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Westernisation Defined
And now, what is 'Westernisation'? Broadly, it means 'making oriental people or country to adopt ideas, ideals, institutions, systems, structures, living standards and values of life, of the West'.
Western Or Eastern
But it is not so easy to identify what exactly is 'Western'. So far as the ever-expanding frontiers of human knowledge are concerned, it is noteworthy that 'truth' has no caste, no community, no party, no class, no nation. It is invariably universal, though the first persons to come across or realise such truth may be belonging to some nation or class or region. For example, can any one specify whether the following items are Western or Eastern ?
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The well-known theorem of Pythagorus who was described by King Clement of Alexandria as "the pupil of a Brahmin".
The atomic theory of the West which was anticipated thousands of years ago by parmanuvad of Kanaad. Dialecticism of Hegel and Marx, which was first envisaged and systematised by Kapil Muni. The fact that it is the Earth which moves round the Sun, and not the Sun around the Earth, which was proved by Copernicus, and more than one thousand years before Copernicus, by Arya Bhatta. 'Materialism of Democratus' - of which the first ever Sutra was written by Bruhaspathi centuries back ( 'prasatho sat` ajaayat' ) (out of non-existence emerged existence). Scientific concepts of Space and Time explained by Einstein and enunciated first by Vendanta Philosophers. The scientific definition of Matter given for the first time to modern science by Heisenberg and to Hindus by Patanjali. The Relativity of Time and Space, the unity of the universe, a Space-Time Continuum, etc. established in ancient times by Vedantic thinkers and proved this century by Einstein. The process of scientific philosophical thinking initiated by Parmeshthi Prajapitha of 'naasdeeya suktha' and climaxed by Einstein.
As H.G. Chernyshevsky observed, "the principles explained and proved by the present day sciences were already found and taken to be true by the Greek philosophers, and much earlier - by the Indian thinkers".
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