The charter of the Maharshi Vedavyas MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune is to equip the younger generation with authentic scientific knowledge from India’s Vedic tradition alongside modern knowledge for holistic welfare of society. Due to the lack of ready availability of Vedic knowledge in an intelligible form today, there is a dire need for innovative education and research in Vedic Sciences to prepare the necessary conditions.

Avenues for Research in Vedic Sciences

We believe that innovation and research in India’s homegrown knowledge systems or Shaastras can be broadly categorized as follows:

1. Fundamental Shaastric research – Continuation of shaastric inquiry into principles / models of inner and outer nature.
   • Improving upon existing shaastric understanding of natural phenomena.
   • Novel elucidation of principles / models present in a shaastra or a shaastric methodology.
2. History of Indic thought or knowledge Sources
3. Measuring Shaastric Phenomena – Validation of shaastric methodology of inquiry and observations of phenomena via novel instrumentation and measurement and detection techniques. This is the missing step towards evidence-based reasoning of many shaastric concepts considered esoteric today.
   • E.g., Measurements for psychological parameters of Human behavior
   • E.g., Measurement of Ayurvedic parameters of health (tri-doshas etc.), Naadi-pariiksha
4. Experimental Shaastra Validation – Experimental validation of shaastric claims using modern technology.
   • E.g., Efficacy of Ayurvedic drugs
5. Applied Shaastric Research – Novel, contemporary application of principles / models of phenomena found only in the shaastras.
   • E.g., the use of Nyaaya and Mimaamsa approaches to knowledge representation in modern knowledge graphs
   • E.g., Indian aesthetic models for sentiment analysis of  social media conversations, or evaluating aesthetic quality of art performance
6. Indic Knowledge Mining – Application of modern technology to accelerate the organization and systematic exploration of Indic knowledge base for contemporary uses.
   • E.g., Machine-learning to extract Ayurvedic herbal information from treatises.

SVS Focus Areas for Research in Vedic Sciences

School of Vedic Sciences being collocated in a mainstream University with copious science and engineering talent, has a natural aptitude and affinity towards the following lines of inter-disciplinary research, which are currently underserved elsewhere:

• Applied Shaastric Research
• Indic Knowledge Mining
• Measuring Shaastric Phenomena

Potential Research Topics for PhD Research in Vedic Sciences

Here are several topics with enough research potential as well as sufficient base material from Vedic scientific literature to support the research. These are only indicative and need further refinement to be turned into research topics.

Psychology

• Triguna measurement and psychometry
• Personality traits in modern vs. Vedic psychology
• Yogasuutras and psychology
• Use of alankaara in psychological analysis

Ayurveda

• Ayurveda and Food technology
• Mapping the diagnostic workflow from Charaka-samhita

Aesthetics

• Computational modeling of Aesthetics
• Design and design-related aesthetics

Media Studies

• sphota as applicable to film making
• Story / plot / myth analysis
• Design and design-related aesthetics
• Natyashaastra and design
• vaachya -> lakshya -> vyangyaartha determination from saahitya theory

Knowledge Engineering

• Universal object schema (ontology) based on Saankhya
• Knowledge representation and object matching based on Saankhya classification
• Universal model of communication based on Vaakyapadiiyam
• The rationale behind the 14 samuddeshas – ontological categories according to language theory of Vakyapadiiyam.
• dhaatvartha-based yogyata determination in sentence analysis.
• Ashtaadhyaayii interpretation – ruupa-siddhi prakriya automation

Humanities

• Application of Vedic ethical theories to contemporary professional fields
• Public policy, public administration, strategy
• Symbolism in puraanas – rationale and utility
• Given a concept (like daNDa) in arthasaastra, locate its instances in itihaasa and puraana texts
• Critical comparison of arthasaastra with a contemporary interpretation