Epilogue

We are used to saying and also hearing some such statements that every good thing has its end. Generally speaking, life and living, particularly the human life and the ways it is ordinarily lived following rules and norms, are believed to be good and solicited. It is understandable why good and right ways of living should be remembered and efforts made for recording the same for others, both living and yet to be born. The philosophy of life that is mainly based on the principle that life, marked by ageing, illness, pain and suffering leads humans to liberation of nirvāṇa. This philosophy of life is ordinarily associated with the teachings of the Buddha or Buddhism. It is interesting to note that even this suffering-centric or one may say, the tragic view of life is recognized as noble by the followers of Buddhism. Some writers have gone to the extent of affirming that this view of life is life-negating. Even this radical and ‘pessimist’ view of life has been sought to be immortalized by highlighting its positive aspects. The giant statues of Buddha stūpa, monument of a pyramidal or dome-like form erected over sacred relics of the great Buddha and vihāra, monastery for collective living and worshipping of Buddhist’s monks are all symbolic of reverential remembrance of the great Buddha. Though not consciously and explicitly stated these monuments and the activities, which are carried on in those places, are symbolic of the survival of the spirit of the great teacher, the Buddha, the enlightened and liberated one.

From the other but related end it may be pointed out that different life-affirming views of humans are also committed to different beliefs, rites and rituals purported to foster in us the views that some or other form of belief of the post-mortal survival, may be in a shadowy form, is a reality. The concept of ancestor-worship, matripuja and pitripūja are illustrative of this belief. In scientific form this belief has been expressed in terms of ethnic group and blood group. Among many peoples of the world this belief is prevalent that the ancestors are biologically present in their successive generations. Reference to these peoples are found in the records and results of many anthropological field studies.

At several other levels, philosophical and theological, we come across the view, of course in different forms, that humans survive in their deeds, good, bad and indifferent. This view is echoed in the words of blessings of the elders addressed to the younger ones on their birthday or some other auspicious occasions. The words run like this: ‘May God grant you a long life for doing good works.’

Longevity, even endless longevity, is not immortality. According to the original Vedic tradition, Brahman and Ātman are one and the same reality or entity. It is claimed to be immortal, imperishable, ageless, and all-pervasive. Everything that is known and knowable is Brahman. It knows no difference in it. It has been said that the soul of the cosmos is a unified reality, the unique source of all existence, and out of which all diversity comes and into which all things return and merge. This concept of imperishability and immortality of everything and of every being is rooted in the idea of the Supreme Absolute. This view has been elaborated as philosophical justification in different Upanishads but, it must be added here that the absolute is self-evident, and therefore, needs no evidence or justification. All forms of justification receive their justification from the self-justified Absolute.

As we know a Buddhist contests and rejects this view. Because he thinks that everything is temporary, conditional and subject to causal mutation, collocation and annihilation. Most of the contemporary philosophers, who derive their inspiration from the modern science, are not interested in the question of the immortality and the related issues like impermanence or momentariness. The close conceptual relation between the nature of time and that of the self is found in all kinds of philosophical systems, tribal to scientific and the difference seems to be irresolvable.

One of the basic claims of the modern scientific method is that the problem that cannot be linguistically expressed in a meaningful way, and therefore, turns out to be irrefutable, is to be taken as unscientific and metaphysical in a pejorative sense. That explains why the questions related to soul, self, God, and Absolute do not figure in the scientific discourse on religion.

The greatest of the scientific minds, including mathematicians and physicists, of this century have come to the conclusion that certainty must be accepted as elusive ideal even in an area like mathematics. This basic conclusion has been formulated in very many ways. First, the untenability of the foundationalist’s claim of mathematics, as argued and analysed by Russell, is one of them. Second, the two theorems of Gödel, pertaining to Incompleteness and Undecidability, delivered an added blow to mathematical foundationalism. Third, the historical openendedness of mathematics itself as a discipline demonstrated the weakness of foundationalism. The 23 mathematical problems raised by Hilbert in his address to the International Congress in Paris in 1900, it seems, mathematicians could not solve till today. Fourth, the infirmities attending the different formulations of the proof theory added to the existing discomfiture even to the strong defenders of mathematics as a vigorous science. The basic claim of mathematical provability came under fire. It has often been replaced thereafter by a weaker notion like improvability. Fifth, the vulnerability of the claims associated with such basic mathematical concepts as proof and refutation also strongly indicated both strength and weakness of mathematics. This view may be attributed to radical Popperians like Lakatos. Sixth, while great mathematicians like Felix Kline of the Göttingen School had been emphasizing the necessity of bringing close abstract mathematics to concrete science, some other younger mathematicians like Morris Kline highlighted untenability, almost absurdity of the certainty claim, of mathematics. The relative decline of formalism and the increasing acceptance of intuitionism, represented, among others, by Heyting, Wittgenstein and Dummett provide a mixed picture of the trend in modern mathematics. It must be added here that this is only a trend and, however sophisticated it may be, about its future one cannot be certain.

The human knowledge knows no boundary. Only its available records have their bounds. Knowledge is like an ever receding horizon, marked by both progress and regress. Neither the said progress nor regress is linear in character. So it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to speak definitely about what lies ahead for us regarding this proclaimed exact discipline of knowledge.

Life after death, if any, is not scientifically or reliably available to us. I am one of those who do not claim to have any knowledge whatsoever about what will happen to me. If even the best of human minds, scientific, spiritual or religious, cannot be sure about it, who am I to claim any cognitive definiteness about it? All that we can claim is my or our belief about the subject within a culture at a particular point of time. Personally speaking, my selfdescription would be that I am an open-ended sceptic on the issue. Even in my own case I must confess my beliefs, open to other views and other cultures, and subject to endless change over the years in the future.