Cosmology: -First people to imagine the age of the universe in billions of years (8.64 billion years, we know today that it is ~12-16 billion years old) -Idea of cyclical universe, creation and destruction, similar to the cycle of expansion and retraction in the big bang theory. -Ability to calculate eclipses -First to calculate the earth's circumference -There is an old Sanskrit Sloka (couplet) which is as follows: "Sarva Dishanaam, Suryaha, Suryaha, Suryaha." meaning that there are suns everywhere, Hindus of ancient times were the first to realise that there were other stars like our sun. -Initial ideas about gravity -heliocentric theory Mathematics: -Invented Algebra (which the arabs refined later on) -Invented the decimal system -Invented the zero -Discovery of Taylor series for sin, cos, tan inverse, pi before the Europeans -First usage of negative numbers -Usage of Pythagorean Theorem before Europe -Usage of Quadratic formula before Europe -First to learn how to solve simultaneous equations -Geometry usage (Gameeti in Sanskrit) -Trignometry invention (Trikonamati in Sanskrit) Physics/ Earth Sciences: - First people to theorise about the water cycle - A theory of evolution in terms of rebirth to a higher organism (predecessor for rebirth) - First ideas about the conservation of matter - Primitive ideas of underlying elements of matter before the Greeks - First people to calculate the age of the Earth to 4 billion years (in the fifth century BCE!) - Predecessors of the Heliocentric Theory - Preliminary theories on Gravity - First to realise that clouds were composed of water - Realised that Earth was flattened at the poles and not a perfect sphere - Knowledge of Earth's rotation - Priliminary ideas as to why twilight and moon phases occur (that are consistent with science) Chemistry: - Ability to build an iron pillar that still hasn't rusted 2000 years later - Built a golden statue of Buddha that shines still although it was buried for centuries - Invented the stainless steel - Built some of the strongest weapons/armor in the ancient world - Preliminary ideas about the atom (called anu in Sanskrit) - First to theorise that water can be broken into Hydrogen and Oxygen Life Sciences: - One of the first to study the human anatomy - First surgery - Knowledge of how to cure cataracts (opthomological surgery) - First people to do rhinoplasty (plastic surgery) - Invention of Ayurveda which contains knowledge on thousands of medicinal herbs, and a holistic approach to medicine - Ayurvedic remedies destroy the source rather than cure the disease, so although they worked gradually, they didn't have any side effects. - Ayurveda had knowledge on remedies to psychiatric ailments like Schitzophrenia - Ability to heal bones without castes - Advanced forms of meditation had the ability to alter the rate of metabolism of the yogi, allowing them to survive in the harshness of the Himalayas with little clothing. - Advanced Yoga can even help lower blood pressure, blood sugar. - First people to work on Vetinary Medicine - Preliminary ideas of evolution based on the soul reincarnating as more sophisticated organisms - Knew that trees absorbed water from the roots -Nationalist "In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth. but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing" - Apollonius Tyanaeus - Greek Thinker and Traveller 1st Century AD "India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity... of self-government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all." - Will Durant - American Historian 1885-1981 Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago. -Grant Duff, British Historian of India India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity... of self-government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all. -Will Durant, American Historian Ancient Indian theories lacked an empirical base, but they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics. -A.L. Basham, Australian Indologist If I am asked which nation had been advanced in the ancient world in respect of education and culture then I would say it was - India. -Max Muller German Indologist Indian cities are prosperous and stretch far and wide. There are many guest houses for travellers. There are hospitals providing free medical service for the poor. The viharas and temples are majestic. People are free to choose their occupations. There are no restrictions on the movement of the people. Government officials and soldiers are paid their salaries regularly. People are not addicted to drinks. They shun violence. The administration provided by the Gupta rulers is fair and just. -Chinese traveller Fa Hien, during the reign of Chandragupta II "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!" -Albert Einstein "If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!" --French scholar Romaine Rolland "India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!" -Mark Twain "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border!" -Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA "After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect , none so scientific, none so philosophical and none so spiritual that the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India's roots are stuck and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India's own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it. India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one. " -Dr. Anne Besant " I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc." -Voltaire "The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. The Gita is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the spiritual thoughts ever to have been made." -Aldous Huxley "The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people." -Aldous Huxley " Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived." -Alfred North Whitehead
Sources: ' Water ascends towards the sky in vapors; from the sun it descends in rain, from the rains are born the plants, and from the plants, animals.' (Manusmriti - Book III, sloka 76) We had our own evolution before Darwin: "Ages before Lamarck and Darwin it was held in India that man has passed through 84 lakhs (8,400,000) of birth as plants, animals, as an "inferior species of man" and then as the ancestor of the developed type existing to-day. The theory was not, like modern doctrine of evolution, based wholly on observation and a scientific enquiry into fact but was a rather (as some other matters) an act of brilliant intuition in which observation may also have had some part." The Indians came closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current theories. India developed very early, enduring atomist theories of matter. Possibly Greek atomistic thought was influenced by India, via the Persian civilization. The Rig-Veda, is the first Indian literature to set down ideas resembling universal natural laws. Cosmic law is connected with cosmic light, with gods, and, later, specifically with Brahman. It was the Vedic Aryans... who gave the world some of the earliest philosophical texts on the makeup of matter and the theoretical underpinnings for the chemical makeup of minerals. Sanskrit Vedas from thousands of years before Christ implied that matter could not be created, and that the universe had created itself. Reflecting this, in his Vaiseshika philosophy, Kanada (600 B. C) claimed that elements could not be destroyed. Kanada's life is somewhat a mysterious, but his name is said to mean "one who eats particle or grain" likely referring to his theory that basic particles mix together as the building blocks for all matter. Two, three, four, or more of these elements would combine, just as we conceive of atoms doing. The Greeks would not stumble on this concept for another century." "In India, we see the beginning of theoretical speculation of the size and nature of the earth. Some one thousand years before Aristotle, the Vedic Aryans asserted that the earth was round and circled the sun. A translation of the Rig Veda goes: " In the prescribed daily prayers to the Sun we find..the Sun is at the center of the solar system. ..The student ask, "What is the nature of the entity that holds the Earth? The teacher answers, "Rishi Vatsa holds the view that the Earth is held in space by the Sun." "Two thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center." "Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100 million years." " Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly." (Yajur-veda 6.21). " O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightning." (Yajur-veda 10.19). " The atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, ie. The chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein, verily the scientists know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon." (Atharva-veda 20.41.1-3). Markandeya Purana (54.12) speaks of Earth as being flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator, that is, not perfectly spherical. The Vishnu Purana, in an obvious elaboration of the above quotation from the Aitareya Brahmana, also speaks of antipodes of Earth and indeed implies the existence of Earth’s rotation. In addition, even more elementary concepts like the phases of Moon and the cause of twilight were well understood, as was the fact that the blue sky is nothing but scattered sunlight. (cf. Markandeya Purana, 78.8, or 103.9) The ancient text of Agastya Samhita describes the method of making electric battery, and that water can be split into oxygen and hydrogen. Distance between earth and sun = 108 times sun-diameter Distance between earth and moon = 108 times moon-diameter The science of chemistry in India has been a great sufferer due to the destruction of the Indian ancient literature. The long heavy iron pillar near the Kutub Minar at Delhi, standing in the sunshine and rain for more than about 2000 years without getting rusted, is ample proof that chemistry and metallurgy were sufficiently advanced in ancient India. Similarly, the long and heavy statue of Buddha in the lying pose at Kushinagar near Gorakhpur, which still shines like gold in spite of remaining buried for many centuries, is a challenge to metallurgy. Similarly, many other monuments also hide great chemical secrets. Much of the chemical knowledge is empirical rather then deductive. This is true of modern chemistry as well. Hence simply knowing a few basic principles is not enough to arrive at the process of producing the desired material. The actual method has to be either rediscovered, or may possibly be found in some hidden literature after extensive and minute survey. Note: Hindus made the best swords in the ancient world, they discovered the process of making Ukku steel, called Damascus steel by the rest of the world (Damas meaning water to the Arabs, because of the watery designs on the blade). These were the best swords in the ancient world, the strongest and the sharpest, sharper even than Japanese katanas. Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Chinese imported it. The original Damascus steel-the world's first high-carbon steel-was a product of India known as wootz. Wootz is the English for ukku in Kannada and Telugu, meaning steel. Indian steel was used for making swords and armor in Persia and Arabia in ancient times. Ktesias at the court of Persia (5th c BC) mentions two swords made of Indian steel which the Persian king presented him. The pre-Islamic Arab word for sword is 'muhannad' meaning from Hind. So famous were they that the Arabic word for sword was Hindvi - from Hind. The crucible process could have originated in south India and the finest steel was from the land of Cheras, said K. Rajan, associate professor of archaeology at Tamil University, Thanjavur, who explored a 1st century AD trade centre at Kodumanal near Coimbatore. Rajan's excavations revealed an industrial economy at Kodumanal. Pillar of strength The rustless wonder called the Iron Pillar near the Qutb Minar at Mehrauli in Delhi did not attract the attention of scientists till the second quarter of the 19th century. The inscription refers to a ruler named Chandra, who had conquered the Vangas and Vahlikas, and the breeze of whose valour still perfumed the southern ocean. "The king who answers the description is none but Samudragupta, the real founder of the Gupta empire," said Prof. T.R. Anantharaman, who has authored The Rustless Wonder. Zinc metallurgy travelled from India to China and from there to Europe.
