|Home / lib / M_Mathematics /|
Ramanujan A.K. Is there an Indian way of thinking (Contrib. Indian Soc.23, 1989)(T)(21s)_M_.djvu
Date Jan 7, 2004
Like the Nala story in the Mahabharata, what is contained mirrors the
container; the microcosm is both within and like the macrocosm, and
paradoxically also contains it...
This is the grain of truth glimpsed by many of the stereotypes
cited in the earlier parts of this essay...
Or Blake in the technocratic democracy
of the 19th century railing against egalitarianism, abstraction, and the dark
Satanic mills, calling for 'minute particulars', declaring 'To generalize is to
be an idiot' (generalising thereby); and framing the slogan of all context-
sensitive systems: 'one law for the lion and the ox is oppression'...
Is there an Indian way of thinking? An informal essay 157
English is borrowed into (or imposed on) Indian contexts, it fits into the
Sanskrit slot; it acquires many of the characteristics of Sanskrit, the older
native Father-tongue, its pan-Indian elite character—as a medium of laws,
science and administration, and its formulaic patterns; it becomes part of
Indian multiple diglossia (a characteristic of context-sensitive societies)...
|© 2007 eKnigu|