The Upanisada and Modern Thought (Old An Rare Book)

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About the Author Born in 1921, Prof. Ramakrishna Rao, Vetury received his D.Sc. degree in Physics from the Andhra University in 1950. After two years of post-doctoral studies in the U.S.A. he worked as Reader in Physics upto 1960 teaching and guiding research for Ph. D. From 1960-66, he worked in Defence Ministry, designing sophisticated instruments for the armed forces.

In 1966, he returned to Andhra University as Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Physics where, in addition to academic research, he continued the work of designing Instruments, leading to techno- logy transfer to private industry, till he retired in 1981. His publications (118) include papers in spectroscopy, solid state thin films, etc. He was honorary Professor in the Philosophy Department (1982-85).

During the last ten years, the author's interests shifted to the history and philosophy of science and the impact of science on society. The present book is the result of this study of Upanishads during the last six years.

Preface BERTRAND RUSSELL. in his History of Western Philosophy. writes that in the nineteenth century, the intellectual life in Europe has been made more complex than before by various factors, one of which is that Europe became more aware of Indian philosophies, both ancient and modern. He does not elaborate. But we know that the nineteenth century produced great admirers of Indian thought, like Max Muller, Paul Deussen, Schopenhauer and others. The influence of Indian thought on Western mind has been limited to linguists, poets and philosophers. Science, the second major aspect of the European intellectual life mentioned by Russell, has remained completely insolated from Indian or any eastern thought and has made great strides.

It fell to the lot of the twentieth century science to be attracted to Eastern (Indian and Chinese) thought, surprisingly because of the progress in the Western science. Schrodinger is a twentieth century Nobel laureate in physics. The face of science has undergone a radical and profound change, as the microworld of subatomic physics has been unfolding itself with quantum mechanics and relativity on one hand, and evolution and genetics in biology on the other. The Lapacian certainties gave way to Heisenberg's uncertainties: the absoluteness of space and time yielded to the relativity relationships in space-time: chance and probability gained greater importance than determinism: matter lost its permanence to energy stability and permanence yielded to change and perpetual flux in the universe with becoming rather than being recognised as the essential nature of the universe; just to mention a few.

Scientists in touch with ancient thought (Greek and Indian) began to wonder how the ancient wisdom could record two thousand years back, the results of modern thought. Heisenberg wrote about the similarities between the ancient Greek thought and modern scientific thought. Oppenhermer was an admirer of Indian thought. A number of books have been published painting out the similarities and parallels between ancient Indian and Chinese thought and the conclusions of modern science. The Tao of Physics and the Dancing Wu Li Mastsrs are two examples. There is a growing desire to under- stand how there could be such striking similarities between the conclusions arrived at by such extremely divergent paths.

That is sufficient incentive for a curious scientist to try and see for himself what the ancient Indian wisdom says. The starting point is obviously the principal Upanisads which are generally considered to be the earliest philosophical works (800-500) b.c. not only in India but probably the whole world. These pre-Buddistic Upanisads are known to have influenced the wide variety of Indian thought one way or other right upto our time.

Not knowing Sanskrit, I had to depend on the English translations of the Upanisads. For my purpose the purely philological translation would be necessary as I did not want to be influenced by the eminent philosophical system-builders: whose commentaries are also available in translation. So I have chosen the translation of Robert Earnest Hume, which is considered to be faithful to the original without a tendency to lead to any philosophical system. For clarification of some points, I consulted mostly Radhakrishnan's translation as well as others to a smaller extent. This way, I kept myself free from any doctrinal preferences. My main interest is to understand the thought process of the Upanisadic seers which led them to their conclusions, and I have purposely limited my study to the principal Upanisads. On the final message of the Upanisads I have little to add to what has continually been written by better minds than mine during the last 2000 years.

This kind of study of the Upanisads led me to some topics of interest, which have escaped attention so far. The Upanisads recorded thought experiment similar to Maxwell's. demonstration experiments in teaching, and a guinea pig experiment-something which we associate with only modern science and the scientific method. The concept of energy is apparently quite familiar to them. So was the doctrine of emergent evolution with its levels. The topics of scientific interest are given in Chapters 1, 6 and 7. Chapter 1 is also of interest for the theory of knowledge. Starting with the theory of evolution, Schrödinger builds a philosophy which leads him directly to the Upanisadic Advaita Vedanta, and his philosophy is described in Chapter 3. Schopenhauer's doctrine of will is found in the Upanisads (Chapter-2). For understanding the social conditions of the Upanisadic times there is enough material in the Upanisads which is collected and presented in Chapter 5. The Chapter 4 on the origins of the karma doctrine is of interest to the history of ideas.

Thus, the various Chapters are on diverse topics of modern thought with the meterial collected from the principal Upanisads. Actual quotations from the English translations of the Upanisads have been profusely given for the sake of authenticity. Probably some of the Chapters could be improved in the hands of the specialists in the different fields covered by them. If such people recognise something worthwhile for further work, I shall deem my present work as having found fulfilment. Extensive references are given to facilitate such work. For the general reader, it is hoped that the popular exposition of the various topics will be found useful. There is no religious bias or background to any of the chapters in this volume.