Thread by @shrikanth_krish

Good thread by the excellent @teasri

But I differ from the view that economic might will somehow create a traditional revival. It is unlikely

(Contd..)

https://twitter.com/teasri/status/1053693428289232897

To me the change is deeper. The Hinduism of the younger generation based in cities is very different in character

I did a thread on that a couple of days back that did not go very well..

But some realities need to be faced

Several traditions have died out not because of lack of economic wherewithal or sponsorship. But because parents have not taken the trouble to transmit anything to their kids.

Hinduism of the traditional kind is heavily dependent on familial transmissions

As those transmission links collapse, kids get their world views from "books". Not from grandmothers.

That makes a big difference.

In the winter of 2016-17, I was on a roadtrip in the Kaveri Delta. Visiting Divya Desams in the vicinity of Trichy, Tanjore, Kumbakonam, and also Kanchipuram.

One thing struck me - in every temple, even on weekends, the visitors were largely either middle aged / elderly or rural

The Yuppie crowd was missing. Almost totally. I just couldn't spot them.

The attitudes of young people, even in fairly small towns, towards a lifestyle driven by regimen, ritual, and a certain discipline are very mixed.

The erosion of that ritual discipline is very rapid. Not just in the North, but also in the South

The solution to this is to find an alternative to "familial transmissions"

You are never going to get back the ritual discipline of late 18th century. Forget it.

But you can pick something up and have a limited revival by reducing dependence on families.

For that limited revival of tradition, you need "books".

Something traditionalists always scoff at.

Hey...ours is an oral tradition after all! Books? Well..nothing like learning at the feet of a Vaidika scholar!

Sorry folks. Doesn't cut it.

And this is where there is a paucity. There really aren't any books for kids to read.

Sure you have those abridged retellings of epics. And then there is nothing. All you have is pop stuff from wannabe best-selling authors today.

I can't go to a bookstore and buy for instance Taittareya Samhita of Krishna Yajurveda. Or some Pancharatra text. Or let's say Yoga Vasishta.

They are just not available.

There are no new editions. No new translations. It's total stagnation

And I don't necessarily see a great deal of intellectual interest in working on old neglected texts.

Just about every HIndu text is neglected, besides the Bhagavad Gita. Even the two epics barely have unabridged translations - except 3-4

The institutions don't exist to prop up what you regard as "essential" in one's religious literature

There is no HIndu "canon"

There is no Hindu equivalent of the "Great Books" - the western canon that began with Homer and ended with Neitzche and constituted "essential reading"

In the absence of canons, all you have is an undifferentiated mass of thousands of neglected texts starting with perhaps RV Samhitas and ending with Brahma Vaivarta Purana...

What should people read? What is "essential"? There is no guide.

The traditionalist retort will be -

Oh no...this is so western! We are not wired that way. We have our sampradAyas. Forming canons is against our nature as a civilization.

But sampradAyas don't work as well as they used to. Familial transmission is dead.

Traditonalists have to introspect to figure out a way to keep some kind of cultural and religious continuity.

And it can't happen the old way. Through families.

One has to change with the times, and find new media for transmission