04-22-2007, 03:49 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-SwamyG+Apr 22 2007, 08:52 PM-->QUOTE(SwamyG @ Apr 22 2007, 08:52 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Or can we restate your point as Hindus are inward looking, seeking to improve themselves at every possible opportunity; and hence there was not the <b>critical</b> necessity to beat nature?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am reluctant to address this question because I believe that we are ignoring a whole lot of other factors - chance events that may have played a role in routing history in this particular manner.
Jared Diamond asks pretty much the same question as you do in "Guns, Germs and Steel" but there is almost no analysis or mention of India in his work (a common failing of a lot of works including Huntington's Clash of Civilizations).
However - it appears that a LOT of inventions that are called "modern" existed in China centuries before they were put to use in Europe. Examples are paper, a printing press, clocks and fireworks, and Diamond has his own explanation of why they were not put to similar use in China. He may or may not be right, I don't know.
But I do believe Jared Diamond is on to something when he looks at human history in timescales of millennia rather than decades or centuries. That is what I implied when I spoke of 500 years hence or 2000 years ago. The "advancements" of the last 300 years are of utmost importance to us in 2007, but may pale into insignificance depending on what happens 500 years from now.
Hindu thought was aimed at looking for eternal truths at periods of time when civilization was settled and medicine, agriculture and public health were highly developed. The eternal truths were supposed to transcend lifetimes.
I have often believed that a Christian ethos of "only one life to live" has played a role in the development of thought processes that seek to improve this life right now. In fact there was a time (in 1983 specifically) when I was upset by the seeming lackadaisical Hindu attitude to life - but I was younger then and knew a lot less.
I was surgeon in charge of the Casualty dept in JIPMER where I studied and in those days all patients suffering from tetanus (almost invariably fatal in those days) were kept in a ward attached to casualty.With clockwork like regularity one of those patients would have a cardiac arrest and I would find myself and a colleague huffing and puffing and strutting around giving cardiac massage and artificial ventilation to try an restart the heart. I would notice with irritation that there were usually one or two "old hands" - ward attendants hanging about shaking their heads and advising me in Tamil "Ponaal pohattum poda" - words from a Tamil song that philosophically advises letting go of a dying person and not attaching yourself to him. The same year I found myself in the UK- witness to people holding special "crash bleeps" as part of a "cardiac arrest team". These pagers would go off the minute anyone had a cardiac arrest anywhere in the hospital. They would get priority access to elevators to rush to the bedside - and their efforts often paid off - saving a life - for now. But for that Christian ethos - saving life was all that mattered - even if that life would go in the next 10 days.
There are fundamental differences in the way life itself is viewed and the timescales in which the world or the universe is viewed in Hinduism.
Or can we restate your point as Hindus are inward looking, seeking to improve themselves at every possible opportunity; and hence there was not the <b>critical</b> necessity to beat nature?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am reluctant to address this question because I believe that we are ignoring a whole lot of other factors - chance events that may have played a role in routing history in this particular manner.
Jared Diamond asks pretty much the same question as you do in "Guns, Germs and Steel" but there is almost no analysis or mention of India in his work (a common failing of a lot of works including Huntington's Clash of Civilizations).
However - it appears that a LOT of inventions that are called "modern" existed in China centuries before they were put to use in Europe. Examples are paper, a printing press, clocks and fireworks, and Diamond has his own explanation of why they were not put to similar use in China. He may or may not be right, I don't know.
But I do believe Jared Diamond is on to something when he looks at human history in timescales of millennia rather than decades or centuries. That is what I implied when I spoke of 500 years hence or 2000 years ago. The "advancements" of the last 300 years are of utmost importance to us in 2007, but may pale into insignificance depending on what happens 500 years from now.
Hindu thought was aimed at looking for eternal truths at periods of time when civilization was settled and medicine, agriculture and public health were highly developed. The eternal truths were supposed to transcend lifetimes.
I have often believed that a Christian ethos of "only one life to live" has played a role in the development of thought processes that seek to improve this life right now. In fact there was a time (in 1983 specifically) when I was upset by the seeming lackadaisical Hindu attitude to life - but I was younger then and knew a lot less.
I was surgeon in charge of the Casualty dept in JIPMER where I studied and in those days all patients suffering from tetanus (almost invariably fatal in those days) were kept in a ward attached to casualty.With clockwork like regularity one of those patients would have a cardiac arrest and I would find myself and a colleague huffing and puffing and strutting around giving cardiac massage and artificial ventilation to try an restart the heart. I would notice with irritation that there were usually one or two "old hands" - ward attendants hanging about shaking their heads and advising me in Tamil "Ponaal pohattum poda" - words from a Tamil song that philosophically advises letting go of a dying person and not attaching yourself to him. The same year I found myself in the UK- witness to people holding special "crash bleeps" as part of a "cardiac arrest team". These pagers would go off the minute anyone had a cardiac arrest anywhere in the hospital. They would get priority access to elevators to rush to the bedside - and their efforts often paid off - saving a life - for now. But for that Christian ethos - saving life was all that mattered - even if that life would go in the next 10 days.
There are fundamental differences in the way life itself is viewed and the timescales in which the world or the universe is viewed in Hinduism.