So far I had seen two classifications in Indian classical literature. The first category narrates some event, person or a story. Either events and person are explicitly named to identify or portrayed as generic characters like hero, heroin, mother etc.
The second category deals with morality/code of conduct/mannerism of people, social norms and ethics. There are many such books. Other day, one such book was lying in my desk. Friend of mine picked the same and glanced through it. He wasn't very happy about what he was reading. He felt those do s and donts were impractical; also a waste of time to go through such materials.
That was an interesting remark. Are all our ancient wisdom a waste of time? I was thinking in this line. Here are few thoughts came out.
In our modern age, we have hundreds of authors writing self-help, personality development books. In a sense, these books are the continuous progeny of the ancient moral texts. Most of the do s and donts of a by gone era may not be applicable today. However, we cannot throw away all of them as useless ideas.
If they are not applicable today, why should someone read them? I read to gain an insight into the ancient world. What was their social practices? Which are the pressing issues they had to address? Reading history itself has lots of advantage. A good reason for human being to go through history pages is not to commit the same mistake again.
Apart from these mundane reasons, there are recorded facts and findings which stands good in spite of the deadly factor called TIME. For example, recently I was reading a newspaper article about harmful effects of hot water bath. Due to regular usage of hot water for head bath leads to headache, memory loss and other brain related issues. This is due to sudden raise in the temperature during bath. Mainly this affects the brain. Since this info was new to me, I was surprised to read this; also worried because I am take hot water head bath on a daily basis. Found a remedy for the above situation in an ancient literature. Different protocols are suggested for cold water and hot water bath. Following that could reduce the effect of the above brain attack.
Suggestion to my friend is, to read books of wide range and variety. One need not follow everything written in the books. However, it is essential to expand our horizons by exposing to different ideas.
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Ofcourse ancient knowledge is usefual and history is helpful. But whatever gets printed can't be acknowledged as a book worth reading. There are many junk books getting printed which are not worthy to spend time reading, in this fast paced world.So its always better to be choosy about what to read and what not to read.Your friend might have come across such a book. I agree that wide variety of books need to be read, but the biggest trouble is to find out the gem in the dustbin.Since printing and publishing have become so cheap and easy, every tom dick and harry is publishing books. You should acknowledge that 'Time' is valued more in current era than anything.
For your headbath thing, always hotwater bath should be started from leg, Not from the head. Heard this from a elder. (Ancient knowledge)
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