--- In [email protected], Indrajit Gupta <bonobashi@...> wrote: > > --- On Mon, 28/3/11, Anand Manikutty <manikuttyanand@...> wrote: > > From: Anand Manikutty <manikuttyanand@...> > Subject: [silk] ancient Indian thought > To: silklist@... > Date: Monday, 28 March, 2011, 4:34 > > 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 > > > The problem is that we must now decide which portions are acceptable and > which are not, and that raises the question of how this judgement is done, > and by whom. > > Many may disagree with including mathematics in this very short list; others > may disagree with putting astronomy in, everyone has their own short list. > Regarding Panini, his use of sutras, in a recursive fashion, to store complex > and voluminous data, has ardent fans even today, especially in the > programming fraternity internationally. Why do you exclude literature? > Because it is not hard science? Then why do you include linguistics? Is it a > science in the first place? > > Somehow the thought of carrying judgements across cultural systems and > comparing apples with pineapples is quease-inspiring. I think it is best to > leave each cultural system to make its own judgements on its own products > internally, and not try to transfer such products across systems. >
This was a minimum set. The aim of coming up with such a minimum set is to start with a set of contributions that are within a reasonable consensus. Are you saying that such a consensus is impossible, and if so, would you say that Nobel Prizes/Fields Medals are an artifact of a particular culture? The universal recognition of the Nobel Prizes/Fields Medals would argue against that perspective. Another question for you - of course, astronomy can be very abstract, but what specific contributions of the ancient Indians exactly is it that you would like to have recognized? And why not mathematics? Clearly, there are some ideas from premodern India that are used to this day. Nothing in my previous email excludes anything else that may be worth recognizing, but you seem to want to exclude mathematical contributions. Perhaps you could tell us why these contributions (whether from the premodern Indians or the premodern Greeks) should be excluded? Anand
