Sandhi Ganesha

Yesterday was Lord Ganesha (Elephant God in Hinduism)'s day. In India, Ganesha is also known as a knowledge provider. He is purported to have written the Mahabharata under Saint Vyasa's direction.

As kids, it was absolutely crucial for us to worship Ganesha before any exam and most importantly Mathematics (not really sure why). The more devout, such as those who desperately need to pass the exam, would break anywhere from 1 to 108 coconuts (Ganesha's favorite) depending on the strength of their hand and wallet.

Unlike most Gods, it is never too difficult to find a Ganesha idol for worship in India - especially South India. There is pretty much an unwritten rule that if there is a 'T' junction, there MUST be a small Ganesha statue in that corner facing the street. In most cases, the house forming the broader side of the T ensures this. Some such Ganeshas tend to become more popular and eventually transform into a bigger shrine with proper worship. There used to be one on the way to school which I used to visit regularly. I don't know if it helped me study better, but it at least improved my confidence!

The Sanskrit word for junction is 'sandhi'. While sandhis refer to street junctions, they also refer to conjunctions within the language such as one that is formed by combining two words together.

While English does not have too many sandhis (may with the exception of I'd, We'd, aren't, etc.), I believe the underlying Latin does use it liberally, giving rise to many English terms. In Sanskrit, sandhis are used all over the place - for poetic, aesthetic, and probably egoistic reasons as well (for the poet to show his language prowess).

The downside with sandhis in Sanskrit is that depending on how the word is split by the reader, it can give a completely different meaning, which has led to a number of interpretations for almost every Sanskrit text ever created!

My grandfather used to give us a very hilarious example to highlight the importance of understanding the rules of splitting the terms to get the right meaning, and interestingly, it involves a verse praising Ganesha, the king of sandhis.

गजाननं भूतगणादि सेवितं कपित्व जम्बू फलसारभक्षितं ।
उमासुतं शोकविनासकारणं नमामि विघ्नेश्वर पाद पङ्कजं ॥
It translates as follows:
GajAnanam: O Elephant Lord
Bhootaganaathi Sevitham: Worshipped by the disciples of Shiva (bhoota ganas)
Kapitva Jambu PalasAra Bhakshitam: Likes fruits such as Elephant Apple (Kapit) and Black Plum (Jambul)
Umasutam: Is with Uma (Parvati) - wife of Shiva and mother of Ganesha
Shoka vinAsha kAranam: Reason for destroying all sadness for his devotees
Namami vigneshwara pAda pankajam: I surrender to your feet soft as lotus petals

Now, my grandfather's version is slightly different - the words are the same but they are just split differently

गजानानाम्बू  धगनादी सेवितं
कपित्वजम्बू पलासराबक्षितम
उमासु तमसो कविनाशाकारानाम
नमामि विग्नेश्वर पाद पंकजम

The translation now becomes this:
gajAnanambu: One who wears an elephant flower (bu -> phoo -> flower in Tamil)
daganAdi sevitam: Burns all those who worship him
kapitva jambu: Jumps like a monkey (kapi = monkey)
palasAra bakshitam: Devours all snacks given to him
umAsu: Brought bad name to Uma (Parvati)
tamSo: (I forgot what this one was - nothing pleasant I can assure you!)
kavinAshakAranam: Responsible for the demise of all poets who sing his praise
namami vigneshwara pAda pankajam: I worship one with such qualities!

Same words, but completely different meaning! It goes to show the importance of learning something properly and understanding the intended meaning and not a screwed up interpretation - something current religious scholars who (mis)interpret the original intention of various religious texts without putting it in context need to desperately learn!

Hope Lord Ganesha gives them such strength :)

A better definition of Learning

Webster and Oxford define learning as "knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study". Most of our lives are governed by this definition - from pre-school all the way to adulthood, including certifications. While this is a decent definition, it does not exactly cover all aspects of learning, does it? How about learning by mistakes? How about the 'Eureka!' moments that you go through when you are in the bath tub? How about learning from others' learning?

We see glimpses of these types of learning either embedded in the generic definition of learning or as an addendum to the 'taught' learning process, such as team discussions typically done in business schools. However, due to the generally accepted notion of learning, not much emphasis is given on these other forms. This can be an issue because we tend to lose significant opportunities to learn in our child and adulthood by focusing only on rote learning and not the other options of learning.

Can we do better? Yes, we can. In fact, we don't have to look far. A much more precise definition of learning has been given in the Sanskrit literature, which amazed me when I first came across it as part of Prof. B. Mahadevan in his article on Sanskrit and Business Management that I blogged about earlier. Here's the verse, and my visual depiction of the verse.

In English,

Aachaaryaat paadamaadatthe paadam sishyah svamedhayaa
Paadam sabrahmachaaribyo paadam kaalakramena cha

Sounds Sanskrit? Here's the breakdown (thanks to my brother, who can actually understand as opposed to just reading it!):

aacharyaat - from the guru
paadam - quarter
aadatte - receives
paadam - quarter
shishya: - student
sva medhayaa - by his own intelligence
paadam - quarter
sabrahmachaaribhi: - from his fellow students
paadam - quarter
kaala kramena - by time
ca - and

Essentially, learning is defined as one quarter teaching, one quarter self study, one quarter group study, and one quarter done over time. Can you be more precise?!

Taught
If you think a bit, you can see the depth of the meaning that is described so beautifully here. You learn from your teacher. This is the one that is done formally through the education system.

Self-Study
Then you reflect on the thoughts be they coming from the teacher, of your own volition, or from your surroundings. A classic example of this would be the 'Eureka!' moment that Aristotle had when he was sitting in his bath tub. How many times have you had such moments when you were driving or when you were on the shower? Many a times, I have found myself honing my ideas or thoughts better, be it related to my work or personal life when I just sit back and think about it. Maybe emphasis on meditation in Sanskrit was to promote this form of learning.

Group Study
You also learn from your peers, a concept established successfully by the 'Hole in the wall' experiment by Sugata Mitra. While we do this in school most times, there is sadly very little emphasis on the power of such learning. Normally, we are encouraged to do things by ourselves than as a group. On the contrary, you can see most business schools put a lot more emphasis on group discussions, potentially to unlock this form of learning. I remember my college days where a bunch of my friends used to study through the night (in the middle of watching a variety of serials that come late night ;)) weeks before the final exam. It helped me personally and I believe the group in general as well (we all got really good grades!).

Over Time
Lastly, there is the process of learning over time, either by way of experience or by way of history. As the famous quote goes, "those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it" - true words, embedded in this stanza ages ago. Most projects take some time to 'learn' from successes or failures of previous projects.

Years back, computer scientist Peter Naur wrote a paper titled "Programming as theory building" - one of the best articles I've read, and something that holds true even today, even in completely different contexts. Essentially, he argues 'swappable' resources are not a great idea. His argument is that each programmer builds a mental model or theory about his program during the course of development. In most cases, this model is seldom documented or communicated with other resources (primarily due to the difficulty in expressing the model in words). As a result, when the programmer leaves, the theory leaves with him, essentially resulting in another programmer building another theory (or rarely, the same theory) from scratch. How many times have you looked at a piece of code and wondered what the heck the programmer was thinking?!

I found this concept in a completely different setting, in a book called The art of game design by Jesse Schell. In the book, the author describes a concept called Flow Channel identified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (and they say my name is hard to pronounce!), which is the basis for levels in a game - more on this in another blog.

So, in effect, our education system is really tapping into only 25% of the whole learning process. Imagine how it would be to tap into the whole process?! I wonder when we will learn that the learning provided by our learned ancestors would facilitate better learning for the future generations.

Management in Sanskrit literature

A few weeks back my brother sent me a lecture delivered by Prof. B. Mahadevan who works at IIM Bangalore. The topic is "What constitutes good management - Lessons from ancient Sanskrit scriptures" delivered as part of the "Sanskrit and Science" series. The first couple of paragraphs unfortunately a bit dry (probably due to the transcription of a lecture) and hence I promptly shelved it for a later time. While on a flight today, I came across the article that I had almost forgotten, and I am glad I took the time to go beyond the first page.
In the lecture, Mahadevan lists five primary qualities for a person pursuing management skills, namely

1. Ability to visualize the big picture
2. Systematic approach to problem solving
3. Attitude towards learning as a way of life
4. Managing short-term vs long-term conflicts and
5. Having leadership traits

I think this is a fairly neat and relatively concise way to look at management skills. He goes further to explain how each of these concepts is explained in various Sanskrit scriptures and how they are relevant even in this day and age. Here is a quick rundown.

Ability to visualize the big picture

One of the striking quality of Hindu scriptures is the concept of providing multiple viewpoints to a single idea, thereby providing an option for the reader to pick and choose the idea he sees close to his mental picture, while still achieving the same goal. There are various philosophies within the Hindu system that talk about salvation, although the path taken is completely different. It is interesting that the ancestors have thought of these myriad possibilities and listed them rather than emphasizing on a single idea.

In one classic example, the vishwarupa (literally magnanimous form) of Lord Krishna in Mahabharata is described as "the light shining from a thousand sunrises", an expression that Robert Oppenheimer quoted when witnessing the first atom bomb blast. There are numerous other examples where the vastness of time and space are explored in detail while sitting in a corner of this world.

Such "big picture" thinking is now deemed as an important quality for a good manager.

Systematic approach to problem solving

Mathematics has been embedded in various Sanskrit literatures. Not only have they thought big, they have also taken pains to categorize the vastness and also provide a proper system to calibrate it. Even more amazingly, in Rig Veda, one of the most ancient Sanskrit scriptures, the speed of light has been calculated as 3.020263x10^8 m/s, an extremely close approximation of the current definition!

As Mr. Mahadevan surmises, this systematic approach seems to stem from the spirit of inquiry that is encouraged within the scriptures themselves. Scriptures such as Katha Upanishad and Prashna Upanishad are written in a question-answer format, that promote this idea strongly.
As an example, Mr. Mahadevan quotes a stanza from Lilavati by Bhaskaracharya, where proper nomenclature is given for number systems ranging from 10^0 to 10^17. Remember, this was written hundreds of years ago!

Similarly, in Bhagavatam, another popular Sanskrit scripture, nomenclature has been given for time ranging from 10^-6 seconds to 10^17 years.

Learning as a way of life

Sanskrit and pretty much everything else in the past was taught in Gurukulams, literally meaning the teacher's residence. In the past, learning happened by way of apprenticeship, wherein the students will stay at the teacher's place for a prolonged period of time and learn various skills.

Mr. Mahadevan quotes an amazing verse that defines the idea of learning: Learning is one fourth taught by teacher, one fourth learnt by self-reflection and thinking, one fourth by group study, and one fourth is learnt over time.

This, I feel, is an excellent and probably a very accurate way to think about how we learn. Personally, when I was in college, I used to learn part by reading by myself and part by doing 'group study' with my friends, which I felt greatly enhanced by learning as well. A similar conclusion was reached by Sugata Mitra in his experiment "Hole in the wall" (the idea behind the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, which was the inspiration for the Oscar winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire). I hope to expand on this in another blog post.

Understanding that learning is something that happens over time and not just in an instant provides a level of humility and also alerts one to be constantly on the lookout for new knowledge.

Managing short-term vs. long-term conflicts

As Mr. Mahadevan states, Hindu philosophy itself is one long conflict between short-term goals and long-term goals. The idea of living the current birth while reincarnating multiple births before reaching salvation provides a great analogy for this concept. The concept of karma accumulating over time and birth and the prospect of managing it well in this life to facilitate future ones is not dissimilar from a manager weighing in short-term gains to long-term gains.

Leadership traits

Finally, every manager needs to have some leadership qualities (which unfortunately, is lacking in most politicians today). As Mr. Mahadevan shows, Sanskrit scriptures explain the idea of leading by example and having an emotional balance in multiple places to highlight this idea.
Over the years, I have wondered why Indians (and Asians in general) tend to be more 'doers' than 'leaders'. While I have thought that it was mainly because of the submissive past (most Asian countries were colonies of the Western world), it looks like the root problem is more because of the educational system that is in place in these countries that focus more on rote learning instead of creativity. While the Western world seems to have rectified this error (after all, the current system is based on British learning system), they seem to now have erred too much towards creativity, thereby creating a void in analytical skills. It looks like what we need in our educational system is a right balance of the two.

So, if the ancient Sanskrit scriptures contain so much wisdom over a wide range of topics that are relevant even today, why aren't people, especially Indians who are close to it, look at them with vigor?

As Mr. Mahadevan states at the end, Sanskrit can nowadays be learnt in two phases of life - one as part of collegiate and graduate studies by students taking special interest in the subject, and two, as an adult who has established a secure future by other means. Since the Indian society largely favors careers oriented towards a secure job (such as IT, medicine, and engineering), it would be very hard for students to make Sanskrit literature as their career.

So, the only other and probably the most viable option is for professionals who have a secure job (the same IT, medicine, or engineering) to take up Sanskrit at least as a hobby and start learning so that they can unlock many more mysteries that it may hold.

On a side note, I have also wondered why the people who have provided so much wisdom preferred an oral mechanism of passing on the information through generations instead of a secure written mechanism. I have an idea why, and hopefully that'll be the topic for another blog!

In the meanwhile, I strongly encourage you to read Mr. Mahadevan's lecture, excusing the spelling mistakes at the end and relatively dry start. It's well worth your time. My only niggle is that the transcript does not explain the verses he quotes in more detail.