KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES in ANCIENT INDIAN SCIENTIFIC TREATISES

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KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES in ANCIENT INDIAN
SCIENTIFIC TREATISES

• By
• Veda Varidhi P. Ramanujan
• Centre Head, C-DAC, Bangalore (KP)

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ABSTRACT

• We cover topics like mathematical (numerical like
  decimal) concepts in Ancient Indian scriptures,
  progressions, measurements etc. and language
  aspects like phonetic, lexical, metrical,
  etymological, astronomical and ritualistic
  details in terms of holistic cognitive or
  knowledge structures.
• Vedic auxiliary disciplines exhaustively deal
  with these and their modern day relevance and use
  will be discussed.
• Some of our computing efforts for these studies
  at Indian Heritage Group (IHG) in C-DAC (KP) will
  also be mentioned.

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Objectives

• To Preserve,
• To Study and
• To Propagate
• Ancient Indian (Vedic) Intellectual Heritage
• Knowledge-base

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Preservation of Heritage

• Source Books, Scriptures, original Treatises in
  fourteen vidya-sthana-s
• Manuscripts palm-leaf, birch-bark, metallic,
  inscriptions, paper etc.
• Speech medium authentic recordings, published
  collections etc.
• Identify, procure, transcribe, create utilities
  index, glossary, annotate, hyperlinks

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Possible Steps

• Devise cognitive models of human behaviour and
  map to linguistic resources suitably in terms of
  phonetic, intonational/accentual, lexical,
  syntactic, semantic, metric/prosodic,
  etymological, astronomical, social, ritualistic,
  logical, metaphysical, episodic, moral/ethical
  and pragmatic structures
• Sanskrit shastra-s have detailed, exhaustive and
  comprehensive illustrations and case-studies
• Vedas, Vedangas and Upangas are the repositories
  of such knowledge
• Hence, their study and analysis is appropriate

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Tasks

• Manuscripts digitisation
• Training programs on Mss. Transcription
• Preparation of content (texts encoding)
• Portal, Special Interest Group on Sanskrit and
  Indian Language Knowledgebase (SIG-SILK)
• E-learning and online modules
• Vishistadvaita portal 1000 years of Sri
  Bhashyakara
• Dissemination of heritage knowledgebase
• Search service
• Enhance gurukula education sanga, salakshana and
  sabhashya veda adhyayana

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Study of Heritage

• C-VYASA-like effort on knowledge-base
• Traditional/modern modes
• Analytical programs, tools utilities (design,
  develop, test, deploy)
• Knowledge Representation, Cognitive modelling
  (structures, approaches, methodologies)
• Training for the above (curriculum, detailed
  syllabus)
• Regional language/english translations/expositions
  (primers, reference books, monographs, lexware
  resources like glossaries, dictionaries,
  thesauri, encyclopedia - subjectwise and generic
• design, structure, mode, delivery, evaluation
  e-learning/online and traditional

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Propagation of Heritage

• Mathematics also has intuition as the source of
  many significant advancements, more than axioms
  and theorems
• Srinivasa Ramanujan was known to be instructed in
  dreams by Goddess Namagiri Thayar of Namakkal
• Abstraction, problem-solving, system-building,
  validation, new/different machines etc.
• Worthy goals purushartha-s health, education,
  spirituality, behaviour, lifestyle, values/ethics
• Karmakanda, Yoga, Vastu, Jyautisha, Vedanta, to
  become good citizen, through dharma, artha, kama
  and moksha shastra-s

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Demonstrations

• DESIKA a Natural Language Understanding (NLU)
  system for Sanskrit
• C-VYASA a Vedic Editor and Ancient Indian
  Scientific Knowledgebase with concordance feature
  and authoring facility
• Pandulipi Samshodhaka a tool for palm-leaf
  manuscript processing and preparing critical
  editions of rare, unpublished Sanskrit/Vedic
  works
• from Indian Heritage Group (IHG), C-DAC,
  Bangalore (KP)

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Suggestions

• Possible student projects to further study and
  implement some of these ideas
• Curricular enhancement in language and IT
  courses/programmes
• Computational linguistics, knowledge
  representation, Indian Language Processing,
  Speech systems etc.