Author:
Publication: Bhartiya Pragna
Date: February 2002
(Dr. Subhash Kak is a professor
of electrical and computer engineering at the Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge. He is also a renowned authority on ancient Indian science
and technology. Originally from Kashmir, Dr. Kak has worked at the IIT
Delhi, Imperial College, Bell Laboratories and the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research. He has authored ten books and over three hundred journal articles
in areas as varied as neural networks, quantum physics, artificial intelligence,
and the philosophy and history of science.
Rajeev Srinivasan interviewed him
by e-mail in connection with his research into Indian science.)
Q. You are a practising electrical
engineer who holds patents in leading-edge areas such as neural networks.
Yet, you are also an established poet and writer, as well as a Sanskrit
scholar and expert on ancient Indian science. You are a Renaissance man,
in other words. How did all this come about?
A. I was interested in both writing
and sciences in school but when I finished I was leaning toward becoming
a writer. My mother warned me it was no way to make a living and she packed
me off to an engineering college. I am glad for that because before long
I discovered that literary and scientific imaginations are not all that
different. For sure there is much that is tedious and mechanical in science,
but the same is true of literature as well.
My work in ancient science developed
when I tried to find an answer to the question of the milieu in which Panini's
2500-year-old grammar, a work of most astonishing subtlety, arose. The
more I consulted the standard texts, it became clear that the paradigm
in which Indian history of science, and ancient Indian history in general,
had been examined was wrong!
Q. What is your background? Is this
C P Snow like conflation of science and the arts something that happens
a lot in your family?
A. My initial research at IIT Delhi
was on information theory. Now, information is something that we all deal
with, whether we are engineers, physicists, or businessmen; or even if
we are artists or poets. We are in the midst of the information age where
knowing how to manipulate information is worth the money! Basically, I
have applied the idea of information to questions in different disciplines.
It was lucky that I grew up in small
towns of Jammu and Kashmir; we moved as my father, a veterinarian, was
frequently transferred. My father was a scholar, with interests in a wide
range of subjects - from mythology to history to politics. We also met
other people with similar encyclopaedic interests. These were professional
people who were also connected to traditional wisdom. Perhaps they followed
the old Indian dictum that considered one properly educated only if one
was trained in the 64 arts, and sciences. Besides, I had good role models.
Actually, a lot of people in the
West also straddle the CP Snow-divide of the science and the humanities.
The best scientists are also competent philosophers, well versed in their
Greco-Roman heritage. Many of them even know more of the Indian heritage
than most Indians! It is only the India of the past fifty years that has
turned its back on its own heritage and our scientists literally know nothing
about our intellectual history, excepting the distorted second-hand accounts
written by colonial historians and their Indian followers.
Q. You have done a good deal of
research into the history of Indian science. But there will be skeptics
who ask, what good is all this? It is in the remote past - and today's
Indian science is at best derivative and at worst grossly behind the times.
How would you respond?
A. There are several reasons. First,
curiosity; we should know the facts about our history. Second, there is
the puzzle that our ancestors made astonishing advances in certain fields-as
in grammar or in consciousness studies-where we moderns are yet to catch
up! Third, for lessons, so that we may know where we went wrong.
You're right that recent Indian
science is derivative and worse. It is particularly true of post-independence
Indian science. But look at the first five decades of this century; some
of the greatest names were those of Indians: S Ramanujan, J C Bose, S N
Bose, C V Raman, Meghnad Saha, G Chandrasekhar, and so on. But these were
people who were confident, who thought they ware as good as any; most importantly,
these people were connected to our own knowledge tradition. A study of
history will reveal to us why our own scientific renaissance of the first
five decades of the last century fizzled out in the next five.
And then there is another reason
to study ancient Indian science. One of the greatest scientists of the
20th century, Erwin Schrodinger, was directly inspired by Vedanta in his
creation of quantum mechanics, a theory at the basis of all our advances
in chemistry, biochemistry, electronics, and computers! Is there more in
our ancient science that is yet relevant?
Q. How do you separate the mythology
from the real science? Indians are famous for not being observers-it appears
our forebearers were content to speculate (admittedly, it was interesting
speculation) rather than do exact measurements and record them.
A. We must look at ancient science
with a critical mind and be sure to separate hard science from speculation
and mythology. But it is a modern myth that Indians did not make exact
measurements. This myth has been repeated so often we have started believing
in it. In the field, of astronomy, it was the Frenchman Roger Billard who
showed that this belief was totally wrong! We were excellent experimentalists
in medicine, chemistry, metallurgy, agriculture, and so on. Before the
Enlightenment that took place in Europe in the I7th century, we were still
ahead in most intellectual fields.
Q. In your research, where have
you been most amazed? Where, in other words, were the serendipitous and
wholly unexpected 'Eureka' experiences?
A. My discovery that the organization
of the Rigveda was according to an astronomical plan was a truly 'Eureka'
experience. It came upon me rather suddenly, but once everything fell into
place it was clear that I had been led to it by the many direct and indirect
references in the Vedic texts. The 'Eureka' of it was the realization that
I had the key to unlock the ancient mystery of the Veda. Ritual and mythology
made sense! And it opened up a hidden chapter of Indian science with the
greatest implications for our understanding of India and the rest of the
ancient world.
Q. You have done a fair amount of
work on the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and on the conjecture that the
Sarasvati did in fact exist, and that what has been known as the Indus
Valley Civilization in fact was on the banks of the Sarasvati River. Can
you elaborate on this? What new evidence has come to the fore?
A. Archaeological excavations have
confirmed that the Sarasvati river flowed down to the sea, parallel to
the Sindhu (Indus), before a major earthquake in about 1900 BC robbed it
of its two tributaries, the Satluj and the Yamuna, which were captured
by the Sindhu and the Ganga rivers. Since this river is praised as the
greatest river of the Rigvedic times, it is clear that the Rigved predates
1900 BC in the least.
There are other scholars who say
that 1900 BC only marks the final drying up of the Sarasvati, and it had
ceased to flow to the sea around 3000 BC. If that were to be the case,
the traditional chronology which dates the end of the Rigvedic period to
about 3000 BC is correct.
Q. I have read of a number of new
sites being excavated, including Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira, Balu, Banavali,
Bhagwanpura, Manda, Amri, Kunal... There is even some speculation that
Lothal-with its port and dry dock for large oceangoing ships-was the site
of the legendary Dwaraka that was submerged after an underwater earthquake
and resulting tidal wave.
A. Yes, an enormous amount of new
information is coming in from the new sites. We must not forget Mehrgarh
which goes back to about 8000 BC which was excavated in the late 70s. The
most exciting thing is that major sites of Ganweriwala and Rakhigarhi are
yet to be excavated. Could Lothal be the Dwaraka of the Mahabharata? It
is plausible, but we don't know for sure yet.
Q. You have also argued against
the Aryan Invasion Theory. What specific evidence has come to light recently?
A. There is absolutely no evidence
of a break in Indic tradition, going back 10,000 years. No break in ceramic
styles, artistic expression, skeletal remains, and so on. Now if you compare
that with regions that have suffered invasion, such as the Americas, you
will see a clear break in all these things. This apart, all the recent
iconographic finds confirm that key elements of what is generally called
Classical Hinduism were present in the Indus-Sarasvati civilization before
2500 BC. Examples are: ritual bathing, vermilion, bangles, conch-shells
in religious ritual, a buffalo-killing goddess, abstract symbolism, the
centrality of cattle in the economy.
Q. You have argued that the Aryan-Dravidian
divide simply doesn't exist, and that the superficial differences between
North and South India are overlaid on a unified cultural foundation.
A. The concept of an Aryan-Dravidian
divide is a byproduct of the racist discourse of the 19th century. It was
this racism that postulated a single language from which all modern languages
were derived. Linguists now acknowledge that there must have existed very
many language families in the past and what has survived represents complex
interactions between different peoples and languages, many of which have
left no trace. It is also being recognized that while by one reckoning
Sanskrit, Greek and Latin belong to a family; by another, Sanskrit and
Tamil and Telugu belong to another. Linguists are now talking of the concept
of a linguistic area and the whole of India is one such area.
Culturally, India shows great unity
as far back as we can go. If the art historian David Napier is right about
Greece having received a major artistic impulse from South India in the
2nd millennium BC, we find this unity to be at least 4000 years old. Remember
also that Tamilian kings in South India and Sri Lanka called themselves
Aryan. The word Aryan in Sanskrit simply means "cultured". There is a famous
slogan in Sanskrit saying "Make the whole world Aryan". The term "Aryan"
has nothing to do with race or language.
Q. One of the things you have mentioned
is the Gundestrup Cauldron (Scientific American, March 1992), something
that was unearthed in a peat bog in Denmark. Apparently it shows strong
evidence-Including goddess-images similar to Lakshmi and Hariti and a god-image
similar to Vishnu-of cross-cultural connections between Indic civilizations
and those of far northern Europe. You have also noted the apparent connections
between Celtic/Druidic pre-Christian cultures of Europe and Hindu practices.
Is this merely circumstantial evidence or does it prove conclusively that
there was a migration of peoples westward from India, rather than eastwards
into India (the Aryan Invasion Theory)?
A. There is whole lot of evidence
that proves that Indian ideas, if not people (that is apart from the Gypsies),
travelled from India to Europe. Indic people were apparently present in
Palestine, Turkey, Babylon in the 2nd millennium BC. The names of the ruling
dynasties of these places and some Sanskritic inscriptions tell us this.
The father of the beautiful Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt, was a king of the
Near East named Tusharatha or Dasharatha.
The Puranas also say an Indian tribe
called the Druhyus emigrated west. Whether they emigrated all the way to
Europe, we cannot say. What is likely to have happened is that an Indic
element became the political and religious aristocracy in many countries,
all the way up to Europe. This may also explain the parallels between Indian
and European mythology.
Q. What are the parallels between
Indian and European mythology?
A. We have these parallels at many
levels: in names and in the grammar of the myths. Let's begin with names.
There are two Rigvedic skygods, Varuna and Dyaus; the corresponding Greek
skygods are Ouranos and Zeus. Similar to Agni and Bhaga we have the Slavic
Ogun and Bogu. For Aryaman and Indra we have the Celtic Eremon and Andrasta;
Ribhu and Ushas are the Greek Orpheus and Eos. The list goes on and on,
and the most interesting thing is that the Vedic list is comprehensive
and we see parts of it remembered in different parts of Europe suggesting
that the Vedas are original to India.
The Vedic gods belong to three categories:
the terrestrial, the atmospheric, and the celestial, if we see them superficially,
as the Indologists of the 19th century saw them. In reality, they represent
categories in the spiritual firmament: they are shadows of the One. The
Europeans also saw their mythology in similar terms which is why when the
Greeks came to India they declared that Shiva and Krishna were like their
own Dionysius and Herakies.
There are still deeper connections,
and these have been examined by the scholar Georges Dumdzil in a series
of fascinating books in Rome, the rajbrahmin dichotomy of India was paralleled
by the rexflamen division. The injunctions to the flamen -the keeper of
the flame - are very similar to those to the brahmin. The gandharvas in
India had a shadowy role related to music and fecundity; in Rome this was
assigned to centaurs. Dumezil found enough parallels 'to fill five or six
books. Joseph Campbell, also wrote about these connections in his books,
as have many others.
After the Old Religion of Europe
was extinguished, Indian myths continued to influence Europe. From the
lives of Krishna and Buddha, a nascent Christianity adopted the stories
of miraculous conception and birth, the star over the birthplace, the twelve
disciples, and the various miracles. Parables such as that of the pious
disciple whose faith makes it possible to walk on water, or the story where
the Plaster feeds his numerous disciples with a single cake or bread were
borrowed. Medieval Christianity took some Indian Jataka tales and transformed
them into accounts of Christian saints. The most famous of such instances
is how a Buddha legend from the Lalitavistara became the story of Barlaam
and Josaphat!
Q. If there was no Aryan Invasion,
then what exactly happened to the Indus-Sarasvati civilization? A major
civilization that spread some thousands of square miles and was apparently
quite sophisticated cannot simply vanish.
A. It never vanished. There was
a shift of population after the economy around the Sarasvati river collapsed
due to the drying up of the river. People moved to the east and to the
northwest and to the south. There was no break in the cultural tradition.
The same ceramic styles continued. Only the level of prosperity went down.
The Vedic books also speak of a period-when the rishis went to the forests,
the age of the Aranyakas. The Puranic books speak of a catastrophe in 1900
BC.
Q. Your work in archaeo-astronomy
suggests unambiguously that the Max Mueller chronology of the Vedas must
be rejected and that the Rig Veda must be dated not to 1500 BC, but to
3000 BC. What is the impact of this?
Q. Well, if not 3000 BC, certainly
prior to 2000 BC. Max Mueller was absolutely wrong. What is the impact
of the new dates? It changes the history of ancient India and that of the
rest of the ancient world. It gives a centrality to India in world history.
Q. Your recent book with George
Feuerstein and David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (Quest
Books, Indian edition to be published by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi), suggests
that in fact India was the site of the very first civilization, not Sumer
in Iraq. If this is true, then India has not only the oldest continuous
and, surviving civilization, but in fact it is the birthplace of civilization.
Could you elaborate on this?
A. Look, India has had cultural
continuity for at least 10,000 years. Before that we had a rock-art tradition
which, according to some estimates, goes back to 40,000 BC. Not only are
we one of the most ancient civilizations, we have found in India the record
of the earliest astronomy, geometry, mathematics, and medicine. Artistic,
philosophical and religious impulses, central to the history of mankind,
arose first in India.
Q. You have done considerable research
on the structure of the fire altars in Scriptural ritual (The Astronomical
Code of the Rigveda, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi), and you have demonstrated
that there was a very formal and mathematical basis to the construction
of these. Could you explain?
A. Vedic Indians were scientific.
They believed in laws of nature. They represented their astronomy in terms
of the altar constructions. One problem they considered was that of the
synchronization of the lunar and the solar years: the lunar year is about
11 days shorter than the solar year and if we add a round number of days
every few years to make up for the discrepancy, we find we cannot do it
elegantly unless we have a Correction cycle of 95 years or its multiples.
This 95-year cycle is described in the earliest Vedic prose books.
The altars were to be built to slightly
larger dimensions each year of the cycle to represent the corrections.
There were other symbolic constructions. Like building a square altar (representing
the sky) with the same area as a circular altar (representing the earth),
which is the problem of squaring the circle. This led to the discovery
of the earliest geometry. They were aware that the sun and the moon were
at 108 times their own diameters from the earth.
Q. These fire altars are at this
time obsolete, right? Nobody uses them any more, or is that not so? The
only time I have heard of them before reading your work was when I read
of an impoverished Nambudiri (Kerala brahmin) family Whose illam or house
was being sold, and they had fire altars in the shape of a falcon, and
the old head of the household said this 5,000-yearold tradition was dying
because they couldn't afford the rituals any more.
A. It is a great pity that we are
letting our cultural and civilizational treasures die right before our
eyes. We must do whatever we can to preserve and celebrate this heritage.
Q. You have mentioned a connection,
apparently evident in the Vedas, between internal and external things-for
instance between the rhythms in the human body and astronomical cycles.
Could you elaborate?
A. A central, Vedic belief was
that there are connections between the outer and the inner. The rishis
declared that it was due to these connections that we are enabled to know
the world. One dramatic aspect of these connections is the biological cycles
which run the same periods as various astronomical cycles. For example,
the Purusha Hymn of the Rigveda says that the mind is born of the moon.
Just recently, by research on volunteers, who stayed in underground caves
for months without any watches or other cues about time, it was found that
the natural cycle for the mind is 24 hours and 50 minutes. The period of
the moon is also 24 hours and 50 minutes. Our clock is reset every day
by daylight!
The connections between the outer
and the inner were also represented by other symbols. The 108 sun diameters
from the earth to the sun were paralleled by the 108 beads of the rosary
for a symbolic spiritual journey from the normal state to one of illumination.
Q. I have read the book edited by
you and Dr TRN Rao (Computing Science in Ancient India, University of Southwestern
Louisiana Press) on some surprising mathematics: pi to many decimal places,
Sayana's accurate calculation of the speed of light, hashing algorithms,
the binary number system of Sanskrit meters - are these mere coincidences
or is there conclusive evidence of advanced mathematics?
A. The binary number system, hashing,
various codes, mathematical logic (Navya Nyaya), or a formal framework
that is equivalent to programming all arose in ancient India. This is all
well known and it is acknowledged by scholars all over the world. I shouldn't
forget to tell you that a most advanced calculus, math and astronomy arose
in Kerala several centuries before Newton.
Q. In particular, I am amazed, as
a layman, by the evidence that Sayana, 1300 CE, who was Prime Minister
at the court of the Vijayanagar Emperor Bukka I, calculated the speed of
light to be 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha, which does come to 186,536
miles per second.
A. Truly mind-boggling! The speed
of light was first measured in the West only in the late 17th century.
So how could the Indians have known it? If you are a skeptic, then you
will say it is a coincidence that somehow dropped out of the assumptions
regarding the solar system. If you are a believer in the powers of the
mind, you would say that it is possible to intuit (in terms of categories
that you have experienced before) outer knowledge. This latter view is
the old Indian knowledge paradigm. If it were generally accepted it would
mean an evolution in science much greater than the revolution of modern
physics.
Q. It is also well-known that the
Vedic or Puranic idea of the age of the universe is some 8 billion years,
which is of the order of magnitude of what has been estimated by modern
astrophysicists. Is this also a mere coincidence?
A. Again, either a coincidence,
or the rishis were capable of supernormal wisdom. Don't forget that the
Indian texts also speak about things that no other civilization thought
of until this century. I am speaking of air and space travel, embryo transplantation,
multiple births from the same embryo, weapons of mass destruction (all
in the Mahabharata), travel through domains where time is slowed, other
galaxies and universes, potentials very much like quantum potential (Puranas).
If nothing else, we must salute the rishis for the most astonishing and
uncanny imagination.
Q. You also suggest that the modern
computer science term for context-free languages, the Backus-Naur Form,
should more accurately be called the Panini-Backus Form, since Sanskrit
grammarian Panini invented the notion of completely and unambiguously defined
grammars (and devised one such for Sanskrit) as early as about 500 BC.
A. Oh yes, all this is well established
and well known, as also the Indian development of mathematical logic.
Q. How has the reaction been in
scholarly circles to some of these discoveries and conjectures of yours,
which do turn conventional wisdom-on its head? In India, you are aware,
some of your views would have you branded as "reactionary", "Hindu fundamentalist",
etc.
A. My work has been received most
enthusiastically in scholarly articles both in the West and India. I have
written several scores of scholarly articles and reviews and am in the
process of writing major essays for leading encyclopaedias. School texts
in California and other American states have been rewritten. Likewise,
new college texts in toe US speak of these new findings. We are talking
here of hard scientific facts, they can neither be "fundamentalist" nor
"reactionary". But I am aware that some ignorant ideologues in India may
actually pin pejorative labels on this work. This only creates opportunities
to bring facts to the attention of such people. I am ever hopeful of converting
more and more people!
Q. How has your work in the history
of science affected your research in computing science?
A. Surprisingly, it has strengthened
my technical work. It has provided me a focus and a perspective. It has
also given me the courage to work on fundamental problems.
Q. What do you attribute this to?
Is this because it is a matter of self-image? Indians have always been
self-effacing, and perhaps not believing in themselves much?
A. Self-image is a central factor
in our development. We eventually become what we want to become. We need
faith in ourselves. That is why a cultural focus is so crucial. I think
our current self-effacement is a result of the negative stereotyping we
have experienced for generations. Our schoolbooks talk about Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle - and rightly so - but they don't mention Yajnavalkya,
Panini and Patanjali, which is a grave omission. Our grand boulevards in
Delhi and other cities are named after Copernicus, Kepler and Newton, but
there are no memorials to Aryabhata, Bhaskara, Madhava and Nilakantha!
Q. Is self-image, then, sufficient
reason for us to explore the past?
A. It could be a sufficient reason
for some. For others, it is one of the many impulses that guides them in
their personal journeys.
Q. Is there something that your
Web readers can do to take some of this research forward? Any references
or other suggestions?
A. There is so much to be done
to spread the knowledge of Indian history. For at least 50 years, Indian
intellectual life was stifled by a Stalinist attitude. And before that,
for two centuries, colonialist historians appropriated Indian past for
their own purposes. What they left for us was a mutilated version of our
past. We are barely emerging from that hell. We need more people to actively
carry forward this research. We also need institutions private foundations,
perhaps-that ensure that our historiography will remain vital, critical
and devoted to truth.
Q. Any messages from you for your
diasporic readers?
A. Pay attention to Indian and
world history, there is much to be learned from the past. Also go to the
spring wells of Indian tradition, you'll find great treasure. Indian ideas
provided central themes to the American transcendentalists in the early
19th century which led to American culture as we know it. I believe even
more vital Indian ideas will transform world culture in the coming decades,
and if you choose to be the interpreters of these ideas to the modern world
you would have participated in the most wonderous drama of our times!
