Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose – the scientist who brought the ancient Indian wisdom of spiritualism into the domain of science. This was the predominant image of the Acharya in colonial India.

In post-colonial India, J C Bose is remembered as the first of the Indian scientists who attempted to build up an Indian structure of science – as the propounder of ‘alternative sciences’ whose idiom sounds flat and out of date today – at best, a flawed genius. Bose is almost a ‘forgotten scientist’ who failed to create a tradition of his own. ‘Bose – the acharya’ is no more an idiom than his spiritual statements are believed to be.

Those who hail Bose and those who denounce him are equally fascinated by the quote cited above. These were the concluding lines of Bose's scientific lecture delivered at the Royal Society, London in 1900. Scriptural citation in the peroration of a scientific lecture is not a common practice. Hence, it is often held that Bose's science was not science alone.