1) Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The father of medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago – Ayurveda originated from India.
2) The World’s first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
3) The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh 6000 over years ago. The very word ‘Navigation’ is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
4) Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations were – Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.
5) The Indian Mathematician Budhayana first calculated the value of “pi”, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.
6) Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also originated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 (i.e 10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12(10 to the power of 12).
7) Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world. (Source. Gemological Institute of America)
8) Sushruta is regarded as the father of surgery. Over 2600 years ago Sushrata & his team conducted complicated surgeries like cataract, artificial limbs, cesareans, fractures, urinary stones and also plastic surgery and brain surgeries.
9) Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.
10) Sanskrit was our most ancient language used in India – In July 1987, Forbes magazine published news, which surprised even the Sanskrit pandits. It said that, “Sanskrit is the most convenient language for computer software programming.”
11) India is the birthplace of chess! The original word for “chess” is the Sanskrit chaturanga, meaning “four members of an army”—which were mostly likely elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers.
12) In the 7th Century the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta stated “Bodies fall towards the earth as it is in the nature of the earth to attract bodies, just as it is in the nature of water to flow.” Gravitation was known to the ancient Indians!
13) The earliest cotton in the world was spun and woven in India. Roman emperors would wear delicate cotton from India that they would call “woven winds.” Mogul emperors called the fabrics “morning dew” and “cloth of running water.
This info can be looked up and easily verified by anyone as it is freely available on the internet. I’ve let alone the facts like the kind of “modern attitude” we had long back which included widow marriage, sexual attachment (I know some will wrinkle their brows at the mention of this, but it is true and Khajuraho’s exotic art-crafts do suggest that sex was a step for attaining ultimate liberation or moksha). Polygamy was prevalent, along with the fact that human beings were much more broadminded those days. This has been the land where the likes of Tagore, Sir JC Bose, Satyendranath Basu, Najrul Islam, Netaji, Swami Vivekananda, Gautam Buddha and the like lived.
WHERE EXACTLY DO WE STAND TODAY?
Can one person in this modern era dream of being a Tagore? Are the school toppers really (I mean the term) LEARNING stuff – can we really dream of having more JC Bose’s in the near future? Why can’t we dream of a life without superstitions, hatred, anger and jealousy towards other fellow-men? Even till death, we consider the widows as evil, even today SATI is practiced in broad daylight, slaughter of both human beings and animals continue under the name of sacrifice to the divine, corruption and evil malpractices are far too common than mobile phones! We still believe more on God and less on ourselves, even though the epics that we follow (or claim to follow) like the Gita, the Mahabharata preach the other way round. We claim to be learned, interestingly not one in a hundred can either speak English or his mother-tongue flawlessly, not three in a thousand read any serious stuff on the internet – all that they love is chatting on Facebook and Twitter. Not one person in modern days really like or try out something different, let alone practicing literature.
People love to be dependent and play the safe game, I cannot help but wonder how ferociously this tribe of ours have deteriorated, and people have tried in their best to liberate and save us from this misery like Tagore, Netaji and the other gems that Bengal along with Mother India have produced. I was shocked to see how the bunch of youngsters have succumbed to the shelter of gem-stones for their future, and old-men wearing more rings than they can probably count! Hordes of idiots rush daily to the astrologers, Baba’s and the like. What has gone violently wrong with our society? Education ? Morality?
I seriously do not know. As long as suicides, rapes, human trafficking along with illiteracy continue dominating this country, I’m at a loss – at a loss to cheer on 15th August, 2012!