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Thakkura Pheru and the Popularisation of Science in India in the Fourteenth Century
Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma
0.1 Until the introduction of English in India, scientific texts as well as other scholarly works were written mainly in Sanskrit and that too in metrical form. Though Sanskrit had the advantage of being the pan-Indian medium of communication, its accessibility within any region of India was limited, and the writings in Sanskrit were naturally elitist in character, being written chiefly by Brahmins for Brahmins, Moreover, the enormous respect for tradition and the urge to preserve it in all its purity resulted in a faithful following of the traditional framework in all intellectual endeavours, so much so that the chapter titles of almost all texts in a particular branch of science sound alike. If any innovations were made it was always within this framework. The lack of discrimination in the selection of ideas and the reluctance to discard outmoded concepts, coupled with a language of limited accessibility, resulted in the stagnation of Indian science in the middle ages. There is one more factor which contributed to this decline. This is the absence of communication and therefore absence of any interaction between science and technology. While the writers on scientific subjects were upper caste Brahmins, the practitioners of technology were artisans of low social standing. The techniques employed by the latter in their professions were rarely recorded in writing; these were transmitted orally from father to son or from master craftsman to apprentice and remained in many cases guild or trade secrets.
0.2 The literature of the Jainas offers some sort of an exception to this general state of affairs. Though the Jainas respected Sanskrit as a vehicle of scholarly exposition, Prakrit also enjoyed religious sanction
146/JAINTHOLOGY
| SR No. | 006577 |
| Book Title | Jainthology |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Ganesh Lalwani |
| Publisher | Jain Bhawan Publication |
| Publication Year | 1991 |
| Total Pages | 294 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 8 MB |