9 Hinduism and Science
[Monima Chadha]
Monima Chadha
April 2024
Cite
Chadha, Monima, ‘Hinduism and Science’, in Yujin Nagasawa, and Mohammad Saleh Zarepour (eds), Global Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion: From Religious Experience to the Afterlife (Oxford, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 30 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192865496.003.0010, accessed 19 June 2025.
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Abstract
A look at the history and evolution of Hinduism shows that religion and science are +++(not)+++ necessarily antagonistic. Scientific enterprises flourished in India partly because of the pluralistic and tolerant nature of Hinduism. The pedagogical strategy and the commentary tradition in ancient Hindu schools meant that sages and philosophers were perpetually engaged in reinterpreting the Vedas and defending their interpretation of the doctrine against fellow Hindus and other heterodox traditions like Buddhism, Jainism, and the Cārvākas (the materialists) in ancient India. To support this hypothesis, the author of this chapter offers some examples of scientific enterprises that flourished in ancient India.
Keywords: pluralism, Vedas, Hindu schools, heterodox traditions
Subject
Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
9.1 Introduction
Religion and Science are thought of as antagonists in the post-Renaissance Western tradition. But a brief look at the history and evolution of Hinduism shows that it needn’t necessarily be so. I think it is the many voices of monism, dualism, pluralism, and even scepticism in the Vedic corpus that encouraged a larger intellectual environment in which faith and reason were partners rather than opponents. This environment was further strengthened by the pedagogical strategy and the commentary tradition in ancient Hindu schools that is responsible for incubation and subsequent flourishing of scientific enterprises. To support my hypothesis, I begin with a brief history of Hinduism to lay the groundwork for my hypothesis and proceed to support my hypothesis with some examples of scientific enterprises in ancient Hinduism.
The historical origins of Hinduism and its evolution suggest that it is best to think of Hinduism as a family of dynamic and polycentric religious and philosophical traditions that invoke the authority of the Vedas. The polycentrism is manifested in every facet of Hinduism: there is no one book, no one God, no pope as ultimate arbiter. Although the Vedas stand out as the most revered texts, they are one among a galaxy of Hindu ‘canons’, such as the Purāṇas, the great epics Ramāyana and Mahābhārata, the Bhagvad Gitā, the poems and plays of Kālidasa and many others. Furthermore, the Vedas are regarded as apauruṣeya (not borne out of human agency), but by the same token they are not the word of any God either. Rather they are supposed to have been directly revealed to Vedic sages and thus are called śruti (what is revealed or heard), in contrast to other texts, which are called smṛti (what is remembered). There are many Vedic sages, referred to as śrutas (those who have heard), who interpreted the so-called revelations each in their own way. Thus, we find a variety of doctrines in the Vedas that do not necessarily form what we might call a systematic philosophy or religious doctrine.
The early Vedic attitude is best characterized as pluralism and is neatly expressed in the creation hymn which considers monotheism, naturalism, and scepticism as possible answers to the question: How did all this begin?
There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomless deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day. That one breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond.…Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of the universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen – perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.
([Ṛgveda, 10.129; trans. O’Flaherty 1981]
The very last statement in this quote suggests that the Vedic sages were aware of their own cognitive limitations, and even point to the limitations of divine beings. No one can expect to know everything; some big questions like that of the creation of the universe will be inexplicable. The best attitude here is that of epistemic humility, that is being aware of one’s cognitive limitations and working to counteract them.
This attitude led to tolerance and acceptance of a wide variety of doctrine, religious and otherwise, among the ancient Indians. Passages from the Vedas like these served as starting point for fierce debates among the various Hindu philosophical schools.
Monotheism was an important theme in the Upaniṣads (the last Section of the Vedas) and was emphasized by the followers of the Advaita Vedānta tradition which argues for an eternal conscious Brahman, the ultimate unifying and integrating principle of the universe. But this monotheistic tendency was balanced by strong voices of atheism, pluralism, and scepticism within the Hindu philosophical schools. Some, for example Sāṅkhya and Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā, argued against a Brahman-centred reformulation of the Hindu world view since it conflicted with their central belief that the Vedas are the ultimate authority. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition rallied against the monism to defend a plurality of ultimately real substances (e.g. self (ātman), water, earth, etc.) with their distinct qualities and modes of existence.
The famous sceptic Śrīharṣa offered refutation arguments (khaṇḍana-yukti) that the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thesis about the plurality of substances is inconclusive. Although Śrīharṣa’s arguments were primarily aimed at Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika doctrines, he goes further to claim that refutation-arguments have universal application and can be equally applied against the monists. Das (2021) suggests that on at least one way of reading Śrīharṣa’s project is just to illustrate the instability of reason: for any argument the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosopher may offer for their favourite ontological and epistemological categories, there is a refutation-argument that defeats it. The deliverances of reason alone cannot decisively establish any thesis; faith alone can take us to the truth. Or so argued, the famous sceptic Śrīharṣa in what has also been read as to call to reinstate the authority of the Vedic scriptures.
The Hindu philosophical schools thus were perpetually engaged in reinterpreting the Vedas and defending their interpretation of the doctrine against fellow Hindus and other heterodox traditions like Buddhism, Jainism, and the Cārvākas (the materialists) in ancient India. In promoting the values of scepticism and epistemic humility, the Vedas set the stage for a multiplicity of intellectual enterprises in ancient India, including some basic sciences. We could compare this with the motto of Oxford University ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’ [The Lord is my Light] which does not restrict the scope, extent, or activity of academic research carried out by members of the Oxford community to religion or religious studies.
Since there is no one Vedic doctrine with a settled interpretation, acknowledging the authority of the Vedas does not amount to a substantial or methodological constraint on the intellectual enterprises pursued by the Hindu intellectual traditions. The infamous Ṛgvedic saying ‘Ékaṃ sád víprā bahudhā́ vadantī (Truth is one but is described in many ways by the learned)’ (1.164.46) was the source of pluralism. This indicates that the Vedas encouraged pluralism in doctrine and method.
9.2 Faith and Reason
The pedagogical model and the commentarial tradition inspired by it in the ancient Hindu schools (gurukuls) and institutions of higher learning Nalanda and Taxila (in the Indian subcontinent), dating back to the fifth century bc is another facet that deserves attention in this context. Although the Hindu philosophical traditions claim to offer nothing more than an interpretation and defence of the doctrines in the Vedas, the pedagogical model encouraged and promoted independent thinking and innovation.
More importantly, it offered a unique combination of faith and reason in the quest for knowledge. Instructive in this regard is to look at a reconstruction of how the discussion would proceed in an ancient gurukul. Since the early Hindu traditions were oral traditions, the guru (teacher) in the gurukul (ancient Hindu school), would recite a text consisting of a series of terse sūtras. The sūtra texts were intentionally terse and compact because they had to be memorized before they were understood. Once memorized the students would discuss the possible interpretations of the proposed theses and their defence. Neither the interpretation nor the arguments in defence were settled once and for all. There is evidence to believe that notable commentaries from student-philosophers earlier in the tradition were also discussed as were the objections from the opponents.
The available texts and the commentaries bear testimony to this method of instruction (see [Jha 1984]). It will be useful to clarify this with an example.
Nyāyasūtra, 1.1.10. illustrates the pedagogical model in action in ancient Hindu schools. Gautama, the founder of the earliest Brahminical school, the Nyāya, composed the famous Nyāyasūtra, 1.1.10.: ‘Desire, aversion, volition, pleasure, pain, and cognition are characteristics of the self’ (trans. [Jha 1984], p. 110).
This sūtra is interpreted as the proof for the existence of the self. In his commentary, Vātsyāyana (third century ad) explains that desire is indicative of the self in the sense that desire for an object perceived now is possible on account of the same agent having perceived the object on an earlier occasion and having experienced pleasure by coming into contact with it. Desire would not be possible without a single agent that cognizes and recognizes the object; and, this single persisting agent is the self ([Chadha 2013]). [Taber (2012]) calls this the argument from memory, according to which the volitional, affective, and cognitive states imply a ‘connector’, a single self that ties past and present mental states together. The memory argument focuses on diachronic unity of experiences to establish a self.
In a later commentary on this sūtra, Uddyotakara (fifth century ad) strengthens Vātsyāyana’s argument for the self further by appeal to multi-modal experiences and synchronic unity of experiences. For example, instead of separate features, we experience multi-modal integrated objects like seeing a red tomato (not seeing red, round, fruity, etc.). It is clear that Uddyotakara has access to Vātsyāyana’s interpretations and Buddhist objections, his commentary is sensitive to and builds upon the earlier elaborations and objections raised by the opponents against the proof of self.
This discussion highlights that there is plenty of room to introduce innovative arguments and ideas within the parameters of the thesis (sūtra) at issue. And it offers a unique way of combining the element of faith (insofar as the students in a gurukul or the authors of the text and the commentaries did not question the truth of sūtra) and the crucial role for reason and argument in the formulation of the doctrines of various Hindu philosophical schools. This gives us insight into the concordance of faith and reason, which is a distinctive feature of the ancient Indian intellectual traditions.
In ancient India, rational philosophical debate on religious and social matters was a given from the Vedic times, especially after the rise of heterodox traditions, Buddhism and Jainism, about the fifth century bce. These philosophical debates spilled over to the political domain with the advent of Kauṭilya in the fourth century bce, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthaśāstra. All this was combined with epistemic humility in that the interpretations of the sūtra texts and arguments in support could always be improvised in the light of objections from opponents.
9.3 Science without Scientific Revolution
In the West, the so-called scientific revolution was made possible by the rejection of Divine order. Unlike the West, there was no need to break away from religious tradition to mark the beginning of science in ancient India. The authority of the Vedas or any Hindu philosophical tradition that sprung from them was constantly challenged from within and without. Since the Vedic schools always had to battle with criticism from contemporaries who challenged their interpretation and defence of the thesis and there were always sceptical voices around the question, the method of reason and the authority of the Vedic scriptures, faith, reason, and science mostly existed, even flourished together in harmony.
I think it is the pluralism and the partnership between faith and reason in the Vedic times that is responsible for incubation and subsequent flourishing of scientific enterprises. To support my hypothesis, I offer some examples of scientific enterprises in ancient Hinduism. These examples show that although the early Hindu sciences were motivated by the importance of Vedic testimony and rituals, reason and argument formed the basis of the systematic study of worldly and cosmic phenomena of interest.
Most importantly, there was linguistics that emerged because of the importance of the testimony of the Vedas. The ancient Hindus, like all other ancient civilizations, were limited in the means available for empirical investigation.+++(5)+++ Thus, other sciences that did emerge were limited to abstract sciences, for example mathematics, geometry, and logic or sciences that concerned phenomena that can be observed with the naked eye, for example medicine and astronomy.
9.4 Faith without Reason
Before we delve into the examples, it is important to consider an objection to my hypothesis. All scientific enterprises, much like philosophical enterprises, in ancient Hinduism claim allegiance to the Veda.
Sometimes this is done without good reason. For example, the ancient Hindu text on medicine Caraka-saṃhitā (CS, 30.21) contains a passage which explicitly states that when questioned about the authority of his subject, the physician should answer that he is devoted to the Atharvaveda because that Veda prescribes rituals and prayers to enhance and prolong life, and this is the purpose of medicine too ([Wujastyk 2003]). The passage suggests that allegiance to the Veda is a requirement for ascribing authority to the scientist and the science. Even though there are no real historical connections between the Atharvaveda and the Caraka-saṃhitā, the latter explicitly advises the physician to appeal to the rituals and prayers in the Atharvaveda without which the doctors’ word (and the recommendations of the science of medicine) are likely to be dismissed as unauthoritative by his patients and audience.
This is not an isolated example, there are plenty of instances where an explanation of phenomena arrived at by empirical methodology and reasoning is very likely to be traced back or at least motivated by an authoritative text of the Vedas. This has led some contemporary Indian philosophers and historians of science, notably, Debiprasad [Chattopadhyaya (2014] [1977]) and Ramakrishna [Bhattacharya (2005]) to conclude that the accommodation of superstition from the Vedas was a significant impediment for the development of scientific enterprises in ancient India. Bhattacharya writes that the appeal to the authority of the Hindu cannon
‘did much harm to the cause of science by accommodating superstition in it.…[T]he fact remains that the willing or unwilling acceptance of such utterly unscientific notions proved detrimental to the further development of science and scientific spirit in India’ (2005, p. 54).
There is another aspect of the Caraka-saṃhitā that needs to be brought into focus here. The text is full of praise for gods, cows, brahmanas, preceptors, elders, adepts, and teachers (CS, 1.8.18 and passim), people are warned not to speak against the brahmanas, nor to raise a stick against the cow (CS, 1.18.25). Nevertheless, beef is found to be recommended as the diet of the patients suffering from the loss of flesh due to disorder caused by an excess of vāyu (probably rhinitis which causes nasal blockage, irregular fever, dry cough, fatigue), and cases of excessive appetite due to hard manual labour (CS, 1.27.79–80). This is only one of the many instances in which the flesh of cows, and of buffaloes, horses, goats, and even of elephants, are prescribed (CS, 6.1.183).
There is an obvious inconsistency here, and the texts did not leave it at that. Indeed, in places it is quite clear that the authors of these ancient texts are not shy to question the most central theses of the Vedas. Chattopadhyaya explains that the Caraka Saṃhitā quite explicitly raises and clarifies the view of the ancient physicians on questions of consistency.
The question is: What brings about cure? Is it the intrinsic efficacy of the drugs (herbs) administered to the patient or the unseen hangovers of actions performed in past lives? The text says that ‘the action of a substance is determined exclusively by the substance itself and it is not influenced by anything else’ ([Chattopadhyaya 1982], p. 154). The stress on the importance of naturalist causation makes its abundantly clear that the texts prescribe observation and reasoning as the methods to be used for the practice of the science of medicine. In contrast, neither the unseen force of karma nor any accident of nature has anything to do with the cure.
The Caraka Saṃhitā declares that chance successes do not enhance the prestige of medicine when it says that ‘any success attained without reasoning is as good as sheer accidental success’ ([Chattopadhyaya 1982], p. 201).+++(5)+++ The naturalist attitude is defended clearly, there is no room left for karma to reward the dharmic (righteous) person with good health. So, although the authors of the Caraka-saṃhitā pay the required lip service to the authority of the Vedas, when it comes to matters of science, they do not hesitate to rebut the doctrine of karma, which is among the tops in the list of the important Vedic Hindu beliefs.+++(5)+++
There is certainly some truth to the concern that the need to pay lip service to the orthodoxy is unnecessary and can be detrimental for the growth of the sciences. Bhattacharya discusses what is perhaps the worst example in the ancient Indian tradition. Āryabhaṭa proposed a geokinetic hypothesis in the Āryabhaṭīya, against the orthodox geostatic view. But his commentators misinterpreted his writings and even tampered with the text of the Āryabhaṭīya to make it consistent with the orthodox Vedic view ([Bhattacharya 1990]).
It is a well-known fact that commentators often depart from the original text in many ways, which might sometimes be detrimental for the intended meaning of the original author. The time lag and the resultant lack of historical sense of the terms in the original text as well as the personal philosophical affiliation of the commentator are factors that may lead to distortion. So, Bhattacharya is right to warn us to handle the commentaries in their context and with care. Commentators are fallible.
But at the same time, there is a need to underscore that the commentary tradition in ancient India was not merely exegetical. It was a living dynamic tradition kept alive by interpretation and reinterpretation in view of the challenges raised by the opponents and new contextual development of ideas. Ganeri says:
‘within the genre of commentary many different sorts of philosophy are possible. There is much more to commentary than merely exegesis; it can also stand for a creative act of philosophy built around the text, a rejuvenation of the ancient in the present’ (2011, p. 115).
Scientific enterprises in the ancient Hindu tradition are not a break from and rejection of the past, rather ancient Hindu intellectuals view the past as something to engage and develop further in a rich multitude of ways. The past continually informs the present through rigorous scrutiny and revision across different levels of philosophical and scientific analysis.
Despite some shortcomings, the commentarial tradition is what kept the Hindu intellectual traditions in ancient India alive, and this larger intellectual environment led to the growth of scientific enterprises within the fold of Hinduism. Or so I will argue using some examples.
9.4.1 Example 1: Logic and the Science of Reason
Given the plural interpretations of Vedic doctrines, and its detractors, the role of argument and the rules of reasoning became increasingly important. The Nyāya philosophers took it upon themselves to formalize the procedures for properly conducting debates, the nature of good argument, and the analysis of perception, inference, and testimony as sources of knowledge. The rules of reasoning have universal application and so they apply to the Vedas themselves.
Nyāyasutra 2.1.57 raises a fundamental sceptical worry about the legitimacy and the epistemic value of the Vedas, in the mouth of the customary hypothetical opponent:
‘That [the testimony of the Vedas] cannot be regarded as an instrument of knowledge because they suffer from the following epistemological defects: falsity, inconsistency, and repetition.’
The following Nyāyasūtras 2.1.58–68 defend the Vedas against each of the charges. The defence ends with Nyāyasūtra 2.1.68 claiming that
‘[t]he epistemic authority of that [the Vedas] is based upon the epistemic credentials of the expert [sage]—just like the authority of the medical scriptures’.
The later commentators add that expertise in the subject matter needs to be accompanied by sincerity and benevolent intentions. The example of the medical scriptures is intriguing, especially in light of the fact that the medical scriptures referred to by the Nyāya philosophers are those in the Caraka Saṃhitā that rely on observation (experimentation) and reasoning. Be that as it may, the important point to gloss from this discussion is that the Nyāya philosophers do not see any obvious discontinuity between faith in the Vedic testimony and reason.+++(4)+++
Logic was established as an independent discipline in its own right by the Nyāya philosophers. Although the earliest known example of the canonical Indian syllogism is found in the Caraka-saṃhitā, the Nyāyasūtra (NS, 1.1.32–39) formalizes the syllogism by clearly listing and naming each of its five parts.
proposition: The soul is eternal
reason: because of being un-produced.
example: Space is unproduced and it is eternal.
application: And just as space is unproduced, so is the soul.
conclusion: Therefore, the soul is eternal
proposition: The soul is eternal
reason: because of being un-produced.
example: Space is unproduced and it is eternal.
application: And just as space is unproduced, so is the soul.
conclusion: Therefore, the soul is eternal
([Gillon 2022])
This example illustrates an analogical inference, later commentators on Nyāyasūtras elaborate on the discussion by adding examples of different kinds of inferences, and also deficiencies in inferences and fallacious reasons.
Logic too had its detractors in ancient India. On at least one way of reading Śrīharṣa’s sceptical project is just to illustrate the instability of reason: for any argument the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosopher may offer for their favourite ontological and epistemological categories, there is a refutation-argument that defeats it (Das 2021). The deliverances of reason are never immune to rational defeat and can only constitute inconclusive evidence. Rational inquiry by itself, for Śrīharṣa, is futile.
9.4.2 Example 2: The Science of Language
Given the emphasis on the testimony of the Vedas as a source of knowledge, the science of language was the first to appear. It was first formalized by Pāṇini in about the fourth century bce. Since the Vedas were orally transmitted, the science of language was of supreme importance. In the Vedas, language was generally approached within a ritual perspective.
The earliest reference to the origin of language, in the Ṛgveda portrays sages who ‘fashioned language with their thought, filtering it like parched grain through a sieve’, and who ‘traced the course of language through ritual’ (10.71.2–3). The origins of Sanskrit, the language of the Vedas, was the subject of serious speculation long before it was written down towards the end of the Vedic period.
Analysis of language started in Ṛgvedic times with the introduction of Padapāṭha, a word-for-word analysis of the sentences of the Vedic hymns. This was important because the rituals involved recitation of Vedic hymns and mantras, the officiating Brahmins needed to know the precise form of the words along with their accents and modes of recitation. The analysis was deep and went beyond the separation of words to separating out the roots, stems, suffixes, and prefixes.
In addition, there was the Prātiśākhya tradition which concerned itself phonology rather than morphology. The most important contribution of this tradition was the analysis of the sounds of language into vowels, consonants, semi-vowels, stops, dentals, velars, nasals, etc. Both these Vedic works served as precursors to the science of language because they shared the goal of providing explicit and general rules for linguistic regularities. However, insofar as they were confined to analysing the hymns and mantras in the Vedic texts, they do not qualify as scientific enterprises in and of themselves.+++(Wrong.)+++
It was Pāṇini (c. 350 bc) who transformed the Vedic study of language into a science. He went beyond the Prātiśākhya study of phonology to dealing with all levels of structure and included morphology, syntax, and semantics. Furthermore, the object of study was Sanskrit, a creative and unbounded language in the modern Chomskyan sense of the word, rather than the finite corpus of the mantras in the Vedic texts. As Kiparsky puts it:
‘By dealing with all levels of structure and not being bound to a particular corpus of text, Pāṇini’s grammar attains an incomparably greater depth of analysis, and does justice to the unbounded nature of language’ (1993, pp. 2918–2923).
Although Pāṇini was inspired by the works concerned with the analysis of Vedic texts, Pāṇini’s grammar and rules for Vedic Sanskrit texts
‘are haphazard and incomplete while his rules for the spoken language are almost perfect, if not in syntax, at least in phonology and morphology’ ([Staal 2003], p. 356).
The scientific character of Pāṇini’s grammar is not only revealed by its high degree of formalization, but also because of the importance he places on empirical description and accounting for the native speakers’ use of Sanskrit, the locus classicus of which is the laconic expression lokatah ‘on account of (the usage) of the people’.
Pāṇini’s major work, the Aṣtādhyāyī, presented a complete, self-contained system of rules of grammar. However, in the interests of brevity, Pāṇini omitted the principles that determine how the rules are to be applied. The principles for the application of the rules was the major subject of the massive commentarial tradition that followed. The most important work was Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya (literally, great commentary) on the Aṣtādhyāyī which incorporates Kātyāyana’s Vārttika (commentary). These commentaries, as was common in the ancient Indian tradition, went well beyond clarifying the original texts and added their reinterpretations and reconstructions of the rules and arguments. They also made an attempt to answer the objections raised by contemporary critics.
Pāṇini’s grammar had its critics then and now. Since Sanskrit was revered as the language brought into existence by the Vedic sages, it was claimed that the structure of Sanskrit is extraordinarily clear and the rules are transparent. Pāṇini did not have to do much. This is not the case, the continuous recitation of Vedic utterances (saṃhitā) made it particularly difficult to detach the words of Vedic utterances from each other, dissolving the conjunctions (saṁdhi) between them, and breaking the influence of the word accent in as far as it goes beyond word boundaries. As Brough reminds us:
It is customary to add…the deprecatory remark that Pāṇini was, of course, aided in his analysis by the extraordinary clarity of the structure of the Sanskrit language; but we are apt to overlook the possibility that this structure might not have seemed so clear and obvious to us if Pāṇini had not analyzed it for us.+++(5)+++
(1951, p. 27)
9.4.3 Example 3: Mathematics and Geometry
In his paper ‘Zero: An Eternal Enigma’, Parthasarathi [Mukhopadhyay (2019]) talks about the genesis of zero. Many experts concerned with the history of the conceptual as well as etymological evolution of the concept of zero trace it back to the word śūnya of Indian antiquity. Mukhopadhyay’s fascinating work concludes that the philosophical concept of śūnya and the Sanskrit words akin to it eventually pave the way for the evolution of the corresponding mathematical concept of zero. He traces the concept of śūnya back to two sources, both concerned with language.
The first is the Piṅgalacchandaḥsūtra, the rules of prosody for both Vedic and classical chanda given by Piṅgala, arguably some time during second century bce. As far as our present evidence stands, Piṅgala introduced a binary representation system that needed the concept of zero, which he termed śūnya ([Plofker et al. 2017]).
The second source is Pāṇini’s use of his grammatical or linguistic ‘zero’, viz. lopa, that was used as a marker of an empty (śūnya) or non-occupied space or position ([Staal 2010]). His relevant basic sūtra is adarśanam lopaḥ, found in the Aṣṭādhyāyī (I.1.60) which means ‘non-appearance is lopa’, a concept which can be rendered by the modern term ‘zeroing’. It is unclear whether Pāṇini borrowed from Piṅgala’s positional mathematics or whether it was Pāṇini’s grammar which inspired the great mathematical invention. Whatever symbol for this concept might have been used by ancient Hindu linguists is not known to us but it seems clear that they were familiar with the mathematical concept of zero (śūnya). There is thus plenty of evidence to think that sophisticated and abstract mathematics was pursued by ancient Hindus.
As with the science of language, the science of heavenly bodies (jyotiṣavedāṅga) was important to the ancient Hindus because the rituals and the sacrifices prescribed in the Vedas were to be performed in a specific order, at fixed times, and especially designed altars. The sizes, shapes, and direction of the sites and altars were of utmost importance. A sacrificer had to adhere to the prescriptions of order, time, and place, without which he would stand to lose the merit to be attained through the specific ritual he was performing. The specific requirements for the construction of sacrificial altars and the need to fix the order and dates were the catalysts for the development of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy.
In the earliest times there is evidence of the formulation of some abstract mathematical equations to enable calculations required for designing sacrificial altars. The evidence of these is found in the Śulbasūtras (in the Brāhmanas, a part of Vedas) which contained the practical instructions for the preparation of the sites of rituals. But their content was not restricted to practical geometry like the measurement of land, they also contain theoretical aspects. The practical requirement was simply to draw altars in various shapes with a given area. But the authors of the Śulbasūtras went beyond these practical requirements and developed theoretical mathematics to come up with transformations of geometric figures without changing their areas ([Hayashi 2003]).+++(4)+++
9.4.4 Example 4: The Science of Heavenly Bodies
The solar and the lunar eclipses are the most conspicuous of the phenomena in the sky. They were the centre of attention of the Vedic sages, but the earliest explanations of these eclipses were offered in the Puranic myths which evoked demons and snakes, specifically Rāhu. These explanations were called into doubt by the Indian astronomers Āryabhaṭa (476 ce) and Brahmagupta (598 ce) but the clearest refutation of these legends is found in the works of Lalla (748 ce). Lalla was a student in Āryabhaṭa’s school and thus was familiar with his geokineticism. He followed many of the rules formulated in Brahmagupta’s to offer perhaps the most decisive refutation of the myths in his magnum opus Śiṣyadhīvṛddhidatantra. Lalla questions the Puranic legend by pointing to various inconsistencies.
But his arguments are clearly based on empirical observations, as is evident in the refutation. An excerpt from the text illustrates this point:
If the Rāhu has a body or is a disc, or a head or is a planet in the sky, and if it is always moving, why should it swallow (the Moon) only at a distance of six signs (from the Sun)?
If you are of the opinion that an artful demon is always the cause of an eclipse by swallowing (the Sun or Moon), then how is it that the eclipse can be determined by means of calculation?
Moreover, why is there not an eclipse on a day other than the day of New or Full Moon?
If a lunar eclipse takes place on the western horizon and is caused by Rāhu, then why does the Sun’s disc appear to be swallowed by the second Rāhu of the same speed.
If the opponents say that it is a snake that causes an eclipse by its head and its tail, then why does it not cover half of the circle between its head and tail.
An eclipse cannot be caused by Rāhu because the sides of the discs of the Sun and the Moon, which are first to be eclipsed are not the same; nor are the portions eclipsed the same; and nor even are the durations the same.
In a solar eclipse, people at different parts (of the earth) see different portions of the Sun eclipsed. Some do not see the eclipse at all. Knowing all this, who can maintain that an eclipse is caused by Rāhu?
Because of the great authority of Brahmā, at the time of the eclipse the sun is nearer Rāhu. So in the Vedas, Smṛti and Saṃhitā, it has come to be known that Rāhu is the cause of the eclipses.
(Verses 21–27)
Everything in the text above points to a scientific explanation of the eclipses by reason and observation, except of course in the last verse where Lalla reconciles his explanation with why the authors of the Puranas might have thought of eclipses being caused by demon Rahu. More lip service, perhaps.+++(5)+++ But I think it is done in the spirit of reconciliation of the scientific hypothesis backed by observation and reason with the myth of Rāhu rather than in the spirit of antagonism. The reasoning clearly explains why the Rāhu might have thought to be compelling but is in the last analysis untenable.
9.5 Conclusion
The examples offered above support my hypothesis that serious scientific enterprises in linguistics, mathematics, and astronomy flourished hand-in-hand with Vedic studies. There was no obvious antagonism between the two.
There are no tales of scientists being persecuted because of their empirical methods or results that contradicted the myths and tales in the Hindu cannons. They were allowed to set up their schools and were revered as sages and teachers. This is evident from the fact that the commentarial tradition that developed the theories of the pioneers like Pāṇini was inspired by his insights, but the commentators would not hesitate to point out the shortcomings of their scientific discoveries and suggest novel interpretations. This would sometimes lead to misinterpretation of the original texts, but that was the price that had to be paid to keep the tradition alive and relevant over centuries.
This completes my argument in favour of the hypothesis that Hinduism contributed to science by promoting the values of pluralism, scepticism and epistemic humility, and by providing the larger philosophical environment in which faith and reason were seen as partners rather than competitors in the advancement of intellectual enterprises.
Primary Texts
The Charakasaṃhitā. P.M. Mehta and others (eds) (1949). Gulabkunverba Ayurvedic Society.
Khaṇdanakhaṇdakhāḍya of Shri-Harṣa. Jha, G. (1986[1913]). transl. The Sweets of Refutation, Allahabad: ‘Indian Thought Series’. Satguru Publications.
Pañcasiddhāntika of Varāhamihira. Neugebauer, O. & D. Pingree. (1971). 2 parts. Copenhagen.
Suśrutasaṃhitā. Ambikādatta Śāstri (ed.). (1987[1953]). Chaukhambha Sanskrit Sansthan.
Śisyadhīvrddhidatantra. Chatterjee, B. (1981). 2 Vols. Indian National Science Academy.
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Reply to Monima Chadha
Helen De Cruz
Hindu scholars and philosophers have contributed to a variety of scientific disciplines, many of which have an enduring global influence. Monima Chadha’s chapter provides a comprehensive overview of this. Indian arithmetic not only gave the world the decimal system and the Hindu-Arabic numerals, but also the concept of zero and its many mathematical possibilities. Moreover, Indian authors pioneered the field of descriptive linguistics as a science, particularly in the systematic work of Pāṇini (c. 4th c. bce) and his contemporaries. Ancient Indian sciences spanned a broad range, including cartography, astronomy, and various branches of medicine, including ayurvedic medicine, which is practised up to this day. Chadha’s paper contributes to the growing body of literature that shows that modern science is not a western invention, but that it has always been a global phenomenon which has had many contributors from outside Europe and the western world (see also e.g. Poskett 2022).
Chadha argues that the various religious and philosophical traditions that we denote as ‘Hinduism’ did not oppose the development of early science, mathematics, and logic, but rather, encouraged them and helped them thrive.
The contrast with science and Christianity in the west is striking. Although some devout Christians have played an active role in the development of scientific ideas, the scientific revolution in Europe ‘was made possible by the rejection of Divine order’, as Chadha puts it. This conflict narrative has been contested by scholars working on Christianity and science. For example, science historian Peter Harrison (2007) argues that the Christian doctrine of original sin made modern science possible, because belief in a historical Fall emphasizes our fallibility and thus stresses the need for empirical testing of our ideas. Still, the conflict view remains a dominant narrative among westerners (see my paper (Chapter [8]) in this volume).
Chadha argues that scientists on the Indian subcontinent, unlike those in early modern Europe, did not need to emancipate from the various Hindu philosophical and religious schools of thought, because the latter traditions already held within them key virtues of scientific practice.
Chadha’s reading of Hinduism and ancient science as harmonious fits within a broader tradition. It is important to highlight the broader sociopolitical context under which it arose, which might give rise to some caveats to Chadha’s picture (which I otherwise agree with).
As Meena Nanda (2010, p. 280) writes, many modern Indians and Hindus in the diaspora commonly believe that ‘the ancient Hindu tradition has the right answers to the kind of questions that modern natural sciences have asked, or will ask in the future’. They see Hinduism as intrinsically harmonious with science, and they believe the Vedas prefigure major and cutting-edge scientific discoveries.
We can situate the origins of this integration narrative in the British colonial period (1757–1947), when Hindu scholars and scientists sought to break free from colonial rule. As a result of colonization, Hindus encountered western science and technology. British colonial rulers held that Hindus were incapable of scientific thought. This was one of the many ways in which they intellectually justified their violent and oppressive colonial regime, which devastated the local economy, increased poverty, and reduced life expectation (Sullivan and Hickel 2023).
The British colonizers held that westerners brought modern technology and science to the Indian subcontinent and that Indians should be grateful for these bounties. Never mind that the British also stole local technologies and inventions (e.g. the cotton industry) that they then made inaccessible for Indians through unfair trading agreements. Never mind that the British relied on ancient Indian mathematical and linguistic concepts and tools in their ‘western’ science. Local intellectuals pushed back against this distorted narrative by promoting a counter-narrative: Hinduism is more in line with science than Christianity (see Brown 2012).
From the late nineteenth century onward, the Indian subcontinent saw various revivalist movements that reaffirmed the cultural value of Hinduism. These proposed the notion of a Vedic science: the Vedas and other ancient texts already prefigure later scientific findings (e.g. Vivekananda 1904). We can get a flavour of this in Swami Vivekananda’s (1863–1902) influential address to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1893 (see Nanda 2020 for discussion). Vivekananda contrasted Hinduism favourably to Christianity, arguing that Hindus (unlike Christians) do not rely on dogmas and do not persecute dissenters through an inquisition. Rather, Hinduism prefigures in its empiricist attitude the modern scientific method.
This account of complete harmony between Hinduism and modern science is not one that Chadha herself endorses. Nevertheless, the positive view she outlines fits in a broader integration narrative of Hinduism and science. Accounts of the relationship between religion and science are both descriptive and aspirational: they seek to illuminate how religion and science relate, within a specific tradition or set of traditions, but they also want to tell us something about ourselves. How do we see ourselves with respect to the religious traditions we grew up in? Do we embrace or reject them, and how do we square this with our acceptance (or rejection) of modern science? How do we position ourselves with respect to people with different religious beliefs?
When we look in a bit more detail, we can discern a more complicated relationship than the integration narrative that Hindu scholars advance, just like a more detailed look brings out complications in any other tradition.
For example, the attitudes of Hindu scholars in their first encounter with evolutionary theory spanned a range of responses, going from wholehearted acceptance to staunch rejection. Many views were somewhere in between (Brown 2012). To give but one example, Mahendrahal Sircar (1833–1904), who was one of the first Hindu authors to examine evolutionary theory and its implications for Hindu religious beliefs, proposed a form of evolutionary theism. While he accepted common descent, he rejected the mechanism of natural selection, because of its lack of teleology (Chakraborty 2001).
The aspirational component in theorizing on religion and science is not unique to Hinduism. Since Ian Barbour’s influential work, Christian authors in the field of religion and science are anxious to stress how harmonious various Christian views are with science, ranging from cosmology and evolution, to quantum mechanics. In this way, they seek to counter the conflict narrative which still reigns in the imagination of their co-religionists. As many authors in religion and science who work on Christianity are (former) scientists (e.g. Alister McGrath, Arthur Peacocke), it is understandable that they wish to emphasize how Christian religious views are harmonious with science.
Given the complex relationship of religion and science in Hinduism, Christianity, and other traditions, can we ever state: ‘Christianity is (largely) in conflict with science’ or ‘Hinduism is (largely) in harmony with science’? Such sweeping claims are difficult to evaluate because of the multi-faceted nature of both religion and science. In Hinduism, this is explicitly so because of the diversity in the āstika schools (e.g. Nyāya, Sāṅkhya) and their differing attitudes to how we acquire knowledge. We might do best to look at a finer grain, at individual disciplines such as mathematics or linguistics, as Chadha has done, or even at a still finer grain, at individual scientific findings, and see how these relate to specific religious views. For example, we might ask whether the Vedānta concept of ātman (the self) is compatible with contemporary neuroscientific conceptions of the self (Deshmukh 2022).+++(5)+++ Such a fine-grained analysis can give us a rich picture that can help us get a better grasp of what it means for religion and science to be in harmony or in conflict.
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Graham Priest
In her thoughtful and knowledgeable ‘Hinduism and Science’, Monima Chadha discusses the relation between Hinduism and science. She holds that there is a tension between Christianity and science, at least post-Renaissance, but there is not such a tension in Hinduism. She explains this by noting the more pluralistic nature of Hinduism. I think that Chadha is right about many things, though the relationships between science and the religions is a bit more nuanced than she suggests. Let me explain why.
A9.2.1 The Tension between Science and Christianity
Chadha is absolutely right that there has been a tension between science and Christianity since the so-called scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. True, most Christian theologians in the last hundred years have made their peace with science, but the history of the matter speaks for itself. (See, further, the discussion of the matter in my comments on De Cruz.)
One has to be slightly careful here, though. It is not exactly accurate to say that the revolution was made possible by ‘the rejection of Divine order’ (p. 5). Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Boyle, were all Christians, as were all the leading European scientists for the next two hundred years (as far as I am aware)—including Darwin. It might then be fairer to say that the tension was between religious orthodoxy and science. Or perhaps better: between those in positions of orthodox Christian power and science.+++(5)+++ To what extent this was driven by these people wishing to preserve their religious views or by wishing to preserve their power (or both), I leave for historians to argue about.
Notwithstanding any of this, the scientific revolution, and its consequences for the next couple of hundred years, were clearly a European phenomenon. Hence during that period science did flourish in a Christian culture.
A9.2.2 Hinduism and Science
Chadha claims that Hinduism is more pluralistic than Christianity, that science flourished under Hinduism, and that the tolerance of science in India is at least partly explained by the more pluralistic and tolerant nature of Hinduism.
To consider these claims, I think it helps start by putting matters in a more general context. It is true that, at least since the early Middle Ages, Europe was largely mono-religious. True, there were many Christian sects, and at times the relationships between them were highly antagonistic and vicious. Sometimes the conflict was driven by dogma, sometimes by power; sometimes both. But all were Christians.
By contrast, in the last two thousand years, the Indian subcontinent has accommodated multiple religious: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Sikhism, and—it should not be forgotten, Christianity. Some of these religions (such as Hinduism and Buddhism) have a number of things in common. Some of them (such as Hinduism and Islam) have much less in common. Often, the coexistence of religions was peaceful; sometimes (and increasingly at present), it has not been so. At any rate, there is clearly a greater pluralism here than in Europe.
Turing to Hinduism itself, this has canonical and authoritative texts—the Vedas and Upanishads, just as Christianity has the Bible. Chadha notes that there has always been a plurality of different interpretations of the Hindu canonical texts. The same, of course, is true of the Bible. Whether there is more flexibility in the Hindu texts than the Bible, I leave for scholars to debate. It is certainly true, as far as I know, that power struggles of a kind that have characterized the relationships between Christian groups have been largely absent between Hindu groups.+++(4)+++ So we do seem to have greater tolerance here.
And as Chadha nicely demonstrates, scientific endeavours did flourish under Hinduism: mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, and, we might add, medicine. It should be noted, though, that these examples are all from a period before the scientific revolution in Europe, when, of course, there were similar advances taking place in Europe. It is much harder to give examples of scientific developments in India after this period, when, of course, the scientific revolution was producing major novelties in Europe. And as noted, this was occurring in a Christian society, one where most scientists were themselves Christians. It is therefore hard to attribute the difference between Christianity and Hinduism in their attitudes to science to the religions themselves. It is perhaps more plausible to put it down to the nature of the power structures of the two religions.
A9.2.3 The Scientific Revolution
Anyway, all this raises an obvious question. Why did the scientific revolution occur in Europe? Given what Chadha says, the ground for it had been laid in India, and there was nothing religious preventing it from occurring there. For the same reasons, it would appear that it could have happened in China, which had made many advances in, among other things, mathematics, astronomy, technology, and medicine in the period in question. Ditto in the Islamic world, which was arguably the most advanced culture in science and mathematics in the early Middle Ages.
The scientific revolution was produced by two novelties, one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical one was the use of mathematics in a novel way. As Galileo said, the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The practical one was the use of experimentation, as opposed to simple observation. With this, nature can be ‘tortured to reveal its secrets’, as Francis Bacon is sometimes—infelicitously—quoted as saying.+++(4)+++ But why did these ideas appear when and where they did?
That, of course, is a question that has been the occasion of much scholarly debate, and this is hardly the place to take a deep dive into it. For my part, I doubt that there is a simple explanation of the matter. Historical developments of this kind are invariably the result of a complex combination of circumstances, and many things were happening in Europe at the time in question which could have been conducive to producing the scientific changes.
Capitalism was hitting its strides—at least in the form of merchant capitalism. Profit could be made from new ideas.
Because of exploration and incipient imperialism, Europe was starting to get a sense of the whole world, its geography and natural science, in a way that no civilization had done before. The long-distance travel itself put new demands on technology.
The printing press had recently been invented, and that made it easier to disseminate new ideas in a timely fashion. This in turn made it possible to form novel scientific communities, such as the Royal Society in London.
And of course, one should never underestimate pure happenstance: the appearance of characters with the quirky ideas of a Galileo or a Newton: the ‘butterfly effect’ of the history of ideas.
Maybe one should throw some religious factors into the mix as well. Another thing that was taking place in Europe about the same time was, of course, the Reformation, when Christian thinkers such as Luther and Calvin were challenging the authority and some of the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Maybe this contributed to the critical scientific spirit of the times.
But if, as Chadha says, a preparedness to take on orthodoxy was a feature of other cultures at the time—notably that of India, where the scientific revolution did not occur—it is hard to see this as playing a dominant role in the matter.
At any rate, perhaps understanding what role, if any, religion played in the scientific revolution is the biggest challenge posed by Chadha’s Hindu perspective.
विश्वास-टिप्पनी
Graham Priest’s response hides the nature of the renaissance, lit by the pagan Plethon.
It also ignores the H struggle for survival post Islamic invasion (a factor absent in renaissance Europe).
Appendix
Monima Chadha, Helen De Cruz, and Graham Priest, Hinduism and Science In: Global Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion: From Religious Experience to the Afterlife. Edited by: Yujin Nagasawa and Mohammad Saleh Zarepour, Oxford University Press. © Monima Chadha, Helen De Cruz, and Graham Priest 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192865496.003.0010
This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Subject to this license, all rights are reserved.