India — The Land of Prolific Creativity
Since time immemorial the land of India has been the loving land of the gods. All avatāras, vibhūti, seers and sages take birth here time and again. The history of India is abundant with the stories of such personalities. This has been a blessed land where one chooses to be born again and again.
“Far better it is to have a few moments of life in Bhārata than several ages of life in these celestial regions; in that sacred land, heroic and high spirited ones can achieve in a moment the state of fearlessness in the Divine by renouncing in Him all actions done by their perishable bodies.”
कल्पायुषां स्थानजयात्पुनर्भवात्क्षणायुषां भारतभूजयो वरम्।
क्षणेन मर्त्येन कृतं मनस्विनः सन्न्यस्य संयान्त्यभयं पदं हरेः॥
kalpāyuṣāṃ sthānajayātpunarbhavātkṣaṇāyuṣāṃ bhāratabhūjayo varam.
kṣaṇena martyena kṛtaṃ manasvinaḥ sannyasya saṃyāntyabhayaṃ padaṃ hareḥ.. (Bhāgavata Purāna, 5.19.21–23)
Indeed, this is the land which has been the land of the seekers of the Truth, Light and Wisdom; a land in which a dynamic spirituality holds the key to everything pertaining to life and the world. This dynamic spirituality has given much strength to the race that has been able to sustain its creative energy for time immemorial and has been able to contribute positively towards the progressive evolution of humanity. India in this sense is not just a loving land of Gods but a land of immense creativity.
The seers and sages of the ancient India had an immense scientific temperament. The quest was to find out the truth of everything, but their method was very different from ways and methods of modern day science. They did not view science as test tube culture alone but applied it to every aspects of life. They held a holistic view of everything. They did not treat mathematics and poetry as two unrelated topics. This integrated vision of the seers and sages could create such a great foundation that not only enriched the life but also gave strength to sustain the creative energy uninterruptedly.
“For three thousand years at least, — it is indeed much longer, — she has been creating abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with an inexhaustible many-sidedness, republics and kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cosmogonies and sciences and creeds and arts and poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and temples and public works, communities and societies and religious orders, laws and codes and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences, systems of Yoga, systems of politics and administration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades, industries, fine crafts, — the list is endless and in each item there is almost a plethora of activity. She creates and creates and is not satisfied and is not tired…”
This is what Sri Aurobindo writes about the prolific creativity of our country in his book “The Renaissance in India”.
There has been no branch of human knowledge in which India has not contributed. Most of the discoveries for which we give the credit to the European Scientists were well known to ancient Indian sages.
They had knowledge of architecture that allowed them to design cities with well-organized layouts. They built roads with exact widths, drains with proper slopes, granaries with good ventilation, and baths with precise angles. They also made platforms to protect against floods.
Some of the notable ancient writings on Architecture include: Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira (6th century), Samarangana Sutradhara of King Bhoja (11th century), Manushyalaya Chandrika of Thirumangalath Neelakanthan Musath (16th century), Mayamata (11th century), Silparatna of Srikumar (16th century), Aparjita-Prccha of Bhuvanadavacharya, Agastya-Sakalahikara of Agastya, Manasara Shilpa Shastra of Manasara.
The science of Medicine was well advanced compared to the system of medicine that existed in the other parts of the globe during the time when there lived Acharya Sushruta (Sushruta Samhita, between 6th — 12th century BCE), Acharya Charaka (Charaka Samhita, between 6th — 12th century BCE) and Acharya Vagbhata (Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā, 6th Century CE). Sage Divodasa Dhanwantari developed the school of surgery. Rishi Kashyap (Kashyapa Samhita, 6th Century BCE) developed the specialized fields of pediatrics and gynecology. Sage Atreya (Bhelasamhita of Bhela was one of the students of Atreya) classified the principles of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, embryology, blood circulation and much more. Achary Sushruta is known as the “Father of surgery”. Even modern science recognizes India as the first country to develop and use rhinoplasty (developed by Sushruta). Sushruta worked with 125 kinds of surgical instruments, which included scalpels, lancets, needles, catheters, rectal speculums, mostly conceived from jaws of animals and birds to obtain the necessary grips. He also defined various methods of stitching: the use of horse’s hair, fine thread, fibres of bark, goat’s guts and ant’s heads.
The way plants were identified and classified, shows the immense scientific temperament of the ancient seers and sages. They not only made a scientific and systematic classification of the plants but could discover the exact properties of hundreds of plants without any sophisticated lab tools.
In ancient India, there was a science of metallurgy that produced incredible results. With this knowledge, people in the past could make tiny steatite beads, so small that 300 of them would weigh just one gram. These beads were used to decorate beautiful necklaces. Rasaratnakara of Nagarjuna (2nd century CE), Rasarnava (12th Century CE), Rasaratnasamuccaya (13th to 14th Century CE), Rasendra Sara Samgraha (9th Century CE) are some of the important works in which one finds the science of Metallurgy.
The credit of discovery of aviation technology goes to Bharadwaja. His Yantra Sarvasva covers astonishing discoveries in aviation and space sciences, and flying machines.
Sage Kanada (circa 600 BCE) is recognized as the founder of atomic theory who classified all the objects of creation into nine elements (earth, water, light or fire, wind, ether, time, space, mind and soul). He stated that every object in creation is made of atoms that in turn connect with each other to form molecules.
In the field of chemistry alchemical metals were developed for medicinal uses by sage Nagarjuna. His book Rasa Ratnakara is a fine specimen of India’s contribution to Chemistry. The knowledge of baking of the earth for changing the soft mud to hard clay and then painting the clay with colors to make beautiful pots etc. was very well-known to the people of India.
In the field of Astronomy and Astrology India was in a very advanced position. It was possible for the ancient Indian seers and sages to measure the sky at angles of 30 degrees and the position of stars as they lay randomly scattered in depthless vistas. Indians were the first in the world to have done this and the Greeks arrived only 2000 years later.
Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata (5th to 6th Century CE), Panchasiddhantika, Brihat-Samhita, Brihat-Jataka and Laghu Jataka of Varahamihira (6th Century CE),Brahmasphutasiddhanta of Brahmagupta (6th to 7th Century CE) are some of the notable texts on Astronomy and Astrology.
The list of the discoveries by the ancient Indian seers and sages is truly long. There has been no branch of science in which India has not made its own contribution. One can keep exploring the immense treasures available in the vast gamut of Sanskrit literature, many published, and a lot yet to see the light of the day.
The need of the time is to awaken to the spirit of India and develop a deep sense of Love for our Motherland, a thirst for the knowledge of her past glories, a burning aspiration to serve her, this is all that we need to do for our country.
But at the same time one must remember that we are not expected to make a return to the past, but to take the glories of the past and map it to the present condition with the aim of creating a bright future. Our aim must be the future and past is the foundation and present is the material.
In conclusion I present here a wonderful passage from the writings of Sri Aurobindo:
“Not only was India in the first rank in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, surgery, all the branches of physical knowledge which were practised in ancient times, but she was, along with the Greeks, the teacher of the Arabs from whom Europe recovered the lost habit of scientific enquiry and got the basis from which modern science started. In many directions India had the priority of discovery, — to take only two striking examples among a multitude, the decimal notation in mathematics or the perception that the earth is a moving body in Astronomy, — calaa prithvi sthiraa bhaati, the earth moves and only appears to be still, said the Indian astronomer many centuries before Galileo. This great development would hardly have been possible in a nation whose thinkers and men of learning were led by its metaphysical tendencies to turn away from the study of nature. A remarkable feature of the Indian mind was a close attention to the things of life, a disposition to observe minutely its salient facts, to systematise and to found in each department of it a science, Shastra, well-founded scheme and rule. That is at least a good beginning of the scientific tendency and not the sign of a culture capable only of unsubstantial metaphysics.” (Sri Aurobindo, CWSA,Vol.20, pp. 123–124)
-Sampadananda Mishra
