!

<< 1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history. >>
Someone said India? Since when did India exist at all? Was there a collective name for the
whole mass of scattered and shattered kingdoms most of which later was unified as India?, I
wonder! The name India, of course, comes from Hindustan, which in turn comes from the word
Sindhu that refers to the River Sindh/Indus of today as we all know.
While the name India is a British-corrupt form of Hindustan, Hind is a name given by the
Persians to people who lived on the west of Sindh river. So, concluding my remark, was there
India since 1000 A.D?! (Sometimes, this number even goes as high as 10,000 years of history!)
(#6 also says India was once the richest empire on earth. but well, were actually referring to
tens or hundreds of empires here!)
Admitting this is not enough to refute an argument that there had been no attacks on other
countries, here is something better a list of invasions:

Hindu kings rule the area around Kutai on Kalimantan. (about 100 CE)
Srivijaya had also conquered Kedah, on the Malay Peninsula. (about 700 CE)
Sailendra kingdom attacks and defeats Chenla (today Cambodia); rules over Chenla for
about 12 years. (about 790 CE)
Dharmavamsa becomes king of Mataram. He conquers Bali and founds a settlement in
western Kalimantan. (about 985 CE)
Dharmavamsa and Mataram send an army overseas to attack Srivijaya and take
Palembang, but fail. (about 990 CE)
Rajendra Chola, king of Coramandel in India, attacks Srivijaya. (1017 CE)
Rajendra Chola of southern India takes Malay Peninsula from Srivijaya for twenty years.
(1025 CE)
Vira Rajendra, king of Coramandel, conquers Kedah from Srivijaya. More Chola raids
occur on Sumatra. (1068 CE)

(Source: <http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/sejarah01.shtml>)
<< 2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. >>
Not quite right! First, it was Pingala and not Aryabhatta. (Pingala precedes Aryabhatta
chronologically.) Pingala too, used the concept of zero and not zero as a digit; a dot was used
as a placeholder for zero. Babylonians and Mayans, in fact, used this as a concept earlier too,
but it was Hindus (see definition above) who used zero as a digit, in all facets of calculation. To
be clearer, calculations like 10*1 or 20/3 were indicated/documented by most, but not 1*0 or 1+0
etc. The latter came about 628 CE in India and was then passed to Cambodia, China (through
Buddhism), and Arabia, and to Europe in 12th c. CE Its interesting to note that Pingala was the

brother of grammarian Panini and wrote a book on metrical poetry in Sanskrit; he was thus the
first one to use the binary system of numbers - to denote long and short syllables in Sanskrit and used a dot (for 0) and 1. He also introduced Fibonacci number series and Pascal triangle, in
fact!
On the other hand, Aryabhatta is now more regarded as astronomer than mathematician. In
mathematics, he is credited to have given the value of pi to four decimal places, to have
calculated Earths circumference with an error of 0.2 %, etc, to have introduced square-root and
cube-root, and calculations of parameters pertaining to geometrical shapes such as triangles and
spheres.
<< 3. The worlds first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500
students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects... The University of
Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India
in the field of education. >>
Yes, but sadly now, Bihar - the state that now has Nalanda in - is predominantly criminal and
unlawful, so much that a politician from Jammu & Kashmir recently stated that their
state was more at peace than Bihar and that the state of things was a lot better than in Bihar!
Bihar seems to have started on the path of reform.
<< 7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word
Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. >>
True, I feel. There are several words in English and other European languages that seem to be
very similar to Sanskrit words. reeti-rite/ritual, naama-name, stithi-state, we all can quote a lot
more such words. The key here is that even the art of navigation was born in Sindh. I dont know
if its true but its quite very possible; I dont have a reason to doubt either.
<< 8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of
what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999)
officially published that Budhayanas works dates to the 6th Century which is long before
the European mathematicians. >>
A Sloka in Siva puraaNam (?, time unknown) that reads
gopeebhaagya madhUvraatah sRngashODaadhi sandhigah
khalajeevitakhaataava galahaalaa rasandharah
gives pi value up to 31 decimal places (3.1415926535897932384626433832792) among other
things. (This value is correct up to 30 decimal places, according to modern computations.) The
values are taken based on kaadi nava-Taadi nava-paadi panchaka-yadyashTaka-ksha
Soonyam, which gives 1-9 values for the nine letters that follow ka, and again 1-9 starting Ta, 15 for letters starting pa, 1-8 starting with ya, and 0 for ksha. Unfortunately, this cannot be
compared to Budhayanas time (about 800-700 BC). And, his best approximation of pi value was
3.114. Manava (about 750-650 BC) approximated it to be 3.125. In fact, even before these two
people, Yajnavalkya (about 900-700 BC) gave the value correct to 2 decimal places by defining pi
as a fraction 339/108 (3.1389). However, Babylonians gave the pi value to be 25/8 (3.125) as
early as 19th c. BC. Aryabhatta (400 CE) gave this value to be 62832/20000 (3.1416), correct to
4 decimal places, while Chinese mathematician Zu Chongzhi of the next century gave the value
correct to 7 decimal places, also suggesting the fractions 335/113 and 22/7 as approximations of
the value. Again, it was Madhava (14th c. CE) who gave the value correct to 11 places
(3.14159265359).
Its notable that Indians were not the first to conceptualize the Pythagorean Theorem! Its been
proponent since about 2500 BC! Budhayana (800 BC) gave a special case of whats later (about

550 BC) called the Pythagorean Theorem - for a right-angled isosceles triangle only! Apart from
Pythagoras, Katyayana (generally applicable to all right angled triangles) and Apasthamba
(numerical proof of the theorem using area computation) were two other Indian mathematicians
who discussed the same. Neither Budhayana nor Katyayana explained this with triangles; the
former explained with the diagonal of a square while the latter explained with the diagonal of a
rectangle. Budhayana gave the value of square-root of 2, correct to five decimal places. Other
ancient Indian mathematics included simpler methods to calculate square roots. (Aryabhatta
caught up with it later.)
<< 9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by
Sridharacharya in the 11th century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used
6
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were 10 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 10 . >>
Babylonians discovered, and gave methods to solve, quadratic equations, according to clay
tablets dating back to 1800-1600 BC. Budhayana (800 BC) first used quadratic equations of the
2
form ax + bx = c and gave methods to solve these. Bakhshali Manuscript (200 BC to 400 CE)
gave general algebraic formula to solve quadratic equations and also introduced Q.E. of
indeterminate form (ax/c = y). Brahmagupta (7th c.) gave negative solutions to Q.E.
Sridharacharyas works (9th c.) were largely lost, but were referenced by Bhaskara II (12th c.) in
giving general solutions for Q.E. Bhaskara II solved Q.E. with more than one unknown variable.
Algebra was introduced by Babylonians in 2nd millennium BC for problems which were solved by
others (including Indians) using geometric methods. Geometric constructive algebra was largely
developed by Indians and Greeks. Aryabhatta (about 500 CE), Brahmagupta (about 620 CE),
Bhaskara (about 1100-1200 CE) produced their works starting the end of first millennium BC into
early first millennium CE; Bakhshali Manuscript was also produced in India at about that time, but
the authorship is unknown. A lot of equation solving is explained in Bakhshali Manuscript,
including the introduction of negative numbers, zero, and the Hindu-Arabic number system based
on place value.
Calculus was first probably conceived by Egyptians, but integral calculus was introduced by
Greeks in about 200 BC. Aryabhatta (5th c. CE), Manjula (10th c. CE), Bhaskara (12th c. CE),
Madhava (14th c. CE) worked on this branch of mathematics later, and it was Bhaskara whose
concepts gave rose to the modern calculus (including differential calculus). Jyesthadeva (16th c.
CE) was the author of the first text on differential calculus titled Yuktibhasha. Most methods in
differential and integral calculus that were discussed in this text were carried to Europe through a
span of a few centuries that followed.
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Indus valley saw the advent of early trigonometry about 2000 BC.
Lagadha (about 1350-1200 BC) was the first to use geometry and trigonometry in astronomy.
Sulabha Sutras (800-500 BC) have elucidated some concepts of trigonometry, and Hipparchus
(Greek, 150 BC) developed a trigonometric table for triangle-solving and Ptolemy (100 CE)
followed suit. Later, Aryabhatta gave the tables of sines and cosines.
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Lalita Vistarasutra names 10 as tallakshaNa but goes up to 10 . The Greeks didnt stop at
64
10^6 either; Archimedes went up to 10 . Indians however went further high, in that it was Indians
(7th c. CE) who defined infinity as a quantity whose denominator is zero. The concept of
transfinite numbers, which are probably higher than the traditional infinity, were also cited by Jain
mathematicians of 400 BC.
<< 14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time
conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of
anaesthesia was well known in ancient India. >>
Add plastic surgery to the above list.

Conclusive Remarks:
As can be seen, Indians were quite good with mathematics, particularly in developing methods,
etc. though it was the Babylonians and Egyptians that sometimes introduced or conceived some
branches of mathematics or some methods. Vedic mathematics, as a subject, did not make it to
Indian textbooks, as much as it made it into the present day Indian society as a concept. We still
do not know several things that existed in Vedas, and Vedangas/Upanishads, not to mention
various epics and other mythological texts. The cryptic ways of representation, together with the
secretiveness in holding the knowledge and passing it to others, had rendered inaccessible most
of the useful content in our ancient texts. While the facts that originally made rounds for several
years are seemingly extrapolated or distorted, the actual facts do not necessarily diminish any
great achievement of the ancient Indians.
However, if we take the current Indian society, the people here are ready to imitate the good, bad,
and ugly of the West, without delving into our own past first. Theres simply no point in forwarding
such stuff to other Indians and feel proud about it, if we fail to inculcate or incite the interest in
them to learn more facts about Indian history. History is surely useful, and studying history is not
equivalent to living in the past. But then, the goodness of the past that cannot be applied to the
betterment of the present is practically useless. I mean, what if precious stones were sold in
heaps during the time of King Krishnadeva Raya in Karnataka region, if the people there (and
everywhere else) now cannot have a modest supply of food or water everyday?
Lets think, and change the way we all think, before simply saying We were in fact in a better
position... Lets also stop implying thus to ourselves that we are in a worse position now; we shall
surely be in a worse position if we dont do anything to change the downfall.

Notes:
Most of the above stuff was taken from Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/>. The
information found here is, of course, not originally published in Wikipedia. Some of the
information provided was based on what I heard or learnt from other published sources
and/or people.
I am not professionally/formally trained to be a historian/mathematician/Indologist or
anything that the above content might suggest or raise doubts about. I am just a science
student, and an enthusiastic Indian individual who wants to live a major portion of my life
in a better India a country that can get only better and not worse than what the history
of the land ever says. My personal interests lie in literature, reading books, and most
things that are Indian classical something.