 |
||
|
||
|
||
After delivering thousands of lectures on Indian heritage since the age of 18 and more than 1,800 of them in the last five years (a lecture a day!), N. Gopalakrishnan is passionate for more. The 45-year-old scientist at the regional centre of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Thiruvananthapuram considers it his mission to separate the chaff from the grain in people's minds. The winnow he uses is science.
"As a scientist who could go through ancient Indian literature systematically," says Gopalakrishnan, "I found it my duty to create a true understanding of our scientific contributions and spirituality." In 1998, he and a few like-minded friends founded a trust, The Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage, to conduct seminars, lectures, and prepare audio cassettes, brochures and books to spread integrated scientific knowledge.
Gopalakrishnan combines his background in modern science and knowledge in Sanskrit to deliver lectures. His interest in Sanskrit stems from his study of the Vedas since childhood, which was also a period of deprivation for him. In college, he struggled to pay the fees, worked as a waiter, but did his postgraduation in pharmacy in 1978 and in chemistry the next year. Later, he took Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad and post-doctoral from University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
"What scientists lack is the Sanskrit background," says Gopalakrishnan, who has six patents in biochemistry to his credit. "Sanskrit scholars and mathematicians together can interpret the remaining 350 theorems of Madhvacharya which no one has interpreted till now." Bringing scientists and Sanskrit scholars to tap the hidden knowledge in other ancient texts, he feels, will take India ahead because the success of liberalisation hinges not on the availability of technology but on the availability of an idea.
Sanskrit is also the best to minimise complication in communication. The Aryabhatiya number system has ghyu grh to depict 1578349500, the terrestrial days or the total number of revolutions in a mahayuga. This is particularly useful in theoretical physics where high velocities are involved in calculations. According to him, the roots of Sanskrit words will also help us grasp ideas better. For instance, hridayam (heart) is made of hri meaning to accept and da meaning to give and ayam which means to circulate. This explains the functioning of the heart.
Gopalakrishnan uses this knowledge
of Sanskrit to replace the language of the theologian with that of a scientist.
There is an unusual coincidence of the terms Milky Way and the Ksheerapatham,
he says. The coiled shape of the galaxy and Vishnu's serpent with five
hoods are a symbolic representation of the conscious self within the five
elements. "The word used in the texts is sankalpam (concept)," he says.
"There is nothing spiritual about it."
|
||
|
||
|
||