Subhash Kak

author of The Prajna Sutras

November 4, 2015

Subhash Kak is professor and head of computer science at OSU. He is the author of 19 books – 11 books of essays and 6 books of verse, four in English and two in Hindi – some of which have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Serbian and Telugu.

Written in an aphorisitic style together with a commentary, the book is a meditation on the nature of intuition. The Prajna Sutra presents a bridge between the cosmologies of Vedic knowledge and modern science. The ideas are presented as 18 sutras on the nature of reality, language, art, mind, transformation, and freedom on which explanatory commentaries are provided. The sutras tie together common symbols of the Vedic tradition and their deeper intuitions using contemporary vocabulary. The synthesis presented in the sutras is wide-ranging and it not only deals with abstract ideas but also with question of meaning, aesthetics, love, war, and suffering. Although some consider only linguistic problems to be worthy of study, linguistic expressions ultimately are about things and they cannot properly address the mystery of consciousness. The sutras consider issues that go to the core of philosophy, namely the nature of reality and the relationship of the experiencing subject to it. They speak of the complementary domains of rationality and paradox that underlie ordinary experience. They explain how the mystery of consciousness relates not only to the individual's cognitive capacity to know but also his ability to transform both himself and his environment.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2009-honorees/subhash-kak

Last Updated: 14 January 2022