________________
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 panIndian 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 among them. Even while writing in Sanskrit, there was often a conscious attempt to simplify the language for the sake of wider understanding.1 The Jaina monks played an active role in the affairs of the community and seem to have been responsible for the spread of learning to all strata of
1 For instance, Jinapala, writing at Delhi in 1248, explains at the end of his Khara
taragacchalamkara-Yugapradhanacarya-Gurvavali, a chronicle of the pontiffs of the Kharatara sect, how he simplified Sanskrit in this work in order that even children can understand it. Henceforth this chronicle will be referred to as the Kharatara chronicle. It was published in the Kharataragaccha-Brhadgurvavali, ed. Muni Jinavijaya, Bombay 1966. Jinapala's statement occurs on p. 50.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
