In 1999, I read the Tamil historical novel Sivakaamiyin Sabatham. Set in the seventh century, the novel tells of the siege of Kanchipuram, the capital of the Pallavas, by their rivals, the Chalukyas. It is still one of the most popular books in Tamilnadu, seventy years after its first publication. At one point in the story, Aayanar, an artist and sculptor tells the Pallava king Mahendra Varma, that his deepest desire is to know the secret technology of Ajanta paintings, which have lasted a thousand years without fading. The paintings of Ajanta are still there, a thousand years after the Pallavas and Chalukyas disappeared.
In Kanchipuram, the Kailasanatha temple
built by Mahendra Varma’s great grandson Rajasimha Pallava in the eighth
century, has paintings in the Ajanta style, which have sustained damage but
what remains hasn’t faded. The contemporary Pandyas built a Jain cave temple of
Sittannavasal, which has equally remarkable paintings.
A
heritage of science and technology
These struck a severely discordant note.
How many advertisements do we see on television for the latest paints that last
twenty years? Enamel paints manaufactured in large chemical plants, based on
the very latest technology brought to life by the most brilliant chemical
engineers of the last century. Their great selling point is that they last
twenty years – one hundredth of the two thousand years that Ajanta paintings
have lasted, in primitive caves, sculpted by hammer and chisel.
What other remarkable scientific and
technological achievements of ancient Indians was I missing?
By sheer coincidence, I happened to attend
a series of lectures about the “Oral
Traditions of the Sanskrit” language, by Prof Swaminathan, a retired IIT
Delhi professor of mechanical engineering. He explained the Siva sutras (also called Maheshvara
sutras) and how Panini used them to write extremely compact rules of grammar
for Sanskrit. The Siva Sutras and Panini’s sutras reminded me starkly of the
Backus-Naur notation, that every computer science or engineering student learns
in college. But, wait! What was Panini doing, composing Sanskrit grammar in
Backus-Naur notation?
Why is Panini never mentioned in any
computer science course? Why is not a single discovery of Baudhayana, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta or
Bhaskara ever taught in a mathematics or engineering course? In any school or
college? Seventy years after independence, you can hardly blame British colonialism.
The ignorance is not merely about Indian
science, it is about all non European science and technology, in general.
Sumeria, Egypt, China, MesoAmerica (Olmecs-Mayans-Aztecs), Persia, all ancient
civilizations are totally ignored, and we get an entirely European perspective
of all science and technology.
English is the language of science, we are
told, though most of the scientific vocabulary is in Greek or Latin. The very
names of the sciences Physics, Biology, Zoology, Geology, Astronomy come from
Greek. Chemistry, is an exception, adapted from the Arabic word AlChimia (or Alchemy). The different fields of mathematics, Geometry,
Trigonometry, Arithmetic have Greek origins. But Algebra comes from an Arabic
word; Calculus from a Latin word. Newton wrote his most famous physics book, “Principa Mathematica de Naturalis” in
Latin, not English. When Antoine Lavoisier coined new words for the modern
chemistry he discovered, he did not use French; he chose Greek and Latin.
English words like soda and pot ash, were Latinized into Sodium and Potassium.
A
mathematical vocabulary
Did the Sumerians, Chinese, or ancient
Indians use Latin or Greek? Or even need them? Obviously not. It was when I
started reading the Aryabhateeyam in
its original Sanskrit (with English translation assisting), that I realized
what a rich vocabulary we are ignorant of.
Do you recognize the following words:
vishkambha, parinaaha, kakshya, vishuvat, karna, jyaa?
How about these words : diameter,
circumference, orbit, equator, hypotenuse, sine?
Here’s the stunnner. The first row of
Sanskrit words have the exact same meaning as the second row of English words.
समपरिणाहस्यार्ध विष्कम्भार्धहतमेव वृत्तफलम् ।
Transliteration sama pariNaahasya ardha vishkamba ardha hatameva vrtta phalam
Let me explain this Sanskrit statement,
word by word:
Sama – equal
Parinaaha – diameter
Ardha – half
Vishkambha – circumference
Hatam – multiply
Eva – exactly
Vrtta – circle
Phalam – result
Literarlly “Equal diameter-half circumference-half mutliply-exactly circle’s-result”
Rephrased grammatically in English : “A circle’s area equals half the diameter multiplied by half the circumference”.
This was stated in Sanskrit by none other
than Aryabhata. It is the seventh sloka in his Aryabhateeyam.
Let me propose two quick quizzes: there are
two lists of names side by side, one European, the other Indian. Just write
down what they invented or discovered, as a self-test.
You can the internet to verify your answers. But did you get all answers correctly in the first list? How did you fare with the second list? Did you even recognize all the names? (Confession: I didn’t know three of them ten years ago). If you guessed that Aryabhata invented zero or discovered gravity or the heliocentric theory, give yourself negative marks. He didn’t.
But the people on the second list had one
things in common. They all used Sanskrit as the language of science. Why
Sanskrit? Sanskrit was not only the language of religion, and literature, it
was also the language of several sciences, law, justice, administration,
economics, rhetoric, logic, and several arts, namely music, dance, painting,
sculpure, architecture etc. It served the same function in India and countries
to the east of India, that Latin first in the Roman empire, then in Europe
until perhaps the twentieth century; what Mandarin did in China from Confucian
times upto perhaps today; what Arabic did in the realms of Islam. It was the
link language of a cultural continent, across several kingdoms over the span of
several centuries, even millennia.
Consider these somewhat famous books.
I have provided only one example in each field. In reality, each field has several books, written by scholars from various regions or cities, across several centuries. We never hear of them, because over time, Sanskrit has become more alien in India than Greek or Latin.
Now consider that quiz, again. Why is that
ignorance of the inventions or discoveries of Europeans considered scientific
illiteracy, but ignorance of the inventions of discoveries of Indians
considered normal? It may be tempting to Islamic desturction or European
colonialism. But I don’t think that is an acceptable excuse, seventy years
after Independence.
When most Indians, hear Sanskrit or hear of
it, we only hear of it as the language of the Vedas, or at best the language of
beautfiul poetry as in Kalidasa or Jayadeva. One popular understanding is that
it is a dead language, steeped in the superstition of religion. The only people
talking in public about anything Sanskrit are people quoting philosophy; once
in a blue moon, perhaps a musician or a dancer. Or, a chorus chanting Sanskrit
mantras as background music in a Star Wars movie.
Buddhist
and Jain Sanskrit literature
Sanskrit was not the only language in which
science was written, in ancient and medieval India. The Jains and Buddhists
wrote books on some sciences in several Prakrits, primarily Ardha Magadhi and
Pali. They believed that Sanskrit was the language of the elite, and to reach
the common man, the local languages should be used. But this soon led to severe
fragmentation of literature. The Kushana king Kanishka convened a Buddhist Sangha
in Kashmir, at which scholars began to translate several Buddhist canonical
texts from Pali to Sanskrit. From then on, several original works, including on
mathematics, were composed in Sanskrit also. Similarly, Jains composed Sanskrit
works from the fifth century onwards, after the Valabhi Sangham. The first
Sanskrit book where mathematics is the primary subject, not a chapter in an
astronomy book, is Ganita Sara Sangraha,
composed by the 9th century Jain mathematician Mahavira. A few
stanzas of his first chapter, beautifully outline the use and power of
mathematics. It should be declared the Mathematics Anthem, and printed on the
first page of ever math text book. I suspect Finland or Cambodia will do it,
and then India will rush to follow. Here it is, with my translation:
लौकिके
वैदिके वापि तथा सामायिकेऽपि य: |
व्यापारस्तत्र सर्वत्र संख्यानमुपयुज्यते
|| ९
कामतन्त्रेऽर्थतन्त्रे च
गान्धर्वे नाटकेऽपि वा|
सूपशास्त्रे तथा वैद्ये
वास्तुविद्यादिवस्तुषु || १०
छन्दोऽलङ्कारकाव्येषु
तर्कव्याकरणादिषु |
कलागुणेषु सर्वेषु प्रस्तुतं
गणितं परम् || ११
Translation
In worldly life, in Vedic learning, in religious practice,
In business, in everything, Mathematics is useful.
In romance, economics, in music dance and drama,
In cooking, medicine and in architecture,
In prosody, poetry, logic and grammar,
In all the arts, Mathematics reigns supreme.
The libraires of Alexandria and Nalanda may
have been destroyed by iconoclastic invaders, but the library of all Sanskrit
knowledge is vandalized every day, by our collective ignorance and negligence.
That is ridiculous. We can change that.
References
- 1. Facets of Indian Astronomy, KV Sarma, 1975
- 2. The Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata, Walter Eugene Clark, 1930
- 3. Mahavira's Ganita Saara Sangraha, Prof Rangacharya, Univ of Madras, 1912
__________
This was the first of a series of essays published in Swarajya magazine online
Related Links
My blogs on Astronomy and Mathematics
Shilpam Science Sundaram - TEDx lecture at Saveetha Eco Pupil school
