A New Vision of History

By Dr. R.N. Vyas

The present work tries to present a new vision of history. The traditional thinking about history as a mere record of past events needs a re-examination, if we intend to find out the real significance, worth and use of story. According to the author, history should be understood as a struggle between spiritual and non-spiritual or constructive and destructive forces for ascendency. If the non-spiritual forces become dominant, the world is thrown in the cockpit of suffering and sorrow; but if the spiritual forces become dominant the world experiences peace and prosperity.
   
Every individual can play his sterling role in this conflict. The work presents a rationale of human happiness and prosperity through history.
   
It deserves a perusal by every educated reader.
   
Dr. R.N. Vyas holds the degrees of M.A., Ph.D., D. Litt, LLB and Sahitya Ratna.
   
He is a retired Professor and Head of the Department of a major postgraduate college of Indore, Devi Ahilya University. At present he is the Director of Academy of Social Thought. Dr. Vyas is a prolific writer. He has written on diverse subjects. He has so far forty eight published works to his credit.
His name figures in The International Who's Who of Intellectuals, Cambridge, Biography International, Delhi, Reference Asia, Delhi and Five Thousand Personalities of the World, USA. In the present work the author has tried to invite the attention of readers to New Vision of History, which will stimulate constructive thinking about history. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamond Books
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9798128819079

Book preview

Education

Preface

The present work intends to project a new vision of History. The conventional concept of history has not served mankind properly. It is worth pondering whether history is merely a lifeless, valueless record of past events. Is its objective only to show what had happened in the past?

If history is a mechanical narration of events, what is its utility? What is the use of preserving dead past and compelling students to go through it? Some persons may be satisfied with a reading of such record. It may satisfy their curiosity. But our discrimination pays that human mind should not be burdened with useless account of the past. It is a wastage of time and energy too. Man of the present age is too busy with his other works to feel the necessity of going through the uninspiring, useless, and destructive account of the past.

However, our discrimination further tells us that there are two ways of writing history. The first way is the passive way of history writing. It is un-planned. Just as an accountant keeps the record of money spent on the slightest item, such history writing goes on recording past events, irrespective of the influence it may wield on posterity.

Here, I remember the statement of an intelligent student.

He said: Well, there may have taken place a battle between Alexander and Porus, or in fact a number of battles which we find mentioned in the pages of history. How does it help me in perusing their record? How am I concerned with them? Why present generation be forced to read it, memorize it, reproduce it in a question paper? Modern science has made progress in various directions and fields. Will it not be more useful for me to spend my time in perusing that?

His utterance is significant and deserves due consideration. A passive way of writing history does raise such questions’ and proves useless.

In the long life of mankind no doubt there must have occurred incidents that must put us to shame in the modern period. But a record of such incidents may arouse the patent beastly nature of man and incite him to repeat his ancestors’ follies forgetting that the world has moved much beyond, the values have changed, mankind has become one in peace and war. When the entire scenario has changed, it is irrational to drive man’s finer sentiments in the dark, old wild directions of atrocities and self-destruction directly or indirectly.

Historical narration is never a pure truth. It is a compound of so many elements ranging from crude facts and research to language, intuition, interpretation, judgement, greed, sycophancy, favouritism etc. Hence, it is absolutely necessary to be on watch while writing history and to see that it may not Gordan Left, is right. When a person corrupt degrading the generations. The historian must find the constants through variables. Old destructive concepts have to be thrown to the dust-given an American historian. Every growth displays its conquered past sometimes in the form of scars, wrote Paul R. Tillich, a leading Christian thinker. And says something more, writing without pushing the past into the past would be altogether impossible.

Only sparkling aspect of life has to be presented.

It is unfortunate that even the much publicised ‘historians’ prefer to sacrifice truth impelled by ‘leftist’ or some uletrior motive. To decry Indian tradition in the name of novelty or misjudged truth has become a fashion. (Vide Sunday Nav Bharata, Indore, dated 28th March, 1999)

Pakistan historians try to begin their history not from 1947 but in the 8th century. History has been made a convenient instrument of making irrational statements to serve some political end.

Dr. K.L. Shrimal, Professor of History, Delhi University in his article Asthetic Deceptions, in The Hindustan Times’, New Delhi, dated 7th June, 2001 has categorically stated that the Western historians and the blind followers in India deliberately disturb history to suit their ulterior ends. He writes :

"To illustrate, James Mill’s tripartite periodisation of Indian History into Hindu Muslim and British epitomised in his infamous The History of British India was not an innocent excercise. It is well known that throughout Indian history the frontiers of the religions of rulers did not overlap with those of people. If at all the defining criterion of Mill was the ruler’s religion, the logic of such a formulation demanded that third period should have been designated as ‘Christian’….. It is now recognised that Mill’s periodisation stemmed from the imperialist objective of tormenting a religious divide in India…..

Has any language of Europe been designated after religion or its speakers? But in India, following the divisive colonial legacy, we continue to perpetuate the nefarious link between cultural manifestations and religion." This makes clear that history has been often used to twist people’s minds.

A sensible reader is bound to think that this type of thinking is irrational and improper.

In this connection, I shall like to draw the attention of the readers to the following events of modern period.

We all are acquainted with Soviet revolution which brought Lenin and his associates and gave a concrete shape to the teaching of Marx. However, in July 1998 peculiar turn of events was noted. The remains of the last of the Czars, Nicholas II and his family, executed by a group of wayward Bolshevike, were reburied with full church and state honours. If the newspapers are to be believed, the Soviet TV channels were full of admiration for the Czars before the reburial. This is queer. Soviet history had always condemned the misrule of the Czars, who were depicted as ruthless and autocratic. It was Stated that the last of Romanovs was under the thumb of Czarina. She was under the evil control of Rasputin, a furious monk who asserted that he had the power to save the heir to the throne from the grip of a fatal affliction of the blood. After the revolution the Romanovs were sent to a village near the Urals viz. Yekaterinberg. But they were murdered there. The misdeeds of the Czars could not be forgotten by the revolutionaries.

It is a queer quirk of time that now the Russian media are full of praise for the Czars. Czars have become heroes and Bolsheviks have become villains. Now Yekaterinberg has become a place of pilgrimage. President Boris Yeltsin himself came to the funeral. The very Yeltsin who condemned them twenty years ago now is full of respect for them.

In France too people are becoming full of praise for Louise XVI who was murdered by the revolutionaries. A journalist who was present in Paris at the time of 200th anniversary of French Revolution in 1889, wrote I was startled to see the banner headline in LeMond : Viva le roi eulogizing the behead Louis XVI and the Bourons. All over Paris on that day there was more of the royal souvenirs than memorabilia of the revolution that inspired several generations.

Now let us turn to the third instance. Now we turn to Kazhakistan in 1992. The Kazhak President Nazarbayeou inaugurated UNESCO sponsored conference at Alms Ata. The President praised Taimur and Genghis Khan who were devil’s incarnate.

Thus we find that history as a mere narration of events has pretty little utility. As a writer has put it in the light of current notion of history Beyond the current myths and icons, history transforms history itself. In its blood-soaked pages there are neither permanent villains nor permanent saviours. History ought to have some creative character. It must make some spiritual impact on humanity so that man may not be lost in the wanton misuse of life, money and time. History must mould society in right direction, it must show new horizons.

It is a petty statement about current notion about history that history repeats itself. It implies that mankind should be allowed to repeat its meaningless misdeeds and no attempt should be made to inspire it to do something better, something more rational, more constructive. Man has been described as a rational animal, and rationality consists in being more sensible. If man continues to repeat non-social acts, how can we call it a piece of rationality?

History repeats itself, because man is fed on ‘historical’ lies. He is not served right thoughts, right perspectives. We force posterity to go through those destructive paths through which we have passed.

But there is another way of writing history. It is the active way of recording events. It consists in properly evaluating and weighing an event before recording it. What is written in the form of history is likely to influence the generations that shall emerge in future. Lord had said The greatest achievement of history is to develop and perfect and arm conscience.

J.E. Boodin has written in his ‘Twentieth Century Philosophy’ Human history is concerned with value as with facts, and the two are inseparable. To understand human history, we must discover what men should strive for and thus values’ enter into the texture of history. They are objective causes. But they are also subjective factors in that they determine the selection by the historian, and the historian must be on his guard lest he confuse his own bias with the course of history.

Every event that is to be recorded must be duely examined and weighed on the balance of its impact on posterity.

In Puranas we find this active way of writing history. The names of certain rulers are just mentioned. But only that ruler has been given more space who had done some sterling service to humanity and had pursued spiritual point of view.

The proper objective of history-writing is to urge posterity to inculcate spiritual standpoint so that human unity may prosper. When there was a conflict between the spiritual and non-spiritual elements, Puranas depicted the victory of the spiritual forces rather invariably, There may be some initial set-backs for the spiritual forces, but ultimately only the spiritual forces were victorious. As in literature, in history too, the ideal of the Puranic historian was to depict the ultimate victory of the good over the evil (shivetara-kshataye). What is non-good for humanity must be humbled and eliminated. Thus if there was a conflict between Rama and Ravana, the former won and the latter lost the battle. Satyameva jayate, nanritam. Only the Truth wins; non-truth is always a loser.

This is a very sensible and rational approach towards history. Posterity that comes long after derives inspiration from such account.

The fact is that the world is a battleground of the spiritual forces and the non-spiritual ones. Sura and A-sura, godly forces and demonic ones. The world needs both kinds of forces for its existence. If there is no conflict, the world ceases to exist. But it is possible to strengthen the spiritual forces and weaken the non-spiritual ones. No elimination of the non-spiritual is possible. But its influence can be minimised.

It should not be presumed that spirituality is a rejection of the physical. Only its ugliness has to be discarded. In this connection the following words of Aurbindo deserve attention:

The widest spirituality does not exclude or discourage any essential human activity of faculty, but works rather to lift ail of them up out of their imperfection and grooping ignorance, power and joy of the Divine Being and Divine Nature. Transforms them by its touch and makes them the instrument of light.

In the absence of such spiritual touch man becomes a hollow man.

At present the ‘hollow men’ reign the world.

Eliot has named one of his poems as ‘Hollow Men’ and writes—

"We are the hollow men,

We are the stuffed men,

leaning together,

Head piece filled with straw, Alas

........................

shape without form, shade without colour."

A question may be put What is spirit?

The answer to this question may be given in the following words of Dr. Radhakrishnan—

If we are asked to define what the spirit in man is, it would be difficult to give a definite answer. We know it, but we cannot explain it. It is felt everywhere though seen nowhere. It is not the physical body or the vital organism, the mind or the will, but something which underlies them all and sustains them. It is the basis and background of all our being, the universality that cannot be reduced to this or that formula.

Spirit is a matter of experience and not demonstration.

It is the indivisible being amongst the divisible things (avibhaktam vibhakteshu) in the language of the Bhagavadgita. The unity of the universe rests on it alone.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad tells a story about the most important factor in human body.

There is a quarrel about the supremacy in the bodily organs like the eye, speech, ear etc. It is realized in the end that life (prana) is the important factor as in its absence the speech, eye etc. cannot exist and subsist. The Upanishad writes

Then, as the vital force (prana, life) was about to leave, it pulled out these organs, just as a big, thoroughbred Sindh horse pulls out its tether pegs. They (organs) said ‘Venerable Sir’, please do not leave, for we shall never be able to live without you.

Spirit is the immortal Prana, life.

History teaches us to be always on watch. Eternal vigilance is the price of progress. When man is able to keep full control over the non-spiritual, it is Satyuga; when this control is loosened to some extent, it is Treta Yuga; when the spiritual forces and the non-spiritual ones both become equally strong, it is Dwapara Yuga; and when the non-spiritual forces become dominant and the spiritual ones are extremely weakened, it is Kali Yuga.

The cycle of the Yugas is to some extent natural. It is like the cycle of happiness and sorrow. But this does not imply the compulsion. Just as human intelligence can turn the hours of sorrow into periods of happiness through right mental attitude and practice, in the same way human intelligence can turn Kali into, Sat. He can avert his black destiny and regain a reign of peace and prosperity through a planned lifestyle.

The German language has two words for history viz. Historie and Geschichte. The word ‘historie’ implies an ordered account of an individual or society. The word ‘geschichte’ implies the interpretation of events. Thus according to the German usage, the term history implies proper interpretation of events. German language has another term viz. ‘Heils-Geschichte’ which implies that historical events are under the swan way of God. We can interpret it as manifestation of god in the form of historical events. ‘God fulfils Himself in many ways’.

The Indian term ‘Kal’ is more suggestive. The term implies that which changes (kalayati iti kalah). The term Kal also means god of destruction. According to Indian thinkers the proper object of literature is to weed out the inauspicious or evil (shivetara) from society. Hence, history being a kind of literature, it must aim at destroying the non-good or non-spiritual forces working in society, in a progressive manner.

The popular term for history in Sanskrit is Iti has which means full narration of events in a story from but replete with a message of righteousness and physical and spiritual welfare.

ध्र्मार्थकाम मोक्षाणामुपदेश-समन्वितं।

पूर्णवृत्तं कथायुक्तमिनिहासं प्रचक्षते ।।

Hence, history has to be quite constructive in nature. It is a matter of regret that such attempts are rare at present. The present work tries to present a new and constructive vision of history for the welfare of human society. It has been divided in four parts. The first part presents the vision; the second part presents the way-out leading to golden future; the third part presents the constructive views of great minds of the West and India; and the fourth part presents a plea for education of the political leaders who play dominant role in making history. I am sure that a reader shall find the whole book quite thought-providing and inspiring.

In the end, I shall like to invite the attention of readers to the sorry state of history in India at present. Shivaji, the great Maratha who fought many battles with Mughal army of Aurangzeb has been some times described as mountain rat. Aurangzeb, who imposed jajiya tax on the Hindus has been described as a great emperor. Romila Thapar, who is a modern historian claims that the invasions of Mahamood Gajanavi were not sectarian. She has tried to belittle the contribution of even K.M. Munshi, who was a great author and held the post of a Minister in the Union Ministry of Government of India. Dr. Mahipsingh a Sikh author has stated that Prof. Satishchandra has described that Guru Tegbahadur, one of the celebrated Gurus of the Sikhs, was a dacoit who looted Punjab, in a book of N.C.E.R.T. I will not like to dwell on this point at length as it is beyond the scope of the present work. I only intend to stress that even the authors of modern history have yet to develop proper perspective of history.

I thank the publishers for publishing this work at their earliest convenience.

- Dr. R.N. Vyas

Academy House

17/3, North Rajmohalla,

Indore-452002

Part I

A NEW VISION OF HISTORY

What is History?

I

It is a strange fact of human life that people use words whose meanings differ from man to man. Religion, virtue, polity, and duty are some of such words. Religion is derived from the term religare which means to bind. Hence, religion should be understood in the sense of a binding agency, it should be a cementing force in society. But we find everywhere that religion has proved to be a source of conflict and division. Many bloody wars have been waged in the pious name of religion. Virtue carries different connotations with different individuals.

It is worth noting that for some to sacrifice one’s life for the sake of one’s family prestige is virtue, for some is serving the interests of one’s nation even if one’s nation is wrong is virtue, for some torturing a person not belonging to one’s accepted faith is also virtue. Aurangazeb imposed jajiya tax on people that did not accept Islam and thought that he was following virtue. One should therefore be ready to accept the fact that persons take the term history in different senses. A majority of people think that history is merely a record of past events. Thus Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary States that history is ‘the knowledge of past events’.

It is worth considering whether history is merely a record of past events or something more than that. Mue. du Chatelet, who inspired Voltaire quipped What does it matter to me, a French woman living in my state, to know that Egil succeeded Haquin in Sweden, and that Ottoman was the son of Ortugrul? I have read with pleasure the history of the Greeks and the Romans; they offered certain pictures which attracted. But I have not yet been able to finish any long history of our modern nations. I can see scarcely anything in them but confusion; a host of minute events without connection or sequence, a thousand battles which settled nothing. I renounce a study which overwhelms the mind without illuminating it.

Votaire agreed and said History is nothing more than a picture of crimes and misfortunes. He wrote to Horaee Walpole on 15th July 1768. Truly the history of the Yorkists and Lauca strains, and many others, is much like reading the history of highway robbers. He added History is after all nothing but a peak of tricks which we play upon the dead. He concluded, History proves that anything can be proved by history. A writer of history should know Details that lead to nothing are to history what baggage is to army, impediments; we must look at things in the large, for the very reason that the human mind is so small, and sinks under the weight of the minutiae. According to him, the battles and conflicts should not be given the extensive place that is usually allotted to them in ordinary histories. Battles and revolutions are the smallest part of the plan; he wrote, Squadrons and battalions conquering or being conquered, town taken and retaken, are common to all history... Take away the arts and the progress of mind, and you will find nothing in any age remarkable enough to attract the attention of posterity.

He revealed his plan of writing of history. My object is the history of the human mind, and not a more detail of petty facts; nor am I concerned with the history of great lords....; but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization.

German thinker Kant too had his own views in the matter. He wrote: The history of the human race viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally and externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed.