Successor and the talents of the elderly people

Bhutanese elderly people were gifted with talents that enriches our Vedic culture. But who will take over this traditional values now, is a dilemma.

There was no education in Bhutan before the first five year development plan that began in 1960 and schools were rarely established until 1970s. So the Bhutanese earlier to this decades were bereft of education, yet many of them are very much learned in the spiritual subject matter. For example, those elderly person now in their 60s are genius in reciting the epics like Ramayan, Mahabharat, Arjun Gita etc. It was their pasttime to tell stories in the form of poem, in couples and linguistic parameters. They sing in very lovely tune the exerpts from these books of high undestanding related to moral character and the spiritual values.

Some elderly citizens are learned in the occult science, traditonal healing, traditional music and dances, arts and crafts, weaving, knitting and other trade of traditonal nature.

With the start of the modern system of education that socio cultural wealth of wisdom is found bereft in our young educated generation. Gradually, the art of composing poem, singing the texts in the poetic rhythm and memorising, is vanishing.

An example of how our elderly people are genious of this Vedic traditional wisdom is revealed at the Platform BVCN by a Bhutanese, Hari Bhakta Khanal- see video above. He is originally from Dorokha, Samchi Bhutan, currently resettled in The Netherlands under forcible exile to forced migration.

The joy, according to pundit Khanal is in reciting the vedic literature imbibed with the spiritual power. The holy name and the divine pasttimes of the personalities desribed in the Vedic literature are about the devotees and their object of worship- the Lord, for example in the Ramayan and Gita. Our young generation of this time are getting bereft of this wisdom and the tradition to recite it out of the memory in the poetic tone. There is an urgent need to revive and preserve this tradition. But would come forward for this endeavour is a big dilemma among us facing today.