21 ms·

Ancient Indian Texts

139 points by amazedsaint 13y ago

yarou 13y ago
I'm really confused by the comments that say the tone of this site is "Hindu nationalist". I see no mention of the word "Hindu" in the entire page. In fact, it's as far from politicized text as possible. Not everything on the web has some hidden meaning or subtext.
- chattoraj 13y ago
  The site has a page on "Vimanika shastra"[1] ("Science of Flying Machines"), which is known to be a bullshit text from the 20th century[2]. Definitely a Hindutva site. [1] https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/aeronautics https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/aeronautics [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra
  - s-topper 13y ago
    >>>Definitely a Hindutva site. And, your point is? That site also has collections about works of legit ancient Indian mathematicians, Vedas etc. So, you are going to disregard them because they're Hindus? If somebody mentions about these things, then they're said to be peddling this so called Hindu propaganda. Now, THAT'S a real propaganda.
    - wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
      Makes for a questionable source, which is important for any serious study. Propaganda: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
    - pramalin 13y ago
      It is really pathetic to see how people try to defend their fundamental beliefs without any substance. People are brainwashed to believe that vedic scriptures are full of knowledge (I was a victim too. I used to recite some parts of the scriptures like purusha suktam). In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemies (who have stolen their herds), etc. Ambedkar was very diplomatic in his criticisms towards them. Osho was not so kind. See: http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-rigveda-tulsidas-heritage-c6e3574f-06c.aspx http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-rigveda-tulsidas-... You can also see that the site claims that Jyotish is astronomy but it actually means astrology. Here is the description of Saturn in one of the texts "Parashara Hora Sastra" http://archive.org/stream/ParasharaHoraSastra/BrihatParasharaHoraSastraVedicAstrologyEbook_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/ParasharaHoraSastra/BrihatParashar... 29. [Saturn] has an emaciated and long physique, has tawny eyes, is windy in temperament, has big teeth, is indolent and lame and has coarse hair. What is legit or scientific about it?
      - mayanksinghal 13y ago
        > What is legit or scientific about it? Nothing. And no one here is claiming that all parts of these texts are to be taken as absolute fact with empirical proof. Most of it, as you mention, is riddled with imaginary stories probably because scientific discovery was being carried out by religious philosophers of that time. However, there are parts of these texts that are legitimately impressive, philosophically or scientifically - and a blanket denial of that would be just as unjust as the 'filth'.
        pramalin 13y ago
        But the site says: ... [sages] wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved ... I have provided references to show that the basic 4 vedas are tribal in nature and there is no basis to claim them as the origin of other scientific oriented texts. I am not denying all of the texts as bad.
      - s-topper 13y ago
        It is really pathetic to see how people are quick to snub off anyone or anything that's related to Hinduism, ancient Hindu works, scriptures etc as propaganda, brainwash etc. Is it some kind of reverse propaganda?? >>>You can also see that the site claims that Jyotish is astronomy but it actually means astrology. Where? They do mention it as "astrology". >>>In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemies (who have stolen their herds), etc. >>>29. [Saturn] has an emaciated and long physique, has tawny eyes, is windy in temperament, has big teeth, is indolent and lame and has coarse hair. What is legit or scientific about it? Have you heard of mythology, euhemerism, and personification? Out of all those stuff on that site, you zeroed-in on sacrificial rituals, description of Saturn, and dismissed everything as "filth"? Then, what is your say on Ganit Shastra, Kaam Shastra, Khagol Shastra to name a few? Based on that logic, all these below must be filth and their sole purpose is to brainwash people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythologies
unmole 13y ago
Interesting collection. Disappointed to see the typical Hindu apologist, revivalist nonsense in the description though. Edit: What I mean by typical: http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0 http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0
- seiji 13y ago
  Physics - Concepts of atom and theory of relativity were explicitly stated by an Indian Philosopher around 600 BC. Looks pretty accurate to me. All the best science comes from philosophers backed by feelings and visions instead of math.
  - markshepard 13y ago
    he he. In fact every group claim that the "ancients" already knew "everything" but we just forgot about it and rediscovering it..
    - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
      That's a stretch, but we can certainly argue that we mostly validate and refine ideas that have been around for a while. After all we have hundreds thousands years of human knowledge, most of it forever gone. It's not like we only started thinking after the Illuminism, or even ancient Greek.
    - seiji 13y ago
      Well, The Ancients did know a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate)
      - markshepard 13y ago
        lol . touche!
    - maaku 13y ago
      Well the "ancients" did know everything. As do I. No, really, I know every conceivable thing! It's just knowing which things I know are right that's the hangup.. Everyone has hindsight, but few are blessed with foresight :\
pflats 13y ago
If you take a look at the math subsection (https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math) be aware that Brahmagupta was a beast of a mathematician. His sucessors, the two Bhaskaras, were ridiculously good as well. Their names aren't nearly as big as any of the European mathematicians you know, but they were powerhouses of math during Europe's dark ages. Brahmagupta was pretty much the first recorded dude to use 0 in math, so he's got that going for him, and the only issue people take with his work is that he was weak around the indeterminate forms (e.g. claiming 0/0 = 0)[1]. His work on Pell's equation is pretty awesome too, but then we're veering into more esoteric mathematics, so I digress. Bhaskara II invented a rough and early verison of differential calculus to calculate instaneous rates of change in the mid 1100s. Newton finished his Method of Fluxions in 1671. (Newton's work was independent of Bhaskara II's and is said to be far more rigourous with greather breadth and depth of usage and applications; I haven't read enough of either to be an honest source, but the claim seems reasonable.) [1]For an ancient, though, this is understandable. We know that 0⨯0 = 0, that b|a iff a = b⨯k, and that a = bq + r, so it's reasonable to assume that since 0 = 0⨯0 + 0 and 0|0, that 0/0 = 0. (Phew!) When you pretty much codify 0 in math, I'll cut you a break on that one.
- unmole 13y ago
  Don't forget Aryabhata. His work in trigonometry and calendars was perhaps a wee bit more important Bramhagupta's acomplishments in practical terms.
  - pflats 13y ago
    I had done exactly that. Oops! (I knew a major trigonometer came before Bramhagupta, but I forgot his name.)
- shas3 13y ago
  The 'problem' with Indian math was the general aversion (or ignorance) of the importance of the method of proof. The more well known works of Greek mathematics were great in emphasizing the importance of the concept of mathematical proof. Yet, Greek mathematics, with the exception of Archimedes and Diophantus had an aversion for arithmetic (especially the concept of infinity and infinitesimals) and algebra and an over-reliance on geometry[1]. Engaging in a bit of counter-factuals, if either of the following had happened: (1) Indians picking up on the method of proof, (2) Greeks adopting more arithmetic and algebra, history of mathematics may have looked significantly different than today. However, the OP link has a ton of apologist/revisionist history with insufficient archaeological evidence mixed in with a little bit of the good stuff. Example: references to vastu shastra, which is astrological woo. [1] Eric Temple Bell, 'The Development of Mathematics,' Dover, 1992.
tokenadult 13y ago
The dates of ancient texts from India are claimed over a whole wide range. There is as much as 2,000 years of divergence between the earliest speculative date and absolutely attested known date for the Vedas, for example. A good outline of the issues in historiography of India can be found in Mathematics in India by Kim Plofker[1], who was trained both as a mathematician and Sanskrit scholar. Not always knowing when a particular text was composed has a lot of influence on knowing or not knowing which ideas appeared in what era in the development of science and mathematics in India. (One difference between India and either China or the near east is that the writing materials used in India, often plaited sheets of palm leaves, were much less durable than the silk sheets or bamboo slats used in China, or the fired clay tablets or papyrus sheets or parchment hides used in the near east. So many of the earliest writings from India have perished, while remarkably old writings still exist from either China or Sumer.) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim-Plofker/dp/0691120676 http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim-Plofker/dp/06911...
- maaku 13y ago
  The oldest writings in China are not much more than 2,000 years old. Maybe you're thinking of oracle bones & bronze inscriptions? But those are rarely more than a sentence or two in isolation.
  - tokenadult 13y ago
    The formation of the texts of Confucius and Mencius of course is older than that. The Qin book-burning destroyed a lot of the books that were that old, but bamboo manuscripts and silk manuscripts are still being discovered from archeological sites that are much older than any surviving writings from India. I have personally read in museums bronze inscriptions that are more than just a few sentences long, dating back about three millennia. http://blog.seattlepi.com/bookpatrol/2010/01/29/rare-bamboo-strip-books-discovered-in-chinese-tomb/ http://blog.seattlepi.com/bookpatrol/2010/01/29/rare-bamboo-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui_Silk_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui_Silk_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips
pramalin 13y ago
//Ancient India was a land of sages, saints and seers as well as a land of scholars and scientists. Rishis were the sages who built our great culture. They devoted their life, energy and experience for the welfare of people. They wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved in India. // This is typical hindutva propaganda, where they claim that anything and everything originated from Vedic scriptures, which are for welfare of people. Before buying into it, I would suggest the readers to review the works of Dr. Ambedkar such as Riddle In Hinduism. http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/
- the__prestige 13y ago
  Yup, that link is definitely not propaganda.
  - krrishd 13y ago
    of course it is, but it just generally helps looking at it from multiple perspectives if you aren't directly affected, so you aren't affected more by one side of the argument, and perhaps even have a better, more informed perspective than some Indian people who may have been raised to think one way or another, sticking to one of the sides.
  - selimthegrim 13y ago
    Ambedkar was one of the primary drafters of the Indian Constitution - usually not something you entrust to a fount of bias.
- s-topper 13y ago
  >>>>Before buying into it, I would suggest the readers to review the works of Dr. Ambedkar such as Riddle In Hinduism. http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ You're saying fight one "propaganda" with another "propaganda"? LOL!
- xerophtye 13y ago
  >>They wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved in India. Eh? What gives? How can people believe that? PS: I thought the original Aryans brought the Vedas with them from central Asia, instead of the Rishis of India writing them. No?
Jonovono 13y ago
This is neat! Thanks. I have wanted to learn Sanskrit for a long time, and I think the stuff you could read after learning that would be interesting. And then there is NASA (apparently) using Sanskrit for AI: http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html
- laichzeit0 13y ago
  As someone who put in the years required to learn Classical Latin and Attic Greek I can but only heed you to make very, very sure you are willing to invest the enormous amount of time required to learn an ancient language. If you have a normal job, wife and children, and can't find at minimum 2 hours out of your day to dedicate to language study, then don't bother. You will never read any Sanskrit at a comfortable pace if you can't commit to such an investment. I'm talking about picking up a book and not hitting an unknown word 3 times a sentence. You'll need at minimum 2 years of a full time schedule like before it even becomes fun. It's the unfortunate and sad reality about the time commitment required in learning ancient languages to the level of fluency.
  - Jonovono 13y ago
    That's good to know. Ya, I understand it would be a huge time investment. Luckily I don't have any of those barriers, and am still quite young!
- aktiur 13y ago
  And then there is NASA (apparently) using Sanskrit for AI: http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html* http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html* This is a hoax. The article reproduced there does exist though: it was published in an artificial intelligence journal in 1985 and made no reference to NASA, except for the fact that the author worked at the NASA Ames Research Center. You can find it there: http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/466 http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/46... A quick search on internet for "sanskrit nasa" shows that all occurences are either copies, extracts or translations of this article taken out of its context. The belief that NASA has used sanskrit seems to come from this internet echo chamber. I could find no reference about it on any NASA website, nor any other articles written by this Rick Briggs. I was able to find only one other article on sanskrit and AI, quoting the one by Briggs, dated to 1987: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf
the__prestige 13y ago
If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is that one should be humble about the notion of being the first to invent anything. I'm pretty sure the many of the concepts expressed in these texts go further back in time without any record. Everything is an addition or evolution of the past, regardless of whether it is explicitly or wittingly so.
djdj123 13y ago
You may have picked up on the author's not-so-subtle self-congratulation in the use of the phrase: "our great culture". There is a lot of wonderful material to be absorbed in the ancient texts of India, but the text of that page has a strong Hindu religious nationalist tone (which in Indian languages is called "Hindutva", or "Hindu-ness"). The vast (in time and space), and diverse Indian culture that produced these works was far more tolerant and open to the world's ideas than the apparent mindset of the individual(s) who created this site. So try to enjoy the actual linked texts, but observe, and then ignore the religious nationalism that seems to have inspired the site.
- smoyer 13y ago
  "our great culture" Do you mean cultural heritage? I wouldn't call the culture so great now with the corruption in politics, etc.
  - datacog 13y ago
    how does politics get to be a part of culture ?
- deleted 13y ago
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- eklavya 13y ago
  Maybe you are being too skeptical, maybe he is just feeling proud? Is it fanatical to feel proud of your nation, don't you guys love yours?
vram22 13y ago
Interesting, will check the site out. Apropos: I had blogged this a while ago: Bhaskaracharya and the man who found zero: http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-who-found-zero.html http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-who...
- vram22 13y ago
  And here is one of his books, the Lilavati: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilavati http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilavati I noticed this at that page: "Bhaskara II gives the value of pi as 22/7 in the book but suggest a more accurate ratio of 3927/1250 for use in astronomical calculations." I also remembered reading somewhere that some ancient Indians had a simple formula for pi that was somewhat accurate; take the first 3 odd positive integers, twice each, as one single number, split it down the middle, and divide the right half by the left half, i.e. 113355 => 355/113 = ~pi. So I checked, using Python: $ python >>> from math import pi >>> pi 3.141592653589793 >>> print 3927.0/1250 3.1416 >>> print 355.0/113 3.14159292035 The approximation that uses 113355 matches pi (from Python) upto 6 decimal places.
elangoc 13y ago
This sort of topic has come up before, and to put it gently, blog posts like these have been lacking in context and substance. See a previous HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 Also see a previous HN post about a PNAS publication that talks about the people from current-day South India 4000 years ago (while South Indians' language is not based on Sanskrit, and 4000 years ago far predates the time period mentioned in the original post): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5078076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5078076
pinkskip 13y ago
meh..
smoyer 13y ago
Yep ... I know that eye glasses and cataract surgery were done there first (the ruined lens was poked out of place with a copper wire, then a pair of glasses became the primary lens and the cornea became the secondary lens). And obviously you needed to be able to produce glass to make eye glasses. There was also early production of stainless steel. I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that kind of science, you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?
- tomrod 13y ago
  That's a big question I have on these types of technological regression. It seems like technoliterate civilizations are eventually replaced by fundamentalism then animism, perhaps?
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead? One word, Entropy! As an Indian, I can tell you India has seen many cycles of ups and downs. And its not just mere technical culture, there is tons of other things. Food, literature, language, poetry, food, clothes, music, religions, philosophy and what not. I don't know any other country in the world comes close to matching this. Buddha arrived in India in around 500 BC. And that was one of India's peak times in Spiritual and philosophical tradition. There are languages that are totally extinct, cultures that have faded away. Massive amounts of literature lost completely to mankind. But Mainland India has been invaded many times, colonized, bulk of its wealth plundered. Add to this the overall entropy of the system. A simple question to you would be like this. Can you be sure US will remain the world super power 200 years from now.
  - eklavya 13y ago
    A small correction there, Buddha WAS from India :)
taway121 13y ago
I pass no comment on the site, but on assertions here about hindutva as hindu religious propaganda/nationalism. This is incorrect, hindutva does not proscribe or prescribe any religion. Veer Savarkar's pamphlet on which modern notions of hindutva are based on can be read at [1] Sarvakar includes all Indian religions in the term "Hinduism" and outlines his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (United India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent. Hindu in the context of hindutva is not religious. It speaks about a common identity for a united nation. Savarkar's writing need to be read in the context of the period that they were written, English oppression and the fight for independence, before the idea of a muslim state, Pakistan were first proposed. During this time, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh were one nation commonly know not as India, but Hindustan. Hindustan represented not a Hindu state, but a country where people who shared the hindu ethos reside. At the level of practice, the Hindutva or Hindu ethos, outlook boils down to upholding righteousness (Sat-guna) and fighting ignoble attitudes (Dur-guna). Quoting Savarkar, "We Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilization - our Hindu culture" Modern India was founded at independence on the same beliefs, in the quote above replace hindus by India and hindu culture by Indian culture. Please read the literature on the subject and not what is simply presented on modern pop culture. [1] http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindut...
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  Please enlighten us on Savarkar's reaction to Ambedkar wanting to convert Dalits away from Hinduism.
nitin1213 13y ago
Indian culture was always inclusive in nature right from its point of origin.but now we only see it becoming exclusive and narrow concentrating only on the Hindu side of the culture.
dschiptsov 13y ago
Ancient texts should be considered as a philosophy rather than science, because almost nothing was formally proved that time, but lots of phenomena were correctly inferred or guessed. Most famous insights, of course, were these about the nature of mind from the Upanishads, which uses state of sleep, deep-sleep (without dreams) and wakefulness as metaphors to illustrate what we now call "models of the world", "contexts", "cognitive dissonance", "frames of reference", or just the role of the mind (consciousness) in cognition - how we constantly distort, reinterpret and even ignore perceived reality. Roughly, it was a notion clarified later by Buddha - "Life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think", the notion that all our (at least psychological) "suffering" begins (and ends) inside our skulls and doesn't exist in the world outside. Another great notion was one of the Dzongchen sect of Tibetan Bon tradition, when they use analogy of a mirror to how our mind should "work" - as a mirror isn't affected by what it reflects, so the mind in its "primordial" (original, such that of a child) state is just a "tool" to "do everything", including things done by Buddha or Einstein. More recent marvels from India including "Want to see a God - look between two thoughts" by "modern" saint Ramakrishna, which is "in continuum" back to Upanishads. In short, in decent texts composed by highly intelligent authors (including so-called fiction) there is a possibility to find correct inferences and guesses for almost every observable phenomena, if your own mind is lucid enough.
anovikov 13y ago
"Russia is the motherland of elephants" (old Soviet joke)... how familiar...

139 points by amazedsaint 13y ago

yarou 13y ago

I'm really confused by the comments that say the tone of this site is "Hindu nationalist". I see no mention of the word "Hindu" in the entire page. In fact, it's as far from politicized text as possible. Not everything on the web has some hidden meaning or subtext.

chattoraj 13y ago
The site has a page on "Vimanika shastra"[1] ("Science of Flying Machines"), which is known to be a bullshit text from the 20th century[2]. Definitely a Hindutva site. [1] https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/aeronautics https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/aeronautics [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra
- s-topper 13y ago
  >>>Definitely a Hindutva site. And, your point is? That site also has collections about works of legit ancient Indian mathematicians, Vedas etc. So, you are going to disregard them because they're Hindus? If somebody mentions about these things, then they're said to be peddling this so called Hindu propaganda. Now, THAT'S a real propaganda.
  - wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
    Makes for a questionable source, which is important for any serious study. Propaganda: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
  - pramalin 13y ago
    It is really pathetic to see how people try to defend their fundamental beliefs without any substance. People are brainwashed to believe that vedic scriptures are full of knowledge (I was a victim too. I used to recite some parts of the scriptures like purusha suktam). In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemies (who have stolen their herds), etc. Ambedkar was very diplomatic in his criticisms towards them. Osho was not so kind. See: http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-rigveda-tulsidas-heritage-c6e3574f-06c.aspx http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-rigveda-tulsidas-... You can also see that the site claims that Jyotish is astronomy but it actually means astrology. Here is the description of Saturn in one of the texts "Parashara Hora Sastra" http://archive.org/stream/ParasharaHoraSastra/BrihatParasharaHoraSastraVedicAstrologyEbook_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/ParasharaHoraSastra/BrihatParashar... 29. [Saturn] has an emaciated and long physique, has tawny eyes, is windy in temperament, has big teeth, is indolent and lame and has coarse hair. What is legit or scientific about it?
    - mayanksinghal 13y ago
      > What is legit or scientific about it? Nothing. And no one here is claiming that all parts of these texts are to be taken as absolute fact with empirical proof. Most of it, as you mention, is riddled with imaginary stories probably because scientific discovery was being carried out by religious philosophers of that time. However, there are parts of these texts that are legitimately impressive, philosophically or scientifically - and a blanket denial of that would be just as unjust as the 'filth'.
      - pramalin 13y ago
        But the site says: ... [sages] wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved ... I have provided references to show that the basic 4 vedas are tribal in nature and there is no basis to claim them as the origin of other scientific oriented texts. I am not denying all of the texts as bad.
    - s-topper 13y ago
      It is really pathetic to see how people are quick to snub off anyone or anything that's related to Hinduism, ancient Hindu works, scriptures etc as propaganda, brainwash etc. Is it some kind of reverse propaganda?? >>>You can also see that the site claims that Jyotish is astronomy but it actually means astrology. Where? They do mention it as "astrology". >>>In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemies (who have stolen their herds), etc. >>>29. [Saturn] has an emaciated and long physique, has tawny eyes, is windy in temperament, has big teeth, is indolent and lame and has coarse hair. What is legit or scientific about it? Have you heard of mythology, euhemerism, and personification? Out of all those stuff on that site, you zeroed-in on sacrificial rituals, description of Saturn, and dismissed everything as "filth"? Then, what is your say on Ganit Shastra, Kaam Shastra, Khagol Shastra to name a few? Based on that logic, all these below must be filth and their sole purpose is to brainwash people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythologies

unmole 13y ago

Interesting collection. Disappointed to see the typical Hindu apologist, revivalist nonsense in the description though. Edit: What I mean by typical: http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0 http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0

seiji 13y ago
Physics - Concepts of atom and theory of relativity were explicitly stated by an Indian Philosopher around 600 BC. Looks pretty accurate to me. All the best science comes from philosophers backed by feelings and visions instead of math.
- markshepard 13y ago
  he he. In fact every group claim that the "ancients" already knew "everything" but we just forgot about it and rediscovering it..
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    That's a stretch, but we can certainly argue that we mostly validate and refine ideas that have been around for a while. After all we have hundreds thousands years of human knowledge, most of it forever gone. It's not like we only started thinking after the Illuminism, or even ancient Greek.
  - seiji 13y ago
    Well, The Ancients did know a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate)
    - markshepard 13y ago
      lol . touche!
  - maaku 13y ago
    Well the "ancients" did know everything. As do I. No, really, I know every conceivable thing! It's just knowing which things I know are right that's the hangup.. Everyone has hindsight, but few are blessed with foresight :\

pflats 13y ago

If you take a look at the math subsection (https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math) be aware that Brahmagupta was a beast of a mathematician. His sucessors, the two Bhaskaras, were ridiculously good as well. Their names aren't nearly as big as any of the European mathematicians you know, but they were powerhouses of math during Europe's dark ages. Brahmagupta was pretty much the first recorded dude to use 0 in math, so he's got that going for him, and the only issue people take with his work is that he was weak around the indeterminate forms (e.g. claiming 0/0 = 0)[1]. His work on Pell's equation is pretty awesome too, but then we're veering into more esoteric mathematics, so I digress. Bhaskara II invented a rough and early verison of differential calculus to calculate instaneous rates of change in the mid 1100s. Newton finished his Method of Fluxions in 1671. (Newton's work was independent of Bhaskara II's and is said to be far more rigourous with greather breadth and depth of usage and applications; I haven't read enough of either to be an honest source, but the claim seems reasonable.) [1]For an ancient, though, this is understandable. We know that 0⨯0 = 0, that b|a iff a = b⨯k, and that a = bq + r, so it's reasonable to assume that since 0 = 0⨯0 + 0 and 0|0, that 0/0 = 0. (Phew!) When you pretty much codify 0 in math, I'll cut you a break on that one.

unmole 13y ago
Don't forget Aryabhata. His work in trigonometry and calendars was perhaps a wee bit more important Bramhagupta's acomplishments in practical terms.
- pflats 13y ago
  I had done exactly that. Oops! (I knew a major trigonometer came before Bramhagupta, but I forgot his name.)
shas3 13y ago
The 'problem' with Indian math was the general aversion (or ignorance) of the importance of the method of proof. The more well known works of Greek mathematics were great in emphasizing the importance of the concept of mathematical proof. Yet, Greek mathematics, with the exception of Archimedes and Diophantus had an aversion for arithmetic (especially the concept of infinity and infinitesimals) and algebra and an over-reliance on geometry[1]. Engaging in a bit of counter-factuals, if either of the following had happened: (1) Indians picking up on the method of proof, (2) Greeks adopting more arithmetic and algebra, history of mathematics may have looked significantly different than today. However, the OP link has a ton of apologist/revisionist history with insufficient archaeological evidence mixed in with a little bit of the good stuff. Example: references to vastu shastra, which is astrological woo. [1] Eric Temple Bell, 'The Development of Mathematics,' Dover, 1992.

tokenadult 13y ago

The dates of ancient texts from India are claimed over a whole wide range. There is as much as 2,000 years of divergence between the earliest speculative date and absolutely attested known date for the Vedas, for example. A good outline of the issues in historiography of India can be found in Mathematics in India by Kim Plofker[1], who was trained both as a mathematician and Sanskrit scholar. Not always knowing when a particular text was composed has a lot of influence on knowing or not knowing which ideas appeared in what era in the development of science and mathematics in India. (One difference between India and either China or the near east is that the writing materials used in India, often plaited sheets of palm leaves, were much less durable than the silk sheets or bamboo slats used in China, or the fired clay tablets or papyrus sheets or parchment hides used in the near east. So many of the earliest writings from India have perished, while remarkably old writings still exist from either China or Sumer.) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim-Plofker/dp/0691120676 http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim-Plofker/dp/06911...

maaku 13y ago
The oldest writings in China are not much more than 2,000 years old. Maybe you're thinking of oracle bones & bronze inscriptions? But those are rarely more than a sentence or two in isolation.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  The formation of the texts of Confucius and Mencius of course is older than that. The Qin book-burning destroyed a lot of the books that were that old, but bamboo manuscripts and silk manuscripts are still being discovered from archeological sites that are much older than any surviving writings from India. I have personally read in museums bronze inscriptions that are more than just a few sentences long, dating back about three millennia. http://blog.seattlepi.com/bookpatrol/2010/01/29/rare-bamboo-strip-books-discovered-in-chinese-tomb/ http://blog.seattlepi.com/bookpatrol/2010/01/29/rare-bamboo-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui_Silk_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui_Silk_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips

pramalin 13y ago

//Ancient India was a land of sages, saints and seers as well as a land of scholars and scientists. Rishis were the sages who built our great culture. They devoted their life, energy and experience for the welfare of people. They wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved in India. // This is typical hindutva propaganda, where they claim that anything and everything originated from Vedic scriptures, which are for welfare of people. Before buying into it, I would suggest the readers to review the works of Dr. Ambedkar such as Riddle In Hinduism. http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/

the__prestige 13y ago
Yup, that link is definitely not propaganda.
- krrishd 13y ago
  of course it is, but it just generally helps looking at it from multiple perspectives if you aren't directly affected, so you aren't affected more by one side of the argument, and perhaps even have a better, more informed perspective than some Indian people who may have been raised to think one way or another, sticking to one of the sides.
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  Ambedkar was one of the primary drafters of the Indian Constitution - usually not something you entrust to a fount of bias.
s-topper 13y ago
>>>>Before buying into it, I would suggest the readers to review the works of Dr. Ambedkar such as Riddle In Hinduism. http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/ You're saying fight one "propaganda" with another "propaganda"? LOL!
xerophtye 13y ago
>>They wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved in India. Eh? What gives? How can people believe that? PS: I thought the original Aryans brought the Vedas with them from central Asia, instead of the Rishis of India writing them. No?

Jonovono 13y ago

This is neat! Thanks. I have wanted to learn Sanskrit for a long time, and I think the stuff you could read after learning that would be interesting. And then there is NASA (apparently) using Sanskrit for AI: http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html

laichzeit0 13y ago
As someone who put in the years required to learn Classical Latin and Attic Greek I can but only heed you to make very, very sure you are willing to invest the enormous amount of time required to learn an ancient language. If you have a normal job, wife and children, and can't find at minimum 2 hours out of your day to dedicate to language study, then don't bother. You will never read any Sanskrit at a comfortable pace if you can't commit to such an investment. I'm talking about picking up a book and not hitting an unknown word 3 times a sentence. You'll need at minimum 2 years of a full time schedule like before it even becomes fun. It's the unfortunate and sad reality about the time commitment required in learning ancient languages to the level of fluency.
- Jonovono 13y ago
  That's good to know. Ya, I understand it would be a huge time investment. Luckily I don't have any of those barriers, and am still quite young!
aktiur 13y ago
And then there is NASA (apparently) using Sanskrit for AI: http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html* http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html* This is a hoax. The article reproduced there does exist though: it was published in an artificial intelligence journal in 1985 and made no reference to NASA, except for the fact that the author worked at the NASA Ames Research Center. You can find it there: http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/466 http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/46... A quick search on internet for "sanskrit nasa" shows that all occurences are either copies, extracts or translations of this article taken out of its context. The belief that NASA has used sanskrit seems to come from this internet echo chamber. I could find no reference about it on any NASA website, nor any other articles written by this Rick Briggs. I was able to find only one other article on sanskrit and AI, quoting the one by Briggs, dated to 1987: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf

the__prestige 13y ago

If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is that one should be humble about the notion of being the first to invent anything. I'm pretty sure the many of the concepts expressed in these texts go further back in time without any record. Everything is an addition or evolution of the past, regardless of whether it is explicitly or wittingly so.

djdj123 13y ago

You may have picked up on the author's not-so-subtle self-congratulation in the use of the phrase: "our great culture". There is a lot of wonderful material to be absorbed in the ancient texts of India, but the text of that page has a strong Hindu religious nationalist tone (which in Indian languages is called "Hindutva", or "Hindu-ness"). The vast (in time and space), and diverse Indian culture that produced these works was far more tolerant and open to the world's ideas than the apparent mindset of the individual(s) who created this site. So try to enjoy the actual linked texts, but observe, and then ignore the religious nationalism that seems to have inspired the site.

smoyer 13y ago
"our great culture" Do you mean cultural heritage? I wouldn't call the culture so great now with the corruption in politics, etc.
- datacog 13y ago
  how does politics get to be a part of culture ?
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eklavya 13y ago
Maybe you are being too skeptical, maybe he is just feeling proud? Is it fanatical to feel proud of your nation, don't you guys love yours?

vram22 13y ago

Interesting, will check the site out. Apropos: I had blogged this a while ago: Bhaskaracharya and the man who found zero: http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-who-found-zero.html http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-who...

vram22 13y ago
And here is one of his books, the Lilavati: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilavati http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilavati I noticed this at that page: "Bhaskara II gives the value of pi as 22/7 in the book but suggest a more accurate ratio of 3927/1250 for use in astronomical calculations." I also remembered reading somewhere that some ancient Indians had a simple formula for pi that was somewhat accurate; take the first 3 odd positive integers, twice each, as one single number, split it down the middle, and divide the right half by the left half, i.e. 113355 => 355/113 = ~pi. So I checked, using Python: $ python >>> from math import pi >>> pi 3.141592653589793 >>> print 3927.0/1250 3.1416 >>> print 355.0/113 3.14159292035 The approximation that uses 113355 matches pi (from Python) upto 6 decimal places.

elangoc 13y ago

This sort of topic has come up before, and to put it gently, blog posts like these have been lacking in context and substance. See a previous HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 Also see a previous HN post about a PNAS publication that talks about the people from current-day South India 4000 years ago (while South Indians' language is not based on Sanskrit, and 4000 years ago far predates the time period mentioned in the original post): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5078076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5078076

pinkskip 13y ago

meh..

smoyer 13y ago

Yep ... I know that eye glasses and cataract surgery were done there first (the ruined lens was poked out of place with a copper wire, then a pair of glasses became the primary lens and the cornea became the secondary lens). And obviously you needed to be able to produce glass to make eye glasses. There was also early production of stainless steel. I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that kind of science, you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?

tomrod 13y ago
That's a big question I have on these types of technological regression. It seems like technoliterate civilizations are eventually replaced by fundamentalism then animism, perhaps?
kamaal 13y ago
>>you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead? One word, Entropy! As an Indian, I can tell you India has seen many cycles of ups and downs. And its not just mere technical culture, there is tons of other things. Food, literature, language, poetry, food, clothes, music, religions, philosophy and what not. I don't know any other country in the world comes close to matching this. Buddha arrived in India in around 500 BC. And that was one of India's peak times in Spiritual and philosophical tradition. There are languages that are totally extinct, cultures that have faded away. Massive amounts of literature lost completely to mankind. But Mainland India has been invaded many times, colonized, bulk of its wealth plundered. Add to this the overall entropy of the system. A simple question to you would be like this. Can you be sure US will remain the world super power 200 years from now.
- eklavya 13y ago
  A small correction there, Buddha WAS from India :)

taway121 13y ago

I pass no comment on the site, but on assertions here about hindutva as hindu religious propaganda/nationalism. This is incorrect, hindutva does not proscribe or prescribe any religion. Veer Savarkar's pamphlet on which modern notions of hindutva are based on can be read at [1] Sarvakar includes all Indian religions in the term "Hinduism" and outlines his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (United India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent. Hindu in the context of hindutva is not religious. It speaks about a common identity for a united nation. Savarkar's writing need to be read in the context of the period that they were written, English oppression and the fight for independence, before the idea of a muslim state, Pakistan were first proposed. During this time, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh were one nation commonly know not as India, but Hindustan. Hindustan represented not a Hindu state, but a country where people who shared the hindu ethos reside. At the level of practice, the Hindutva or Hindu ethos, outlook boils down to upholding righteousness (Sat-guna) and fighting ignoble attitudes (Dur-guna). Quoting Savarkar, "We Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilization - our Hindu culture" Modern India was founded at independence on the same beliefs, in the quote above replace hindus by India and hindu culture by Indian culture. Please read the literature on the subject and not what is simply presented on modern pop culture. [1] http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindut...

selimthegrim 13y ago
Please enlighten us on Savarkar's reaction to Ambedkar wanting to convert Dalits away from Hinduism.

nitin1213 13y ago

Indian culture was always inclusive in nature right from its point of origin.but now we only see it becoming exclusive and narrow concentrating only on the Hindu side of the culture.

dschiptsov 13y ago

Ancient texts should be considered as a philosophy rather than science, because almost nothing was formally proved that time, but lots of phenomena were correctly inferred or guessed. Most famous insights, of course, were these about the nature of mind from the Upanishads, which uses state of sleep, deep-sleep (without dreams) and wakefulness as metaphors to illustrate what we now call "models of the world", "contexts", "cognitive dissonance", "frames of reference", or just the role of the mind (consciousness) in cognition - how we constantly distort, reinterpret and even ignore perceived reality. Roughly, it was a notion clarified later by Buddha - "Life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think", the notion that all our (at least psychological) "suffering" begins (and ends) inside our skulls and doesn't exist in the world outside. Another great notion was one of the Dzongchen sect of Tibetan Bon tradition, when they use analogy of a mirror to how our mind should "work" - as a mirror isn't affected by what it reflects, so the mind in its "primordial" (original, such that of a child) state is just a "tool" to "do everything", including things done by Buddha or Einstein. More recent marvels from India including "Want to see a God - look between two thoughts" by "modern" saint Ramakrishna, which is "in continuum" back to Upanishads. In short, in decent texts composed by highly intelligent authors (including so-called fiction) there is a possibility to find correct inferences and guesses for almost every observable phenomena, if your own mind is lucid enough.

anovikov 13y ago

"Russia is the motherland of elephants" (old Soviet joke)... how familiar...