Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore

by Gosling; David L.

• ISBN13: 9780415481342
• ISBN10: 0415481341
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2008-08-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, India experienced an intellectual renaissance that owed as much to the influx of new ideas from the West as to traditional religious and cultural insights.

Author Biography

David L. Gosling is the Principal of Edwardes College in the University of Peshawar, Pakistan, and he also teaches ecology in the University of Cambridge, where he was the first Spalding Fellow at Clare Hall. He has been the Director of Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, and is the author of Religion and Ecology in India and Southeast Asia.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Science in India	p. 1
Science and the environment	p. 3
Society and tradition	p. 5
Science and religion	p. 7
Einstein meets Tagore	p. 8
Methodology	p. 8
Conclusion	p. 10
Science in India's intellectual renaissance	p. 12
Macaulay's Minute	p. 12
The secularization of belief	p. 14
The Reformers	p. 17
The Ramakrishna Mission	p. 18
Raja Yoga	p. 20
Vivekananda and reincarnation	p. 21
Aurobindo Ghose	p. 23
Rejecting the past	p. 24
Science and the Muslims	p. 25
Rabindranath Tagore	p. 27
Conclusion	p. 30
Tradition redefined	p. 32
A temple vignette	p. 32
Ved&abar;ntic origins	p. 35
The inverted tree	p. 37
Christianity vindicated	p. 40
The Hindu-Catholic fire-eater	p. 44
Conclusion	p. 46
Worldviews in encounter	p. 48
Early Indian science	p. 49
External influences	p. 52
Classical Indian science	p. 54
Science under Islam	p. 56
European philosophy and science	p. 59
Darwin, evolution and progress	p. 60
The nature of the universe	p. 64
Conclusion	p. 66
Relativity and beyond	p. 68
The road to relativity	p. 68
Quantum theory	p. 70
General relativity	p. 71
Bose-Einstein statistics	p. 73
The Uncertainty Principle	p. 74
Towards a unified field	p. 77
A road less travelled	p. 78
State of the art	p. 79
Conclusion	p. 82
Indian science comes of age	p. 84
Science becomes institutionalized	p. 84
The rediscovery of ancient science	p. 86
Eminent scientists	p. 88
Conclusion	p. 100
An investigation into the beliefs of Indian scientists	p. 102
Framing the hypotheses	p. 103
Previous research	p. 105
Results of the investigation	p. 106
Religious affiliation	p. 108
The relationship between science and religion	p. 109
Investigation of the hypotheses	p. 114
Comparison between Hindus and Christians	p. 118
The influence of science	p. 119
Issues of historical significance	p. 122
Discussion of the results and conclusions of investigation	p. 127
How clear is reason's stream?	p. 130
Tagore's major themes	p. 130
The God of humanity	p. 132
Einstein's religion	p. 135
Spinoza's God	p. 137
Meeting of minds	p. 138
Dialogue in context	p. 140
Another view of science	p. 141
Contemporary perspectives	p. 143
Conclusion	p. 149
Looking to the future	p. 151
Avoiding the pitfalls	p. 155
Hidden unity	p. 156
The nature of reality	p. 161
Investigation questionnaire (Chapter 7)	p. 165
Select glossary of terms	p. 167
Notes	p. 169
Select bibliography	p. 180
Index	p. 183
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