From a very young age, I have loved hearing and reading stories. I have been lucky to be around some very good storytellers in my family and friends circle. As time passed and I went through formal education, there were many times when I felt that concepts being discussed have been covered by some of these stories.
In this series, I would like to discuss some of these stories and how it helped me understand concepts and theories. The intent of these blog entries is to not discuss the validity or authenticity of these stories, but to highlight how childhood stories can help shape the learning abilities of kids.
The Story of Dashavatar
I heard the story of Dashavatar for the first time from my grandmother when I was very young. Dashavatar means (“10 Avatars”) and is the story of Lord Vishnu. As per Hinduism, Lord Vishnu takes 10 forms at different points in time to help mankind overcome the problem of the moment.
The ten avatars in their order of sequence is as follows: Matsya (Fish), Kurma (Tortoise), Varaha (Wild Boar), Narasimha (Half man-Half Lion), Vamana (Dwarf), Parashurama (Man with wild emotions), Rama (Man with controlled emotions), Krishna (Calculative Man with evolved capabilities), Buddha (The Enlightened Man), Kalki (Yet to arrive).
Each story was interesting in its own right and as a kid it had all the aspects that fascinates the young mind. There is victory of good over evil, there are battles and wars and there are colorful characters and so the stories embedded themselves. Over the years, I have re-read the stories many times over and as I aged, I could see the depth of the characters and with each reading I started to develop more insights into what I could derive from the stories. But, I do not want to focus on these individual stories in this blog entry, but instead want to focus on the concept of Dashavatar itself. (In some of my later blog entries on this subject I will like to delve on some of the individual stories of Dashavatar.)
Years later, I was in my science class and I heard about this wonderful theory by an English Biologist which was published in his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. This theory which has come to be known as Theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin proposes that life originated in the oceans, then migrated to land and then slowly evolved from small animals to more complex beings. Also, it traces the human evolution from a primates to apes to wild humans to the modern humans as we know today. As soon as I heard the theory, I simply understood it instinctively for some reason. Then when I tried to draw the images to depict the theory of evolution, I suddenly started mapping it with the story of Dashavatar and knew why I could understand it instinctively.
The sequence of the avatars are Matsya (which grows from a tiny fish to a large whale), then Kurma (Tortoise showing evolution from sea to land), Varaha (Wild Boar showing evolution to tiny mammals), Narasimha (Animals with more and more sophistication), Vamana (Primates & Dwarfs), Parashurama (Wild Humans), Rama (Social Humans living in a society driven by rules), Krishna (Sophisticated humans living in a society driven by motives), Buddha (Enlightened humans looking beyond materialist needs).
The interesting fact was that this story has been known to Indians at least since 3000 BC and was well established by the 3rd century AD. Of course, modern education thinks that this theory was only discovered in 1859 by Charles Darwin. Later on I read more of the works of Charles Darwin and was impressed by the hard work and research he put in and his theory of Survival of Fittest and his work was outstanding. But, this episode left the imprint in my mind that education is contextual. For the society in which Darwin lived, which was not aware of this theory, his discovery was really path breaking.
But to superimpose the ignorance of that society on the rest of the world and claim that he was the discoverer of the idea is a bit preposterous. Unfortunately, this incongruence exists in most aspects of modern day science and this leads to the myopic view that those who have not read the concepts of modern science are either medieval or uneducated. In fact, my grandmother who educated me on this theory would be considered uneducated or under educated in this myopic world view. But, fact remains, that skills of observation as well as research started way before the 18th century, what has been different though is that storage of research material as well as monetizing of these has dramatically changed from the 18th century.
Earlier civilizations relied on word of mouth and concepts being transferred from one generation to another through oral telling of concepts. These civilizations realized that the best way to share knowledge is in terms of stories. Well formed stories told in a manner that is easy to recollect and easy to interpret can withstand the test of time. The story of Dashavtar has survived the period when knowledge was only transferred by word of mouth and has lived on to be etched into books. What’s more it has transcended all levels of education and not restricted to the educated elite as story appeals to almost everyone. Of course, the story has undergone a lot of distortions and possibly have become more colorful with each telling, but still the underlying concept remains concrete and there for any kid to relate to. Since the 18th century, the reliance on oral traditions have significantly reduced and more and more recorded texts have started to shape the modern education. This is for the better, but this does not belittle the system that served humanity for so long.
Brainwaves & Braindumps 