How India Lost Its Inquisitive Culture?

How India Lost Its Inquisitive Culture?

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It’s the lack of continuity in intellectual circles after the 1200s that led to this state.

Indian classical philosophy was as rich and rigorous as athens western philosophy, for instance Nyaya’s epistemology and logic parallels with aristotle, samkya dualism parallels with descartes or plato.

there were schools for every kind of thought, and vigorous debates not just between āstikas and nāstikas, but even within each school. what it really tells is those were good times, times of prosperity and freedom, even if its just confined to the rich brahmins or kshatriya, much like in athens, and it’s the freedom that gives rise to philosophy which in time elevates everyone else.

but it doesn’t matter if the knowledge to merely exist, it should be studied, challenged, revised, and improved for new ideas to emerge. we can see that continuity in west that led to renaissance, modern rationalism, analytic thought and existentialism

unfortunately, that continuity never took place in India. if the same intellectual evolution occurred here, there might be our own renaissance. the reasons for this break after 1200 are uncertain, we can only guess. some point to casteism, others to the british invasion, or the recurring famines, we don’t know what went wrong exactly but flow of knowledge lost like the indus.

what we do know is that the puranas have far greater memetic strength than classical philosophy. for instance gita bhakti yoga, became more mainstream than jnana or raja which are far richer that allows inquisitiveness. (i had some pet conspiracy theory that someone attached bhakti yoga in gita, you can remove bhakti yoga and whole gita still makes sense that might’ve led to better trajectory).

the reason the puranas have such strong memetic strength is obvious, when basic necessities aren’t in surplus, people work day and night just to feed their families. That leaves no time or energy to ponder, so the burden of existential inquiry gets outsourced to scriptures. even with freedom the habit of inquiry is outsourced as in modern india, this happens when the memetic strenght of existing culture is too strong to permit deviation.

for bhakti yoga (faith) to have become mainstream, one possible explanation, as I mentioned, is that the subcontinent had become a land of impoverished people. there were no longer pockets of intellectuals, not even among the Brahmins or Kshatriyas. the economy was in shambles and sub-continent is fighting against something.

therefore, the casuality here is lost of prosperity led to bhakti to go mainstream. christianity, too, is a faith-based religion, yet figures like Newton thrived within it because the west, through trade and conquest, had the material foundation to support intellectual life. without economic stability, there are no pockets of intellectuals or Great man1 that could change trajectories.

If you’ve read this far, you already have the freedom and prosperity that allow you to be inquisitive. Don’t outsource your self-worth or will; practice intellectual humility, escape the memetic prison imposed by the culture, stay skeptical—and pass the torch to the next generation, especially your kids.