Two (Raw) Notes : on the Cakravartin~Dharmaraja, and the resurgent philosophies of Oneness from age to age
[Unedited]
Reconceptualising geopolitical thought through the framework of the Cakravartin-Dharmaraja duality (or Tao) begins with first re-thinking the role of the king, or the leader, in a political society.
The Dharma-King is not the same as the Aryan King of Rg Vedic India, who was primary a war leader, or even someone who provides ‘enjoyment’ to his followers through distribution of spoils among, say, his wider comitatus.
The Dharma-King does not conquer for the sake or conquest either; he conquers to expand the rule of Dharma (as justice and righteousness) to wider and wider regions – which, after its reconceptualisation into the Asokan Dhamma, now connotes a responsibility to create a society of harmonious flourishing.
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The waves (I use this word as a conscious iteration and not mere metaphor) of movement. and settlement into the axial zone of the greater Indus Valley created a monumental sedimentation of ideas in the region, particularly in special places where such ‘movers in’ and their ideas accumulated.
From this materiel, conscious thinkers developed, sometimes renewed, idea systems, often reviving certain notions buried in the past. to give answer to the dilemmas of the ages.
The greatest idea of all was that of the single unified oneness of all being, most beautifully evoked the seer-poets of the Rg Veda on the banks of the rivers of the Indus. This idea was it seems shared with adjacent regions, perhaps generic to cultures which lived under the open sky of the endless all encompassing step, reflection on whose nature brought about the genesis in the human mind of all from Brahman to Tengri. Accompanying this reflection of the vast expanse of outer space, was the notion of inner space, that too was explored in ancient Shamanic spirit-wandering traditions, constituting perhaps the first religion of mankind (as seen in cave paintings). It was understood in most Shamanic traditions that the inner space of the spirit-mind was somehow moored in the outer space of geography, and even cosmology, with the human body (containing the mind-soul) as the locus of transition, or an interface between the two (or three). Other sacred spaces were seen as existing in sacralised places which similarly acted as loci of transition. But the single greatest achievement of the Rg Vedic tradition, extending into the Upanishadic and paving the way for all Indic philosophy that followed, was the proposition of the great synthesis between inner and outer space. How these relation was to be conceived, understood and what implications it had for man in society was the the single enduring theme of the great Indian Debate, of philosophy, society and politics.
The realisation of oneness transcending being led the Vedics to conclude that all humanity was one, how this philosophical conclusion did not create any analogous political institutions (that endured) to actualise this conception of the nature of man into society and social organisation. The birth of empathy in political ethics was however a gradually achieved accomplishment of this philosophy, reaching a balanced political philosophy in the Asoka Dhamma, and pushed to the extreme in Jainism. For a ‘moment’ (a millennium) this was reflected in the Cakravartin-Dharmaraja duality.
As is the theme in Indian history, new movements of ideas and people, accelerated new sedimentations and challenges. In the Islamic era, once again an attempt towards reconciliation was made by drawing on older traditions (of Neoplatonic philosophy) which themselves were syncretic productions from the encounter between civilisational forces (on the move) in the Indo-Hellenic age. The Neoplatonic synthesis of the western half of the Indo-Mediterranean oikumene was a corollary of Dharma~Dhamma synthesis of the east, both mutually influencing each other, while drawing on still older shared traditions.
Consequently, in the Indo-Islamic age, in which the east and west of the oikumene were once overlapped, the old solutions resurged in new form to answer the dilemma of the age. This was a great ideational movement beginning from the 11th and 12th century, occurring first in the hidden domain of the Jogi-Sufi interface, and then being further developed in nodes where cross-cultural circulations of ideas aggregated (such as Multan and its environs), which led to a new wave of the (re)emergence of the idea of Oneness, seen in Ismaili thought, the Natha-Jogi reflection on Islam, and reaching its apotheosis in the iconoclastic (and revolutionary) philosophy of Kabir, a ‘Buddha’ of his age.
In the middle Mughal Empire, from the Akbarian Sulh-i-Kul to the development of the Sikh religion and Nanakian thought (that influenced the North Indian countryside outward while building a core set of institutions in the inward organisation of the religion) this resurgence reached its apotheosis for the age, laying the foundations of an indigenous Indian modernity.
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