Books that have influenced me - Sir C.V.Raman

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A purposeful life needs an axis or hinge to which it is firmly fixed and yet around which it can freely revolve. As I see it, this axis or hinge has been, in my own case, strangely enough, not the love of science nor even the love of Nature, but a certain abstract idealism or belief in the value of the human spirit and the virtue of human endeavour and achievement. The nearest point to which I can trace the source of this idealism is my recollection of reading Edwin Arnold’s great book, The Light of Asia. I remember being powerfully moved by the story of Siddhartha’s great renunciation, of his search for truth and of his final enlightenment. This was at a time when I was young enough to be impressionable, and the reading of the book fixed firmly in my mind the idea that this capacity for renunciation in the pursuit of exalted aims is the very essence of human greatness. This is not an unfamiliar idea to us in India, but it is not easy to live up to it. It has always seemed to me a surprising and regrettable fact that the profound teaching of the Buddha has not left a deeper and stronger impress on the life of our country of which he was the greatest son that ever lived.

The next of the books that I have to mention is one of the most remarkable works of all time, namely, The Elements of Euclid. Familiarity with some parts of Euclid and a certain dislike to its formalism have dethroned this great work from the apparently unassailable position which it occupied in the esteem of the learned world for an almost incredibly long period of time. …..

The ancient Greeks had a fine sense of the value of intellectual discipline; they had also a fine sense of the beautiful. They loved Geometry just because it had both these appeals. In my early years, it was a great struggle for me to learn to overcome my dislike to the formalism of Euclid and gradually to perceive the fascination and beauty of the subject. Not until many years later, however, did I fully appreciate the central position of Geometry in relation to all natural knowledge. I can illustrate this relationship by a thousand examples but will content myself with remarking that every mineral found in Nature, every crystal made by man, every leaf, flower or fruit that we see growing, every living thing from the smallest to the largest that walks on earth, flies in the air or swims in the waters or lives deep down on the ocean floor, speak aloud of the fundamental role of Geometry in Nature. The pages of Euclid are like opening bars of the music in the grand opera of Nature’s great drama. So to say, they lift the veil and throw to our vision a glimpse of a vast world of natural knowledge awaiting study.
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Speaking of the modern world, the supremest figure, in my judgment, is that of Hermann von Helmholtz. In the range and depth of his knowledge, in the clearness and profundity of his scientific vision, he easily transcended all other names I could mention, including Isaac Newton. Rightly he has been described as the intellectual Colossus of the 19th century. It was my great good fortune, while I was still a student at college, to have possessed a copy of an English translation of his great work on The Sensations of Tone. As is well known, this was one of Helmholtz’s masterpieces. It treats the subject of music and musical instruments not only with profound knowledge and insight, but also with extreme clarity of language and expression. I discovered this book for myself and read it with the keenest interest and attention. It can be said without exaggeration that it profoundly influenced my intellectual outlook. For the first time, I understood from its perusal what scientific research really meant and how it could be carried on. I also gathered from it a variety of problems for research which were later to occupy my attention and keep me busy for many years……..

Courtesy: “Indo English Prose: A Selection” edited by C.Subbian
Published by Emerald Publishers, Chennai-600029