The substance which seems to have evoked the most
scientific and technical interest in the Britain of the 1790s was the sample of
wootz steel by Dr. Scott to Sir
J. Banks, the President of the British Royal Society. The sample went through
thorough examination and analysis by several experts. It was found in general to match the best
steel then available in Britain,
and according to one user, "purpose of fine cutlery, and particularly for
all edge instruments used for surgical purposes."
After its being sent as a sample in 1794 and its
examination and analysis in late 1794 and early 1795, it began to be much in
demand, and some 18 years later the afore-quoted user of steel stated, "I
have to use it for many purposes. If a better steel is offered to me, I will
gladly attend to it; but the steel of India is
decidedly the best I have yet met with."
Till well into the
19th Britain produced very
little of the steel it required and imported it from Sweden, Russia, etc. Partly, Britain lag in
steel production was due to the inferior quality of its iron ore, and the fuel,
i.e. coal, it used. Possibly such lag also resulted from Britain's
backwardness in the comprehensive of processes and theories on which the
production of good steel depended.
Whatever may have been the understanding in the other
European countries regarding the details of the processes employed in the
manufacture of Indian steel, the British, at the time wootz was examined and
analysed by them, concluded, "that it is made directly from the ore and
consequently it has never been in the state of wrought iron." Its
qualities were thus ascribed to the quality of the ore from which it came and
these qualities were considered to have little to do with the techniques and
processes employed by the Indian manufacturers. In fact it was felt that the
various cakes of wootz were of uneven texture and the cause of such
imperfection and defects was thought to lie in the crudeness of the techniques
employed.
It was only some three decades later that this view was
revised. An earlier revision in fact, even when confronted with contrary
evidence as was made available by other observers of the Indian techniques and
processes, was intellectual impossibility. "That iron could be converted
into cast steel by fusing it in a close vessel in contact with carbon" was
yet to be discovered, and it was only in 1825 that a British manufacturer
"took out a patent for converting iron into steel by exposing it to the
action of caruretted hydrogen gas in a close vessel, at a very high
temperature, by which means the process of conversion is completed in a few
hours, while by the old method, it was the work of from 14 to 20
days."
According to J. M.
Heath, founder of the Indian Iron and Steel Company, and later prominently
connected with the development of steel making in Sheffield, the Indian process
appeared to combine both of the above early 19th century British discoveries.
He observed: "Now it appears to me
that the Indian process combines the principles of both the above described
methods. On elevating the temperature of the crucible containing pure
iron, and dry wood, and green leaves, an abundant evolution of carburetted
hydrogen gas would take place from the vegetable matter, and as its escape
would be prevented by the luting at the mouth of the crucible, it would be
retained in contact with the iron, which, at a high temperature, appears from
(the above mentioned patent process) to have a much greater affinity for
gaseous than for conrete carbon; this would greatly shorten the operation, and
probably at a much lower temperature than were the iron in contact with
charcoal powder."
And he added:
"In no other way can I account for the fact that iron is converted into
cast steel by the natives of India, in two hours and half, with an application
of heat, that, in this country, would be considered quite inadequate to
produce such an effect; while at Sheffield it requires at least four hours to
melt blistered steel in wind-furnaces of the best construction, although the
crucibles in which the steel is melted, are at a white heat when the metal is
put into them, and in the Indian process, the crucibles are put into the
furnace quite cold."
(source: Indian
Science and Technology in the 18th Century - By Dharampal).
Dr. Ray says: “Coming to comparatively later times, we
find that the Indians were noted for their skill in tempering of steel. The
blades of Damascus were held in high esteem, but
it was from India
that the Persians, and, through them, the Arabs learnt the secret of the
operation. The wrought iron pillar close to the Kutub Minar, near Delhi, which
weighs ten tons and is some 1,500 years old, the huge iron girders at Puri, the
ornamental gates of Somnath, and the 24 feet wrought iron gun at Nurvar, are
monuments of a bygone art, and bear silent but eloquent testimony to the
marvelous metallurgical skill attained by the Hindus.”
Regarding the iron pillar, James Fergusson (1808-1886) says: “It has not, however, been yet
correctly ascertained what its age really is. There is an inscription upon it,
but without a date. From the form of its alphabet, James Prinsep ascribed it to
the third or fourth century.” Fergusson continues, “Taking A.D 400 as a mean
date – and it certainly is not far from the truth – it opens our eyes to an
unsuspected state of affairs, to find the Hindus at that age capable of forging
a bar of iron larger than any that have been forged even in Europe up to a very
late date, and not frequently even now. As we find them, however, a few centuries
afterwards using bars as long as this lat in roofing the porch of the temple at
Kanaruc, we must now believe that they were much more familiar with the use of
this metal than they afterwards became. It is almost equally startling to find
that after an exposure to wind and rain for fourteen centuries it is unrusted,
and the capital and inscription are as clear and as sharp now as when put up
fourteen centuries ago. There is no mistake about the pillar being of pure
iron. General Alexander Cunningham had a bit of it analyzed in the School of Mines here by Dr. Percy. Both found it
to be pure malleable iron without any alloy.”
Mrs. Charlotte Manning says: “The superior quality of Hindu steel has long been
known, and it is worthy of record that the celebrated Damascus
blades, have been traced to the workshops of Western India.”
She adds: “Steel manufactured in Kutch enjoys at the present day a reputation
not inferior to that of the steel made in Glasgow and Sheffield.” “It is
probable that ancient India possessed iron more than sufficient for her wants,
and that the Phoenicians fetched iron with other merchandise from India.”
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 400-404).
Iron suspension
bridges came from Kashmir in
India. Papermaking was commonplace in
India and China. European explorers depended heavily on Indian ship builders.
(source: Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By
Dick Teresi p. 326).
***
Predicting earthquakes
- was dealt with in detail in the 32nd
chapter of Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita.
The greatness of philosopher, mathematician
and astronomer Varahamihira (505-587 AD) is widely acknowledged. The
Ujjain-born scholar was one of the Navaratnas in the court of King Vikramaditya
Chandragupta II. His works, Pancha-Siddhantika (The Five Astronomical
Canons) and Brihat Samhita (The Great Compilation), are considered
seminal texts on ancient Indian astronomy and astrology.
What has astonished scientists and Vedic scholars and has
renewed interest in the Brihat Samhita, are references to unusual
"earthquake clouds" as precursor to earthquakes.
The 32nd chapter of the manuscript is devoted to signs of
earthquakes and correlates earthquakes with cosmic and planetary influences,
underground water and undersea activities, unusual cloud formations, and the
abnormal behaviour of animals.
Varahamihira categorises earthquakes into different kinds
and says that the indications of one particular kind will appear in the form of
unusual cloud formations a week before its occurrence: "Its indications
appearing a week before are the following: Huge clouds resembling blue lily,
bees and collyrium in colour, rumbling pleasantly, and shining with flashes of
lightning, will pour down slender lines of water resembling sharp clouds. An
earthquake of this circle will kill those that are dependent on the seas and
rivers; and it will lead to excessive rains." 1500 years ago a celebrated
astronomer-astrologer-mathematician sought to study earthquakes on the Indian
subcontinent. He drew correlations between terrestrial earth, the atmosphere
and planetary influences. He described earth as a mass floating on water and
spoke of unusual cloud formations and abnormal animal behaviour as precursors to
earthquakes."
"All in all, this should be accepted as
nothing but astounding." (source: A temblor from ancient Indian treasure trove? - Times of India 4/28/01).
Knowledge of diamond and the origin of its many connations starts in India, where it was first mined. The word most generally used for diamond in Sanskrit is translitereated as vajra, "thunderbolt," and indrayudha, "Indra's weapon." Because Indra is the warrior god from Vedic scriptures, the foundation of Hinduism, the thunderbolt symbol indicates much about the Indian conception of diamond. The flash of lightning is a suitable comparison for the light thrown off by a fine diamond octahedron and a diamond's indomitable hardness. Early descriptions of vajra date to the 4th century BCE which is supported by archaeological evidence. By that date diamond was a valued material.
Writings: The earliest known reference to diamond is a Sanskrit manuscript, the Arthasastra ("The Lesson of Profit") by Kautiliya, a minister to Chandragupta of the Mauryan dynasty in northern India. The work is dated from 320-296 before the Common Era (BCE). Kautiliya states "(a diamond that is) big, heavy, capable of bearing blows, with symmetrical points, capable of scratching (from the inside) a (glass) vessel (filled with water), revolving like a spindle and brilliantly shining is excellent. That (diamond) with points lost, without edges and defective on one side is bad." Indians recognized the qualities of a fine diamond octahedron and valued it.
(source: American Museum of Natural History).
The Ratnapradeepika deals with diamonds, precious stones and pearls. The word Vajrah suggests diamonds in general, and the properties in general. The Maharshis such as Shounaka have divided diamonds into 4 classes - Khanija, Kulaja, Shilaja and Kritaka. It also deals with the manufacturing of artificial diamonds. The salts of alum, borax and ooshara are regarded as the best ones for this purpose.
(source: Diamonds, Mechanisms, Weapons of War and Yoga Sutras - By G. R. Joyser International Academy of Sanskrit Research. p. 1-14).
Pliny, the Roman writer (AD 23-79) calls India "the sole mother of precious stones," and the "great producer of the most costly gems."
(source: Sanskrit Civilization - By G. R. Josyer International Academy of Sanskrit Researches p. 192).
Arthur George Parkin, the well known expert in natural coloring, writes in his work that the process of coloring thread perfectly with blue and bright red (Manjista) was known to India from times immemorial and they earned immense money out of the export trade of colored thread.
(source: Ancient Indian Culture At A Glance - By Swami Tattwananda Calcutta, Oxford Book Co. 1962 p. 131).
In regard to military science, the Ramayana and the Puranas make frequent mention of Shataghnis, or canons, being placed on forts and used in times of emergency. A canon was called "Shataghni" because it meant the fire weapon that kills one hundred men at once. They ascribe these agniyastras, or weapons of fire, to Visvakarma, the architect of the Vedic epics. Rockets were also Indian inventions and were used in native armies when Europeans first came into contact with them. As per Dante's Inferno, Alexander mentioned in a letter to Aristotle, that terrific flashes of flame showered on his army in India. The Shukra Neeti is an ancient text that deals with the manufacture of arms such as rifles and guns. In The Celtic Druids (pp-115-116), Godfrey Higgins provides evidence that Hindus knew of gun powder from the remotest antiquity.
(source: Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence - By Stephen Knapp p. 27-28).
According to Sir A. M. Eliot and Heinrich Brunnhofer (a German Indologist) and Gustav Oppert, all of whom have stated that ancient Hindus knew the use of gunpowder. Eliot tells us that the Arabs learnt the manufacture of gunpowder from India, and that before their Indian connection they had used arrows of naptha. It is also argued that though Persia possessed saltpetre in abundance, the original home of gunpowder was India. In the light of the above remarks we can trace the evolution of fire-arms in the ancient India.
(source: German Indologists: Biographies of Scholars in Indian Studies writing in German - By Valentine Stache-Rosen. p.92). (For more information on Military science please refer to chapter on War in Ancient India
Vimanas
~ Col. Henry S Olcott (1832 – 1907) American author, attorney, philosopher, and cofounder of the Theosophical Society in a lecture in Allahabad, in 1881.
For more information refer to chapter on Vimanas.
***
The Process of Making Ice in the East Indies - By Sir Robert Barker published in 1775
Following is the method that was used to make ice in India
as it was performed at Allahabad and Calcutta. On a large open plain, 3 or 4
excavations were made, each about 30 feet square and two deep; the bottoms of
which were strewed about eight inches or a foot thick with sugar-cane, or the
stems of the large Indian corn dried. Upon this bed were placed in rows, near
to each other, a number of small shallow, earthen pans for containing the water
intended to be frozen. These are unglazed, scarce a quarter of an inch thick,
about an inch and a quarter in depth, and made of an earth so porous, that it
was visible, from the exterior part of the pans, the water had penetrated the
whole substance. Towards the dusk of the evening, they were filled with soft
water, which had been boiled, and then left in the afore-related situation. The
ice-makers attended the pits usually before the sun was above the horizon, and
collected in baskets what was frozen, by pouring the whole contents of the pans
into them, and thereby retaining the ice, which was daily conveyed to the grand
receptacle or place of preservation, prepared generally on some high dry
situation, by sinking a pit of fourteen or fifteen feet deep, lined first with
straw, and then with a coarse king of blanketing, where it is beat down with
rammers, till at length its own accumulated cold again freezes and forms one
solid mass. The mouth of the pit is well secured from the exterior air with
straw and blankets, in the manner of the lining, and a thatched roof is thrown
over the whole.
The spongy nature of the sugar-canes, or stems of the
Indian corn, appears well calculated to give a passage under the pans to the
cold air; which, acting on the exterior parts of the vessels, may carry off by
evaporating a proportion of the heat. The porous substance of the vessels seems
equally well qualified for the admission of the cold air internally; and their
situation being full of a foot beneath the plane of the ground, prevents the
surface of the water from being ruffled by any small current of air, and
thereby preserves the congealed particles from disunion. Boiling the water is
esteemed a necessary preparative to this method of congelation.
In effecting which there is also an established mode of
proceeding; the sherbets, creams, or whatever other fluids are intended to be
frozen, are confined in thin silver cups of a conical form, containing about a
pint, with their covers well luted on with paste, and placed in a large vessel
filled with ice, salt-petre, and common salt, of the two the last an equal
quantity, and a little water to dissolve the ice and combine the whole. This
composition presently freezes the contents of the cups to the same consistency
of our ice creams, etc. in Europe; but plain water will become so hard as to
require a mallet and knife to break it. The promising advantages of such a
discovery could alone induce the Asiatic to make an attempt of profiting by so
a very short a duration of cold during the night in these months, and by a
well-timed and critical contrivance of securing this momentary degree of cold,
they have procured to themselves a comfortable refreshment as a recompence, to
alleviate, in some degree, the intense heats of the summer season, which, in
some parts of India, would be scarce supportable, but by the assistance of this
and many other inventions.
(source: Indian
Science and Technology in the 18th Century - By Dharampal p.
169-173).
The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit `Nou'.
The Vedic Age was a period of tremendous wealth and prosperity. The primary sources of knowledge about the Vedic Age is the Rig Veda. It was a cooperating society based on generate wealth. Gold (Hiranya in Sanskrit) was very valuable in this period. The Rig Veda even refers to gifts of gold necklaces reaching down to the chest (Hiranya plural). Gold was smelted from the beds of the rivers Saraswati and Sindhu (Indus).
The Rig Veda not only refer to the Saraswati as Hiranyavartani, or the path of gold (and the Sindhu as Hiranmayi or made of gold), it also makes a direct reference to panned-gold from the Saraswati river bed.
Trade was also a big part of this civilization. There is overwhelming evidence that this civilization traded with the Egyptians (with the Sumerians acting as intermediaries). This directly implies the use of ships.
In fact, the Rig Veda makes several references to ships used to cross the "Samudra."
India was a peninsula cut off from the Northern world by the Himalayas, and from the Eastern and Western, by vast expanses of water, India had to take to shipping, if she wanted to export her immense surplus goods. Literature as well as art expresses the life of a people, and evidences from Indian literature and art prove that in ancient times, India had developed her own shipping.
"Those who
believe the ancient peoples of Asia were incapable of crossing the ocean have
completely lost sight of what the literary sources tell us concerning their
ships and their navigation."
"From the first century A.D we witness the strange fact of Hindu or Hinduised kingdoms in Annam , Cochin-China and the islands of the Pacific. The Ramayana knew of Java and Sumatra . Communication by sea between the ports of South India and the islands of the Pacific was well established many centuries before the Christian era."
(source: A Survey of Indian History - By Sardar Kavalam Madhava Panikkar p. 68 - 69).
For more refer to Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor.
Baron Robert von Heine-Geldern (1885 - 1968) and Gordon F. Ekholm (1909 - 1987) the world's leading anthropologists, have strongly supported the claim that Indian ships went all the way to Mexico and Peru centuries before Columbus.
In the "Civilizations of Ancient America" they state:
"There appears to be little doubt but that ship building and navigation were sufficiently advanced in southern and eastern Asia at the period in question to have made trans-Pacific voyages possible. In the third century, horses were exported from India to the Malay Peninsula and Indo-China, an indication that there must have been ships of considerable size."
(source: India: Mother of us All - Edited by Chaman Lal p. 43-44).
(source: India: Mother of us All - Edited by Chaman Lal p. 43-44).
Professor Georg Buehler (1837-1898) the German Orientalist, had said:
"There are passages in ancient Indian works which prove the early existence of a navigation of the Indian Ocean, and the somewhat later occurrence of trading voyages undertaken by Hindu merchants to the shores of the Persian Gulf and its rivers. No commerce can thrive unless fostered by national shipping."
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.
Professor Georg Buehler (1837-1898) the German Orientalist, had said:
"There are passages in ancient Indian works which prove the early existence of a navigation of the Indian Ocean, and the somewhat later occurrence of trading voyages undertaken by Hindu merchants to the shores of the Persian Gulf and its rivers. No commerce can thrive unless fostered by national shipping."
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.
***
History of Indian Navy
http://armedforces.nic.in/navy/nahist.htm
India's maritime history predates the birth of western civilization. The world's first tidal dock is believed to have been built at Lothal around 2300 BC during the Harappan civilization, near the present day Mangrol harbour on the Gujarat coast
The Rig Veda, written around 2000 BC, credits Varuna with knowledge of the ocean routes commonly used by ships and describes naval expeditions using hundred-oared ships to subdue other kingdoms. There is a reference to Plava, the side wings of a vessel which give stability under storm conditions: perhaps the precursor of modern stabilisers. Similarly, the Atharva Veda mentions boats which were spacious, well constructed and comfortable.
In Indian mythology, Varuna was the exalted deity to whom lesser mortals turned for forgiveness of their sins. It is only later that Indra became known as the King of the Gods, and Varuna was relegated to become the God of Seas and Rivers. The ocean, recognized as the repository of numerous treasures, was churned by the Devas and Danavas, the sons of Kashyapa by queens Aditi and Diti, in order to obtain Amrit, the nectar of immortality. Even today the invocation at the launching ceremony of a warship is addressed to Aditi.
The influence of the sea on Indian kingdoms continued to grow with the passage of time. North-west India came under the influence of Alexander, who built a harbor at Patala where the Indus branches into two just before entering the Arabian Sea. His army returned to Mesopotamia in ships built in Sind. Records show that in the period after his conquest, Chandragupta Maurya established an Admiralty Division under a Superintendent of Ships as part of his war office, with a charter including responsibility for navigation on the seas, oceans, lakes and rivers. History records that Indian ships traded with countries as far as Java and Sumatra, and available evidence indicates that they were also trading with other countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Even before Alexander there were references to India in Greek works, and India had a flourishing trade with Rome. The Roman writer Pliny speaks of Indian traders carrying away large quantities of gold from Rome, in payment for much-sought exports such as precious stones, skins, clothes, spices, sandalwood, perfumes, herbs and indigo.
Trade of this volume could not have been conducted over the centuries without appropriate navigational skills. Two Indian astronomers of repute, Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, having accurately mapped the positions of celestial bodies, developed a method of computing a ship's position from the stars. A crude forerunner of the modern magnetic compass was being used around the fourth or fifth century AD. Called Matsya Yantra, it comprised an iron fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed North.
Between the fifth and
tenth centuries AD, the Vijaynagaram and Kalinga kingdoms of southern and
eastern India had established their rule over Malaya, Sumatra and Western Java.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands then served as an important midway point for
trade between the Indian peninsula and these kingdoms, as also with China. The
daily revenue from the eastern regions in the period 844-848 AD was estimated
at 200 maunds (eight tons) of gold. In the period 984-1042 AD, the Chola kings
dispatched great naval expeditions which occupied parts of Burma, Malaya and
Sumatra, while suppressing the piratical activities of the Sumatran warlords.
In 1292 AD, Marco Polo described
Indian ships as " ...built of fir timber, having a sheath of boards laid
over the planking in every part, caulked with oakum and fastened with iron
nails. The bottoms were smeared with a preparation of quicklime and hemp,
pounded together and mixed with oil from a certain tree which is a better
material than pitch."
The Rig Veda mentions
the two oceans to the east and the west, (Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea) just
as they mention ships and maritime trade. Bhujyu, who is one of the main
ancestral figures of the Vedic people, is said in the Rig-Veda (1.116.5) to
have been brought home safely in a ship with a hundred oars. The idea of a
houseboat is implied in several hymns, and so is ocean travel over a period of many
days. The Vedic people were well aware that the Indus and Saraswati poured
their water into the ocean, that the oceans roars, is ever in motion through
its waves, and encircles the land masses.
The picture of the Vedic people as seafaring merchants meshes perfectly with the archaeological evidence of the Indus-Saraswati civilization. Apart from foreign artifacts in the Indus cities and Indus artifacts overseas, there are also steatite seals depicting seaworthy vessels. The seafaring nature of the Hindus is well known from later sources. King Hiram of Tyre (Phoenicia) in 975 B.C. traded with India through the port of Ophir (Supara) near modern Bombay. Harappan seals discovered at several Mesopotamia sites have been dated to about 2400 B.C.
The picture of the Vedic people as seafaring merchants meshes perfectly with the archaeological evidence of the Indus-Saraswati civilization. Apart from foreign artifacts in the Indus cities and Indus artifacts overseas, there are also steatite seals depicting seaworthy vessels. The seafaring nature of the Hindus is well known from later sources. King Hiram of Tyre (Phoenicia) in 975 B.C. traded with India through the port of Ophir (Supara) near modern Bombay. Harappan seals discovered at several Mesopotamia sites have been dated to about 2400 B.C.
Despite Ancient Concerns about possibly losing caste from crossing the sea, history reveals India was the foremost maritime nation 2,000 years ago (meanwhile Europeans were still figuring out the Mediterranean Sea). It had colonies in Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Japan, China, Arabia, Egypt and more. Through Persians and Arabs, India traded with the Roman Empire. The Sanskrit text, Yukti Kalpa Taru, explains how to build ships, such as the one depicted in the Ajanta caves. It gives minute details about ship types, sizes and materials, including suitability of different types of wood. The treatise also elaborately explains how to decorate and furnish ships so they're comfortable for passengers.
Yuktikalpataru gives a detailed classification of ships: They were two kinds: ordinary (Samanya) ships comprising those used in inland waters and special (visesa) meant for sea journeys. The largest of these called Manthara measured 120 cubits in length, 60 in breadth and 60 cubits in height. During the days of the composition of Yuktikalpataru, it appears that ship-building was highly advanced. Bhoja has advised the builders of the sea-faring ships not to join the plants with iron, as, in the case, the magnetic iron in sea water could expose the ship to danger. To avoid this risk, he suggests that planks of the bottoms should be held together with the help of substances other than iron.
According to Marco Polo an Indian ship could carry crews between 100 to 300. Out of regard for passenger convenience and comfort, the ships were well furnished and decorated. Gold, silver, copper and compound of all these substances were generally used for ornamentation and decoration.
(source: India Through The Ages: History, Art Culture and Religion - By G. Kuppuram p. 527-531). For more information, refer to chapters on Seafaring in Ancient India and War in Ancient India).
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor
Recently, an Indian scholar, B. C. Chhabra, in his "Vestiges of Indian Culture in Hawaii", has noticed certain resemblances between the symbols found in the petroglyohs from the Hawaiian Islands and those on the Harappan seals. Some of the symbols in the petroglyphs are described as akin to early Brahmi script.
Will Durant, eminent American historian, in his book The Story of civilizations - Our Oriental Heritage described India as the most ancient civilization on earth and he offered many examples of Indian culture throughout the world. He demonstrated that as early as the ninth century B.C. E. Indians were exploring the sea routes, reaching out and extending their cultural influences to Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Egypt.
The art of shipbuilding and navigation in India and China at the time was sufficiently advanced for oceanic crossings. Indian ships operating between Indian and South-east Asian ports were large and well equipped to sail cross the Bay of Bengal. When the Chinese Buddhist scholar, Fa-hsien, returned from India, his ship carried a crew of more than two hundred persons and did not sail along the coasts but directly across the ocean. Such ships were larger than those Columbus used to negotiate the Atlantic a thousand years later.
Trade linkages existed between Philippines and with the powerful Hindu empires in Java and Sumatra. These linkages were venues for exchanges with Indian culture, including the adoption of syllabic scripts which are still used by indigenous groups in Palawan and Mindoro.
According to the work of mediaeval times, Yukti Kalpataru, which gives a fund of information about shipbuilding, India built large vessels from 200 B.C. to the close of the sixteenth century. A Chinese chronicler mentions ships of Southern Asia that could carry as many as one thousand persons, and were manned mainly by Malayan crews. They used western winds and currents in the North Pacific to reach California, sailed south along the coast, and then returned to Asia with the help of the trade winds, taking a more southerly route, without however, touching the Polynesian islands. The New Zealand pre historian, S. Percy Smith, tries to show in his Hawaiki - the Original home of the Maori that the ancient Polynesian wanderers left India as far back as the fourth century B.C. and were daring mariners who made, more often than not, adventurous voyages with the definite object of new settlements. A people who reached as far east as Easter Island could not have missed the great continent ahead of them.
It was probably gold, which initially attracted Indian adventurers and merchants to Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia was a region broadly referred to by ancient Indians as Suvarnabhumi (Land of Gold) or Suvarnadvipa (the Island of Gold). Arab writer Al Biruni testify that Indians called the whole Southeast region Suwarndib. Hellenistic geographers knew the area as the Golden Chersonese. The Chinese called it Kin-Lin; kin means gold. The mariners were probably looking for gold or were prospecting for precious metals, stones and pearls to cope with the demand in the centers of ancient civilizations.
"Ships of size
that carried Fahien from India to China (through stormy China water) were
certainly capable of proceeding all the way to Mexico and Peru by crossing the
Pacific. One thousand years before the birth of Columbus Indian ships were far
superior to any made in Europe upto the 18th century."
(source: The Civilizations of Ancient America: The Selected Papers of
the XXIXth International Congress of Americanists - edited Sol Tax 1951).
(Please refer to the chapters Suvarnabhumi: Greater India,
War in Ancient
India and Seafaring in
Ancient India for more information about Indian culture in
Southeast Asia.)He has also further noted that Bombay-built ships are at least one-fourth cheaper than those built in the docks of England. F. Balazar Solvyns, a Frenchman, wrote a book titled "Les Hindous" in 1811.
His remarks are, "In ancient times, the Indians excelled in the art of constructing vessels, and the present Hindus can in this respect still offer models to Europe-so much so that the English, attentive to everything which relates to naval architecture, have borrowed from the Hindus many improvement which they have adopted with success to their own shipping.... The Indian vessels unite elegance and utility and are models of patience and fine workmanship."
(source: http://www.orientalthane.com/speeches/speech_2.htm).
In ancient times the Indians excelled in shipbuilding and even the English, who were attentive to everything which related to naval architecture, found early Indian models worth copying. The Indian vessels united elegance and utility, and were models of fine workmanship.
Sir John Malcolm (1769 - 1833) was a Scottish soldier, statesman, and historian entered the service of the East India Company wrote about Indian vessels that they:
"Indian vessels "are so admirably adapted to the purpose for which they are required that, not withstanding their superior science, Europeans were unable, during an intercourse with India for two centuries, to suggest or at least to bring into successful practice one improvement. "
(source: Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. I and India and World Civilization - By D P Singhal part II p. 76 - 77).
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor
Kavalam Madhava Panikkar in his book Asia and Western Dominance ASIN: B00005VGEZ published by George Allen, London. 1959 says:
"It should be remembered that the Indian Ocean, including the entire coast of Africa, had been explored centuries ago by Indian navigators. Indian ships frequented the East African ports and certainly knew of Madagascar. Vasco da Gama's journey across the Indian Ocean was guided by an Indian pilot whom the King of Milindi had placed at his disposal. Fra Mauro preserves the tradition of two voyages from India past the south end of Africa. He marks the southern cape with the name of Diab and says that an Indian ship in about 1420 was storm-driven to this point and sailed westward to 2,000 miles in forty days, without touching land. Fra Mauro had also spoken himself with a person worthy of confidence who said he had sailed from India, past Sofala to a place called Garbin on the west coast of Africa. The Indian Ocean was therefore a charted sea whose routes were known, and as a navigation achievement long before de Gama."
The Indian Ocean had from time immemorial been the scene of intense commercial trade. Indian ships had from the beginning of history sailed across the Arabian Sea up to the Red Sea ports and maintained intimate cultural and commercial connections with Egypt, Israel and other countries of the Near East. Long before Hippalus disclosed the secret of the monsoon to the Romans, Indian navigators had made use of these winds and sailed to the Bab-el-Mandeb. To the east, Indian mariners had gone as far as Borneo and flourishing Indian colonies had existed for over 1,200 years in Malaya, the islands of Indonesia, in Cambodia and Champa and other areas of the coast. Indian ships from Quilon, made regular journeys to the South China coast. A long tradition of maritime life was part of the history of the Peninsular India. The supremacy of India in the waters that washed her coast was unchallenged till the rise of Arab shipping under the early khalifs. But the Arabs and Hindus competed openly, and the idea of 'sovereignty over the sea' except in the narrow straits was unknown to Asian conception. Naval fights on any large scale, in the manner of the wars between Carthage and Rome, seem to have been unknown in India before the arrival of the Portuguese."
(source: Asia and Western Dominance ASIN: B00005VGEZ published by George Allen, London. 1959 p. 28-30). For more on Shipbuilding in Ancient India, please refer to chapter Seafaring In Ancient India).
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor
Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) a Hungarian and author of several books including Ra`jatarangini: a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir and Innermost Asia : detailed report of explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su, and Eastern Iran carried out and described under the orders of H.M. Indian Government, whose valuable researches have added greatly to our knowledge of Greater India, remarks:
"The vast extent of Indian cultural influences, from Central Asia in the North to tropical Indonesia in the South, and from the Borderlands of Persia to China and Japan, has shown that ancient India was a radiating center of a civilization, which by its religious thought, its art and literature, was destined to leave its deep mark on the races wholly diverse and scattered over the greater part of Asia."
(source: The Vision of India - By Sisir Kumar Mitra p. 178 and Main Currents of Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan p. 50)
"...an Indian naval pilot, named Kanha, was hired by Vasco da Gama to take him to India. Contrary to European portrayals that Indians knew only coastal navigation, deep-sea shipping had existed in India. Indian ships had been sailing to islands such as the Andamans, Lakshdweep and Maldives, around 2,000 years ago. Kautiliya's shastras describe the times that are good and bad for seafaring. In the medieval period, Arab sailors purchased their boats in India. The Portuguese also continued to get their boats from India, and not from Europe. Shipbuilding and exporting was a major Indian industry, until the British banned it. There is extensive archival material on the Indian Ocean trade in Greek, Roman, and Southeast Asian sources."
(source: History of Indian Science & Technology).
Skilled Seafaring Men
Catamaran (from Tamil kattu "to tie" and maram "wood, tree") is a type of boat or ship consisting of two hulls joined by a frame. Catamarans were used by the ancient Tamil Chola dynasty as early as the 5th century AD for moving their fleets to conquer such Southeast Asian regions as Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia) to cross from Polynesia to South America even at the present time, and the ancient Asians were skilled and enterprising seafaring men.
(Note: US Government recently adopted the ancient Indian catamaran-making technology to construct fast ships. The ships, built with technology adapted from ancient Tamil methods to make catamarans, can travel over 2,500 kms in less than 48 hours, twice the speed of the regular cargo ships, and carry enough equipment to support about 5,000 soldiers, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday).
(source: U.S. adopts Indian Catamaran technology - hindu.com and tribune.com).
For more on Shipbuilding in Ancient India, please refer to chapter Seafaring In Ancient India). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor.
Though the Indians have practically no hand now in the
commerce of the world, yet there was a time when they were the masters of the
seaborne trade of Europe, Asia and Africa. They built ships, navigated the sea,
and held in their hands all the threads of international commerce, whether
carried on overland or by sea.
As their immense
wealth was in part the result of their extensive trade with other countries, so
were the matchless fertility of the Indian soil and the numberless products of
Hindu arts and industries the cause of the enormous development of the commerce
of ancient India.
As poet William Cowper (1731-1800) wrote: “And if a
boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is a golden girdle of the globe.”
Trade is a golden girdle of the globe.”
India, which, according to the writer in the Chamber’s
Encyclopedia, “has been celebrated during many ages for its valuable natural
productions, its beautiful manufactures and costly merchandise,” was, says the
Encyclopedia Britannica, “once the seat of commerce.”
Mrs. Charlotte S
Manning says: “The indirect
evidence afforded by the presence of Indian products in other countries
coincides with the direct testimony of Sanskrit literature to establish the
fact that the ancient Hindus were a commercial people.” She concludes: “Enough
has now been said to show that the Hindus have ever been a commercial
people.”
(source: Ancient
and Medieval India – By Charlotte S Manning volume II p. 354)
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842) says: “The Hindus in their most ancient works of poetry are represented as a commercial people.”
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842) says: “The Hindus in their most ancient works of poetry are represented as a commercial people.”
In Sanskrit books, we constantly read of merchants,
traders, and men engrossed in commercial pursuits. Manu Smriti, one of the oldest books in the world, lays down laws
to govern all commercial disputes having reference to seaborne traffic as well
as the inland and overland commerce. Traders and merchants are frequently
introduced in the Hindu drama. In Shakuntala
we learn of the importance attached to commerce, where it is stated “that a
merchant named Dhanvriddhi, who had extensive commerce had been lost at sea and
had left a fortune of many millions.” In Nala and Damyanti, too, we meet with similar incidents. Sir William Jones is of the opinion
that the Hindus “must have been navigators in the age of Manu, because bottomry
(marine insurance) is mentioned in it.” In the Ramayana, the practice of bottomry is distinctly noticed. Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone says:
“The Hindus navigated the ocean as early as the age of Manu’s code because we
read in it of men well acquainted with sea voyages.
According to Max
Dunker, ship-building was known in ancient India about 2000 B.C. It is
thus clear that the Hindus navigated the ocean from the earliest times and that
they carried on trade on an extensive scale with all the important nations of
the Old World.
(source: History of Antiquity – By Max Dunker volume IV).
(source: History of Antiquity – By Max Dunker volume IV).
With Phoenicia the Indians enjoyed trade from the earliest
times. In the tenth century B.C., Soloman of Israel and Hiram of Tyre sent
ships to India, whence they carried away ivory, sandalwood, apes, peacocks,
gold, silver, precious stones, etc., which they purchased from the tribe of
Ophir. Now Ptolemy says there was a country called Abhira at the mouth of the
River Indus. This shows that some people called Abhir must have been living
there in those days. We find a tribe called the “Abhir” still living in
Kathyawar, which must, therefore, be the Ophir tribe mentioned above. Christian Lassen (1800-1876) author of
Indische Alterthumskunde vol I
p. 354, thinks “Ophir” was a seaport on the south west coast of India. Mrs. Manning says it was situated on
the western coast of India.
Among the things sent by the Hindus to Solomon and Hiram
were peacocks. Now, these birds were nowhere to be found in those days except
in India, where they have existed from the earliest times. “We frequently meet
in old Sanskrit poetry with sentences like these: ‘Peacocks unfolding in
glittering glory all their green and gold; ‘peacocks dancing in wild glee at
the approach of rain;’ peacocks around palaces glittering on the garden walls.’
Ancient sculptures, too show the same delight in peacocks, as may be seen, for
instance, in graceful bas-reliefs on the gates of Sanchi or in the panels of an
ancient palace in Central India, figured in Colonel Tod’s Rajastathan p. 405.
“The word for peacock in Hebrew is universally admitted to be foreign; and
Gesenius, Sir Emerson Tennent,
and Max Muller appear to agree
with Christian Lassen in holding that this word as written in Kings and
Chronicles is derived from the Sanskrit language.
With regard to ivory, it was largely used in India,
Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Elephants are indigenous in India and Africa,
and ivory trade must be either of Indian origin or African. But the elephants
were scarcely known to the ancient Egyptians, and C Lassen decides that
elephants were neither used nor tamed in ancient Egypt. In ancient India, they
were largely used and tamed. All the kings processions and battles have
elephants mentioned in them. The elephant is the emblem of royalty and a sign
of rank and power. The god Indra, too has his ‘Airawat.’ The Sanskrit name for
domestic elephant is ibha, and in the bazaars of India ibha was the name by
which the elephant’s tusks were sold. In ancient Egypt, ivory was known by the
name of ebu.
It would be interesting to many to learn that “it was in
India that the Greeks first became acquainted with sugar.” Sugar bears a name
derived from Sanskrit. With the article the name traveled into Arabia and
Persia, and thence became established in the languages of Europe.
Samuel Maunder (1785-1849) in his The Treasury of History wrote: “In the reign of Seleucidas, too,
there was an active trade between India and Syria.” Indian iron and colored
cloths and rich apparels were imported in Babylon and Tyre in ships from India.
There were also commercial routes to Phoenicia, through, Persia. Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone says:
“The extent of the Indian trade under the first Ptolemies is a well known fact
in history.” Vincent Smith
observes that in the Book of Genesis, “a caravan of camels loaded with the
spices of India and balm and myrrh of Hadramaut.” John Forbes Royle in his book Ancient Hindu Medicine p. 119, observes that myrrh is called bal
by the Egyptians, while its Sanskrit name is bola, bearing a resemblance which
leaves no doubt as to its Indian manufacture.
Of the products of the loom, silk was more largely
imported from India into ancient Rome than either in Egypt or Greece. “It was
so alluring the Roman ladies,” says a writer, “that it sold for its weight in
gold.” This is confirmed by the elder Pliny, who complained that vast sums of
money were annually absorbed by commerce with India. “We are assured on
undisputed authority that the Romans remitted annually to India, a sum
equivalent to 4,000,000 pounds to pay for their investments, and that in the
reign of Ptolemies 125 sails of Indian shipping were at one time lying in the
ports whence Egypt, Syria, and Rome itself were supplied with the products of
India.”
(source: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India - By Colonel James Tod p. 221).
(source: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India - By Colonel James Tod p. 221).
Agarthachides, who lived upwards of 300 years before the time of
Periplus, noticed the active commercial intercourse kept up between Yemen and
Pattala – a seaport town, in Sindh. Pattala in Sanskrit means a “commercial
town.” “which circumstance, if it is true, says Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran
“would prove the extreme antiquity of the navigation carried on by the
Indus.”
Max Dunker wrote: “Trade existed between the Indians and Sabaens on
the coast of south Arabia before the 10th century B.C. – the time
according to some when Manu lived. In the days of Alexander, when the
Macedonian general, Nearchus, was entering the Persian Gulf, Muscat was pointed
out to him as the principal mart for Indian products which were transmitted
thence to Assyria.
Egypt was not the only part of Africa with which the
Hindus traded in olden days. The eastern coast of Africa called Zanibar and the
provinces situated on the Red Sea carried on an extensive trade with ancient
India. Myos Hormos, was the chief emporium of Indian commerce on the Red Sea.
Of the trade with Zanzibar, Periplus
gives us pretty full information. He says: “Moreover, indigenous products such
as corn, rice, butter, oil of seasamum, coarse and fine cotton goods, and
cane-honey (sugar) are regularly exported from the interior of Ariaka (Konkan),
and from Barygaza (Baroucha/Broach) to the opposite coast.”
This trade is also noticed by Arrian, who adds that “this
navigation was regularly managed.”
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842)
says, it is a well known fact that the banians or Hindu merchants were in the
habit of traversing the oceans and settling in foreign countries. The Eastern
countries with which ancient India traded were chiefly China, Trangangetic
Peninsula and Australia. Professor Heeran says that “the second direction,
which the trade of India took was towards the East, that is, to the
Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula, comprising Ava Mallaca, etc. The Hindus themselves
were in the habit of constructing the vessels in which they navigated the coast
of Coromandel (Cholamandel), and also made voyages to the Ganges and the
peninsula beyond it. These ships bore different names according to their sizes.
Land Trade
As regards the trade with central and northern Asia, we
are told that “the Indians make expeditions for commercial purposes into the
golden desert Ideste, desert of Cobi, in armed companies of a thousand or two
thousand men. But, according to a report, they do not return home for three or
four years.” The Takhti Suleman, or the stone tower mentioned by Ptolemy and Ctesias, was the starting point for Hindu merchants who went to
China.
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran says:
“By means of this building it is easy to determine the particular route as well
as the length of time employed by the Hindu merchants in their journey to
China. If we assume Cabul, or rather Bactria, as their place of departure, the
expedition would take a north-easterly direction as far as the forty-first
degree of the north latitude. It would then have to ascend the mountains, and
so arrive at the stone tower through the defile of Hoshan, or Owsh. From thence
the route led by Cashgar, beyond the mountains to the borders of the great
desert of Cobi, which it traversed probably through Khotan and Aksu (the Casia
and Auxazia of Ptolemy). From these ancient towns the road lay through Koshotei
to Se-chow, on the frontiers of China, and thence to Pekin, a place of great
antiquity. The whole distance amounts to upwards of 2,500 miles.”
Foreign trade of a nation presupposes development of its
internal trade. Specially is this true of a large country like India, with its
varied products, vast population and high civilization.
Christian Lassen (1800-1876) of Paris considers it remarkable that the
Hindus themselves discovered the rich, luxurious character of India’s products;
many of them are produced in other countries, but remained unnoticed until
sought for by foreigners, where as the most ancient Hindus had a keen enjoyment
in articles of taste and luxury. Rajas and other rich people delighted in sagacious
elephants, swift horses, splendid peacocks, golden decorations, exquisite
perfumes, pungent peppers, ivory, pearls, gems, gold etc. and consequently
caravans were in continued requisition to carry down these and innumerable
other matters between the north and the south, and the west and the east of
their vast and varied country. These caravans, were met at border stations and
about ports by western caravans or ships bound to or from Tyre and Egypt or to
or from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.”
Strabo, Plutarch, and Apollodoras
agree in their statements that India had considerable trade roads in all
directions, with mile stones, and was provided with inns for travelers. And
these “roads” says Heeran, “were planted with trees and flowers.”
Active internal commerce was carried on in northern India
along the course of the Ganges. Here was the royal highway extending from
Taxila on the Indus to Patliputra (in Bihar) and which was 10,000 stadia in
length, according to Strabo.
Periplus, too, after saying that “the Ganges and its tributary
streams were the grand commercial routes of northern India,” adds that the
“rivers of the Southern Peninsula also were navigated.”
According to Arrian,
the commercial intercourse between the eastern and western coasts were carried
on in country built ships. Periplus
again says that “in Dachhanabades (Dakshina Patha in Sanskrit, or the Deccan)
there are two very distinguished and celebrated marts, named Tagara and
Pluthama, whence merchandise was bought down to Barygaza (Barauch). Ozene
(Ujjain) was one of the chief marts for internal traffic, and supplied the
neighboring country with all kinds of merchandise.
The Encyclopedia
Britannica says: “It (India)
exported its most valuable produce, its diamonds, its aromatics, its silks, and
its costly manufactures. The country, which abounded in those expensive
luxuries, was naturally reputed to be the seat of immense riches, and every
romantic tale of its felicity and glory was readily believed. In the Middle
Ages, an extensive commerce with India was still maintained through the ports
of Egypt and the Red Sea; and its precious produce, imported into Europe by the
merchants of Venice, confirmed the popular opinion of its high refinement and
its vast wealth.”
(source: Hindu Superiority – By Har Bilas Sarda p 405-426). For more refer to chapter on
Greater India: Suvarnabhumi
and Sacred Angkor
Wealth
If history proves anything, it proves that in ancient times, India was the richest country in the
world. The fact that she has always been the cynosure of all eyes,
Asiatic or European, that people of less favored climes have always cast
longing looks on her glittering treasures, and that the ambition of all
conquerors has been to possess India, prove that she has been reputed to be the
richest country in the world. Her sunny climate, unrivalled fertility,
matchless mineral resources and world-wide exports in ancient times helped to
accumulate in her bosom the wealth which made her the happy hunting grounds of
adventurers and conquerors.
Strabo (c. 63 BC-3 BC) Greek
historian in his book Geography II, 5, 12. Describing the location of
India and calls it “the greatest of all
nations and the happiest in lot.”
(source: India and World Civilization By D. P. Singhal Pan
Macmillan Limited. 1993. p. 385).
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842)
says: “India has been celebrated even
in the earliest times for her riches.” The wealth, splendor and prosperity of India
had made a strong impression on the mind of Alexander the Great, and that when
he left Persia for India, he told his army that they were starting for that
“Golden India” where there was endless wealth, and that what they had seen in
Persia was as nothing compared to the riches of India. Chamber’s Encyclopedia says” “India has been celebrated during
many ages for its wealth.” The writer of the article “Hindustan” in the Encyclopedia Britannica remarks that
India “was naturally reputed to be the seat of immense riches.” Milton voiced the popular belief when
he sang of the wealth of India:
“High on a throne of royal state which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind (India)
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric, pearl and gold.”
To Shake
the Pagoda TreeOutshone the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind (India)
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric, pearl and gold.”
William Finch who came to India in 1608-11, first described Hindu temples as "pagods, which are stone images of monstrous men feareful to behold. He mentioned the temples in Ajmer, "three faire Pagodes richly wrought with inlayd works, adorned richly with jewels. Domingo Paes has left a valuable account of the great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar. He saw outside the city very beautiful pagodas, the chief among them was the temple of Vitthalasvamin which was begun by Krsnadeva Raya. Edward Terry, the chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, King James's emissary described the temple of Nagarkot as 'most richly set forth, both scaled and paved with plate of pure gold." The wealth of the temples stirred Jean Thevenot imagination and he wrote about the temples of Benares and Puri that 'nothing can be more magnificent than these Pagodes...by reason of the quantity of gold and many jewels, wherewith they are adorned."
GDP in 1500s.
For India 's first
prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the company lay at the root of the oppression
that he had fought against. "The corruption, venality, nepotism, violence
and greed of money of these early generations of British rule in India ",
Nehru thundered in The Discovery of India, "is something which passes
comprehension". Looking back at the company's conquest of India , Nehru
noted "it is significant that one of the Hindustani words which has become
part of the English language is loot".
***
Most foreigners came to India in search of her
fabulous wealth. No traveler found
India poor until the nineteenth century, but foreign merchants and adventurers
sought her shores for the almost fabulous wealth, which they could there
obtain. 'To shake the pagoda tree' became a phrase, somewhat similar to our modern expression 'to strike oil' or to get rich quick.
(source: Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art
- By Partha Mitter p. 1 - 45).
An idea of the immense wealth of India could be gathered
from the fact that when Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi destroyed the far famed temple of Somnath he found
such immense riches and astonishing diamonds cooped up in the single “Idol of Shiva” that it was found quite
impossible to calculate the value of that booty.
Gold, the emblem of wealth, was first found in India.
India was the home of diamonds and other precious stones in ancient times. Periplus says that “the Greeks used to
purchase pieces of gold from the Indians.” Nelkynda or Neliceram, a port near
Calicut on the Malabar Coast, is said to have been the only market for pearls
in the world in ancient times. The pearls presented by Julius Ceasar to
Servilia, the mother of Brutus, as well as the famous pearl earring of
Cleopatra, were obtained from India. The most famous diamonds in the world are
natives of India. Though the Pitt
(or the Regent as it is now called) weights 136 carats and is larger in size,
yet the Kohinoor, weighing only
106 carats, hallowed by ages of romantic history, is the most famous diamond in
the world. Both were taken from India by the British. But the mythological and
historical value of the Kohinoor is untold.
The Priceless Peacock
Throne
What is the costliest single treasure made in
the last 1,000 years? Wrought out of 1150 kg of gold and 230 kg of precious
stones, conservatively in 1999 the throne would be valued at $804 million or nearly
Rs 4.5 billion. In fact when made, it cost twice as much as the Tajmahal. On
the top of each pillar there were to be two peacocks, thick-set with gems and
between each two peacocks a tree set with rubies and diamonds, emeralds and
pearls. The ascent was to consist of three steps set with jewels of fine
water". Of the 11 jewelled recesses formed around it for cushions, the
middle one was intended for the seat it for Emperor. Among the historical
diamonds decorating it were the famous Kohinoor (186
carats). It was one of the most splendiferous thrones ever made. it was
encrusted with 26,733 precious stones! Ascended by silver steps, it was sheeted
with gold encrusted with emeralds and rubies. Its back was a peacock's tail of
sapphires, pearls and turquoises. The throne was completed after seven years of
unceasing labour by the best craftsmen of the empire and was valued at 10
million rupees or Rs 500 crore today.(source: As priceless as the Peacock Throne - By K. R. N. Swamy - tribuneindia.com). For more on the Kohinoor diamond refer to chapter on Glimpses VIII.
It was the wealth of India that impelled the rude Arabs to
invade the country, and led the half civilized Tartans to overrun it. It was
the wealth of India that attracted Nadir Shah,
the Portuguese and then the British.
(source: Hindu Superiority – By Har Bilas Sarda p 427 - 430). For more refer to chapters on Islamic Onslaught and
European
Imperialism
India Was
Once the Richest Country in the World
Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland
(1842-1936) American born, former President of the India Information
Bureau of America and Editor of Young India (New York). Author of India, America and World Brotherhood, and Causes of Famine in India. He has
written glowingly about India's culture:
"Another cause of India 's impoverishment is the
destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the
British first appeared on the scene, India
was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the
British to her shores. "
"The source of her wealth was largely her splendid
manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades
of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were
famed not only all over Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa
and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they
are gone, destroyed. Hundreds of villages and towns of India in which they were
carried on are now largely or wholly depopulated, and millions of the people
who were supported by them have been scattered and driven back on the land, to
share the already too scanty living of the poor ryot. What is the explanation?
Great Britain wanted India 's markets. She could not find entrance for British
manufactures so long as India was supplied with manufactures of her own. So
those of India must be sacrificed. England had all power in her hands, and so
she proceeded to pass tariff and excise laws that ruined the manufactures of
India and secured the market for her own goods. India would have protected
herself if she had been able, by enacting tariff laws favorable to Indian
interests, but she had no power, she was at the mercy of her conqueror."
(source: The New
Nationalist Movement in India - By Jabez T Sutherland -
theatlantic.com). Refer to European
Imperialism
According to Economist Angus Maddison (1926 - ) in The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, the region that today
comprises the Indian subcontinent held
the largest share of the world's gross domestic product until the beginning of
the 16th century, when it was rivaled by China, and then again
throughout most of the 18th century. At the end of the 16th century, India's great wealth sustained a population of more than one hundred million people.
In "India, the Silicon Jewel of the East" (Digital Journal, May 13, 2004), Paul William Roberts states, "There was an abundance of arable land, and the state of Indian agriculture compared favorably with any of the Western European countries. Right down to the subsistence-oriented peasant, everyone saw a good return on land and labor. There was a large and vigorous skilled workforce turning out not just cotton but luxury items for the barons, courts and ruling classes. Consequently, the economy produced a fabulous financial surplus."
From the early 18th century until the beginnings of the 19th century, when India enjoyed a 24.4 % share of the world's gross domestic product (see table) economic historian Paul Bairoch conforms, the region enjoyed a 25 % share of the global trade in textiles. It was the world's leading manufacturer of handicrafts and handloom textiles.
Bairoch writes, "More important, there was a large commercialized sector with a highly sophisticated market and credit structure, manned by a skilful and in many instances very wealthy commercial class."
Paul William Roberts adds, "Methods of production and of industrial and commercial organization could stand comparison with those in vogue in any other parts of the world. India had developed an indigenous banking system. Merchant capital had emerged with an elaborate network of agents, brokers and middlemen. Its bills of exchange were honored in all the major cities of Asia."
Gross Domestic Product in Millions of Dollars
|
Year
|
1000
|
1500
|
1600
|
1700
|
|
India
|
33.8
|
60.5
|
74.3
|
90.8
|
|
China
|
26.6
|
61.8
|
96.0
|
82.8
|
|
Western Europe
|
10.2
|
44.3
|
66.0
|
83.4
|
|
World Total
|
116.8
|
247.1
|
329.4
|
371.4
|
Maddison studied numerous sources and derived historical world gross domestic product (GDP) totals by assembling evidence on changes in population, retaining the 1990 international dollar as the temporal and spatial anchor in the estimation of movements in GDP and per capita GDP, and filling holes in the evidence with proxy estimates.
Medical Science
The science of medicine, like other sciences, was carried to a very high degree of perfection by the ancient Hindus. Their great power of observation, generalization and analysis, combined with patient labor in a country of boundless resources, whose fertility for herbs and plants is most remarkable, place them in an exceptionally favorable position to prosecute their study of this great science.
Lord Ampthill, British Governor, (February 1905) said at Madras: "Now we are beginning to find out that the Hindu Sashtras also contain a Sanitary Code no less correct in principle, and that the great law-giver, Manu, was one of the greatest sanitary reformers the world has ever seen!"
Sir William Jones (1746-1794) came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. He said with prophetic warning " Infinite advantage may be derived by Europeans from the various medical books in Sanskrit, which contain the names and descriptions of Indian plants and minerals, with their uses, discovered by experience, in curing disorders."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p.21).
Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) says: "The Ancients attained a thoroughly a proficiency in medicine and surgery as any people whose acquaintance are recorded. This might be expected, because their patient attention and natural shrewdness would render them excellent observers, whilst the extent and fertility of their native country would furnish them with many valuable drugs and medicaments. Their diagnosis is said, in consequence, to define and distinguish symptoms with accuracy, and their Materia Medica is most voluminous."
(source: Wilson's Works, Volume III, p. 269.)
Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) writes: "The number of medicinal works and authors is extraordinarily large."
(source: Indian Literature - Albrecht Weber p. 269).
Medicine appears to have been the oldest Indian science, its roots going back to Yoga practices, which stress a holistic approach to health, based primarily on proper diet and exercise. Ancient Indian texts on physiology, identified three body "humours" wind, gall, and mucus - with which are associated the sattva, (true or good), rajas (strong), and tamas, (dark or evil) "strands" of behavior, as primary causal factors in determining good or ill health. Ayurveda focused on longevity, honey and garlic were often prescribed. A wide variety of herbs were listed in ancient India's pharmacopoeia. Some of these medicinal herbs or plant oil have been indeed proved to be cures for specific diseases. Oil from the bark of chaulmugra trees remains the most effective treatment for leprosy. India's oldest medical texts were far superior to most subsequent works in the field.
Anatomy and physiology, like some aspects of chemistry, were by-products of medicine. As far back as the sixth century B.C. Indian physicians described ligaments, sutures, lymphatics, nerve plexus, facia, adipoe and vascular tissues, mucous and synovial membrances, and many more muscles than any modern cadaver is able to show. They understood remarkably well the process of digestion - the different functions of the gastric juices, the conversion of chyme, into chyle, and of this into blood.
Anticipating Weismann by 2400 years Atreya (ca 500 B.C.) held that the parental seed is independent of the parent's body, and contains in itself, in miniature, the whole parental organism. Examination for virility was recomended as a prerequisite for marriage in men; and the Code of Manu warned against marrying mates affected with tuberculosis, epilepsy, leprosy, chronic dysepsia, piles, or loquacity. Birth control in the latest theological fashion was suggested by the Indian medical schools of 500 B.C. in the theory that during the twelve days of the menstrual cycle impregnation is impossible. Foetal development was described with considerable accuracy; it was noted that the sex of the foetus remains for a time undetermined, and it was claimed that in some cases the sex of the embryo could be influenced by food or drugs.
The records of Indian medicine begin with the Arthava-veda; here embedded in incantation, is a list of diseases with their symptoms. Appended to the Atharva-veda is the Ayur-Veda ("The Science of Longevity"). In this oldest system of Indian medicine illness is attributed to disorder in one of the four humors (air, water phlegm and blood), and treatment is recommended with herbs. Many of its diagnoses and cures are still used in India, with a success that is sometimes the envy of Western physicians. The Rig-Veda names over a thousand such herbs, and advocates water as the best cure for most diseases. Even in Vedic times, physicians and surgeons lived in houses surrounded by gardens in which they cultivated medicinal plants.
The great name in Indian medicine are those of Sushruta in the fifth century B.C. and Charaka in the second century A.D. Sushrata professor of medicine at the University of Benares, wrote down in Sanskrit a system of diagnosis and therapy whose elements had descended to him from his teacher Dhanwantari. His book dealt at length with surgery, obstetrics, diet, bathing, drugs, infant feeding and hygiene, and medical education. Charaka composed a Samhita (or encyclopedia) of medicine, which is still used in India, and gave to his followers an almost Hippocratic conception of their calling: "Not for self, not for the fulfilment of any earthly desire of gain, but solely for the good of suffering humanity should you treat your patients, and so excel all." Only less illustrious than these are Vaghata (625 A.D.), who prepared a medical compendium in prose and verse, and Bhava Misra (1550 A.D), whose voluminous work on anatomy, physiology and medicine mentioned, a hundred years before Harvey, the circulation of blood, and prescribed mercury for that novel disease, syphilis, which had recently been brought in by the Portuguese as part of Europe's heritage to India."
Sushruta described many surgical operations - cataract, hernia, lithoromy, Caesarian section, etc - and 121 surgical instruments, including lancets, sounds forceps, catheters, and rectal and vaginal speculums. Despite Brahmanical prohibitions he advocated the dissection of dead bodies as indispensable in the training of surgeons. He was the first to graft upon a torn ear portions of skin taken from another part of the body; and from him and his Indian successors rhinoplasty- the surgical reconstruction of the nose-descended into modern medicine. "The ancient Hindus," says F. H. Garrison, "performed almost every major operation except ligation of the arteries." Limbs were amputated, abdominal sections were performed, fractures were set, hemorrhoids and fistulas were removed.
(source: History of Medicine - By F. H. Garrison Philadelphia., 1929 and The Story of civilizations: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant ISBN: 1567310125 1937 p.531).
Mrs. Charlotte Manning says: "The surgical instruments of the Hindus were sufficiently sharp, indeed, as to be capable of dividing a hair longitudinally." "Greek physicians have done much to preserve and diffuse the medicinal science of India. We find, for instance, that the Greek physician, Actuarius, celebrates the Hindu medicine, called triphala. He mentions the peculiar products of India, of which it is composed, by their Sanskrit name, Myrobalans."
(source: Ancient and Medieval India Volume II. p. 346).
Sushruta laid down elaborate rules for preparing an operation, and his suggestion that the wound be sterilized by fumigation is one of the earliest known efforts at antiseptic surgery. Both Sushruta and Charaka mention the use of medicinal liquors to produce insensibility to pain. In 927 A.D. two surgeons trepanned the skull of a king, and made him insensitive to the operation by administering a drug called Samohini. For the detection of the 1120 diseases he enumerated, Sushruta recommended diagnosis by inspection, palpation, and ausculatation. Taking of the pulse was described in a treatise dating 1300 A.D. Urinalysis was a favorite method of diagnosis.
In the time of Yuan Chwang Indian medical treatment began with a seven-day fast; in this interval the patient often recovered; if the illness continued drugs were at last employed. Even then drugs were used very sparingly; reliance was placed largely upon diet, baths, inhalations, urethral, and vaginal injections. Indian physicians were especially skilled in concocting antidotes for poison.
William Ward (1769-1823) notes:
"Inoculation for the small pox seems to have been known among the Hindoos from time immemorial." The method of introducing the virus is made by incision just above the wrist, in the right arm of the male, and the left of the female. At the time of inoculation, and during the progress of the disease, the parents daily employ a brahmin to worship Sheetula, the goddess who presides over the disease."
(source: A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos - By William Ward volume I I p 339 London 1822).
Vaccination, unknown to Europe before the eighteenth century, was known in India as early as 550 A.D. if we may judge from a text attributed to Dhanwantari, one of the earliest Hindu physicians. "Take the fluid of the pock on the udder of the cow...upon the point of a lancer, and lance with it the arms between the shoulders and elbows until the blood appears; then, mixing the fluid with the blood, the fever of the small-pox will be produced."
Modern European physicians believe that caste separateness was prescribed because of the Brahmin belief in invisible agents transmitting disease; many of the laws of sanitation enjoined by Sushruta and "Manu" seem to take for granted what we moderns, who love new words for old things, call the germ theory of disease. Hypnotism as therapy seems to have originated among Indians, who often took their sick to the temples to be cured by hypnotic suggestion. The Englishmen who introduced hypnotherapy into England-Braid Esdaile and Elliotson- "undoubtedly got their ideas, and some of their experience, from contact with India."
(source: The Story of civilizations: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant 1937 p.531)
Susruta calls surgery, "the first and best of medical sciences." He insisted that those who intend to practice it must have actual experimental knowledge of the subject. He says: "No accurate account of any part of the body, including even its skin, can be rendered without a knowledge of anatomy, hence anyone who wishes to acquire a thorough knowledge of anatomy must prepare a dead body, and carefully examine all its parts." For preliminary training, students were taught how to handle their instruments by operating on pumpkins or cucumbers, and they were made to practice on pieces of cloth or skin in order to learn how to sew up wounds. Major operations, as described by Susruta, included amputations, grafting, setting of fractures, removal of a foetus and operation on the bladder for removal of gallstones. The operating room, he declares should be disinfected with cleansing vapors. He describes 127 different instruments used for such purposes as cutting, inoculations, puncturing, probing and sounding. Cutting instruments, Susruta maintains, should be of "bright handsome polished metal, and sharp enough to divide a hair lengthwise."
(source: The Pageant of India's History - By Gertrude Emerson Sen p. 66 - 68).
"The specific diseases whose names occur in Panini's grammar indicates that medical studies had made great progress before his time (350 B.C.). The chapter on the human body in the earliest Sanskrit dictionary, the Amara-kosha presupposes a systematic cultivation of the science. The works of the great traditional Indian physicians, Charaka, and Susruta, were translated into Arabic not later than the 8th century. The chief seat of the science was at Benares. The name of Charaka repeatedly occurs in the Latin translations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Rhazes (Al Rasi), and Serapion (Ibn Serabi).
Indian medicine dealt with the whole area of the science. It described the structure of the body, its organs, ligaments, muscles, vessels, and tissues. The materia medica of the Hindus embraces a vast collection of drugs belonging to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom, many of which have been adopted by the European physicians. Their pharmacy contained ingenious processes of preparation, with elaborate directions for the administration and classification of medicines. Much attention was devoted to hygiene, to the regimen of the body, and to diet.
The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians appears to have been bold and skilful. They conducted amputations, arresting the bleeding by pressure, a cup-shaped bandage, and boiling oil. They practiced lithotomy; performed operations in the abdomen and uterus; cured hernia, fistula, piles; set broken bones and dislocations; and were dexterous in the extraction of foreign substances from the body. A special branch of surgery was devoted to rhinoplasty, or operations for improving deformed ears and noses, and forming new ones. They devoted great care to the making of surgical instruments, and to the training of students by means of operations performed on wax spread out on a board, or on the tissues and cells of the vegetable kingdom, and upon dead animals. Considerable advances were also made in veterinary science, and mongraphs exist on the diseases of horses and elephants. "
(source: The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter p.148-150).
Ancient India possessed advanced medical knowledge. Her
doctors knew about metabolism, the circulatory system, genetics, and the
nervous system as well as the transmission of specific characteristics by
heredity. Vedic physicians understood medical ways to counteract the effects of
poison gas, performed Caesarean sections and brain operations, and used
anesthetics.
Sushruta (5th century BC) listed the diagnosis of 1,120
diseases. He described 121 surgical instruments and was the first to experiment
in plastic surgery.
(source: We Are Not The First – By Andrew Tomas - A Bantam Book 1971 New
York p. 15 - 49).The most remarkable part of Charaka's work is his classification of remedies drawn from vegetable, mineral and animal sources. Over two thousand vegetable preparations, derived from the roots, bark, flowers, fruits, seeds or sap of plants and trees, are described vy Charaka, who also gives the correct time of year for gathering these materials and the method of preparing and administering them. Charaka sounds surprisingly modern. He devotes a good deal of attention to children's diseases, and discusses proper feeding and hours of sleep. He stresses the care of the teeth and the necessity of cleaning them. The universal custom among Hindus of using a medicinal stick to clean the teeth and of rinsing the mouth thoroughly after every meal is so firmly established that it must go back to very ancient times. Diagnosis in Charaka's time was primarily based on careful study of the pulse, and that Charaka had a good idea of blood circulation is apparent from this passage in his treatise: "From that great center (the heart) emanate the vessels carrying blood into all part of the body - the element which nourishes the life of all animals and without which it would be extinct."
Charaka's treatise was based on the teaching of Atreya, whose date has been assigned to the sixth century B.C. Previous to Atreya, Ayurveda, "the science of life" was one of the recognized Vedic studies. High ethical standards which should be maintained by medical profession were also stressed by Charaka. He says: "Not for money nor for any earthly objects should one treat his patients. In this the physician's work excels all vocations. Those who sell treatment as a merchandise neglect the true measure of gold in search of mere dust."
(source: The Pageant of India's History - By Gertrude Emerson Sen p. 66 - 67).
Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) Eminent Orientalist, observed:
"That in medicine, or the astronomy and metaphysics, the Hindus have kept pace with the most enlightened nations of the world: and that they attained as thorough a proficiency in medicine and surgery as any people whose acquisitions are recorded." He says further: "It would easily be supposed that their patient attention and national shrewdness would render the Hindus excellent observers."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p. 77).
The great picture of Indian medicine is one of rapid development in the Vedic and Buddhist period, followed by centuries of slow and cautious improvement. In the time of Alexander, says Garrison, "Hindu physicians and surgeons enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for superior knowledge and skill," and even Aristotle is believed by some students to have been indebted to them. So too with the Persians and Arabs.
We find Persians and Arabs translating into their languages, in the eighth century A.D., the thousand-year-old compendia of Sushrata and Charaka. The great Caliph Haroun-al-Rashid accepted the preeminence of Indian medicine and scholarship, and imported Indian physicians to organize hospitals and medical schools in Baghdad.
Lord Amphill concludes that medieval and modern Europe owes its system of medicine directly to the Arabs, and through them to India.
(source: The Story of civilizations: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant ISBN: 1567310125 1937 p.531).
Dorothea Chaplin mentions in her book, Matter, myth and Spirit or Keltic and Hindu Links (pp 168-9), "Long before the year 460 B.C., in which Hippocrates, the father of European medicine was born, the Hindus had built an extensive pharmacopoeia and had elaborate treatises on a variety of medical and surgical subjects....The Hindus' wonderful knowledge on a variety of medicine has for some considerable time led them away from surgical methods as working destruction on the nervous system, which their scientific medical system is able to obliviate, producing a cure even without preliminary crisis."
(source: Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence - By Stephen Knapp. World Relief Network ISBN: 0961741066 p 31).
The practice of medicine, like all other sciences, was regulated by a code of social ethics. A physician (vaidya) was to be devoted to the service of the sick. Charaka's advice to his students contained the gist of the professional ethics:
"If you want success in your practice, wealth and fame, and heaven after your death, you must pray every day on rising and going to bed for the welfare of all beings and you must strive with all your soul for the health of the sick. You must not betray your patients, even at the cost of your own life. You must not get drunk, or commit evil, or have evil companions. You must be pleasant, of speech and thoughtful, always striving to improve your knowledge."
Free hospitals were maintained by the kings and merchants. Nursing and attending the sick was considered to be one of the highest service to dharma.
(source: Ancient Indian History and Culture - By Chidambara Kulkarni p. 273).
Ancient Hospitals
The Hindus were the first nation to establish hospitals, and for centuries they were the only people in the world who maintained them. The Chinese traveler, Fa-hien, speaking of a hospital he visited in Pataliputra says: "Hither come all poor and helpless patients suffering from all kinds of infirmities. They are well taken care of, and a doctor attends them; food and medicine being supplied according to their wants. Thus they are made quite comfortable, and when they are well, they may go away."
"The earliest hospital in Europe," says historian Vincent A. Smith, "is said to have been opened in the tenth century."
(source: Early History of India - By Vincent Smith p. 259).
***
Smallpox inoculation started in India before the West
Smallpox inoculation is an ancient Indian tradition and was practiced in India before the West.
In ancient times in India smallpox was prevented through the tikah (inoculation). Kurt Pollak (1968) writes, "preventive inoculation against the smallpox, which was practiced in China from the 11th century, apparently came from India". This inoculation process was generally practiced in large part of Northern and Southern India, but around 1803-04 the British government banned this process. It's banning, undoubtedly, was done in the name of 'humanity', and justified by the Superintendent General of Vaccine (manufactured by Dr. E. Jenner from the cow for use in the inoculation against smallpox).
Dharmapal has quoted British sources to prove that inoculation in India was practiced before the British did. In the seventeenth century, smallpox inoculation (tikah) was practiced in India. A particular sect of Brahmins employed a sharp iron needle to carry out these practices. In 1731, Coult was in Bengal and he observed it and wrote (Operation of inoculation of the smallpox as performed in Bengall from Re. Coult to Dr. Oliver Coult in 'An account of the diseases of Bengall' Calcutta, dated February 10, 1731):
"The operation of inoculation called by the natives tikah has been known in the kingdom of Bengall as near as I can learn, about 150 years and according to the Bhamanian records was first performed by one Dununtary, a physician of Champanagar, a small town by the side of the Ganges about half way to Cossimbazar whose memory in now holden in great esteem as being through the another of this operation, which secret, say they, he had immediately of God in a dream.'
English physician Jenner is credited with discovering vaccination on a scientific basis with his studies on small pox in 1796. A group of Fellows of the Royal Society had earlier studied the method of inoculating people in India and submitted its report in the 1760s. Dr J. Z. Holwell, one of the members who was in the Bengal Province for more than ten years to study the Indian vaccination method, lectured at the London Royal College of Physicians in 1767 "that nearly the same salutary method, now so happily pursued in England,... has the sanction of remotest antiquity (in India), illustrating the propriety of present practice".
Dr. J. Z. Holwell writes the most detailed account for the college of Physicians in London in 1767 (An account of the manner of inoculating for the smallpox in the East Indies, by J. Z. Holwell, F.R.S. addressed to the President and Members of the College of Physicians in London). He wrote:
"Inoculation is performed in Indostan by a particular tribe of Bramins, who are delegated annually for this service from the different Colleges of Bindoobund, Eleabas, Benares, & c. over all the distant provinces: dividing themselves into small parties, of three or four each, they plan their traveling circuits in such wise as to arrive at the places of the operation consists only in abstaining for a month from fish, milk, and ghee (a kind of butter made generally of buffalo's milk). When the Bramins begin to inoculate, they pass from house to house and operate at the door, refusing to inoculate any who have not, on a strict scrutiny, duly observed the preparatory course enjoined them. It is no uncommon thing for them to ask the parents how many pocks they choose their children should have."
(source: An account of the manner of inoculating for the smallpox in the East Indies - by J. Z. Holwell M.D., F.R.S.).
On the efficacy of this practice Holwell has the following to say:
"When the before recited treatment of the inoculated is strictly followed, it is next to a miracle to hear, that one in a million fails of receiving the infection, or of one that miscarries under it.. Since, therefore, this practice of the East has been followed without variation, and with uniform success from the remotest unknown times, it is but justice to conclude, it must have been originally founded on the basis of rational principle and experiment."
Holwell's detailed account, not only describes inoculation, but also shows that the Indians knew that microbes caused such diseases.
(source: Indian Science And Technology in the Eighteenth Century; some contemporary European accounts - By Dharampal 1971. An Account of the manner of inoculating for the Smallpox in the East Indies. Mapusa, Goa: Other India Press. Chapter VIII p. 142 -164. The Healers, the Doctor, then and now - By Pollack, Kurt 1968.English Edition. p. 37-8.).
Also refer to Indian Institute of Science - Prevention of Small Pox in ancient India).
The Sactya Grantham - ancient Brahman medical text ~ 3,500 years old describing brain surgery and anaesthetics, contains the following passages giving instructions on small pox vaccination:
“Take on the tip of a knife the contents of the inflammation, inject it into the arm of the man, mixing it with his blood. A fever will follow but the malady will pass very easily and will create no complications.” Edward Jenner (1749-1823) is credited with the discovery of vaccination but it appears that ancient India has prior claim!"
(source: We Are Not The First – By Andrew Tomas - A Bantam Book 1971 New York p. 15 - 49). and http://www.habtheory.com/1/habrefs.php).
The Brahmins had a theory of their operations. They believed the
atmosphere abounded with imperceptible animalculae (refined to bacteria within
a larger context today). They distinguished tow types of these: those that are
harmful and those not so. The Brahmins
therefore believed that their treatment in inoculating the person expelled the
immediate cause of the disease. How effective was the inoculation? According to
Dr. J. Z. Holwell, FRS, who had
addressed the College of Physicians in London:
“When the before recited treatment of the inoculation is
strictly followed, it is next to a miracle to hear, that one in a million fails
to receiving the infection, or of one that miscarries under it.”
A later estimate by the Superintendent General of Vaccine
in 1804 noted that fatalities among the inoculated counted one in 200 among the
Indian population and one in 60 to 70 among the Europeans. There is an
explanation for this divergence. Most
of the Europeans objected to the inoculation on theological grounds.
Small pox has a long history in India; it is discussed in
the Hindu scriptures and even has a goddess
(Sitala, literally “the cool one")
devoted exclusively to its cause. It seems therefore almost natural to
expect an Indian medical response to the disease. The inoculation treatment
against it was carried out by a particular caste of Brahmins from the different
medical colleges in the area. These Brahmins circulated in the villages in
groups of three or four to perform their task.
The person to be inoculated was obliged to follow a
certain dietary regime; he had particularly to abstain from fish, milk, and
ghee, which, it was held, aggravated the fever that resulted after the
treatment. The method the Brahmins followed is similar to the one followed in
our own time in certain aspects. They punctured the space between the elbow and
the wrist with a sharp instrument and then proceeded to introduce into the
abrasion “various matter” prepared from inoculated pistules from the preceding
year. The purpose was to induce the disease itself, albeit in a mild form;
after it left the body, the person was rendered immune to small-pox for life.
The Brahmins had a theory of their operations. They
believed the atmosphere abounded with imperceptible animalculae. They
distinguished two types of these: those harmful and those not so. The
universality of this practices ceased to obtain with the arrival of the
British. Like many specialists in India, including teachers, the Brahmin
doctors had been maintained through public revenues. With British rule, this
fiscal system was disrupted and the inoculators left to fend for
themselves.
Two of the more important medical arts of
India – plastic surgery and inoculations against small pox. Both were indigenously evolved and the accounts
we have, come from Westerners sent out to study them. One of these curious
facts was the inoculation against small pox disease, practiced in both north
and south India till it was banned or
disrupted by the English authorities in 1802-3. The ban was pronounced
on “humanitarian” grounds by the Superintendent General of Vaccine.(source: Homo Faber: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1500-1972 - By Claude Alvares p. 65-67 and Decolonizing History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1492 to the Present Day - By Claude Alvares p.66-67).
European colonists from the sixteenth century onwards, gained knowledge of plants, diseases and surgical techniques that were unknown in the West. One such example is rauwolfia serpentia, a plant used in traditional Indian medicine. The active ingredient is today used to treat hypertension and anxiety in the West.
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone has written: "Their use of these medicines seems to have been very bold. They were the first nation who employed minerals internally, and they not only gave mercury in that manner but arsenic and arsenious acid, which were remedies in intermittents. They have long used cinnabar for fumigations, by which they produced a speedy and safe salivation. They have long practiced inoculation."
"They cut for the stone, couched for the cataract, and extracted the fetus from the womb, and in their early works enumerate not less than 127 sorts of surgical instruments!" "Their acquaintance with medicines seems to have been very extensive. We are not surprised at their knowledge of simples, in which they gave early lessons to Europe, and more recently taught us the benefit of smoking dhatura in asthma and the use of cowitch against worms."
(source: History of India - Mountstuart Elphinstone London: John Murray Date of Publication: 1849 p. 145).
The Englishman (a Calcutta Daily), in a lead story in 1880, said: "No one can read the rules contained in great Sanskrit medical works without coming the conclusion that in point of knowledge, the ancient Hindus were in this respect very far in advance not only to the Greek and Romans but also to Medieval Europe."
(source: Sanskrit Civilization - By G. R. Josyer p. 28).
***
Ayurveda or the Veda of Longevity
Ayurveda is a 3,000- to 5,000-year-old holistic healthcare system, which looks at the individual, addresses diet, lifestyle and spirit, and strives for balance in each person. It focuses on prevention, and sees, many illnesses not as a collection of symptoms but as imbalances within the body, mind or spirit that, once balance is restored, eats disease at its root.
"The science of Medicine was cultivated early in India and modern researches have disclosed the fact that the Materia Medica of the Greeks, even of Hippocrates the "Father of Medicine," is based on the older Materia Medica of the Hindus.... Charaka's work is divided into eight books, describing various diseases and their treatment; and Susruta's work has six parts, and specially treats of surgery and operations which are considered difficult even in modern times. Various chemical processes were known to the Hindus. Oxides, sulphates, and suphurets of various metals were prepared, and metallic substances were administered internally in India long before the Arabs borrowed the practice from them, and introduced it in Europe in the Middle Ages."
(source: The Civilization of India - By Romesh C. Dutt p. 64).
A tree resin used in Indian medicine for 2,000 years as a folk remedy for a variety of ailments works to lower cholesterol in lab animals, and in a new way that might lead to the development of improved drugs for people, U.S. researchers report. The tree is known in India as guggul, or the myrrh shrub. It’s been used there since at least 600 BC to battle obesity and arthritis, among other ailments.
(source: Ancient remedy could lead to alternative to today’s drugs - msnbc.com).
"Indian medicine's influence on Portugal was fairly wide. You had echoes of Indian or Ayurvedic practices that come into Portuguese usage. Tamarind, for example, is a plant widely used in Ayurveda. It is applied in Portuguese hospitals. It is used as a cooling agent, in combination with other medicinal plants to help the absorption of those plants and it is used in a poultice, placed on the skin.
(source: West has always benefited from Indian medicine).
"Hindu literature on anatomy and physiology as well as eugenics and embryology has been voluminous. The Hindus knew the exact osteology of the human body 2,000 years before Vesalius (c. 1545) and had some rough ideas of the circulation of blood long before Harvey (1628). the internal administration of mercury, iron and other powerful metallic drugs were practized by the Hindu physicians at least 1,000 years before Paracelsus (1540). And they have written extensive treatises on these subjects."
(source: Creative India - By Benoy Kumar Sarkar published Motilal Banarsi Dass, Lahore 1937. p. 5).
Ayurveda is a traditional healing system of India, with
origins firmly rooted in the culture of the Indian subcontinent. Some 5000 years ago, the great rishis, or
seers of ancient India, observed the fundamentals of life and organized them
into a system. Ayurveda was their gift to us, an oral tradition passed
down from generation to generation. Ayurvedic teachings were recorded as
sutras, succinct poetical verses in Sanskrit, containing the essence of a topic
and acting as aides-memoire for the students. Sanskrit, the ancient language of
India, reflects the philosophy behind Ayurveda and the depth within it.
Sanskrit has a wealth of words for aspects within and beyond consciousness.
A few treatises on
Ayurveda date from around 1000 B.C. The best known is Charaka Samhita, which
concentrates on internal medicine. Many of today’s Ayurvedic physicians use
Astanga Hrdayam, a more concise compilation written over 1000 years ago from
the earlier texts.
(source: The Book of Ayurveda: A Holistic Approach to Health and
Longevity - By Judith H. Morrison p. 15 -20).
US medical schools to
teach Ayurveda
American medical schools will teach students the goodness
of Ayurveda with visiting Indian specialists offering a 12-hour crash course
programme on the medical system based on herbs.
Schools in the United States are offering the
course taught by Dr Palep under the aegis of Complementary Alternative Medicine
and include topics like Ayurveda philosophy, anatomy, physiology, pathology,
pharmacology, clinical exam and treatments. It also teaches Yoga, meditation and panchkarma therapy
(process of detoxification and rejuvenation). (source: US medical schools to teach Ayurveda - sify.com).
Veterinary science in Ancient India
Since animals were regarded as a part of the same cosmos as humans, it is not surprising that animal life was keenly protected and veterinary medicine was a distinct branch of science with its own hospitals and scholars. Numerous texts, especially of the postclassical period, Visnudharmottara Mahapurana for example, mention veterinary medicine. Megasthenes refers to the kind of treatment which was later to be incorporated in Palakapyamuni's Hastya yur Veda and similar treatises. Salihotra was the most eminent authority on horse breeding and hippiatry. Juadudatta gives a detailed account of the medical treatment of cows in his Asva-Vaidyaka.
(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal Pan Macmillan Limited. 1993. p.187-188).
According to Stanley Wolpert, " Veterinary science had developed into an Indian medical specialty by that early era, and India's monarchs seem to have supported special hospitals for their horses as well as their elephants. Hindu faith in the sacrosanctity of animals as well as human souls, and belief in the partial divinity of cows and elephants helps explain perhaps what seems to be far better care lavished on such animals... A uniquely specialized branch of Indian medicine was called Hastyaurveda ("The Science of Prolonging Elephant Life").
(source: An Introduction to India - By Stanley Wolpert p. 193-194)
Astronomy
The science of astronomy flourishes only amongst a civilized people. Hence, considerable advancement in it is itself proof of the high civilization of a nation. Hindu astronomy has received the homage of numerous European scholars.
Sir William Hunter (1840-1900) says "The Astronomy of the Hindus has formed the subject of excessive admiration."
"Proof of very extraordinary proficiency," says Lord Elphinstone, "in their astronomical writings are found."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 332 - 348).
William Robertson wrote: "It is highly probable that the knowledge of the twelve signs of zodiacs was derived from India."
(source: An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India - By William Robertson p. 280).
India has left a universal legacy determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Claude Bailly (1736–93) 18th century French astronomer and politician. His works on astronomy and on the history of science (notably the Essai sur la théorie des satellites de Jupiter and History of Astronomy) were distinguished both for scientific interest and literary elegance and earned him membership in the French Academy, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Inscriptions. Bailly, who was guillotined during the French Revolution, maintained that the Brahmins of India had been tutors of the Greeks and, through them, of Europe.
Jean-Claude Bailly said:
" The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."
(source: The Politics of History - By N. S. Rajaram Voice of India ISBN 81-85990-28-X. 1995 p. 47).
The paper of John Playfair (1748-1819) (FRS and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh) is a detailed review (published in 1790) of the book 'Traite de ';astronomie Indienne et Orientale,' by J. S. Bailly (Paris 1787), the famous French historian of astronomy. Taken as if by surprise by Bailly's rather positive evaluation of the origin, antiquity and achievements of Indian astronomy, Playfair states that: "I entered on the study of that work, not without a portion of skepticism....The result was, an entire conviction of the accuracy of the one, and of the solidity of the other.' Both Bailly's book and Playfair's article examine in detail some of the astronomical tables (based on Indian astronomy) that the French had procured from Siam (Thailand), Playfair's main conclusions are the following:
1. The observations on which the astronomy of India is founded, were made more than three thousand years before the Christian era; and in particular, the places of the sun and the moon, at the beginning of the Kali-yoga/Calyougham (i.e., 17/18 February 3102 B.C.), were determined by actual observation.
2. Though the astronomy which is now in the hands of the Brahmins, is so ancient in its origin, yet it contains many rules and tables that are of later construction.
3. The basis of the four systems of astronomical tables which we have examined, is evidently the same.
4. The construction of these tables implies a great knowledge of geometry, arithmetic, and even of the theoretical part of astronomy.
Playfair argues that 'communication is more likely to have gone from India to Greece, than in the opposite direction."
(source: India Through The Ages: History, Art Culture and Religion - By G. Kuppuram p.671-672).
Hindu astronomy received considerable homage from European scholars. Sir William Hunter (1840-1900) says: "The astronomy of the Hindus has formed the subject of excessive admiration." "In some points the Brahmins made advances beyond Greek astronomy. Their fame spread throughout the West, and found entrance into the Chronicon Paschale (commenced about 330 A.D. and revised under Heraclius 610-641). "The Sanskrit term for the apex of a planet's orbit seems to have passed into the Latin translations of the Arabic astronomers. The Sanskrit uccha became the aux (genaugis) of the later translators." "The Arabs became their (Hindus) discipline in the 8th century, and translated Sanskrit treatises, Siddhanats, under the name Sindhends."
Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) says:
"The fame of Hindu astronomers spread to the West, and the Andubarius (or probably, Ardubarius), whom the Chronicon Paschale places in primeval times as the earliest Indian astronomer, is doubtless none other than Aryabhatta, the rival of Pulisa, and who is likewise extolled by the Arabs under the name of Arjabahar."
(source: Indian Literature - By Albrecht Weber ISBN: 1410203344 p. 255).
Research scholars like Sylvain Bailley (1736-1793) and Charles Francois Dupuis (1742-1809) aver that the Hindu Zodiac is the earliest known to man and that the first calendar was made in India in about B.C. 12,000.
(Refer to Bailley's Histoire de Astonomie Ancienne p. 483 as well as the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology - December 1901 part I).
The Hon. Emmeline M. Plunket (1835- ) in the great work Ancient Calendars and Constellations p. 192 - says that there were very advanced Hindu Astronomers in B.C. 6,000.
(source: Hinduism: That Is Sanatana Dharma - By R. S. Nathan p. 38 published by Central Chinmaya Mission Trust. Bombay).
Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) wrote: "The science of astronomy at present exhibits many proofs of accurate observation and deduction, highly creditable to the science of the Hindu astronomers. The division of the ecleptic into lunar mansions, the solar zodiac, the mean motions of the planets, the procession of the equinox, the earth's self-support in space, the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis, the revolution of the moon on her axis, her distance from the earth, the dimensions of the orbits of the planet, the calculations of eclipses are parts of a system which could not have been found amongst an unenlightened people."
But the originality of the Hindus is not less striking than their proficiency. Wilson says: "The originality of Hindu astronomy is at once established, but it is also proved by intrinsic evidence, and although there are some remarkable coincidences between the Hindu and other systems, their methods are their own."
(source: History of British India - by James Mill Volume II p, 106-107).
Mountstuart Elphinstone wrote: "Proofs of very extraordinary proficiency in their astronomical writings are found."
The Hindu astronomy not only establishes the high proficiency of our ancestors in this department of knowledge and exacts admiration and applause: it does something more. It proves the great antiquity of the Sanskrit literature and the high literary culture of the Hindus. "Monsieur Bailly, the celebrated author of the History of Astronomy, inferred from certain astronomical tables of the Hindus, not only advanced progress of the science, but a date so ancient as to be entirely inconsistent with the chronology of the Hebrew scriptures. His argument was labored with the utmost diligence and was received with unbounded applause. All concurred at the time with the wonderful learning, wonderful civilization and wonderful institutions of the Hindus!"
(source: History of British India - By James Mill Volume II. p. 97-98).
Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) says: "Astronomy was practiced in India as early as 2780 B.C." "The fame of Hindu astronomers spread to the West, and the Andubarius (or probably, Ardubarius), whom the Chronicon Paschale places in primeval times as the earliest Indian astronomer, is doubtless none other than Aryabhatta, the rival of Pulisa, and who is likewise extolled, by the Arabs under the name of Arjabahar."
(source: Indian Literature - By Albrecht Weber p. 30-255).
But some of the greatest modern astronomers have decided in favor of a much greater antiquity. Cassini, Bailly, Gentil and Playfair maintain "that there are Hindu observations extant which must have been made more than three thousand years before Christ, and which evince even then a very high degree of astronomical science."
Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna (1779-1847) proves conclusively that Hindu astronomy was very far advanced even at the beginning of the Kaliyug, or the iron age of the Hindus (about 5,000 years ago). He says: "According to the astronomical calculations of the Hindus, the present period of the world, Kaliyug, commenced 3,102 years before the birth of Christ, on the 20th of February, at 2 hours 27 minutes and 30 seconds, the time being thus calculated of the planets that took place, and their tables show this conjunction. Bailly states that Jupiter and Mercury were then in the same degree of the ecliptic, Mars at a distance of only eight, and Saturn of seven degrees; whence it follows, that at the point of time given by the Brahmins as the commencement of Kaliyug, the four planets above-mentioned must have been successively concealed by the rays of the sun (first Saturn, then Mars, afterwards Jupiter and lastly Mercury)....The calculation of the Brahmins is so exactly confirmed by or own astronomical tables, that nothing but an actual observation could have given so correspondent a result."
The learned Count continues: "He (Bailly) further informs us that Laubere, who was sent by Louis XIV as ambassador to the King of Siam, brought home, in the year 1687, astronomical tables of solar eclipses and that other similar tables were sent to Euorpe by Patouillet (a missionary in the Carnatic - India), and by Gentil, which later were obtained from the Brahmins in Tirvalore, and that they all perfectly agree in their calcuations although received from different persons, at different times, and from places in India remote from each other. On these tables Bailly, makes the following observation. The motion calculated by the Brahmins during the long space of 4,385 years (the period eclipsed between these calculations and Bailly's), varies not a single minute from the tables of Cassini and Meyer; and as the tables brought to Europe by Laubere in 1687, under Louis XIV, are older than those of Cassini and Meyer, the accordance between them must be the result of mutual and exact astronomical observations." Then again, "Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as that discovered by Tycho Brahe, a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria, and also to the Arabs, who followed the calculation of this school."
"These facts," says the erudite Count, "sufficiently show the great antiquity and distinguished station of astronomical science among the Hindus of past ages." The Count then asks "if it be true that the Hindus more than 3,000 BC., according to Bailly's calculation, had attained so high a degree of astronomical and geometrical learning, how many centuries earlier must the commencement of their culture have been, since the human mind advances only step by step on the path of science."
The length of the Hindu tropical year as deduced from the Hindu tables is 365 days, 5 hours, 50 minutes, 35 seconds, while La Callie's observation given 365-5-48-49. This makes the year at the time of the Hindu observation longer than at present by 1'46". It is however, an established fact that the year has been decreasing in duration from time immemorial and shall continue to decrease.
(source: The Theogony of the Hindoos with their systems of Philosophy and Cosmogony - By Count Bjornstjerna p. 32).
W Brennand had said in his book Hindu Astronomy:
"It is certain that the ancient Hindu astronomers, many centuries before the Christian Era, were in possession of knowledge, derived from observations made by them of the motions of the heavenly bodies, which they were able to use, and did actually use, in very accurate computations of time. "
"Upon the first point (the antiquity of that system),
it may be remarked, that no one can carefully study the information collected
by various investigators and translators of Hindu works relating to Astronomy,
without coming to the conclusion that, long before the period when Grecian
learning founded the basis of knowledge and civilization in the West, India had
its own store of erudition. Master minds, in those primitive ages, thought out
the problems presented by the ever recurring phenomena of the heavens, and gave
birth to the ideas which were afterwards formed into a settled system for the
use and benefit of succeeding. Astronomers, Mathematicians, and Scholiasts, as
well as for the guidance of votaries of religion."
It is in the light of such consideration as these, that
the investigator of the facts relating to Hindu Astronomy, is compelled to
admit the extreme antiquity of the science. An impartial investigation of the
circumstances relating to the question whether the Grecian Astronomy was
original in its nature, and was copied by the Hindus, places it beyond doubt
that the Hindu system was essentially different from and independent of the
Greek.
“No nation in
existence can afford to compare to latter [India] in many tenets of science,
with its earliest theories and cosmography, without a smile at the expense of
ancestors, but the Hindus, in this view, may, with not a little justifiable
pride, point to their science of astronomy, arithmetic, algebra, geometry and
even of trignometry, as containing within them evidence of a traditional
civilisation compared formally with that of any other nation in the world.”
(source: Hindu Astronomy - By W Brennand p. 34 and 320 - 323).
Paul G
Johnson has observed in his
book, God and World Religions:(source: Hindu Astronomy - By W Brennand p. 34 and 320 - 323).
"In 600 B.C.E. the writer of Genesis perceived Earth to be the motionless centerpiece of creation, and above its flat surface were two great lights – the Sun and the Moon. Fourteen centuries before, the Hindu scripture – The Rig Veda – had a more accurate picture. Not only did the Sun, Moon, and Earth revolve in orbits, but “the Earth in its orbit revolves around the Sun.” (8:2).
(source: God and World Religions - By Paul G Johnson p. 3).
"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."
(source: Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By Dick Teresi p. 1 - 8 and 159 and 174 -239). For more on Dick Teresi refer to chapters Quotes301_320, GlimpsesVI and GlimpsesVII )
Historian A. L. (Arthur Llewellyn) Basham wrote:
"The procession of the equinoxes was known, and calculated with some accuracy by medieval astronomers, as were the lengths of the year, the lunar month, and other astronomical constants. These calculations were reliable for most practical purposes, and in many cases more accurate than those of the Greco-Roman world. Eclipses were forecast with accuracy and their true cause understood."
These were achieved without the help of a telescope. Accurate measurement was made possible by the decimal system of numerals, invented by the Indians.
It is certain that the Vedic Indians knew something of astronomy and that it had a high utilitarian value for them as it did for all peoples of antiquity. The Vedic priests had to make careful calculations of times for their rituals and sacrifices, and also had to determine the time of sowing and harvest. Moreover, astronomical periods played an important role in Vedic thought for they were considered to be successive parts of the ever returning cosmic cycle.
The Rig Veda lists a number of stars and mentions twelve divisions of the sun's yearly path (rashis) and also 360 divisions of the circle. Thus, the year of 360 days is divided into twelve months. The sun's annual course was described as a wheel with twelve spokes, which correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac.
The theory of the great cycles of the universe and the ages of the world is of older origin than either Greek or Babylonian speculations about the "great year," the period within which all the stars make a round number of complete revolutions. But there is remarkably close numerical concordance in these theories. The Indian concept of the great year (mahayuga) developed from the idea of a lunisolar period of five years, combined with the four ages of the world (yugas) which were thought to be of unequal perfection and duration, succeeding one another and lasting in the ration of 4:3:2:1.
The last, the Kaliyuga, was one-tenth of the mahayga or 432,000 years. This figure was calculated not only from rough estimates of planetary and stellar cycles, but also from the 10,800 stanzas of the Rig Veda, consisting of 432,000 syllables. The classical astronomers calculated the great period as one of 4,320,000 years, the basic element of which was a number of sidereal solar years, 1,080,000 a multiple of 10,800. According to Berossus, the Babylonian great year was a period of 432,000 years, comprising 120 "saroi" of 3,600 years apiece.
The Rig Veda talks about the annual motion of the earth. The diurnal motion is described in the Yajur Veda. The Aiteriya Brahmana explains that "the sun neither sets nor rises, that when the earth, owing to the rotation on its axis is lighted up, it is called day" and so on.
(source: Haug's Aitreya Brahmana Volume II. p. 242).
The Indian astronomer, Aryabhata lived in during the period in which the Surya Siddhanta was composed. He was born in 476 and reputedly completed his famous work, Aryabhatiya, at the age of twenty-three. A concise and brilliant work of astronomy and mathematics.
The Aryabhatiya introduced certain new concepts, like Aryabhata's new epicyclic theory, the sphericity of the earth, its rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun, the true explanation of eclipses and methods of forecasting them with accuracy, and the correct length of the year were his outstanding contributions. The Arabs preserved the theory of sphericity of earth, and Pierre d'Ailly employed it in 1410 in his map, which was used by Columbus.
As regards the stars being stationary, Aryabhatta says:
"The starry vault is fixed. It is the earth which, moving round its axis, again and again causes the rising and setting of planets and stars." He starts the question: "Why do the stars seem to move? and himself replies: "As a person in a vessel, while moving forwards sses an immovable object moving backwards, in the same manner do the stars, however immovable, seem to move daily."
The Polar days and nights of six months are also described by him. T. E. Colebrooke says: "Aryabhatta affirmed the diurnal revolutions of the earth on its axis. He possessed the true theory of the causes of solar and lunar eclipses and disregarded the imaginary dark planets of mythologists, affirming the moon and primary planets to be essentially dark and only illuminated by the sun."
(source: T. E. Colebrooke's Essays, Appendix G. p. 467). For more refer to Surya Siddhanta.
Centuries ago Aryabhatta told Pluto is not a planet
"Indian astrology did not include Pluto as a planet and the latest announcement by leading global astronomers after a marathon week-long meeting at Prague on Thursday only endorsed the Indian mathematical astrology of Aryabhatta and Varahamihira in the sixth century," eminent mathematical astrologer Mangal Prasad told PTI. "Western astrology uses Pluto as a planet while Pluto was always out of Indian astrology and we do not use it in our calculations. This is the practice from the days of Aryabhatta and Varahamihira," Prasad said.
"Indian astrology is mathematically concerned with the nine planets, two of which are Rahu and Ketu that are nothing but derivatives from the diameter of the Earth, which is a circle having a value Pi (22/7) imbedded in the equator of earth," he said.
"This was discovered and mathematically shown by Aryabhatta and Varahamihira in the sixth century during the golden period of the Guptas," said Prasad, the author of books based on the work of the two great sixth century scientists.Indian astrology is concerned more with astronomy and the derivations are from the equator of the Earth, diameter of the moon, the solar year and how the planets are viewed in the northern lattitudinal region during January and February, soon after the sun has crossed the Tropic of Capricon and moved towards the northern part of the hemisphere.
(source: Pluto demotion vindicates Aryabhatta - ibnlive.com).
As regards to the size of the earth, it is said: "The circumference of the earth is 4,967 yojanas and its diameter is 1,581 1/24 yojanas. A yojanas is equal to five English miles, the circumference of the earth would therefore be 24, 835 miles, and its diameter 7, 905 5/24 miles.
The Yajur Veda says that the earth is kept in space owing to the superior attraction of the sun. The theory of gravity is thus described in the Siddhanta Shiromani centuries before Newton was born:
"The earth, owing to its force of gravity, draws all things towards itself, and so they seem to fall towards the earth." etc..
As regards to the solar and lunar eclipses it is said: "When the earth in its rotation come between the sun and the moon, and the shadow of the earth falls on the moon, the phenomenon is called lunar eclipse, and when the moon comes between the sun and earth the sun seems as if it was being cut off - this is solar eclipse.
The following is taken from Varahamihira's observations on the moon:
"One half of the moon, whose orbit lies between the sun and the earth, is always bright by the sun's rays; the other half is dark by its own shadows, like the two sides of a pot standing in the sunshine."
About the eclipses, he says: "The true explanation of the phenomenon is this: in an eclipse of the moon, he enters into the earth's shadow; in a solar eclipse the same thing happens to the sun. Hence the commencement of a lunar eclipse does not take place from the west side, nor that of the solar eclipse from the east."
(source: Brihat Samhita Chapter V v. 8).
Brahmagupta who was born in 598 and worked in Ujjain, foreshadowed Newton by declaring that " all things fall to the earth by a law of nature, for it is the nature of the earth to attract and keep things". But the law of gravitational itself was not anticipated.
Recognition of the superiority of the Vedic mathematics was also recorded as long as 662 A.D. by Severus Sebokht, the Bishop of Qinnesrin in North Syria. As reported in Indian Studies in Honor of Charles Rockwell (Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA. Edited by W. E. Clark, 1929), Sebokht wrote that the Indian discoveries in astronomy were more ingenious than those of the Greeks or Babylonians, and their numerical (decimal) system surpasses description.
"I will omit all discussion of the science of the Hindus [Indians], a people not the same as Syrians, their subtle discoveries in the science of astronomy, discoveries more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians; their valuable method of calculation [the decimal system]; their computing that surpasses description. I wish only to say that this computation is done by means of nine signs. If those who believe because they speak Greek, that they have reached the limits of science should know these things, they would be convinced that there are also others who know something."
(source: Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence - By Stephen Knapp. World Relief Network ISBN: 0961741066 p 22)
The celebrated European astronomer, John Playfair (1748-1819) says: "The Brahmin obtains his result with wonderful certainty and expedition in astronomy."
(source: Playfair on the astronomy of the Hindus. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Volume II. p. 138-139).
Professor Sir M. Williams wrote: "It is their science of astronomy by which the (Hindus) heap billions upon millions, trillions upon billions of years, and reckoning up ages upon ages, eons upon eons, with even more audacity than modern geologists and astronomers. In short, an astronomical Hindu ventures on arithmetical conceptions quite beyond the mental dimensions of anyone who feels himself incompetent to attempt a task of measuring infinity."
Mrs. Charlotte Manning exclaimed: "The Hindus had the widest range of mind of which man is capable."
Bramin's Observatory
At Benares - By Sir Robert Barker
Benares in the East
Indies, one of the principal seminiaries of the Bramins or priests of the
original Gentoos of Hindostan, continues still to be the place of resort of
that sect of people; and there are many publick charities, hospitals, and
pagodas, where some thousands of them now reside. Having frequently heard that the ancient Brahmins had a knowledge of
astronomy, and being confirmed in this by their information of an
approaching eclipse both of the Sun and Moon, I made inquiry, when at that
place in the year 1772, among the principal Bramins, to endeavor to get some
information relative to the manner in which they were acquainted of an
approaching eclipse.
(source: Indian Science and Technology in the 18th Century - By Dharampal).
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
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and eminent works on the peerless Wisdom of our Sacred
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