The modern Indian contribution to the field psychology as a whole has been very limited. Most of them are studies based on the theories and models contributed by the west. Most of the researches are also subject to cultural bias because the most of tools questionnaires and other methodologies and either the one developed in the west or a standardization of the western tools. Very few tools have been developed by keeping n mind the uniqueness and diversity of the Indian culture and traditions.
But the ancient India has contributed a lot in the disguise of spirituality to the field. Since religion was a significant binding factors all these contributions were recorded in the form of religious practices, communications prayer and acquiring knowledge about self and god. It is these contributions that made even the then practiced Hindu religion a huge source of solace in situations of emotional problems, reduced the sense of loss of control and happiness, gave a cognitive framework that every thing that is happening to the person and around the person has goodness in it, which helped people to make assessment of negatively perceived situations in a rational way, at least after the emotional phase was over. This helped in reducing the suffering and enhances self esteem and self confidence.
The prime contributions from ancient India was in the various psychic phenomena’s which have been accepted to be in existence but could not be scientifically proven. These are also the ones for which the western world could not provide a concrete explanation, but forced to accept its existence even without appropriate supportive evidence. These include extra sensory perception (ESP), telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis, the direct effect of mind over matter.
One of The most relevant factors from ancient Indian contribution has been from Vedas which broadly categorizes three types based on the dominant characteristics in a person or “GUNAS”, even though Vedas state that the psycho physical disposition consists of a mixture of guans. The three gunas are
- Ø Sattva guna - people who are dominated with the characteristics of truthfulness, cleanliness, dutifulness, discipline, mental equilibrium, respect to superiors, sharp intelligence, sense control, strong determination, assertiveness, attractiveness and detached approach towards contentious situations .
- Ø Rajas guna- people with significant characteristics of desire for sense gratification, intense activity, dissatisfaction with ones position and performance, emotionally charged, irrational, dominant, focusing on materialistic achievement, poor spiritual involvement and always in a hurry to complete their tasks.
- Ø Tamas guna- people whose dominant characters are arrogance, poor impulse control, feeling helpless and worthless, laziness, procrastination, depression, poor motivation, goal lessness and mental imbalance
One more important contribution by the Vedas is related to people orientation towards vocational preference. Vedic varnasharma system divided occupation under four major categories. Leaning and education, development and defense, mediation and negotiation and basic need satisfactions. Learning and education was handling by people then known as Brahmins, development and defense by kshatrias, mediation and negotiation by vaishyas and all activities associated with basic need satisfaction by sudras. Vedas also describe the nature of person fit for each job making it the first guide to understand the career orientation of a person. Vedic philosophy also maintains that one’s characteristic can change especially by associating with persons of different tendency. Even though the Vedic philosophy propagated harmonious relations between persons of different types and profession, over a period of time these profession became branded as hereditary one creating the caste system which virtually undermined the whole purpose of developing such an guide and system. Thus the effective evaluation method of identifying a person’s fitness for a job got buried under the name of caste system
Panchatantra is another importance scripture that has contributed to the field of psychology. This scripture primarily deals with the five important aspects of life building of self confidence, prosperity, knowledge, friendship and endeavor. Panchathnadra did fall under the branch of science of the ancient India the “neethi sastra” meaning a book on wise conduct in life. It an important source for learning on how to understand people, how to choose reliable and trustworthy friends, how to meet difficulties and solve problems through tact and wisdom, and how to live in peace and harmony in the face of hypocrisy, deceit and many pitfalls in life. So in a subtle way “panchatantra” do carry a lot of informations associated with various types of personality, cognitive development, behavioral modifications, interpersonal relationships, motivational aspects, adaptation to environmental demands and effective methods of achieving goals. But since the same has been described in the form of stories and characteristics of animals the real psychological factors brought out was never highlighted.
The scripture NYAYA VAISESHIKA views that personality consists of atman- the self, manas – the mind, and sarira – the body. It also describes the qualities which are the essential ingredients of any personality. These qualities are ichha-desire, dvesha- aversion, prayatna- effort, sukha-pleasure, dukha – pain and jnana- cognition.
SANKYA yoga system describes how the interactions between the for internal constituents buddhi-intelligence, ahankar- egoism, manas-mind and chitta- memory, with the 10 external constituents, the five organic sensations – hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling and the other five active expressions moving, grasping, speaking, eliminating and reproducing determines the behavior and personality of an individual.
..........................To Be Continued
