It is personslike SRiSRiRavisnker, Mata Amritanandamaayi, Satya Sai
Institutes and similar Hindu Organisations to come together and promote
sanskrit and Indian ancient knowledge and wisdom in oher parts of the world
following Chinese Conficious Institute. Though each one mentioned above may
have different aims and goals at least forthis cause they can come
together, making use of persons like Malhotra etc.
Subject: Thought provoking article by a German lady - ZERO AND INFINITY
----- Forwarded Message -----
*
* *To:*
*Sent:* Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 10:34
*Subject:* Fwd: Thought provoking article by a German lady - ZERO AND
INFINITY
*Thought provoking article by a German lady*
By MARIA WIRTH
*Recently, I spent time with my mother in Germany. She lives in a small
town near Nuremberg with only some 6000 inhabitants. I was missing India.
Reading newspapers and watching news on TV, it seemed as if there was no
India. Yet, when I met people and mentioned that I live in India, all were
curious, positive and keen to know more about the
country. I couldn’t help telling how special India is because, as I see it,
India and Indians have a lot going for them, more than any other
civilisation. Parts of the Indian tradition have been hijacked by
Westerners without acknowledging the source, be it yoga,
transpersonal psychology or several scientific discoveries, apart from such
basics as the decimal system. Yet, strangely, there is still no official
attempt by India to own up and project India’s strong points abroad.
In contrast, China is doing a lot to project a good image by making full
use of their main ancient sage, Confucius. Even in that small town near
Nuremberg, twelve high school students have signed up for a Chinese
language course. It came in the local newspaper. The Confucius institute is
financing it. The teacher is a young Chinese.
On the airport, I picked up the International Herald Tribune, and not
surprisingly, there was an 8-page Advertising Supplement about China
prepared by China Daily. Confucius was all over the supplement: “Confucius
lives”, “The way of the Sage”, etc., were some of the articles. Professor
Zhang Qun, former head of the Confucius Institute,
University of Naples, was quoted, “Western culture started to spread to
China long ago, but now it is time for Chinese culture to be promoted to
the Western world.” He underwent a wide range of training, including
intercultural communications, religion, and even Chinese
Opera, tai chi and paper cutting, “because foreigners love these things”,
he said. Around 100 million foreigners are learning Chinese, the Chinese
education ministry estimates. Though the Confucius Institute started only
in 2004, it has now 350 institutes affiliated
with universities and 430 ‘classrooms’ affiliated with secondary schools in
103 countries. As many as 260 more universities have applied for Institutes
to be set up. Over 7000 young teachers are recruited every year from
Chinese universities, who are sent abroad
for two years…
Again, I was missing India. India is the cradle of civilisation, it has
Sanskrit, the language which, according to NASA, helps develop the brain
apart from being a perfect language. It has the deepest philosophy still
expressed in a vibrant religion, a huge body of literature, amazing art,
dance, music, sculpture, architecture, delicious cuisine and yet Indians
are in denial mode and wake up only when foreigners treasure India. They
don’t seem to know the value and therefore don’t take pride in their
tradition, unlike westerners who
take a lot of pride in theirs, even if there is little to be proud of.
An example that Rajiv Malhotra gave IIT students in Chennai recently
illustrates it. Malhotra was a successful NRI businessman who retired early
to set up the Infinity Foundation promoting Indic studies in the US. In
2005, the Crown Princess of Thailand wanted to have a World Sanskrit
Conference. She herself was a Sanskrit student, had sent her sons to India
to learn Sanskrit, had brought out a Journal on Sanskrit and wanted to
start a Sanskrit College. A professor from Delhi University was organising
the conference for her, but to his dismay, the Indian government did not
want to sponsor it. He felt it was
embarrassing, as many of the eastern countries, including Thailand, look to
India as their mother civilisation. And here is this mother not taking any
interest. So, he frantically called up Malhotra, asking him to help save
face. His Infinity Foundation agreed to sponsor the event. The programme
was set, when a few days before the start, the Indian
HRD minister suddenly woke up and wanted to inaugurate the conference. A
compromise was reached and both, Malhotra and the HRD minister, represented
the Indian side. The conference was a success and the Indian Embassy in
Bangkok gave a reception. Malhotra asked the young diplomats there about
the Indian foreign policy in regard to projecting Indian civilisation as an
asset, as soft power, as something of value in Asian countries. They were
taken by surprise. “Sir, we don’t have any policy like that. We are a
secular country,” the diplomats proffered. Malhotra wondered what this had
to do with secular. “There is a demand, so you should supply it,” he
suggested. “Set up Colleges of Sanskrit, of Indian thought, of dance, etc.
It will also help in trade, in technology, in setting up business in these
countries.”
There is a demand for Indian thought and culture not only in Asian
countries; it is there in Western countries, too, though may be still
unconscious. It would bring fresh air in the fixed thought structures that
make westerners believe that there is either a god or no god,
that one has the choice only between believing what has been written in a
‘holy book’and being an atheist.
India has a different approach. Already in 1887, Paul Deussen, professor of
philosophy in Germany, had written, that it would be of benefit, if Indian
Weltanschauung would spread in the west: “It would make us realise that we
are stuck in colossal one-sidedness with our
entire philosophical and religious thought and that there is a completely
different way of approach than the one that Hegel construed as the only
possible and reasonable one.”
There is however a difficulty. Most educated, English speaking Indians, who
could project Indian culture abroad, know neither Samskrit nor the strong
points of their culture and philosophy. In fact, some of them might rather
bite their lip than acknowledge that India is a great civilisation. And
many of those who know Sanskrit and who know the strong points of Indian
culture don’t speak English or are not interested in teaching foreigners.
Maybe the solution is to start, like the Chinese, with students. Give
students a chance to delve deep into original Indian thought in Sanskrit,
bridge the gap between academics and Sanskrit pandits, between universities
and gurukuls, and let the students go abroad for a couple of years. They
may turn out to be good ambassadors for India and may actually love the
idea of being sent abroad. Never mind if they get disillusioned there.** *
From: shivashankara rao - [email protected];
---------
*ZERO AND INFINITY*
From: Ramesh Chitnis <[email protected]>
A thought provoking Article.
*Recently I came across a quote by Albert Einstein, “We owe a lot to the
Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific
discovery could have been made.” It struck me how a simple concept can
become a foundation of a profound future. There were other systems besides
our decimal system. Roman way of counting is one of them. This system had
no symbol for zero. A symbol represented a number. When a number exceeded a
certain figure another symbol is introduced. As the numbers grew larger the
system ran out of symbols. Ancient Hindus devised a counting system with
ten symbols- hence the decimal system- Zero is one of these symbols which
represents nothing. They overcame the limitation of the symbols by
separating the symbol from its value. The same symbol has a different value
at different places. Thus the symbol 5 has a value of 5 in units place, 50
in tens place, 500 in hundreds place and so on. This ensured that no new
symbol is required however large the number be.*
*This system also enables to form simple rules for the arithmetical
functions of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. So simple
that it can be taught to kindergarten children. Mathematics provided an
easy and concise way to express logical data. Soon from whole numbers we
proceeded to fractions, rational and irrational numbers, imaginary and
complex numbers. Algebra. calculus, vectors, matrices followed.
Quantification of the parameters paved the way for progress and scientific
discovery in physics, chemistry, biology etc. The world adopted the decimal
system with open arms. All other systems of counting were discarded as
museum pieces. No wonder a great scientist like Einstein paid high tributes
to this system of counting.*
*About the same time, Hindus formulated another important concept-that of
infinity-Ananta. Ananta means endless-limitless. It is not a number. It can
not be expressed by the powerful decimal system. It requires a special
symbol. Infinity is immune to arithmetical operations. Infinity remains
infinity after adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing by any number.
The outside world got confused in understanding this concept. We are so
much accustomed to find the limits to most objects and observations that we
imagine non-existing limits for infinity. For an uninformed person, horizon
may appear as a limit of the sky. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan gives an apt simile
to describe this illusion. Suppose there is an all-round viewing chamber
atop a hill to view the panorama and it can be seen through a peephole. The
peephole represents the limit of the finite observer. The observer believes
the view from the peephole is all that exists. This observer forgets or
overlooks the existence of other peepholes from which totally different
views can be seen and significantly these also form the part of the
panorama.*
*Jesus Christ was born and preached in an area which was a part of Roman
Empire. People at this time did not know the concept of zero let alone
infinity. Jesus Christ did not write the Bible. It was written much later
by his followers- a group of scholars as they understood him. They declared
that God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. Everywhere has no limits. It
excludes nothing. It means infinity. They also declared that their God is
only the true God. Others are false Gods. So according to this assertion
God has a limit beyond which false God starts. Where this limit comes from?
It is not the limit of the observed. It is the limit of the observer. It
refers to the peephole as described by Radhakrishnan. It definitely ignores
existence of other peepholes. If the scholars understood infinity correctly
this assertion would not have crept in. They would have reached the same
conclusion as the Hindus reached. There is one God seen in many different
ways. “ekam vipra bahuda vadanti”*
*Implication of this conclusion would have a profound effect comparable to
the effect on future as the decimal counting did. It would have
substantially altered the character of Christianity but also of Islam which
borrowed the concept of false Gods. There would have been no need to force
people to see through a particular peephole. In other words, there would
have been no need to proselytize. One would view another religion as a view
from a different peephole. The world would have been a more peaceful and
more colourful place.*
*How would the world be without proselytisation. A microcosm in India is
available. Hindus do not go for proselytisation. People in Mumbai celebrate
Ganapati bappa on a grand scale. About a month later Kolkata celebrates
Durga ma on equally grand scale. Bengalis in Mumbai and maharashtrians in
Kolkata – in fact Hindus from all other parts join these celebrations
without reservations. There is no thought that Ganapati is better than
Durga or vice versa. The so called secularism of neo-liberals is an age-old
conviction of Hindus. Those who benefitted by adopting the decimal counting
system faltered in understanding infinity. It could have saved many wars,
ill will, and now the terror. Why the craze to make people see through a
particular peephole? Why?*
*One may ask a legitimate question. Why this thought did not occur earlier
even after infinity got better understood? The spirit of enquiry is after
all a human trait. I can only guess the answer. The scholars assigned to
write the Bible must have realized the internal contradiction of what they
put in. So they devised a clever way to fend off inconvenient questions.
They declared whatever they wrote was God’s own messenger’s words.
Questioning them would constitute a sin of blasphemy. The spirit of enquiry
was subdued. Faith was given importance and reasoning a back seat. Gallileo
was punished for publishing his discovery that earth revolved around the
sun.*
*On the other hand, Hindus considered those full of doubts and questions as
jigyasus- the seekers of knowledge and not sinners of blasphemy. They were
welcome to seek appropriate gurus to solve their particular doubts. The
spirit of enquiry was encouraged. Knowledge and reasoning were given
prominence and faith a back seat. It was realized that every individual is
evolved by upbringing, environment, ability to grasp, knowledge level.
Based on their own temperament and inclination one could choose their own
path to salvation including faith (Bhakti Yoga), sincere work (Karma Yoga),
knowledge (Gyana Yoga) and many more. One could invent if one can. Each
persons limitations can differ. Peepholes can differ for different people
or for the same person at different phases of life. Knowledge is not
limited to any instant in time. It is infinite. Go on adding.*
------------------------------
--
Prof N. Ramanathan
"Seshadri"
21 (Old 8), Chittaranjan Road
Teynampet, Chennai 600018
Ph: 044-24355084
M: 9789091909
*PLEASE CONTINUE TO SEE MY BLOG http://proframanathan.posterous.com*
