The ancient research method ,at least in Iran, has been mainly based upon the deductive approach and/or via the archival method.For example,The bookkeeping and accounting system of the old Persian nation ,has  been extracted through reading the existing  mud tablets .These tablets were written in Elamite language and has been read by some archaeologist experts in Elamite language and then translated in English. Some of them have been then translated from English to Farsi. The mud-tablets' information has been extracted via the  "Content Analysis "technique.

Thank you Mohammad. Do you think it is possible to deduce, from the available literature, the methods the Persians used to develop their bookkeeping and accounting systems? Even knowing what I do about Indigenous methodologies, the knowledge structure of the Persians may have been completely different and even unknowable for anybody not living in that culture at the time. I am asking because you are in a better cultural position to answer.

One fairly well documented medieval “non-Western” discussion of research methods and outcomes concerns the painstaking attempts during the 9th century CE to verify the texts and provenance of  ‘hadiths’  {hadiz}, (i.e. the recorded and transmitted sayings of the prophet Muhammad, often including some notes of the context in which he is supposed to have made his statement or comment or action).  One leading Muslim scholar, Bukhari, spent more than a decade travelling across the Islamic world of his time, listening to recognised teachers, enquiring closely into the remembered words and their chain of transmitters, and setting a high standard for acceptance of the ‘soundness’ of each saying – for example, Bukhari insisted that each transmitter should be a person of known good character; and there were other tough standards to be met, by which the fully reliable hadiths could be distinguished from those that were possible but had flaws, and those that were weak and not to be relied upon.  Several other well-known scholars of the same period made similar collections, and used various criteria by which the reported sayings could be evaluated, compared with one another, harmonised (more or less readily) with the transmitted text of the Qur’an, and so forth.

       (I’m reluctant to write anything further, as the whole field of study of the Hadith(s) is somewhat controversial, and has engendered a lot of argument, sometimes conducted with restraint but sometime very bitterly, between various schools of Islam, and between some western critical scholars and the Muslim world.  I am not a Muslim, and I have studied various collections of hadiths only through translation from Arabic to to English, with a view to collecting some that seem to have bearing on responses to impairment, disability, child-rearing, sign language, and similar topics in the Middle East.  Even from this peculiar viewpoint or interest, a good deal of highly interesting information could be gleaned – and this ‘evidence’ can be weighed up and compared with other sources of historical documentation concerning responses to disability, etc. The aim is not to suggest that Muhammad was specially kind, nor that he had ‘medieval’ attitudes, or would be more approved, or less approved from the point of view of 20th century disability campaigners or UN declarations of ‘rights’ – but simply to gather a body of information that has been transmitted within the Islamic world, and is still being discussed today, and taken as a form of guidance by millions of people).

      Even to suggest some literature would be to appear to ‘take sides’.  But, for example,  even the Wikipedia article on ‘Hadith’ is surprisingly informative, sketching some of the main features, and controversies, giving references  to a balance of ‘high’ Islamic perspectives as well as the main ‘critical’ western sources, with many links.  A good deal of information is open full text online.  When looking at the efforts made by the scholars of the 9th century, I think one can discern a strength of mind and purpose, and a determination to set high standards of what counts as ‘evidence’ and to maintain those standards (in face of ever-present threats to personal health and safety – travel in those days was a hazardous business, and questioning the beliefs and received teaching of Islam was similarly hazardous), all of which would be considered admirable in our own times.  (Of course, there were also a lot of teachers and students who were not up to such standards, or who carelessly muddled in a lot of their own opinions, as is the case today in every country!)

Thank you M. I read this yesterday but didnt know how to reply as there is so much here to think about. This is exactly the type of lead I was hoping to find. While Indigenous research methods have a constant struggle with validation in a Western research context, I did not consider this enquiry would lead to similar issues between Islamic thought and Western research methods. Making my head spin a bit.

Dear Reece.Thank you for your question and reply. With respect to your new inquiry,I should point out that the historical development and  sources of human being's knowlege for conducting research has been 1) personal experience,2) utilizing the scientists and philosophers' thoughts ,religion texts,religious leaders' statements (Hadiths,various texts,etc.),3) deductive reasoning ,4) inductive reasoning and 5) scientific approach. So today when  a researcher attempts to conduct a research ,a few or even all of the preceding approaches can be utilized.Thus,if you have data or some knowlege about the culture  within the domain of your study,I belive  it is possible to deduce and extract relevant information via a research mehod such as Content Analysis, from the available literature,in order to analyze  the methods that Persians adopted to establish their bookkeeping and accounting systems. This can be done,because stiil ther are a lot of mud tablets left from that era in which from them ,the accounting and bookkeeping of that era can be explored. 

In fact,the history of accounting in old nation of Iran (Achaemind Era) shows that foreign archaeologists who were familiar with Elamite language were the first researchers to report the strucure and foundation of the Persian  accountig and bookkeeping system of that era.Hence,to do a research, it is not necessary to be from that culture,although it is much easier and more fruifull to be in the culture of the study.

Very interesting question! I appreciate your broad thinking. I believe, you are aware that Sanskrit is the classical language of India and one of the oldest ancient languages. Ancient Indian authors have followed certain research methods in creating a vast treasure house of knowledge. For the past couple of years, I am serious about this topic. You may be interested to read my paper on ancient research method called 'Tantrayukti,' which offers some pointers in this direction. However, the paper is just an attempt only. Link is given below. Please let me know your response.

Thanks

Article The Role of Tantrayuktis in Indian Research Methodology

Hi Jsr, thank you very much for attempting to write this paper. It was inspiring. As an Indigenous researcher, I also find it very challenging to explain non-Western research methods from within a western research framework. Not everything can be discovered using western research, which is what seems to make non-western research methods so fascinating. I can certainly see an Indian research method evolving in your work, I particularly like the concept of samsaya. I noticed there are few references in your paper to other researchers working in your field. Can you tell please me if there are many Indian researchers working in this field?

I am happy that you liked the content of the paper. Samsaya always carries an ambiguity with it. Sometimes, it acquires the state of falsity. In other words, instead of a single cause that produces single effect, it brings forth two independent causes that may produce a single effect. That is contrary to acquire a definite experience/perception. Most of the works cited in my paper are in the form of published books. Prof. W.K. Lele and Prof. K.C. Dash of Puri have dealt upon the current subject. Apart from these two, all remaining references are direct citations in support of establishing the technique of Tantrayukti research method. As much as I know, Prof. Dash is still active and working in this research area. But unfortunately, I do not have any of his direct contact.

Yes, you said it, non-western research methods cannot be easily explained using the western research model. In that context, either the west has to realize the importance of such things or the east continue to struggle more to bring such techniques to the attention of the elite in the west!

I agree wit Jsr (and I understand research as a social activity, the accepted ideas varies among time and space). You need a good theory to explain why the lenses which you utilise to define research are necessary good or applicable to other societies and time

Sir,

In Ayurveda, the following research methods are also mentioned for the fact finding analysis.

1. Aptopadesha (Authoritative instruction)

2. Pratyaksha (Perseptual /examination by sensory organs)

3. Anumana (Inferential)

4. Upamana (Comparision)

5. Yukti (Logical thinking)

Details on these can be found in Ancient Ayurvedic works like Caraka samhita, Susruta samhita, etc.

There have been some interesting and welcome responses on this question. I would like to add two points.#  The first reflects on a possible dichotomy between 'the East' and 'the West'. Certainly, there are some major differences in 'conceptual worlds' -- and these may be exacerbated when debate takes place entirely through the English language. Yet I would like to quote some appreciative words, relayed by the extraordinary German linguist and polymath G.W. Leitner in 1882,*  based on the somewhat maverick British clergyman William Adam's detailed reports to the British Indian Government from 1835 to 1838, on Vernacular Education in Bengal (which have since been reprinted several times, and can also be found open online).**

    Mr Adam (1796-1881), who studied several Indian languages in preparation for mission activities, met a considerable number of Indian pandits and gurus during the course of his later travels in the 1830s, and he expressed some opinions about the quality of their education and mental processes. Leitner, compiling similarly vast educational survey reports and materials in the Punjab 50 years later, found it worthwhile to reprint some of Adam's comments, which evidently corresponded with some of his own experience of the better Indian teachers:

                "The humbleness and simplicity of their characters, their dwellings, and their apparel forcibly contrast with the extent of their acquirements and the refinement of their feelings. I saw men not only unpretending, but plain and simple in their manners, and although seldom, if ever, offensively coarse, yet reminding me of the very humblest classes of English and Scottish peasantry, living constantly half naked, and realising in this respect the descriptions of savage life; inhabiting huts which, if we connect moral consequences with physical causes, might be supposed to have the effect of stunting the growth of their minds, or in which only the most contracted minds might be supposed to have room to dwell, and yet several of these men are adepts in the subtleties of the profoundest grammar of what is probably the most philosophical language in existence; not only practically skilled in the niceties of its usage, but also in the principles of its structure, familiar with all the varieties and applications of their national laws and literature, and indulging in the abstrusest and most interesting disquisitions in logical and ethical philosophy. They are in general shrewd, discriminating, and mild in their demeanour. The modesty of their character does not consist in abjectness to a supposed or official superior; but is equally shown to each other. I have observed some of the worthiest speak with unaffected humility of their own pretensions to learning, with admiration of the learning of a stranger and countryman who was present, with high respect of the learning of a townsman who happened to be absent, and with just praise of the learning of another townsman after he had retired, although in his presence they were silent respecting his attainments."

     *  Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1882) History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab since annexation and in 1882. Reprinted at Lahore: Republican Books. (See Part 1, p. 87, for Leitner's quotation from Adam).

   ** Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Bihar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838, with a brief view of its past and present conditions, by the Rev. J. Long. (Home Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1868). {Leitner quoted from the 1835 Report. There are several modern reprints.  Adam’s Reports are also searchable full text online, in web archives, having been scanned with ‘optical character recognition’ – which has some flaws in transcription, but is mostly readable.  The sub-heading “Philosophers in huts”, on pp. 119-120, may be googled to locate the context.}

     Thus some talented Westerners, who had made intensive studies of education and teaching across North India up to 180 years ago, were willing to put on the record their strong appreciation of the better representatives of 'Eastern' learning and reasoning, at both rural and urban levels. This is not to suggest that Indian professors of Sanskrit philosophy in the 2010s still wander about in dhotis or live in mud huts! But it is common knowledge that academic salaries in India are pitifully small; and many of the men who now bear onward the torch of philosophical and ethical knowledge to which Adam and Leitner refer, must expect very little reward in terms of money and possessions, though some may be held in great respect in their vicinity, and a few may be honoured more widely.

 # {A second point I hope to post separately, quite soon}

 m. miles 

I intended, at an earlier point in this discussion, to mention the translation work by Dominik Wujastyk, “The Roots of Ayurveda. Selections from Sanskrit medical writings”, 1998, Penguin Books India, xvi + 389 pp., which conveys many passages from Charaka, Sushruta, Kasyapa, Vaghbata, etc, in comprehensible English (and at modest price, published in India) -- in particular referring to his Introduction (pp. 1-38), where he tackles quite frankly some problems of the transition and translation from ancient Sanskrit medical lore to modern English to be read mainly by people with little or no knowledge of antiquity;  and he admits that the texts actually used by most translators have weaknesses, since really good critically-edited texts from a wide manuscript base are not yet available; thus “Our impression of the tradition is partial, fuzzy, out of focus” (p. 21).  (Wujastyk was Britain’s leading ‘medical Sanskritist’, having obtained a degree in physics before starting afresh on Sanskrit and writing his PhD thesis about a Sanskrit commentary on the work of the great master grammarian Panini; and has since widened his fields in a post in Vienna, and is just about to take up a prestigious new chair in Canada. He was also external examiner of my own phd thesis on responses to disability in Indian history, and kindly overlooked  many gaffes and howlers in my amateurish swing through the earlier centuries of that work!)

      From there, I intended to mention the publications of the Needham Institute, in particular the series  “Science and Civilisation in China”, initiated by Joseph Needham with many colleagues and collaborators over the past 50-odd years, making available to the English-speaking world a vast range of ancient and medieval knowledge accumulated in that great civilisation, and contributing largely toward putting China ‘on the map’ of the world’s heritage of useful knowledge.

     But along the way, I found I had made a mistake: I had thought that Reece George, the initiator of this discussion, was at the University of Newcastle, England; whereas if I had paid more attention to the topics listed among his interests, I might have figured out that he is actually at the University of Newcastle in Australia!  I looked him up in Google Scholar  {I hope there is no taboo, on this list, on checking out contributors!} and found that he has recently been researching ways of using modern IT (mainly mobile phones) to improve maternal care for Indigenous Australian women; and is further engaged in finding ways to collaborate with Indigenous Australians (also known as Aboriginal People) in presenting their cultural heritage via modern media.  This of course goes a long way to accounting for George’s present question, which is based not on some remote ‘academic curiosity’, but has a very practical humanitarian basis.  [I would recommend R. George’s  “The Mesij Project” article, which I found via Google Scholar.]

     Learning of this background, I felt an immediate affinity with Dr George, because my own studies on disability, and the history of responses toward disabled people across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, originated in the 12 years my wife and I spent in Pakistan, developing resources for service provision in that country. The need for more appropriate services, based within the conceptual worlds of ordinary people in Pakistan, and building on the cultural heritage of South Asia – and then sharing some knowledge and design from wider Asian and Western sources with our Pakistani colleagues on a basis of mutual respect and recognition  (rather than assuming that they were ‘starting from scratch’, while we westerners possessed all the useful knowledge!) – has become more apparent with every year I’ve spent studying non-western histories.  I therefore wish to congratulate Dr George on taking up this topic, and assure him that  (i)  there is a vast field of documentation ‘out there’;  and equally or more importantly,  (ii)  a fair amount of it is not just arm-breakingly heavy tomes in difficult languages --  it can be captured by the combined efforts of scholars and front-line practitioners, and made useful in celebrating the existing knowledge of women, men and children who (not unlike the ‘philosophers in huts’ celebrated in my previous post) might give a first impression of being ‘savages’ living in the depths of deprivation, and yet might also, if one has the patience and humility to listen to them and learn something of their cultural heritage, turn out to have some lessons on human living for the world that has built modern computers but often seems to use them in worthless and unethical ways. {And also for writing jaw-breakingly long sentences, I must admit!}

best regards,  m. miles

Though I am not a specialist on ancient science, as Egyptologist I can recommend some references for medicine and other fields, as, for instance, J. F. Nunn, 'Ancient Egyptian Medicine', where you can easily find the medical procedures and knowledge of ancient Egyptians. You can also find some remarks in:

-N. Baum, "L'organisation du règne végétal dans l'Égypte ancienne...", in: S. Aufrère (ed.), 'Encyclopédie religieuse de l'univers végétal de l'Égypte ancienne I', Montpellier, pp. 421-443, 1999.

-N. Beaux, 'Le cabinet de curiosites de Thoutmosis III. Plantes et animaux du 'jardin botanique' de Karnak', Leuven, 1990.

-S. Uljas, "Linguistic Conciousness", in: UEE, available at the website: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0rb1k58f 

Of course, some interesting remarks are avalaible in the classical work of C. Lévi-Strauss, 'La pensée sauvage'.

I hope this can be useful for you.

Regards

Wow, I didn't check this question for a few days and just noticed the new responses. Many thanks, I will find time to provide a more thoughtful reply.

The responses have been intellectually overwhelming. Its still difficult to reply with a thoughtful response without actually starting to read the references and then to start writing a paper. There is already a depth of references available in the answers. My sincere appreciation for taking the time to share your knowledge. Thank you M. Miles for the kind words, I believe we have much in common.

It depends how you're defining 'indigenous' here , but if you mean precolonial in general, then in Muslim-majority countries historically, you can look into the hadeeth sciences and seerah sciences (which was a field concerned with verifying the historicity and authenticity of events and speech linked to Prophet Muhammad), and the fields of comparative fiqh/usool al deen--which was a sort of critical literature review in deriving the 'best practices' for a particular jurisprudence issue and how to derive fundamental principles from a body of evidence respectively. (Note they didn't call these fields 'sciences', the arabic term is علم،previously understood as knowledge in general-metaphysical and empirical, but postcolonially limited to positivist science postsecularization, although I can see why inductive reasoning was a common theme even pre-colonially). Ibn Al Haytham's work was like the Francis Bacon of the Muslim world vis a vis empirical science, with a 'Popperish' skepticism of of scientific theory as a finished product. See the 'knowledge' of qiyas for a methodology on determining whether two case studies were similar enough to utilize same principles/solutions, and the 4 levels of mantiq (Islamic logic) as instruments for measuring data reliability. See Joseph Progler and the decolonizing academia initiative he's involved in for more international coverage of these issues. There's also Linda Smith, Mignolio, and the fields of decolonizing methodologies, as well as the Critical Indigenous Methodology Handbook for more comprehensive texts in this direction. The references of my dissertation will have a list to start you off.

Alhacen used experimentation and mathematics to obtain the results of his book (Optics).

This wise wrote his work towards the year 1021. It has been declared that his place of origin is the current Iraq.

For TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), please read

The key is the Qi flowing. The main balance is yin and yang, five elements.

The world's oldest research method, in my opinion, could be the "Trial and error Method". It would be the mother of all the other research methods.

My field is accounting. The ancient research methodology in accounting, which has been used by old nations such as Chines, Egyptians ,Iranians ,etc., is Archival Study. In this method, we have to read the old clay documents and extract the content of the research questions among them. Hence, a researcher should be familiar with the language of that time and archival research methodology.

Hi Reece, I would like to contribute a media-philosophically intoned comment to the discussion you have initiated.

As is well known, in the western cultural sphere, the initial foundations of philosophy and science are first and foremost traced back to the Greeks. In the antiquity the turn from "mythological ideas" (mythos) to "logical thinking" (logos) took place, which can be dated philosophically and theoretically approximately in the time between the 6th and the 5th century before the beginning of our era. What is hardly recognized and considered in problem orientations in the history of philosophy and science is that this change from "myth" to "logos" - as Eric A. Havelock impressively emphasizes in the media-theoretical tradition of Herbert Marshall McLuhan - could (also) decisively be owed to a cultural-technical caesura, the literal revolution in Greece between the 7th and the 4th century before Christ:

"A special theory of Greek literalism includes the thesis that sensuality and understanding are connected and that the nature of this connection changed with the transition from Greek orality to Greek literalism, and with it thinking itself. Since then, this thinking has been different from the oral mentality."

In the social evolution the type of rational argumentation according to intersubjectively comprehensible and verifiable criteria asserted itself - even if only in a long-term perspective. The "Socratic dialogues", which were to retain their effectiveness above all for the traditions of European thought, stand as a symbol for this. The Greeks, in the form of the "critical awakening of the logos in the sense of critical thinking" (Wilhelm Nestle), discovered and promoted, even cultivated, the cultural function and relevance of 'knowledge'. Knowledge and science, characterized as positive, advanced to cultural ideals, were and are regarded as models, especially in Europe, but of course not only there. As such, they have been and continue to be adapted and continuated - right up to the present day.

However, in order to be able to understand the possibly media-induced structure of relations between philosophy and science(s), their social structures and semantics, in the movement of thought, I have to expect that both topos, myth and logos - according to their beginnings in antiquity - were not distinguished, but were put into one - tertium non datur. Successively, the rediscursivation from a religious, metaphorical-tropical and narrative dominated way of thinking to a secular, terminological and argumentative way of thinking took place. The knowledge codified until then as socio-culturally authoritative, represented by the first (poetic) poets like Homer and Hesiod around 800 to 700 BC, was discredited as doxa by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle: That handed-down cultural knowledge turns out to be merely untested, mere 'opinion' and 'belief'.

The doxa is confronted with the episteme as a counterpart, as a new standardized form of knowledge: Episteme succeeds as supposedly and/ or actually proven, tested, since qua ratio arguing knowledge. This turnaround, viewed from the logic of observation, has been summed up by Michel Foucault when he states, "one day truth had shifted away from the ritualized, effective, and just act of statement and toward statement itself: its meaning, its form, its object, its referential reference." Corresponding to this, a central task is the avoidance of errors; therefore, methodology in particular focuses on identifying the causes of 'misidentifications'.

In the current discourse on (media) philosophy, the question of the epistemic as well as the historical beginnings of medial thinking is a self-stabilizing factor. Above all, the reference to the cited Havelockian thesis proves to be a recurring leitmotif starting point. In the detailed thematization and problematization of the (non-) connection between Greek literality and occidental metaphysical thinking, an intrinsic value of the current discourse on media philosophy is configured, which is anticipated again and again. However, the causal nexus

between literal revolution and the mediality of logos is controversially discussed.

Human beings have two kinds of life observers: chord (tonal) observers and non-chord (atonal) observers, who respectively observe two forms of life existence: chord (quantum spectrum, string) and organism (cell, molecule, etc.), and life is a two-layer existence of the two.

There is a chord system in the human body, discovered by chord observation (self-observation), in the form of: meridian (chakra) system; The twelve meridians have the characteristic frequency of stimulated response, and the distribution is Equal Temperament. It is chord phenomenon with music, painting, quantum, string, etc., which can be expressed by chord mathematics.

The meridians (chakras) are the chord (quantum spectrum) expressions of life and self (Atman), which relate to the nature of life and self (Atman).

Preprint Chord Biology

"Trial and error" can be one of the ancient research methods.