Vi­jay Ma­haraj

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha

In San­skrit, the term pan­dit de­notes one who is versed in Vedic scrip­tures, prac­tices and rit­u­als, knowl­edge­able in Hin­du law, mu­sic and phi­los­o­phy and per­forms the du­ties of a schol­ar, teacher and ad­vi­sor. The orig­i­nal us­age of the word “pan­dit” refers to a Brah­min and it is syn­ony­mous with the term “Puro­hit.”

The Eng­lish ter­mi­nol­o­gy for pan­dit is a com­men­ta­tor, of­ten re­gard­ed as an ex­pert who shares opin­ions, analy­sis and view­points through the mass me­dia, tele­vi­sion, ra­dio, news­pa­pers, pod­casts and on­line plat­forms. Ex­plain­ing, in­ter­pret­ing is­sues and top­ics rather than re­port­ing the facts.

The de­f­i­n­i­tion of a pan­dit most cer­tain­ly points to a rig­or­ous and de­mand­ing du­ty that en­com­pass­es a wide-rang­ing port­fo­lio; there­fore, a de­gree of spe­cial­i­sa­tion is most nec­es­sary.

This spe­cial­i­sa­tion of du­ties is still ob­served to­day through­out var­i­ous parts of In­dia and the Hin­du Di­as­po­ra, where one ei­ther spe­cialis­es in the pre­sen­ta­tion of the philoso­phies of the scrip­tures (Dhar­shan Shaas­tra), or in mu­sic and songs (Sangee­ta), or in the prac­tice of as­trol­o­gy (Jy­otisha), or in the prac­tice of rites and rit­u­als (Sam­skaras).

The most famed pan­dits in mod­ern Hin­duism have been the pan­dits of Kash­mir, a dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ry be­tween In­dia and Pak­istan in the foothills of the Hi­malayas in north­ern In­dia. The pun­dits were as fa­mous as the beau­ty of the land, with many Hin­du holy sites that at­tract­ed mil­lions of Hin­du tourists an­nu­al­ly. To­day, the tourists are es­cort­ed by the army while on pil­grim­age and the pun­dits have been chased out of Kash­mir. Most are now in the neigh­bour­ing Jam­mu and refuse at­tempts to en­cour­age their re­turn to Kash­mir.

Madan, a pun­dit, is one of the hun­dreds of thou­sands who fled Kash­mir in 1990. Decades lat­er, he has a home once again, a one-bed­room flat gift­ed by the gov­ern­ment in a dust bowl called Jagti ten kilo­me­tres from Jam­mu. Madan once owned a two-storey man­sion in a small par­adise called “Haal” in Pul­wa­ma, among brooks and wal­nut or­chards.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, due to cir­cum­stances and chal­lenges that were faced by our an­ces­tors when they came al­most 181 years ago, the pun­dit had to adapt. As such, in our lo­cal set­ting to­day, the pun­dit now has to per­form all these du­ties by him­self. He pre­sides over rit­u­als, de­liv­ers the philoso­phies of the scrip­tures, plays his own mu­sic and prac­tices Vedic as­trol­o­gy. This is in ad­di­tion to the role of ad­vi­sor, coun­sel­lor and guide that he of­ten plays for many Hin­du fam­i­lies.

This mul­ti-faceted role of the pun­dit, there­fore, re­quires the in­di­vid­ual to pos­sess cer­tain fun­da­men­tal and es­sen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tics and qual­i­ties. Manu Sm­ri­ti, the law-mak­er in Hin­duism, out­lines some of these.

In chap­ter four, Manu states that he (pun­dit) must be con­tent­ed in dis­po­si­tion, have con­trol over his sens­es, un­at­tached to the ma­te­r­i­al plea­sures of this world and be a life­long stu­dent of the Vedas. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Manu as­serts that his dress, speech, thoughts and con­duct must con­form to the rules of sac­ri­fice and dis­ci­pline. Fur­ther­more, he must make the nec­es­sary obla­tions to the sages, the Gods and the an­ces­tors and per­form the dai­ly rites as pre­scribed by the Vedas.

Once a year, a pun­dit per­forms the rit­u­al of Shar­vani Up­akar­ma, self-pu­rifi­ca­tion, atone­ment for past ac­tions. This is ob­served on Shra­van Purn­i­ma (full moon) dur­ing Au­gust-Sep­tem­ber.

Pun­dits per­form Ya­jnopavi­ta Dhar­ma (sa­cred thread change), dis­card­ing their old Ja­neu (sa­cred thread) for a new con­se­crat­ed one, sym­bol­is­ing the be­gin­ning of a new spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing.

All pun­dits are strict veg­e­tar­i­ans for spir­i­tu­al rea­sons, as they are sup­posed to main­tain pu­ri­ty of body and mind. The pun­dit is, there­fore, a learned re­li­gious schol­ar who lives a life of re­straint, sac­ri­fice and penance.

It is against this back­drop that one ob­serves, with great con­ster­na­tion and dis­ap­point­ment, the hasti­ness of the main­stream me­dia, and by ex­ten­sion the pub­lic, in its un­in­formed use of the term pun­dit. It has be­come the norm, in the past few years, that when an in­di­vid­ual who is as­so­ci­at­ed with a Hin­du tem­ple as a pu­jari (as­sis­tant) or in­volved in the prac­tice of cer­tain Hin­du rit­u­als such as Ojai is ac­cused of crim­i­nal con­duct, he is quick­ly giv­en the la­bel “pun­dit” by the me­dia in its unashamed at­tempt to sen­sa­tion­alise the sto­ry.

How­ev­er, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and me­dia ethics should dic­tate prop­er in­ves­tiga­tive re­port­ing be­fore a re­porter us­es the term pun­dit.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha there­fore urges the main­stream me­dia to adopt a more in­formed and re­spon­si­ble ap­proach in its use of the term pun­dit.