The Role of Spirituality in the age of Science and Technology
9th All India Students’ Conference on
Science and Spiritual Quest
30th October – 1st November 2015
IIT Kharagpur, India
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ESSAY COMPETETION - GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION
Contribution of Ancient India to Science
"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the
grandmother of legend and the great-grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive
materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."
-Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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American Author
India, 'the cradle of human race', as recognized by Mark Twain, has been the storehouse of knowledge
since antiquity. The ancient seers, with simplicity and purity of their hearts, embedded with spiritual
revelations, could dig out profound discoveries, ideas, concepts and technologies. Medicine, Arts,
Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Metallurgy, Chemistry, Life Sciences, any discipline one touches, one
will find ancient Indian contributions - discovery of Zero, Sushruta's mystical surgeries, Patanjali Yoga
system, ayurvedic system of holistic medicines, classification of plants and animal species, workings of
human body to workings of our gigantic universe. The present essay is aimed two folds:
1. Firstly, to dig and remind ourselves of our precious heritage in today's age of science and
technology, the contributions of our ancient seers and expressing our salutes to those Vedic seers.
2. Secondly, and more importantly, the essay competition is aimed to learn and bring out the wisdom
hidden in ancient Indian scriptures to help resolve many of the current problems in modern
science. This could be a significant contribution of ancient Vedic wisdom to the entire world in
modern times.
The essay could highlight and focus on any of the following seven areas and questions:
i. Mathematics and Logic: What are the contributions and wisdom of ancient Indian
mathematicians? Could we find in their texts, the solutions to at least some of the most current
problems in mathematics? Could their works help us to understand many of the mind-boggling
concepts in modern mathematics, such as 'infinity', 'imaginary numbers', 'point', 'space', etc.?
ii. Physics and Cosmology: The Vedic seers had expressed a lot about cosmos, planets,
movements of atoms, gravity and many more in their ancient writings. Could their profound
thoughts help us to resolve many of the modern issues in physics and cosmology, such as, what is
mind and how it interacts with body? What is matter really? What is dark matter? What is dark
energy? What about our planetary systems and origin of universe itself? Could Vedanta help us
understand problems of modern particle physics?
iii. Life Sciences and Psychology: What are the contributions of ancient seers in areas such as,
genetics,
evolutionary
biology,
bio-informatics,
biochemistry,
bio-physics,
neuroscience,
embryology, virology, cell biology? Could their wisdom help us understand and resolve the
question of life and its origin? How the Vedic seers understood our human psychology -mind and
its workings? Could the concept of 'soul' still make sense in modern biology? What about the
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Organizer: Bhaktivedanta Institute, Kolkata, www.binstitute.org
meaning and purpose of life, of which we have no clue today - could the ancient scriptures
reasonably and precisely provide and define this?
Similarly, there are areas of (iv) Ethics and Virtues - India's precious heritage; (v) Engineering Sciences:
Metallurgy, aerodynamics, bioengineering, computers, electronics and others; (vi) Health and Medicine (vii)
Philosophy and World Religions.
 The essay could be structured into various sections. Placing content in sections reflects consolidating
your viewpoints into important concepts that you wish to highlight.
 A thorough literature review will always enable students to grasp and conceptualize their ideas.
Therefore, to win in an essay competition, proper justification from various literatures of the concepts is
mandatory.
 The essay essentially needs to have an abstract. Typically, an abstract is written after finalizing all the
contents of an essay.
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 Quote examples whenever they are necessary. This is true to the sense that examples always make
one to comprehend difficult concepts and philosophies very easily.
 Provide original illustrations for few sections. Illustrations will enrich your presentations. These
illustrations could be hand drawn and if they are taking from websites, they need to be copyright free.
Plagiarism and infringement of copyright issues will be dealt very seriously by Essay
Competition Committee.
 Avoid plagiarism totally. Standard Journals define plagiarism as the reuse of someone else's prior
ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source.
Therefore, copying material as it is from various sources such as Journals, Magazines, Books, and
Websites without acknowledging the sources and without any further effort to restructure the sentences
is one of the most common approaches in Plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, apart from
acknowledging the source, one should construct sentences on their own. If there is difficulty in
this front, approach your seniors or colleagues who are more familiar in the construction of both simple
and complex sentences.
 Please note that all essays and facts mentioned there in about ancient India should be accompanied
with references to the original texts. Indirect references and web references are not acceptable.
 It is thoroughly recommended that you shall approach a professional proof reader or an English
lecturer to correct your essay for tense and grammar.
 Finally, include a conclusion section that summarizes your concepts. All entries in essay competition
should be typed. No hand written entries will be allowed.
 The number of pages is limited to 10. The essay competition entry shall be submitted in both docx
and pdf formats.
 The essay competition article shall be submitted in the given format for essay. The download
link for format is provided in the Essay Competitions page of Conference website,
http://www.aissq.org. Also, essays have to be submitted online. Follow the link provided on the
conference website.
 Important: Deadline: 30th July 2015
Please remember that a fundamental purpose of writing a good essay is to enrich one’s technical,
creative, and communicative skills without jeopardizing ethical values.
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Organizer: Bhaktivedanta Institute, Kolkata, www.binstitute.org