“PAVENA PARANDEL” OF WESTERN SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGIES - V
In
“Knowledge, Reality and Nirvana” Prof. N. A. de S. Amaratunga states
“Regarding the relationship between knowledge and culture it could be
seen that human beings at the earliest times created knowledge before
they created a culture. They used their inherent enquiring mind to find
out about the surrounding world and solve their problems. Knowledge was
acquired by this manner. They used this knowledge to develop their
culture which in turn helped them to gain further knowledge. This basic
relationship may be operational at present too.” Ironically Prof.
Amaratunga who writes on Buddhism implying to be a Buddhist, in the
article he pontificates on Nirvana, true to his western Christian
training as a dentist says humans created knowledge before they created
a culture. Let me ask if he knows the first step in this knowledge
creation. In other words what was the knowledge that the humans created
first. As I said earlier I am glad that Prof. Amaratunga speaks of
creation of knowledge rather than of discovering knowledge. Now was it
Lucy who is supposed to be grandmother of all humans according to
western science who created this all important first knowledge. (I know
that Prof. Amaratunga refers to the human beings in the plural at the
earliest times and could object to the reference to Lucy. However Prof.
Amaratunga refers to the earliest human beings implying Darwinian
evolution and I think I am justified in referring to Lucy as the first
of all the earliest humans in the Darwinian scheme.) Lucy may have had
an inquiring mind not possessed by some present day Professors, but
what would have attracted her inquiring mind? Unfortunately there would
not have been a first grandfather in the Darwinian scheme for Lucy’s
mind to be attracted by him.
Even
if we assume Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Lucy would have descended
from apes and the apes would have had some kind of knowledge. The
western mind was incapable of understanding that animals other than the
humans have minds until very recently, and Darwin’s original scheme
would not have had a place for the knowledge of the animals. However,
the Buddhists have had knowledge of the minds and the knowledge of the
non human animals and even Darwin’s Theory if it is juxtaposed with a
Buddhist Theory (please note that I am not trying to interpret Buddhism
through western theories) would accept that Lucy would have inherited
knowledge from the apes and there was no necessity for her to create a
first knowledge.
The
apes would have created knowledge with their minds and of course they
would also have had a culture as any creation process other than the
first creation by the Creator (not in Buddhist theories) would amount
to creation of culture. As we have said earlier creation of knowledge
and creation of culture are more than interdependent. Even otherwise if
one is not willing to accept this relationship between culture and
knowledge we could say that knowledge is created relative to culture.
It has to be emphasized again that I am not stating that knowledge is
determined by culture. Prof. Amaratunga having misunderstood the whole
concept thinks that according to me knowledge is determined by culture.
Even if we go by Darwin, Lucy would have had inherited culture as well
knowledge from the Apes and she would have created knowledge relative
to the culture that she possessed and of course her mind and the other
“indriyas”.
Prof. Amaratunga wants to
find out whether knowledge or culture was created first since he
erroneously believes that I am a culture determinist and secondly
because in spite of his pontifications on Buddhism, as a professional
he belongs to the Judaic Christian culture where first cause is
important. There is a difference between cyclic or chakreeya
Chinthanaya and linear or rekheeya Chinthanaya where first causes have
a special significance. The Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya on which
western science is based is linear in Chinthanaya and has to have a
first knowledge. When this is combined with the basic assumptions of
western science until very recently that non human animals have no mind
things get complicated and even Prof. Amaratunga the Buddhist who
believes in realism and also Aristotelian logic, has to have a first
knowledge.
Lucy, assuming that she
existed for the sake of argument would have had no such problems and
she would not have thought of her as the first human being on the
earth. She would have been most probably interested in the
“environment” outside her and would have had feelings of hunger and
also a culture of satisfying her needs. She would not have acted as a
Robot created by somebody without a cultural component. As I have said
number of times, in spite of what the Biologists, Chemists, Dentists,
Physicians, Physicists and others trained in western sciences and
technologies in Sri Lanka have to say on Buddhism, as professionals
they belong to the western Christian culture and would go along with
first causes and linear or rekheeya Chinthanaya.
Prof. Amaratunga in the said article
claims: “Prof. Nalin de Silva in his contumelious letter titled Pavena
Parandel of Western Sciences and Technologies (The Island – 09.09.2009)
castigates Sinhala Nationalists for borrowing and copying Western
ideas. Well the viewpoint that what we perceive is a construct of our
mind – which Prof. Nalin de Silva repeats ad nauseum – was first put
forward by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in 1819 (vide;
The World as Will and Idea). Before that another great German
philosopher Immanuel Kant said the physical world is unknowable (vide;
Critique of Pure Reason). It could be seen that Prof. Nalin de Silva
has borrowed from the West the basic principle upon which his
viewpoints on knowledge, reality and even Nirvana rest. But he has the
temerity to find fault with others for doing something similar. It is
alright to borrow great ideas. Even Schopenhauer was influenced by
Upanishads, Plato and Kant.”
I have already answered part of this and said that in “Mage Lokaya” I
have indicated number of ways of creating knowledge one of them being
absorption or assimilation. I am criticizing only imitation and what I
had said was that the wooly idea of a Jathika Chinthanya was copied by
Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera from a vijathika writer. I also have
assimilated ideas and concepts from others and I know that I am not the
first person to claim that the so called world is a creation of the
mind. However, I must say that the viewpoint expressed by me in “Mage
Lokaya” has not been discussed by any European thinker and in this
regard I was influenced more by Nagarjuna Thero of Andra who lived in
the second century in Christian years than by anybody else. It is
strange that Prof. Amaratunga the Champion of Buddhism does not mention
Nagarjuna Thero. I acknowledge my debt to the Thero and though Buddha
himself has mentioned Shunya on many occasions it was Nagarjuna Thero
who highlighted this aspect. Prof. W. S. Karunarathna in a collection
of papers published as a book posthumously has mentioned the
significance of anicca, dukkha, anatta, and shunya. This has to be
explained in order to understand the nirmanathamka sapekshathava or
constructive relativism developed in “Mage Lokaya”. I thank Prof.
Amaratunga for providing me an opportunity to discuss these matters in
“The Island”.
Professor
Nalin de Silva
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