The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : `Vedanta offers solutions for several modern-day problems'

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Tuesday, Jan 04, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

`Vedanta offers solutions for several modern-day problems'

By Our Staff Reporter

Founder-director of the International Congress of Vedanta, S.S. Rama Rao Pappu, having a word with Catherine Young of McGill University, Canada, at the fifteenth International Congress of Vedanta in Visakhapatnam on Monday. Photo: C.V.Subrahmanyam

VISAKHAPATNAM, JAN. 3. Vedanta and Hindu vision of life have a great deal to offer to the predicaments faced by humanity by the advancement of science and technology, culture wars and slippery moral ground, according to V.V. Raman of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Austin.

He was delivering the keynote address at the 15th International Congress of Vedanta, which began here on Monday. Quoting Swami Vivekananda, he said the wisdom of ages should not be forgotten and on its basis greater and stronger India should be built. The four-day Congress is being organised by the Department of Philosophy, Andhra University.

Prof. Raman traced the beginning of the Vedantic Congress in Miami University in 1986 and the efforts made by its founder-director, S.S. Rama Rao Pappu, in continuing the mission.

Preserving traditions

Presiding over the inauguration, the AU Vice-Chancellor, Y.C. Simhadri, recalled the university's association with the great thinker and its former Vice-Chancellor, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and also that of K. Satchidananda Murthy. ``Noted thinker, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, was also a Telugu man. The Konaseema region of the neighbouring East Godavari district is known for nurturing and preserving Vedic traditions. Great Hindu, Buddhist and Jain philosophers have hailed from Andhra Pradesh," he said.

The Principal of AU College of Arts and Commerce, D. Panduranga Rao, recalled that the Maharaja of Vizianagaram had sponsored publication of Vedas in England.

Solution to problems

Describing Indian spirit as the spirit of Vedas, Prof. Rao felt modern minds had to ponder over solutions the Vedas offered to present day problems.

Responding to felicitations, Prof. Rama Rao Pappu said he considered whatever he had done as part repayment of his debt to rishis of yore.

Catherine Young of McGill University (Canada), in her inaugural address on Visistadwaitam and Srivaishnavism dealt at length on the Alwars, Pancharatra and the Vaikhanasa traditions, Mahayana contribution, the Bhakti tradition of Andhra Pradesh vis-a-vis sectarianism and proselytisation in Tamil Nadu.

The Director of the Congress, P. George Victor, spoke.

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