BHARAT'S SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS PRIOR TO INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
India's scientific contributions prior to industrial revolution
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
http://sites.google.com/site/itihasabharati/scientific-contributions
India's Scientific Contribution to Europe and other World
Civilizations Prior to Industrial Revolution
Many eyebrows were raised at the title of this seminar. Deep rooted
disbelief that how can earlier civilizations can be contributors to
any "Science", as we understand it today? Science means rational,
logical, objective thinking, something which did not exist in the
earlier people in adequate quantity. The life of these earlier
people was governed by religion i.e. superstition, which is
inherently, devoid of "scientific temper" and "free will", the hall
mark and pre-requisite of scientific development. Once this premise
is accepted without debate, then West as birth place of all Science
is the forgone conclusion.
Religion as anti science is 100% a modern western construct and we
need to understand this thoroughly well. Religion in this case is
Christian religion and Science means modern Western science. This
incompatibility of religion with science in the West automatically
gets grafted on non-Western religions and their relation with
science.
Concept of Religion in West and East differs radically in many
respects. In the Western concept of religion, it must have a Prophet
and a Book and the followers must abide by the teaching of both. In
the eastern religion specially Hinduism, the concept of Dharma,
incorporates no single Prophet or book and followers are free to
choose, accept or reject philosophy of life, which suits them best.
Buddhism and Jainism have their Prophets and books to follow but
never restricted their followers to express in Arts and Sciences of
their choice. Vatsyayana who wrote Kamasutra in 3rdcentury was never
criticized on religious grounds and there are many commentaries
written on him till 15th century. Padmasri was a Buddhist monk and
wrote a book on erotic and worldly pleasures titled Nagarasarvasva in
the 11thcentury. Many Jain monks authored mathematical and other
mundane scientific texts without any conflict with their religious
belief. Confucius philosophy as well as Buddhism in China never
opposed or restricted their followers from writing scientific
treatises.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic or Semitic religions
having continuity at some stage in its emergence, history, spread and
geography, at least in the early stages. In case of Indian
civilization same can be said about Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
etc. This cultural mooring of Western and Eastern sciences is very
important to understand their contributions to sciences in West and
East. Thus contribution and role of Religion in the development of
science in the West and East are not the same. As statements like all
religions are same may be politically correct but are not true,
howsoever we desire so. Insisting universalization of science in
early period of human civilization equally distorts truth and
introduces blunders in the writing of the history of Science of non
Western cultures. It numbs all inquiry of cultural moorings and thus
possible epistemological differences in the creation of ideas or
sciences in different cultures. No wonder then that we try to analyze
or explain Aryabhata's writings in the Euclidian Hypothesis-Proof
model.
Ayurveda, the Indian medical science, which is in practice for at
least two thousand years and was the main stream medicine in India
till Colonial rule, becomes 'alternative' medicine, which actually
should be reverse i.e. allopathic medicine is alternative to
Ayurvedic medicine. The same is true of how we calculate our time,
chronology of events in BC and AD. Many scholars nowadays prefer BP
i.e. before present. Archaeologist and Geologist use Bronze, Iron Age
etc. However, central point of this calculation also is the beginning
of Christianity. This labeling may appear simple or innocent, which
it is not. Very tacitly it introduces the hegemony of West over
earlier non-west civilizations. This in association with linear,
anthropomorphic model chosen to express human development, dubs
earlier period as period of infancy, incapable of being logical and
rational, which is prerequisite for scientific development. Nowadays
there is a trend of categorizing ideas or sciences of earlier non-
western civilizations with 'ethnic' label i.e. ethnic medicine,
ethnic mathematics, ethno botany, ethno zoology etc. Many scholars
have pursued this research enthusiastically and with great success.
However, the 'ethno' prefix automatically alienates these
contributions from main stream science development. 'Ethno' prefix
carries the baggage of backwardness, tribal, accidental, lacking
modern scientific analytical i.e. Newtonian-Cartesian model of
inquiry, which has inherited Greek logical, rational, objective
methodology to reach any conclusion. Obviously this denies the
originality or anteriority of ideas especially when chronology does
not favours Western or Greek contributions. The classical example is
of invention of Calculus. Madhava, an Indian mathematician of 14th
century, in his writings has everything required for the development
calculus, which is at least 200 years prior to Newton or Leibniz who
is credited for the invention of Calculus. This fact is known to
scholars for at least two hundred years now. How it reached Europe
can be a matter of further study, but why then Madhava should be
denied the credit of his origination? All possible arguments are
advanced with great logical and scholarly acrobatic exercise to deny
this credit to Madhava. This is a classical example of mind set of
most of the past and present history of science scholars and writers,
who by 'training' believe that birth of great scientific ideas is
'natural ' in Greek and Western tradition and all search is to
establish this 'presumed' hypothesis. As against this, it is
'presumed' that non-Western civilizations lack this ability
'inherently' and on this premise then even if proofs are available,
they are given secondary status.
Renaissance means going back to roots. West believes to have their
roots in the pre-Christian Greek and then Roman culture and
philosophy. Plato, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Euclid and many other
contemporaries are the architects of this Civilization. Renaissance
was a cultural moment encompassing all facets of human creativity be
it arts, science, religion or philosophy. It is accepted that
renaissance is the turning point in the development of modern science
in west. Even arts both fine and performing and for that matter all
other branches of human activity tried to align themselves to this
change. Renaissance movement in the West is precursor to the
Industrial development. Opposition of Christianity to science from
Galileo, Bruno to cloning in modern times is well documented.
To appreciate contribution of sciences to Europe and rest of the
World by Eastern civilizations, in this case by India, requires one
to understand this complex religion-culture-science interdependency
and complementarity. Recent archaeological findings including marine
archaeology have unearthed many new materials at the ancient and
medieval Indian Ocean, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Seaports.
India's contribution in Mathematical astronomy and Algebra is well
documented. There is huge research material available now in many
other areas. I will try to enumerate few below. Siddhasara of
Ravigupta is one of the early Ayurvedic text composed in the middle
of the 7th century (650 AD). Half a century earlier (600 AD) we have
Vagbhata and half a century later (700 AD) we have Madhava.
Siddhasara's translations in Tibetan, Khotanese, Uighur, Turkish,
Arabic and Sinhalese are available and well studied. H.W.Bailey
published the complete Khotanese text in facsimile in 1938 and in
transcription in 1945, which got reprinted in 1969. However, the most
extensive study on all Siddhasar manuscripts is done by R.E.
Emmerick. After publishing two articles in Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies in 1971 and 1974 respectively, he
published The Siddhasara of Ravigupta in two volumes in 1980 and
1982.
R.E.Emmerick also contributed an article titled 'Ravigupta's
Siddhasara in Arabic' in a volume edited jointly by H.R. Roemer and
A.Noth published by Brill in 1981. In a obituary written by Mauro
Maggi on R.E.Emmeric and published in December 2001 issue of East
and West (pp. 408-415) informs us that Emmerick was so much involved
in the study of Siddhasara text that he contributed at least forty
articles on Indian and Tibetan medicine. His paper 'Ravigupta's Place
in Indian Medical Tradition' read in the Second World Sanskrit
Conference held at Torino, Italy (9 to 15 June 1975) and published in
Indologica Taurinensia ( Vol III-IV, 1975-76, pp. 209-221) provides
us valuable information on Ravigupta and also informs us that
Madhavanidana is probably mentioned in Firdaws al-Hikma authored by
a Arabic scholar, Ali b. Sahl al-Tabari. Very recently Peter Zieme
has published an interesting article in 2007 issue of Asian Medicine
(Vol. 3, pp.308-322) on Uighur Siddhasarafragments and enriched us
with new information on this text. Siddhasara text had widespread
influence on Central Asian, Persian and Arabic medical knowledge.
Emmerick informs us that Persian and Arabic scholars held Siddhasara
in high esteem. Rhazes, a Persian scholar of 9th/10thcentury wrote a
20 part medical encyclopedia, Kitab al Hawi, which has incorporated
many passages from Siddhasaraalong with Greek, Syriac and early
Islamic sources. Faraj Ben Salim a Jewish physician translated Kitab
al Hawi into Latin in the 13th century, titled Liber Continens. This
text becomes so popular in Latin world that it was reprinted five
times till 16th century. Influence of Siddhasar on the development of
Western medicine awaits scholarly research.
Many Sanskrit medical texts got translated to Persian around 6th
century at Gundishpore,Iran and later into Arabic in the 9th/10th
century in Baghdad, Iraq. During the same period Astronomical and
Mathematical Sanskrit texts were getting translated into Persian
first and then into Arabic. One such minor Indian text concerned
only with poisons authored by Shanaq got translated to Persian by a
physician called Mankah in the 9th century. Abu Hatim translated it
from Persian to Arabic during the same time and called it Kitab al-
Shanaq. Shanaq's text on poisons was used extensively by ibn
Wahashiya in composing his much acclaimed 'Book on Poison'. Along
with Greek source ibn wahshia also informs us of other Indian authors
like Tammashah and Bahlindad whos books he used while composing his
book on poisons. Ibn Wahashia wrote many other books but his book on
poisons remained as referral work for many centuries. Ibn ai-Nadim
author of Fihrist knew Shanaq and he informs us about Shanaq's works
on conduct of life, the management of war and on cultural studies.
Another scholar ibn abi Usaibi'a tells us about Shanaq's works on
stars,lapidary and one on veterinary science. Unfortunately we do not
have his original Sanskrit or Arabic translations of these works. As
far as Shanaq's text on poisons is concerned, he follows Sushruta.
Martin Levey translated ibn Wahshiya's Book on Poisons and published
it in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New
Series, Vol. 56, No. 7, 1966, pp.1-130.
Recent Archaeological findings have forced us to rethink our early
assumptions of origin of many material objects like silk, cotton,
tick, pottery, spices, perfumery, beads, diamonds and botanical
products. Obviously their place in respective cultures, trade and
manufacturing technology and skills unfolds a new scenario of
cultural history.
China had monopoly on silk till this date. Recent paper titled 'New
evidence for Early Silk in the Indus Civilization' published in the
2009 issue of Archaeometry, Vol.50., will compel us to change this
perception of origin of silk. Earliest export of silk from china
dates back to early second century BC during the reign of Han Emperor
Wu-ti, though archaeologist in China have found isolated find from
the Liangzhou Neolithic site of Qianshanyang dating back to 2570 BC.
Archaeologists were puzzled with silk found in sites at
Mediterranean, Egypt, Central Asia and also at a late prehistoric
Celtc site in Germany dating back to 700 BC, much earlier to Wu-ti
trade relationship with the West began. It was taken for granted as
export from China without having given thought to the possibility of
silk production indigenously or from regions other than China. In
India itself A.N.Gulati in 1961 wrote an article 'A note on the
early history of silk in India' in a publication of Deccan College,
Poona titled Technical Reports on archaeological remains,pp.51-59
producing evidence of silk from a bead thread from Nevasa,
Maharashtra, dating back to 1500 BC. The new archaeological evidence
of Silk from the Indus civilization sites at Harappa and Chanhu-daro
pushes back the silk production outside China at least by a
millennium earlier. Authors of the paper in Archaeometry have
concluded, "The discoveries described here demonstrate that silk was
being used over a wide region of South Asia for more than 2000 years
before the introduction of domesticated silk from China. Earlier
models that attribute the origins of silk and sericulture exclusively
to China need to be re-examined and revised."(p.8) Indian and Greeko-
Roman trade contacts are well documented. Writings of travelers and
geographers, ranging from 1 /2nd century BC to 3/4th Century AD, like
Natural History of Pliny, Strabo and Geography of Claudius
Ptolemy,Periplus of the erythraean Sea by an anonymous author all
have been describing India and Indian products elaborately.
Emperor Justinian who reigned around 533 AD had composed a list of
about 54 dutiable articles entering Alexandria. This includes many
products like hair, drugs and animals from India by name and even
eunuchs. Recent archaeological findings also have endorsed contacts
with Mesopotamia going back to third millennium BC. India is known to
have been exporting spices, diamonds, cotton, silk etc for the last
5000 years now. Indian tick wood was favorite and most suitable for
ship building. This has been confirmed by study of wood found in many
shipwrecks from Indonesia, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ports. A
recent paper titled ' A ninth-century AD Arab or Indian shipwreck in
Indonesia; first evidence for direct trade with China' by Michael
Flecker published in World Archaeology Vol.32, No.3,
Shipwrecks(Feb.2001),pp. 335-354 States, "This is the first clear
archaeological evidence to support historical records which imply
that there was direct trade between the western Indian Ocean and
China during the later part of the first millennium AD"(p.335) Trade
is never restricted only to the material exchanges. Along with
culture, scientific information also migrates. Indian influence in
South East Asian countries is well known. Excellent example of this
migration is seen in the Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia. Measurements
of the temple are related to Hindu religious symbolism and
mathematical Astronomy. An article in the Science Vol.193, No.4250,
23 July, 1976 titled 'Astronomy and Cosmology at Angkor Wat' explains
this elaborately, "It is not surprising that Angkor Wat integrates
astronomy, the calendar, and religion since the priest-architects who
constructed the temple conceived of all three as a unity."(p.281)
In an exhaustive article by Grant Parker titled ' Ex Oriente Luxuria:
Indian commodities and Roman Experience' published in the Journal of
the economic and Social History of the Orient, 2002, Vol.45, No.1, pp
40-95, has thrown light on many dark corners of this trade. While
commenting on meager Indian craft goods found in Roman world, his
following observations are interesting, "A second class of evidence
is provided by a number of marble heads now in Rome. These reveal an
unmistakable mixture of Indian and Roman styles: these have a cirrus
knot on the top, creating the effect of an Indian hairstyle on top of
what are otherwise unexceptional marble heads from the Severan age.27
It is tempting to link these hairstyles with the 'Indian hair'
(capilli Indici) mentioned by Marcian; the available evidence leaves
the matter undecided (Schneider 1986)"(p.54) In the same paper on
p.64 Grand Parker informs us more on documentary and inscriptional
evidence found in the West, "Secondly, there are a number of
documentary sources. The so-called Muziris papyrus (P.Vind. G40822 of
the mid-second century AD, now in Vienna), was not published till the
1980s (Harrauera nd Sijpesteijn1 985). This presupposes a contract
that had been concluded between two parties concerning the transport
of goods from Muziris (probably modern Cranganore) to Myos Hormos on
the north-eastern coast of the Red Sea (probably Abu Sha'ar), in
particular a loan to be paid back on the return voyage: the papyrus
itself sets out the consequences of non-repayment. Whereas the
Periplus suggests that traders would mix low-cost everyday items
within its cargo of predominantly luxury goods, the Muziris papyrus
is limited to expensive articles.... In addition, a number of
inscriptions survive testifying to the kind of trade mentioned by
Pliny. Annius Plocamus' freedman left two inscriptions at the Wadi
Menih on the Berenike-Koptos road, both of them dating to the year AD
6: 'I, Lysas, freedman of Publius Annius Plocamus, came here on July
2nd (July 5th), AD 6.'44 Excavations at Quseir al-Qadim (probably
Leukos Limen) beginning in the late 1970s turned up two ostraka
inscribed in the southern India's Tamil-Brahmi script. These, which
contain the namesKanan and Catan, have been dated to the first
century AD. Amidst a find of pottery that can be dated to AD 60-70,
the Berenike excavation has also produced two ostraka inscribed in
Tamil- Brahmi (Mahadevan 1996)."(Pp.64-65)
Surprisingly we see this 'legal trade document tradition' continued
till 12th century. A huge collection of documents was unearthed in
Egypt from the Cairo Genizah. They catalogue the social, cultural and
religious lives of Jews around the Mediterranean basin. They have
documents related to Jews from India, involved in the Mediterrian
trade. S.D.Goiten worked extensively on these documents and published
many articles- ' From the Mediterranean to India: Documents on the
trade to India, South Arabia, and East Africa from the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries' published inSpeculam, XXIX(1954),181-197, 'From
Eden to India, specimens of the Correspondance of Indian Traders of
the Twelfth Century, published in Journal of the Economic and Social
history of the Orient,Vol.23,no1/2(April.,1980),pp 43-66 and
'Portrait of a Medieval Indian trader: Three Letters from the Cairo
Geniza' published in Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African
studies Vol.50, No.3(1987), pp. 449-464. These articles give us
valuable information on Indian trade activity in the 11th and 12th
century in the Mediterranean Basin.
Nicole Bovin and D.Q.Fuller in their recent paper titled 'Shell
Middens, Ships and seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence. Maritime
trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient
Arabian Peninsula' published in J World Prehist (2002) 22:113-180
informs us about agriculture, animals of Indian origin and pepper,
which is going to confirm earlier observations and pre-date the
Indian history of trade with west.
"Around 1200 BC, the first pepper appears in the Egyptian record,
positively identified from the dried fruits in the nostrils of the
mummy of Ramses II (Plu 1985). This is the first indication of
possible contact between Egypt and India, though by what route
remains unclear. While its royal association attests to the rarity
and high value of this spice at this period, it also can be taken to
suggest the possible early beginnings of direct South Asian to Red
Sea spice trade."(pp. 153-154)
"It is in the context of the intensifying trade between Gujarat and
Arabia at the start of the second millennium BC that we should
probably consider the beginnings of contact between Africa and South
Asia. The evidence of African crops, which are unambiguously in
Gujarat and Baluchistan in this period, suggests that Gujarat
maritime contacts were no longer only with Oman and Dilman but also
extended further westwards around Arabia towards Yemen and Africa. At
present count, some 33 archaeological sites in South Asia dating from
the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC) through the Iron Age (to c. 300
BC) have evidence for crops of African origin for which botanical
identity is acceptable (Table 3;data augmented from Fuller 2003a;
with Chanchala 2002; Cooke et al. 2005; Saraswat 2004, 2005; Saraswat
and Pokharia 2003). In almost all instances, these crops co-occur
with native Indian millets and pulses, and can be seen as additions
to an existing system of summer monsoon agriculture (Fuller and
Madella 2001; Weber 1998, 342�344). Only in the case of Pirak was
Sorghum, together with rice (plausibly japonica rice) and Panicum
miliaceum (one of the Chinese millets), added to the established
Indus repertoire of winter crops."(Pp.155-159)
"The other domesticate which moved between the Indian subcontinent
and Africa, probably via Arabian maritime links, was the South Asia-
derived zebu cattle (Bos indicus).That zebu cattle spread from South
Asia to Arabia and Africa is not in doubt, and a maritime route is
suggested by genetic data. Marshall (1989) speculated that this could
have occurred in the second millennium BC as a counter flow to
African crops that moved to Asia. Genetic data show a pattern of
inter-regional introgression in which eastern and southern Africa,
together with the Arabian peninsula near Africa, show a genetic
cline, especially in Y-chromosome data, that indicates much higher
zebu bull input than is the case for Mesopotamia and more northerly
areas (Hanotte et al. 2002; Zeder 2006). Nevertheless, there was also
clearly overland movement of zebu cattle from the Indus through Iran
towards the Near East (Kumar et al. 2003)," (pp.159) Usually spices
and diamonds are labeled or discussed as exotic products, which is
not true. Grant parker in his Ex Oriente Luxuria gives some
interesting uses of pepper, "The earliest Greek works to mention
pepper are the gynecological treatises attributed to Hippocrates: at
one point the author glosses the spice as an 'Indian drug' (On
women's diseases 1.81 indikou pharmakou). Its typical use in these
medical texts is for disorders of the eyes, mixed into an ointment.
Theophrastus' work On Odours makes it clear that pepper was among the
spices known and used in the later 4th/early 3rd centuries. Though he
uses the loanword in naming it (peperi), he makes no explicit mention
of its Indian origin, in which respect he differs from the
Hippocratic text. Theophrastus' treatise is in fact central to any
analysis of the social meaning of spices in the ancient world: it
makes clear that they were used for perfume-powders (aromata),
cosmetics, incense (thumiamata), and antidotes to poison (theriaca).
But it is in three very different texts of the first century AD that
we have the most extensive evidence for the use of spices. These
begin with the army physic\cian Dioscorides, whose Materia medica (c.
AD 65), written in Greek, illustrates the pharmacological uses.
Secondly, Apicius, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius, composed a
series of gourmet recipes, to whose corpus texts continued to be
added until late antiquity. Of 478 recipes there contained, almost
all require some kind of spicing; so did certain preparations of
wine."(p.43)
However, in India we know that most of the spices are also used in
Ayurvedic preparations. Similarly use of diamond as tool in cutting
other diamond or hard object and in the technology of engraving is
known to Indians since antiquity and is even practiced today in
Gujarat. Leonard Gorelick and A.John Gwinnett in their paper titled
'Diamonds from India to Rome and Beyond' published in American
Journal of archaeology, Vol. 91, No.4 (1988) pp. 547-552 informs us,
"The technological history of diamonds as tools in the ancient world
is even more obscure than their use as gem-stones. Our experimental
evidence for the use of diamonds in Arikamedu in southeast India, ca.
250 B.C.- A.D. 300, is the earliest thus far reported. Wheeler found
a bead workshop in Arikamedu, as well as strong evidence for trade
with Rome. The Romans are very likely to have learned to use diamond
splinters as drills in Arikamedu. Pliny states that diamond splinters
"are much sought after by engravers of gems" (HN 37.15.61). Further
literary evidence, both Sanskrit and Roman, adds weight to our
finding. Additional references, although meager, help trace the
continued use of diamonds as en-graving tools after the fall of Rome
through the Sassanian and Islamic periods. Evidence is lacking for
the European Middle Ages, but documentation for Europe re-emerges in
Europe in the 15th century A.C. Diamonds are still used in the modern
industrial world, in modern crafts, as well as in the remote bead
making village of Cambay, India. Here a diamond-hafted bow drill is
still currently in use for drilling beads. Beads from Cambay, in
fact, provided the initial clues in interpreting our sub-sequent
experimental evidence. "(p.547) Excavations in the last quarter of
twentieth century at Quseir al-Qadim (preliminary reports published
by American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo in 1979) and at Egypt's
Red Sea port Berenike (preliminary report started appearing since
1995, published by Leiden:Research School CNWS) has revealed many
new objects, confirming our early findings of Indian trade with
Greco-Roman world. Using textile products of Indian origin and Indian
teak found in the Excavation at Berenike, Grant Parker wrote another
very interesting article titled 'Topographies of Test: Indian Textile
and Mediterranean Contexts in Ars Orientalis, Vol. 34, 2004, pp. 19-
37 (almost all articles in this volume are on Indian Ocean trade).
His findings not only confirm the observations of earlier writers but
also inform us the high degree of technology reached in Indian
subcontinent in cultivating and manufacturing these goods for local
consumption as well as for export. Parker writes in the article, "The
desirability and novelty value of this product are immediately
apparent. This cotton or "tree wool" also featured among the accounts
of the historians and scholars accompanying Alexander on his campaign
to the east in 327-325B .C. For example, the naval commander
Nearchusi s quoted in Strabo's Geography ( 15.1.20 C6g3) on the use
of cotton in garments; Strabo mentions silk in the same breath.
Finally, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a ship captain's manual
from the mid-first century A.D. written in Greek, makes several
references to the transport of cot-ton on the monsoon route. Both
cloth (chapters 48, 49, 5i) and garments (chapters 48, 51, 59) occur
among goods brought into Egypt, whereas exports from Egypt to Arabia,
India, and the East African coast include various kinds of garments
(e.g., chapters 6, 24, 56).11 At a port called "Ganges" i n the Ganga
delta it was possible to acquire high-quality cotton, in the form of
garments: "On [the Ganges] there is a port of trade [emporion]
sharing the same name as the river, Ganges, through which
malabathron, Gangetic nard, pearls, and cotton garments of the very
fin-est quality, the so-called Gangetic, are transported" (chapter
63). It is typical of the Periplus that various objects are linked in
the context of a particular port. The designation of quality,
diaphorotatai, has connotations of distinctiveness as well as
value."(pp.20-21) Hindu mathematical and other scientific manuals
started migrating to Iran and Iraq from 6th to 10th century. Hundreds
of them got translated to Persian and Arabic languages. The process
of Latin translation of these Arabic and Persian texts started from
11th century onwards. Indian mathematics and other sciences reached
Europe through this translation industry. Trade played a vital role
in this migration. However, it is least studied and its contribution
is totally neglected. In the same volume of Ars Orientalis (Vol. 34,
2004) Carol Bier wrote an article titled 'Patterns in Time and Space:
Technologies of Transfer and the Cultural Transmission of
Mathematical Knowledge across the Indian Ocean.' And in his own
words, "This article explores the potential role of textiles in the
transfer of mathematical knowledge from the Indian subcontinent to
the central Islamic lands and west-ward to an emerging modern Europe
through an inquiry into prospective technologies of textile
manufacture and pattern-making. Ikat textiles of the ninth and tenth
centuries, found in Egypt but presumed to be from Yemen, serve as a
means to explore possibilities of numeration and treatment of the
spatial dimension.
An initial attempt is made to separate patterning from the technology
of textile production in an effort to treat the mathematical
possibilities that patterning offers for the application of
mathematical knowledge. This article proposes an ontology of pattern,
distinct from the category of a textile itself, which raises
significant questions pertaining to the transmission of mathematical
knowledge in relation to expanded trade routes in the eighth through
tenth centuries, coincident with Islamic developments in the
understanding of two-dimensional space"(p.173)
Agriculture and Horticulture are other important activities in any
culture or civilization. Newer techniques of Archaeobotany are giving
us new tools in dating. Mehergarh, Baluchistan excavations have
placed barley and wheat cultivations in Indian subcontinent around
7000 to 5500 BC. Recent findings of the Archaeobotanical samples
collected from Neolithic site Jhusi, at the confluence of Ganga and
Yamuna rivers in Allahabad U.P. are presented jointly by Anil K.
Pokharia, J.N. Pal and Alka Srivastava in an article titled 'Plant
macro-remains from Neolithic Jhusi in Ganga Plain: evidence for
grain-based agriculture', in the Vol.97,No. 4, 25 august 2009 issue
of Current Science. We already have the dates of cultivated rice
from Kunal, Hariyana in the range of 3000 to 2500 BC. Rice grains
collected at Jhusi have given us dates in the range of 7100 to 5932
BC. These are probably the earliest dates of rise grains in at least
Indian subcontinent. Their findings of viticulture or horticulture
are more revealing, "Remains of grape-vine have provided unequivocal
evidence of viticulture from pre-Harappan and Harappan times
23,36,37,40. Before the factual evidences from archaeological sites,
information on the grape and its cultivation was based on the
literary and ancient sculptures. Grapes were known through the
accounts of Charak and Susruta in their early medical treaties (5th
century BC), and there was almost no information of their
cultivation, prior to the Muslim conquest of the country 41.The
evidence of grape-vine on Indian sculptures has come from Sanchi and
Bharhut stupas in Madhya Pradesh, datable to 2nd�3rd century AD 42.
Smith 43 and Marshall et al.44, however, regarded the vine as a
characteristic motif of Hellenistic art. According to Watt 45,
viticulture in India never at any period was regarded to have
attained the proportions it assumed in the Greek and Roman ages of
Europe. Now, in view of the factually evidenced viticulture since the
Neolithic and Harappan times, all these opinions stand
untenable."(p.569)
Sugarcane cultivation is indigenous to India. We have extensive
literary evidence for this. We have testimony of Greeks in this
regard. They described sugarcane as 'reeds that make honey without
the agency of bees' Megasthenes goes a step forward and even tries to
explain why sugarcane is sweet? Surprisingly there is no trace of
sugarcane in any archaeological excavations in the subcontinent.
Lallanji Gopal has written an excellent paper titled 'Sugar-making in
Ancient India' published in Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient Vol. 7, No. 1, 1964, pp. 57-72. He gives us
literary evidence of highly advanced stage of cultivation it had
reached, "Advanced knowledge of sugarcane cultivation is clear from
the classification of the plants into several types, differing
according to their qualities 2). Caraka 3) mentions two varieties
paundraka and vamsaka. The Amarakosa 4), though by name mentioning
only the pundra and kantara types, implies many others also in the
word adayah. Ksirasvamin, the commentator, names some of these. But
Susruta gives by far the most elaborate list. He mentions twelve
varieties: paundraka 5), bhiruka, vamsaka, sataporaka, tapaseksu,
kasteksu, sucipatraka, naipala, dirghapatra, nilapora and kosakrt
6)."(p.59)
Panchatantra and the game of Chess are Indian contributions which
reached East and West, as early as 3rd to 6thcentury AD. I have dealt
with Panchatantra in my paper 'History of migration of Panchatantra
and what it can teach us' presented last year in the conference
titled Subhashita, Panchatantra andGnomic Literature in Ancient and
Medieval India held at Thane under the auspices of Institute for
Oriental Study, Thane on Saturday, 27 Dec. 2008 at Thane
http://orientalthane.com/speeches/speech2008.htm
Similarly there is large research material available on Chess. The
White collection in the Cleveland public library is the largest
library in the world dedicated to Chess.
Dominance and universalization of modern science gives a hegemonic
status to West. Colonization of rest of the world by Western
countries since 16th century added to this hegemony. 'Orientalism'
is the final outcome of this process. Study of Indian civilization
i.e. Indology is no exception to this 'academic exercise'. Poor
financial recourses and inadequate research training facilities in
the non West world in the post Colonial period, enhances this
dependency on West. No civilization or culture for that matter can
claim exclusivity.
However, though Indian trade with West was always bilateral, when it
comes to influence or anteriority of ideas, pointer is
unidirectional, always in the direction of Mesopotamia or Greece.
Transmission of Indian sciences to Europe prior to Industrial
revolution is not easy to understand. Trade, as seen by us earlier,
has played a major role in this transmission. Extensive literary and
archaeological material is available now for this study. However,
Indian trade was not restricted to the West only. Buddhism had
reached China and Central Asia few centuries prior to the beginning
of Christian era. Indian trade and culture had also reached South
East Asian countries since the beginning of Christian era. Hundreds
of philosophical, religious and scientific text from Sanskrit got
translated to Chinese, Khotanese, Uighur, Tibetan and South Eastern
languages. Trade route of West to China passed through Central Asia.
We have seen that many Chinese and Central Asian texts original and
translated both, reached Western civilizations through this trade
route. As a matter of fact Sanskrit-Persian/Arabic�Latin transmission
started much later than Sanskrit-Chinese-Central Asian-Greek/Latin
transmission. Last route of transmission is after 16th century
through missionary and Colonial administrators' writings. A
collective and comprehensive study of all these inter disciplinary
sciences including paleo and archaeobotany, archaeozoology and
genomic studies will help us reach conclusions with least bias.
Vijay Bedekar
President,
Institute for Oriental Study, Thane
Saturday, 26 December 2009, Thane.
The annual seminar of the Institute on the topic India's Scientific
Contribution to Europe and other worldCivilizations prior to
Industrialcivilization was conducted on Saturday,26 Dec.2009. About
10 scholars presented papers in the conference. This was the
27thconference conducted under the auspices of the Institute for
Oriental Study,Thane since 1982. The book of abstract of present
seminar will be uploaded on the web site http://www.orientalthane.com
End of forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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