Many of our kids may not be aware of
such great achievements of our ancient civilization. Our children should be
educated on these to instill a sense of pride in them in being a Hindu.
Ancient Hindu civilization and mathematics By Dr
R.N. Das
The ancient Hindu
sages discovered the miracles of modern scientific tools. The following are
the glorious examples of them.
I. The Concept of Zero
The concept of zero
came from the revered Hindu sages in Vedic times thousands of years ago.
Without the concept of zero the binary system is
blind. No counting, no commerce or no computer business. The earliest
documented 'date'
was found in today's
Gujarat [BC
585-586] in an inscription on Sankedia copper plate. In
Brahamaphuta—Siddhanta of Brahamagupta (7th century CE), zero was lucidly
explained. Muslim invaders from Central Asia crossing the Hindukush mountain
ranges invaded Bharat 1300 years ago and plundered its beauty, riches,
books, thrones and what not. They plagued the holy land with sword, loot,
arson and rape and destroyed and ravaged the whole land in the name of jihad
and 'Allah'. There was no Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List) like cinema
director who could document this sordid past of our history.
There was no patent system at that time. Might was
right. They considered those substances of robbery maal-e-ganimat (booty
looted from kafirs to be distributed among themselves and friends of
theirs) and thus inculcated those invaluable theorems of
mathematics, astronomy and geometry in Arabic books in around 770- 1200 CE.
From there, those extraordinary concepts were carried to Spanish
Europe in the
8th century. However the concept of zero was referred to as shunya in the
early Sanskrit texts of the 4th century BC and was clearly explained in
Pingala's Chand Sutra of the 2nd century too.
II. The Contribution to
Astronomy
Hindu sages told modern scientists how to map
the sky in terms of glaring stars almost 4000 years ago. Copernicus
published his theory of revolution of the Earth around the Sun in 1543 AD
only. But our Aryabhatta in the 5th century had stated that the Earth
revolves around the Sun in these specific words: 'Just as a person boarding
on a boat feels that the trees on the banks are moving, people on the
revolving earth also feel that the sun is moving'. Such illustrious teaching
of astronomy was rarely seen in the contemporary writings of the Greek
astronomers. In his Aryabhatteem, he clearly stated that our Earth was round
and it rotated on its own axis, orbited the Sun and was suspended in the
space. It also explained that the lunar and solar eclipses occurred by the
interplay of the shadows of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth.
III. The Law of
Gravity
The Law of Gravity was known to the ancient
Hindu astronomer Bhaskaracharya. In his Surya Siddhanta he noted: 'Objects
fall on the Earth due to force of attraction of the Earth. Therefore, the
Earth, planets, constellations, the Moon, and the Sun are all held in the
galaxy due to this great cosmic attraction.'
It was in
1687—1200 years later— Sir Isaac Newton discovered OR
(re-discovered?) the
Law of Gravity, which was already invented by the greatest Hindu astronomer
Bhaskaracharya, of course which was written in the holiest language,
Sanskrit.
IV. The Invention of
Trikonmiti
The word geometry seems
to have emerged from the Sanskrit word gyaamiti, which means measuring the
Earth. And the word trigonometry is similar to trikonmiti meaning measuring
triangular forms.
Euclid was
famous for the invention of geometry in 300 BC whilst the concept of
trikonmiti had emerged in 1000 BC in Bharat. It is evident lucidly from
todays 'practice of making fire alters (at homagni kshetra) in different
shapes, e.g., round, triangular, hexagonal, pentagonal, square and
rectangular'. It was part and parcel of daily pujas and homagnis in ancient
times. The treatise of Surya Siddhanta (4th century) described in
fascinating details about trigonometry, which was introduced in
Europe by Briggs 1200 years later in the 16th century.
V. The Invention of
Infinity
The value of 'Pi' was first invented by the
ancient sages of Bharat.
The
ratio of circumference and diameter of a circle is known as
'Pi'
which gives its value as 3.14592657932...
The
old Sanskrit text Baudhayna Sulbha Sutra of the 6th century BC mentioned
that above-mentioned ratio as approximately equalled to that of Aryabhatta's
ratio [in 499 BC] worked out the value of 'Pi'
to the fourth
decimal place as [3x (177/1250) = 3.1416]. Many centuries later, in 825 AD,
Arab mathematician, Mohammed Ibn Musa
admitted: 'This value of
'Pi' was given by the Hindus (62832/20,000 = 3.1416
).'
VI. Baudhayna's Sulbha Sutra versus
Pythagoras's Theorem
The famous Pythagoras's
theorem states: 'The square of the hypotenuse angled triangle equals to the
sum of the two sides.' This theorem was actually discovered by
Euclid in 300 BC
but Greek writers attributed this to Pythagoras. But the irony of fate is
that our so-called intellectuals (indeed Macaulay's sons who have forgotten
their old but rich and glorious ancient Hindu heritage) had also accepted
that theorem as a contribution of Pythagoras. They never read or tried to
know that Baudhayna's Sulbha Sutra which has been existing for many
thousands of years (written in the Sanskrit) had already described lucidly
the theorem as follows: 'The area produced by the diagonal of a rectangle is
equal to the sum of the area produced by it on two sides.'
VII. The Measurement of Time or Time
Scale
In Surya Siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya calculated
the time taken by the Earth to revolve around the Sun up to the 9th decimal
place.
According to Bhaskaracharya's calculation it is
365.258756484 days.
Modern scientist accepted a value of the
same time as 365.2596 days.
The difference between the two
observations made by ancient Hindu sage Bhaskaracharya just by using his
super brain (in the 4th century AD) and today's NASA (National Aeronautic
and Space Agency) scientists of America by using super computer (in the 20th
century
AD) is only 0.00085, i.e., 0.0002 per cent of
difference.
The ancient Bharatbhoomi had given the world the
idea of the smallest and largest measuring units of Time. In modern time,
only Stephen Hawkins, Cambridge
University Professor of theoretical physics, had the courage to
venture into the abysmal depth of the eternity of Time. Astonishingly, our
ancient sages taught us the following units of time:
Krati =34,000th of a
second
Truti =300th of a second
2 Truti =1 Luv
2 Luv = 1 Kshana
30 Kshana =1 Vipal
60 Vipal
= 1 Pal
60 Pal = 1 Ghadi (=24 Minutes)
2.5 Ghadi = 1
Hora (=1 Hour)
24 Hora = 1 Divas (1 Day)
7 Divas = 1
Saptah (1 Week)
4 Saptah = 1 Maas (1 Month)
2 Maas = 1
Ritu (1 Season)
6 Ritu = 1 Varsha (1 Year)
100 Varsha =
1 Satabda (1 Century)
10 Shatabda = 1 Saharabda
432
Saharabda = 1Yug(Kali Yuga))
2 Yuga = 1 Dwapar Yuga
3
Yuga = 1 Treta Yuga
4 Yuga = Kruta Yuga
10 Yuga = 1
Maha Yuga (4,320,000)
1000 Maha Yuga = 1 Kalpa
1 Kalpa =
4.32 Billion Years.
Therefore, the lowest was 34,000th of a second
known as krati and the highest of the measurement of the Time was known as
kalpa, which equalled to 4.32 billion years. Is it not amazing? Are you not
feeling proud to be a Hindu descendent? Swami Vivekananda, the modern sage
of Bharat, stated in his famous sermons compiled in his Rousing Call to the
Hindu Nation, 'Take pride in Hinduism; pronounce yourselves as a descendant
of a Hindu. Boast to be a Hindu and give a clarion call to rouse the Hindu
nation from its lethargy and slumber.'
VIII. The Invention of Decimal
System
It was the ancient Bharatbhoomi that gave us
the ingenious methods of expressing all the numbers by means of 10 symbols
(decimal systems)—an invaluable and gorgeous idea that escaped the genius of
Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest Greek philosophers and
mathematician produced by antiquity (100-130BC).
The
highest prefix used for raising 10 to the power in today's mathematics is
'D' for 1030 (for Greek Deca).While as early as 100 BC Hindu mathematicians
had exact names for figures up to 1053.
a. Ekam =
1
b. Dashkam = 10 (101)
c. 1 Shatam = 100
(102)
d. 10 Shatam = 1 Shahashram = 1000
(103)
e. 10 Dash Shahashram = 10,000 (104)
f.
Laksha = 100,000 (105)
g. Dash Laksha = 10,00,000 (106)
h. Kotihi = 10, 00, 0000 (107)
i. Ayutam =
100,000,000 (109)
j. Niyutam = 100,000,000,000
(1011)
k. Kankaram = 10,000,000,000,000
(1013)
l. Vivaram = 10,000,000,000,000,000
(1016)
m. Pararadahaa = 1017
n. Nivahata =
1019
o. Utsangaha = 1021
p. Bahulam =
1023
q. Naagbaalaha = 1025
r. Titlambam =
1027
s. Vyavasthaanapragnaptihi = 1029
t.
Hetuhellam = 1031
u. Karahuhu = 1033
v.
Hetvindreeyam = 1035
w. Sampaata Lambhaha = 1037
x. Gananaagatihi = 1039
y. Niravadyam =
1041
z. Mudraabalam = 1043
aa. Saraabalam =
1045
ab. Vishamagnagatihi = 1047
ac. Sarvagnaha
= 1049
ad. Vibhutangaama = 1051
ae.
Tallakshanaam = 1053
Is it not amazing to know that the
ancient Hindu sages used to remember them just by using their outstanding
memory power or was there some super computer known to them also, which we
are quite unaware of?
In Anuyogadwar Sutra, written 100 BC,
one numeral had been shown to be raised to as high as 10140 which is beyond
our outmost stretches of imagination. All of our remaining hidden treasures,
which had not been destroyed or stolen by the foreign mercenaries and
invaders, were written in Sanskrit, mother of all languages, which should be
revived. It is our legacy to inherit such rich property that our forefather
had left for us by their meticulous observations over thousands of years
ago.
All hidden treasures are written in Sanskrit, which we
are quite ignorant of and our so-called Macaulay's sons are trying their
best to prevent us from knowing about our glorious past. Sir Monier-
Williams rightly said: 'Hindus are perhaps the only nation, except the
Greeks, who have investigated independently and in true scientific manner,
the general laws that govern the evolution of languages.'
There was no patent system at that time. Might was right.
They considered those substances of robbery maal-e-ganimat (booty looted
from kafirs to be distributed among themselves and friends of
theirs) and thus inculcated those invaluable theorems of mathematics,
astronomy and geometry in Arabic books in around 770- 1200 CE.
More than this, the Hindus had made considerable advances in
astronomy, algebra, arithmetics, botany and medicine, not to mention their
superiority in grammar, long before some of these sciences were cultivated
by the most ancient nations of Europe.
Indeed, Hindus were
Spinozists 2000 years before the birth of Spinoza, Darwinians many centuries
before the birth of Darwin, and evolutionists, centuries before the doctrine
of evolution had been accepted by Aldus Huxley's of our times, and before
any word like evolution existed in any language in this world.
We should take a vow to work together to search those hidden
treasures out; propagate the notion that Sanskrit is not a dead language.
Sanskrit is the elite of the elitist, classic of the classics and it should
be revived once again. We will again sit in the seat of the world assembly
with our head held high and with pride. I would like to draw the final touch
with the quotation from Swami Vivekananda, 'I do not see into the future nor
do I care to see. But one vision I see clear as life before me, that the
ancient Mother has awakened once more sitting on her throne rejuvenated,
more glorious than ever. Proclaim her to the entire world with the voice of
peace and benediction.'
(The writer is Associate Professor, Department
of Medicine, Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara,
Nepal,