Bharat ki Chhap - Episode 6: Ayurveda & Astronomy
Director: Chandita Mukherjee; Cinematographer: Ranjan Palit
Duration: 00:49:14; Aspect Ratio: 1.366:1; Hue: 346.151; Saturation: 0.065; Lightness: 0.403; Volume: 0.218; Cuts per Minute: 5.301; Words per Minute: 91.494
Summary: This episode captures the traditions of Ayurveda and highly developed concepts of Astronomy. We start with investigating the Sushruta and Charaka traditions of Ayurveda and comparing it to the practises of a tribal medicine man in Bastar. Flourishing trades and techniques encouraged science; scholars like Aryabhata wrote about sine tables, pi, and the path of the planets, yet this knowledge was controlled.
Bharat ki Chhap: Episode 6
Ayurveda and Astronomy (300 -700 A.D.)
Sanchi Stupa, Raisen Dist., Madhya Pradesh
1. Chandita: Suhaila relates the story of Jeevak.
This is the story of Jeevak the court physician of Magadha. He late became a follower of Buddha. An account is given in the Buddhist work
Vinayapeetak. The story goes like this:
Long ago, in the city of Rajgriha, lived a courtesan. Her name was Shalvati. One day, Shalvati gave birth to a son. But fear of disgrace made her abandon the child. A prince was passing that way. His gaze fell upon the newborn, whom he picked up, took to his palace and brought up. Thus, his name came to be Jeevak which means 'the living one'. On growing up, Jeevak learnt the truth about his birth.
He resolved to be dependent on the prince no longer, but to learn a skill to earn his own living. In Takshashila, then, lived a physician, an
acharya who was renowned far and wide. Jeevak went to him and said: “Make me your disciple”. Thus, for seven years Jeevak served his teacher.
Finally, one day, he asked his guru: “When will my learning be complete?”
The
acharya gave him a shovel and said: “Traverse a
yojan in each direction around Takshashila and bring me an object that is not medicinal”. Jeevak did as bidden and came back disappointed, unable to find anything, anywhere, not medicinal
The
acharya told him: “Jeevak, you have passed your test. You have understood that there is nothing in the world that is not medicinal. Your education is now complete”. And this is the basic principle of
ayurveda - Na anaushadham kinchit.
The story talks about every material being medicinal. “Na anaushdham kinchit” - nothing is not medicinal.
Dept of Ayurvedic Medicine, Univ of Pune
In order to understand the tenets of
ayurveda I met Dr. Subhash Ranade of Pune University.
Dr. Ranade: The basic principles of
ayurveda are the same in all its schools of thought because these principles are immutable.
Amrita: Such as the belief that all things in the world have medicinal value?
Dr. Ranade: Yes.
Na anaushadham kinchit
Amrita: How is this theory proved in the
Charaka Samhita?
Dr. Ranade: Charaka says the body undergoes constant changes. Whatever we eat or drink, and the air we breathe, are made up of the
panchmahabhootas
Amrita: Doesn't
panchmahabhootas refer to the elements - Earth, water, fire, air and sky?
Dr. Ranade: Yes. These are assimilated by the body and undergo a transformation. One portion is converted into
dhatu i.e., blood, flesh and bones, the rest is changed to
mal, or waste products like urine, sweat and
tridosh. By
tridosh we mean gas, bile and phlegm.
Amrita: So the function of the medicine is to reduce
dohsa and increase
dhatu?
Dr. Ranade: Not really. Even a healthy body needs
mal in the right proportion. Imbalance creates illness, such as physical weakness. This occurs when there is a reduction in muscular tissue and phlegm. In such a case, the patient is advised to eat meat or items like wheat and the
urad lentil, which increase phlegm. Or he may be advised not to exert himself.
Amrita: Thus, the right medicines increase those substances needed by the body and reduce those which are in excess. This might explain why
ayurveda offer so many remedies for an illness, and views medicine as an art.
Dr. Ranade: Yes. You're right. You've understood the dictum
Na anaushadham kinchit. The whole world is composed of the
panchmahabhootas. And every item in this world can prove to be of medicinal value in some circumstance or another.
2. Amrita asks Dr. Ranade about this and then the “Panchamahabhootam” and “Doshas”.
Nissim:
Ayurveda means the science of life. It is the oldest system of medicine in our country. Jeevak was Buddha's personal physician and was renowned in his time. Thus,
ayurveda was already popular in Buddha's time. Of the two compilations or
Samhitas of
ayurveda the
Sushruta is concerned with surgery and the
Charaka, with other methods.
Maitreyi: Historians are of the opinion that these compilations date back to the 2nd century A.D. But the knowledge they contain is far more ancient.
Nssim: In recent times, during our freedom struggle
ayurveda received a new impetus. And today India has many ayurvedic hospitals and colleges which carry out research in new medicines and methods.
Gujarat Ayurved University, Jamnagar
We are at the Gujarat Ayurvedic University to understand
ayurveda better. Ranjan is exploring the
Sushruta tradition i.e. ayurvedic surgery. I am studying the
Charaka tradition i.e. treatment through medicines.
Doctor: Here we see one kind of treatment being carried out. The patient is given a head massage and prepared for treatment.
Shehnaaz: What is the ailment?
Doctor: The patient has been troubled for a long time by colds and headaches. So we are administering the
nasyakarma treatment. Eight drops of medicine are put into each nostril. This method is used to cure migraine and other such problems.
This girl's name is Kanchan. Her illness is pseudo hyper-trophic muscular dystrophy. The muscles have become very hard. It's a congenital disease, difficult to cure.
Shehnaaz: How do you treat it?
Doctor: We prepare the child for treatment. Herb are put in a cloth bag. This is known as
tal. Then, the child is massaged with
bala oil. Five equal parts of
bala and
kwath are heated in milk. Bags of rice are used to apply the medicine.
Shehnaaz: Are these medicines grown by you or obtained elsewhere?
Doctor: The plants and herbs that we use are found in the forests and hills. The tribals collect these to sell in market. That's how we get them.
We see various treatments of Ayurveda at the Gujarat Ayurved University, Jamnagar.
The hospital collects the medicines from forests so we transition to Bastar.
At Bastar we understand a much earlier form of Ayurveda which is being done by a local medicine man, Ganjuaramiji. We go to his house, but he wasn’t around and had gone to the forest to look for some plants. We found him in the forest with his grandson. You can see that his eyes are always on the ground. He also collects the fine mud from a termite hill to use as ointment for a patient.
Ramanathan and I had met Ganjuaramji, a medicine man, in Bastar. He was looking for some specific plants in the forest. A boy had fallen off a cycle and broken his leg.
Ayurveda stresses the worth of tribal and folk traditions. In this respect, it was unique in its time. The
Sushruta Samhita says: “To recognise those herbs useful in medicine the doctor must seek the help of those who collect fruits, leaves and roots from the forest. People such as hunters, shepherds and the like”
While walking through the forest we saw that he was very alert to anything useful as medicine. Leaves, bark, herbs - even soil from a termite hill. We then went to the child's house. Ganjuaramji set the bone, applied herbs and tied on a bamboo splint. But sprinkling liquor to scare away demons was also part of the treatment. Knowledge based on observation and experience coupled with black magic seems strange, but a common phenomenon.
Kusma Village, Kondagaon, Bastar Dist., Chattisgarh
2. Ayurveda is based on tribal medicine and other folk traditions. The ayurvedic compilers like Charaka and Sushruta, though they were Brahmins, their compilations were extremely practical and empirical. They were based on the everyday common occurrences of people. They are different from other treatise of astronomy, music etc. Those were rigid and prescriptive unlike the Ayurvedic compilations, which were based on everyday give and take.
Sushruta Samhita says that the existence of the soul is immaterial to the Ayurvedic practitioner because they should work within the “Panchmahabhootas”.
When Brahmanical orthodoxy returned, one of the ways to put down practitioners of Ayurveda was to say they are impure. Ayurvedic practitioners were banned from being part of Brahmin rituals.
Nissim:
Ayurveda never hesitated to adopt new ideas from tribals like Ganjuaramji, or from folk traditions. Other disciplines at that time were more rigid being either theoretical, like grammar, or tied to Brahmanical ritual, like astrology. They were far removed from people's common, everyday knowledge. But
ayurveda was on discipline very close to daily life.
Maitreyi: Yes. It was necessary for the physician or
vaid to examine minutely every aspect of nature, to study natural substances and their effect on the body and also to use them. He could thus effectively treat diseases.
Nissim: According to the
Charaka Samhita there are three ways to understand disease. The teachings of elders, personal observation, and diagnosis based on logic and analysis. In fact, older teachings must be verified by observation and analysis.
Maitreyi: Stress on observation ad experiment is also the basis of modern science and is, obviously, of utmost importance in surgery.
This is true also of
Sushruta tradition.
Gujarat Ayurved University, Jamnagar
The
Sushruta Samhita says that a practitioner should not think of any substance outside of the
panchamahabhootas.
Thus, the existence or non-existence of the soul is immaterial to the practitioner. The
Charaka tradition survived for centuries,
while the
Sushruta tradition slowly died out.
Sushuruta included knowledge of anaesthesia, asepsis, various kinds of instruments and their functions, and the rigorous training of students. The various achievements include plastic surgery, removal of cataracts, amputation of parts of the body and other such surgical operations.
Ayurveda can be very effective in certain areas of surgery take the
kshara-sutra, used in treating fistulae.
Dr: The
sutra, or thread, has an enzymolitic action.
3. We show here the fistula operation with the “Kshar sutra”. People objected to this saying why are you shooting something like this, its repulsive. But western medicine has not found a cure for fistula.
The patient does not even need anaesthesia. The operation takes just five minutes and the patient can go back immediately to his work. A few weeks of treatment can cure the patient completely.
To make the
kshara thread used in this operation, the gum like secretion of a common cactus is extracted, and applied to the thread. Then the ash of the
apmar plant is smeared on it. Then turmeric. After ten or twelve such coatings the
kshara thread is ready for use. In
ayurveda, this thread is the instrument for the fistula operation.
Dr. Kulwant Singh is working with various other para-surgical methods such as the use of leeches. Today, many experiments are being conducted in
ayurveda, and some good results are being achieved. The need, now, is to subject these techniques to thorough scientific analysis.
Maitreyi: So
ayurveda was a school of knowledge in which questions based on one's experience could be raised. Learning from the guru was important, but so was the student's own observation and inference. To cure the sick and to increase his own learning, the doctor had to mix with all castes and communities. To understand the body better he had to dissect human and animal corpses.
Nissim: But this type of openness could not flower in the orthodoxy of the next era when people from different castes could not mix, eat or drink together or even touch one another. Education was limited to a few from the upper classes - essentially, the
brahmans. And the teacher's word was law.
Maitreyi: In these conditions, debate was inevitable. By 500AD, the status of doctors had declined. All the orthodox texts held food given by doctors to be polluting. Physicians were seen to be on par with hunters, thieves, eunuchs and outcasts. Manu even said that any offerings to a doctor turned into pus. Like trading, acting, thieving and service under a low-caste person, the physician's work was seen as unfit for a
brahmin.
Nissim: All this was to happen in the next few centuries. In the second and third centuries AD when the
Charaka-Sushruta texts were compiled, there had been many upheavals in society. Drought in Central Asia had caused many people from there to come to India - Shunga, Shaka, Kushana, Huna. Battles, and then gradual assimilation, gave rise to a new city culture in North India.
Government Museum, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh
This famous headless statue of the Kushana king, Kanishka, is at Mathura Museum. It has a Brahmi inscription: “Emperor, king of kings, son of gods, Kanishka”. The Kushana empire was at its peak during his reign parts of today's Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and Central Asia were included in it. In India, it had spread southwards to Sanchi and eastwards to Kashi. Mathura enjoyed the status of regional capital.
Many new cities and towns came up. The atmosphere was conducive to trade. Hanidcrafts flourished. Till this period, such carving had been done mainly on wood and ivory. But during the 2nd century artisans experimented with red sandstone. The Mathura school of sculpture offers some beautiful examples of the human form.
City culture under Kushanas was far more developed than in any period before or, for a long time, after. The literature of the age refers to more than seventy trades - goldsmiths, jewellers, sculptors, oil and wine makers, acrobats, dancers, singers, musicians, traders, courtiers, clerks in the law courts etc.
Sonkh, Mathura Dist., Uttar Pradesh
There was a kind of freedom in this city life. For their personal work or on state duty,
people travelled by caravan to distant places. There was an openness in society. In Kushana times, the caste system was not as rigid as it was to become by the Gupta period. Those aspiring to a better life could hope to achieve it. City planning was geared to serve a growing population. This is evident from ruins such as these at Sonkh, near Mathura. Boundary walls, separate zones for palaces, temples and markets - all this was a necessary part of city planning. Also, public amenities had to be provided - rest houses, roads, canals, drains, wells and tanks.
A huge water reservoir of this time has been found at Shringaverpur, near Allahabad.
Shringverpur, Allahabad Dist., Uttar Pradesh
Ramanathan: A strange thing about archaeology is that often, during excavations, one doesn't find what one is looking for. But one does find a lot of things one isn't looking for. Like this water reservoir at Shringaverpur, on the Ganga. They dug here as the place is named in the
Ramayana, but the reservoir has no connection with the epic. It dates back to the Kushana age or a little earlier, which makes it 2000 years old. All year round it provided water for some 15 to 20,000 city dwellers. At that time, the river was some distance away. Thus the tank could be filled only when the river was in flood.
Amrita: Why only the flood waters? Why didn't they change the course of the river itself?
Ramanathan: Firstly, the Ganga is very deep. Then, its banks are well above the water level. It is difficult to draw water from such a river
But those people did a unique thing. They noticed this small gully that joined the Ganga. Every year, when the Ganga was in flood the water in the gully flowed backwards. So they cut a canal into this natural drain. During a flood, water from the gully was brought via the canal to the reservoir.
Ramanathan: The muddy flood waters would enter this round chamber, then flow into the second round chamber. The larger mud chunks, settled at the bottom of these chambers. The partially filtered water flowed into the first tank.
Amrita: But why not one big tank instead of so many?
Ramanathan: The fact is that even this tank filtered out the remaining sand. For this finer sand to settle, it was necessary for the water to flow more slowly, and stay longer, in this tank.
Amrita: And how did they achieve this?
Ramanathan: The water entered this first tank from here. The path is crooked and there are steps - this reduced the force of the flow
Nor is the tank a perfect rectangle. This tank is broader at the point where the water flows into the main tank. Also, look at these sloping walls because of these, the tank becomes wider towards the top. Thus the water entering this tank had an increasingly wide spread as the tank filled up.
Amrita: So this reservoir was more or less like the filtration system in today's cities?
Ramanathan: Yes, that's right. Hydraulic engineers, too, have said that the basic principles of this reservoir were the same as those we apply today.
Amrtia: Look, from here you can see how huge the reservoir is.
Ramanathan: Yes, after all, it did meet the annual water needs of about 15,000 people.
Ramanathan: In the course of excavations here, artefacts dating from Kushana to British times were found in different layers.
Amrita: It's really deep, isn't it?
Ramanathan: Yes, it is
We read and hear about so many things - but to stand before this reservoir is an overwhelming experience. I was always aware that the pyramids of Egypt, the cities of the Indus, and the Taj Mahal were formidable achievements. But I thought of them only as symbols of culture. The idea of science never entered my mind. I've always associated science with the modern age
The following day as we passed through Shringverpur preparations were on for the
Ekadashi fair. In colourful costumes, people from far-off villages had come to this place mentioned in the
Ramayana for a dip in the Ganga. It's strange that one mention in the
Ramayana makes Shringverpur a place of pilgrimage. But the presence, in the same place of a reservoir...
which is an engineering feat is not known or given any importance. It does not find mention even in folklore.
Didarganj Yakshi
Centuries ago in the Mauryan reign
The centre controlled all
But by the advent of the Gupta age,
the land split into holdings, big and small
More land came under the plough
Rentals were increased
Taxes to landlords, money to the kings
Were the farmers forced to pay
New seeds were sown
Food habits changed
New crops were grown
Transforming the fields completely
Wheat, rice and barley
were already widely known
Sugarcane, coconut, pumpkin, and pear
and betel-leaf now came to every home
Then came superior bronze
And iron that would not rust or spoil -
that could deeper plough the soil
And help to win wars
The objects had strength
as well as delicacy
Their marvellous artisanry
spread to many industries
Techniques grew finer
as in cotton and silk weaving
Along with the spice and pepper trade,
textiles too were flourishing
The changing ambience
also helped science
Nissim: You may be wondering about the new person in the song. Raghunandan from Bangalore - he has a Ph D in nuclear physics. Ramanathan had some family problems and had to leave us midway and go back to Madras.
Maitreyi: Why is this table so hard? And the pages of this book so flexible? Why is this mug brown? And the sky so blue? Why does this orange smell so sharp? Do I have an orange in my hand at all? Yes, I do - because my senses tell me that it is really there. These are questions of science and of philosophy. Science demands a worldview that trusts the senses. If I have no faith in my senses, then I cannot accept the existence of anything outside of myself. And if there is no world outside oneself, what can be the purpose of science? What meaning, then, can science have?
Nissim: During the Gupta age the influence of Buddhism was declining. And Brahmanism was in the ascendant. Buddhists and Brahmans were engaged in philosophical disputes. Nor were groups within the same religion united.
Maitreyi: These disputes were varied. But from the viewpoint of science we need only to know how they regarded the world, and their views on acquisition of knowledge. Those schools of thought that upheld logic, inference and observation can, broadly, be called materialist e.g.
Nyayavaisheshika.
Nissim: If these had held sway then it would have been good for science in opposition were the idealists. To them, knowledge through the senses was illusory, and only revealed knowledge was true. These thinkers included the
Vedantiks.
Maitreyi: And in our society it is the
Vedantiks who triumphed. The
Nyayavaisheshikas and
Vedantiks both belong to the Vedic tradition. There also existed another school of thought - that of the
Lokayata. The
Lokayatiks considered metaphysical debate futile. They were ultra-materialist. Their sayings reflect the pragmatism of daily life. They were called
Lokayatik also because they did not believe in any
lok or world other than this
lok.
Nissim: This was the time when Buddhist universities like Nalanda flourished - repositories of knowloedge for the entire society
Students from all over Asia came to study here. They studied subjects like
ayurveda, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics
philosophy too, of course. And, as in universities today, there was plenty of debate and discussion.
Nalanda, Bihar
What is this? A tree?
I think there is a tree here. I can see it, touch it and taste it – its fruits, that is. I can also smell it and hear its leaves rustle in the wind. Your senses see and experience the tree. So, the tree exists.
Why then this doubt, my idealist friend?
Because, my materialist friend, our senses often deceive us. They hide the truth from us - rather then lead us to it
How?
Here we go again! Does the tree exist or not? But how does it concern us Lokayatiks? We care only for its fruit, and its wood for fuel.
Did you hear a sound?
Must be the leaves rustling
Leaves rustling, eh?
Now watch the fun!
What happened?
Wasn't I telling you how our senses can deceive us? I mistook this rope for a snake.
My senses told me there was a snake here when there was no snake. I am far from knowing the truth. But I do know that I'm on the right path.
Oh yes, on a path paved with snakes!
Look, I'll give you yet another example
-Do you see this well?
-Yes
Were this well not here would you still see it?
No
Thus you see a well because it is here. It is essential that whenever you see a well, there must be a well present.
Undoubtedly
But when you dream of a well?
There is no well when you wake up. This conscious life of ours is also like a dream.
And you cannot prove that this well
really exists.
I know that my dream of a well is an illusion because, on waking, my sense and reason tell me that it was a dream. This proves that the senses and reason tell the truth. But when
you refer to your dream as illusion, you too are relying on your sense and reason.
How, then, can you call them illusory? Or say they deceive us? You are contradicting your own ideas!
All right, let's assume the well exists!
But is there water in it?
Oh no! These
Lokayatiks won't stop bothering us.
Raghu: One thing is clear - Science is materialist in its philosophy as its concerns are the things of the world. What they're made of, how, the principles involved.
Amrita: Yes. And if we consider the world an illusion, we destroy the very basis of science.
Ranjan: To doubt the senses or reason is to doubt science's method. Idealism is incompatible with science.
Raghu: But the idealists have always won
Ranjan: Because they were backed by those in power!
Amrita: This could be a major reason for the repeated setbacks to science in our society.
Raghu: Precisely, in the Gupta period, poets like Kalidas were honoured, while astronomers like Aryabhata were not. It is believe Aryabhata even taught at Nalanda. Astronomy
was one of the subjects. Between 300 and 700 AD, astronomy flourished.
Venu Bappu Observatory, Kavalur, Vellore Dist.
Aryabhata says in a riddle: “When 3 yugas and 7 years had passed 7 times - 23 years before that date was I born”. Those who understand Aryabhata's astronomy solve the riddle thus:Aryabhata composed this in 499 AD, and he was 23 years old at the time.
People of all cultures have gazed at the night skies and asked: “Where does the sun hide at night?” Millennia later, new questions arise, such as: “Why do independently moving planets sometimes come together in a particular formation?” Today, we want to know how stars are born and how they die. This will tell us about the birth of the universe - a fundamental question in modern astronomy.
The questions, and the answers, indicate the level of science in a given age. They reveal how humans perceived themselves and their place in the universe. This is why we need to understand ancient astronomy. Aryabhata's era saw a major change in Indian astronomy.
He, himself, gave it a new direction. The new astronomy came to be called
Siddhanta astronomy. Its maths was more developed than in the old astronomy. This progress had many aspects - the most interesting being the motion of planets. Planets are different from stars. The stars, it was believed, were fixed in the sky, and the entire sky revolved at a fixed speed. So the stars seemed to be moving, yet their distances and paths were constant. The planets, however, seemed to move erratically e.g. Mars. Here is a computer-aided diagram of the path of Mars as seen by Aryabhata over 7 months in 499 AD. Clearly, there must be a reason for this strange route. There must be some law behind it. How did explain it? Assume that this is the earth, and this, the expanse of sky, and this – Mars. Let me explain it more simply
Earth -
Sky -
Mars
If Mars is fixed in the sky and the sky revolves at a uniform speed then Mars' path becomes circular. But we have seen that this is not so. How, then, was the problem solved? With the concept of the epicycle which came to India from Greek astronomy. Imagine a small circle moving uniformly on the circumference of a larger circle. Simultaneously it is, itself, rotating like a wheel. Now, take a dot on the circumference of the small circle and observe its path. Notice how the dot slowed down, turned, changed its path and is again moving forward - exactly like the movement of Mars. Aryabhata adopted and developed this Greek concept. He, too, took the earth as the centre - but saw the sky as static, while the earth rotated on its own axis. By his calculation of the earth's rotation, a day comprises 23 hrs, 56 mins and 4.1 secs. The figure accepted today – 23 hrs, 56 mins, 4.09 secs. A difference of just 0.009 seconds.
Aryabhatiya is our earliest work of higher mathematics. Aryabhata was probably the first to create sine tables. He evolved a simple method to find integral solutions to indeterminate equations. He gave the ratio of circumference to diameter as 3.1416. This matches today's value of
pi upto 4 decimal points. Interestingly, Aryabhata says this value is approximate.
Maitreyi: Yet Brahmagupta, 150 years later, criticises Aryabhata.
Amrita: Oh, Brahmagupta! He spoke of
Rahu-Ketu and for him astrology-
Raghu: But even before him Varahamihira spoke of
Rahu-Ketu to explain eclipses. Yet he, too knew Aryabhata's work. As for astrology, it came to India from Greece.
Amrita: But it made a home here, didn't it?
Raghu: Yes. That is why a third of Varaha's
Panchasiddhantika is just astrology.
Maitreyi: I have read somewhere that as astronomy progressed, so did astrology.
Shehnaaz: How is that possible?
Maitreyi: Look, when did astrology begin? When people began to see coincidences as causes. Isn't that so? There are several examples
For instance, the rising of the star Sirius in Egypt coincided with the seasonal flooding of the Nile. So people thought that Sirius caused the flooding. That planets and stars affect earthly events - once this misconception was born, that was it! The more people began to understand the back and forth movements of planets, the more predictions they made about human lives.
Nissim: By Brahmagupta's time orthodoxy had increased. This must have influenced the young Brahmagupta. When he was 30 years old
(in the 7th century) he opposed Aryabhata on the basis of the scriptures. But it appears that in old age his understanding of astronomy and of maths grew deeper, and he was able to look afresh at these matters. At the age of 66, in his
Khandakhadyika, he praised Aryabhata.
Shehnaaz: Scholars of the time must have had constraints. To gain acceptance in society they had to combine science with the non-scientific. Otherwise we might not even have heard of them today.
Ranjan: And, possibly, they believed in these things. After all, they were part of that society.
Raghu: That is why I consider Aryabhata unique. Apart from the invocations that begin and end the
Aryabhatiya, non-scientific matters are not mentioned at all.
Nissim: Observation, inference and logic, on the one hand. On the other, inspiration by divine powers. Almost all the scientific texts of the time make references to both these methods. These texts were confined to the Brahmans and were cut off from the practical world.
Thus, there was a divide between knowledge & practice. As a result of this, non-scientific matters became obstacles to science. Instead of scientific advancement, there were elaborations on the same themes. And they fell behind even in those areas of knowledge in which they had led the world. This happened not only in
ayurveda and astronomy but in other spheres as well. And the consequences were to felt in the age to come.
4. K. Narayan is the composer of the background score for BKC.
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