Today, I visited the National Holocaust Museum. I rarely get impacted by exhibitions/ events. However, this museum certainly left a mark on me. The tyranny, the torture, the pain; all hit me like needles. However, the thing that got me thinking was the event of burning books. It raised a question in my mind and I ask the readers –
“Is the progress of Mankind like the frog in the well that climbs 2 steps and drops 1 step?”
History has left few examples of engineering marvels; the construction of pyramids of Egypt, Mayan pyramids, the Great wall of China, the Roman aqueducts. We have even discovered proof of surgeries in ancient period, usage of drainage system by Indus civilization, models of planes and gears that could mimic computers. So what happened to all this knowledge? Did we already know a lot of things that we are inventing today? Or are we simply reinventing? How did we manage to lose this vast ocean of knowledge?
Over the course of history, there have been events when a practice of destroying cultural heritage, beliefs and ideologies involved burning of books. The burning of Baghdad library, Nalanda University, Mayan codices, religious books by almost all cultures, etc are just examples. These events happened in regular interval and every such event burned a rich knowledge of science, architecture, literature. It’s a shame. I wonder what society we would be living today if we never lost all this knowledge? What kind of headstart we would have had?
Thus, mankind’s progress on the wall of “advancement” has been analogous to the frog on the wall that climbs 2 steps and drops 1 step. We have gained a lot but lost a lot as well. Even then, today we have achieved a lot in the field of advancement and we will more. I only hope is that we do not continue burning our knowledge and making our progress arduous.
