The curiosity of childhood that eventually moved on to form a relation of subsistence with education brought along with it over the years a realisation of having lives of countless people woven via a framework of impartation that, even with its substantial gifts of knowledge, modes of reasoning and ease of use, may have brought along with it a sense of alienation, possible limitation, or the idea of an uncomfortable absence of an institution of similar value and import in a foreign land. It seems pertinent to make note of the great negligence it would be if one were to undermine the efficacy and contemporary relevance of the English language and the education system formed around it with regard to the daily dealings of the modern world. And so, as any discussion regarding that matter is left aside, the question comes forth as to whether, or how the academic heritage of such a foreign land, India in this case, can make its way within the framework of operation set forth by forces of the 21st Century. 

Taking the academic and applicatory aspects of education into account, such an inquiry brings forth the idea of how modern discourse can be readdressed to narrativise classical Indian learning within the practices and modes of engagement of institutional frameworks built upon in recent centuries. The idea of engaging with India’s cultural legacy in such a manner brings along with it the possibility of it finding academic coherence within modes of discourse being practised presently, along with applicatory emergence within aspects of life, be it cultural, economic or otherwise, that may see its efficacy, or seamless translation put to action when applied within such contemporary frameworks. 

One may come across critiques of such literature losing out on relevance owing to its distant origins in terms of time, making engagement with such manuscripts an exercise that takes away from practicality and employability. A more deliberate look into India’s education system before the 17th century presents possibilities for the reality being otherwise. It may be of relevance with regard to the same, that even as ongoing research on various fields leads to works of contemporary relevance within various fields of academia, particularly scientific and technological fields, the basic principles and perspectives they have been built upon arguably still date back to a considerable time distant from present day.

The period that brought forth the works of Sir Isaac Newton that finds its prominence as one of the fundamental principles of modern scientific thought saw his contemporaries in India at the time as scholars such as Jagannatha Samrat, Mulla Mahmud Jaunpuri, Kamalakara Bhatta and Achyuta Pisharadi. While Jagannatha Samrat under the court of Jaipur’s Maharaja Jai Singh the Second discussed plans for the soon-to-be-completed observatory in the city, information on Kamalakara Bhatta and Achyuta Pisharadi points toward principles developed under the Siddhanta school of thought in astronomy; one that reflects a tradition of empiricism to allay credence to its cultivation as an established body of knowledge. Further delvings into works of the 17th century points to a significant amount of cultural engagement with scholars and works of Europe and the Middle East, with debates between the Copernican and Ptolemaic models of the solar system taking up significance in discussions by scholars such as Mulla Mahmud Jaunpuri as well as Kamalakara Bhatta, along with further engagement with mathematical principles such as trigonometry and Euclidian geometry. Euclid’s geometric principles particularly come across as a confluence of academic traditions of the West and India in the pre-modern era, wherein the Greek mathematician’s systemic approach to the subject is believed to have found a permanent place in India’s education system around the 18th century, and principles by him notably translated by Jagannatha Samrat from a prior translation by Persian scholar Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. 

The idea of schools of thought, which make up a majority of the system of academic discourses within the social sciences, further finds continuity with modern practices of academic engagement in other fields of knowledge in the 17th century, such as from the Navya Nyaya school of thought, with works elaborating on the principles of philosophical thought, tenets of philosophical inquiry and other aspects of knowledge, much similar to contemporary discourse on the Sociology of Sociology, or other traditions of delineating the directives for effective academic pursuit. The Navya Nyaya school forms a subset of the Nyaya school of philosophy, one of the 6 principal schools of philosophical thought known as Darshans along with Buddhism and Jainism being the other 2 schools with their own subsets that were developed along the course of time in what is known today as India. Similarly, fields of engagement such as the economy, politics, ethics, medicine, architecture, literature, and art among others have seen substantial works deliberated upon and periodically revised over the course of India’s academic history. What risks to be assumed to be accounts primarily relevant to the time they were composed during, contain within them extensive elaborations on the core aspects of the respective subjects they concern, ignorance of what may come across as unsound if assumed not to have their relevance perceived were they revisited again today. 

Assuming that they are in fact still relevant to modern education, or that they qualify for the timeline employed by contemporary educational discourse, the question arises as to how they may best be integrated within the existing education system to complement the tenets, concepts, principles and schools of thought being studied today. The issue of the translation of such literature finds its resolution in initiatives such as the National Mission for Manuscripts launched by India’s government in 2003, along with the National Translation Mission formed in 2005. Though the task is perceived to be formidable and time-consuming, a mode of identification catering to the possibility of the integration of such translated works within higher educational institutions may allow for the identification of works that may come across as imbibable within current academic syllabi, and of dialogic interest to the students of such institutions. 

Another critique promoting such an initiative to be left out pertains to several of the manuscripts not being of relevance to technological disciplines or subjects collectively referred to as STEM courses. The notion comes forth as somewhat bewildering, seeing as science and mathematics as they are, along with technology and engineering via instances such as practical arts within works known as Shilpa Shastras forming an extensive aspect of the country’s academic legacy do arguably find their place in the aforementioned educational classification. Contemporary redundancy comes across as the least of limitations in pursuing such an integration, with the possibility for innovation, reassessment, subjective engagement and reasoning, or at the very least essential academic learning standing by to support the works in its advent to the present time. Leaving subjective interpretations, subsequent dialogues, deliberations and critiques aside, the discipline of academic engagement, and attention to conceptual detail comes across as one of the most prominent aspects of such an initiative that awaits being rediscovered, in order to bolster the institution of education and system of inquiry within the country, by passing on, or rather resuming the practice of effective engagement with the world along with the intricate, nuanced and extensive characteristics of its varied aspects.