OBITUARY 105
be taken on its face value" and "alien elements" are in the nature of "ransom offered to counter-ideology" to evade the censorship of lawgivers. "Counter ideology" is defined to mean the "ideological requirement of regimented religions going bluntly against that of science." This may seem to overstate the case for pure science in India.
Naive or proto-materialism in consonance with the material and conceptual development of the period tried to answer questions, both social and natural in terms of fragmentary knowledge and observation in opposition to blind faith. As such, while its important contribution in providing prerequisites for later forms of materialism cannot be denied, it has to be demarcated from the latter.
It is the process of evolution of knowledge through an interaction of naive materialism and speculation that gives rise to contradictory elements present in the early history of social thought. That is why involuntary admissions of the truth of materialism are found in a number of idealist thinkers of the time just as involuntary intrusion of idealist concepts surface in the thought of materialist thinkers.
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's prolific writings provided the critical basis on which one could take pride in the achievements of Indian civilisation. With its own specificities, the ancient Indian civilisation made as much contribution to the growth of hinman knowledge as any other. The ancient Indian thought, philosophy, scientific knowledge was sustained by pluralism of ideas. That is what constituted its strength. The cacophony that is trying to strait-jacket Indian thought in the name of religion is damaging the very civilisation in the name of which it seeks to speak. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's work was motivated to overturn the existing popular consciousness of Indian philosophical thought. His pioneering work provides the wherewithal with which the battle of the minds can be fruitfully joined.
RAJENDRA PRASAD