Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/studiesinancien00mookgoog#page/n4/mode/2up

this is a fascinating read, subbiah. I was astonished when i initially read it and felt proud :)

Kautilya. Arthashastra. Translated by R. Shamasastry. Bangalore: Government Press, 1915. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arthashastra

Chanakya was a genius and a priceless treasure of India.

Downloads of Arthashastra : http://nettopdf.info/en/ebook/Kautilya%20The%20Arthashastra-1.html

India as revealed by the Kautilya Arthashastra (Map) : http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/fullscreen.html?object=053

:) What can I say? I hope people read it and appreciate it!

Sumedha Verma : We look forward for your book on Kautilya !

Things are progressing....slowly, slowly! :)

Take your time...we can wait. : )

Kautilya and Arthashastra. Much of our knowledge about state policy under the Mauryas comes from the Arthashastra written by Kautilya (more popularly known as Chanakya), who was a Brahmin minister under Chandragupta Maurya. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Kautilya.html

Interestingly, Arthashastra concerns itself with almost all facets of human society..you can find details of everything under the sun in this book! You want to brew liquor, plan a city, infiltrate your enemy, regulate mining activities, weave cotton, run a spy department, prepare meat with herbs,bring up a Prince to be a King...the Arthashastra is the book for you! This is what I find unique about Kautilya...nothing was too small or too big for him. Read in conjunction with Chanakya Niti one finds his works to include the entire ambit of worldly activities. And what an intelligent , acute and penetrating gaze he had!

He was amazing and needs to be promoted to a wider audience.

I gather his actual name is Kautalya. Who made it Kautilya? His arthashastra was some kind of a handbook for kings. Everything contained in it should be examined in the context of his times. And not that he was infallible. For example, the diet for horses he recommended in Arthashashtra was ruinous for horses. I am surprised that someone credited with bringing up the most successful king in Indian history should not know what to feed a herbivorous animal! (page 44 of the book). The word "Maas" is translated as flesh of fruits in this book. (It is unlikely that an author who details everything will leave names of fruits out of the recipe'. Marco Polo, the the 13th century traveler had observed that these people (Indians in the Malabar region) bought amazing number of horses from Arab traders every year, they have no Farriers (people to groom horses)... "No horses are bred there , they die as soon as they get there through ignorant handling; for people there do not know how to take care of them and , as I have told you heretofore; and besides all this they feed their horses with cooked victuals and all sorts of trash ..." Tough Marco Polo was separated from Kautalya by several centuries, the handbook of Arthashastra must have been in use for a long time; not surprisingly, conserved as the secret source book for Brahmins who advised kings in matters contained in sacred books. Therefore it may not be a good idea at simply marveling at the detail in Arthashastra, one should research if the recipe's were indeed wholesome or not (wine, cattle, medicines etc). This is not to say that the Athashastra had no spark at all of wisdom and statecraft and administration.

amzing! his work and makes complex concept of governance some what simple

Shekhar Sathe , whats with the interest in horse feed nowadays?! :) Cant say I have tried out all his recipes. Why just horses you would definitely disapprove of what he says a male human should eat! Or the way he says you should cook meat. I would not say that we should either start feeding men or horses the way he writes or even cook meat but take that as a reflection of material culture at the time. The insights at the abstract and ideological level are what interest me. For that matter most of his injunctions about where a wise man should live cannot be followed now because the way cities and towns are ordered are very different. Being a literalist can be very limiting at times...like those earnest but funny fellows on History channel who run around the Middle East looking for proof that everything was just as has been written down in the Bible! As for 'actual' name that is difficult to say. legend says he was called Kautilya by his detractors because of his 'कुटिल' attributes. Another says that he was very learned but crooked in body which is why he was given this sobriquet. You decide! Chanakya's penetrating gaze looked around at the world around him and drew insights from everything whether it be a river in spate, the behaviour of animals,growth of plants, domestic behaviour, political behaviour, commercial behaviour....you name it. I have absolutely no desire to follow all of what he said in letter, in spirit perhaps. Although his system of jurisprudence was not as unfair as others to women, I would be hard put to imagine myself as a reproductive machine whose first duty was to contribute to the population of the society and run the household in proper submission to my husband!! ( have not yet found a text fair to women. Am open to suggestions!) With reference to the discussions on another thread I am not one of those people who believe that what was written down in a book so many thousands of years ago is immutable. I read everything most emphatically from the point of view of me and NOW and then appreciate its significance. ( e.g. you will never catch me with a Purana. Read a few of them and found them uniformly hypocritical documents written with some ulterior motive...glorify one God or ruler or the other) I am digressing...:) So stop.

@ Sumer Chauhan How I agree with you and my own humble effort to do so should see the light of day, soon... A large part of my book on the Mauryans is based on the Arthshastra. Some of his political and espionage methods have been used in the plot. The next book I am now researching for will try to explicate his jurisprudence through some of the oldest social issues as illustrated in the oldest stories of the subcontinent ( perhaps the world) , the Bada kaha of Gunadhya better known as the Kathasaritasagar.

@Sumedha: Which other thread are you referring to? I want to check it out!

Sumedha it sounds like your book is going to be amazing! You must tell me when its printed so I can get a copy. I hope you used the Female assassins.....Vishwakanyas?....I always thought that was so hot when I was a child.....brought a whole new meaning to the "Kiss of Death".

This one...it has a wide ranging discussion . What I wanted to point out actually was that I am least interested in some of the nuts and bolts of the time line or who came first or whether Krishna is a Poorna Avatar or not. I want to read it for NOW not THEN. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=10150097492171675&set=a.212955701674.174468.196174216674¬if_t=photo_reply

Okay, that is a painful looking thread and you're right.....its way too long!

Sumer Chauhan...I need readers like you...yes indeed a Vish Kanya plays a very important role in my storyline and the machinations of my heroine and hero who are both Magadhan spies! And we must have been reading the same stuff as kids...I have also always been fascinated with Vish Kanyas. Mudrarakshasa, the Sanskrit play written around the accession of Chandragupta to the throne of Magadha tells of the Vish Kanya sent by the Younger Paurava ( You remember the Elder Paurava from my other posts? His younger brother.) to kill Chandragupta who was then used by Chanakya to kill off the Younger Paurava himself. A dancing girl was also involved in the plot who died. My book starts after this point and the protagonist is the younger sister of this dancing girl of Vishakhadutta's Mudrarakshasa. This is what is called a teaser!

I remember of a Kannada novel, 'Visha Kanye' I had read during my school days! Fed with poison from their childhood days, these dangerous beauties played an important role in the plot to kill the rival rulers. Sumedha, I look forward to your story.

Thanks, Gauri ! I will tell you when it gets published!

@Sumedha Verma Ojha: I look forward to seeing your book in print. I have fetish neither for horse feed nor for horse shit. I do feel that a historian has to have an eye for detail because that is where the devil dwells. We should not put people on a pedestal even if they have done something remarkable (but stupid). Horse was an important determinant of military success and we seem to have faltered there. We relied more on elephants. (The following has little to do with horses but it is "fantastic"). I have quite a new proposition for Kautalya and also our darling Chandragupta Maurya. Here it goes: Kautilya seems like an implausible adjective because Kutil itself is an adjective and I have never come across an adjective of an adjective. Kautilya is a result of a brilliant mistake. Little is known about this chap other than he was son of Chanak, hence Chanakya (an acceptable interpretation). He was a teacher at Takshila and he discovered Chandragupta etc. Other than his writings on statecraft, nothing much is really known about him. I tried to trace the origin of the word Kautalya by looking up if there was a gotra (one of some 50 odd Brahman gotras) but could not find any. Kautalya's only possible meaning could be a person of Kutal or coming from Kutal or whose mother was Kutal. (NOT Kutil). I could not find any lady named Kutal (even in the puranas of the Nanda period which are full of names popular today in Bengal). So only possibility was that there had to be some place called Kutal. And, lo! There is a place called Kutal. AND lo lo!! This Kutal is in Macadonia and is seen on google map. (I am surprised that people have not noticed this, even Mr. Pal!! You then get a plausible theory. This Kautalya in all probability came from Kutal in Macadonia, lodged himself at Takshila first as a student and then as a teacher. The Greek civil society (if one can call it that) was full of intrigue as a way of life (Kutil neeti). Many of the things arthashastra prescribes were practised by the Greeks in the administration of the city states (including deploying Vishakanyas mentioned by Mr. Gauri Satya), back stabbing, breach of trust (You too Brutus!) etc. Kautalya then was a Greek planted to our parts of the world by design to install a Greek King. That he spotted an unknown youth, Chandragupt, skilled in the marshal arts of the times is too much of a coincidence to accept. Therefore the lad that he picked to defeat the Nandas was also a Greek trained there and transported to Takshila. We all know that Chandragupt easily acquired Greek names like Andracottos, Sandracottos, and many such other names (listed by Mr. Pal elsewhere). Chandragupta also does not have a known genealogy. He is said to be a shudra or a person of common origin. (Unbelievable, given his proficiency in wielding a sword and his "chance" meeting with Kautalya) It is worth noting that Chandragupta married the daughter of Selecues (was her name Ada?) another Greek King. Why would a Greek King give his daughter in marriage to an Indian unless that Indian was really a Greek installed by a kutil Kautalya as a part of a grand design?? Kautalya did succeed. but only for a while. His protege' Chandragupt became a Jain. (Destiny playing truant!). So powerful was the Indian ethos as to induce renunciation even in a (Greek) samrat!!! This may be a speculation but it is certainly very interesting for I do believe that we are blinded by Kautilya who was really a Kautalya. It will be worthwhile to make a trip to Kutal in Macadonia and see if we find some traces of this mysterious man. Nevertheless, look forward to seeing your book in print soonest.

Great speculation Shekhar Sathe! It is a pity that we shall not be able to prove it or otherwise! By the way all this is not new there have been many people before you who have trodden this path. A number of 'respectable' British imperialist historians have tied themselves up in knots doing this. So you are in good company, I can provide some references if you like. Hmmm your flights of fancy are almost as good as Mr Pal's.

I stand slightly corrected. Kutal is a little to the South-West of Macadonia in the modern Albania - Greek territory nevertheless. BTW, the Brits have no axe to grind for the Greeks and I don't see any reason to feel ashamed if our best thinkers were non-Indians. But you should have caught me on another wrong foot. There is another Kutal in Kashmir!

Hold on! Hold on! You wonderful people, if I may my two cents here! Okay there may be a Kutal in Macedonia and a Kutal in Kashmir. When we studied Hinduism in University, this one book called "A Survey of Hinduism" by Klaus Klostermeier (Spelling), University of Manitoba....had some very interesting points to make and this book was our standard textbook at the University of Toronto. When Alexander left India, he took many learned Brahmins and other Indians with him who were skilled in various arts. Even his Indian Guru was Kalanos after he rejected his Greek Gurus (I am not making this up, please see the book). Also, when Indians went to Macedonia or Greece, they must have named the places where they settled after their homes in India. Another point, I had friends of Serbian background, one is Andrew Dimtrijovic (I'll have to check my friend's list for the spelling), he is a researcher in California in Neuroscience. He told back in our UofT days that Slavs trace there origin to India. Another point, Ravenna in Italy has art that is completely distinct and different from the rest of Italy. A possible theory that was proposed was that this place was settled by Indians and thus the culture fused with the locals to produce a distinct style which is not found anywhere in Europe or Italy. The church of St. Jehoshaphat in Greece was actually a Buddhist temple! Don't believe me? I don't care :) Read Klaus Klostermair's book, a standard text for 3rd year Indian Study students in University. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Klostermaier He was a good friend of my mentor in University, Dr. Joseph T. O'Connell, the Big Bengali Expert and his wife Dr. Kathleen O'Connell the Tagore and Shantiniketan expert. I am still very much in touch with both of them. Okay, for my final point: I recall Chanakya being a dark skinned Brahmin of the South who came to teach in the North and upon seeing what was happening to his students, he decided to show the Greeks how Indians take care of business! So I think Chanakya was definitely Indian, and if there is a Kutal in Macedonia, it could very well be a settlement of Indians who went there to be part of the trade of culture that existed after Alexander left India. Just my two cents. :)

Sorry for the typos! I was eating and typing at the same time. Going home for Christmas tomorrow! :)

I sincerely wish we stop blaming imperialism and smell an imperialist rat in every suggestion not to our liking. All the clues in Sumer's post are worth following - perhaps historians are already following those. RBSI had posted a thread of A Greek tribe (still maintaining their identity) in Pakistan. The thread had a beautiful photograph of a mother and daughter (perhaps a mother-in-law and a girl or just two nice women with blue eyes and fair complexion). Interstingly, now I recall, Vasant Patwardhan, a banker and a former boss of mine, wrote a 500 page novel based on the the life of Chanakya in Marathi some 30 years ago. Like a fool, I did not read it then. I will now try to procure a copy and read it for whatever worth it is.

@Shekar Sathe: The observations on Chanakya are interesting. Now, I must go back to Mysore (India) and see what Dr. R. Shama Sastry has said about him in the intro of his book "Kautilya's Artha Sastra", which he published after discovering the manuscript in the Oriental Research Institute. Also, must speak to some scholars there about these observations. Interesting indeed. Shama Sastry was a very famous research scholar and put up many theories which many other scholars disputed. However, he stuck to his conclusions. All his research pieces and publications have been compiled and published. I must look to this as well. But one thing that came to my mind is India was such a vast country then. What are some foreign countries today were part of the Greater India.

@Sumedha and Sumer: Speaking of Vishakanyas, there is a novel called "The Blind Assasin" I forget the name of the (British) author. She won some prize for that novel a few years ago. Do see it if you have the time. It is an amazing account of Vishakanyas.

Merry Christmas Sumer.

And a very Merry Christmas to you too Shekhar!

Yeah, Merry Christmas , Sumer..maybe we ought to break off for the holidays!

Very Merry Christmas to you too Sumedha! Not sure if we can take a complete break, RBSI is way too addictive!

@Shekhar: Going by the fantastic story about Kautilya that you have spun I expect you to place a book in competition with SVO. Or you may write in competion to Sh.Ranajit Pal. It is true that very little is known about our great men(Men of Indiian Origin and brought up in the Sanskrit Tradition)- this we have to perforce attribute to our disdain for history or may be the over-emphasis placed in Hinduism on humility- so self effacing that no one has mentioned much about himself anywhere. I have only one objection to your "fantasy" If Kautilya were Kautalya, then being a Greek he would not have had the typical Indian disregard for Historical record keeping! At least it was Megasthenes and other European writers who left some records of our those times. If only we hd only Indian sources to look up for getting our History then God help us.

May be Kautalya was the kingpin of the deep conspiracy therefore he would not keep a trace of whatever connected him with the conspiracy! I do not think that we Indians are or were particularly self-effacing. Compared to the written word, the spoken word is considered (which it is) ephemeral (Kshana-bhangur). Therefore the Rishis, who relied on the oral tradition (for want of any other till the edicts on stone and copper plates) appear to us self-effacing. Once you had the other media, no author seems to have missed the opportunity to immortalise his or her name. Even the saints of Bhaktimarg make it a point to mention their names as authors (Kabir, Tulsi, Tukaram ... in fact without exception). It only of late that people do not mention their names when they bring out scandalous pamphlets or when they fear that they will be accountable for what they say in public.

@ MSS I have not even begun to establish myself as an author and here you are setting up competition for me!! Give me some time... I think you had better join Mr Pal, SS!

@Shekhar: OK> The Vedic RiShis had only the spoken word; be it a compulsion due to scripts having not been "invented" as yet, or because the RiShis wanted to retain "the Power of The Veda" intact one gets to see very less self-promotion. But within this Vedic RiShi group one comes across RiShi Yajnavalkya alone who comes across as very proud and over-confident, if you would like to say so. For, he was one who challenged his Guru and invited trouble for himself. It also gave him the opportunity to spawn off a New Veda - the Shukla Yajurveda. one must admit he was the brightest star among the RiShi Groups! Man, I am not a Shukla Yajurvedi as on date! As for not making personal records a part of the kavya, take any of our great Sanskrit Poets upto Banabhatta- whether it is Kalidasa, Bharavi, Magha, or Shri HarSha-- we have very little authentic biographies of them- we need to rely on legends; or there is very little in self-praise from them. Whereas in Jain works from Karnataka almost every poet has fallen prey to unabashed self-glorification(apnA munh miyA miTThU ban-nA). You are right about the Bhakti-Margi poet-lyricists. Even there, Gita-Govinda's Jayadeva has praised other poets of his time. In fact he has advertised for them in the beginning shlokas of his most beautiful, lyrical kavya. Well, while refering to bhakti-marga poets/lyricists like Kabir, Tulasi, Tukaram or among the Sanskrit Lyricists whether it is Jayadeva or say Narayana teertha their names do appear in what is called as the mudra-line-- often the last. Even here, Swati TirunaL the erstwhile Travancore King has not directly mentioned his name! Instead he used his family deity Padmanbha's name as his mudra! Similarly Muthuswamy Dikshitar uses "Guruguha" which if one wants, could be take as the Sanskrit equivalent of his predominantly Tamil name! So, that is definitely the ushering in of self-promotion among the Indian peoples. Age of Kali, man!

@SVO: Competition might make you work harder to may get a Booker Prize!?!Yeah keep me posted of the publication of it too. I am a fan of Acharya Chanakya myself, though I wouldn't be able to like his clones in my day-to-day life :). Reason: Acharya Chanakya had Nation Building as his primary concern and he, like I believe, stood for a United India, and if Chandra Gupta was of mixed parentage, then being a Brahmin he has the credit of crossing the caste barrier somewhat!

One author of a fictional account of Chanakya in Kannada, has projected Acharya Chanakya as a VaiShNava, and Mahpadma Nanda and Nandas in general as Barbers by Caste. If there is any Truth to it again, I am a little pleased that the throes of Social Change in terms of shift from a hidebound form of Casteism had begun before the Christian Era.

@ MSS :) As we say in Hindi, आप के मुंह में घी शक्कर !! Will keep you posted, certainly. I have been a life long fan of the Arthashastra and Acharya Chanakya and also Chandragupta which is why the book. When i was in college, DU, which was extremely influenced by the communists I would keep hearing of this lie that there was no India before the British. This kind of disregard for and downright lies about the past had a deep effect on me. Over 5000 or more years the subcontinent has evolved, changed and the contours of the country expanded or contracted. However, it was Chandragupta who gave it the first essential political unity and, to some extent social and cultural binding, under the guidance of Acharya Chanakya. His was the intellect behind it. I have tried to bring this out in my book. And, yes, Chandragupta was a Shudra as was Mahapadma Nanda. So, to that extent society was much more fluid then. Acharya Chanakya recognized excellence and nurtured it.

@Mahadeva S Sarma: & SVO:Putting one's signature to one's own work is a matter of record and ownership. It is good we know who wrote what and why, so that nothing becomes apaurusheya later! I am no author and cannot even dream of competing with SVO. Writing is hard work, discipline and honesty. I have a lot of the last, some of the first but none of the second. I think and write on impulse. As I said earlier, my former boss, a banker, Mr. Vasantrao Patwardhan wrote a full length novel (400 pages) on Acharya Chanakya 30 years ago and I regret not reading it then. I will procure a copy and make up for it now that RBSI has kindled the fire. I eagerly await SVO's book when I can claim that I had the honour of sparring with the author on occasions and learning a thing or two from her.:). There used to be a TV serial called Chanakya, again some 30 years ago, but it was all razzmatazz.

@ SS :) Thanks for reassuring me that you are not jumping into the fray!! The book by your former boss sounds really interesting. If you do procure it perhaps you could put me also in the way of reading it? If the book I have written is critiqued by the knowledgeable people in RBSI I may have no place to hide!!! So I will have to request you to be indulgent! :) Are you talking about the Chanakya made by Chandraprakash Dwivedi and telecast on DD in 91-92 or some other dramatization? I have the DVD set of Dwivedi's serial. He had his own vision certainly which he mixed very liberally into the story but his research was admirable. All in all not toooo bad. Have not seen a serious historical adaptation on TV for some time ( Is Rani of Jhansi good? have not seen it tho I believe it is telecast on some channel).

The TV serial came much before 91-92 I don't remember exactly when.

I think it must be inevitable that personal biases get mixed in any work based on historical material. Just as parkaya-pravesh is impossible, seeing anything from past-perspective also must be difficult. I haven't seen Rani Of Jhansi either.

@SS: Taking something as apauruSheya or not is one's choice. Like way back in the times of the Vedic RiShis itself Charvakas had not considered The Vedas as apauruSheya.The Buddha didn't give a damn about it. Shri Aurobindo and his followers IMO do not take the Vedas as such. Even today, Arya Samajis do not consider anything other than the SaMhitas as apauruSheya. Thus if you want look at it say from a Scientific Point of View, nothing called apauruSheya could ever exist if one takes that stand. The concept of apauruSheya comes to the fore if and only if one is willing to accept or adopt the position of a devout follower. Hence, any record, written or oral has to begin (as it all started) and end (as it is today) with a person (even though he may be nameless-meaning whether there is a signature or no signature) looking at it from the Scientific Viewpoint whether it is MSS, SS, SVO, DSK or anyone for that matter there is nothing like apauruSheya at all. Like, it is not that any passage is not attributable to a named RiShi among the Mantras of the say, saMhitas! Like let's take, the Gayatri Mantra. The RiShi is Vishwamitra. The Chhandas is nichR^ut-gAyatrI, and the Supreme Being is the "devatA" that it is addressed to. Thus one could take that RiShi Vishwamitra to have" composed" it in the said Chhandas with an express view to Propitiate the Supreme Being. He is supposed to have attained some explicit "goal" with that Mantra. Now, if one has a special regard for Vishwamitra or what he is said to have accomplished, then one picks up the mantra pays his due regards to the RiShi by fervently remembering him before he begins chanting that Mantra [and that is all the Royalty the RiShi gets!:)] The stance of the Mantra being apauruSheya has relevance for only that person who places his faith in the efficacy of the Mantra to attain the avowed goal claimed by the RiShi! For all the others it hardly makes any difference either way. I am at a loss to understand how that should disturb anyone!?! Thus signature or no signature is not what makes a mantra apauruSheya at all. In fact the real drive for such a declaration is to prevent anyone from altering even a syllable or a swara of the Mantra!

Mahadeva S Verma: You are talking of a system of thought based on certain axioms such as "vedas are apaurusheya" and then you proceed to argue that the system of thought is consistent (given the axioms or the rules or procedures specified for producing the output of thoughts using logic. I would like to draw your attention to the most devastating discovery in mathematics which paid put to many idealist who believed in infallibility of math in proving things. This discovery was made by Godel in 1931 who destroyed for ever the hopes of Gilbert, the German idealist mathematician for ever of creating a "complete" mathematical system which will be (beautifully) consistent. I give below the two propositions which state that such systems of thought are incomplete. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (essentially, a computer program) is capable of proving all facts about the natural numbers. For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem shows that if such a system is also capable of proving certain basic facts about the natural numbers, then one particular arithmetic truth the system cannot prove is the consistency of the system itself.

@SS: You are inadvertently only strengthening what I wanted to say. I am aware of Kurt Godel's Theorem of Undecidability in Formal Logic - a more generalized proposition wherein the "completeness" of an Axiomatic System cannot be proven in advance! By Completeness is meant the set of axioms on which a mathematical system like for instance, Peano's axioms for arithmetic will have theorems not provable within the system or more appropriately, there would be theorems that would be discovered but not provable within that axiomatic system until it is enhanced or enriched by an additional axiom. This implies that either the system needs expansion in terms of additional or replacement of some/all of the existing axioms by different ones. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? A very ideal-world subject like Math- none of its entities need have any relation to Reality whatsoever- all that is needed is consistency<=> p&~p should not both be true at the same time, is not a pre-decidable system. To what avail is LOGIC? How far does it take you? If you then talk about Reality i.e. the Universe as you know through the senses and their technological extensions, there is no end to the quest. You (Any Human Being) is ever condemned to be an empiric. Discoveries need be made continually made by serendipity or Intuitive Flashes ... and any "axiomatization" or systematization process will have to happen on a regular basis. The best example of different theorems resulting by just replacing one axiom -the Euclid's Fifth Postulate called the Parallel Postulate- by a different one each could create two consistent Non-Euclidean Geometries known popularly as Riemanian and Lobatchevskian Geometry depending on whether the Space is one with a positive or a negative curvature one. If only it were possible to ascertain before-hand what would happen if the fifth postulate were replaced by a different one would or would not give a consistent system or vice versa Bernhard Reimann or Nikolai Lobatchevsky need not be credited with having done anything. IOW, as on date, the knowability of the Universe(s), depending merely on the senses and logic, is not guaranteed. Why? Godel's theorem has settled the case once and for all. So, where does it take us? Bertrand Russell and AN Whitehead tried to "derive" Principles of Math from the more primitive principles of Logic in their magnum opus Principia Mathematica. The three volume treatise is truly a labor of love. Russell's discovery of what is called as the Barber's Paradox and his workaround in the form of an elaborate theory of logical types also did not offer much help to fix the problems one would get into with statements with Universal Quantifiers. The Axiomatic School after David Hilbert hit the wall with Godel's Theorem of Undecidability. This meant axiomatization by itself does not pack in tools of discovery into a system. This showed that Intuition has a place in discovering and understanding the world. Thus LEJ Breuer proposed a logic system wherein he disallowed the Law of excluded Middle i.e. a statement of the kind pV~p being a tautology as unacceptable. This makes several proven Mathematical Theorems using the Reductio ad Absurdum as un-provable hence unacceptable as theorems! They will have to be content with being taken as axioms! This is known in Pure Math circles as the Intuitionistic School! All the above only goes to prove the limited utility of Logic as a tool for discovery and understanding of the Universe. At best Logic could be an excellent broom to clean up the cobwebs in the mind. It cannot by itself add to the or as a check back mechanism for the intuitively obtained hypotheses. Srinivasa Ramanujan used to come up with statements of Theorems in Number theory which Hardy and Whitehead took weeks to prove with sufficient rigor. It so happened that they had to teach this unschooled but brilliant and highly intuitive mathematician, the formal proof procedures to help him prove his theorems himself. @SS: You are inadvertently only strengthening what I wanted to say. I am aware of Kurt Godel's Theorem of Undecidability in Formal Logic - a more generalised proposition wherein the "completeness" of an Axiomatic System cannot be proven in advance! By Completenss is meant the set of axioms on which a mathematical sytem like for instance, Peano's axioms for arithmetic will have thoerems not provable within the system or more appropriately, there would be theorems that would be discovered but not provable within that axiomatic system until it is enhanced or enriched by an additinal axiom. This implies that either the system needs expansion in terms of additional or replacement of some/all of the existing axioms by different ones. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? A very ideal-world subject like Math- none of its entities need have any relation to Reality whatsoever- all that is needed is consistency<=> p&~p should not both be true at the same time, is not a pre-decidable syatem. To what avail is

@ MSS Very well said. I had a discussion about Godel's theorem yesterday and came to the same conclusion about it as MSS above. You have very obligingly offered us further support for exactly the stand you are trying to oppose, SS! ( MSS I think your comment has been copied twice, you can delete one of them.)

Continuing in the last post, people like Ramanujan who are inspired beyond mere logical derivations are what RiShis are also like. That is why their statements about the Universe are taken as "axioms". Now in such a complex entity as the Universe which the RiShis had apprehended not through a Logical = a step-by-step process but by what could be best expressed as Direct Experience, cannot necessarily be proved by Logical procedures. In fact all great discoveries have resulted out of such Intuitive Leaps which were later tested for consistency by applying the Principles of Logic or Controlled Experiment or a combination of both, whatever be the method that suits the science. I was a great lover of Logic. My interest in my school and college days were Math and Logic, and when I picked up a sub-area for research into AI the first one was ATP = Automated Theorem Proving. I had even planned to spend a fortune and buy up the whole library of treatises on Classical and Non-Classical Logic that was brought out by, if remember well, by Elsevier. But after spending a lot of time in many of the then current AI paradigms, including Expert Systems and Self- Building Knowledge Bases etc. I abandoned that as not a right path to AI. Somewhere, around the fourth year of my Engg I felt the methods of Science are incomplete. There exists no way of handling Intuition, Heuristics etc., in the Scientific Method. Scientific Method to make real breakthrough needs to find "foolproof" methods of including "direct experience" in order to be able to have all the tools necessary for what I would like to call as a Total Understanding of the Universe. Of course I am aware of the pitfalls [why, dangers] of only trusting Intuition or sharpening the Intuitive faculty to total disregard of logic. While searching for methods to formalize Intuitive Apprehension, because very few of my Occidental Gurus seemed to have worked, and even if they did, they seem to look at Intuition and Intuitive methods with a lot of suspicion, I had to turn Eastward, to my ancestors! I had then chanced on aShTanga Yoga and of course currently The Vedas and the methods of the RiShis. In this connection, I like the Neural Network paradigm of AI, also known as the new connectionism to be providing the hardware/software platform for at least holding on to a possibility of Machine Intelligence.

@SVO: I don't see a double entry.in my system. If I do I will certainly delete the repeat post.

@Mahadeva S Sarma: I take it you copied the same message twice for adding emphasis? There was nothing inadvertent about my quoting Godel. I wished to demonstrate that you lived in the ideal world as far removed from the real world. A system of thought, howsoever consistent within itself, will have some propositions which are unprovable as true or false. Just because it is unprovable as true does not mean it is false and vice-versa. In the real world we must live and deal with real issues including those of history. You cannot be straddling two irreconciliables to propose a plausible theory which at some point will be demonstrable as true. So Vedas as axioms on which knowledge of the real world is built is quite flimsy.

I have not posted twice or at least it doesn't show up as such on either of the places- on my home computer or on my office computer So, I am not able to see what both you or Ms.Sumedha are making a mention of. For emphasis, I only did one thing-- made two instalments of elaborate posts which I hope you have read before you responded to me. My idea was to make it known to you that just because I believe in religion or God, does not make my mind impervious to logic. To this end, I had written in great detail about the various schools of Math and the position of logic, and the fact that I am not only aware of Godel's theorem, I have gone through the proof of the same and so on, and so on. Please read my post above. I have written at great length why Logic alone cannot take you much far at least to where I want to go. [Q]A system... of thought, howsoever consistent within itself, will have some propositions which are unprovable as true or false. Just because it is unprovable as true does not mean it is false and vice-versa. In the real world we must live and deal with real issues including those of history.[Q] When did I ever say that within an Axiomatic System there would not be propositions unprovable within that system? What do you think, I meant when I quoted the Intuitionistic School of Math where the rejection of the Law of Excluded Middle means in simplest terms that the position that a proposition or its negation only must only be true is not tenable. I have been again and again trying to impress upon you that when you deal with Religion for instance, the "givens" orthe initial statements are NOT to be called Axioms, for axiom is a statement assumed to be true(this is true even for an exact Science like Math), whose truth cannot be deduced from the other "axioms" of that system but is somehow understandable unexplained. Like for instance in Elementary Geometry one comes across a postulate(axiom): Two points uniquely determine a line. This not provable from the other statements. But that it is "correct" to the extent that no inconsistency results by assuming it to true is evident through a simple thought experiment. Whereas even the very fact that say," Atman exists and survives Death" is neither provable through a process of argumentation nor experimentation but needs be taken as a starting point, if you want to understand and go with the rest of The Veda. Thus if one looks at an edifice that is built on several such assumptions/statements cannot ever make a logical system consistent or otherwise. Accepting Vedic Statements is of this kind. A system of reasoning that is based on rearranging "proof" procedure to establish the veracity of certain more complex statements than this to explain the events in the Universe or in one's life is all that one could achieve. When I accept The Vedas to be "True" it is in this sense. By the standard of Rationality this is downright irrational I KNOW THIS!! Not only that, I have myself declared several times that, it is to get out of the confines of Rationality that I am or have accepted The Vedas. I am also trying to make it known that this will in no way jeopardise my logical(rational) faculties when it is a sensory input based facts that I need to anlayse or understand.So, your repeated quoting of statements like the one you have mentioned above looks very condescending. When I do not understand something I have the humility to say so. If I remember well I have once also declared that I am not interested in searching for mundane things like historical truth in The Vedas.That is neither my interest nor my quest as far as The Vedas are concerned. For me, it is worthwhile to see if there are any Science-related statements in the Vedas, because,the search in the Vedas is for the Structure of Reality.This also happens to be the goal in Physics. For me, hard archeological/epigraphical evidence corroborated by linguistic evidence are only the acceptable method(s) for unfolding historical truth. It is analogous to Breuer rejecting the Law of Excuded Middle.

@Mahadeva S Sarma: I do not wish to exasperate you, buy, as I said in my wall a few weeks ago, Illusion is real, because it exists.