Science in Sanskrit

Dr.S.Krishna Kumar
Orthopaedic Surgeon, KKOH
Nagercoil 629003
director@kkoh.in
 Parvathipuram, 

         Sanskrit is a divine language. The language was spoken by God directly to the sages. It remained as a spoken language for a long time. It was Panini in 600 BC who gave the language a precise and logical grammar. He also provided the language with a script. Sanskrit has the maximum number of aksharas when compared with any language in the world. Vedas, Mantras, Upanishat etc comprise only 5% of Sanskrit literature. More than 95% of the texts in Sanskrit deals with science. Name any field of science, there is a scientific literature in Sanskrit!

          India was a world leader of science from the Vedic Period until the twelfth century. But, the twelfth century invasion destroyed universities of Nalanda, Vikramashila and Odantpuri plunging India into dark.

           In771AD, The Caliph of Bagdad ordered translation of a few texts from Sanskrit to Arab. The important amoung them were Books of Aryabhata and Books of Brahmagupta. The arabic version of these texts were preserved in Bagdad university library. Many of these books got translated to Latin for the benefit of the europeans. Thus the ancient Sanskrit scientific literature travelled from India to Europe via the Arabian deserts.

          Walter Eugene Clark, Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University translated Aryabhatta's Aryabhatiya into English. He said “Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, and one of the greatest.” He also said the “Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of the body by an anatomist.”

          The British Invasion did one good to India. They started unearthing India's ancient past. However, there was hesitation in the western minds to accept India's glory. To the extent that some eurocentric scholars claimed that “Zero” was invented by the Greek. An inscription dating back to 585 AD found in Gujarat with numeric “Zero” in it, made every one agree.

Abundant scientific literature is available in every field of science - Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, metallurgy, to name a few.

Mathematics:

          Bhaskaracharya II was the best mathematician and astronomer world over in the twelfth century.

           The modern number system and the ten numerals were invented in India, yet the name of the numerals as the “Arabic Numerals” stays in vogue. They should be called the “International Form of the Indian Numerals” as named in the Constitution of India (Art. 343-1 ), or simply the “Indian Numerals”.

            In 200 BC, 'O’or Soonya was invented. Pinglacharya's Chandra sastra appears to be the first book in which application of Soonya is given. It describes ‘O’like this “one para has six letters. When number is made half, it becomes three. Remove one from three and make it to half to get one. Remove one from tit, thus gets the zero (soonya).”

           The great 7th Century Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta was the first to give rules to compute with zero i.e. When zero Is added to a number or subtracted from a number, the number remains unchanged, A number multiplied by zero remains zero.

            Vedic Indian Scholar Pingala invented Binary Number System in 2nd Century BC.In his book Chandas sutra.Pingala has assigned combinations of zero and one to represent various numbers, much in the same way as the present day computer programming procedures.

           Aryabatta described the calculation to find the circumference of a circle with diameter of twenty thousand.

            Sulvasutra 800 BC is an ancient Indian treatise in Algebra. It describes how to arrive at root values of numbers by a logical derivation.

            Baudhayana in 800 BC derived the theorem “The diagonal of a rectangle produces both areas which its length and breadth produce separately”. This was re invented by Pythagoras in 540 BC.

            Aryabhatta was first major ancient mathematician from classical ancient mathematics age happens to be between 476-550 CE (Common Era). He Played a vital role in Place value system and zero, Approximation of ð, Trigonometry, Indeterminate equations, and Algebra.

Physics:

          Ancient Indian Sage and Philosopher, Kanada (between 6th century and 2nd Century BCE) was also known as Kashyap, Kananda, who founded the Vaisheshika (one of the six orthodox schools of Vedic Systems) school of Indian philosophy, invented theory of atom which is indestructible particle of matter. He used invariance arguments to determine properties of the atoms. In his “comprehensive text book of physics”, he has discussed mechanics, hydraulics, electricity, heat and light. The book also carried topics like magnet quantum, Atom, space, Physical chemistry etc.

         The Law of Conservation of matter and energy. (First Law of Thermodynamics) is described in his text

          “One substance changes into other substance, and its properties change into other properties”. The First Law of Thermodynamics is stated at many places in ancient literature. One is Bhagvad-Gita 2.16, other is Chhandogya Upanishad 6.2.2. kathamasad-sajjayet

          Adi Shankaracharya (9th century AD) too had mentioned magnet and compass “bhraamakasya lauha bhramanena”.

          (Sri Madbhagavad-Gita, 18.66 commentary 66.12) He uses the word bhraamaka.

           Bhraamaka literally means “one which aids in bhramana”. (rotation)

           Bhaskara II in 1114 AD postulated that massive celestial bodies are attracted powerfully towards the earth by her own force. The laws of gravity was propounded again by Issac Newton (1642-1727).

          Vaisheshika sutras describe the characteristics of force.It defines the various terms like force and motion. The sutra says action and reaction are equal and opposite. This is many thousand years before Einstein.

Medicine:

        Great strides were made in the medical field. Susruta in 200 BC described anatomy of the human body. He had explained the vital spots in the body called “marmas”. Damage to these spots could cause temporary or permanent disability.

        The Sushruta Samhita by Sushruta in 6th Century BC, is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgeries which played a vital role at that time. The Sushruta Samhita mentions many treaties including plastic surgery of nose practiced at that time which is now known as rhinoplasty. The first Cataract Surgery also performed by Sushruta in the same time span.

         Ayurveda originated back to around 5000 BCE, some concepts of Ayurveda have existed since the times of Indus valley civilization. It is a system of medicine which usesplantsto treat ailments.

Metallurgy:

         The iron pillar in Delhi is a technological marvel. Fabricated in 375 A.D, has stood in sun an rain till date with out getting rusted.

         India had invented various metals like Wootz Steel (A pioneering steel alloy matrix developed in India), Smelting of zinc (India was first to smelt zinc as Zawar in the Tiri valley of Rajasthan is the world's first known ancient zinc smelting site) and seamless celestial globe was made in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in the reign of Emperor Akbar.

Astronomy:

            Unbelievable contributions have been done by our Rishis in the field of Astronomy

          The constellation of stars, the basic movements of the moon and the other planets are all discussed in detail in Sanskrit literature. The heliocentric concept of our world was discussed in Sanskrit much before it was known to the western world.

           Sayana was a fourteenth century Indian scholar. In his commentary on a hymn in the Rig Veda, the oldest and perhaps most mystical text ever composed in India, Sayana has this

to say:

"With deep respect, I bow to the sun, who travels 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha.”

        A yojana is about nine American miles;

        A nimesha is 16/75 of a second. 

        2,202 yojanas x 9 miles x 75 - 8 nimeshas = 185,794 m.p.s.

       Basically, Sayana is saying that sunlight travels at 186,000 miles per second!

       The distance between the sun and the earth is calculated in the Vedic literature as: 108 time the diameter of the sun and the distance between the moon and the earth is 108 times the diameter of the moon. Thus 108 is an auspicious number for the Hindus.

        Hamuman Chalisa was written by Goswamy Thulasidas in the 15th century. He has calculated the distance between the sun and the earth as 15,36,00,000 Kms. This measurement tallies with the modern day scientific calculations.

        The amount of ancient literature in science is quite vast. This list is too long, not within the reach of my pen.

         Penty of the collective wisdom of this country, gathered over many centuries, is recorded in Sanskrit and is, we believe, stored somewhere safe. The rich heritage of our country is un parallel to any other. It is necessary that we as Indians revisit theses scientific treatise to understand the value of our tradition.