Vedic wisdom, the Gita, the eternal quest for truth and the permanence of doubt

The Vedic sages harbored no illusions about the finality of knowledge. For them, certainty was not a privilege granted to mortals, but a mirage—a temptation to be resisted. 

They understood that truth, far from being a fixed possession, is an ever-evolving revelation: not a monument to be guarded, but a path to be walked.

In this spirit, they rejected dogma and embraced inquiry. Truth, they believed, is not the domain of the rigid, the alienated, or the misanthropic. Rather, it belongs to the free-spirited, to those who engage life with joy, curiosity, and openness. The true seeker is not one who clings to answers, but one who dares to examine all sides of a question, who listens before asserting, and who holds belief lightly—like a song, not a sword.

The Vedic tradition, profoundly aware of the impermanence of language and the limits of writing, preserved its wisdom through an oral lineage. Knowledge was sung—not carved in stone, but carried in breath. Truth was performed aloud, in the presence of others, under the sky, where it could be tested, challenged, and understood collectively. Only that which could be spoken clearly and heard by all had the legitimacy to be considered truth.

This ethos reaches its dramatic apogee in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna’s ultimate teaching to Arjuna unfolds not in a temple or monastery, but in the liminal space between two massive armies, poised for slaughter on the fields of Kurukshetra. The battlefield, with its clash of duties and its moral ambiguities, becomes the ideal setting for the revelation of truth—not despite its violence, but because it reflects the human condition in all its complexity.

Here, truth is not divorced from action. It is discovered in the midst of responsibility, in the act of engagement with the world. Krishna does not offer Arjuna a metaphysical escape from conflict; instead, he helps him see through his confusion, dissolve his paralysis, and reclaim his agency. It is in this moment—neither peaceful nor abstract, but charged with consequence—that Arjuna attains clarity.

His response, recorded in verse 73 of the Gita, is quiet yet momentous:

“By your grace, my delusion is gone; I have recognized my true self. O Acyuta, I am free from doubt. I shall act according to your word.”

This is the recognition that matters—not a sudden acquisition of omniscience, but the gentle lifting of fog. The truth, for Arjuna, is not a set of doctrines; it is the inner alignment that allows him to act with conviction, freed from fear and inner contradiction.

In a world too often marked by absolutism and ideological rigidity, the Vedic insight remains strikingly modern. Truth is not a prize for the loudest or the most certain. It is something more fragile, more sacred: a process of articulation, of listening, of emergence. It lives in dialogue, not monologue. It thrives in uncertainty, not closure.

The sages sang their truths under the open sky—and in the Gita, we are reminded why. Truth must be spoken, heard, and lived. It must be earned, again and again, in the thick of life—not away from it.

The Myth of the Civilizational Clash: Why Huntington’s Civilizational Thesis Falls Short

Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations offers a seductive but fundamentally flawed lens through which to view global conflict. 

While his thesis resonates emotionally—inviting people to externalize blame by identifying threats in cultural or religious “Others”—it does so at the expense of historical accuracy and analytical depth. In truth, the most violent and transformative conflicts in human history have occurred not between civilizations, but within them.

Take Europe, for instance—the cradle of modernity and a continent Huntington classifies as a single civilization. From the British massacres of the Irish, the Napoleonic Wars to the two World Wars, Europe tore itself apart through internecine conflict. World War I and World War II—commonly labeled as global conflicts—were in essence European civil wars that spilled across borders. A more accurate naming convention might be European War I and European War II. These wars were fought not against alien civilizations but among nations that shared language families, religions, and philosophical traditions.

The Holocaust further underscores this internal descent into brutality. Nazi Germany, a supposed pinnacle of Western advancement, built industrial mechanisms to annihilate millions of fellow Europeans. This genocidal project was born not from a clash with an external civilization, but from a political agenda within the West itself.

Terrorism, too, has often originated internally. The United Kingdom’s most persistent security threat until the late 20th century came not from foreign jihadists, but from the Irish Republican Army. In 1984, the IRA nearly assassinated Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Their campaign was rooted in historical, political, and religious disputes within the British Isles—not in a civilizational divide.

The Cold War, long seen as a binary confrontation between East and West, also fails Huntington’s test. Both the United States and the Soviet Union drew from the same intellectual lineage of Enlightenment rationalism and industrial modernity. Marx, the father of communism, was German and did most of his work in London. Lenin was steeped in European political theory. The Cold War was a geopolitical sibling rivalry—not a civilizational standoff.

Religious schisms within civilizations have also fueled centuries of violence. The Catholic–Protestant conflicts in Europe, including the Thirty Years’ War and the English Civil War, were devastating and long-lasting. These were not clashes of civilizations but internecine wars waged over authority, theology, and political control.

A similar pattern is visible in the Middle East. The Sunni–Shia divide has been the root of many of the region’s bloodiest conflicts, from the Iran-Iraq War to the contemporary civil wars in Syria and Yemen. These are fratricidal struggles within Islam, not confrontations with external civilizations.

Even the United States, often framed as a monolithic representative of Western civilization, was nearly torn apart by its own Civil War—a domestic conflict between Americans of European descent. More than 600,000 lives were lost, not to foreign armies, but to an internal reckoning over slavery, state sovereignty, and national identity.

The ongoing tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran are also mischaracterized when framed as a civilizational clash. If this were truly a confrontation between Western and Islamic civilizations, the 57 Muslim-majority nations would rally behind Iran. Yet, many key Muslim nations—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and others—have chosen either neutrality or quiet alignment with the West. This fracture underscores the reality that geopolitical rivalries, regional interests, and ideological divisions within civilizations are far more significant than simplistic civilizational binaries.

The deeper historical lesson is clear: the gravest threats to any society often come from within. Conflict is most likely where identities intersect and power is contested among close cultural or political relatives. Civilizations are not monoliths, and their greatest ruptures tend to emerge internally—from ideological, theological, and political fault lines.

Huntington’s framework, though rhetorically powerful, is historically unconvincing. By casting global conflict as a clash of civilizations, it obscures the internal dynamics that truly drive human violence. Understanding the past requires more than fear of the “Other”; it requires confronting the mirror.

The New Triumvirate: America, Europe, China—and Israel’s Wars to Prevent Multipolarity

The United States, Western Europe, and China are not enemies. They are allies masquerading as rivals—co-owners of a global empire that fears no internal division as much as it fears the rise of an outside challenger. The real war is not between them. It is between their triumvirate and the rest of the world.

Bound by intricate economic ties, shared technological ecosystems, and overlapping interests in preserving the current international order, these three powers represent not a fractured geopolitical landscape, but a unified civilizational core determined to uphold its dominance across the globe. Their cohesion is not ideological but structural, based on a shared interest in controlling the narrative, institutions, and flows of global power.

This configuration finds a compelling historical parallel in the First Triumvirate of the late Roman Republic—Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. Although divided by personal ambition, these three men worked in coordination to suppress the republican institutions that had once defined Rome. The fatal blow to this fragile alliance came not from within but from without: the death of Crassus at the hands of the Parthians in 53 BCE, during the ill-fated campaign at Carrhae. 

Crassus's defeat shattered the balance, ushering in a civil war between Pompey and Caesar. Pompey was eliminated by Caesar’s forces, and Caesar himself was later assassinated by senators who feared his imperial ambitions.

Today’s triumvirate—America, Europe, and China—similarly dreads not one another, but the rise of a fourth force: an external actor that rejects their norms, resists absorption into their system, and potentially reorders global power. This "fourth force" could manifest as a resurgent Russia, an emerging Middle Eastern coalition, or even an unpredictable coalition of developing states—any configuration that escapes the gravitational pull of the current order. What unites the triumvirate is not mutual affection, but a collective imperative to prevent such a force from gaining traction.

In this context, Israel plays a pivotal, if often misunderstood, role. Far from being a solitary actor engaged in regional conflicts for its own survival, Israel has become an indispensable strategic tool in the hands of the triumvirate. It serves as a frontline buffer to contain any fourth force that may rise from the Middle East—a region historically resistant to imperial integration and deeply skeptical of Western frameworks. 

Israel's wars, therefore, are not merely its own; they are waged for the preservation of the triumvirate’s global hegemony. Whether confronting non-state actors or hostile regimes, Israel acts as a surrogate enforcer, a bulwark ensuring that the Middle East does not become a staging ground for a new, unaligned pole of power.

The triumvirate’s true fear, then, is not disorder but independence—not violence, but non-compliance. It is the rise of a geopolitical actor that cannot be co-opted through trade, intimidated through sanctions, or deterred through military posturing. Like the Parthians of antiquity, this actor may emerge suddenly, from beyond the boundaries of acceptable discourse and diplomatic predictability. It may deal a blow to one member of the triumvirate—not necessarily by conquest, but through systemic disruption—and set in motion a collapse that no summit or sanctions regime can reverse.

What we are witnessing today is not the peaceful transition to multipolarity, but a frantic effort to defend an aging world order. The so-called rivalries between America, Europe, and China are less significant than the machinery of collaboration that undergirds them—through supply chains, financial markets, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic alignment. Like the Roman triumvirs, they may clash for precedence, but they remain united in one key objective: to prevent a rupture in the architecture of global control.

The lesson from Rome is clear. Power shared among elites is vulnerable to the shock of the outsider. And just as the Parthians exposed the limits of Roman imperialism, so too might today’s fourth force—wherever it emerges—reveal the fragility of the modern triumvirate.

Kishkindha to Kurukshetra: Vishnu’s Hand in the Cosmic Rivalry Between Surya and Indra

The epic confrontation between Karna and Arjuna in the Mahabharata is more than just a clash between two heroic warriors—it can be interpreted as the continuation of an ancient and symbolic rivalry between two celestial powers: Surya, the solar deity, and Indra, the king of the heavens. 

As the sons of these two deities, Karna and Arjuna embody this cosmic antagonism on the mortal plane. Karna, born of Surya, and Arjuna, son of Indra, are cast into opposing roles in the great war of Kurukshetra. Their destinies culminate in Karna’s death, brought about by Arjuna with the indispensable guidance of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

This divine pattern of conflict, however, has an antecedent in the Ramayana, set in an earlier Yuga. There, the cosmic rivalry between Surya and Indra is mirrored in the fraternal conflict between Vali and Sugriva. Vali, the mighty vanara king and son of Indra, is opposed by his younger brother Sugriva, born of Surya. Once again, Vishnu—this time in his seventh avatar as Rama—intervenes decisively. Siding with Sugriva, Rama slays Vali and restores Sugriva to the throne of Kishkindha.

A striking symmetry emerges from these narratives. In the Ramayana, Surya’s son (Sugriva) triumphs over Indra’s son (Vali) with the help of Vishnu as Rama. In the Mahabharata, Indra’s son (Arjuna) vanquishes Surya’s son (Karna), aided by Vishnu as Krishna. In both epochs, the conflict between the celestial lineages is resolved not through the independent might of either side, but through divine intervention. It is the avatar of Vishnu who tilts the scales of fate, suggesting that dharma, not mere lineage, dictates the course of victory.

These epic patterns invite a deeper reflection: is there a cosmic balance being maintained between the houses of Surya and Indra, mediated by Vishnu across Yugas? Or does the repetition serve to highlight the futility of divine rivalry when set against the larger arc of Vishnu’s dharmic mission?

Ultimately, the question of superiority between Surya and Indra remains unresolved, perhaps deliberately so. For it is not the triumph of one deity over another that the epics foreground, but the recurring centrality of Vishnu—the preserver—whose avatars uphold the moral and cosmic order. The epics suggest that in the theatre of divine drama, power alone is insufficient without dharma, and destiny bows to the will of the divine incarnate.

Churning of Cosmic Ocean

The boundary between medicine and poison, between what heals and what harms, has long been recognised in Indian thought as subtle and deeply contextual. In the Atharva Veda, one of the earliest Indian texts concerned with healing, disease and remedy are treated as forces that can both originate in and be dispelled by divine or natural means. 

The same herb, the same mantra, the same force—ojas or tejas—may bring either vitality or destruction, depending on its application, intention, and measure. This duality is also reflected in the Sanskrit term visha, meaning poison, which is etymologically and symbolically close to amrita, the nectar of immortality—both are born of the same cosmic churning (samudra manthan), the same act that yields the divine and the deadly.

This paradox of opposites—where poison and nectar, good and evil, often emerge from a common source—provides a potent metaphor for the relationship between the intellectual and the so-called barbarian. Much like the Vedic Rishi, who isolates himself to gain higher knowledge and then re-engages with society as a moral guide, the intellectual presumes a role of healing: to shield the body politic from ignorance, chaos, and violence. 

Yet the tradition also warns us against false ascetics and hollow scholars—those who pursue knowledge not for satya (truth) but for svārtha (self-interest). As the Bhagavad Gita cautions, those entrenched in avidya (ignorance) often masquerade under the guise of wisdom, and even tamas, the quality of inertia and decay, can wear the robe of sagacity.

The Mahabharata abounds with such inversions. The Kauravas, educated in the shastras, trained by royal gurus, are heirs to the throne. Yet it is Pandavas with their raw force and naturalistic values, and Krishna, with his cosmic vision, who preserve dharma. It is not the cultivated or the learned who uphold civilization, but often the forgotten, the exiled, the so-called barbarians whose strength lies in their unyielding will and raw power. 

In such texts, it is not always the cultivated or the learned who uphold civilization, but often the forgotten, the dispossessed, the so-called "barbarians" whose strength lies in their unyielding will and clarity of purpose.

The history of empires in India, too, follows this rhythm. From Chandragupta Maurya—who rose from obscurity under the guidance of Chanakya—to the founders of the Gupta and Chola empires, it is often those from outside the sanctified elite who inject new energy into a stagnant polity. The decline of great kingdoms, conversely, is marked by excesses of ritualism, philosophical abstraction, and detachment from the realities of statecraft—a condition vividly described in Kautilya’s Arthashastra and critiqued implicitly by later Bhakti poets, who rejected hollow scholasticism in favour of lived, experiential truth.

The distinction between the intellectual and the barbarian is not absolute but cyclical, even illusory. When intellectualism ossifies into elitism and complacency, it ceases to be a healing force and becomes a poison. Conversely, what is dismissed as barbaric or uncivilized may contain within it the latent energy necessary for renewal. The same cosmic churning that produces poison also yields nectar. The task of any civilization is not to suppress the churning, but to recognize when its medicines have become its poisons—when its savages may be its saviours.

History’s Iron Law: The Fall of Empires to Their Former Colonies

The arc of imperial history is replete with ironies, none more persistent than the recurring phenomenon of great empires being undone by forces once subordinated to their power. This historical inversion—the return of the periphery to challenge and often supplant the core—has played out repeatedly across centuries and civilizations, suggesting a structural dynamic embedded within the very nature of empire.

Consider the fate of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Once the dominant power of the ancient Near East, it fell not to a rival civilization but to a coalition led by its former western vassals—the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. Similarly, the Roman Empire, which extended its control across vast swathes of Europe, North Africa, and the Levant, was ultimately overwhelmed not by a peer polity but by a convergence of Central Asian and Germanic tribes—Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns—many of whom had once served as auxiliary forces or client states within the imperial framework.

The Byzantine Empire offers another poignant example. It once exercised suzerainty over various Turkic and Balkan groups, including the ancestors of the Ottomans. Yet by 1453, it was these very Ottomans—former vassals—that delivered the final blow to Constantinople, signaling the definitive end of Roman imperial continuity. Likewise, the Islamic conquests of the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted nearly 800 years, were initially facilitated by political factions in Italy and Byzantium. These powers supported Arab-Berber incursions into Visigothic Spain in a bid to weaken their rivals—only to see a new Islamic civilization emerge on European soil.

This pattern is not confined to the ancient or medieval world. The Zengid dynasty, instrumental in the rise of the Kurdish commander Saladin, was eclipsed by him as he established the Ayyubid Sultanate. In turn, the Ayyubids were overthrown by the Mamluks—former slave-soldiers of Turkic and Circassian origin—who forged one of the most enduring military regimes in Islamic history. Similarly, the Mongol Empire, which spanned from the Pacific to the Danube, was ultimately supplanted by successor states in Russia and China—regions that had once existed under Mongol dominion.

In the modern period, the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries was not solely the result of European power but also of nationalist movements and regional actors who had once been subordinate to Ottoman rule. From the Balkans to the Levant, former provinces became crucibles of resistance and eventual independence.

These historical precedents point to a cyclical law of reversal: the imperial center, in time, becomes vulnerable to the energies it once harnessed and subordinated. Empires are seldom felled by foreign equals; they are more often eroded from within or overtaken by those they once ruled.

This historical logic may once again assert itself in the decades ahead. The post-World War II Western order—led by the United States and upheld by former colonial powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain—now faces demographic, economic, and ideological challenges emerging from the very regions they once colonized. Migration flows, capital investments, and technological diffusion from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America are beginning to reshape the political and cultural landscapes of Europe and North America.

The prospect, then, is not merely one of geopolitical rebalancing but of civilizational inversion. The imperial core—once the agent of global domination—may, within the next fifty years, find itself increasingly subject to the influence, and perhaps even the ascendancy, of forces and populations it once ruled. If history remains a reliable guide, the next wave of transformation may well be led not by the heirs of empire, but by the children of its margins.