Customs and Culture
Saturday December 4 2004 09:16 IST
By Karmayogi
Customs vary with culture. We evaluate a man by his customs and culture.
We think high of an institution where people are polite and low where
people are impolite and rude. We value a foreign nation by seeing the
behaviour of that national in our own country. Our estimate is based on
our customs. To value anothers customs by the standards of our culture is
not rational. We do it all the time. When we visit a foreign nation and
those people look down on us for our customs, we frown and tell ourselves,
Of course, they forget I am an Indian and this is an Indian habit.
Still, culture is of great value, maybe the greatest of values. There is a
beyond, beyond what we call culture. It is what belongs to each man as he
is a man – his value as a human being, how human one is. If one is to be
measured, it is best to measure him on the scale of his humanitarian
value.
Blackthorne was an Englishman who was looking for the Japanese market in
1600. The Portuguese were already there trading in Japanese silks.
Blackthorne had discovered the sea route to Japan that was kept secret
from the Englishmen until then. His experiences were many. After untold
suffering, the Japanese ruler came to believe him, wanted to learn of the
outer world and its possibilities. He was treated well and quartered in a
village. The Ruler pronounced that Blackthorne should learn the Japanese
language in six months. In the case of his not learning within that time,
the village would be burnt down! This strange logic of the ruler annoyed
Blackthornes Christian conscience. His translator explained to him that
the village was nothing, that death and birth were equal, that one could
die in honour happily and it was a privilege to die by the sword of the
master whom one had disobeyed.
Blackthorne was bewildered. Imagine the ahimsa-loving Jain hearing the
boast of a butcher about his great sales on some day. There was an
accident in an English cinema studio. Ninety phone calls came to inquire
about the safety of the horses employed in the shooting. Only one caller
asked about the welfare of the actors. What would such an animal lover
feel when pious devotees at a Kali temple offer chickens and goats for
sacrifice and feel ennobled by these acts? What is a pious noble act for
one culture may be a poisonous crime in another culture. One custom cannot
be measured on the scale of another custom. Still, we value our own
culture and custom. When Indira Gandhi opened her speech on the sands of
Marina Beach with folded hands and said vanakkam, there was a burst of
applause. Culture is valuable, but being humane is the ultimate value. How
kind a person is to children, how truthful one is sets the tone of ones
real value. It is the value of values.