Science as the Foundation of Civilizational Progress
- The Philosophical Roots of Indian Science: The Rational Framework of Nyaya Sutras
- Nyaya vs Vedanta: Realism, Empiricism and the Scientific Temper
- Vaisheshika and the Early Atomic Theory of Kanada
- Sanskrit as a Scientific Language: The Revolutionary Grammar of Panini
- From Rig Veda to Classical Sanskrit: Standardisation and Knowledge Transmission
- Authentic Scientific Achievements: Contributions of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Sushruta
- Myth vs History: The Debate Around Pushpak Viman and Ancient Technology
- Learning from the Past Without Mythologising It
Reviving the Scientific Temper for Modern India’s Socio-Economic Challenges
An analytical exploration of India’s ancient scientific legacy by Justice Katju, examining Nyaya philosophy, Panini’s Sanskrit, and the real achievements of Aryabhatta and Sushruta, while separating historical fact from myth.
The great ancient Indian scientific legacy
This is the age of science and technology, and it is only the massive application of science and technology which can solve India's huge problems of poverty, unemployment, child malnutrition, lack of proper healthcare etc for its masses
With the aid of science, we had built mighty civilisations thousands of years ago when most people in Europe ( except in Greece and Rome ) were living in forests. We had made outstanding discoveries e.g. decimal system in mathematics, plastic surgery in medicine, etc and created scientifically planned cities ( e.g. in the Harappa-Mohenjo-Daro Civilisation).
It is true that gloating over past achievements alone does not solve our present problems. After our initial burst of scientific creativity, we subsequently lagged far behind Western countries. But having a knowledge of the great achievements of our ancestors gives us the encouragement and inspiration for our future accomplishments, and shows us that we are not a race of fools and savages which our British rulers depicted us to be.
Some people make silly and false claims that in ancient India we had aeroplanes, guided missiles, etc and knew genetic engineering, head transplant surgery, etc. Such people mix up the truth with falsehood, thereby diluting the former. So it is necessary to clarify.
Before dealing with the actual specific scientific achievements of our ancestors, it is necessary to delve into (1) Indian philosophy and (2) Sanskrit and the contribution of Panini to the growth of science
1. Nyaya philosophy
Indian philosophy has 6 classical schools and 3 non-classical ones. The 6 classical schools ( shatdarshan) are Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankhya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and Uttar Mimansa ( Uttar Mimansa is also called Vedanta ). The 3 non-classical schools are Buddhism, Jainism and Charvak.
It is said that the main difference between the classical and non-classical schools is that the former rely on the authority of the Vedas, while the latter do not. This, however, is incorrect, as I will demonstrate. It is also said that all the 6 classical schools believe in God, but that is not true. The first 4 are atheistic, and do not rely on the authority of the Vedas
The most popular of the 6 classical schools is the last, i.e. Vedanta, which says that the world is unreal and Maya, while the reality is only one, Brahman.
However, it is the first of the shatdarshanas, the Nyaya philosophy, which gave the philosophical support and encouragement to the growth of science in ancient India. This philosophy, according to the Nyaya Sutras written by its founder Gautam, states that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, which is precisely the scientific approach.
The second classical Indian philosophy, Vaisheshik, was the physics of ancient times. It propounded the atomic theory of its founder, Kannada. At one tim,e Vaisheshik was regarded as part of the Nyaya philosophy, since physics is part of science. But since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences, Vaisheshik was later separated from Nyaya and put forth as a separate philosophy. Sankhya philosophy provided the materialistic ontology for Nyaya and Vaisheshik, but there is very little original literature in Sankhya. There is nothing in the Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankhya or Yoga philosophies which say that they rely on the authority of the Vedas.
The Nyaya philosophy is realistic and pluralistic. This is in sharp contrast to Vedanta. While Vedanta says that the world is unreal ( Maya ), Nyaya says that the world is real. While Vedanta is monistic, in other words, it says that there is only one reality, Brahman, Nyaya is pluralistic, and says that there are several real things in the world, and it is totally false to say that a tree, a table, an animal, a human body, a motor car, etc are really all one.
Nyaya philosophy relies on several pramanas, i.e. means of obtaining true knowledge as its epistemology. According to it, the pradhan pramana or principal means of obtaining knowledge is pratyaksha pramana, i.e. the knowledge obtained through the 5 senses, and this is also the approach of science. Of course, there are other pramanas, e.g. anumana, i.e. inference, through which we can obtain true knowledge. Thus, when Rutherford propounded his atomic theory ( that there is a central nucleus in an atom, with protons, neutrons, etc, around which electrons are orbiting, like the planets orbiting the sun) he had never actually seen an atom, but inferred his atomic theory from the scattering of alpha rays ( which are helium ions). Similarly, the existence of black holes has been inferred from the movements of neighbouring heavenly bodies, though no one has actually seen a black hole ( in fact, one cannot see it because its material is so dense and compressed that due to its immense mass, the gravitational pull is so strong that even light cannot escape from it ). Another pramana is shabda pramana, that is, a statement of an expert. Thus, we accept that e=mc squared, which is the formula of Einstein, though we do not ourselves understand how Einstein derived this formula.. Yet we believe that it is true, because Einstein has an outstanding reputation as a theoretical physicist, and therefore we believe in what he says even without understanding it. Similarly, we believe in our doctor when he diagnoses some illness and prescribes some treatment, because a doctor is an authority in medicine.
For India to progress, we must adopt the Nyaya philosophy, i.e. the scientific approach in everything. We must develop modern minds. To be modern, however, does not mean wearing a smart suit or a nice tie or a lovely sari or skirt. it means developing a rational mind, a scientific mind, a questioning mind. Our ancestors, like the ancient Greeks, had questioning minds; they questioned everything. There are records of hundreds of shastrarthas or debates in ancient India, and because of this, we made tremendous progress in science in ancient times, e.g. in mathematics ( Aryabhat, Brahmagupta, Bhaskar, etc), in medicine ( Sushrut, Charak, etc), in astronomy ( Aryabhat, etc ), in grammar ( Panini, Patanjali, etc.). All this was possible because behind these sciences was the scientific philosophy of Nyaya, which gave them great philosophical support and encouragement.
The original Nyaya philosophy is atheistic. Gautam's Nyaya sutras mention 16 categories, and God is not one of them. Unfortunately, subsequently in our history, we took to the unscientific path of superstitions and empty rituals, which has led us to disaster. The way out for our nation, therefore, is to go back again to the scientific path shown by our ancestors, the path of Aryabhat and Brahmagupta, Sushrut and Charak, Panini and Patanjali, Ramanujan and Raman, and of course, the path of the Nyaya philosophy.
It must, however, be clarified that some subsequent philosophers who claimed to be Nyayiks, e.g. Vatsyayan (see his Nyaya Bhashya), Udayan (see his Kusumanjali), etc., totally distorted the Nyaya philosophy by introducing theological elements in it, and the Navya Nyaya scholars like Gangesh, who resorted to gymnastics in logic. We must, therefore, rely on the original Nyaya philosophy of Gautam, which is the correct philosophy for our nation to progress
2. Sanskrit and the contribution of Panini
Sanskrit is not just one language; there are several Sanskrits. What we call Sanskrit today is really Panini's Sanskrit, also known as classical Sanskrit or Laukik Sanskrit, and this is what is taught in our schools, colleges, and universities today, and it is in this language that all our scientists wrote their great works. However, there were earlier Sanskrits too which were somewhat different from classical Sanskrit. Let me explain.
The earliest Sanskrit work is the Rig Veda, which was probably composed around 2000 B.C. However, it was subsequently continued from generation to generation by oral tradition, and had to be memorised orally in the gurukul by the young boys by repeating the verses chanted by their guru. The Rig Veda is the most sacred of Hindu literature, and it consists of 1028 hymns (richas) to various nature gods e.g. Indra, agni, surya, soma, varuna etc.
Language changes with the passage of time. For instance, it is difficult to understand Shakespeare's plays today without a good commentary because Shakespeare wrote in the 16th century A.D., and since then, the English language has changed. Many of the words and expressions which were in vogue in Shakespeare's time are no longer in vogue today. Hence, we cannot understand Shakespeare's plays today without a good commentary.
Similarly, the Sanskrit language kept changing from around 2000 B.C., when the Rig Veda was probably composed, to about 500 B.C., i.e. for about 1500 years. In or about the 5th Century B.C., the great scholar Panini, who was perhaps the greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, wrote his great book `Ashtadhyayi' (book of eight chapters). In this book, Panini fixed the rules of Sanskrit, and thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted except slight changes made by two other great grammarians, namely, Katyayan, who wrote his book called ‘Vartika’, and Patanjali, who wrote his commentary on the Ashtadhyayi called the ‘Mahabhashya’. Except for the slight changes by these two subsequent grammarians, Sanskrit as it exists today is really Panini's Sanskrit or classical Sanskrit.
What Panini did was that he studied carefully the existing Sanskrit language in his time and then refined, purified and systematised it so as to make it a language of great logic, precision and elegance. Science requires precision, and Panini made Sanskrit a highly developed and powerful vehicle of expression in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and clarity. This language was made uniform all over India, so that scholars from North, South East and West could understand each other.
I am not going into the details about the Ashtadhyayi but I will give one small illustration in this connection.
In the English language, the alphabets from A to Z are not arranged in any logical or rational manner. There is no reason why F is followed by G or why P is followed by Q, etc. The alphabets in English are all arranged haphazardly and at random. On the other hand, Panini in his first fourteen sutras arranged alphabets in the Sanskrit language in a very scientific and logical manner, after close observation of the sounds in human speech, and from which part of the head they emanated.
Thus, for example, the consonants have been arranged in sequences of 5 consonants each, on a scientific pattern. The (ka) varga (i.e. ka, kha, ga, gha, nga) are emitted from the throat, the (cha) varga from the middle of the tongue, the ( ta ) varga from the lips, the (tta ) varga from the roof of the mouth, and the (pa ) varga from the lips.
I venture to say that no language in the world has its alphabets arranged in such a rational and systematic manner. And when we see how deeply our ancestors went in the seemingly simple matter of arranging the alphabets we can realise how deeply they went in more advanced matters.
In the speech below, which I gave in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, I explained how Sanskrit contributed to the growth of science in ancient India
3. Actual scientific achievements of our ancestors
As mentioned above, many tall and false claims are made by some people that in ancient India we had aeroplanes, atom bombs, guided missiles, etc, and that we had invented head transplant surgery ( since the Hindu god Ganesh had an elephant’s head ), and knew genetic engineering and stem cell therapy ( since Queen Gandhari had 100 sons using its aid ), knew how to produce test tube babies ( e.g. Karna ), etc. This is all false, and we make a laughing stock of ourselves before the whole world by mixing the truth with untruth, and by making such false and fantastic claims.
Many people, some of whom are even so-called ‘educated’ people, say that in ancient India we had aeroplanes. In support of this argument, they refer to the Ramayan.
Now it is true that the Ramayan mentions Pushpak Viman, an alleged flying chariot, on which Lord Ram is said to have brought Sita from Lanka to Ayodhya, after defeating Ravan. On this basis, it is claimed that there were aeroplanes in ancient India.
My reply to such people is this: We must first understand what the Ramayan and the Mahabharat are. They are epic poems (mahakavyas). In poetry, there is a thing called ‘poetic license’, which gives a poet the right to exaggerate. So one must not take all things in the Ramayan orthe Mahabharat literally. As in much of poetry, many things are imaginative.
Everyone in the world knows that the first aeroplane in the world ( the Kitty Hawk ) was built by the Wright brothers in 1903. Hence, we make ourselves a laughing stock before the whole world by claiming that there were aeroplanes in ancient India.
If there were aeroplanes in ancient India, then there must have been engines in ancient India (because an aeroplane requires an engine). In that case, soldiers should have fought in tanks instead of in chariots and horses in the Mahabharat.
Similarly, the claim that there were guided missiles and atom bombs in ancient India ( because there is mention of brahmastra, agnyastra, narayanastra, etc in the Mahabharat and Ramayan ) is also nonsense. These were only poetic imaginations.
Secondly, we must not gloat on the scientific achievements of our ancestors, but move forward and do scientific thinking today to solve our huge socio-economic problems of massive and abject poverty, record and growing unemployment, appalling level of child malnourishment ( every second Indian child is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index, a reputed international agency ), 57% of Indian women are anaemic, there is almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, etc
The real great scientific achievements of our ancestors are given in the articles, and hence I am not repeating their contents
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
