India’s Cultural Heritage and Identity and other Essays

This volume is collection of eight lectures delivered by Dr Kapila Vatsyayan on different occasions, some in the memory of four eminent persons such as Ancharlott Eschmann, an art historian; Dr C.D. Deshmukh, founder of the India International Centre and former Chairman, University Grants Commission; Prof. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya, eminent writer social worker andformer president of the Sahitya Akademi and Dr D.S. Kothari, the doyen of science and a dedicated Gandhian, and the remaining four on a few critical issues related to culture. These lectures delve upon crucial terms and topics like shastra and prayoga, and marga and desi in the study of Indian arts, other social systems and the sociology of religion; interface of culture and development; role of arts in social transformation; a modern rishi, the eco-cultural cartography of South Asia; the oral and written systems of knowledge transmission; the different aspects of India’s cultural heritage and identity; and Hinduism as a religion of divine immanence, where concepts like purusharthas and varnashrama-dharma are all part and parcel of the all-encompassing Sanatana Dharma. This book thus enables readers to enlarge and nurture India’s cultural heritage and its allied features. In a fast-changing world, one should know his cultural past and thereby prepare himself to absorb what is needed, without losing his identity and existence.