Cultural Specificities in the History of Indian Science - Michel Danino

oCCasIonal PublICatIon 34

IIC
Cultural Specificities
in the History
of Indian Science

by

Michel Danino

IndIa InternatIonal Centre

40, Max Mueller Marg, new delhI-110 003
tel.: 24619431 Fax: 24627751

oCCasIonal PublICatIon 34

IIC
Cultural Specificities
in the History
of Indian Science

The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and not of the
India International Centre.
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Cultural Specificities
in the History
of Indian Science*

It is a great honour for me to have been invited to deliver the first
Professor G.C. Pande Memorial Lecture. It was my privilege to meet
him on a few occasions, and I am familiar with some of his writings on
Indian culture. Professor G.C. Pande struck me as a man obsessed with
knowledge, and I thought the topic of this lecture would have been in
tune with his interests. Indeed, India, a knowledge-centred civilization
with intellectual traditions nurtured for at least three millennia, has
contributed her fair share of innovations to the fields of astronomy,
mathematics, medicine and a host of technologies from metallurgy to
1
textile to transport. Western historians of science have acknowledged
some of those contributions and are gradually becoming aware of
2
others. Hopefully a genuine awareness of the field will grow in India too,
where it has been studiously ignored in mainstream academia. What is
often overlooked, however, is the cultural framework within which those
advances took place, a framework that discernibly oriented some of the
advances of Indian science.

India, a
knowledgecentred
civilization with
intellectual
traditions
nurtured for
at least three
millennia, has
contributed
her fair share
of innovations
to the fields
of astronomy,
But let us first...