The Indic Mathematical Tradition 6000 BCE To ?

[Guest]

Hi ppl, Namaskaar

I first posted this in the Indian culture section; then discovered it belongs better here. It is about these ancient Indian philosophies that I found while surfing the web:

1. The "Nyaya",
2. The "Purva Mimamsa", and
3. Vaisheshika

These philosophies were written not much later than the Vedas, and they stress the importance of scientific reasoning behind whatever is taught and whatever is believed to be true. According to the Purva Mimamsa, revelation must be proved by reasoning, that it should not be accepted blindly as dogma. And according to Nyaya, obtaining valid knowledge is the only way to obtain release from suffering. The followers of this school took great pains to identify valid sources of knowledge and to distinguish these from mere false opinions.

According to the Nyaya school, there are exactly four sources of knowledge (pramanas): perception, inference, comparison and testimony. Knowledge obtained through each of these can of course still be either valid or invalid, and the Nyaya scholars again went to great pains to identify, in each case, what it took to make knowledge valid, in the process coming up with a number of explanatory schemes.

Vaisheshika philosophy is similar to Nyaya. This is only a brief introduction that I found on this website

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Hindu_philosophy

I have a strong feeling that these philosophies are not different from how the scientists of today trust the validity of theories(e.g. the Darwin's theory of evolution) and facts(experimentaly proved things). I think all of us should study them in detail.
<!--emo&:thumbsup--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' /><!--endemo-->