Guru Divas

BLOG FOR ‘GURU DIVAS’

“Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gurur Deva Maheswara Gurur Sakhayat Param Brahmam Tasmesri Guruve Namah”…………………Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was one of the most distinguished diplomats, scholars and teachers of Hindustan. He was the first Vice President and the second President of our country. He was agreat teacher and he had the opinion that teachers are real back bone of the Country’s think tank. Therefor, he wished his birthday i.e. today’s date, the 5th September to be celebrated as teacher’s day across India. He was a Statesman, who redefined the Guru-Sishya Cult of Indian tradition. Since times immemorial, Indians have respected and idolized their teachers. Earlier, we used to call our teachers ‘Guru’ and now it’s the contemporary ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. Nevertheless, the role of teachers has remained the same. They were, are and will continue to be our guiding light, creating conditions conducive to our overall development. We will always be thankful to them for their constructive support. It is as an expression of this gratitude only that we celebrate Teacher’s Day in our country. In‘Mahabharat’ and ‘Ramayan’ we see a lot of examples where students are taught by eminent Gurus. Krushna and Balaram were the students of famous guru ‘Sandipani’. The stories of Ekalavya, Aruni, are best examples of our‘Gurukula’ system. There is a saying “By sowing a grain, you will harvest once. By planting a tree, you will harvest tenfold. By educating the pupil, you will harvest hundred fold.” In Odisha we had also a famous ‘Gurukula’ named as Satyavadi Vana Vidyalaya, at Sakhigopal of Puri district, where eminent teachers like Utkal-Mani Pandit Gopabandhu Das, Pandit Nilakantha Das, Pandit Godabarisha Mishra, Acharya Harihara, Pandit Krupasindu Mishra, Pandit Lingaraj Mishra imparted model teaching to students. That Gurukula gave birth to a number of eminent personalities of Odisha. Educational institutions are celebrating ‘Guru Divas’ with special programmes. On this day the students are worshipping their teachers by garlanding them, students also offer some gifts to their loving teachers. It is an occasion on which the students touch the feet of their teachers and wish blessings. The institutes are beautifully decorated for this special day. In order to keep intact that age old traditions, and to remember the contributions of teachers for Nation building, eminent scholar, educationalist, writer, as well as philosopher Dr Radhakrishnan truly wished for observing his birth day as teachers day.