BOSTON: MIT Samskritam, MIT HSC and Samskrita Bharati of Boston together organized the talk by Rajiv Malhotra on, ‘The Force Awakens: Indian Tradition takes on American Orientalism’ at MIT, Cambridge on Saturday April 2.
Hundreds of curious people and students came to listen to his enlightening and thought provoking lecture in which he discussed the importance of ‘Purvapaksha’ (the tradition of studying the other side) of Western Indologists who dominate the popular discourse on Indian culture and the importance of the insider when interpreting and analyzing a culture and its history, literature and sacred texts.
He suggested that the interpretation of Indian history and culture by the American academics and other European Indian or South-East Asian study specialists was done little respect for the sacred traditions of Hindus and without in-depth and clear understanding of Hindu Samskriti.
In his books, especially in ‘The Battle for Sanskrit’, quoted numerous instances where the Orientalism approach went wrong and was misleading.’
Rajiv Malhotra is a physicist, researcher, well-known Indian-American writer and a Hindu activist who dedicates his full time in critiquing and providing factual information to the challenges given by the Outside and Inside Indologists.
He also talked about building a team of ‘Intellectual Kshatriyas (Warriors)’ who can systematically and academically debate and refute the baseless interpretations of rich Indian history and culture by Western Indologists/Orientalists and preserve the correct analysis of Hindu Samskritam and Samskriti.
His new book entitled ‘The Battle for Sanskrit’ was released by Shri, Mukesh Ji with a very graceful and reverential applause by the audience before his inspirational talk and motivating Q&A session.
Jaichander Swaminathan, who is a MIT Ph.D student and president of the student body MIT Samskritam, welcomed the audience and the speaker warmly to the special event. Giri Bharathan who acted as the Master of Ceremony gave an amusing and pleasurable narration of the program in Sanskrit language with English interpretations.
His speech made the audience to relish the richness and sweetness of the Samskrit language and made them to show their gratitude to the people who are keeping this Mother language of many languages in the world alive. Very elegant introduction was given by Shri Mukesh Chatter, a well-known Tech. Entrepreneur and a local community leader.
Shri.Venkatesh T. R. is a volunteer at Samskrita Bharati of Boston. The Kendra gave votes of thanks to the above organizations for arranging this event. He thanked MIT for providing them a wonderful venue and Shri Rajiv Malhotra for coming over all the way from New Jersey. He also profusely acknowledged the support and enthusiasm of the audience and volunteers.
Geetha Patil
