Digest Number 2281

[Guest guest]

INDIA THE LAND OF ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENCE

http://www.jainkanaknandi.org/speech1.html

 

Just as seed is needed to grow a tree, past civilisation and culture is

needed by every country and society, for we make progress by learning from

past events and traditions. To study only history is to dig the rotten

carcass. Truly, history is that which describes the biography of great

people and provides inspiration. We study history for studying the lives of

the great people, following the ideals of whom we can make our country the

world leader.

India was once a world leader because every branch of modern science existed

here. There are 72 kinds of skills of art, out of which two are most

note-worthy. First is livelihood, which includes business, craft, art,

literature, history and Puranas (religious history). Second is salvation of

being! I shall briefly describe here how India possessed all spiritual and

material knowledge under these 72 skills. First of all I would like to state

that just as all suns, moons, planets, stars and universe are located in the

sky similarly the entire knowledge and science have originated from

omnicients.

According to Einstein “ we can only know the relative truth, the real truth

is known only to the universal observerâ€. So we know only partial truth. No

great scientist or philosopher can know the absolute truth because the

knowledge possessed by him is finite. Just as though the sky is unlimited we

can see only a part of it because our viewing power is limited.

In Indian Culture a Dhanvantri was born in 6075 BC who knew methods of

surgical treatment and chemistry. Ashwinikumar, an Aurveda practitioner,

remained young throughout his life by taking Aurveda medicines. He

administered a medicine on Chyavan Rishi who bacome young in the old age,

this medicine was later on called Chyavanprash. The science of Ayurveda

(medical science) is described in the ancient Indian book Charak Samhita.

Punarvasu Aatreya born in 2800 BC taught methods of Aurvedic surgical

treatment to his disciples. Historians believe that Hippocritish, who was a

Greek, invented Ayurvedic surgical operation technique. But in fact the

science of surgical treatment and other branches of medicines and medical

education existed in India thousands of years before Hippocritish. These

sciences are fully described in the books Charak Samhita, Bagbhatta Samihta,

Yoga Ratnakar etc. Sushrut was the first to popularise the surgical science,

he wrote the book Sushrut Samhita for this purpose. Sushrut used to perform

surgical operations of ear, nose, throat, eyes, etc. He knew plastic surgery

and used to take out flesh from one part and graft it in other part of the

body. He invented 120 different kinds of instruments for surgical operation.

Jeevak was Aurvedic doctor to Gautam Buddha. Once the intestines of a

daughter of a trader were drawn out during vomiting and Jeevak refixed them

by surgical operation. The medical and surgical treatments of animals and

birds were also performed in India.

Adinath had two daughters- Bramhi and Sundari and sons – Bharat and

Bahubali. He founded the system of education to society for the first time.

He imparted education to his daughter before he did to his sons, because he

said that a mother was the first teacher of her children and needed

education first. This shows that education of women is more important than

education of men. But due to slavery in the middle ages we forgot the

education of women and acted contrary. We laid emphasis on education of men

rather than women and took women as a means of pleasure. Adinath used to

teach the two daughters seating them in his lap, Bramhi in the right and

Sundari in the left lap. He taught language and script to Bramhi and

arithmetic to Sundari. The script taught to Brahmi later on came to be known

as Brahmi Script. Brahmi wrote from left to right and this became the style

of Bramhi Script. Sundari wrote numbers seating in the left lap and hence

numbers had descending value from right to left. It we write 123, 1 is in

hundred place, 2 in ten and 3 in unit place. It has been said,

 

 

 

that the progress of number is from right to left.

Adinath invented grammar for the language he taught. The oldest written

grammar available now is due to Panini written in 500 BC. The invention of

zero and decimal system were also made in India, showing that science and

mathematics were highly developed in India. 1200 years back one Indian

scientist took mathematical astronomy to Arab from where it went to Greek

and then to Europe.

Nagarjun was a famous Indian Scientist of chemistry in ninth century and he

wrote a book on chemistry. Acharya Mahaveera wrote a book “Ganit Saar

Sangraha†(Mathematical Digest) which described the methods for finding

smallest common factor, largest common factor etc. in mathematics and

algebra. Brahmagupta born in 998 AD wrote a book containing mathematics,

algebra, trigonometry and value of pi (¶). Bhaskaracharya discovered the

principle of gravitation 500 years before Newton. He said that earth has

power of attraction and therefore all heavy item located in sky are

attracted towards it with a force.

 

 

 

Brahmgupta found only square root of pi (¶) but Bhaskaracharya found its

value as 3.14166, which remarkably agrees with the value now known. The law

of buoyancy and volume formula of submerged bodies given by Archemidis was

known to Abhaya Kumar 3000 years back. Abhaya Kumar who was the son and

Chief Minister of King Shrenik invented the volume formula for finding

weight of elephant for saving the lives of poor Brahmins. King Shrenik

annoyed with Brahmins asked them to find the weight of the elephant, an

impossible task at that time. Abhaya Kumar came to their help and asked them

to put the elephant on a boat. He said when the boat sinks put a mark at the

level to which it sinks. Now take out the elephant and load the boat with

stones till it sinks to the same level. Weigh these stones and their weight

would be equal to the weight of the elephant. The solar principle was given

by Bhaskaracharya in the books Sidhant Shiromani and Lilavati. Lilavati also

described algebra.

We are told that the aeroplane was invented by Right Brothers. But it is

known that Pushpak Viman (Air craft) was built in pre-Mahabharata period.

According to Hindu Mythology Pushpak Viman was built by Brahma and was given

to deity Kuber. Ravana got the Viman from Kuber after defeating him in a

battle. Pushpak Viman was a huge craft 12 km long and 6 km wide

accommodating thousands of men, weapons, arms, elephants and horses and had

several other facilities like kitchen, gymnasium, park and water pool.

Aryabhatta born in 476 AD gave the Arya Principle. He widely used ‘Zero’

which had been invented earlier. He describe the terms sinØ and cosØ of

trigonometry. Aryabhatta also said that the earth is round and rotates on

its axis. Aryabhatta II born in 950 AD wrote a book Mahasidhant (Great

Principles) which dealt with mathematics and astronomy. A society similar to

Royal Society of today was founded 1500 years back the membership of which

was open only to eminent scientists. The Navratna (nine jewels) of King

Vikramditya were its members. One of them was Varaha Mihir who wrote the

book Vrahat Samhita (Great Collection) which had description of science of

seasons, agricultural science etc. Thus India had scientists and teachers in

all fields of knowledge who made scientific, religious and philosophical

inventions thereby making India a world leader.