Although the title of the book is very general, the theme centers on the Vedic philosophy. The Vedic philosophy has been characterized as religious and dogmatic. No doubt the Vedas contain spiritual hymns; it also contains deep philosophy in its metaphoric maxims. Overall, Vedic literature is deeply entrenched in faith, strong belief in God and creation. In contrast, the empirical science advocates verification and corroboration. Further, science demands induction from facts and not deductions from dogmas. Thus, scientific truths stand opposite to spiritual truths and it has been this way since empirical science made its debut in the sixteenth century.
This book espouses neither spiritualism nor empiricism in strict sense of these terms; rather it merely tries to find correlations between Vedic pronouncements and science, as we know it now. It does not wrap Vedic aphorisms into a package of creationism; rather, it seeks to find the truth; the truth in the criticism that Vedic scriptures are full of mysticism, overstress religion, and, therefore, theological in character.
This is the inspiration and objective of this book. Toward this goal, the Chapters of the book reveal the metaphysics and scientific parallels grounded in those adages. The book discussed the metaphysical concepts embedded in the Vedic philosophy vis-à-vis the Western philosophy as well as the parallels of those conceptual frameworks in modern science.
This book will be useful for students and research scholars in Comparative Studies, Indic Studies, Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy.
Kalpataru Kanungo received Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA He also did postdoctoral work at Cornell University, University of Massachusetts, and Yale University. He has taught in several universities in the USA including the Western Connecticut State University (WCSU) at Danburry, Connecticut, where he worked for twenty-three years, including the last twelve years as Chairman of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences until his retirement in 1994. He has been awarded the title of Professor Emeritus of Connecticut State University of which WCSU is a part. He now lives in India.
Kanungo has received research grants in the USA and has organized symposiums, including an International symposium, on aspects of Biology and served as co-editor for two symposia volumes on "The Aquatic Environment: Problems and Perspectives." He has several research publications to his credit and has written popular articles in the English newspapers and magazines. Since his retirement, he has published four popular science books of which three are in English and one in Oriya, one of the regional languages in India. The books in English are (1) Human: The Amazing Animal; (2) Food, Nutrition and Health (co-author, Puspanjali Samantaray); and (3) Living World of the Ocean.The book in Oriya Manushya Eka Abhinab Prani (co-author, Basanta K. Behura).