Many thousands of years (Letters)

Expressions researched:
"hundreds and thousands of years" |"hundreds of thousands of years" |"many thousands of years" |"several thousands of years" |"thousand of years" |"thousands and thousands of years" |"thousands of years"

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

Letter to Sri Padampat Singhania -- Kanpur 7 May, 1957:

The above statement is very important in the following manner. There are two different processes for acquiring knowledge. The one is Deductive Process and the other is Inductive Process. In the Deductive Process we deduce the conclusion from the statement of higher authorities whereas by the Inductive Process we make a research in the truth by our own imperfect knowledge and induce a conclusion. Say for example if we want to know how man is mortal then we have to make a research in statistics of daily death occurrences. Rama dies, Syama dies, father dies, mother dies, he dies, she dies, etc. all these experiences may help us in the conclusion that after all man dies and therefore the conclusion man is mortal made. But the defect of this process of knowledge is that it may be that we have not seen a person who is still living even after some thousands of years. As soon as we get this information the whole conclusion that a man is mortal—is at once changed and we have to say that some men are mortal. In this way the research work of scientific thought are constantly changing because the very research work is done by person who is himself a condition by the four principles of mistake, illusion, cheating and imperfection. Therefore, the Deductive Process is more effective. Man is mortal we have heard it from very authoritative sources like the Vedas and we have accepted it. The Vedas say that stool is impure but the stool of the cow is pure. The Vedas say that bone is untouchable but the conchshell which is also a bone is perfectly pure. For the common man the statements of the Vedas appear to be contradictory. But in spite of such contradiction, because we Hindus accept the Vedas as authority we accept cow dung as pure and allow it to be used even in the kitchen. So also we accept the conchshell.