INDIA’S GREAT SCIENTIST, J.C. BOSE
“Jagadis Chandra Bose’s wireless inventions antedated those of
Marconi.”
Overhearing this provocative remark, I walked closer to a sidewalk
group of professors engaged in scientific discussion. If my motive
in joining them was racial pride, I regret it. I cannot deny my
keen interest in evidence that India can play a leading part in
physics, and not metaphysics alone.
“What do you mean, sir?”
The professor obligingly explained. “Bose was the first one to invent
a wireless coherer and an instrument for indicating the refraction
of electric waves. But the Indian scientist did not exploit his
inventions commercially. He soon turned his attention from the
inorganic to the organic world. His revolutionary discoveries as a
plant physiologist are outpacing even his radical achievements as
a physicist.”
I politely thanked my mentor. He added, “The great scientist is
one of my brother professors at Presidency College.”
I paid a visit the next day to the sage at his home, which was close
to mine on Gurpar Road. I had long admired him from a respectful
distance. The grave and retiring botanist greeted me graciously. He
was a handsome, robust man in his fifties, with thick hair, broad
forehead, and the abstracted eyes of a dreamer. The precision in
his tones revealed the lifelong scientific habit.
“I have recently returned from an expedition to scientific societies
of the West. Their members exhibited intense interest in delicate
instruments of my invention which demonstrate the indivisible unity
of all life. {FN8-1} The Bose crescograph has the enormity of ten
million magnifications. The microscope enlarges only a few thousand
times; yet it brought vital impetus to biological science. The
crescograph opens incalculable vistas.”
“You have done much, sir, to hasten the embrace of East and West
in the impersonal arms of science.”
[Illustration: JAGADIS CHANDRA BOSE, India’s great physicist,
botanist, and inventor of the Crescograph—see bose.jpg]
“I was educated at Cambridge. How admirable is the Western method
of submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental verification!
That empirical procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for
introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled
me to sunder the silences of natural realms long uncommunicative.
The telltale charts of my crescograph {FN8-2} are evidence for
the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and
a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain,
excitability, stupor, and countless appropriate responses to stimuli
are as universal in plants as in animals.”
“The unique throb of life in all creation could seem only poetic
imagery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once knew would
never pluck flowers. ‘Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in
beauty? Shall I cruelly affront its dignity by my rude divestment?’
His sympathetic words are verified literally through your discoveries!”
“The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches
awkwardly. Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable
testimony of the crescograph.”
Gratefully I accepted the invitation, and took my departure. I
heard later that the botanist had left Presidency College, and was
planning a research center in Calcutta.
When the Bose Institute was opened, I attended the dedicatory
services. Enthusiastic hundreds strolled over the premises. I was
charmed with the artistry and spiritual symbolism of the new home
of science. Its front gate, I noted, was a centuried relic from
a distant shrine. Behind the lotus {FN8-3} fountain, a sculptured
female figure with a torch conveyed the Indian respect for woman
as the immortal light-bearer. The garden held a small temple
consecrated to the Noumenon beyond phenomena. Thought of the divine
incorporeity was suggested by absence of any altar-image.
Bose’s speech on this great occasion might have issued from the
lips of one of the inspired ancient RISHIS.
“I dedicate today this Institute as not merely a laboratory but
a temple.” His reverent solemnity stole like an unseen cloak over
the crowded auditorium. “In the pursuit of my investigations I was
unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology.
To my amazement, I found boundary lines vanishing, and points
of contact emerging, between the realms of the living and the
non-living. Inorganic matter was perceived as anything but inert;
it was athrill under the action of multitudinous forces.
“A universal reaction seemed to bring metal, plant and animal under
a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena
of fatigue and depression, with possibilities of recovery and of
exaltation, as well as the permanent irresponsiveness associated
with death. Filled with awe at this stupendous generalization, it
was with great hope that I announced my results before the Royal
Society—results demonstrated by experiments. But the physiologists
present advised me to confine myself to physical investigations, in
which my success had been assured, rather than encroach on their
preserves. I had unwittingly strayed into the domain of an unfamiliar
caste system and so offended its etiquette.
“An unconscious theological bias was also present, which confounds
ignorance with faith. It is often forgotten that He who surrounded
us with this ever-evolving mystery of creation has also implanted
in us the desire to question and understand. Through many years
of miscomprehension, I came to know that the life of a devotee of
science is inevitably filled with unending struggle. It is for him
to cast his life as an ardent offering-regarding gain and loss,
success and failure, as one.
“In time the leading scientific societies of the world accepted my
theories and results, and recognized the importance of the Indian
contribution to science. {FN8-4} Can anything small or circumscribed
ever satisfy the mind of India? By a continuous living tradition,
and a vital power of rejuvenescence, this land has readjusted itself
through unnumbered transformations. Indians have always arisen who,
discarding the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, have
sought for the realization of the highest ideals in life-not through
passive renunciation, but through active struggle. The weakling
who has refused the conflict, acquiring nothing, has had nothing
to renounce. He alone who has striven and won can enrich the world
by bestowing the fruits of his victorious experience.
“The work already carried out in the Bose laboratory on the
response of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant life,
have opened out very extended regions of inquiry in physics, in
physiology, in medicine, in agriculture, and even in psychology.
Problems hitherto regarded as insoluble have now been brought within
the sphere of experimental investigation.
“But high success is not to be obtained without rigid exactitude.
Hence the long battery of super-sensitive instruments and apparatus
of my design, which stand before you today in their cases in the
entrance hall. They tell you of the protracted efforts to get behind
the deceptive seeming into the reality that remains unseen, of the
continuous toil and persistence and resourcefulness called forth
to overcome human limitations. All creative scientists know that
the true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions they uncover
the laws of truth.
“The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand
knowledge. They will announce new discoveries, demonstrated for
the first time in these halls. Through regular publication of the
work of the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the
whole world. They will become public property. No patents will
ever be taken. The spirit of our national culture demands that we
should forever be free from the desecration of utilizing knowledge
only for personal gain.
“It is my further wish that the facilities of this Institute be
available, so far as possible, to workers from all countries. In
this I am attempting to carry on the traditions of my country. So
far back as twenty-five centuries, India welcomed to its ancient
universities, at Nalanda and Taxila, scholars from all parts of
the world.
“Although science is neither of the East nor of the West but rather
international in its universality, yet India is specially fitted to
make great contributions. {FN8-5} The burning Indian imagination,
which can extort new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory
facts, is held in check by the habit of concentration. This restraint
confers the power to hold the mind to the pursuit of truth with an
infinite patience.”
Tears stood in my eyes at the scientist’s concluding words. Is
“patience” not indeed a synonym of India, confounding Time and the
historians alike?
I visited the research center again, soon after the day of opening.
The great botanist, mindful of his promise, took me to his quiet
laboratory.
“I will attach the crescograph to this fern; the magnification is
tremendous. If a snail’s crawl were enlarged in the same proportion,
the creature would appear to be traveling like an express train!”
My gaze was fixed eagerly on the screen which reflected the magnified
fern-shadow. Minute life-movements were now clearly perceptible;
the plant was growing very slowly before my fascinated eyes. The
scientist touched the tip of the fern with a small metal bar. The
developing pantomime came to an abrupt halt, resuming the eloquent
rhythms as soon as the rod was withdrawn.
“You saw how any slight outside interference is detrimental to the
sensitive tissues,” Bose remarked. “Watch; I will now administer
chloroform, and then give an antidote.”
The effect of the chloroform discontinued all growth; the antidote
was revivifying. The evolutionary gestures on the screen held me
more raptly than a “movie” plot. My companion (here in the role
of villain) thrust a sharp instrument through a part of the fern;
pain was indicated by spasmodic flutters. When he passed a razor
partially through the stem, the shadow was violently agitated, then
stilled itself with the final punctuation of death.
“By first chloroforming a huge tree, I achieved a successful
transplantation. Usually, such monarchs of the forest die very
quickly after being moved.” Jagadis smiled happily as he recounted
the life-saving maneuver. “Graphs of my delicate apparatus have
proved that trees possess a circulatory system; their sap movements
correspond to the blood pressure of animal bodies. The ascent of
sap is not explicable on the mechanical grounds ordinarily advanced,
such as capillary attraction. The phenomenon has been solved through
the crescograph as the activity of living cells. Peristaltic waves
issue from a cylindrical tube which extends down a tree and serves
as an actual heart! The more deeply we perceive, the more striking
becomes the evidence that a uniform plan links every form in manifold
nature.”
The great scientist pointed to another Bose instrument.
“I will show you experiments on a piece of tin. The life-force in
metals responds adversely or beneficially to stimuli. Ink markings
will register the various reactions.”
Deeply engrossed, I watched the graph which recorded the characteristic
waves of atomic structure. When the professor applied chloroform
to the tin, the vibratory writings stopped. They recommenced as
the metal slowly regained its normal state. My companion dispensed
a poisonous chemical. Simultaneous with the quivering end of the
tin, the needle dramatically wrote on the chart a death-notice.
“Bose instruments have demonstrated that metals, such as the steel
used in scissors and machinery, are subject to fatigue, and regain
efficiency by periodic rest. The life-pulse in metals is seriously
harmed or even extinguished through the application of electric
currents or heavy pressure.”
I looked around the room at the numerous inventions, eloquent
testimony of a tireless ingenuity.
“Sir, it is lamentable that mass agricultural development is
not speeded by fuller use of your marvelous mechanisms. Would it
not be easily possible to employ some of them in quick laboratory
experiments to indicate the influence of various types of fertilizers
on plant growth?”
“You are right. Countless uses of Bose instruments will be made
by future generations. The scientist seldom knows contemporaneous
reward; it is enough to possess the joy of creative service.”
With expressions of unreserved gratitude to the indefatigable sage,
I took my leave. “Can the astonishing fertility of his genius ever
be exhausted?” I thought.
No diminution came with the years. Inventing an intricate instrument,
the “Resonant Cardiograph,” Bose then pursued extensive researches
on innumerable Indian plants. An enormous unsuspected pharmacopoeia
of useful drugs was revealed. The cardiograph is constructed with
an unerring accuracy by which a one-hundredth part of a second
is indicated on a graph. Resonant records measure infinitesimal
pulsations in plant, animal and human structure. The great botanist
predicted that use of his cardiograph will lead to vivisection on
plants instead of animals.
“Side by side recordings of the effects of a medicine given
simultaneously to a plant and an animal have shown astounding
unanimity in result,” he pointed out. “Everything in man has been
foreshadowed in the plant. Experimentation on vegetation will
contribute to lessening of human suffering.”
Years later Bose’s pioneer plant findings were substantiated by other
scientists. Work done in 1938 at Columbia University was reported
by THE NEW YORK TIMES as follows:
It has been determined within the past few years that when the
nerves transmit messages between the brain and other parts of the
body, tiny electrical impulses are being generated. These impulses
have been measured by delicate galvanometers and magnified millions
of times by modern amplifying apparatus. Until now no satisfactory
method had been found to study the passages of the impulses along
the nerve fibers in living animals or man because of the great
speed with which these impulses travel.
Drs. K. S. Cole and H. J. Curtis reported having discovered that the
long single cells of the fresh-water plant nitella, used frequently
in goldfish bowls, are virtually identical with those of single
nerve fibers. Furthermore, they found that nitella fibers, on being
excited, propagate electrical waves that are similar in every way,
except velocity, to those of the nerve fibers in animals and man.
The electrical nerve impulses in the plant were found to be much
slower than those in animals. This discovery was therefore seized
upon by the Columbia workers as a means for taking slow motion
pictures of the passage of the electrical impulses in nerves.
The nitella plant thus may become a sort of Rosetta stone for
deciphering the closely guarded secrets close to the very borderland
of mind and matter.
The poet Rabindranath Tagore was a stalwart friend of India’s
idealistic scientist. To him, the sweet Bengali singer addressed
the following lines: {FN8-6}
O Hermit, call thou in the authentic words
Of that old hymn called SAMA; “Rise! Awake!”
Call to the man who boasts his SHASTRIC lore
From vain pedantic wranglings profitless,
Call to that foolish braggart to come forth
Out on the face of nature, this broad earth,
Send forth this call unto thy scholar band;
Together round thy sacrifice of fire
Let them all gather. So may our India,
Our ancient land unto herself return
O once again return to steadfast work,
To duty and devotion, to her trance
Of earnest meditation; let her sit
Once more unruffled, greedless, strifeless, pure,
O once again upon her lofty seat
And platform, teacher of all lands.
{FN8-1} “All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany
is now acquiring the right theory-the avatars of Brahma will
presently be the textbooks of natural history.”-EMERSON.
{FN8-2} From the Latin root, CRESCERE, to increase. For his
crescograph and other inventions, Bose was knighted in 1917.
{FN8-3} The lotus flower is an ancient divine symbol in India; its
unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul; the growth of
its pure beauty from the mud of its origin holds a benign spiritual
promise.
{FN8-4} “At present, only the sheerest accident brings India into
the purview of the American college student. Eight universities
(Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania,
Chicago, and California) have chairs of Indology or Sanskrit,
but India is virtually unrepresented in departments of history,
philosophy, fine arts, political science, sociology, or any of
the other departments of intellectual experience in which, as we
have seen, India has made great contributions. . . . We believe,
consequently, that no department of study, particularly in the
humanities, in any major university can be fully equipped without
a properly trained specialist in the Indic phases of its discipline.
We believe, too, that every college which aims to prepare its
graduates for intelligent work in the world which is to be theirs
to live in, must have on its staff a scholar competent in the
civilization of India.”-Extracts from an article by Professor W.
Norman Brown of the University of Pennsylvania which appeared in
the May, 1939, issue of the BULLETIN of the American Council of
Learned Societies, 907 15th St., Washington, D. C., 25 cents copy.
This issue (#28) contains over 100 pages of a “Basic Bibliography
for Indic Studies.”
{FN8-5} The atomic structure of matter was well-known to the ancient
Hindus. One of the six systems of Indian philosophy is VAISESIKA,
from the Sanskrit root VISESAS, “atomic individuality.” One of the
foremost VAISESIKA expounders was Aulukya, also called Kanada, “the
atom-eater,” born about 2800 years ago.
In an article in EAST-WEST, April, 1934, a summary of VAISESIKA
scientific knowledge was given as follows: “Though the modern
‘atomic theory’ is generally considered a new advance of science,
it was brilliantly expounded long ago by Kanada, ‘the atom-eater.’
The Sanskrit ANUS can be properly translated as ‘atom’ in the latter’s
literal Greek sense of ‘uncut’ or indivisible. Other scientific
expositions of VAISESIKA treatises of the B.C. era include (1) the
movement of needles toward magnets, (2) the circulation of water
in plants, (3) AKASH or ether, inert and structureless, as a basis
for transmitting subtle forces, (4) the solar fire as the cause of
all other forms of heat, (5) heat as the cause of molecular change,
(6) the law of gravitation as caused by the quality that inheres in
earth-atoms to give them their attractive power or downward pull,
(7) the kinetic nature of all energy; causation as always rooted
in an expenditure of energy or a redistribution of motion, (8)
universal dissolution through the disintegration of atoms, (9)
the radiation of heat and light rays, infinitely small particles,
darting forth in all directions with inconceivable speed (the modern
‘cosmic rays’ theory), (10) the relativity of time and space.
“VAISESIKA assigned the origin of the world to atoms, eternal in
their nature, i.e., their ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were
regarded as possessing an incessant vibratory motion. . . . The
recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar system would be
no news to the old VAISESIKA philosophers, who also reduced time to
its furthest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit
of time (KALA) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own
unit of space.”
{FN8-6} Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore, by
Manmohan Ghosh, in VISWA-BHARATI.