“K.A. Nilakanta Sastri’s Maiden Encounter with Jadunath Sarkar”, The Dharma Dispatch, March 19, 2026
“In an era where Artificial Intelligence has accelerated the decline of serious humanities scholarship, this essay reflects on the intellectual depth of the Modern Indian Renaissance. It recounts the first encounter between two giants of Indian history writing: Jadunath Sarkar and the young K.A. Nilakanta Sastri.
WE ARE PASSING through an era of the wilful embrace of dumbness promoted as artificial intelligence. As it stands, it is an ongoing success story of applied science backed by a powerful global machinery whose chief components include relentless advertising and unhinged capitalism.
Its impressive accomplishments in the realm of technology notwithstanding, the biggest casualty of AI is the near-total destruction of the humanities; especially subjects like philosophy, classical learning, language, literature and history. Until the end of the First World War, mastery over these subjects was the very definition of a learned, cultured and refined person. In fact, when one surveys the syllabi of classical subjects in prestigious universities just a century ago, it is clear that we are living in a rather impoverished age…….”
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