A Glimpse Of What History Of Science Would Look Like If It Wasn't Averse To The 'H' Word

Ancient Hindu Science: Its Impact On The Ancient And Modern World. Alok Kumar. Jaico Publication House. Pages 212. Rs 410.

There is a renewed interest in the non-Eurocentric historiography of science these days. Science historian Joseph Needham brought the focus on the contribution of the Chinese civilisation to the process and the global institution we call science today. There have been studies which have brought out the native American and African contributions to science too.

However, the ancient Chinese civilisation is no more a living civilisation. It is now a Marxist-Maoist society that has been uprooted from its Taoist-Buddhist substratum. In fact, the Communist Party of China passed a resolution in 1927 that China was no longer an Asian nation.

African spiritual traditions exist in periphery and are often demonised in popular culture.

Native Americans are no longer a civilisational alternative to the dominant Western civilisation.

India, on the other hand, is a living nation still attached to its civilisational roots, despite centuries of aggressive challenges. So, presenting the contribution of India, and hence Hindus, to the sciences is problematic unless it is presented as a kind of museum exhibit. India can be presented as ‘wonder that was’ but not as a living continuity. In fact, there is a particular aversion to the 'H' word – Hindu.

Prof Alok Kumar faces this bias and records this in the introduction itself:

Professor Kumar is a physicist, teaching at SUNY Oswego and his book on ancient Hindu science is important for both the students of Indian culture and students of the history of science.

The chapter ‘Building Blocks of Science’ brings together two important aspects of the Hindu worldview: inner happiness and the quest for truth. These two intersect at a vital point. Hindus understood that. Writes the professor of physics:

Very aptly the author draws the parallel between this Hindu core value and the celebrated statement of Einstein:

The importance of this book should be understood by the reader both in its intrinsic value and also in the larger context of the battle for narratives. For example, I had the misfortune of reading the following line in a book, published by a very prestigious publishing house, regarding the discovery of zero:

The reader should forgive the reviewer for moving from sublime to obscenely ridiculous but the above passage was written by an academic who is regularly quoted by historians of a particular dominant school in India and the academic also regularly graces TV debates when he is not giving testimony against India in the human rights commissions in the United States. This is the standard of the discourse of science historiography with respect to ancient India.

Now read what Prof Alok Kumar writes:

One can now understand the value and importance of the book in the larger context of narrative building as also in terms of its intrinsic worth.

The chapter on mathematics also has a section on how Indian ideas travelled to Europe and fertilised the mathematical conceptions of late medieval Christendom. Thus, Hindu contribution to the Enlightenment era in Europe, particularly in terms of core mathematical ideas, from the Hindu numerals to the Madhava series of Kerala mathematicians, is a subject which should be studied by historians and highlighted in our history textbooks.

In the chapter on astronomy again the book brings out a stimulating picture. The way Hindu astronomers combine beautiful poetic examples with their discoveries is worth studying by modern popular science writers:

Instead of giving interpretations from the advantage of hindsight, the author gives proof of the claims through the statements of non-Indian scholars like Strabo and Al-Biruni. This is quite important. In the chapter on physics also, it is on the authority of Al-Biruni that the author notes the following:

The chapter on biology needs some attention here. Hindus are as a people quite comfortable with evolution. Pew Surveys often point out this fact that Hindus and Buddhists are the largest religious groups which do not find evolution uncomfortable. At the same time the author notes an important point that ‘the ancient Hindus systematically studied various life forms and noticed inter-dependencies and commonness in them’ (p. 218).

Though Hindus had a strong conceptual notion of natural evolution because of the Sankhya Darshana, the book is silent on this vital subject.

The book discusses the work of Acharya J C Bose in detail. The concept of plant-soul was part of pre-Christian Western philosophy also and it kind of existed in the peripheral memories of the Western thought even during medieval and late medieval Christendom. However, it was Charles Darwin who, along with his son Francis Darwin, who came with what was then (and perhaps even now) an audacious hypothesis – the root-brain hypothesis.

Bose, while as a student in England, definitely came in contact with Francis Darwin as his teacher. While the British physiologists and botanists were having mental blocs in exploring the cognitive abilities of the plants as forming a continuum with the mental life we see in animal kingdom, Bose had no such mental inhibitions. Vedanta provided him with the sense of unity and Darwinian science reinforced the Vedantic vision.

Bose in fact openly expressed this Vedantic vision of non-duality. This then is the importance of Bose. One can be sure the later editions of the book will have added chapters/sections on evolution and ecology.

The book also deals with the global impact of the natural philosophical conceptions of Hindus. The chapter has two sections. One deals with the ancient period and the other with the modern period. The latter again has two sections – one dealing with the transcendental movement and the other deals with the impact on the modern physics. The emphasis is on Erwin Schrodinger. And rightly so.

The book ends with an emotional plea to the reader:

This is indeed as significant as rest of the book and carries a vital message for young students of history of science and also educators. The understanding as well as highlighting of Hindu contribution is important because it is a constructive and corrective measure. It is not a means to claim cultural superiority. Nor it is a claim of religious chauvinism. Instead this will make science a more universal inclusive human endeavour that belongs to all humanity.