The volumes of the Project on The History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization aim at discovering the main aspects of India's heritage and presenting them in an interrelated way. These volumes, in spite of their unitary look, recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers and writers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. In fact, contributions are made by different scholars with different ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called 'methodological pluralism'.
In spite of its primarily historical character, this Project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by many scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is for the first time that an endeavour of such a unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization like India.
The Indian civilization, like all other civilizations, settled or nomadic, developed some basic concepts to define their relations with nature and organize their collective life. There is a widespread belief in some countries, particularly the West, that India's intellectual tradition has been mainly metaphysical and religious. That this view is substantially mistaken and that India, together with its philosophical and religious traditions, consciously developed a scientific tradition has been shown by the late Pranab Kumar Sen and his colleagues in this Volume.
Categories and concepts used in philosophical and scientific disciplines have their refined implications which are articulated only in well-defined and exact ideas. The Editors of and Contributors to this Volume have taken the necessary pains to explicate the abstract concepts in relatively simple ways, trying to bring them close to the world of our experience. While Indian philosophers are not averse to abstract and subtle thinking, they are generally disposed to relate the same to the world of ordinary experience for the sake of easy intelligibility.
A close reading of the papers contributed to the Volume makes it clear that the basic themes of Indian systems of philosophy have been open-ended and interactive with their counterparts as available in other civilizations and systems of thought and action. The Introduction to this Volume would help the reader to follow the contents and the structure of the work. Students, researchers and the general public are bound to find this Volume very interesting and instructive.
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