@indiafactsorgIndology | 28-08-2015
A three day National Seminar on Intellectual Traditions of Ancient India was organized by the Center for Ancient History and Culture (CAHC), Jain University Bangalore, starting on 27th of August. It started with an inaugural address by Prof. Iyengar on the importance of bringing India’s ancient traditions to the modern generation. Prof. Sudershan Rao, the Chairman for the Indian Council of Historical Research, was the chief guest and spoke on the necessity of scientific temperament in historical research. Prof. Subbarayappa took the audience through a brief journey on the differences between the metaphysical traditions of Indian Rishis, starting from the Vedic idea of “rta”, the pre-Socratic philosophical ideas, and ancient Chinese metaphysics. Founder Chairman Dr. Chenraj Roychand encouraged young students to participate in this three day seminar.
The first exposition was delivered by Prof. Michael Danino on “Harappan Roots of Some Indian-Knowledge Systems”. The Indus-Saraswati civilization is believed to have disappeared without a trace leaving no impact on the subsequent Gangetic civilization. However considerable evidence now exists to prove that the later Indic civilization was a continuation of Harappan roots. Similarity of architectural measurements, town-planning, water-management, yogic postures in Harappan seal, iconography of deities, etc prove without a doubt that there exists a strong link between the Harappan times and the later Hindu civilization. For example, nearly 200 Swastika terracotta symbols have been found in the Indus-Saraswati sites. We still have to wait for deciphering of the Indus script to get a more comprehensive idea about the Indus culture, however certain strong clues and evidences point easily to a civilizational continuum.
The next session by Professor K. Ramasubramanian from IIT Bombay was on the “Beauty and Richness of Sanskrit Grammar”. He gave a brief introduction on history of Sanskrit and its formalization by the legendary Panini in his Astadhyayi. Expertise in Vyakarana or Sanskrit grammar was considered even by astronomers like Bhaskara as mandatory for gaining proficiency in any Shastra. He engaged the audience with an example of wordplay through Chitrabandha, demonstrating its use in the compositions of Vedanta Desikan. He touched upon the Maheshwara Sutras, Vak Purusha, and how Sanskrit can be useful for machine translations and text processing. However, Prof Ramasubramanian cautioned that this would require a tremendous synergy between linguists and experts in computer programming. He clarified that Sanskrit, contrary to popular misconception, is not a context-free language. Infact, no human language can be context-free.
Post lunch session started with (Retd.) Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Padmavathamma’s lecture on the “Importance of Mathematics in the Jaina Tradition“. Many Jaina mathematicians had made a stellar contribution to the field of Indian mathematics by simplifying complicated ideas, freeing mathematics from religion and rituals and making an independent study of the same. Mahaviracharya composed the Ganitasarasangraha as a compendium of mathematical ideas which was first translated in 1912 by Professor Rangacharya. Many other Jaina texts like Tiloyapannatti touch upon various aspects of mathematics and cosmology.
Professor Ramasubramanian took another brilliant session on “Calculus inlaid in prose and poetry”. In ancient India mathematics was presented in the style of sutras like the Sulbasutras. However from the 5th century mathematics has been transmitted in the form of metrical compositions which were passed down orally from one generation to another. The composers were such experts in language and mathematics that they could effortlessly transmit knowledge of Infinite Series, Pi, and various Trigonometrical functions through the medium of enchanting and exquisite verses., at times even using double entendre! Without a thorough study of the history of these commentaries, many have tried to object to the idea that Calculus had its birth in India. The subject evolved over centuries from Aryabhatta to Brahmagupta, ontu Bhaskara and Madhava between 12th to 14th century, finally culminating in the works of Jyesthadeva and Sankara Variyar in the 16th century. Some scholars suggest that these works from the Kerala school were transmitted via Jesuits to Europe and this influenced the development of calculus in Europe.
Finally the day ended with a delightful puppet-play by the Dhaatu Puppet Theater group from Bangalore on a story from the Upanishadic times, giving a glimpse of the Gurukula system and the great scholastic debate between the young Astavakra and Vandi in the court of King Janaka.
Day two of the seminar on Intellectual Tradition of Ancient India (ITAI) started with a…
Day two of the seminar on Intellectual Tradition of Ancient India (ITAI) started with a talk on the “Origin and Growth of Astronomy in India” by professor Mayank Vahia.
The origin and development of astronomy has been an important landmark in the evolution of the human brain and culture. The growth of astronomy in India can be divided into the four distinct phases of early astronomy, settlement astronomy, astronomy of civilization and modern astronomy. The early phases marked the recording of the movement of the Sun and its relation to seasons, followed by the second stage where calendars were made, and constellations and zodiacs were identified. The next phase of astronomy started with Aryabhatta, which was highly mathematical as well as precise. Later came modern astronomy.
In the next session on “Rediscovering the Saraswati River“, professor Michel Danino spoke on the history of the Saraswati River which was regarded both as a goddess and a river in the Rig Veda. The river disappeared in the post-Vedic period, but in 1855 the dry bed of the river was identified and it currently known as the Ghaggar-Hakra basin. From 1940, archaeological explorations have found hundreds of Harappan sites in the Saraswati’s basin. Further evidence points to a connection between the disappearance of the Saraswati and the break-up of the Indus-Saraswati civilization.
Professor Kannan, in the third session spoke on the Chandas. Ancient Indian poetry dates back to the vast and accented literature of the Veda-s. Chanda-shastras became a celebrated part of Vedanga. Pingala, sometimes identified as the younger brother of Panini of 5th century, contributed immensely to this branch. He spoke of the various kinds of meters in Sanskrit poetry and their ramifications and arrangements.
The next session was on “Combinatorial Techniques in India: Chandas and Sangita” by Professor M.D. Srinivas. In the 8th chapter of his Chandashastra, Pingala introduces six prataya-s for studying combinatorics of Vedic and classical Sanskrit meters. These played a major role in the development of combinatorics not only in prosody but in music as well. Pingala’s “meru” as explained in the commentaries of Halayudha of 10th century, is the earliest known version of the Pascal triangle. It was a beautiful session on the various intricacies of Ancient Indian musical meters and rhythms.
Professor Alex Hankey took the next session on “Biophysics of Meditation in the Light of Complex Biology.” He spoke on the pancha-koshyas, consciousness, samadhi and how other Indian traditional yogic ideas have found resonance in complexity biology and information-flow studies. He spoke engagingly on various effects of mediation on the mind-body and how modern psychology is far behind in comprehending these yogic processes.
The day ended with a beautiful Avadhanam performed by Dr. R Shankar. Avadhanam is an ancient Indian art-form which required tremendous multi-tasking ability, creativity, linguistics, concentration power and memory. The poet who performs an avadhanam is known as an avadhani. A panel of equally talented poet-scholars, called pracchaka-s pose questions pertaining to different creative domains for which the avadhani is expected to provide spontaneous answers in the form of verses.
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Day 3 of the Seminar on Intellectual Traditions of Ancient India started with a talk…
@indiafactsorgIndology | 30-08-2015
Day 3 of the Seminar on Intellectual Traditions of Ancient India started with a talk on “Cryptographic Poetry in Sanskrit” by Professor K.S.Kannan. One elementary technique that has been put into a high technical usage leading to a very high economy of words is the method of dittoing, technically known as anuvritti and adikara in Panini’s scheme. It is never easy to do a spell check in Sanskrit due to its sheer versatility, words never attested by usage can be coined afresh, drawing from the rules set down by Panini. The talk also covered citrakavya or pattern poetry.
The next talk was on the “Science behind Raga Music” by R.N.Iyengar. The idea of raga in Indian classical music can be identified for its aesthetic sensibility and amazing variety. Whenever a raga is presented as alapana, the evolution of the sound is fresh and different without disturbing the predefined structure. The invariance of a raga is attributed to its aroha-avaroha. Bharata in 3rd Century AD wrote about dvigunibhava – the doubling of the character of the 1st and the last note in an octave – by experiments with Dhruva-vina and Cala-vina. This is known in science as the doubling of frequency. A raga can be described as sample time series of musical notes (svaras) evolving as per a defined probability distribution over its sample space.
The next talk was on “Simulating Aspects of Harappan Civilization” by Mayank Vahia. The lecture focused on various ideas of computer science that can be used on the available data to understand various aspects of the ancient civilization. Modeling the evolution of various stages of the civilization, studying the grammar of the script, studying the network of the growth of township, simulation of people-movement in the subcontinent etc are some of the areas which can be explored using computer science. Twenty six different parameters define and impact a civilization and the can be studied to create a network map of the growth of human culture.
The next session was a talk on “How Relevant is Panini Today?” by Professor Amba Kulkarni. The Astadhyayi of Panini is the oldest existing grammar for any human language with tremendous details yet small enough to memorize. Presented in 4000 sutra-s with around 7000 words, it has been described by Broomfield as “one of the greatest monuments of human language.” Many scholars believe that while it was written to describe the Sanskrit language, it provides a general grammatical framework for analysis of other languages as well and so it has influenced the Western linguistic theory in many ways. What makes the study of Astadhyayi important is various concepts it uses for language analysis. The organization of the text in 4000 sutra-s is similar to any computer program but allows certain non-formal elements that require a human being to interpret. Therefore Panini can be described as the foremost informaticien, at least 25 centuries before computers came into existence. All these and more are relevant reasons for studying Astadhyayi today with greater rigor.
The final talk was by S. Vishwanath on “Perspectives of an IT professional.” He spoke of the necessity of appreciating and leveraging solutions to various problems of today’s age from the ancient intellectual traditions of India.
The seminar ended with a session on feedback and panel discussion.