RANDOM MUSINGS

PART 1

FIRST PUBLISHED IN INDICA TODAY ONLINE MAGAZINE

Science And Technology In Pre-Colonial India : Part 1

Introduction

The history of science is a largely ignored discipline in India. We have a legitimate heritage to be truly proud of without requiring outside validation. How did it happen that everything in Indian traditions by way of science gets a denial despite authorities talking about 30 million manuscripts in Indian repositories related to science and technology? Simultaneously, critics have a field day at the extreme claims of head transplantation, flying aeroplanes, and cloning in the Indian past. Ancient Indian science had an interface with the ordinary world (loka parampara) in the best of Indian traditions. For example, Indian mathematics showing little interest in axiomatic laws unlike the Greeks, was keener for pragmatic methods and good algorithms. Interestingly, the Brahmi script of numerals went to the Arab world and then to Europe. It came back to India as the Arabic numerals.

Macaulay said famously about Indian knowledge systems in 1835 that it was a public waste for printing books with ‘less value than blank paper’ and ‘for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology’. Similar observations over centuries shaped all the writing and teaching about India resulting in ignorance, apathy, and confusion amongst Indians about its past. Beginning as a grudging admiration for Indian science and technology, especially in astronomy and agriculture, the colonial writings in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries progressively made sure that non-European societies had nothing in comparison to the superior European thought. Rarely, there were some like Voltaire who thought that everything good by way of arts and sciences originated in India (La civilisation la plus antique: Voltaire’s Images of India; Jyoti Mohan, Journal of World History). Voltaire’s views were on selective readings of the Orientalists and based heavily on enlightenment values critical of the Catholic Church. Of course, he never visited India but he firmly and influentially wrote that India predated Chinese civilization and that Christianity derived its philosophy and practices from the religion of India.

It is a misfortune of our education system that few have heard of Dharampal (The Beautiful Tree; Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century). The colossal work of Dharampal in deconstructing the discourses that we were primitive before the colonials came is vital to shake off our persisting colonial consciousness. Beginning in 1964-65, over a decade, Dharampal went into the deepest corners of archives and records in various libraries of India and England. He meticulously reconstructed from the archives what the British discovered and thought about the Indian society. The conclusions seriously undermine the legitimacy of colonial dominated perceptions about Indian society. The archival material includes the colonial descriptions of Indian sciences and technologies.

Dharampal concludes that, from the very beginning, the East India Company had the full support of British state military and naval forces in its expansion drive. Importantly, contrary to the standard teaching, Indian society was functioning well and extremely competent in the arts and sciences of its day when the British started its rule. Its interactive grasp over its immediate natural environment was undisputed; in fact, it demanded praise. For example, Reuben Burrow in 1790 (A Proof That the Hindoos Had the Binomial Theorem) says that the ‘Hindoo religion probably spread over the whole earth: there are signs of it in every northern country, and in almost every system of worship.’ He thought that the Stonehenge, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Astrology, Holidays, Games, names of the Stars and figures of the Constellations, the ancient Monuments, Laws, languages, and the Druids of Britain clearly descended from the Hindoo world! Studied neglect, contempt, and the economic breakdown uprooted and eliminated indigenous sciences and technologies not only from society but from Indian memory itself, says Dharampal. Did we have something for the world? Yes, there was plenty.

Astronomy

John Playfair, professor of mathematics in Edinburgh, in 1790, said: ‘… that observations made in India, when all Europe was barbarous or uninhabited, and investigations made in Europe, near five thousand years afterwards, should thus come in mutual support of one another, is perhaps the most striking example of the progress and vicissitude of science…’.Playfair concludes Indian astronomical observations to the period 3,102 BCE and even 1200 years further back based on every conceivable test. This was either through complex astronomical calculations or by direct observation. It became intellectually easier for him to concede this astronomy’s antiquity to the latter. The conservative date for the Vedas is 3000 BCE, but the evidence of solstices and equinoxes points to a much older date. For example, the consistent conjunction of Jupiter with Tisya Nakshatra (Delta Cancri star system) in the Vedas places them at 4000 BCE.

The four major mathematically significant Shulba Sutras (Baudhayana, Manava, Apastamba and Katyayana), dated to at least 1700 BCE, laid deep geometric principles in designing the Vedic fire-altars of unique shapes. Baudhayana Shulba sutra describes the Pythagorean theorem, a few centuries before Pythagoras, and there is a small movement to rename it as Baudhayana-Pythagoras theorem. The architectures of temples, forts, and monuments of ancient and medieval India are based on the Shulba Sutra principles. Metrology like angula, arigula, hastha, and so on for length and weight measurements was in use till as late as the 20^th century.

After an apparent black-hole period, the next significant period for astronomy was from 5^th century CE with mathematician-astronomers like Aryabhata (476 CE), Bhaskara, Varahamira, and Brahmagupta. Aryabhatta gave the sidereal period of the Earth by using nadis or ghatikas as units which comes to 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. Aryabhata spoke of infinite time periods, pulsating creations, and destructions of cosmos. Aryabhata’s cosmology described Mahayugas of 4,320,000 years with 4 equal parts of 1,080, 000 years. All this apart from his theory of Earth’s rotation. Later scientific studies (Billard) showed an astonishing precision of Aryabhata’s planetary positions. Bhaskara 1 of the Aryabhata school replaced geometry with algebraic equations and studied spherical astronomy without spherical trigonometry. Carl Sagan (Cosmos) thought highly of the Hindu mind which talked about the age of cosmos in billions of years while the Europeans persisted with a few thousands of years for a long time.However, though these ‘lovely’ cosmic ideas were central to ancient Hindu beliefs, he says that there “are kind of premonition of modern astronomical ideas.” He did think that Hindu ideas on cosmos involved mysticism rather than science!

Panchanga (calendars with auspicious times and eclipses) is a continuing tradition since great antiquity where the best of mathematical and astronomical skills come to use. Astronomical tables instead of trigonometric calculations simplified the Panchanga calculations. Ganesha Devangya in the 15^th century simplified the astronomy for Panchanga makers. Vakya Karana table of Kerala, a mnemonical system known by heart, where each letter represents a number, gives amazingly the true positions of heavenly bodies on any given day by degree, position, and center.

At its core, the Vedic system connects the astronomical, the terrestrial, and the physiological, as Subhash Kak says (The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda). Initially, the Biblical periods (beginning of the world in 4004 BCE), and later, the Aryan 1500 BCE invasions into India seriously compromised the acceptance of astronomical observations.Gradually, most of Indian astronomy became either fake or borrowed from the Greeks, Babylonians, or the Arabs.

Mathematical Sciences

The Siddhantic period of mathematician-astronomers started with Aryabhata with significant contributions from Jain and Buddhist savants. Aryabhata dealt with pi value, extraction of square and cube roots, and tables of sines accurate up to the 4^th or 5^th decimal place. Trigonometry had a central place in astronomy. Aryabhata said that, ‘Space is limitless; and time has no beginning or end.’ Brahmagupta, known for Algebra, developed formulae for second order indeterminate equations and an algorithm-based method for mathematical derivations called Bhavana. Brahmagupta spoke of iterative processes (successive approximation) to calculate the solar eclipses until the solutions are convergent. The same iterative process persists even today for astronomical calculations. Bhaskaracharya (12^th century), improving the Bhavana method, developed the ‘cyclic method’ or chakravata, described as the finest thing discovered in the theory of numbers before Lagrange.

Rules of zero came about out in 1^st to 3^rd century CE and indeed a unique contribution of India. Mesopotamians and Chinese had zero as a place holder unequivocally but India clearly was the first to work out the numerical rules for zero and to integrate the zero in a positional system. India started the decimal-place-value numeral system. Indian science had a huge fascination for numbers big and small, especially the Buddhist and Jain savants. Rigveda spoke in multiples of 10 up to 100,000 and Yajurveda up to 10¹². Anuyogadvara Sutra (a Buddhist Text) contemplates on an infinite and eternal universe and numbers like 10²⁵⁰. Lalitavistara Sutra, a Jain text gives names to numbers of multiples of 10 up to 10¹⁴⁵ and speaks about a number 10⁴²¹. Indians conceptualized also the infinitesimal. Bhaskara defines the unit of time as truti-2,916,000,000 part of the day or 30 milliseconds.Indian savants determined the pi value up to 10 decimal places using these Katapayadi notations of associating mathematical numbers with Sanskrit language.

The Islamic invasions of the 11^th century did cause a disruption as the intellectual outputs moved South. The most famous was the Kerala school of mathematics and astronomy starting 14^th century and maintained vigorously till as late as the 17^th century. Starting with Madhava, the later members included Parameshvara, Neelakanta Somayaji, Jyeshta deva, Achyuta Panikkar, and Narayana Bhattathiri. Their important contributions were series expansion for trigonometric functions, power series, infinite series of Madhava, and the value of pi. Calculus concepts were in place as Manjulacharya of the 10^th century spoke about instantaneous angular velocity. The work related to calculus was two centuries before Newton and Leibnitz. Some scholars feel that there could have been a knowledge transfer of the Kerala school through trade routes by traders and Jesuit missionaries to China, Arab world, and Europe.

Indians were very good at the most difficult predictions of eclipses involving both deep calculations and meticulous observations. Nilakantha, one of the greatest in the Kerala school, predicting two solar eclipses in Gokarna (Karnataka), travelled there to confirm the eclipse falling on the exact date. Kerala astronomers used Kali Days (days after Kali Yuga passed) to predict eclipses without an error of a single day.

Logic and Physics: The Vaisheshika-Nyaya School of Philosophy

Indian physics starts with sage Kanada’s (6^th century BCE) Vaisheshika, closely associated with the Nyaya school of logic. With an exhaustive exposition of logic, this school spectacularly conceived of atoms (paramanus) as the ultimate, eternal, uncaused constituents of a world with three types of reals: matter, living bodies, and sense organs. Kanada also described seven classes of substances: ether, space, and time, which are continuous; and four kinds of atoms- two with mass and two without. The atoms are eternal only under normal conditions; but during creation and destruction, they arise in a sequence starting with akasa and absorb in reverse sequence at the end of the world cycle. The spherical atom appears the same from all directions. The atoms combine to form different kinds of molecules and break up under heat.

Paka, the earliest available evidence for chemistry, is the application of external heat to earth matter resulting in change of properties. Vaisheshika school has important contributions in the fields of theory of metals, theory of motion, physiology of dreams, nature of sound, theory of numbers, and many other scientific areas. A dream was a mental cognition which arises from previous impressions but is different from memory. Kanada also distinguishes between mind and consciousness.

Amazingly, Kanada theorized that Gurutva (gravity) was responsible for the falling of objects on the Earth. There was an exhaustive study of motion by the Vaisheshika school and most impressive perhaps would be the three sutras proposed 1800 years before Newton’s laws.

• वेगःनिमित्तविशेषातकर्मणोजायते | (Change of motion is due to impressed force)
• वेगःनिमित्तापेक्षातकर्मणोजायतेनियतदिकक्रियाप्रबन्धहेतु | (Change of motion is proportional to the impressed force and is in the direction of the force)
• वेगःसंयोगविशेषविरोधी | (Action and reaction are equal and opposite)

The non-mystical, secular, analytical, and scientific potential of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school has convinced many scholars like Ballantyne that it provides the basic framework for the introduction of modern western science.

Metallurgy

If metal usage measures the progress of civilization ancient India places itself high. The common metals were gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc, and mercury. Mohenjo-Daro (3000 BCE), the Maski region of Karnataka and the Aravalli region (first millennium BCE) has shown presence of gold and silver ornaments. With some referencespointing to earlier times, there is firm evidence for metallic zinc production in the 13^th century CE at Zawar in Rajasthan. This was a unique technology of downward distillation of zinc vapour and specially designed condensers to solidify the zinc metal. This had no antecedent, successor, and no contemporaries. The Rasaratnakara (7^th or 8^th century CE) describes this method. William Champion first established the commercial zinc smelting process in 1740 at Bristol which had marked resemblances to the Zawar process with some suspicion of a transfer of ideas through the East India Company officials.

Some of the earliest literary references to the use of mercury distillation comes from Indian treatises like Arthashastra. Vermilion or cinnabar (mercuric sulphide) has always had great ritual significance typically to make the red bindi. The mineral-rich Aravalli region was one of the important early lead mining regions in antiquity. There is evidence of copper artifacts (6th millennium BCE from Baluchistan) and copper mines (Khetri region of Rajasthan, 3^rd -2^nd millennium BCE). The Bronze Age cultures used tin-copper alloy for making weapons prior to the use of iron. The famous statue of a dancing girl from Mohenjo-Daro (2300-1750 BCE) is the earliest bronze castings of the world executed by the lost wax technique. The Chola period in the Tanjavur area (10^th century CE) show arguably the most beautiful bronze castings in the world.

Iron and Steel

There is evidence of Iron artefacts from the early second millennium BCE in Central Ganga Plain and Eastern Vindhyas. South Indian cultures of second millennium BCE also show evidence of iron. Wrought iron reached its peak in India in the first millennium CE. The famous Iron Pillar in New Delhi, a testimony to the high skill of ancient Indians, manufactured by the forge welding of wrought iron pieces dates to Gupta period (3^rd century CE). The 6 tonnes and 7 meters tall pillar has an extremely high resistance to corrosion- a result of its composition, the high purity of wrought iron, the phosphorus content, and the distribution of slag.

Wootz is the anglicized version of ukku, a South Indian term for steel. Europe, China, the Arab world, and the Middle East imported steel from India. In the 12th century, an Arab Idrisi says, ‘It is impossible to find anything to surpass the edge from Indian steel’. Wootz was an ultra-high carbon steel with between 1-2% carbon, and used for making Damascus blades exhibiting fascinating superplastic properties. Wootz steel played an important role in the development of metallurgy. Michael Faraday’s failed attempts to duplicate the steel by testing various alloy mixings marked the beginning of alloy steel making. British, French, and Russian metallography developed largely due to the quest to document this structure. In 1790s, a sample of wootz steel evoked immense scientific and technical interest. Experts found it to match the best steel then available in Britain. In 18 years, the Indian wootz steel was in extensive usage and considered the best.

Till well into the nineteenth century, Britain produced very little of steel and imported it mostly from Sweden and Russia. This was due to the inferior quality of its iron ore and a lack of knowledge. The British experts initially thought that ‘the wootz was made directly from the ore.’ Indian steel qualities were not because of processes employed by the Indian manufacturers; an ‘intellectual impossibility’, they said. In 1825, a British manufacturer took out a patent for converting iron into steel by exposing it to the carburetted hydrogen gas in a close vessel at a very high temperature. J.M. Heath, founder of the Indian Iron and Steel Company, conceded that the Indian process appeared similar but impossible that it could have developed through scientific reasoning.

Several British accounts during the period 1820-1855, gave detailed accounts of the design, measurements, and construction of the furnaces of Indian iron and steel manufacture. There were an estimated 10,000 iron and steel furnaces functioning throughout India in the latter part of the eighteenth century. According to British data, the production of iron per furnace amounted about 20 tons annually. One unique accessory in Indian metallurgy was the use of the Panchakki (water-mill) in the crushing of ore by the manufacturers of Kumaon and Garhwal. How did these superior and widespread manufacturing processes disappear? This was mainly from a systematic large-scale economic breakdown resulting from hostile state policy. From about 1800 onwards, India was a consumer of British manufactures combined with no state support for large-scale production of iron and steel.

Ship-building

Sanjeev Sanyal (The Ocean of Churn) highlights ancient and medieval India’s shipbuilding prowess and its great maritime trade. Rigveda mentions maritime trade. Yuktikalpataru (11th Century CE) deals with shipbuilding and details of various types of ships like Samanya (passenger), Madhyama (cargo) and Visesha (fishing and ferrying). Boat building goes back to the 3^rd millennium BCE- the Harappan times. Dholavira and Lothal in Gujarat were thriving ports off the Arabian Sea till the Saraswati dried up. Dr. SR Rao’s immense work throws light on Indus civilization’s maritime aspects. The Harappans constructed the first tide dock of the world for berthing and servicing ships at Lothal. Lothal’s overseas trade was with both the West Coast of India and the Mesopotamian cities. The coastline from Gujarat to southern Iran was a continuum with strong economic and cultural links due to an active sea-trading route. There were also ships and boats for the sea and inland-waterways from Lothal. The Harappan ship might have carried a load up to sixty tons as supported by the size of the anchor stones.

The coastline from Bengal to Gujarat had a thriving industry for deep sea fishing and distant trade. The eastern coast had an active maritime trade during the Cholas and Pandyas (1^st millennium and early second millennium CE) rule. Merchant ships from Satvahana (Andhra rulers) and Kalinga ports traded with Egypt in the west and Vietnam in the east. South East Asia has a strong impact of Indic civilization (Sanskrit, temple architecture, Mahabharata, and Ramayana) by a vibrant and active maritime link. The largest Hindu temple complex in the world is at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Rulers, dynasties, and individuals like Marthanda Varma, the Marathas, Lachit Borphukan, and Kanhoji Angre, to name the fewest, show how ship and boat building was integral to Indian history.

Bricks

The British, while laying railway tracts between Lahore and Multan in the 1850s, discovered plentiful ballast coming from bricks from mounds near a village Harappa (Sahiwal district of Punjab). Alexander Cunningham, the newly appointed director of Archaeological Survey of India, visited this site in 1872 and noted to his anguish that massive ancient walls had simply disappeared in railway construction. He initially placed these ancient bricks- symmetric and strong, to 300-400 BCE, the Buddhist era. A later director, Marshall, with studies at Harappa, Taxila, and Mohenjo-Daro finally published his book ‘First Light on a Long-Forgotten Civilization’ in 1924. Later, he edited a massive three-volume excavation report called the ‘Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization’. Seals, pottery, bricks, town planning, beads, pottery, bangles, jewellery items connecting a wide area of 800 kilometers established an age-old civilization. The bricks which perhaps initiated the story traced to the urban phase of the Harappan civilization (Indus-Saraswati civilization) dated to 1900 BCE-2600 BCE! The bricks stood solid for a period of 4000 years.

The well-burnt and finely textured bricks of the Harappan civilization show a scientific proportion of 1:2:4 (width: height: length) essential for strong and economical bonding. Amazingly, this brick production method remained practically unchanged in India till the turn of the 20^th century. As Michel Danino says, the genius of the Harappans in brick construction is evident from the trapezoid shaped bricks in the construction of circular wells and ring wells (with radial supporting walls and above-down construction). This made the wells, extremely resistant to inner collapse from underwater seepage.

Agriculture

Agricultural technology involves a deeply interconnected knowledge in many areas like seasons, water sources and utilisation, soil types, crops, seeds, land treating, mechanical instruments, animal usage and maintenance, medicine, labour management, crop refining, storing of granary, and so on. Mehrgarh in Baluchistan shows the earliest evidence for agriculture in 7000-7500 BCE. Kalibangan around 2800 BCE shows an ingenious double network of perpendicular furrows for tall and short crops allowing sunlight for both without shadowing.

The colonial rule disrupted the rich agricultural traditions as Dharampal notes meticulously from the British archival records. Till around 1750, together with the Chinese, Indian areas were producing some 73% of the total world paddy, and even till 1830, this figure was around 60%. In a moderately fertile area like that of Chengalpattu (Tamilnadu), the paddy production around 1760-70 amounted to five to six tons per hectare, which equals the production of paddy per hectare in present day Japan—the current world high!

Thos Halcott, in 1795, as the first European, noted the different types of ploughs for use in agriculture in Guntoor district from time immemorial. The unique Drill plough was in universal use for most grains, tobacco, cotton, and the castor-oil plant and British authorities thought it superior in design to the patented version in England. Halcott sent diagrams and three different types of ploughs (including the Drill plough) for forwarding to the Board of Agriculture to possibly implement in England. Alexander Walker (‘Indian Agriculture,’ 1820) details how Indian agricultural principles, implements and practices compared with those elsewhere in the world. Besides widespread artificial irrigation, the practices of crop rotation, manuring, sowing, assessing the quality of soils, and using a variety of other implements were fairly known. Walker noted that European equipment failed in Indian agriculture simply due to unsuitable environments for application. He does not know what essential present the English can make to India, since it has many more kinds of grains that the English. Walker wrote about the possible political reasons for scarcity and poverty leading to a decline of agricultural instruments and techniques.

Adam Ferguson of Edinburgh, professor of moral philosophy and regarded as the founder of British sociology said in 1780 that the aim of governing India was to transfer as much as possible of the wealth of India to Europe. It would be permissible to bend and break the rules as instruments of the state cannot effectively extract or extort from the ruled. Dharampal notes high land revenues in large parts of India under British rule, sometimes more than 50% till 1855. In the Madras Presidency areas during the 1850s, about one-third of the irrigated land had gone out of cultivation as the amount of land revenue had begun to approximate the gross produce itself.

India is the longest surviving civilization with agriculture as its backbone. The English initially had admiration for agricultural practices in India. The colonial systems broke the agricultural output severely and even managed to cause droughts through their policies of maximum extraction and maximum taxation. The story degenerated to a ‘primitive agricultural practices’ despite a well-set system worthy of emulation. Today, agriculture is back to the top, a hard climb, but to a place where it always belonged.

Dyes and Pigments

India had a thriving industry of manufacturing dyes and pigments. Plant and animal products, minerals, and metals produced different dyes and pigments for mainly red, yellow, blue, and black colours. It was a well-established enterprise in Indian sub-continent with even the Atharvaveda mentioning different methods of producing dyes. Archaeological evidence shows that dyeing was a wide-spread industrial enterprise in India in the third millennium BC. As early as 500 BCE, there is evidence of Indian indigo use in Egypt for the dyeing of muslin. 13^th-16^th century CE texts show methods of preparing pigments from inorganic matter.

Dharampal records Dr Helenus Scott (Aspects of technology in Western India) where he recommends and sends samples of some substances as highly worthy of becoming articles in commerce and art. The colouring industry was thus very much in place, some aspects apparently unknown to the English and they were also eager to send it across to their own country.

(Note: In the next section, we will see some more scientific achievements in Indian civilization especially in civil engineering of the ancient past along with the biological sciences. We shall also see the perfection of Sanskrit as a language and how authorities with agendas attack it in various ways. The next section has the selected references for further reading at the end).

PART 2

FIRST PUBLISHED IN INDICA TODAY ONLINE MAGAZINE

Science And Technology In Pre-Colonial India: Part 2

In the first part, we saw the Indian achievements in varied fields of science and technology. Drawing heavily on the work of Dharampal, Michel Danino, and Subhash Kak, we shall see some of the other achievements in the fields of civil engineering, biological sciences, and linguistics. The section ends with some references for further exploration.

Some British Accounts Noted by Dharampal

In 1792, Dr Helenus Scott wrote to the President of the Royal Society of London ruing neglect of important Indian substances and wrongly focusing on diamonds, pepper, and pearls. He details various unique Indian products of important use to the English in the fields of medicine and surgery; dyeing; building construction; and methods of making soap, gun powder, indigo, ink, cinnabar, vitriol, iron, and copper, alum, and so on. He sends samples with exquisite details regarding their production.

He mentions dammer ‘dissolved in oil by heat and employed for covering the bottoms of ships… an excellent substitute for pitch and tar and for many purposes much superior to them…’. He also mentions hemp, a glutinous vegetable substance for securing the ropes in an improved manner from the effects of the weather. He writes about the impressive dyeing methods for their cotton clothes and complains that Indians do not communicate their knowledge readily. He writes, ‘I have sent you in the box that contains the machines for cleaning cotton a piece of the cinnabar of this country which is made in masses sometime of 100 lb weight at a single sublimation. I have very frequently tried to make cinnabar by the methods recommended in Europe but I have never been able to procure any so far, as the Indian at one operation.’

He describes the special lime or chunam extensively used for binding large stones, buildings, terraces, aqueducts, works below the surface of water and for the bottoms of ships where it answers the purposes of copper. One of the chief ingredients in this chunam was a kind of unrefined sugar. He notes that no country had yet practiced this unique method. In later letters, he mentions and sends samples of the extraordinary paper for putting on noses on those who have lost them; Indian cement for uniting animal parts; wootz steel of a harder temper than known to the English; and so on. The British sense of awe and wonderment gradually morphed into painting a primitive and barbaric civilization later. Dharampal’s books extensively documents what the British thought of India in the initial phases. We never studied him, unfortunately.

The Indus-Saraswati Civilization: Lessons in Town Planning, Sanitation, Water Systems

Harappan civilization discovery shows a continuous unbroken Indic civilization from almost 7500 BCE. A gloriously flowing Saraswati of the Rigvedic times dried up sometime between 2000 and 3000 BCE. Michel Danino (The Lost River) collects all the evidence from the texts, satellite imagery, and geological plate tectonics to show this rich civilization. Saraswati is the Ghaggar-Hakra river system of today. Archaeology shows a densely populated area of the Saraswati plain between the fourth and the second millennium BCE. More than 60% of the 1140 identified Mature Harappan sites (between 1900 BC to 2600 BC) are in the Saraswati basin (the dried-up region of Gujarat). It is more appropriate to call it the Indus-Saraswati civilization rather than Indus civilization.

The mature urban phase covered an area of approximately one million kilometers of North West India. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan; Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, and Lothal in India have yielded a wealth of information about the technological and scientific achievements of that age. Brick houses were obviously the most important.

Wide areas show commonality suggesting either some centralisation or a confederation; there were unique features of each place too. Town and house planning, streets normalised to standard widths, and sanitation systems show remarkable similarity across a wide area. Archaeological evidence and the presence of seals and artifacts clearly point towards a vibrant trading contact with Bronze Age civilizations (Persian and Mesopotamian) and the Arab world. Harappan weights at the entrances suggest a trade control of some sort. Bead making, drilling, bronze metallurgy, agriculture, weights, and measures laid the basis of a modern and specific culture of India. Uniquely, it did not show the presence of any controlling huge authorities, wars, and destructions. Eventually, by 1900 BC, the civilization moved east with the drying up of the Saraswati river presumably.

In a visible urbanism, Harappan towns divided into an upper and lower segment, perhaps reflecting some authority and common folk segregation. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro show thick fortifications of the upper town perhaps to protect against the intermittent floods. The planning shows a great desire to define urban spaces, symbols of authority, and trade control. The architecture never pointed to a ruler’s house like with the Egyptians. The streets in the town were wide (up to 9 meters) and aligned in the cardinal directions. The lower town streets cut at straight right angles. There were five types of master-plans for the construction of houses according to one scholar. The largest house design with a central courtyard is still in use in some traditional households of India.

Sanitation was the hallmark of Harappans. Bathrooms were common, sometimes on the upper floor of the house, and the drainage systems integrated into other aspects of town planning. Latrines of a ‘commode’ type; brick made drain systems; maintenance holes for regular inspection; individual drain systems joining into common municipal channels were other interesting features. All these show a tremendous calculation on the part of the Harappan Engineers.

Water management was important perhaps in response to the arid conditions. Thousands of efficient and low cost Gabarbands in Sindh and Baluchistan go back to the third millennium BCE diverting water and letting alluvium build up to create small, fertile, and naturally watered fields. Huge underground drains from the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro; a series of dams at Dholavira for water storage; interconnected stepped reservoirs of the castle at Dholavira; stormwater drains; and wide network of underground drains shows the importance of water management systems of this civilization leaving the present planners to shame perhaps. Harappans expected massive rains once a year, as the constructions show. A massive reservoir at Dholavira could hold about 20,000 cubic meters of water.

Weights and measures show a high idea of proportions and binary decimal systems. The basic unit of weight appears to be 0.86 grams and the weights go up in a geometric progression 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000, 12800! Michel Danino concludes that the basic unit of length in today’s units seems to be 1.9 meters. Archaeologists have discovered shell compasses in Lothal for making precise angles. Town and house planning show a deeply ingrained idea of proportions (5:4 is the chief ratio).

The Harappan civilization shows some evidence of a Vedic culture in the past. Unfortunately, academicians fight strongly against the Saraswati existence as it denies the pernicious Aryan theory. The Aryan proponents insist on a break in the Harappan civilization with the invading Aryans driving the Harappans to south of Vindhyas. However, the archaeological evidence is clearly in favour of an uninterrupted and unbroken civilization from those times till now.

Medical and Biological Sciences

Ayurveda, a 5000-year-old tradition rooted in Atharva Veda, has two main schools: Charaka and Sushrutha. Denying the ancientness of Indian scriptures stays a very honourable scholarly enterprise but the medical systems were well in place at least before the Islamist invaders came. Charaka Samhita (likely 500 BCE) has 120 chapters divided into eight sections of surgery, paediatrics, head and eyes, mental diseases, reproductive systems, pharmacology, therapeutics, and toxicology. It mentions plant products (from the root, bark, pith, exudation, stalk, juice, sprouts, fruit, flower, ash, oils, thorns, and so on); 165 types of animal products; and 64 minerals for therapeutic purposes. This book had Persian, Arabic, and Latin translations; the Arabic translation was Al-Beruni’s chief source of medicine.

Sushrutha Samhita has 192 chapters; the first nine for only surgical instruments. The colonials rediscovered Sushrutha’s plastic surgery techniques of rotating forehead skin flaps for amputated noses much to their surprise when a potter in Pune performed this operation following the ancient texts. Sushrutha described eight types of surgeries: extracting solid bodies, excision, incision, probing, scarification, puncturing, evacuating fluids, and suturing. Records from 6^th century BCE show that limb amputations, fracture settings, haemorrhoid excisions, tonsillectomies, caesarean sections, craniotomies, abdominal operations, and stone removals were routine in India.

Dr Helenus Scott, in one communication, praising Indian medical sciences says, ‘…they practice with great success the operation of depressing the crystalline lens when it becomes opaque and from time immemorial, they have cut for the stone at the same place which they now do in Europe.’ A deep knowledge of wines and intoxicating substances was also known for anaesthesia purposes. These ancients spoke about medical ethics, sanitation measures, and vaccinations too.

Ayurveda states firmly that nature causes diseases and nature has the cure too. Ayurveda bases on the Tridosha theory of human disease which postulates an imbalance of Vatta (air and space), Pitta (fire), and Kapha (water and gross matter) elements of the human body. Interventions of any kind seek to restore the balance. A different paradigm, perhaps difficult to understand by the modern mind, but as a system of medicine, it went deep into physiology, anatomy, and observational studies of diseases. Health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being has been the principle of Ayurveda for thousands of years. The principles of Sattvic diet, Yoga, Pranayama, and meditation form a crucial component of preventive medicine. Meditation and deep breathing are vital in the mental and emotional well-being and solutions to many psycho-somatic illnesses.

Breathing techniques or Pranayama is a powerful tool for health since centuries. S N Balagangadhara says that there are different configurations of learning for each culture. The West asks ‘why;’ and the East focussed on the ‘how,’ the explanations many times coming later. The theories will come; but the physical and mental health benefits of Pranayama are for every person to experience. Dean Ornish (Reversal of Heart Disease) makes a compelling evidence-based argument for his program of integrating Indian Yogic exercises, breathing techniques, meditation, and diet to reverse heart disease. Most interventions-aspirin, medicines, stents, and surgery, at best halt the progression of disease, rarely do they reverse. This does not mean that a person having a heart attack needs to do meditation or deep breathing; exactly the counter-narratives preventing discussions for integration or holistic care. The either/ or approach is a modern scientific philosophy which either calls for either complete acceptance or a complete rejection. Extreme claims also give an unbalanced view and unfortunately tend to make light of the strengths of Ayurveda.

The atomic theory is the basis of modern medicine. The ancient Vaisheshika speak of atoms and molecules but contemporary Ayurveda is a systems approach. Maybe for medical treatments, a pure chemical sometimes may not work unless in the presence of other identified and unidentified substances. Regarding surgery, the operations were clearly on well-organised anatomical, physiological, and surgical principles standing the test of time. It is unfortunate that Ayurveda despite being the most ancient, scientific, and thriving tradition of India, worthy of respect, takes a secondary place in Indian medical systems.

Ancient India had many concepts of living organisms too. The Mahabharata spoke that Ahimsa was impossible in a world where the air and water are swarming with organisms. Ahtangahrudaya Samhita refers to the red blood corpuscles that are circular, legless, invisible, and coppery in colour. Swami Vivekananda was surprised at the resistance to evolution in the Western world. He thought it was a given according to Vedantic thought. The Dashavatara at a certain notional level gives an intuitive picture of human evolution. The ancient Jain texts mention 8.4 million species in the world, which confirms amazingly with the modern figure of 8.74 million species.

Vaccination

Dharampal notes that inoculation with material from diseased humans against smallpox was almost universal in large parts of Northern and Southern India, till its banning in many places under the Bengal Presidency from around 1802-1803. Ro. Coult (1731) writes: ‘The operation of inoculation called by the natives tikah has been known at least for 150 years… Their method of performing this operation is by taking a little of the pus and dipping these in the point of a pretty large sharp needle…they make several punctures in the hollow under the deltoid muscle…if the punctures do suppurate, and no fever or eruption ensues, then they are no longer subject to the infection…’

Holwell, for the College of Physicians in London in 1767, gave the most detailed account of inoculation practices in India covering the timing, methodology, dietary restrictions, and other pre- and post-inoculation care. He thought one in a million had a chance of contracting small-pox after the inoculation. Phenomenally impressed, he wanted a deeper analysis of the procedure for application to the western world. Importantly, Holwell’s account relates to the prevalence of some theory of bacterial infection. He said Indians thought smallpox and other epidemical diseases were because of ‘imperceptible animalculae’. When taken in through food, they pass into the blood ‘where, in a certain time, their malignant juices excite a fermentation and end in an eruption on the skin.’

The Superintendent General of Vaccine Inoculation in 1804 thought that fatalities amongst the inoculated were around 1 in 200 and 1 in 60-70 for Indians and Europeans respectively, unlike the one in million believed by Holwell. The British rule altered the situation of a universal practice. Public revenues maintained the inoculators in India. The British triggered a collapse of the fiscal system which most probably led these officials away to other occupations. A universal effective practice became ‘hazardous’ to the Europeans. The frequent smallpox epidemics in the nineteenth and early twentieth century largely traces back to the state’s indifference for universal inoculation. Despite the prohibitions the indigenous inoculation persisted till around 1870 by stealth.

Edward Jenner (1749-1823), much later, takes credit of developing the first vaccine for small-pox from the Cow Pox pustules in 1796. The well-established and highly effective Indian inoculation practice stays a blip in the history of Indian medicine and consciousness of most Indians. The response to a statement that Indians knew vaccination before Jenner would either be of disbelief or a gentle smile for an exaggeration of an Indian past. A colonial consciousness forms a hard and impenetrable concrete wall. It may be that Jenner independently discovered vaccination against small-pox and he had no clue of Indian practices (though a difficult proposition to believe since India was well within the English consciousness). However, it is important to highlight the Indian contributions in vaccinations as acknowledged by foreigners like Holwell-the only way to convince some Indian sceptics.

Sanskrit, Panini, Logic, And Computers

Rajiv Malhotra (The Battle for Sanskrit) details the malicious attempts of Western and Indian academia to make Sanskrit language ‘Brahmanical’ and exploitative to Dalits, women, and even Muslims in its language structures. There is an effort by influential coteries to push Sanskrit in the realm of ‘specialised’ studies (like Greek) despite its extensive use in many rituals of Indian society. Some like Vyaas Houston state Sanskrit as a ‘perfect language infinitely more sophisticated than any of our modern tongues.’

Panini (500 BCE), an ancient Sanskrit philologist and grammarian, likely lived in northwest India. Scholars like Rens Bod at Amsterdam believe that the history of linguistics begins not with Plato or Aristotle, but with Panini’s grammar treatise- the Astadhyaya. This treatise (in 4000 verses) on grammar containing linguistics, phonetics, syntax, and semantics is the foundational text of the Vyakarana (grammar) branch of the Vedanga. The Astadhyaya was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full.

Panini’s work, setting the linguistic standards for Classical Sanskrit, is generative as well as descriptive. With its complex use of metarules, transformations, and recursions, the grammar in Ashtadhyayi is like the ‘Turing machine,’ an idealized mathematical model that reduces the logical structure of any computing device to its essentials. The text takes material from lexical lists (Dhatupatha, Ganapatha) as input and describes systemic algorithms for the generation of well-formed words.

The concepts of the phoneme; the morpheme; and the root are integral to Panini’s grammar. The terse, perfect, unambiguous, and complete logical rules describing Sanskrit morphology has been extremely influential in ancient and modern linguistics. This morphological analysis was more advanced than any equivalent Western theory before the 20th century. European scholars discovered Panini in the 19^th century inspiring modern linguists like Bopp, Saussure, Frits Staal, and others. Panini truly deserves the term of ‘the Father of Linguistics.’ Staal notes that the idea of formal rules in language – proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1894 and developed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 – has clear and unambiguous origins in the formal rules of Paninian grammar. The works of Panini also presage the modern field of semiotics- the study of signs and symbols for communications.

Panini’s system represents the world’s first formal universal grammatical and computing system much before the 19th century development of mathematical logic. Panini’s ‘auxiliary symbols’ technique to mark syntactic categories and control grammatical derivations, rediscovered by the logician Emil Post, became a foundation method in the design of computer programming languages. Mary Boole, wife of George Boole (inventor of modern logic), in ‘Indian Thought and Western Science in the Nineteenth Century, writes that Indian logic system was central to the development of machine theory.

She claimed that George Everest (of the Mount Everest fame) was the intermediary of the Indian ideas influencing not only her husband but the other two leading scientists in the attempt to mechanize thought: Augustus de Morgan and Charles Babbage. She further speculates that these ideas influenced the development of vector analysis and modern mathematics. Much prior to this, Mohsin Fani’s Dabistani-i Madhahib (17th Century CE) claimed that Kallisthenes, who was in Alexander’s party, took logic texts from India. The beginning of the Greek tradition of logic was in this material.

John Backus and Peter Naur introduced the formal structure of computer programming languages during 1958-60. Any book on programming languages has the notation BNF (Backus-Naur Form). T.R.N. Rao and Subhash Kak argue for changing this to Panini-Backus Form in the syntax of formal language systems by noting a correspondence by P. Z. Ingerman (1967). The latter noted Panini’s notations having many similar properties. With definite evidence of Panini being the earlier independent inventor of the notation, Ingerman wanted a name change to Panini- Backus Form.

Subhash Kak reviews the Paninian approach to Natural Language Processing (NLP) and compares it with the representation systems of Artificial Intelligence. Many contemporary developments in formal logic, linguistics, and computer science are a rediscovery of the work of the ancient logicians and grammarians of India. Computationally, grammars of natural language are as powerful as any computing machine. Subhash Kak shows that Panini’s grammar has direct parallels in computer science. Computer oriented studies on Astadhyayi would also help to introduce AI (artificial intelligence), logic, and cognitive science as complementary areas of study in the Sanskrit departments.

How did a perfect language with a perfect grammar become oppressive, exploitative, and dead? For the colonials, it came in the way of their narratives of a primitive civilization needing the help of a benign white rule. Unfortunately, post-independent India saw a Marxist ideology becoming the driving force of our educational narratives by looking at every social, political, and economic issue only in the framework of the exploiter and the exploited. Gradually, ‘cultural Marxism’ ensured that Sanskrit became Brahminical, patriarchal, oppressive, and so on.

Sanskrit, the oldest and the most refined language, is the mother of many Indian languages. It has a vibrant connection with all the vernacular languages, all equally great. A great language like Tamil may have had an independent origin in the hoary past. But one cannot deny its rich interaction with Sanskrit. Languages grow and multiply by interactions, adaptations, borrowings, and modifications. There is no need to politicise a language and create fault lines in our society which Indologists like to do. Sanskrit is a part of the great Indian cultural heritage.

Speculative science

Yoga-Vasishta (1^st century CE to 13^th century CE) speaks of time, space, matter, mind, and consciousness. There are stunning parallels to modern scientific concepts like the evolution of the laws of nature, multiple universes, and the extremely ancient age of Earth when there were no beings. The ‘Pushpaka Vimana’ of Ramayana is an integral part of the story. The discussion unfortunately is between the two extreme camps: one claiming aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, all of mathematics, embryonic cloning, or transplantations in our scriptures; and the other believing that nothing good can come from Indian soil.

Many ideas may have been pure speculations like science fiction. Danino says, the naysayers will only believe that Indian scientific advances can only be derivative, its imperfections alone being original contributions, while its rational elements ultimately stem from contact with the Greeks. Our colonised minds strongly believe that Indian savants knew no science, followed no proper axiomatic method, and just ended up in stagnation. This, while Europe galloped forth triumphantly.

Conclusions

Extraordinarily, the assessment of a 150-year colonial rule of at least a five-millennium old civilization became a benchmark for us. That a self-sufficient country stood strong for such a long time without any scientific-technological achievements is hard to believe and yet is the firm idea in many to most Indians. Everything we had was either fake or borrowed from the Greeks, Chinese, Babylonians, Mesopotamians, or the Arabs. Our achievements in science and technology remained as footnotes in our textbooks even as there was no encouragement to study the history of Indian science.

India has a great intellectual heritage and a huge corpus of texts (the broad five groups –Vedas, Upavedas, Vedangas, Puranas, and Darshanas) covering all fields of human activity is a testimony of the capacity of Indians to create knowledge by reflecting on their own experiences without any foreign influences. Michel Danino quotes David Pingree that India has at least 30 million surviving ancient manuscripts in Indian libraries, repositories, and private collections. They deal with every topic under the sun: philosophies, grammar, language, logic, debate, poetics, aesthetics, cosmology, mythology, ethics, literature of all genres from poetry to historical tradition, arts, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, chemistry, metallurgy, botany, zoology, geology, medical systems, governance, administration, water management, town planning, civil engineering, ship making, agriculture, polity, martial arts, games, brain teasers, omens, ghosts, accounting, and much more. As a practical culture, technology came before theoretical sciences many times. However, we did develop some of the most advanced mathematical and geometrical theories; they were in the form of verses, perhaps just a step before the equational forms.

The colonial rules (Islamic and European) severely disrupted this natural blossoming of science. We also turned from creating knowledge to just protecting it from annihilation. Independence should ideally have been a break when, finally, we could have rejected the colonial discourses and adopted an Indian lens to view ourselves and the world. Sadly, it was a lost opportunity. The ideology-driven academia was intensely inimical to Indian traditions. Their view of a linear history was very clear: a primitive Indian past that needed steering to a golden future (represented by modern Europe). In a few crucial generations, our education system could deracinate most of the Indians successfully.

Why are we still full of colonial understandings about any aspect of the country? The explanation might be the ‘colonial consciousness’ of Dr S. N. Balagangadhara- a persisting violence on the colonized by a permanent altering of their intellectual frameworks. We have only put western lenses till now to view India and that has caused great damage to Indians and Indian culture. Balu insists on developing our own lenses to view ourselves and the west. India has a deep intellectual history of many ideas and technologies. It would be far better for sensitising students to this rather than blanket text book proclamations of an ‘unscientific India before the colonials came’ which the minds carry for a lifetime. The story has a better alternative.

SELECTED REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGS

1. Many articles, talks and books form the basis of the chapter on Science and Technology. Michel Danino is a huge influence on this chapter. His book The Lost River: On the Trail of The Sarasvati is a phenomenal reading as it demolishes the Aryan theory and gives a wonderful description of the achievements of the Indus-Saraswati civilization.
2. Gainsaying Ancient Indian Science in two parts by Michel Danino (https://pragyata.com/gainsaying-ancient-indian-science-part-1/)
3. Integrating India’s Heritage in Indian Education in two parts by Michel Danino ( https://pragyata.com/integrating-indias-heritage-in-indian-education-part-1/)
4. The Metrology behind Harappan Town-Planning in two parts by Michel Danino (https://indiafacts.org/the-metrology-behind-harappan-town-planning-1/)
5. Indian Culture and India’s Future by Michel Danino (2011)
6. Science and Technology in Ancient Indian Texts (ed: Bal Ram Singh, Girish Nath Jha, Umesh Kumar Singh, Diwakar Mishra)
7. The Wishing Tree: Presence and Promise in India by Subhash Kak
8. The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda by Subhash Kak
9. The Secret of the Veda by Subhash Kak (https://subhashkak.medium.com/the-secret-of-the-veda-3efcfbae26af)
10. A Very Brief History of Indian Science by Subhash Kak (https://subhashkak.medium.com/a-very-brief-history-of-indian-science-a73a885b5664)
11. Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness and the Self by Subhash Kak (https://subhashkak.medium.com/artificial-intelligence-and-consciousness-6b5ff2e5b5a)
12. Kaṇāda, Great Physicist and Sage of Antiquity by Subhash Kak (https://subhashkak.medium.com/ka%E1%B9%87%C4%81da-the-great-physicist-and-sage-of-antiquity-5a2abd79b6f1)
13. Ancient Ship-Building & Maritime Trade by D. P. Agrawal & Lalit Tiwari (https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_agraw_ships_frameset.htm)
14. The origins of iron-working in India: new evidence from the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas by Rakesh Tewari (https://www.academia.edu/72573008/)
15. If I had a way with our educational systems, I would include Dharampal’s writings as an essential part of our curriculum from kindergarten to post-graduate level. Unfortunately, very few have even heard about him. India: Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century and The Beautiful Tree are his wonderful works amongst his huge corpus of work. Essential Writings is a fantastic collection of his main writings edited by Gita Dharampal.
16. Portrait of A Nation History of Ancient India by Kamlesh Kapur