Before writing came into being, knowledge was verbally transferred from one generation to another. Experiences and observations were added randomly but mostly knowledge remained static and lost its utility with the changing environment.

Writing brought a radical change as knowledge could now be recorded. However, knowledge was monopolised by those who could read and write. The educated classes who became empowered could now interpret religion as well as perform bureaucratic work.

The Brahmins in India preferred to confine religious and secular knowledge to their own class while the lower classes were denied access to knowledge and learning. Bhagat Kabir, one of the leaders of Bhagti movement, condemned knowledge gained from books and instead lauded knowledge based on observation and experience.

In most religions, knowledge was confined to the clergy and society relied on religious rituals performed by them. In case of Christianity, Latin was the language of the church and incomprehensible to the common man. The Church did not permit the Bible to be translated into other languages and when it was translated into English for the very first time, it was considered a crime to possess and read the Bible in English. It was only after the Reformation movement that the Bible could be translated into other languages.

In the subcontinent, when Shah Walliullah translated the Quran into Persian and his grandson translated it into Urdu, both confronted hostility of the clerics.  When religious knowledge became accessible to people, the monopoly of the clergy and ulema ended.

A similar attitude prevailed among other professional classes who restrict the knowledge of their profession to themselves and their family. As a result, the Indian society may have lost indigenous medical skills and knowledge.

For centuries, silk manufacturing was kept secret by Chinese weavers as it was their vital source of income and they wanted to maintain their monopoly.

During the Industrial Revolution, technicians in European countries who wanted to learn skills were discouraged by the English. Similarly, when the Japanese were planning to emulate western technology, they were prohibited from entering European factories. This is how knowledge was always guarded, but those who were determined to gain knowledge surpassed all difficulties and hardships to achieve their goal.

Knowledge played an important role in the downfall of the East and rise of the West. As it became stagnant in the East, the society failed to advance. In the West, there was thirst for knowledge which forced the society to search and learn. The Renaissance inspired Italian intellectuals to search new sources of knowledge and to get rid of the Medieval Period and its religiosity. They searched for Roman and Greek manuscripts in old monasteries in order to understand secular learning, developed the art of editing and the discipline of Philology.

When Constantinople was conquered by the Turks in 1453, some scholars escaped to Italy where the Greek manuscripts which they brought with them were translated and published.

The East was the other source of knowledge for the West. First by trade and later through political domination, the West gained access to eastern knowledge. In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt and brought shiploads of scholars and archaeologists alongwith the army, to discover the ancient period of Egypt. It was the result of his adventure that hieroglyphic writing or the ancient Egyptian script was deciphered.

Later, European archaeologists deciphered the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia which revealed information about the civilisation. In 1778, the Asiatic Society of Bengal was founded which took upon itself the task of publishing the classical literature of Sanskrit and Persian. The opening of trade routes to China provided opportunities to learn the ancient Indian and Chinese culture, languages and literature. They were  inspired with the Islamic civilisation and its achievements and  eastern knowledge became a part of the curriculum in western universities.

Based on Roman, Greek and eastern knowledge, scholars produced original work which contributed in modernising Europe. Since then, western universities have created knowledge and maintained their domination over the world.

In the modern age, all nations are free to acquire knowledge; armed with which, a nation can control its own destiny. But those who rely on the knowledge of others remain subordinate and backward.