Indian Knowledge Systems: Foundations, Transformations, and Contemporary Relevance

Abstract

Indian Knowledge Systems encompass vast and deep terrains of human investigative activities and philosophical contemplations present in India since antiquity. These terrains comprise knowledge on various subjects—intimate human well-being and socio-political systemic arrangements; planetary and stellar movements; fluidity and harmonization of sound and verbal expression; diversity, transformation, and governance of matter and material; bodies and life-forms; sociality and ethics; to mention but a few. Many amongst those knowledge formations remain currently active even if they are frequently filtered through colonial, national, and modern epistemic lenses. Elaborating upon their intrinsic form, discipline, scope, systemic properties, and dynamic relationships, thus highlighting their contemporary pertinence, continue to bear significance not only for societal regeneration but also for critical redressal of discordance within and amongst individual and collective living beings.

Studies of Indian Knowledge Systems have generated considerable scholarly activity yet remain sporadic and within discrete disciplinary domains. As a contribution towards filling those gaps, this work proposes to reflect upon those Knowledge Systems as encyclopaedic formations and upon their attendant Systemic Properties and Contemporary Relevance. Building upon recent thematic publications, articulating rudimentary Counter-Domain Concepts, and recognising parallel foundational contributions, the analysis proceeds through Historical, Scientific Traditions, Epistemic Properties, and Transformations, engages Parallel and Counter-Configurations, and examines Historical Reconfigurations, consequently informing Contemporary Curriculum Integration, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Digital Scholarship Preservation, and towards Development and Evaluation of Policy (Koch Kapuire, 2013) (Raj Sirswal, 2011).