Seven Wonders of the Ancient Mind
Such lists are subjective, and mine is no exception. I had to leave out many obviously impressive ideas, such as airplanes, space travel, weapons that can destroy the world, embryo transplantation, multiple babies from the same embryo, space travel, and so on — from just the Mahabharata and the Puranas. (Lest I be misunderstood, we are not speaking of real planes, bombs, and biotechnology, but rather of the conception of their possibility.)
The ideas that I chose are perhaps more fundamental than those above that I left out. Ultimately, I used the criterion of not just originality, but continuing relevance and sheer improbability of the thought of it in the ancient world.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
A very nice article, which brings out various aspects very cogently and convincingly.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
There is no dispute about the greatness of our forefathers. But we live today in the present. And we live in the shadow of the modern science. Apparently we did not make further progress because of some brakes put by the Smritis on travel and other social exchanges needed for exchange of ideas and progress.
The tone of such writing reminds me of the poor descendents of rich Lucknow Nabobs who queue up in style just to collect their part of the annual heritage money even of fraction of a rupee.
Let us live in the present and work for the future not forgetting the history.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
SuB:NEED for Research and Protect IPRS
This is an appeal to all Indians- Intellectuals and best of the talents are needed for Cosmology -Vedas- Universe-Cosmos interpretation for Scientific Pursuit of Knowledge and Project a better Image for India.GET Organised or piecemeal inputs will not help in the right direction.
For example -we are in 28th Chaturyuga out of 72.Twenty-seven chaturyugas have already passed.
Keep that as arecord get IPRS for Time-phase relation on the galactic plane.
Like this, there are many aspects that can help project Cosmology from India with a better image.
Why not some one work out Sree Rama- Treta Yuga as well.
Dwapara yuga appears to be around 10,600 Years.
Indians are not projecting proper information. Outsiders dig in and request for clarifications. So also many Nobel Laureates are inquisitive about Cosmology projetions. On my own , I have about 11 books Copyrights-USA and can we take Knowledge forward.
Many thanks for his website for interaction
Vidyardhi Nanduri
Cosmology World Peace
March 7th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Shirvaikar is a typical self hating moron, just because today there is poverty does not mean that you can’t talk about your past achievements, they are there to inspire one to get back on their feet. Just because until Mazzini and Garibaldi the Italians were disunited or ruled by others did not mean they didn’t talk about their past exploits and take pride in the Roman empire, today they are a developed nation.
And he needs to stop pulling fancy theories out of his ass, the reality was that after Islamic invasions seats of learning like Nalanda were destroyed, so you see no real progress in places under Muslim rule because for a conquered population in poverty solving algebraic equations is the farthest thing from their mind. But areas where there was no Muslim rule still saw achievements, please look up the Kerala school of mathematics (this was as late as 16th century).
Also in practical life no king ever based his entire rule on the smritis, for a start look up the Chola empire at it’s zenith and think about how that was possible if they did not travel, also how did Bali become Hindu if Hindus were just sitting there following some obscure smritis ban on travel.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hats Off!! to Sh. Subash Kak, this is what I can say at this moment. We have to manifest these in each and every day of our life. Hail!! these kind of writings come with evidence also. Jai Hind.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Mr Kadimipuli Porumannana is a learned well-read person as i see from his other comments elsewhere. i wish his language was also becoming to his learning. But that is a different matter.
As I said there is no doubt our rishis were great thinkers. when we take the progress done by them in an age when there was no technology it is astounding how they deduced so many things. We can roughly classify their achievements under different headings:
Philosophy: The six Darshanas are a tribute to the logical capacity of brain. Only Kant could reach their level somewhat in twentieth century.
Ayurveda: It is still a challenge to allopathy today.
Astronomy: It was done without instruments and should be commended. If only some of them had invented telescope and microscope things would have been different today.
physics and chemistry; this is were we took a beating because of lack of experimentation and suppost of mathematical analysis. On the other hand Indians have a natural knack for these as can be seen from the fact the high scoring students in US are prominently of indian origin even at school level.
Therefore the question still arises: Why we did not make prgress? Muslim rule came very late. We had all the time in the world to make progress. Our culture went to far east but they also did not make much material progress.
Perhaps schoilars like Prof Kak can start a debate on this.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Certainty is a narcotic. Tapasya is a firmness in knowledge, a rigor in posture, a heat of asceticism.
Uncertainty is disequilibrium.
When the western enlightenment happened, the european thinkers were confronted by modes of thought and analysis they had never been exposed to. This was from India, China, and the Americas. The renaissance had already pushed the church’s monothink into disarray with a revitalization of Greco-Roman civilizational ideals. Thus when the western monothink mind ran into the profound teachings of the rest of the world, there was disequilibrium and a need for synthesis of knowledge. This prompted the rise of empiricism, the scientific age, and eventually statistical reasoning. The last is the tool of a profound change in understanding phenomenon.
In India (and China, Japan…) the conditions did not allow such a disequilibrium. The state in China and Japan monopolized power and knowledge. This reduced innovation. In India, as it is with the rest of the modern muslim world, the monothink tradition of islam prevented the society from modernity. There has been no rejection of islamic monothink, the hindus were fighting for survival, the intellectuals were being ethnically cleansed, the funds for research were in the hands of the monothinkers…The only thinking that could occur was that which supported the islamic state - power, art peices, and wealth increased but there was a cultural stagnation. Only with greater exposure to the west did the islamic architecture and arts begin to evolve.
Once freed of the yoke of medeival islam and colonialism, on fair grounds, the hindu intellect is arising and contributing fast and hard to the world. Note how little of this can happen in the islamic world and how in China it is state controlled, not individual.
hariaum
March 20th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
One also has to realize that the western world advanced only over the last 200 years. Even with the intellectual advances of existentialism, libertarianism, and Rawlsian / Wolfian egalitarianism - only after a series of genocidal wars, slavery, racism… that, sort of, stopped 30 years ago did we come to this stage. We shouldn’t give them too much credit for being “civilized.” Humanity has a way to go to become human.
hariaum
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 am
Dear Dr Shirvaikar…
You are right that we should live in the present. But why shouldn’t our present generation be taught about great achievement of our forefathers and mothers in a logical coherent way, to bring about a sense of pride and purpose? The fact is that most Indians and Hindus around the world are not taught about such things. Every other civilisation promotes their roots. Take the example of the Greeks, Romans, Chinese etc. Schools in Europe and China teach the achievements of their respective civilisations in all fields of achievement so as to create a sense of civilisational continuity and identity. You shouldn’t stop Hindus trying to do the same with calls of “we should live in the present”.
Peace out.
Raju
March 24th, 2008 at 5:51 am
A civilization is based on the actions of thousands upon thousands of people over hundreds if not thousands of years.
People, communities, and ideas do not exist in a vaccuum but are the result of something which existed before them, changing and morphing to fit the needs of the people. In the same way, to understand why India is the way it is today or why Indians live outside of India (voluntarily or involuntarily) you have to understand the choices made by your ancestors. This is a part of every person who belongs to that civilization.
Pakistanis are currently facing a crisis of identity primarily because they do not have one. Pakistani schools teach the idea of “Eternal Pakistan” but it simply doesn’t exist and I assume many Pakistanis feel it in the back of their heads.
Without a historical bedrock (and we’re talking on a macro- level, not micro), a country doesn’t understand what it wants, what it should, etc. Just look at India and the current political leadership to understand what this means!
March 27th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Dear MR Raju
Living in the present does not mean forgert the past. What I wish to stress is we must learn from history and ask ourselves why our progress stopped instead of being satisfied with the glorious past. That is detrimental to progress. At the same time we need not feel inferior because the western progress started only after the stranglehoold of church was loosened by the protestant movement of Martin Luther. In our case that stranglehold was loosened by the British Rule who educated Indians to get clerks but ended up having modern intellectuals. Regards.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Hindus from all over the world should admire and thank Dr. Kak for his excellent research of true history of India and Hindu religion. He certainly has made us proud.
My complaint still is that our good scholars and leaders fail to point out openly our knowledge about cosmology, creation and God as part of Hinduism and let Western scholars refer to it as ‘ancient’ times, ancient knowledge, ancient systems, etc. Before these man made Abrahamic religions Vedic Hinduism, without question, was the only formulated and well structured religion in the world. We should not be shy to insist on these sciences being part of Hinduism.
As I read more and more about Hinduism it gives me a feel of being a ‘whole human person’ as our creator intended. No other species can claim the same. It is also interesting that Hindu scriptures give us this vast knowledge about Its creation in fours, e.g. the scriptures tell us there are four Suns in the Universe with individual solar systems, Earth’s life itself in four phases (kruta, dwapara, treyta, kali), four Vedas (Rigveda, Yajurveda, Athervaveda, Samaveda), process of uniting with God in four Yogas (Bhakti, Dhyana, Gyana, Karma), human tendencies in four Varnas (Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra), four cardinal points of Earth, four seasons on Earth, etc, etc. Sciences like Astrology, Ayurveda, Physical Yogas, I believe are part of our Hindu religion, the mother of all religions.
Now is the time all Hindus understand the nature of their religion and confidently convey to those who have taken to other religions, especially Abrahamic religions. My experience shows that whenever I have explained Hinduism in the manner above to educated British Christians they have immediately felt and shown respect and reverence to Hindu deities. Some have admitted mediocrity of their religion. The beauty they found in Hinduism was there was no politics involved and so beneficial to human race on Earth.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 pm
What is most important is that because Hinduism is not man made or prophet made it is not doctrinal and dogmatic. Our religion is more spiritual and all our life attaches us to our creator. The life of individual is also in four phases that leads to more fulfilling and progressive life. These phases are a. childhood, b. studenthood, c married life, and finally d. old age. Since our birth first ten years are childhood and after moonj at 10th birthday (initiation) comes ten years of studenthood, then comes married life (sansaar) when married coulples are ready to procreate for God (gruhasthashram) and after the age of say 70 comes the old age (vanaprasthashram), preparing us to die happily. The scritures also ask us to make an effort to live 100 years (shatayushya), meditation and yogas are designed for this purpose. So it is a complete life as intended.
My advice to the youngsters would be understand the above spiritual life with responsibility and live by it and your life will be smooth and happy. Can you imagine how good our Hindu society will be if this spiritual process is explained by the parents to their children from their 7th or 8th birthday?