Hinduism and Language :

Sanskrit - The mother of Languages :

The Sanskrit language is the oldest, most systematic language that has survived the longest period through history. It has the power of expressing all types of thought in their appropriate terminology from mythology to literature, science to philosophy, poetry to prosody, astronomy to anatomy, as well as genetics, mathematics and cosmology.

Richness of Sanskrit :

An amazing wealth of words and synonyms gives a great versatility to expression power. With 65 words for Earth and 70 words for water (each word being originally Sanskrit, not derived from any other language), the language is vast.

According to the world re-known technology and finance magazine 'Forbes' , after a study of languages of the world and their suitability as a computer language :

" Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software. " July 1987.

Hinduism and Education :

Worlds first university :

Around 2,700 years ago, there existed a giant university called Takshashila located in the north west region of India. Not only Indians, but students from as far away as Babylon, Greece, Syria, Arabia and China cam to study. 68 streams of knowledge were on the syllabus. A wide range of subjects were taught by experienced masters, e.g. Vedas, language, grammar, philosophy, medicine, surgery, archery, politics, warfare, astronomy, astrology, accounts, commerce, futurology, documentation, occult, music, dance and the art of discovering hidden treasures etc. The minimum entrance was 16 and there was 10,500 students. The panel of masters, included renowned names such as Kautilya, Panini, Jivak and Vishnu Sharma.

Hinduism and Mathematics :

Zero - The most powerful tool :

India invented the Zero. Without the zero there would be no binary system and no computers. Counting would be clumsy and cumbersome. The earliest recorded example, an inscription of zero on Sankedha copper plate, was found in Gujarat, India, 585 CE. In Branma - Phuta -Siddhanta of Brahmagupta (7th Century CE), the zero is lucidly explained and was rendered into Arabic books at around 770 CE. From these it was carried into Europe in the 8th century. However the concept of zero is clearly reffered to as a Shunya in the early Sanskrit text of the 4th century BCE and clearly explained in the Pingala's Chandh Suta of the 2nd Century.

To write the distance between the earth and the sun the Romans would have to write M8 many times. In the indian sytem, it is written as 93,000,000 miles.

The decimal system - flourished in india (100 BCE)

"It was India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of 10 symbols (decimal system) … a profound and important idea which escaped the genius of Archimeded and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity" Laplace

The highest prefix used in today's maths for raising 10 to a power is 'D' - 1030 (from Greek 'Decca'). As early as 100 BCE, Indian mathematics had exact names for figures upto 1053.

In Anuyogadwar Sutra written in 100 BCE, one numeral is raised as high as 10140.

Hinduism and Geometry.:

INVENTION OF GEOMETRY

The word 'Geometry' seems to have emerged from the Indian word 'Gyaamiti', which means measuring the Earth. The work 'Trigonometry' is similar to the word 'Trikonmiti', meaning measuring triangular forms.

Euclid is credited with the invention of Geometry in 300 BCE while the concept of Geometry in India, emerged in 1000 BCE from the practice of making fire altars in square and rectangular shapes. The treatise of 'Surya Siddhanta' (4th Century CE) described amazing details of trigonometry which were introduced to Europe 1200 years later, in the 16th Century, by Briggs.

THE VALUE OF PI (II) IN INDIA

The ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is known as Pi, which gives its value as 3.14592657932. The old Sanskrit text Baudhayana Shulba Sutra of the 6th Century BCE mentions this ratio as approximately equal to 3.

Aryabhatta in 499 BCE worked out the value of Pi to the 4th decimal place, as 3(177/1250) = 3.1416. Centuries later, in 825 CE, the Arab mathematician, Mohammed Ibna Musa, said that "this value 62832/20000 has been given by the Hindus (Indians)".

THE PYTHAGORAS THEOREM OR THE BAUDHAYANA THEOREM?

The so-called Pythagoras Theorem 9 - the square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides - which was worked out earlier by the Indian Mathematician, Baudhayana, in Baudhayana Shulba Sutra, a treatise dating back to the 6th Century BCE. He describes it as "the area produced by the diagonal of a rectangle is equal to the sum of the area produced by it on two sides".

9 The theorem was enunciated by Euclid but attributed to Pythagoras by Greek writers.

Astronomy in Hinduism

MEASUREMENT OF TIME

In Surya Siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya calculates the time taken for the Earth to orbit the sun to 9 decimal places (355.258756484 days). The modern accepted measurement is 365.2596 days.

Between Bhaskaracharya's ancient measurement, 1500 years ago and the modern measurement, the difference is only 0.00085 days (0.0002%).

India has given the world the idea of the smallest and the largest measure of time.

FROM 34,OOOTH OF A SECOND TO 4.32 BILLION YEARS.

Krati	34,000th of a second
Truti	300th of a second
2 Truti	1 Luv
Luv	1 Kshana
30 Kshana	1 Vipal
60 Vipal	1 Pal
60 Pal	1 Ghadi (24 minutes)
2.5 Ghadi	1 Hora (1 Hour)
24 Hora	1 Divas (1 Day)
7 Divas	1 Saptah (1 week)
4 Saptah	1 Maas (1 Month)
2 Maas	1 Rutu (1 Season)
6 Rutu	1 Varsh (1 Year)
100 Varsh	1 Shataabda (1 Century)
10 Shataabda	Sahasraabda
432 Sahasraabda	1 Yug (Kaliyg)
2 Yug	Dwaparyug
3 Yug	Tretayug
10 Yug	1 Mahayug (4,320,000 years)
1000 Mahayug	1 Kalpa
Kalpa	4.32 billion years

ASTRONOMY

Indian astronomers have been mapping the skies for more than 3500 years.

1000 YEARS BEFORE COPERNICUS

Copernicus published his theory of the revolution of the Earth in 1543 CE. 1000 years earlier, Aryabhatta, in the 5th Century CE, stated that the Earth revolves around the sun using the following specific words:

"Just as a person travelling in a boat feels that the trees on the bank are moving, people on the Earth feel that the Sun is moving".

In his treatise "Aryabhateeam", he clearly states that our Earth is round, rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space. He also explains that lunar and solar eclipses occur through the interplay of the shadows of the sun, the moon and the Earth.

1200 YEARS BEORE NEWTON

The Law of Gravity was known to the ancient Indian astronomer Bhaskaracharya. In his 'Surya Siddhanta' he notes 'Objects fall on the Earth due to a force of attraction by the Earth. Therefore, the Earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit by this attraction".

It was not until the late 17th Century (in 1687). 1200 years later, that Sir Isaac Newton discovered (i.e. re-discovered) the Law of Gravity, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published his theory 'Principia Mathematica' in 1687.

Surgery in Hinduism : PLASTIC SURGERY IN INDIA - 2600 YEARS AGO

Shushruta, known as the Father of Surgery, practiced his skill as early as 600 BCE. He used cheek skin to perform plastic surgery to restore and reshape the nose, ears and lips with incredible results. Modern plastic surgery acknowledges his contributions by referring to this method of rhinoplasty as the "Indian Method".

125 TYPES OF SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS

"The Hindus (Indians) were so advanced in surgery, that their instruments could cut a hair longitudinally".

MRS PLUNKET.

Shushruta worked with 125 kinds of surgical instruments which included scalpels, lancets, needles, catheters, rectal speculums, mostly contrived from the jaws of animals and bird beaks to obtain the necessary grips. He also defined various methods of stitching, the use of horses' hair, fine thread, fibres of bark, goat's gut and ants' heads.

300 DIFFERENT OPERATIONS

Shushruta describes the details of more than 300 operations and 42 surgical processes.