Articles
– Research on Hinduism
Grammar
"Probably
in no other single sphere have Western scholars been so indebted to traditional
India as in that of grammar. "
According to Sir Monier-Williams (Eng. Sanskrit scholar 1819-1899):
"The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 229).
Sir William Wilson Hunter has observed:
"The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure, that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules of formation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with their multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people."
(source: The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter p. 142). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor
Panini, the legendary Sanskrit grammarian of 5th century BC, is the world's first computational grammarian! Panini's work, Ashtadhyayi (the Eight-Chaptered book), is considered to be the most comprehensive scientific grammar ever written for any language.
"The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India."
According to Sir Monier-Williams (Eng. Sanskrit scholar 1819-1899):
"The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 229).
Sir William Wilson Hunter has observed:
"The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure, that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules of formation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with their multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people."
(source: The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter p. 142). For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor
Panini, the legendary Sanskrit grammarian of 5th century BC, is the world's first computational grammarian! Panini's work, Ashtadhyayi (the Eight-Chaptered book), is considered to be the most comprehensive scientific grammar ever written for any language.
"The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India."
The science of linguistics owes much to the brilliant ancient Sanskrit grammarian Panini, whose 4th century B.C. Ashtadhyayi ("Eight Chapters") was the first scientific analysis of any alphabet.
Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) American linguist and author of Language, published in 1933) characterization of Panini's Astadhyayi ("The Eight Books")
"as one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence is by no means an exaggeration; no one who has had even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand sutras or aphorisms - some of them no more than a single syllable in length - Panini sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were. Panini's disciples committed the work to memory and in turn passed it on in the same manner to their disciples; and though the Astadhayayi has long since been committed to writing, rote memorization of the work, with several of the more important commentaries, is still the approved method of studying grammar in India today, as indeed is true of most learning of the traditional culture."
While in the classical world scholars were dealing with language in a somewhat metaphysical way, the Indians were telling us what their language actually was, how it worked, and how it was put together. The methods and techniques for describing the structure of Sanskrit which we find in Panini have not been substantially bettered to this day in modern linguistic theory and practice. We today employ many devices in describing languages that were already known to Panini's first two commentators. The concept of "zero" which in mathematics is attributed to India, finds its place also in linguistics.
"It was in India, however, that there rose a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language. The Hindu grammar taught Europeans to analyze speech forms; when one compared the constituent parts, the resemblances, which hitherto had been vaguely recognized, could be set forth with certainty and precision."
(source: Traditional India - edited by O. L. Chavarria-Aguilar refer to chapter on Grammar - By Leonard Bloomfield Hall - Place of Publication: Englewood Cliffs, NJ Date of Publication: 1964 p. 109-113).
Ancient Indian work on grammar was not only objective, systematic, and brilliant than that done in Greece or Rome but is illustrative of their scientific methods of analysis. Although the date of Panini's grammar, the Ashtadhyayi, ("Eight Chapters"), which comprises about four thousand sutras or aphorisitic rules, is uncertain, it is the earliest extant scientific grammar in the world, having written no later than the fourth century B.C. But prior grammatical analysis is clearly evidenced by the fact that Panini himself mentions over sixty predecessors in the field. For example, the sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet had been properly arranged, vowels and diphthongs separated from mutes, semivowels, and sibilants, and the sounds had been grouped into guttturals, palatals, cerebrals, dentals, and labials.
Panini and other grammarians, especially Katyayana and Patanjali, carried the work much further, and by the middle of the second century B.C. Sanskrit had attained a stereotyped form which remained unaltered for centuries. Whilst Greek grammar tended to be logical, philosophical and syntactical, Indian grammar was the result of an empirical investigation of language done with the objectivity of an anatomist dissecting a body.
At a very early date India began to trace the roots, history, relations and combinations of words. By the fourth century B.C. she had created for herself the science of grammar, and produced probably the greatest of all known grammarians, Panini. The studies of Panini, Patanjali and Bhartrihari laid the foundations of philology; and that fascinating science of verbal genetics owed almost its life in modern times to the rediscovery of Sanskrit.
It is the discovery of Sanskrit by the West and the study of Indian methods of analysis that revolutionized Western studies of language and laid the foundation of comparative philology. Panini's Sanskrit grammar, produced in about 300 B.C. E. is the shortest and the fullest grammar in the world. Until the mid 19th century, in fact, Panini's great grammar remained the best standard guide to the study of Sanskrit, an inspiration to students of language everywhere. Even Otto Bohtlingk and Rudolf Roth, whose monumental Sanskrit-German Dictionary, called the "St Petersburg Lexicon" because it was published by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences from 1852 to 1875, owed a great debt to Panini's remarkable "Eight Chapters."
(source: An Introduction to India - By Stanley Wolpert p. 196).
(For more refer to Electronic Panini - http://sanskrit.gde.to/all_pdf/aShTAdhyAyI.pdf
and Sanskrit Learning Tools - http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tools/learning_tools.html and A Software on Sanskrit Grammar based on Panini's Sutras - http://www.taralabalu.org/panini/greetings.htm).
Linguistics
'Sanskrt' is not a language but a linguistic process.
A L Basham says that the very science of phonetics arose in Europe only after the discovery' of Sanskrt and its grammar by the West. (Paanini, the seminal thinker, constructed the Ashtaadhyaayee - "the Eight Matters to be Studied" in the 5th cent. BC). His 'structures' constitute a scientific presentation of grammar, phonetics, etymology, linguistics, etc. all rolled into one, not excluding the implied "sociology" of listening to, collecting and statistically evaluating forms of usage in the then spoken language. But, except for scholars like Naom Chomsky, no one working in linguistics overtly acknowledges this debt and Paanini has yet to be admitted to the pantheon of science of which Archimedes, Euclid, Socrates, Plato, Newton, Einstein, the Quantum Mechanicists, etc. are the present members. Paanini's work is of immense importance to modern research in the forms of human speech and, possibly, in the mapping of the spread of families of languages (not just of the Indo-European). Such mapping is being currently carried out in the Americas, very likely without the help of Paanini's ideas, in tracing the waves of migration of people that were to become "Red Indians" towards the end of the last Ice Age, from Northeastern Asia, across the Bering Strait, spreading southwards and across the land as far as Tierra del Fuego (the "Land of Fire"; "tierra" = dharaa, by the way) at the southern tip of South America.
One among the major contributions of the Indian Ancients is the arrangement of letters in the scripts (aksharamalas) of major Indian languages (Urdu excepted). That and the mode of having one unique symbol per syllable (and the mode of formation of compound consonants) whereby, with every letter having a fixed and invariable pronunciation, the script "is adapted to the expression of every gradation of sound" (source: Practical Grammar of the Sanskrit Language - By Sir Monier-Williams 1857).
(source: Whence and Whither of Indian Science - Can we integrate with our past and carry on from there? – Contributed by S. N. Balasubrahmanyam - (Retd) Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore).
Panini to the rescue
Research team turns to the "world's first computational grammarian!".
Panini, the legendary Sanskrit grammarian of 5th century BC, is the world's first computational grammarian! Panini's work, Ashtadhyayi (the Eight-Chaptered book), is considered to be the most comprehensive scientific grammar ever written for any language.
According to Prof Rajeev Sangal, Director of IIIT (Hyderabad) and an expert on language computation, Panini's epic treatise on grammar came to the rescue of language experts in making English unambiguous. English is more difficult (as far as machine translations are concerned) with a high degree of ambiguity. Some words have different meanings, making the analysis (to facilitate translations) a difficult process. Making it disambiguous is quite a task, where Panini's principles might be of use.
Ashtadhyayi, the earlier work on descriptive linguistics, consists of 3,959 sutras (or principles). These highly systemised and technical principles, some say, marked the rise of classical Sanskrit.
Sampark, the multi-institute effort launched to produce a translation engine, enabling users to translate tests from English to various languages, will use some of the technical aspects enunciated by Panini. "We looked at alternatives before choosing Panini," Prof Sangal says. Incidentally, Prof Sangal co-authored a book, Natural Language Processing - A Panini Perspective, a few years ago.
Besides the technical side, Panini would be of great help to researchers on the translation engine on the language side too. A good number of words in almost all the Indian languages originate from Sanskrit. "That is great because Indian languages are related to each other," Prof Sangal points out.
(source: Panini to the rescue - thehindu.com). Refer to chapter on Sanskrit.
General Science
The revolutionary
contents of the Vedas
For a quick glimpse at what unsung surprises may lie in the Vedas, let us consider these renditions from the Yajur-veda and Atharva-veda, for instance.
" O disciple, a student in the science of government, sail in oceans in steamers, fly in the air in airplanes, know God the creator through the Vedas, control thy breath through yoga, through astronomy know the functions of day and night, know all the Vedas, Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, by means of their constituent parts."
" Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly." (Yajur-veda 6.21).
" O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightning." (Yajur-veda 10.19).
" The atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, ie. The chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein, verily the scientists know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon." (Atharva-veda 20.41.1-3).
(source: Searching for Vedic India - By Devamitra Swami p. 155 - 157). For more refer to chapter on Vimanas and Advanced Concepts).
Medieval Arab scholar Sa'id ibn Ahmad al-Andalusi (1029-1070) wrote in his Tabaqat al-'umam, one of the earliest books on history of sciences:
"The first nation to have cultivated science is India. ... India is known for the wisdom of its people. Over many centuries, all the kings of the past have recognized the ability of the Indians in all the branches of knowledge".
"The kings of China have stated that the kings of the world are five in number and all the people of the world are their subjects. They mentioned the king of China, the king of India, the king of the Turks, the king of the Persians, and the king of the Romans.
"... They referred to the king of India as the "king of wisdom" because of the Indians' careful treatment of 'ulum [sciences] and all the branches of knowledge.
"The Indians, known to all nations for many centuries, are the metal [essence] of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity. They are people of sublime pensiveness, universal apologues, and useful and rare inventions.
"... To their credit the Indians have made great strides in the study of numbers and of geometry. They have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars [astronomy] ... After all that they have surpassed all other peoples in their knowledge of medical sciences ..."
In his book al-Andalusi goes on to give details of several Indian texts on astronomy and tells us that the Arab scholars used them in preparing their own almanacs.
" Ancient Indian theories lacked an empirical base, but they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics."
(source: In the eleventh-century, an important manuscript titled The Categories of Nations was authored in Arabic by Said al-Andalusi, who was a prolific author and in the powerful position of a judge for the king in Muslim Spain. A translation and annotation of this was done S.I. Salem and Alok Kumar and published by University of Texas Press: “Science in the Medieval World”. This is the first English translation of this eleventh-century manuscript. Quotes are from Chapter V: “Science in India”).
- A. L. Basham, Australian Indologist
Two system of Indian thought propound physical theories suggestively similar to those of Greece. Kanada, founder of the Vaishehika philosophy, held that the world was composed of atoms as many in kind as the various elements. The Jains approximated to Democritus by teaching that all atoms were of the same kind, producing different effects by diverse modes of combination. Kanada believed light and heat to be varieties of the same substance; Udayana taught that all heat comes from the sun; and Vachaspati, like Newton, interpreted light as composed of minute particles emitted by substances and striking the eye. Musical notes and intervals were analyzed and mathematically calculated in the Indian treatises on music. and the Pyrthogorean Law was formulated by which the number of vibrations, and therefore the pitch of the note, varies inversely as the length of the string between the point of attachment and the point of touch.
For a quick glimpse at what unsung surprises may lie in the Vedas, let us consider these renditions from the Yajur-veda and Atharva-veda, for instance.
" O disciple, a student in the science of government, sail in oceans in steamers, fly in the air in airplanes, know God the creator through the Vedas, control thy breath through yoga, through astronomy know the functions of day and night, know all the Vedas, Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, by means of their constituent parts."
" Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly." (Yajur-veda 6.21).
" O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightning." (Yajur-veda 10.19).
" The atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, ie. The chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein, verily the scientists know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon." (Atharva-veda 20.41.1-3).
(source: Searching for Vedic India - By Devamitra Swami p. 155 - 157). For more refer to chapter on Vimanas and Advanced Concepts).
Medieval Arab scholar Sa'id ibn Ahmad al-Andalusi (1029-1070) wrote in his Tabaqat al-'umam, one of the earliest books on history of sciences:
"The first nation to have cultivated science is India. ... India is known for the wisdom of its people. Over many centuries, all the kings of the past have recognized the ability of the Indians in all the branches of knowledge".
"The kings of China have stated that the kings of the world are five in number and all the people of the world are their subjects. They mentioned the king of China, the king of India, the king of the Turks, the king of the Persians, and the king of the Romans.
"... They referred to the king of India as the "king of wisdom" because of the Indians' careful treatment of 'ulum [sciences] and all the branches of knowledge.
"The Indians, known to all nations for many centuries, are the metal [essence] of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity. They are people of sublime pensiveness, universal apologues, and useful and rare inventions.
"... To their credit the Indians have made great strides in the study of numbers and of geometry. They have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars [astronomy] ... After all that they have surpassed all other peoples in their knowledge of medical sciences ..."
In his book al-Andalusi goes on to give details of several Indian texts on astronomy and tells us that the Arab scholars used them in preparing their own almanacs.
" Ancient Indian theories lacked an empirical base, but they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics."
(source: In the eleventh-century, an important manuscript titled The Categories of Nations was authored in Arabic by Said al-Andalusi, who was a prolific author and in the powerful position of a judge for the king in Muslim Spain. A translation and annotation of this was done S.I. Salem and Alok Kumar and published by University of Texas Press: “Science in the Medieval World”. This is the first English translation of this eleventh-century manuscript. Quotes are from Chapter V: “Science in India”).
- A. L. Basham, Australian Indologist
Two system of Indian thought propound physical theories suggestively similar to those of Greece. Kanada, founder of the Vaishehika philosophy, held that the world was composed of atoms as many in kind as the various elements. The Jains approximated to Democritus by teaching that all atoms were of the same kind, producing different effects by diverse modes of combination. Kanada believed light and heat to be varieties of the same substance; Udayana taught that all heat comes from the sun; and Vachaspati, like Newton, interpreted light as composed of minute particles emitted by substances and striking the eye. Musical notes and intervals were analyzed and mathematically calculated in the Indian treatises on music. and the Pyrthogorean Law was formulated by which the number of vibrations, and therefore the pitch of the note, varies inversely as the length of the string between the point of attachment and the point of touch.
The calculation of eclipses was given by Indian astronomers, refer to verses from Varahamihira's texts, which give the true reasons for eclipses as the earth's and moon's shadows (no rAhu kEtu here).
For more refer to History of Indian Science & Technology.
Education
The
world's first university was established at Takshashila (northwest region of
India) in approximately 700 B.C. The Universities in ancient India were
entirely residential. It was considered that a University should contain at
least 21 Professors well versed in Philosophy, Theology and Law; pupils were
given free tuition, free boarding, and students who went to an educational
institution - be the king or a peasant - lived and boarded together. Ashramas,
Viharas and Parishads were great centers of culture and attracted large
numbers.
When Alexander reached Punjab in 327 BC, Takshashila, the world's oldest university was already established as a place of learning. John Keay in his book India: a History" writes:
"Students went there to learn the purest Sanskrit. Kautilya, whose Arthashashtra is the classic Indian treatise on statecraft, is said to have been born there in the third century BC. It was also in Taxila that, in the previous century, Panini compiled a grammar more comprehensive and scientific than any dreamed of by Greek grammarians. The glory for the western world is the library of Alexandria, which was sanctioned by Ptolemy I Soter, the successor of Alexander of Macedonia in around 300 BC. While the Maurya empire was in power in India..."
Dr. Ernest Binfield Havell (1861-1934) principal to the Madras College of Art in the 1890s and left as principal of the Calcutta College of Art some 20 years later. He wrote several books, including his book, Indian Architecture - Its Psychology, Structure and History from the First Mohammedan Invasion to the Present Day has remarked:
"From the Guru the student would pass, about the age of sixteen, to one of the great universities that were the glory of ancient and medieval India. Benares, Taxila, Vidarbha, Ajanta, Ujjain or Nalanda. Benares was the stronghold of learning in Buddha's days. Taxila was known at the time of Alexander's invasion, was known to all of Asia as the leading seat of Hindu scholarship, renowned above all for its medical school; Ujjain was held in high repute for astronomy, Ajanta for the teaching of art. The facade of one of the ruined buildings at Ajanta suggests the magnificence of these old universities."
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 556-557).
When Cyrus the Great (558-530 B.C.), came to the throne, the city of Takshasila, was already a center of learning and trade. Young men from Magadha were sent there to finish their education. The Jataka tales show that young men from all over the civilized part of India sought education in this city, as well as from Persia and Mesopotamia.
The campus accommodated 10,500 students and offered over sixty different courses in various fields, such as science, mathematics, medicine, politics, warfare, astrology, astronomy, music, religion, and philosophy. The minimum age for admission was 16 years and students from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Syria, Arabia, and China came to study at the university. Taxila, stood on the banks of the river Vitasa in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent.
Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, Charaka, the author of famous treatise on medicine, and Chanakya, writer of Artha Shastra -- these august names are associated with Taxila. Promising minds from far flung regions converged there to study the Vedas and all branches of secular knowledge. Takshasila or Taxila, as the Greeks called it over 2,000 years ago, was at one of the entrances to the splendor that was India. Its antiquity is rooted both in epic texts like the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the other Puranas. The Jakatas are full of references to Taxila - over 100 in fact. We gleam a good many details about it from them. Mention is made of world-renowned professors who taught the Vedas, the Kalas, Shilpa, Archery and so on. King Kosala and Jivaka, the famous physician were students of the University, the latter learning medicine under Rishi Atreya. Great stress was laid on the study of Sanskrit and Pali literature.
The University of Vikramasila accommodated 8,000 people. It was situated on a hill in Magadha on the banks of the Ganga and flourished for four centuries. It was destroyed along with Nalanda by the Mohammedan invasion. They speak of Kulapatis in those times; the technical meaning of the word is 'one who feeds' and teaches 10,000 students'. Kanva was one such Kulapati. Kalidasa speaks of the various kinds of knowledge taught and learnt under the guidance of Kanva.
The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BCE was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education. Buddha visited Nalanda several times during his lifetime. The Chinese scholar and traveler Hiuen Tsang stayed here in the 7th century, and has left an elaborate description of the excellence, and purity of monastic life practiced here. About 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students from all over the Buddhist world, lived and studied in this international university. In this first residential international university of the world, 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied here.
It had ten thousand students, one hundred lecture-rroms, great libraries, and six immense blocks of dormitories four stories high; its observatories, said Yuan Chwang, "were lost in the vapors of the morning, and the upper rooms towered above the clouds." The old Chinese pilgrim loved the learned monks and shady groves of Nalanda so well he stayed there for five years.
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 556-557 and Facets of Indian Culture - By R. Srinivasan Publisher: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan p. 237-239).
The Gupta kings patronized these monasteries, built in old Kushan architectural style, in a row of cells around a courtyard. Ashoka and Harshavardhana were some of its most celebrated patrons who built temples and monasteries here. Recent excavations have unearthed elaborate structures here. Hiuen Tsang had left ecstatic accounts of both the ambiance and architecture of this unique university of ancient times. The Nalanda university counted on its staff such great thinkers as Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Vasubhandu, Asanga, Sthiramati, Dharmapala, Silaphadra, Santideva and Padmasambhava. The ancient universities were the sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation. Another large university was established at Nalanda around 500 B.C. Approximately one mile long and half-mile wide, this campus housed a large library, called Dharam gunj (Treasure of Knowledge), that spread over three buildings, known as Ratna Sagar, Ratnadevi, and Ratnayanjak. Among other facilities, the university included 300 lecture halls, several laboratories, and an astronomical research observatory called Ambudharavlehi. The university used handwritten manuscripts for teaching and attracted students and staff from many countries, including China, Korea and Japan. According to the Chinese traveler Hieun Tsang, the campus housed 10,000 students, 2,000 professors, and a large administrative staff.
(source: The Hindu Mind - Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for All Ages - By Bansi Pandit B & V Enterprises, Inc ISBN: 0963479849 p. 302).
These universities were sacked, plundered, looted by the Islamic onslaught.
According to historian Will Durant:
"The Mohemmedans destroyed nearly all the monasteries, Buddhist or Hindu, in northern India. Nalanda was burned to the ground in 1197 and all its monks were slaughtered; we can never estimate the abundant life of ancient India from what these fanatics spared."
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 558).
The Moghuls neglected practical and secular learning, especially the sciences. Throughout their long rule, no institutions was established comparable to modern university, although early India had world-famous centers of learning such as Taxila, Nalanda and Kanchi. Neither the nobles nor the mullas were stirred into learning...
For more on education, refer to chapter on Education in Ancient India).
When Alexander reached Punjab in 327 BC, Takshashila, the world's oldest university was already established as a place of learning. John Keay in his book India: a History" writes:
"Students went there to learn the purest Sanskrit. Kautilya, whose Arthashashtra is the classic Indian treatise on statecraft, is said to have been born there in the third century BC. It was also in Taxila that, in the previous century, Panini compiled a grammar more comprehensive and scientific than any dreamed of by Greek grammarians. The glory for the western world is the library of Alexandria, which was sanctioned by Ptolemy I Soter, the successor of Alexander of Macedonia in around 300 BC. While the Maurya empire was in power in India..."
Dr. Ernest Binfield Havell (1861-1934) principal to the Madras College of Art in the 1890s and left as principal of the Calcutta College of Art some 20 years later. He wrote several books, including his book, Indian Architecture - Its Psychology, Structure and History from the First Mohammedan Invasion to the Present Day has remarked:
"From the Guru the student would pass, about the age of sixteen, to one of the great universities that were the glory of ancient and medieval India. Benares, Taxila, Vidarbha, Ajanta, Ujjain or Nalanda. Benares was the stronghold of learning in Buddha's days. Taxila was known at the time of Alexander's invasion, was known to all of Asia as the leading seat of Hindu scholarship, renowned above all for its medical school; Ujjain was held in high repute for astronomy, Ajanta for the teaching of art. The facade of one of the ruined buildings at Ajanta suggests the magnificence of these old universities."
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 556-557).
When Cyrus the Great (558-530 B.C.), came to the throne, the city of Takshasila, was already a center of learning and trade. Young men from Magadha were sent there to finish their education. The Jataka tales show that young men from all over the civilized part of India sought education in this city, as well as from Persia and Mesopotamia.
The campus accommodated 10,500 students and offered over sixty different courses in various fields, such as science, mathematics, medicine, politics, warfare, astrology, astronomy, music, religion, and philosophy. The minimum age for admission was 16 years and students from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Syria, Arabia, and China came to study at the university. Taxila, stood on the banks of the river Vitasa in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent.
Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, Charaka, the author of famous treatise on medicine, and Chanakya, writer of Artha Shastra -- these august names are associated with Taxila. Promising minds from far flung regions converged there to study the Vedas and all branches of secular knowledge. Takshasila or Taxila, as the Greeks called it over 2,000 years ago, was at one of the entrances to the splendor that was India. Its antiquity is rooted both in epic texts like the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the other Puranas. The Jakatas are full of references to Taxila - over 100 in fact. We gleam a good many details about it from them. Mention is made of world-renowned professors who taught the Vedas, the Kalas, Shilpa, Archery and so on. King Kosala and Jivaka, the famous physician were students of the University, the latter learning medicine under Rishi Atreya. Great stress was laid on the study of Sanskrit and Pali literature.
The University of Vikramasila accommodated 8,000 people. It was situated on a hill in Magadha on the banks of the Ganga and flourished for four centuries. It was destroyed along with Nalanda by the Mohammedan invasion. They speak of Kulapatis in those times; the technical meaning of the word is 'one who feeds' and teaches 10,000 students'. Kanva was one such Kulapati. Kalidasa speaks of the various kinds of knowledge taught and learnt under the guidance of Kanva.
The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BCE was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education. Buddha visited Nalanda several times during his lifetime. The Chinese scholar and traveler Hiuen Tsang stayed here in the 7th century, and has left an elaborate description of the excellence, and purity of monastic life practiced here. About 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students from all over the Buddhist world, lived and studied in this international university. In this first residential international university of the world, 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied here.
It had ten thousand students, one hundred lecture-rroms, great libraries, and six immense blocks of dormitories four stories high; its observatories, said Yuan Chwang, "were lost in the vapors of the morning, and the upper rooms towered above the clouds." The old Chinese pilgrim loved the learned monks and shady groves of Nalanda so well he stayed there for five years.
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 556-557 and Facets of Indian Culture - By R. Srinivasan Publisher: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan p. 237-239).
The Gupta kings patronized these monasteries, built in old Kushan architectural style, in a row of cells around a courtyard. Ashoka and Harshavardhana were some of its most celebrated patrons who built temples and monasteries here. Recent excavations have unearthed elaborate structures here. Hiuen Tsang had left ecstatic accounts of both the ambiance and architecture of this unique university of ancient times. The Nalanda university counted on its staff such great thinkers as Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Vasubhandu, Asanga, Sthiramati, Dharmapala, Silaphadra, Santideva and Padmasambhava. The ancient universities were the sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation. Another large university was established at Nalanda around 500 B.C. Approximately one mile long and half-mile wide, this campus housed a large library, called Dharam gunj (Treasure of Knowledge), that spread over three buildings, known as Ratna Sagar, Ratnadevi, and Ratnayanjak. Among other facilities, the university included 300 lecture halls, several laboratories, and an astronomical research observatory called Ambudharavlehi. The university used handwritten manuscripts for teaching and attracted students and staff from many countries, including China, Korea and Japan. According to the Chinese traveler Hieun Tsang, the campus housed 10,000 students, 2,000 professors, and a large administrative staff.
(source: The Hindu Mind - Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for All Ages - By Bansi Pandit B & V Enterprises, Inc ISBN: 0963479849 p. 302).
These universities were sacked, plundered, looted by the Islamic onslaught.
According to historian Will Durant:
"The Mohemmedans destroyed nearly all the monasteries, Buddhist or Hindu, in northern India. Nalanda was burned to the ground in 1197 and all its monks were slaughtered; we can never estimate the abundant life of ancient India from what these fanatics spared."
(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books.1935 p. 558).
The Moghuls neglected practical and secular learning, especially the sciences. Throughout their long rule, no institutions was established comparable to modern university, although early India had world-famous centers of learning such as Taxila, Nalanda and Kanchi. Neither the nobles nor the mullas were stirred into learning...
For more on education, refer to chapter on Education in Ancient India).
Chemistry
and Metallurgy
Sir Mountstuart
Elphinstone has written: "Their (Indians) chemical skill is a fact more
striking and more unexpected." "They knew how to prepare sulphuric
acid, nitric acid and muratic acid; the oxide of copper, iron, lead (of which
they had both the red oxide and litharge), tin and zinc: the suphuret of iron,
copper, mercury, and antimony, and arsenic; the sulphate of copper, zinc and
iron; and carbonates of lead and iron. Their modes of preparing these
substances were sometimes peculiar."
(source: History of Hindu Chemistry - By Mountstuart Elphinstone Volume I, Introduction, p. xii and 54).
Chemistry developed from two source - medicine and industry. Something has been said about the chemical excellence of cast iron in ancient India, and about the high industrial development of Gupta Period, when India was looked to, even by Imperial Rome, as the most skilled of the nations in such chemical industries as dyeing, tanning, soap-making, glass and cement. As early as the second century B.C. Nagarjuna devoted an entire volume to mercury. By the sixth century Indians were far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry; they were masters of calcination, distillation, sublimation, steaming, fixation, the production of light without heat, the mixing of anesthetic and soporific powders, and the preparation of metallic salts, compounds and alloy.
Abundant evidence available suggests that the ancient Indians were highly skilled in manufacturing and working with iron and in making and tempering steel. The analysis of zinc alloys like brass, from archaeological excavations, testify that the zinc distillation process was known in India as early as 150 B.C. Indian steel, famous worldwide, is mentioned in history books which tell us that when Alexander invaded India, Porus, otherwise known as Purushottam, presented him with thirty pounds of steel, thus indicating its high value.
South India was a region that was renowned for metallurgy and metalwork in the old days. In Karnataka, fine steel wires were being produced for use as strings in musical instruments, at a time when the western world was using animal gut for the same purpose. Kerala, besides its large iron smelting furnaces, boasted of special processes such as the metal mirror of Aranmula. High quality steel from Tamil Nadu was exported all over the world since Roman times. The Konasamudram region in Andhra Pradesh was famous for producing the world renowned Wootz steel - the raw material for King Saladin's fabled Damascus Sword. The tempering of steel was brought in ancient India to a perfection unknown in Europe till our own times. King Porus is said to have selected, as special valuable gift for Alexander, not gold or silver, but thirty pounds of steel. The Muslims took much of this Indian chemical science and industry to the Near East and Europe; the secret of manufacturing "Damascus" blades, for example, was taken by Arabs from the Persians, and by the Persians from India.
Persians considered Indian swords to be the best, and the phrase, " Jawabi hind, literally meaning " Indian answer," meant "a cut with the sword made of Indian steel." That the art of metarllurgy was highly developed in ancient India is further reaffirmed by the fact that the Gypsies, who originated in India, are highly skilled craftsmen, and it has been suggested that the art of the forge may have been transmitted to Europe through Gypsies. Steel was manufactured in ancient India, and it was being exported to China at least by the fifth century A.D. That the Arabs also imported steel from India is testified to by Al Kindi, who wrote in the ninth century.
Coinage dating from the 8th Century B.C. to the17th Century A.D. Numismatic evidence of the advances made by Smelting technology in ancient India. The image of Nataraja the God of Dance is made of five metals (Pancha-Dhatu). This technology of mixing two or more metals and deriving superior alloys has been observed and noted by the Greek Historian Philostratus. The Makara (Spire) over Hindu temples were always adorned with brass or gold toppings (Kamandals). The earliest reference to the advances made in Smelting technology in India are by Greek historians viz, Philostratus and Ktesias in the 4th century B.C.
Great progress was made in India in mineralogy and metallurgy. The mining and extensive use of gold, silver, and copper was undertaken in the Indus Valley in the third century B.C. In the vedic period extensive use was made of copper, bronze, and brass for household utensils, weapons, and images for worship. Patanjali, writing in the second century B.C. in his Lohasastra, gives elaborate directions for many metallurgic and chemical processes, especially the preparation of metallic salts, alloys, and amalgams, and the extraction, purification, and assaying of metals. The discovery of aqua regia ( a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid to dissolve gold and platinum) is ascribed to him. Numerous specimens of weapons made of iron have been excavated, probably belonging to the fourth century B.C. Iron clamps and the iron stag found at the Bodhgaya temple point to the knowledge of the process of manufacturing iron as early as the third century B.C.
Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) says: "The Hindus have the art of smelting iron, of welding it, and of making steel, and have had these arts from times immemorial."
(source: History of British India - By James Mill volume II p. 47).
Saladin's sword
The finest Damascus steel was made by a process known only to Indians. The original Damascus steel-the world's first high-carbon steel-was a product of India known as wootz. Wootz is the English for ukku in Kannada and Telugu, meaning steel. Indian steel was used for making swords and armour in Persia and Arabia in ancient times. Ktesias at the court of Persia (5th c BC) mentions two swords made of Indian steel which the Persian king presented him. The pre-Islamic Arab word for sword is 'muhannad' meaning from Hind.
Wootz was produced by carburising chips of wrought iron in a closed crucible process. "Wrought iron, wood and carbonaceous matter was placed in a crucible and heated in a current of hot air till the iron became red hot and plastic. It was then allowed to cool very slowly (about 24 hours) until it absorbed a fixed amount of carbon, generally 1.2 to 1.8 per cent," said eminent metallurgist Prof. T.R. Anantharaman, who taught at Banares Hindu University, Varanasi. "When forged into a blade, the carbides in the steel formed a visible pattern on the surface." To the sixth century Arab poet Aus b. Hajr the pattern appeared described 'as if it were the trail of small black ants that had trekked over the steel while it was still soft'.
The carbon-bearing material packed in the crucible was a clever way to lower the melting-point of iron (1535 degrees centigrade). The lower the melting-point the more carbon got absorbed and high-carbon steel was formed. In the early 1800s, Europeans tried their hand at reproducing wootz on an industrial scale. Michael Faraday, the great experimenter and son of a blacksmith, tried to duplicate the steel by alloying iron with a variety of metals but failed. Some scientists were successful in forging wootz but they still were not able to reproduce its characteristics, like the watery mark. "Scientists believe that some other micro-addition went into it," said Anantharaman. "That is why the separation of carbide takes place so beautifully and geometrically."
(source: Lost knowledge - The Week June 2001).
Hindus made the best swords in the ancient world, they discovered the process of making Ukku steel, called Damascus steel by the rest of the world (Damas meaning water to the Arabs, because of the watery designs on the blade). These were the best swords in the ancient world, the strongest and the sharpest, sharper even than Japanese katanas. Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Chinese imported it. The original Damascus steel-the world's first high-carbon steel-was a product of India known as wootz. Wootz is the English for ukku in Kannada and Telugu, meaning steel. Indian steel was used for making swords and armor in Persia and Arabia in ancient times. Ktesias at the court of Persia (5th c BC) mentions two swords made of Indian steel which the Persian king presented him. The pre-Islamic Arab word for sword is 'muhannad' meaning from Hind. So famous were they that the Arabic word for sword was Hindvi - from Hind.
The crucible process could have originated in south India and the finest steel was from the land of Cheras, said K. Rajan, associate professor of archaeology at Tamil University, Thanjavur, who explored a 1st century AD trade centre at Kodumanal near Coimbatore. Rajan's excavations revealed an industrial economy at Kodumanal. Pillar of strength The rustless wonder called the Iron Pillar near the Qutb Minar at Mehrauli in Delhi did not attract the attention of scientists till the second quarter of the 19th century. The inscription refers to a ruler named Chandra, who had conquered the Vangas and Vahlikas, and the breeze of whose valour still perfumed the southern ocean. "The king who answers the description is none but Samudragupta, the real founder of the Gupta empire," said Prof. T.R. Anantharaman, who has authored The Rustless Wonder. Zinc metallurgy travelled from India to China and from there to Europe. As late as 1735, professional chemists in Europe believed that zinc could not be reduced to metal except in the presence of copper. The alchemical texts of the mediaeval period show that the tradition was live in India. In 1738, William Champion established the Bristol process to produce metallic zinc in commercial quantities and got a patent for it. Interestingly, the mediaeval alchemical text Rasaratnasamucchaya describes the same process, down to adding 1.5 per cent common salt to the ore.
(source: Saladin's sword - The Week - June 24, 2001 - http://netinfo.hypermart.net/telingsteel.htm).
Nanotechnology might be of raging interest to scientists world-over now. But Indians had used nano materials in the 16th century "unwittingly" and enabled Arab blacksmiths in making "Damascus steel sword" which was stronger and sharper.
Delivering a talk on 'The contributions of elemental carbon to the development of nano science and technology' at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) Nobel laureate Robert F. Curl said that carbon nanotechnology was much older than carbon nano science. For the Damascus sword, Indians produced the raw material -- mined iron ore and exported it. He said that up to the middle of 18th century, the steel swords depended on this particular material and when the mines in India stopped, "they lost the technology." The Damascus sword when subjected to scrutiny by an electron microscope in 2006 had shown to contain large amounts of nanotubes.
(source: Nanotechnology not new to India , says Nobel laureate - the hindu.com).
Iron Pillar - The Rustless Wonder and a Unique Scientific Phenomenon from Ancient India. A product of great metallurgical ingenuity
Traditional Indian iron and steel are known to have some very special properties such as resistance to corrosion. This is substantiated by the 1600-year-old, twenty-five feet high iron pillar next to the Qutub Minar in New Delhi, believed to have been installed during Chandragupta Maurya's reign. The famous iron pillar in Delhi belonging to the fourth-fifth century A.D. is a metallurgical wonder. This huge wrought iron pillar, 24 feet in height 16.4 inches in diameter at the bottom, and 6 1/2 tons in weight has stood exposed to tropical sun and rain for fifteen hundred years, but does not show the least sign of rusting or corrosion. Evidence shows that the pillar was once a Garuda Stambha from a Vishnu temple. This pillar was plundered by Islamic hoards from a temple dedicated to Vishnu and added as a trophy in the Quwwat al-Islam mosque in Delhi. Made of pure iron, which even today can be produced only in small quantities by electrolysis. Such a pillar would be most difficult to make even today. Thus, the pillar defies explanation.
The pillar is believed to have been made by forging together a series of disc-shaped iron blooms. Apart from the dimensions another remarkable aspect of the iron pillar is the absence of corrosion which has been linked to the composition, the high purity of the wrought iron and the phosphorus content and the distribution of slag.
Even with today's advances, only four foundries in the world could make this piece and none are able to keep it rust free. The earliest known metal expert (2,200 years ago ) was Rishi Patanjali.
The pillar is a solid shaft of iron sixteen inches in diameter and 23 feet high. What is most astounding about it is that it has never rusted even though it has been exposed to wind and rain for centuries! The pillar defies explanation, not only for not having rusted, but because it is apparently made of pure iron, which can only be produced today in tiny quantities by electrolysis! The technique used to cast such a gigantic, solid pillar is also a mystery, as it would be difficult to construct another of this size even today. The pillar stands as mute testimony to the highly advanced scientific knowledge that was known in antiquity, and not duplicated until recent times. Yet still, there is no satisfactory explanation as to why the pillar has never rusted!
(source: Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients - By David Hatcher Childress p. 80).
The Delhi Iron Pillar is a testimony to the high level of skill achieved by the ancient Indian ironsmiths in the extraction and processing of iron.
Refer to Delhi Iron Pillar - By Prof. R. Balasubramaniam - Professor Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engg Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016.
Contributed to this site by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam. URL: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bala
The pillar is a classical example of massive production of high class iron and is the biggest hand-forged block of iron from antiquity. It is a demonstration of the high degree of accomplishment in the art of iron making by ancient Indian iron and steel makers. It has been said that the Indians were the only non-European people who manufactured heavy forged pieces of iron and the pieces were of the size that the European smiths did not learn to make more than one thousand years later.
The iron pillar near New Delhi is an outstanding example of Gupta craftmanship. Its total height inclusive of the capital is 23 feet 8 inches. Its entire weight is 6 tons. The pillar consists of a square abacus, the melon shaped member and a capital. According to Percy Brown, this pillar is a remarkable tribute to the genius and manipulative dexterity of the Indian worker. Dr. Vincent Smith says: "It is not many years since the production of such a pillar would have been an impossibility in the largest foundries of the world and even now there are comparatively few where a similar mass of metal could be turned out."
(source: Ancient India - By V. D. Mahajan p. 543).
The iron pillar has an inscription in Samskritam written in Brahmi script. It is a Vishnu Dhvaja on a hill called Vishnupaada. Installed by King Chandra.
"He, on whose arm fame was inscribed by the sword, when, in battle in the Vanga countries, he kneaded (and turned) back with (his) breast the enemies who, uniting together, came against (him);-he, by whom, having crossed in warfare the seven mouths of the (river) Sindhu, the Vâhlikas were conquered;-he, by the breezes of whose prowess the southern ocean is even still perfumed;-
(Line 3.)-He, the remnant of the great zeal of whose energy, which utterly destroyed (his) enemies, like (the remnant of the great
glowing heat) of a burned-out fire in a great forest, even now leaves not the earth; though he, the king, as if wearied, has quitted this earth, and has gone to the other world, moving in (bodily) form to the land (of paradise) won by (the merit of has) actions, (but) remaining on (this) earth by (the memory of his) fame;-
(L. 5.)-By him, the king,-who attained sole supreme sovereignty in the world, acquired by his own arm and (enjoyed) for a
very long time; (and) who, having the name of Chandra, carried a beauty of countenance like (the beauty of) the full-moon,-having in faith fixed his mind upon (the god) Vishnu, this lofty standard of the divine Vishnu was set up on the hill (called) Vishnupada."
(source: yahoogroups - Indian Civilization).
The excellent state of preservation of the Iron Pillar, near the Qutb Minar at Mehrauli in Delhi, despite exposure for 15 centuries to the elements has amazed corrosion technologists.
In 1961, the pillar (23 feet and 8 inches, and 6 tonnes) was dug out for chemical treatment and preservation and reinstalled by embedding the underground part in a masonry pedestal. Chemical analyses have indicated that the pillar was astonishingly pure or low in carbon compared with modern commercial iron.
Traditional Indian iron and steel are known to have some very special properties such as resistance to corrosion. This is substantiated by the 1600-year-old, twenty-five feet high iron pillar next to the Qutub Minar in New Delhi, believed to have been installed during Chandragupta Maurya's reign. Reports of an international seminar conducted by the National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedupur in 1963 on the Delhi Iron Pillar, showed that the pillar's corrosion resistance was not merely the result of some fortuitous circumstances or Delhi's low humidity, but the product of great metallurgical ingenuity. In fact, rust-proof iron has been found in very humid areas as well. A temple, dedicated to the Goddess Mookambika, is located in Kolur in Kodachadri Hills in Karnataka - a region which receives a heavy annual monsoon. A slender iron pillar near the Mookambika temple stands unrusted despite the severe climatic conditions that it is subjected to.
(source: Center for Indian Knowledge Systems - http://www.ciks.org/methist.html)
The iron pillar near Qutub Minar at New Delhi is in the news, thanks to the research by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam of IIT, Kanpur and his team of metallurgists. The pillar is said to be 1,600 years old. A protective layer of `misawite' — a compound made up of iron, oxygen and hydrogen on the steel pillar, which is said to contain phosphorus - is claimed as the reason for the non-corrosive existence.
(source: Iron pillar and nano powder - http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/seta/stories/2002082900020200.htm
All this historical evidence points to the fact that there existed a body of knowledge in the fields of metallurgy and metalworking which, if rediscovered and re-implemented, could revolutionize the country's iron and steel industry.
The Periplus mentions that in the first century A.D. Indian iron and steel were being exported to Africa and Ethiopia. Indian metallurgists were well known for their ability to extract metal from ore and their cast products were highly valued by the Romans, Egyptians, and Arabs.
Even in technology Indian contribution to world civilization were significant. The spinning wheel is an Indian invention, and apart from its economic significance in reducing the cost of textiles, is one of the first examples of the belt-transmission of power. The stirrup, certainly the big-toe stirrup, is of second century B.C. Indian origin. The ancient blow-gun (nalika), which shot small arrows or iron pellets, may well have been a forerunner of the air-gun which is supposed to have been invented by the Europeans in the sixteenth century.
More important is the fact that India supplied the concept of perpetual motion to European thinking about mechanical power. The origin of this concept has been traced to Bhaskara, and it was taken to Europe by the Arabs where it not only helped European engineers to generalize their concept of mechanical power, but also provoked a process of thinking by analogy that profoundly influenced Western scientific views. The Indian idea of perpetual motion is in accordance with the Hindu belief in the cyclical and self-renewing nature of all things.
In fact, rust-proof iron has been found in very humid areas as well. A temple, dedicated to the Goddess Mookambika, is located in Kolur in Kodachadri Hills in Karnataka - a region which receives a heavy annual monsoon. A slender iron pillar near the Mookambika temple stands unrusted despite the severe climatic conditions that it is subjected to.
Galvanising feat
The oldest among the triad of metallurgical marvels of ancient India is the extraction of zinc. Zinc is better known as a constituent of brass than a metal in its own right. Brass with 10 per cent zinc glitters like gold.
The earliest brass objects in India have been unearthed from Taxila (circa 44 BC). They had more than 35 per cent zinc. "This high content of zinc could be put in only by direct fusion of metallic zinc and copper," said Prof. T.R. Anantharaman. The other process, which is no more in use, is by heating zinc ore and copper metal at high temperatures, but the zinc content in brass then cannot be more than 28 per cent.
Zinc smelting is very complicated as it is a very volatile material. Under normal pressure it boils at 913 degrees centigrade. To extract zinc from its oxide, the oxide must be heated to about 1200 degrees in clay retorts. In an ordinary furnace the zinc gets vapourised, so there has to be a reducing atmosphere. By an ingenious method of reverse distillation ancient metallurgists saw to it that there was enough carbon to reduce the heat.
Proof of the process came from excavations at Zawar in Rajasthan. The Zawar process consisted of heating zinc in an atmosphere of carbon monoxide in clay retorts arranged upside down, and collecting zinc vapour in a cooler chamber placed vertically beneath the retort.
Zinc metallurgy traveled from India to China and from there to Europe. As late as 1735, professional chemists in Europe believed that zinc could not be reduced to metal except in the presence of copper. The alchemical texts of the mediaeval period show that the tradition was live in India.
(source: Lost knowledge - The Week June 2001).
(source: History of Hindu Chemistry - By Mountstuart Elphinstone Volume I, Introduction, p. xii and 54).
Chemistry developed from two source - medicine and industry. Something has been said about the chemical excellence of cast iron in ancient India, and about the high industrial development of Gupta Period, when India was looked to, even by Imperial Rome, as the most skilled of the nations in such chemical industries as dyeing, tanning, soap-making, glass and cement. As early as the second century B.C. Nagarjuna devoted an entire volume to mercury. By the sixth century Indians were far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry; they were masters of calcination, distillation, sublimation, steaming, fixation, the production of light without heat, the mixing of anesthetic and soporific powders, and the preparation of metallic salts, compounds and alloy.
Abundant evidence available suggests that the ancient Indians were highly skilled in manufacturing and working with iron and in making and tempering steel. The analysis of zinc alloys like brass, from archaeological excavations, testify that the zinc distillation process was known in India as early as 150 B.C. Indian steel, famous worldwide, is mentioned in history books which tell us that when Alexander invaded India, Porus, otherwise known as Purushottam, presented him with thirty pounds of steel, thus indicating its high value.
South India was a region that was renowned for metallurgy and metalwork in the old days. In Karnataka, fine steel wires were being produced for use as strings in musical instruments, at a time when the western world was using animal gut for the same purpose. Kerala, besides its large iron smelting furnaces, boasted of special processes such as the metal mirror of Aranmula. High quality steel from Tamil Nadu was exported all over the world since Roman times. The Konasamudram region in Andhra Pradesh was famous for producing the world renowned Wootz steel - the raw material for King Saladin's fabled Damascus Sword. The tempering of steel was brought in ancient India to a perfection unknown in Europe till our own times. King Porus is said to have selected, as special valuable gift for Alexander, not gold or silver, but thirty pounds of steel. The Muslims took much of this Indian chemical science and industry to the Near East and Europe; the secret of manufacturing "Damascus" blades, for example, was taken by Arabs from the Persians, and by the Persians from India.
Persians considered Indian swords to be the best, and the phrase, " Jawabi hind, literally meaning " Indian answer," meant "a cut with the sword made of Indian steel." That the art of metarllurgy was highly developed in ancient India is further reaffirmed by the fact that the Gypsies, who originated in India, are highly skilled craftsmen, and it has been suggested that the art of the forge may have been transmitted to Europe through Gypsies. Steel was manufactured in ancient India, and it was being exported to China at least by the fifth century A.D. That the Arabs also imported steel from India is testified to by Al Kindi, who wrote in the ninth century.
Coinage dating from the 8th Century B.C. to the17th Century A.D. Numismatic evidence of the advances made by Smelting technology in ancient India. The image of Nataraja the God of Dance is made of five metals (Pancha-Dhatu). This technology of mixing two or more metals and deriving superior alloys has been observed and noted by the Greek Historian Philostratus. The Makara (Spire) over Hindu temples were always adorned with brass or gold toppings (Kamandals). The earliest reference to the advances made in Smelting technology in India are by Greek historians viz, Philostratus and Ktesias in the 4th century B.C.
Great progress was made in India in mineralogy and metallurgy. The mining and extensive use of gold, silver, and copper was undertaken in the Indus Valley in the third century B.C. In the vedic period extensive use was made of copper, bronze, and brass for household utensils, weapons, and images for worship. Patanjali, writing in the second century B.C. in his Lohasastra, gives elaborate directions for many metallurgic and chemical processes, especially the preparation of metallic salts, alloys, and amalgams, and the extraction, purification, and assaying of metals. The discovery of aqua regia ( a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid to dissolve gold and platinum) is ascribed to him. Numerous specimens of weapons made of iron have been excavated, probably belonging to the fourth century B.C. Iron clamps and the iron stag found at the Bodhgaya temple point to the knowledge of the process of manufacturing iron as early as the third century B.C.
Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) says: "The Hindus have the art of smelting iron, of welding it, and of making steel, and have had these arts from times immemorial."
(source: History of British India - By James Mill volume II p. 47).
Saladin's sword
The finest Damascus steel was made by a process known only to Indians. The original Damascus steel-the world's first high-carbon steel-was a product of India known as wootz. Wootz is the English for ukku in Kannada and Telugu, meaning steel. Indian steel was used for making swords and armour in Persia and Arabia in ancient times. Ktesias at the court of Persia (5th c BC) mentions two swords made of Indian steel which the Persian king presented him. The pre-Islamic Arab word for sword is 'muhannad' meaning from Hind.
Wootz was produced by carburising chips of wrought iron in a closed crucible process. "Wrought iron, wood and carbonaceous matter was placed in a crucible and heated in a current of hot air till the iron became red hot and plastic. It was then allowed to cool very slowly (about 24 hours) until it absorbed a fixed amount of carbon, generally 1.2 to 1.8 per cent," said eminent metallurgist Prof. T.R. Anantharaman, who taught at Banares Hindu University, Varanasi. "When forged into a blade, the carbides in the steel formed a visible pattern on the surface." To the sixth century Arab poet Aus b. Hajr the pattern appeared described 'as if it were the trail of small black ants that had trekked over the steel while it was still soft'.
The carbon-bearing material packed in the crucible was a clever way to lower the melting-point of iron (1535 degrees centigrade). The lower the melting-point the more carbon got absorbed and high-carbon steel was formed. In the early 1800s, Europeans tried their hand at reproducing wootz on an industrial scale. Michael Faraday, the great experimenter and son of a blacksmith, tried to duplicate the steel by alloying iron with a variety of metals but failed. Some scientists were successful in forging wootz but they still were not able to reproduce its characteristics, like the watery mark. "Scientists believe that some other micro-addition went into it," said Anantharaman. "That is why the separation of carbide takes place so beautifully and geometrically."
(source: Lost knowledge - The Week June 2001).
Hindus made the best swords in the ancient world, they discovered the process of making Ukku steel, called Damascus steel by the rest of the world (Damas meaning water to the Arabs, because of the watery designs on the blade). These were the best swords in the ancient world, the strongest and the sharpest, sharper even than Japanese katanas. Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Chinese imported it. The original Damascus steel-the world's first high-carbon steel-was a product of India known as wootz. Wootz is the English for ukku in Kannada and Telugu, meaning steel. Indian steel was used for making swords and armor in Persia and Arabia in ancient times. Ktesias at the court of Persia (5th c BC) mentions two swords made of Indian steel which the Persian king presented him. The pre-Islamic Arab word for sword is 'muhannad' meaning from Hind. So famous were they that the Arabic word for sword was Hindvi - from Hind.
The crucible process could have originated in south India and the finest steel was from the land of Cheras, said K. Rajan, associate professor of archaeology at Tamil University, Thanjavur, who explored a 1st century AD trade centre at Kodumanal near Coimbatore. Rajan's excavations revealed an industrial economy at Kodumanal. Pillar of strength The rustless wonder called the Iron Pillar near the Qutb Minar at Mehrauli in Delhi did not attract the attention of scientists till the second quarter of the 19th century. The inscription refers to a ruler named Chandra, who had conquered the Vangas and Vahlikas, and the breeze of whose valour still perfumed the southern ocean. "The king who answers the description is none but Samudragupta, the real founder of the Gupta empire," said Prof. T.R. Anantharaman, who has authored The Rustless Wonder. Zinc metallurgy travelled from India to China and from there to Europe. As late as 1735, professional chemists in Europe believed that zinc could not be reduced to metal except in the presence of copper. The alchemical texts of the mediaeval period show that the tradition was live in India. In 1738, William Champion established the Bristol process to produce metallic zinc in commercial quantities and got a patent for it. Interestingly, the mediaeval alchemical text Rasaratnasamucchaya describes the same process, down to adding 1.5 per cent common salt to the ore.
(source: Saladin's sword - The Week - June 24, 2001 - http://netinfo.hypermart.net/telingsteel.htm).
Nanotechnology might be of raging interest to scientists world-over now. But Indians had used nano materials in the 16th century "unwittingly" and enabled Arab blacksmiths in making "Damascus steel sword" which was stronger and sharper.
Delivering a talk on 'The contributions of elemental carbon to the development of nano science and technology' at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) Nobel laureate Robert F. Curl said that carbon nanotechnology was much older than carbon nano science. For the Damascus sword, Indians produced the raw material -- mined iron ore and exported it. He said that up to the middle of 18th century, the steel swords depended on this particular material and when the mines in India stopped, "they lost the technology." The Damascus sword when subjected to scrutiny by an electron microscope in 2006 had shown to contain large amounts of nanotubes.
(source: Nanotechnology not new to India , says Nobel laureate - the hindu.com).
Iron Pillar - The Rustless Wonder and a Unique Scientific Phenomenon from Ancient India. A product of great metallurgical ingenuity
Traditional Indian iron and steel are known to have some very special properties such as resistance to corrosion. This is substantiated by the 1600-year-old, twenty-five feet high iron pillar next to the Qutub Minar in New Delhi, believed to have been installed during Chandragupta Maurya's reign. The famous iron pillar in Delhi belonging to the fourth-fifth century A.D. is a metallurgical wonder. This huge wrought iron pillar, 24 feet in height 16.4 inches in diameter at the bottom, and 6 1/2 tons in weight has stood exposed to tropical sun and rain for fifteen hundred years, but does not show the least sign of rusting or corrosion. Evidence shows that the pillar was once a Garuda Stambha from a Vishnu temple. This pillar was plundered by Islamic hoards from a temple dedicated to Vishnu and added as a trophy in the Quwwat al-Islam mosque in Delhi. Made of pure iron, which even today can be produced only in small quantities by electrolysis. Such a pillar would be most difficult to make even today. Thus, the pillar defies explanation.
The pillar is believed to have been made by forging together a series of disc-shaped iron blooms. Apart from the dimensions another remarkable aspect of the iron pillar is the absence of corrosion which has been linked to the composition, the high purity of the wrought iron and the phosphorus content and the distribution of slag.
Even with today's advances, only four foundries in the world could make this piece and none are able to keep it rust free. The earliest known metal expert (2,200 years ago ) was Rishi Patanjali.
The pillar is a solid shaft of iron sixteen inches in diameter and 23 feet high. What is most astounding about it is that it has never rusted even though it has been exposed to wind and rain for centuries! The pillar defies explanation, not only for not having rusted, but because it is apparently made of pure iron, which can only be produced today in tiny quantities by electrolysis! The technique used to cast such a gigantic, solid pillar is also a mystery, as it would be difficult to construct another of this size even today. The pillar stands as mute testimony to the highly advanced scientific knowledge that was known in antiquity, and not duplicated until recent times. Yet still, there is no satisfactory explanation as to why the pillar has never rusted!
(source: Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients - By David Hatcher Childress p. 80).
The Delhi Iron Pillar is a testimony to the high level of skill achieved by the ancient Indian ironsmiths in the extraction and processing of iron.
Refer to Delhi Iron Pillar - By Prof. R. Balasubramaniam - Professor Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engg Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016.
Contributed to this site by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam. URL: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bala
The pillar is a classical example of massive production of high class iron and is the biggest hand-forged block of iron from antiquity. It is a demonstration of the high degree of accomplishment in the art of iron making by ancient Indian iron and steel makers. It has been said that the Indians were the only non-European people who manufactured heavy forged pieces of iron and the pieces were of the size that the European smiths did not learn to make more than one thousand years later.
The iron pillar near New Delhi is an outstanding example of Gupta craftmanship. Its total height inclusive of the capital is 23 feet 8 inches. Its entire weight is 6 tons. The pillar consists of a square abacus, the melon shaped member and a capital. According to Percy Brown, this pillar is a remarkable tribute to the genius and manipulative dexterity of the Indian worker. Dr. Vincent Smith says: "It is not many years since the production of such a pillar would have been an impossibility in the largest foundries of the world and even now there are comparatively few where a similar mass of metal could be turned out."
(source: Ancient India - By V. D. Mahajan p. 543).
The iron pillar has an inscription in Samskritam written in Brahmi script. It is a Vishnu Dhvaja on a hill called Vishnupaada. Installed by King Chandra.
"He, on whose arm fame was inscribed by the sword, when, in battle in the Vanga countries, he kneaded (and turned) back with (his) breast the enemies who, uniting together, came against (him);-he, by whom, having crossed in warfare the seven mouths of the (river) Sindhu, the Vâhlikas were conquered;-he, by the breezes of whose prowess the southern ocean is even still perfumed;-
(Line 3.)-He, the remnant of the great zeal of whose energy, which utterly destroyed (his) enemies, like (the remnant of the great
glowing heat) of a burned-out fire in a great forest, even now leaves not the earth; though he, the king, as if wearied, has quitted this earth, and has gone to the other world, moving in (bodily) form to the land (of paradise) won by (the merit of has) actions, (but) remaining on (this) earth by (the memory of his) fame;-
(L. 5.)-By him, the king,-who attained sole supreme sovereignty in the world, acquired by his own arm and (enjoyed) for a
very long time; (and) who, having the name of Chandra, carried a beauty of countenance like (the beauty of) the full-moon,-having in faith fixed his mind upon (the god) Vishnu, this lofty standard of the divine Vishnu was set up on the hill (called) Vishnupada."
(source: yahoogroups - Indian Civilization).
The excellent state of preservation of the Iron Pillar, near the Qutb Minar at Mehrauli in Delhi, despite exposure for 15 centuries to the elements has amazed corrosion technologists.
In 1961, the pillar (23 feet and 8 inches, and 6 tonnes) was dug out for chemical treatment and preservation and reinstalled by embedding the underground part in a masonry pedestal. Chemical analyses have indicated that the pillar was astonishingly pure or low in carbon compared with modern commercial iron.
Traditional Indian iron and steel are known to have some very special properties such as resistance to corrosion. This is substantiated by the 1600-year-old, twenty-five feet high iron pillar next to the Qutub Minar in New Delhi, believed to have been installed during Chandragupta Maurya's reign. Reports of an international seminar conducted by the National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedupur in 1963 on the Delhi Iron Pillar, showed that the pillar's corrosion resistance was not merely the result of some fortuitous circumstances or Delhi's low humidity, but the product of great metallurgical ingenuity. In fact, rust-proof iron has been found in very humid areas as well. A temple, dedicated to the Goddess Mookambika, is located in Kolur in Kodachadri Hills in Karnataka - a region which receives a heavy annual monsoon. A slender iron pillar near the Mookambika temple stands unrusted despite the severe climatic conditions that it is subjected to.
(source: Center for Indian Knowledge Systems - http://www.ciks.org/methist.html)
The iron pillar near Qutub Minar at New Delhi is in the news, thanks to the research by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam of IIT, Kanpur and his team of metallurgists. The pillar is said to be 1,600 years old. A protective layer of `misawite' — a compound made up of iron, oxygen and hydrogen on the steel pillar, which is said to contain phosphorus - is claimed as the reason for the non-corrosive existence.
(source: Iron pillar and nano powder - http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/seta/stories/2002082900020200.htm
All this historical evidence points to the fact that there existed a body of knowledge in the fields of metallurgy and metalworking which, if rediscovered and re-implemented, could revolutionize the country's iron and steel industry.
The Periplus mentions that in the first century A.D. Indian iron and steel were being exported to Africa and Ethiopia. Indian metallurgists were well known for their ability to extract metal from ore and their cast products were highly valued by the Romans, Egyptians, and Arabs.
Even in technology Indian contribution to world civilization were significant. The spinning wheel is an Indian invention, and apart from its economic significance in reducing the cost of textiles, is one of the first examples of the belt-transmission of power. The stirrup, certainly the big-toe stirrup, is of second century B.C. Indian origin. The ancient blow-gun (nalika), which shot small arrows or iron pellets, may well have been a forerunner of the air-gun which is supposed to have been invented by the Europeans in the sixteenth century.
More important is the fact that India supplied the concept of perpetual motion to European thinking about mechanical power. The origin of this concept has been traced to Bhaskara, and it was taken to Europe by the Arabs where it not only helped European engineers to generalize their concept of mechanical power, but also provoked a process of thinking by analogy that profoundly influenced Western scientific views. The Indian idea of perpetual motion is in accordance with the Hindu belief in the cyclical and self-renewing nature of all things.
In fact, rust-proof iron has been found in very humid areas as well. A temple, dedicated to the Goddess Mookambika, is located in Kolur in Kodachadri Hills in Karnataka - a region which receives a heavy annual monsoon. A slender iron pillar near the Mookambika temple stands unrusted despite the severe climatic conditions that it is subjected to.
Galvanising feat
The oldest among the triad of metallurgical marvels of ancient India is the extraction of zinc. Zinc is better known as a constituent of brass than a metal in its own right. Brass with 10 per cent zinc glitters like gold.
The earliest brass objects in India have been unearthed from Taxila (circa 44 BC). They had more than 35 per cent zinc. "This high content of zinc could be put in only by direct fusion of metallic zinc and copper," said Prof. T.R. Anantharaman. The other process, which is no more in use, is by heating zinc ore and copper metal at high temperatures, but the zinc content in brass then cannot be more than 28 per cent.
Zinc smelting is very complicated as it is a very volatile material. Under normal pressure it boils at 913 degrees centigrade. To extract zinc from its oxide, the oxide must be heated to about 1200 degrees in clay retorts. In an ordinary furnace the zinc gets vapourised, so there has to be a reducing atmosphere. By an ingenious method of reverse distillation ancient metallurgists saw to it that there was enough carbon to reduce the heat.
Proof of the process came from excavations at Zawar in Rajasthan. The Zawar process consisted of heating zinc in an atmosphere of carbon monoxide in clay retorts arranged upside down, and collecting zinc vapour in a cooler chamber placed vertically beneath the retort.
Zinc metallurgy traveled from India to China and from there to Europe. As late as 1735, professional chemists in Europe believed that zinc could not be reduced to metal except in the presence of copper. The alchemical texts of the mediaeval period show that the tradition was live in India.
(source: Lost knowledge - The Week June 2001).
Manufacture of Iron and Steel in India
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).
Diamomds were first mined in India
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).
Military science - Gunpowder
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
“The ancient Hindus could navigate the air, and not only navigate it, but fight battles in it like so many war-eagles combating for the domination of the clouds. To be so perfect in aeronautics, they must have known all the arts and sciences related to the science, including the strata and currents of the atmosphere, the relative temperature, humidity, density and specific gravity of the various gases...”
~ 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.
Ice making in India. It was made in open pans.
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).
Shipbuilding
and Navigation
The art of
Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation
is derived from the Sanskrit word NAV Gatih.
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.
Sailor dropping anchor at Angkorwat, Cambodia.
"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."
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor.
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.
Sailor dropping anchor at Angkorwat, Cambodia.
"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."
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor.
Sardar Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (1896-1963) Indian historian, in his book A Survey of Indian History, was the most impressive in depicting how South India’s expansion into “further India” was achieved by the very sea power that ten centuries later was to open India to colonization by the West:
"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).
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.
Ancient Indian ocean-going ship arriving at Java, from a frieze of the Borobodur stupa.
(image source: India: A concise history - By Francis Watson p. 72).
For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi, Pacific and Sacred Angkor.
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.
A panel found at Mohenjodaro, depicting a sailing craft. Vessels were of many types. Their construction is vividly described in the Yukti Kalpa Taru an ancient Indian text on Ship-building. There is evidence that a compass made by iron fish floating in a vessel of oil and pointing north was used by mariners. The typical Harappan seals have been found far a field in Oman, Mesopotamia, and the Maldives. These finds bear witness to the enthusiastic initiative of the early Indic peoples as sea faring merchants.
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.
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