What is Agamic Science?

What is Agamic Science?

‘SCIENCE’ has developed so much since the days when man began to ask questions to understand the world and universe that we live in. Science seems to be able to answer in a logical and scientific way, many of man’s inquisitiveness. Questions like does the earth go around sun or the sun goes around the earth, why does the tree grow towards the sunlight and the root towards water? The major advances that science has made over the years has answered practically almost every question that arose in the inquisitive human mind. These major advances have definitely made life better. Not to forget the cyberworld that has so much of influence on us. Human life has improved so much with the advancement in science. These advances cannot be denied.

One criteria for anything to be investigated in this science, which I call ‘modern science’ is that, anything that needs to be investigated must to be quantifiable and measurable. Anything that does not fall in this domain of the ‘quantifiable’ and ‘measurable’ is considered as not in the domain of this science. Fields like philosophy and religion are not even taken into investigation in this modern science due to its nature of non-quantifiable. Due to this model, this modern science has practically negated the existence of ‘soul’ in a living being because the existence of the ‘soul’ as far as modern science is concerned does not exist because it is non quantifiable. Living beings are not differentiated from a non-living things. Living being and not-living things are all grouped together. By doing this, the same methodology of researching a non-living thing is used to research a living being. For example if a person is suffering from a mental disease, using modern science, the chemical responsible for this mental disease will be identified and treatment will be to correct this chemical imbalance. Modern science does not go beyond that. The idea is, there is a disorder, therefore there must be a physical cause to it and the whole science will be put to identify this physical cause, using the most sophisticated machines and instruments. What this modern science fails to see is that, there must be a reason why this chemical happened in the first place. Modern science fails to go beyond this physical.

‘Agamic science’, though the term was introduced only in the late 20^th century by Ullaganar and his associate, Sivakumar,  is an ancient science, with its roots going back to the dawn of human civilization. This science was developed to great heights by the Tamils, with its beginnings in Sumeria, who according to research by Ullaganar were of Tamil origin. This science which goes by the name of ‘Saiva Siddhantha’ is being re-fashioned here as ‘Agamic Science’, with some new developments of our own. In this science, living beings are distinctly differentiated from non-living things. The core of investigation is the ‘UYIR’, in Tamil, which means the soul. The Tamil word ‘agamam’, literally meaning ‘becoming’, ‘beingness’, explains our human beingness and the meaning of our existence. It is not a philosophy as such or even a new religion, but a science, not in the sense of modern science, but a science in the hermeneutic sense. In this science, we don’t have any authoritative text, but we take nature and the universe as the most authoritative text. Nature is the best teacher and when we get connected to nature, nature itself will guide us through our existential struggles. Therefore, we can define “Agamic Science’ as a science of beingness, science of investigating our existence.

This science was developed to great heights by the Tamils, the culmination of it was by Meykandar, the greatest hermeneutic scientist the world has ever seen, who lived in the 13^th century. His magnificent ‘Civanyaana Botham’ written by him in the Tamil language, stands as the most profound book in metaphysics, a parallel not to be found anywhere else in the world, in any other language. It is a pity that a treatise of such greatness has gone unnoticed until recent times, revived only recently by Ullaganar who is a great scholar himself.

This science got to be revived. But why? The reason is quite straight forward. Due to the domination of the ‘modern science’ which is basically physical science, the human aspect has been neglected, ignored and destroyed. Humans are compared to a non-living object. And whatever investigated must be quantifiable and measurable. Due to this criteria, there are a lot of fields that has been totally ignored and rubbished because these fields are beyond the scope of modern science investigations. These fields are important for mankind to understand the meaning of our existence. One good example is dream analysis. Dream analysis, which is being practiced since the dawn of civilization, is never in the mainstream science. And modern science does not have a proper explanation on why we dream in the first place, let alone the meanings that dream convey. This is just an example. There are many human sciences that are beyond the scope of modern physical science, but important to understand humans better.

Agamic science does not negate these human aspects. It is more conclusive than modern science. While it does not deny that modern, physical science is a proper science for investigating non-living things or objects, this same science is not a science proper to answer the many existential struggles that living beings go through in their daily lives.

We believe that Agamic Science can answer the many questions unattended by the modern, physical science. It must be mentioned here that the Tamils have developed agamic science to great extent that it is a complete science by itself, encompassing both living beings and non-living things. We believe the world until today has failed to see this science, Agamic science.

We want to revive Agamic Science for the betterment of mankind and the world. The world must benefit from the wisdom of the ancient Tamils.

Ari Marappan