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"It
is true that even across the Himalayan barrier, India
has sent to the west such gifts as grammar and logic,
philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above
all numerals and the decimal system."
—
Will
Durant (American historian, 1885-1981)
Right
from ancient times, India's unique system of education
and its high standards have been acclaimed by scholars
from across the world. Its institutions of learning,
today, have built upon this heritage to develop their
curricula in consonance with modern requirements. This
high quality attracts students and scholars not only
from India but from other countries as well.
Institutes
of research and higher education have made a significant
contribution in developing a pool of specialised, well
educated resources, whether in science and technology
or the arts and humanities who have set standards of
excellence all over the world. Indian schools and universities
have helped to transform India into an vibrant and technologically
self-sufficient economy.
Perhaps,
the world's oldest recognised university, Taxila also
known as Takshashila, flourished from 600 BC to 500 AD,
in the kingdom of Gandhar. 68 subjects were taught at
this university and the minimum entry age, ancient texts
show, was 16. At one stage, it had 10,500 students including
those from Babylon, Greece, Syria, and China.
Experienced
masters taught the vedas, languages, grammar, philosophy,
medicine, surgery, archery, politics, warfare, astronomy,
accounts, commerce, documentation, music, dance and
other performing arts, futurology, the occult and mystical
sciences,complex mathematical calculations.
The panel of masters at the university included legendary
scholars like Kautilya, Panini, Jivak and Vishnu Sharma.
Zero,
the most powerful tool
Indian
mathematicians originated the concept of 'zero', the foundation
of today's binary computing system. The earliest recorded
date, an inscription of zero on sankheda copper plates
was excavated in Gujarat, in western India (585-586 AD).
In Brahma-Phuta-Siddhanta of Brahmagupta (7th century
AD), the zero is lucidly explained and was rendered into
Arabic texts around 770 AD.
The concept of zero reached Europe in the 8th century.
However, the concept of zero is referred to as shunya
in the early Sanskrit texts of the 4th-century BC and
clearly explained in Pingala's Sutra of the 2nd
century.
The
highest mathematical calculations commonly performed
manually during 100 BC in India was Tallakshanam —
ten raised to the power of 53.
Invention
of Geometry
Geometry
is a coinage of the Sanskrit word gyaamiti meaning
measuring the earth. Similarly, trigonometry has been
derived from another Sanskrit word, trikonamiti,
meaning measuring triangular forms — centuries
before Euclid taught it in Greece.
All
Hindu fire altars are complex forms of geometrical forms.
All Buddhist as well as Hindu mandalas and yantras are
complex forms of geometrical shapes. The writings of
sage Surya Siddhanta of fourth century BC describe amazing
details about trigonometry, which was introduced to
Europe by Briggs in the 16th century.
Arabic
numerals
Arabic
numerals are actually Hindu numerals and even many Arab
mathematicians admit that.
The
Value of Pi
Pi
is another Indian contribution to the world of geometry.
A Sanskrit text named Baudhayana Shulba Sutra of the
6th century mentions the value of Pi as 3. Aryabhatta,
in 499 AD, had computed the value of Pi as 3.1416. In
825 AD one Arab mathematician Mohammad Ibna Musa said:
This value has been given by the Hindus [Indians].
Pythagorean
Theorem or Baudhayana Theorem?
The
so-called Pythagoras Theorem — the square of the
hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle equals the sum
of the square of the two sides — has been described
by Baudhayana in his Baudhayana Sulba Sutraas: "The
area produced by the diagonal of a rectangle is equal
to the sum of the area produced by it on two sides."
Decimal
system
La
Place, one of the architects of the calculus commented
on India's invention of the decimal system as: "it
was India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing
all numbers by means of ten symbols [decimal system]...
A profound and important idea, which escaped the genius
of Archimedes and Apollonius, two greatest men produced
by antiquity."
Indian
astronomers had mapped the sky 3500 years ago —1000
years before Copernicus.
Aryabhatta in 5th century (400-500 AD) stated that the
Earth revolves around the sun, "just as a person
travelling in a boat feels that the trees on the bank
are moving, people on earth feel that the sun is moving".
In his treatise Aryabhatteeam, he clearly states "Earth
is round. It rotates its own axis .… It orbits
around sun.... . It is suspended in space. Lunar and
solar eclipses are due to interplay of sun, moon and
earth"
Copernicus
published his theory of the revolution of the earth
in 1543.
1200
years before Sir Isaac Newton re-discovered the law of
gravity in 1687, Bhaskaracharya wrote in his book, Surya
Siddhanta that objects fall on earth due to a force of
attraction by earth. Therefore, the earth, planets, constellations,
moon and sun are held in orbit due to attraction.
Indian
genius recorded the smallest measurement of time as krati
one 34,000th of a second and the largest measurement 4.32
billion years. In Surya Siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya has
calculated the time taken for the earth to orbit the sun
to 9 decimal places.
Bhaskaracharya calculated the year as having 365.25875684
days. The gregorian calendar year computes it as having
365.2596 days — the difference between the two
calendars is 0.00085 days.
| Surgery
and plastic surgery |
An
ancient Indian surgeon, Shushruta [600 BC] known as the
father of surgery is believed to have used cheek skin
to perform plastic surgery to restore or reshape nose,
ears, and lips with incredible results. He used 125 kinds
of surgical instruments, which included scalpels, lancets,
needles, catheters, and rectal speculum. He conducted
300 types of operations such as extracting solid bodies,
excision, incision, probing, puncturing, evacuating fluids
and suturing. Ancient Indians were also the first to perform
amputations, caesarean and cranall surgeries.
Details about Gandhari's delivery in the epic Mahabharata
describe techniques similar to those that have been
evolved in recent years by 'modern medicine'.
Indian
surgeons had developed fine incision instruments which
could cut a strand of hair longitudinally.
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