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East–West Cultural Relationship: Some Indian Aspects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

D. P. Chattopadhyaya
D. P. Chattopadhyaya*
Affiliation:
Centre for Studies in Civilizations, Calcutta and New Delhi

Extract

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Cultural space knows no official boundary. Civilizational interaction, recorded and unrecorded, is an ongoing process. Diffusionism and parallelism get interfused in civilizational studies. To think of one-sided borrowing or lending in the realm of culture rests on bias or prejudice, perhaps both. To think that originally there was only one culture (Egypt or India or China) and that all other cultures are its diffused or dispersed form is incorrect, both theoretically and evidentially. Comparably incorrect is the anthropological hypothesis that different cultures, in response to diverse social and natural stimuli or conditions, developed quite independently and in parallel manner. Once we believe, as I think we must, that cultural space is a continuum, the parallelistic thesis is bound to collapse. If, on the other hand, we totally reject the possibility of independent, relatively independent, origin and development of different cultures, we are obliged to deny the differentiable identity and personality and distinct cultures. To deny cultural pluralism is psychologically untenable and ideologically pernicious, and I have argued the point at length elsewhere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 50 , Issue 4: From East to West - Civilizations in a Looking-Glass: 50 Years, 1952-2002 , November 2003 , pp. 83 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2003

References

Notes

1. D. P. Chattopadhyaya, Anthropology and Historiography of Science, Ohio University, Athens, 1990.

2. Carl Darling Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of Ideas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988.

3. J. P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson, London, 1991.

4. A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Achaeminid Period, 1985; see also, Muhammad A. Dandamaev and Vladimir G. Lukonia, The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran, 1989.

5. E. A. Thomson, The History of Attila and the Huns, 1948; see also, C. D. Gordon, The Age of Attila, 1960.

6. David Pingree, History of Mathematical Astronomy in India, in Discovery of Scientific Biography, Vol. 15, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1980, pp. 533-633.

7. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: Global Theory of Intellectual Change, Harvard University (Belknap) Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.

8. B. V. Subbarayappa and K. V. Sarma, Indian Astronomy: A Source Book, Nehru Centre, Bombay, 1985.

9. S. C. Kak, The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda, Aditya Publishers, New Delhi, 1994; see also, Kak's paper, ‘Astronomy and Its Role in Vedic Culture’, in G. C. Pande (ed.), The Dawn of Indian Civilization up to 600 BC, Centre for Studies in Civilizations and Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1999.

10. Carl B. Boyer and Uta C. Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, John Wiley, New York, 1989, p. 221.

11. Rv. I.22.16-18; X.90.1; Rv. X.78.7; Rv. VIII.33.18; Rv. I.15.4; Rv. I.15.10; Rv. VIII.32.22; Rv. I.23.15-16; Rv. I.164.41; Rv. I.20.6; Rv. VIII.1.9; Rv. VIII.1.5; Rv. VIII.2.41; Rv. VIII.32.18.

12. Yaska, Nirukta, Naighuntuka Kanda, III.ii.10.

13. B. B. Datta and A. N. Singh, History of Hindu Mathematics, Motilal Banarsidass, Lahore, 1935.

14. Joseph Needham, Science of Civilization in China, Volume III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975, p.11.

15. Ibid, pp. 146-50.

16. Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1988, p. 145.

17. D. P. Chattopadhyaya, Sociology, Ideology and Utopia: Socio-Political Philosophy of East and West, Brill, Leiden, 1997; see also Chhanda Gupta and D. P. Chattopadhyaya (eds), Cultural Otherness and Beyond, Brill, Leiden, 1998.

18. Brajendranath Seal, The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1985.

19. Astadhyayi of Panini, transliteration and translation by Sumitra M. Katre, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1989; see also, J. F. Staal (ed.), A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1972.

20. Harold G. Coward and K. Kunjunni Raja (eds), Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy: The Philosophy of the Grammarians, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1990.

21. G. W. F. Hegel, On the Episode of Mahabharata known by the name of Bhagavad Gita, by Wilhelm von Humboldt, Berlin, 1826, transl. Herbert Herring, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, 1995.