This book is the result of the work carried out during my tenure of 1988-94 as a University Grants Commisson (UGC) Professorial Research Scientist in Anthropology, affiliated to the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi. My thanks are due to the UGC and to Prof. Ravinder Kumar, Director, NMML, for providing various facilities and for undertaking the publication of this book.
My gratefulness to Dr Kapila Vatsyayan and Dr B.N. Saraswati of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, for inviting me to some of their seminars to present papers and the stimulating discussions which followed. Some of the chapters in this book are based on these papers.
For supporting me in many ways my thanks are also due to Usha, Keshav, Aditya and especially Anjali.
A human being is a part of this whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to apportion for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of Albert Einstein nature in its beauty.
For some time after the Second World War, humankind basked in a great deal of assurance, for the practical dimensions of the notion of "progress" on a global scale equated with high technology. That confidence is missing today, for progress has led also to unprecedented inhumanities everywhere. The reason for this change is that applied science and technology continue to be governed by an intellectual comprehension of the material world as being composed of separate objects or particles. It is evident that humankind is in the throes of a deep crisis not only externally but psychologically. The predicament of the modern world lies in the many unexamined assumptions that continue to govern its way of life. These issues will be taken up later. There are, however, several others in the social and cultural life of twentieth-century civilization that are uppermost in one's mind. They are:
. The issue of humanity's survival, in the face of the threat of nuclear, ecological, population and other disasters that face the entire planet.
ii. Reassessing notions of tradition, development, modernity and postmodernity; the values inherent in these words having arisen due to the impact of science and technology.
iii. The need to ameliorate the substandard existence of fellow human beings, since the values of egalitarianism, social justice and so on have widespread acceptance - and hence cannot be ignored.
iv. The specific problem of Indian cultural variation, its sociocultural and psychic maintenance - problems which are perhaps common to most of the developing world.
The intent of this Prologue is to highlight the areas under discussion rather than take them up in any detail. This is done in the subsequent chapters. The stress here is on the fact that cultural transformation may become possible not in any revivalistic sense but within the context of the growth of contemporary scientific knowledge which has drastically altered the philosophical assumptions that governed it for the last three or more centuries. Just as earlier the approach to the study of human behaviour was an offshoot of developments in science, the new vision of scientific knowledge needs to be taken into account in the study of human and social sciences. Clearly, the New Age science is converging towards certain perennial philosophical wisdom.
The old paradigms and the consequent biases, however, continue to dominate the world. For example, what is considered universal today usually implies an overarching Western world view-howsoever one defines it; and in the name of universalism all other categories have to be subsumed within it. In this one may include the idea of linear time, progress towards a certain state and so on.
Hindu (931)
Agriculture (122)
Ancient (1098)
Archaeology (778)
Architecture (564)
Art & Culture (920)
Biography (719)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (570)
Islam (244)
Jainism (318)
Literary (893)
Mahatma Gandhi (379)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist