Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

lectual life of a nation –that of spontaneous outflow
–that giving out of its life by which the world
is enriched. When the nation has lost this power,
when it merely receives but cannot give out, then
its healthy life is over and it sinks to a degenerate
existence which is purely parasitic.
The Function of a National University
How can our nation give out of the fulness
of the life that is in it and how can a new Indian
University help in the realisation of this subject?
It is clear that its power of directing and inspiring
will depend on its world-status.
Can this be secured by the mere repetition
in India of old and outgrown methods of the
Western Universities, which in transit have lost
their native vitality? Our educational methods
must be modernised but these must not necessarily
be the old stereotyped methods which
cannot be plastic enough to adapt themselves
to the new living conditions, but becoming
crystallised often hinder the progress of knowledge
; for they can merely give the stamp of
their approval to feats of memorizing faculty and
to tests of imported knowledge which have become
out of date. They could not on account of
this crystallized constitution, officially recognize
any new advance of knowledge, however important
it may be, that may owe its birth to India.
For the renewal of her life, India must win
the respect and recognition of the world. Could
such respect for her be secured even if we succeeded
in establishing here branch institutions of
Heidelberg, Oxford or Columbia? To be organic
and vital a National University must stand for
self-expression and for winning for India a place
she has lost.
Securing of World-Status
The world-status for a National Centre
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150th Birth Year
of Learning can be se- Tribute
cured by no artificial means; nor can any charter
assure it. This status can only be won by the
intrinsic value of the great contributions to be
made by its own Indian scholars for the advancement
of world’s knowledge.
Knowledge is never the exclusion possession
of any particular race nor does it recognize
geographical limitations. The whole world
is interdependent and a constant stream of
thought had been carried out throughout the ages,
enriching the common heritage, of mankind. Although
science was neither of the East nor of the
West, but international in its university, certain
aspects of it gained richness by reason of their
place of origin. Has India then any great contributions
to offer for the advance of human knowledge?
We have also to realize in this connection:
What has been her strength in the past and what
is the weakness that has been paralyzing her
activities?
Conditions for Discovery of Truth
For the accomplishment of any great scientific
work there must be two different elements
and these must be evenly balanced; any excess
of the one at the expense of the other would be
highly detrimental to the discovery of truth. These
elements are; first a great imaginative faculty and
second a due regulation of that faculty in pursuance
of rigid demonstration. An aimless experimentation
can lead to no result, while an unrestrained
imagination will lead to the wildest
speculation, which is subversive to intellectual
sanity. A true inquirer has, therefore, to guard
against being self-deceived; he has at every step
to compare his own thought with the external
fact; he has remorselessly to abandon all in which
these are not agreed. Thus what he slowly gath-
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna