAGAS DOWN THE HISTROY
in us? In there an eternal core of selfexistence
around which we have projected
our outer garments: physical, social and
psychological? Is self-existence an eternal
saga of self-experience? To the
psychologist, these questions seem
irrelevant and unrelated to the domain of
his reasoning. Our modern Western
psychology has not been able to reveal the
real nature of man. Western psychologists
have offered us a model of man: dualistic,
deterministic and a mechanistic robot.
In a book Vedic thought and Western
philosophy Dr.Shivaram Karikal, the author
has attempted to show the epistemological
and social limitations of Western Psychology
in answering these questions. He then draws
the reader’s attention to the inherent wisdom
of vedas, which throw a ray of hope to man,
enabling him to answer these riddles and
realize his own real nature. The philosophy
of Yoga presented here stands in striking
contrast to Western Psychology in its
comprehensive approach to the
understanding of the human personality
in its wholeness.
It should not, be construed that the Nagas were unknown to the kings ruling in the Gangetic
Valley. The references to the Kiratas, of whom the Nagas were a subtribe, in the Vedas and
the epics have already been mentioned. According the legend, Ulupi, the Naga princess,
fell in love with Arjuna, the great hero of the Mahabharata, when she saw the handsome
Pandava prince in the course of the latter’s sojourn in Eastern India. Ulupi took Arjuna to
Nagalok (the land of the Nagas) and they lived happily for some time until Arjuna moved
on to Manipur. In the great war of the Mahabharata fought at Kurukshetra, in which
contingents of almost every Indian potentate participated, the Nagas rallied their might on
the side of the Kauravas.
(Nagaland, Prakash Singh, National Book Trust, India, New Delhi—1981)