Vasu Murti's blog

A letter writer to my local newspaper claims that because “intellectually enlightened Western European Christians came to America 400 years ago,” America does not “resemble Laos, India, Ethiopia or Iran,” but instead possesses “the cities and the institutions that are the envy of the world.” This statement appears to be based more on prejudice than on fact.

There have been numerous civilizations throughout history; many were learned in the arts, sciences, humanities and metaphysics. Athens, for example, was a democracy devoted to human excellence in mind and body, to philosophy, and to the cultivation of the art of living. While Christianity kept the West in the Dark Ages for over a millennium, the civilizations in Asia were flourishing.

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Hindu historian A. Kalyanaraman supports this observation by citing evidence from the principle Hindu scriptures, known as the Vedas, as well as the testimony of Megasthenes, who journeyed from the Greco-Roman world to India during the 3rd century BC. Kalyanaraman finds a great deal of political freedom and equality in ancient India, where social mobility was acknowledged.

The Vedas describe numerous saints and sages who were of low birth, but were considered by their virtue to have been raised to the highest status. The Greek Megasthenes observed: “The law ordains that none among them under any circumstances be a slave; enjoying freedom, they shall expect the equal right to it which others possess... All Indians are free and not one of them is a slave. The Indians do not use even aliens as slaves; much less a countryman of their own.”

The earliest moral and legal codes (Dharma-sastras and Niti-sastras) originated in India, as did the earliest representative institutions (Sabha and Parishad). A modern Western text, India: Yesterday and Today, also says, “the four orders... of Hindu society... were classes in the Western sense rather than castes in the Indian manner.”

Long before Columbus’ era, India had a reputation throughout the world for its opulence. “The part of India known as Malabar,” wrote Marco Polo, “was the richest and noblest country in the world.” Kalyanaraman writes that Egypt traded ivory, precious stones, gold and sandalwood with India, while Rome traded Indian spices—mostly cinnamon and cassia. The Puranas mention sandalwood from Malaysia. Ancient India’s epic poem, the Mahabharata, even compares the women of the Mediterranean to the goddesses of the higher worlds.

The Rig Veda, one of four Vedas, refers to metallurgy. The Vedas also refer to mining iron ore, copper, brass and bronze. By the 6th century AD, India was far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry. The Hindus were masters at calcination, distillation, sublimation, steaming, making anesthetics, soporific powders, metallic salts, compounds and alloys. India was producing steel during the era of Alexander. Centuries later, steel would be introduced to Europe by the Muslims.

Jivaka (6th century BC) was adept at surgical operations such as trepanning of the skull, abdominal openings to cure hernia, etc. Panini’s classical work on grammar, the Ashtadhyani contains a comprehensive list of parts of the body (human anatomy) as well as rare and common diseases. He further describes ligaments, sutres, lymphatics, nerve plexus, adipose and vascular tissues, mucous and synovial membranes with astonishing accuracy. Susruta dealt with surgery, obstetrics, dieting, baths, drugs, infant feeding, personal hygiene and medicinal education. He also understood the process of digestion and the functions of the stomach and liver.

Bhavamisra, in 1550, detailed the circulation of blood in a book written on anatomy and physiology, a century before the West. Susruta described cataract surgery, hernia, cesarean section, the dissection of cadavers and the use of skin grafts to repair a torn ear. Rhinoplasty (fixing a broken nose) was a common practice. A drug called “sammohini” was used as an anesthetic. Ancient Indians were experts in plastic surgery until the 18th century. They knew the importance of taking a pulse.  They were aware that mosquito bites transmit diseases as far back as the 6th century BC.

Square roots and cube roots and the “Pythagorean” theorem are mentioned in the Sulbha Sutras of Bodhayana. (700 BC) Bodhayana also calculated the areas of triangles, circles, and trapezoids and determined pi = 3.14136 when measuring and constructing temple altars. Aryabhata (5th century AD) drew up a table of sines and provided India with a system of trigonometry more sophisticated than that of the Greeks. Ancient mathematical texts such as the Jyotisha Vedanga dealt with geometry, fractions, quadratic and cubic equations, algebra, permutations and combinations.

In the West, we have been taught to call our base-ten system of numeration (which replaced Roman numerals) “Arabic numerals.” India gave the world the base-ten numerical system, our modern numerical script, and the concept of zero as a placeholder and a numerically recorded quantity. Indian mathematics came to the West through the Arabs. The Arabs themselves called mathematics “Hindisat,” or “Indian art.”

Centuries before Newton, Bhaskara (1150 AD) was well-acquainted with the principles of differential calculus and the concept of infinity. Astronomers such as Vachaspati (800 AD) anticipated the foundations of solid coordinate geometry centuries before Descartes. They also explained the movement of celestial bodies in terms of the earth’s rotation and motion about the sun. Charaka, a physician from the 7th century BC, described the wave motion of light, had a calendar of 12 lunar months and classified stars into zodiacal constellations.

India had rockets in the late 18th century; they were even used in military battles against the British. This generated interest in rocket technology in England. The Indian people built “iron forts and thousand pillared halls” and were described by observers as adorning themselves in silk, wool, linen and cotton.

For thousands of years, India has enjoyed music, orchestral bands, dance, song, stage acting and all the other fine arts. A. Kalyanaraman writes that in comparison to other parts of the world, slavery was virtually nonexistent. There did exist various forms of indentured servitude, but none as brutal as in the West. Kalyanaraman further insists that the whole of Southeast Asia received most of its culture from India. India gave the world rice, cotton, sugarcane, spices and chess. Indian philosophy and metaphysics can be found in Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Emerson, Thoreau, and Schopenhauer.

History must not be written from a Western, colonialist perspective. These are just some of India’s contributions to humanity.