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Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s3: IV

Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s3

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English

IV

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Many other aspects of science and technology are not at all referred to in the accounts which are reproduced in the following pages. Textiles, armaments, horticultural techniques, or the breeding of animals are among those omitted aspects. The design or construction of boats and other sea-faring vessels are also not referred to. A mention in this respect may, however, be made of an observation made by Solvyns in the *Les Hindous*. Introducing the 40 or so sketches of boats and river vessels in use in Northern India in the 1790s, he observed: ‘The English, attentive to everything which relates to naval architecture, have borrowed from the Hindoos many improvements which they have adapted with success to their own shipping.’48 Commenting on Indian rowing, an early eighteenth century observer remarked: ‘Their water-men row after a different manner from ours. They move the oar with their feet, and their hands serve instead of the *hypomochlion*, or roller on which it turns.’49

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It is not as if nothing at all is known of the various accounts reproduced in this volume. Chapters I, II, V and VI dealing with astronomy and mathematics are perhaps known to many concerned scholars. The accounts dealing with the manufacture of paper, the composition of the ‘Madrass Mortar’ and Iron Works at Ramanakapettah are possibly known to a still wider circle. Even the practice of inoculation against the smallpox is known to have existed in ancient times in India, for, according to one modern writer: ‘Preventive inoculation against the smallpox, which was practised in China from the eleventh century, apparently came from India.’50 Something also seems to be known about the manufacture of iron and steel in Salem through the writings of it by Campbell, the Assistant Surveyor General, Madras. Ranade himself seems to have been fairly well informed about the export of *wootz* to England and other countries, though he leaves the time vague

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But all this knowledge among the scholars and prominent writers on Indian economics has not so far created any general awareness of the teaching and practice of these sciences and technologies, or the questioning of the prevailing hypothesis of ‘the eighteenth century’ being ‘the darkest period’ in Indian history,⁵¹ etc. The reasons for the lack of appropriate awareness or the prevailing indifference are manifold. Primarily the responsibility for such a situation lies with the system of education which has prevailed in independent India, which by nurturing indifference, even contempt, for everything indigenous effectively blocks such enquiries.

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The intellectual basis of the contempt and indifference which began to grow around the close of the eighteenth century, is perhaps best illustrated by the article on ‘Algebra’ in the *Encyclopaedia Britannica*, in its 8th edition (1850). Discussing Indian Algebra, it referred to a review by Prof John Playfair, of Colebrooke’s work on Indian Algebra, and observed:

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This last article, published in 1817, may be supposed to contain the matured opinions of one of the most ardent, able, and we must say most candid, enquirers into the history of Hindoo mathematical science. There is here certainly an abatement of his first confidence in the opinion of Bailly on the Indian astronomy, and a corresponding caution in his own opinion as to the antiquity of the mathematical sciences. The very remote origin of the Indian Astronomy had been strongly questioned by many in this country, and also on the Continent; particularly by Laplace, also by Delambre in his *Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne*, tome i.p.400, & c., and again *Histoire de l’Astronomie du Moyen Age, Discourse Preliminaire*, p.8, & c., where he speaks slightingly of their algebra.

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The article added: ‘And in this country, Prof. Leslie, in his very learned work on *The Philosophy of Arithmetic*, pp.225 and 226, calls the *Lilavati* “a very poor performance, containing merely a few scanty precepts couched in obscure memorial verses”.’

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Playfair’s observations, alluded to on this occasion, while differing from the views of Leslie etc., expressed some scholarly scepticism of the Indians’ capacity in mathematical sciences. He had said:

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Among many subjects of wonder which the study of these ancient fragments cannot fail to suggest, it is not one of the least that algebra has existed in India, and has been cultivated for more than 1200 years, without any signal improvement, or the addition of any material discovery. The works of the ancient teachers of science have been commented on, elucidated, and explained with skill and learning; but no new methods have been invented, nor any new principle introduced. The method of resolving indeterminate problems, that constitute the highest merit of their analytical science, were known to Brahmagupta hardly less accurately than to Bhascara; and they appear to have been understood even by Aryabhata, more ancient by several centuries than either. A long series of scholiasts display in their annotations great acuteness, intelligence, and judgement; but they never pass far beyond the line drawn by their predecessors, which probably seemed even to those learned and intelligent men as the barrier within which it was to be confined. In India, indeed, everything seems equally insurmountable, and truth and error are equally assured of permanence in the stations they have once occupied. The politics, the laws, the religion, the science, and the manners, seem all nearly the same as at the remotest period to which history extends. Is it because the power which brought about a certain degree of civilisation, and advanced science to a certain height, has either ceased to act, or has met with such a resistance as it is barely able to overcome? Or is it because the discoveries which the Hindoos are in possession of are an inheritance from some more inventive and more ancient people, of whom no memorial remains but some of their attainments in science?52

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The choice of this passage during the 1850s by the *Encyclopaedia Britannica* was in keeping with the sentiments of the period. But the 24 page unsigned article in the *Edinburgh Review* (Nov. 1817), from which this sceptical passage is taken, had also said many other things. Earlier in the article, Playfair observed:

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A commentary on the *Vija Ganita*, bearing the date of 1602, contains a full exposition of the sense, with complete demonstrations of the rules, much in the manner of Ganesa; and there is a scholiast of a still later date, who appears to have flourished about the year 1621. If, therefore, it be true, that the Hindus of the present time understand nothing of their scientific books the decline of knowledge among them must have been very rapid, as it is plain that, at the distance, of less than two centuries from the present time, the light of science was shining in India with considerable lustre.

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Proceeding further while deploring the lack of ‘analysis’ even in the *Vija Ganita*, he noted that Brahmagupta had given ‘a solution that appears quite general’ concerning ‘Indeterminate Problems’. And he observed: The solution then of a very difficult problem given by an Indian Algebraist, more than 1200 years ago, is such as can vie with those of two of the mathematicians the most distinguished for genius and invention which Europe could boast of ever having seen, at the end of the eighteenth century.’ Dismissing that the finding of such a solution by Brahmagupta may have been due to chance, he added, ‘there are inquiries where chance and accident have great influence and where a man of very inferior genius and knowledge may make great discoveries. But the subject we are treating of here, is not of that number; it is one where no one *finds*, who does not know how to *search*; and where there is no reward but for intense thought, and patient inquiry.’

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Given the doubts of academicians like Playfair, Laplace, Delambre, etc., as well as the supporting role of the fast multiplying tribe of ‘oriental scholars’ amongst the servants of the British authorities in India (including those amongst the missionaries), Macaulay’s verdict on Indian sciences and learning was inevitable. Only Macaulay expresses such doubts and contempt with greater drama and bombast. But what he said, in his minute of 2 February 1835, was shared fully not only by the then British Governor General of India, Bentinck (‘I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments expressed in this minute’), but practically by every other learned or powerful European. Referring to the orientalists Macaulay observed:

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I have never found one amongst them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee [of Public Instruction] who support the oriental plan of education.

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And then he added:

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It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.

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Concluding, Macaulay refused to associate himself with any support or assistance to Indian learning and declaimed:

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If on the other hand, it be the opinion of the Government that the present system ought to remain unchanged, I beg that I may be permitted to retire from the chair of the committee. I feel that I could not be of the smallest use to them. I feel also that I should be lending my countenance to what I firmly believe to be a mere delusion. I believe that the present system tends not to accelerate the progress of truth but to delay the natural death of expiring errors. I conceive that we have at present no right to the respectable name of a Board of Public Instruction. We are a Board for wasting the public money, for printing books which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank,—for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology,—for raising up a breed of scholars who find their scholarship an encumbrance and a blemish, who live on the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is so utterly useless to them that, when they have received it, they must either starve or live on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertaining these opinions I am naturally desirous to decline all share in the responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its whole mode of proceedings, I must consider not merely as useless, but as positively noxious.53

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Remarks, observations, threats and declamations, like those quoted above, have shaped all the writing and teaching about India, and more or less continue to do so, in the manner and direction indicated by Macaulay and by his more (though less known in India) powerful precursors like William Wilberforce and James Mill.⁵⁴ Ignorance, apathy and utter mental confusion, particularly about life and society in the eighteenth century not only in India but in West Europe itself, are the natural products of such writing and teaching.

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The doubts and declamations (of Playfair, Laplace, Macaulay, etc.), however, are not the sole causes of this ignorance and apathy. These seem to arise, partly, from much deeper issues which pertain to the conflicting hypotheses about state and society. The seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ European view of society, and thus of science, technology, politics, etc., was diametrically at variance with the views about them held by non-European societies during the same period.

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Consequently, the sciences and technologies of the non-European world also had different seekings and developments to those of Europe. Further, in countries like India, their organisation was in tune with their more decentralist politics and there was no seeking to make their tools and work places unnecessarily gigantic and grandiose. Smallness and simplicity of construction, as of the iron and steel furnaces or of the drill ploughs, was in fact due to social and political maturity as well as arising from understanding of the principles and processes involved. Instead of being crude, the processes and tools of eighteenth century India appear to have developed from a great deal of sophistication in theory and a heightened sense of the aesthetic.

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It is in such a context that a man like Voltaire considered India ‘famous for its laws and sciences’, and deplored the mounting European preoccupation (both individual and national) of those in India with the amassing of ‘immense fortunes’. This quest for riches intensified the struggles, plunder, etc., during his own time, and made him remark: ‘If the Indians had remained unknown to the Tartars and to us, they would have been the happiest people in the world.’⁵⁵ Looking back at what has happened since he wrote these lines, Voltaire seems to have been very perceptive in his judgment. But the whole world, if such contacts had not occurred, would have been very different not only in politics and society but also in science and technology. Speculations about what it may have been, though fascinating, are far beyond the scope of this volume.

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A question yet remains: Why have sciences and technologies—which seem to have been very much alive about 8-10 generations ago—been wholly eclipsed? Answers about the causes of such an eclipse are very complex. Some of them are also—till there is systematic and detailed research available about Indian science and society—largely speculative. A few of them may, however, be suggested here.

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The first is related to the economic breakdown of India during 1750-1900.

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We may argue about the nature and intensity of exploitation of the agricultural and manufacturing population, or about the question of what happened to the money and goods extorted (the 50 per cent of the gross agricultural product compulsorily taken as governmental land revenue is a good example). But there can be no dispute that the breakdown of the economy was overwhelming and total. No sciences or technologies can survive intact such catastrophe.

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The second point relates to the contrary nature of the new state fiscal system when compared with the indigenous system (or systems) prevailing at the commencement of the European impact. It seems that the indigenous budgeting of state revenues (whether for larger or smaller political entities and through various in-built devices) left the overwhelming proportion of revenue at the local levels.

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The British-created fiscal system, on the other hand, doubled or trebled the rates of various assessments and effectively brought all people under its sway; taking away the overwhelming proportions to the central exchequers as well as to the metropolises and places above them. Studied neglect and contempt added to the economic breakdown and the transformation of the fiscal system. This to my mind completed the uprooting and elimination of indigenous sciences and technologies not only from society but from Indian memory itself.

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Finally, the notion that all these sciences and technologies have wholly disappeared is not altogether true. Remnants of many still exist and continue to be of use; but, at a most neglected and impoverished level. For instance, it is said that some aspects of indigenous plastic surgery were being practised till fairly recently in places as far apart as Kangra and Junagadh.56

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There are many philosophical formulations regarding the growth and decline of human societies (or the various stages which they are supposed to pass through). The theory of atrophy (as usually applied to India) is one of them. It is possible that it also has some relevance in explaining the growth, flowering and decline of Indian society. Though the contemporary data, as separate from opinions and formulations, does not seem to indicate that the eighteenth century sciences and technologies in India had atrophied, some of them may well have been in such a state. It is possible that various other current or past formulations on the subject of growth and decline of human societies also have some contribution to make in explaining what happened to Indian science and society over the millennia.

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Whatever may be the actual relevance of the theory of atrophy or other theories of European origin in explaining the development of Indian society, it appears much more probable that in most respects the sciences and technologies of India had reached a desirable balance and equilibrium much before the eighteenth century. In the context of the values and aptitudes of Indian culture and social norms (and the consequent political structure and institutions), the sciences and technologies of India, instead of being in a state of atrophy, were in actuality usefully performing the tasks desired by Indian society. It is the application of unrelated standards and judgments (particularly those emanating from eighteenth-nineteenth century Europe) which hide and distort the actual situation and relationship.

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V

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Although organisationally weak in a military-political sense, in most respects the political and social ideas of India (like its legal and administrative arrangements as well as sciences and technologies) had achieved maturity and balance at some time previous to its present day contacts with the European world. Its social and political structure at this period, though seemingly different from those that obtain in the European world, today, was able to provide of freedom, well-being and social security basically similar to those at present available in much of the European world. It also seems to have had somewhat similar ideas about ruler-ruled relationship, the resolution of disputes, legal punishments, sexual mores, protests against those in authority, etc. But while the whole led to more freedom and equality, these characteristics added to a basically decentralised political and military structure and contributed to this society becoming more prone to external attack.

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During the centuries, particularly between the twelfth and seventeenth, there is no dearth of such external onslaughts. The onslaughts to an extent are absorbed and accommodated by Indian society. Over a time, however, they contribute not only to further political and military weakness, but also to damaging the various integrating factors which had provided the necessary intellectual and spiritual links between different regions and specialist as well as ethnic groups. Over all, however, though considerably weaker and perhaps also psychologically at a low ebb, the major arrangements and expressions continued to serve the physical, social and spiritual needs of the Indian people satisfactorily.

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At the time of the European onslaught, the indigenous tendencies in India seem to have been in a state of slow resurgence. The resurgence, while it restored a measure of confidence, weakened at the same time the political and military structure. With the beginning of European dominance in India, the resurgence got transformed into depression and unimaginable disorganisation. Foreign aggression and dominance was not wholly unknown in India before the resort to it by Europe in the mid-eighteenth century. But the Europeans of this period belonged to a wholly alien world in relation to India. They were not only armed with the concepts and hierarchical institutions of a long feudal European past, but had also been preparing for the occasion for two to three centuries. The subsequent application of their concepts and values completed the destruction of Indian science and society which had been started by the political and military defeat of India at their hands.

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What has developed in India in the field of science and technology during the past century, and at a greater pace since 1947, is mainly a transplanting of some of that which has developed during this period in the European world. Such transplanting has happened not only at the level of theories, but even more so as regards the organisation of technology and the direction of research. It is largely due to such transplanting and its unthinking acceptance that, though many individual Indian scientists and technologists are as creative and inventive as their colleagues in the European world, the impact of this science and technology on the larger society of India is in fact minimal. It is no exaggeration, perhaps, to add that the field of science and technology in India, as far as it concerns its ordinary life, is only a little less barren than India's state system and its politics.

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Borrowing of ideas and practices in themselves need not be obstructive to India's development or creativity. During the centuries, India must have borrowed many ideas and practices from other lands—in the same manner in which Europe received much in the field of science and technology from the Arabs etc., or the Arabs and others did from India. To the extent that such borrowings lead to further innovation and creativity, they are to be greatly welcomed. Unfortunately, so far, the past century's unthinking transplanting of European sciences and technologies in India has resulted mainly in retarding and blunting of indigenous innovation and creativity.

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The problem for India today, as perhaps for many other lands which are still recovering from the effects of eighteenth and nineteenth century European dominance, is how to achieve and increase such innovation and creativity. Such innovation and creativity can arise, however, only from a widespread indigenous base. Such a base has yet to be identified (and the superstructure accordingly modified and linked with it) in countries like India. For that, knowledge and comprehension of how they functioned before the beginning of this dominance seem to be essential. Even for the purposeful adaptations from European (or for that matter Japanese, Chinese or any other) science and technology and their integration with indigenous concepts, knowledge and forms, it is necessary that these countries achieve such self-knowledge and understanding at the earliest possible.

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