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From the works of Shri Sanjay Dixit , Chairman of The Jaipur Dialogues
Channel Link : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZjxPbi3AeB6YGKCfQ2TroQ
All Religions are Not The Same.
PART I — FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
There have been many attempts to define the Hindu Dharma, or more appropriately, Sanātana Dharma throughout the modern era. Most notably, the Supreme Court defined it as a way of life, and not as a set of beliefs. The attitude of Hindus towards the spiritual has always been one of seeking and inquiry, rather than any certainty of dogma. Yet, there are certain science beliefs that are unique to Hinduism.
2. Time concepts
3. Logic concepts
4. Epistemology
5. Cosmology
6. Eschatology
Let us first look at each of these separately, and then have a holistic look.
1. ATTITUDE TO SCIENCE:
Science is a methodology. In modern era, Science for the lay people has also become a subject being taught and learnt on the basis of authority. Students do not really know whether the earth revolves on its axis, except on the authority of scientists who really have the means to conduct experiments and prove them.
Science as a methodology can be defined as an empirical method which accepts a physical phenomenon as True on the basis of it being universal — true across time and space; verifiable — demonstrable to all; and repeatable — that which will repeat in similar circumstances. To that we add refutability or falsifiability, i.e. one is free to try and refute that physical phenomenon.
Sanātana Dharma’s scientific attitude to the Universe is not just applicable to the physical world, but also to the spiritual world. It is best exemplified by the famous Nāsadiya Sukta of Ṛgveda (10.129) (Translation of AL Basham):
1. Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
2. Then there was neither death nor immortality
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.
3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined cosmic water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
4. In the beginning desire descended on it –
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is kin to that which is not.
5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.
6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
the gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?
7. Whence all creation had its origin,
the creator, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
the creator, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows — or maybe even he does not know.
This kind of open inquiry about the origin of Cosmos is unknown in the Abrahamic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Abrahamic religions do not allow any questioning and inquiry, and treat the Word of their scriptures beyond refutation. Sanātana Hinduism, on the other hand, allows not only open inquiry, but as the subsequent developments of Hinduism show, even open debate and refutation.
Every branch of orthodox Hinduism allowed this open inquiry, and allowed debate within various sects. Buddha’s debates with the orthodox Sanātana Brahmins are the best example of this approach. Buddha was every inch a Hindu, but he differed from the orthodox view on the question of existence of the Ātman (loosely translated as the eternal soul). Hindus and the followers of Buddha debated the question for over a millennia till Hinduism won a final victory led by the Ādi Shankar.
To refute the concept of the Ātman, people even carried out physical experiments, without any consequences to their physical well being. Payāsi Sutta has a description of a person about to die being enclosed in a vessel, being weighed, observations of ātman escaping the vessel being taken; weight being taken immediately after death; and a final pronouncement of the absence of the ātman on weight being found the same.
All across the Upanishads, this spirit of inquiry, debate and refutation is present in full measure. Vedanta philosophy speculates on duality, Oneness, qualified Oneness, and the sages have derived advaita, dvaita, vishishtadvaita, and bhakti from the same material. People like Charvāka refuted the existence of Ātman on the basis of direct observation epistemology, yet he was honoured with the title of a Rishi. Patanjali’s Yōga Sutra provides a basis for physical verification of the existence of the Supreme. Kapila Muni’s Saṃkhya philosophy provides a cosmological basis, whereas Vaisheshika of Kaṇāda dwells on the physical cause and effect. Bhagvadgita encapsulates all the philosophies into one whole, and even that great book provides Arjuna with a glimpse of many paths. Krishṇa exhorts Arjuna in the end to choose any of the paths that he had described –yathechchhasi tathā kuru.
Thus it is clear from this evidence that the concept of Creation, as well as that of the Ātman in the Hindu pantheon is physical, subject to personal verification, and refutable. This is a purely scientific approach to the mysteries of Universe.
While Ātman in Hinduism is a refutable physical concept, and is, therefore, scientific; on the other hand, the ‘soul’ of the Abrahamic religions is an irrefutable metaphysical concept, hence unscientific.To illustrate this point further — Creation, soul, and God are all based on the revealed Book, not subject to verification or debate (any such act is termed as heresy), and an irrefutable Truth on the authority of God, Yahveh, or Allah. This is a purely unscientific approach. So this is the first major fundamental difference between Hinduism and Western religions. We will explore the entire gamut of fundamental conceptual differences between Hinduism and what are known as Religions (principally Abrahamic) over course of 5 more articles.
Part 2.TIME CONCEPTS
“Time is the interface between Science and Religion” — Dr. CK Raju
The biggest difference and that which makes it impossible for the Eastern and Western cultures to meet at a midpoint is their concepts of Time beliefs. This is also the fundamental problem of the West which makes it difficult for them to understand the Eastern cultures. The Biblical dogmas of Noah’s sons Japheth, Shem and Ham have been used by the Christian West to describe, a. themselves; b. Jews and Muslims (Semites), and c. Non-Abrahamic world (Hamites). No wonder that when so much ignorance is passed off as scholarship based on the unscientific stories in the Old Testament, it results in hate theories of anti-Semitism and racism. The Holocaust and the Aryan Invasion Theories are direct results of this dogma inspired hate and supremacism.
There are variations to this concept of Time. Dr. CK Raju has proposed the concept of quasi-cyclical Time, without which the an entire cycle of the expansion and contraction of the Cosmos would repeat endlessly and exactly (eternal recurrence). The Cosmos is presently in the expansion mode, with some Scientists positing a concept of ever-expanding Universe, but the Big Bang theory being ever expanding is now seriously doubted, and scientists are seriously considering the cyclical concept of Time. The cyclical model of the universe is the most probable: an expanding singularity (the big bang), an expanding universe (what we currently observe), equilibrium, a contracting universe, and a singularity again. And then, the next cycle. Needless to say, this is what Hindu cosmology talks about. Hindu cosmology is the only system of cosmology whose vast time scales are comparable to those of physical cosmology.
The Christian West also started out by internalising the Greek notion of migrating soul, and cyclical Time. However, when the Church managed to convert the Roman Emperor, and became the State Religion of the Roman Empire through the backdoor, a recurrence of time became a problem. In any cyclically recurring Universe, or quasi-Universe, the freely willed actions of individuals would be the rational determinants of how they would shape up in the next cycle. That would establish a direct relationship between God and Man, which would finish the role of Church.
This led to the Church denouncing the concept of cyclical Time. The Fifth Ecumenical conference of the Church in Constantinople in 553 AD pronounced a Curse on Cyclical Time. Surprising but true. Dr. CK Raju explains the rationale:
‘Inequity as the basis of “linear” time
However, after Constantine, this belief in the equity of all souls stood in the way of the political goals of the church, which now viewed the world from the imperial perspective of the Roman state: if all souls would anyway be saved what was the advantage to be gained by turning Christian? If God was within man, where was the need to fear God, and be obedient to the priest? Hence, theologians like Augustine proposed to erase equity and erect a transcendent God who would judge people and establish a simplistic moral division between good (Christians) and bad (non-Christians). In the revised picture proposed by state Christianity, all souls were NOT equal, so not all souls were eventually saved; instead God established a permanent inequity in the world, sending some souls (those of good Christians) to heaven (for ever), and other souls (non-Christians) to hell, as described in gory detail by Dante, for example. Reincarnation was accordingly changed to resurrection — life after death, just once. Because the earlier notion of soul depended upon a view of life after death deriving from the belief in quasi-cyclic time, time beliefs were also compelled to change with this changed notion of the soul and of life after death. Time beliefs changed from quasi-cyclic time to “linear” apocalyptic time: the world, as conceived by Augustine, began a few thousand years ago, and would soon come to an end. The notion of the soul became metaphysical.
It is because of this notion of quasi-cyclical Time that the Indian notion of Karma-Saṃskāra inheres as an exercise of autonomy in temporal affairs of mankind. It is because of this that Hinduism carries unique sense of gratitude to the environment around them (the concept of Ṛna or debt) and treats life as a celebration. This is in contrast to Christianity that treats Life as a sin, and Islam that treats Life as a test for a good time in an eternal afterlife. The unique culture of treating the entire nature and living beings as manifestation of the Supreme comes from this belief in cyclical Time. Beliefs in Creationism and Linear Time are a direct negation of gratitude towards anyone else except the One creator, such as Yahveh, God, or Allah. In essence, culture and values are a byproduct of not just the geography, but also of Time belief.
The concept of Linear Time had its greatest validation in Newton’s theories, but General Relativity and the concept of spacetime has dealt it a body blow. The problem of time is sought to be resolved through integration of the Relative (very large) and Quantum (very small) phenomena through a Unified Field theory such as Quantum Gravity. This has not yet succeeded but the Linear Time is under serious questions. This is a challenge to the religions that cast their lot with Linear Time. Do not, however, underestimate the flexibility and manoeuvrability of the Church, which recognised Galileo in 1992 (imagine), and supported Stephen Hawking’s model of singularity that mimics God.
To sum up, the belief in ātman and moksha is NOT a superstition but part of a viable scientific theory which needs to be tested experimentally (“physics”). But the belief in linear time or superlinear time is a superstition. That is, “reincarnation” is possible, but the post-Nicene Church notion of “resurrection” is a superstition (“metaphysics”).
It is for this reason that I have attempted this short series.
Part 3. LOGIC CONCEPTS
The assertion that Hinduism is different from the Middle Eastern Religions of the Book is further fortified by the different ways in which they approach logic.
All Middle Eastern Religions follow the Greek system of logic, where any physical phenomenon is viewed only in shades of black and white. Called two-valued logic, the logic recognizes only two states of any phenomenon — true or false. When aligned to the superlinear Time adopted by the post-Augustinian Church, it creates a strong dialectical system of binaries, where Truth is what is ordained from the above, and everything else is False. So the culture of violence that condemns the sinner, or curses a concept (like the concept of cyclical Time by the Church, or the concept of Trinity, or multiple manifestations by Islam), the consequences of heresy or haram visited upon the dissenters are easily justified.
The two-valued logic has had other consequences too. The Indian gaṇita (system of calculation) was adopted by the West in the Middle Ages as Mathematics, and devised a system of formal mathematics based on proofs. These proofs were products of the two-valued logic, recognising only deductive proof, resulting in such farcical proofs as Russell proving 2+2=4 in 378 pages. The Newtonian Science also adopted this two-valued logic along with superlinear Time, producing a mechanistic view of Science, which is still being undone. (Please refer to ‘Cultural Foundation of Mathematics’ by Dr. CK Raju).
The Indian Systems have always followed a multi-valued logic, beginning with the Vedas, which prescribed Chatushkoṭi, or the ‘four-valued logic’. (The Nāsadiya Sūkta cited in Part 1 is a good example, and Patanjali and Pāṇini use it extensively). The four values of this system of logic are ‘True’, ‘False’, ‘Both True and False’, and ‘Neither True Nor False’. Combine this with cyclical Time, and it should be very clear to all that we can then have a very open architecture for debate. It is exactly this kind of debate that we find in the Upanishads. This extends to all other systems of Indian thought, culminating in the orthodox Nyāya system, and going to the extremes of seven-valued (saptabhaṅga) and eight-valued logic of some Buddhist and Jain philosophers. The scholar of Mahabharata and Ramayana chronology, Nilesh Neelakantha Oak summarises it in this quadrant:
Reverence Truth Nilesh Oak
In the words of Dr. Subhash Kak, ‘Logic is one of the six darśanas, which are the classical schools of Indian philosophy. These six schools are the different complementary perspectives on reality, which may be visualised as the views from the six walls of a cube within which the subject is enclosed. The base is the broad system of the tradition (Purva Mimāṃsa), and the ceiling represents the large questions of meaning related to the objective world and the subject (Uttara Mimāṃsa or Vedānta); one side is analysis of linguistic particles (Nyāya), with the opposite side being the analysis of material particles (Vaiśeśika); another side is enumerative categories in evolution at the cosmic and individual levels (Sāṃkhya), with the opposite side representing the synthesis of the material and cognitive systems in the experiencing individual (Yōga).’
The core philosophies of Hinduism like Ātman and Moksha depend upon inner seeking, and concepts of immanence and transcendence of the Self. Sat, Chit and Ananda are the three facets of the Cosmic Truth, with many more variations appearing within the different systems. ‘Ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti’, or many paths lead to the same Truth is possible only with a many-valued logic. There is no room for binaries in Hinduism as it is fundamentally a spiritual path through consciousness — described as Chitta (Self-Consciousness or Awareness), and Chita (Universal Consciousness) — which necessarily requires exploration in different spaces of logic. It is, therefore, a necessary concomitant to the concept of cyclical Time.
Even though Christianity also began with a challenge to Judaism, and tall philosophers like Origen subscribed to not only cyclical Time, but also to the non-binary logic, this underwent a change with the wedding of Church with State power, and the Augustinian notion of superlinear Time meant that logic too had to be reduced to a binary, or two-valued logic in order to deify the concepts of true God vs. false gods, piety vs. sin, believer vs. unbeliever, or simply heaven vs. hell. There is no room for a grey area in this concept of what was also sought to be entrenched as Pure Reason. So the post-Nicene (after the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea) Christianity beginning from Constantine, and more particularly from Justinian to Newton, and right up to Bertrand Russell simply promoted two-valued logic. It is, therefore, no surprise at all that Marxism became the apotheosis of this two-valued logic, pitting capital and labour against each other. Islam simply got stuck to this two-valued logic of belief vs. unbelief from the time of Ibn Taymaiah — the beginning of the dark age of Islam.
The advent of quantum mechanics, and quantum logic is the final tribute of Science to the three-valued logic system of the Hindus. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and Schrodinger’s simultaneously dead and alive cat are examples of three-valued logic — clear, not clear and indeterminate.
Another form of multi-valued logic is also seen in the field of computing. To quote Dr. CK Raju, ‘one can construct a more realistic desktop model involving parallel computing, although understanding this requires a little more technical knowledge. In parallel computing, a single process executing on parallel processors may be in multiple states at a “single instant” of time. Needless to say, “parallel” is a bit of a misnomer, since it is an essential feature of parallel computing that the processors (logical worlds, in the Wittgensteinian sense) and processes communicate with each other, and that they branch and collapse. Time, so to say acquires a structure, and it is necessary to take into account this structure to understand the semantics of formal parallel computing languages. Microphysical closed time loops enable us to understand how an atom of time can nevertheless have a structure, in the sense that multiple logical worlds are attached to a single instant of time.’
One can simply contrast the Boolean Logic and Fuzzy Logic of the computation systems as a rough guide to the value of Logic in computers.
Everyone would remember the famous Indian story of the elephant being described by ten blind men. The multi-valued logic of Hinduism and other Oṃkāra religions, which may be more appropriately called as spiritual systems, is the defining feature of Hinduism.
To summarize, logic varies with culture: the 2-valued logic, assumed a priori in the West and integral to Ahl-e-Kitab (of the Book) Religions, is not universal. The Indian culture, of which Hinduism is the defining example has never subscribed to 2-valued logic, and this is also reflected in the way Indians did their Science and Mathematics.
To be continued....
Channel Link : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZjxPbi3AeB6YGKCfQ2TroQ
All Religions are Not The Same.
PART I — FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
There have been many attempts to define the Hindu Dharma, or more appropriately, Sanātana Dharma throughout the modern era. Most notably, the Supreme Court defined it as a way of life, and not as a set of beliefs. The attitude of Hindus towards the spiritual has always been one of seeking and inquiry, rather than any certainty of dogma. Yet, there are certain science beliefs that are unique to Hinduism.
1. Attitude to Science
2. Time concepts
3. Logic concepts
4. Epistemology
5. Cosmology
6. Eschatology
Let us first look at each of these separately, and then have a holistic look.
1. ATTITUDE TO SCIENCE:
Science is a methodology. In modern era, Science for the lay people has also become a subject being taught and learnt on the basis of authority. Students do not really know whether the earth revolves on its axis, except on the authority of scientists who really have the means to conduct experiments and prove them.
Science as a methodology can be defined as an empirical method which accepts a physical phenomenon as True on the basis of it being universal — true across time and space; verifiable — demonstrable to all; and repeatable — that which will repeat in similar circumstances. To that we add refutability or falsifiability, i.e. one is free to try and refute that physical phenomenon.
Sanātana Dharma’s scientific attitude to the Universe is not just applicable to the physical world, but also to the spiritual world. It is best exemplified by the famous Nāsadiya Sukta of Ṛgveda (10.129) (Translation of AL Basham):
1. Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
2. Then there was neither death nor immortality
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.
3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined cosmic water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
4. In the beginning desire descended on it –
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is kin to that which is not.
5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.
6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
the gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?
7. Whence all creation had its origin,
the creator, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
the creator, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows — or maybe even he does not know.
This kind of open inquiry about the origin of Cosmos is unknown in the Abrahamic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Abrahamic religions do not allow any questioning and inquiry, and treat the Word of their scriptures beyond refutation. Sanātana Hinduism, on the other hand, allows not only open inquiry, but as the subsequent developments of Hinduism show, even open debate and refutation.
Every branch of orthodox Hinduism allowed this open inquiry, and allowed debate within various sects. Buddha’s debates with the orthodox Sanātana Brahmins are the best example of this approach. Buddha was every inch a Hindu, but he differed from the orthodox view on the question of existence of the Ātman (loosely translated as the eternal soul). Hindus and the followers of Buddha debated the question for over a millennia till Hinduism won a final victory led by the Ādi Shankar.
To refute the concept of the Ātman, people even carried out physical experiments, without any consequences to their physical well being. Payāsi Sutta has a description of a person about to die being enclosed in a vessel, being weighed, observations of ātman escaping the vessel being taken; weight being taken immediately after death; and a final pronouncement of the absence of the ātman on weight being found the same.
All across the Upanishads, this spirit of inquiry, debate and refutation is present in full measure. Vedanta philosophy speculates on duality, Oneness, qualified Oneness, and the sages have derived advaita, dvaita, vishishtadvaita, and bhakti from the same material. People like Charvāka refuted the existence of Ātman on the basis of direct observation epistemology, yet he was honoured with the title of a Rishi. Patanjali’s Yōga Sutra provides a basis for physical verification of the existence of the Supreme. Kapila Muni’s Saṃkhya philosophy provides a cosmological basis, whereas Vaisheshika of Kaṇāda dwells on the physical cause and effect. Bhagvadgita encapsulates all the philosophies into one whole, and even that great book provides Arjuna with a glimpse of many paths. Krishṇa exhorts Arjuna in the end to choose any of the paths that he had described –yathechchhasi tathā kuru.
Thus it is clear from this evidence that the concept of Creation, as well as that of the Ātman in the Hindu pantheon is physical, subject to personal verification, and refutable. This is a purely scientific approach to the mysteries of Universe.
While Ātman in Hinduism is a refutable physical concept, and is, therefore, scientific; on the other hand, the ‘soul’ of the Abrahamic religions is an irrefutable metaphysical concept, hence unscientific.To illustrate this point further — Creation, soul, and God are all based on the revealed Book, not subject to verification or debate (any such act is termed as heresy), and an irrefutable Truth on the authority of God, Yahveh, or Allah. This is a purely unscientific approach. So this is the first major fundamental difference between Hinduism and Western religions. We will explore the entire gamut of fundamental conceptual differences between Hinduism and what are known as Religions (principally Abrahamic) over course of 5 more articles.
Part 2.TIME CONCEPTS
“Time is the interface between Science and Religion” — Dr. CK Raju
The biggest difference and that which makes it impossible for the Eastern and Western cultures to meet at a midpoint is their concepts of Time beliefs. This is also the fundamental problem of the West which makes it difficult for them to understand the Eastern cultures. The Biblical dogmas of Noah’s sons Japheth, Shem and Ham have been used by the Christian West to describe, a. themselves; b. Jews and Muslims (Semites), and c. Non-Abrahamic world (Hamites). No wonder that when so much ignorance is passed off as scholarship based on the unscientific stories in the Old Testament, it results in hate theories of anti-Semitism and racism. The Holocaust and the Aryan Invasion Theories are direct results of this dogma inspired hate and supremacism.
Hinduism, which is the philosophical origin point of almost all Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shintoism, and many smaller religions, treats Time as cyclical. Kāla Chakra is a frequently occurring term in everyday conversation of Hindus, meaning the cycle of Time. The Sanskrit term for the Universe, Brahmānda, conceives of the Cosmos as an egg. The Sanskrit term for the material world, Saṃsāra, itself means ‘the cycle of birth and death’, as opposed to Nirvāṇa, which means liberation from this cycle.
There are variations to this concept of Time. Dr. CK Raju has proposed the concept of quasi-cyclical Time, without which the an entire cycle of the expansion and contraction of the Cosmos would repeat endlessly and exactly (eternal recurrence). The Cosmos is presently in the expansion mode, with some Scientists positing a concept of ever-expanding Universe, but the Big Bang theory being ever expanding is now seriously doubted, and scientists are seriously considering the cyclical concept of Time. The cyclical model of the universe is the most probable: an expanding singularity (the big bang), an expanding universe (what we currently observe), equilibrium, a contracting universe, and a singularity again. And then, the next cycle. Needless to say, this is what Hindu cosmology talks about. Hindu cosmology is the only system of cosmology whose vast time scales are comparable to those of physical cosmology.
The Christian West also started out by internalising the Greek notion of migrating soul, and cyclical Time. However, when the Church managed to convert the Roman Emperor, and became the State Religion of the Roman Empire through the backdoor, a recurrence of time became a problem. In any cyclically recurring Universe, or quasi-Universe, the freely willed actions of individuals would be the rational determinants of how they would shape up in the next cycle. That would establish a direct relationship between God and Man, which would finish the role of Church.
This led to the Church denouncing the concept of cyclical Time. The Fifth Ecumenical conference of the Church in Constantinople in 553 AD pronounced a Curse on Cyclical Time. Surprising but true. Dr. CK Raju explains the rationale:
‘Inequity as the basis of “linear” time
However, after Constantine, this belief in the equity of all souls stood in the way of the political goals of the church, which now viewed the world from the imperial perspective of the Roman state: if all souls would anyway be saved what was the advantage to be gained by turning Christian? If God was within man, where was the need to fear God, and be obedient to the priest? Hence, theologians like Augustine proposed to erase equity and erect a transcendent God who would judge people and establish a simplistic moral division between good (Christians) and bad (non-Christians). In the revised picture proposed by state Christianity, all souls were NOT equal, so not all souls were eventually saved; instead God established a permanent inequity in the world, sending some souls (those of good Christians) to heaven (for ever), and other souls (non-Christians) to hell, as described in gory detail by Dante, for example. Reincarnation was accordingly changed to resurrection — life after death, just once. Because the earlier notion of soul depended upon a view of life after death deriving from the belief in quasi-cyclic time, time beliefs were also compelled to change with this changed notion of the soul and of life after death. Time beliefs changed from quasi-cyclic time to “linear” apocalyptic time: the world, as conceived by Augustine, began a few thousand years ago, and would soon come to an end. The notion of the soul became metaphysical.
This very concept of ‘Linear Time’ found its way into Islam, even though there was a significant section among the early Muslims, known as Mutazalites, who believed in ‘cyclical time’ and rational thinking. It was the Sufi Al-Ghazali who teamed up with the conservatives and completely demolished the rational spirituality in Islam around the 11th century. Even though Al-Ghazali propounded a concept of metaphysically broken Time, renewing itself every instant, but essentially killing off the spiritual strand of Islam that was close to Hindu thinking in Time beliefs. People like Mansoor Hallaj were persecuted and killed for believing in concepts close to the Sanatana Advaita (Ana-‘l-haq or I am the Truth is considered a variation of Aham Brahmasmi).
It is because of this notion of quasi-cyclical Time that the Indian notion of Karma-Saṃskāra inheres as an exercise of autonomy in temporal affairs of mankind. It is because of this that Hinduism carries unique sense of gratitude to the environment around them (the concept of Ṛna or debt) and treats life as a celebration. This is in contrast to Christianity that treats Life as a sin, and Islam that treats Life as a test for a good time in an eternal afterlife. The unique culture of treating the entire nature and living beings as manifestation of the Supreme comes from this belief in cyclical Time. Beliefs in Creationism and Linear Time are a direct negation of gratitude towards anyone else except the One creator, such as Yahveh, God, or Allah. In essence, culture and values are a byproduct of not just the geography, but also of Time belief.
The concept of Linear Time had its greatest validation in Newton’s theories, but General Relativity and the concept of spacetime has dealt it a body blow. The problem of time is sought to be resolved through integration of the Relative (very large) and Quantum (very small) phenomena through a Unified Field theory such as Quantum Gravity. This has not yet succeeded but the Linear Time is under serious questions. This is a challenge to the religions that cast their lot with Linear Time. Do not, however, underestimate the flexibility and manoeuvrability of the Church, which recognised Galileo in 1992 (imagine), and supported Stephen Hawking’s model of singularity that mimics God.
According to Dr. CK Raju, “Hinduism is scientific, because (a) its core notions of ātman and moksha depend upon the concept of quasi-cyclic time (b) which can be experimentally TESTED “here and now” by using the connection to a local “tilt in the arrow of time”, and testing for a tilt in the arrow of time, as explained in my books. The mark of a scientific theory is that it can be tested or refuted according to Karl Popper.”
To sum up, the belief in ātman and moksha is NOT a superstition but part of a viable scientific theory which needs to be tested experimentally (“physics”). But the belief in linear time or superlinear time is a superstition. That is, “reincarnation” is possible, but the post-Nicene Church notion of “resurrection” is a superstition (“metaphysics”).
It is for this reason that I have attempted this short series.
Part 3. LOGIC CONCEPTS
The assertion that Hinduism is different from the Middle Eastern Religions of the Book is further fortified by the different ways in which they approach logic.
All Middle Eastern Religions follow the Greek system of logic, where any physical phenomenon is viewed only in shades of black and white. Called two-valued logic, the logic recognizes only two states of any phenomenon — true or false. When aligned to the superlinear Time adopted by the post-Augustinian Church, it creates a strong dialectical system of binaries, where Truth is what is ordained from the above, and everything else is False. So the culture of violence that condemns the sinner, or curses a concept (like the concept of cyclical Time by the Church, or the concept of Trinity, or multiple manifestations by Islam), the consequences of heresy or haram visited upon the dissenters are easily justified.
The two-valued logic has had other consequences too. The Indian gaṇita (system of calculation) was adopted by the West in the Middle Ages as Mathematics, and devised a system of formal mathematics based on proofs. These proofs were products of the two-valued logic, recognising only deductive proof, resulting in such farcical proofs as Russell proving 2+2=4 in 378 pages. The Newtonian Science also adopted this two-valued logic along with superlinear Time, producing a mechanistic view of Science, which is still being undone. (Please refer to ‘Cultural Foundation of Mathematics’ by Dr. CK Raju).
The Indian Systems have always followed a multi-valued logic, beginning with the Vedas, which prescribed Chatushkoṭi, or the ‘four-valued logic’. (The Nāsadiya Sūkta cited in Part 1 is a good example, and Patanjali and Pāṇini use it extensively). The four values of this system of logic are ‘True’, ‘False’, ‘Both True and False’, and ‘Neither True Nor False’. Combine this with cyclical Time, and it should be very clear to all that we can then have a very open architecture for debate. It is exactly this kind of debate that we find in the Upanishads. This extends to all other systems of Indian thought, culminating in the orthodox Nyāya system, and going to the extremes of seven-valued (saptabhaṅga) and eight-valued logic of some Buddhist and Jain philosophers. The scholar of Mahabharata and Ramayana chronology, Nilesh Neelakantha Oak summarises it in this quadrant:
In the words of Dr. Subhash Kak, ‘Logic is one of the six darśanas, which are the classical schools of Indian philosophy. These six schools are the different complementary perspectives on reality, which may be visualised as the views from the six walls of a cube within which the subject is enclosed. The base is the broad system of the tradition (Purva Mimāṃsa), and the ceiling represents the large questions of meaning related to the objective world and the subject (Uttara Mimāṃsa or Vedānta); one side is analysis of linguistic particles (Nyāya), with the opposite side being the analysis of material particles (Vaiśeśika); another side is enumerative categories in evolution at the cosmic and individual levels (Sāṃkhya), with the opposite side representing the synthesis of the material and cognitive systems in the experiencing individual (Yōga).’
The core philosophies of Hinduism like Ātman and Moksha depend upon inner seeking, and concepts of immanence and transcendence of the Self. Sat, Chit and Ananda are the three facets of the Cosmic Truth, with many more variations appearing within the different systems. ‘Ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti’, or many paths lead to the same Truth is possible only with a many-valued logic. There is no room for binaries in Hinduism as it is fundamentally a spiritual path through consciousness — described as Chitta (Self-Consciousness or Awareness), and Chita (Universal Consciousness) — which necessarily requires exploration in different spaces of logic. It is, therefore, a necessary concomitant to the concept of cyclical Time.
Even though Christianity also began with a challenge to Judaism, and tall philosophers like Origen subscribed to not only cyclical Time, but also to the non-binary logic, this underwent a change with the wedding of Church with State power, and the Augustinian notion of superlinear Time meant that logic too had to be reduced to a binary, or two-valued logic in order to deify the concepts of true God vs. false gods, piety vs. sin, believer vs. unbeliever, or simply heaven vs. hell. There is no room for a grey area in this concept of what was also sought to be entrenched as Pure Reason. So the post-Nicene (after the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea) Christianity beginning from Constantine, and more particularly from Justinian to Newton, and right up to Bertrand Russell simply promoted two-valued logic. It is, therefore, no surprise at all that Marxism became the apotheosis of this two-valued logic, pitting capital and labour against each other. Islam simply got stuck to this two-valued logic of belief vs. unbelief from the time of Ibn Taymaiah — the beginning of the dark age of Islam.
It means ‘Those who have seen the Truth have concluded that of the non-existent (the material body), there is no endurance; and of the eternal (the Ātman), there is no change. They have reached this conclusion by studying the nature of both.’
The advent of quantum mechanics, and quantum logic is the final tribute of Science to the three-valued logic system of the Hindus. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and Schrodinger’s simultaneously dead and alive cat are examples of three-valued logic — clear, not clear and indeterminate.
Another form of multi-valued logic is also seen in the field of computing. To quote Dr. CK Raju, ‘one can construct a more realistic desktop model involving parallel computing, although understanding this requires a little more technical knowledge. In parallel computing, a single process executing on parallel processors may be in multiple states at a “single instant” of time. Needless to say, “parallel” is a bit of a misnomer, since it is an essential feature of parallel computing that the processors (logical worlds, in the Wittgensteinian sense) and processes communicate with each other, and that they branch and collapse. Time, so to say acquires a structure, and it is necessary to take into account this structure to understand the semantics of formal parallel computing languages. Microphysical closed time loops enable us to understand how an atom of time can nevertheless have a structure, in the sense that multiple logical worlds are attached to a single instant of time.’
One can simply contrast the Boolean Logic and Fuzzy Logic of the computation systems as a rough guide to the value of Logic in computers.
Everyone would remember the famous Indian story of the elephant being described by ten blind men. The multi-valued logic of Hinduism and other Oṃkāra religions, which may be more appropriately called as spiritual systems, is the defining feature of Hinduism.
To summarize, logic varies with culture: the 2-valued logic, assumed a priori in the West and integral to Ahl-e-Kitab (of the Book) Religions, is not universal. The Indian culture, of which Hinduism is the defining example has never subscribed to 2-valued logic, and this is also reflected in the way Indians did their Science and Mathematics.
To be continued....
