Are the Elements and the Pañcabhūta the Same (Thing)? Epistemic Objects between
Science, Religion, and Philosophy in Colonial North India, c.1920
Dr. Charu Singh (University of Cambridge)
What are things made from? If elements are the foundational matters of fact in global
chemopolitics, what happens to elementary conceptions of life and world when new concepts
challenge existing ontologies? This chapter examines an early twentieth century debate
about the status of the pañcabhūta, also called the pañcatattva, a concept foundational to
Hindu ontology and authority. In British India, these “five Hindu elements” were described
by European orientalists, Sanskrit scholars, emerging Indian scientists and philosophers, and
lay readers. The tattva presented significant difficulties in linguistic, conceptual, and material
translation. While pṛthivī, jal, and vāyu were easily rendered as earth, water, and air, the two
other tattva – tejas and ākāśa – proved less pliable. Is tejas fire or energy? Is ākāśa ether? As
the Sanskrit scholar Chandrashekhar Shastri asked in the Hindi-language popular science
monthly Vigyan in 1920, “are the elements and the pañcabhūta the same (thing)?” In the
subsequent debate, Vigyan’s authors drew on ancient Sanskrit knowledge alongside the
history of European chemistry. They evaluated the tattva in light of phlogiston and caloric,
new theories of chemical structure, and also cited traditional theories on the nature of things
associated with the Vaisheshika, one of the six ‘schools’ of Hindu philosophy. The views of
the legendary seer Kanada, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton were all cannily deployed.
Thinking about elements and tattva as epistemic objects, this chapter brings into view the
complex mediations by which early twentieth century vernacular readers identified these
objects with reference to and through the intercalation of two distinct standards: Vaisheshika
philosophy and European chemical writings.