Book Search Guidelines

1. Collection of Science and Technology books written in Sanskrit is fundamental     and critical to the above project goal which consists of two categories:

     a. Collection of relevant articles from various sources such as journals,          magazines, special issues etc.
      
                                      b. Collection of original books.

2. Since, the names of the Sanskrit books are not normally familiar; it is often difficult to identify them. For the sake of identification, an initial list of two hundred original Sanskrit books is furnished as a guide to help in the process. (Please contact vedakavi@serveveda.org for the list)

3. The initial list consists of books, most of which have been neither read nor seen. The list has been prepared on the basis of references made by various commentators and reviewers such as Neelakantha, Sreedhara, Mallinatha etc.

4. Based on this indicative list, investigators should try to identify other scientific works in Sanskrit.It should ideally start with a careful review of the library catalogues.

5. In case of any doubt, the contents of the work may be browsed sporadically, and if it is not possible to reach a decision conclusively, the work should be considered as useful tentatively.

6. For browsing the contents of a book, the following points are to be kept in view:

         a. If the book deals with matters of spirituality, literature or art or history, it should not be            considered relevant to the research.

         b. Geography and earth sciences should be considered relevant.

         c. Even a meager coverage of scientific knowledge in the book should be considered relevant.

         d. Since all ancient scriptures contain spiritual references, special efforts should be made to identify the     scientific knowledge embedded in the book.

         e. While mystic (Tantric) subjects are not relevant, it should be borne in mind that some            scientific works are named as "Tantras", which may be relevant.

         f. Chemical and medical books should be treated as scientific works.

        g. Like wise, works on subjects like animals, plants, precious stones and warfare should be treated as useful.

        h. If a section of the book contains scientific information, it should be considered as useful in its           entirety.

7. In case of doubt about the contents in a book, the index of the same can be noted down to seek the opinion of scholars on the subject.

8. Usually ancient works, like the ones written on Palm leaves (Tala - Patra - Grandhas) do not contain index. A summary in the form of prose at the end of each chapter may be scrutinized in such a case.

9. The search party should use its discretion judiciously when faced with dilemmas as described above.

10. Besides original Sanskrit Texts, similar books published in English, Hindi, Telugu and other regional languages are equally important. A lot of scientific research work was undertaken on Vedas during the pre-independence era. Books published on Vedic knowledge before independence are of particular importance. Some of the indicative titles of English books are given below:

              a. Mathematics in Ancient India.

              b. Ancient Indian Technology.

              c. Temple construction in India.

     These books generally contain Index, foreword etc. and therefore, ascertaining the content of the book becomes relatively easier.

11. Hundreds of research books on Vedas were published by such renowned authors like Lok Manya      Bala Gangadhar Tilak, Prof. Iyangar, Rabindranath Tagore etc. But many of those books went out of print. However, the old copies may be available in some of the old libraries.

12. Several such books were also published in Hindi & Telugu. They can be easily recognized by titles. Works of Sri Kota Venkatachalam etc., which are very important, fall into that category.

13. Books discussing predominantly spiritual subject may contain some references to scientific information but such books do not tend to be useful.

14. Foreigners wrote some books on the scientific aspects of Vedic life based on our scriptures,consisting of positive, negative aspects. Both viewpoints would be of use to the project.