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VEDIC, BUDDHIST AND JAIN TRADITIONS 

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In 1986 when the first of the Multidisciplinary and Cross-cultural Seminars was held under the aegis of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, there was a trepidation.  In my Introduction to the Volume on Concepts of Space : Ancient & Modern I have shared with the readers the sense of challenge as also of gratification. Then, it was not easy, nor has it been easy in the subsequent years to bring together people from different parts of the world of diverse disciplines and levels of society to speak through a multiplicity of languages to reflect and converse, and have a meaningful dialogue on the fundamental concerns of humanity in the past or present, in science or religion, philosophy and the arts, in civilizations as far apart as Egyptian, Chinese, Greek and Indian, permeating expressions through the written or the oral word,  generating a language of myth and symbol which communicates across cultures.

The gathering, the dialogue and the discussion on a single concept of Space (¡k¡¿a) made it evident that the more fundamental and universal the concept, the greater the probability and possibility of diverse interpretations at multiple levels. The single concept of Space had taken us through the journey of the concepts of cavity, cave, aperture, fountainhead, body, air, sky, vacuity, cipher, point and much else.  The scientist and the technologist explored the concept through their method of empirical investigation, the philosopher and the metaphysician, artists and the sociologist through perennial questioning and speculation. The two approaches and methods we learnt were complementary and not in conflict. The arts, architecture, sculpture, painting, music and dance enclose, embody and evoke space. Poetry creates vast edifices of space as spatial situations, and evoke the experience of outer and inner space.

The concern with Space (¡k¡¿a) could not be dissociated from the concern - the concept of Time (k¡la). Two years later, a similar gathering with many familiar faces (who communicated with one another with greater ease) gathered to deliberate upon the many dimensions of Time (k¡la).  Once again, the discussions at that Seminar revolved round the micro and the macro levels of the single concept, from molecular time to the cosmic time, from the time of biologists to the time of astronomer, from the time of the seer and meditator to the time of the architect, sculptor, musician, dancer and the poet. Besides the familiar faces, there were others who had joined the family of the IGNCA. The enlarged family gave this Seminar a depth and richness, unique and unparalleled.  The experiences His Holiness The Dalai Lama articulated in words lucid and resonant, were juxtaposed with the precision and meditation of a scientist - the late Professor D.S. Kothari. The depth of the experience of Time in religious traditions, Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Hebrew, and the embodiment of inner and outer Time in poetic language was shared through rapt silence through the voice of the Poet Kathleen Raine.

Logically and naturally, from these two fundamental and universal concepts the next step in our quest for exploration of a single universal theme through diverse paths recalling the Îgvedic Verse, Truth is one; man knows it by different names, was to explore the concept of the primal elements (five or four) in different civilizations which have governed and determined the evolution of civilization and culture. Perhaps, the first conscious awareness of Man was the fact that his life depended on water, Earth, air, fire and, above all, space.  Understandably, in all civilizations, at the most sophisticated level as also at the simplest level, the recognition that the primal elements were primary and indispensable for Man, is universal. Myths of the origin of the universe, creation, cosmology and cosmogony, have been developed on the concept of the elements which are four or five. There is a vast body of primary sources and equally extensive and complex a history of critical discourse on the nature of primal elements and their indispensability, not only for Man but for all life on Earth.

The subject was too vast and too monumental to be taken up in a single Seminar.  Organizationally, therefore, this time it was decided to hold five successive but interlocked Seminars, one leading to the others, so that they could all culminate in a final international cross-cultural multidisciplinary Seminar. Since cultures, disciplines, and levels of society are not completely autonomous and insulated, there was a planned and understandable overlapping between one Seminar or Workshop and another.

The five Seminars were divided more for facility than the autonomous nature of each area or field. The discussions, therefore, at one Seminar were taken up and did interpenetrate into the next.

Logically, the first of these Seminars focused attention on the articulations of cohesive communities in the world who have lived in harmony with nature and who have communicated with the five elements in a continuous unceasing dialogue. To them the nature of the five elements - water, earth, air, fire and space - is not a matter of intellection or breaking down into separation and divisions of totality or a whole; instead, it is a question of life here and now.  This is manifested in ritual practices which sacrilize nature so that man can live as an integral part of the universe, the rhythmic movement of the changing seasons, and the symmetrical punctuation and cycle of seed sprouting, growing, flowering, fruiting, decaying and renewing. In modern discourse this is understood as the need for man to live in harmony with the environment for an evolution of socio-cultural systems and methodologies for ensuring the maintenance of ecological balances. The lives and lifestyles of these cohesive groups have begun to acquire renewed validity on account of what man has done to pollute, contaminate, desacrilize and desecrate the very fundamentals that sustain him and make it possible for him to live on earth. The first Volume is based on the papers submitted at this Seminar.

The second Seminar moved the emphasis to the textual traditions. There is a vast body of literature in Greek, Chinese and Indian sources where philosophic discourses have been held on the nature of the universe, the nature of matter, the elements and the possibility of transmutation of the gross to the subtle.  In India all branches of the philosophic streams have discussed the nature of the Bh£tas and the Mah¡bh£tas.  The discussion ranges from the earliest articulation on the subject in the Îgveda to the philosophic schools of Vai¿eÀikas, Ved¡ntins, áaiva and the Ëgamas.  The old system of Ëyurveda in India, as much of medicine in Greece in a very different way, is based on the concept of the Mah¡bh£tas in the constitution of the body itself.  The very conception of the five elements constitutes the body.  Texts for Indian astronomy, chemistry, metallurgy are replete with discussions on the elements.  This discussion cannot be dissociated from a speculation, and discourse of, the nature of the universe, cosmology, cosmogony.  The second Seminar delved deep into each of these aspects specially in the Indian tradition - Vedic, Br¡hma¸ical, UpaniÀadic and T¡ntric.  In addition, there was a consideration of the concept of the Mah¡bh£tas in Buddhism and Jainism.  This Seminar unfolded the very complex and subtle aspects of the discourse on the nature of the matter, the fivefold organic matter and the five external objects.  It also brought forth the many convergences as also divergences of viewpoint between and amongst these different streams of Indian thought as exemplified in the textual tradition.  The Seminar was hosted by the Department of Sanskrit, University of Poona, Pune. The second Volume of this series is based on the papers and the discussions held at this Seminar.

Logically, the third Seminar had to and did explore the discussions as also the manifestations of the five elements in the Indian arts, along with their Ëgamic background.  As is well-recognized, while the UpaniÀads provide the basis for speculative thinking, the Br¡hma¸as give the methodology of ritual practice (Yajµa and Prayoga).  Parallel is the development in early and later medieval India where the texts on V¡stu and áilpa provide the frame-work of the abstract principles of creating concrete structures through different media and in different forms.  The Ëgama is the twin which provide the methodology of enlivening, giving life and breath to the concrete structures and forms of art.  If monumental architecture, sculpture, painting, music or dance, poetry or theatre, is created on the comprehension of space and time, they are even more built on the system of correspondences first for embodying and then evoking the five elements. The fascinating and unceasing cycle of the movement from the inner experience to the creation of form, which would incorporate the five elements and the employment of a methodology of ritual, is outlined in the Ëgamic texts only to achieve the end experience of the transformation of the gross to the subtle.  This was the subject of this Seminar.  From different vantage points of the architect, sculptor, painter, musician and dancer, the field was re-opened to examine the structure of the Indian arts at its primal level.

Naturally, theories of aesthetics which have emerged from such a viewpoint had to be discussed and many questions asked.  The third Volume incorporates the span of the papers presented and the discussions held at this Seminar.

If the arts deal with the process of transmutation and mutation of the subtle to the gross, and the evocation of the subtle from the gross, in other words, the process of the abstract and the concrete suggesting, stimulating and evoking the abstract, then the astrophysicist deals with the nature of primal matter itself.  No discourse on the elements could have been completed by excluding the discussion on modern physics of elementary particles and the most recent developments in microbiology.  The fourth Seminar took up the question of the nature and function of matter itself and discussed the theories of the creation of the universe and emergent cosmologies in the modern physics.  This was juxtaposed with the consideration on the nature of matter and consciousness.  It was obvious that the new developments in science were, perhaps, not all that far remote from the earlier insights in the context of consciousness.  The debate between the nineteenth Century mechanistic science and the modern physics was re-opened.  This was juxtaposed with speculations and the philosophic discourses in the Indian philosophic schools.  If the second Seminar dealt with the textual traditions and the philosophic schools of S¡Ækhya, M¢m¡Æs¡ and the Vai¿eÀikas, this Seminar looked at these traditions as structuralistic traditions from a scientific point of view.  The dialogue created between the method of science and the method of speculation was invigorating.  The fourth Volume comprises papers and discussions at this Seminar.

The fifth and the last Seminar was a coming together of cultures as also disciplines.  Coordinators of the earlier Seminars presented brief Reports on each of the Seminars which provided the background and the landscape. The international community, comprising scientists, biologists, philosophers, anthropologists, ecologists and artists shared not only the myth and cosmology of their particular societies but also there was a most meaningful dialogue between those who lived in the awareness of the primordial myths of the elements and those who had employed the tools of science to explore the nature of the phenomenon of matter.

The putting together of the deliberations of the five major Seminars, as a single or a multiple-volume, is a daunting task.  Through the combined efforts of the Coordinators of each of these Seminars and, particularly, the Chief Coordinator - Professor B.N. Saraswati and his associates - it has been possible to prepare the five Volumes based on the deliberations of these Seminars as also a companion exhibition which was called "PRAKÎTI: The Integral Vision".

It is my hope that these Volumes will provide material for further discussion and dialogue.The perennial nature of the theme and its urgent and contemporary validity will, I hope, make these Volumes significant.  As I have said earlier in my Introduction, Man stands today at a moment where he is threatened by the pollution, inner and outer, of his own making. The primal elements and the urgent need for purification through austerity and discipline are not the matters of intellectual discourse alone. Their maintenance and sustenance, and the purity of these that are primary and primal, are the objectives of our life, lest death overtakes us.

9th June, 1994

Kapila Vatsyayan

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