KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES in ANCIENT INDIAN SCIENTIFIC TREATISES By Veda Varidhi P. Ramanujan Centre Head, C-DAC, Bangalore (KP)

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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.

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises Objectives To Preserve, To Study and To Propagate Ancient Indian (Vedic) Intellectual Heritage Knowledge-base

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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]

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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)

Knowledge Structures in Ancient Indian Sceintific Treatises 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.