Holding Pride in Ancient Science

More than anyone else, I am fairly certain in my personal assessment that Muslims and Hindus hold huge pride in their ancient achievements. Each one claims to be the genesis of modern civilization and root of all modern knowledge. Irony dies a million deaths when we see the state of affairs in both the Muslim and Hindu nation, holding pride in Camel Urine and Cow Urine respectively and discovering medicinal benefits in Zam Zam Water and Ganges Water respectively, yet not able to sort out public health issues in their respctive nations.

Understand the fact that everything that we know today and study in science is not a product of one day. Since the very beginning of human civilization man has always tried to ponder on natural phenomenon and explain the same to his ability, sometimes correctly and many a times incorrectly. This is a story which is true about the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Arabs, the Persians, the Hindus and every other humans.

In my humble opinion, out of all these people the Hindus are the most reluctant to accept that there could have been errors in the explanations early Hindu scientists gave. With Hindu nationalism being the trump card of the ruling party in India, you might yourself be witness to the propaganda about Vedic sciences. Ministers, Public Figures and recently some scientists at the Indian Science Congress have attributed modern technological endeavors like Internet, Airplanes, Test-tube Babies to ancient India, drawing parallels to many stories which are at best mythical, nevertheless great folklore. Indians pretty much like others where an intelligent people who wished to explain the natural phenomenon. This they did pretty much like others, sometimes correctly, many a times incorrectly.

Here is an example, the name of the Milky Way galaxy in ancient India was “Aakash Ganga”. Do you know that Indian astronomers where not even close to the idea of it being a galaxy? How could they, humans had not reached to that sophisticated level to know about galaxies. What would they think about it? They thought what every observer would think, “a river of light”. It is from here the name Aakash Ganga comes. You only need to read the tales about Aakash Ganga to know how fantastic the ideals were!

The idea here is not to demean anyone, but to put things in their right context. Indians contributed to the world of knowledge a lot of things for which they should be and are given due credit. If they wouldn’t have contributed someone else would have, science would have moved froward. When Europeans refused to contribute (during the dark ages) the nomads who had come from the sandy tracts of Arabia came forward and contributed. What actually matters is where we stand today and how we act and shape our future collectively.

Liked it? Take a second to support us on Patreon!