Defending my Ph.D. thesis

Yesterday, 11th of November, 2009, I defended my thesis in front of a board of eight doctors of the Sanskrit Faculty, among which were the principal, Dr. R.C.Panda, and the Head of the Department of Dharmagama, Dr. K. Jha, along with several research scholars and undergraduate students. For one hour, I presented some of the main points of my work and replied to the questions and challenges they put. It was a bit ambitious to present it in spoken Sanskrit, as I’ve been out of shape, but they appreciated it very much, since no student dares to do so. The whole thing was filmed, but the audio quality is poor and the noise from the construction downstairs is annoying…





1. I started by reading out my mangalacarana and explaining its meaning. Dr. A. Singh objected that the meaning was clear and there was no need to explain anything, and then Dr. Jha intervened saying that I was making relevant points about my parampara and philosophy and therefore should carry on.



2. When I stated that God is to be known by the Vedas, they questioned the basis for taking this kind of evidence. I replied that for those who are ‘astikas’, the authority of the Vedas is beyond doubt, but not for the ‘nastikas’, and therefore the approach to deal with this topic must be different in each case. They preferred not to stick to the ‘nastika’ argument and let me go ahead.



3. I made the point that God being real, the world must be real too. Dr. Jha asked how the world can be real if it is manifested by maya, to which I replied that maya is also real. I was describing ‘jivesu taratamyam’ (the gradation among the living entities) and they played with my words by calling Dr. Jivesh, who was working in the next room, and then asked me what would be his gradation…


4. At last, the director of the Faculty, Dr. Panda, arrived. Dr. A. Singh took the opportunity to express how glad they are to have such a student. That made me blush...


5. Dr. Rohatam inquired about the nature of the incarnations of the Lord, and Dr. Jha asked about the relation between suddha-sattva and the material modes.


6. They got on my case after I stated that Srimad Bhagavatam is the supreme pramana. I referred to the Tattva-sandarbha and made a few points, but they couldn’t swallow it…When I asked back what was the difficulty in accepting the supremacy of the Bhagavatam, Dr. Panda kindly remarked that they were there to assess the integrity of my research work, not Lord Caitanya’s doctrine, and finished the case. I invited those who objected for a debate later on ;-) In the end, Dr. Caturvedi asked what is the meaning of Vrndavana, why Radharani is called Lord Krishna’s heart, and who is Tulasi :-)