Discoveries & Inventions of India centuries before the Western World claimed them !

Episode -1 

Introduction: 

We Indians are used to talking high of the inventions & discoveries of the Western world (Western world is a terminology used to describe the developed & privileged world.....does not matter if they are in the east or west). Indians are enamoured by anything foreign and needlessly so!  If a product is 'phoren' it must be good is a popular saying in the northern part of India.

With due respect to the genuine discoverers and inventors of the Developed world, I intend exploring & elaborating  on the discoveries & inventions of India  that  the world credits to some other country, in this series of articles. 

We have been told that the world first believed that the earth is a flat object and the moment an object moves towards its tip, it would fall into oblivion.....they apparently gave the example of a ship that goes to the edge of the ocean and then it trips and falls in to nowhere, as could be observed with a naked eye.

The world was also told that until Ptolemy enlightened the world , in 150 AD, that the earth  is a spherical object  at the center and the planets & stars like Sun moved around it in circular orbits, everyone else believed that the world was flat. 

The scholars of the world bent backwards to praise Greek Mathematician (Claudius) Ptolemy for his discovery, until they found another luminary Nicholas Copernicus ( 1473 –1543 AD)  who said the Sun is the center of the Universe and is motionless (Heliocentric model). Planets like Earth moved around a stationary Sun in circular orbits and at the same speed.

(Johannes) Kepler, a German astronomer who broke Ptolemy's (mis)postulates ! Kepler said in 1609 AD that the planets moved in an elliptical orbit   around the Sun. It had taken 50 years for the scientists to believe that the orbit is not circular but elliptical.

From these developed subsequent theories that has brought us where we are in terms of the understanding that the planets go around the Sun in elliptical orbits and Sun itself is in motion along with the other members of the galaxy. 

All that has been said above is more like the parable of four blind(ed)people and the elephant.  In that episode only the elephant knew the fact that it is an elephant. 

While the entire world could be equated with the four blind men, India that is Bharat, the colossus could easily be equated to the elephant. How ?

For an average Indian to present an evidence in support of the above is child's play. All it takes is to drive four kilometres from my home and reach Nithyakalyana Perumal temple, Tiruvidanthai (திரு-இடவெந்தை) on East Coast Road. The presiding lord of the temple is Varaha Perumal who is the incarnation of Maha Vishnu. This temple and other Varaha Perumal temples have several sculptures that has Varaha Perumal lifting the spherical earth with his Tusks (Tushes).  This temple structure, under the control of the Archaeological survey of India, is around 2000 years old. Wait....only the present structure is 2000 years old, but the documentary evidence of the presence of this temple is even older. Thirumangai Alwar who lived around 2706 BCE has sung in praise of the temple and the presiding lord.  

(Representative image. This sculpture is of a recent origin)

Tiruvidanthai, is just of one of the several temples that I could quote in support of my claim. 

Rig veda (10.22.14) says अ॒ह॒स्ता यद॒पदी॒ वर्ध॑त॒ क्षाः शची॑भिर्वे॒द्याना॑म् । शुष्णं॒ परि॑ प्रदक्षि॒णिद्वि॒श्वाय॑वे॒ नि शि॑श्नथः ॥ Earth which has no limbs still moves and around the Sun 

Rig Veda 10.149.1 says

स॒वि॒ता य॒न्त्रैः पृ॑थि॒वीम॑रम्णादस्कम्भ॒ने स॑वि॒ता द्याम॑दृंहत् । अश्व॑मिवाधुक्ष॒द्धुनि॑म॒न्तरि॑क्षम॒तूर्ते॑ ब॒द्धं स॑वि॒ता स॑मु॒द्रम् ॥

सविता यन्त्रैः पृथिवीमरम्णादस्कम्भने सविता द्यामदृंहत् । अश्वमिवाधुक्षद्धुनिमन्तरिक्षमतूर्ते बद्धं सविता समुद्रम् 

“Savitā has fixed the earth with fetters; Savitā has made the heaven firm in a plural ce where there wasno support; Savitā has milked the cloud of the firmament bound to the indestructible (ether) like a tremblinghorse. (Savita here means the sun)

There are innumerable references this theory (or the fact) in Rig and Yajur Vedas  not to forget the other two Vedas who do very clearly talk about Sun being one of the stars that is in motion.

Our Vedic scholars and works used to make passing references to these facts as the world at that point of time knew the facts and it did not warrant to be announced as discoveries.  You do not tell everyone today that Sun rises in the east... do you ? Afterall it is an universal truth at this point of time. 

All the four Vedas were clearly 1000-2000 years before the western world started talking about science and astronomy. 

Another pathbreaking work by the Indians is the Calendar, the almanac that would document celestial events and terrestrial events. Loosely called the Panchangam (Panchang) this document is able to predict most of the celestial events like planetary movements, eclipses and terrestrial events like equinoxes and solstices, without looking at the sky or use of scientific equipments. 

How is that possible ?  India had studied the Universe in all its accuracy and had documented who is the center of the universe, how the planets move, how the galaxies move and when events happen.  The formula established by our ancestors at least before 1000 BCE, after a thorough knowledge and study of the universe helped the astronomers and Almanac writers of the later periods to document events without even raising their heads to look at the sky.

In yesteryears we had to run to libraries if we wanted answers for  questions that our teachers could not answer. However today we just look up the internet to get answers. In a similar way the Indian astronomers of the second millennium did not have to do any research to get answers on Planets and the Universe. All they had to do was read Vedic literature  of yester-millennia, like Surya Siddhanta. 

In short, the experience of the Indians is that of going to a movie with a friend who is seeing for the first time, where you have seen the movie umpteen times and know the story too well.  But the trickling of the knowledge to the later generations was not very effective over the last five hundred years as India depended on verbal learning as opposed to written learning of the developed world.

The crux of the above is that India knew what the world did not know.... and they were at least two millennia ahead. 

The Panchangam(पञ्चाङ्गम्)  that is written by families that are trained in astrology and not astronomy is a testimony to the above fact. Panchangam writers clearly knew about the planets, stars, orbital speed, relative positioning, retrograde motions.  What was researched and published by the western world as brand new discoveries were actually public knowledge for India at least thousand years back.

In the subsequent episodes we will move away from the Universe and look at inventions of the western word that actually were public knowledge in India.

Can you believe that some of the Nobel laureates of the west had gone on record to say that they were actually validating what they learnt from the Vedas.