Since 1 Jan, 1986 till retirement on 31 Mar, 2000, Professor in Mathematics, Jadavpur University, A.K.Ray, MA, PhD, finds his chief interests in the fields of Differential Geometry, Mathematical logic and linguistics, Philosophy and Poetry. Before coming to Jadavpur on 1 Aug, 1979 as a Reader, Ray served as a lecturer in Darjeeling Govt. College, North Bengal University and Kalyani University. Ray is an Editor of the Mathematics Education, an Advisor to Applied Science Periodical, and to ACCST Research Journal, all in SIWAN, Bihar. Ray is a Hony Advisor to International Biographical Association (IBA), England. He has a number of mathematical papers published in world-standard Journals abroad and inland. Ray is the author of a BSc level book on 2-dimensional coordinate Geometry in bengali: Dwimatrik Sthananka Jyamiti, West Bengal State Book Board, Nov. 1974. He has to his credit three poetry books in bengali, Nirvachita Kavita, Nov. 1994, Swapnanil nil Akash, Jul. 2003 and Ek Kheyatori, May. 2005. Ray is intimately connected with Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry and has contributed several philosophical papers in the Ashram Journal MOTHER INDIA, and many poems in longstanding Journals.
The Preface will be one with a difference. I intend to focus a bit on my personal contact with K. D. Sethna (Amal Kiran), Editor, MOTHER INDIA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, consequent to publication of my first article in his journal in 1993. All my articles presented in this work are, in fact, articles coming out in MOTHER INDIA. (Be it said that Sethna is now a past Centenarian.)
I was always interested in philosophy, but thought of taking to writing on philosophical matters only after my retirement as a teacher of mathematics in Jadavpur University, to come in 2000. However, it was not to be. In the year 1991, in the Bengali daily JUGANTAR a weekly feature started under the title VIGNANIR DRISTITE ISVAR (GOD IN THE EYES OF SCIENTISTS). I could not quite get satisfaction from the deliberations of the scientists. I decided to write one philosophical article. In early 1993 I prepared an article CREATION AND MY INNER FEELING and sent it to my sister Reba to hand it over to K. D. Sethna. The article was published in September and October issues of 1993 in MOTHER INDIA.
Now, the year 1993 was the year of Golden Jubilee of the Ashram school. In the course of the yearlong Jubilee celebration I delivered an 80-minute talk, titled LOGIC MATHEMATICS AND PHILOSOPHY, in the Ashram School on the 13th November.
I felt an inner satisfaction to find that my talk was very well-received by the audience including young students and elders. (My sisters and my wife were also there). This emboldened me, after I came to Calcutta, to give a consummate shape to my write-up, made for the lecture, with an eye to send it to K. D. Sethna. I will come to that later.
As arranged, it was on 15 November, I accompanied Reba and met Sethna at 11.00 A.M. at his residence. Sethna immediately understood, I also (very much like him) have difficulty in walking. Very softly he gestured me to take my seat on a chair very near.
Steeped thoroughly in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo on mind, matter and God consciousness, the author has ascertained a paradigm of judgement very different, but very much in consonance with Indian philosophy. All the observations he made about Leibniz, Descartes and Spinoza is natural corollary to his own thoughts and ideas reflected in his first two articles, 'Creation and My Inner Feeling' and 'Logic and Beyond' and the later one, 'As I See It'. It is an outcome of a true rigour, without failing to bring out the merit points of the three great philosophers. Again, the author's arguments in support of dialectical monism, in the form of Pantheism appears to be unique in its Kind (p. 2,3,16).
The author's article on Logic is a very fine reading. His Introspection into Language, involving Grammar, specially the Parts of Speeches (with ABSTRACT in Zentralblatt Fur Math, Berlin) is revealing and deserves serious attention of the academia (Chapter, 9). His passion for words is daring. It is gratifying to see that his pointing out of a misprint and a mistake and suggestion for improved treatment over 'speed' and 'velocity' are most graciously acknowledged by the Chambers Dictionary, followed by incorporation of his suggested corrections and improvements in a later edition.
A vital topic of the book is 'Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and its cardinal points'. Unique, sublime and eternal Indian psyche speaks through Sri Aurobindo. His 'Conscious Force' as the supreme reality, his differences with Shankaracharya and again his 'logic of the infinite' make a cogent circle of philosophical autochthony and calls for universal recognition. These traits are very capably brought out in this book. Romain Rolland's remark: 'Here comes Aurobindo Ghosh, the most complete synthesis achieved upto the present between the genius of the west and of the east' is most appropriate.
A new dimension adds upto the author's poetic bent of mind. (He has to his credit three poetry books in bengali. This is a marvellous gift from a mathematician, as the author is).
The present work may be a short one but will continue to shuttle through the corridors of all time.
Hindu (1765)
Philosophers (2327)
Aesthetics (317)
Comparative (66)
Dictionary (12)
Ethics (44)
Language (350)
Logic (80)
Mimamsa (58)
Nyaya (134)
Psychology (497)
Samkhya (60)
Shaivism (66)
Shankaracharya (233)
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