Tantrayuktis: Indian Model of Methodological Devices for Composing and Interpreting Scientific Treatises

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The present write up on tantrayuktis pertaining to methodological devices for acquiring knowledge and composing, expounding and interpreting scientific treatises will be mainly based on some ancient Indian Sanskrit texts like Tantrayukti, Tantrayukti vicara, Arthaśastra, Caraka- samhita, Suśrutasamhita, Nyayasutra of Gautama and the commentators, Vädagranthas of Buddhist and Jain thinkers etc. as primary sources. Yuktidīpika, Vişnudharmotttara puraņa and some other woks have been used to supplement this. In English the scholarly works of Prof. W. K. Lele and Prof. M. Jayaraman provided a stimulus for writing this. An e-mail communication from Dr. Kalyanaraman using tantrayuktis to decipher Indus script further ignited my desire to work on tantrayuktis. His is a very interesting and enlightening piece. I have borrowed good deal of material from the works of these scholars. So, I am really grateful to them. There are some Tamil texts like Tolkappiyam, Nannul, Maranalkaram etc. which have not been utilized in this work because of my lack of knowledge of Tamil. There might be such texts in other Indian languages as well.

Professor S. R. Bhatt was an eminent philosopher and sanskritist. He had been the Chairman of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Government of India. He was General President of Indian Philosophical Congress and Akhil Bharatiya Darshan Parishad (All India Philosophy Association). He retired as Professor and Head, and Coordinator of UGC Special Assistance Programme, Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi, Delhi. For some time he was Professor and Head, Dept. of Philosophy, M. S. University, Vadodara. He is internationally known as an authority on Ancient Indian Culture, Buddhism, Jainism and Vedanta. His research areas include Indian Philosophy, Logic, Epistemology, Ethics, Value-theory, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Religion, Comparative Religion, Social and Political ought etc. He has lectured in many universities and research institutes of India, China, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Turkey, Germany, United States and Trinidad. He is a member of many national and international associations. He was a Member of Board of Advisors and Regional Coordinator of Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Washington D.C., USA, which had brought out more than 260 volumes on world cultures and civilizations. He had authored or edited more than 21 books and had more than 200 published research papers to his credit.

Ancient Indian thinkers took deep interest in, and were very much particular about, systematic and veridical thinking with regard to the true nature of Reality and clear and concise exposition of concerned thought in the form of scientific treatises. Their aim was to be benefitted by this enterprise. Ever since the dawn of thought right from the Vedic times the Indian mind has undertaken a search for ideals of life. For this it constructed elaborate systems of epistemology and logic, metaphysics and morals, social and political philosophies, language and hermeneutics, arts and humani- ties, science and technology etc. This search for ideals of life implies that the seekers were not satisfied with the present life they were living day to day. This dissatisfaction was not so much due to historical and natural circum- stances that conditioned the society of the time but it was generated by a search for a deeper meaning of life than could be found in the everyday experience. It was due to a keen and critical sense of peace, perfection and beatitude sought by the people. The questions that they tried to grapple were: what is human life? What is its meaning and purpose? How is human being to plan the life so that the sum- mum bonum of life can be attained? What is the goal of cosmic process?

For this purpose, they undertook assiduous pursuit of knowledge. They were intuitive as well as analytic. They had keen sense of observation, ability of systematic reflection, logical acumen and thoughtful judgement. Apart from innovative thinking they valued tradition and relied upon it. They believed that the Reality is orderly and its apprehension, both in thought and language, should also be so.