European Education in India

BY S. V. RAMAMURTY, M.A., I.C.S.

(Address delivered on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of

Mrs. A. V. N. College, Vizagapatam)

During sixty years and more, European education has been imparted in colleges in India. This period is a short one, compared with the life of India, for India is as old as civilised man. So far as we can know from history and archaeology, civilisation dates to some 6,000 years ago. With ups and downs, India and China are the two countries which have been alive all through and we may believe that they have yet a long life before them. European education in India does not therefore write on a blank slate. It is in the nature of good food served to a vigorous man. Let us consider the quality of the food and the quality of the man.

There are two ways of dealing with education. One is to differentiate it and the other is to integrate it. The differentials of education are its ways, its methods and aspects. But when we take stock of the results of education over 60 years or more, what we need is the integral of education over such a period. Education is the diffusion of culture in a group. The integral of education over a period of time is therefore culture. Dynamically viewed, the integral is civilisation. Civilisation itself is a way of life. It is a differential of life. Life then is a double integral of education. Our teachers in these colleges are thus pouring into the life of India some of the life of Europe.

A friend of mine was interested in finding the causes of longevity. To do this, he analysed the life of long-lived men he met. India has lived long and will live yet longer. What has been the quality of Indian life that has made it long, that is to say, that has made it stable? The fundamental belief of India has been the unity of life. To grip life fully, you must view it as a whole and not in any of its aspects, not in any of its dissections. The direction of life may be analysed into past, present and future. The location of life may be analysed into three worlds–Swarga Loka, Bhu Loka, and Pathala Loka; the world above, this world, and the world below. The substance of life may be analysed into spirit, mind, and matter. The quality of life may be analysed into the three Gunas–Satva, Rajas, and Thamas. But life is incomplete, if anyone of any group of these is left out. A section of life is not life. The vitality of Indian life has risen and has waned with the vitality of her belief in the unity of life, in the wholeness of life. Indian civilisation, which is the way of Indian life, has believed in all three of the elements of civilisation–namely, religion, morals, and science. Hinduism is not a religion. It is greater than a religion. It is a civilisation, a way of life in India. Religion, morals and science have each a positive content. They do not contradict each other. To be religious, it is not necessary to be unscientific. To be scientific, it is not necessary to be unreligious or unmoral. So too, the past does not negate the future. The future cannot build up time without the past, nor the past without the future. Great harm has been done by the misapplication of the law of logic that a thing either is or is not. We have divided the world into categories which are mutually exclusive and thereby ignored the fundamental with of the unity of the world. Religion alone is not truth nor is science. Both must balance to help the maintenance of good morals. All three should combine to make a good life, a true life, a stable life. Indian life has been like a balance. Religion and science are put in the two pans of the balance. As one grows too heavy for the other, the balance tilts. But it has the clue to stability in the possession of its pivot. That pivot is the belief in the unity of life, in the wholeness of life.

The most stable period in Indian history was the Hindu period, when religion, morals and science balanced each other and produced a harmonious whole. A decline set in when religion overbalanced morals and science. A recent writer has stated that when Hell is closed, Heaven too closes with a sorrowful clang. It may be true to say that a decline in India started with the wholesale massacre of the Asuras, with the wholesale contempt for Thamas. Asuras and Thamas–they too are parts of reality. Ideas and idols are both valid. We needed a retilting of the balance. That is what European education has helped us to. Science has regained ascendancy over religion among the English-educated men. That is our gain. That also is our danger. To lack religion is as bad as to lack science. It is even worse. For religion without science languishes, where science without religion dies. Our direction then to our educationists must be this: Gain for us not merely science but the balance of religion and science along with morals. We know that Reality is that balance. Such balance exists. The task of us and of all men is to find it.

May I present to you a picture of how different races have sought to find the balance of life, the wholeness of life that is Reality?

In physical evolution, there are four primary atoms–Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon and Nitrogen. The synthesis of Oxygen and Hydrogen is water. The synthesis of Oxygen and Hydrogen and Carbon yields Carbo-hydrate. The four atoms are primarily responsible for building up protein which appears to be the gateway to life. In the evolution of culture, there seems to me to be four primary atoms of race. All come from Asia. These are the Aryan from the North, the Scythian from the East, the Dravidian from the South and the Semitic from the West. There have been Aryans for thousands of years. But their existence has been discovered only recently through philology, through the kinship of Sanskrit and European languages. There is another kinship which is to be seen through architecture which has not yet received the same publicity. Neither Europeans nor Indians visit Upper Egypt frequently. Europeans who have studied the ancient Egyptian temples which have been brought to light only a short time ago, are rarely acquainted with South Indian temples. I have had the privilege of seeing both. I was astonished to find the practical identity of the architectural designs of South India and ancient Egypt. As now in South India, I saw in Egyptian temples of some 4000 years ago, the same design with a Dhwajastambha, a three-sided front corridor, then an open Mantapam, then a closed Mantapam and then the Garbhagraha, even with the ‘Teppakulam,’ a pond with a raft for taking the deity round annually. I felt as philologists should have, who discovered the affinities of Indo-European languages. I am not a Pundit either of ethnology or of architecture. But the kinship I noticed between temples in Southern India and in ancient Egypt is so striking that even a layman cannot disbelieve it. I am not competent to rename a root-race. Provisionally, I include in the term Dravidian the race from which sprang the Dravidians of Southern India and the ancient Egyptians.

From the atoms of Physics to the molecules of Chemistry water evolves. So too culture grows from the primary atoms of race to their molecular syntheses. Two-atomed syntheses of races yield the Aryo-Dravidian, the Dravido-Scythian, Aryan-Semitic, Dravido-Semitic. Three-atomed syntheses yield Aryo-Dravido-Scythian, Aryo-Dravido-Semitic, and so forth. Amidst all this welter of racial syntheses, there is one that stands out with the stability of an axis, even as water stands out among material molecules. That is the Aryo-Dravidian synthesis of which the stablest form is Hinduism.

It seems to me that the four primary races differ in quality in relation to their belief in the world above and the world below, in spirit and in matter. Man as mind cannot ignore himself, for has not Descartes said, "Man thinks, therefore man is"? The Aryan and Dravidian believe in both the worlds–the Aryan with an emphasis on spirit and the Dravidian on matter. The Scythian primarily believes in the world of matter and the Semitic primarily in the world of spirit. If my proposition that stability of life is due to a belief in the wholeness of life, the Aryan and the Dravidian have a greater ground for stability than the Scythian or the Semitic. The Aryo-Dravidian has even a greater ground for stability of life. I do not know in what subtle way space moulds spirit. The North-South axis of the Earth is stable, while the East and West change. The Aryo-Dravidian synthesis is stable even as the axis of the Earth. It may be well called the axis of civilisation.

But the axis does not make the Earth. Buddhism which arose at the meeting place of Aryans, Dravidians and Scythians is an Aryo-Dravido-Scythian synthesis fit to rank as a carbo-hydrate of culture. But if culture is yet to live and grow, we need the synthesis of the Semitic too. The Aryan may look on the Semitic as Oxygen on Nitrogen. But both are needed to build the protein, whether of matter or of culture.

Against the ground of this picture of cultural Chemistry, let us take stock of what is happening in our colleges and in our life. European culture has been built from Classical culture and Christianity. If my belief that the ancient Egyptian was racially akin to the Dravidian is correct, classical culture which was a synthesis of Aryan culture and of off-shoots of Egyptian culture was itself an example of Aryo-Dravidian synthesis. Modern science, which is as metaphysical in one direction as Hindu philosophy was in another, is a recrudescence of classical and therefore of Aryo-Dravidian culture. European education in India is thus the coming together of two forms of similar quality. It tends to strengthen and make fruitful our own Aryo-Dravidian culture which is Hinduism. Indo-British connection has thus helped to strengthen the axis of civilisation. In our education we are concerned primarily in our own growth. But often the best way of helping others is to solve our own problems. It may be that with the re-invigoration of our civilisation through a science developed enough to balance religion and morals, Europe, which has become more and more estranged from religion in the shape of Christianity, may rediscover religion through Hinduism. For civilisation is incomplete without religion and the Aryan elements in the Metaphysics of European science may discover a natural affinity with the Aryan elements of the Metaphysics of Hindu religion.

To us in India, the problem is different. It is our Science rather than religion that has languished. How can we assimilate the Science of Europe into our life? We know how in India, Science is unable to pass beyond towns into the villages which constitute 90% of India. It seems to me that the affinity of European physical science is with our village life. Both recognise the power of the forces of nature but their recognition is expressed with a different ritual. To overcome the force of small-pox, for instance, a calf is sacrificed to the village goddess in India. In Science too, a calf is sacrificed but in a different way. When therefore we need to merge Science into India in order to restore our cultural balance, the stage has to be set in the Indian village. It is village deities, village artisans, village materials that have to be mated with the Science of Europe. Faith in Science has to be wedded to faith in the village deity and a new ritual of appeasement has to be evolved. You may call it Science or you may call it art. Both express life. This is not the first time in Indian history that such a need has arisen. The Aryan and Dravidian met once before in History, in Andhra-desa, which both by Geography and History occupies a central place in India. Aryan idealism had to be wedded to the village deity and there were born the fine products of Buddhist and Hindu Art. In the transfer of idealism to stone, in the conversion of ideas to idols, there is no finer record of achievement than is found at Ajanta and Ellora, Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. The wedding of spirit and matter was performed in Andhra-desa and new lamps of culture were lit, as it has ever been the forte of Andhras to do. May it not be given to the Andhras of the present day to create a new Science as their ancestors created a new Art? I believe that this is possible and that it has even begun. If I may express what I conceive the quality of the Andhra to be, it is the power of synthesis with an emphasis on realism. The art forms he created 15 to 20 centuries ago were syntheses of spirit and matter, cast into matter. Today I would mention four Andhras who are expressing the Andhra spirit. Sir Sarvapalle Radhakrishnan is an Andhra Philosopher teaching Eastern Religion at a Western University. Those who know him know that, while he gazes into the heights and depths of the world, his feet are planted firmly on the Earth. Mr. T. S. Venkataraman, Sugar-cane Expert at Coimbatore, is an Andhra Biologist who has wedded sugar-cane with cholam and bamboo and made a product which a village with its scanty supply of water can grow. Mr. S. Kamesam, Director of Development, Travancore, is an Andhra Engineer who has enabled bridges and other structures to be made from the neglected palmyrahs of village-wastes and jungle-woods for villagers by villagers. Mr. B. Viswanath, Director of the Imperial Agricultural Institute, is an Andhra Chemist who has made from the waste paddy-husk and the unattractive jaggery a stuff that is as clean and as lovely as any that a factory can make. These men have wedded idealism and the Earth, Science and village life. Mr. Venkataraman heralds a new Agriculture, Mr. Kamesam a new Industry, and Mr. Viswanath a new Agricultural Industry.

So much for education. There is a parallel movement in life, in the great movement of renaissance that is associated with Mahatma Gandhi. The reconstruction of village life is the way for Science to flow into Indian life. The amelioration of the Depressed Classes is a recognition that life has differences and not negations. All parts of life are valid and have a positive share in life. The movement towards Hindu-Moslem unity is the setting of the stage where a synthesis of all the four primary atoms of racial culture may combine and provide a vehicle for a Universal culture. India is indeed a world’s leading centre in the Chemistry of Culture.

May the colleges, in which we have studied and in which yet our children shall study, enable us to fulfill our history and our nature and play our part in Indian life!