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Monthly Archives: September 2008
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ANCIENT INDIA- PART II
September 23, 2008 – 4:35 am
In the field of medicine, Indians made considerable progress in ancient times. The
earliest reference to disease and medicine are found in the Atharvana Veda. The
Vedas mention Ashvini brothers as the celestial physicians. Dhanvantri, a
legendary figure was regarded as the god of medicine and giver of Ayurveda.

Way back in 6th century B.C., the study of medicine was systematically elaborately
Archives and scientifically developed. The story of the life of Jivaka who was the physician
February 2018 to emperor Bimbisara (6th Century B.C) of Magadha and later the physician in
January 2018
attendance to Lord Buddha as narrated in the Buddhist canonical texts, provides
details of the science of medicine. Numerous medicines were prepared from roots,
October 2017
leaves, fruits and salts, chunam for itches and boils, medicines for skin diseases,
August 2017 eye-ointments, medicated oils, etc. Science of surgery also progressed well. They
June 2017 performed successfully lancet operations and used bandages, ointments and oils
May 2017 for the treatment of wounds. During the Mauryan rule (3rd Century B.C) the state
March 2017 built hospitals for both men and animals.
October 2016
June 2016 Arthasastra of Kautilya refers to ordinary physicians, surgeons with surgical
January 2016 instruments and appliances and materials for bandages, nurses, midwives and
November 2015
trained physicians, especially skilled in detecting poison. Adequate arrangement
was also made for the post-mortem examination of a corpse which was smeared
August 2015
with certain oil to prevent its decomposition.
June 2015
February 2015 Ancient Indians used anesthesia hundreds of years before it was applied in Europe
January 2015 in 19th century A.D. A drug called sammohini desensitized the patient, leaving him
September 2014 practically asleep and another sanjivini served to accelerate his return to
June 2014 consciousness. Susruta suggests that those parts of the body which are to
May 2014
undergo surgery be shaved before hand and that a strict cleanliness be observed.
April 2014
Charak, a contemporary of Kind Kanishka (78-102 A.D.) was a great authority on
March 2014 Ayurveda. His work Charaksamhita consisting of 120 chapters is a comprehensive
December 2013 manual on medicine. It covers various branches like diagnosis of diseases,
November 2013 physiology, embryology, treatment, preparation of medicine and therapies. Charak
October 2013 had identified 20 types of disease causing germs and their shapes and colours.
September 2013 Susruta (4th century A/D) incorporated surgery into the general field of medicine.
August 2013 His work Susrutasamhita is a comprehensive treatment of the science of surgery
May 2013 and other branches of Ayurveda. I cover various aspects like anatomy, embryology,
April 2013
equipments for surgery, surgical procedures, cauterization, types of wounds,
healing methods, anesthesia methods, bone fractures and dislocation, orthopaedic
February 2013
surgery, management of urinary stones including operations, surgery of intestines
January 2013 and abdomen. His work also throws light on plastic surgery for repairing noses,
July 2012 ears, etc. The instruments used in surgery are also elaborated. A systematic
January 2010 summary of the teachings of Charakasamhita and Susrutasamhita is presented in
July 2009 the Astanga-Samgraha by Vagbhatta I who seems to have lived in 6th Century A.D.
June 2009 Another work on medicine composed during the Gupta age is Navanitakam. This
May 2009 work was discovered in 1890 by Lieutenant Bower at Kuchar in Eastern Turkistan.
April 2009 Navanitakam is not a systematic or comprehensive work on medicine but a mere
March 2009
manual or recipes, formulae and prescriptions intended for the use of the busy
practitioner. Twelve of its formulas are taken from Bhelasamhita, 29 from
February 2009
Charakasamhita and six from Susrutasamhita. It is likely that some of its formulae,
October 2008
not attributed to the above three authorities may have been based upon the lost
September 2008

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August 2008 Samhitas of Harita, Jatukarna, Ksharapani and Parasara, who also were according
July 2008 to tradition, disciples of Punarvasu like Charaka and Susruta.
June 2008
Veterinary Science were not neglected and a work Hastyayurveda by Palakapya is
May 2008
an extensive work of 160 chapters and deals with the principal diseases of
April 2008
elephants, their diagnosis and treatment, both medical and surgical. A similar
March 2008 treatise on horses Svasastra was written by Sage Salihotra.
February 2008
Chinese travelers like Hiuen Tsang and I-Tsing speak about the high standard of
personal hygiene and sanitary practices of ancient Indians. According to them,
floors of houses were purified with cow dung and strewn with season flowers.
People bathed daily smeared bodies with sandal paste, washed hands and mouth
with water before and after meals. The fragments and remains of meals were not
served up again and utensils that were of pottery or wood were thrown away after
use, while those made out of gold, silver, copper and iron were used after cleaning.

Ancient Indians were well-versed in the art of tool making and metallurgy. Large
quantities of carnelian beads were exported from India during the Saraswathi-
Sindhu civilization. Bead making required techniques of sawing, flaking, grinding
and boring. Probably the Saraswathi-Sindhu people were the first to make tools
like metal saws and fine tubular drills. Their metallurgist were fully acquainted with
various casting and forging techniques like closed casting, lost wax process,
sinking, running on, cold work, annealing, soldering, etc. as attested by the various
objects discovered in the various sites of the Saraswathi-Sindhu valley.

The famous iron pillar near Qutb Minar in Delhi ascribed to the Gupta’s period
stands as a silent witness to proclaim the striking metallurgical skills of ancient
Indians. At a time when the process of making iron was but imperfectly known
even in the west, Indian metallurgists manufactured this huge iron pillar so skillfully
that although it stands exposed to the sun and rain for the last 1500 years, it shows
not the least sign of rusting or corrosion. The pillar is 24 feet in height and six and a
half tons in weight. Even the simple forging of so large an iron column was out of
the reach of human thought elsewhere not only at that time but for many centuries
afterwards as well. Similarly the colossal image of Buddha at Sultanganj in Bihar
measuring 2.1 meters in height and weighing over a ton cast in pure copper reveal
the high degree of proficiency in metal work achieved by ancient Indians.
(Concluded)

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By S.Srinivas | Posted in essays | Comments (0)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ANCIENT INDIA- PART-I

September 17, 2008 – 5:04 am

Ancient Indians were known for their intelligence, innovativeness and enterprise.
Especially in the field of Civil engineering, Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine and
Metallurgy, the contribution of ancient Indians is unique and unparalleled. The
authors of Saraswathi-Sindhu civilization, which flourished during B.C.2300-1750,
were pioneers in various fields. The concept of Town Planning was their innovation.
They laid down their town on a gridiron plan with streets running at right angles to
each other. There was an extensive drainage system, which collected the sewage
from each house. Another remarkable innovation was the technology of
waterproofing. The great bath (pool) at Mohenjodaro is a marvel of water proofing
engineering skill. To ensure that the bath was water tight, the floor was paved with
bricks cemented with gypsum mortar. Similarly, the wall of the pool was coated with
bitumen. Another innovation of them was the designing of the corbelled arch, which
was used for underground drainage. Well digging technology was another of their
contribution, as the earliest wells in the world are to be found in the towns of the
Saraswathi-Sindhu civilization.

The uniformity and standardization of the artifacts found in the towns where this
civilization flourished show an amazing administrative control over a territory of
over half a million square miles and also over production and distribution. The
shape and designs of pottery, the types of copper tools, the weights and measures,
the standard size of bricks and uniform layout of the towns clearly indicate that they
had realized the advantages of standardization.

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The most epoch making achievement of ancient Indians in the realm of Arithmetic
was the decimal system of notation, based upon the principle of the place value of
the first nine numbers and the use of zero. This notation system immensely
simplified arithmetical calculation and processes and we can at present hardly
imagine that there was a time when our ancestors all over the world were
expressing a number like one thousand one hundred and eleven not as 1,111 but
by four different and distinct symbols. The last one denoting one, the third one, ten,
the second one, hundred and the first one, one thousand. Symbols for ten, twenty,
thirty, forty, etc., as well as for hundred, thousand, etc., were all distinct and
different. This method of expressing big numbers was very cumbersome, but even
Europe was following it down to the 12th Century when it learnt the decimal system
of notation from the Arabs. Arab authors like Ibn Washiya, Al Masudi and Alberuni
give the credit of the discovery of the new system to Indians. When exactly the
Indian Mathematicians made the epoch making discovery is however not known.
Nor the name of the discoverer has been preserved. But as the new system of
notation is referred by Aryabhatta (A.D.499) in the Aryabhatiyam and followed by
Varahamihira (A.D. 550), it is clear that the new decimal system of notation was
well established among Mathematicians in the 5th century and we may therefore
place its discovery at least a century or two earlier.

In 1881 a farmer found a manuscript in a fragmentary condition while digging at his

village Bakshali near the city of Peshawar. This work ascribed to 3rd century A.D.
gives us a fairly comprehensive idea of the state of Mathematics during that period.
The Bakshali manuscript not only deals with elementary topics like fractions,
square roots, arithmetical and geometric progressions, but also deals with
advanced topics like summation of complex series, simultaneous linear equations
and indeterminate equations of second degree. It also shows that some work was
being done on the theory of numbers in the direction of extracting the square root
of a non-square number.

Aryabhatta, born in 476 A.D., in Pataliputra was one of the greatest scientists that
India had produced. He was the first to treat Mathematics as a distinct subject and
his work Aryabhatiyam dealt with evolution and involution, area and volume,
progression and algebraic identities and indeterminate equations of the first
degree. In the realm of Geometry, the work describes several properties of the
circle, discusses questions connected with projective geometry and give a value for
pai, far accurate than any suggested till then. That Trigonometry was also being
cultivated at this time will become clear from the use of the sine functions made for
solving the problems of astronomy. In the realm of Astronomy, Aryabhatta’s work
Surya Siddhanta examines and explains the true causes of the solar and lunar
eclipses. He was the first to hold the view that eclipses were caused by the shadow
of the earth falling on the moon. His calculation of the size of the earth is very near
that figure which is estimated by modern astronomers. He was the first Indian
astronomer t discover and declared that the earth rotates round its axis and he was
the first to discover sine functions and utilize them in astronomy.

Another famous astronomer and mathematician of ancient India was Brahmagupta.

Long before Newton, he declared the Law of Gravity. His works Brahmasiddhanta,
Khandakhadya and Dhyanagraha covers arithmetical operations, squares and
cube roots, rule of three interest, progressions, geometry, including treatment of
the rational right angled triangle and the elements of the circle, elementary
mensuration of solids, shadow problems, negative and positive quantities, ciphers,
surds, etc.

Varahamihira who flourished in the close of 5th century A.D. was another famous
astronomer and mathematician. His work Brihatsamhita is an encyclopedia of
useful information in several branches of knowledge such as astronomy, physical
geography, botany, architecture, sculpture, movements of heavenly bodies and
their effect upon men, etc. Historians will remain ever grateful to him for his
Panchasiddhantika, which gives a concise account of the five Siddhantas i.e.,
astronomical works viz., Paitamaha, Romaka, Paulisa, Vasishta and Surya, that
were in use in India during the 3rd and 4th century A.D.

Around the beginning of the 9th century, there lived in Baghdad a great Arab
mathematician named Muhammad ibn Musa al Khwarizm who in a celebrated
treatise entitled Kitabal Djabrwal Mukabala (Book of Algebra), used the Indian
decimal system with full knowledge of its origin and acknowledging it. Around 12th
century A.D., the book was translated into Latin by Rudolph Chester and Gerard de

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Crename and circulated throughout Western Europe. The Arabs called Logarithm,
Hindisat, which means the Indian art. It is interesting to note that although Arabic
script is written from right to left, its numbers are always written from left to right as
they are in Indian texts and inscriptions.

By S.Srinivas | Posted in essays | Comments (0)

RANA PRATAP AND THE HOUSE OF MEWAR PART-VII

September 8, 2008 – 4:22 am

Raj Singh’s romantic feat

After the occupation of Jodhpur by the Mughals, Aurangzeb demanded the hand of
the princess of Kishengarh, a feudatory of the Marwar house. The young lady was
famed for her beauty and accomplishment throughout Rajputana. Along with the
demand, compliance with which was regarded as certain, a cortege of 2000 horse
to escort the fair lady to court. The Rajputani rejected with disdain the proffered
alliance, and entrusted her cause to the arm of the chief of the Rajput race, offering
herself as the reward for protection. The family priest, her preceptor, deemed his
office honoured by being chosen the messenger of her wishes, and the letter he
carried is incorporated in the annals of Mewar. “Is the Swan to be the mate of the
stork? A Rajputani, pure in blood to be the wife to the monkey faced barbarian?”
So wrote the princess, concluding with a threat of self-destruction if not saved from
dishonour. The Rana with a chosen band rapidly appeared before Kishengarh, cut
up the imperial guards, and bore off the prize to his capital.

Raj Singh correctly realized that Aurangzeb’s real intention was to blot out the
Rajput states from existence took up the cause of Ajit Singh of Marwar and
prepared to offer a tough resistance to the Mughals. But Aurangzeb forestalled the
Maharana’a designs and sent 7,000 chosen troops under Hasan Ali Khan to invade
Mewar. The Maharana thereupon retired to the hills, abandoning his capital at
Udaipur. Hasan Ali Khan occupied Chittor and Udaipur and demolished the
temples there. He pursued Raj Singh and defeated him on 1st February, 1680.
Aurangzeb now returned to Ajmer leaving prince Akbar in charge of Chittor. Raj
Singh then raided the Mughal outposts and cut off their supplies and later defeated
Akbar at Bednor. Aurangzeb then planned another invasion of Mewar and sent
three armies from three different directions under his sons Muazzam, Azam and
Akbar. The first two generals failed to force their entry into the heart of Mewar while
Akbar after failing in his attempt to drive Raj Singh, realized the futility of his
father’s reactionary policy and entered into negotiations with the Rajputs on
January 11, 1680. He rebelled against his father and with the assistance of the
Rathors and Sisodias proclaimed himself emperor of India. It was agreed that the
Sisodias and Rathors would place their forces at the disposal of the prince who
would celebrate his accession and proceed against his father. But Raj Singh’s
death on November 1st, 1680 and the accession of his son Jai Singh delayed the
project of an attack on Aurangzeb. Later during the reign of Maharana Jai Singh,
the proposed project to attack Aurangzeb failed due to the fraud played by the
emperor and Akbar had to sought refuge in the court of Shambhuji, son of Shivaji.
Aurangzeb now decided to patch up a peace with Jai Singh in order to proceed to
the Deccan to put down Akbar’s pretensions to the sovereignty of India, before the
latter could secure the assistance of the Maratha king and endanger the peace of
the empire. Maharana Jai Singh whose dominion was threatened by the imperial
force was equally anxious to settle matters with the emperor. Accordingly a treaty
was concluded between the two on 24th June 1681. The Rana ceded the
paraganas of Madal, Pur and Bednor in lieu of the jaziya imposed on him. The
emperor appointed the Maharana to the mansab of 5000 and confirmed him in his
territory with the title “Rana”.

Rana Amar Singh II

It was during the reign of Rana Amar Singh II, who ruled from 1700 to 1716 that
the ruler of Marwar, Ajit Singh and the prince of Amber formed a triple league with
Mewar against the Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah. This treaty of unity of interests
against the common foe was confirmed by nuptial alliances, which had not taken

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place since the days of Pratap. In fact, to be readmitted to this honour with the
Sisodias was one of the main considerations, which led the princes of Marwar and
Amber to join the league. These princes held a prolonged conference on the
border of the Puskar lake and after full deliberation proclaimed a solemn concerted
policy- that they would not thenceforth give their daughters in marriage to Muslims
and if any prince acted contrary to this resolution, the others should join and put
down the deserter by force if necessary. The declaration went further. The Ranas
of Udaipur were acknowledged to be of purer blood having all along refused to give
their daughters in marriage to Muslims; so the Puskar conference laid down that if
any Rajput prince had any issue from a daughter of the Udaipur family, that issue
should be given preference over those born from other wives in choosing the
successor to the vacant throne. This in the long run led to wars of succession and
the umpire who was called upon to settle the disputes, which ensued there from,
proved more baneful than the power from whose grasp they were endeavouring to
free themselves. The treaty laid prostrate the throne of Babur, but it ultimately
introduced the Marathas as partisans in the family disputes, who, in all such cases,
made the bone on contention their own.

Mewar under British protectorate

Accession of weak rulers and the invitation given to the Marathas to arbitrate in
their internal strife led to the weakening of the house of the Sisodias. The Marathas
not only alienated fertile revenue yielding territory of the state but also levied war
contributions that exhausted Mewar financially. After the defeat of the Marathas in
the third Anglo-Maratha war, Mewar along with other states in Rajasthan passed
under the protecting arm of Great Britain. In January 1818, Rana Bhim Singh
entered into a treaty with the East India Company represented by Charles
Theophilus Metcalf by which Udaipur agreed to pay one-fourth of the revenue of
the state annually to the British government as tribute for five years; and after that
term three-eights in perpetuity.

It is a pity that the so called votaries of Shivaji’s legacy and idealism were
responsible for the decline of the fortunes of the family of Rana Pratap, who in fact
was the source of inspiration for Shivaji in his fight against the Mughals. But more
regrettable is the fact that today, while history curriculum in various Indian
Universities, discuss and even eulogies the role of barbaric invaders of medieval
times, the part played by the family of Sisodias in defending the national honour
has been belittled and neglected.(Concluded)

By S.Srinivas | Posted in essays | Comments (0)

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