The Clamour of Ancient Science Session at Science Congress

The 102nd Indian Science Congress held at University of Mumbai is omniscient in the newspapers. Sadly, its benevolent theme of science and technology for human development was blissfully lost in the cacophony of dubious arguments surrounding the presentations in the session commemorating the Ancient Science through Sanskrit. The session on the Ancient Science has been introduced for the first time in this Science congress. Consequently rationale behind non- inclusion of such dedicated session was radically questioned by many scientists who were excited and startled by the revelations of Vedic Mythology of Aviation.

There were all together fourteen sessions dedicated towards latest research advancements in various fields of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Medicine). But none of the sessions drew much interest and clout as the session on Vedic Sciences. Instead of anticipating the deliberations on the Ancient Sciences as a move to resurrect the Indian achievements which was not well-documented and studied for centuries, the new session drew ire and snicker from all corners of the media. The claims made in the sessions were chuckled as ludicrous and derided as fantastical. While the political opponents and public in general pounced on opening remarks of the Minister of Science which adorned the front pages of major news papers as being stupid, there has been cynical satisfaction that the Hindutva glory of has been trampled. But, why has been preserving the glorious past of India was attributed to bastion of Hindutva alone? Why India as a nation never took pride in its scientific & technological achievements and in its indigenous knowledge heritage? It is national shame that we know so little about our civilisation. This glaringly exposes the absence of synchronisation of Indian education with its ancient texts. While the West had ceremonially honoured the Greek scholars India has grossly failed to honour rich legacy of Indian scientific contributions.

While preposterous claims about interplanetary travel might prevent proper understanding of Indian science and mathematics, there is need for scientific approach to research the ancient treatises to decipher the intellectual treasures. The history of the knowledge has been documented by the West in a Eurocentric approach. It is probable that Indian contributions towards mathematics and astronomy might have been dismissed or disregarded. Moreover the present Indian tendency of imbibing knowledge from the Western sources dismantled its ability to boot its own scientific resources. Indian tradition abhorred mechanical devices and hence their expertise in manufacturing goods was limited. But they reached the pinnacles of the development of abstract theories.

But unfortunately, the transmission of the unparalleled expertise eroded over a period of time. Some opine that the existence of the caste-system in the ancient India prevented the huge participation of people in creating the base for education and sharing of knowledge. As a result discoveries were confined to closed groups or families. With the demise of these flourished groups intellectual wealth was wiped out. Indian Philanthropists are now pledging huge amounts towards preservation of ancient intellectual history through digitisation and documentation. Intriguingly, some Western Universities brought into fore valuable insights about roots of Indian science and technology. These astonishing references indicated that Rig Veda asserted gravitation 24 centuries before the Newton’s postulates. Vedic civilisation subscribed to the idea that earth was spherical when Greeks believed that it was flat. By fifth century Indian’s calculated the age of earth as 4.3 billion while the West could estimate the age as 4.6 billion years by 20^th century.

The book titled Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi unravelled non-western foundations of modern science which includes the contribution of Indians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Mayans and other Africans. While India is honoured for its greatest contribution to mathematics for the invention of number zero, the book informs that even modern numerals referred to as Arabic numbers were invented in India. Indian mathematicians had invented even the negative numbers and Jain thinkers in 6^th century understood rational numbers. The Sulabha Sutras composed between 800 and 500 BC indicate that India had Pythagoras theorem much before the Greeks and way of getting the square root of 2 correct to five decimal numbers. Invaluable contributions of Indian mathematician Nilakantha who introduced pi and Aryabhatta who explained the rotation of earth on its own axis, conceived the elliptical orbits thousand years before Kepler and contributions of astronomers Varamahira and Brahmagupta towards Cosmology were clearly elucidated. Besides these advancements in Chemistry, Medicine, Surgery, metaphysics, metallurgy, paper making, printing etc were illustrated.

Unfortunately, the Indian colonial mind-set still hankers for approval from the West to endorse our own ancient intellectual wealth. Even now none of the Indian institutions have the ambition or the skill to research on our intellectual history. Instead of knocking down each of the claims made in the current session with derision and disbelief, it is time to be open-minded. Science is based on experimental proof and evidence hence efforts should be on to fathom the depth of ancient science and technology with a rational scientific approach. Further, all the hankering to the ancient glory will be in vain if we fail to attain excellence in the contemporary sciences. In the clamour for mustering the lost glory, India shouldn’t forget the need for sprucing up Indian science to new frontiers by laying foundations for a sturdy scientific architecture.

 

 

 

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