When we study algorithms we study a paradigm of problem-solving called "divide and conquer". This approach to problem-solving involves breaking down a complex problem into simpler components and solving each of them separately, and then combining the solutions. Divide and conquer as an algorithmic technique is widely popular, and is easily amenable to parallelisation.
Deeply rooted in Indian history however, I have a mental block-- some kind of a cultural aversion-- against the concept of divide and conquer, because of what this strategy has done to us when we were at the receiving end. Whenever anyone extolls the joy of divide and conquer-- even in a purely algorithmic context-- I find myself cringing uncomfortably.
But regardless of my personal views about this paradigm, divide and conquer as a strategy is also based on a simplifying assumption that the combining of individual solutions to get the overall solution is a trivial problem. This need not always be the case. In fact, combining individual solutions to form the global response may sometimes make the global problem worse.
The class of "sustainability" problems are good examples of such a dilemma. Consider a population of car owners who use fossil-fuel cars to commute daily. Due to some global crisis, fossil fuel becomes costlier, and the government wishes to reduce fuel usage. It then adopts a divide and conquer strategy, where in order to improve reduce overall fuel usage, it mandates that all individual cars need to become fuel efficient and use less fuel for the same tasks. Let us say it succeeds in this endeavour and individual cars improve their mileage. A car that used to once give 10 kms to a litre of petrol would now give, say 30 kms to a litre. So, does this mean that the government has succeeded in reducing its reliance on fossil fuel? No! Since mileage of individual cars have increased, individual car owners would now be more likely, rather than less, to use their cars even in cases where they preferred not to use them before. Increased usage of cars increases demand for more cars, and eventually, fuel usage goes up, rather than down!
In most cases, what works for the individual cannot be directly scaled to the collective as a solution. The problem of scaling from the individual to the collective, is not at all trivial, and requires new paradigms of problem-solving. I'm generally calling this as the "unite and prosper" paradigm of problem-solving.
A number of distributed algorithms fall in this category. Algorithms that explain the spontaneous emergence of synchrony in coupled oscillators are an example of the "unite and prosper" paradigm. Similarly, distributed constraint optimisation, global snapshot computation, resilient distributed consensus, etc. all address problems of combining fragmented knowledge to find a global solution, and can be thought of as examples of the "unite and prosper" paradigm. Unite and prosper, looks for solutions where both individuals and the collective, have solved the problem sufficiently well.
I am of the strong opinion that we need to study this paradigm of problem-solving as a separate topic of study in its own, which may reveal a number of deep insights into complex network interactions.
Let me end this post, with a "unite and prosper" puzzle for the reader:
There are n people in a group, each having a piece of knowledge. Whenever two persons interact, they share everything that they know with the other. Given this, answer the following: (a). What is the minimum number of interactions for everyone to know everything? and (b). What is the minimum number of interactions for everyone to know that everyone knows everything?
One of the most recurring frustrations I have faced while growing up in my cultural network, has been the pervasive emphasis on faith and submission (bhakti as it is called), and de-emphasis on asking difficult questions or critical inquiry. We were told to "just do" what is told and that "one day, you will understand everything."
In addition to this, there is also a pervasive sense of smug conviction and contempt towards those who ask questions or those who try to explain their thoughts. It is quite the norm in this network, for people to laugh at others behind their backs-- especially if the other person has opened up in the hopes of gaining clarity. An adolescent experiencing unfamiliar emotions of a heartbreak for instance, will be rewarded with laughter and stern judgment from immediate family, rather than validation of their emotions. It is quite common to see younger generation enjoy life, take risks and embrace failure when they alone-- but not in front of their families.
How did these self-defeating cultural practices come about? It is fashionable to blame British colonial administration for the all pervasive "slave mentality" in our society today. But despite 70 years of independence, these self-defeating practices remain, and the fault lines are as strong as ever.
Recently, I was listening to this talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda on the differences between Advaita and Dvaita philosophies. Some of the explanations he gave about these two philosophical schools, suddenly brought a lot of clarity. In this talk, he not only explains the philosophical differences, but also the methodologies used by the respective camps and the resultant cultures they created.
Both Advaita Vedanta propounded by Adi Shankara in the 9th century CE, as well as the Dvaita Vedanta propounded by Madhvacharya in the 16th century CE, are commentaries on the Upanishadic texts called the Brahma Sutras. The Upanishads are one of the earliest and most comprehensive texts (which are themselves just a part of the Vedas), that address topics like consciousness and the nature of reality. The Upanishads comprises of several texts that were written over different time periods ranging from 4000 to 2500 years ago. The German philosopher Schopenhauer was known for his advocacy of the Upanishads, whose writings in turn, went on to influence a number of Western philosophers and scientists. The American philosopher William Irwin Thompson is said to have stated that the Upanishads have had such a profound influence on human thought, that we ought to divide historical eras into "Before Upanishads" and "After Upanishads" eras, rather than the current common era.
As with all influential texts, their influence waxes and wanes over time. Starting from around the 3rd century BCE, by the 9th century CE, Vedic cultures in the Indian subcontinent had already fragmented into several schools-- the orthodox astikas like the Vaishnavas, the sceptics or the nastikas like the Caravakas, the empiricists or the Sramanics like Buddhists, Jains, etc. These times were also witness to vibrant debates between the different schools, and the development of an elaborate science of argumentation, called VadaVidya.
In this context, came Adi Shankara from present-day Kerala, who wrote great commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, to develop a school of thought, called the Advaita Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta posits a "non-dual" nature of reality by saying that everything in this universe is just the only thing there is-- which is called the universal consciousness or Brahman. What we experience in the physical universe is called Maya, that "veils" our experience of Brahman-- while Maya is itself nothing but Brahman! The existential reality of physical names and forms created by Maya, can "reflect" the universal consciousness to different extents. Some "well polished" elements of existence can reflect Brahman much better than other not so well-polished elements. Yet, all the while, reality is just Brahman looking at itself-- somewhat like the illustration below.
Advaita says that the only barrier to us realising this universal reality, is Avidya-- which is often translated as "ignorance," but more accurately means "delusion." It is when we are deluded by existence and its names and forms, and believe that to be real, we are occluded from the ultimate reality. Advaita also proposes several techniques by which, we can systematically detach ourselves from existential reality to experience ourselves as the entire universe-- which then again includes all of existence and all that we were attached to! The Advaitic technique first develops a mechanism for "Asangha" which means detachment from our thoughts, emotions, objects, etc, and ends with "Dvaitavarjita" or experience of oneness of everything including all the objects that we had detached from. The result of such a realisation in a human, Advaita says, is the emergence of Nishkama karma, or dispassionate actions without vested interests or desires.
Advaita had a radical and profound influence on thinkers of those times-- much like quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity were to do in later times. Advaita inspired several innovations in different walks of life including science, administration, medicine and well-being, etc. Even today for instance, in our lab, we are inspired by Advaita for proposing new models of ethics in AI, and understanding sustainable development.
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By the time Madhvacharya was born in the 16th century CE in present day Karnataka, it was already 700 years since Adi Shankara, and Advaita still was still the most widely discussed and adopted philosophy! But much had changed in the socio-political reality of India by that time.
The northern parts of India were reeling from immense bloodshed and genocides from foreign invaders. The biggest university in the world-- Nalanda-- had been completely destroyed. Countless cities and monuments were destroyed. People were killed by the hundreds of thousands in single days! The medieval genocide of Hindus remains one of the bloodiest eras in world history, that is still actively downplayed for various reasons.
These times also saw the emergence of one more social movement called the Bhakti movement. Bhakti is a concept from Vedic thought, which means devotion or commitment to an idea. Bhakti is seen as a means of spiritual realisation, by enabling us to discover ourselves through our lifelong commitment to an idea. Bhakti movement in these times, that were practiced syncretically across multiple religions, went beyond advocating dispassionate commitment to an idea, to advocating passionate surrender and submission to the divine.
Bhakti was also widely popular among administrators and thought leaders who sought to bring peace from bloodshed. Bhakti enables bringing about order in society, by enabling people to discover their favourite ideas, and commit themselves to realising themselves through their devotion, rather than give in to aggression over others.
Advaita by itself does not promote bhakti-- nor does it reject it, either. Bhakti is a good thing to have, according to Advaita, but it would not be of any use, if it is practiced with Avidya. Advaita advocates for pursuit of knowledge and elimination of Avidya first, to become aware of one's true nature, and anything else, including bhakti, next. This quote below, explains Advaita's stance about bhakti and other orthodox cultures:
Several thought leaders tried to combine bhakti with Advaita in different ways. For instance, Ramanujacharya in the 11th century CE, proposed a philosophy called Visishtadvaita, that proposed existence as a "distinguishable part of" reality-- much like the relationship between a finger and the rest of the body. Advaita simply says, "existence is reality" or reality is the only thing there is.
Madhvacharya in the 16th century CE, takes an even more intense stance, and develops a philosophy called Dvaita-- which posits a duality, or a clear barrier (called bheda) between existence and reality, which can be breached only in certain specific ways. This is much like how a wall separates the inside and outside of a house, but can be breached through the door.
One of the motivations for proposing this barrier was to bring the emphasis back on existential issues. When the northern parts of the country were reeling under immense bloodshed, thought leaders in the southern part still argued that existence is Maya or "illusion" or "unreal" and Brahman alone is real, and that all walls and barriers are meant to be broken.
Madhvacharya argued that Maya and its barriers is as real as Brahman. The reality of Brahman does not negate the reality of Maya, and it is important to recognise the reality of Maya, he argued. Barriers are meant to protect what is inside-- and not exclude what is outside, he argued. He also argued however, that while Maya is very much real, its existence is dependent on Brahman (called paratantra). Maya cannot exist on its own. Hence its existence depends on its being able to find the door and breach the barrier between itself and Brahman through Bhakti and Sadhana (sustained effort). And in contrast to dispassionate action (Nishkama karma), Dvaita advocated Sakama karma or passionate action towards protecting and preserving boundaries, so that interaction with Brahman happens only through specific channels.
Dvaita philosophy proposed the existence of five kinds of barriers (called panchabheda)-- between jiva and jagat (individual sentience and Brahman), jada and jagat (non-sentient existence and Brahman), jiva and jada, jiva and jiva; and jada and jada.
Essentially, it argued that each barrier we see in existence is real, and there is a reason why it is there. If boundaries are not important, why then it argued, do we stay in walled houses, why then do we need clothes to cover ourselves? The individuality of each individual, and the existence of each object and concept, is real and significant, it argued.
In this sense, Dvaita is somewhat similar to (but not the same as) Analytic Philosophy of the West, while Advaita is somewhat similar to (but not the same as) British Idealism from the 20th and 19th century CE, respectively.
In order to drive home the reality of existence, Dvaita proponents developed methods that are in some ways similar to evangelical Christianity. For instance, it argued for faith first and knowledge next (bhakti tatho jnanam), quite in contrast to Advaita, which argued for knowledge first and Bhakti next. Proponents of Dvaita argued for Dvaita not just as a darshana (perspective) but as the only correct interpretation!
This is very similar to how evangelical religions work. Except that Dvaita did not actively seek to proselytise and convert (or eliminate) "non-believers." It also had no notions of blasphemy or apostasy. Philosophical perspectives (darshanas) in ancient India thankfully were hardly ever pursued as violent ideologies. But even then, this intense stance taken by Dvaita (perhaps in response to the socio-political situation and increasing desperation of Hindus in those times), the culture that resulted from this philosophy seems to have become very acerbic in nature, with contempt, conviction, derision, scorn, smugness and a judgmental attitude occupying central positions in one's worldview.
I know I am probably going to get a lot of contempt, scorn and derision for saying the above. But I think it is important to understand the underlying philosophy and not hold on to the methodologies adopted that were perhaps relevant in one time, but not anymore.
Traditional Indian society today, is marked by its lack of objectivity. The society is divided into different communities and religions, with communal or religious identity overriding individual opinions in almost all walks of life.
Even within Hinduism or the dharmic culture, there are so many subcultures and philosophies, each of which often live in entrenched clusters, sometimes to the exclusion of the other. Its adherents often argue and fight with one another-- at a personal level-- on things like how specific festivals are to be celebrated, what kinds of food to eat, which deity to pray, and so on.
This is this biggest irony of Indian society today. This is because, the core philosophy of Indian thought is based on observing the objective nature of our self to our experience. Right from the Vedas and the Upanishads and including Sramanic philosophies like Buddhism and Jainism, there is a fundamental acknowledgment about how our "Self" is different from everything that we experience or think or feel or believe. The different philosophies differ based on differences of opinion about the implications of this fundamental postulate.
In fact, the term used for "philosophy" in Indian thought is "darshana" which means "perspective". And if someone were to embody a philosophy and "religiously" practice it, they are said to be of that particular "mata" (मत), which means "opinion". The term used for "religion" in Indian languages is the same term used for "opinion" or "vote". Religion is viewed no more than an opinion, and philosophy is viewed no more than a perspective! Can it get any more liberal than this?
The true nature of our being is beyond opinions and perspectives. Philosophies only help in guiding us and give a framework of reasoning-- but then, as is stressed again and again in just about every philosophical treatise-- we are not our framework of reasoning, nor the opinions that we embody.
The Chandogya Upanishad for example, tells the story of "two golden birds perched on the self-same tree"-- our "Ego" and our "Self". The Ego is the experiencer-- it engages with the world and eats its bitter-sweet fruits, while the Self is the dispassionate witness. The Ego wishes to fly high and achieve things, but it is also tethered to the tree on which the Self resides. So, no matter how high it flies or what it achieves, it keeps coming back to the Self, which is but a dispassionate witness and its unchanging nature. The tree represents the "Universal Self" called the "Brahman" which is the only reality there is.
In its experience, the Ego may embody several opinions, and feel several emotions. It may even believe itself to be the Self. But all the while, it is only tethered to the dispassionate witness, who is not experiencing life, but witnessing it.
How is it that a culture whose fundamentals are based on understanding the objective nature of our experience, become fragmented into different ideologies-- so much so that it was neatly vulnerable to divide-and-conquer strategies from external adversaries? Even today, the fault lines are sharp and are subject to immense battery to dismember different darshanas from the core philosophy, and present it as "not a part of Hinduism" or something such. How is it that a culture that once called "religion" as "opinion" today be associated with caste system, patriarchy and segregation? A good study of history needs to be in the form of a sincere effort to answer this question.
In a previous post, we had seen how the concept of consciousness differs between Indian philosophy rooted in the Vedas, and modern Western scientific models. Specifically, while Western science models consciousness as an attribute of a being, Indian philosophy models consciousness as the fundamental substance of the universe. Beings are considered to reflect this universal consciousness to various degrees, and not have consciousness themselves.
To explain this, we had given the analogy of the space just outside of the Sun that appears dark, but which is full of light. We cannot see this light, unless there is something to reflect it.
Image source: Pinterest
In this post, we will delve into the notion of consciousness further. If all we do is reflect universal consciousness, then what makes us appear conscious, and say a stone, appear unconscious? What kind of beings reflect this universal consciousness, and what beings don't?
Indian philosophy has an answer to this too. Consider objects around us in broad daylight. All of them reflect sunlight-- much in the same way that all beings (living or non-living) reflect consciousness. However, on a few surfaces like glass, water, polished metal etc. we not only can see sunlight reflected off them, but also an image of the Sun itself-- the source of the light.
This metaphor helps to explain sentience and non-sentience in systems of being. Sentient beings not only reflect consciousness, they also can-- to different extents-- form an image of the universe itself!
By this model, when we consciously create something, we are actually channelizing or using the universal consciousness into some creation of ours-- somewhat like the image below. Our creation may collapse eventually, but the universal consciousness remains eternally.
Image source: Pinterest
Sentience is not seen as a binary attribute-- as in, it is either present or absent. Sentience is a continuum with beings like humans having several orders of magnitude more sentience than say, a rock. Hence, while both rock and human can reflect consciousness, humans can also sometimes offer a glimpse into the very source of this universal consciousness.
Beings are said to comprise of two kinds of "bodies"-- called the sthula sharira and the sookshma sharira translating roughly to "material body" and "subtle body". In my book called The Theory of Being. I had called this the two "realms" of existence of any being in this universe-- the material realm and the information realm.
The material body is our physical body that exists in the physical universe. The "subtle body" is variously (and in my opinion, incorrectly) equated with terms like "soul" or "spirit" represents all the information related processing that is part of who we are.
The subtle body in turn, is said to comprise of three components: pranamaya kosa, manomaya kosa, and vijnanamaya kosa. The pranamaya kosa represents all forms of information constructs that keep our material bodies alive. They contain our emotional dispositions, defence mechanisms, fight or flight responses, internal communication protocols for signalling danger, hunger, pain, etc. The manomaya kosa represents our "mind" that implements our "sense of self" and ego. This aspect of the subtle body encodes a representation of our self image, who we think we are, all the persona of ourselves that we project in social settings, what we desire, what we despise, etc. The vijnanamaya kosa represents our objective knowledge about the universe. It contains our models of reality around us, general knowledge constructs, episodic memory, etc.
Sentient beings that can reflect an image of consciousness, rather than just scatter consciousness, are said to have highly evolved subtle bodies. A subtle body is (in mechanistic terms) essentially a large body of software that can keep a material body alive, build models of the external world and manage knowledge about it, and have a "sense of self".
Of these, we already can build machines that can do the first two operations very well. We can build robots that are adaptive and self-configuring in order to keep themselves going. We also can build AI that can build semantic models based on data, which it can then use to perform a variety of intelligent tasks.
The only missing element in building a full-fledged subtle body for our machines, seems to be a "sense of self". Hmmm.. What does it mean for machines to have a sense of self? What exactly do we mean by a "sense of self"?
A few weeks ago, I had given a talk on this very question, which may be found here:
Indian thought has been greatly shaped by the philosophy of Vedas that are estimated to have developed over several millennia, beginning as early as 22000 BCE.
The Vedas presented a deep, abstract model of reality, that has in turn shaped collective worldview and notions of religion, ethics, morality and science. The civilisation formed under the influence of this philosophy (even those subcultures that rejected this philosophy) was vibrant and diverse, with different schools of interpretations appearing throughout history. There were also several periods of stagnation and degeneration, followed by rejuvenation of this philosophy by one or more social reformers, including Buddha, Mahavira, Adi Shankara, and so on.
In this post, we address one such issue that has created deep roots in Indian thought, and which is in dire need for reforms.
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The core inquiry of Vedic thought focuses on the nature of our self. The Upanishads, which are considered the essence of the Vedas, have several models and analogies to help us understand who is this "I" when we refer to ourselves.
We can see that we as the observer or the subject, is separate from the observed, or the object. And when we start observing ourselves, just about everything we thought represented us, becomes an object of our observation-- meaning that none of these define our "self." We can separate "us" from our thoughts, our emotions, our innate nature, our desires, our delusions, and so on. Our self is none of these. We are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our innate nature, since we can observe all of them objectively.
The only entity we cannot observe is our "self" itself. This core entity which is our true self, is called the "witness" or Sakshi, who observes everything. We cannot observe our witness-- if we are observing our witness, then who is the witness witnessing it? We can only "become" our witness.
The sense of self that we normally project as part of our daily lives is known as the "jivatma" or "ahamkara", which is somewhat equivalent to the concept of ego in Freudian thought. The only way our self observes itself is by looking at its reflection, which is the ahamkara. It is somewhat like how the only way our eyes can see itself is by looking at its reflection in a mirror.
What is the medium that is giving this reflection? This is postulated as our mind. Our mind is the medium which hosts the reflection of our true selves, which appears in the form of our ego.
The reflecting surface may be imperfect. A mirror may be stained, dusty or even broken. The reflecting surface affects the reflection. Our reflection in the mirror may appear dull or stained or broken-- but it is only our reflection. Our true self, which lies beyond the mirror is unaffected by all the thoughts, emotions and innate nature that shape the medium of our mind.
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A major debate among Vedic philosophers has been to model the association between our real self and the reflected self and its medium. Is our real self completely independent of our manifested self? Just like how we are completely independent of any mirror that reflects us? Or is there some "binding" that binds our real self to the mind/body medium that is reflecting us? Is there some reason why our real self is strongly associated with-- or even "trapped" in-- the mind-body complex that is reflecting it?
In the 10th century CE, Vedic thought went through one more round of major rejuvenation, by the works of Adi Shankara from present day Kerala. In his quest to revive Vedic philosophy, Adi Shankara wrote detailed commentaries on 10 Upanishads that are now called the "principal" Upanishads, and formulated his own school of thought called AdvaitaVedanta.
According to Advaita which literally means "non-dualism", everything in the universe is made of the universal consciousness that is called Brahman. That includes our witness, our mind, our ego, our body-- everything. There is hence no difference between us and the mirror. Imagine that our hands were to be a reflecting surface, and we put up our hands to get a reflection of ourselves. We may not be our reflection in our hand-- but we are very much the hand and the reflection as well!
Other philosophers like Madhvacharya disagreed with this interpretation by arguing that it seems to border on nihilism. If everything is the universal consciousness Brahman, and there is no semantics associated with our existential self, then why do we have notions like ethics, morality, duty, principles, and so on? A similar argument was also given more than 1500 years before Madhvacharya, by Siddharta Gautama (Buddha) who was disillusioned with a puritanical notion of "everything is Brahman" leading to nihilistic thought.
One of the theories that came about to explain the relationship between our true self and the existential self, is the concept of prarabdha karma. The term karma means "action" but thanks to this theory, karma has now come to mean "retribution" in popular thought.
The idea of prarabdhakarma is that our existential self goes through several cycles of births and deaths, and the karma (actions) it performs out of its own free will in one life, has consequences and gains some baggage, which becomes our prarabdha(starting)karma as we begin our next life.
The idea here had been to provide a sense of accountability for people acting out their worldly desires, by saying that their actions will have consequences and they will need to own up their actions. This is somewhat similar to the notion of judgement day in Abrahamic religions. But in contrast to being "judged" by a third party, we get to suffer or enjoy the consequences of our karma in our next life.
While this looks like a neat theory and strategy for bringing about accountability, this theory also has a dark side. The idea of prarabdhakarma and "next life" can also ironically make people very apathetic towards one another. If someone were to be born with some birth defect, then not only they have to live with their birth defect, but they are also insinuated by others, that they must have done something bad in their previous life, and so are suffering in this life! Not only do they not get support and empathy from others, they have to suffer an unknown guilt all their life!!
And of course, this leads to feudal hierarchies like "lower" births and "higher" births based on what one had done in their previous life.
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The above notion is in serious need of reform in today's world. Firstly, there is no evidence for any past life of any kind. Indeed, if we only go from life to life, then the total amount of living beings on earth needs to be constant! If everyone is born with a baggage from their previous life, how come we have more people today than there were a century ago?
In fact, we have a much better explanation for where our innate nature comes from. It comes from our genes!
If we have to understand our innate nature, we don't have to look for some non-existent "past life." We just have to look at our genetic ancestry. We know for a fact that, intense experiences like desperation and trauma encountered by one generation, makes its genetic imprint on the next generation. The next generation is innately equipped with defences and barriers to avoid what the previous generations went through.
Social accountability is an important question-- but that it should not be confounded with our innate genetic nature. There is no reason to equate our innate nature with some form of undesirable actions we are said to have performed in some fictitious past life.
It is time we replaced prarabdhakarma with prarabhdaguna (initial characteristics) and separate it from the actions we do in this life. I have written separately about karmaphala or the consequences of our actions. It is an profound theory in itself, that can be understood better when we understand the dynamics of complex systems. The consequences of our actions have nothing to do with our innate nature, which is just an accident of birth.
Of the many impactful kingdoms of south India, the Hoysalas stand out in their own niche. Like much other non-Delhi empires, the Hoysalas are relatively lesser known or completely unknown, outside of Karnataka. Nevertheless, the Hoysala influence on the present day culture and worldview of Karnataka, continues to be strong.
Extent of the Hoysala Empire. Image Source: Wikipedia
The Hoysalas were a relatively small empire who ruled between the 10th and 14th century CE, from their capital city Belur, which was later shifted to.a new town called Dwarasamudra, which is presently called Halebidu. The term Halebidu literally means "old/destroyed town", which was the name given to the Hoysala capital after it was destroyed by multiple invasions from Malik Kafur, sent by the Sultan of Delhi, in the 14th century.
Police patrol vehicles in present-day Karnataka are called "Hoysalas". This comes from the legend of the extraordinary bravery of the kings who ruled this empire. There is a legend of a boy named Sala who fought and killed a rampaging tiger. This motif is carved in stone in just about every Hoysala monument, and is a signature of the Hoysala influence on that monument.
Hoysala signature motif found in most Hoysala temples. Image source: karnataka.com
The Hoysalas were a great patron of arts, culture and architecture. Hoysala temples are famous for their very intricate carvings, depicting lots of stories and information about their times. The picture below shows just a small part of an entrance door to one of the smaller Hoysala temples in Somanathapura in Mysore district.
A small part of an entrance door of a Hoysala temple, adorned with intricate sculpture. Photo taken by author.
A characteristic feature of Hoysala temples is the use of soapstone rather than more widely available granite, for their carvings. Soapstone is more amenable for intricate carvings, unlike the much harder granite.
The Hoysalas were also the inventors of the lathe machine. A characteristic feature of Hoysala temples is the round shaped pillars that were shaped using a hand-turned lathe.
Lathe turned rounded pillars at a Hoysala temple. Image source: https://heythatseemscool.wordpress.com/
The figure below shows a graphical reconstruction of the main temple at Halebidu, of which only a small part stands intact today, following invasions from the Delhi Sultanate.
Graphical reconstruction of the Halebidu temple. Image source: Facebook group on Temples of India
Of the many kings who ruled in the Hoysala dynasty, the most well known is king Vishnuvardhana who ruled between 1108 and 1152 CE. His queen Shantaladevi was an acclaimed mathematician, musician and a dancer. She was a great patron of arts, literature and science. She is depicted in several carvings in many of the Hoysala temple. Her own personal life however, was far from peaceful. And she is said to have ended her life, by jumping off a cliff at Shiva Gange hills near Bengaluru.
Sculpture of queen Shantaladevi. Image source: Google image search
Under king Vishnuvardhana, the acclaimed Vaishnava philosopher Ramanucharya was invited from his hometown in Sri Perumbudur, to spend several years in Hoysala empire and popularise the Vaishnava philosophy of Vishishtadvaita.
Vishnuvardhana is also well known for his defeat of the mighty Chola empire and take back some of the territories they had captured from the Western Gangas who were ruling from Talakadu. The Cholas were a formidable force, who are well known for having ruled for over 1200 years, and having expanded their empire throughout the eastern coast of India and to several regions of south-east Asia, including present day Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
The acclaimed Kannada writer TaRaSu (T R Subba Rao) has written extensively about how Vishnuvardhana managed to defeat the mighty Cholas. A major factor that led to his victory were the several technological innovations driven by an eccentric inventor called Gaurachari. These innovations include: an early form of undercarriage suspensions for horse carriages so that they could travel much more smoothly, flywheel based mechanisms to maintain stability of chariots, and an early form of the telescope (about 300 years before Galileo), with lenses made from the almost transparent Spatika stone. The image below shows a Shivalinga carved from the Spatika stone.
A Shiva linga carved from the transparent Spatika crystal. Image Sourve: Google image search
This invention of Gaurachari is also immortalised on stone, in one of the Hoysala temples in Halebidu that depicts a soldier scanning the area using a telescope.
Man holding telescope. Hoysala sculpture. Image source: Google image search
The Hoysala influence continues to be strong in southern Karnataka even today, with several of their key personalities-- including queen Shantala, their chief architect Jakanachari, capturing popular imagination in several forms.
In the last post, we saw how the concept of consciousness has some fundamental differences between Indian thought, and Western thought that is now the mainstream method of scientific inquiry.
In this post, let us look at how the concept of perception, or our interaction with the world outside, is modelled in Indian thought and in Western science.
In Cognitive Science today, perception is defined as the process by which we segment raw signals received by our sense organs into semantic objects and relationships between them. Sometimes, perception is distinguished from cognition in the following way: perception is a recognition process where we identify objects and relationships, while cognition is a process of sense making where we try to interpret what we have perceived.
For example, suppose we see something like the following picture:
Image Source: Google image search
Our perception mechanism recognises a dog in the picture, standing up behind a fence, and looking somewhat sad. Our cognition mechanism provides one or more explanations or interpretations for what we have seen-- maybe the dog waiting for its owner, maybe it is calling for help, maybe it is abused, or maybe it is just missing its friend on the other side of the fence, and so on.
Cognition is greatly influenced by our mental model, which in turn is influenced by our emotional state. If we are in an angry or sad emotional state, we are much more likely to value negative interpretations, and if we are in a happy mental state, we are much more likely to value positive interpretations. (The reality of course, may be independent of our emotional state).
Perception is also aided by our attention mechanism-- which decides which signal to keep among the several raw signals that are coming in. Attention attenuates most of the raw signals, and focuses the perception to segment only that part of the signal on which, we are paying attention to.
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Let us now turn to how perception is understood in Indian philosophy.
In Indian philosophy, the essence of our being is pure awareness-- called by different names in different contexts. The awareness that is us, uses our mind-body complex to interact with the world around us (called Prakriti).
Our mind is said to cast a field of perception around us. This field of perception experiences a disturbance or "whorl" (called Vritti) either through external or internal stimuli. For instance, if an object comes into our field of vision, it forms a Vritti in our minds.
Vrittis can also be caused by internal stimuli-- from our memories. Be it external or internal, the mind experiences a whorl which is the beginning of the perception process. Note that, there is no specific mention of sense organs or the different kinds of signals (vision, speech, touch, etc.) Vrittis are considered to be "multi-modal" in nature. A stimuli on our mind's field creates whorls that have all sense components-- vision, sound, emotion, touch, etc. This holistic unit of signal (that is called a "chunk" in Cognitive Science) is the fundamental building block. Raw signals of a particular type-- like vision, sound, etc. are just components of the holistic signal, which by themselves have no meaning.
Vrittis are also called avidya (non-knowledge). It is only when they are interpreted by our awareness, can Vrittis be converted to knowledge.
There are multiple models of how Vrittis are interpreted. But all of them agree that the interpretation of Vrittis depends on the "modulation" of our mind. The Upanishads mention five forms of modulations for our mind: Pramana, Viparyaya, Vikalpa, Smriti, and Nidra.
In a Pramana state of mind, we are in a state of inquiry-- we want to explore, examine, ask questions, etc. In Viparyaya, we are in a distracted frame of mind-- we cannot decide which of the whorls to focus upon, and keep switching contexts. In Vikalpa, our mind is in a deluded state-- it has already decided the interpretation, and tries to cherry-pick for confirming signals from the different Vrittis. In Smriti, we are in a state of nostalgia or reminiscence-- every Vritti is interpreted for what it reminds us of from our episodic memories. And in the state of Nidra, we are asleep-- and ignore all the Vrittis.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra proposes another model mentioning the following five modes of our mind: Mudha, Kshipta, Vikshipta, Ekagra, and Nirudha.
Image Source: Google image search
The above slide explains the five modulations of mind, each of which, affects the way in which we interpret our Vrittis.
Note that Vrittis can be formed from internal stimuli as well-- from our memories. By "memory" what we mean is some cognitive element that is stored in our minds-- not necessarily an exact replica of a past event. Memories in the human mind are not passive data banks, they are active, autonomous units, that can generate Vrittis in our minds, leading to downstream mental (and even physical) activity.
Memory elements that are repeatedly encountered, and which become deeply embedded in our minds, are called Samskara. These refer to hermeneutic elements that drive our thinking and interpretation. We are most often, not even aware of our Samskara and how it may be affecting or even biasing the way we interpret our world.
For the mind, there is only a theoretical knowledge that distinguishes between internally induced and externally induced Vrittis. If this knowledge signal is weak, or the Vrittis are too strong, the mind may be unable to determine whether this Vritti is being caused by something external or internal. This often happens in a state of trauma or paranoia, where a person be experiencing real pain within, from internally induced Vrittis, even though there is no external stimuli.
The more deep-rooted such memories are, the tougher it is to recognise them and remove them from our memories.
Similarly, dreams are made from internally induced Vrittis. In a state of dream, the mind feels that the dream is as real as the real thing. As the Upanishads say: Dreams are real as long as they last-- so is life.
