This article by Scott Lowe looks at TM and the issues of vedic science and science.  Another fascinating example that seems to offer a confluence of Nagaraj's parallel streams is the FVI, and their aspiration to re-establish a Vedic India.  This page has some of their videos that introduce the TM concepts. Typical of TM, their research is exceptionally pseudosciency. One of the speakers was no other than Ramdev swami, who claims that the goal is to first create a Vedic (Hindu) nation then Vedic world. It would seem that, like the Sangh's pivot to using Upadhaya's Integral Humanism instead of the more controversial, Hindutva, the rhetorical pivot to Vedic also serves to obfuscate this theo-political aspiration. One of the key members of the AVI is John Hagelin, who used to work at CERN (the physics lab), but was too controversial. So controversial in fact that CERN wrote an open letter to him asking him to stop mentioning his former association with them. But not too controversial to be awarded the Ig Nobel Prize. The following is an excerpt from an article currently under review in which I discuss, in part, Hagelin's views:

As Eriksen explains, 97 through the commodification of local products into distant imaginary -scapes, many concepts borrowed from science become theoretically dis-embedded through their use in popular mediums; which promotes ‘representational incorrectness’. This is evidenced in a series of lectures facilitated by the Vedic India Foundation,98 which present an idea of quantum physics with a new-age interpretation of Vedic cosmology that ultimately serves to create a Vedic India and world through combining it with string theory.99 However, Woit100 argues strongly against this position, ‘Virtually every theoretical physicist in the world rejects all of this as nonsense and the work of a crackpot’. Ultimately, promoters of ‘Vedic Science’ aim to legitimise a Hindu nationalist worldview.10

97 Eriksen T.H., Globalization: The key concepts, Bloomsbury, New York, 2014.

98 Vedic India Foundation, International Conference to Re-establish Vedic India, http://

www.vedicindiafoundation.org/ (accessed 14.072015).

99 Scientific Basis for Vedic India, Dr. John Hagelin: Veda and Physics: The Science and Technology of the

Unified Field, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u3f7_p1i8c&t=22s (accessed 09.07.2018).

100 Woit Peter, Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the

Laws of Physics, Jonathan Cape, London, 2006, pp 209-210. 

101 Nanda, 2003, p. 95.

Some 20 years ago, I was deeply enamored by NC Panda's books that seek to combine advaita darshanas with quantam theory. I had the good fortune of staying with him in his home in Bhubaneswar. I fondly remember a discussion around scalar waves and samadhi.  This collaboration by Deepak Chopra and physicist Leonard Mlodinow is also quite interesting. While they don't agree on many things, it's an interesting project. 

All the best,

パトリック　マッカートニー

Patrick McCartney, PhD

JSPS Fellow - Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan

Research Associate - Nanzan University Anthropological Institute, Nagoya, Japan

Visiting Fellow - South and South-east Asian Studies Department, Australian National University

Skype - psdmccartney

Phone + Whatsapp:  +81-80-9811-3235

Twitter - @psdmccartney

bodhapūrvam calema ;-)

Yogascapes in Japan

Academia

Linkedin

Edanz

Modern Yoga Research

On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 2:35 PM Nagaraj Paturi via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Thanks, Prof. Dominik Wujastyk for bringing origins of such ideas into discussion and mentioning Arya Samaj. That may indicate that you are aware of the origin of such ideas in Arya Samaj. Whether you are aware or not, Swami Dayananda Saraswati , the founder of Arya Samaj, in his Rigvedadi Bhaashya Bhumikaa tries to show 'sciences' such as Astronomy, political thought etc.  in the Vedas. 

When you trace the origins of ideas such as ' all science is rooted in India.' to such 19th century ideas as those of the founder of Arya Samaj, you can see those ideas to be the extreme opposite ideas to the view of Indians as savage, barbarian, ignorant lot without any rational thinking, full of superstitions etc. Those ideas were a reaction to the humiliation of a colonised nation by the coloniser community. This article is one of many historical studies of such humiliating attitude of the intellectuals from the community of the British people who colonised India. "No science, no rational / logical thinking" was responded with claims ranging from "no dearth for logical thinking, 'sciences etc.' "  up to the claims of all 'sciences'. India-humiliating colonial historiography was responded to by India- praising nationalist historiography. Though most of the nationalist historiographers were rigorous in their methodology and were careful enough not to make unjustifiable claims, as it always happens, particularly in the emotional conditions such as the Indian national movement, the tracing of ancient India's advancements in various knowledge areas lead to the popular exaggerations such as   ' all science is rooted in India.' . The two models of knowledge development, both extremes exaggerations, one of "Paradise Lost" and the other of linear evolutionist strand for which all older knowledge has to be inferior to the newer one by definition, have been running parallel to each other, opposing each other, swinging the pendulum to their own extremes. The claims such as   ' , of the all science is rooted in India.'  of the  "Paradise Lost"  school of thought very quickly exploited by the  linear evolutionist strand for discounting the well founded claims of advanced knowledge in India in certain knowledge areas.  

On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 1:50 AM, Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Axel,

Madhusudana Ojha (1866-1939) was an important early-twentieth century voice in popularizing this view.  He published a lot of material, like Indravijaya, some of which still circulates I believe.  I once visited his former home in Jaipur, and many of his unpublished papers and diagrams were still there, and the family was keeping alive a devotion to his cosmic visions and scientist message.  One of Ojha's students was Vedavācaspati Paṇḍit Motilal Śāstrī (1908-1960) who continued to publish in the same vein, as do others.

Some notes from my visit in 2011:

Manvashram (map)
Shree Krishna Sharma, Gopalpura Mode, Tonk Road, Jaipur.
A little , quiet, grassy enclosed courtyard with a grazing cow.  Various buildings around, labelled "university," printing press," etc., as if it were a small campus.  And a rusting 1903 English printing press at the front.
Not a single Sanskrit MS, though.  The story of the place is quite interesting, nevertheless.  Vedavācaspati Paṇḍit Motilal Śāstrī (1908-1960) was the spirit of the place, and the father of the present occupant.  Motilal wrote 80,000 pages of materials on the interpretation of the Veda and on the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa.  He discovered a special code or cypher that explained everything.  He also developed a series of coloured geometrical drawings that showed a kind of evolutionary and hierarchical cosmology.  It turns out that his teacher was Madhusudana Ojha (1866-1939), which explains all the pseudo-science and back-to-the-vedas ideology (independent of the Arya Samaj, as far as I know).
Motilal Śāstrī's father Balendu (I think) had the first printing press in Jaipur.

Best,

Dominik

--

Professor Dominik Wujastyk

,

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity

,

Department of History and Classics

,

University of Alberta, Canada

.

South Asia at the U of A:

 

sas.ualberta.ca

On Tue, 11 Sep 2018 at 01:33, Michaels, Axel via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear all,

 

In the course of the recent WSC discussions on this list, Dr Iris Iran Farkhondeh recently mentioned a little brochure by the RSS: “There was also this little booklet produced by the RSS (samskrit samsthan and not svayam sevak even though it seems now that the two RSS are getting nearer and nearer) with a mention of astrolomy (sic) and all the other sciences that for sure originated in ancient India.” Unfortunately, she did not keep this booklet. Since I am co-editing a book on this topic, I would be very grateful if someone who attended the conference could share the brochure with me.  I would also be interested in relevant and serious literature focusing and the wide-spread claim that all science is rooted in India.

 

Best regards,

Axel Michaels

 

Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels

Seniorprofessor | Vice President Heidelberg Academy of Science and Humanities | 

Director Research Unit "Historical Documents of Nepal" (नेपालका पूर्व-आधुनिक कालका लिखतहरू), Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities

South Asia Institute
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
69120 Heidelberg, Germany

http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/forschung/forschungsstellen/nepal/index.de.html

 

 

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
indology-owner@list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
indology-owner@list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)

--

Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

 

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

 

 

 

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
indology-owner@list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)