the1854project

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A Table Alphabeticall1

The 1854 Project

a new retrospective
by
Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्माऽमृतं गमय ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Copyright © 2023 Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, stored in a database and / or published in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in કલા નગરી, kalā nagarī: “city of art” by મન, man: “mind”2

Cataloging in Publication Data

Name: Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak, 2023— author
Title: The 1854 Project/ Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak
ASIN:
Subjects: 1. Sociology 2. Epistemology

Contents

Author’s Note
A Note About This Book
Epigraph
Preface

  1. ārya
  2. jīva
  3. īśvara
  4. maya
  5. brahman
  6. paraṃ brahma

Dedication
Acknowledgement
Contributors
Notes
Credits

Author’s Note

Each chapter begins with a Word in the source script, a transliteration of the Word in ISO Latin 1 in italics, and a translation of the Word in Modern English in quotes.

A Note About This Book

तस्मै स विद्वानुपसन्नाय सम्यक्प्रशान्तचित्ताय शमान्विताय ।
येनाक्षरं पुरुषं वेद सत्यं प्रोवाच तां तत्त्वतो ब्रह्मविद्याम् ॥

tasmai sa vidvānupasannāya samyakpraśāntacittāya śamānvitāya ।
yenākṣaraṃ puruṣaṃ veda satyaṃ provāca tāṃ tattvato brahmavidyām ॥

To him who has thus approached, whose heart is well subdued and who has control over his senses, let him truly teach that Brahmavidya by which the true immortal purusha is known (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.2.13)

Epigraph

अविरोधितया कर्म नाविद्यां विनिवर्तयेत् ।
विद्याविद्या निहन्त्येव तेजस्तिमिरसङ्ववत् ॥

avirodhitayã karma nävidyam vinivartayet ।
vidyavidyam nihantyeva tejastimirasamghavat ॥

Action cannot destroy ignorance, as it is not opposed to ignorance
Knowledge does verily destroy ignorance just as light destroys deep darkness (Ātmabodha 3)3

Preface

स वा एष तदा द्रष्टा नापश्यद् द‍ृश्यमेकराट् ।
मेनेऽसन्तमिवात्मानं सुप्तशक्तिरसुप्तद‍ृक् ॥

sa vā eṣa tadā draṣṭā nāpaśyad dṛśyam ekarāṭ ।
mene ’santam ivātmānaṁ supta-śaktir asupta-dṛk ॥

The Lord, the supreme soul of all the souls (jīvas) and their master, was all alone before (the creation of) this (universe). When the will of the Supreme Lord viz. Māyā disappears (or when he wills to be alone), existent as he is as a cause, he is not perceived separately as a seer or anything to be seen, (though) he was comprehended by various conjectures (while the gross creation existed) (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.5.24)

ārya

आर्य, ārya: “Worthy, venerable, respectable, honourable, noble, high (Apte 256);”

jīva

जीव, jīva: “The individual or personal soul enshrined in the human body and imparting to it life, motion and sensation (Apte 515);”

īśvara

ईश्वर, īśvara: “Powerful, able, capable of (with inf.) (Apte 284);”

maya

माया, maya: “Deceit, fraud, trick, trickery; a device, an artifice (Apte 861);”

brahman

ब्रह्मन्, brahman: “The Supreme Being, regarded as impersonal and divested of all quality and action; (according to the Vedāntins, Brahman is both the efficient and the material cause of the visible universe, the all-pervading soul and spirit of the universe, the essence from which all created things are produced and into which they are absorbed (Apte 801);”

paraṃ brahma

परं ब्रह्म, paraṃ brahma: “The sacred and mystic syllable om (Apte 801);”

Dedication

Indians—Past, Present and Future

Acknowledgement

The 1619 Project4

Contributors

Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak is the Founder and President of the Institute for ReWriting World History.

Notes

Cawdry, Robert. A Table Alphabeticall, Contayning and Teaching the True Writing and Vnderstanding of Hard Vsuall English Words, Borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French &C. With the Interpretation Thereof by Plaine English Words, Gathered for the Benefit and Help of All Vnskilfull Persons. Whereby They May the More Easily and Better Vnderstand Many Hard English Words, Which They Shall Heare or Read in Scriptures, Sermons, or Elsewhere, and Also Be Made Able to Vse the Same Aptly Themselues. W. I. for Edmund Weauer, 1604.

Apte, Vaman Shivram. Apte Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Shiralkar, 1890.

The Upanishads and Sri Sankara’s Commentary: Isa, Kena & Mundaka. Translated by S. Sitarama Sastri, V.C. Seshacharri, 1905.

Swami Nikhilānand. Self-Knowledge: An English Translation of Sankaracharya Atmabodha with Notes, Comments, and Introduction. Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1947.

The Bhagavata Purana Part 1. Edited by J. L. Shastri, Translated by G. V. Tagare, vol. 7, 1950, Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology.

Belsare, Malhar Bhikaji. ગુજરાતી-અંગ્રેજી ડિકશનરી [Etymological Gujarati-English Dictionary]. 2nd Edition, Asian Educational Services, 2002.

Hannah-Jones, Nikole. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Random House Publishing Group, 2021.

Credits

  1. Müller, Friedrich Max. “The Aryan Settlers and the Aboriginal Races of India.” Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History Applied to Language and Religion, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854, Christian Karl Josias Freiherr von Bunsen.
  2. Greenough, George Bellas. General sketch of the physical and geological features of British India, 1855.

  1. A Table Alphabeticall, Contayning and Teaching the True Writing and Vnderstanding of Hard Vsuall English Words, Borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French &C. (Cawdry A4). ↩

  2. તન-મન-ધન a. n. [See તન + મન + ધન] Lit. The body, the mind, and one’s wealth. Hence, 2. All that one loves; the highest object of one’s ambition (Belsare 577). ↩

  3. Action—Which is associated with the consciousness of doer, instrument, and result.

    Knowledge—Of Non-duality.

    Ignorance—Which conjures up the multiplicity of the relative world. (See note on verse 5, p. 160). Ignorance must not be confused with illiteracy or absence of book-knowledge. Vedanta declares that the Knowledge of the non-duality of Brahman and Ātman is the only true Knowledge; all else is ignorance. Any trace of duality belongs to the state of ignorance. As such, the vision of a god or the experience of happiness in heaven belongs to the realm of ignorance (Swami Nikhilānand 157). ↩

  4. I was maybe fifteen or sixteen when I first came across the date 1619. Whenever I think about that moment, my mind conjures an image of glowing three-dimensional numbers rising from the page. Of course, in reality, they were printed in plain black text on the cheap page of a paperback. Still, while the numbers did not literally glow, I remember sitting back in my chair and staring at the date, a bit confused, thrown off-kilter by an exhilarating revelation starting to sink in (Hannah-Jones xvii). ↩