Vedic Record=Historical Fact

[Guest guest]

The Rediff Interview/ Dr Subhash Kak

'Our school books talk about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle but don't

mention Yajnavalkya, Panini and Patanjali'

 

Dr Subhash Kak is a professor of electrical and computer engineering

at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. He is also a renowned

authority on ancient Indian science and technology. Originally from

Kashmir, Dr Kak has worked at IIT Delhi, Imperial College, Bell

Laboratories and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He has

authored ten books and over three hundred journal articles in areas

as varied as neural networks, quantum physics, artificial

intelligence, and the philosophy and history of science. Dr Kak's

websites www.lsu.edu/ee/kak and ftp://www.lsu.edu/pub/kak provide

links to some of his articles.

 

Rajeev Srinivasan interviewed him by email in connection with his

research into Indian science.

 

You are a practising electrical engineer who holds patents in leading-

edge areas such as neural networks. Yet, you are also a published

poet and writer, as well as a Sanskrit scholar and expert on ancient

Indian science. You are a Renaissance man, in other words. How did

all this come about?

 

I was interested in both writing and sciences in school but when I

finished I was leaning toward becoming a writer. My mother warned me

it was no way to make a living and she packed me off to an

engineering college. I am glad for that because before long I

discovered that literary and scientific imaginations are not all that

different. For sure there is much that is tedious and mechanical in

science, but the same is true of literature as well.

 

My work in ancient science developed when I tried to find an answer

to the question of the milieu in which Panini's 2500-year-old

grammar, a work of most astonishing subtlety, arose. The more I

consulted the standard texts, it became clear that the paradigm in

which Indian history of science, and ancient Indian history in

general, had been examined was wrong!

 

What is your background? Is this C P Snow-like conflation of science

and the arts something that happens a lot in your family?

 

My initial research -- at IIT Delhi -- was on information theory. Now

information is something that we all deal with, whether we are

engineers, physicists, or businessmen; or even if we are artists or

poets. We are in the midst of the information age where knowing how

to manipulate information is worth money! Basically, I have applied

the idea of information to questions in different disciplines.

 

It was lucky that I grew up in small towns of Jammu and Kashmir; we

moved as my father, a veterinarian, was frequently transferred. My

father was a scholar, with interests in a wide range of subjects --

from mythology to history to politics. We also met other people with

similar encyclopaedic interests. These were professional people who

were also connected to traditional wisdom. Perhaps they followed the

old Indian dictum that considered one properly educated only if one

was trained in the 64 arts, and sciences besides. I had good role

models.

 

Actually, a lot of people in the West also straddle the CP Snow-

divide of the science and the humanities. The best scientists are

also competent philosophers, well-versed in their Greco-Roman

heritage. Many of them even know more of the Indian heritage than

most Indians! It is only the India of the past fifty years that has

turned its back on its own heritage and our scientists literally know

nothing about our intellectual history, excepting the distorted

second-hand accounts written by colonial historians and their Indian

followers.

 

You have done a good deal of research into the history of Indian

science. But there will be sceptics who ask, what good is all this?

It is in the remote past -- and today's Indian science is at best

derivative and at worst grossly behind the times. How would you

respond?

 

There are several reasons. First, curiosity; we should know the

facts about our history. Second, there is the puzzle that our

ancestors made astonishing advances in certain fields -- as in

grammar or in consciousness studies -- where we moderns are yet to

catch up! Third, for lessons; so that we may know where we went

wrong.

 

You're right that recent Indian science is derivative and worse. It

is particularly true of Indian science post-independence. But look at

the first five decades of this century; some of the greatest names

were those of Indians: S Ramanujan, J C Bose, S N Bose, C V Raman,

Meghnad Saha, S Chandrasekhar, and so on. But these were people who

were confident, who thought they were as good as any; most

importantly, these people were connected to our own knowledge

tradition. A study of history will reveal to us why our own

scientific renaissance of the first five decades fizzled out in the

next five.

 

And then there is another reason to study ancient Indian science. One

of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, Erwin Schrodinger,

was directly inspired by Vedanta in his creation of quantum

mechanics, a theory at the basis of all our advances in chemistry,

biochemistry, electronics, and computers! Is there more in our

ancient science that is yet relevant?

 

How do you separate the mythology from the real science? Indians are

famous for not being observers -- it appears our forebears were

content to speculate (admittedly it was interesting speculation)

rather than do exact measurements and record them.

 

We must look at ancient science with a critical mind and be sure to

separate hard science from speculation and mythology. But it is a

modern myth that Indians did not make exact measurements. This myth

has been repeated so often we have started believing in it. In the

field of astronomy, it was the Frenchman Roger Billard who showed

this belief was totally wrong! We were excellent experimentalists in

medicine, chemistry, metallurgy, agriculture, and so on. Before the

Enlightenment that took place in Europe in the 17th century, we were

still ahead in most intellectual fields. The Enlightenment came as a

by-product of the turmoil set in motion by unprecedented wealth that

was appropriated from America and by a rejection of Church doctrine.

India of that period did not have favourable economic or political

conditions for a similar flowering.

 

In your research, where have you been most amazed? Where, in other

words, were the serendipitous and wholly unexpected 'Eureka'

experiences?

 

My discovery that the organization of the Rigveda was according to an

astronomical plan was a truly 'Eureka' experience. It came upon me

rather suddenly, but once everything fell into place it was clear

that I had been led to it by the many direct and indirect references

in the Vedic texts. The 'Eureka' of it was the realization that I had

the key to unlock the ancient mystery of the Veda. Ritual and

mythology made sense! And it opened up a hidden chapter of Indian

science with the greatest implications for our understanding of India

and the rest of the ancient world.

 

You have done a fair amount of work on the Indus-Sarasvati

Civilization and on the conjecture that the Sarasvati did in fact

exist, and that what has been known as the Indus Valley Civilization

in fact was on the banks of the Sarasvati River. Can you elaborate on

this? What new evidence has come to the fore?

 

Archaeological digs have confirmed that the Sarasvati river flowed

down to the sea, parallel to the Sindh (Indus), before a major

earthquake in about 1900 BCE robbed it of its two tributaries, the

Satluj and the Yamuna, which were captured by the Sindh and the Ganga

rivers. Since this river is praised as the greatest river of the

Rigvedic times, it is clear that the Rigveda predates 1900 BCE in the

least.

 

There are other scholars who say that 1900 BCE only marks the final

drying up of the Sarasvati, and it had ceased to flow to the sea

around 3000 BCE. If that were to be the case, the traditional

chronology which dates the end of the Rigvedic period to about 3000

BCE is correct.

 

I have read of a number of new sites being excavated, including

Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira, Balu, Banavali, Bhagwanpura, Manda,

Amri, Kunal.... There is even some speculation that Lothal -- with

its port and dry dock for large ocean-going ships -- was the site of

the legendary Dwaraka that was submerged after an underwater

earthquake and resulting tidal wave.

 

Yes, an enormous amount of new information is coming in from the new

sites. We must not forget Mehrgarh which goes back to about 8000 BCE

which was excavated in the late 70s. The most exciting thing is that

major sites of Ganweriwala and Rakhigarhi are yet to be excavated.

Could Lothal be the Dwaraka of the Mahabharata? It is plausible, but

we don't know for sure yet.

 

You have also argued against the Aryan Invasion Theory. What specific

evidence has come to light recently?

 

There is absolutely no evidence of a break in Indic tradition, going

back 10,000 years. No break in ceramic styles, artistic expression,

skeletal remains, and so on. Now if you compare that with regions

that have suffered invasion, such as the Americas, you will see a

clear break in all these things. This apart, all the recent

iconographic finds confirm that key elements of what is generally

called Classical Hinduism were present in the Indus-Sarasvati

civilization before 2500 BCE. Examples are: ritual bathing,

vermilion, bangles, conch-shells in religious ritual, a buffalo-

killing goddess, abstract symbolism, the centrality of cattle in the

economy.

 

You have argued that the Aryan-Dravidian divide simply doesn't exist,

and that the superficial differences between North and South India

are overlaid on a unified cultural foundation.

 

The concept of an Aryan-Dravidian divide is a by-product of the

racist discourse of the 19th century. It was this racism that

postulated a single language from which all modern languages were

derived. Linguists now acknowledge that there must have existed very

many language families in the past and what has survived represents

complex interactions between different peoples and languages, many of

which have left no trace. It is also being recognized that while by

one reckoning Sanskrit, Greek and Latin belong to a family; by

another, Sanskrit and Tamil and Telugu belong to another. Linguists

are now talking of the concept of a linguistic area and the whole of

India is one such area.

 

Culturally, India shows great unity as far back as we can go. If the

art historian David Napier is right about Greece having received a

major artistic impulse from South India in the 2nd millennium BCE, we

find this unity to be at least 4000 years old. Remember also that

Tamilian kings in South India and Sri Lanka called themselves Aryan.

The word Aryan in Sanskrit simply means ''cultured''. There is a

famous slogan in Sanskrit saying ''Make the whole world Aryan''. The

term ''Aryan'' has nothing to do with race or language.

 

CONTINUED IN..."LAKSHMI-HARI OF ANCIENT DENMARK"