Significant Contributions To Society And World History
By The Great Indian Civilizations of the Past
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Literature
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The First Scripture of the Human Race – The Vedas!
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Rig Veda has 10, 552 mantras
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Yajur Veda has 1, 975 mantras
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Saama Veda has 1, 875 mantras
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Atharva Veda has 5, 987 mantras
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The Vedas are the reservoir of all wisdoms of the universe.
They contain the knowledge of Art, Music, Linguistics, Economics,
Religion, Space Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Medicine, Architecture,
Aeronautics, and so much more …
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Language
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Sanskrit – The Mother of all languages!
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The Sanskrit language is the oldest, most systematic
language that has survived the longest period through history.
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It has the power to express all types of thoughts in their
appropriate terminology – from mythology to literature, science to
philosophy, poetry to prosody, astronomy to anatomy, as well as, genetics,
mathematics and cosmology.
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As a small example of its vastness, the Sanskrit language
contains 65 synonyms for Earth and 70 synonyms for Water.
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Education
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The World’s First University!
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Approximately 2, 700 years ago, as early as 700 BC, there is
documented evidence of a giant university at Takshashilaa, located in the
north-west region of India.
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Students came from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Syria,
Arabia and China to study.
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68 different streams of knowledge were on the syllabus,
including Medicine, Surgery, Politics, Mathematics, Music, Astronomy,
Commerce and much more
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There were 10,500 students.
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Mathematics
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India invented the ZERO!!!
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An inscription of zero was found in Gujarat on a Sankheda
Copper plate, dated 585-586 – the earliest recorded date.
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The concept of Zero is referred to as Shunya
in early Sanskrit texts of the 4th century BC, and explained in
detail in Pingala’s Chandah Sutra of the 2nd century.
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The Zero is also clearly explained in the Brahma-Phuta-Siddhanta
of Brahmagupta in the 7th century. It was later absorbed into
Arabic texts around 770, and from there carried to Europe in the 8th
century.
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5. Geometry
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Geometry seems to have been derived from the Indian word
“Gyaamiti” which means measuring the earth.
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Trigonometry is similar to the word “Trikonamiti” which means
measuring triangular forms.
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While Euclid is credited with the invention of Geometry in 300 BC,
the concept of Geometry emerged in India around 1000 BCE, from the practice of
making fire altars in square and rectangular shapes.
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The text “Surya Siddhanta” – 4th Century – describes amazing
details of Trigonometry and was taken to Europe 1200 years later.
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The old Sanskrit text Baudhayana Shulba Sutra of 6th century BC
mentions the value of Pi as approximately 3.
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Aryabhatta in 499 AD worked out the value of Pi to the fourth
decimal place as 3.1416.
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“Pythagoras’ Theorem” – the square of a hypotenuse of a
right-angled triangle equals the sum of the square of the other two sides – was
actually worked out earlier by Baudhayana in the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra (6th
century BC).
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- Astronomy
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1000 years before Copernicus – In 5th century,
Aryabhatta satted theat the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the
sun, and is suspended in space. He also explained that lunar and solar eclipses
occur by the interplay of the sun, moon and stars.
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1200 years before Newton – The Law of Gravity was
discovered by the ancient Indian astronomer Bhaskaracharya. He stated: “Objects
fall on the Earth due to a force of attraction by the Earth. Therefore, the
Earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit due to this
attraction.
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- Surgery
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Plastic surgery was being performed in India over 2600 years ago,
as early as 600 BC by Shushruta, who is considered to be the Father of Surgery.
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Shushruta used cheek skin to perform plastic surgery to reshape
the nose, ears and lips of people.
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He worked with 125 kinds of surgical instruments, including
scalpels, lancets, needles, catheters.
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He also defined various methods of stitching: the use of horses’
hair, fine thread, fibers of bark and ants’ heads.
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