The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”- Nikola Tesla
This post would outline the difference between Western system of thought and ofcourse the Indian system.The problem with this system is that, it is often confused to be religious, pseudo-scientific, communal and all the other words/phrases thrown at us. Indians often claim spiritual superiority and advance sciences in the past. I would like to present my proposal onto why we need to understand and utilize Indian thought system. Although, the Indians(or Bharatas to be precise) believes in 'choice', I am just presenting you the power of the sniper. You could fight the barrage of bullets using a sword, if you persist in doing so!
Indian mind is speculative and learning is experience based. It is thus synthetic and pursues a unified perspective of the world. On the other hand, western science is skeptic and seeks disintegrated learning. While the world was interested in the world outside, India was interested in the world inside. One of India's greatest Intellectual contributions is an understanding of consciousness and cognitive studies. This helped the Indians in making advances in all spheres of human excellence, in their time.
An athlete runs on different terrains, works out in a gym and improves his ability to navigate. An intellectual would love to improve his ability to navigate through ideas swiftly. Indians had those philosophical excursions which helped them in improving these abilities. This explains the richness of India's spiritual heritage. The thought system is so beautiful, yet extinct. Indian gadgets were stories and metaphors. So, unlike western science, it can't be taught or learnt, it can only be driven by experience.
It is not just the body of knowledge which is awesome. The ecosystem was carefully doctored to facilitate knowledge transfer and nurture traditions. I would like to present three important examples. Firstly, the way in which they separated the scientists from the science communicators. Secondly, the mechanism with which they preserved these scriptures, through an age when there was no paper. Thirdly, the linguistics of indo-aryan languages and their elegance.
Indians had a robust model which preserved the value of the intellect. The philosophers(rishis) would meditate over problems. The Rig Veda is a composition of over 2,40,000 verses by several rishis. These would be utilized by poets, to bring it down to the level of the society. The priests would utilize the works of the poets to dissipate these ideas. Veda Vyasa, Panini, Bharatamuni were poets, who consolidated the ideas of several thinkers. The Vedas consist of three parts- Aranyakas, Upanishads, Brahmanas for each of them.
The verses of the vedas were split into smaller groups and families were given a bunch of them to remember. The brahmins used to memorize these, from their childhood. People were supposed to marry within their group, to ensure that this tradition survives. The pronunciation was longer than we would expect. This redundancy served as an error-correcting mechanism. We can see some really smart "coding theory" inside these mechanisms which preserved the scriptures through several invasions.
Indo-aryan languages have an elegant construction of sounds. The sama veda explains various sounds. The sounds are immediate responses to nature. Despite the neural diversity which human beings possess, evolution selected the following abilities 1- to understand body language 2- comprehend patterns in nature and 3- communicate with peers. So, no matter how diverse perceptions could be, we would be frightened on seeing a lion, we would feel happy on seeing mother's love and so on. The responses to nature form the basis of sounds used. For instance "Ohm" is the sound which uses all the parts of the vocal chords, to emerge. This ensure smarter and intuitive communication. This is true in general for most languages. However, the Indian sensitivity to the human mind makes them use this to great detail, so much that they dedicate one of the four Vedas, to this topic.
Indian thought system seems to have an answer for most of the profound questions and dilemmas which we often encounter. Natyashastra is perhaps the best work on Theatre, the rasa theory has no parallels. The exploits of Indian astronomers, mathematicians are very well known. Surgeries were done even before anatomy was understood. They had the concept of Ramarajya for governance. Politics, Governance, Science, Mathematics, Epistemology, Linguistics, Sociology and several other subjects were well studied.
These examples should defend the 'superiority' of these thought systems. The only concern could be that of relevance to modern context. Newtonian mechanics break down at speeds close to that of light. Medicines meant for adults may not be consumable by the kids. Knowledge seems to be context based, we don't seem to have universal laws. We are talking of time-context, when we have witnessed seven technological waves, post these studies by the Bharatas. So are they museum show-pieces or do they have utility?
Well, technology has been witnessing revolutions while human morphology undergoes evolution. It takes about 100 generations for a 'simple' trait to be influenced by evolution. Dogs were selectively bred, owing to their shorter reproductive cycle. However, for human beings, this period is quite large. The human mind and the human body has largely remained the same. This partially explains that these scriptures aren't outdated as of yet. In fact, the problem of determining conditions under which these scriptures would lose relevance is very hard. There would be another blogpost of utility of thought systems/philosophy in sciences and that would answer the question as to how Indian Philosophy can help modern science.
If we could unleash Indian Philosophy, we could bring out the fourth major revolution- the intellectual revolution. Nikola Tesla's quote would come out to be true. But how do we convey the power of Indian thought to everybody. Well, the answer lies in Indian thought! Natyashastra is called the fifth veda, the one which is accessible to everybody. It provides answers on how to produce dramas, which can convey some ideas(in Indian context they are experience based). It answers the questions, how can I convey my experience to the society and make them accept my suggestions. These answers are being harnessed to produce Neti Panchatantra.
