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These far post-date the engineering constructions in Rome and Greece--not to mention Egypt and other bronze age civilization, including the Indus River Valley c

These far post-date the engineering constructions in Rome and Greece--not to mention Egypt and other bronze age civilization, including the Indus River Valley civilization itself. Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures. At some point people starting creating permanent structures, and they are architectural marvels of course, but those achievements do not seem to co-ordinate with the vedic mathematics in the same way that Greek, Egyptian, and Roman mathematics co-ordinate with Greek, Egyptian, and Roman engineering marvels.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago
> These far post-date the engineering constructions in Rome and Greece--not to mention Egypt and other bronze age civilization, including That has zero relevance to the statement about Al Biruni unless he magically travelled back in time and was stuck in some x-00 BC and couldn't see newer developments in India. Also strange is the fact that around Al Biruni's time Hindu numerals were adopted by Arabs (and that we all use now). Maybe he did go back in time! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu–Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu–Arabic_numeral_system > Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures What? No, the Mahabharata has elaborate descriptions of palaces, cities. Even Ramayana mentions palace. And nomads, usually, don't have palaces or cities lol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshagriha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshagriha https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/history-of-architecture/a3627-architecture-in-mythology-architecture-as-described-in-the-mahabharata/ https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/history-of-architecture... Lets leave all that aside and come back to this question: Was there any objective metric by which ancient Indian engineering was behind others?
akprasad 4y ago
> Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures. Do you have examples of stories to support this point? I ask because the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, at least, are deeply concerned with cities, city life, and the politics of cities, and nomadic life within them is a salient point only insofar as its main characters are in exile from the cities they wish to return to.
jaldhar 4y ago
Whether or not you accept “Aryan migration” it would have occurred at least 1000 years or more before the period under discussion so I don’t see the relevance.
unmole 4y ago
> vedic mathematics The comment is almost entirely wrong but this is especially deranged.
delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
> that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures What are you talking about? Almost the entirety of the Mahābhārata deals with politics, intrigue, war- and state-craft, amongst others. The Rāmāyaṇa discusses an equally complex civilisation. By around ~500 BCE, Northern India had coalesced into large, hierarchical, and complex civilisations and city-states, which conducted war, trade, and diplomacy both within and outside the Indian subcontinent. The Kalinga war was conducted in ~260 BCE, and Alexander the Great halted his advance in India about half a century prior. There's something about Indian history that is deeply, deeply divisive like almost no other civilisation's history is. On one side, there's the full-on jingoistic and ultranationalistic stuff like the out-of-India theory, that ancient Indian mathematicians and scientists built a civilisation rivalling the 21st century, that Sanskrit is the 'mother of all languages', and that it is a 'programming language' (yes, it has a highly regular, formal, and almost context-free grammar that allows it to be easily parsed like few other natural languages can, but that's it). On the other hand, there's dismissive, 'Orientalist', and sometimes outright racist views. Yours is a good example of the dismissiveness and Christo-centric/Western-exceptionalism thought process that was the zeitgeist amongst many Western scholars until well into the 20th century. I daresay it is precisely in reaction to this sort of paternalistic dismissiveness that the above-mentioned jingoism sprouted in the first place.
kerpotgh 4y ago
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biorach 4y ago
> Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people As others have pointed out they really don't. The Rig Veda does seem to describe a society somewhat closer to what you're talking about, but that's from a much earlier date

cscurmudgeon 4y ago

> These far post-date the engineering constructions in Rome and Greece--not to mention Egypt and other bronze age civilization, including That has zero relevance to the statement about Al Biruni unless he magically travelled back in time and was stuck in some x-00 BC and couldn't see newer developments in India. Also strange is the fact that around Al Biruni's time Hindu numerals were adopted by Arabs (and that we all use now). Maybe he did go back in time! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu–Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu–Arabic_numeral_system > Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures What? No, the Mahabharata has elaborate descriptions of palaces, cities. Even Ramayana mentions palace. And nomads, usually, don't have palaces or cities lol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshagriha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshagriha https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/history-of-architecture/a3627-architecture-in-mythology-architecture-as-described-in-the-mahabharata/ https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/history-of-architecture... Lets leave all that aside and come back to this question: Was there any objective metric by which ancient Indian engineering was behind others?

akprasad 4y ago

> Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures. Do you have examples of stories to support this point? I ask because the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, at least, are deeply concerned with cities, city life, and the politics of cities, and nomadic life within them is a salient point only insofar as its main characters are in exile from the cities they wish to return to.

jaldhar 4y ago

Whether or not you accept “Aryan migration” it would have occurred at least 1000 years or more before the period under discussion so I don’t see the relevance.

unmole 4y ago

> vedic mathematics The comment is almost entirely wrong but this is especially deranged.

delta_p_delta_x 4y ago

> that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people who didn't tend to live in fixed structures What are you talking about? Almost the entirety of the Mahābhārata deals with politics, intrigue, war- and state-craft, amongst others. The Rāmāyaṇa discusses an equally complex civilisation. By around ~500 BCE, Northern India had coalesced into large, hierarchical, and complex civilisations and city-states, which conducted war, trade, and diplomacy both within and outside the Indian subcontinent. The Kalinga war was conducted in ~260 BCE, and Alexander the Great halted his advance in India about half a century prior. There's something about Indian history that is deeply, deeply divisive like almost no other civilisation's history is. On one side, there's the full-on jingoistic and ultranationalistic stuff like the out-of-India theory, that ancient Indian mathematicians and scientists built a civilisation rivalling the 21st century, that Sanskrit is the 'mother of all languages', and that it is a 'programming language' (yes, it has a highly regular, formal, and almost context-free grammar that allows it to be easily parsed like few other natural languages can, but that's it). On the other hand, there's dismissive, 'Orientalist', and sometimes outright racist views. Yours is a good example of the dismissiveness and Christo-centric/Western-exceptionalism thought process that was the zeitgeist amongst many Western scholars until well into the 20th century. I daresay it is precisely in reaction to this sort of paternalistic dismissiveness that the above-mentioned jingoism sprouted in the first place.

kerpotgh 4y ago

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biorach 4y ago

> Its clear from ancient texts and stories like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavata Purana that the Aryans were a nomadic, tribal cow-herding people As others have pointed out they really don't. The Rig Veda does seem to describe a society somewhat closer to what you're talking about, but that's from a much earlier date