Consciousness

These proceedings are the record of a Workshop which took place on 16,17 & 18 June 1987 at Melkote. For us in the Academy the gathering was a watershed in our progress. In its decade—long career the Academy had organized many a Vidvatgosthi ( Vidvatgosthi -gathering of scholars). They were confined to Vedantic topics. In this Workshop however the subject matter extended to both science and Vedanta. The Academy was entering a new arena as it were.

The seed of the idea of a multi-disciplinary workshop on Consciousness was sown in our minds by Dr. R.M. Varma, Emeritus Director of the National institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, with the active support of Dr. E.C.G. Sudarshan, eminent physicist. We are greatly beholden to them. That the germ of the idea could sprout at Melkote was due to the expert ground-work of Prot. M. A. Lakshmithathachar, the Registrar and mainstay of the Academy. The learned scholars who are members of the Managing Committee of the Academy backed his efforts enthusiastically.

When the first intimations of the Workshop were circulated, our objectives were stated in these terms: " ..... to analyze the viewpoint of both the Scientists and the Vedantins, to examine if a common approach to the concept of Consciousness could be found and in any case to define the Vedantic concept of Consciousness in Terminology acceptable to the scientific world."

When the workshop actually took place, it covered wider ground. This was very gratifying. The papers and discussions were so interesting and thought filled that it was thought fit to prepare the proceedings as a full publication rather than a brief report.

Compilation of these proceedings was a daunting task. That it has taken so long is because the translation work and the job of transcribing the taped talks and discussions into readable script proved very time consuming. Much team work has gone into this follow up effort under the leadership of Prof. Lakshmitanthachar who also did most of the Sanskrit of English translations dispite numerous demands on his time. Much thanks are due to him more than all the entire task of editing raw transcriptions and the papers organizing the overall structure and doing even some of the Sanskrit to English translations apart from proof correction was an enormous burden willingly borne by the President of the Academy Sri M.A.S. Rajan. He also tackled the uphill task of putting the different strands of thought together into in overview. This publication owes a great deal to his zeal and hard work.

We are in debt also to all the eminent scholars who participated in the workshop the esteemed people who attended it as well to all those who worked of its smooth progress.

The academy hopes that the proceedings will prove to be a useful addition to the literature on the subject consciousness.