Ashtottaram 101 OṀ PARĀKRAMAṆARAHIṪA BHŪMYAI NAMAH: OṀ (AUM)-PA-RAA-AA-KRA-MA-ṆA-RA-HI-TA- BHOO-MYAI—NA-MA-HA

By: Devakinanda Pasupuleti

While we lived with religious tolerance, and practiced asṫeya (non-stealing) as a yama (restraint), while we welcomed foreigners for trade with open arms, they took our pious nature as a weakness and occupied our land with aggression and violence. They have shown inhumane brutality towards us, raped the women, and treated us as secondhand citizens in our own nation. They have treated us like slaves, robbed everything we had, ruined our temples, and burnt thousands of libraries along with sacred scriptures. They have built mosques and churches over demolished temples. Christian missionaries took advantage of our religious tolerance and started converting poor Hindus to Christianity. All this because we are a tolerant people, and do not go and declare wars against other countries, cultures, or religions. Our ancient sages taught us to see paramātma (Supreme Soul) in every soul and every being.

The yoga sūtras prescribe a graded discipline comprising eight steps, called the ashṭāngās (eight limbs) of yoga. Of these eight, yama (restraint) consists of asṫeya (non-stealing), and most all Vedic Hindus observe this. Hence, in the history of humanity, our nation is the only one that did not occupy any foreign land even when we were the mightiest nation and were three times larger than the current land. We don't practice proselytization or conversion with the belief that people of other faiths and religions are going to hell and we have to save them. Of course, there are some instances where we had to defend ourselves against other religious extremists.

Because of the aṣhṭāngās we practice as ordained by our sacred scriptures, we were always able to cultivate personal purity and social harmony. These are not only ancient, but also very practical. Methods and techniques of Yoga are becoming quite popular all over the world.

We can proudly say that our land of religious and cultural tolerance is 'Parākramaṇarahiṫa Bhūmi'.