The Kavi

JandhyAla was a great film personality because of many reasons-- one of them being his contribution to gather and store important artifacts about the linguistic, cultural, and sociological conditions of the Telugu land of his times.

One of his masterpieces is the movie "Rendu-RellAru" starring Chandra Mohan and Rajendra Prasad.

There is reference to a term called "kavi" in that movie-- "kavi anTe kanapaDadu, vinabaDadu". I am not very sure if this term is an invention just for the movie, or if it has been in existence even before, but it is little things like these that have to be passed on to the next generations.

Notwithstanding the formal definition of the word "kavi" which is a 'poet', about 3000-4000 years ago, the word "kavi" meant something entirely different and denoted a person of a higher degree--a 'kavi' used to mean a 'seer'... somebody higher than a rishi. The Gods Agni, Brhaspati,etc., are all revered as kavis in Rig Veda.

This is just one example among many, of how our language, culture, and even religion have changed ever slightly by the day over thousands of years and finally have taken theie present shape. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh was one of the very few who saw a hidden, a rather cryptic meaning hidden in the otherwise mundanely ritualistic suktas of Rig Veda and Sri KapAli Sastry and Sri M.P.Pandit carried on the work started by Aurobindo. Dr.R.L.Kashyap, a Professor Emeritus at Purdue University has taken the responsibility of disseminating the inner meaning of the Vedas to the common people by writing and publishing numerous books that shed light on the real meaning of the Veda Suktas which can be viewed at http://www.vedah.com/org2/pub/overview.asp.

There is a dire need for the youth of this country to take up the study of Vedas because whatever interpretations we have of Vedas till now are by the western minds. Hopefully, atleast a few of us might devleop an interest in the esoteric knowledge of the Veda at some point of time.

I intend to propagate the work done by them by posting excerpts from their books (which are small, easy to understand and cheap!!) . For that purpose, I have started a blog called "The Kavi".