Skip to content
Who's in the Video
Ambassador Neelam Deo is the Former Consul General of India in New York. She has a Masters degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and has taught in[…]
Sign up for Smart Faster newsletter
The most counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

Neelam Deo points us to the great Indian epics, especially the Baghavat Gita.

Neelam Deo:    I wish that more Americans and more everybody including more Indians, knew our philosophy, that they had read our epics, that they knew our literature, both ancient and modern. Because, I think, that as such an old civilization, we really have something to share with the world. I wish that, as we speak, people will use a phrase out of a well-known English writer like Shakespeare or for instance for me, it’s a pleasure to read an American writer, I would wish that people would have those perspectives as well which come out of the great Indian epics, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana.

For example, if you consider war, then if you are talking about a just war then you really have to read the Gita which is, you know, the Lord Krishna talking about the sadness of war but also the duty that is involved. So in order to know this and to have a more profound perspective, I would wish that people knew more of our epics, our history, and our modern philosophers and writers.

Up Next

Related