ABSTRACT
The traditional sciences were cultivated in all the traditional civilizations known to man raning from the Egyptian to the Aztec and Mayan, but since the more elaborate formulations of the traditional sciences which have survived at least to some extent to this day are to be found mostly among Oriental civilizations such as the Indian and Islamic, it is appropriate to turn to these worlds to examine their relation to Western science. If there is to be a resuscitation of sacred science in contrast to the secular science which claims for itself global domination and has in fact nearly gained such a domination, it is necessary to examine the relation between Western science and the Oriental cultures which have been the main repositories of the traditional and the sacred to this day. It is also necessary to deal more fully with the nature of Western science, which nearly all Asian and other non-Western countries seek to emulate with varying degrees of success but in almost all cases impervious to the consequences of the blind adoption and application of these sciences for their own traditional cultures and for the sacred sciences which they have developed and nurtured over the millennia within their intellectual and spiritual citadels. Today more and more people are becoming aware that the applications of modern science, a science which until a few decades ago was completely Western and which has now spread to other continents, have caused directly or indirectly unprecedented environmental disasters, bringing about the real possibility of the total collapse of the natural order. And also many realize that it is necessary to investigate once again the relation of Western science with the Oriental cultures, now busy in adopting this science and the technology based upon it.1 It will of course be said by many people that Western science is not solely Western and that it drew heavily from Islamic as well as Greek and Indian sciences. It will also undoubtedly be asserted that there is not a complete enough harmony of either form or content among Oriental traditions to classify them together in one group or to consider them as representing a single point of view.
