Forgotten Arts in India!

Santhanam Nagarajan


"Indian art is essentially idealistic mystic, symbolic, and transcendental, the artist is
both priest and poet" so says E.B.Havell in his book "Indian Sculpture and painting.
Indian Science and the Arts ruled the world once. We have forgotten our own glory
now.
One should at least think about the glorious past and what we were capable of.
Susrutha had carried out an operation on skull successfully.
Vallalar, the great saint of Vadalur, has given the properties of 464 herbs. It seems
that one could cure any disease including Covid provided he/she could identify the
herbs. Unfortunately the great Siddha Vaidyas are vanishing.
Our great researchers say that it is a customary practice for most of the kings of
Bharat to have Brahmins who could easily recite one lakh slokas from their memory.
There are poets who called as Asu Kavis, meaning they could compose any
challenging poem once the last line is given extembore!
Lakhs and lakhs of slokas are available in Sanskirt as well as in Tamil.
Maha Subhasita Sangraha alone gives thousand of poems in eight volumes.
And to our surprise we learn that there are 4 crore palm leaves left unopened till
this day. Who is going to read and interpret all the secrets from those slokas.
One Tamlil professor of Tanjore has revealed the forming of Magic Squares from
only one poem in Tamil which she was able to get from Saraswathi Mahal, Tanjore.
Needless to say, that every one knows now, the Vedic Mathematics in 16 simple
sutras now rule the world. Several world leading universities are teaching our Vedic
Mathematics. This method was discovered by Jagadguru Shri Bharathi Krishna
Tirtha in 1911 from Vedic Suktas.


Sadavadanam is a peculiar memory art practiced by learned pundits. In this one
participant will give a difficult problem to solve when some other will give one line
of one poem. At the same time one person will be throwing grains at the back of the
pundit. Thus 100 things variant in nature will be simultaneously done and the
sadavadani should complete his task by composing the poem, telling the correct no
grains thrown at him etc.
Amazing but it is true.


People who had a snake bite usually called a station master and by his mantra he
used to cure the person.
One Vichuli Vithai is an unbelievable art of Tamils. In this the lady will be on a pole
and while showing all her magic tricks on the pole suddenly she will throw her
nose ring. And like a Vichuli bird she will, in one jump get it fixed on her nose and
will again climb. All this will happen in a fraction of a second! This has been
enumerated in Kongu Mandala Sathakam, verse no 33.
One may wonder to know that Nala- Damayanthi story was repeatedly told in our
ancient Vedas. Nala is supposed to cook anything without water and fire.
Now we are cooking with electric equipments. So we may know what is meant by
cooking witout fire. But what about water? The science may answer one day!
The Yoga is all famous through out the world. Many laboratories are now
experimenting levitation which is one of the eight siddhis. The Science of Yoga may
convince the scientists with regard to these eight Siddhis.
Already universities in US found amazing results with regard to telepathy,
transportation through mind etc.
Regarding war tactics Gen Choudry has written an article regarding Mahabharat
Vyuhas.
Nobody could forget IndianaWrestlers including Tara Singh.
One Subbaraya Sastry has given a long list of special arts in which the Indians
excelled. Building a plane is also include in this list. Last but not least we may add
Kind Bhoja's several works on wonderful arts .
Where and why we have lost our wisdom?
We will try to find out a fitting answer to this question, of course after 75 years of
our independence.