I was in a bookstore in the Bay Area a while back, and happened across a book
by
Frits Staal, a now retired professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The book was called "Discovering The Vedas : Origins, Mantras, Rituals,
Insights". It is an excellent read and I can vouch for its quality. I would
recommend it to anyone interested in ancient India. Imagine my surprise when a
few days ago I saw the same Frits Staal on the Indo-Eurasian mailing list
replying to a comment right after mine. Frits Staal has written many excellent
books on India, and since he is also reachable on the other list, I will offer
to send him any comments that Chetan or anyone else may have on the
contributions of ancient Indian thinkers to the world of ideas.
I do think it is important that we laud the achievements of the premodern
Indians, but it would be good if we lauded the right set of achievements. One
of
Staal's arguments is that ancient Indian grammarians, in particular Panini, had
discovered many rules underlying language that were not rediscovered until the
20th century. He has called Panini "the Indian Euclid", and rightly so. As for
the ideas in metaphysics (the nature of matter, et cetera) that we were
discussing in the previous discussion, the ancient Indian works would now be
considered generally speculative. The ideas in mathematics and linguistics are,
however, well grounded and rightfully acclaimed.
Anand
