decolonising math and science education - ghadar jari hai math and science education jiba jiva...

Vol. VIII, No. 3, July-Sept 2014

Ghadar Jari HaiContribution Rs 25/-For private circulation only

The Revolt Continues

Decolonising Math and Science Education

Jiba

Jiva

Zeroism

Brahmagupta

Sulbasutra

Al Ghazali

Sunyavada

Blaise Pascal

Blaise PascalPierre de Fermat

Pierre de FermatGalileo

GalileoDescartes

Descartes

All opinions expressed in this issue are those of the authors (s) and do not necessarily represent the views held by the publisher. Any part of this issue may be translated or reprinted with due acknowledgement to Ghadar Jari Hai.

Address all your editorial correspondence to S Raghavan Email: [email protected]

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Cover:James Kutty

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Editorial PolicyGhadar Jari Hai is a platform for discussing Indian solutions to problems facing India. It is focused on understanding Indian history, philosophy and economic, political and other fields of knowledge, without the jaundiced eye of Eurocentrism.

All serious views, of whatever hue, are welcome as long as the author substantiates his/her argument and does not indulge in labeling, name-calling and ridicule. We are particularly interested in unraveling pre-British India and the changes brought about through British rule, since the colonial legacy continues to bear great significance for present-day Indian society. We believe that no shade of opinion has a monopoly over the truth and that if we all collaborate in this endeavour, we are quite capable of arriving at insights and solutions to our problems, much as our ancestors did. We seek to publish well-researched articles in various fields, which are communicative at the same time and do not indulge in excessive technical jargon.

1Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. VIII No. 3, 2014

Contents

Editorial 3

Perspectives

Decolonising Math and Science Education C. K. Raju 5

Letters to the Editor 2

Jewels of India

The Siddhars of Tamil Nadu 13

Events 19

Sanskriti

Duryodhana: The Ignored One Srinath Raghavan 17

2 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. VIII No. 3, 2014

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Kudos to the entire GJH team for bringing out yet another super-informative and inspiring edition! I always look forward to the articles with Indian perspectives on math and science since mainstream academia is in the thrall of Western theories and refuses to acknowledge the lion's contribution of India to the foundations and development of math and science. The article by Shailaja Sharma on "Indian Mathematics and the Tradition of Enquiry in India" is great as it posits traditional Indian knowledge systems as relevant and in fact, says that it is necessary to understand these systems to better apply math in our daily lives. And ancient Indian scholars had developed advanced mathematical theories right up to 500 AD including curved surface geometry which Descartes pronounced "impossible" to do a thousand years later. This shows the arrogance of Western thought which unjustly overlooks proven theories and highlights the Eurocentric bias and lack of scientific temper in math and science! The ancient Indian mathematicians conducted math in a practical manner and applied it in real life unlike the Westem mathematicians who confounded math with religion. The article provides a wealth of information and points many of us interested readers to sources which we can use for self-study to shake off and unlearn our taught Western biases!

Best Regards,Nirmala, New Delhi.

Dear Editor,

Like every issue before, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the latest issue. I especially liked the cover story on Self-appointed Trustee of Natural Resources. The author has very beautifully brought out the way in which the Indian state uses laws and it's mandate as a trustee of the vast lands of the country to benefit big corporations and assist the loot and plunder of the land in country, all this resulting in not only misuse and exhaustion of the resources, but displacement and alienation of entire peoples. People who have so far lived in harmony with their surroundings, mainly taking only as much as they need and ensuring habits and customs that give back to the environment. In comparison to them, the unsound and rapid pace at which the big corporations use up natural resources and then through back waste is extremely scary needless to say concern worthy. Then the underplaying of this illogical and profit driven agenda in the media is another issue.

It is good to note that the author talks of breaking away from the present framework which allows for such plunder and presents the need for a new framework, which takes in account the needs and aspirations of the people and not big corporate houses.

Deepa SinghJalandar, Punjab


Editorial

From the times of Macaulay till today, we Indians have been told that western education is the pathway to success. We have

been constantly reminded of the superiority of western maths and science. Unfortunately many Indians blindly imitate the West and when Western authority is challenged, they react in an insular and ignorant manner. The cover story in this issue tries to critically re-examine the history of western mathematics and science. In a thought provoking contribution C K Raju, who has deeply studied cultural foundations of mathematics and has thrown new light on the practicalities in Indian mathematical tradition and also non secular Christian theological connections with foundations of European Mathematics, explains how a truly universal mathematics and science can be taught in our universities.

In the evolution of philosophical traditions of Tamil Nadu there is considerable literature on Nayanars and

Alwars who pioneered the Bhakti movement but very little is known about another trend – that of Siddhas. These early-age wandering saints have contributed a lot to our medicine, science and literature. We carry an article in this issue to get an overview of Siddhas.

A young contributor Srinath, has questioned the traditional popular narrative of Mahabharat where Duryodhana is painted in black while Pandavas are painted as paragons of virtue. He finds gray as the leitmotif of the main characters of Mahabharat as life itself is gray rather than black and white.

In the Events section we have reproduced a letter to Ghadar Jari Hai by the Late Prof U R Ananthamurthy where he philosophically points out that “renewal of the people of an ancient nation like ours lies in neither rejecting the past, nor in reviving the past, nor in entirely manipulating our future as we desire it in our immediate greed”. n

The problem of quality articles still besets us and leads to irregularity in the production of the magazine as the editorial board awaits a well-researched cover story to build an issue around. Our website (www.ghadar.in) is however constantly being updated with news and views and has a steady stream of visitors from all over the world.

Illustration of Brahmagupta situated (Source: google images)


Perspectives

Decolonising Math and Science EducationC. K. Raju

From Macaulay until today, the need for Western education has been justified on the grounds

of science. The fact, however, is that most Western-educated people today know little or nothing of mathematics or science (as I have repeatedly demonstrated in public meetings). What they mostly learn is to blindly imitate the West, with the belief that the West is superior, and to accept Western authority. When Western authority is challenged, they typically react in an insular way: they attack the critic in broad generic terms (“Hindu nationalist”, “Islamic fundamentalist”), misrepresent the critique in coarse ways (“don’t reject everything Western” etc.) or just adopt a “superior” air and avoid addressing the critique altogether. This combination of ignorance and insularity is not accidental: both are desirable qualities in a Christian missionary who is required to preserve and propagate the most absurd beliefs. Indeed, for two centuries, the proponents of Western education have conveniently overlooked the fact that the Western university system

was designed to produce missionaries ever since its inception during the Crusades, and that design objective persisted during subsequent centuries of control bu the church.1

Hence, for the last several years of the decolonisation movement, I have publicly2 and repeatedly made clear that my demand is for a critical re-examination of Western mathematics and science. However, because of their ignorance (about mathematics and science), superstition (about Western superiority) and insularity (to any critique), as required of an ideal missionary, thsae Western educated seem incapable of such a critical re-examination; nor can they accept the critique. Hence, they are just paralysed into inaction, like animals in a circus are paralysed by the ringmaster.

Now, from Kant3 to Macaulay, the argument for Western superiority was premised on a false history of science (this history should be correctly termed as Christian triumphalist history, not euphemistically a Eurocentric

account). However, leave alone a re-examination of math and science per se, even a critical re-examination of its history seems as painful a process to the Western indoctrinated as asking astrologers to re-examine astrology. Hence, in the spirit of Kovoor’s challenge prize to astrologers, I instituted a challenge prize of Rs two lakhs for historians several years ago'4 just to expose their blind beliefs about the history of science. According to the Western history of mathematics, (“real”) mathematics began with Euclid.5 My challenge prize is offered for any serious evidence that Euclid existed. Needless to say, the prize stands unclaimed, but our school texts remain changed since authority, not evidence, is the sole basis of Western history.

The other related story is that the book Elements (which “Euclid” supposedly wrote, but which does not mention his name) was the first to articulate the understanding that “real” mathematics concerns metaphysical (“deductive”) proof.6 Now, books are usually written

1 C. K .Raju, “Education as Counter-revolution”, Frontier Weekly 46 (2013). http://www.frontierweekly.com/articles/vol-46/46-7/46-7-Decolonising%20 Hard%20Sciences.html. This is an edited version. The original version was also published in the same weekly earlier, and is posted at http://ckraju.net/papers/Education-and-counter-revolution.pdf.

2 C. K. Raju, “Be critical: choose what is best”, The Sun, Malaysia, 29 Aug 2011, p. 16. Clip posted at http://ckraju.net/press/2011/the-Sun-29-Aug-2011-p16-clipping-ckr-response.gif.

3 Immanuel Kant, “Of National Characteristics, so far as They Depend upon the Distinct Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime”, in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991, pp. 110–1.

4 For a re-announcement of this prize in the presence of the then Malaysian Deputy Minister of Higher Education, see the video, “Goodbye Euclid”. (Links and other details are posted at http://ckraju.net/blog/?p=63.) This prize was naturally preceded by years of attempts to persuade insular West-ern scholars, as described in C. K. Raju, Euclid and Jesus, Multiversity, 2013.

5 E.g. W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics, Dover, New York,1960, pp. 1–2.6 E.g. Rouse Ball, cited above.


7 For a book-length elaboration of the very likely possibility that “Euclid” was a black woman who lived in Africa in the 5th c. CE and wrote the book Ele-ments to defend her “pagan” faith against violent attacks by Christians, and who was hence raped and brutally killed in a church, see C. K. Raju, Euclid and Jesus: How and why the church changed mathematics and Christianity across two religious wars, Multiversity, 2013.

8 For full details, see C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson Longman, 2007. (Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, vol. X.4.). For a simplified account, see Euclid and Jesus,cited above. For an online account, see e.g. C. K. Raju, “Towards Equity in Math Education 1. Good-Bye Euclid!”, Bharatiya Samajik Chintan 7 (4) (New Series) (2009) pp. 255–264. http://ckraju.net/papers/MathEducation1Euclid.pdf.

9 C. K. Raju, “Euclid and Hilbert”, chp. in Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, cited above. For an easy account, see Euclid and Jesus, cited above.10 Proclus, Commentary (falsely translated title: A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements), trans. Glenn R. Morrow, Princeton University

Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1970, Prologue part 2, p. 37.11 Plato, Meno, in Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, 1996, pp. 179–180.12 C. K. Raju, “The curse on ‘cyclic’ time”, chp. 2 in The Eleven Pictures of Time, Sage, 2003.

in response to prevailing social circumstances, so if a different author wrote the Elements at a different time, it could well have been for different reasons.7 Accordingly, we need to set aside the story, and examine the book afresh to see what it actually says. Now, the most superficial reading of the Elements brings out the fact, totally contrary to the Western myth, that its very first proposition uses an empirical proof (as does the key 4th proposition). In an amazing display of long-term mass gullibility, not a single Western scholar noticed this conflict between story and fact for seven centuries after the Crusades when the Elements first came to Europe (ca.1125 CE). This despite the fact that this book was very widely read, for it became a standard text for Christian rational theologians (schoolmen).

Even more amusing is what Western scholars did when they finally did notice that story was incompatible with fact. Instead of rejecting as balderdash the whole Crusading fabrication of Euclid and his supposedly special philosophy of mathematics (aligned to Christian theology), Bertrand Russell et al. tried to “save the story”. (It is a well known principle of the philosophy of science that any story/theory, howsoever far-fetched, can always

be “saved” from any counter-evidence for any length of time by piling on the hypotheses: every fact can be countered with a new hypothesis. This is a principle that theologians frequently use to defend all sorts of fantastic beliefs.) Russell accepted on blind faith the story of Euclid and his purported intentions, and argued that facts could just as well be explained by adding the hypothesis that Euclid had made a serious mistake in executing those intentions! Euclid apparently slipped up in the very first proposition! So, Russell et al. removed it from the book, thus amending fact to fit story in the manner of metaphysicians. Further, in their respective tomes on the foundations of geometry, at the turn of the 20th century., both Russell and Hilbert replaced the key 4th proposition of the Elements (which uses an empirical proof) by a postulate (SAS postulate).8 (Hilbert’s synthetic geometry does not work beyond proposition 35, but more hypotheses can be piled on, and that is another story.9)

In the spirit of teaching to blindly ape the “superior” West, that is how we have been teaching geometry in our school texts since about the 1970’s! After all, it has never happened in all of history that our colonised educators applied basic common sense to stand up against

something (anything) accepted in the West. Indeed, the whole of the present-day formalist philosophy of mathematics is built around that absurd story of Euclid and his supposedly special understanding of mathematics as metaphysics, a story which is dear to the post-Crusade church but contrary to all available evidence. I emphasise that the issue is not just a story: that religiously biased metaphysics damages the practical applications of mathematics to science and technology.

Indeed, the religious roots of Western mathematics, are obvious to all except those blinded by Western education. Proclus, the first historical commentator on the Elements, in his commentary, derives mathematics from mathesis,10 and, like Socrates, in Plato’s Meno,11 explains the religious function of mathematics in arousing the soul from its forgetfulness of past lives, saying mathematics thus “leads to the blessed life”. The related notion of the soul and its past lives was, however, cursed by the Church, during its war with “pagans”,12 culminating in the 6th century Church ban on all philosophy and mathematics.

Later, when its Crusades against Islam failed militarily, the Church needed a tool to persuade Muslims.

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Perspectives

To this end, like a chameleon, it changed its own theology to Christian rational theology, copied and adapted from Islamic rational theology (Aql-i-kalam). To hide this real process of mimicking the religious enemy, the Church concocted Euclid to claim ownership of reason, through its “friends”, the early Greeks. The Church also “reinterpreted” Egyptian mystery geometry the way it had earlier “retold” the mystery of Isis as Iesu: where Proclus saw reason as a means to arouse the soul, the church reinterpreted “universal” reason as concerned solely with persuasion or “irrefragable proof” (which is what it then needed to achieve its political ambitions). Leading Western thinkers, even those opposed to the church, like Newton or Russell, fell easy victims to this potent mix.

The real history of (practical, non-religious) mathematics is startlingly different. The Greek and Roman incomprehension of all but the simplest fractions is manifest from their crude and primitive system of numerals (with no notation for fractions) and the way they abjectly failed to maintain the calendar they copied, with scant understanding, from the Egyptians. Despite Julian reform, Roman incapacity to even articulate the length of the year desynchronised the Easter ritual, within a century of the Nicene council, leading to the

Hilari(o)us calendar reforms which failed. Even in the 16th century, during the Gregorian reform, Clavius could not state the length of the year as a fraction, but articulated it through a complex system of leap years. (Amusingly, we still use that grossly inferior Roman/Gregorian ritual calendar as our national calendar on the superstitious belief that everything Western is superior and secular. Our national festivals, supposedly secular, are defined only on that Christian ritual calendar.)

When Indian numerals first arrived in Christian Europe in the 10th century., from Cordoba, via the Hisab Al Hind of al Khwarizmi (“Algorismus”) of Baghdad, the infallible Pope who also happened to be the leading Western mathematician of the time, fundamentally misunderstood them. Accustomed to the abacus (and having written a tome on it), he amusingly arranged for the construction of a special abacus for “Arabic numerals”.13 This, of course, defeated the whole purpose of efficient arithmetics through “algorithms”. It took the Europeans at least five centuries (probably closer to eight) to fully abandon the abacus/exchequer, jetons (counting pieces), tally sticks and the like.

Like the word zero (derived from sifr = cipher, meaning mysterious code), the very names tell the same hilarious story of

persistent European perplexity with the mathematics it imported. Thus, √2 is today called a “surd”, which derives from the Latin surdus, meaning deaf. Why is √2 deaf? This is a typical translation howler, arising from the 12th century Toledan mass translations of Arabic books. In the sulba sutra-s, square roots were computed using the diagonal of a square; for example, √2 is the diagonal of the unit square. The Sanskrit word for diagonal, karna, also means ear, so “bad diagonal” was mistranslated as “bad ear”, hence deaf! Another such howler is the word sine from Latin sinus, being a translation of the Arabic jaib, meaning pocket. What, after all, does trigonometry have to do with one's pocket? The actual term is the Arabic jiba (misread as jaib by the Mozharab and Jewish translators of Toledo). That, in turn, derives from the vernacular jiva, from the Sanskrit jya meaning chord. Zero, surd, and sine are just three examples (not counting the Pope's apices). The list of these European blunders about imported mathematics goes on.

These linguistic blunders were accompanied by conceptual confusion: jya or chord manifestly relates to the circle, the triangle is incidental, so trigonometry is better called circle-metry, and teaching it thus makes it a lot clearer and easier as I have demonstrated. Nevertheless, the

8 For full details, see C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson Longman, 2007. (Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, vol. X.4.). For a simplified account, see Euclid and Jesus,cited above. For an online account, see e.g. C. K. Raju, “Towards Equity in Math Education 1. Good-Bye Euclid!”, Bharatiya Samajik Chintan 7 (4) (New Series) (2009) pp. 255–264. http://ckraju.net/papers/MathEducation1Euclid.pdf.

9 C. K. Raju, “Euclid and Hilbert”, chp. in Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, cited above. For an easy account, see Euclid and Jesus, cited above.10 Proclus, Commentary (falsely translated title: A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements), trans. Glenn R. Morrow, Princeton University

Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1970, Prologue part 2, p. 37.11 Plato, Meno, in Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, 1996, pp. 179–180.12 C. K. Raju, “The curse on ‘cyclic’ time”, chp. 2 in The Eleven Pictures of Time, Sage, 2003.13 For an image of the pope’s apices from a manuscript of 976 CE, see Euclid and Jesus, cited above, Fig. 11.1, p. 119.


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indoctrinated colonised mind has so touching a faith in the West that Sam Pitroda, the chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, declared against me that the only way to teach trigonometry was to follow the Massive Open Online Courses (MIT MOOC).

The difference between circle-metry and trigonometry is highly non-trivial for the circle is a curved line, unlike a triangle which only involves straight lines. This is clear from what happened when the Indian calculus first arrived in Europe. While Fermat and Pascal enthusiastically accepted it, Galileo dithered, and Descartes pompously declared in his Geometry14 that the ratios of curved and straight lines were “beyond the capacity of the human mind”, presumably meaning the European mind with which he was familiar. The problem which perplexed the European mind was this: the ratio of the circumference of a circle (curved line) to its diameter (a straight line) is the number today denoted by the Greek letter π. This involves an infinite series, as in 3.14159... = 3+1/10+4/100+.., and was expressed in the imported Indian texts using various infinite series, such as the infinite series today wrongly named the “Leibniz series”.15 Europeans had barely begun to use “practical” arithmetic (introduced in the Jesuit syllabus only since ca. 1572), so they naturally failed to understand how to carry out such an infinite sum. Descartes naively thought that carrying out an infinite sum would take an eternity of time. This was complemented by his belief, deeply

influenced by the Western religious view of mathematics as “perfect” and “eternal truth”, that summing only a finite number of terms, howsoever many, though adequate for all practical purposes, was not “perfect”, hence not mathematics. To reiterate, Descartes’ confusion essentially arose from his superstitious belief in mathematics as “perfect” or eternal truth. Descartes and Galileo are hardly isolated examples: this confusion about infinity, intertwined with the Western theological notion of eternity, seems to be eternally recurrent in Western thought since the first creationist controversy over eternity raised by John Philoponus contra Proclus.

The West never overcame this confusion about infinity: but if we set aside Western theology, the sum of an infinite series is conceptually simple with zeroism or sunyavada. In fact, in the language of Brahmagupta, Indians used “unexpressed fractions”, which would be described in formalist mathematics as rational functions. This corresponds to doing calculus using numbers which form a non-Archimedean field. (This is different from university-text calculus which uses formal reals which form an Archimedean field.) In a non-Archimedean field, limits are not unique, and infinitesimals must be discarded in a manner similar (but not identical) to everyday rounding. No one in the West has yet contemplated this possibility, though non-Archimedean fields do arise at an intermediate stage in non-standard analysis. Thus, despite typical bombast about the

superiority and “rigour” of limits, the fact is that limits ensure nothing worthwhile except to promote that sense of superiority which characterises Christian triumphalist history from Orosius to Toynbee. In fact, contrary to the myth of progress, the current Western understanding of mathematics and calculus is a very clear case of regress.

Thus, there is no way in the calculus, as taught in university texts today, to differentiate a discontinuous function. However, the “laws of physics” are formulated as differential equations of some sort, and discontinuities do arise in the simplest cases, such as shock waves. (In cases, like the general theory of relativity, there is not even any way to shift to a statistical mechanics of atoms, for there is no such covariant statistical mechanics, and no such atomic description of matter in general relativity.) The Schwartz theory of distributions provides an inadequate remedy: while it allows discontinuous functions to be differentiated, it is a linear theory which does not allow distributions to be multiplied, and this multiplication is necessary since partial differential equations of physics are non-linear.

Thus, all the centuries-old attempts by Western mathematicians to understand calculus from Newton’s fluxions to Schwartz distributions have resulted only in an inferior product, which merely introduces enormous and needless complexities, as in present-day school and university mathematics, and hinders the practical application of mathematics to science. Under the

14 R. Descartes, The Geometry, trans. D. Eugene and M. L. Latham, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chiacago 1996, Book 2, p. 544.15 E.g. Yuktidipika, 2.271; Karanapaddhati VI, 1. For an elaboration, see Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, chp. 3 cited earlier (p. 168).


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influence of a false history of science, accompanied by foolish arguments from Kant to Macaulay, the colonised mind has mistaken an inferior product for a superior one. Hence, I have long been advocating a critical re-examination of current university mathematics, both its philosophy and pedagogy, not a compromise to preserve its bad philosophy by blaming its pedagogy. To reiterate, the difficulties of present-day mathematics only reflect European difficulties in understanding imported mathematics, because of their bad and theology-laden philosophy of mathematics, which must first be abandoned. However, as already stated, what stands in the way of a change is the indoctrinated (and bribed) colonised minds resulting from Western education. Neither they nor their masters can answer the above objections; nor are they willing to admit the truth of Western inferiority, and false history. Hence, their silence has been resounding in the last decade. It is a typical con-trick of theologians to pretend to meet an unanswerable objection by maintaining a “superior” silence.

Indeed, this Western confusion about the metaphysics of infinity/eternity (and the related metaphysics of “causality”) permeates every aspect of science from quantum

mechanics, and the renormalisation problem of quantum field theory to general relativity and cosmology. As already stated, Stephen Hawking’s creationism (through his singularity theory) derives from a similar confusion about infinity as something terrifying, for a singularity is nothing but an infinity of some sort, as I have repeatedly explained earlier.16

Eliminating Christian superstitions from science is important for the future of science.17 However, the above examples involve technicalities beyond most professional physicists and mathematicians. Therefore, a less technical example may be in order. Thus, for most people, the first lesson in serious science in school begins with Newton’s “laws”. Now, why are they called “laws”? How do we know that there are any “laws”? This belief in the “laws of nature” first arose as a Christian superstition, when the Crusading theologian Aquinas, laid down in his Summa Theologica18 that his god ruled the world with eternal laws. This superstition was politically motivated, as I have explained elsewhere.19 (Note also that one must discriminate between eternal and inflexible “laws” versus habits, as in Islam, or regularities or rta, for the latter can be broken, as I have also explained elsewhere.20) The immediate point here, however,

is that this superstitious belief went straight from Christian theology into science.

But, is the belief scientific? Let us apply Popper’s criterion, for example. Is there a way to refute this belief in the eternal “laws of nature”? Does the refutation of “Newton’s laws” refute the belief? If so, does it stand refuted? Or can we hang on to the belief and argue that it was Newton who failed, not the belief? (Remember Euclid?) If so, it is irrefutable. Whether refuted, or irrefutable, it is unscientific in either case.

Indeed, the belief that the future is decided from the past through the “laws of nature” is contrary to our most basic mundane experience that we decide a tiny bit of the future, an experience repeated thousands of times each day by billions of people around the world, and therefore far more reliable than experiments in high-energy physics costing billions of dollars, which cannot therefore be readily replicated. This observation (“mundane causality”) is fundamentally opposed to the belief (“mechanical causality”) that the future is decided from the past by “laws of nature”.21

Nevertheless, this Christian superstition about the “laws of nature” has been repeatedly used to attack Islam as unscientific,

16 C. K. Raju, The Eleven Pictures of Time, cited earlier. 17 See, “De-theologising physics”, part 3 of The Eleven Pictures of Time, cited earlier.18 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First part of the Second Part, 91,1, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2091.htm. 19 C. K. Raju, “Benedict’s maledicts”, Zmag, http://zcommunications.org/benedicts-maledicts-by-c-k-raju, and http://ckraju.net/papers/Benedicts-Male-

dicts-by-c-k-rjau.pdf. Reprinted in Indian Journal of Secularism, 10(3) (2006) pp. 79-90.20 For the difference between laws and habits, see C. K. Raju, “Islam and science”, Keynote address at International Conference on Islam and Multicul-

turalism: Islam, Modern Science and Technology, Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, 5-6 Jan 2013, http://www.ckraju.net/hps-aiu/Islam-and-Science-kl-paper.pdf. In Islam and Multiculturalism: Islam, Modern Science, and Technology, ed. Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, and Or-ganizatoin for Islamic Area Studies, Waseda University, Japan, 2013, pp. 1-14. For the difference between laws and rta, see minutes of the discussion posted at http://ckraju.net/usm/PSc-minutes.html.

21 C. K. Raju, “Mundane time”, chp.8 in Time: Towards a Consistent Theory, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, 1994. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol. 65.


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and particularly al Ghazali, as I have explained elsewhere.22 On the contrary, it is science which must be modified to eliminate this superstition, as I have already done. However, because of the rigidly enforced Church tradition of “authorised knowledge”, it seems beyond the capacity of the Western-educated mind to understand anything, even science, except as “authorised knowledge”. (Specifically, scientific knowledge today is required to be authorised through the traditional Church system of secretive review, the value of which is farcically ranked by the authority which selects the reviewers.)23 Unable to refute, and unwilling to confirm, these hapless minds are waiting indefinitely, like a computer which hangs, and needs to be booted afresh or junked.

To summarise, the belief that the West is superior, and hence must be imitated, is a result of Christian triumphalist history that all science is the work of Christians and their friends the early Greeks. This history was initially fabricated during the Crusades to justify the mass Latin translation of Arabic books from the Muslim religious enemy and to claim that the knowledge in those books was actually of Greek origin, hence a Christian inheritance. This false history developed during the Inquisition when people (e.g. Copernicus) were too frightened to acknowledge their

22 “Islam and science”, cited above.23 C. K. Raju, “Benchmarking science: a critique of the ISI (Thomson-Reuters) index”, USM-Prince Songkla Univ. conference, Hat Yai, Oct, 2011, http://

ckraju.net/papers/Benchmarking-science-paper.pdf.24 C. K. Raju, Is Science Western in origin?, Multiversity, Penang, Daanish books, Delhi, 2009. Reprint Other India Bookstore, Goa, 2014.25 C. K. Raju, “Math wars and the epistemic divide in mathematics”, chp. 8 in Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, cited above. An earlier version was

presented at Episteme-1, Homi Bhabha Centre, Mumbai, 2005, http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/episteme/episteme-1/allabs/rajuabs.pdf, and http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/episteme1/themes/ckraju_finalpaper.

26 “Math wars and the epistemic divide in mathematics”,cited above27 For a detailed non-technical account, see The Eleven Pictures of Time, cited earlier.

non-Christian sources.24 It then took off with the help of racist and colonial historians. The resulting belief that mathematics and science are Western in origin is contrary to the merest common sense: if mathematics and science represent universal knowledge, they must have originated in the same way everywhere. If not, then culturally specific features may need to be eliminated, since non-universal and inferior (what may be properly called “Western”) mathematics and science is marked by an intrusion of church theology. This intrusion was natural, for the Church dominated the minds of Western men for over a thousand years, in the way that Church steeples dominated the European landscape.

As regards practical mat hematics, the real history is that most school mathematic (arithmetic, algebra, “trigonometry”, calculus) went from India to Europe, first via the Arabs and then directly in the 16th century Europeans failed to understand this imported mathematics, and the foremost European minds made many amusing blunders, especially about zero and infinite series. European blunders about zero arose because of the primitive Greek/Roman system of enumeration, as reflected in the Greek/Roman calendar, and it took Europeans five centuries to overcome those difficulties.25

European blunders about the Indian infinite series are more

serious, and persist to this day. They arose because Europeans wrongly tried to put together two streams of imported mathematics: a religious one they imported from Egypt via the Greeks (but attributed to fictitious Greeks like “Euclid”), and a practical one imported from India.26 Europeans failed to reconcile these two distinct streams of mathematics: they tried and failed to make practical mathematics “perfect”. That is, the mathematics re-exported during colonialism was merely an inferior and complexified version of the mathematics that Europe imported earlier over the preceding thousand years. Critically re-examining this possibility or accepting the possibility of Western inferiority is traumatic for the colonised mind.

However, the repercussions of inferior Western mathematics are obvious in science: for example, Newton’s physics failed just because Newton made time metaphysical, and he did that because he wanted to make calculus perfect, for he believed that “God wrote the eternal laws of nature in the perfect language of mathematics”. The superstitious belief in “laws of nature” began as a Crusading Christian superstition, articulated by Aquinas, before creeping into science (as in “Newton’s laws”). Similarly, today we have Stephen Hawking’s creationist pseudo-science of singularities.27 The perennial Western attempt to


understand infinity in relation to the Christian (post-Nicene) notion of eternity leads to various other problems in physics today, as I have elaborated elsewhere.28

So, what is the solution? Clearly to obtain a truly universal mathematics and science, we must first overthrow Western authoritative control of our education system and through it, the control of our minds. Second, as a secular country, we are constitutionally bound to teach religiously neutral mathematics,29 irrespective of how the West teaches it, for we are not constitutionally bound to imitate the West. As for those comprador elements (“experts”) who help the West control the system by advocating such imitation, under no circumstance should they be allowed to operate secretively from behind closed doors as they do today. These “experts” must be forced to function transparently, by publicly declaring any conflict of interests; they must openly defend their recommendations in public space; else they must be forcefully ejected to end this system of Western rule by colonised proxies. Further, ordinary people too must be consulted on education; that consultation is not a just a matter of inviting the public to comment in a comments box which functions like a black hole: objections must be publicly answered.

If we reject Western education in mathematics and science, what

exactly do we replace it with? Is there a ready alternative? We have to recognise that this is a major challenge. Even in countries in which there were revolutionary changes of governments, such as the former Soviet Union, there was no accompanying cultural revolution. The counter-revolutionary force of Western education30 therefore prevailed in the long run, and those revolutions hence failed. An interesting current instance is Iran where, despite a three-decade old agenda to change the education system, despite shutting down universities for some time, and despite full state support, no major change could be brought about, and Western education still prevails. Needless to say, the Western educated still represent the strongest counter-revolutionary force in the system.

However, a change in the teaching of mathematics is feasible, as I have demonstrated in teaching experiments31 using alternative curricula, especially in “trigonometry” and calculus, using a different philosophy of mathematics called zeroism. (This is just sunyavada, but, since 2007, this is called zeroism to emphasise that the important issue is the practical benefits of that philosophy, and not fidelity to the texts of Nagarjuna.) This also allows number systems to be developed in a natural way, using ostensive definitions (as a matter of

philosophy not merely pedagogy). Because acceptance of empirical inputs makes the whole subject much easier and more intuitive, it is very easy to extend this to all K-12 mathematics. Because zeroism is naturally adapted to computational mathematics, this can also be extended, in a straightforward way to most practical applications of higher mathematics, which invariably involve computation.

The major hindrances are our mathematics “experts”: those whom the ignorant regard as knowledgeable on the strength of Western certificates of approval. These “experts” are unwilling

28 For a quick summary see the table in my Tehran talk 2014, posted at http://ckraju.net/papers/presentations/decolonizing-mathematics.pdf.29 See, the “Petition to teach religiously neutral mathematics” which has now gathered the requisite 50 signatures, http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/

teach-religiously-neutral-mathematics. Also, http://ckraju.net/blog/?p=94.30 Education as counter-revolution” cited earlier.31 C. K. Raju, “Teaching mathematics with a different philosophy. 1: Formal mathematics as biased metaphysics.” Science and Culture, 77 (2011) (7-8)

pp. 274-79. http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/July-aug-2011/03%20C%20K%20Raju.pdf. “Teaching mathematics with a different philosophy. 2: Calculus without limits.” Science and Culture, 77 (2011) (7-8) pp. 280-86. http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/July-aug-2011/04%20C%20K%20Raju2.pdf.

Perspectives

Clearly to obtain a truly universal

mathematics and science, we must first

overthrow Western authoritative control of our

education system and through it,

the control of our minds


to recognise (or discuss) the possibility that a non-Western philosophy of mathematics can actually be superior to the Western misunderstanding of mathematics that they learnt to blindly imitate on the strength of some unexamined stories. They are unwilling to accept that the goal of doing mathematics and science must be practical benefit to the people of the country, not earning the goodwill of this or that authoritative Western mathematician or scientist. Likewise, the value of mathematics must come from its practical benefits, and not idle talk of its aesthetic or spiritual benefits which should be rejected as a crude con-trick: for, while I have no difficulty in appreciating the original Egyptian mystery geometry, I object strongly to its ugly reinterpretation by the Crusading Church, as propagated

through the Western education system. (And it is manifest that for millions of students in our education system, mathematics is a nightmare not an aesthetic experience.)

The solution is to change the “experts” not just the pedagogy. Indeed, the centrally-funded Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which has dominated the mathematics scene in post-independence India, has not responded to my public challenge32 to show any practical benefits resulting from their mathematics output in the last half century. Failure to respond to such critiques should be treated as implicit acceptance of the critique, as in traditional Indian norms of debate, or the norms used in our current legal system.

A full-fledged curriculum has also been developed to teach statistics, especially for social scientists, since zeroism works much better for probability than measure-theoretic (Kolmogorov) probability and the frequentist or subjective interpretation.33 Side by side an alternative syllabus has

also been proposed for physics,34,35 but field trials on this are yet to be carried out.

Further, I have repeatedly conducted two regular courses (not merely trials) on an alternative history and philosophy of science, with a large body of international students, most from colonised countries.36 Challenging and changing the existing Western history of science is an essential first step to end academic imperialism37 by putting to rest the utterly false claim of Christian triumphalist history that the West is superior since all science is Western in origin. A video interview of the students of the first such HPS course by Claude Alvares is also publicly available.38

The Multiversity (the real one) has also been engaged in developing alternative curricula for the social sciences. The philosophy syllabus (designed only for India) is a truly transformative replacement to dull Western philosophy which is barely distinguishable from theology. Thus, an initial alternative structure is in place, but a much work and international cooperation is required. n

32 C. K. Raju, “Kosambi the mathematician”, Special article, Economic and Political Weekly 44(20) May16–22 (2009) 33–4533 C. K. Raju, “Probability in Ancient India”, chp. 37 in Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, vol 7. Philosophy of Statistics, ed. Prasanta S. Bandyo-

padhyay and Malcolm R. Forster. General Editors: Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John Woods. Elsevier, 2011, pp. 1175-1196. http://ckraju.net/papers/Probability-in-Ancient-India.pdf.

34 C. K. Raju, “Decolonising math and science”. In Decolonizing our Universities, Claude Alvares and Shad Faruqi ed., Citizens International and USM, 2012, chp. 13, pp. 162-195 Video is first 34 minutes of the one at http://vimeo.com/26506961.

35 C. K. Raju, “Functional differential equations. 1: A new paradigm in physics”, Physics Education (India), 29(3), July-Sep 2013, Article 1. http://physe-du.in/uploads/publication/11/200/29.3.1FDEs-in-physics-part-1.pdf, and “Functional differential equations. 2: The classical hydrogen atom”, Physics Education (India), 29(3), July-Sep 2013, Article 2. http://physedu.in/uploads/publication/11/201/29.3.2FDEs-in-physics-part-2.pdf.

36 The formal curricula and lectures for the two courses are posted at http://ckraju.net/hps-aiu and http://ckraju.net/hps2-aiu/ . See also blog posts at http://ckraju.net/blog/?p=73, and http://ckraju.net/blog/?p=89.

37 C. K. Raju, Ending academic imperialism,Multiversity and Citizens International, Penang, 2011. http://multiworldindia.org/wp-content/up-loads/2010/05/ckr-Tehran-talk-on-academic-imperialism.pdf. Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvgH4gByfk.

38 See part 5 of the video series, links to which are posted at http://tvmultiversity.blogspot.in/2014/02/c-k-raju-interviewed-by-claude-alvares.html.

Perspectives

The solution is to change the

“experts” not just the pedagogy


Jewels of India

The Siddhars of Tamil Nadu

The Siddhars present themselves as the greatest masters of yoga, medicine and alchemy in the

history of Tamil Nadu and southern India. However, compared to the bhakti saints, many of whom were their contemporaries, they remain relatively unknown, unresearched and unsung. Some portray them as mystics and tantrics. Others, particularly European scholars, compare them with Rosicruceans of the early 17th century, who militated against Roman Catholicism. Others compare them with alchemists, whose focus was on the transmutation of base metal into gold and discovering the elixir of life.

About SiddharsHistorically, Siddhar refers to

people were early-age wandering saints who dominated ancient Tamil teaching and philosophy. They were knowledgeable in Science, Technology, Astronomy, Literature, Fine Arts, Music, Drama and Dance, and provided solutions to common people in day-to-day matters.

A classical definition of Siddhars is given by one of the eminent Siddhars, Thirumoolar: “Those who live in yoga and see the divine light and power through yoga are the Siddhars”.

Typically Siddhars were saints, doctors, alchemists and mystics all at once. They wrote their findings in the form of poems in the Tamil language, on palm leaves which were collected and stored as palm leaf manuscripts. These are still owned by some families in Tamil

Nadu and handed down through the generations. Some of them are kept in public institutions.

Siddhars developed, among other branches of a vast knowledge-system, what is now known as Siddha medicine, practised mainly in Tamil Nadu as a type of traditional native medicine. Even today, a rustic form of healing similar to Siddha medicine is practised by experienced elders in the villages of Tamil Nadu.

Siddhars are also believed to be the founders of Varmam - a martial art for self-defence and medical treatment at the same time. Varmam are specific points located in the human body which when pressed in different ways can give different results, such as disabling an attacker in self-defence, or balancing a physical condition as an easy first-aid medical treatment.

It is believed that Tamil Siddhars were the first to develop pulse-reading (“naadi paarththal” in Tamil) to identify the origin of diseases. This method was later used in Ayurveda.

Eminent Siddhar saints

There is a debate as to who was the first Siddhar. Prevailing tradition refers to Agasthyar as the first Siddhar, one of the seven sages (or Saptarshis) as mentioned in the Vedic texts. Agasthiyar is considered to be the author of a substantial number of the first Siddhar literature. He was supposed to have lived as far back as the 7th century BCE. About 96 books

are attributed to him including writings in alchemy, medicine and spirituality. Apart from references in legends, the beginnings of the Siddhars are lost in time.

Another famous Siddhar was Tirumular, who was a Tamil mystic and writer in the 6th century AD and was also one of the 18 Siddhars according to the Tamil Siddha tradition. His main work is named “Tirumantiram”, a 3,000-verse text, which is the foundation of the Southern Shaiva Siddhanta school of philosophy. He accomplished this magnum opus at Chidambaram, in Tamil Nadu, considered a sacred spot where Shiva performed his cosmic dance.

Karuvoorar, an architect as well as a yogin-alchemist, played a major role in design and construction

Statue of Agasthiyar


1 http://brammarajan.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/siddhar-poems-in-english-translation/*All images sourced from google images

of the Brihadeshwara Temple at Thanjavur. Construction of this temple is comparted to construction of the pyramids. A popular tour guide describes this as one of India’s greatest temples:

“This superb and fascinating monument is one of only a handful in India with World Heritage listing and is worth a couple of visits. On top of the apex of the 63-metre high temple, a dome encloses an enormous Shiva Lingam. Constructed from a single piece of granite weighing an estimated 81 tonnes, the dome was hauled into place along a six-km earth work ramp in a manner similar to that used for the Egyptian Pyramids.”

Another Siddhar, Bhogar (Bhoganathar), who lived between the 3rd and 5th century AD is said to have discovered the elixir of immortality – one of his main works is in area of pharmacognosy – the study of medicines derived from natural resources.

These mystic poets represented different communities. Pattinathar was born into a rich family of merchants in the sea-town of Kaveripoompattinam and he, himself, was a successful merchant before giving up his materialistic way of life. Badhragiriyar who became a disciple of Pattinathar was king of a province in Thanjavur. Idaikkaattu Siddhar was a goat-herd according to the available meagre records of literary history. Thiru Moolar is said to have come from Varanasi to meet Saint Agasthiar of the South. Another mystic is a Muslim by birth known by the name of Beer Mohammed. Roma Rishi might have had connections to the Rome of his time. Some like Paampaati Siddhar

wrote treatises on herbal medicine and were reportedly capable of small miracles in real life. Boghar is believed to have visited the Roman Empire to study the herbs of that country for the purpose of medicine. Boghar was born into a family of potters in China as the legend goes. Pulasthiar is Sinhala by birth. Idaikaattu Siddhar is said to be the author of “Saareeram”, a book on medicine. Some consider him to be the disciple of Boghar1.

PhilosophyThe Siddhars were a class of

popular thinkers in Tamil Nadu in scientific, literary, artistic and cultural realms and almost all of them were stridently opposed to formalities of life and religion, religious practices and beliefs of the ruling elite and against generally accepted social and religious doctrines. They were

particularly opposed to the notion of caste. They were puritanical and - for the most part - monotheistic.

According to Kamil Zvelebil, a contemporary scholar on the Siddhas, there are some features which are typical for all or almost all Siddhars as a body of thinkers:= First, in sharp opposition to

the bhakti tradition, they refuse to allow themselves to be carried away by idol worship in particular temples.

= Second, in contrast to bhakti which emphasises passionate devotion to God, the Siddhars emphasise knowledge, yoga practice, character, moral behavior and right conduct. Anger, lust and egoism are the worst sins for them.

= Third, almost all Siddhars raise protest against caste and casteism.

Jewels of India

View of Brihadeeswarar Temple


The whole premise of Siddha thinking is empirical and experimental. Their writings do not pretend to be clear-cut formalised statements of any well-defined doctrine. Hence, it is difficult to derive a philosophical system out of their writings, from the present state of our knowledge of their works. However, it is possible to deduce a few essential features. Sometime in the future, when their writings are better known, it should be possible to present their philosophy more explicitly.

According to their writings, for someone to be recognized as a Siddha, that is “one who is accomplished”, he should have transcended the ahamkara (ego) and subdued his mind. This is usually accomplished only by persistent meditation. To be known as a Siddha, a yogin should have mastered eight powers called ashta siddhis:1. To become tiny as the atom

within the atom (Anima)2. To become big in unshakeable

proportions (Mahima)3. To become as light as vapour in

levitation (Laghima)4. To become as heavy as the

mountain (Garima)5. To enter into other bodies in

transmigration (Prapti)6. To be in all things, omni-

pervasive (Prakamya)7. To be lord of all creation in

omnipotence (Isatvam)8. To be everywhere in

omnipresence (Vasitvam)Many scholars have attributed

supernatural powers and scientific knowledge far ahead of their times to the Siddhars, based on these ashta siddhis. But, these ashta siddhis should be considered

more as qualities required for the sharpening of mental and spiritual powers than purely physical powers.

Siddha literatureMost works by the Tamil

Siddhars are not well known outside of scholarly circles, but a few are very popular among the general Tamil public. There are hundreds of Siddha works dealing with alchemy, black magic, medicine, yoga and tantric rites. Some scholars tend to doubt the genuineness, or at least claimed antiquity of these works. Many academics believe the oldest Tamil works to date between the first century BCE and 250 CE.

Siddha medicine“Medicine means the prevention

of physical illness; medicine means the prevention of mental illness; prevention means to avert illness; medicine therefore is the prevention of death.”

This is a quotation from Tirumular – regarded as the greatest and one of the earliest Tamil Siddhars.

The traditional medical system established by the Siddhars is almost totally unknown outside of southernmost India. It is confined to the states of Tamil Nadu and a few parts of Kerala. The bulk of written works on Siddha medicine is exclusively in the Tamil language; and on occasion in Malayalam. Very little has been translated into other Indian languages, English or other Western languages. The reason why many of these works have not yet been studied, is that they still remain the closely guarded property of a few families who feel that their secretive and symbolic content should not be

put in the public domain. Many of their works are in poor condition and difficult to access. Answers to questions such as: when and where Siddha medicine originated, why or how it was developed, and why it has not become as popular as Ayurveda, have not been conclusively established yet.

“A Short Introduction: The Tamil Siddhars & the Siddha Medicine of Tamil Nadu” by Marion Zimmerman is an attempt to answer some questions related to Siddha medicine. In this book, she attempts to explain what the notion ‘siddha’ means and what kind of person Siddha practice seeks to create. She provides a short introduction to the fundamental principles of the Siddha medicine, its legendary founders and revered practitioners, its history and course of evolution, and some of the problems that Siddha medicine must contend with to be established as a scientific and credible medical system2.

2 Review provided by William Courson, BVSA, D. Ayur., an Ayurvedic Practitioner, faculty member and the College Dean of Institutional Development at Sai Ayurvedic College & Ayurvedic Wellness Center

Jewels of India

Painting of sivavakkiar


Poems of SiddharsPoems of Siddhars form an

important corpus of Tamil poetry, but are not revered as much as the poems of bhakti saints. It is not hard to conjecture the reasons for this. Their poems were considered quite off-beat for their times. They were hard to interpret perhaps because of their esoteric nature. Many scholars equated their philosophy and way of life to mysticism and the occult. Some were turned off by the offending imagery. The poetry of Siddhars were so full of metaphor and imagery that they often presented themselves as puzzles that need to solved. Their poems often questioned the assumptions and basics of accepted Tamil theology3.

The Siddhars rejected poly-theism, which was the prevailing orthodoxy of their time, and dared to speak of “One Indivisible God”. They criticised the empty and meaningless rituals practised by brahmins of their time.

Kamil Zvelebil, outlines the common features of Siddhar poetry in his book “The Smile of Murugan”: “a protest, sometimes expressed in very strong terms, against the formalities of life and religion; rough handling of priests and Brahmins in general ; denial of the religious practices and beliefs of Brahmanism, and not only that: an opposition against the generally accepted pan-Indian social doctrine and religious practice; protest against the abuses of temple rule; emphasis on purity of character; claims made by the authors of these poems that they have achieved certain psychokinetic powers and other capabilities which belong to

3 Siddhar poems from Tamil-An introduction, http://brammarajan.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/siddhar-poems-in-english-translation/4 ALCHEMY AND THE TAMIL SIDDHARS, Joseph Caezza, http://www.sithars.com/2011/08/alchemy-and-tamil-siddhars.html

the sphere of parapsychological phenomena; use of imaginative and ambiguous language, rather puzzling though strongly colloquial; no systemic doctrinal exposition. Finally, all these poems are ascribed to a body of sages known as the Siddhars4.”

As an illustration, one of the most well-known Siddhars Sivavakkiyar sang:

The history of the Siddhars is incomplete, shrouded in mysticism and myths. Research on their contributions is inadequate at the best. Their writings remain uncollated awaiting the scholarly treatment they definitely deserve. Some attempts are afoot however. The central government has established a “Siddha Central Research Institute” under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. A Siddha Medical Council has been set up by the Tamil Nadu government. But these scanty efforts have not done justice to the rich contributions of the Siddhars.

The task of separating the complex mythical and actual historical biographies of these sages is a difficult task but is sure to provide rich dividends. n

Jewels of India

“You consider an erected stone as god and you adorn that stone with flowers, go around it muttering some mantras! Will that erected stone talk to you when the Almighty is within? Will the cooking pot and spoon realize the taste of food being cooked?”.

ConclusionAll Siddhars wanted to

subjugate the senses. For them, winning over the five senses offers absolute control of the body leading to control of the wandering mind. One of them refers to the five senses as “five thieves”.

They were existentialists in another sense. They lived a mendicant’s life and slept in temples when they wanted to stretch their body. They were misunderstood in their own time since they repudiated the materialistic view of life and claimed that there could be only one supreme God. Very little has been on record about their personal life, except for meagre details of their places of birth and death.

The Siddhars rejected poly-

theism, which was the prevailing

orthodoxy of their time, and dared to speak of “One Indivisible God” They criticised the empty and

meaningless rituals practised by

brahmins of their time


Sanskriti

The Ignored OneSrinath Raghavan revisits the character of Duryodhana in Mahabharat to discover an anti-hero

and argues for projecting him more positively.

There have been many versions of the Mahabharata to this date, each of them presenting different theories as to what actually happened.

What I am presenting is an argument as to why Duryodhana should have been the hero of the great epic-Mahabharata, and why there are many reasons for this proposition to be regarded as a plausible one.

I personally support Anand Neelakantan’s view of the great epic, which presents Duryodhana as the hero. But, at the same time, I am also going by Maharishi Vyasa’s version of it. It is said to be the original one. My views are based on the same incidents which took place in Vyasa’s Mahabharata but they have been presented in a different perspective.

Despite having most or all of the ideal qualities of an heir apparent, he (Suyodhana) was often insulted and not given enough importance. There is still a mystery to his name, because although Duryodhana can be interpreted as ‘The Unconquerable One’ it supposedly also has a derogatory meaning, i.e., “one who is unworthy of wielding a weapon” or simply “one who is not worthy of handling power”. Suyodhana means, ‘great warrior’ going by most references. Suyodhana was said to be a great warrior and respected by

all for his prowess in various fighting styles such as martial arts, which he learnt from his guru, Kripacharya.

He also became the favorite student of Balarama who was his guru when he was learning the art of fighting with the mace. It is even said that at one point, he became better in this art than his cousin Bhima, whose personality reflected his brute power and prowess with the mace. Not only this, if noticed carefully, the Pandavas had a unique ability attributed to each one. Being

truthful, sheer intelligence, brute power, expertise in weapons such as bow and arrow were the capabilities that the Pandavas possessed together. But Suyodhana alone was said to have possessed most of these qualities. We fail to notice this because he was always portrayed in a negative light. Above all, what he had that no one else did was maturity in its truest form, trust, which if once placed upon someone, never broke.

The most significant achievement of Suyodhana was that his state of consciousness was way ahead of his counterparts. Suyodhana did not consider himself to be superior to others belonging to lower castes. He believed in merit and the ability of oneself rather than lineage. In the process, he made many powerful enemies, who in turn placed their hopes on Yudhishtra, the eldest of the Pandavas. One of the handful of people who supported Suyodhana included Kripacharya who was a Brahmin teacher and an expert in the martial arts.Kripacharya also had similar views on caste-based discrimination as Suyodhana, and thus was considered to be a lunatic and a disgrace to the Brahmin society by other priests.

Because of Suyodhana’s direct opposition to the Brahmin

The most significant

achievement of Suyodhana was that his state of consciousness

was way ahead of his counterparts.

Suyodhana did not consider himself to be superior to

others belonging to lower castes


orthodoxy, he was not supported by most of the ministers and people in positions of power. The few people who partly supported him were, The Grand Regent Bhishma Pitamah, The King of Hastinapura, Dhritarashatra (also Suyodhana’s father) and Guru Kripa. Even though these people understood the causes Suyodhana stood for, they were helpless in the face of many groups and people against him who could not be ignored. One of the incidents which made the Brahmin court despise Suyodhana even more was during a friendly tournament organised for all the princes in Hastinapura to display their skills in various weapons. Arjuna was the first one in line, but while he was in action, Karna interrupted the ceremony by performing even better than Arjuna and in the process, putting Arjuna down. This angered all the royal spectators and they protested saying that Karna who belonged to a Suta caste should not have jumped onto the stage where only princes were allowed. Unexpectedly, the crown prince-Suyodhana got up and crowned Karna as the king of Anga, which further enraged others. This shows that Suyodhana believed in one’s potential and not lineage.

As I mentioned earlier, Suyodhana trusted his friends more than himself. One such incident that proves this beyond any doubt, occurred when Karna and Suyodhana’s wife Bhanumati were playing a game of dice in the royal chamber. Karna was evidently winning and just then, Duryodhana

entered, but Karna failed to see him as he was facing the wall, and Bhanumati was not. She got up abruptly and Karna, thinking that she was trying to escape from losing snatched her drape studded with pearls and the pearls snapped and trickled to the floor. Both Karna and Bhanumati were embarrassed and shocked and expected Suyodhana to be enraged by this but he simply asked them if he should only collect the pearls or string them too which surprised both Karna and Bhanumati.

What I have discussed till now should throw light on Suyodhana’s positive and generous side furthers,

an incident which is not mentioned in the Mahabharata accurately is the fact that Suyodhana was to marry Krishna’s and Balarama’s sister Subhadra, which Krishna was opposed to. Using his persuasive abilities, he convinced his sister that Suyodhana was a person without principles or beliefs and instead led her to think that Arjuna was the one for her as he was a principled man and the most talented archer in the realm, thus also the ideal husband.

And so, expectedly Subhadra ran off with Arjuna on their (Subhadra and Suyodhana’s) wedding day. This was regarded as a serious offence and Balarama was unaware of this till the very moment as he would have never allowed it to happen other wise. To all this, Suyodhana’s reaction was not sudden or outrageous in any way. At that particular time, he was the king of Hastinapura and had its whole army at his disposal. What he could have easily done was to wage war and reclaim his to-be wife. Instead, he chose not to do any such thing because it would only have been for a personal reason and not for the empire. That being said, he was heartbroken and humiliated which made him hate Krishna more.

I would like to sum up by saying that Suyodhana was a man of his word, he practiced what he preached and never did he divert from his principles, his vision was far ahead of his time, and he did not compromise anything for personal gain or even to remain in power. n

Sanskriti

Cover of Anad Neelakantan's book Ajaya from which the writen has taken inspiration for this write up


Events

Event & Resonances

Prof U R Ananthamurthy (1932-2014)

The entire Ghadar Jari Hai team expresses its heartfelt condolences on the sad demise

of Prof U R Ananthamurthy, on Aug 22, 2014 at Bangalore. He was one of our Editorial Advisors and a well-known writer, social commentator and defender of Human Rights and Justice.

Prof Ananthamurthy was prolific in his writings in Kannada and was honoured with many awards including the prestigious Bharatiya Gyanpeeth Award, Nadoja Prashasti and others.

Besides his family and friends, he leaves behind many students he taught and many admirers of his thought provoking writings.

Along with his contributions to literature and education, he was also known as an able administrator and was Chairman of National Book Trust, President of Sahitya Akademi etc.

Prof Ananthamurthy was a quintessential democrat and

celebrated diversity in India among cultures, belief systems and opinions. He firmly believed, especially in his later years, that the weight of Eurocentrism has to be lifted from Indian intelligentsia for its genius to shine forth.

When we approached him with the idea of starting a magazine like Ghadar Jari Hai to take a fresh look at our history and traditions away from the jaundiced Eurocentric perspective and evaluate objectively what is valuable from our past for the present and future of India, Prof Ananthamurthy was fully supportive of the effort and wrote a very encouraging letter to us, which has been reproduced below.

He took firm stands whenever anyone’s right to conscience was sought to be suppressed by the powers that be. We and many others all over India will miss him.

Editorial team, Ghadar Jari Hai

Reproduced below Prof U R Ananthamurthy’s letter to Gha-dar Jari Hai, Vol 1, Issue 2, 2007“Dear Editor,

Reading you on our past and future in Ghadar Jari Hai, I was happy that there is someone at least who thinks in these days of thoughtless changes that it is necessary to pause and reflect. Renewal of a people of an ancient nation like ours lies neither in rejecting the past, nor in reviving the past, nor in entirely manipulating our future as we desire it in our immediate greed. T S Eliot has these

lines in support of the need I speak of:

‘Time present and Time past Are perhaps present in Time future

And Time future contained in Time past’.

These lines also conclude on a philosophical sense of resignation and acceptance of human predicament in Time.

‘If all Time is eternally present Then all Time is unredeemable’

The last line is profoundly Indian in spirit and not European- a civilization that seems to believe that the earth is a cornucopia and therefore eternal material progress is possible. Our journey which was renewed in 1857 for self rule has received a good description in the journal.

Warmly U.R.Ananthamurthy

Bangalore”

Remembering the martyrs of 1857

Original Source: This article has been republished from the online edition of the Times of India. Source link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Kanpur/Remembering-martyrs-of-1857/articleshow/40861112.cms

In a unique venture to pay homage to the martyrs of the First War of Independence 1857, a group of people swam across six-kilometres in the downstream of Ganga on Sunday. Starting their venture from historial Nanarao (massacre Ghat) and ended at Siddhnath Ghat in Jajmau.


Events

The event was organized in memory of Peshwa Nanarao, Tantya Tope, Azimullah Khan and Azeezan Bai and to mark the 157th anniversary of the First War of Independence. The event was hosted by Jeevan Rakshak Sewa Sansthan and Small Tanners Association.

The swimmers while holding tri-colour flag in their hand swam in the flooded river. They also raised patriotic slogans and were cheered by the people. A team moved along the swimmers in boats to assist the swimmers in case of emergency.

The team of 20 swimmers was led by coach Mohd Nafees, Ganga Ram Nishad, Dr Rakesh and Babli Kataria. The swimmers also showed performed different acts in the water and won the applause of people. They also displayed their skills in saving people from drowning.

Later, the swimmers were honoured by BJP MLA from Cantt Raghunandan Bhadauria and Babu Bhai of Small Tanners Association

.Play highlights Haryana’s con-nection with mutiny of 1857

Original Source: This news item was originally published in the Times of India online edition Source url: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Chandigarh/P l a y - h i g h l i g h t s - H a r y a n a s -connection-with-mutiny-of-1857/articleshow/38512694.cms

CHANDIGARH: It is not very often that one hears the name of the revolt of 1857 and Haryana in the same breath. This is the very reason that the play ‘1857 Ki Kahani Haryana Ki Zubani’ is being staged in city.

The play, a joint production of Center for Education and Voluntary Action and Department of Cultural Affairs, Haryana, aims at highlighting

the contribution of Haryana in the mutiny of 1857, which has got lost in the pages of history books.

According to director and producer of the play, GS Chani, “Haryana’s contribution in the first war of independence remains largely unknown and I have taken upon myself to bring forth the feats which the community had achieved in the mutiny.”

The play revolves around the humiliation and the loss of dignity which the peasants of Haryana suffered at the hands of the British and what prompted the local rajas, zamindars, sepoys, faqirs and ordinary people to come together and fight against the British East India Company.

Chani said that a dedicated team of 40 professionals worked day in and day out for two months to make this play a success. Himanshu, a research scholar at the department of Indian Theatre, Panjab University, who is portraying one of the central characters ‘Tula Ram’ in the play, says that the distinct feature of the play is how the director has managed synthesis of traditional Haryanvi folk art Swang with the elements of contemporary theatre.

Spanning 80 minutes, the play consists of drama, songs and traditional folk art that will keep the audience engaged and emotionally charged till the very end. Himashu added that talks are going on with the Haryana government to stage around 100 shows of this play in different cities of Haryana in the coming months.

Asked about the message that he wants to give to his audience through this play, Chani said, “Don’t see things as they appear, go beyond that.”

Revisiting the Great Rebellion of 1857

Original Source: This piece by Alamgir Khan has been sourced from http://www.thedailystar.net/revisiting-the-great-rebellion-of-1857-33161

The great rebellion of 1857 is a most important event in the history of Indisa and British colonialism. The people of Bangladesh, then part of an Indian whole, were also pulled into the whirlwind of this great event. Sepoys in Chittagong and Dhaka mutinied against British rule, rendered their duty to history by sacrificing their lives at the altar of freedom and thus have made us proud as a people who hold their heads high before the blood-red eyes of tyranny.

Satyen Sen’s Mahabidroher Kahini tells that tale of a national struggle that is widest in range and boldest in nature and yet embraced defeat of a very tragic kind. But Sen’s novel-type book of history indicates that it was not a failure in the patriotic sense, but a great source of inspiration for all freedom-loving people. Unfortunately, fed by British historians and their acolytes, we have forgotten many of our heroes and the author time and again laments about this.

The Great Rebellion of 1857 that shook the foundations of the British empire in India and sent its vibrations through all British colonies was foreshadowed in 1764, seven years after the fall of Bengal at the battle of Plassey. An English sepoy received Tk 40 a month, whereas an Indian sepoy received only Tk 6 in the British army in India. Some Indian sepoys were angry and revolted against this injustice. Major General Munro blew twenty four of them from the mouths of cannons


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and quelled the mutiny for the time being. Ninety-three years later the Indian sepoys refused to tear off the cartridge from Enfield rifles, mixed as it was with pig and cow fat, which again was prohibited equally for Muslims and Hindus. This mutiny swelled into a national war for independence across India, about which many books and articles have been written in many languages. Sen has consulted many books, most of which have been written by British historians. Yet the truths are so glaring that even these authors could not hide their Goebbels-type falsehood and cruelties of an unprecedented scale committed against the natives of India. Some unforgettable characters that shine in this book with all their humane beauty, upright character, unbowed patriotism, and political and military brilliance are Azimullah Khan, Mangal Pandey, Maulvi Ahmedullah Shah, Mojor Ali, Azizan, Pir Ali, Kuwar Singh, Khan Bahadur Khan, Bakht Khan, an English officer who fought against the British army, Rani of Jhansi, Ali Naqi Khan, Tantia Topi, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Nazim Mohammad Hasan, Shahzada Firoz Shah and many others.

There are also villains and traitors like Jagannath Singh, the Raja of Pawayan, who killed Maulvi Ahmedullah Shah for Rs. 50,000, the reward the British declared for the head of the Moulvi. Raja Jagannath invited him to his fort with the hint of helping him against the British. When Maulvi went there, he refused to open the gate and fired on him. ‘Thus died the Moulvee Ahmed Oolah Shah of Faizabad. If a patriot is a man who plots and fights for the independence, wrongfully destroyed, for his native country, then most

certainly, the Moulvee was a true patriot,’ wrote the British historian Malleson. Satyen Sen is deeply saddened to say that this great warrior of the first independence war of India is not remembered in the way he deserves from his countrymen, neither in India nor in Pakistan.

Tantia Topi, the tiger of Maharashtra, was captured in his sleep by Raja Man Singh in a thievish way and was sentenced to death by a court martial. On 18 April 1859, he put the hanging rope on with his own hand. Thousands of people gathered to pay tribute to this rebel and some English women prayed for him and scrambled for a lock of his hair as memorabilia.

Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar banned cow slaughter in Delhi and Khan Bahadur Khan promised prohibition of it in Bareilly in the interest of Hindu-Muslim unity in the war of independence. Shahzada Feroz Shah fought a heroic battle against British rule and afterwards roamed the globe drumming up support for the independence of India. But it was all in vain. The poet Ghalib saw rivers of blood before him in Delhi and had no comfortable sleep in the dark. It was not all in vain, as Satyen Sen emphasizes and points out to us in this book of a mere 144 pages.

In the preface, the eminent writer Sardar Fazlul Karim states unambiguously that though the book is not history, the author has never strayed from the facts of history. It has reproduced the characters in flesh and blood in the great rebellion before our eyes. Since its first publication in 1957, this book, with Hashem Khan’s cover design, has seen nine editions

to date showing the unabated interest among readers in it. People in the Lalbagh area in Dhaka also experienced a river of blood and had no sleep night after night in those days and the period following that. Shall we, therefore, not pause for a moment before Bahadur Shah Park (formerly Victoria Park) in old Dhaka to think of those soldiers who were hanged to death from the branches of its trees and upon whose enormous sacrifices the life we enjoy today has been built?

Alamgir Khan is Research and Publication Officer, Centre for Development Innovation and Practices (CDIP) n

Mahabidroher Kahini, Satyen Sen, Muktadhara

Printed and Published by: K Madhusudhan on behalf of Lok Awaz Publishers and Distributors., Printed at: New Print Cottage, B-74, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi - 110020, Published at: E-392, Sanjay Colony, Okhla Phase-II, New Delhi - 110020, Editor: S Raghavan

Shivavakkiayar, one of the well-known Siddhars, is a 10th-century Tamil devotional poet and mystic. Two of his poems are reproduced below.

1 (Ed. Kamil Zvelevil), The poets of the powers. Retrieved from http: www.hindu.glog.com/2008/01/sivavakkiyar-poems.html

2 Translated by Kamil Zvelebil, reproduced from: http://karkanirka.org/2008/04/10/cittar-poems-civavakkiyar/

Melt with the heart inside1

In the four eternal Vedas,

In the study and reading of scripts,

In sacred ashes and in holy writs

And muttering of prayers

You will not find the Lord!

Melt with the heart inside

And proclaim the Truth.

Then you will join the light

Life without servitude.

He is not Hari, He is not the Lord Siva.

He is the Ultimate Cause,

In the Beyond of Beyond,

Transcending Blackness, Redness, and Whiteness.

Immovable.

Try not to understand:

He is not big, He is not small.

He is Infinite Distance,

Immovable,

Transcending even

Supreme Quiescence.

Kindling fires2

Listen

you who take always sacred baths

you who kindle sacrificial fires

you who pour in tons of ghee

hear words of wisdom

hear

The Fires and holy waters

are within

Behold

remember and attest

An endless undiminished light

will appear and union in oneness

be

decolonising math and science education - ghadar jari hai math and science education jiba jiva...

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