Gita Mission and their museum in Guwahati

Mani Kashyap *

Gita Mission and their museum in Guwahati

I take recourse to Geeta whenever frustration engulfs me. – Mahatma Gandhi

Sri Madbhagavat Geeta, or Geeta in popular parlance, is the most well known and universally admired contribution of Sanatan Vedic heritage to the world at large. This everlasting work of Vedic philosophy has even inspired a number of modern age stalwarts in the fields of science, literature, politics or social service, and these Gita-inspired luminaries include Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Gustaav Jung, Swami Vivekananda, Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Geeta enables us to unravel the mystery of life applying the tools of Bhakti, Karma and Jnana Yoga. The Geeta encrypts the words uttered by Lord Krishna which remain relevant for thousands of years as a source of inspiration and guidance for mankind. Inspired by the teachings of Geeta, a social-spiritual institution named Geeta Mission was formed a few years back that devotes itself to uphold and propagate Sanatan Vedic heritage. The long term programmes of the Mission are

1. Geeta Museum which will be first of its kind in the world
2. Vedic Library, the largest in the world
3. Geeta Gyan curriculum to be taught free of cost, on and offline
4. Geeta Mandir and Gurukul
5. Others

Geeta Museum : Not many of us are quite aware that Hollywood filmmakers too look upto this holy book called Geeta and base their work upon its teachings. Philosophers and politicians from all over the world, of all ages, have acknowledged Geeta as their guiding spirit. The proposed Geeta Museum intends to preserve and showcase such instances under a single roof.

In fact a museum has been installed at a lower scale for the time being at Geeta Mission’s office premises located at House No 1, Bylane 4, Latakata, Basistha, Guwahati 29.

Some of the items on display are copies of Geeta published in various countries and languages, the first English version of Geeta published in 1785, copy of the Geeta gifted to US president Barak Obama by Prime Minister Modi, the oldest interpretation of Geeta by Adi Sankaracharya, versions of Geeta compiled by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Geeta inspired popular novel ‘The Legend of Beggar Vance’ published in 1997, and Geeta composed specially for children.

One can also find here the quotes on Geeta by legends like Eisntein, Thoreau, APJ Abdul Kalam, Sunita Williams and others. Visitors to the museum are presented with a copy of the holy book, free of cost naturally and the museum has been designed with both the enlightened veteran and young learner in mind.

We are not aware of a Geeta museum anywhere in the word and that inspires to go for the first such institution on the planet. The museum is at its nascent stage now and we hope to follow up with a long term plan.

Biggest Vedic Library: Bakhtiar Khilji not only invaded India in 1193 but destroyed Nalanda University, set the library on fire and the inferno took as long as three months time to douse. The volume of books can be imagined by the time that was needed to burn them.

However, lamenting the past is not the solution, but need of the house is an effort to rebuild what has been ruined. So a plan to build a colossal library of Vedic books and documents is on hand, replicating Nalanda. Naturally the library will be equipped with state-of-art technology that is quite essential these days for research work. We are working on the plan to set up the world’s largest library for students and scholars of Vedic knowledge.

Geeta Curriculum: ‘Geeta turns one into sanyasi’ has been a pervading believe in parts of the world, whereas this holy treatise shows the mankind the path and ways to face the world, to fulfill the worldly needs and to attain the divine through performing the assigned earthly jobs. Our life is just another battleground of Kurukhetra.

In order to set the record straight by wiping out misgivings about Geeta, we are formulating a curriculum for study of Geeta and this study would help us to recognize the message of the eternal holy book. The course will be entirely free and with an online facility, besides the regular one. Geeta Mission has already initiated courses on practical Sanskrit and Vedic rituals.