Maybe fifteen or so years ago, I reconnected with a good friend, after losing touch for a while (we’ve lost touch again). This friend used to send his poetry to friends on his email list, and after reconnecting, I was reading through some of those old emails.

I began to notice, as I read, that along with his name, he signed each email with a really lovely sentence which at that time I’d not heard before:

Vishwa dharma ki jai

This is Sanskrit and obviously I had to look it up. Not only did it read so nicely in Sanskrit, the English translation, was just as striking: it translates to: ‘victory to universal truth and honour’. When I read this translation, I was moved. What a beautiful way to sign off an email, or (age warning here) or a letter on paper.

(And, just rechecking online now, I see that there are songs, magazines, and organizations, that carry this expression as their name or slogan. Do a search for Vishwa dharma ki jai)

Now, I don’t have a problem with ‘yours sincerely’ or ‘kind regards’ and so on, as ways of signing off a written communication. Indeed, I think those salutations (is that the right word?) can be meaningful and can carry heartfelt and sincere wishes from one person to another.

However, as with a lot of things we do ‘automatically’ and as a matter of course, these expressions seem to have lost much, if not all their true meanings. In fact, how often do we get emails with no such signing off, and with merely the sender’s name at the bottom?

Actually, now I think about it, I remember some emails that don’t even carry the sender’s name as a way of signing off. Now, that seems on the surface to be a rude omission, but in reality it’s not rude nor is it really an omission: people and the way they communicate are changing; I guess some of these so-called ‘niceties’ are just naturally going to be lost.

So, I thought after reading the Sanskrit salutation, hey,  I would really like to use this beautiful expression as my ‘signature’ for emails. What better salutation for a truth seeker (that’s me) to sign off with? And I’ve been using it ever since.

It might be that a wish for the victory of universal truth and honour sounds a bit old fashioned, a bit formal even. Not at all: how up to date, how necessary even, in our fast-paced, materialistic, and sometimes lonely and corrupt world, is it to seek truth and to act with honour? Honour isn’t the fuddy-duddy, formal term you might think. Look it up: it’s about honesty, truth, right behaviour, integrity, all that good and right stuff.

So, I’m going to continue using this great salutation whenever I can. And my message to you, dear reader?