Sagan finds Sarasvati

Author: S Kalyanaraman

Publisher: SRC Herndon, $12.95

The book finds Saraswati river and her divine message using links between ancient India and Southeast Asia. Excerpts

I am like a spark from Sagan’s anvil in his brass foundry. Many sparks fly and vanish within fractions of a second, spark-time like the subatomic particles or like the molecules of DNA chains of life with specific functions to perform to make life form meaningful. I am onlynimittamãtram. Nimittam means ‘instrumental or effective cause, ground reason’. There is a reason why I am given this life form. Krishna conveys the same message in his song, Bhagavad Gita nimittamãtram bhava savyasãcin: “Arjuna, just become to be the cause for this discourse about atman.”

I was born in Kidaram Kondan in Tamil Nadu but all my education was in Telugu because my father was employed as Minor Irrigation Overseer in Penukonda, Anantapuram District, the summer capital of King Krishnadevaraya. His job was to maintain the flow of water in the canals feeding the ground-nut crops of the surrounding villages. Rains were the only source of water in this district. There was no river Sarasvati nearby to assure perennial supply of water. Even for drinking water, I had to walk every morning five km  to the small lake at the foothill to fetch drinking water for the family because the water from the well was brackish, not potable and could be used only for cleaning and bathing.

As I started working in Manila, I realised that Kidaram Kondan which is recorded in my passport as my place of birth was so named to commemorate sea-faring cultural contacts of ancient times. King Karikala Chola had established friendship ties with Kidäram, the Tamil form for the kingdom of Bujang valley. Kidaram was the Tamil name of Kedah ‘abode of peace’ located in the northwestern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The people of Kedah know the bounties brought by River Mekong flowing from Manasarovar glacier of Himalaya.

In the village called Piñjai, adjacent to Kidaram Kondan, there is a 1,000-year-old temple inscription which refers to the gifts given by the king to the artisans of the region. In the Singapore Kalachakra Museum, there is a model of a golden chariot which a Khmer king had given to King Karikala to celebrate the Chola-Khmer alliance. Khmer influence in Thai-Malay peninsula during 12th century CE is recorded by the French epigraphist George Coedes. Some historians interpret that the gift of the Khmer chariot was from Suryavarman to Rajendra Chola.

Karikala built a temple replica of the Brihadisvara temple in a place called Gangaikondacolapuram. This Gangaikonda commemorates Karikala bringing pots of water from river Ganga-Sarasvati to sanctify the waters of the temple tank. Hence, that tank is called Cholaganga.

Not far from the place where Khmer chariot could have been made, I visited the Vishnu temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, on the banks of River Mekong, to understand the significance of the Indian Ocean community that existed along the 63,000 mile long rim of the ocean from Cape of Good Hope, South Africa to Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

I am only nimittamãtram as Gitãcãrya noted in another context of ancient times.Time seems to ring the bell of memories, even as the clock keeps ticking inexorably. It is ticking, tick tick tick, of immortality.

I feel so proud that my place of birth brings back the reminiscences of these contacts among people established through water-bodies, be the water the salty water of the ocean or the water flowing from glacial melts irrigating fields to produce grains to feed and quench the hunger and thirst of the people.

In Karikala’s time, something remarkable was achieved by the engineers of yore. They created a stone anicut called kallanai and diverted the surplus waters of river Kaveri through a channel called Kollidam to add another 500,000 acres of fertile land for production of rice. This kallanai model also occurs in South Africa and has led to the marvel of reborn Sarasvati using the waters of River Sutudri and River Vitastã dammed at Bhakra-Nangal and Pong, gathering the waters in Harike Reservoir to make River Sarasvati flow again as a 40 ft wide, 12 ft deep canal into Gedra Road, Bikaner district, Rajasthan, covering a distance of over 1,000 km. This model should be replicated for all rivers flowing from the Himalayas into the Indian Ocean Community to make all the rivers of this community perennial, in a water-grid for Rastram, assuring abhyudayam, social welfare for 2 billion people of the globe.

I told Sagan, ‘1 hope together with this watergrid, I will see the formation of Indian Ocean Community as a Rästram, a united community of nations along the ocean rim. With the blessings of Devi Sarasvati, everything is possible.’ Sagan agreed and went about his work in the brass foundry making his trade mark Jagadhri brass vessels I realise that 1 am still a student. So, I am brought back to my religious life.