Can the journey of the prince to and from Takkasila be looked at as a spiritual journey?
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Answer:
A remarkable aspect of An Examined Life by Karan Singh is the spiritual evolution of a prince even when embroiled in tumultuous events of the contemporary Indian history, and the putting together of the author’s warnings regarding regional disparities. One part of the book is clearly a ‘pilgrim’s journey’ while the other deals with the hurly-burly of politics with exertions in creativity added as foot notes.
The book opens with Raghav Verma interviewing Karan Singh and providing a quick look at the compressed past. It then dwells on the dominant forces of today that seem to threaten to demolish the edifice so assiduously built on the principles of liberalism and secularism. It contains a deeply disturbing and dire warning and the fear that the forces that have overtaken the country might remain entrenched for the next 50 years.
In a pleasant relief, the editor then moves on to the spiritual aspect of Karan Singh. Searching for enlightenment, he seems to have rarely missed an opportunity of engaging with the enlightened men. Apart from his views on Hinduism that have unshackled him from the narrow and rigid definitions of religion and truth, his conversation with the Japanese thinker Daisaku Ikeda of Nichiren Buddhism, is educative and invigorating. The prince turned politician of a republic has, indeed, qualities that make one wonder if he has strayed into this world from the era of Raja Janak.
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