STORY CREDITS
Writer/Editor: Apeksha Srivastava
Photo: Media and Communication, IIT Gandhinagar
“India has left indelible imprints on the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries… From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to the Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, her traditions, her faith, and her civilization!” – Sylvain Lévi, French orientalist and Indologist
The Humanities and Social Sciences discipline at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar initiated a semester-long course in 2016 titled Introduction to Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS). The purpose was to delve deeper into India’s knowledge traditions. Comprising of invited lectures delivered by distinguished academicians from different parts of the country, this course has attempted to explore shared Indian concepts and practices in diverse fields.
The first edition of IKS offered a glimpse into India’s literary, intellectual, scientific, artistic, technological, and traditional aspects, medicine (Ayurveda), philosophical and ethical systems, agriculture, classical science, and performing arts. The second edition (IKS 2017) focused on how the ancient Indian society depicted itself by analyzing data from archaeology, literature, epigraphy, and travelers’ accounts. The third installment (IKS 2019) dealt with ancient technologies that made the Indian civilization strong and creative during its long history. It included talks on Harappan techniques, town planning, civil engineering, construction, water structures, ceramic, metallurgy, glass, acoustics, metrology, and textiles.
The fourth installment (IKS 2020) investigated the Ancient Idea of India, emphasizing the country’s underlying cultural unity with infinitely diverse manifestations. IKS 2021 highlighted how Indian aesthetics, emerging from a theoretical framework of fundamental concepts (e.g., codified in Nāṭyaśāstra) and traditional regional practices (classical-folk dialogue), contributed to the cultural integration of Indian civilization.
The sixth and current edition of this course, from January-April 2022, will be conducted in hybrid mode owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The theme, Precolonial India’s Treasure House of Literatures, aims to explore significant developments of Indian literature and its lesser-known features and ramifications. India is renowned worldwide for being a treasure-house of literature. Other than a great diversity of languages, from Sanskrit to a staggering number of regional languages, there is a massive variety of themes, motifs, literary techniques, and sociocultural functions. This “literaturescape” deeply impacted the Indian landmass at all levels and was one of the main instruments in shaping the country. Eminent scholars will provide insights on topics like narrative literature in Prakrit, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu literature, technical literature on science and performing arts, Jain itihasa literature, classical literature in comics and graphic novels, Kavya literature, children’s literature, and India’s sacred geography to name a few.
Expressing his views, Prof. Michel Danino (Visiting Professor, HSS, IITGN) stated, “Indian literature is colossal. It is one of the vastest literatures of the world, with its epics, texts of philosophy and spirituality, dramas, poetical compositions, repositories of stories, folktales, technical texts on medicine, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, governance and more, and numerous similar works in regional languages. It has been a powerful social tool connecting people, sharing concepts and values, and ultimately a certain worldview. IKS 2022 aims to provide the students with some taste of this ocean that reflects India’s identity. ”
IKS 2022 will begin with a talk by Ms. Mana Shah (Lecturer, HSS, IITGN) titled One Tale, Two Tongues, and the Sacred Jain Site of Śatruñjaya on 13th January 2022 at 5:05 pm IST. In the words of Ms. Shah, “The young generation of India is interested and has a sense of pride in various aspects of the Indian culture and civilization now more than ever. IKS attempts to satisfy some aspects of this curiosity in the youth. I feel that this is the best time to find out more about these topics on deeper levels and without exaggeration. My upcoming lecture is on Śatruñjaya, a traditionally eternal Jain pilgrimage site in Western India that has survived through repeated destructions and restorations. Restoring the temples on this site during adverse times also restored people’s faith. The story that I will discuss is documented in Apabhramsha (Prakrit) and Sanskrit.”
The current edition is open to students from anywhere interested in studying Indian knowledge systems (through hybrid mode). They can audit it for free by filling an online registration form available on the website. Videos of lectures from previous editions are being put online to build a fund of knowledge on the Indian knowledge systems.