In "An Idealist View of Life", Dr S Radhakrishnan says, "The Universe is not a blind but teleological one, and the course of historical evolution is not accidental and hap hazardous, but in some way expresses some purse." God works in history and reveals himself in it, he says. The Hindu god lives in every being and thinks through all minds. This is what Shankara, the greatest Indian philosopher, says.

Evolution, according to Dr Radhakrishnan, is the drama of the gradual transformation of intellect into spirit, when death is overcome, when time is conquered and the kingdom of the eternal spirit is established. Sri Aurobindo, the mystic also expresses similar thoughts.

Bana in history of Harsha, one of India's greatest emperors, talks of the influence of the supernatural forces in human affairs.

But can a world without beginning or end be infused with a purpose? There is no answer to this. Many had doubts. That is why many opted for a cyclic theory of time and history. Dr S Radhakrishnan rejects this theory.

The basic cycle is the kalpa, a day in the life of Brahma, the creator (God), which is equal to 4320 million earthly years. His night is of equal length. 360 days and nights constitute a day of Brahma. And his life is for a hundred years! He is now in the 51st year, after which the whole universe returns to the ineffable world of the spirit. Only to repeat again.

But the life of man is seen as a progressive decline in piety, morality, strength, stature, longevity and happiness. Each yuga (a period of time) represents a fall of man. There are four yugas (Krita, Dwapara, Treta and Kalki) and there are a thousand yugas in a Kalpa. We are in Kali yuga now, which according to tradition
began with the Mahabharata war in 3102 BC. Here is inexorable determinism.

All religions see human evolution as a progressive decline in virtue and the growth of evil. Only science holds out a positive hope for man. Both Aurobindo and Dr Radhakrishnan saw evolution moving towards the triumph of the spirit. History is the transformation of nara (man) into Narayana (God), says an Indian sage. Some hope this for the Indian humanity! The Indian yugas find a parallel in Greek and Persian concepts of the four ages - that of Gold, Silver, Copper and Iron. Perhaps this thought of a steady decline in human worth and goodness and the growth of evil did not satisfy the Indian humanity, which is why the sages brought up the concept of Avataras (incarnation of God). The divine came down to the earthly plane to redeem man, to raise humanity to a higher status and to inaugurate a new order - a higher dharma (righteousness). The Gita goes on to assure that there is a final redemption, for Krishna says, "at the end of time, all things return to my nature and when the new day of time dawns, I bring them back again into light."

It has taken 2,000 years more to come up again with a similar time scale, says Fitjof Capra, speaking of our present understanding of time.

The Jains, Ajivikas and Charvakas - all dissenters - who appeared at the Upanishadic period were materialists. The Ajivikas believed that everything is determined to the smallest detail by an impersonal cosmic principle called niyati (or destiny). They believed that the universe is eternal, that matter is subject to change, but without beginning or end. The world is not governed by a deity, but by a supreme principle (Law). The Jains believe that there are infinite souls potentially omniscient and omnipotent but limited by their karma (action) which makes them distinct from each other. Till Karma is expelled Jiva (soul) is born again and again. Like Buddhism, Jainism aims at a perfect man, the Kevalin (moral man) for which a monastic life is prescribed.

Buddha was not impressed by these schools. He rejected both the idealism of Upanishads and the materialism of the news schools. He said: "Everything is - this is one extreme; everything is not - this is another extreme. The truth is in the middle.

Asked whether the world is everlasting or not, Buddha told one of his disciples not to press such enquiries. As for God, he said: "If by the absolute, God is meant to something out of relation to all known things, its existence cannot be established by any reasoning. The whole universe is a system of relations. We know nothing that is or can be unrelated."

Opposing the concept of an unchanging reality, Buddha said that nothing exists by itself, nothing is absolute, everything is relative. Buddha's theory of permanence is an important doctrine. He says where there is a beginning, there is an end and where there is birth, there is death.

As Buddha was not interested in the beginning or end of things, he saw human civilisation as a gradual progression from lower to higher forms, perfection as the goal of life. Thus in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain thought, man has the means to improve himself and reach selfperfection. He is not condemned to determinism.

So Indian thought is not pessimistic. It holds out the hope of a world process, though cyclic, in which man reaches out to perfection.