WELTANSCHAUUNG

A comprehensive world view (or worldview) that serves as the proxy for the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.[1] The term is a calque of the German word Weltanschauung , composed of Welt ('world') and Anschauung ('view' or 'outlook'). It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual, group or culture interprets the world and interacts with it. The word has no real equivalent in English language, partly because the English as a nation were not as insistent as their German cousins on achieving a uniform consistency to justify all their actions. They were perfectly happy to accept buccaneers and bandits into their peerage as long as they shared their loot with the King . In my view the English word does not have the rich contextual meaning associated with the word weltanschauung. Although it is not considered strictly kosher to use such heavyweight terms from another language, who is to stop us from using these words , especially as we know now that India will become the largest English speaking nation in the world in about 25 years. That does not mean the standard of English written and spoken in india will be better than in the states. For the most part, the standards of English in India are atrocious and those of spoken English are even worse. But having the largest English speaking population in the known galaxy gives us certain advantages . There are additional points I wish to make and I must congratulate Sri Mahalingam for posing such a penetrating question 1. The word was coined after the Germans came to know about the Indian word Darshanas. A Darshana is not just a system of philosophy but a self consistent set of hypotheses and inferences that you can live by , by such a definition most individuals will fail the test and will not qualify for a Darshanic view of the world, because there is cognitive dissonance1 between their different sets of beliefs. I have come across such example quite frequently . One of my employees, during the era when I was managing large numbers of employees had made the assertions that he was very capable and that he regarded himself to be a strong personality . He did not see the inherent contradiction in his statement that a strong personality does not need to remind his listeners that he is strong . Others would discern that quality in a person who is well anchored in his or her beliefs. An assertive or aggressive personality is rarely a strong personality. But I have every confidence in this person that one day he will indeed be a strong personality. 2. Which is why I recommend that everybody should write down their own set of Core beliefs, because you may discover that some of your Core beliefs are in contradistinction with others. For example you may choose Courage as one of your core beliefs and being practical as another. So you might come across a situation where the practical thing to do is to give bribe to get your contract to be the winning one. But in doing so you are advertising you are a coward . which will encourage the errant officer to be even more outrageous in his demands. Sometimes the contradictions are not easy to see, That is why Dhrishti is such an

In most cases means a contradiction

important word in Sanskrit and the highest accolade that our society gives to a person is that he is a rishi2, a seer.

Rishi (Sanskrit: i, Devanagari:

) denotes the composers of Vedic hymns. However,

according to post-Vedic tradition, the rishi is a "seer" to whom the Vedas were "originally revealed" through states of higher consciousness. The rishis were prominent when

Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years ago. Many ancient rishis were in fact women, rishikas in Sanskrit.
[1]

According to the late

Vedic Sarvanukramani text, there were as many as 20 women among the authors of the Rig Veda, known as rishika. According to modern teachers Deepak Chopra and Swamini

Mayatitananda, this number could be as high as 35. One of the foundational qualities of a i is satyavc (one who speaks truth) when composing Vedic hymns. According to tradition, other sages might falter, but a i was believed to speak truth only, because he existed in the Higher World (the unified field of consciousness). is provided knowledge to the world which included the knowledge of Vedas. But in order to fit his own mendacious views on the Veda, Witzel and others including Kim Plofker refer to the composers of the Rg as Bards. Referring to the composer of the Rg as a Bard, is like calling Henri Poincare a lab technician